It's amazing how expensive....

...healthcare is. I received a bill from a lawyer's office that apparently works with Lawrence General Hospital to collect money from patients. Luckily for me they incorrectly had the bill indicating that it was an auto accident, which apparently makes the auto insurance company the primary payor and the health insurance company the secondary payor. I called to get this straightened out and to have the Lawrence General Hospital bills forwarded to Blue Cross. Actually I think Blue Cross already has part of the bill based on a conversation I had with the ambulance company who took me from the hospital to the hospital's helipad. But I digress. I spoke with Blue Cross too and in the process was told the total amount they'd been billed so far from Mass General Hospital. Wow! The Lawrence General Hospital bill was for $6400, and that can be added to the Mass General bill of $42,000. To say nothing of the bill from Spaulding Rehab. And not to mention the individual doctor's bills!

It's amazing how expensive healthcare is - and I have to say I'm very happy that I have good insurance. I can't imagine having to pay bills this large when I didn't expect them in the first place. I really didn't plan to crash my bicycle and to end up with such interesting injuries. Interesting to the docs, perhaps - I really could have done without them!

Still walking, no biking yet

It's been just over 5 weeks since my somewhat spectacular crash. My body has been taking baby steps at getting better even though my mind wants to take giant steps. But baby steps have to do for now. I'm walking every day - two to three times a day for 20 to 30 minutes each. The othopedic doc told me yesterday that as far as my bones are concerned I can get back on a bike - although he said he didn't think sitting on a bicycle seat would feel too good right now - but he also cautioned that I need to talk with the neurolgist first. That makes sense (even though I don't want it to!) and I'll be seeing the neurosurgeon on July 1st. In the meantime I'll just keep moving my feet against the pavement...

A mouse in the house

Imagine my surprise when I went into the first floor bathroom this morning to find a mouse in the toilet - and unbelieveably enough it was still alive! Where did it come from? I don't know, but I suspect that it snuck in the front screen door sometime last evening - maybe through a small opening in the bottom of the door, but maybe not. Crazy person that I am, I went into the kitchen and got myself two plastic containers to use as a mouse house. We (the mouse & I) had a bit of a scramble - still in the toilet - until I captured it and marched outside to let it loose. I trust & I hope that this mouse doesn't managed to find its way inside again!

Slow progress...

Tomorrow marks a full 4 weeks since my bicycle crash - and that's hard to believe. I do believe I'm improving every day, but as usual I expect more than is possible. Slow progress appears to be the name of the game.

If you're interested in what happened to me and my bike back on May 20th, you can read about it and see some photos on the Oops! page of my web site.

May 20th was apparently a bad karma day for me

I can't even tell you about the day because I can't remember anything about it! It's a red-letter day for me though, because it's the day that I crashed my bike on the way to work... I was only 4 miles from my home when I apparently hit something in the road and (I believe) flipped over the handlebars taking the bike over with me. I spent a week at Mass General Hospital and another week at Spaulding Rehab Hospital, both in Boston, and I'm now at home continuing my recovery. It will be a while before I have any more biking trips to talk about - in fact I've already canceled the first planned trip to Nova Scotia in a week and a half, and I'm afraid I'm going to have to cancel my Canadian Rockies trip for the end of July. My first goal is to get some broken bones and some head injuries to heal, then (of course) to fix my poor injured bicycle, and then (I hope) to get in shape for a bike tour of the Big Island of Hawaii at the end of October. I hope, I hope.

All I can say is that it's a very good thing that I was wearing a bicycle helmet - which now needs to be replaced, of course!