Income Increase and Achilles Update

The cast is OFF! YAY! Except I can't put full weight on my leg yet.  The surgeon was all gung-ho about me walking in a walking boot and not using my walker/crutches.  I went to take a step and OUCH!!!!! Uh, no.  Still need the crutches to support me walking.  I am trying each day to put weight on it, but it's pretty frustrating.
I know it's going to take time, but to go one day walking (even with the chronic pain), to no weight at all for close to 6 weeks and then to 'walking' again and not being able to stinks.
Plus, my calf muscle has atrophied so much that I can't tell you how long it's been since I saw my leg that skinny! lol.  It also means I have no strength.
Time will tell how I do.

On a happier note, J finally got his VA Benefits all squared away!
In May 2010 we filed for his benefits for disability (which he should have done when he got out of the Navy in 1997...c'est la vie). In June 2011 they said, yes, you have Tinnitus and we'll give you a 10% disability rating (which is $127/month as of right now), but since you didn't 'show up' for your appt at the VA hospital for your shoulder claim, it's DENIED.
Well, we never received an appointment for his shoulder.  We sent the appeal back (which you have to do within a year or you have to start over) and told them that J would be in Afghanistan but would be back in Oct - Nov 2011 and to please reschedule the appointment.
Literally a week after J went back to Afghanistan they sent the appointment date. *le sigh*
So, me being his Power of Attorney, I called to cancel the appointment with the VA Hospital, who told me "when he gets back, just have the local office reschedule".
Sounds easy right? WRONG.
A couple of months later we got another letter stating it was DENIED because he didn't show up again. *LE SIGH*
Another appeal letter stating what had happened and that we 'respectfully requested another appointment when he returned after May 2012".
They FINALLY got it right.
He had his appointment in August, and the doctor agreed that J's shoulder was not right since his injury and surgery by the Navy in 1996.

We got the news yesterday that his disability rating has increased from 10% - 30% which means that he also gets a dependant rating for me (yay for being married! lol).
So instead of $127/month it will now be $435/month.  We also have a pending deposit for the backpay all the way back to May 2010 (minus any pay he's already received) of $8,444.

J and I need to have a 'chat' tonight on what to allocate the funds to.
Since we have debt again, we need to discuss where it will go.
We have already decided a few things.  J will get some 'fun money' since technically it is 'his' money (although I did all the work for it :P), we will finish out our 'vacation/cruise' money for January, and we will put some into the 4% certificate that we opened a couple of weeks ago.
We will also send some to my parents who loaned us some money when we first got married to help out.  There's never been a written "you must pay us back or else" but today, my mom assumed that we are 'in a position to pay them back' now.....and we're not really, but they don't know that.

But that's another story for another time.

Is It Monday Yet?

Yes, I know, that SHOULD read, is it Friday yet? But Monday means I get this cast off of my leg and I get a walking boot.

I NEED TO WALK.  This past month has been horrible!  I feel like I gained 50lbs, I am looking at a disaster area of a home, and I haven't been able to get to work.  I never thought I would be so happy to be closer to going to work and talking to people who may yell at me.  Yes, I am looking forward to that!

If you know how much I hate to clean, you would be surprised to know that I am DESPERATE to clean this house, just because I can't at the moment.
I can see the mess J has made on his side of the bed, but can I tidy it up? No, because 1) It takes an effort to get upstairs (I have been crawling up the stairs on my hands and knees since the surgery), 2) I have to use a walker up there and cannot bed over to pick up his stuff, and if I do pick it up, I cannot hold it and use the walker at the same time. *sigh*

I would kill to be able to take a bath right now. Seriously.  I love baths, and I haven't had one since August 20th.  I can barely take a shower because it is so difficult to bag my leg, actually get into the shower, shower, get out of the shower, dry, and dress.  By the time I do all of that (upstairs by the way), I feel so sweaty that I would need to take another shower.  So I shower when I am desperate enough, or I have to go out.

I have pretty much been dealing with this, and keeping to myself, but now that I am so close to getting the cast off, I am becoming impatient.  I really just want to break it off lol.

Only a few more days, I can do it......maybe. lol

On the money front, we have really had to cut back this past week.  My paycheck was only $675Net when normally it is $1200. Ouch.  So extra payments to things did not get done.
That's another reason why I am looking forward to going back.  Night differential :)

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Medical Expenses

The cast comes off on October 1 and into a walking boot I go!

A few comments I had received regarding my surgery were about our insurance and hoping that we didn't have to pay too much for the surgery.
I wasn't too worried, as the insurance we had before, Aetna, through J's work wasn't so good for us, so Blue Cross Blue Shield HAD to be better.

Basically, Aetna for us was a $600/year deductible per person and no one was In-Network with them around here, meaning that only 60% of the cost was ever paid.  So we paid a lot in expenses whenever something happened to me or J....but usually me lol.

