If you’ve been following along, you might recall that back in March I had an incident in which I had to go to the emergency room for a suspected deep vein thrombosis.

It turned out to be arthritis, but nobody knew that but me, because The System was down and they’re not allowed to use telephones in hospitals anymore, I guess. So I griped and pulled my electrodes off and pulled my hospital bed around behind me until I got yelled at and somebody finally came and took an X-ray and sent me home.

I thought the whole thing was over because the claim was submitted and paid, but some sweet young thing called me today and told me that Humana had questions about the accident that led to my knee sprain in March.

Since I didn’t have an accident in March, I was puzzled and sat there like a knot on a log for a second while she peppered me with questions about my Doppler radar. Which I do not have, because I am an amateur weather guesser, using only my wet or blowing-around hair to determine what’s going on with the climate.

Then it hit me: they want to get out of paying the claim for that day I spent feeling like Liz Taylor, being wheeled around with my big pocketbook and my big hair.

I told her that I didn’t have an accident. I called my doctor because I had a bizarre ache and it was warm to the touch and they told me to stop whatever I was doing and go immediately to the ER, but don’t make any sudden moves, which instructions I followed.

This did not seem to be enough information, so I told her they were concerned I might have a DVT and that I had to have a Doppler ultrasound to determine if this was the case or not.

She asked if that was dangerous or not. I said, “The ultrasound? No. But a DVT could have killed me pretty fast.”

I could only laugh when she said, “Did you die?”