Was it the suit or the screen?

For the past five or six years, I have been plagued (and believe me, that’s the right word to use) with an intermittent rash of horrific proportions.  It first appeared during a ski trip to Colorado – during which our family relaxed one evening in a hot tub in our rental house – and the itching and burning and rapid spreading of it nearly drove me mad.  I had no idea what was causing it, and no matter which cream I applied or how much Benadryl I took, there was absolutely no relief.  It was on a par with poison ivy, and in January in the Rockies, I had NOT been exposed to poison ivy.  When we finally got home from that trip, I raced to my doc, who said it looked like contact dermatitis, although she had never seen a rash quite like it.  It ran in lines.  She prescribed topical and oral steroids and over the next still-agonizing week, it finally began to clear.  Unfortunately, I have a history of developing side effects to meds, and the oral prednisone did its damage with weight gain and depression.  What a mess!

As it was winter at the time, I thought perhaps it was caused by dry skin, so I became religious in slathering myself with lotion daily – from my birthday to tax day.  I was determined to do everything in my power to avoid ever having to go through that hideous rash again.

But my efforts were in vain.

It happened again.  And then it happened again.  And yet again.  It happened at odd times and seemingly for no good reason.  I began trying to figure out what on earth could be causing such a terrible rash, and over a period of several YEARS (it only happened once or twice a year, usually in the summer), I began to notice what may have been a pattern.  It seemed to flare up a couple days after going swimming.

Now this was odd, because I don’t tend to go swimming very often, and the rash didn’t appear after every swimming trip.  But it was limited to my torso (which was covered by the swimsuit), and I also wondered about the sunscreen we use.  I tend to burn, and I am fastidious about using sunscreen.  In addition, I am cheap.  Well, I’m not cheap about everything, but I am about sunscreen.  It just seems silly to me to spend $8 to $10 a bottle for name brand SPF, when I could spend $3.50 for twice as much NoAd.  So for many years, we have bought NoAd sunscreen.

It seemed that I was either allergic to my swimsuit or allergic to the sunscreen or allergic to both of them.  Or, I was allergic to one of them, and the presence of the other exacerbated the initial reaction, fanning to flames the rash from you-know-where to the point of agony.

I did some experimentation.  I tried wearing the swimsuit without sunscreen.  I put on some sunscreen without the swimsuit.  I tried wearing the swimsuit for only short periods of time.  Last summer, I never put the swimsuit on at all, and I never developed the rash.  Aha!

On March 31, we went swimming at Big Rock.  Scott drove us partway, so it was a quarter mile walk down there and a quarter mile back, and since that takes some time, I donned my swimsuit at the last possible minute.  It was blazingly hot and sunny that day, so I did put on sunscreen.  We had fun at the creek, and I wore the swimsuit for probably two hours, max.  When we got home I immediately changed, and I watched the typical rash locations very carefully.  24 hours, no rash.  36 hours, no rash.  48 hours, was that itch on the left side just a normal itch, or was it the beginning of the rash?  72 hours, fiery rash in two places.  Sigh.

I immediately went after it with steroid cream.  It’s a royal pain.  You have to undress four times a day and apply it to the rash area AND go one inch beyond the rash in every direction.  I didn’t have enough cream.  I called the pharmacy and there were no refills.  I called the doctor and she was out for the day. Her office did eventually refill the prescription, but only for a teeny tiny tube that barely treated it for the duration.

I was steamed.  Summer’s coming and I either have to swim in clothes (yuck) or go without sunscreeen (dumb) or both.  So I did something I’ve never done before.  I went online and ordered a swimsuit.  This was not done without great effort.  I do know that I have a latex allergy.  It seems that people with such allergies can also be allergic to spandex and lycra.  Just TRY to find a swimsuit that has neither of those ingredients!  Go on!  I double dog dare ya!

