Oh Menopause (This is REALLY long and I'll be impressed if anyone reads it all.)

So, yeah. I went through with it. I got my shot two weeks ago this past Thursday. So, that means it was June 21st. Wait. What? I did not regale you with the tale that is my trying to get the shot from the fucking pharmacy? OH! Well! Let me lavish that tale upon you!

Picture this if you will...

It's 2 o'clock in the afternoon. My brother and his (girl)friend have just gotten to my house to watch my son so I can begin my injections. I drive over to Diplomat Pharmacy to pick up my prescription so I can take it to my doctor's office. I walk in and tell them my name. They ask me to spell it. I do. They can't find it. Hmm... Odd, since I called this morning to make sure it was there and I was assured that it was. I tell them it might be under the first part of my last name. It's not. They try under Jones. Still not there. Finally, they look under Leslee and they find it.

I give them my insurance card so they can process everything. Can't do it. They try it with my name spelled correctly, which always helps. Nope, can't do it. They try it with just Jones. Nope. Maybe the first part? Still not able to do it. So, the chickie goes to someone with more authority, thinking it's the whole hyphenated name that's messing everything up. Wouldn't be the first time that's happened, so seems like a good idea. She comes back and asks me if I have some other prescription card. Oh yeah! I forgot that I have 500 billionity cards for my insurance crap. I give her the one she was asking about and she goes back to the other chickie with more authority. She comes back after a few minutes and says that it's still not going through, but the other chickie told her to have me call a number on the back of the card and it should be taken care of.

So, I call the number. At this point, I'm mildly peeved.

I get some other chickie on the phone who asks me to spell my name and give her my birthdate and subsriber number. I do, but she can't find me in the system. I spell everything again and still nothing. I tell her I where I work and all my doctors names (there's like 5). She FINALLY finds me in the system and asks me what the problem is that I'm running into. I tell her that I'm at Diplomat trying to pick up a prescription that was called in for me sometime last week. She asks what it's for and I tell her Depo-Lupron. I hear some typing and I get put on hold. Mind you, she never bothered to TELL me she was putting me on hold, she just did.

At this point, I am moving into the not quite pissed off but horrendously peeved part of the mood swing.

She comes back and tells me that I need to have a pre-authorization number. Ok. I ask who I need my doctor's office to call and ask if it's be done any time in the next 15 minutes so I can be sure I can make it to my appointment on time. She informs me that pre-authorizations take 72 hours.

Now I've entered pissed off.

I tell her that 72 hours is not going to work for me since I need to have this shot during girly time and I more than likely will NOT be having girly time in 72 hours. She tells me that I can pay for the prescription in full and mail in the receipt for reimbursement minus my $5 - $10 co-pay. I ask how much it is and I expect to hear that it's between $50 and $100. Oh no. Care to guess how much?

$634.50.

Yeah. For ONE fucking injection. I told the chickie on the phone that she must be on crack. She countered that with a ghetto, "Excuse me?" I imagine she moved her head around like her neck was made of rubber and possibly snapped her fingers. I told her that I'm an EMS dispatcher, I even went so far as to tell her that I answer her 911 calls (even though I rarely take actual emergency calls) and that she must be on crack to think that I had $634.50 that I could just magically shit out of my ass in the middle of the pharmacy. The entire pharmacy staff started laughing. Hard. I think this angered the phone chickie cuzz she dropped her "professional" phone voice and told me that it wasn't her fault I was poor and that I needed to find another job if I wanted to have this medication. That's when I hung up on her and called their customer service line and spoke directly with her supervisor.

Kathleen? Yeah, I hope your bitch ass got fucking fired cuzz of me. Bitch.

If you haven't guessed, I've moved into the fucking pissed off portion of my mood swing.

The chickies at the pharmacy told me to call my doctor and tell them what was going on cuzz they've seen people get pre-auth numbers in a matter of hours when something like that happens. So, I went out to my car and called the doctor's office. I told them what was happening and made it a point of telling them that I work tomorrow 7AM - 7PM and that if I'm not able to get this shot today, there's no telling when I'll be able to get it. When the chickie at the doctor's office asked why, I eplained about the PCOS and that it could be 7 months before I have another cycle. I was met with, "Cooooooooool!" I told her that, no it wasn't really all that cool, but yeah, it kinda was. LOL

I hung up with them and decided to call the receptionist to make sure she knew I wasn't going to be at my appointment. When I called, she put me on hold to see what was going on, since I told her I had already called. Someone else got on the phone with me and told me that they were on hold with the prescription benefits people and that there was a strong possiblity that I could still keep my appointment and that she'd call me back.

Pissed off level went from fucking pissed, to irritated pissed.

