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Not That This Has Anything To Do With The State Of Affairs In The World, But….. (#1334)

I ran across this quote, and since it made me smile and groan at the same time——difficult to do while chugging coffee and attempting to swallow with a very sore throat—-I decided it was post-worthy:

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” - Margaret Thatcher

Posted by Katy on 01/22/09
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Make-Up Sex? (#1333)

Doug and I have been a little grouchy with each other recently. When we both got the flu at the same time over New Year’s, I think it got a bit overwhelming. We’d say things to each other like, “Do you have the strength to pour the coffee?” And then the other would say, pitifully, “No. I was hoping you could raise your arm that high….” Pathetic, eh?

Plus, he fell somewhat behind on his work (ah, the curse of the self-employed: No holidays, no sick days, no personal days, no matching 401K, and prohibitively expensive health insurance that delights in attempting to deny your claims…). Now he’s been in major catch-up mode, putting in 15-hour days, 7 days per week.

When his mother goes in the hospital, I cover for him. When mine goes in the hospital, well…you get the idea. So, we’re cranky.

Today, we had this conversation, our attempt at making up.

Katy: I’m really going to try to be nicer, Doug.

Doug: Me, too.

Katy: Maybe if I try and you try, we’ll somehow make our way back to Square One.

Doug, who leans in to kiss Katy: Maybe even Square Two.

Katy: Um…I think you’re thinking Base Two.

Doug: Oh. Yeah.

Posted by Katy on 01/20/09
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Throw Mama From The Brain? (#1331)

I got my mom admitted to the hospital yesterday. Believe me, this is not my idea of fun. In fact, if I could——that is, if I was constitutionally able—-I would pretend like I did not see a medical disaster unfolding before my eyes. I would ignore blood sugar readings that fluctuate from 70 to 420 and back again in a matter of hours.

But instead, I bite the bullet and call the doctor. It falls to me, because it’s the week-end, when there are no actual “real” nurses at the facility where Mom lives. The doctor immediately—-upon my descriptions of the symptoms and numbers the staff at the facility are ignoring with ease—-agrees that she must be in the hospital to regulate her insulin regimen.

And so, we go. Now, the very fact that we’re going makes Mom very angry. Not so much at the situation, but at me. And she lashes out in her frustration, and you know what? It’s OK. I am a big girl now. And in the same way parenthood is not a popularity contest, neither is being the adult (responsible) child of an ill parent.

I didn’t sign up for this, except for, well, those pesky Durable Medical Power of Attorney papers. :) But apparently, it signed up for me. And part of courage is doing the right thing, even when you know way in advance of taking the first step that you will be inconvenienced beyond your wildest dreams, berated for your best efforts in the best interests of someone else, and called terribly rude names.

Right now, I’m one of the most wildly unpopular daughters on the face of the earth. But my mother is getting the care she needs and deserves.

That is enough for today.

Posted by Katy on 01/19/09
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Never, Never, Never Give Up (#1330)

Call me perverse and paranoid, but I have this theory, and here it is: Once you get a single letter denying your claim for health services rendered, you can expect to begin to get a steady flow of such denials——IF you do not make prompt and consistent contact with the insurance company to argue your case.

It’s like the insurance company is looking for the slightest crack in your armor and when they find that area of possible vulnerability, they will do their mightiest to wedge a sword in and twist it hard. Then, when you’re weakened and bleeding and your last breaths are coming in fits and spurts——meaning you have an absolutely undeniable claim on their benefits!—-they put you on hold so that they can dash off another letter apprising you of your few and diminishing hopes for satisfaction.

Here’s my advice, and trust me, it’s good: When you get that first letter turning down your claim, get yourself on the phone with the insurance company and explain yourself. If you don’t LOVE the attitude, intelligence, and general demeanor of the rep you’re speaking to, fake a disconnection and call again. I guarantee you that, while the next person to take your call can see the name of the person you just spoke with and the extent of the conversation you’ve had so far, you will NOT be reconnected to the original rep.

Now, if you think you are clicking with the rep who takes your call, get her name and EXTENSION NUMBER immediately. That way, when you call back and someone less competent/caring picks up the line, you can either ask for Sarah (who will never be available, of course, and besides, Sam has everything in front of him and can take it from here, ha-ha) or insist on being put into her voice mail.

Here’s the reason: It’s actually possible that you may develop a fantastic enough rapport with a certain rep that she will end up advocating for you in ways you cannot anticipate or expect. You do NOT want to lose that relationship, once it’s begun!! Having someone on the inside can mean more to you than all the appeals processes in the world, and the appeals process is exactly where I was headed, starting today.

I have had seven or eight claims of various sizes denied by my health insurance company since October. As you might remember, I was an inpatient for five days over Thanksgiving (mmmm…..clear chicken broth for a holiday feast!) and for some reason I still don’t understand, my insurance decided that only ONE day was medically necessary. My primary doctor had to schedule a peer-to-peer appeal with a doctor who works for the insurance company, and finally my entire hospital stay was deemed necessary.

That started the stream of denials that has filled my mailbox and mind ever since. As of last night, I had the outstanding denials whittled down to $2530, but people. Even when I’m sick——even when I’m bedridden!—-I refuse to take this stuff lying down.

I left a message in Sarah’s voicemail after hours yesterday, assuring her that I thought I had found the glitch that had caused my claims to be mistakenly denied. She called me back first thing this morning, and let me know that I had made a serious error in how I attempted to use the company’s website to find doctors who are in my network. I was shocked to hear this, as I had followed the website’s cues to a tee, and still came to a conclusion that caused me to seek treatment from an out of network doctor.

I explained to her, from the point of view of the spouse of a professional website developer, that the site was not the least bit intuitive and easily leads patients to wrong conclusions about their coverage. She listened patiently, but basically said there was nothing for me to do but to begin a long written appeals process, which would probably gain me nothing.

I did not behave antagonistically toward her, since she was perfectly nice, helpful, and knowledgeable. And before we hung up, she said, “Now you’ve got my extension number, right? Call me back anywhere along the line in this process.”

I got off the phone, and Doug and I discussed how we would have to take this up with our doctors, as they clearly led us to believe that they were in the network of our healthcare providers. Just when I was about to initiate the first call in this process, the phone rang. It was my new best friend, Sarah.

She had singlehandedly taken my case before her superior and gotten them to agree to pay the charges of the out-of-network doctor in full, based on the persuasive argument I was able to lay out before her. Because I insisted on being reconnected to her, rather than passed along through an endless chain of reps, she somehow formed a connection with me and with my case that moved her to action on my behalf.

So as of this morning, $1338 of the disputed amount has been resolved in my favor! The remaining $1192 worth of denied benefits are also being disputed by me—-and maybe by Sarah, too, since she seems to have taken my part in this miserable situation.

My main point here is that when you find yourself in a seemingly untenable situation like denied insurance claims, don’t take the company’s first response as their final answer. I’ve got too much fightin’ Irish in me to give up that easily! And even though it IS a fight, don’t forget that you just might find a comrade on the other side, who will see your case through to a satisfactory conclusion if you stay connected to her.

And whatever you do, don’t lose her extension number. Those four little digits could save you the very big bucks.

Posted by Katy on 01/16/09
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Personal Banking DOES Pay Off!!! (#1329)

My former creative writing teacher, Terri, commented on my previous post about the benefits of face-to-face banking. I could not agree with her more!

For years, I’ve tried to tell my kids that getting to know your bankers (not to mention the service providers in any number of other businesses with which you deal) is key to getting the type of customer service you’d like to expect. Plus, it’s just more fun to chat for a moment with someone who remembers that your daughter got married, for instance, and wants to know if you brought any pictures, than it is to talk to an anonymous, faceless 1-800 in Indonesia.

Nothing against Indonesia, of course.

To add weight to my argument, and to Terri’s comment, let me just say that Doug and I have only this moment returned from a very gratifying run to the bank. (Which is different than a run ON the bank, you understand. That might be coming next week, if market conditions deteriorate at their current rate. But I digress.) After conducting an unrelated piece of business, we asked about the fees associated with our personal and business checking accounts.

Now, we’ve had these accounts for more than a decade, and I have been negligent enough to never revisit the fees. We’ve been paying (stupidly, I know) $15 per month for the privilege of having a personal checking account, and another $20 per month for our corporate account. Trust me, dealing with this (which I figured would involve changing banks…) has been on my financial to-do list for months, if not years.

But there’s that little thing called “unconscious living” that took over somewhere along the way, and our wallets became the unwitting victim. No more!!!!

Evidently, we’d signed on for a business account with more hubris than we possess these days, an account that was based on us having many, many deposits and writing tons of checks per month. The reality has not matched our enormous imaginations, and therefore we’ve actually qualified all along for a NO-FEE business account. The personal banker, whose personal name is Ken, immediately switched us to the type of business account that is set up to handle fewer monthly transactions and is FREE.

Then Ken took a look at our personal checking. It’s the type of account in which we’re required to keep a minimum balance in order to avoid the monthly fee, but you know what? Minimum balances have never been my strong suit. As Ken scrolled through our several other accounts with his institution, and listened to Doug and I quietly discussing how we would hate to have to move our account to another bank after so long a happy history with this bank, he finally looked up and said, “I’ve waived the minimum balance requirement. You won’t be paying any fees from now on.”