Well, I found a swimsuit that’s 100% polyester.  Now I prefer my swimsuit to have a skirt to help hide things that ought to be hidden, but this suit had no skirt, so I also ordered a pair of swim shorts to hide things that ought to be hidden but which would not be hidden by this swimsuit.  And here’s the total miracle:  I, who must ALWAYS try clothes on before buying them, received in the mail one swimsuit from Just My Size and one pair of swim shorts from Wal-Mart, and THEY BOTH FIT LIKE THEY WERE MADE FOR ME!!!  I am so jazzed!

Next time I go swimming, I will wear my new outfit and use the $10 small tube of name brand sunscreen I bought, and I am sure that there will be no rash from the pit.

You may now rejoice with those who rejoice, and I will update my loyal readers 72+ hours after said swim.

Working my way down

Yesterday I reached a milestone.   I have been overweight for forty years and still am, but for the first time in well over twenty years, for the past two days my weight has been equal to Scott’s! (Since the middle of my first pregnancy, it has been higher.)  God has been gracious to me and I am rejoicing.

The world of self-pay

Now that I have joined the ranks of the uninsured, going to the doctor is a whole ‘nother ball game.  I think I rather prefer it, actually.

I told the lady at the front desk that I no longer had insurance and that I’d like to do anything possible to get the charges as low as possible.  She told me to pick up the phone and call registration and tell them I was self-pay, which I did.  I also asked the registration lady if there was anything that could be done to lower the rate, and she said she didn’t know ANYTHING about that and that I’d have to talk to the doctor.  That struck me as odd, because the doctor never seems to know anything about what various services cost!

So I gave my body to be examined, poked, prodded, sampled, and drained in many different ways, and when I went to check out, I told the exit lady that I needed to give her some money and if I promised to bring her chocolate chip cookies or something, could she lower the bottom line because I’m a self-paying patient.

“Oh!” she said.  ”Does the doctor know you’re self-pay?”

“Umm. . . I’m not sure.  I don’t think I mentioned that to her.”

“Well, you should ALWAYS mention it to her, because that would help.  You know, she sees SO MANY patients and she can’t remember them all.”

Noted.  I apologized.

Then Roxanne spent nearly the next ten minutes trying to figure out what to charge me.  It had to do with which code did or didn’t include a Pap, and whether the doc knew I was self-pay, and something else that had to be looked up and about which phone calls had to be made.  She was very kind about the whole thing, and when it was all said and done and she added up the charges for the annual exam with Pap, A1c, comp (other blood work), lipid panel (nearly expensive enough to panel one’s breezeway, and lesion removal (had to have a wart re-frozen – ouch!), I was tempted to feel faint.

Then she told me that she had been instructed (by the doctor, I’m assuming) to subtract 30% from the total.  Wow!  Now, I was thinking that it wasn’t too hard to multiply in my head a rounded version of the total by .7 to get a rough estimate of the final charge, but she had to do it on a calculator; and not just any garden variety calculator.  She was using the calculator feature on her computer, and evidently it was quite cumbersome.  She went at it over and over, without success, and even though she was a quite friendly lady, she was beginning to get a bit frustrated.

I had the figure in my head to within $10, so I knew that if she was too far off I’d catch it, but it was taking her so long to wrangle with that blasted calculator that I had time to scribble the cost x .7 math on my exit paper.  With an exact figure, I waited to see what she’d come up with.  Still no success from the ACME calculator of science, so I worked it again; this time cost x .3, and then subtracted that value from the cost.

Same answer, so I knew good and well that I was right.  About this time, sweet Roxanne said with a note of exasperation, “Well, let’s just do it the old-fashioned way, with pencil and paper!”  Which she did.  But she had a hard time with the borrowing on the subtracting part.  I graciously failed to inform her that she could’ve avoided the subtraction completely by multiplying by .7.  I’m nice that way, you know.

