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August 15, 2006

Girly Bits & General Frustration

To say that I'm frustrated is the apex of understatement.

Yesterday I returned home to discover a letter from the Writers' Guild Health Fund. My request for reimbursement for $7,000 I had paid out of pocket to fix my girly bits had been denied. After medical review, the treatment had not been deemed "medically necessary" for my condition.

My condition, of course, being something called VVS. VVS is NOT an STD. They don't know what causes it, but the theory is that long-term antibiotic use (which I underwent for my jaw surgery) can be a factor.

Basically, the nerves in your girly bits become so sensitive that the interpret everything as pain. It feels like your genitals have been rubbed with sandpaper and then set on fire. I went to my doctor multiple times; she finally suggested that perhaps I was making it up. I explained things to my now-ex-boyfriend, but it didn't help that our sex life crashed and burned, and ultimately figured into our breakup.

This went on for about a year. Putting on panties was painful. Exercising was excruciating. I gained twenty pounds. I was insanely depressed. After I moved out of the house, I finally found something online that sounded similar to what I was going through. Two doctors were recommended in the Los Angeles area. One at UCLA, who took insurance. The first available appointment was in October.

The second was in Torrance. He didn't take insurance, but I could get in the following week. Once a week for six weeks, I drove down the 405 to see Dr. McDonald and pay him $1200 to give me three shots. In the box.

I'll give you a moment to uncross your legs.

However, the treatment worked, and suddenly my Death Star was fully operational. And has been for the past six months. But the real pain has been submitting my paperwork to insurance. First they lost it. Then they asked for medical records. And different medical records. And my doctor's qualifications. And then, whoops, they lost the billing. And then they wanted the insurance codes.

And finally, yesterday, the final determination, after me having appealed the decision multiple times, is that my treatment was not medically necessary. All I can think is that if a guy had the same problem, they'd cover the limo, icepacks, and a concubine to bring him orange slices and fan him with ostrich feathers.

I have called and documented and researched and faxed and there's nothing left to do. I'm out $7,000. It was, it is worth every penny. But the fact is, friends, I'm broke. I need that money.

I grabbed two beers from the fridge and crawled into my bed with my laptop to check my email, my skype voicemail, and get some writing done. I thought there'd be a few messages to download for GG2G.

Not. One.

There are a thousand people who read this blog and the slack. I have over forty saved IM conversations from forty different boys asking me forty different dating dilemmas. Please. Call. I hate asking for anything from anyone; it's completely against my nature. But my back is against the wall. This has been the year that everything fell apart: my relationship, my living situation, my career, my health. I don't bitch about it because there's really not much that can be done about it. My philosophy has been that shit happens and you work on the stuff that you can work on and try to remain cautiously optimistic.

So I have been. I have been working my ass off. I don't know what else to do. I'm working insanely hard to create something new, and with this project I need your help. So call. You don't need Skype, you can call from a regular phone. Crosspost. Spread the word.

Thanks.

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