People! This means we’ll be saving, total, $420 during 2009 and going forward. If I think about what we’ve paid out in these service charges during years past, I’ll cry, but it’s time to face financial facts in EVERY area, and make smart moves for our lives NOW. I’m trying to learn not to allow regrets to keep me from changing course, when changing course is necessary and right.

I am grateful that we never pay overdraft notices, and we never pay ATM fees. In fact, the only place I’ve ever used an ATM is in the Old Country. I’m in WalMart all the time, and when I use my debit card, I can get any cash back that I need without paying for the perk.

So, I do have STANDARDS. It’s just that, until now, they’ve been really LOW. No more! We are sewing up the holes in our pockets once and for all.

Now, go make friends with a guy named Ken. Someone who will advocate for you when you want to save an extra $420 this year. You won’t regret it, I promise.

Posted by Katy on 01/15/09
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A Return To Thrift (#1328)

There will be some of you fallible readers who have no idea what I’m talking about when I use the term “passbook savings,” but maybe you’ll understand after I explain the concept.

In the old days, Americans regularly engaged in something called “thrift.” Part of thrift, besides concentrating on spending less than you earn, revolved around the possession of one, or more than one, little booklets.

These booklets, which fit easily into the palm of the owner’s hand, were called passbooks. They were intended to pass back and forth between the owner of the related savings account and the institution itself. Each time a deposit or withdrawal to the account was made, the banker updated the passbook with the current transaction, the pennies in interest the depositor had earned since the last transaction, and the resulting balance in the account.

Then the owner took the passbook back home, where he or she referred to it often, with the result of elation if the account balance was rising, and something akin to despair if the balance had necessarily fallen. The passbook owner viewed that little book like an autobiography, back in the day. It told the story of his level of personal responsibility, his love and concern for his family, and his optimistic hopes for a future free from dependency on the dubious kindness of the government.

Passbook savings accounts have fallen out of favor, I’m afraid. I myself had one that languished for years like an overtold joke in the bottom of my desk drawer. Could there possibly—-in this day of online accounts with no brick or mortar anywhere to be found—-be any financial instrument more antiquated and hopelessly out of date than the humble passbook?

Honestly, I’ve got some food ration tickets left over from my mother’s teenage years during World War II. I’ve got some old books of Green Stamps, too, which Mom was no doubt saving until she had enough to trade them in for a piece of Pyrex. They are ephemeral pieces of history I’d never part with, and I’d decided to hold onto my passbook to add to the pile of nostalgic relics my children might come to enjoy someday.

But then the unthinkable happened. I decided to diversify out of online savings, and into a couple of ancient accounts I still had open here in Kansas City. And so, as I sorted through the contents of my drawer of artifacts, I found my old passbook.

I’ve sent three deposits through the U.S. Postal Service so far. Each time, I write a physical check, fill out a physical deposit slip in my neatest penmanship (I’ve reverted to keeping meticulously neat records of all our financial transactions. A healthy respect for my money might make more of it want to hang around longer….), and place both pieces of paper inside the passbook. Then I mail them in the postage paid envelope the Savings and Loan provides.

If you think I’m weird, so be it, but the simple thrill of receiving the passbook back in the post several days later——freshly updated with my new higher balance and upwards of several cents of interest!—-makes me want to repeat the whole process again right that very second.

These are old-fashioned values, to be sure. Believe me, I’ve been around the thrift/spendthrift block often enough to know what’s what. But I never anticipated that a time would come again in which I’d receive so much instant gratification from deferred gratification.

All thanks to a little piece of Americana called the passbook savings account.

A piece of Americana whose time may be coming around again.

Posted by Katy on 01/14/09
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Monday Morning Funnies (#1327)

This is the kind of stuff that gets said around here, when it’s just Doug and me doing the saying:

Doug, after I’ve evidently just requested that he be my Tech Guy one too many times: “Um, well, I could show you how to do it….”

Katy: “But that defeats the whole purpose of me asking you to do it.”

And then there’s this:

Katy, after reading some medical website that cranked up the paranoia: “Do you think I’m schizophrenic?”

Doug: “Only half the time.”

Posted by Katy on 01/12/09
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Suze Orman’s New Book, Free! (#1326)

For the next few days, you can download Suze Orman’s new book for FREE on Oprah’s sitei.

Sometimes, Suze gets a little spooky for my taste, especially when she goes on about money being “attracted” to me, but I’ve gotta tell you: This book is worth downloading, reading, and applying to your specific situation NOW.

Suze admits that she wrote this book fast, and she finished it in November. (It’s also available in print at any bookstore.) But the whole idea is to give us not only a good overview of exactly how the economy got into the mess we find ourselves in, but to also give us up-to-the-minute action plans, detailing what we can do on our own behalf to escape as much personal fallout as possible.

I read through the 200 pages in the past 24 hours, jotting down notes of the precise steps Doug and I have been putting off, but will now attack. You know how a lot of advisors say to keep enough to cover 3-6 months living expenses in an emergency fund? Suze ups the ante to EIGHT months, based on the idea that if you were to lose your job with unemployment rising, it could easily take that long to find another one.

And guess what? Your home equity line of credit can no longer be considered an emergency fund! Who knew?

Furthermore, Suze says we can’t borrow against a 401K to send our kids to college! Say WHAT?????

Dear fallible readers, if you want some solid advice to help you use 2009 to get on a truly solid financial footing, one that you may just commit to stay on for the rest of your lives, get thee over to Oprah’s site and download Suze’s book.

I believe she truly has a heart for the welfare of the people in this country, and I intend to thank her by spreading the news and praying that many, many millions of citizens begin to follow sane principles of personal finance.

If the way out of this crisis is to spend ourselves into oblivion, as some in Washington and on Madison Avenue would have us believe, Suze hasn’t gotten the memo.

Now, go download yourselves a free book, and let me know what you think.

Posted by Katy on 01/09/09
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Stockbroker And Broker….. (#1325)

Doug was talking to a stockbroker friend of ours the other day. I know, I know. It sounds like an oxymoron, “stockbroker friend.” But, hey, it happens.

Anyway, Doug wondered what this man might consider a relatively safe bet, as far as sectors in which to invest a bit of money.

“Any company that might be tied to the government’s coming ‘put people back to work’ program,” he said. “That’s where the money’s going to move.”

You know, I’ve worked a few jobs that were nothing more than paper pushing, and I vowed I’d never do it again. I knew in my heart that my employer wasn’t coming out ahead on the deal. There was entirely too little real work to justify the expenses an employee created. Plus, the dissatisfaction of knowing that I produced little of value was more than I could handle.

You’ve heard of works programs in which groups of men were paid to dig holes while the groups coming along behind them were paid to fill in the holes, right? Is this the government’s best definition of “putting people back to work”?

Because, honestly, I can’t invest our hard-earned money in companies that will supposedly benefit from such a false economy, even if there are no other good investment opportunities out there at all. It would drive me nuts to know I’d aligned myself financially with any program I so disagree with philosophically.

When the government takes to creating jobs, Doug and I start looking for additional sideline businesses to add to our streams of income.

Our backs aren’t strong enough for ditch digging and the deductibles on health insurance for the self-employed run mighty high these days.

Posted by Katy on 01/07/09
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Not For The Faint Of Heart (#1324)

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting really used to dementia.

No, not my own, you cynical and fallible readers, you! I am usually—-and, quite frankly, against all odds—-in my right mind. I’m in touch with my feelings, I listen to what my body’s trying to tell me about my health and try to respond, I make sound decisions except when it comes to stock market timing, and I get along reasonably well with others.

It’s Old Lady Dementia I’ve grown accustomed to, and in particular the dementias of The Moms.

Now, my own mother is doing pretty darned well right now as far as tracking with reality goes. We’ve weaned her off a boatload of psychotropic drugs in the past couple of years, and it’s done her a world of good. Even her beloved Valium is gone now, a feat I did not imagine possible or even advisable, since since she’d taken it since 1964. But I digress.

It’s Doug’s mom who’s lost an awful lot of cognitive ground, and drugs aren’t to blame in her case. She’s never taken pain pills or anything that would alter her mental status, and I hope she can avoid them going forward.

Yesterday, she fainted in the process of trying to use the toilet, spent six hours in the ER, and then got admitted. When we left her last night, she made me promise that I would remind Doug to call her mother.

“My mother needs to know where I am,” she said, her lower lip stuck out in a pout.

“I’ll take care of it,” I said, and I truly meant that, even if Adele’s mother has been dead for 44 years.

Today, when I arrived for a visit, she pointed to the four ID bracelets on her right arm. “People keep coming in here, but they won’t do anything about these….”

“There’s nothing to do about them,” I said. “They’re fine. They’re not hurting you.”

Then she pointed to the tubing coming from her IV. “And I don’t know what this is….”

I helped her visually track it to the hanging bag of fluids. “See that bag? The liquid is dripping through the tube and into your arm. They don’t want you to be dehydrated.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well, they keep coming in here, but they won’t do anything about these….” She pointed to the four ID bracelets on her right arm.

“There’s nothing to do about them,” I said. “They’re fine. They’re not hurting you.”