She rounded the change to the clinic’s favor, but what’s a dollar when you’re talking hundreds thereof?  We agreed on a number, and she ran my credit card, and St. John’s Physicians and Clinics will not have to do one iota more of work related to billing my visit.  They should be very happy.

Furthermore, since medical care has officially entered the 21st century, I have already this afternoon received an stating that my urinary microalbumin is (as desired) less than 2 milligrams per liter.  O, the joys of titration!  I’m really glad I didn’t have to relinquish a whole liter for that bit of information to be determined.

 

 

How I hate the fluoride

I had a dental appointment today for a checkup and cleaning.  I’m not too keen on that sound saber cleaning stuff, especially now that he digs halfway to China down below the gumline.  I yelp with my mouth full of hands, mirror, and stun gun, and he says, “You know why that’s so sensitive, right?”  ”Hrrzzhat?”  ”It’s because your gums are receding.”

Lovely.  My dentist is about my age, and I told him that it really doesn’t seem fair that at a mere fifty years of age, my:

~ gums are receding

(now I know why only old people use toothpicks – sigh)

~ eyes require trifocals

(and the prescription I got a mere ten months ago has been off for a couple months now)

~ temples are graying

(but not evenly – the right’s definitely ahead by a nose – and what’s with THAT?!?!?)

~ hearing is shot

(at least according to my kids, although I can’t hear them say so)

At least I didn’t have any new cavities!  But I do have three old fillings that need to be replaced (sigh).  That will require another visit to the rock ‘n’ roll and  motorcycle house of fame, but at least it won’t involve fluoride.  I’d honestly rather get an injection and have my teeth drilled than deal with that nasty fluoride.  It gets on my tongue and gags me like crazy, and then I can’t get up out of that chair fast enough to rinse.  O, how I hate it.

This time the assistant (Ron, his brother) applied the fluoride, and I asked if we could do it standing up by the sink.  He laughed and asked if I could sit in a chair.  Which I did.  With the suction device in hand.  It was still quite bad, and Ron couldn’t believe how much I gagged.  He was terribly apologetic and so was I.  He said maybe next time we’ll do the swish-it-around-in-your-mouth routine.  I can’t imagine that being any worse on the gag reflex, so I told him I’m game.

My theory is that God only intended certain things to land on my tongue, and fluoride wasn’t one of them!

 

Doggone It!

Announced by Andrew’s young friend, Pierce, in a breathless and upset tone, as the two boys burst into our living room on  Saturday afternoon:  ”Mack hurt Andrew’s dad a lot and my dad’s fixing him now.  It’s looks really bad, but I didn’t see any bone.”

Hmmm.   Coming from a seven or eight-year-old kid, you’ve got to wonder.  The dog probably scratched Scott, and Pierce’s dad, who happens to be an EMT, is probably putting a Band-Aid on it.  However, when Pierce continued to tell me the details, I decided should probably call Scott and see what was up.

I called and got his voice mail.

The boys had run back outside, so I figured maybe I should drive over to their house (just a couple doors down) and see if Scott needed me to do anything.  The Honda was in the driveway, but the Honda keys were gone.  Rats.  Okay, so I’d walk over there.  Just as I headed out the door, Scott called.

“Are you okay?”

(slowly, as if he were a bit light-headed)  ”Yes, I’m okay.”

“The boys said the dog bit you.  Do you need me to come and get you?”

(again, slowly, not his usual speaking voice)  ”Yes, that would be good.”

“Do you have the Honda keys?”

“Uh. . . yes, I have them right here.”

“Well, I can’t come get you without the keys. I’ll run down and get them and then drive the Honda over to get you.”

“No, Michael said he’d bring me, but we have to go to the E.R. to get stitches.”

“Okay, as soon as Michael brings you home, I’ll take you.”

I quickly changed clothes, grabbed a few things, and met Michael at the door.   Michael was very, very apologetic, and offered to take Scott to the E.R. or to follow us there.  I told him we’d be fine, and off we went.

