Still around...

I expect to go back to work on Monday and am looking forward to it, mainly so I can see Tiffers and have adult conversation again.  I feel okay but still get a little tired, but I know that will get better with time.  I'm eating stuff now that I shouldn't be eating yet, but I'm tolerating it, so that's the big thing.  Speaking of...  time for an omelet.....

On Saturday night, I licked the cheese off a Cheeto.  It was Heavenly.

As of 11/13, I have lost 11 pounds.  I was 227 the day of surgery, so now I am 216.  Not too bad considering I had to spend an extra day in the hospital due to anemia and then having to go back on Monday to get fluids due to dehydration.  And despite all that, I looked WAY better than the other 2 people who had surgery the same day I did, so there!

T minus 24 days...

When I was in The Nuthouse, many years ago, I met a girl named Carey.  We weren't particularly close or anything, and we lost track of each other after I left.  Life went on and then, a few years ago, thanks to Yahoo Groups, we found each other again.  About a year or so ago, she said she was going to have gastric bypass surgery.  I guess she'd had some other weight loss surgery in the past and it didn't work well, so she was going to have another one done.  Anyway, I haven't heard much about her outcome (anything at all, truth be told).  I don't know if she really hasn't lost much weight (which IS possible, if you don't do what you're supposed to do) or what, but I wonder how it worked out for her.  I don't want to ask, because, what if it didn't work?  I've seen pictures of her and I know she had to be close to 300 pounds, so I don't want to ask and have her have to say, Well, I didn't follow the plan and it was a waste of my time.  That would just piss me off, especially since she's on disability and I'm pretty sure my tax dollars were the ones that paid for the surgery.  I guess that's kind of shallow, but this is my place to be honest.

T minus 25 days...

So, the last time I weighed, which was about 2 weeks ago, I weighed 227.  That's a mere 2 pounds more than the minimum that would keep me at a BMI of 25.  When I went to the doctor the first time, they told me that I couldn't lose any weight, or else I might not be eligible to have the surgery done.  So I ate.  And ate.  And ate some more.  And the most that I weighed was 230 and I think the only reason it was ever that much is because I purposely ate Chinese food the day before.  Hey, anything to make sure I didn't drop below a 25 BMI...

My life is going to change so drastically, and I'm sure it will change in ways that I haven't even thought of yet.  And believe me, I have been doing a lot of thinking about it lately.  Almost like everything I do makes me think of how I'll be doing things differently in just a few weeks.  I think Oh, I'll be able to still eat this, or Nope, I'll probably never be able to eat this again and all kinds of thoughts in between.

Yesterday, I emailed my FMLA paperwork to the doctor and today I got notice from my benefits department at work that it's been approved.  How's that for expediency?  I have to admit I'm impressed.  I expect to be out for about 3 weeks before I go back to work.  That's how long Tiffers was out, as well as how long another friend from work was out.  I really have until December 17, but I'll be way broke before then. 

Speaking of....  yes, my insurance does cover the surgery.  I had to see a dietician and my regular physician at least once every 30 days for 90 days (I ended up having to go 4 times to each just to make sure I had enough visits) and be on a medically supervised diet.  I gotta be honest though...  I didn't even try to diet.  With my luck, I'd have lost those 3 pounds I worked so hard to gain.  LOL  At worst it was just a pain in the butt to do and at best, I've got some pretty good tools to use for after the surgery.  And as you know if you've read the blog from earlier this year, we met our deductible pretty early on, so it should be covered at 100%.

In two days my promotion at work will be official.  Woo hoo!  I've worked long and hard to get where I am and I still want to go further.  Whether we want to admit it or not, obese people are not promoted as quickly as folks of the skinnier variety.  I'm certainly not doing this for a job, but I don't imagine that it will hurt my chances any. 

T-minus 29 Days and Counting...

On Monday, November 4, I will have gastric bypass surgery.  I'm really not all that big, when you compare me to the majority of people who have this surgery, but I'm having it anyway.

This is a process that started way back in April of this year.  One of my dearest friends, Tiffany, and I work with a woman who had the surgery back in August, 2012, and we were so amazed with the difference that it made in her life, that we started looking into it.  For Tiff, it was much more of a serious matter than it was for me.  She is larger and I barely - and I mean, BARELY - made it into the BMI range for being eligible for the surgery.  We went to a seminar put on by Denver Bariatric Surgery and it was amazing.  And our insurance covers it!  How cool is that? 

