Our love-hate relationship with health insurance-Part 1

I only say "Part-1" because I am quite sure that this will be something Dan and I deal with for quite a long time. Today's saga? Dan's new insurance switched some contracts that could turn a $0 copay into a $180 copay--thankfully, just for one of his doctors. Yippee. After arguing with not so good customer service reps and listening to phones ringing off the hook, we finally discovered that insurance companies don't actually like talking to their customers. Imagine that.

Yet, on the flip-side of the insurance coin, we are so entirely grateful to have health insurance and to have help paying for it. Between cancer, asthma, bad toes and bad hips, we would be swimming deep in bills without insurance. In fact, this past week has been a showcase of our interesting maladies. I'll begin with last week...

Wednesday: Dan started new meds for his hip and was almost walking normally.
Thursday: Ashley went to the gym to burn off some energy...had some chest pain and passed out. After a ride with Lise to the ER, it was determined she had an SVT. Basically, her heart is beating too darn fast. And yes, caffeine has been eliminated. A cardiologist will be figuring out the fine tuning to be done. Nothing serious.
Friday through Tuesday: relative calm reigned over the apartment. Dan limped less.

Wednesday: Dan started PT, which means he is learning some very strange exercises to do around the house. He says he already feels a difference, though he limped a little more last night.

Today: Ashley had half her toenail removed to prevent anymore problems. The doctor said, "Your toe is stubborn! It takes nearly triple the lidocaine to numb it!" Fabulous. That means triple the needle pokes into the nerve in my big toe. Ouch. Even more exciting: the doc couldn't get it to stop bleeding when she wanted it to. There is now a sizeable bandage in place of Ashley's rather small toe.



Thankfully, our lives don't always revolve around doctors and illness. Actually, this kind of week hasn't happened for a while. We have been spending lots of time together over interterm, preparing for the busyness of the coming semester with some relaxation. Last Tuesday, Dan and I went to the beach to enjoy 80 degree weather...in January! It was gorgeous.



Taking advantage of the warm weather, the Biola contractors built
us a new patio area to prevent the flooding problem we had last month.
It doesn't look that much different, and just today we learned that the contractor did it wrong and will be tearing up all the concrete and doing it again. And, we get a new door!
5 months married and already remodeling :)

If you think about it, we'd love prayer for God to open doors with the insurance companies. And for our hips and toes and hearts.

God is so good.