“Oh,” she said. Then she pointed to the tubing coming from her IV. “I don’t know what this is…..”

“See that bag?” I said. “The liquid is…....”

Like I said, I’m getting really used to dementia.

Posted by Katy on 01/07/09
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New Math (#1322)

So I always spend the first few days of any new year reassessing our financial situation, and 2009 is no different.

Of course, I am the type of O/C chick who does at least a cursory net worth statement on the first of each month. And until recently, that always proved to be a rather enjoyable exercise.

I gotta tell you, though, I failed to calculate our net worth from September 1 until now, because honestly, I just couldn’t take the anguish. As you know, I haven’t been overly well these past few months (or is it a whole year now?) anyway, and to add crunching negative numbers to my list of stressors just didn’t seem wise.

Now, if you are one of those people who’s thinking, “But wait! When you add two negative numbers, don’t you end up with a positive?”, you might want to review that sixth grade math book again. You have to MULTIPLY two negatives to get a positive, and I’m starting to think even that calculation must be a lie!

Yesterday, after pouring over the ledgers, I ended up in a whine fest. (Can’t afford a wine fest, just so you know.) I told Doug that after all these years of attempting to apply Biblical principles to our finances, I was beginning to wonder whether we’d misunderstood the whole enchilada.

I mean, people! We are debt-free, except for our house! And we could pay it off in less than two years, if we wanted to! And yeah, it’s lost some value like everyone else’s house, but we’re sure not upside down on the deal. And another thing: we drive two old cars (a 1998 Taurus and a 2002 Saturn), and we’re saving to replace them with cash when we have no choice left but to purchase. Heck, we’ve got an emergency fund! Why, if something happened to our income today, we could support ourselves on our savings for upwards of 3.7 weeks!

And now, in case you are not duly impressed yet, I’ll boast some more, because I can: We are actually among the supposed 6% (a shockingly low number!) of self-professing Christians who tithe. Now, when I say “tithe,” I don’t mean “throw a few coins into the collection box.” In the Bible, a tithe represents 10% of all your income. TEN percent. We were raised as young Christians, furthermore, to tithe on our GROSS and not our net. The question pastors used to put to us in the old days was, “Do you want God to bless you on your gross or on your net?” Well, THAT’S a no-brainer, huh?

I’d love to add that we’ve never racked up any balances on a credit card. In addition, I would like to tell you that we did not, during years past, consider our shiny home equity to be our children’s college education fund. But I KNOW what the Bible says about lying, and while I’m questioning what it says about money, I’d rather not push my luck too far.

So yesterday, I whined to Doug (and to God, too…) that I wasn’t at all sure that the good Lord was keeping up His end of the bargain. We do not attend a church which preaches the “prosperity gospel,” but darned if I wasn’t positive that we were supposed to reap what we’ve sown. Haven’t we given faithfully to our church, our chosen charities, and the individuals God leads us to help? Haven’t we provided for our own household to the best of our abilities? Haven’t we, almost always except for that time we bought our first house in 1979 and our monthly payment was more than HALF our income, lived well within our means?

Haven’t we deferred gratification out the wazoo, so that in our old age we wouldn’t be a burden to our children or to the state?

Unless I end up to be happily mistaken, I’m pretty certain my generation is now facing a financial scenario we never anticipated in our wildest nightmares. Even the fiscally conservative among us have no choice but to admit that we may not be able to make up the losses we’ve endured in time to provide for ourselves in old age.

God’s principles have not failed, although it’s highly possible I have never understood them as He intended me to. Remember that line from The Princess Bride? “I don’t think that Word means what you think it means.”

The truth, of course, is that Doug and I have lived a bit too high on the hog during the boom years. Somewhere, in our pea-sized brains, we latched onto the belief that the good times would keep rolling forever and that if we threw a few bucks at the stock market every now and then, we’d end up on Easy Street.

But that’s the problem, isn’t it? While we’re dreaming of ending up on Easy Street someday, (if we play our Scriptural cards right,that is), the real truth is that we’ve been living on Affluence Avenue for a very long time.

I can’t help but be reminded of another Biblical principle, one that would serve all of us really well right about now——humility.

The Bible says that even when we’re unfaithful (and that includes those times when we believe we’re being faithful, but we’re wrong…), He remains faithful.

No matter how many Scripture verses I may have misunderstood along the way, I think I’m finally starting to understand this one, after all.

Posted by Katy on 01/03/09
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International House Of…..Watch Out! (#1321)

This morning, we’re leaving to meet Doug’s sisters and brother-in-law for breakfast out before taking presents and dessert to share with his mother.

I just called my mom to wish her Merry Christmas (we had the big McKenna bash last Sunday, and our own kids here yesterday….). I told her how few restaurants were open today and how Doug’s sisters had settled on International House of Pancakes.

You should know that here in Kansas City, we also have the International House of Prayer. Both institutions call themselves IHOP, and I’ve managed somehow never to confuse the two.

My mother, on the other hand? She’s only recently heard of the International House of Prayer, and became quite concerned when I told her of our breakfast plans.

“Be careful, Katy. When you are doing the interstate thing, you could end up at the prayer joint instead of the pancake joint.”

I laughed. “We’re going to the place over on Metcalf. I’m pretty sure they specialize in breakfast…..”

“Just the same,” she said, “you might want to call first. Ask if they’re serving pancakes or prayer. You wouldn’t want to go hungry.”

I love this woman, my mother. So much so that I’m going to be praying for her over pancakes.

Merry Christmas to you, too, Mom.

Posted by Katy on 12/25/08
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Have Yourself A Merry Little Colonoscopy! (#1320)

Well, the deed is done. The colonoscopy, that is. And my health is, for all intents and purposes, perfect. I am a specimen to be envied among all womankind. Except for that, of course, I’ve been really, really sick.

So now, the docs are thinking maybe the anti-seizure meds they’ve had me on (first Tegretol and now Trileptal) for the stabbing pain in the eye (called Trigeminal Neuralgia) have caused the side effect of serious stomach pain. Since Monday, I’ve been weaning off the meds. This morning, I took my last dose.

So far, the stabbing pain in my eye (which was largely controlled by the anti-seizure meds, with Vicodin as a supplement) has returned only as The Grittiest Sandpaper On Earth pain, which only bothers me when I blink. Totally tolerable, you know what I mean? If I stay at the Sandpaper Stage, I will be able to handle it.

My stomach is a bit better today. For the FIRST time since mid-November. So I am hopeful. And grateful. And looking forward to better days ahead!!

Speaking of those days, I am going to fully enjoy the time I spend with family and friends in the next couple of weeks. Even bloggers take vacations now and then, and so I am declaring mine. Since my birthday falls between Christmas and New Year’s, I might as well extend my hiatus until after January 1.

I hope each and every one of you fallible folks has a truly wonderful and blessed Christmas!!!! You deserve it, I tell ya, if only because of how much you’ve had to put up with me whining recently!

I hereby resolve to be of much better cheer in the New Year, and promise to share my largesse of good will with each and every one of you, my dear reading friends.

Have yourselves a merry little Christmas! Next year, all our troubles will be far away….....

Posted by Katy on 12/19/08
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Spell Check (#1318)

At the beginning of 2008, I had exactly two goals for my health, not counting—-of course—-the two constants: lose weight and exercise. Those recurring resolutions SHOULD keep me in excellent shape just because of the muscles used and calories burned laughing my head off each time I think of them, but I digress.

I resolved to attempt to get to the bottom of my debilitating headaches once and for all, even if it meant trying unconventional methods and pursuing treatments beyond my comfort zone—-as if I could really have a comfort zone with a stabbing pain in my eye. True to my word, I made an appointment with my eye doctor, whom I would describe by that word that starts with “op” and ends with “ogist” if I could ever remember the letters in between. (Actually, this was after trying natural hormone replacement therapy last fall, hoping an appalling lack of something or egregious excess of something else might be at the root of my difficulties….but, no.)

My op…..ogist, who always manages to detect swollen optic nerves during her examination, referred me to her colleague, one of only two neuro-op…ogists in all of Kansas City. (Evidently, it’s that narrow of a specialty, although I already have an oto-neurologist in my collection of neurologists, so personally, I don’t see what the big deal is.)

The two eye doctors concurred that I should be looked at for trigeminal neuralgia, a fancy way of saying you’ve got a problem with the trigeminal nerve in your cranium, resulting in an astonishing pain the face. My primary doc and at least one other regular neurologist were pulled in, since they’d decided I would need to go on an anti-seizure med that can really mess with your head and well….Head Doctors Backwards R Me.

About the time they started me on Tegretol, my mother went in the hospital with one of her Several Annual Near Death Experiences. Now, granted, sometimes she is Only Mostly Dead, but let’s just say that in February the doctors in the ER could not get me to produce her DNR papers fast enough. Miraculously, she pulled out! And except for the C.diff she’s been battling ever since (if you don’t know what this is, rejoice. And again I say, rejoice!), she’s no closer to dead now than she’s been at any time in the past seven years. Who knew?

