Letters from the Dark

Wow.   I had just opened two of my scanned Traveling Mailbox letters; one made my blood boil and the other, it scared me.

My first e-mail was a scan of a “Failure to Pay Toll” fine and penalty ticket from the Bay Bridge / Fast Pass folks. It contained a photo of my car’s license plate and a date of non-compliance - a date and time that I was most certainly on my way to Santa Cruz to say “farewell” to friends. I was not anywhere near the Bay Bridge.  And heck, why would I not pay the toll? 

Extortion!!”, I screamed; on and on I ranted to Bill.  “I am not going to pay, I am going to fight this!”  

Needing to chill out,  I sat down and opened the next email; a letter from Kaiser Permanente, my former HMO health insurer. They were requesting a return visit to their facility in San Jose (California) to investigate the results of a test I had before I left the States.  After checking with my Nurse Practitioner, I learned there was a 2 cm asymmetrical area that was causing a concern.

Background:   Here’s our ”deathly afraid of pain” Jamie with the travel nurse getting ready to administer three vaccines; Influenza, Hepatitis A and Tdap in my right arm for the move to Costa Rica.  Trying to see the bright side of the whole goings-on, I say “Hey – at least it is not a mammogram. There is nothing I hate more than those. They really hurt”.  She said “Nope, those are free upstairs and you don’t need an appointment.” A few stabs later and we were done.  I realized I wasn’t too bad off,  so I acknowledged my courage, reached down and summoned up some more. Up the stairs I bounded… Yes, it hurt.  I guess I expected that.  I also got a free gift; a strawberry-shaped fold-up bag thingy that hangs off the RAV mirror like a pair of red fuzzy dice.  I didn’t expect that.  And I most certainly did not expect this email request.

Long story short, I am okay and the new tests done in Costa Rica have shown there was no reason for concern. The Kaiser Permanente letter from the dark led to an adventure. That is the long story and  I will tell it in my next post – My Experience with Health Care in Costa Rica.

As for the other letter from the dark?  I just paid the ticket.

Seemed pretty small compared with the potential of being that one out of eight American Caucasian women over fifty who is diagnosed with breast cancer.