A year ago, when the pandemic was just a twinkle in our eye, I went to the vascular surgeon to see about my painful veins.

Nothing against RB, but it was her pregnancy that did me in. My veins bulged, throbbed, ached. I wore compression tights every day and then after I gave birth my veins had the nerve to clot, cause more pain and then a residual dull ache for the rest of time, otherwise known as the last 15 months.

My surgeon suggested wearing compression tights forever or radiofrequency ablation. An almost painless in-office procedure that would relieve my symptoms and required no down-time for recovery. Sign me up!

On the way out the door, I asked,

“Does insurance cover this?”

“Usually.”

I bounced out of the office with a surgery date of early March 2020.

My insurance denied me. My surgeon recommended another ultrasound. We resubmitted the claim.

Denied.

My surgeon was confident that it should be covered, so we appealed.

Denied a third time. It’s now July 2020.

Our health insurance is a real con.

My aching legs were low on my list of concerns for 2020, but they were unrelenting and followed me around everywhere.

My surgeon, still confident my procedure was medically necessary, submitted my claim for an external appeal in August 2020.

In November 2020 my insurance informed us that they had never submitted it for an external appeal. We tried again.

January 4th 2021, I received a letter:

“Carrier’s decision overturned… procedure is medically necessary… request approved.”

I danced a little jig and tried to remember exactly what the procedure was again. Something to do with my legs.

And in case I was getting too smug about my insurance coverage, a follow-up letter said the procedure would only be covered until March 31st, 2021.

My surgeon was fully booked. They squeezed me in.

My left leg was completed last week and my right leg is scheduled for next week.

The left leg day will go down as one of the best days I’ve had in a very long time: several hours out of the house, without children and a successful, insurance covered procedure.

As the surgeon injects anesthesia in multiple spots along my leg, he keeps muttering,

“I’m getting a lot of resistance.”

“Resistance?”

“You have young skin.”

“YOUNG SKIN?! I feel very middle-aged.”

“Well your skin is young.”

And that sealed the deal. BEST day. I tell him,

“I feel like I’ve aged so much in one year.”

“Haven’t we all.”

My young skin and I skipped, hopped, hobbled out of there. My left leg already feels like a million bucks. Holding my breath for my right leg.

I have to wear compression tights again. I’m supposed to wear them for 2 weeks after each procedure. After my pregnancy I was ready to burn these tights, but as I squeezed my legs in and smushed all the extra thigh up and out of the top, I was hit with intense waves of nostalgia.

The last time I wore these I was pregnant with RB. I may end up storing these in her memory box. I’m sure she’ll appreciate that.

A few days before my procedure, BB’s school mentions,

“Waiting on a COVID test for a classmate.” And p.s. someone at school has lice.

Classmate’s test was negative and knock-on-wood, no sign of lice. Never felt so good to return to the pandemic status quo, but with at least a leg up.