It isn't as though I expect life to go perfectly, you know, but some days the little bumps in the road feel like New York City potholes. And it seems like the path of life was laid out by cows in the 18th century (*wink* to the Blockheads, particularly the Bravehearts.)
When I last blogged I was waiting for my insurance to approve the continuous glucose testing sensors for my pump, and I was glad that I wasn't waiting on pump supplies that were more vital because it had been two weeks since I'd requested them. They arrived on Wednesday...which, if you want to do the math, is actually 21 days from the day that I ordered them- so not two weeks, but three. That's closer to a month- on a "rush" job- than is acceptable, if you ask me. Three weeks is how long you can check a book out from the library. Three weeks is how long a track break was when I was in elementary school.
Elementary school...which is when I ordered the blasted things.
I'm pretty sick of the red tape, to be honest. They know I have insurance, even if they had it wrong. They've never not gotten paid. They should have put the sensors in a box the day I requested them and sent them, then taken care of the insurance submission and everything. That's good customer service. That's the kind of thing I'd expect when I was dealing with, oh, I don't know...a place that deals with life saving medical supplies. I have ordered things I didn't need from Amazon.com and gotten them the next day. But I guess I've learned my lesson- from now on, I don't wait until I'm short on diabetic supplies. I order when I've got plenty and allow for the sloooooooow process to take place.
I think we're all a little spoiled in this day and age when it comes to instant gratification. Amazon is a part of the problem, actually- I can order books and have them show up on my doorstep in less than a day if I'm willing to pay enough money. Maybe Amazon should start selling pump supplies. I'd be able to get them fast and cheaper. I mean, eventually Amazon will be selling us everything and we'll never have to go to a real store again, so this isn't out of the realm of possibility. In fact, it may be scarily accurate.
The bottom line, though, is that it all comes down to the bottom line. I look to places like Medtronic and Dexcom for life support, and they look at me like this is my high school yearbook picture:
I'm money, baby.
I've probably talked about this before, since it's one of those things that I rant about, but that whole "there's a cure, and we'll find it" line that the lovely and talented Mary Tyler Moore kept saying back in the 1980's is baloney. If there is a cure, it won't be more profitable than keeping me a diabetic, and I'm sure that Lily (they make insulin) and Medtronic (pumps) and Dexcom (blood glucose testing) and the myriad of other companies that make blood testing strips and diabetic foods and pumps and glucometers and glucose tabs and glucagon shots and this stuff
'Cause goodness knows I can't handle the sugar in the regular stuff
aren't exactly chomping at the bit to make sure that the millions of us that have diabetes suddenly don't need their products anymore. I mean, I know it sounds cynical, but I'm a capitalist at heart and even I'm like, man...a cure for diabetes would probably hurt the medical economy in a big way. What the heck would happen to totaldiabetessupply.com and all of its employees if diabetes were cured? All the engineers working on advanced pumps and monitoring and stuff would have to engineer something else. What on earth would Wilfred Brimley talk about on Liberty Medical commercials if there was no more diabeetus?
For goodness sake, there are even t-shirts that depend on this disease!
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