Stefanie the Human

Insurance red tape has been cut through and things appear resolved. Unless anything else happens, I'm having surgery December 11. Things are quite exciting over here!

This is what I looked like when I went to vote yesterday.

That surgery referenced at the start of the thread, and me mentioning that insurance was helping? Well, an easily fixable paperwork error by said insurance resulted in the surgery getting postponed. I'm quite frustrated. To prevent anyone from getting too squicked out by medical details, I'll spoiler tag what this specific surgery is and why I'm getting it. So my insurance, in order for me to get this surgery, requires me to get clearance from two mental health professionals in order to get this surgery. Even though it's been deemed medically necessary by my doctor, and a surgeon has agreed that it needs to happen, because it's related to my gender, my insurance says I need to prove that I'm mentally competent to make my own health care decisions by getting clearance from two mental health professionals. Fortunately I already see a therapist regularly for other matters, so that's no problem, and I got a referral for the second professional. I figured we're good. I do all the paperwork and send it in. The letter from the second professional was rejected three days before my surgery. Nobody told me why it was rejected, just that it wasn't "suitable", and I needed to get another letter from another professional. There's no way I can get another appointment in time, so my surgery is postponed. I finally get a rush appointment with a third professional last week, get a letter from her, and submit that. I call my insurance to check in, and they said they were still reviewing, and that my case has been assigned to a specific case manager, who will call me later. I get a call Friday from the case manager telling me that the third letter was fine, but that she was confused about why I submitted a third letter in the first place. I said I was told that the second letter was rejected, but nobody told me why. Turns out, the second letter shouldn't have been rejected. The second professional's license number got cropped off when it was faxed over, and the case manager was able to find it and append it to the letter. Instead of saying that was the issue and having me resend the letter, or asking me if I have the license number, my insurance essentially forced me to postpone a surgery... for literally no good reason. Just because they can, I guess. American health insurance industry! What fun! At least it's fixed now, and hopefully I can get rescheduled by the end of the year, but holy wow what a frustratingly stressful three weeks this has been for me.

Does a cat count?

So you forget you have it when it launches and your week trial expires before you realize, thus putting you on the hook for the first month. Either that or they expect the first day will be a mess when it comes to sign-ups.

I've been watching. I've been kind of having to take the MST3K Mantra approach, because after how this show has gone so far if I try to think about where it's going next my brain spirals into so many directions.

My hair is the longest it's ever been. It's an unruly mess of curls. I love it.

So I announce roller derby, and one year a sponsor gave us palindromes to read as part of their ad copy since their name itself was a palindrome. I love palindromes. I think they are fantastic. But the sponsor gave us three basic palindromes to read (stuff like "too hot to hoot"), and I asked our sponsorship coordinator if the sponsor would be fine with me bringing my own palindromes to the copy, even giving a list of examples. One of the palindromes I submitted was 23 words long. ("Are we not pure? 'No sir!' Panama’s moody Noriega brags. 'It is garbage!' Irony dooms a man; a prisoner up to new era.", in case you're curious.) "Stefanie, they like your enthusiasm, but asked that you stick to the copy the provided." So I stuck to the copy and read each one in a monotone. Not one of my finer moments, admittedly.

The last few weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind for me. Lots and lots of paperwork to get done since my insurance is helping me out (and believe me, that has been a battle and a half). I also had to go to North Carolina for a roller derby tournament that was overwhelming for me. Fortunately I have a heckload of games ready for me on the Switch for the recovery. I never did start Breath of the Wild...

If I remember correctly, it was because Yoko hit Crush with four banzai drops and Savage didn't save him until after the fourth one, but since Savage was a commentator, he wasn't allowed to get involved in matches.

I have Hulu ad-free and ESPN+. I'll probably end up being one of the ones who gets the Hulu/ESPN+/Disney+ bundle. I do have cable, because it's cheaper to get the cable/internet bundle with gigabit speeds than it is just for gigabit internet alone. If there was a streaming service that had Food Network's entire back catalog, I'd subscribe to that. I am the definition of a niche audience.

I may be having surgery next month. ... but a good surgery. Well good for me anyway. I'm sure y'all can read between the lines here, right?

I got River City Girls, which has been a delightful little beat-'em-up thusfar. I've always liked beat-'em-ups where I could play as a woman character (Final Fight 2 and 3 were my jam growing up, since I didn't own a Genesis which took Streets of Rage off my table), so this is right up my alley.

I mean, that's probably more accurate, I wasn't going to try to spell it more than "dow" though.

Things I liked about Lex Luger: - selling Great Muta's mist like he had been blasted with a shotgun - the way he yelled "DOW!" every time he was punched Things that confused me about Lex Luger: - the nervous tic he had about constantly touching his groin during matches