I got home and began to play Dynomite cuzz I am horribly addicted to that game. My phone rings at about 4. It's the chickie from the doctor! Hooray! Except no. She tells me that I have NO prescription coverage through Health Plus AT ALL, which was news to me, and that this other thing (remember when I had to pul out the other card at the pharmacy?) is my only means of coverage and they don't deal with Diplomat. Seems that when I told the chickie who set everything up that I had insurance through Genesys and she explaimed that, "No shit? Me too!", she didn't stop to think that she had the exact same prescription coverage as I do and just went through Health Plus. The office had gone ahead and called the in-house pharmacy, though and they would have my injection ready by 130 tomorrow afternoon. Well, that's swell and all except I work 7 - 7 tomorrow, which I reminded her that I had told her that before. She told me to call and check my prescription benefits with the company and that she was going to make some phone calls as well, and asked that I call her back with what I found out. Ok.

I moved to moderately pissed off, at this point.

I called the place back and spoke with a dude this time who, after making me spell every thing and give the name of my first born and any other child I might miraculously conceive and what THEIR children's names might be, told me that Diplomat is covered in my plan. Buh... What?! I told him what was going on and he double checked and sure as shit, Diplomat was covered. So, I called the chickie at the doctor's office back and she told me that she had a pre-auth number and that if I could get to the office by 530 at the latest, they'd be able to give me my shot.

Back down to irritated pissed.

I haul ass back to Diplomat. Keep in mind that Diplomat is just down the street from where I work. If there weren't trees, I could probably spit on it if I had super spitting powers. I put my car in park and my phone starts ringing. It's the chickie from my doctor's office again, telling me that she has this dude on hold from the prescription benefits place telling me that I won't be able to get my prescription from Diplomat cuzz I have NO RETAIL PRESCRIPTION COVERAGE! She then tells me that o-boy wants to call me, but she wanted to be sure that I knew he was calling before he did so I wasn't caught off gaurd. I told her by all means to have him call me, to which she said that I sounded kinda evil. I laughed and told her that I was upset and she said that she would be as well and that she have the dude call me.

I go back to fucking pissed.

So, o-boy calls me and tells me that I have no retail coverage and that I have to have everything either done through the mail or at the in-house pharmacy. I ask when this happened and told him that I had had prescriptions filled at Wal-Greens and Rite-Aid before. He read me off my prescription history and said that while those (inhalers and Darvocet) were covered, high-cost injectables were not and that I needed to use the two options he had just given me. I was right at the drive way for where I work, so I went in and parked and lit a cigarette while he assured me that he was going to make things right. I was put on hold.

When he got back on the line, he told me that in order for them to do a one time over-ride so I could get the prescription at Diplomat, it would take between 72 and 96 hours. So, I told him that I have a cracked out uterus and that this shot MUST be given while I'm having cracked out girly time and I worked tomorrow AND Friday 7 - 7 and could not get the shot done then. He tells me that they can get the prescription transfered to them so they could over night ship it to my house, free of charge. *sigh* I told him AGAIN about the hours that I work. He told me that he could have it sent to the doctor's office instead. I told him there was no point cuzz my doctor's office is INSIDE Genesys and that I could spit on the pharmacy from there. He asked if I wanted it to go to my home or the doctor's office.

Dudes. I went to that special place where pissed off is a happy memory and everything is red. I was at the point where I couldn't yell. All I could do was speak very measured and very calmly. A few of you have seen me at that point. Those of you who have, have also told me that I've never scared you more than I did when I got to that point.

I told him the situation AGAIN and that nothing he was offering me was of help. He counted by telling me that they have certain policies and procedures that they have to follow. I told him that I knew more about policy and procedure than he knew about the color of his own jizz that stained the front of shirt the night before. Yeah, I siad that all calm and measured like. I then told him about the hospital housing the doctor's office and the pharamacy AGAIN. He told me I didn't need to be rude, but he wanted to mail it to either me or my doctor's office and would I be able to sign for a delivery tomorrow?

I laughed at him. There was nothing else I could do. We went round and round saying the same thing to each other for 5 minutes before it occurred to him what I said. He then told me he was sorry for being such a dumbass.

After all that, I went into my base to see if the dispatcher that was working would be able to replace me for 4 hours the next day. He couldn't cuzz he was getting his nuts snipped so he wouldn't reproduce anymore. Is that ironic? I think it is, since I wanted him to replace me so I could make sure I went into Menopause. Fuck you Alanis Morrisette for forever making me doubt myself when it comes to irony.

