On the way down to The Valley (Phoenix area) last week for Kortnie's Endo visit I had time to think and let my mind wander. It's a 230 mile drive, my husband was driving, the kids were busy with their Ipods and DSi's. We were in an area where there was no radio service so I put in a few CD's, held hubby's hand and took in the scenery.
Then the song "My Sharona" came on. This song always makes me think of a work friend I had a while ago, maybe 15 years ago. I was young, unmarried and not a mom then. She was probably closer to the age I am now. She had a few kids, one of them had Cystic Fibrosis, CF. I can't remember how old he was maybe around 10. Anyways, he was sick and dying. I didn't know much about CF, and I guess I still don't. I did remember having a friend with CF back in maybe 7th grade. I remember my friend coming to work and always having a smile on her face, she'd occasionally tell us what was going on with her son and I remember her taking days off to do things with him. Anything from Dr visits to special outings, a Make A Wish trip and Hospital stays. We all would make sure to pick up her shifts so she could have this time off with her son and family. She made sure to work enough to keep her medical insurance. After a few months of her son being really ill, he passed away. It was sad, and all of us felt really bad for her. Like I mentioned before, I was young, unmarried and childless. I felt sorry for my friend, but I don't think I ever really felt too sympathetic towards her. Not to make myself sound harsh and I knew it must have been an awful thing for her to lose her child and to actually watch him die and know it was coming, but how could I have known the extent of her feelings. Now when I hear that song on the radio I think of her and my heart breaks for her. Now that I have my own kids and I realize how awful it must have been for her and her family.
So, here we were headed to Kortnie's Endo appointment and I'm thinking of my old friend who had a son with a chronic and deadly disease, I remember how upbeat and postive she always seemed and how she seemed to really live life. Could it be that facing the mortality of her son made her more inclined to LIVE? So that got me to thinking about how we live. Now I am not about to compare Kortnie's T1 to CF and I know that Kortnie isn't dieing right now, but I do think that if no cure is found, T1 or Complications becasue of T1 will eventually probably be the thing that Kortnie dies from. I know (hope) that she'll live a long life as long as we continue to take care of her T1 and teach her how to take care of herself. But, here's my question. Has your kids T1 diagnosis made you live life any more adventurous or fuller than you had been? It seems like my family is just plugging along. We don't do anything more adventurous or extreme, and well, I'd like to. Not because I (we) are faced with Kortnie's T1, but because we are all faced with mortality, anything could happen at any time, right?
Brian and I have always talked about possibly moving, we'd love to live close to the water, Washington, Oregon, Northern California, Maine, South Carolina, even Alaska. As we were driving thru the Salt River Canyon I thought to myself that even though it's a dream of mine to live close to the water, I still think it's beautiful here in Arizona and I enjoy living here. I'd like to appreciate it more, explore, take pictures, go hiking, spend time with my family. Live our lives to the fullest each day. And maybe someday, we'll get out dream and be able to live somewhere else, or maybe someday we'll take our kids to visit these places and enjoy the time we have visiting these places.
Kortnie
Kortnie at the 2011 JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes, Tempe Town Lake, Tempe, AZ
Showing posts with label Goals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Goals. Show all posts
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Monday, January 2, 2012
New Year, New DR, New Insurance
It's a new year. I'm excited for the many prospects of it. Kortnie's doctor retired as of Dec 1. I'm pretty excited about it because now I can go ahead and get her a new Doctor. The Dr that retired is the only Pediatric Endocrinologist up here where we live. So now we've found a new Dr in Scottsdale, AZ which is about a 231 mile drive for us. I wasn't a big fan of the old Dr, but he was only 31 miles away and I also kind of worry about having a Dr further away during an emergency. Anyways, this new Dr works in an Endocrinology Center and we're just excited for a new path. His name is Dr Hahnke. Our first appointment is on January 13, it happens to be MLK day and the kids are out of school. My husband is taking off of work and we're all going to go down together. We'll see the Dr, eat at Olive Garden, do some shopping at Sam's Club and then the girls want to go to the mall and spend some of their Christmas money. We are hopefully going to make a fun trip out of it.
Some of the questions I have for this new Dr are...
1. How to really work on her A1C, it's been high in the high 7's and lower 8's since diagnosis.
2. She's had T1D for a little over 2 years now and we've never had any blood work run except for the A1C every 3 months. She should have yearly blood work right?
3. I need to get our prescriptions renewed too. We also have new insurance which started on Dec 1. And the new insurance BCBS the preferred (cheaper) test strips happen to be One Touch which is awesome because they are the kind that link up best with her pump, we can use them in the pump's meter remote. (We're on the Animas Ping) The insurance will let us get 300 a month for a copay of $15. When we were on Medicaid we were allowed 150 AccuCheck's per month for no copay, and then we lost Medicaid on Jan 1, 2011 and I was having to pay full price for test strips, so I resorted to buying them off of ebay. Most of the time the AccuCheck's were the best deal I could get on ebay. I'm excited to be able to use the One Touch's now! Yay! Also, the old Dr only wanted to prescribe 1 bottle of insulin per month to Kortnie and I really think she needs 2, that way I won't have to really try to streth it out, at the end of the month I find myself starting to worry that we'll run out. I was paying $136/month for a bottle of insulin, so I didn't really push to get 2 bottles, that would have doubled our price, but now with the new insurance I an get the 2 bottles for $15 copay each month. Also with the new insurance we'll have to use Liberty Medical for the pump supplies. So I need the new Dr to write new prescriptions for the pump supplies. We did have a lifetime prescription for the pump supplies of at Animas, but now everything is switched up. We do have a $1000 deductible on the pump supplies, after that BCBS will cover 70% of the cost. Again this past year we were paying full price, so I'm excited to get past that $1000 deductible and get the costs of those down.
