SMMC LB support group chicas

[Cynthia J. 0]

Hi guys! Just got home from work so I'm checking in. I had fun last night with you guys thanks for letting me bring Wes too. I had to let him play his game on the computer til 10:30 since he gave up his evening for me. I figured it was a fair trade. When I got home tonight I had another letter from my insurance company.. They denied everything again. It seems kind of wierd to me though because yesterday they said they hadn't recieved anything yet and the lady in H.R. said that she gets all those appeals too. So I'm not sure he is not giving me the whole story. I'll be checking into it on Monday though. My good news today was my boss that I don't like very much at all told us she is retiring in December. No one in the room said oh that's too bad or anything. Think she figured out we don't like her and are glad she is leaving? Well it looks like maybe I am being caddy so maybe I better stop.

Angela I hope your dog gets to come home tomorrow.

[TheGh0st 9]

Hi all. I also had a great time before & after group.

Angela - Good to hear your dog is improving. I'll keep praying he can come home in the morning.

Cynthia - I'm jealous of you and your boss that is leaving. I have one my co-workers & I've been praying to leave for 8 years. One day maybe, one day. Or maybe I'll get off my ever-shrinking behind and get that new job I keep talking about.

Oh - I'm going to have to cancel my Friday fill as hubby & I are planning on going for a quick trip to Branson next weekend. It's his 40th on the 6th. We kept talking about doing something bigger like London, Scotland or France but don't really have the funds for it this year. Hopefully next. Anyway the following week the bum is going to Cancun for a week's vacation with his father, 3 brothers & possibly one brother-in-law. His father is paying for everyone's trip. Then in January my mother-in-law is talking about taking all us daughter-in-laws & her one actual daughter to somewhere like Vegas. Hmmm. I think I'd prefer Cancun but oh well I'm not going to say one bad thing about a free trip if I get to go.

[Rockin' Robyn 15]

Diane-Man...I wish I had in-laws that took me/us on trips....no such luck! Your DH is 40??? Are you a lot younger than him because there is no way you are even close to that;)

Pat-That's interesting about the HSSH support group....I might try it too. Also thinking about the KC bandster one as Diane recommended.

Cynthia-too bad I don't have cath lab experience...I would be your boss anyday I really miss management to an extent. Its so much nicer to have so much more free time now, but I do miss the people/problem solving aspects of it as well as the day to day challenges. My stress levels are WAY down though:biggrin1:

[Wheetsin 714]

Ugh. My in-laws are always offering to buy us tickets there, and take us on some included trip. The only problem is -- they are there too. :heh:

The dog got to come home today. He's been resting most of the day, except for eating twice and peeing on the floor twice. But he's so pumped full of IV fluids I can't blame him. Yet. :ermm Really, it doesn't matter - we're just happy he's home and healthy.

[TheGh0st 9]

Congrats on your dog coming home.

And my husband totally agrees with you about the "paid" vacations. He is hates the idea of vacationing with all his relatives and their dramas no matter where they offer to take us. Not that we get to do it often. In 14 years they've actually only paid for one other holiday (to London with themselves & one of the other sons & wife). We've also gone on vacation with the same brother & wife to Branson a couple times using a freind of the family's time share. But we still had to pay for it ourselves.

I have the occasional drama with his family as well like the whole bit over my mother-in-law going on & on about some book called "Why French women don't get fat" & how French women potty train their children before the age of one when mine is about to turn 3. Sometimes I do worry that as my weight continues to come off things will become more strained. But all in all I love his family and refer to our relatives as the in-laws & out-laws, with mine being the out-laws for good reason.

I've been wanting to try the other Heartland Spine group as well. These groups are my "nights" out & away from dh & son. But he's been resisting me a bit on having 3 nights out.

[Rockin' Robyn 15]

Maybe for next month we could all attend the HL or the KC bandsters one all together??

Angela-I'm so happy your baby is home safe and sound;)

We are actually going on vacation to Branson for a week with my in-laws in two weeks. I'm actually looking forward to it as I enjoy spending time with my father-in-law and his wife. We are paying for our own though.

Diane...I like the out-law thing....I might have to steal that for my side of the family as well:biggrin1:

Lost two more pounds....yay!!

[TheGh0st 9]

Ben's going to be gone during the HSSH group this month either way I plan on going. Just if he is gone I'll be bringing Brian along with. KC Bandsters can sometimes be tricky as they frequently have it the same night as Hoehn's though theirs starts at 7pm instead of 6pm. They haven't posted a firm date for August yet but here's a link to thier Yahoo Forum Group if you are interested in taking a look. http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/KCBandsters/

[Wheetsin 714]

I'd be up for trying a different place *if* they don't mind people outside of the group joining in, e.g. people not banded at HL going to the meeting there.

