Shirley The Mail Lady and Other Events in My Life

Shirley the mail lady here is very appreciated because she takes care of all of us. She knows who works and can't get to the PO to pick up packages. She'll leave you a note where she put the package and then leave it where you can actually get it. She knows everyone and she's just a nice person. Back in July her husband and a few hands were doing work on the cattle at her farm. The bull was clearly unhappy about being wormed and being given a couple shots. He got a mean look in his eye, and before Shirley could get out of the way, he gored her, threw her up in the air, and then stomped the crap out of her when she hit the ground. It split her backbone lengthways and she broke several other bones as well. By the grace of god, her backbone though broken -- the split parts didn't move. She lived, and she is recovering. I sent her some get well goodies, and asked after her everytime I went to the post office. Today was her 2nd day back on the job after being off for several months to recooperate. She rang the doorbell and me and my bald head came to the door. She gave me a pin of the breast cancer stamp the PO has. She wore the pin this past weekend when she walked 1 of the 3 days of the breast cancer walk! She walked 20 miles, and on her identification card, she proudly walked in honor of ME. All I could do is hug her and tell her how honored I was that she would do such a thing. She is lucky to be alive, but was motivated to walk 20 miles on behalf of ME. She said there were 11 ladies on her team and that between them, they raised over $35,000 for Susan G. Komen. She decided to do this based on the article the local paper ran on me, which she read while she was recovering. I am humbled. She's still wearing a back brace, and clearly in pain. What a woman!

The monks at Emory creating the Dalai Lama's mandala started this morning with about this much of the mandala created from the day before. At quiting time today, they had done this much more. I've spent a lot of time watching them make this creation, and it's amazing the amount of endurance and patience that they exercise. I wish I could see them do this in person, but feel the gods have graced me by letting me see it from afar via computer.

It's interesting this business of filing insurance claims. One of the company's that I am dealing with has asked, on at least five occasions, for my pathology report. I have faxed it on at least five occasions to them. They just asked for it in writing. I got the email addy of the "Cancer Benefits" coordinator and I scanned the dang thing and e-mailed a copy of it to her tonight. I feel like they are stalling and delaying and just being incompetent. They have over $15,000 in claims turned in to them, so far, and the written response has declined over $11,000 as being outside the boundary of the policy coverage. They suggested I go back and read my policy. I'm like, "I'm sending you every bill associated with this cancer and you can decline it, but if it's cancer-related, I'm sending you the bill!"

If you mail them stuff, they scan it in and then discard the originals because they only work with electronic documents. If you fax things to them, some dope down in the "mail room" decides how much of any fax coming in is yours. So if you send a 27 page fax, and the dope decides that you sent in 14 pages, if the other 13 pages are not sent to be scanned you're just screwed. There is a 24 - 48 hour delay in getting documents into the system because they don't go to a specific person, they just get scanned and then when a person pulls up the electronic file, there might be 13 pages, or 1 page or no pages of what you faxed two days previous. It's such a hassle. I understand they want to be "efficient" and "paperless" but I'm about ready to reach through the phone and grab someone's genitalia to let them know I'm a serious woman!

If I made copies of everything and Fed Ex'd it to them, there's still no telling if the material would get scanned in by Mr. Minimum Wage in the mail room. Eric explained to me a concept called "escallation" within a company the other night. I'd never heard of it before, but I'm about to start asking for supervisors, and supervisors of supervisors. This is rediculous. Actually, I'm about to call the State of Georgia's Insurance Commissioner. THAT is who I'm going to get to chew their butt! I'll let John Oxendine's office do it. They don't get to NOT pay because they're incompetent. That's not an acceptable way of handling business.

My world is small, but I am not helpless.