Anyway, she was in the hospital and then the nursing home for rehab, and I think that took care of all of February and March. Maybe April, too. I stopped taking notes somewhere along the way. All I know is that I was on this experimental treatment for my head, running back and forth for blood work every ten days, taking care of Mom as best I could, getting relief from the eye stab only when I added the requisite supplemental number of Vicodin, and finding myself thinking about Peggy Lee (sing it with me now, “Is That All There Is?”) more than I normally do.

By summertime, Mom was recovered as much as recovery amounts to these days, but I wasn’t. I went through an extensive edit on my novel, and that’s about the extent of real work I’ve gotten done this year. The side effects from the Tegretol, in my body at least, were freakish and not ameliorated nearly enough by the Vicodin to make them tolerable, or even interesting. For one thing, I jerked. A lot. All parts of my body, sometimes all at once, for at least two hours after taking the meds—-both morning and night. I hated to medicate before church, as one example, because well, our church is kind of on the sedate side, and what would they think if I went all Pentecostal-quirky on them?

Medicating at bedtime was out of the question, too. Doug jerks all night, as you might remember me telling you on more than one occasion. Even with our glorious Sleep Number bed, two jerking parties just doesn’t add up to much of a party at all. I’m just sayin’.

The headache seemed enough better to persist with the treatment in spite of the numerous side effects, though, until one day in the middle of a September afternoon I got stoned out of my mind. Falling down drunk, literally, with what the literature unabashedly calls “Tegretol poisoning.” It’s bad when you’ve put on just a little weight since your hub carried you over the threshold, but he has to scoop you off the floor THREE TIMES (with a very bad back, poor guy) in order to carry you over the threshold of the garage, into the car, and then into the ER.

My Tegretol levels were way too high, so they kept me there until I returned to my senses. (I can hear the snickers from here, people. Stop that!) They talked about switching me to a different medicine, one with fewer side effects, but I would have to be weaned off Tegretol rather slowly in order to begin a trial with the next med. Groovy, huh?

Toward the end of September, I went to the writers conference I attend every year, and was sick the entire time. My back went completely out, but I do have lovely memories of holding up the palatial pillars in the gorgeous hotel where we stayed and trying to look architectural. “Are you OK?” friends and strangers would ask. “Oh, yes,” I’d say, with a hard smile plastered on like a cast on a broken psyche. “As soon as Gene Kelly shows up with the umbrellas, we’re going to dance a number or two….”

Bizarre symptoms accumulated throughout the conference until, by the time I got back home, I landed in the ER again. More complications from the Tegretol. This time, they took me off it cold turkey——not recommended but necessary in my situation. The risk is having a seizure, but hey, that was starting to sound minor to me.

I got switched to Trileptal at that point, and have had much better success with it! So, there you have it. My headaches are definitely not as severe as they were at this point twenty-five years ago!!!! Thank God for huge mercies.

I decided in October that I would tackle the other problem on my medical to-do list—-getting into physical therapy for the herniated discs in my neck. It had gotten to the point where I could only sleep flat on my back, with a dog-bone shaped pillow under my neck. No rolling from side to side like a normal person, and how was I supposed to slug Doug for jerking in his sleep when I couldn’t get to him? You know what I mean? Our marriage was suffering!

The therapist, Eric, was wonderful. I say “was” because my PT days of bliss appear to be over. It’s hard to drive myself 30 minutes each way to have 20 pounds of traction pull on my neck when I’m in the hospital having diarrhea episodes so closely spaced I can’t make it back to bed before having to show up on the toilet again. You’ve been there, too, right? It CAN’T be just me!

Before my inpatient stay in the hospital——during which they did x-rays, an endoscopy, CT of my abdomen, a test requiring a large drink of Crystal Light mixed with God-knows-what, a gall bladder ultrasound, and a gall bladder nuclear (or, if you’re a Republican, newcewlar) scan—-I also presented in the ER one MORE time. For the same symptoms as this last time, horrible stomach pain.

By my count, which becomes fuzzier with each pain pill ingested, I’ve been in the hospital four times this fall. It’s possible that it’s five. But if I’ve stopped counting, I can hardly expect you to! Ha.

Friday, lucky me, is Colonoscopy Day. They would have done it in the hospital, which would have sure been more convenient and let’s be real, I WAS all cleaned out, but the doctor said I was WAY too sick to go through the procedure.

Which is really funny because ONE day after I got home from the hospital, my insurance company called to say that while they had authorized me staying one night in the hospital, they had not been notified that I had stayed any longer. And that my claims had been summarily denied. So there!

Now you know a lot more about why I haven’t appeared here on fallible much for some months running. I just haven’t been well. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all the kind comments you’ve sent my way. Honestly, they’ve made me cry with happiness and kept me from losing my will to be scoped. And in my case, I need to hang onto that will!

One of these days, I’ll come on here with the “hthalmol” I seem to have misplaced somewhere in the course of all my medical mishaps. And then you’ll know that those letters, preceded by an “op” and followed by an “ogist,” mean I’ve finally got my act back together.

Until then, please pray for Katy McKenna!

Posted by Katy on 12/09/08
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You Are Not Alone (#1317)

Last night, I stayed home alone while Doug went out with our friends for a great evening on the town. I was invited, of course, but well, things haven’t been going too swimmingly for me on the health front. I really wanted Doug to go, because he hasn’t exactly been having a barrel of fun these days, either, and I thought he could use the break.

But I had to abstain. I didn’t want to make a scene, or cause a spectacular draw of attention to myself, or interrupt the festivities with any of a handful of symptoms which might at any moment turn me into a serious social liability. So I stayed home in my jammies and watched one of my favorite movies of all time, Serendipity.

It surprised me, as the night wore on, to find that I missed Doug terribly. And I missed my friends, too. Most of all, I experienced not just that passing type of loneliness that comes over each of us from time to time, but also something deeper and more insidious. I felt isolated.

For me, feeling isolated comes over me when I’m going through something I think no one else understands, or wants to understand. I mean, do my friends really want a blow-by-blow run down of diagnostic exams from hell and my sensitive constitution’s over-the-top response to tests other patients might consider ho-hum? I’m thinking: Not.

It also occurs to me that Too Much Information often has the unfortunate result of producing Too Few Friends, a condition I do not want to add to my current list of complaints.

So I boo-hooed my way through Serendipity, especially when I remembered that at the beginning of 2008, I chose that very word as My Word Of The Year. If you can tell me what exactly is serendipitous about taking care of The Moms, having a daughter with a newly-diagnosed and complicated thyroid problem, slicing my net worth as cleanly in half as if I’d used my chain saw on it, struggling with anti-seizure medication side effects for the stabbing pain in my eye that put me in the hospital not once, but twice, and now being an in-patient for five days with unresolved stomach problems, I’d like to hear about it.

This morning, I cried when I told Doug about how isolated I’d been feeling. About how even blogging scares me, because it makes me think you, my wonderful reading friends, might fall away if I pull out the stops and honestly let you in on the down side of my fallible life.

And then we went to church. And our dear pastor Tom Nelson spoke about loneliness. And isolation, the word I might as well have chosen as My Word Of The Year, for all the good Serendipity did me.

A lovely friend of mine, Lynett, came up to me after church and asked about my health. I thought to myself that, if she knew a bit more, she’d know better than to ask. So I dismissed her question with a shrug and an “I’m OK,” and then repented at leisure for having lied right there in God’s house.

We went on to Sunday school, during which we typically discuss the sermon in more depth. Before the discussion, during prayer request time, someone asked if I wanted to share about my health situation and I very politely declined. I think I said something like, “Trust me, it’s more than you want to know….” No one pushed me for information, but my feeling of isolation grew a little more pronounced after I squandered an opportunity to ask for support.

Then we got into the day’s topic. A question was presented about the types of isolation we go through, and people mentioned the typical suspects: Being in a crowded room and not knowing anyone. Being among loving family members, but somehow feeling disconnected from the camaraderie. Going through a loved one’s death and not knowing how to share your suffering with those who care about you.

And then Lynett said, “Sometimes, we experience isolation because we imagine that others won’t understand our particular circumstances. But really, they would, if we’d only give them the chance….”

So I gave them the chance.

“OK!” I said. “I had diarrhea 37 times in one day! Are you satisfied NOW?”

And you know what? They——these, my friends——were more satisfied than I’ve seen them in a long time. They laughed their fool heads off, and so did I. When I gave up trying to protect my dignity (like that’s even possible anymore….) and realized that a dose of TMI can work wonders in breaking the back of isolation, a beautiful thing happened.

All of a sudden, I had a roomful of people who—-even if they didn’t know exactly what I was experiencing and truly didn’t want to know—-were happy to be my appreciative audience as I processed my own miserable experiences in their astonished hearing.

All of a sudden I knew that if I wasn’t abandoned when I admitted to having 37 episodes of diarrhea, you aren’t alone, either.

