Wake-Up Call

This morning I woke up really groggy and medicated, and my phone was vibrating on my nightstand so I reached over and picked it up, almost knocking multiple things over, and put it up to my ear. "Hello?" I said, worried about being coherent enough to respond if anyone answered.

Then I suddenly jerked awake, flat on my back. My phone was still on the nightstand. I realized I had just had another random hallucination, and that my alarm was going off. I took my next dose of medication and went back to sleep, kind of amused by the whole thing. And then when I really did wake up to my really-vibrating-this-time phone I didn't answer it because I figured I wasn't awake enough yet, but the fact that my hallucination actually managed to predict the future wasn't lost on me.

I'm definitely feeling the lowered dose at this point. I slept better than usual last night but today was really hard to get through. Part of the problem was that I overworked myself trying to get my Friday homework done, then continued to work past the point when I could tell I really needed to take a nap. And then when I did go upstairs with my trusty Nap Assistant, my dad managed to call me at the worst possible time and woke me up with all sorts of complicated insurance and CAT scan related information. I was too exhausted to get annoyed, which was good because he basically told me I have to cancel my appointment tomorrow and reschedule it with one of two completely separate places. I told him I would just do it later, which he accepted as soon as he realized that he had woken me up. I did get my nap after that, but was still really exhausted and out-of-it when it came time to leave for my night class. I basically just did my best to get through it, drove home to The Lion King soundtrack really loud and then treadmilled my dog instead of walking him again.

I'm actually really glad that my dad thought to go find out about the cost of my CAT scan because it turns out that we would have had to pay over $700 at the hospital where I had my appointment for tomorrow, and my dad found someplace where we ultimately get charged about $500 less. It's even more disturbing when you realize that the hospital actually charges a total of over $2000 if you include what our insurance company has to pay, whereas this non-hospital-affiliated imaging place charges 15 times less for the exact same procedure. It sounds like some twisted evil plot in a conspiracy theory movie, and yet this is our actual healthcare system. Welcome to the United States of America, where we like to make lots of great money by cheating sick people! My medication costs my insurance over $2000 a month, so you really don't want to get me started on this issue.

I'm just hoping I can get my homework done by Friday because it isn't looking promising at this point. I can't afford to overwork myself again tomorrow- I'm staving off another sinus infection and doing too much this week is going to screw me. Surviving class on Thursday and Friday will also be a challenge if today is any indication.