Just Another Clog...

In the drainpipe of life.

Out of the clear blue hot and humid sky last week comes a letter from the Veterans Administration saying my endocrinologist bills would not be covered.

To catch all of you up who may be new to Cyrsti's Condo, I am a transgender veteran who took the VA up on it's directive to provide treatment for trans vets- essentially through HRT needs. Along the way there have been some bumpy trans roads to travel around here in Ohio. The biggest hurdle was a six month struggle last summer to get them (VA) to pay for an outside endo doc to monitor my treatment.  Ideally they were committed to do it through the directive since there was no in house specialist available. As I said, six months went by and my first two visits to the doc were paid for.

Life was pretty good.  I finally had a professional monitoring my HRT and I was able to stabilize my meds. Then of course the winds of change began to blow again.  The way my treatment works in the VA, I have a "primary doc".  The one I worked with for years up to and beginning HRT agreed to approve the in house pharmacy filling my meds- essentially a co-pay system which saves me big money I can't afford.  This spring though my primary transferred out and I'm left with a new one to break in this fall. Conceivably, he could say he doesn't want anything to do with the process and try to transfer me to someone else.  I'm not going to jump off of that bridge until I come to it.


So September again is a big month for my progression down this transition road. I have appointments with both Docs and may be fighting again for everything. Essentially my battle comes down to this: The VA is saying my outside treatment is not an emergency and I'm saying it is - plus they are directed to provide treatment one way or another..Which they won't acknowledge without a fight. But...

I have been down this path before with them and won with the help of a very capable "Patient Advocate" in the Dayton, Ohio VA. Of course now I have had my initial conversations with her to get her in the loop.

I really am positive all of this will be settled again the right way and I can put my oversize plunger away!

Plus, how much fun would life be anyway if there weren't a few "clogs" here and there?