I hope, somehow, that’s a comfort to you. Although if, in the middle of being So Not Alone, you happen to need a modicum of privacy, I certainly understand. ;)

Posted by Katy on 12/07/08
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Personal blog of christian writer & fallible mom Katy McKenna Raymond in Kansas City, Missouri Katy is represented by Greg Johnson at WordServe Literary Read more Katy at LateBoomer.net Follow Katy on Twitter Follow Katy on Facebook 123 Recent Posts Try Becoming Brenda Starr Off Beat Scattered That’s It So I’ve Finally Signed With An Agent. Now What? The Spoon Sciatica Sweetheart A Woman’s Train of Thought Has No Caboose However much we own, we are all still living on borrowed time After all, when restaurants shrink portions, they don’t shrink prices. As with everything in life, balance is key. Slow down, you move too fast… Yeah, I know. I have issues. Search Advanced Search Syndicate Login E me at katy @ ngenius.com	Not That This Has Anything To Do With The State Of Affairs In The World, But….. (#1334) I ran across this quote, and since it made me smile and groan at the same time——difficult to do while chugging coffee and attempting to swallow with a very sore throat—-I decided it was post-worthy: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” - Margaret Thatcher Posted by Katy on 01/22/09 Permalink Make-Up Sex? (#1333) Doug and I have been a little grouchy with each other recently. When we both got the flu at the same time over New Year’s, I think it got a bit overwhelming. We’d say things to each other like, “Do you have the strength to pour the coffee?” And then the other would say, pitifully, “No. I was hoping you could raise your arm that high….” Pathetic, eh? Plus, he fell somewhat behind on his work (ah, the curse of the self-employed: No holidays, no sick days, no personal days, no matching 401K, and prohibitively expensive health insurance that delights in attempting to deny your claims…). Now he’s been in major catch-up mode, putting in 15-hour days, 7 days per week. When his mother goes in the hospital, I cover for him. When mine goes in the hospital, well…you get the idea. So, we’re cranky. Today, we had this conversation, our attempt at making up. Katy: I’m really going to try to be nicer, Doug. Doug: Me, too. Katy: Maybe if I try and you try, we’ll somehow make our way back to Square One. Doug, who leans in to kiss Katy: Maybe even Square Two. Katy: Um…I think you’re thinking Base Two. Doug: Oh. Yeah. Posted by Katy on 01/20/09 Permalink Throw Mama From The Brain? (#1331) I got my mom admitted to the hospital yesterday. Believe me, this is not my idea of fun. In fact, if I could——that is, if I was constitutionally able—-I would pretend like I did not see a medical disaster unfolding before my eyes. I would ignore blood sugar readings that fluctuate from 70 to 420 and back again in a matter of hours. But instead, I bite the bullet and call the doctor. It falls to me, because it’s the week-end, when there are no actual “real” nurses at the facility where Mom lives. The doctor immediately—-upon my descriptions of the symptoms and numbers the staff at the facility are ignoring with ease—-agrees that she must be in the hospital to regulate her insulin regimen. And so, we go. Now, the very fact that we’re going makes Mom very angry. Not so much at the situation, but at me. And she lashes out in her frustration, and you know what? It’s OK. I am a big girl now. And in the same way parenthood is not a popularity contest, neither is being the adult (responsible) child of an ill parent. I didn’t sign up for this, except for, well, those pesky Durable Medical Power of Attorney papers. :) But apparently, it signed up for me. And part of courage is doing the right thing, even when you know way in advance of taking the first step that you will be inconvenienced beyond your wildest dreams, berated for your best efforts in the best interests of someone else, and called terribly rude names. Right now, I’m one of the most wildly unpopular daughters on the face of the earth. But my mother is getting the care she needs and deserves. That is enough for today. Posted by Katy on 01/19/09 Permalink Never, Never, Never Give Up (#1330) Call me perverse and paranoid, but I have this theory, and here it is: Once you get a single letter denying your claim for health services rendered, you can expect to begin to get a steady flow of such denials——IF you do not make prompt and consistent contact with the insurance company to argue your case. It’s like the insurance company is looking for the slightest crack in your armor and when they find that area of possible vulnerability, they will do their mightiest to wedge a sword in and twist it hard. Then, when you’re weakened and bleeding and your last breaths are coming in fits and spurts——meaning you have an absolutely undeniable claim on their benefits!—-they put you on hold so that they can dash off another letter apprising you of your few and diminishing hopes for satisfaction. Here’s my advice, and trust me, it’s good: When you get that first letter turning down your claim, get yourself on the phone with the insurance company and explain yourself. If you don’t LOVE the attitude, intelligence, and general demeanor of the rep you’re speaking to, fake a disconnection and call again. I guarantee you that, while the next person to take your call can see the name of the person you just spoke with and the extent of the conversation you’ve had so far, you will NOT be reconnected to the original rep. Now, if you think you are clicking with the rep who takes your call, get her name and EXTENSION NUMBER immediately. That way, when you call back and someone less competent/caring picks up the line, you can either ask for Sarah (who will never be available, of course, and besides, Sam has everything in front of him and can take it from here, ha-ha) or insist on being put into her voice mail. Here’s the reason: It’s actually possible that you may develop a fantastic enough rapport with a certain rep that she will end up advocating for you in ways you cannot anticipate or expect. You do NOT want to lose that relationship, once it’s begun!! Having someone on the inside can mean more to you than all the appeals processes in the world, and the appeals process is exactly where I was headed, starting today. I have had seven or eight claims of various sizes denied by my health insurance company since October. As you might remember, I was an inpatient for five days over Thanksgiving (mmmm…..clear chicken broth for a holiday feast!) and for some reason I still don’t understand, my insurance decided that only ONE day was medically necessary. My primary doctor had to schedule a peer-to-peer appeal with a doctor who works for the insurance company, and finally my entire hospital stay was deemed necessary. That started the stream of denials that has filled my mailbox and mind ever since. As of last night, I had the outstanding denials whittled down to $2530, but people. Even when I’m sick——even when I’m bedridden!—-I refuse to take this stuff lying down. I left a message in Sarah’s voicemail after hours yesterday, assuring her that I thought I had found the glitch that had caused my claims to be mistakenly denied. She called me back first thing this morning, and let me know that I had made a serious error in how I attempted to use the company’s website to find doctors who are in my network. I was shocked to hear this, as I had followed the website’s cues to a tee, and still came to a conclusion that caused me to seek treatment from an out of network doctor. I explained to her, from the point of view of the spouse of a professional website developer, that the site was not the least bit intuitive and easily leads patients to wrong conclusions about their coverage. She listened patiently, but basically said there was nothing for me to do but to begin a long written appeals process, which would probably gain me nothing. I did not behave antagonistically toward her, since she was perfectly nice, helpful, and knowledgeable. And before we hung up, she said, “Now you’ve got my extension number, right? Call me back anywhere along the line in this process.” I got off the phone, and Doug and I discussed how we would have to take this up with our doctors, as they clearly led us to believe that they were in the network of our healthcare providers. Just when I was about to initiate the first call in this process, the phone rang. It was my new best friend, Sarah. She had singlehandedly taken my case before her superior and gotten them to agree to pay the charges of the out-of-network doctor in full, based on the persuasive argument I was able to lay out before her. Because I insisted on being reconnected to her, rather than passed along through an endless chain of reps, she somehow formed a connection with me and with my case that moved her to action on my behalf. So as of this morning, $1338 of the disputed amount has been resolved in my favor! The remaining $1192 worth of denied benefits are also being disputed by me—-and maybe by Sarah, too, since she seems to have taken my part in this miserable situation. My main point here is that when you find yourself in a seemingly untenable situation like denied insurance claims, don’t take the company’s first response as their final answer. I’ve got too much fightin’ Irish in me to give up that easily! And even though it IS a fight, don’t forget that you just might find a comrade on the other side, who will see your case through to a satisfactory conclusion if you stay connected to her. And whatever you do, don’t lose her extension number. Those four little digits could save you the very big bucks. Posted by Katy on 01/16/09 Permalink Personal Banking DOES Pay Off!!! (#1329) My former creative writing teacher, Terri, commented on my previous post about the benefits of face-to-face banking. I could not agree with her more! For years, I’ve tried to tell my kids that getting to know your bankers (not to mention the service providers in any number of other businesses with which you deal) is key to getting the type of customer service you’d like to expect. Plus, it’s just more fun to chat for a moment with someone who remembers that your daughter got married, for instance, and wants to know if you brought any pictures, than it is to talk to an anonymous, faceless 1-800 in Indonesia. Nothing against Indonesia, of course. To add weight to my argument, and to Terri’s comment, let me just say that Doug and I have only this moment returned from a very gratifying run to the bank. (Which is different than a run ON the bank, you understand. That might be coming next week, if market conditions deteriorate at their current rate. But I digress.) After conducting an unrelated piece of business, we asked about the fees associated with our personal and business checking accounts. Now, we’ve had these accounts for more than a decade, and I have been negligent enough to never revisit the fees. We’ve been paying (stupidly, I know) $15 per month for the privilege of having a personal checking account, and another $20 per month for our corporate account. Trust me, dealing with this (which I figured would involve changing banks…) has been on my financial to-do list for months, if not years. But there’s that little thing called “unconscious living” that took over somewhere