Tri-Care Runaround

One of my biggest dislikes of military life, aside from the fact that my Husband is 10,000+ miles away, is dealing with Tri-Care. It seems to me that because health care is provided within the military, they make me work extra hard at making sure I am able to receive it. Nothing is free, after all. Classic example of this: my prenatal doctor is not the same doctor I was assigned to as my PCM (Primary Care Manager). When I called Tri-Care to schedule my six week postpartum check up, I was informed that because I am no longer pregnant they cannot schedule me with my prenatal doctor. But here's the kicker: my assigned PCM doesn't see patients for OB care. Great. So now what? They can leave a message with my prenatal doctor and see if he is willing to see me. I tell them that he wanted to see me for my postpartum checkup. Sorry, they can't do that.

So I call the hospital and try to schedule an appointment with a nurse because they can do that sometimes. Turns out they are willing to do this for me, but my prenatal doctor does not have any available appointments for the entire month of March. This was on March 2nd, too. I'm trying my hardest not to huff and puff into the phone at this point because that just won't get me what I want. The inner workings of Tri-Care and the military hospital are full of people who can make life for those of us trying to receive health care so much easier if we kiss enough you-know-what. I kindly request to leave a message with my prenatal doctor asking if he is willing to see me as a walk-in. Oh good, they're willing to do this for me. Now I get to wait.

Today I braved the world by myself with kids in tow. Sure I only drove on base to enroll Emily in DEERS, but with the knowledge and experience of errands run on base never taking less than an hour, you can imagine my nerves bunching at this. There is always an enormous line wherever I'm at and it always seems like the people behind the counter do an exceptional job of taking their sweet time handing out base access decals, printing military IDs, and/or entering information into their computers. Of course on top of the wait, there is usually some paper I don't have that I need to have to receive whatever it is I came for. To avoid this particular hurdle I brought every piece of paper I could think might be relevant: my Husband's orders, my Power of Attorney, Emily's birth certificate, as well as her newly obtained Social Security Card. As it turned out, there was no one in that stuffy little room except for me, Elijah, Emily, and the three people that worked there. I took my number and sat for around five to ten minutes before they decided it was time to help me out. Success! Emily is now enrolled in DEERS so I can attempt to schedule her two month well baby check up now.

Once home, Elijah played with sidewalk chalk while I held Emily. I like being able to draw with Elijah and planned to had Emily stayed asleep in the car seat. However, Emily had other plans and wanted in on the fun. We had lunch and Elijah made his peanut butter and jelly sandwich by himself. This resulted in blobs of peanut butter smashed in the middle of both pieces of bread with a little blurb of jelly in one corner of the bread. But hey, he did it himself and enjoyed every single bite.

My Grandma is home from visiting other family now and she brought with her some gourds. They are a plant that once dried out have those lovely, natural loofah's inside of them. Elijah was having a glorious time shaking the seeds out of the gourd before he helped his Great Grandma peel them and reveal these awesome loofahs. Next bath time will be a blast, I'm sure.

Though when it came time for dinner he wanted nothing to do with it because shaking the seeds out of dried gourds is just so much more fun than eating. He kept saying he was full, so I would feel his belly and say, "Wait! I feel an empty spot. I bet another bite will help fill it." That got about another three bites in towards the end of the meal.

Seems like clockwork, right before I'm ready to go to sleep Emily decides it's time to be awake and be completely dissatisfied in every one of my attempts at getting her back to sleep.