Salamander
Fire Walking

Work plods along at its usual irregular pace. They’re changing our medical coverage at the beginning of next month. I don’t know how it affects me yet. Frankly, I need an advanced degree in clairvoyance to figure out what I should do. I’ll have a choice of two plans. The “high end” plan (that I now have elected to carry up till now) will modestly increase in cost. Benefits will be reduced. Currently it costs me $100 to be seen at an ER, which is waived if I’m admitted. Hospitalization is fully covered. The new coverage won’t waive the $100 ER co-pay, and hospitalization will cost $100/day for the first five days. That means that the hospital stay I had in February that was fully covered would cost me $600 beginning in May. The $20 personal physician co-pay, $40 specialist co-pay remains unchanged. I see a LOT of doctors any more, and those $40 specialist co-pays add up. The “low end” plan is changing dramatically. There will be a $1500 up-front out-of-pocket for everything. After that, however, most stuff is covered at 100%. My question becomes which would actually be cheaper for me? If I have another hospitalization this year, then that would be $600 out-of-pocket right there. My medications during 2007 cost over $1000. I can expect at least as much this year. If the medical plan were on a calendar year I’d already be way ahead of last year. If I incur over $1500 in medical costs under the "high end" plan, then it would make sense to go with the low end plan, which will curtail my costs after $1500. The difference will be whether or not I have another hospitalization between now and next April. If anyone has a working crystal ball, can I borrow it?

I’m starting to have some significant side-effects from the meds I’m on. There’s protein in my urine, indicating some degree of kidney damage. My cholesterol and triglycerides are high, a problem I never had before. I continue to need insulin at a very low level. My blood pressure consistently runs at least 150/95, and I’ve been into the 180’s/110’s. The standard doctor reaction to this is to treat the side effects of the medications with more medications. My current drug list includes tacrolimus, sirolimus, prednisone, Cellcept, Verapamil, Lopressor, warfarin, Protonix, and methoxsalen. I have Ambien for when I can’t sleep, and amoxicillin for when I have to go to the dentist.

Sirolimus and Lopressor can cause hyperlipademia, and Sirolimus can cause proteinuria. Cellcept and tacrolimus can cause kidney damage and hypertension. Prednisone and tacrolimus can cause diabetogenesis. The cure is killing me. And the vocabulary of my cure is killing Spell-check.

Thanks to the stock market’s abysmal behavior in 2007 I got a rather significant tax rebate. While retirement no longer looks as healthy as it once did, I’m at least nearly caught up on my financial obligations. The Professor now has the three back mortgage payments I owed him. The ill-thought-out but much-loved teal diamond pendant I purchased for myself last summer has two months to go and then is paid off as well. If I’m careful, I’ll be able to maintain myself on the new escalated medical spending without owing anything to anybody.

I get overwhelmed. I’m not used to losing track of my medications, but I have a hard time keeping dosages and timing straight. Tracking my medical costs, and balancing them against my other needs has been a losing proposition. I never pretended to be an accomplished organizer, but as often as not I just end up feeling foolish and inadequate to my current needs.

It’s easiest to find things to say about my health because so much is happening that revolves about that part of my life. It begins to sound like there is nothing else in my life, though, which is patently untrue. I’m in the process of assembling several felt Christmas ornament sets for my older sister’s birthday, coming up in a couple of weeks. I’m cheaping out for her birthday; she purchased the sets for herself but they’ve languished in her house for years untouched. I’m putting the ornaments together and then giving them to her for her birthday, with no cash involved in the transaction. In my defense, I have invested at least thirty hours in this project so far, which would translate to some significant clams were anybody actually crazy enough to pay me for this endeavor.

I watched “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” and “A Man for All Seasons” while sewing ornaments this weekend. I’d seen both before, but not for many years. Both movies were available through the “On Demand” service of our cable provider, which I haven’t used much up until I started this ornament sewing project. Most of the free movies are free for a reason; I can’t imagine anybody actually spending money to watch Karen Black de-vampire a town in “Children of the Night” or any “Dumb and Dumber” movie.

I look forward to the beginning of the next season of “Battlestar Galactica”, even if it is the final season. This season will make-or-break what I have found to be a far above average show so far. I really hope they don’t do some sort of eleventh hour screw-up as they resolve the many sub-plots they’ve developed for the series. The Prof surprised me with Season 3 BG on DVD, presenting it after I had given a steroid-induced rant about the inherent unfairness of my situation and the blinders worn by most of the medical profession that prevent them from seeing past their own little special specialty. It's literally the first time I ever burst into tears from surprised happiness. Believe me when I say THAT is a weird feeling. Nice, but weird.

The Canterbury Bells I ordered over the internet and planted a few weeks back are weathering the unpredictable spring well so far. The sweet pea seeds I planted haven’t fared so well, though. Apparently the local squirrels find them irresistible. I’ve told the cats that if they want to earn their meals they have to station themselves by the deck window during the day and scare the squirrels away from garden areas there, but the cats don’t take me seriously and the squirrels don’t take cats-under-glass seriously, so there’s an end to that. If I can find started sweet pea plants I’ll do those instead, but I strongly suspect I’m going to have to find another climbing plant to stand in instead. I’d love to do moonflowers, but my success rate with them is a very round single digit. It’s still too early to see if I’m going to get any of the sweet peas to germinate (who knows, the squirrels might have missed a couple). Once we get into the frost-free season, if I still have no sweet peas I will go looking for replacements.