Anyway, like I was saying, for Tiff, it's more a big deal that it is for me.  Yeah, I know that I weigh about 65 pounds more than I did when Kenin and I got married, but I also know that he loves me no matter what.  As a matter of fact, his prime concern with me having the surgery is that I will get too skinny and he DOES NOT like skinny women.  (Do I have the best husband in the world, or what?)  I guess you could say that I "followed" Tiff into all of this.  I've been heavier than I would like for the majority of my life.  I was made fun of by my brothers for many years as I grew up, and it helped to shape the way that I looked at myself, and that caused a lot of issues for me.  I certainly don't blame them; we were all in bad places at that point in our lives.  But I felt like I wasn't good enough and all I wanted was to feel loved.  I did lots of inappropriate things to get that "love" that I wanted, and as I said, that caused some issues.  Eventually, I grew a backbone and some self esteem, and at that point, I didn't really care what anyone thought of me, because I was (and still am) happy with the me on the inside.  Unfortunately, I'm not as happy with the me on the outside.

Food has always been a big part of my life.  My favorite memories are of me as a small child, and the family gathered around a table, chowing down on a holiday, or just visiting each other.  A lot of my memories of my biological mother involve food - her cooking our favorite things, her dieting and weighing her food on one of those tiny scales.  And I've always had a sweet tooth.  If it had sugar in it, I made a beeline to it.  I can still remember the bake sale that we had at school when I was 6 or 7 years old... there was the most incredible, ooey, gooey, marshallowy Rice Krispy treats that I think I've ever (even to this day) put in my mouth.  So, yeah, I started out young.

To be continued...

OMG redux

So, this is kind of a follow up from my last post...

About 26 days ago, I bought some meds for Kenin that were $633, and today I spent $412 for 5 days worth of meds.  What the hell, people?  As stunned as I was before, I'm even more so now.  This will not even cover him until his appointment next Tuesday.  I can't believe the cost of trying to stay alive. 

It must not be enough that I have to pay on 23 different doctor or hospital bills every month.  And please note that I said pay "on", not pay off.  I have what I consider to be decent (not great) insurance and still have tens of thousands of dollars in medical debt.  It only took us 2 months to the day to hit our deductible.  Two months!  Now I have just over $3000 until we hit our out of pocket maximum for the year.  That may not sound like much to some of you, but that's an ass of money to me.  That's almost 3 months rent.  That's 8 months of car payments.  That's about 5 months worth of groceries.  That's an ass of money, any way you look at it. 

Please understand, I'm not asking for a handout, or a hand up or anything at all.  I just want to know why it's so freaking expensive to be sick in America.  We make too much money for any kind of assistance, and I'm happy to say that I have a job and insurance, but it's almost not worth it.  Well, actually, it isn't worth it.  The 23 medical bills that I pay every month?  I can't even pay enough on them to keep us out of collections.  According to this CNN article from 2009 (and you know it's a WHOLE lot worse now),

Bankruptcies due to medical bills increased by nearly 50 percent in a six-year period, from 46 percent in 2001 to 62 percent in 2007, and most of those who filed for bankruptcy were middle-class, well-educated homeowners, according to a report that will be published in the August (2009) issue of The American Journal of Medicine.

Overall, three-quarters of the people with a medically-related bankruptcy had health insurance, they say.

"That was actually the predominant problem in patients in our study -- 78 percent of them had health insurance, but many of them were bankrupted anyway because there were gaps in their coverage like co-payments and deductibles and uncovered services," says Woolhandler. "Other people had private insurance but got so sick that they lost their job and lost their insurance."

There is obviously something broken within our healthcare system.  I don't know how to fix it and the folks that might have some good ideas can't agree on anything. 

You know, when I was younger and I had to go to the doctor or even when I had my kids, I had to pay very little, if anything at all.  I think I paid $100 each to have my kids.  The first time I really had to pay any real medical bills at all, it was 6 or 7 years ago and we had a Kaiser Permanente HMO plan.  But I was okay with it.  The co-pays were $25 and then $10 or so for meds.  It was definitely affordable and I'd love to have that now.  But my employer has Cigna and we have a $2400 deductible and an out of pocket maximum of $5500 before they will pay 100%.  And thank goodness they do, or else I'd be well over a hundred thousand dollars in debt versus tens of thousands.  Thinking of it in those terms almost makes it seem bearable.  Almost.

OMG

The other day, we had to purchase some medicine for Kenin.  It's an injectable medicine that he needs to - literally - help him stay alive.  It's called Fragmin and is necessary for keeping Kenin's blood thin enough to break up the blood clot he got (and still has) in his leg after hip replacement surgery last July.  After he had surgery, it cost $200 for 2 tiny little vials.  The other day when we bought it, the cost was $633 (after the insurance knocked off $80) for a single vial.  OMG.  What the hell? 