along the way, and our wallets became the unwitting victim. No more!!!! Evidently, we’d signed on for a business account with more hubris than we possess these days, an account that was based on us having many, many deposits and writing tons of checks per month. The reality has not matched our enormous imaginations, and therefore we’ve actually qualified all along for a NO-FEE business account. The personal banker, whose personal name is Ken, immediately switched us to the type of business account that is set up to handle fewer monthly transactions and is FREE. Then Ken took a look at our personal checking. It’s the type of account in which we’re required to keep a minimum balance in order to avoid the monthly fee, but you know what? Minimum balances have never been my strong suit. As Ken scrolled through our several other accounts with his institution, and listened to Doug and I quietly discussing how we would hate to have to move our account to another bank after so long a happy history with this bank, he finally looked up and said, “I’ve waived the minimum balance requirement. You won’t be paying any fees from now on.” People! This means we’ll be saving, total, $420 during 2009 and going forward. If I think about what we’ve paid out in these service charges during years past, I’ll cry, but it’s time to face financial facts in EVERY area, and make smart moves for our lives NOW. I’m trying to learn not to allow regrets to keep me from changing course, when changing course is necessary and right. I am grateful that we never pay overdraft notices, and we never pay ATM fees. In fact, the only place I’ve ever used an ATM is in the Old Country. I’m in WalMart all the time, and when I use my debit card, I can get any cash back that I need without paying for the perk. So, I do have STANDARDS. It’s just that, until now, they’ve been really LOW. No more! We are sewing up the holes in our pockets once and for all. Now, go make friends with a guy named Ken. Someone who will advocate for you when you want to save an extra $420 this year. You won’t regret it, I promise. Posted by Katy on 01/15/09 Permalink A Return To Thrift (#1328) There will be some of you fallible readers who have no idea what I’m talking about when I use the term “passbook savings,” but maybe you’ll understand after I explain the concept. In the old days, Americans regularly engaged in something called “thrift.” Part of thrift, besides concentrating on spending less than you earn, revolved around the possession of one, or more than one, little booklets. These booklets, which fit easily into the palm of the owner’s hand, were called passbooks. They were intended to pass back and forth between the owner of the related savings account and the institution itself. Each time a deposit or withdrawal to the account was made, the banker updated the passbook with the current transaction, the pennies in interest the depositor had earned since the last transaction, and the resulting balance in the account. Then the owner took the passbook back home, where he or she referred to it often, with the result of elation if the account balance was rising, and something akin to despair if the balance had necessarily fallen. The passbook owner viewed that little book like an autobiography, back in the day. It told the story of his level of personal responsibility, his love and concern for his family, and his optimistic hopes for a future free from dependency on the dubious kindness of the government. Passbook savings accounts have fallen out of favor, I’m afraid. I myself had one that languished for years like an overtold joke in the bottom of my desk drawer. Could there possibly—-in this day of online accounts with no brick or mortar anywhere to be found—-be any financial instrument more antiquated and hopelessly out of date than the humble passbook? Honestly, I’ve got some food ration tickets left over from my mother’s teenage years during World War II. I’ve got some old books of Green Stamps, too, which Mom was no doubt saving until she had enough to trade them in for a piece of Pyrex. They are ephemeral pieces of history I’d never part with, and I’d decided to hold onto my passbook to add to the pile of nostalgic relics my children might come to enjoy someday. But then the unthinkable happened. I decided to diversify out of online savings, and into a couple of ancient accounts I still had open here in Kansas City. And so, as I sorted through the contents of my drawer of artifacts, I found my old passbook. I’ve sent three deposits through the U.S. Postal Service so far. Each time, I write a physical check, fill out a physical deposit slip in my neatest penmanship (I’ve reverted to keeping meticulously neat records of all our financial transactions. A healthy respect for my money might make more of it want to hang around longer….), and place both pieces of paper inside the passbook. Then I mail them in the postage paid envelope the Savings and Loan provides. If you think I’m weird, so be it, but the simple thrill of receiving the passbook back in the post several days later——freshly updated with my new higher balance and upwards of several cents of interest!—-makes me want to repeat the whole process again right that very second. These are old-fashioned values, to be sure. Believe me, I’ve been around the thrift/spendthrift block often enough to know what’s what. But I never anticipated that a time would come again in which I’d receive so much instant gratification from deferred gratification. All thanks to a little piece of Americana called the passbook savings account. A piece of Americana whose time may be coming around again. Posted by Katy on 01/14/09 Permalink Monday Morning Funnies (#1327) This is the kind of stuff that gets said around here, when it’s just Doug and me doing the saying: Doug, after I’ve evidently just requested that he be my Tech Guy one too many times: “Um, well, I could show you how to do it….” Katy: “But that defeats the whole purpose of me asking you to do it.” And then there’s this: Katy, after reading some medical website that cranked up the paranoia: “Do you think I’m schizophrenic?” Doug: “Only half the time.” Posted by Katy on 01/12/09 Permalink Suze Orman’s New Book, Free! (#1326) For the next few days, you can download Suze Orman’s new book for FREE on Oprah’s sitei. Sometimes, Suze gets a little spooky for my taste, especially when she goes on about money being “attracted” to me, but I’ve gotta tell you: This book is worth downloading, reading, and applying to your specific situation NOW. Suze admits that she wrote this book fast, and she finished it in November. (It’s also available in print at any bookstore.) But the whole idea is to give us not only a good overview of exactly how the economy got into the mess we find ourselves in, but to also give us up-to-the-minute action plans, detailing what we can do on our own behalf to escape as much personal fallout as possible. I read through the 200 pages in the past 24 hours, jotting down notes of the precise steps Doug and I have been putting off, but will now attack. You know how a lot of advisors say to keep enough to cover 3-6 months living expenses in an emergency fund? Suze ups the ante to EIGHT months, based on the idea that if you were to lose your job with unemployment rising, it could easily take that long to find another one. And guess what? Your home equity line of credit can no longer be considered an emergency fund! Who knew? Furthermore, Suze says we can’t borrow against a 401K to send our kids to college! Say WHAT????? Dear fallible readers, if you want some solid advice to help you use 2009 to get on a truly solid financial footing, one that you may just commit to stay on for the rest of your lives, get thee over to Oprah’s site and download Suze’s book. I believe she truly has a heart for the welfare of the people in this country, and I intend to thank her by spreading the news and praying that many, many millions of citizens begin to follow sane principles of personal finance. If the way out of this crisis is to spend ourselves into oblivion, as some in Washington and on Madison Avenue would have us believe, Suze hasn’t gotten the memo. Now, go download yourselves a free book, and let me know what you think. Posted by Katy on 01/09/09 Permalink Stockbroker And Broker….. (#1325) Doug was talking to a stockbroker friend of ours the other day. I know, I know. It sounds like an oxymoron, “stockbroker friend.” But, hey, it happens. Anyway, Doug wondered what this man might consider a relatively safe bet, as far as sectors in which to invest a bit of money. “Any company that might be tied to the government’s coming ‘put people back to work’ program,” he said. “That’s where the money’s going to move.” You know, I’ve worked a few jobs that were nothing more than paper pushing, and I vowed I’d never do it again. I knew in my heart that my employer wasn’t coming out ahead on the deal. There was entirely too little real work to justify the expenses an employee created. Plus, the dissatisfaction of knowing that I produced little of value was more than I could handle. You’ve heard of works programs in which groups of men were paid to dig holes while the groups coming along behind them were paid to fill in the holes, right? Is this the government’s best definition of “putting people back to work”? Because, honestly, I can’t invest our hard-earned money in companies that will supposedly benefit from such a false economy, even if there are no other good investment opportunities out there at all. It would drive me nuts to know I’d aligned myself financially with any program I so disagree with philosophically. When the government takes to creating jobs, Doug and I start looking for additional sideline businesses to add to our streams of income. Our backs aren’t strong enough for ditch digging and the deductibles on health insurance for the self-employed run mighty high these days. Posted by Katy on 01/07/09 Permalink Not For The Faint Of Heart (#1324) I don’t know about you, but I’m getting really used to dementia. No, not my own, you cynical and fallible readers, you! I am usually—-and, quite frankly, against all odds—-in my right mind. I’m in touch with my feelings, I listen to what my body’s trying to tell me about my health and try to respond, I make sound decisions except when it comes to stock market timing, and I get along reasonably well with others. It’s Old Lady Dementia I’ve grown accustomed to, and in particular the dementias of The Moms. Now, my own mother is doing pretty darned well right now as far as tracking with reality goes. We’ve weaned her off a boatload of psychotropic drugs in the past couple of years, and it’s done her a world of good. Even her beloved Valium is gone now, a feat I did not imagine possible or even advisable, since since she’d taken it since 1964. But I digress. It’s Doug’s mom who’s lost an awful lot of cognitive ground, and drugs aren’t to blame in her case. She’s never taken pain pills or anything that would alter her mental status, and I hope she can avoid them going forward. Yesterday, she fainted in the process of trying to use the toilet, spent six hours in the ER, and then got admitted. When we left her last night, she made me promise that I would remind Doug to call her mother. “My mother needs to know where I am,” she said, her lower lip stuck out in a pout. “I’ll