Anyway, so he couldn't and when I called up there at about 8PM, my boss answered and told me that the chickie I was trying to get a hold of didn't work there anymore, so I was screwed. (She got shit canned, come to find out, with no reasoning as to why and some bullshit write up) Thankfully, the other 3rd shift dispatcher came in for me at 3 that afternoon, so I got my shot.

Let me tell you, it completely stpoped the girly time. Like, within 2 hours, which shocked me. I figured I still had at least a day left to deal with that shit. I was happy that I didn't, but the mood swings were in full effect that same day. I shouldn't be surprised cuzz when they were testing birth control on me to treat the PCOS, I would go from laughing one minute, to full out sobbing the next and then bunching the steel tables (I worked at Domino's at the time) the minute after the sobbing started. I'm sure you can imgaine how bad that must've been. Well, take whatever you imagine and multiply it by like, 500billion.

Yeah.

THAT bad.

I think I'm probably gonna get fired soon. I got into an argument with one of the EMTs that same weekend. It was BAD. And, when I say bad, know that I TRIED TO WALK AWAY. Fucker followed me and had the balls to tell me it was "obvious" that I "have issues" after I REMINDED him that I had been put into menopause and probably wouldn't have a handle on my emotions for a bit. I told him I was sorry for being a bitch, even though I know I wasn't being one and he STILL followed me out of the back room to tell me that shit. I was seriously so mad that I could FELL myself turning red and I couldn't stop shaking. I was STILL shaking when I left 3 hours later.

And the mood swings just get worse form there. Most recently would be yesterday, though I'm still not completely sure it was me that picked the fight. I was cleaning and Greg wanted to make something that I wasn't planning on making for dinner. Mind you, he didn't ask me to fix it for him, but the boy, Greg and I had talked about dinner the night before and I thought we were all on the same page. Well, seems Greg wanted something else, which hurt me more than it should have. In the 2 1/2 years he's been living with me, I should be used to him not eating when I cook. Everyone else I've ever met in my life tells me I'm a wonderful cook, but for some reason, I don't measure up to Greg's standards. So, when he said he wanted something other than what we had agreed on, I was upset.

(I'm gonna copy and paste from my other blog cuzz it's easier at this point.)

I love my profile song (If you can't view my profile, go HERE and click on WITHERED. It's a beautiful song, I promise.) entirely too much. You should check it out. A lot of people I know haven't heard it. In fact, They've never heard of Atomship, which is a shame. They were fucking awesome.

I'm kinda hating this whole menopause shit. I know that seems to be all I talk about anymore, but it interferes with my life more than I ever imgained it would. I figured not too much would change. The PCOS has always fucked with my cycle. Like, to the point where I was buying pregnancy tests to take before I went out drinking. (Seriously, I didn't have any girly time for 7 months last year.) So, I figured since that happened, not too much would change, ya know? I've been moody for as long as I can remember, but this... This is something beyond moody. For those who saw how quickly my moods shifted when they were trying to figure out the right dosage of birth control to put me on to treat the PCOS, just imagine that multiplied by 555,555. Not fun. (Like I said before)

I'm not sure if I picked a fight with Greg today or if he was just being a fucking prick. I absolutely abhor the fact that when he gets mad or "irritated", as he put it today, he won't talk. At all. I was on a bit of a cleaning rampage today so I wouldn't have time to just sit down and think. I already had dinner planned and all of us has talked about it last night. I shouldn't have been surprised or even upset when Greg decided that he was going to fix himself something completely different. When I cook, he doesn't eat. He knows that it drives me insane and that it hurts me when he does that. It makes me feel even more worthless. He chooses to ignore that, though.

Anyway, so I got a little snippy, but I told him to just fix whatever he wanted and went on cleaning the kitchen. Aparently, I was getting in his way cuzz he decided he wanted something else, which was actually what I was going to fix. So, I'm cleaning, he's getting some stuff together and he decided to say that he was gonna make something else to go along with it, whic got me even more worked up. I loathe the fact that he actually, and sometimes actively, does not listen to me. I told him I was gonna go ask Alex if he wanted the same thing and he mumbled something. I thought he said there wasn't going to be enough for anyone except him, so I asked him what he said. He told me it was nothing. That drives me fucking nuts. Don't say something you don't want me to hear. If I can't understand what's said, at least have the balls to tell me what the fuck it was that was said. So, I asked him to tell me whatever he said again. He refused, so I told him what I had thought I heard. When he didn't respond, I got fucking pissed. I asked him one last time to tell me what he had said, explaining that I needed to know if he said there wouldn't be enough of whatever so I could make something different for Alex. He looked dead at me and told me "don't start with your bullshit."

I fucking lost it.

