Monday, July 11, 2011

Additional Medical Information Received; Expect Update from PC in 1-2 Weeks

Today I called my Peace Corps medical assistant person to determine whether the Peace Corps had received the forms I faxed last Wednesday. I had been checking my Nominee Toolkit periodically, but it still said my application was "inactive" since I'd taken longer than the 60 days to submit the additional medical information they had requested. I didn't want to harass anyone, but also, if I waited, there was the chance that the fax really had never been received. So just in case I called...

I got her voicemail and left a message. She promptly sent me an e-mail saying the information had been received, and that I should expect to wait a week to two weeks to hear back regarding whether I need to send in even more medical information. I pray to God that I am all through with the medical portion. I've got a sneaking suspicion that I am not, however, I am going to be an optimist...

I especially hope I am done, considering my health insurance will run out July 31st when I am no longer a student at my university.

Wheeee.

The good news, however, is that once again, I am the one waiting to hear back, so I can just sit back and relax. :D

On a different note, road trip July 23rd across the United States!!! <3

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

$18.39 later, and the forms are faxed

Just a wee update since yesterday. I headed to FedEx today to fax off my 11 pages of additional medical forms that I completed yesterday. I've never been inside a FedEx office, but heard I could fax things there. I wasn't sure the process, but the guy at the counter just took the fax number I got from my medical officer this afternoon and faxed the pages there. I thought there was a slight chance this wouldn't cost anything, but expected a couple of dollars (comparable to the 10 cent/page cost of copying paper). Instead, it was $18.39 because I was sending the forms "long distance." Lol. I was so happy to have everything completed I didn't care too much, but I do question how "long distance" can possibly matter when it comes to faxing. I could have nearly bought an entire cheap fax machine for that price...

I don't know, but like I said, at this point, I'm just ecstatic to have completed another step in the application. Hooray!

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Medical Round Two: Fight!

I pretty much beasted the rest of my medical stuff today in one big swoop. I had a 9:30 appointment this morning to get my Polio titers to prove I'm immune. The people at Student Health were bewildered at the titers, and decided it would be easier if I would just get the booster. This shot was the most painless I've ever had, didn't even feel it. The whole appointment took 6 and 1/2 minutes, so I decided to see if I couldn't schedule another appointment with a nurse practitioner to finish off the rest of the forms.

The woman I had today was awesome. She didn't mess around with this Mango allergy nonsense. I told her I couldn't remember what antihistamine they gave me back in 2007 in my hometown, so she filled in what is normally prescribed. Just to reiterate, what a stupid allergy. I got the signatures I needed, filled out my own appendectomy form the Peace Corps sent and wrote a short paragraph "statement" describing what happened. It's rather hazy in my memory being eight years ago. It's amazing how little you remember of things like that. The only time I've ever been hospitalized, and I can barely recall anything about it (except that I was on an all liquid diet afterwards which suuucked).

And then that was that. Everything has been filled out. Tomorrow I'm going to venture to a FedEx to fax all this shizz to my friendly, neighborhood Peace Corps Medical Team, and God willing, I will be able to finally be done with everything.

I will be incredibly thankful, because, as of now, I've felt like I've been in a Steel Cage Death Match with the whole medical thing. Right after I printed off my last form in the library today, I was walking down a staircase to leave and nearly slipped, but caught my footing. Prior to a reality check with myself, my first thought was "NO! If you break your arm, don't you know how many more forms that's going to take???" My second thought was, "NO! If you break your arm, don't you know how much money that will cost... that you don't have???" But, I've won this round, Medical!!!