Hey Ryan, speaking of 1984, Animal Farm, Farenheit 451 and all that Orwellian goodness.. have you seen V for Vendetta yet (or read the graphic novel?) Amazingly good.

As for Michelle.. yeah. It's not been easy. Especially when you find yourself having to demand a full copy of the lab results and tests so you can self-educate yourself on what everything means and do your own educated analysis on what you're looking at.. because the M.D. that your HMO has on staff knows shit-all nothing about anything more exotic than a sore throat. The worst part is that they are the gatekeepers and if they don't green light a diagnosis and/or treatment, then the health insurance company doesn't pay for shit when you are finally forced to go and get the treatment that you know you need, but they won't or can't admit is necessary or at least likely to help. I mean, hell, the last appointment Michelle had with her HMO robot, she called in advance and asked that he read her file history so she could talk to him about some potential causation and/or treatment options (as we had been doing our homework for some time and found some new and very plausible ideas).. when she showed up, he hadn't even glanced at her file, and started talking to her as though this was the first time she had ever had symptoms and spoken to a doctor about it. He wanted to run all the basic, skimming tests that tell you nothing but make him a whole lot of money.. that she's had run a dozen times by other doctors with predictably zero knowledge gained. So, she broke down and started crying at the futility and frustration of it all.. oh.. and so it was suddenly ok to run the three extra tests she was interested in (which all came back borderline POSITIVE, FFS). But, they were all about 1 or 2 % above minimum "acceptable" range, so he dismissed it offhandedly in his review/report we received in the mail. Unbelievable.

Didn't mean to get off on a rant there.. LOL