2018--Striving to Make This Year Our Best Possible
Replies
-
I don't have any great graphics to share. I'm on Day 114 of tracking food. I've "maintained" the last two weeks, so today I'm back to the routine. I didn't weigh myself but the skin that isn't shrinking is telling me that losing weight may not be a good cosmetic approach and the padding might help if I fall. Love excuses! I forgot to weigh myself this morning but I have a hunch I gained. I also went back to exercising. Truth is that I didn't feel all that great the past two weeks
Nutrisystem has a special value on QVC today.0 -
I'm up 2 pounds after lunch out with a friend and the potluck last night. I think it' just temporary since I watched the portions. I'm hoping to be back to where I was in a few days.0
-
Helene--I'm sure that you will get back by watching portions and drinking water to flush the sodium out.0
-
Jean - I'm sorry you haven't been feeling well. Here's hoping things improve!
Helene - daggone it sometimes it seems like we can't eat anything!0 -
Good morning, Ladies! I’ve been MIA the past few days because I just didn’t have anything new to talk about. I still don’t, but thought I’d check in anyway, lol!
I’ve been stuck at the same weight for about 2 weeks now, but the scale finally took a small drop this morning. Hopefully it will continue to go down. I’d really love to lose another pound before our beach trip in a little less than 2 weeks, but I have a couple of challenges next weekend that may make that difficult. I have a birthday party on Friday night and a birthday lunch on Sunday, so I’ll really need to watch the rest of my eating to compensate. DH is going out of town with a friend, so that will help me.
Jean, I’m sorry you haven’t been feeling well and hope whatever is causing it moves on.
0 -
Pam, It's the back to back events that are so hard. They never seem to be spaced out through the week. Coming together within a day, the weight seems to go up overnight even if you're careful about portion. Usually it come back down in a few days although never as quickly as it goes up. Jean's probably right about the sodium. I'm careful about sodium at home but who knows how much is in the food you eat at restaurants.
How is your niece doing now that she's been back home from her hospital stay?0 -
Maryanne, did you know there's a new Dave Gurney book out? It's called Whit River Burning. You introduced me to Gurney's first book and he's one of my favorite characters now. We even did one of hi books in book club.0
-
Helene, thanks for asking about Heather. She’s doing really well now. She started a new medication and it seems to be helping a lot, and she’s being very careful about her diet. She also is trying to exercise but having some issues with that. She has been on a high dose of Prednisone and when she exercises she gets an extreme case of itching all over her body. The doctor thinks the Prednisone is causing that so he advised her to slow down on trying to walk or jog until cooler weather and by then she may be off the drug. She’s a school secretary for a small Christian private school, so she returned to work a couple of weeks ago and is very happy. Her husband was recently sent to an Army base in Alabama for an 8 week training course, so it’s good that she’s doing so well now.0
-
Maryanne, did you know there's a new Dave Gurney book out? It's called Whit River Burning. You introduced me to Gurney's first book and he's one of my favorite characters now. We even did one of hi books in book club.
I've got the next to last one on my kindle. I've got a backlog. LOL! I just finished the latest Sharon McCone and now I'm working on the latest Eve Duncan.
The reviews for White River Burning are nothing to write home about.
I'm planning a display at the September cat show. A free giveaway for an autographed copy of Mary Jo Putney's latest book, in which one of our rescues is the ship's cat (purpose of giveaway is to collect names/addresses to freshen our mailing list). The first copy she sent me is autographed to me and is quite personal. I told her I can't give that up so she sent me a more generically (sp?) signed copy. She knows how much I loved that cat and really thought he'd end up with me. But he turned out to be adoptable.
The woman who writes two of our fundraisers each year also sent me an autographed copy of her latest book.
In reading about her on Amazon, I discovered there was a TON I didn't know. I knew she'd been involved in the Free Willy campaign. I didn't know she was a published author.
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/173235930X/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I immediately ordered used copies of her earlier books (now out of print). Who knows when I'll get around to reading them but I'll have them when I'm ready.
0 -
-
I didn't read any reviews about the Gurney book. I saw the title on a list of new mysteries and put in a request with the library.
Pam, that's wonderful that Heather is doing so well. She must really feel like she got her life back.0 -
As of this morning, I have lost 17 pounds since the first of the year! Some of my clothes are starting to feel very loose, and my stomach is much flatter. The roll around my middle is almost gone, too! Overall, I’m very pleased. Now to try to maintain it — that’s the real challenge. I hope to lose a little more, but as long as I don’t gain I’ll be very happy. I can really see a difference when I look in the mirror now. I haven’t been doing cardio, but almost every morning I do about 20 minutes of exercises for my core and back strength, and I think that has helped me trim the fat around my middle a lot.
DH is leaving tonight to spend the night with an old college buddy and then tomorrow morning they are driving to northern New Mexico to look at cabins that his friend and his wife are interested in possibly buying. He was going to wait until morning to drive to their house, but decided this afternoon he’d rather stay at their place tonight so he doesn’t have to deal with rush hour traffic while trying to get out of town. He will be back Monday night.
I have a birthday cake to make for the dinner party Friday night, so that will give me something to do while he’s gone. I also need to start figuring out what clothes I’m taking to the beach and make sure everything is clean and ready to go. I also need to organize the kitchen supplies I’m taking and find the beach toys I want to take. So I have things to do while DH is gone and the timing for his trip is good for me.0 -
Pam - CONGRATULATIONS!!!
0 -
Pam, that's wonderful. I don't have Maryanne or Jean's graphic skills but the good wishes are just as warm. Congratulations.0
-
0 -
I'm off to see the urologist today so we can schedule the time for the next cystoscopy for the bladder cancer checkup. These get old.