Yes, we have insurance, and now, we're over halfway to the deductible.  But, OMG....  $633 for a drug that could save your life.  It's a small price to play when you think of it in those terms, but OMG....  $633.  I did not imagine we'd have to pay that much.  I freaked out over the $200 but that was nothing compared to this.  That's half my rent.  That's more than both my car payments each month.  That's pretty much my food budget for the month.  $633 is a lot of money. 

Like I said, it's worth it, but come on, that's just the drug makers getting rich.  The folks who have the hardest time working - and often are not able to work - are the ones that have to pay for expensive drugs like this.  This is just ridiculous.

whoa... watch out now....

The sale price on this sofa might be putting too big a dent in their profit margin...

 

Murphy Olive Sofa

Compare At:$399.00

Standard Price:$299.00

Sale Price:$298.00

seriously?

I don't care how many Playboy decals you put on your minivan, it will not make you cool.

customer service, or the lack thereof

I'm a big believer in good customer service.  Wait.  Big really doesn't even begin to cover it.  Huge?  Well, that one might work.  I expect good service, and so should you. 

I never really thought too much about it, but then I began to work in customer service.  The company I work for may not have a sterling reputation among it's workers (let's face it, sometimes they ask a lot of you), but I'm very proud to say that I am part of the reason that the Better Business Bureau ranks my (yes, I know I don't own it) company as having an A- customer satisfaction rating.  That's REALLY good, especially when you consider our main competitor is ranked as having a D- rating. 

I work very hard to make sure that every customer I speak with has a good experience.  And I'm good at it, too;  out of my last 9 QA's, all but 1 of them was scored as a 100, so I know what I'm talking about.  Now, to most people, having a good experience is equal to getting what you want.  Unfortunately, that's not always a reasonable expectation.  There have been many times when I've offered to assist a customer but what they want is just not reasonable for me to provide.  For example, I won't waive your early termination fee 9 months into your 2 year contract just because all of the sudden you don't like the equipment that we provide.  I'm more than happy to work with you to get you different equipment that may work better for you, but if you've let 9 months go by without saying anything, clearly it has not been a big deal.  Just as I strive to give the best service I can, so should everyone else who comes in contact with the public.  You should give me good customer service, just as I would give good service to you if you were to call the company I work for. 

I don't go and do much and am happiest as a homebody, but I do enjoy going out to eat.  This past Saturday morning, my son and I went to IHOP for breakfast.  We have a waitress, Christie, that we love to have serve us - and ask for by name - because she does an excellent job.  She gets our order correct, proactively offers ketchup, hot sauce, hot syrup, etc., and knows when we need a refill without hovering.  She is very AWARE of us as customers.  But, unfortunately, she was ill and not at work on Saturday.  (sigh)  As soon as I discovered that, I should have turned around and left.  But I didn't and we got a waiter by the name of Johnny.

Poor Johnny was not a good waiter.  He was quick enough to come take our order, but had to be asked to bring us our drinks.  That wouldn't have been too bad, but he spent about 5 minutes chatting up one of the waitresses before doing it.  Then, less than 5 minutes after he took our order (but before he brought the drinks), he brought us food that belonged to a different table.  When I told him it wasn't ours, I got told, "I know that!" in a snooty way.  I'm a bit anal about my food, so when I ordered, I made sure to ask for sour cream.  When we got our food, I did not have sour cream and I didn't have the salsa that was supposed to come with the meal.  I had to ask 3 times before I got it.  In addition, we were never offered refills on our drinks.

So, just a little background on how I am...  One of my very first jobs was working as a waitress at Waffle House, a fixture on just about every interstate off ramp in the south.  I worked 3rd shift and dealt with some serious drunks.  But I tried to do a good job under sometimes less than wonderful circumstances.  The point is, I know what it's like to work for tips, and it's not easy, so I will tip you a minimum of 20% if you just do a decent job.  And if you do a really outstanding job, I've been known to tip much more.  I believe in paying for good service and am more than happy to do it.  I want the person who has done a good job for me to know that I appreciate them.  Johnny only got a 15 per cent tip.

