Sunday Supplemental: Cost of Health

So. Percy the Painful Endometrial Polyp isn’t getting evicted right now.

Because I do not have $3,500 to throw at a hospital. It’s $500 down payment, plus $43 for a co-pay, in addition to the $644.39 I already paid to my doctor’s office. And that is just to get them to schedule the procedure.

So I am frustrated, angry and headed towards furious because I will continue to be in a hell of a lot of pain until I can afford to get this fixed. I am low on spoons and not writing as much as I could.

I’ve had to prioritize functionality and let Camp NaNoWriMo fall by the wayside in hopes of being able to keep up on day to day tasks. 

It’s a game of chess. Sacrifice a pawn here to move a rook safely; shift a knight backwards to keep hold. It should be noted that I am absolutely terrible at chess, but love enough to have a purse-sized travel board that I carry with me. And! To continue the cheese chess gag: Percy will be checkmated, sooner or later. 

I will keep going. I will work on getting the situation resolved. And I will strive to get back into my blogging schedule. But, like wearing matching socks, I can make no promises.

Love, laughter, and light is the motto. All the best, my lovely readers.

Week in Review

Hello, everyone!

I’m alive. Rough couple of weeks, but I have a great update to my word count! And I’ve changed my hair color. Colors? Whatever. I’m a unicorn!

Word Count update: 44,888. Isn’t that a lovely number? 

There’s been so much going on here as of late. More blanket making, a pair of babies born, and a nerdy wedding! Not mine, but two dear women I both call friends joined names and hearts in a delightful ceremony.

My fibromyalgia gremlin, now nicknamed Francis, has been handing me my metaphoric arse for several weeks now. And I’m still low on spoons, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel! Percy, the Endometrial Polyp, will be evacuated on the 27th of this month. Woo!

But now I need sleep, as I’ve been working nine days straight and have another five until a day “off”.

Love and laughter, y’all!  

Sucker punch: The Cost of Surgery

I posted a quick rant on my personal blog. But the skinny of it is that, to get my endometrial polyp removed, I have to pre-pay for the surgery.

$644.19

Before the procedure. 

There’s something wrong when the after insurance cost is still kissing the underside of a grand. It could be worse. I know this. I could have NO insurance. But I’m allowed to be frustrated. Because the pain I deal with every day, outside of the fibromyalgia, won’t abate until Percy is gone.

I’m frustrated and just a little hopeless right now. I know it’ll get better. I’m just freaking out to the point of aching chest, shaking hands, and a quick crying jag in a stall in the ladies’ room right now.

I’m going to have a cup of tea and take a minute to breathe. I will deal with this mess properly after work.

Week in Review: 24 of 52

No Emergency Room visits this week! Whooo-hoo-hoo! And my birthday is less than two weeks away. Double the fun, as I turn 32!

17,293 words written so far, with more to come as the newest brain-munching plot bunny allows.

Two baby blankets have hit completion. The one for Baby B is in my lap now, awaiting the last three rows and its border.

One of this distractions from writing this week was my trying to figure out how to finish my Associate’s Degree, finally. A pair of married friends from work, as well as my ultra friend Jamie and my lovely Darling, have been very supportive this week as I dealt with the various academic shenanigans. 

More information to come as I am able to find out more. Hopefully I am able to secure financial aid and complete my last four classes. Pray for me.

Book-wise, my Kindle has seen me devour no less than five books in the last three days. All The Tide series. Payday will get me purchasing all of them in Kindle. And perhaps a hard copy to give as a holiday gift this Yule? In any case, reading has been a great escape in sleepless hours. As ever, when the stars shine behind thunder-filled clouds, I can’t sleep. 

There’s a storm on the horizon now, actually. More metaphoric than literal, as I plan to start my memoir of transient times. I have no title, as of yet, but my Camp NaNoWriMo project is basically a vaguely organized chronicle of my years being homeless and/or transient. The ordinary adventures of train hopping and shelters and the good times that one can have, even at the bottom of the barrel. Kindness, as ever, can be found anywhere.

Well, I have a baby blanket to finish! Happy reading, my friends. And please let me know if you have any further book or author suggestions.

And as it is Pride Month, the anniversary of the Pulse shootings, and an all around troubled time, please remember my inbox is always open. 

Blessed Be!

Wordy Wednesday: A Review of ‘The Tide’

I have Kindle Unlimited, to both help my budget as I try to go back to college (at 32!) and to keep the small space in which I live as clutter-free as possible. Now, I would never dare to call a book “clutter”, but when bookshelves are bending to smile under the weight of their contents… well, it sends one to pause. I re-homed a good two dozen to various friends and family in the last purge of material goods. Another three boxes worth went to charity or the Library at work. And since I was gifted a Kindle by an old friend (hi, Dana!), I’ve been burning through what non-pirates ebooks and favorite fan fiction.

Ebooks are a newer source of reading for me. I will likely ever prefer the analog version of most texts. But what would I have done with my spare time had I not discovered Anthony J Melchiorri’s writings?! 

I don’t want to know. I just devoured the first in a series of his, The Tide.

The featured image on this post is the cover as displayed by Amazon.

As for the book itself: Do you like zombies? Well-written dialogue? Not completely cracked science? Fight scenes and did I mention the not completely implausible science? People being bad ass and scared and realistically written? Boy, should you read The Tide.

Written in a well-paced, limited third person, The Tide tells the start of the end of the world. It focuses on a few primary characters, connected by blood or bond. There are mercenaries, questionsable government dudes, and a chick that I kinda want to be, were I not already twice her age. The monsters make me want to learn to shoot a gun, just in case. And the plausibility of something like this occurring is frightening. Fucking prions, man. Jeeze.