I've worked every day this week, and last night I got the first good night's sleep in over a week. I must confess that right before I went to bed that I remembered I hadn't logged my food but I wasn't going to fire up the laptop to do it. As a result, my 110+ days of consecutive logging are gone.0 -
Jean - an appointment to make an appointment? That alone has to get old!!0
-
Jean, sorry you lost your streak. Your appointment to make an appointment reminds me that I have yo call to make a mammogram appointment. I got the letter a month ago but I waited to be sure medicare would cover it. My anniversary date is September and I think you need to be past a year to cover it. I also have to renew my driver's license in the next month.0
-
I am due for both mammogram and bone density tests. I guess I should schedule those now that I can drive.
The physical therapist asked me yesterday what % of normal I think my hand and wrist are. She told me she has a number but wanted to hear mine first. I said 60%. She had in her head 65%. I do think that I could live with it as it is if I had to. The doctors tell me it will continue to improve for up to a year. The therapist does my "evaluation" tomorrow and then I guess I find out whether she thinks I should continue. The one sub I saw last week certainly thinks I should continue as she verbalized that.0 -
It would be nice if you could continue therapy to get up into the 80% or better range. If you express the desire to continue as long as you're improving, I would think they would take that into consideration.
I spent the afternoon getting a mani/pedi. I was way overdue. I usually don't do both the same day because of the time involved. But I couldn't decide which looked worse. So I bit the bullet and did both. I seem to have a lot of appointment lately which kept me from getting them done.0 -
Maryanne, I definitely saw my ankle continue to improve over a year later. In fact, until recently I was frequently experiencing neuropathy-like pain in two toes on that foot stemming from the break that has finally gone away in the last couple of months. That pain limited the type of shoes that were comfortable, and kept me from doing much walking but now I’m back to wearing any shoe I want and walking no longer hurts. I’d be surprised if you don’t continue to see improvement even after you stop PT, although I’d keep going as long as your insurance will cover it and you feel it’s helpful.
Speaking of insurance, I am beyond frustrated with my primary care doctor’s office. Several weeks ago I received a letter from their business office advising what Medicare plans they accepted. Basically, it listed several Medicare advantage plans but did not address Medicare supplements. When my insurance agent and I were discussing the various types of plans he assured me that if a doctor accepted Medicare at all, they are required to take any supplement plan I chose. With that in mind, I chose the one that made the most sense for me and enrolled. Now my doctors office is telling me that they only deal with certain Medicare advantage plans but I should call their business office and talk to their Medicare specialist to get the details since they might be renegotiating their Medicare contracts. I’ve tried twice to do that and each time I’ve worked my way through their phone menu to end up on hold for the Medicare specialist. The recording tells me “Your estimated wait time is less than one minute”. Both times I sat on hold listening to that message for almost 90 minutes before the battery in my phone died and I gave up in disgust. At least I was able to put it on speaker and do other things while I waited, but it is still very frustrating. I think I will call my insurance agent and see if he can unravel this for me since I made my choice based on his statement that they were required to accept my insurance.0 -
That sound beyond frustrating. I hope the insurance agent is able to help. I assume you have regular Medicare and a supplementary plan. That's my situation and I've never had a doctor not accept it. If it' not too far away, a personal visit to the business office might be in order.0
-
Pam - is your doctor saying that they only take Medicare advantage and not regular Medicare? First of all, I have no clue if they have that option (and I admit it would surprise me if they do). If they do have that option and have exercised it, you might be screwed (excuse my French as they say). I'd call Medicare and ask.
However, if they do take regular Medicare, I believe your insurance agent is probably right. I think they probably have to take Medigap coverage and there seems to be no good reason why they wouldn't.
If they take Medicare, Medicare determines the amount that will be paid. The supplemental insurance just pays the rest. For example, assume that the doctor bills $1,600. Medicare determines that the allowable amount is $1,000 (I'm doing to use round numbers here). Medicare pays $800 and says you are on your own for the rest ($200).
Even if you have Medigap coverage that carrier has ZERO input into how much the doctor gets paid. So why would they care (other than maybe a few minutes to submit the claim which is more than balanced out by not having billing/collection issues with you)?
I have not had one single provider - in this entire wrist episode - where the Medigap coverage was handled as anything but routine. If I were you I might call the Medigap carrier directly. Of course I've not had one single provider who didn't take regular Medicare.0 -
0 -
0 -
According to my insurance agent, they do have the option of opting out of traditional Medicare and only accepting certain Advantage plans, however, he said that would be extremely unusual. He said it is much more common for them to do the opposite. He basically advised me to do all the things I have already done, i.e., talking to my doctor about it, talking to the front office staff about it, calling the business office, etc., so he wasn’t much help. I think my next move is to contact my doctor and see if she can get a message to their Medicare specialist requesting a callback for me. Maybe she can get through their phone tree or has a direct number that isn’t available to me.0
-
Pam - interesting, I learned something. I can believe that it's unusual (but the fact that it's a possibility is something your insurance agent should have told you).
My therapist measured everything today and says I am making sufficient progress that she isn't worried about Medicare approving me for at least another month of therapy. It just may be annoying getting my doctor's office to sign.0 -
Just explain to your doctor that you only have 65% function back and that therapist feels more PT will give you more function. Laid out in percentages like that, I can't imagine your doctor telling you to settle for 65% you have when you can attain more range of movement by continuing therapy.0
-
Pam, Hopefully talking to the doctor and being able to talk to the business office straighten out your claim problem. If not, you probably have the option of submitting a claim yourself to your Medigap insurance company. That would be a pain in the neck but you probably could do it. Or you can look for a more accommodating medical practice.0