That was one of my step-dad's favorite things to say to me when he thought I was being snotty or bitchy or whatever. I usually got into severe trouble when he used that phrase.

Greg went out to smoke and I grabbed the vacuum and started on the carpets. I was slamming into shit accidentally and felt like I couldn't breathe, so I went to the bedroom and just exploded into full out, body wrenching sobs. I did that for about 10 minutes, went back into the living room and turned around and went back into the bedroom like 2 minutes later to sob some more.

When I finally was able to leave the bedroom with out crying, I went out to smoke. Greg was still out there. I asked him if he was gonna tell me what I did wrong this time, or if I was going to be given the silent treatment for the next week. He said that he was just irritated. I asked if he wanted me to fix whatever it was he wanted with dinner and he told me no, that he was just gonna finish with what he was making and go to work. Mind you, we were having an early dinner (around 330) so he could eat, get ready for work and then go. I was pissed, but I just went back inside. I knew nothing I said would even fucking register, so I gave up. He left at about 345.

He didn't have to be to work until 6.

Paranoia is a minimal side effect, but I'm betting that's what's making me think he's got some other chick out there. He's been leaving earlier and earlier for work (though never as early as he did today) and he's been coming home either later than normal or right when he's supposed to be leaving. Like, the other night, he got home at 10. He wasn't supposed to leave until 10. He works in Pontiac, so it's not like it's only a 10 minute drive home. I trust that he wouldn't be fucking anyone else, but there's a little voice telling me that he is. It wasn't there before.

Depression is also a side effect of the Depo-Lupron. Again, I'm not sure if it's cuzz of the shot or what, but I've been incredibly depressed. I don't want to leave the house. AT. ALL. I stayed in pajamas all day. Well, I got dressed when I had to get Alex from his friends' house, but other than that, constant jammies. I seriously took a shower and changed into fresh jammies rather than throw on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. I have a feeling that if I didn't have Alex, I wouldn't leave the house until I had to go to work and I'd probably wind up calling in.

I'm gonna force myself though this.

I'll get through it.

I gave serious thought to just telling him to get the fuck out and not come back. I thought about throwing him out over something incredibly stupid. If I didn't need him to help with the bills and rent, I more than likely would have told him to leave and that he could get his shit when I was at work on Thursday. I'm glad I didn't throw him out, but at the same time, I kinda wish I had tried. Maybe if I had said it, it would've made him realize just how selfish he's been.

I wish I could fucking sleep. My sleeping pills haven't been working as well lately. I suppose I'm building a tolerance to them. I bought a bottle of 32 last Wednesday. I have 6 left.

I want to get high. I haven't had been high in forever and, for some reason, I've been craving pot lately. I've been craving it as badly as I craved beef while I was pregnant, so you know that's one hellasious craving. Maybe that would help me sleep. Heh. knowing my luck, though, I'd get fucking fried the night before I had to go to work, would manage to hurt myself the next day, have to take a piss test cuzz I got hurt and wind up losing my job.

It's bad enough I'm not sure how long it's gonna be before I get fired through no real fault of my own. I shouldn't really try to help it along. Heh.

Yeah... So that's pretty much been my whole 2 weeks since the shot. Is this what the next 3 months are gonna be like? I really hope not. I don't know that I could handle all that.

In other news, I volunteered for Online Hotline through RAINN. I know that may not seem like a lot, but it's a HUGE step for me. I'm also concidering being a voluteer for thier national hotline. There's a shelter at the YWCA here in Flint that is affiliated with RAINN. I'm also thinking about being a guest speaker, though I'm not completely sure where I am with that. I mean, I WANT to cuzz I wasn't able to bring myself to do anything legally when I went through everything and I think I might be able to help someone else be strong enough to take that step. Thing is, before i speak in front of anyone, I need to make sure that I'll be able to do so without breaking down. I can't show weakness to these girls and women who've been through the same thing cuzz once I do, they'll think that everyone is completely destroyed by it and I can't let them think that. Regardless of whether or not it's destroyed me, I can't let them see that. If I do, they may not be willing to go forward. I can't now, but maybe I can help someone else who still can, if they're ready and willing.

So, that's where I am right now. Let me leaving you with a giggle inducing picture of me and Marc Rizzo (from Soulfly). I say him and Flaw this past Friday and it was a fucking PHENOMINAL show! Absolutely amazing. If you get a chance, check out Recognize. I know it's only a 30 second demo, but it's all I could find. Trust me, though, when I say that that song is amazing.

Anyway, so here I am with Marc Rizzo. I look WAY too excited to be in that picture. o_O



So, congrats if you've made it through the blog entry from hell! LOL I wasn't joking when I said it was long. I'll try not to let so much more happen before I update again.