take care of it,” I said, and I truly meant that, even if Adele’s mother has been dead for 44 years. Today, when I arrived for a visit, she pointed to the four ID bracelets on her right arm. “People keep coming in here, but they won’t do anything about these….” “There’s nothing to do about them,” I said. “They’re fine. They’re not hurting you.” Then she pointed to the tubing coming from her IV. “And I don’t know what this is….” I helped her visually track it to the hanging bag of fluids. “See that bag? The liquid is dripping through the tube and into your arm. They don’t want you to be dehydrated.” “Oh,” she said. “Well, they keep coming in here, but they won’t do anything about these….” She pointed to the four ID bracelets on her right arm. “There’s nothing to do about them,” I said. “They’re fine. They’re not hurting you.” “Oh,” she said. Then she pointed to the tubing coming from her IV. “I don’t know what this is…..” “See that bag?” I said. “The liquid is…....” Like I said, I’m getting really used to dementia. Posted by Katy on 01/07/09 Permalink New Math (#1322) So I always spend the first few days of any new year reassessing our financial situation, and 2009 is no different. Of course, I am the type of O/C chick who does at least a cursory net worth statement on the first of each month. And until recently, that always proved to be a rather enjoyable exercise. I gotta tell you, though, I failed to calculate our net worth from September 1 until now, because honestly, I just couldn’t take the anguish. As you know, I haven’t been overly well these past few months (or is it a whole year now?) anyway, and to add crunching negative numbers to my list of stressors just didn’t seem wise. Now, if you are one of those people who’s thinking, “But wait! When you add two negative numbers, don’t you end up with a positive?”, you might want to review that sixth grade math book again. You have to MULTIPLY two negatives to get a positive, and I’m starting to think even that calculation must be a lie! Yesterday, after pouring over the ledgers, I ended up in a whine fest. (Can’t afford a wine fest, just so you know.) I told Doug that after all these years of attempting to apply Biblical principles to our finances, I was beginning to wonder whether we’d misunderstood the whole enchilada. I mean, people! We are debt-free, except for our house! And we could pay it off in less than two years, if we wanted to! And yeah, it’s lost some value like everyone else’s house, but we’re sure not upside down on the deal. And another thing: we drive two old cars (a 1998 Taurus and a 2002 Saturn), and we’re saving to replace them with cash when we have no choice left but to purchase. Heck, we’ve got an emergency fund! Why, if something happened to our income today, we could support ourselves on our savings for upwards of 3.7 weeks! And now, in case you are not duly impressed yet, I’ll boast some more, because I can: We are actually among the supposed 6% (a shockingly low number!) of self-professing Christians who tithe. Now, when I say “tithe,” I don’t mean “throw a few coins into the collection box.” In the Bible, a tithe represents 10% of all your income. TEN percent. We were raised as young Christians, furthermore, to tithe on our GROSS and not our net. The question pastors used to put to us in the old days was, “Do you want God to bless you on your gross or on your net?” Well, THAT’S a no-brainer, huh? I’d love to add that we’ve never racked up any balances on a credit card. In addition, I would like to tell you that we did not, during years past, consider our shiny home equity to be our children’s college education fund. But I KNOW what the Bible says about lying, and while I’m questioning what it says about money, I’d rather not push my luck too far. So yesterday, I whined to Doug (and to God, too…) that I wasn’t at all sure that the good Lord was keeping up His end of the bargain. We do not attend a church which preaches the “prosperity gospel,” but darned if I wasn’t positive that we were supposed to reap what we’ve sown. Haven’t we given faithfully to our church, our chosen charities, and the individuals God leads us to help? Haven’t we provided for our own household to the best of our abilities? Haven’t we, almost always except for that time we bought our first house in 1979 and our monthly payment was more than HALF our income, lived well within our means? Haven’t we deferred gratification out the wazoo, so that in our old age we wouldn’t be a burden to our children or to the state? Unless I end up to be happily mistaken, I’m pretty certain my generation is now facing a financial scenario we never anticipated in our wildest nightmares. Even the fiscally conservative among us have no choice but to admit that we may not be able to make up the losses we’ve endured in time to provide for ourselves in old age. God’s principles have not failed, although it’s highly possible I have never understood them as He intended me to. Remember that line from The Princess Bride? “I don’t think that Word means what you think it means.” The truth, of course, is that Doug and I have lived a bit too high on the hog during the boom years. Somewhere, in our pea-sized brains, we latched onto the belief that the good times would keep rolling forever and that if we threw a few bucks at the stock market every now and then, we’d end up on Easy Street. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? While we’re dreaming of ending up on Easy Street someday, (if we play our Scriptural cards right,that is), the real truth is that we’ve been living on Affluence Avenue for a very long time. I can’t help but be reminded of another Biblical principle, one that would serve all of us really well right about now——humility. The Bible says that even when we’re unfaithful (and that includes those times when we believe we’re being faithful, but we’re wrong…), He remains faithful. No matter how many Scripture verses I may have misunderstood along the way, I think I’m finally starting to understand this one, after all. Posted by Katy on 01/03/09 Permalink International House Of…..Watch Out! (#1321) This morning, we’re leaving to meet Doug’s sisters and brother-in-law for breakfast out before taking presents and dessert to share with his mother. I just called my mom to wish her Merry Christmas (we had the big McKenna bash last Sunday, and our own kids here yesterday….). I told her how few restaurants were open today and how Doug’s sisters had settled on International House of Pancakes. You should know that here in Kansas City, we also have the International House of Prayer. Both institutions call themselves IHOP, and I’ve managed somehow never to confuse the two. My mother, on the other hand? She’s only recently heard of the International House of Prayer, and became quite concerned when I told her of our breakfast plans. “Be careful, Katy. When you are doing the interstate thing, you could end up at the prayer joint instead of the pancake joint.” I laughed. “We’re going to the place over on Metcalf. I’m pretty sure they specialize in breakfast…..” “Just the same,” she said, “you might want to call first. Ask if they’re serving pancakes or prayer. You wouldn’t want to go hungry.” I love this woman, my mother. So much so that I’m going to be praying for her over pancakes. Merry Christmas to you, too, Mom. Posted by Katy on 12/25/08 Permalink Have Yourself A Merry Little Colonoscopy! (#1320) Well, the deed is done. The colonoscopy, that is. And my health is, for all intents and purposes, perfect. I am a specimen to be envied among all womankind. Except for that, of course, I’ve been really, really sick. So now, the docs are thinking maybe the anti-seizure meds they’ve had me on (first Tegretol and now Trileptal) for the stabbing pain in the eye (called Trigeminal Neuralgia) have caused the side effect of serious stomach pain. Since Monday, I’ve been weaning off the meds. This morning, I took my last dose. So far, the stabbing pain in my eye (which was largely controlled by the anti-seizure meds, with Vicodin as a supplement) has returned only as The Grittiest Sandpaper On Earth pain, which only bothers me when I blink. Totally tolerable, you know what I mean? If I stay at the Sandpaper Stage, I will be able to handle it. My stomach is a bit better today. For the FIRST time since mid-November. So I am hopeful. And grateful. And looking forward to better days ahead!! Speaking of those days, I am going to fully enjoy the time I spend with family and friends in the next couple of weeks. Even bloggers take vacations now and then, and so I am declaring mine. Since my birthday falls between Christmas and New Year’s, I might as well extend my hiatus until after January 1. I hope each and every one of you fallible folks has a truly wonderful and blessed Christmas!!!! You deserve it, I tell ya, if only because of how much you’ve had to put up with me whining recently! I hereby resolve to be of much better cheer in the New Year, and promise to share my largesse of good will with each and every one of you, my dear reading friends. Have yourselves a merry little Christmas! Next year, all our troubles will be far away…..... Posted by Katy on 12/19/08 Permalink Spell Check (#1318) At the beginning of 2008, I had exactly two goals for my health, not counting—-of course—-the two constants: lose weight and exercise. Those recurring resolutions SHOULD keep me in excellent shape just because of the muscles used and calories burned laughing my head off each time I think of them, but I digress. I resolved to attempt to get to the bottom of my debilitating headaches once and for all, even if it meant trying unconventional methods and pursuing treatments beyond my comfort zone—-as if I could really have a comfort zone with a stabbing pain in my eye. True to my word, I made an appointment with my eye doctor, whom I would describe by that word that starts with “op” and ends with “ogist” if I could ever remember the letters in between. (Actually, this was after trying natural hormone replacement therapy last fall, hoping an appalling lack of something or egregious excess of something else might be at the root of my difficulties….but, no.) My op…..ogist, who always manages to detect swollen optic nerves during her examination, referred me to her colleague, one of only two neuro-op…ogists in all of Kansas City. (Evidently, it’s that narrow of a specialty, although I already have an oto-neurologist in my collection of neurologists, so personally, I don’t see what the big deal is.) The two eye doctors concurred that I should be looked at for trigeminal neuralgia, a fancy way of saying you’ve got a problem with the trigeminal nerve in your cranium, resulting in an astonishing pain the face. My primary doc and at least one other regular neurologist were pulled in, since they’d decided I would need to go on an anti-seizure med that can really mess with your head and well….Head Doctors Backwards R Me. About the time they started me on Tegretol, my mother went in the hospital with one of her Several Annual Near Death Experiences. Now, granted, sometimes she is Only Mostly Dead, but let’s just say that in February the doctors in the ER could not get me to produce her DNR papers fast enough. Miraculously, she pulled out! And except for the C.diff she’s been battling ever since (if you don’t know what this is, rejoice. And