Details, Details, Details.

I sometimes rue the complications that Diabetes creates for me in life more than the act of dealing with Diabetes itself.
What do I mean by that?
I mean that, in comparison, the act of sticking a needle in my skin 5-10 times a day and testing my blood sugar around the clock is simple in comparison to having to actually obtain the insulin, worry if it will be mailed on time, deal with pharmacies, insurance companies that want nothing to do with me, the new health care bill and how it will effect me, whether my future career will be able to support me medically, trying to schedule endocrinologist appointments in Florida when I only come home 2-3 times a year, the thorny issue of my residency and terms more complicated than they should be such as "Medicaid", "Medically needy", and "Share of Cost".

In other words, one of the biggest hassles of having Diabetes lies in the seemingly little issue of the details.

Dealing with blood glucose numbers suck but trust me, if all I had to do was worry about how to give a couple of shots a day, I'd be golden.

My plan when I moved to Georgia was this: change my address, get a Georgia license and registration, apply to the Georgia Medicaid office and bam: Georgia Medicaid, easy and simple.

Hahahahaahahahahahaaha.

How little I knew.

This plan was way more difficult than I thought it would be..... I realized, upon getting to Georgia, that changing my residency would require me to renounce my Florida Medicaid before applying, leaving me with a potentially 60-day long gap of waiting to see if I apply for Georgia Medicaid. And no one at the Medicaid office seemed to be able to tell me if I would actually qualify for Georgia Medicaid - I'd just have to see, and I turned down, I'd have to switch my license and registration (requiring a trip back to Florida) back again, and re-apply, a difficult process in and of itself. Not to mention the change (and upcharge) in car insurance switching my residency would create.... what a mess. Maybe I'm making it out to be more difficult than it really is, but as someone who lives month to month depending on test strips to show up in the mail, the thought of being unable to get medication for a few months fills me with a sort of vague, cold and unknown fear.

Did I want to go to Georgia State for the Doctorate of Physical Therapy Program? Well, yeah, I did. And I could as a Florida resident, but I'd have to pay out of state. So I've had to switch my grad school plans, which does frustrate me. I wish that I didn't have Diabetes, if only so that switching my residency would be an infinitely more simple matter that I could have addressed in a week, versus months of waiting, with far smaller consequences. I could go pretty much any where I want then, but I feel as though with Diabetes my options are more limited than without. I hate to feel barred, limited. But I guess that's just life.
Instead, I decided to look into an old possibility that I had given up a few months earlier amidst my agonizingly slow grad school decision making process; after juggling about 6 different schools, I finally think that I've settled for a very likely contender, which is Mercer University located in North Atlanta. Mercer is a private university, which means I don't need to pay out of state. Private education does come at a cost, however, which is initially what discouraged me. But after looking at the numbers and weighing the possible costs and benefits, Mercer seems like a good choice for me. I have a high chance of getting at least some financial aid, I already have a successful business (aka form of income) practically run out of the Atlanta area, and I know the area decently well. The prospect of Atlanta is scary to me, but I've taken some time to mull it over in my mind the past few weeks and I'm gradually becoming more comfortable with it.... I think....

Ok, I'm still scared. Truth be told, I've become comfortable with Macon. It's cushy, familiar. I don't want to leave that familiarity behind. I hate uncertainty. But trying to envision Atlanta life in my head (granted I get accepted to Mercer) helps, and hopefully in a year I'll be ready to peel myself away from this town and move on to bigger and better things. To get one step closer to my future career!

It's a dizzying prospect, but if there's anything that life has taught me, it's that we people are more capable of handling things than we think.