November 2009? Where did the time go?

Two years pass in a flash. Or else they drag on endlessly. It depends on what I'm doing and how much I'm enjoying myself at the time.

I stopped posting to this blog because a) the original reason for writing was that I was one of the very first to try the Dexcom 7 and other people wanted to know about it but after a few weeks that need was less relevant, b) it takes a lot of time to keep up a blog and I am lazy, and c) I gave up on Dexcom because they kept dropping the ball with my insurance paperwork. In the last few months I've come back to Comrade Dex and I'm returning to the blog to help me keep track of events as I slog through the swamp of the insurance approval process.

Let's talk more about c, with the caveat that my memory might not be 100% accurate. At that time, a woman named Mildred (Mil) was their insurance person. She was supposed to submit my paperwork and haggle with the insurance after their expected denial of coverage. I gave her everything she said she needed and she promised to submit the paperwork that week. I waited, and waited, and waited. Finally, a couple months (!!!) later I contacted her to ask for a status report. When she finally got back to me, she said something opaque about the insurance company not having a record of submission. Hmmm. She said she would submit "again". I waited and waited and waited and finally started contacting her for another status update...and she never got back to me. After a series of emails and voice messages I just gave up. I know I could have tried talking to other people in the company, but I was working and pregnant and had a toddler and I just didn't have the energy. It's really too bad because it would have been awfully nice to have the 7 watching out for me while I was pregnant. So that was that for Dexcom trial #1.

Fast forward to Summer 2009. After being solidly in the 6's for half a decade, my A1c crept up above 7%. Go figure - turns out having two young children and working full time and oh yeah trying to keep the house from disappearing under a pile of toys and filth makes it hard for me to test my blood sugar as often as I should. Chronic sleep deprivation is so much fun. Especially at night, I could not rouse myself to check blood sugar and ended up running high for hours on a regular basis.

That >7 A1c startled me out of my rut. I enlisted my husband to take charge of forcing me up at night to check my sugar (thanks honey!) and I called my local Dexcom sales rep to restart the insurance process for the 7.

My sales rep is named Tim and he is awesome. He is On Top Of Things. He met with me right away, updated the software on my 7 receiver, retrained me for the system, and gave me a couple free sensors to tide me over while they submitted my insurance paperwork. Turns out Mil was no longer with the company and the new team would be great, and so on and so forth. I faxed them the forms and information they needed, then waited to hear.

And waited, and waited, and waited some more. Used up the sensors. Tim gave me more. Waited, waited, waited. Didn't bother asking for any more free sensors.

FINALLY I received a denial letter from my insurance company in the mail. That is a story in itself and I will continue the saga in a new post.