Here's something I forgot to write about in my last entry, complete with plenty of cursing:
Remember how I wrote about the hospital sending a check PDQ after the credit card company opened an investigation? We deposited that check and when it cleared our bank, we called the credit card company to let them know. Then a couple of days after that, we got a notice that the check was rejected by the hospital's bank. Yes, they tried again to fucking scam us out of that same two-thousand dollars. So Dave called the credit card company back and turns out they expect that kind of shit because they had not closed the investigation. They again took the charge off our account and they are going to contact the hospital. It could be as soon as forty five days or it could take up to ninety days before they have an answer for us.
I hope the fucking asshold doctor who demanded that payment from us has to pay it back out of his own pocket. I'm so fucking mad about this shit.
Welcome to healthcare in the U.S.
On a calmer note:
Yesterday for our outing we ended up at the mercantile where we bought some new cat food for Gray Kitty.
He goes through cycles with food, where he'll eat something for a long time and then one day he just rejects it. (I think this happens because his stomach hurts--he's an old kitty and has many health issues--and then he associates the stomach pain with the food so he stops eating that food.) This new food (which he's had before, but not for a long time) we picked up at the co-op five or six days ago (another one of our outings) and he liked it. A small can was almost three dollars--co-op prices are always high--so we checked online to see if any of the big pet supply stores carried it. (I realize that this story is not interesting, but I am committed to finishing it, sorry.) One did, but they were just as expensive and one of the two varieties was out of stock. The online pet store only had one variety and only sold the large cans by the case. We checked on the local mercantile's website. They are in our village, about eight minutes away from our house, and they mostly sell horse-related things and plant/garden supplies, but they also stock a small variety of dog and cat foods. Luckily they had it and it was less than half the co-op price. So that was our outing yesterday.
We came home via Freddy's where Dave got a milkshake (a mini size of the caramel crunch something or another that was way too sugary and somehow tasted stale) and I got french fries. I do not need to be eating french fries, but I like them, so. After that, we came home and I got back into my pajamas.
It's been an eventful month.
Gray Kitty was very sick. Two kinds of antibiotic kind of sick. He's starting to get better, but he lost some ground and a lot of weight. Poor guy.
I screwed up my neck in such a way that I spent about five or six days mostly on my back with my neck in a neutral position. I have no idea what I did besides lean forward. (But I guess at some point in life, that's enough.)
My therapist quit her practice, shed all her patients including me, so we had our final session last Thursday. Now comes the fun of finding a new therapist.
What else?
I got called up to report for jury duty this coming Monday. 7:45 a.m. I have to call today though to give them the dates of my upcoming medical appointments. Sigh.
We had my mother out for lunch--Chinese food--the day after my younger brother's birthday. (He's been gone a long time, nearly twenty years, which seems so crazy to me.) She stayed a couple of hours and at the end I got a cramp in the back of my thigh that went on and on and required warm compresses, a heating pad, and stretching over twenty four hours for it to go away completely.
What else?
The hummingbirds came back. There are two of them chasing each other around the feeder outside my window right now.
And the frogs started their yearly looking-for-love mating call/screaming again. They crack me up. I lie in bed at night and listen to them scream and scream and scream. They start sometime between sunset and one a.m. and quit sometime before dawn. Last year it went on for about two weeks, the year before for much longer.
What else?
We made travel plans to go to Montana, to continue the sad task of getting Dave's father's house ready to sell. Dave's sister has been working on it, traveling back and forth from her home in Indiana, but now comes the real push to get everything cleared out and moved, donated, or sold. Because Dave's dad lived relatively remotely, it's difficult to get a decent place to stay (we've booked a cabin that is normally rented out to fly fishermen, as it's one of the closer places to Dave's dad's house). Dave is going to take his dad's car, so we'll actually be driving back from Montana.
We've also been getting out and about nearly every day for the last week or so, just to grocery stores and to the greenhouse and plant nursery, but still. I need the practice being out and around people as I've been isolated for a long time. (I was going to say since the start of the pandemic, but actually it probably goes beyond that, to after I left nursing school and began working overnight shifts at the hospital. That's nine years ago.) The downside of going out like this is that we've spent a lot of money and I've done a bit too much impulse shopping for snacks at the grocery store (chips, chicharrones, Hob Nobs, rice crackers...). We did get a lot of nice plants for the patio though, things that the butterflies and hummingbirds should enjoy.
