Finding new doctors

I woke up earlier than usual this morning. It's probably because it was nice and bright early in the morning now. I actually like that, although it's not as nice on the flip side when it's dark by 5 p.m. When I came downstairs, I tried hard to see if I was feeling better. After all, it's Monday now, and it's time for me to start feeling better after that chemo session. Hm...I couldn't decide.

The diarrhea has been going on for about four or five days, not horrendous, but enough to be tiring and disruptive. I started using the Immodium AD two days ago, but I have not approached the maximum dosage yet. Also, I was reminded last night that yogurt is good for the gut when on antibiotics for a long while, so I ate a yogurt for a snack last night and for breakfast this morning. I love low fat, sugar free yogurt, but I had avoided it thinking that dairy products were bad for diarrhea.

Then Cindy reminded me of the BRAT diet. Every young mother has a pediatrician who tells them their child is being a brat (when they are sick with diarrhea) and are only to eat the BRAT diet: bananas, rice, applesauce, and tea. I'm adding yogurt. I also remembered that hard cheese is as good as yogurt for replacing the normal bacteria that is being wiped out by the onslaught of antibiotics. So for breakfast I had the yogurt, a banana, and 9 crackers with thin slices of low-fat cheddar cheese on it. I also had tea. Maybe later today I'll go buy some rice and applesauce. I took a ninety minute nap in my chair from 9:30 to 11 a.m. I guess that's good because it meant I wasn't running into the bathroom for those ninety minutes!

Up until my nap, the morning was spent looking up new doctors in Florida. It is open season now for me and Mark, and we need to make selections about new health care. I've made up my mind to select the CIGNA Open Access plan, which is a plan good all over the country. My old plan, Carefirst Blue Cross Blue Shield MPOS, paid well in Maryland, but only 75% out of the state. That's the main reason why I'm having my treatments here so far.

CIGNA has a good plan that my retirement office is offering called CIGNA Open Access. It will pay virtually 100% of everything; I won't need a primary care doctor to coordinate things unless I want it; I won't need referrals for specialists. I will, however, have to go to an in-network doctor. There is absolutely ZERO coverage if I go to a doctor who is not in the plan. So, this morning I spent a long time looking on their website for doctors who are in the plan. There do seem to be plenty of choices, but I'm somewhat spoiled by being in the Baltimore-Washington area. Doctors here are excellent, and I especially love all the ones I've had over the past few years. We knew we were going to have to give that up when we moved, but it's still hard to think about. Many of the doctors in the Kissimmee/Orlando area of Florida are trained overseas. Is it too prejudiced of me to want to select a doctor who didn't go to med school in the Dominican Republic, Phillipines, Karachi, Pakistan, University of Khyber, Puerto Rico, etc.? I like to think I'm a liberal thinker, and yet this is swaying my choice. I have decided I'm more than willing to drive 10 or more extra miles to go to a doctor trained anywhere in the U.S. of A. I am feeling a little guilty, but I think I'm going to do it anyway.

Then I'm getting nervous about their age. Do I want to select an oncologist, gynecologist, or primary care doctor who is already nearly 70 years old? Won't they be retiring soon and then I'll just have to go through this whole exercise again? This is harder than I thought.

Finally, there is Mark's plan. He will be on my CIGNA plan as his secondary insurance, but he also has to pick a primary plan from the Federal Government list. We were hoping to find an intersection of doctors that would be in both plans. So far, we have not done that bit of research yet, but the time is running out. Choices have to be made by November 17 for me and early December for Mark.

I'm starting to feel like I'm a terrible person! I want a middle-aged, American-born and American-trained doctor who isn't that far from my new house. Wow! This is turning out to be a tall order.