My in-laws are in Sweden, so a trip there would be a really nice trip if they weren't there. And if that wasn't where we end up going just about every time we take a vacation. Unfortunately we go once a year on average (or DH does, anyway - I've managed to get out of it a few times), and they come here about every 2 years. We pay our own way so that no one feels we're "obligated" to spend the entire time with them. DH's parents are loaded, they basically retired in their 30s (FIL owns a huge international company that makes all kinds of lasers... medical lasers, lasers auto makers use to weld the pieces of the cars together on the assembly lines, lasers to engrave brand names on things, etc... for which he still presides over the board of directors, but that takes maybe 2 days a month) and they obsess over him being so far away -- between those two factors, we get offers for tickets about 3x a year. And a house/car, if we'd move there. (Yeah, right - just kill me instead.) I definitely have a rocky relationship with the IL. On our 8th anniversary they sent me an email that said, basically, "we still don't like you married to our son, and hoped it wouldn't work out, but now that it has been 8 years I guess you'll make it after all so we better get used to the idea." And that's them on a nice day. I really don't think it's personal, so much as it's - they're an old-fashioned family, very close, very tight-knit, and I'm the evil American girl who took their son away. 6,000 miles away.

[TheGh0st 9]

It would be SO easy to tell you take the plane tickets and run. But I had a small taste of what you are describing when I was engaged to a Brit. But in my case the future IL won out & we didn't marry. So I think I have just a tiny understanding of the difficulties and strings attached your IL's money.

My FIL owns a Nebraska Accounting Firm. No where near the money of your IL's. Still it gets under my skin when they try to say they are just middle class. Makes me wonder if they think their middle class what do they think of my family background? My IL's do offer more than we take and DH turns them down more than I would. I hate taking their handouts, its just I know how poor our finances are. But with DH turning 40 and me 37 this fall we need to stand on our own feet more and stop taking their help even if it is only once every few years.

[Wheetsin 714]

If you don't want to read more IL horror stories, just skip this entire post.

Hehe, this got me thinking about a thread that ran here a long time ago. Worst gifts. This is such a trend with them. They'll typically send DH $5k - $10k to "buy whatever he wants" for xmas. I typically get a little resin magnet gnome (I seriously have a whole collection, and they're truly the kind of thing you'd find at the dollar store), and something else stupid. Something so stupid and irrelevant that it just makes it poignantly clear that they put a lot of effort into not putting any effort into it, you know what I mean? This year it was a tiny, tiny black leather purse - like an evening bag just large enough for your lipstick - made of patchwork leather (ugh) fringed with pinking shears (ugh) and a closure made of reindeer antlers (ugh) and reindeer tail (ugh). For b-day it was a pair of silver (I hate silver and they know it) earrings that look kind of like a cross between a catepillar and a big huge incisor. One of the first years we were married they sent DH a ton of money and a framed picture of his x-gf (they lived together for about 2 years) with a note about how his mom ran into her the other day, and how good she's looking now. For our first few xmases together, they would also send decorations, like telling me what to put up for the holidays, and always ALWAYS included at least one church (like a cermaic one that would hold a tealight so the windows would glow, or something). Like - hello? You guys know that's not my thing... or DH's for that matter.

He has a sister who's one month younger than me, to the date. They're building a house there, but couldn't afford the garage so they were going to go without. Winters there can get like 40 below during a bad year, and they have a baby that MIL/FIL also obsess over, so MIL/FIL were like "uh-uh" and gave them $20k to cover the cost of the garage. Then out of the blue they called DH one Saturday, earlier this year, and told him they wanted to give him the same amount of money, since they were giving it to his sister... they should give it to him, too. So they wired the money over with an electronic memo that said, "This is for you, don't spend it on her." Like we don't have our retirement savings portfolio held jointly or something.

I've been dealing with this from, literally, the first day I met his parents, and there hasn't been a single break yet. It used to bother me, but I'm to the point know where since I expect it, I'm able to truly get a good belly laugh over it.

[TheGh0st 9]

OH BOY! It's sad to say but I think you could win any worst IL contest.

I did get a laugh over your stories and would love to hear more sometime. They definitely sound like the type of IL's that you have to laugh at for fear of crying over if you didn't.

