Sunday, May 22, 2005
Doing the mail
Today was Saturday. Housemate Randy brought in the mail when he came in from work last night. There was an extremely past due water notice from Dekalb County and the packet of papers from the genetic counselor to be filled out.
So, when I got up this morning, I wrote a check for the water, got into my car and drove down to the mail distribution center a few blocks away. I am hoping by doing this at 9:30 am I can get this into the counties hands by the 23rd, their threatened 'last day'. Phew. I have no clue what happened with this. I get bills from these folks every other month. I can not think why they did not get their $41.85 from me long ago. All I can say is, I was in the hospital a few days and that could have messed the mail handling up for me.
Also, in the mail last night was the bill from Northside Hospital for the Raw Carrot incident from a few weeks ago. It cost $11k for those three days in the hospital with a blocked bowel. Fortunately, Kaiser covers it all, so I have no worries. Northside is notorious for forgetting to bill the extra $3/day for the private room that I as the subscriber am supposed to pay. After my experience in February in a non-private room in Northside, I will never do it again. The nursing care was atrociously bad. If I am billed the $12 I will gladly pay it.
I have looked at the genetic counselor's papers. It is four pages of unfilled in tabular boxes with titles across the top -- Cancer diagnosis y/n, location or type, age at diagnosis, living? Current age y/n, cause of death Age at Death, location or type, age at diagnosis. Down the side of the table are the lists for father's brother, father's sister, etc. Interestingly enough, both my mother and father were only children, so no first generation aunts or uncles for me.
Michael had a comment the other day that made me think. He said -- "there are no male deaths from colon cancer, so I don't have to worry about it." As we talked, I realize again that there are no males on my level of the generations other than the husbands that bought into this mess. Howerver, there ARE three males on his level - Chris, Brett and Michael. Three out of five of us each had one son.
Finally, in the mail from last night was the first of this month's round of bills. Traditionally, the first bill that hits in the cycle is my SHPS bill. This is a bill from a company that manages the payments from the AT&T retirees for their health and insurance coverage that was extended for their lifetime when they opted for the early retirement buyout.
My bill only has two parts -- $65/mo for my Kaiser medical health insurance (a good deal for an HMO that I have loved for forty-one years) and $345/mo for my group term life insurance. This term life is the major portion of my estate and I will be losing it when I turn 65. I have no idea what it morphs into, if anything. It will be a surprise to me. If my social security payments at age 62 work out to be about $1100/mo, then this $345 will be taking a really large chunk of monthly money. I am not sure I can continue to afford it. Oh well.
At this point, it is my duty to work out how to live and then die when I have just some loose coins in my pocket. If I manage that, then I have planned well, eh?
This year, with its three close calls and hospital stays has given me a heads up to maybe spend a little (tiny, tiny, little) on ME and do a few things that I want to accomplish while I still have my health and stamina to do them.
On that note, I have brought a few bits of clothes and sandals to dress myself for vacationing. I even have a nifty new straw hat and best of all, the hat has a ring of seashells for decoration. My secret passion is collecting seashells and I have them on printer's drawers all over the walls of the bathroom. You know what a printer's drawer is, right? It is the wide, thin drawer that printers used to store linotype slugs in. It has myriad of compartments in regulation sizes. When stained dark and mounted flat on the wall, they look like a thousand little square and oblong cubbyholes. In each cubbyhole, I have placed a while seashell. I have four of these to display my shells.
My vacation dreams for this year center around the sea and the beach and the water and sea salt and see shells.
But I must put a stamp on this envelop now and pay my bills.
So, when I got up this morning, I wrote a check for the water, got into my car and drove down to the mail distribution center a few blocks away. I am hoping by doing this at 9:30 am I can get this into the counties hands by the 23rd, their threatened 'last day'. Phew. I have no clue what happened with this. I get bills from these folks every other month. I can not think why they did not get their $41.85 from me long ago. All I can say is, I was in the hospital a few days and that could have messed the mail handling up for me.
Also, in the mail last night was the bill from Northside Hospital for the Raw Carrot incident from a few weeks ago. It cost $11k for those three days in the hospital with a blocked bowel. Fortunately, Kaiser covers it all, so I have no worries. Northside is notorious for forgetting to bill the extra $3/day for the private room that I as the subscriber am supposed to pay. After my experience in February in a non-private room in Northside, I will never do it again. The nursing care was atrociously bad. If I am billed the $12 I will gladly pay it.
I have looked at the genetic counselor's papers. It is four pages of unfilled in tabular boxes with titles across the top -- Cancer diagnosis y/n, location or type, age at diagnosis, living? Current age y/n, cause of death Age at Death, location or type, age at diagnosis. Down the side of the table are the lists for father's brother, father's sister, etc. Interestingly enough, both my mother and father were only children, so no first generation aunts or uncles for me.
Michael had a comment the other day that made me think. He said -- "there are no male deaths from colon cancer, so I don't have to worry about it." As we talked, I realize again that there are no males on my level of the generations other than the husbands that bought into this mess. Howerver, there ARE three males on his level - Chris, Brett and Michael. Three out of five of us each had one son.
Finally, in the mail from last night was the first of this month's round of bills. Traditionally, the first bill that hits in the cycle is my SHPS bill. This is a bill from a company that manages the payments from the AT&T retirees for their health and insurance coverage that was extended for their lifetime when they opted for the early retirement buyout.
My bill only has two parts -- $65/mo for my Kaiser medical health insurance (a good deal for an HMO that I have loved for forty-one years) and $345/mo for my group term life insurance. This term life is the major portion of my estate and I will be losing it when I turn 65. I have no idea what it morphs into, if anything. It will be a surprise to me. If my social security payments at age 62 work out to be about $1100/mo, then this $345 will be taking a really large chunk of monthly money. I am not sure I can continue to afford it. Oh well.
At this point, it is my duty to work out how to live and then die when I have just some loose coins in my pocket. If I manage that, then I have planned well, eh?
This year, with its three close calls and hospital stays has given me a heads up to maybe spend a little (tiny, tiny, little) on ME and do a few things that I want to accomplish while I still have my health and stamina to do them.
On that note, I have brought a few bits of clothes and sandals to dress myself for vacationing. I even have a nifty new straw hat and best of all, the hat has a ring of seashells for decoration. My secret passion is collecting seashells and I have them on printer's drawers all over the walls of the bathroom. You know what a printer's drawer is, right? It is the wide, thin drawer that printers used to store linotype slugs in. It has myriad of compartments in regulation sizes. When stained dark and mounted flat on the wall, they look like a thousand little square and oblong cubbyholes. In each cubbyhole, I have placed a while seashell. I have four of these to display my shells.
My vacation dreams for this year center around the sea and the beach and the water and sea salt and see shells.
But I must put a stamp on this envelop now and pay my bills.
