How to Waste Eighty Bucks - One Co-Pay at a Time

• First have a baby. The nurse may notice an odd raised mole on your back and recommend you have it checked out.
• Second call your primary care physician for an appointment. Arrange for babysitting by husband while he's off work to help you after new baby was delivered. Sit in waiting room and then in exam room for approximately one hour total. Nurse will take a look at your back and make a note about why you came to the doctor. Doctor will finally come in, tell you that you should come back again in two months to get your iron levels checked. Then he'll ask what you came in for today. When you tell him for a referal for odd colored moles he'll just write a referral without checking and send you on your way. Pay $20.
• Next call all around to find a doctor that takes new patients for conditions such as yours. Make an appointment and arrange babysitting again. See the physican's assistant who does a full body check to find a random mole on your thigh that isn't raised and has never bothered you. In fact you didn't notice it there amongst all the other freckles. She tells you that she would like to remove the odd colored one on your back and the black one on your thigh. The other raised mole that has bothered you for years as it is rubbed daily isn't covered by insurance so she won't help you with that one. Make another appointment to come back again to have two offensive moles removed. Pay $30.
• Make next appointment and arrange for babysitting again (Brian is a wonderful man). Arrive at appointment and get injection to numb the thigh. I can still feel it after 5 shots. Physician's assistant gets julienne tool and cuts out the mole. Little ouch. Then she coterizes the wound and puts on a bandaid. She won't do the other one today because they won't do two in one day. Infection risk is too high. Seriously?? A papercut is bigger than this wound...whatever. I ask if I need to make another appointment. She tells me no. The fancy colored mole isn't too bad so she won't take it off. Wait. Wasn't that the whole point of my visit. What the heck? I'm done and ready to go. Call again in one year for another full body check. Pay $30.

Net result: spent $80, all moles that bothered me are still firmly attached to my body, one I had never even noticed before is being sent to the lab for testing, I had to arrange babysitting three times, I'm pretty much bugged. Sorry. I won't be calling back next year to spend another $80 to get nothing done.

P.S. - Remember how you said it wouldn't even hurt the next day? Wrong. It aches. How do you figure it won't hurt when you removed a chunk of skin from my leg? Duh. My two year old could have told you that.