Pit of Despair
I meant to write this post earlier, but I had to gather my composure first and then time was fleeting and it still is. I have several sad things to talk about. I guess I can mention one right now. I feel for those who lost their lives in the sickening high school shooting in Florida, as well as their friends and loved ones. When does this end? The issue of gun control comes up every time, but nothing is ever done. I don't expect anything to be done either with the GOP holding congress. I think it's a more complicated issue than just introducing stronger gun control, but anyway moving on from that topic. I'll just say that it's just become the norm in this country and it's easy to become desensitized to it.
Before I go into the other sad topics, I'll talk about Valentine's Day first. I got my filling fixed on Valentine's Day. Major anxiety before hand of course. They got an x-ray of my tooth first. The process was OK, but do I love this yet? No. They didn't know how I could have broken this filling either. :/ The numbing went up to my eye lid this time, which was very weird. I didn't like it. It took four hours to wear off. Always takes forever for it to wear off for me.
As for the actual holiday, well at least I'm no longer sick (took two weeks to get over it though), but I infected everyone in the house. Oops. My mom got crab legs for dinner. I couldn't eat much before I was full. She also got us all Valentine's Day cupcakes, but those weren't the actual Valentine's Day gifts. I got a nice card and tons of chocolate candy: From my mom I got a Valentine's box with Hershey's miniatures, what I think is Dove chocolate hearts, and I got See's milk chocolate hearts from my dad. I always get those from him every year. Then we watched the Olympics like we've been doing every year. USA hasn't been doing so hot except for in Snowboarding really. It was a pretty nice Valentine's, but I was tired.
Now for the sad and frustrating topics. Let's just say quite a few tears were shed over these situations. So I recently learned that my new medical insurance won't cover my medication and that's bad enough, but we were hoping I could sign up for Walgreen's prescription savings membership and indeed they said my medication would be $5 under the membership. Then they call us later and say no under the savings my medication would cost $400 down from actually thousands of dollars. WTF!? And it's the generic form too. I'm just enraged right now. We can't pay that! That's actually more than it costs for my insurance. It's totally insane! How can they do this? It never costed this much before, and btw this drug is not an expensive drug to make either. I'm baffled. This is just not going to work.
So I did some research online and apparently there are different types of the generic. Some are way more expensive than others. Why? I don't know. So I took a close look at my bottle of pills and sure enough, it's one of the expensive generics. But it never used to be. I only seemed to have encountered this problem since I switched my insurance. So far it's been crap. I can't really refill my medication until we get this sorted out and I'm going to be running out soon. *Sigh* It's just so upsetting. So, thinking about my options: We could try Walmart's pharmacy maybe as I hear they have a $4 program and my medication is included, and I think I can get it without insurance too. The other option would be I try a new medication. Probably one under my insurance's "preferred list" :/ This I don't really want to do as my medication is working fine. I change medications and there's a chance it may not work or I end up with horrible side effects at worst. We talk with my doctor about the situation. My insurance actually asked for prior authorization from my doctor for my medication. I don't know if it will mean I could get my prescription at Walgreens for $5 anyway or they'll still want me to pay out 400 dollars, which is not going to happen anyway. The last option I can think of is that I stop taking my medication altogether and my doctor might just give the OK for that. This is also something I don't want to do. I imagine my PCOS symptoms just might return (acne, absent periods, and who knows what else), and on top of that put me at risk for developing serious diseases. I also looked on Amazon and found a supplement? That's supposed to be specifically for PCOS, so I might show that to my mom, if we completely run out of options. So, needless to say I've been very upset over this and joining the ranks of many other Americans who are being crushed by our horrible health care system. My mom assured me that it will be OK and we will work things out. I hope so.
