I am happy to report that the family room is sparkly and ready for P90X workouts. I even shampooed the rug out there. It looks fantastic. Baby doll moved the TV up from the basement along with the DVD player, his weights, and whatever else he's going to need so he's all set. On Saturday we're going to take some before pictures and he's going to do his FIT test and record it. He will be then ready to start this thing on Monday, I'm guessing. Hopefully he'll be shaking his cold by then.
Turns out the chicken stew and potatoes was a lot lower cal than I thought. It's amazing that homemade mashed potatoes can still taste good even when you use less butter and 2% milk rather than cream cheese. Saves a ton of calories too. So as a treat, I cut the pan of brownies in quarters and let baby doll eat one super sized brownie to cheer him up. The other three went in the freezer for the next special occasion where he might need a pick me up.
Burpee received a nasty gram from me last night. After dropping some bucks on those seed starter packs I was expecting great things. Supposedly, if you slowly poured warm water over the sod pellets, they would expand into individual cells of super soil. Well, 2 out of the 36 pellets did just that. The rest did not. I spent 45 mintues breaking up the rest of the pellets by hand and even then they didn't expand and absorbe the water very well so I had to supplement with potting soil that I found out in the garage. What should have been a fun and exciting project turned into a very frustrating and upsetting experience. I was not a happy girl. They heard about it. When all was said and done, some seeds got planted. They are now covered and according to my friend G, so long as I keep them wet and warm, they should germinate. We'll see. This week was eggplant, bulb onions, and green onions. I think I might start some cilantro and some basil in their own pots and start growing them too, not to ever be transferred to a garden outside though, to simply live in the pots and provide me with what I need to cook. Not sure if that will work or not. I have zero experience with gardening other than putting an avacado pit in a cup of water as a kid. Next, I need to start researching what materials I'm going to need to build some raised beds in the backyard. I don't want the dogs wandering in and peeing on the stuff I'm growing so I'm looking at some kind of raised garden beds.
I was mostly amused but also a little horrified earlier this week when I started channeling Sammy. I was at Fidelity to talk about my 401k. I was left in the waiting room for a bit and they had some free self service coffee. I wandered over and they had a k-cup of French Toast flavored coffee. Doesn't that sound awesome?? Mind you, I can't taste it but I took one, thinking I could brew it at home and at least smell it. Yeah, it wasn't until I was driving home that I realized that I can't smell any more either. But the Sammy part is the fact that I felt okay taking a k-cup and secreting it in my purse. That is SO something that she would do. She has some mini hoarding tendencies that I have always found kind of funny and now I'm suddenly eyeballing the candy dishes on people's desks and whatnot thinking I should grab a couple and stick them in my purse in case baby doll needs a mint while we're out at the movies or something! UGH! I'm turning into Sam!! LOL!
So today I had my appointment with the palliative doctor. His name is Rob. He's very nice. We talked about what's going on with me. He difinitely thinks my day of despair was triggered by running out of pain meds. He told me not to do that again. He said they can ALWAYS get me a voucher to get more meds free if my insurance balks and there's no reason for me to try to tough it out and go cold turkey like that. He said that was crazy. He's also going to put me on some anti depressants. He says the nice things about meds is that I'm not married to them. I can take them for a few weeks and if they don't seem to be helping, then I can simply stop taking them.
So he's putting me on something similar to Cybalta which I've been seeing a ton of commercials for although I thought it was a pain med. He said it's a depression med too and the fact that it helps with pain is an added bonus for me. So I start on that tomorrow. I need to email him in a week or two to let him know what's going on and I see him again in a month so we can evaluate if it's helping or not. He also talked to me about seeing a counselor. Just some food for thought. So, that's where that stands.
Then I talked to Rita, the social worker. She said that I don't qualify for Medicaid because I make too much money on disability (or I will when I start getting it) and I don't qualify for Medicare because I need to be on disability for over 2 years. That leaves me with the Obama healthcare plan which is called The Marketplace. She's going to set me up with someone to talk to about that next week. I also applied for some charity care through the hospital. I need to give her proof of the 50% salary reduction before she can proceed with that but it looks like the hospital itself will then forgive me 60% of my medical bills. So the bill that I just got in the mail this week for $510 might be sitting in my 'to be paid' pile for a bit until I see if this charity stuff kicks in. She also already gave me a voucher for the anti depressants I'm picking up tomorrow and the morphine I'm picking up next Wednesday. She said that I shouldn't even have to worry about copays right now and they're happy to help me out with those. So, I'm getting free meds. Woo hoo!
Yesterday, for the first time ever, I wrote an e-mail in to the WebWhisper group. It was a thank you e-mail to a lady named Gina who sent in a story about how she's coping with everything. She talked about being 86, living alone with her cats, not being able to speak but finally being able to eat after 2 years, and her story just made me feel better. It was more her timing than what she had to say. I just felt better knowing that someone was going through all the same crap as me. I then received an e-mail from a lary named Heidi who who used to be an attorney. She was letting me know the different courses of action I could take now that I'm out of a job. Based on what she said, it sounds like I'm going down all the right paths. The only thing I'm currently questioning is the SS disability. I started looking at applying for it last night and there was something on the site talking about how it would be better to have help applying for it. So I sent some info to the pop up window that appeared and received some info from a local LLC. Now today I got 3 solicitation e-mails from them and they want $6k to help me, but only if I win. It's all sounding really shady to me. I think I'm going to try applying on my own to start. Then if I get declined I'll worry about hiring someone to help. Baby doll's brother is a lawyer, I have to think he can help if push comes to shove.
