Moving ... Cincinnati Bell ... Prayers

Hello!  When I last posted, John & I were once again embarking on a search for a rental home. Good news here ... we found one!!!  Whereas we had initially thought that the last one was good, God has blessed us with one that is even better! It is exceptionally clean & well cared for.  When we went to view it, I opened every cabinet, every drawer, every cupboard, checked out every appliance, examined every window & door, etc. The carpets were cleaned, the walls repainted (even in the garage!), & the bushes & trees had been trimmed.  It definitely passed the Shirlee test : )   It's in a nice little residential area.  The deck in back has a view of a bunch of trees, & I believe that beyond them lies a farm.  The street is a cul de sac, & at the end of it is a big hill where lots of cows graze   : )   While we were waiting to meet our agent to view the home, a young man from across the street came over to introduce himself & ask if we were moving there.  We told him we were thinking of renting this house.  He then went on to tell us what a nice place it is to live & how nice the neighbors are.  Told us a bit about himself & his wife, then said that if we needed help with anything we shouldn't hesitate to ask him.  I was quite impressed   : )   Oh!  I almost forgot to mention that this house is cheaper than the other one as well!  Cheaper, cleaner, nicer, quieter, bigger, has a deck & a fireplace, & the landlord is nicer as well!  We had to sign a two year lease, then it will switch over to a month-to-month lease. This suits us very well   : )   We have until the end of June to move out of our current rental, so we need to get busy!  This house is about an hour north of here.  We will be moving most things ourselves but will need to get movers to take the furniture & washer/dryer.  One month from today we should be busy settling into our new abode. We will both miss the area where we currently live, but I think we will come to enjoy the new area as well   : )

I now have a question for any of my readers who might have telephone & internet service with Cincinnati Bell.  How do you like it?  Would you recommend it to others?  It seems to have a lot of negative reviews online, but then our current provider & the one we had at our previous home also had negative reviews & they aren't/weren't too bad.  If you could email me with your thoughts, I'd really appreciate it   : )

Amidst all the drama of house hunting, three other serious issues have occurred.  The first was the death of one of my very best & closest friends, Mary. Although she had been quite ill for quite a long time, her death was very sudden & it hit me very hard.  I will do a blog post about her once we are settled.

The second was having to take John to the ER recently.  He was having a strange visual disturbance & his doctor told him to go immediately to the ER because he might be experiencing a retinal detachment.  This of course occurred late on a Friday afternoon when it was pouring rain, & we had to drive to his hospital in Louisville, which is an hour away, during rush hour. Not fun.  We arrived at the ER a little after 5 o'clock & didn't get home until after midnight.  They did a CT scan as they wanted to rule out a stroke or other brain issue.  Thankfully that was normal.  Then we sat in the waiting room for three hours until the young doctor dude arrived at the hospital.  He gave John a very thorough exam & said it was difficult for him to see the retina because cataracts were blocking it.  This was a surprise to John ... he had never been told that he had cataracts.  His last eye exam was just a year ago!  The young doctor dude told him that he would refer him to the retina specialist.  John saw the specialist this past Tuesday.  He doesn't think there is anything serious going on, nor does he think the cataracts are causing this sudden visual disturbance, but he told John what to watch out for (the warning signs of something serious happening) & then told him to return for a followup visit in a month.  The visual disturbance is still there.  The odd thing about this is that you would naturally think that maybe the cataracts were causing the visual disturbance.  In fact, a Ravelry friend of mine had this same kind of visual disturbance recently & her doctor blamed her cataracts, but both the young doctor dude & the specialist told John that the cataracts had nothing to do with his problem.  

