Eating Better and Health Insurance Woes

Flax

Feeling a little out of sorts today.  I've got a headache,  I feel grouchy and muddled, and my left hand is numb.  Yesterday was an Orencia injection day, so perhaps that's the problem.  I've been feeling great, relatively, this past week: lots more physical stamina than usual, mental clarity, and motivation.  Not today, though.

Our oven is not being cooperative.  It has been moody for several months, sometimes it gets up to the desired temperature but it takes much longer than it should, and sometimes it takes forever and will only get up to about 200 degrees.  I've been wanting to make bread and lots of other things that require an oven.  Yesterday I had a mental lapse and forgot about the broken oven long enough to make bread dough.  Partway through I remembered the problem, and then I was hoping it would be one of those times where the oven does eventually get up to the right temperature.  I put the dough outside in the sun to rise and an hour later, after it had risen, I had a bowlful of lovely looking and heavenly smelling oat wheat bread dough.  But the oven was stuck at just over one hundred degrees.  So, long story short, I couldn't bake the dough and today it's still just sitting in the bowl.  M. dug around under the stove and he thinks there's a broken igniter.  There's a Viking store in Santa Fe, which is over an hour away.  I guess we'll be making a trip. 

Pansies on the porch

My marigolds have germinated.  Yesterday I started a new flat of seeds--but so far all I've got in that tray are acorn squash seeds.  I need to finish that tray up today.  Still no signs of my green lettuce germinating in the garden. If we are here to garden next year, I'm definitely going to use row covers or make some cold frames. 

I'm on day eight of my mostly vegetarian diet.  Yesterday, for breakfast I had a homemade English muffin with homemade hummus.  For lunch I had stir fried tofu with zucchini and leeks, with hot chili sauce.  For dinner, we had store bought cheese-filled tortellini.  I made a sauce with tempeh that I had marinated overnight, mushrooms, green chili, garlic, and stewed tomatoes.  I was wondering how the tempeh would go over with my mom and M, and worried that they wouldn't like the tempeh.  But both of them liked it a lot. 

Marigold seedlings

At the end of last fall, I went to a new primary care physician and as part of that appointment, she did some routine blood tests.  I'm still fighting with the insurance company to get coverage of the tests. They want me to pay over a thousand dollars for the tests.  I detest this new company; they've given me trouble with every single claim I've made, and whenever I call I get information that either conflicts with what they themselves told in a previous phone call or what the health care providers tell me that they've been told by the health insurance company.  I'm an expensive insuree and it's completely to their advantage to make things as difficult for me and their other insurees as they can.  Eventually, a person gets frustrated and gives up.  And when it's so frustrating to have the claims dealt with, it's very tempting to put off getting health care to avoid the hassle.  I have never received a single printed thing from them telling me what my benefits are and it was months of paying their premiums before I was able to access that information on their web page.  In the meantime, they had all kinds of special reasons why the health care I was receiving wasn't covered under their plan.  They will not provide definitive information about which doctors are considered preferred providers: they have a recorded disclaimer at that prefaces each phone call and one of their operators told me that the information on their web site about provider status is sometimes outdated.  I was told I needed to ask the doctors.  But every doctor's office I've consulted either has no idea whether they are preferred providers or gives me incorrect information.  For example, the first rheumatologist I saw here in New Mexico was fantastic and his office told me that they take my insurance.  And they do, but the small print is that it's only if you are Native American or in case of emergencies.  So I was left with a bill of over a thousand dollars for x-rays and close to five hundred for the doctor's appointment visit.  That's just outrageous. 

My Orchid Cactus is blooming.

The reason I bring this up (it's not just to vent) is that this past week when I made yet another phone call to deal with the charges from seeing the general physician back at the beginning of November their recorded message mentioned that patients could access their medical records online.  My doctor had told me that if there was anything wrong in the tests, she would contact me.  She hadn't contacted me, so I assumed that things were okay.  Then I saw my neurologist earlier this spring and he accessed my results and said my cholesterol was pretty high and that I should have been contacted by my primary care doctor about them.  I've been busy so I hadn't yet done so, and I was curious to see what the specifics of the results were.  I accessed my records online and saw that indeed my HDL was very high, my LDL was very low, my triglycerides were very high, and there were signs of some kidney damage, which could indicate diabetes or be from my autoimmune diseases.  So much for contacting me if there was a problem. 

Still unidentified

Right before I saw that doctor, when I had gone in for one of my monthly infusions, I found that my weight had gone up for no apparent reason, other than starting a new medication, so before I had those blood tests I had already started to cut calories and cut some of the crap out of my diet.  Since that time, I've lost twenty pounds and I'd started eating much better, though there was still a fair amount of crap in my diet.  Anyway, I imagine my blood tests are somewhat better given the improvements in my diet and the weight loss, but I know that I need to keep working on it and get re-tested.

The test results were an impetus to really pay attention to what I'm eating.  Some people (including M. and my mom) seem to have no problem with their cholesterol even when they are consuming a lot of saturated fats in the form of cheese and meat, and other processed foods like ice cream, cookies, and chips.  I guess I'm not so fortunate. 

Iris

But ultimately that's a good thing, I suppose, because it provides the motivational force to get me to do something that I know is right anyway: to consume far fewer animal products and less processed food in general, and more vegetables and whole grains. 

This week of eating mostly no meat (I had one meal with shrimp) has been fantastic.  Every meal has been delicious and I've felt satiated after eating without feeling stuffed and lethargic.  I've had more energy and mental clarity, and definitely happier.  Except for today.  And come to think of it, last night I had that store-bought pasta with cheese, along with an extra helping before bedtime (naughty I know) and this morning, though I've been up for three hours and gone for a walk, I've only eaten five blue corn and sesame chips and drunk some coffee.  I think it's kitchen time; my body needs some healthy fuel.