I think that's about all I have for today. The meeting will be starting a little less than an hour and my battery is down to 8% so it's time to do some reading. I'll spit some more crap out at you tomorrow. I think the blogging every day is definitely going to help me mentally.
d
Turns out the chicken stew and potatoes was a lot lower cal than I thought. It's amazing that homemade mashed potatoes can still taste good even when you use less butter and 2% milk rather than cream cheese. Saves a ton of calories too. So as a treat, I cut the pan of brownies in quarters and let baby doll eat one super sized brownie to cheer him up. The other three went in the freezer for the next special occasion where he might need a pick me up.
Burpee received a nasty gram from me last night. After dropping some bucks on those seed starter packs I was expecting great things. Supposedly, if you slowly poured warm water over the sod pellets, they would expand into individual cells of super soil. Well, 2 out of the 36 pellets did just that. The rest did not. I spent 45 mintues breaking up the rest of the pellets by hand and even then they didn't expand and absorbe the water very well so I had to supplement with potting soil that I found out in the garage. What should have been a fun and exciting project turned into a very frustrating and upsetting experience. I was not a happy girl. They heard about it. When all was said and done, some seeds got planted. They are now covered and according to my friend G, so long as I keep them wet and warm, they should germinate. We'll see. This week was eggplant, bulb onions, and green onions. I think I might start some cilantro and some basil in their own pots and start growing them too, not to ever be transferred to a garden outside though, to simply live in the pots and provide me with what I need to cook. Not sure if that will work or not. I have zero experience with gardening other than putting an avacado pit in a cup of water as a kid. Next, I need to start researching what materials I'm going to need to build some raised beds in the backyard. I don't want the dogs wandering in and peeing on the stuff I'm growing so I'm looking at some kind of raised garden beds.
I was mostly amused but also a little horrified earlier this week when I started channeling Sammy. I was at Fidelity to talk about my 401k. I was left in the waiting room for a bit and they had some free self service coffee. I wandered over and they had a k-cup of French Toast flavored coffee. Doesn't that sound awesome?? Mind you, I can't taste it but I took one, thinking I could brew it at home and at least smell it. Yeah, it wasn't until I was driving home that I realized that I can't smell any more either. But the Sammy part is the fact that I felt okay taking a k-cup and secreting it in my purse. That is SO something that she would do. She has some mini hoarding tendencies that I have always found kind of funny and now I'm suddenly eyeballing the candy dishes on people's desks and whatnot thinking I should grab a couple and stick them in my purse in case baby doll needs a mint while we're out at the movies or something! UGH! I'm turning into Sam!! LOL!
So today I had my appointment with the palliative doctor. His name is Rob. He's very nice. We talked about what's going on with me. He difinitely thinks my day of despair was triggered by running out of pain meds. He told me not to do that again. He said they can ALWAYS get me a voucher to get more meds free if my insurance balks and there's no reason for me to try to tough it out and go cold turkey like that. He said that was crazy. He's also going to put me on some anti depressants. He says the nice things about meds is that I'm not married to them. I can take them for a few weeks and if they don't seem to be helping, then I can simply stop taking them.
So he's putting me on something similar to Cybalta which I've been seeing a ton of commercials for although I thought it was a pain med. He said it's a depression med too and the fact that it helps with pain is an added bonus for me. So I start on that tomorrow. I need to email him in a week or two to let him know what's going on and I see him again in a month so we can evaluate if it's helping or not. He also talked to me about seeing a counselor. Just some food for thought. So, that's where that stands.
Then I talked to Rita, the social worker. She said that I don't qualify for Medicaid because I make too much money on disability (or I will when I start getting it) and I don't qualify for Medicare because I need to be on disability for over 2 years. That leaves me with the Obama healthcare plan which is called The Marketplace. She's going to set me up with someone to talk to about that next week. I also applied for some charity care through the hospital. I need to give her proof of the 50% salary reduction before she can proceed with that but it looks like the hospital itself will then forgive me 60% of my medical bills. So the bill that I just got in the mail this week for $510 might be sitting in my 'to be paid' pile for a bit until I see if this charity stuff kicks in. She also already gave me a voucher for the anti depressants I'm picking up tomorrow and the morphine I'm picking up next Wednesday. She said that I shouldn't even have to worry about copays right now and they're happy to help me out with those. So, I'm getting free meds. Woo hoo!
Yesterday, for the first time ever, I wrote an e-mail in to the WebWhisper group. It was a thank you e-mail to a lady named Gina who sent in a story about how she's coping with everything. She talked about being 86, living alone with her cats, not being able to speak but finally being able to eat after 2 years, and her story just made me feel better. It was more her timing than what she had to say. I just felt better knowing that someone was going through all the same crap as me. I then received an e-mail from a lary named Heidi who who used to be an attorney. She was letting me know the different courses of action I could take now that I'm out of a job. Based on what she said, it sounds like I'm going down all the right paths. The only thing I'm currently questioning is the SS disability. I started looking at applying for it last night and there was something on the site talking about how it would be better to have help applying for it. So I sent some info to the pop up window that appeared and received some info from a local LLC. Now today I got 3 solicitation e-mails from them and they want $6k to help me, but only if I win. It's all sounding really shady to me. I think I'm going to try applying on my own to start. Then if I get declined I'll worry about hiring someone to help. Baby doll's brother is a lawyer, I have to think he can help if push comes to shove.
I think that's about all I have for today. The meeting will be starting a little less than an hour and my battery is down to 8% so it's time to do some reading. I'll spit some more crap out at you tomorrow. I think the blogging every day is definitely going to help me mentally.
d
No comments:
Post a Comment