There were spots of blood on Scott’s jeans, and blood seeping through a long gauze bandage that Michael (or maybe his wife) had wrapped around Scott’s upper arm.  I asked if they’d cleaned the wound, and he said no, that they had just wrapped it up and said it would definitely have to be stitched.  He was talking better now, and his color was good.  I was glad of that, because Scott has a history of fainting at the sight of blood, especially his own.

On the way, he told me what had happened.  He had gone to their house to invite them to a home group we’d be hosting the following night.  Michael’s family has two dogs, a large dumb brown female named Molly and a Great Dane named Mack.  Mack is quite enormous and quite dumb.  He used to run loose all over the place digging up the neighbors flowers and tomatoes and stuff, so months ago, Michael installed an underground electric fence and put him on a shock collar.

Now, Jessica runs and prays on Coffee Road every morning, and Mack is a real nuisance to her.  He tries to chase her, and he’s especially obnoxious if he’s off his shock collar.  She either carries a big stick (like a brookstick) to beat him off, or she carries rocks, which she has to throw at him to persuade him to leave her alone.

So, when Scott went into their yard Saturday afternoon, both dogs were out, and he called to Pierce to “call his dogs off.”  Pierce called to them, and they followed him up onto the porch.  They were almost into the house and Scott was following them toward the porch, when Mack turned around and attacked Scott.

He’s so big that he didn’t even have to jump.  He started biting at Scott’s chest and then grabbed his arm, biting down hard and slinging the arm back and forth like a piece of meat.  Scott was trying to beat him off and finally got free.  Michael heard the commotion and came out to help Scott into the house, at which point Scott was just about to faint.   Seeing Scott’s condition, Michael called 911, and they were just about to dispatch an ambulance when Scott pinked up a bit.

Being an EMT, Michael was thankfully not unnerved by the extent of the injury, which was pretty severe.  He and his wife wrapped it up and Michael drove Scott to our house, along with many apologies and assurances that Mack would be put down.

Dreading the probable wait at the E.R., we opted for Urgent Care (also located at Skaggs Hospital), where we were immediately given an “Animal Bite Report” form to fill out.  Before I had even completed the form, a nurse came and got Scott.  It was the quickest we had ever been served at Urgent Care.

Vitals were taken and Scott was seated in a throne-like chair in the treatment room.  He had a very pleasant nurse named Noemi, who was a native of Puerto Rico and had arrived in Branson some 11 years ago via New York.

Dr. Max Goodwin, who moved here from southeast Iowa a couple years ago, came in and introduced himself.  He’s the director of the clinic, so we figured Scott would get great care.

To this point, no one had actually seen the injury, and to get to it, the gauze Michael’s wife had applied would need to be cut off.  As Nurse Noemi approached with scissors, Dr. Goodwin said, “I think you’ll need to cut his shirt here, right up the middle, to get to it.”  I was stunned.  Scott would be appalled to have his favorite Cardinals T-shirt sliced.  However, it turns out that the good doctor was joking.  He’s a big Cubs fan.    = )

Once the gauze was removed and all could see what Mack had done to Scott’s arm, I was shocked and much more than slightly embarrassed.  I had never seen such an injury in my life.  It was huge.  It was shaped like a very large mouth.  It was deep.  It was raw flesh, and I could not conceive of any way it could possible be sewn back together.  (Update:  I had mentioned in an email that it was 7″ by 2″, but I am pretty sure it was actually more like 3″ wide.)

I asked the doctor if I could take a picture of the wound before he sewed it up.  He looked at me like I was crazy and said, “If you want to, I guess so.”  I wanted to.  I did.

Scott was asked to roll onto his right side to give the nurse and doctor better access to the back of his left upper arm.  Scott can’t lie on his left side right now, because his four broken ribs are all on the left, so I guess it’s a good thing Mack attacked his left arm instead of his right.  Once thus positioned, the fun began.

