Matters Of The Heart

Last December, something odd started with my heartbeats.  I didn’t feel faint or weak or put out in anyway, except for the odd out-of-order thumping and follow-up fluttering.  I waited for a week or so, but when it didn’t go away, and when it seemed to be all I could pay attention to (heart thingies are like that), I called my doc.

Well, that wasn’t the thing to do…because the gate keeper/phone answer-er said ‘what do you need to see the doc for?’ and when I answered ‘well see it’s like this, the heart does this thing and then this sort of happens and then I sort of feel this way…’ she said to me, hmmm...just a minute and let me check with the doc, and I am thinking oh good I am going to get right in to see him, but then she comes back and says I should go to the emergency room.

That is not what I wanted to hear.  I just wanted to get in to see the doc.  I was pretty sure this wasn’t bit deal because mostly I don’t have big health deals, and also…really?  The ER…so inconvenient!  And so expensive…and omg…the insurance rigamarole.  Somebody just shoot me…

Except…oh…see there it was again.  Thump thump fluttery…and since it was coming up on Christmas, and the doc appt wasn’t going to happen for a week, the ER it was.

So I finished up work, and went home, and waited for The Guy to get home.  After he had a chance to catch his breath, I said, ‘so anyway, there’s been this thing going on…blah blah blah, and I called the doc…blah blah blah, and we are suppose to go the ER.’

Blank look…’and why did I wait until he got home from work???’  Well, it seemed the thing to do at the time.

No wait at the ER when one has ‘heart palpitations’.  Funny that they don't call it by thump thump fluttery. Which I think is a much more fun technical term. We have a modern facility in my little burg, that isn’t overly large, but with all the conveniences. But everyone who works there is so young.  Really young.  How did that happen?

So what it is that I have is nothing much.  PAC’s…not political action committees, but pre-mature atrial contractions that many people have all the time and as to why now for me all of the sudden, who knows.  I got to go home that night from the ER 5 days before Christmas with only a innocuous thump in my chest, and a couple of itchy places on my sides where the monitors were stuck to me, which is a whole lot better than being admitted over the holidays with something seriously wrong.  So all to the good really, follow-up visits, tests, and insurance hoop-jumping aside.

And since, those annoying PACs would drift away for a few, and just when I think things were getting back to normal, I got to live with them again for three or four days.  Keeps me humble and not taking anything for granted.  Also keeps me exercising because I think there might be a correlation, but who knows.  Certainly not anyone I paid money to talk to and stick thing-a-mabobs on my chest.

Lately, now three months later, there seems to me more time in between without them than with them, which is a gift, and I am grateful. Seems it was a passing mysterious episode, come out of the blue, for who knows why.

But there are questions in my mind about docs and insurance and hospitals and sensibilities of how we do things and why we do the things we do.  But all in retrospect...now that I know I am okay.

PS Lately I have seen that my posts in Google reader all amiss with words running together and crazy formatting.  If one reads my posts only in Google reader, let this serve as a disclaimer, that while I do misspell on occasion, and my punctuation is not perfect, my posts are better in person of late than they have been represented in Google reader.

So Over Getting Old...

I believe I have managed to pay the maximum out of pocket expense on two different insurance policies this year.

And the year is just almost half over. So yeah...

Better than having no insurance, I know. Really I do.

I am trying to think of something I might need to have fixed since the rest of the year is essentially a freebie, now.

The Offspring read, and so do the Sibs, so I will take this opportunity to tell them that hearing tests/aids are not part of our coverage, so don't get your hopes up. I am still going to be asking you to repeat yourself, or just pretending to understand what you said....

Today was 'Ride Your Bike To Work Day' or something named like that. I did, but had planned to anyway. Mostly for me it meant the trails/streets were crowded, but there were stations set up for which to bribe the masses with food/drink/other freebies. Mostly I noticed the detours because of high water. I ride the Spring Creek Trail and Spring Creek is full of the run off of late.

It's funny. At my old old work, we had a room where all the bikes got parked...sort of a 'bike day care'. At my new old work, we park in our cubes. Seriously. We have double wides. But they still sort of stick out. So there were all these bike tires sticking out when one glances up cubeland 'halls'.

Only in my town...nothing is thought of the parking of bikes in a cube at work...

If I Don’t Laugh…

I will cry.

I have a prescription I take daily to help decrease the number, and diminish the intensity, of migraines. And it does a good enough job for me that I want to take it without fail.

When my previous employer switched insurance plans about a year and a half ago to a high deductible plan, I took the opportunity to max out my refills of all my daily meds. For this particular script I happen to take half the prescribed dosage so it lasts me twice as long. Therefore, I didn’t need to refill it until early this year.

Now I knew it would be expensive. I had worked the little price estimator on the mail-in pharmacy website…and thought I had a ball park number.

Well. Wrong. After sending in my new prescription, the credit card fraud department called and asked about an OUTRAGEOUS amount being charged to an online pharmacy, using the company initials which Wonderful Guy didn’t recognize, and who was not expecting an OUTRAGEOUS charge, thereby prompting the canceling and reissuing of our charge card.

And prompting phone calls by me to the pharmacy. And questions. Like WTH?! (And they are like...well, we can use another card, and I am all so if I am going to spend this OUTRAGEOUS amount you can darn well bet I am going to get my cash back, baby cakes!)