Lastly, I was diagnosed with a rare pituitary condition about eight years ago.  My doctor at that time, based on the symptoms I described, only suspected that I had have some deficiencies. My blood tests showed that I did.  She did not say why I had these deficiencies but did say they weren't good.  She said I needed to take daily injections for the rest of my life in order to keep from, well, to have a decent quality of life.  The injections come in pens which are very expensive. When I began taking this medication, the pens were $425 each & I used one pen each month.  She told me insurance would not cover the cost of the medication, so I had to pay this money out of pocket which was, as I'm sure you can imagine, rather difficult.  As time went on, the dosage needed to be increased.  After being told that I was going to need to pay for three pens each month, I began looking for another doctor. This is a long story but one doctor was of no help at all. The next one said there must be a reason for these deficiencies & she ordered some brain scans.  This was when the rare pituitary condition was discovered.  She would not, however, help me get the medication I needed!  I went to another doctor who was unable to help me, but she referred me to someone who could.  He has been a God-send.  When I first saw him, he shared an office with another doctor & he was connected with a very good hospital.  He told me not to worry, my testing results proved I needed the medication & he would work with my insurance company to have them cover it ... & he did!  And they did!  When I saw him for my second appointment, he had moved to another office & was connected with another hospital.  He is still a very compassionate doctor, but this new office seems to place great importance on the number of patients you should see in a day ... so instead of spending a lot of time with me like he did at my first appointment, my appointments at this new place have been rather rushed.  This really isn't too bad as I only see him for maintenance purposes.  However, his nurse is not very smart ... or maybe she's just lazy ... or maybe it's both. When it comes time to renew my prescription, she always makes a mess of things ... sends it to the wrong pharmacy, leaves out important details like the dosage amount, etc.  It's always been a struggle for me to get my refills when it's time to renew them.  Three months ago I received a letter from my insurance company telling me they were no longer going to pay for this brand of medication, but my doctor could prescribe a different brand & they gave me the name of it.  I immediately made an appointment with my doctor who said not to worry, it was the same medication, just another manufacturer.  I received that medication & it seems to be causing me some side effects.  I was going to talk about them with my doctor at my next appointment which is in August.  In the meantime, I've been thinking that I should be getting a phone call any day now from the pharmacy telling me it's time for my next refill. However, what I received instead ... when I have two weeks of medication left ... is a letter from the insurance company telling me they are no longer going to pay for this medication!  They said I am welcome to pay for it myself.  The cost of this medication has risen & now costs over $10,000 for a three month supply.  You read that right ... $10,000.  My co-pay is $425.  I can't be without this medication or I will began to relapse & it won't be good   : (   I immediately called my doctor's office & asked for an emergency appointment.  I was told "no can do" ... that the doctor & both of his PAs were booked through September!  I was beside myself & explained my situation to the receptionist.  She sympathized with me & sent an electronic message back to the nurse to have her call me.  She wrote the message while I was still on the phone with her & read it to me as she was writing it.  I thanked her profusely. The nurse has never called.  Trying to talk with this nurse is like trying to talk with a sack of potatoes.  The doctor seems oblivious to this.  I contacted my secondary insurance company who told me they could provide the medication to me for free, but I would have to drop my primary coverage.  This sounded good to me.  I called the primary coverage but they told me that I had to drop all the coverage, not just the pharmacy coverage as it was all in one.  This still sounded good to me. However, because of all my medical problems, John is worried that the secondary won't pay for all the hospital or doctor coverage.  We need to ask about that.  There is also a possible problem in that we might not be able to drop me from the coverage now ... we might have to wait for "open season" which is in mid-November & won't go into effect until January.  This means I would be without the medication for six months.  We will pursue things further this coming week.  

If you would please pray for Mary's family, for John's eye, & for this medication situation, I would very much appreciate it.  

Oh!  Remember the furniture problems I was having?  They are still ongoing.  

And another Oh!  I most likely had two heart attacks back in April.  I described the symptoms to my doctor who was more than annoyed with me.  She said that if this happens again I need to go immediately to the hospital.  Even if the pain stops by the time I get there, there are some kind of tests that can be done to confirm if I had a heart attack or not.  From what I described to her, however, she is relatively sure they were heart attacks.  

I'm sorry that this post turned out to be so lengthy.  If you've made it this far, thank you for reading.  And thank you in advance for your prayers.