The next sad thing concerns Luke. He's OK now actually, but he has been showing his age a little bit lately. He has some trouble jumping up on beds, but the part that worried me happened a few days ago. He came up to my room and was making hacking noises (He's been doing some of that lately too) like he was going throw up. I didn't want him throwing up in my room so I was guiding him out so I could try to get him to go outside. He was hacking all the way and then he was going downstairs and when he got to the last step he just fell over, collapsed, and he was shaking a little. It almost looked like a seizure, but I can't be certain. It scared me to death. He was fine after a few seconds, but I was crying over him and just terrified. I mentioned to my mom that I think he should see a vet, but she said that there's nothing that can really be done. Well, at least they could figure out what's wrong with him. He does have his annual vet visit in May, but he's just at that age now where he could probably die any day. I'm just not ready to say goodbye. :'( That being said, he's still pretty sprite for his age. He still gets excited for food and going on walks. He does sleep a lot, but he's always been like that. He's just a laid back dog. But man, when he goes, it's just going to be so hard and I'd rather not think about it anymore. :'(
Final sad thing and then I think I'll be done. I saw Stephen King tweet that Barnes & Noble bookstores across the country have laid off a bunch of people. I feel bad for all of those who lost their jobs, and I'm also worried. I'm worried that B&N may not be lasting much longer. They might go the way of Borders because they just can't compete with Amazon. I really hope they survive, but I'm afraid it's going to be inevitable. And once they're gone that's really it. I will have no bookstore I can visit because B&N is really all that is left. And that will be a really depressing day because I live for the bookstore. I don't buy books on Amazon much except for my Kindle, and that's another reason things are going south, but I do go to B&N a lot to buy books, especially lately because I've been worried about this for some time and I want to show my support. The bookstore is one of my great loves in life and if B&N goes, it will totally crush me. What will be left for me? Books at Target I guess? lol I just don't see myself really buying books on Amazon unless it's by my favorite authors. I guess it would take care of my giant TBR problem. That's probably a given. But there's nothing like going to the bookstore and browsing books for hours. Amazon just doesn't give you that experience. :( My B&N seems like it does get some good business. There are long lines sometimes so it's nice to see, but that doesn't mean it will be safe. I'm just praying for the best here. I don't want to be around to see the day that there are no more bookstores. I don't want them to just go extinct. :( Now I feel like I've got to buy up all the books. :P I wish I had tons of money. I'd buy up B&N myself just to save it. And then promptly lose it because I wouldn't be able to manage things. Eh. Well, I honestly don't think print media is going away soon, but this is just not a good sign.
I'm done. Hoping things start looking up.
Before I go into the other sad topics, I'll talk about Valentine's Day first. I got my filling fixed on Valentine's Day. Major anxiety before hand of course. They got an x-ray of my tooth first. The process was OK, but do I love this yet? No. They didn't know how I could have broken this filling either. :/ The numbing went up to my eye lid this time, which was very weird. I didn't like it. It took four hours to wear off. Always takes forever for it to wear off for me.
As for the actual holiday, well at least I'm no longer sick (took two weeks to get over it though), but I infected everyone in the house. Oops. My mom got crab legs for dinner. I couldn't eat much before I was full. She also got us all Valentine's Day cupcakes, but those weren't the actual Valentine's Day gifts. I got a nice card and tons of chocolate candy: From my mom I got a Valentine's box with Hershey's miniatures, what I think is Dove chocolate hearts, and I got See's milk chocolate hearts from my dad. I always get those from him every year. Then we watched the Olympics like we've been doing every year. USA hasn't been doing so hot except for in Snowboarding really. It was a pretty nice Valentine's, but I was tired.
Now for the sad and frustrating topics. Let's just say quite a few tears were shed over these situations. So I recently learned that my new medical insurance won't cover my medication and that's bad enough, but we were hoping I could sign up for Walgreen's prescription savings membership and indeed they said my medication would be $5 under the membership. Then they call us later and say no under the savings my medication would cost $400 down from actually thousands of dollars. WTF!? And it's the generic form too. I'm just enraged right now. We can't pay that! That's actually more than it costs for my insurance. It's totally insane! How can they do this? It never costed this much before, and btw this drug is not an expensive drug to make either. I'm baffled. This is just not going to work.