But guess what. I need this stuff. So we paid for it and I keep taking it. (Let’s not go to that place about a basically healthy, employed, insured woman ending up paying this OUTRAGEOUS amount, and the crazy upsidedown health care system.)

Now we know. Now we budget for it.

As fate would have, we had to sign me up on Wonderful Guy’s insurance when I change jobs (I am now working without benefits…except for the singular benefit of being paid regularly and on time…). So we have a chance to plan ahead.

We upgrade to the prescription co-pay! See how smart!

Well. I require change in another one of my daily meds, so before sending in the script to the new mail order service, I was familiarizing myself with the process, checking out the price estimator, and thought ‘hmmm…wonder if this service will charge me as OUTRAGEOUS a price for 'the other' as my previous service.’

Oh. My.

They offer a generic of this med for 3% of what we paid. That is not a typo. 3%. And the name brand is less than half of what we paid.

I wanted to throw up. Because we are talking an OUTRAGEOUS amount here that I am feeling pretty much squandered at this point.

I am wondering what is going on. Was the generic box not checked on the script? Was the other company just a price gouger? Was the generic not available?

Well, I checked on that last question. Guess what.

One week after my script was filled…the FDA approved the generic. (I am in the business. I know how to look things up….way after the fact, but still!)

One freakin’ week.

Yep.

Timing is everything.

Self Image

During the year of the Dee-vorce, I lost weight. I was pleased with this. I have always been thin. I have always been very, very thin, as a child, and after having 3 children. Being small and thin has been a part of my identity. When I did put on a few pounds (and I mean only a few), this caused consternation. I can see now this frayed the edges of my identity. Then some stress would enter my life and pounds would fall away, and I would be back to my usual. Ahhh….all was right with the world.

So now, six years after I received those final dee-vorce papers in the mail (in the mail!), and my lowest weight since high school, I now weigh more than I did when I was pregnant. And yet, AND YET! I am eating much healthier, nutrition and calorie-wise, than I have in my entire life (thanks to the Wonderful Guy), and I exercise diligently and properly. What gives? It began when I got happy (no, really!), I started gaining some poundage, but that was okay…because, after all, I was way too thin….at least that is what I said, but down deep, I liked wearing those size 2 jeans. But size 4 was okay, too, I guessed. But I kept gaining, and Middle Daughter’s wedding was coming up, and the X was going to be there with the new, younger version he had married very shortly after that fateful mail day. What I was concerned about was nothing to be concerned about. Really. It was in my mind, comparing myself to others expectations, to my own ideas about what I should be, about what I had always been. I was concerned about 117lbs.

But it continued, and I was outgrowing clothes, and I kept approaching limits, then bypassing them. Youngest Daughter’s wedding was approaching. I took a new approach. With the Wonderful Guy, I had been eating and cooking healthier, but I never had to count calories. My research told me it was important to be informed about exactly what one’s caloric intake was. The internet has wonderful tools for this information, and I start using some of them, along with a journal. I kept track of everything for several months, even using one website to enter my own recipes so I could see exactly what calorie count my tuna noodle casserole (for example) was carrying. I logged intake faithfully, and kept to about 1600-1900 calories/day. This was coupled with maintaining exercise my exercise 5-6 days/week. I quit gaining, and even dropped a couple of pounds the first few weeks. I believed I was going to be able to be down to 120lbs by the wedding.

Uhhhh...wrong answer. Nothing else happened. Wedding came and went, and I wore a ….size 6! Shock!! Horror!!!! I look at the photos and I think I have such a roll around my middle. Really. I think that. My sisters have no sympathy for me, and if by chance anyone is reading this, you may not either. That’s ok. That’s not my point to all this.For my next birthday, Wonderful Guy gave me a new bicycle, and I started riding to work a few times a week. It is approximately a 16.5 miles round trip, and that first summer, I rode an estimated 900 miles. Those handy dandy little internet tools I talked about previously told me I was exercising very vigorously, burning up all sorts of calories, and not taking in outrageous amounts of calories. I should have been dropping poundage like crazy, if the math was right. Well, I didn’t. Nothing budged…not weight, not pants size, not nothing! Now I was enjoying myself and feeling good, and found the morning ride exhilarating, and evening ride bearable, but geez! Somebody, throw me a bone here!

Where am I going with this? It's that I think I need to be thrown a bone. I weigh 130-135lbs on any given day. I have kept track of my diet and eating patterns to know that I am eating healthy and nutritious foods most of the time in proper amounts. I exercise pretty darn well, especially for a middle-aged woman. There is absolutely nothing unhealthy in any of that. And I am in the middle of all the charts for weight and BMI. I am normal, finally average. Why is it so hard for me to accept me this way, at this stage of my life?

Because it’s hard not to be caught up in what I used to be, thinking something is wrong if I am not looking the same way, the same size I was way back when. There is a roll over my jeans when I sit that didn’t use to be there, and I don’t see me as being skinny. I have always been prideful of that, and if I am not skinny anymore, maybe I have lost a part of my identity. That is not sound thinking.

I am going to work very hard this year to continue to eat well, exercise regularly, and accept my body just as it is. This is something I have struggled with for a couple of years, and it is really time to lay this one down. I‘ve become educated to know what’s healthy eating and what’s not, what is good to do and what’s not, and I am free to make those choices. I want to be okay with my body because it is really is OKAY.