sleep study, insurance woes

Tonight Shawn's spending the night in the Bloomington Hospital so that they can watch him sleep. The pulmonologist suggested this to see if he might benefit from oxygen at night. So he's all hooked up to pretty wires for the night. Here's a self-photo taken from his iPhone.

Looks like it's going to be a fun night.

He's been told it may take a few weeks to get results.   Where have we heard that before?

And while Obama tries to get some sort of Health Care bill passed, we're having our own horror story of  health insurance worries...

I can't tell you how wonderful it was to not have to worry about full-time student status under my company's new health care policy, which started on June 1.  This change was instituted  in anticipation of the new Illinois state law which would have required it by the end of the year.  And it was such a HUGE relief from the previous year when we spent so much time worrying about how he'd be able to continue to be full time after missing so much class because of hospital visits.  This state law was just incredible for us.  No more worrying about how many classes he had to enroll in for the rest of his college career - he could take some classes online (which count toward graduation but not toward student status).

But now my company is being bought by IBM, which is  exempt from the IL state law because they are self-insured.  IBM's policy requires full-time status after the age of 19.  And Shawn is a) 20 and b) not a full time student this semester, because he wasn't going to need to be anymore.

I'm choosing not to panic just yet.  There is a clause in the IBM policy dealing with exceptions for illness, and their HR is 'looking into' it.  Surely this will all work out.

Meanwhile it's all happening SOON.  The current timeline will have us on IBM's benefits by November 1.  So I wait with bated breath (but not panicking, I'm not going to panic, it's all going to work out. No panicking here.  Maybe a little stress, but no panic.  Not sleeping so well, come to think of it, but no, not going to panic. Not just yet, anyway.)