First, Scott got to endure a series of injections to deaden the area, and since the area was so large, it took a LOT of injections.  Next came the cleaning.  A lot of pink soapy liquid was poured repeatedly over the whole mess, and then it was all swabbed quite a bit with sterile gauze.  Watching that, I realized that if they hadn’t deadened it, he would have been in agony as they cleaned it.  It made me think of what all those Civil War soldiers went through.

Then the stitching began.  It was quite the needlework project, let me tell you.  I couldn’t see so well from where I was sitting, so after the first stitch was in, I moved around to the other side of the room where I could see Scott’s face and rub his right hand and head.

It took Dr. Goodwin a long time to sew him up.  We got to the Urgent Care at 2:45 PM, and they took him in less than five minutes.  There were maybe 15 or 20 minutes of preliminaries, and we left at 4:10 PM, so it’s fair to say the stitching took about an hour.

It was a long, dog-leg (no pun intended) shape, and partway through, the doctor asked me to go out in the hall and call a nurse in, so that she could hand him additional sutures.  I guess he had under-estimated how long the incision would end up being.  When he finished, he measured the end result:  13 cm (about 7 inches).  He had put in 13 stitches, purposely widely spaced because he said the risk of infection with dog bites was very high, and if it became infected, part of the incision might have to be re-opened.  Widely spaced sutures would make that easier to do.

Noemi slathered on some antibiotic ointment, covered it with a Telfa (non-adhering) pad, and wrapped it with Coban (that stretchy, tan, mesh-looking stuff that sticks to itself).  Dr. Goodwin brought us a prescription for generic Augmentin (antibiotic) and told us to change the dressing twice a day, washing the wound with warm soapy water, letting it air dry, for the first three days applying Neosporin, then covering it with a clean Telfa pad, and wrapping it with Coban.  We were also to find out immediately whether or not Mack had had all his immunizations, and if not, to call the police.

While the doctor was out writing the prescription, Nurse Noemi quietly handed me several Telfa pads and the rest of the roll of Coban she had used, and told me to put them in my purse.  I did, with much appreciation, and we were good to go.

At the checkout desk, we were unsure how to pay.  Normally, we’d have them run it through our insurance and then pay the balance remaining, but in this case, it would seem that the medical costs would be Michael’s responsibility.  In fact, a couple people had told us that his homeowner’s insurance should pay it.  We had Scott’s Blue Cross card with us, but we didn’t happen to be carrying any proof of Michael’s homeowner’s insurance.  For better or worse, we sent it to our insurance, and hopefully Michael will reimburse us, or his insurance will reimburse Blue Cross, or something.  (Note:  I do think that in the past 18 months, Scott has gotten his money’s worth out of his VERY expensive Blue Cross policy – the policy that he has complained about and has wanted to cancel for some time:  an ambulance ride; a dislocated hip and subsequent reduction; a serious concussion; a night in the hospital; all the follow-up appointments, X-rays, and physical therapy from that ski accident; four broken ribs; and now a severe dog bite.  I’m glad he still has the insurance!)

We headed to Walgreens to get his antibiotic prescription filled, and while waiting I learned that although Urgent Care may have access to 6″ wide Coban, mere humans cannot buy it; at least not  at Walgreens or Wal-Mart.  I did manage to find a Curad substitute for the 3″ by 8″ Telfa pads, so we bought those and the drugs and headed home.

Now it’s Tuesday, and this morning Scott went to his family physician, Dr. Salmon, for the follow-up exam that Dr. Goodwin ordered.  We are very thankful that there is no sign of infection and it’s all healing nicely.  Dr. Salmon thinks we should now apply Neosporin only to the suture holes (not to the incision itself), and he plans to take the stitches out on Friday and replace them with Steri-Strips.

Meanwhile, we have heard nothing from Michael or his wife, and they didn’t come to the home group.  We have assumed that Mack is no more, but Pierce told Andrew yesterday that, “We took Mack to Uncle Shane’s house.  He’s gonna stay there for a while and then come back here.”  I am sincerely hoping that the seven-year-old doesn’t have his story straight.

