Motto: If we didn't do the procedure, you aren't our problem

I will start by saying that I go to the gym about 5 days a week. It allows to me work out the frustrations that go along with being a military wife, but also the wife of a deployed military member. Things like sexual frustration (if you're not the cheating kind), frustration with your children and daughter who constantly says 'No' and 'I miss my daddy!!,' frustration with your husband for not calling or writing. Frustration for being thousands of miles away from family/friends this entire deployment and no one coming to visit you and not being able to afford the $2,000 to fly you and the kids home.

I go to the gym at about the same time every morning. I got to know some of the other regulars over the summer. One 'set' is a couple in their 80's, Kurt and Betty, and their son Kurt (in his 60's I suppose). Kurt Sr. is retired AF and so is Kurt Jr. Kurt Jr. was an officer, not sure about Kurt Sr. Ms. Betty is the cutest old woman I have ever met. She lifts her weights and then walks around the play equipment that is in the center of the building (huge building, in the middle is a playground for kids, a track around it, table to one side, and exercise equipment on the other side). I mean she is just a go getter.

All of that info. is important at some point, I promise.

I have skin cancer. I had the spots removed over 2 weeks ago, at a dermatologist office base. I had five stitches in one arm and three in the other. I was told they would dissolve in two weeks and if not to go in and have them removed.

Two weeks later, they were still in there. Rather than spending more money out of my pocket I called the base and asked if I could go in and have my PCM (primary care manager, AKA doctor)take them out. They said that the surgery center has a walk in wound care clinic and they can remove my stitches, I don't need to wait on an apt with my PCM. SWEET!

I go straight to the hospital and up the elevator to the second floor. I step off the elevator and some place behind me I hear a tiny voice say 'HEY! What are you doing here?!?!' I turn around and there's Ms. Betty!! (aren't you glad I told you who she was?!) She is wearing hospital gowns, but no where near the regular clinic. I ask her what happened and she said that she had her gallbladder taken out the night before (Sunday). I sympathize with her for a minute and tell her I'm there to get my stitches out. She says she needs to talk to someone that works there, that's she's lost. She said they sent her to walk around for a bit and now can't find her room (she was no where near any patient rooms, so I had no idea where she came from). I say, 'well I'm going to the surgery center and I bet that's where you were, since you had surgery. Come with me and we'll get you back to your room.'

We get to the desk and the guys asks how he can help us, I tell him to take care of Ms. Betty first. She explains she doesn't know where her room is and she needs to get back. He says 'do you know where you were? what center you were in?' Now, let me get this straight..... this little old lady says she's LOST and you ask her if you know where she is supposed to be. Uhhhhh, if she knew where she was supposed to be, don't you think she could have followed the signs back there!!! I'm just sayin'. Now I'm getting a litte frustrated with this guy because you can see it is embarrassing her and she needs to rest too. She tells him she was in room 210 and the guy again asks what center. She says she doesn't know, again. At this point, I've had enough and step in. I tell her to go sit down, I'll deal with this Sgt. I say, 'She had SURGERY! we're at the *gasp* surgery center!! How many room 210's do you have?!?! Call back to the clinic behind you!' Does he do that? No. He starts to call all over the hospital and no one has a patient by that name (I would also like to point out, had he called the admissions desk, they could have told this idiot where she belonged). Now I'm really mad. I yell, 'CALL THE DESK BEHIND YOU!! Call the surgery center!' So he does (I could have taken this guy ;) ). A Lt. answers the phone, he asks if they have a pt. Betty X back there. The Lt. says yes, bring her back! (w/o the Sgt. telling the Lt. we had Ms. Betty)

I turn around and say "Betty! How long have you been walking for?!?! They know you're missing!" lol She says it hasn't been that long. This is also the 80 yo woman who walks at least 2 miles every morning... so she was probably gone for a while. She was still embarrassed and even saying 'this is so embarrassing.' So to take her out of the 'I'm old and lost mentality' I told her, 'I'm going to tell Mr. Kurt that I caught you trying to escape! If I hadn't captured you, the jailbird, you were going to make a break for it!!' I get her to laugh and re-assure her it's not a big deal at all (and to be fair, that hospital is very poorly designed and I can never find the clinic I need.... tiny hallways that are hidden behind bathrooms and all kinds of weird crap).

The guy takes her back to her room then comes to get me to remove my stitches. This is the same guy I'm not totally pleased with. We get to the exam room and I tell him what's going on. He says that since I didn't have them done there, a doctor needs to come in and take a look before he can remove them

A Coln. walks in. Here we go. He says hi, asks whats going on. I tell him I need my stitches out. he takes a look and says, these look like dissolvable stitches. Oh really?! I didn't know that, moron. Of course they are dissolve stitches, but have they dissolved?? noooooooooooooooooooo. It's been two week, they said to have them removed so here I am.

"what did you need stitches for?" I got into a knife fight with a Russian mobster, what the hell does the reason matter for? Stop being nosey and take out my stitches. "I have skin cancer" I say. I go on to say that I think the one side is infected. "Why do you think that?" Because I thought it would be fun to say. HELLO!! "It's REALLY bothering me, still sore. Oh and PUSS COMES OUT when you barely brush it." He says "it's probably just skin." Oh really? Because even my 10 year old niece can tell the difference between SKIN and puss.

He cuts out the stitches and goes "OH! You have a very nasty infection in there. There's a roaring monster in there." Really?? Say it isn't so, or that I hadn't just said that. He says I need to make a follow up in a couple days with the doc that did it.

WHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTT?!?!? I'm at the WOUND CLINIC! You are a WOUND DOCTOR!! I am a patient, with a wound. I have a CRAZY idea, how about you treat me!! Ah well, the military didn't do the procedure, so why should we waste our time fixing it?! Oh did I mention that the doc. normally doesn't remove stitches that the NCO's do... and the NCO stood there, in the room, holding this little tool kit for the doctor (and by tool kit I mean a pair of tweezers).

Ahhhh, the glorious life I live as a military wife.

Money makes the world go round

I have skin cancer. I need to see a specialist, that the military can't provide for me.

I also have Tricare. Tricare is govt. run health care at it's finest. It's like medicaid in that it only pays doctors a fraction of what they ask for and takes forever to pay out.

Tricare sends this authorization saying yes, we approve for you to go see this specialist. You get * many visits, you get to have * procedures done, and * lab work done. Anything over those limits, I could end up having to pay for (so Dear Doc, please only do what the govt. approved).

I call this specialist in downtown Anchorage. They happen to be some of the best in the state and are right at the best hospital in town (where our son was born and in the ICU). I am asked what I need to come in for, I tell her. I am asked if I am a new patient and say yes. Then the big question, who is your insurance provider, I tell her. She THEN tells me they are only allowed to take on so many new Tricare patients at a time (and I already know why because of an incident at a peds. office which I will also get to). She says I can't come in until December!! I about have a heart attack!! If this is a severe cancer, I want it off of my body NOW!!! Yeah well, that's not an option....... I have govt. run health care and they can only AFFORD to take on so many of their patients at a time, I'll have to wait my turn. She said once I get in, they will take care of things right away (I wont have to wait months to remove the spots or anything). So it's all a matter of affordability to them, and they can't afford to take me on right now. Three months could mean the difference between chemo and just having the spots removed. But the doctor can't afford to take me on at the moment.

Although she briefly touched on the I have Tricare and they can't afford it, I know a lot behind it. A friend of mine worked at the peds. office I wanted to take my son to when he was first born (he ended up needing to be in Anchorage and not in the village we lived in, so that didn't matter). She said they don't take Tricare usually because they never pay and when they do finally cough up the money, it isn't nearly enough. She was able to talk one of the doctors there into seeing me because I was her friend.

So there you have it. When you have govt. run health insurance and doctors, you can't get in to see the specialist you need to or they refuse to see you all together!! I know this for a fact because I've lived through it.

You need to call the Red Cross

"Why? It wont do any good." Is the first thought I had when talking to my husband's new 'leader' in the shop.

It started last week when I noticed that a lump on one arm and a spot on the other had grown a bit in the last few months. I went to the doctor yesterday morning and she confirmed what I had thought. That one looked like a basil carcinoma (sp?) and the other looked like a melanoma.

The BCC you just punch out, sew the skin shut, and watch for any more. If you're going to have skin cancer, that's the best kind to have!! If there is such a thing as a 'good' kind of cancer.

The melanoma, not so much. I asked them to remove it yesterday and she wouldn't go near it. She said that it looked bad that they weren't sure how much skin around it would need to be remove also to get a clean border. So I have to go see a dermatologist and have them biopsy it.

I left the office ok. I had prepared myself for what was to come, as you can see what it is by just looking at it. I tried to ready myself for the blow of having it confirmed that it is what you fear. I then tried to call my mom and tell her. I couldn't do it. I managed to squeak out "I'll call you back." and hang up. I haven't had the best of luck in my life. I have had pre-cancer tissue removed from my sinuses, I have tumor still in one of my sinuses, I've had my tonsils out, my appendix out, two emergency c-sections, I just found out that I have arthritis in my knees, and my asthma is getting worse. I have the crappy genetics of this family. My FOUR brothers are all as healthy as can be. My mom has had lots of bouts with different cancers and my dad, skin cancer. So how do you tell them that your baby girl has cancer? Don't I have enough going on in my life?

I call James' shop to let them know. I told them I wasn't sure what kind of help I was looking for because I didn't know how bad, or not so bad things were. I needed to have the biopsy in order to get a grasp on the totality of the circumstance. Was it something they could just remove and I'd be fine?? Would I need chemo in a bottle (it's a lotion that you apply to the skin)? Would I need regular chemotherapy? How bad is this monster? I think it's early enough that it is something we just remove and I'll be fine. But I wont know until we get in there.

His 'boss' told me to call the Red Cross and request James to come home. His tour is up in just 4 weeks anyway, but he needs to be home to support me and hold my hand when I have surgery. It's something that I don't want to go through alone.

But the truth of the matter is, the Red Cross sucks. You have strangers behind a desk making a decision about who stays and who goes. These people don't know you, what you're going through, or you entire situation. They don't know anything about the military. They aren't medical professionals. They are random citizens that volunteer or get paid by the Red Cross to make these choices for other people.

So what do I do when I get the phone call later today that the Red Cross 'doesn't approve it' even though his shop here send him home?? I try to find someone nice enough to watch my kids for me while I go in and have these spots removed. Then, when I get the results I sit alone in my room, crying. I either just got awesome news and I'm grateful it's over for now or I just found out I'm going to need more treatment and sob by myself.

Either way, no one should have to go through this alone. I'm over 4,000 miles away from my family and relying on strangers to help get me through things in life that your family should be there for.

Oh, the glorious life of a military wife.