Today we're going to the nearby mercantile and possibly to Costco. (Don't know if I'm up for the onslaught of people at Costco today though so we'll see about that one.)
Anyway, part of getting out and about is because of the trip to Montana, but also I'd like to start traveling again. There are still places in this world that I want to see or see again.
So I wrote this a week or more ago:
Lots of storms rolling through recently which triggers my arthritis and causes headaches. And to add to that, I strained my neck and have been in pain for three days now. Lots of laying in bed with ice packs then heading pads, getting up every hour to two hours to move around and do some very gentle stretching if I could. Can't sit for to long, can't stand for too long, but laying in bed for too long makes me feel awful.
So that's been my week so far.
I wrote that a few days ago. The storms are still rolling through so I still feel a bit crunchy in my bones. But luckily I am distracted from that by the perimenopausal hormone shifts currently kicking my ass.
Right now I am sitting in the car while Dave ran into Five Guys to pick up some burgers for dinner. Why yes, we did get a grocery order this morning. Why do you ask? Grocery order day is the traditional day to get take out.
I'll finish this up later.
Now it's later.
My mother is coming for lunch, so I've only got a bit of time. I still have to brush my teeth and I need to drink some water because my stomach...is not good today and I need to stay hydrated.
Nothing like starting out with some TMI.
The weather has been shifting a lot recently and that wreaks havoc on my system, but that is boring to talk about so I'll talk about what else has been going on recently.
Which is not much.
I did get some sewing done. I made a small wallet with a double zipper, trying to copy a small leather wallet with a double zipper that I bought many years ago. Figuring that out took the better part of an evening. Also, it did not come out great--wonky zipper, too little seam allowance, bad lining--so I want to try again, incorporating what I've learned.
I'm also thinking--yet again!--of sewing some of my own clothes. My mother used to sew some of my clothes when I was younger and I even wore things she made until I was in high school. But nowadays I only wear things I've bought. I've tried altering some of my own clothes, but that almost never ends well. (Though I did add separating zippers to several t-shirts to use post-surgery when I couldn't lift my arms over my head.)
OH! And speaking of surgery. Awhile back I wrote about the $4,000 dollars the hospital had charged us for the imaginary two nights stay in the ICU when I had only stayed one night in what they wanted us to believe was a semi-private room. Do you remember that? Well, despite numerous calls--numerous calls, like one to three calls a week every week since that happened, the hospital was giving us the runaround when it came to returning any of that money. First we had to talk to a certain person and then that person was always out of the office. Then we had to talk to someone else and they were going to "do some research" and get back to us (which of course they never did). Then it was unanswered voicemail after voicemail. I urged Dave to call the credit card company so many times that he got angry at me (more than once) because he considered that to be the nuclear option.
After more than ten weeks of this, Dave finally listened to me and called the credit card company. They listened to our side and said they were going to contact the hospital and open an investigation. And what a surprise! Within thirty six hours of that call, a FedEx driver knocked on our door with a check from the hospital, sent overnight by the same woman in the accounting department that had been dodging our calls for ten weeks.
Fucking assholes.
But now I can go on all the review sites and leave our story as well as filling out the satisfaction survey they sent to me a month ago (I have until November to return it if I want to). I have a few things to say now that the check has cleared.
Okay.
The weather today is kind of nice. Cool but clear. Alexa says it's 64 degrees--only supposed to get up to 70 degrees today with a low in the 30s--close to freezing--tonight. It's been windy, which is not pleasant, and the pollen is out of control so my allergies are going nuts. Doesn't help that our little bumble-cat runs around outside and then brings in all the dust and pollen straight in to rub in our faces. It's part of his charm.
He is a charming little cat though. Later this summer, he'll get to stay with his favorite person again, our cat and house sitter Carrie. I don't think I ever did write about her, but she is one of those amazing people who just gets animals and Gray Kitty adores her. He's going to be so happy when he finds out he gets to spend time with her.
