Sleep disorder? Time for the "wallet biopsy"!

Had my yearly checkup December 23, which was a time to regroup with my GP's office about all the exciting diagnoses of the past 10 months, including ET.

It was all good news re weight, glucose, and blood pressure. Then I made the fatal mistake of asking if there was something I could do to alleviate fatigue.

The nurse practioner doing the exam asked me to describe the fatigue: Sleepy? No. Lethargic. Yes. Brain fog? Yes. Did I wake up at night? Yes, at least twice, often short of breath and in a panic. Did it take me more than five minutes to fall asleep? Yes, and usually I need a short story on tape or white noise of some kind. Did I feel rested when I woke? No. Did I snore? I don't know, and neither do my my husband or son, who wouldn't wake up if those 17 Jean Valjeans marched into the living room and cut loose with "Do You Hear the People Sing?" (A testosterone warning should accompany this clip, so I'm warning you now.)

I figured the ET or my bad heart valve were the simplest explanation for my fatigue, but the nurse said it might be "a good idea" to do a sleep study, and that someone would call me about it after they'd "cleared" it with the insurance company.

Ah, the "wallet biopsy"!

I learned about the "wallet biopsy" from an episode of "The Sopranos," in which, after Tony gets shot by Uncle June, he learns he was taken to a top-notch hospital because the medics searched his billfold first to see what kind of health insurance he could afford. In the episode, there is some intimidation of the poor medic who did the "biopsy," but not the white-coated bitch (Tony uses a harsher term) from the insurance company who comes in and riffles through Tony's chart as if she were a member of his medical team.

One of the lures of "The Sopranos" is that viewers get to see that mobsters have pretty much the same worries the rest of us do (I guess so that we can feel our common humanity with sociopaths), and it underscores that even if you're very dangerous and "connected," you still have far less power than an insurance company apparatchik.

"The Sopranos" also devotes a whole show to Tony's machinations to maintain his garbage business, not only a front for his shadier activities but essential to keeping his health insurance. Legs are broken in earnest in that episode.

I've written about the cost of diagnostic procedures and drug therapies on here before, and I'll probably keep doing it until I blow a clot from repeating myself. Our medical system needs reform, and nobody knows it better than those of us with serious, chronic illnesses.

Be well!

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