I’m literally typing this review on a cell phone screen, so the idea of the world suddenly going technology dark and WiFi-less is almost as scary as the infection-riddled hoards for me.

I didn’t want to stop reading The Tide, and immediately downloaded it’s sequel. I highly recommend it and what I’ve read of the second book in the series. 

I will look forward to buying the analog version for myself come my gestational escape anniversary at the end of this month.

Five out of five stars, Mr. Melchiorri, which I do not award lightly.

Week 23 of 52: many accomplishments!

Wowie! Up to 14,073 words now, with more to come.

Two books to review this week, so keep an eye out for those. There will be a second Wordy Wednesday post this coming week to make up for the migraine induced Miss from this week.

And! Two baby blankets done, another 3/4ths of the way there. 

Add to that the tea-having adventure, four hours of overtime I’ve worked today, and all the other little victories… I feel accomplished as hell. I even made an audiologist appointment to deal with the whole hearing issue I’ve been having.

In other news, Darling’s cornea is healing well and life is puttering back towards normal. 

And I was gifted a pet shirt, of the Star Trek variety. Which I immediately put on Spock. No regrets.

I’m for bed, but I hope everyone else’s coming week is wonderful.

Week 22 of 52: busy but a bit stagnant.

I’m at 11,020 words for the second week in a row, but I do have other accomplishments to boast this week! Two visits to the Emergency Room, because my Darling managed to scratch her cornea OFF, somehow. Worked a full day, after the second ER visit running on fifty two hours without sleep. I think, all told, I was awake for sixty eight hours with a cumulative total of three hours of catnaps cutting through it.

Not fun.

In other news, my Darling is on the mend! And there is much rejoicing in the household because of it. And during the six hour wait in the Emergency Room, I knocked out nearly half of one of the blankets!

So, yay for productivity! And during other sleepless hours, I finished the blanket for the still-percolating Baby W! This was a corner to corner done in Red Heart’s Reef verigated yarn and a solid brown for the border.

I am also about a quarter of the way through Dot Hutchison’s “The Butterfly Garden“. The review should be up on Wordy Wednesday, so long as I’ve finished it by then.

There’s so much to do, this week; but I hope I get some writing squeezed in there. The surgery consult to evict Percy the Endometrial Polyp is Tuesday. And Darling has a follow up optometrist appointment after work tomorrow. Have to work up a new budget for the cost of meds and surgery, as well as to rebuild savings.

I’m exhausted. Anyone have some spoons to lend? I’m for bed now, but I’ll catch y’all on the daylight side.

Wordy Wednesday? Nah. Weary Wednesday!

I’ll keep this short, as I am running on two hours of sleep and I’ve been up since four am! Weary-and in need of your help!

Adventures of being in love: when your Darling somehow scratches her cornea in her sleep, you get to drive her to the Emergency! At least that five hundred dollar copay is being shelled out for something legitimate and not something like an errant car hair.

However, both my Darling and I are so done we’re burnt toast. So I am crawling into bed with her and going to bed.

What I need from you, my friends, is your help. Give me a book to read and review!

I have a Kindle and the local library, as well as the house library, at my disposal. Suggestions? Comment or email me!

Week in Review: 21 of 52

Author’s note: posts work much better when one remembers to actually hit “post” rather than leaving things in the draft to languish.

What a week! After a brief visit to the Emergency Room, I was thrown a little off my game. I didn’t get any writing done this week. Zippo. None. Zero. Bubkis. Zilch. Nuffin’. 

I have planning done, four pages of it. But I don’t count that in my word count. So I am still at 11,020. But I am hopeful for this week.

A lot on the hook at the moment as well! My current list of active projects is a little… lengthy:

• Super Snuggle Queen Sized Blanket for my Darling, made with Bernat Blanket yarn
• Queen-sized blanket for my Brother in earth tones
• Giant ripple throw for my Sister in Law in blues, greens, and purples
• Boho Wedding Blanket I’m making for my lovely wife to be and I
• A throw for my friend Traci
• An ombré blanket in yellow, green, and blue for my friend Dan
• A shawl for myself in purple and copper
• The insomnia blanket I work on when I can’t sleep
• Baby blanket for incoming Baby F. being made as a corner to corner in a beautiful Reef variegated yarn
• Baby blanket for incoming Baby B. made from a Bernat pattern in bright pink and purple
• Baby blanket for incoming Baby J. Thus far, yarn and pattern are yet undecided
• Throw for my cousin
• Ocean wave throw for my friend Dana
• An overdue winter hat for my writer friend
• A crochet jacket a la Molly Weasley I’ve been wanting to make for forever
• At least three other things I have likely forgotten about and have stashed somewhere.

So that’s this week in Review! Now I realize why there is a yarn buying moratorium currently. Heh.

Hopefully, the extra day off will prove a little more productive!

Wordy Wednesday Went Wonky!

There should be a short story here. Instead, I’m just going to tell you I spent seven hours in the Emergency Room. I am home now, obviously, but have a doctor’s appointment in the bright and early.

So! Sorry the malfunctioning meatbag got in the way of a short story, but with a blood sugar of over 400, it was hospital or coffin, basically. I even, quite unfortunately, had to leave work early. Ugh. 

Oh well. Until nex time, blogosphere! I hope to have a little something written for you lovely people posted on AO3 later this week. Potterhead forever!

-slowly walks away, humming Hedwig’s theme, only to trip over air-