Wow, things are getting tricky again with all the doctor visits and medicare plans. When Brianne and I looked up my prescription info, we saw I'd be spending like 10k+ a year, so it was an easy choice to sign up for a prescription drug plan. At $80 a month for the plan, and roughly another 100-150 a month for the meds, it's a better deal. On the other hand, when I looked up info on health plans, it showed estimated costs near what basic Medicare would pay. The basic Medicare pays 80% of most things after a $155 deductible. I went to my primary care doctor a couple weeks back and looking at the Medicare site, I'll have to pay around $120 toward my deductible. A little pricey, but it could be worse. Well, I checked into my U of M checkup appointment for next month and the charges for the doctor visit, labs, and CT scans and it looks like it'll come up to around 7k total... if I have to pay 20% of that, that's a $1400 bill :( Then, in addition, if/when I need to get back on chemo, that'll be an additional 10-15k each time... which comes up to almost 3k each!!!! Yikes!! So I looked again at the medical plans through Medicare and they were much better than I saw before. I don't know if I had some numbers in there wrong or what, but they looked waaaay better this time. I signed up for a Blue Cross plan which is more like private insurance than piled onto Medicare. I have to make sure the doctor I see takes the insurance, but it'll cover most things with a much more reasonable co-pay. That will be another $116 a month, but it's much better than getting bills for 3 grand every month!!!
I've been feeling some of the symptoms a little stronger off and on again, so I wonder what the CT scans will show. The last time I went through chemo it was because of the symptoms and not because there was a lot of growth in the cancer.
Other than that, things have been the same at home - sometimes stressful and annoying, sometimes quiet and nice. The other day I took Brianne to work and we decided to make a beeline on the way home. We went down a couple dirt roads and it felt like we were in the total boonies - no idea where we were headed and had that stupid curiosity kids feel when they're exploring. Well, we passed by this one field and I see like 3 or 4 deer, so I slowed down so we could take a look. After our eyes started to adjust to the colors and dimness of the field, we saw a little more than 3 or 4... more like a hundred! Oh my goodness was it amazing! Brianne laughs at me that I like to look at things and appreciate (or over-appreciate) nature, but it was just cool as heck to see so many deer at once. After a few minutes, some of the closer ones got spooked and we saw their white flags go up (their tails) and I just wanted to touch one, they looked so soft. LOL
Anyway, that's all for now. We're getting a little bit back for our taxes and it'll go right toward bills. We've accepted that we'll owe 30 grand to UofM for ever, but some of the smaller collection stuff we're hounded by, we'll try and pay off.
Well, take care all and God bless!! :)
Rich
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