Of course, I'll go back to IHOP and have Christie as my waitress and IHOP won't lose me as a customer, but if it were to happen again, I doubt I'd be as forgiving.  Customer service is important.  If you deal with the public, please treat them as you would like to be treated.  That can make all the difference in how you and your company are perceived.

i THOUGHT i lived in America...

but, apparently not.  I made my weekly trek to Walmart today and somewhere after women's clothing and before dog food, I passed through the baby department.  I have quite an awesome little nephew so I took a peek at what they had to offer.  Life was good, and then, all of the sudden, it was not. 

Walmart had onesies with what I will assume were cute sayings on them that were WRITTEN IN SPANISH.  I'm not 100 per cent sure what those sayings were because I DONT SPEAK OR READ SPANISH.  And why should I?  The last time I looked, I didn't live in MEXICO.

Now before you go get your undies in a wad, understand this...  I am all about immigration.  My dad's family came here from Ireland and my mom's was from England.  Ninety-nine per cent of us came here from somewhere else.  I have no issue with immigrants.  I do, however, prefer you to be legal, regardless of which country you started out in.

But my real bitch about all this is that if you live in a country that is not your "original" one, for crying out loud, LEARN THE LANGUAGE.  If I go to Mexico, I expect that you will have stuff written in Spanish, not English.  But I am in America, and I expect stuff to be written in English.  My sister-in-law is from Uzbekistan.  She speaks Uzbek, Russian, Turkish, English and a bit of Farsi.  She is, to say the very least, PREPARED to speak another language should she decide to visit any number of countries.  If you don't speak English, you should follow her lead.

the Chinese scare me

According to this CNN article, in China there are 6,000 dead pigs in the river that runs through Shanghai.  But the Chinese authorities say "the water is fine."   Whut????????  I don't care what they say. I'd dehydrate on purpose rather than drink dead pig water.

do not drink while reading this

I beg of you, if you are drinking something while checking out the link posted below, STOP.  I promise, if you happen to be enjoying a beverage, it will shoot out through your nose when you burst out laughing.  And that hurts.  I know.  I've done it.

dooce

if only i could...

I'd like to do this to my 16 year old son, a good 75% of the people I have to speak with on the phone at work, and 2 agents I am currently supervising and training. 

what i think is...

Weathermen need to be QA'd.  I bet they'd get that forecast correct if their job depended on it.

just how far will i go to be healthy?

I've quit smoking (again).  Today makes 1 month.  Thirty whole days, as of noon today, since I had a cigarette.  It hasn't been too awful hard, but that's because of a wonder drug called Wellbutrin.  I've had great success with it when I quit before (now, how horrible does that sound?  "I had success quitting smoking in the past."  OMG, obviously it wasn't a permanent thing or else I wouldn't have had to quit AGAIN.) and it's working good for me now, too.  I quit because I was getting that hacking smoker's cough, which was unpleasant.  And it's not like I didn't know that it's bad for me.  After all, I've been hearing from my father for the last 25 years about how bad it was.  Well, Pops, you can quit bitching now.

The other thing that's going on now is that Kenin got turned onto vitamins by Andrew Lessman by a co-worker.  He only sells them on the Home Shopping Network and if you've got a problem or even might have a problem in the future, he's got a fix for it.  Kenin was taking the bone and joint ones and his friend suggested that I might benefit from the women's health vitamins.  Well, let me tell you what, it didn't take a whole lot of convincing on the part of the friend, because Kenin's already absolutely positive that my hormones are just raging out of control, like the blood thirsty newborn vampires in one of those Twilight movies.  According to him, there are certain times when I no longer even have bats residing in my belfry because there's just too much crazy up in there for them to have room to fly.  Apparently they've gone and done what any reasonable bat would do - they got they hell out of Dodge.  So to appease my husband, I started taking them.  Five damn horse pills at a time, I take those stupid vitamins.  I've been taking them for over a month and the only thing I've noticed is that they turn my pee Chernobyl yellow.  It GLOWS, it's so yellow.  I don't think they're doing anything for me, but if it makes my husband feel better, I'll take 'em.

where did all the fun go?

Blogger gives me the ability to see how many people are reading this and I've noticed that the 3 homeless people that USED to read this blog, no longer do.  Basically, this means no one is reading this, so I suppose at this point, I'm just writing it for myself.  I'm actually kind of okay with that.  I mean, I'm pretty selfish so as long as I'm okay with it, that's really all that matters, right?  But it does make me wonder, why isn't the blog as popular as it once was?