So I did some research online and apparently there are different types of the generic. Some are way more expensive than others. Why? I don't know. So I took a close look at my bottle of pills and sure enough, it's one of the expensive generics. But it never used to be. I only seemed to have encountered this problem since I switched my insurance. So far it's been crap. I can't really refill my medication until we get this sorted out and I'm going to be running out soon. *Sigh* It's just so upsetting. So, thinking about my options: We could try Walmart's pharmacy maybe as I hear they have a $4 program and my medication is included, and I think I can get it without insurance too. The other option would be I try a new medication. Probably one under my insurance's "preferred list" :/ This I don't really want to do as my medication is working fine. I change medications and there's a chance it may not work or I end up with horrible side effects at worst. We talk with my doctor about the situation. My insurance actually asked for prior authorization from my doctor for my medication. I don't know if it will mean I could get my prescription at Walgreens for $5 anyway or they'll still want me to pay out 400 dollars, which is not going to happen anyway. The last option I can think of is that I stop taking my medication altogether and my doctor might just give the OK for that. This is also something I don't want to do. I imagine my PCOS symptoms just might return (acne, absent periods, and who knows what else), and on top of that put me at risk for developing serious diseases. I also looked on Amazon and found a supplement? That's supposed to be specifically for PCOS, so I might show that to my mom, if we completely run out of options. So, needless to say I've been very upset over this and joining the ranks of many other Americans who are being crushed by our horrible health care system. My mom assured me that it will be OK and we will work things out. I hope so.
The next sad thing concerns Luke. He's OK now actually, but he has been showing his age a little bit lately. He has some trouble jumping up on beds, but the part that worried me happened a few days ago. He came up to my room and was making hacking noises (He's been doing some of that lately too) like he was going throw up. I didn't want him throwing up in my room so I was guiding him out so I could try to get him to go outside. He was hacking all the way and then he was going downstairs and when he got to the last step he just fell over, collapsed, and he was shaking a little. It almost looked like a seizure, but I can't be certain. It scared me to death. He was fine after a few seconds, but I was crying over him and just terrified. I mentioned to my mom that I think he should see a vet, but she said that there's nothing that can really be done. Well, at least they could figure out what's wrong with him. He does have his annual vet visit in May, but he's just at that age now where he could probably die any day. I'm just not ready to say goodbye. :'( That being said, he's still pretty sprite for his age. He still gets excited for food and going on walks. He does sleep a lot, but he's always been like that. He's just a laid back dog. But man, when he goes, it's just going to be so hard and I'd rather not think about it anymore. :'(
Final sad thing and then I think I'll be done. I saw Stephen King tweet that Barnes & Noble bookstores across the country have laid off a bunch of people. I feel bad for all of those who lost their jobs, and I'm also worried. I'm worried that B&N may not be lasting much longer. They might go the way of Borders because they just can't compete with Amazon. I really hope they survive, but I'm afraid it's going to be inevitable. And once they're gone that's really it. I will have no bookstore I can visit because B&N is really all that is left. And that will be a really depressing day because I live for the bookstore. I don't buy books on Amazon much except for my Kindle, and that's another reason things are going south, but I do go to B&N a lot to buy books, especially lately because I've been worried about this for some time and I want to show my support. The bookstore is one of my great loves in life and if B&N goes, it will totally crush me. What will be left for me? Books at Target I guess? lol I just don't see myself really buying books on Amazon unless it's by my favorite authors. I guess it would take care of my giant TBR problem. That's probably a given. But there's nothing like going to the bookstore and browsing books for hours. Amazon just doesn't give you that experience. :( My B&N seems like it does get some good business. There are long lines sometimes so it's nice to see, but that doesn't mean it will be safe. I'm just praying for the best here. I don't want to be around to see the day that there are no more bookstores. I don't want them to just go extinct. :( Now I feel like I've got to buy up all the books. :P I wish I had tons of money. I'd buy up B&N myself just to save it. And then promptly lose it because I wouldn't be able to manage things. Eh. Well, I honestly don't think print media is going away soon, but this is just not a good sign.
I'm done. Hoping things start looking up.