health: is phrenology covered?

Long story short: I need to get my head examined, and will be doing so this week.

I thought the worst thing I had to deal with after my little accident was the big bloody scar healing and fading. Thankfully that has happened, but unfortunately I’ve got some rather sizable lumps around the area of impact that I definitely need to have seen to. I’m generally never a doctor person, having gone only twice for non-critical issues in the past 5 years, but my non-medical research has confirmed that this is the kind of thing that needs diagnosis and treatment–yeah, I know… DUH.

I’ve never really been scared of medical-type people, though this time feels a bit daunting. What usually unnerves me is the anticipated cost, what’s covered and what isn’t, how long it may take to treat something, etc. In this case, just finding a primary care/general practitioner to see for an initial diagnosis was stressing me out. My employer offers CIGNA health insurance and their website is kinda helpful in finding someone, but it isn’t “plain English” enough. At times it assumes that you know too much about what you’re looking for–I didn’t see “forehead bumps” or similar on their list of ‘Symptoms’. In other ways it’s so vague to the point of being unusable. And the worst is that after finding some doctors nearby, I was calling a few and their numbers were disconnected, others I looked up on Yelp and their reviews were horrible. And I ignored those that complained of the location or the rudeness of the staff, I mean that the doctors themselves were bad. Still, I needed to see someone, so I kept calling.

What really prompted me to action was my mother. When I was in Savannah for my grandmother’s funeral, she saw my forehead and made me promise her I’d get it seen to immediately. Which turns out wasn’t as simple as it sounds. At first, I was contacting offices that friends suggested, whether the doctors were more gay-friendly or the offices were just better or more comfortable than others. Even though these weren’t covered–in-network–by CIGNA, they still weren’t accepting new patients for at least a month! Other friends assured me that this was normal… really? So after calling a few in-network offices, I got an appointment for this week and my initial annoyance is now again stepping aside in favor of stress. Even so, it’s gotta be done.

I’m not very political, and I haven’t been paying close attention to the HCR debates, but being unable to get a non-emergency medical appointment for at least a month… is the standard?! Yeah, that’s kinda messed up. But I don’t plan to get on a soap box, I just want to see a doctor and get the pills, injections, surgery, what have you, to clear up whatever I’ve managed to do to myself. And once I do, I think that I’ll get a firm to come in and adult-baby-proof my home. Pad the walls, and place bubble-wrap on edges of furniture, perhaps?

Seriously though, most people take nearly no notice of it, others stare a bit and some have told me that from certain angles, they aren’t noticeable at all. Still, they gotta go. It’s cramping my style! I can do my best to bring sexy back, but I doubt strange lumps have been in since at least 14th century Europe. That may well be beyond even my abilities of fad-resurrection!