4. This Dr can do the A1C test with a finger poke in the office, he also does a 3 day CGM, which I am going to ask about.
5. We currently do not have a 504 plan at Kortnie's school. The school however does have a medical agreement type thing with our family. Kortnie's in 2nd grade now and going to 3rd grade next year. However when she goes to 4th grade she will be in a new school with new staff. So my goal is to have her able to do a lot of her diabetes care by the time she goes to the new school which will be Fall of 2013, I will also insist on a 504 plan when she goes to the new school. So I plan on visiting with Dr Hahnke about some of that.
6. I think I'd also like to talk to him about us trying Apidra, possibly over Spring Break when she's out of school for a week, in March. I do need to check with our insurance and see if there would be a cost difference for Apidra though.
7. Kortnie will only do her site in her belly, I want to talk to him about talking to her about other sites and why she should move it around more often.
So, do any of you have any other questions you think I should ask, something, I'm not thinking about? I'm sure I'll come up with a few more between now and then. I really need to start writing these questions down.
This year, I am going to be pro-active, I'm going to start keeping better track of her numbers, basal changes, carb counts, I'm going to really start weighing and measuring and not guessing quite as much. I thought we had a handle on things and we're doing okay, but I want to do better! I also want to work on my fear of letting Kortnie have more independance. She wants to go and do and she doesn't want me hovering. I also need to get out more by myself or with Brian without having to rush back and check on Kortnie or without having to call her every hour or two.
I also am going to work on me this year, I am overweight and tired. I am going to start really working on making healthier choices when shopping, cooking, and eating. Not just for me, but for all of us. I also want to excerise more often. 4 days of 7. I want to spend more time on me, making myself feel good, I want to get dressed and make myself look nice more often. I want to work on getting some of our debt paid off too. I know we aren't going to get on top of it this year, but I want to work on getting it a lot more under control. I also want to blog more often :-) It's a lot, I know, but I'm willing to start chipping away at it.
Happy New Year everyone, what are some of your goals you want to work on? D or not?
Some of the questions I have for this new Dr are...
1. How to really work on her A1C, it's been high in the high 7's and lower 8's since diagnosis.
2. She's had T1D for a little over 2 years now and we've never had any blood work run except for the A1C every 3 months. She should have yearly blood work right?
3. I need to get our prescriptions renewed too. We also have new insurance which started on Dec 1. And the new insurance BCBS the preferred (cheaper) test strips happen to be One Touch which is awesome because they are the kind that link up best with her pump, we can use them in the pump's meter remote. (We're on the Animas Ping) The insurance will let us get 300 a month for a copay of $15. When we were on Medicaid we were allowed 150 AccuCheck's per month for no copay, and then we lost Medicaid on Jan 1, 2011 and I was having to pay full price for test strips, so I resorted to buying them off of ebay. Most of the time the AccuCheck's were the best deal I could get on ebay. I'm excited to be able to use the One Touch's now! Yay! Also, the old Dr only wanted to prescribe 1 bottle of insulin per month to Kortnie and I really think she needs 2, that way I won't have to really try to streth it out, at the end of the month I find myself starting to worry that we'll run out. I was paying $136/month for a bottle of insulin, so I didn't really push to get 2 bottles, that would have doubled our price, but now with the new insurance I an get the 2 bottles for $15 copay each month. Also with the new insurance we'll have to use Liberty Medical for the pump supplies. So I need the new Dr to write new prescriptions for the pump supplies. We did have a lifetime prescription for the pump supplies of at Animas, but now everything is switched up. We do have a $1000 deductible on the pump supplies, after that BCBS will cover 70% of the cost. Again this past year we were paying full price, so I'm excited to get past that $1000 deductible and get the costs of those down.
4. This Dr can do the A1C test with a finger poke in the office, he also does a 3 day CGM, which I am going to ask about.
5. We currently do not have a 504 plan at Kortnie's school. The school however does have a medical agreement type thing with our family. Kortnie's in 2nd grade now and going to 3rd grade next year. However when she goes to 4th grade she will be in a new school with new staff. So my goal is to have her able to do a lot of her diabetes care by the time she goes to the new school which will be Fall of 2013, I will also insist on a 504 plan when she goes to the new school. So I plan on visiting with Dr Hahnke about some of that.
6. I think I'd also like to talk to him about us trying Apidra, possibly over Spring Break when she's out of school for a week, in March. I do need to check with our insurance and see if there would be a cost difference for Apidra though.
7. Kortnie will only do her site in her belly, I want to talk to him about talking to her about other sites and why she should move it around more often.
So, do any of you have any other questions you think I should ask, something, I'm not thinking about? I'm sure I'll come up with a few more between now and then. I really need to start writing these questions down.
This year, I am going to be pro-active, I'm going to start keeping better track of her numbers, basal changes, carb counts, I'm going to really start weighing and measuring and not guessing quite as much. I thought we had a handle on things and we're doing okay, but I want to do better! I also want to work on my fear of letting Kortnie have more independance. She wants to go and do and she doesn't want me hovering. I also need to get out more by myself or with Brian without having to rush back and check on Kortnie or without having to call her every hour or two.
I also am going to work on me this year, I am overweight and tired. I am going to start really working on making healthier choices when shopping, cooking, and eating. Not just for me, but for all of us. I also want to excerise more often. 4 days of 7. I want to spend more time on me, making myself feel good, I want to get dressed and make myself look nice more often. I want to work on getting some of our debt paid off too. I know we aren't going to get on top of it this year, but I want to work on getting it a lot more under control. I also want to blog more often :-) It's a lot, I know, but I'm willing to start chipping away at it.
Happy New Year everyone, what are some of your goals you want to work on? D or not?
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