Update:  Tuesday night May 17, a friend emailed me this post from Michael’s facebook:

“He was trying to play with ***** and ***** got scared and raised his arms up jerking one of them out of mac’s hold causing a laceration. Mac is at a friends house right now playing with lots of kids. Never shown aggression. Don’t know of a Great Dane that has though……Maybe thinking of taking him to a trainer and then bringing him back…..”

I do so love to learn

I’ve been thinking all day about that hydrogen peroxide fizz, so I looked it up and found this on yahoo answers:

“It’s because blood contains iron (heme) and cells produce an enzyme called catalase. Catalase is found in nearly all cells and organs and acts as a catalyst in the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide. Since a cut contains both blood and of course damaged cells, there is quite a lot of catalase present. When the H2O2 comes into contact with the catalase, it turns the peroxide into water (H2O) and oxygen gas (O2). Catalase breaks down the hydrogen peroxide extremely efficiently – up to 200,000 reactions/second. To see this reaction firsthand, I wouldn’t recommend stabbing yourself, but you could pour some H2O2 onto a cut piece of potato to achieve the same results. The damaged potato cells contain catalase and will react with the peroxide in the same way.

“It may appear that hydrogen peroxide is not bubbling in the bottle, but actually the same reaction occurs only much slower. Without a catalyst, like catalase, hydrogen peroxide decomposes at a rate of about 1% each year. So pay attention to that expiration date, it may be time to buy some more.”

I know more than I did a few hours ago!

Two losses

March 1 will be a losing day for me.

First, that is the day that I will lose my health insurance.  This decision was not made lightly, but we both have peace about it and believe that all will be well.  We just decided that it would not be wise stewardship to spend $879 per month to insure me with a $5000 deductible, so we will keep our money, make wise health choices, and trust God to keep me well.

Second, I will lose the pink paint on our bedroom walls.  This decision was made rather quickly (in about an hour), or perhaps extremely slowly.  We’ve lived in our house for 14 years and nine months, and for 14 years and nine months, we’ve slept in a room that is painted a bright Victorian pink that I don’t particularly like.  It’s time for a change.

Our great friend, Dave Brown, is a painter by profession, and he will be painting our bedroom and closet a lovely Malted Milk (by Sherwin Williams).  In addition, if the timing works out, he will be painting our entrance hall, stairwell, and upstairs hall all Cottage Cream, which will match our living room and dining room.  All the trim – and there is a LOT of trim in our house – will be Dover White.  We are very excited about the new look, and we’re really honored to have Dave do the job.  Everything Dave does is excellent, and it is our fondest hope that he will still be on speaking terms with us at that end of this grand endeavor (given all that trim).

 

Survey says. . .

. . . that the lump in the arch of my left foot is the beginnings of a deep plantar wart.  The preferred line of attack was to have Dr. Gordin freeze it.  She came at me with a can of freon to which was affixed a long nozzle.  She dubbed this, “my medieval torture device,” and, having now experienced two prolonged blasts of said, I can safely say that it was accurately named.  I guess I now know what frostbite feels like.  Yeeeowww!

It hurt at the time, and two minutes later it hurt quite a bit more, but ten minutes after that, the pain had completely subsided.  I thought that was the end of it, but no.  When I donned my walking shoes this morning, my left arch screamed something that I’m sure should not be repeated in polite company.  I told him to hush and took him and his friend, my right foot, out to walk.  He was quite vocal throughout that speedy jaunt, but I did manage to get through my 1.5 miles.

