| I neglect this blog a lot, I realize that. It seems that I never sit down in front of the computer for a long enough time to gather some thoughts. Today is a fluke because I'm forcing myself to do it. Maybe I need to do that more often!
Things that have happened since I was last here:
- Started new semester at school. Two classes, a business class and a Chicano Studies class.
- Started using the family tree site Geni.com, which I really like.
- Got a new swim suit and will start swimming this week.
- Tried on all of my clothes and donated about half of everything.
- Started a new medication. Best results yet toward figuring out my stomach issue. I have an appointment on Friday to get some results from blood work.
- Visited Lexie at the cemetery on her birthday, but missed Angel's birthday party due to being very sick from new meds.
- Had a productive genealogy interview with Mom.
- Bought a broomvac and microwave oven, thanks to Charles's parents and grandparents as well as my parents for contributing to the appliance fund!
- Bought a year of Flickr Pro membership, making http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarolite/sets/ my new permanent picture home.
- Started using DailyLit.com to read books sent via email. Clever service got me actually reading again. Downside is that I stay up too late at night reading books in bed on my phone.
Oh, and our friend Mike has un-disappeared. Go him!
I'll try to get on here more often, I'll feel like I have something to talk about more now that I'm back in school! I ordered books for today's class from Amazon.com today, and I'll put in another order tomorrow for tomorrow's class. I get free 2-day shipping from them, so I thought it best to try to get everything ASAP rather than wait and order together. Hopefully the other class isn't 3 books like today's was!
And of course, for more up-to-the-minute updates from me, go to my Twitter, which can be followed via txt, website, or RSS here: http://www.twitter.com/Sarolite | comments: Leave a comment   |
| Yesterday's doctor's appointment, I talked to the doctor about my back pain, food issues (as in, I'm allergic to food, not just milk products lately), and needing a refill for my thyroid medication but possibly needing to up the dosage (as per my last doctor). I left with two prescriptions (thyroid medicine and one for my stomach), a bit less blood, and an appointment to review bloodwork next Monday. The nurse took my blood in the office and they drive it in to Quest Diagnostics instead of sending all the patients there. Pretty cool, in my opinion.
Overall, very positive experience. I like the new doctor, he's sharp, well versed, and honest. The nurse and assistants were very pleasant, upbeat (of course, I was the second appointment of the day so they weren't tired yet!), and professional. It came up in conversation with the nurse that she'd been working there for 20+ years, which I found rather reassuring. Can't have a private practice for 20+ years if your patients don't like you!
Did I mention I'm driving to Burbank for the priviledge of having a primary care doctor who got his MD in the USA? Worth the 20 minute drive? Yes. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| The website says this doctor takes our particular insurance plan, the phone customer service people set me up with him (I was unable to sign up for an account, as I mentioned earlier. So I pick this doctor as my primary care physician, and call for an appointment. The girl tells me that he starts working at 10, and I said 10 sounds just fine.
I arrive at 10, and the front desk girl tells me "I don't know why they gave you a 10:00 appointment, the doctor won't even be here until 11:00." That's fine, I said, I can start doing paperwork. Her first question is am I on Medicare. No, I reply, here's my insurance card. She takes it, calls the insurance company to verify, then comes back and says that our plan (called "Point of Service" by the insurance company) is an HMO plan and that the doctor is not an HMO provider, so he won't take it.
Grrr to them, I say! It says right there on my insurance company website that they participate in the Point of Service plan.
So now I have to change again and make another appointment.
Did I also mention, by the way, that our dental insurance cards say to go to their website for participating dentists but it's a financial services company and there'es nothing dental anywhere on their website?
On the bright side, eye doctor went well. He said that my left eye is pretty good and my right eye is very bad, which I must say I knew already. My depth perception is bad for that reason, but my eyes are otherwise healthy. I was going to do transition lenses, but now that I'm not lifeguarding most of my sunlight time is while driving, and the girl who helped me with lens/frame selections explained that they're activated by UV, so when in your car with a UV-blocking windshield they won't go dark. So I'm getting one pair of normal glasses and one pair of sunglasses (polarized). I asked for blue tint, but they couldn't do the blue tint on polarized lenses, only grey or brown. I like my blue sunglasses, because the sky looks pretty even on a cloudy day. In the end I figured that it would be better to not see reflective back windshields on the freeway than to have a perpetually blue sky. Prioritizing, you see?
The bad news: glasses are expensive. Oh well, we won't have as much into savings and/or Christmas as we had planned, but I'll be able to see. That's a good thing!
There's a distinct possibility that Christmas will be canceled this year at my parents' house after all. Due to the drama I mentioned in my previous post, as well as some new stuff, it could turn out badly if we did have Christmas, so it may just be better if we don't... I already bought something for my gift exchange person, and stitched something for the baby, and I know what we're getting for Charles's gift exchange person but we haven't gotten it yet. All going somewhere in one or two cars (and thus not being able to run away) seems a tad scary at this point though. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| I always thought that your company website was the best way to resolve after-hours issues... It seems that the company website for our new medical insurance company doesn't even let people register their accounts outside of business hours. I got this response:
| Member Registration Not Available |  | | | | |
It then proceeds to tell me that operators are standing by 24/7 in case I'm having trouble doing it during those hours. Does a real person have to look at each of them or what? And if so, why aren't those 24/7 operators doing it? | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Our medical insurance cards, which state that our coverage is effective November 2nd, 2006, just arrived in the mail today. Took a couple of phone calls too, I'm annoyed that it took them a month to get them to us. I tell Charles I think they should give us an extra month of coverage when/if he leaves the company. Anyhow, going to their website now to pick out primary care physician and such, hopefully get in there for a checkup as soon as possible. My sister is having surgery on the 8th of December, so there's only a slight chance of seeing the doctor before I go down to San Diego with her, but if I can I'll do so.
Things on my medical to do list: (maybe a repost)
- General check up.
- Chronic back pain and crackling of spine.
- Check for proper dosage of my thyroid medication. My old doctor had wanted to check on this before we lost our old insurance because I gained some weight between visits when I'd been swimming regularly and just started my thyroid medication.
- Talk about my feet and possibly about seeing a podiatrist: I've had freezing cold feet for over a week, my cracked heels, and I think my arches may have flattened or something due to my 7-ish years of my sandals-only job. It was actually painful to wear tennis shoes, although it's been subsiding a little bit.
- Talk about an exercize plan. I want to stick with low impact stuff (water aerobics, belly dancing) until I get my back issues resolved, but even belly dancing makes my bad knee sore and crackly.
Things on my dental to do list:
- General check up & cleaning.
- Talk about orthodontics. I don't feel like my teeth line up properly when I bite down, I chew only in the corners of my mouth and it's uncomfortable when I sleep and stuff.
- Talk about whitening. For a non-smoker who doesn't like coffee, that area needs improvement too.
| | comments: Leave a comment |
| |
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
sarolite's journal![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/moonmama/sillysuns/creative.gif)
busy![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/moonmama/sillysuns/happy.gif)
happy![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/moonmama/sillysuns/angry.gif)
annoyed![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/moonmama/sillysuns/thoughtful.gif)
confused