Now if you don't want to hear about mine feel free to skip rest of post

I really have been blessed with my IL's. We usually get along well. MIL & I Will talk over the phone every week or two. Sometimes DH complains I know more about what is going on with his family than he does. When we get together MIL & I like to go window shopping together. She is a Martha Stewart "wanna-be" and has helped us paint, tile, re-upholster & even build furniture from scratch for us. Visiting their house in Lincoln, NE is fun for me (BORING for husband) They live on 5 acres just outside of town along side a long bike/walking trail. She keeps Chickens & a Llama and has a Spinning Wheel (from Sweden), a Loom, Potters Wheel & Kiln. Only wish she had a horse for me to ride. Before Brian was born I'd have fun going up to visit & playing with these "toys". The thing I like the best wasn't the fancy house or "toys" so much as the fact that their house & property is large enough I can lose my husband on it. There would be times I'd go most of the day not seeing him or the IL's without even leaving the house. Until recently DH & I lived in a little 900 Square Foot House and previously an even smaller apartment so that space was priceless. But sure made my out-laws jeaolous of the time I spent with the IL's. They couldn't understand it didn't have to do with the difference in income. Staying with my outlaws confined me to an even smaller space and subjected me & DH to hours of conversation mostly retelling old family stories.

On the down side the FIL drinks too much at times, & MIL is always getting on his case about something. He usually deserves it but I'm not use to watching others fight so it can be uncomfortable. Our house usually kept those things private. Then again my parents are divorced now and his aren't. The MIL has also made an art of making all the siblings feel sorry for how "stressed & overworked" she always is, despite her lack of any kind of job. She makes us DIL's feel so badly for her we find ourselves trying to get time off from our FULL TIME Jobs to go help her on her projects. Then we step back and say wait a minute She doesn't even have a job or young children at home, Why are we the one's taking time off from our busy lives to help her instead of the other way around? Not to mention the whole "French Women" *Stuff* she keeps bringing up lately. STILL Compared to your IL's I have NOTHING to complain about.

If I had any hopes of competing with you on the sad/twisted family stories it would have to be on the out-law side of my family. But I won't bore you guys with that on-line. You think I talk long now!! OH BOY, you don't know what long is.

- Diane

[Wheetsin 714]

That's funny!

The first time I met would-be MIL was xmas-ish of 96. I was there visiting for 2 mos (long story, but we'd known each other about 2.5 years at this point -- met in '94 on a trip I took there with a German exchange student friend of mine) and he asked if I'd go to his parents' with him for xmas. His parents pick us up at the train station, drive us to their house. They don't say a word to me. We get to their house and I've just taken my coat off and MIL walks up to me and says something (in her broken English) like, "So are you just here to be a slut? You just want to sleep with all the European boys?" I just kind of looked at her, trying really hard to surpress what I wanted to say, and just walked away without responding. And that was the start to our relationship. DH (remember, not DH at that time) comes after me telling me all about how it was "just a misunderstanding, she just doesn't know English that well..." *sigh* He gave up trying to defend them about 6 years ago when he realized that the "language barrier" argument only gets you so far, and it really started to dawn on him how inappropriate they were being.

Now when they call I don't even answer the phone, I wait for DH to get it, because I know the drill. "Hello?" "We want to speak to our son." "Okay, here you go..." or my favorite... "Hangon, we just got done having lots of dirty sex and he's in the shower..."

[Wheetsin 714]

Oh yeah, I told you guys I'd post this when we were talking about how the insurance network discounts work at dinner. Breakout is charged / what I paid / what insurance paid (according to my insurance statements). I can post network discount rates too.

Surgeon: $228 / $20 / $80.77.

Hospital: $116 / $20 / $58.

Anesthesia: $200 / $20 / $100.

Anesthesia: $165 / $20 / $79.

Anesthesia: $330 / $20 / $79.

Psych: $165 / $20 / $50.

Radiology: $42 / $0 / $15.84.

Hospital: $29076.25 / $0 / $1674.

?: $18 / $0 / $0.

Hospital: $23.50 / $0 / $12.22.

Anesthesia: $1347.98 / $0 / $0.

Surgeon: $4000 / $0 / $1014.97.

Radiology: $35 / $0 / $13.20.

So it looks like my out of pocket was $120, but I really only remember paying $80.

Too bad I don't get network discount rates at Talbot's!

[TheGh0st 9]

OK I am NOT a person with any qualifications to talk about this.

The *LINE* I've been given before from various Docs and dare I say it my mother who does coding/billing work for a group of doctors is that Insurance companies work as a large block of potential customers to negotiate special "Discounts" off what the insurance company determines to be the "Going Rate" (Can't remember correct term). Therefore the insurance companies supposedly get really ticked off if Dr's are found to be billing a self pay patient anything less than this "GR". I've heard the best you can push for is to make sure you aren't billed more than the "GR" though I have heard of patients in other areas of medicine where the docs are generous enough to accept payment from a self-pay for the same amt as insurance then "write off" the difference. They are carefull to document it as a bill for the full amount then a "write off" of uncollectable debt to save face with IC's.

Even if the info I just gave is close to correct it still sounds like a bunch of *BULL* after all its the average Joe without Ins that needs the biggest break.

[TheGh0st 9]

Don't get me wrong I love seeing the info you have on the billing from this surgery!