Here’s my first draft of an appeal I need to send to my insurance company:

Dear Oxford,
 
First I’d like to compliment you on your nonconformist and expert way of really knowing what’s best for your customers, like me!  While I was experiencing what would end up being the hardest month of my life, you and your big machine went ahead and preauthorized every procedure I was enduring.  My head wasn’t really in the game at the time, and somehow I seemed to be thinking about the choices ahead of me more than double-checking if you really really really pinky-promise meant it when you said you’d cover these medical expenses.  I suppose in my lazy haze of indulgent sorrow, I was setting myself up to learn an important lesson!
 
The lesson you’ve helped me learn?  Stay on your toes!  I probably should have been braced for the unexpected call I received while playing with my son at the park, telling me I owe thousands of dollars to the hospital because, shucks, you guys changed your mind.  Well listen, we all have changes of heart sometimes, right?  Like this morning, I thought I’d like cereal and then I changed my mind and had toast!  See, we all do it.
 
I suppose the most valuable thing you’ve done for me is force me to repeat my story over and over again to anonymous telephone operators who have absolutely no stake in empathy or human emotion whatsoever.  Your robot army is truly impressive.  I’m guessing that by the 10^th or maybe 11^th time I have to re-live it to someone I don’t know, I will be able to laugh right through it AND set up a payment plan.  Fingers crossed!!
 
Finally, I look forward to the challenge of getting my mind around why you would approve in advance, every doctor’s visit and medical procedure I had done, and then *poof! * change your mind, though none of the information or diagnoses have changed.  I’m not the brightest bulb in this here chandelier, and am having more trouble than you’d think trying to figure that out.  I’ll come around, though – don’t stop believing in me!  In the meantime, I’ll take comfort in the solace that writing an appeal and collecting medical documentation to support my appeal will bring.  Like a warm blanket on a cold night, those activities!
 
Many Many Many Thanks,
 
Jodi Nelson Call
 
P.S.  Wondering if there’s any chance you could increase our premiums a little?  I feel that I owe you so much more. 

Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan Bridge

Before I became pregnant, I enjoyed running a beautiful route in the morning that included two boroughs, two magnificent bridges, and seven neighborhoods, a few whose commercial and boutique signs mainly are written in foreign languages. This run included views of the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, and more Government Housing Projects than I could count. I began to pass the same people who were commuting to work on their bicycles, or running their own route, and would smile, wave or high-five them in passing. When all the problems with my pregnancy began raining down, I would console myself with many different approaches. Sometimes that approach would be me looking forward to resuming my running route, thinking about how much I loved the feel of beginning it, being in it, and finishing it.

I wrote about my maiden run, and the epic break down I had on the Brooklyn Bridge. Since then, I have looked to my runs around this city as a gamble in therapy. There are days where I feel like throwing in the towel and think being strong is terribly overrated. On those days the only way I can seem to get my body out the door and my feet to hit the sidewalk is by remembering how badly I wanted to be able to run my entire route but couldn’t the first few times I tried. I felt totally defeated each time I tried to run in the beginning – even to run slowly – and would say some hateful things to myself, punishing myself for not being strong enough to get through it. I would run as fast and as far as I could, usually with tears rolling out of my eyes and into my mouth. It felt awful to be that sad and powerless, but it also felt part ridiculous and part punk rock to be out in the world living it and experiencing it in such a raw way, and not hiding from it. Those parts made me come back for more.

I can now easily run the whole route. (Ummmm OK when I say “easily” I don’t mean it isn’t hard. I just mean I know I can do it from start to finish without falling over dead. So, to be clear: easy = being able to do something without falling over dead.) It didn’t take me all that long to get my breath, to get my endurance, to get my legs back. But what seems to be harder is to lose the sense of powerlessness I have adopted through losing this child, through being limited physically, through not knowing when I’m going to need to talk about it, through not knowing when I cannot bear to say one more word about it. I suppose the discipline I try to adopt is my way of trying to be kind to myself, to erase the hopeless things that I hear myself thinking. It is my way of battling the sense of powerlessness that has been introduced into my life, which seems to be intent on staying.

The beautiful thing is that the run has remained the same. I have started seeing the same people I used to see, waving and smiling at them. The city looks the same and my bridges are there every single time I need to cross them. My power is that I can get myself there, into the world, and see all these things and experience all these things even as my rollercoaster emotional state rides up and down. That is my power, which is not a super-power, but it is something I can count on.