and the winner is......

Mayo!!!!!! My total bill including ambulance ride, surgery and a night in a private room in the hospital came to a grand total of 1200 euros. That's about $1800.

That is a reasonable amount of money to pay for medical services. That's an amount of money that most people would be able to pay on their own for medical services. What would I have paid if my achilles had ruptured in the US? My guess is upwards of $60,000. That is an incomprehensible and absurd amount of money to be charged. Our system here is broken, I don't have an answer on how to fix it but something needs to be done. As far as I can tell from my dealings with my insurance company it's the insurance companies that are making money. I was informed by Blue Cross that if they deem my surgery a "non emergency" they will pay only $380 after the deductible is met. This irritates me because in this situation I'd be better off having no insurance at all and using the money I saved form having no insurance to pay the bill.

So when I got home I needed an ortho in the states to remove my cast and monitor my progress etc. I logged onto the Blue Cross website and clicked around on the "Find a Doctor" section, found a doctor and went from there. The doctor's office billed BC for me nice and simple right? Love letters from BC are showing up saying they don't cover the services provided by the ortho and nothing is being applied to my deductible. When I called the other day to find out why I was informed that my ortho is not a Preferred Provider. When I told the customer service rep that I found the ortho on their website under the heading Preferred Providers she told me that contracts can change and it's my fault for not knowing this. The people at the Doctor's office must not know either because they willingly bill BC.

Now that my blood pressure has gone up I'm going to hop on the trainer for an hour to calm down. Then I'm off to a warm beach for a week of holiday.

Barb

Two Months

It's been a bit over two months and I've given the velcro boot the heave ho. I'm over that thing. Now I get to delve into my collection of nice shoes with heels and wear them around. A few things to note in this photo.....first, I'm standing on both feet, second my right leg is skinnier than my left and third the scar is hiding.

I got my bill for surgery yesterday and am starting a little contest. Guess closest to the correct amount (in euros) to my surgery bill and you'll not only get lasting fame but I will send you a personally signed limited edition trading card. The bill includes surgery, a night in the hospital and two inedible meals. Contest ends March 1st. Happy guessing!

Barb

One Month Later

It's been one month. A month that feels like an eternity. As you can see the wound is healing nicely. Physical therapy starts in two weeks, right now I'm allowed to do little exercises with my foot. I'm still clomping around in the boot, that will continue until mid March when the boot will be shed and I can wear two shoes. Right now I'm working on wearing out left shoes. This afternoon I'm going swimming, my butt can only take so much one legged trainer riding.

Barb

A Moment of Kindness

In an effort to continue my life without too many interruptions I've begun taking public transportation to the office in the city a few days a week. In the past I would either ride the entire way or drive to the Golden Gate Bridge park and then ride across the bridge into the city. I can't drive right now so the bus is my alternative.

Last night I was standing at the bus stop in the city when I saw my bus. So I went to the curb and waved my hand. I thought the bus driver saw me but apparently he didn't and he continued past me and through the traffic light. The driver of the bus behind him saw what happened pulled over and told me to jump on. He then proceeded to weave through traffic and get ahead of the bus that passed me by. We caught up to my intended bus and I was able to get on my bus home. Would he have done this if I was not hobbling around on crutches? Who knows but it was really nice of him.

So a big thanks goes out to Joel driving the bus to Santa Rosa.

Barb

A Shower

Yesterday my cast was sawed off and the staples removed from my leg. My leg is now strapped into a velcro contraption and I'm allowed to put a little tiny bit of weight onto it. Too much weight and pain shoots up my leg. The incision still looks ugly and my leg is already shrinking. My leg disgusts me.

















I took a real actual shower this morning. A luxury I've been deprived of for too long. It was marvelous, I stayed in the shower for a long time. I rubbed lotion on my gimpy leg.

One of the few benefits of being gimpy is I now have my own gimp pass. I can park in the blue zones, I don't have to pay for metered parking, and the 20 minute green zones are now my personal park as long as you want zones.

In one more month I can trade my gimp sticks for a pimp stick. During the next few weeks I'll be removing the heel lifts from under my foot slowly (and painfully) stretching my tendon back to it's original length. Or maybe I'll just be going crazy. The ortho did say that I could ride my bike on a trainer one legged. Now I just need a trainer and a cleat on the velcro boot.

Barb

What did I do wrong?

Who have I offended?
What did I do wrong?
Why is my luck so bad?
If there is a god why does that god hate me so much?

First off the whole achilles thing was a total freak accident, my foot wasn't even touching the ground when it popped. Now just when things are looking good, the staples and first cast are scheduled to come off on Thursday, my leg doesn't hurt anymore, I don't have to sleep with my leg propped up on a pillow, I can make it home on public transport from San Fran without incident, I can clear a flight of stairs up or down without dabbing.

I slip on a treacherous sidewalk and eat shit ten feet from my door and bend my toes backwards. That really hurt (I'm trying not to use swear words even though they are appropriate in this situation). I'm hoping I didn't do any damage to my already damaged foot.


aaaarg.

I'm going to wallow in self pity for a few minutes then eat some painkillers.

Barb

Come check out some track racing at Hellyer!

Come on out everybody, and feel the funk...

More races, louder speakers, faster moto, bigger BBQ,
colder beer, sunny skies....these are the
characteristics of RTWC #2 @ Heyller.

Given the turnout we had @ RTWC #1, we added a Cs
race.

Sat Jan 12th

Track opens @ 1 (after the AM beginner session)

Racing Starts @ 3pm
40 lap Cs
60 lap Bs
100 lap As

$15 To Race
$10 To Ride

Free BBQ and Beer...tunes by DJ Snead

100% of Proceeds go towards sending the Proman Track
Team to World Cup races (Sydney, Beijing, Los Angles,
Copenhagen)

Latest Details
www.ridetheworldcups.com

Well, the girl's coming back...

I've been scurrying around picking up the house and installing handrails by the toilet. The place is ready for a full blown cripple fight (a la J-j-j-jimmy and Timmay! of Southpark). If we didn't live on the ground floor (actually, the basement), I'd have an elevator installed. I'm also pretty sure that the healing purrs of our magic cat will speed up her recovery process.

Luckily for her, there will be some sweet celebrity events coming up. If you can't race, you might as well party right?

Rachell Lloyd is having her fundraiser on Jan. 5th and I'm bringing out the wheels of steel to provide beats for this hootenanny. That's right, I'll be spinning all my "newest" 45's from yardsales and fleamarkets, my deep, DEEP collection of classic hip hop (thanks Rob!) and funk, soul, etc. and whatever else I can gather up at the last minute. Don't listen too close, I'm perfecting my new "beatmatching by smell" technique.

I'm also playing records at Hellyer again for the next fundraiser to help the Proman track team. I'll gather up the pertinent info regarding all these events and post it soon.

Till then, Hooptie's got another mix of mine from a few months back posted on his blog. Record it to a cassette tape and play it on your Walkman:

http://web.mac.com/robevans1/ODHBikes/Podcast/Archive.html

Packing up

MMMM, a fresh waffle.




It's almost time to go home. I've arranged for a wheelchair ride through all of the airports and put the bikes into their case. My leg is feeling better and I've dropped the prescribed painkiller and am on Advil only. I've learned how to go down steps on crutches and tried out several different toe covering options. It's been quite a week.

Barb