Money and Fat

So, I went to a bariatric seminar at one of the local hospitals on Monday. Good seminar, very informative, though not really anything I didn't know before. Unfortunately, because the F*****G insurance company won't pay for more than $10,000 for a $15,000-$30,000 surgery (depending and where I go, what kind of bariatric surgery I get), the trip to the hospital WAS kind of pointless. This hospital was the least expensive I've seen for the most common type of bariatric surgery, and it was still at least $5,000 over what the insurance will pay. Further, I'd have to go through six to nine months of medically supervised weight loss to make the insurance company happy and, guess what? All that is separately billable, and the insurance, of course, doesn't pay for medically supervised weight loss because they don't think obesity is a disease but a life choice. So I came back depressed.

Nice.

Well, anyway, I happened to do my periodic check of bariatric clinical trials in my city, and it turns out two of the major hospital systems here have new surgical trials for which I may qualify. For one, since I currently weigh about twelve pounds more than the upper limit the trial allows, I've got to work very hard at losing about fifteen to twenty pounds. Luckily, that's an amount I've never really had any trouble losing. It's always been MORE than that I've had trouble with after I initially lost close to one hundred pounds in 2004/2005 (all of which plus ten pounds I've gained back since then). They other one isn't quite ready to recruit yet, but they supposedly will be in the next couple of weeks, and that one for a no-incision surgery called Transoral Gastroplasty (you can Google it to check up on it).

Then there's the money issues again. I'm currently working on NINE projects, and I can't seem to get ANY of them closed. No exaggeration. Some are smaller deals, a couple are bigger ones, and not one damned one of them is closing! If I could even just close two or three of the smaller ones, some of the pressure would go away. But this economy SUCKS and potential buyers are wary of spending even the least bit of money. And so, I'm depressed about that, too. I've got a mortgage to pay, an overpriced school to pay (even WITH the scholarship), mouths to feed, bills, credit card statements, and no way to pay them and it's just insane.

At least both my kids start school next week, so I can start redoubling my efforts with my least favorite aspect of my business, cold-calling.

And on top of all that, if the American people are stupid enough to vote for McRepublican, things are only going to get worse. The United States Government - created of the wealthy, by the wealthy, for the wealthy. And fuck the rest of us.

Whoo-hoo.