another UTI

Woke up at 2:30 a.m. with another horrible UTI, probably from the infection I had last month that was never completely cleared, no thanks to my regular doctor's office. MonsterMustDie drove me to the local emergency room for a positive test and thankfully, my insurance was still active so it only cost me $500.00 (I dread to think what something like this will cost with no insurance). Thanks to the kind staff and young Dr. Patel for helping me accurately and quickly. My Walgreens helped with the cost of the antibiotics and now I'm once again on the road to recovery.

This has been a strange sad week. Lost my full-time job last week. 

Planned a trip to Chicago this week with friend to visit her mom. 

Then my sister-in-law's father, who has been ill for a very long time, passed away early Sunday morning. I cancelled the plans for the Chicago trip and started making new plans to drive down to Atlanta for the funeral and MonsterMustDie took his suit to the drycleaners (which he should have done last time he wore it). 

My sister-in-law asked us not to come to the funeral. She just repeated several times how the long drive wasn't worth it and it was going to be a small brief memorial - about 30 minutes.

On the upside, maybe everything does happen for a reason. 

My friend decided to postpone her trip to Chicago to next week so we can go together and she doesn't have to make such a long drive alone. 

It probably would have been much worse if I had come down with this infection while I was away from home. The money I would have spent on travel and flowers and cat-sitter, etc. for the funeral trip was used for medical bills. Looks like the universe has taken care of me again.

Once again, I'm unemployed.

The company I've been working at full-time since July 2018 decided to eliminate their entire digital imaging department, outsourcing more and concentrating on marketing instead. They called all of us into a meeting on Friday morning and let us know our jobs were terminated. Effective immediately. They handed us our final paychecks as we left the conference room and all of us were escorted out of the building. The only people I didn't see leaving were Captain Cod and Mr. Drinky. 

Boom. 

I've got no plans or prospects for another job here in High Point. Meanwhile, I'll try to put in more hours at my weekend job at the shop. This leaves my schedule and life even more unpredictable and since I'll have to be available to show up at any time to keep a retail job. I still work every weekend but I will try to get more weekday hours now. 

John is retired now and has no interest in working for someone else again. He'll be 65 on April 28. 

All retail work is part time. I am now immediately uninsured again, probably permanently. 

Health insurance woes

Today's WTF moment:

I have a health insurance bill, due March 11, for $568.67. This is a bill that was supposed to be paid by my revenant employer for the meager hours of work he still gives me from time to time. He does not pay me enough to cover this monthly bill - or my rent. The checks are always suspiciously low even when I spend more time there sometimes and I assumed this was just the cost of the insurance bill being taken from the check. There are no copiers there to make backups of my time cards or billing per job tickets so all payments to me or the pressman who comes in occassionally are on a basis of trust. Not sure what I should do about it other than pay this bill out of my savings and cancel the insurance.

Update:

I went online to eHealthInsurance.com and found significantly less expensive options from two very large, well known insurance companies. I filled out a partial application form and saved it to their site. Then I phoned the insurance rep for the business and asked what gives with me getting a huge insurance bill like that. I faxed the bill to him to review. He said the bill should have gone to the printing company but for some reason, they could not send it to that address so I needed to bring it to them. The revenant employer told me to bring the bill in to them - they have some work for me today - and they would take care of it.

home. health. money.

Has not been a good week, financially. I have had to tell MonsterMustDie that we can not afford a new cat because I can not pay veterinary bills like I did for most of Doris Kat’s vet visits. Also, a new cat would probably ruin our expensive uphostered furniture, although I know there are a lot of already-declawed cats up for adoptions in shelters like FurKids, etc. (I would never do that to a cat but if it’s done, it’s done and that would be a plus for an indoor lone cat.)

I had a small but expensive oral surgery last week and that, along with the cleaning that day, cost $1100.00 - and now I have to have a chipped filling replaced in a couple of weeks. I have to pay all of my dental bills out of pocket because I've never had insurance for that. The filling was chipped by grinding my teeth in my sleep. This means, when I can afford it, I really need to get a new retainer to straighten the teeth that are going crooked now and prevent more damage from grinding.

My revenant job, where I've been working a handful of hours a week for health insurance, gave me a new form along with a request for a check to pay for it. The insurance would be cheaper than the last time I checked on the cost of having my own policy but I'd now be paying it myself for more than I make a month and it is a company I have never heard of. I'm still not sure if my doctor or hospital of choice would accept that company. The gist of this is that I am facing, at the beginning of 2011, not having any health insurance.

My bank account is dwindling now and I'm trying to tell him that I can't contribute like I've been doing. He considers moving to a smaller, cheaper place a moot point because he has so many things in antiques, ceramics, and tools that this place is hardly big enough for him as is. I'm nearly certain he would rather be in a space with no yard to maintain so I wonder if a loft or industrial space would suit him better.