Can't sleep...I wonder why.

Don't know what time it is where you are but right now...it's 2:48 AM on the handy clock that came with the computer.

I know what my problem is, it's the stuff boiling on the back burners in my life that is rattling around inside my head. Why it hit me tonight all of a sudden I don't know. Even though a lot of the "what if's" in our life have been figured out or arrived at there are a few more still brewing that are capable of keeping me up at night.

I'll elaborate on that stuff when the need presents itself. No use counting your drowned chicks in spilled milk before they hatch, as they say.

Bet me a dollar that come next February...whats today's date? February 16th 2008 that we will still be hearing about Anna Nicole Smith on the news. I don't know anything about the woman but let her be already.

Don Henley was right..."Kick 'em when they're up, kick 'em when they're down" Maybe that's where the phrase beating a dead horse came from...kicking a dead celebrity around in the news well after they've gone. She will be the new Marilyn Monroe. And in the same twisted way people are still fascinated with Princess Diana LOOOOONG after her death people some where will be going on about Anna Nicole Smith.

I just hope her daughter ends up with the right people. Not that this stuff usually gets my attention but before my diagnosis I was paying attention to some pop culture stuff, the happenings in the middle east and I formed an opinion about the war in the Iraq. (I won't begin to get into that here)-but once I was diagnosed all these things melted away. Concern about the bozo's running the government here and the possible options for president in 2008 might have mattered to me...until.

In a flash it was all about me. And rightfully so-I was just given life shaking news. My attention needs to be on me and not Iran. Iran is going to be a MAJOR Problem in the near future and it worries me because I wonder what the world will be like for my kids and hopefully their kids...But that Nut-job running Iran is worse than our current Nut-job running this place and collectively it was worrisome. (not that whatever nut-job gets is sworn in 2009 is going to be any better, but anyway...)

It is out of my hands.

Just like much of my treatment is out of my hands. All of this going on with me, with my family-the delicate balance of keeping my kids who are aware but at the same time unaffected, the juggling act that has daddy seeing the doctors one way or another every week, the mail that makes us sigh as we add it to the pile that looks just like it. (hospital bills, labs, blood work, all the stuff that trickles down after the insurance company gets their bills, etc) and speaking of insurance companies...what about St Clare's dropping my insurance?

I heard a rumor and an Oncology nurse confirmed it last week while hooking me up to chemo.

St Clare's has dropped Aetna. I'm assuming the entire Hospital system will not participate with that insurance company. As of January 1st. There has been a grace period given until May 1st...but regardless I switched Oncologists so long as my new one was based out of St Clare's which he was. But his office where my treatments happen still takes Aetna and supposedly will continue to after they move into the cancer center at St Clare's.

They told me they operate separately from the hospital.

The odd part of this is, I left my first oncologist for the opposite reason. Chilton took Aetna but her office didn't. Meanwhile if I now need something to be done care of my oncologist for my treatment...like another surgery or something, maybe a CT scan etc, I have to go Morristown Memorial (the other hospital he is based out of)-because right now, they take Atena.

But what about the countless thousands of New Jersey residents who have Aetna and would go to St Clares if need be?

CAN'T. "You're S.O.L. buddy"

What a joke! It doesn't pay to have insurance. We should have gone the chairty care route and paid out of pocket for my treatment.

All of this is out of my hands. That's not easy to sleep with. One day I'm wrestling with COBRA or Charity care and now it almost doesn't even matter. Because some corporate officer somewhere in America (or NJ) justified his salary by telling his boss "Look how much we'll save if..." and then what?

(Insert name of medical institution here): doesn't take my insurance.

I didn't pick up a prescription one day just as I was being listed as no longer active (until I pay cobra) in Aetna's computers because I learned the hard way that it would have cost me $165.00 for said prescirption. Needless to say we sent the paperwork and the check...they posted it today. I'm okay for the rest of this month and I have 3 more prescriptions to fill yet. They've been sitting here because who knows how much they will run without insurance to cover the cost.

Yet...Aetna as an insurance company must suck for an entire hosptial system (Dover, Denville and Sussex) to not take them anymore. My original Oncologist told us they dropped them because they reimbursed so poorly and Aetna had stipulations on regular patients vs. medicare patients...either way they decided it was time to let Aetna go.

We have no say...over anything.

I have no say over how my body handles the chemicals being pumped into it. But so far I am responding well. Dawn believes the original lump on my neck that started it all has vanished. The poison is working. I have had to two treatments so far and so far so good. The magical potions that they have come up with to counter act the side effects of one set of chemicals probably have their own side effects but if I don't have to puke I'm okay with it.

For now.

The fatigue this time has slowed me down a lot. I find myself nodding off at strange times and I'm at the mercy of my body. It says "Sleep" I sleep. And the long road ahead that gets me to my twelfth treatment in early July seems a long and winding one.

And a lot of my time not spent sleeping is often spent catching glimpses of real life on TV between the Mickey Mouse Club House and The Upside Down Show (which my kids love by the way). I catch sound bites on CNN or Headline News or MSNBC and in between the updates on Iraq, it's Anna Nicole Smith or something just like it. I know that it's their job to keep talking about this stuff but it's irrelavant to me and maybe it's because I'm in the middle of something that millions of people may be in the middle of.

If it's not cancer it's something else for somebody else but whatever it is it's earth shatttering to that person and the countless hours spent gushing over Lindsay Lohan in rehab makes me sick.

Maybe I do need to get involved in a soap opera?

Maybe I should turn off the Damn TV. But then my mind goes back to what's brewing on the back burners in my life.

I can't win.

That prescription I didn't pick up (yet) probably tomorrow...sleeping pills.

I'm not kidding.

G'night. Here ends my rant. It's late I can't be held responsible if this post doesn't make any sense in the day light.