I might have seen the white light the night before last, but by today it had flickered out. I guess that means I’ll be around a while longer, but it gave me some incentive to follow up on the new health insurance plan.

And if I didn’t have enough incentive on my own, I got more in the form of a call from the pregnant wife of one of our employees. She wanted to know why the Big HMO didn’t know who she was when she called for an appointment. I had to tell her I didn’t know, because I was told we were approved as of last Friday. But I told her I’d find out and get some action.

I’m not much on getting action, but we do have an insurance agency that depends on us for a good chunk of business, so I don’t mind calling them and asking for favors. I told them about the expectant mother waiting for an appointment, but I didn’t mention that I was at the reaper’s elbow all night two days ago. I paid into the old policy for fifteen years and went to the doctor a handful of times. I plan to get my money’s worth out of this new policy.

The employee’s wife kept calling me, and I kept calling the agent, and the agent kept calling the Big HMO. By the end of the day the complaints had stopped going up the food chain, and the good news was coming down in the other direction. We are covered. We’ll get our little plastic cards in 30 days, but we’re in the system and should any of us have a night when we’re thisclose to a one-way ticket to Worm City, at least we have a number we can call.

In case you were wondering, I’m still alive. I had a better night last night than the night before, and I had power (and water) all day today. I thought I could help myself breathe better by sleeping in a sitting position in the recliner, but that didn’t work. In the end I needed to stretch out in bed and hope. I still had a hard time breathing, and I still woke up once every hour, but I made it through. I have the number of the Big HMO next to the phone now, though, just in case.