again I say, rejoice!), she’s no closer to dead now than she’s been at any time in the past seven years. Who knew? Anyway, she was in the hospital and then the nursing home for rehab, and I think that took care of all of February and March. Maybe April, too. I stopped taking notes somewhere along the way. All I know is that I was on this experimental treatment for my head, running back and forth for blood work every ten days, taking care of Mom as best I could, getting relief from the eye stab only when I added the requisite supplemental number of Vicodin, and finding myself thinking about Peggy Lee (sing it with me now, “Is That All There Is?”) more than I normally do. By summertime, Mom was recovered as much as recovery amounts to these days, but I wasn’t. I went through an extensive edit on my novel, and that’s about the extent of real work I’ve gotten done this year. The side effects from the Tegretol, in my body at least, were freakish and not ameliorated nearly enough by the Vicodin to make them tolerable, or even interesting. For one thing, I jerked. A lot. All parts of my body, sometimes all at once, for at least two hours after taking the meds—-both morning and night. I hated to medicate before church, as one example, because well, our church is kind of on the sedate side, and what would they think if I went all Pentecostal-quirky on them? Medicating at bedtime was out of the question, too. Doug jerks all night, as you might remember me telling you on more than one occasion. Even with our glorious Sleep Number bed, two jerking parties just doesn’t add up to much of a party at all. I’m just sayin’. The headache seemed enough better to persist with the treatment in spite of the numerous side effects, though, until one day in the middle of a September afternoon I got stoned out of my mind. Falling down drunk, literally, with what the literature unabashedly calls “Tegretol poisoning.” It’s bad when you’ve put on just a little weight since your hub carried you over the threshold, but he has to scoop you off the floor THREE TIMES (with a very bad back, poor guy) in order to carry you over the threshold of the garage, into the car, and then into the ER. My Tegretol levels were way too high, so they kept me there until I returned to my senses. (I can hear the snickers from here, people. Stop that!) They talked about switching me to a different medicine, one with fewer side effects, but I would have to be weaned off Tegretol rather slowly in order to begin a trial with the next med. Groovy, huh? Toward the end of September, I went to the writers conference I attend every year, and was sick the entire time. My back went completely out, but I do have lovely memories of holding up the palatial pillars in the gorgeous hotel where we stayed and trying to look architectural. “Are you OK?” friends and strangers would ask. “Oh, yes,” I’d say, with a hard smile plastered on like a cast on a broken psyche. “As soon as Gene Kelly shows up with the umbrellas, we’re going to dance a number or two….” Bizarre symptoms accumulated throughout the conference until, by the time I got back home, I landed in the ER again. More complications from the Tegretol. This time, they took me off it cold turkey——not recommended but necessary in my situation. The risk is having a seizure, but hey, that was starting to sound minor to me. I got switched to Trileptal at that point, and have had much better success with it! So, there you have it. My headaches are definitely not as severe as they were at this point twenty-five years ago!!!! Thank God for huge mercies. I decided in October that I would tackle the other problem on my medical to-do list—-getting into physical therapy for the herniated discs in my neck. It had gotten to the point where I could only sleep flat on my back, with a dog-bone shaped pillow under my neck. No rolling from side to side like a normal person, and how was I supposed to slug Doug for jerking in his sleep when I couldn’t get to him? You know what I mean? Our marriage was suffering! The therapist, Eric, was wonderful. I say “was” because my PT days of bliss appear to be over. It’s hard to drive myself 30 minutes each way to have 20 pounds of traction pull on my neck when I’m in the hospital having diarrhea episodes so closely spaced I can’t make it back to bed before having to show up on the toilet again. You’ve been there, too, right? It CAN’T be just me! Before my inpatient stay in the hospital——during which they did x-rays, an endoscopy, CT of my abdomen, a test requiring a large drink of Crystal Light mixed with God-knows-what, a gall bladder ultrasound, and a gall bladder nuclear (or, if you’re a Republican, newcewlar) scan—-I also presented in the ER one MORE time. For the same symptoms as this last time, horrible stomach pain. By my count, which becomes fuzzier with each pain pill ingested, I’ve been in the hospital four times this fall. It’s possible that it’s five. But if I’ve stopped counting, I can hardly expect you to! Ha. Friday, lucky me, is Colonoscopy Day. They would have done it in the hospital, which would have sure been more convenient and let’s be real, I WAS all cleaned out, but the doctor said I was WAY too sick to go through the procedure. Which is really funny because ONE day after I got home from the hospital, my insurance company called to say that while they had authorized me staying one night in the hospital, they had not been notified that I had stayed any longer. And that my claims had been summarily denied. So there! Now you know a lot more about why I haven’t appeared here on fallible much for some months running. I just haven’t been well. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all the kind comments you’ve sent my way. Honestly, they’ve made me cry with happiness and kept me from losing my will to be scoped. And in my case, I need to hang onto that will! One of these days, I’ll come on here with the “hthalmol” I seem to have misplaced somewhere in the course of all my medical mishaps. And then you’ll know that those letters, preceded by an “op” and followed by an “ogist,” mean I’ve finally got my act back together. Until then, please pray for Katy McKenna! Posted by Katy on 12/09/08 Permalink You Are Not Alone (#1317) Last night, I stayed home alone while Doug went out with our friends for a great evening on the town. I was invited, of course, but well, things haven’t been going too swimmingly for me on the health front. I really wanted Doug to go, because he hasn’t exactly been having a barrel of fun these days, either, and I thought he could use the break. But I had to abstain. I didn’t want to make a scene, or cause a spectacular draw of attention to myself, or interrupt the festivities with any of a handful of symptoms which might at any moment turn me into a serious social liability. So I stayed home in my jammies and watched one of my favorite movies of all time, Serendipity. It surprised me, as the night wore on, to find that I missed Doug terribly. And I missed my friends, too. Most of all, I experienced not just that passing type of loneliness that comes over each of us from time to time, but also something deeper and more insidious. I felt isolated. For me, feeling isolated comes over me when I’m going through something I think no one else understands, or wants to understand. I mean, do my friends really want a blow-by-blow run down of diagnostic exams from hell and my sensitive constitution’s over-the-top response to tests other patients might consider ho-hum? I’m thinking: Not. It also occurs to me that Too Much Information often has the unfortunate result of producing Too Few Friends, a condition I do not want to add to my current list of complaints. So I boo-hooed my way through Serendipity, especially when I remembered that at the beginning of 2008, I chose that very word as My Word Of The Year. If you can tell me what exactly is serendipitous about taking care of The Moms, having a daughter with a newly-diagnosed and complicated thyroid problem, slicing my net worth as cleanly in half as if I’d used my chain saw on it, struggling with anti-seizure medication side effects for the stabbing pain in my eye that put me in the hospital not once, but twice, and now being an in-patient for five days with unresolved stomach problems, I’d like to hear about it. This morning, I cried when I told Doug about how isolated I’d been feeling. About how even blogging scares me, because it makes me think you, my wonderful reading friends, might fall away if I pull out the stops and honestly let you in on the down side of my fallible life. And then we went to church. And our dear pastor Tom Nelson spoke about loneliness. And isolation, the word I might as well have chosen as My Word Of The Year, for all the good Serendipity did me. A lovely friend of mine, Lynett, came up to me after church and asked about my health. I thought to myself that, if she knew a bit more, she’d know better than to ask. So I dismissed her question with a shrug and an “I’m OK,” and then repented at leisure for having lied right there in God’s house. We went on to Sunday school, during which we typically discuss the sermon in more depth. Before the discussion, during prayer request time, someone asked if I wanted to share about my health situation and I very politely declined. I think I said something like, “Trust me, it’s more than you want to know….” No one pushed me for information, but my feeling of isolation grew a little more pronounced after I squandered an opportunity to ask for support. Then we got into the day’s topic. A question was presented about the types of isolation we go through, and people mentioned the typical suspects: Being in a crowded room and not knowing anyone. Being among loving family members, but somehow feeling disconnected from the camaraderie. Going through a loved one’s death and not knowing how to share your suffering with those who care about you. And then Lynett said, “Sometimes, we experience isolation because we imagine that others won’t understand our particular circumstances. But really, they would, if we’d only give them the chance….” So I gave them the chance. “OK!” I said. “I had diarrhea 37 times in one day! Are you satisfied NOW?” And you know what? They——these, my friends——were more satisfied than I’ve seen them in a long time. They laughed their fool heads off, and so did I. When I gave up trying to protect my dignity (like that’s even possible anymore….) and realized that a dose of TMI can work wonders in breaking the back of isolation, a beautiful thing happened. All of a sudden, I had a roomful of people who—-even if they didn’t know exactly what I was experiencing and truly didn’t want to know—-were happy to be my appreciative audience as I processed my own miserable experiences in their astonished hearing. All of a sudden I knew that if I wasn’t abandoned when I admitted to having 37 episodes of diarrhea, you aren’t alone, either. I hope, somehow, that’s a comfort to you. Although if, in the middle of being So Not Alone, you happen to need a modicum of privacy, I certainly understand. ;) Posted by Katy on 12/07/08 Permalink Page 7 of 84 pages « First < 5 6 7 8 9 > Last »


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Personal blog of christianwriter & fallible momKaty McKenna Raymondin Kansas City, Missouri

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