The rational person in me knows that most likely, it's because I went 2 years without posting anything.  I've walked away from people for much less, so I certainly can't blame anyone who did that to the blog.  But I also wonder if it's just because I'm not as fun (or funny) as I used to be.  Personally, I think my early posts are pretty cool.  Let's face it, life just hasn't been as much fun as it used to be.  Three quarters of my kids have moved out of the house and the one that's left behind has me just over halfway to the mental ward.  Hubby's had way more health issues than should be allowed by law and I have (gasp!) a real, full-time-with-no-summers-and-two-weeks-at-Christmas-off job.  So life is just way more work now than it used to be.  Yeah, the really good stuff was back when I started blogging. 

I've gotta do something to change this.

it's about time...

I get so sick of seeing people try to walk in high heels when they can barely stand up in them.  If you can't walk in them, for crying out loud, puhleez stop wearing them.  Kudos to InStyle magazine for putting a guide out for these folks!

How to Walk in High Heels

just a quick, little vent

To the agents I currently supervise:

If I tell you not to hang up with your customer until you have finished making changes on their account, I'm saying it for a reason.  Mostly, because it's a bad idea.  When you have to call your customer back and ask more questions, get more info from them or explain that you gave incorrect information to them, you look like a bonehead.  And you make the company look bad.  Don't freaking do it.

And to everyone else in the world:

If you are wearing black pants and black shoes, please do not wear white socks.  I should not even have to say that, but obviously, I do.

laughter lightens the soul

 

 

I snorted sprite through my nose at about the 40 second mark.

let it snow, let it snow

So, it's been snowing since at least 4:30 this morning, when I took Bella out to go potty.  The TV stations are calling it a blizzard.  I don't know if that's true or not, but it's definitely coming down pretty good and the winds are nasty.  So far we probably have 8 or so inches and I'm keeping my fingers crossed (in vain, I'm sure) that I won't have to work tomorrow.  It's supposed to snow clear until 7 am.  Hunter probably won't have school, but it takes way more than a mere blizzard for my employer to be closed.  I doubt even an act of Congress would slow things down for us.  Basically, the rule is that if public transportation is still running, we're still open.  The  weather may be worse that what was expected though, because for only the third (count 'em, three!) time since the 2006-2007 snow season, the city of Denver is deploying residential plows.  So you know it isn't a fine spring day out there...

i love this song

There is just something about this song that I love.  It's a bit different and not the type of music I'd usually listen to, but it's just got something about it that I really like.

working for a living

So, there came a time a couple of years ago when the world was falling down around us, that I had to get a job.  Not a big deal.  I'm more than happy to help out.  Unfortunately, I was desperate.  No income, hubby on medical leave.  I won't lie - it was scary.  So I jumped on the first thing that came my way.  I went to work for "the worst company to work for in America". 

I won't actually mention the name, because if you were smart enough to find this blog, you're certainly smart enough to Google who the worst company to work for in America is. 

I'm not gonna lie... there were days, especially during the 7 month period when it was mandatory that I work 6 days a week, that I really agreed with that moniker.  Not so much now though.  Two days off a week can go a long way toward changing your attitude.

What I find really interesting sad is, how many people in this world want something for nothing.  I have a feeling that as I come across these folks, you're gonna hear about them.  Not like name and address stuff, but some of the crap that people say so they can get free TV.  And it very well may make your head spin around like Linda Blair's did in The Exorcist.

downtown living - forgotten post

A few weeks ago we moved from Highlands Ranch (aka The Burbs) to downtown Denver.  There are several reasons why we moved, such as Patrick finally getting into a group home, Kenin not wanting to drive over an hour just to get home after work, and him not being able to do stairs anymore.  We decided to move downtown and we love it.  We're 6 blocks from the 16th Street Mall, which is awesome, and Kenin's only 2 miles from work.  There always seems to be something going on down here so if you want to get out, there's plenty to do.  Not to mention I have a cool view from my balcony!

 

 



So, I meant to post this in August 2010, but I forgot, so here it is now. 

Update

SOOOOOO very much has happened...  so I'm gonna dole it out in little bitty doses....

We abandoned our downtown digs and went back to the burbs when the apartment complex we lived in decided to up our rent to $1800 a month.  Now, I don't know about you, but that's ri-freaking-diculous.  I mean, it was a 2 bedroom, 2 bath APARTMENT.  Not a house, not a condo, just a regular old apartment.  Nothing fancy.  No granite, no stainless steel appliances, no berber carpet.  Just a regular apartment with Bigfoot and his spawn living above us.  I'm sorry, but no, you are not going to get me to pay $1800 for what I was getting.  So, back to the burbs we went.  Got a good sized 2 bedroom, 2 bath for almost $700 a month less.  Even with all the utilities we pay, it's still $500 a month cheaper.