This afternoon I had the Wal-Mart run to end all Wal-Mart runs.  I KNOW better than to go in there during the afternoon, but I did it to save a trip tomorrow.  Sigh.  I was in there from 3:15 PM to 4:45 PM, and I covered 38% of the non-grocery aisles plus all the grocery aisles except liquor and cleaning supplies – many of them more than once.   Have you ever looked for Velveeta in a Wal-Mart super center?  It’s not by the cheese.  It’s not with the Ro-Tel.  In fact, as best as I could tell, it wasn’t anywhere, although I was fairly sure that people in Branson really do buy Velveeta at Wal-Mart.

So I wandered around on Mr. Complaining Arch for a while longer, seeking any Wal-Mart employee who might be able to direct me to Velveeta.  It’s a sure thing that around 4:20 PM, ALL the Wal-Mart employees either go on break or go home, because I couldn’t find any – except the lady running the fitting room, and I really didn’t want to hobble all the way back over there to have her tell me that she doesn’t work in grocery.  I finally found a man pushing a produce cart, and he WAS able to direct me to Velveeta.  For the record, it’s housed with spaghetti sauce.  Go figure.

Having procured the greatly anticipated meltable cheese substitute, I headed to produce to obtain lettuce, peppers, tomatoes, green onions (which I forgot), onions, bananas (they’ve been $0.49 per pound for months, and today the sign said, “Low price:  $0.52 per pound!), pears, apples, and oranges.  Between bananas and pears, who should I run into but the Llama and the Lemur!  I had asked the former to retrieve the latter from volleyball class, because I knew I’d be tied up in Wal-Mart.  They took one look at my huge cart and ran off; leaving me to do the checkout shuffle and subsequent trunk load alone.

By the time I got home – and to their credit they did (with Jessica) unload it and put it all away – I was totally wiped out and Mr. Arch was saying those unmentionable words again.  I made a salad and got the rest of supper on the table.  Thankfully, I did not have supper clean up tonight, so I have been sitting at my desk, slowly knocking out tasks.  However, it’s now time to stand up and go downstairs.  I think the Arch will feel much better now, having had a little rest.

Here’s to standing and walking!

 

having traipsed up and down all over the place on my (by that time) very sore left arch, I finally asked the only

 

Word to the wise

Never get fat or develop any chronic health problems.  These conditions are especially to be avoided if the primary wage earner in your family is self-employed and/or if he purchases his health insurance outright.

Many years ago, a combination of health issues rendered me virtually uninsurable.  I went without insurance for about 18 months, but we decided that since I had more health issues than anyone else in the family at the time, it wasn’t wise for me to be completely uninsured.  So I applied and was denied over and over and over, but eventually an obscure company (Central Reserve Life) took me on, with a very high premium and a sky-high deductible.

Through the years, we have complained about the high premiums and poor coverage, and we have continued to make the monthly payments.  Every year, the rates go up – not only on my personal policy, but also on the Blue Cross family policy that covers Scott and the kids.  Their family policy generally costs about half what my personal one costs, and even though dealing with Blue Cross was a first class pain where the sun never shines, it sure was a blessing to have that coverage when the $34K ski accident occurred.

Last year (2010), my personal premium high-jumped to a truly exorbitant $719 per month.  This is the kind of money that causes one to choke when writing the check; and it’s especially rude, considering the fact that I am steadily (although slowly) losing weight, I am on fewer prescription meds than I have been in many years, and I am healthier than I’ve been in at least ten years.

In December, Scott started having me fill out applications for other health insurance companies.  These forms are tedious at best and disgusting at worst.  Have I ever had any of these zillions of conditions?  I’m not kidding; there are hundreds listed.  And if I ever have, I have to tell the date it started, the date it ended, and the name, address, and phone number of the doctor who treated it.  On a separate sheet, I have to enter the details of the diagnosis and treatment and also tell to what per cent I have recovered.  And this is literally for EVERYTHING beyond a head cold in the past ten years!

