Posts tagged money troubles
The Cost of Normalcy pt.1
Mar 10th
The cost of my medications is high, despite the fact I have insurance. I’ll total it up for you later, but it’s a couple hundred dollars a month for the “essentials”. Occasionally a drug company will see me post something about the cost of a medication and will tell me to contact them for help. Then I’m told that because I currently have insurance there isn’t anything they can do. I’m starting to wonder if it would be better for me to NOT have insurance and sign up for assistance programs. (Unfortunately) It seems I’ll be finding out sooner, rather than later. My COBRA is about to run out.
If I cannot afford my medications I will be unable to work. No work means no money. No money means no medications and… well we’re back to the beginning of what becomes a vicious cycle.
And, as it turns out, I make too much money to receive food stamps in Illinois. They count only my car payment, rent and utilities as my necessary expenses. Great. Except it is necessary for me to have my medications. What am I supposed to do now? I did the math before, about how much of my income every year is considered …gone, for lack of a better word, by the government. It was over $5000. I even tried itemizing my taxes, but despite being more than the percentage needed to claim medical expenses it wasn’t more than the standard. It adds up to tens of thousands of dollars lost to medical expenses over the years and there’s nothing I can do about it. That’s money I would have if I were a “healthy” (again, for lack of a better word) person. Them’s the brakes, apparently. And I’m still in constant pain from my lung. I need a $10,000 procedure, and that only lasts 6 months. Even with insurance it would cost me over $1000, which I don’t have.
It’s just the cost of normalcy in my world.
Where is G.I. Joe when I need them?
Jan 30th
I know that G.I. Joe is a group but it seems like I should discuss it as a singular dude…. Anyway!
Not surprisingly I have been in a crazy amount of pain over the last week. My lung is killing me and there’s no end in sight, since I don’t know when I’m ever going to be able to get a nerve block again. At the suggestion of friend I’m going to try to find out if they perform the cryogenic nerve block at Mercy Medical Center in Cedar Rapids, IA. Though I would have to take more time to do it, I wouldn’t ever have to worry about a ride and they’d be okay with setting up a payment plan. Rush seems to think that (quality of) life is less important than cash. While I really like Dr. Amin if the hospital isn’t going to be okay with something less than $25/month (especially when I receive multiple bills for a visit) then I literally cannot afford to go there.
I had a dream the other night where I’d been in some sort of accident and was in an aftercare facility. I was sitting in a wheelchair with my right leg elevated and in a lot of pain. Of course, then I woke up and was in a ridiculous amount of pain. Like my lung it’s been horrible all week. Mostly my right side, the hip and my shoulder up through my neck. The right always is worse than the left, save for my lungs. I notice that when I have lung pain I often am not aware of the pain on that side unless it’s really bad. I probably should have asked Dr. Wilkin to write the Rx for extra for when the pain is worse. I didn’t expect that I’d still regularly be hitting 9 on the pain scale though. I’m guessing the times that I don’t think to take a pill when I wake in the middle of the night will make up for it eventually. I wish I’d remembered to pick it up on the 10th! Then I’d have extra.
Of course all this pain means that my sleep has been terrible. I’m getting an hour to an hour and a half at best in any given stretch. When it gets to be 15-30 minutes I tend to just get up, even if end up going back to sleep 10 minutes later. It somehow seems less frustrating then. Normally I don’t look at the clock when I get up, but since the wake ups have been so frequent I wanted to see. And it’s not like knowing the time has ever made it more difficult for me to go back to sleep anyway. As usual I’m asleep within a couple minutes… only to wake up a few minutes after that!
So the G.I. Joe comment was based on what my friend Ed said the other day. I had mentioned that my COBRA administrator sent me a note asking for this month’s payment. However, I am receiving the COBRA subsidy and because I paid in full for December they technically owe me money, which in the past was just rolled over for future payments. Though that was a different administrator. Anyway, so I had said something about it and Ed’s response was, “Call in G.I. Joe… they hate COBRA administrators and use heavy explosives.” If only it were that easy! Obviously I don’t have an extra $200 to plunk down until they figure out what’s going on with the money, plus I’m just going to send it right back to them anyway. Thankfully, my friends have again proved that they are the most awesome, loving, caring people in the world.
Finally got my appointment rescheduled with DHS. Totally confused about it though. It doesn’t say anything about an appeal. I think maybe they realized the mistake. I’ll be counting down the days! I did finally do some grocery shopping, since we stopped being fed at work every day. But it wasn’t a huge budget drain because I’ve been asked to work extra quite a bit recently. Of course working means I can’t cook, so it’s both a pro and a con. I got a magical Starbucks card in the mail the other day, so I’d been eating there and working my way through the easy fix things in the house (oatmeal, pasta, popcorn). Anyway the point is… regular grocery shopping, here I come! (hopefully)
I want to thank a few people for all the help and support they’ve given me recently:
- Adam
- Blair
- Dan
- Eilene
- Eli & Rachael
- Lana
- Meg
- Rich
Sleep Interrupted
Jan 18th
In good news, I’m dealing with significantly less pain than I was a couple weeks ago. In bad news, my sleep is just as bad as ever. Friday night I literally didn’t sleep at all. Typically I am wide awake sometime early morning, 3 am-5:30 am. I take a vicodin because I’m almost always hurting when I wake and my doctor thinks that even if I don’t realize I’m hurting my body is still feeling it (which is also what the doctors at Rush thought when I had my sleep study). Then I try to sleep or if the pain is too much do something until it kicks in and then try sleeping. My lung pain has seemed especially bad lately. Which might be part of why I’m waking up. I’m still dealing with payments from the LAST time, so I have no idea how I’m ever going to afford another nerve block. I also can’t imagine how tough life is going to be without it. Ugh.
I’m working on getting things settled with Bank of America. They want to see what my paycheck looks like once they start taking out federal taxes before we decide on repayment. I’ll probably lose the account, which is unfortunate, but better than bankruptcy.
So I got a collection letter today from Lake Forest Hospital, for a bill I’ve already paid. A check they’ve already cashed. So I’ll have to call tomorrow morning and tell them they need to call off the collection company.
Still owed:
- $99.00 – Illinois Secretary of State – Car registration
- $22.08 – Lake Forest Hospital – x-ray
- $10.66 – Lake Forest Hospital – labs
- $114.87 – Mercy Medical Center – ER visit – pneumonia and H1N1 (more bills from this are expected)
- $355.80 – Dr. Albers, DDS – repairs to old work, crown, etc. (a wonderful dentist!)
- $100.40 – Rush Surgicenter – my last nerve block
Of course that doesn’t even begin to deal with the issue of my credit cards. I’m STILL waiting on DHS. They were supposed to reschedule me and instead sent me an application, so that’s another call I have to make. And I also have to call All-State to schedule an estimate for the repair of my car from when that woman hit me in December.
Who knew that working part-time while “unemployed” was actually a BAD idea?
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