refer to THIS suckaaaaaaa

let me start by saying that I am, again, wearing a maternity shirt today as if it were a real shirt. and it's liberating not to have to suck in my gut all the time or worry if my rolls are hanging out. I just hope no one guesses. I may even buy more maternity shirts just for this reason.

anyway. so yesterday. FUCKING ANNOYYYYIIIIINNNNNNGGGGGG. want to know what happened at the doctor's? nothing. why? KEYSTONE HEALTH PLAN EAST.

a little background: back a few months ago, when we had to decide whether or not our little family would be switching to my insurance or staying on sean's. because brett had let trent's insurance lapse (oh, there is SOOOO much more to this story) we had to figure out what to do with trent. we looked into sean and bella doing a parent/child on his and me and trent doing the same on mine, but that is surprisingly (thanks, SII) not cost effective. actually, nothing was, except sean adding trent to his insurance. and of course, because that was the best thing to do but it hurt his ego, brett said no. so now we're all on my insurance. now, as far as plan goes, personal choice was EXTREMELY expensive through my workplace, and for about the same amount as all of us on personal choice would be for sean, we got keystone health plan east. aka, referral hell health plan east. and we love it.

I had to get a referral to even go see dr. alburger, and that was a pain in the ass in and of itself. but this is what happened yesterday that has me so extremely frustrated:

we get there. we wait in the main waiting room. I answer questions about our new healthcare and the referral is looked up. luckily it is there, since our pediatrician/primary physician "doesn't consider it policy" to let you know if your referral request, which you leave on a voice mail, goes through. (no news is good news in their book, unless of course they never actually get the message, in which case it's no news is no news.) then we are told to go to the gray waiting room (as opposed to the blue or green waiting room, this place is THAT big) and wait to see the doctor. 20 minutes goes by in the gray waiting room and we're shown to an exam room. 10 minutes in, and thinking the doctor will be in at any moment, my IBS kicks in finally and I run to the bathroom, freaking out that the doctor will come while I'm not there. I get back about 5 or 6 minutes later, and thankfully, no doctor yet. and no doctor for another 10 minutes. we got there at 2, and it's about a quarter after 3 at this point.

dr. alburger comes in, remarks about how big trent's gotten since we saw him last, we reminisce about how fucked up his feet used to be, trent tells him about the sports he plays, and he examines trent's feet. he said he was pleased with the "wear pattern" on the bottom of trent's worse foot, but said that the pain was something to look into. plus, he wanted to see how far along the bones were coming so that he could evaluate next steps. but, and this was no surprise to either of us, you know nothing until you have x-rays.

they have a radiology area on site, and it's been our experience in going there that you go in, see the doctor, go get the xrays, go back into the room you were in, and the doctor tells you what's what. but that was before keystone suck plan east.

after waiting more than an hour, we were told that because of our insurance, we couldn't get xrays without a referral. from the primary physician. who, like most primaries (since I have noticed these signs on every doctor's office I'd ever been to) won't issue referrals without at least 48 hours notice.

so, because of my workplace cracking down on time off, I had to take a half day to take him to the doctor, and now I have to take another half day to get xrays, and then another half day in a few weeks when I can get another appointment with dr. alburger.

so the long and short of it is that I still don't know what's going on, trent's feet still hurt, and I hate my insurance.

the plan all along was to get out of the doctor's office and get trent to the movie theater, where sean and bella would be waiting. I would hand off trent to sean, he would hand off bella to me, and they'd go see star wars return of the geek, while I took bella home. instead of taking her home (like I should have) I took her to the willow grove mall.

I conferred with nicole, who assures me that it's probably teething, but bella's been really upset lately, and yesterday at the mall was no different. well, at home, she's actually only just a little cranky, but because she had missed a nap and had been in the car for way too long, she was really something at the mall. instead of recognizing this, I persevered at the mall, and was repaid by a totally sour mood upon departure. (me, not bella. well kinda bella.)

so yesterday was a bust. best thing to happen was that because I was breastfeeding bella in the gap's dressing room, I decided to take in a skirt with me to see how it fit. not only are gap's sizes one size smaller than the rest of the world, but this skirt was stretchy cotton, which is the perfect hold-you-in-er kind of fabric. so I got a really cute black skirt on sale for $20.

c'est la vie. that's just the way it goes. (that's right, oh yeah.)