The Insurance Game

Oh boy, am I mad today. I've just been on the phone to my dentist, who had sent me a bill with a charge for perio charting on it. Which they hadn't billed the insurance for. So I call them up and say "Hey what gives? Why was the insurance not billed?" "Oh" they say, "the insurance won't pay for perio charting!" So I proceed to tell them that my insurance used to pay for everything. She finally says she'll call them and check on it. But I'm thinking, I better check also.

One swift call to the insurance and all will be well. Not so fast..... The insurance is not there to help me, they are there to line their pockets. It's all a game you see, and I will not be defeated!!! I ask them my question and then they say "I need to put you on hold" Ok that's fine. She comes back and says that code I had given her which the dentist has used is no longer valid. I, being the nice person I am, thinks that the whole world is nice and heck just ask her for the correct code. She'll give it to me so then business can go on the way it should as usual. They will pay for a service which they are suppose to pay for and all will be well. Hold on, not so fast. She in a slightly hushed voice says " We can't give out codes." In my outrage, I was amazingly sweet and told her "ok, thanks, I'll check with my last dentist and get the code from them." I knew that she was just some poor person doing the bidding of the big guys at the top, sad, very sad.

One more phone call to the old dentist and I find out that they change the codes yearly and charge for the new ones. Health insurance, what a racket. It's a wonder they pay on anything. A very sweet gal there looked up the codes and gave me one that she thought might work. I called my dentist back and of course she hadn't even called yet. This receptionist is something else. She has lost 2 of my payments so far. I have to keep a close watch on her. So I have given her the new code, we'll see what she does with it.

Must make a note, that we need to fight for everything we have, and nothing will be given easily. Of course in my little world it would be.

In the bush

Ok, how many times has Scott told me to shut the door. AAHHHHH. I was chatting on the phone to my sister and soaking up some sun on the park bench outside, when I became aware that I was seeing out of the corner of my eye a black thing. Oh no, I left the door open again. The same door which Boaz had escaped from.
This time it was only Dually who had absconded out the door. And straight for the bushes along the side fence. Now when Dually escapes you don't just go pick him up, as I have learned from watching Scott one fateful night when he had escaped and was hanging out in the wilderness. Scott thought "I will just pick him up and take him in the house." Oh no, that's not the way it happens with Mr. Dualls. Scott was immediately bitten and went running for the house. And Mr. Dualls? He remained in the bush, just where he wished to be.
So I had to ambush him and try to head him off in the right direction toward the open door. This took a bit of time, getting on my hands and knees, crawling through the wigelia and quince. When I was under there, I was brought back to my childhood days when we used to make a fort every summer in the neighbors grape arbor. I wonder now why they put up with us, maybe they just didn't catch us. Anyway under the wigela was a great fort, lots of room and no spiders, that I could see. I had to coax Mr. Dualls back through the hole in the fence, which was a missing board. Then go back around to the backyard and crawl under the rhody bush. Well I finally got him to cross the yard and go back in from where he came. But what an invigorating morning. And I thanked God I was still able to crawl under a bush at the age of 53.

Some Days Sunshine, Some Days Rain

Having a cat missing made me do all sorts of research on lost cats. I found out that if the cat is an indoor cat, he will be totally alienated in the outdoor world. His scent is no where to be found, so he will hide and hold up until dark and then begin his journey back to the house. Since Boaz was chased from the yard, it took him a bit longer to get back to the place where he got out. They stay in hiding if you are right there by them and won't make a sound. This is total fear.
Also an indoor cat is a lot more less likely to be ran over by a car, or get into other problems which a lost outdoor cat might encounter. Being used to being outside, they tend to stay out in the open more and snoop around. You know what they say about cats.

Well we did find Boaz, he was in the corner of the backyard. I found his glowing eyes peeping at me the 3rd evening that he was out. And we were both very happy to be united again. He seemed no worse for wear, a bit hungry and oh so loving. Him and Dually hit it right off again. So we have our wrestling matches in the mornings. Thats the sunshine we had.
Then about 3 days later, the rain came. Logan, our beautiful, sweet german shepard dog started acting a bit strange. Scott insisted that he would be alright, but as the evening went on he got progressively worse. He was all bloated and kept trying to throw up. I finally called the emergency vet, it was 11 by this time and they said bring him right in. We packed him up, he was getting pretty vocal , so you could tell he was in pain. They immediatly said that they needed to ex-ray him and that he would probably need an operation which would cost around 2,000 to 3,000 dollars. His stomach had gotten twisted and the gas was trapped in there. They would need to move everything around and possibly remove his spleen. We told them to take the exray and let us know what it showed. His stomach had been cut off for so long, it had began to die. Of course there was no way we could afford to pay that much anyway, so we had him put to sleep. It was a long silent drive home and we both felt pretty numb. We plopped into bed and the tears flowed. Realization was sitting in, we no longer had our dog and had just spent 400 dollar which we needed to live this month.

It has been 2 days since and I'm constantly reminded of him. Sweeping up his hair which was everywhere, removing his name from the food storage bin and picking up a stick he had placed on the patio the other night in an effort to get us to play with him, not to mention the numerous dog flops still in the yard. Oh there will be life after owning a dog, a much cleaner one, I'm sure.