I did it by hand for the Mercy form (and was denied), so when the Aetna form was an online one, I was pleased.  It’s easier to fill out online forms than to hand write all that information.  I laboriously muddled through to the page 4 (out of 13), and when it asked for my height (“feet/inches”), I ignorantly attempted to enter 5/3 in that box.   Now, you must understand that I am very proud of those three inches.  There are actually only two-and-a-half of them, but in math you always round up, so I always say three.  But on this stupiotic form, no matter how I tried, the ONLY thing I could put in that box was 5, and I resented that.  I’m NOT five feet tall, and that fact is especially important on health insurance applications where underwriting will compare your weight to your height to decide if they’ll take you or not!  Sheesh!

So I ended up having to print out all thirteen pages and fill them out by hand.  Plus, I had to create a three-page supplement to answer all the questions they didn’t give me room to answer.  It took an hour and a half to do all that.  Scott sent it in and we’ll see how much Aetna likes me.

In the meantime, I was sorting through yesterday’s mail and found an item from my current insurance company, which, by the way, is HealthLink through WORLD insurance.  Central Reserve Life sold my policy to WORLD last year.  They didn’t even ask me before they did it.  So this letter from WORLD was to inform me that my new (and improved?) premium effective March 1, 2011 will be $879 per month!!!  There are words for increases like that, but we Christians don’t use those words.

So now I am debating whether or not to tell WORLD exactly what they can do with their $879.  We shall see if Aetna takes me, we shall call Blue Cross and see if they’d like to add me to the family policy for a number less than $879, and we shall check into ObamaCare, where, if I accrue enough denials, I may qualify to join a high risk health insurance pool.  However, even if I do, if it’s more than $879, we may well plunge back into the realm of the uninsured and just pray more fervently for my health to continue to improve.

End of rant for today!

Bananas underfoot

So I was hurrying in to church Friday night and I tripped between the little stepping stones through the grass and the curb.  I managed to catch myself and keep my balance and not fall, but I guess in so doing I somehow twisted my foot inside my shoe, and I must’ve wrenched some tendon or ligament or muscle inside the ball of my foot.  The instant pain brought tears to my eyes.

I managed with difficulty to hobble on in and get children’s church set up.  During praise and worship, a friend gave me two Motrin and Andrew asked Scott to have the whole group pray.  Between the meds and the prayers, I was able to get through children’s church, but the pain was still pretty intense.

By the time I got home, what my foot wanted was a long hot bath, but I knew that what it needed was to be iced.  Thankfully, Scott offered to go to the cellar freezer to get the little blue flexible gel-pack thing-a-ma-bob that we keep on hand for just such events.  He was down there a really long time, and when he came up, he was carrying some bagels for tomorrow’s breakfast and a zip-loc of frozen mashed bananas.

I’m supposed to eat a banana every day for potassium, but I can’t stand overripe (or really, even ripe) bananas.  Actually, I’m not a fan of bananas at all, but I’d rather eat one than have to take a potassium pill, so I try to get a bunch of green ones each time I go to the store.  I can usually stretch them to last about four days max, then Scott eats the rest.  (He likes his way too ripe for me.) Sadly, no matter how well I plan it, one or two of them ALWAYS go south before being eaten, and since I can’t stand to throw away food, I mash them and freeze them.  When my frozen stash gets big enough, I bake some banana bread or some yummy Hawaiian banana muffins.  (credit to cj for that recipe)

Now, I don’t know where all the things go that are not where they should be and where they were last left, but there must be an enormous warehouse somewhere crammed full of them – and the little blue flexible gel-pack thing-a-ma-bob is clearly there, because it’s not in our freezer.  But Scott figured the mashed bananas were about equally cold and equally pliable, so I wrapped them in a hand towel, laid it on the floor under my desk, placed my tender foot on it, and kept typing.

It’s working pretty well.  I freeze my foot on the bananas for 30 minutes every few hours and then toss them back in the freezer.  I told some ladies at our church hayride tonight about that, and they found it rather funny, but they also said they’d remember it the next time I brought banana bread to a home group meeting.  = )