Back to Square 1: Thanks CIGNA

Back to square 1. Right back to fucking square 1. I learned a few days back that Cigna, my insurer, and the facility at which I am being treated (in fact, the facility at which I have done both of my inpatient stays also, because it was the facility of choice FOR Cigna) are not continuing their relationship as of January 1. That means that, technically, they will no longer be “in network”. Cigna, I was told today, doesn’t have an “out of network” plan for mental health. Cigna does not intend to continue to cover me at Porter (current facility) after December 31. Instead, they want me to move to Exempla West Pines (a place I've never been) to continue treatment. Apparently, these assholes have never put their lives into someone’s hands, been put to sleep, and been put into an electrically induced seizure for the sake of saving their lives. Apparently, they don’t have any fucking idea just how God damned scary that proposition is, to begin with. Apparently, they don’t give a fuck about the multiple steps backwards in my progress all of this is causing.

Honestly, I just barely had the courage to begin ECT initially. I mentioned before that had the OR been any further from pre-op on the first day, I would have backed-out. I just got the current bunch of professionals trained. They know how much anesthesia it takes to put me down (which, I guess, is much more than it takes most people) and which flavor works best, they know how much paralytic to use, they know how to pre-medicate for headache so that I’m not removing an ice pick from my temple (not as big of one, anyway) when the procedure is done, they know to use versaid to keep me down long enough for the paralytic to wear off (so it doesn’t feel like I’m awake and can’t breathe or tell anyone I can’t breathe), they know how to medicate for pain afterwards, and I know what to expect. Knowing what to expect, for something like this, takes more of the fear away than anything else. I don’t have it in me to go through those trials and test runs, those teaching sessions, with a new set of doctors, anesthesiologists, nurses, and others. Even if I am able to do that, I’m not interested. Its just not worth the fight. Its not worth the shit I have to put everyone around me through. Its not worth starting over. In the event that it should come to be that I am not still fighting this fight, still writing this blog, that my resolve doesn’t stand up to the demands of this battle, blame Cigna Healthcare. Everyone, please cast a fucking stone at Cigna. Make some noise, so that if this happens to me its not for nothing, so that maybe it can help prevent the next guy from living through this treatment with health insurance hard at work trying to trip things up. In this case, Cigna will have sold my well being for a few measly fucking dollars in their dollars and cents world of managed healthcare. Just another factoid in my stance that, until you live with depression, either in your own head or in the head of a loved one, you don’t understand. You can’t. Otherwise, it would be obvious to those making decisions about the quality of my care and my life, that this kind of change, mid-treatment, in this type of illness, just doesn’t make any sense, whatsoever.

My options, as I know them now, are to pay $800-$1000 per treatment out of pocket and stay in the same facility (those being dollars I don’t have just lying around, given that I am on short term disability from work due to my illness), or put my life, and the well-being of my family in the hands of persons I am yet to meet in hopes that they can just pick up the ball (i.e. my brain) and run with it. Or, behind curtain #3, there is the fat life insurance benefit that pays off even if my life ends by my own hand. Decisions, decisions.

At any rate, I am 8 treatments into the plan. I have two scheduled this week (1 Wednesday at 10:00 and one Friday). And then who knows. Wish me luck. It might be all I have at this point. End of rant.