We swiched to my employer's insurance, BCBS last open enrollment and man has it saved us a ton! I will show you proof here in a moment.

While it may cost us over double a paycheck for coverage, in the long run, we are saving.
Our deductible is $250/year per person.
And EVERYONE around here is In-Network so they pay 100%.

For my surgery (does not include initial consultation with the surgeon which was a $30 Copay) the total cost came to $22,138.87.
My responsibility for it is........$21.83!

I had reached my deductible so everytime I would read "Patient Responsibility: $0" I would smile.
That total cost also does not include the 'discount' that BCBS gives because of being In-Network.
If we had stayed with Aetna, I would have been responsible for something like $8500.

So for those who may have been wondering about the money side of my surgery, there you go :)

August Recap

Wow, this month has been interesting to say the least.  It's probably easier to just bullet point everything and go from there!

- The beginning. Started off well, looking forward to vacation up in Muskoka with J and most of my family.

- Vacation was GREAT.  Was so nice to just get away from everything and visit family and home.  It's amazing at how much you really do miss things from home, even the small things and noticing how different stuff is from down here. And we're only talking about a 9hr drive between these differences.  I can't tell you how much I miss Swiss Chalet, OLG Scratch Tickets, Advanced Green stoplights, and Cantonese Chinese Food from the little hole in the wall restaurants that taste AWESOME.  And after a week we returned home.

- Returned to normalcy.  Work is still the same, except with the added Mandatory Overtime which reduced the number of regular overtime shifts we had so a lot of us could not sign up for anything more than the mandatory overtime.  The money I *was* going to make suddenly stopped.

- August 21. Day of my achilles surgery.  Everything went good, even with the unexpected harvest of my big toe tendon to rebuild it.  I was scheduled off from the 21st - 27th and was supposed to go back to work on the 28th. Now the fun begins.

- August 26th I bugged J to go back to Ikea to look and pick up some items to make our living room and office 'put together'. Well...I was riding on my knee walker and was going too fast, hit the wheels and it toppled from underneath me towards my left which made me put my left leg down (the one that had surgery). Not only did I just put it down, I put my FULL WEIGHT on it and felt a lot of pain.  Needless to say I was VERY upset and in quite a bit of pain.  The most worrisome part was that because I was in a splint, I couldn't see what 'damage' I may have done to the incision or if I detached the achilles.  We got home and about 30minutes later my surgeon actually called to check up on me. He said everything should be ok and to try and take it easy.

- August 28th. My day to return to work. And I didn't.  After my surgeon called, I started feeling a lot of pain in my calf.  Think of the worst charlie horse you've ever had and multiply it.  It hurt. A lot.  I called the UVA outpatient office and when my surgeon's Physician's Assistant called she wanted me to come in to check for a blood clot. Great. Well bugger, UVA is 2 hours from where we live and J would have to come home from work (an hour away). Not going to happen that day. Go to the closest ER they say. So we went.....or started to.  As I was waiting on J (ok I admit, I got impatient and I'm stubborn), I opened up the storm door to hop out to the front porch and the threshold grabbed my big toe on my left foot and I went flying out the door, over the porch and down the steps onto the pathway.  I fell far and hard.  Hey, if I am going to go to the ER I may as well make it worth my while.

- The ER. Final Results. Arrived at 2:30pmEDT, had an X-ray on wrist, exam by a Student, the ER doc, one nurse who saw me at 2:30 to take vitals and again at 6:30pm to take vitals because she was leaving (didn't see her once in between to check on me), an ultrasound (for the blood clot) and my new nurse, and the ER doc again.  We left at 7:30pmEDT and I finally got my pain med at 7:00pm after asking for it at about 3:30pm.
I think that is all I will say about the ER trip, there is more I could include, but I think I will hold my tongue.
Sprained thumb, scraped, buised, and no bloodclot.

- August 30 an emergency follow-up with the surgeon to make sure I didn't damage his work. I am happy to report that I DID NOT. I was actually sweating bullets and apologized to the surgeon before he looked haha.
I got to see my stiches and incision site.  It's pretty awesome.  I will spare you the pictures (I made J take them lol).
It is still too early to remove the sutures so when I have my real follow up next week they will remove them and put me in a hard cast. They put me back into a splint for now.

- Today. I called and put in a claim for short term disability.  As you may have read previously, my work had been giving me some issues dealing with FMLA for a couple of different claims.  Including this one up and to just a couple of days ago. So, I went Short Term.  Prudential Group Insurance is who we are through at work.  I put in the claim at 9:30amEDT and received a call at 12:30pmEDT from my 'adjudicator', Chris, telling me that he's approved it starting at 4 weeks from the date of first absense. I think I nearly hit the floor.  That was FAST! My surgeon's office had just received the paperwork and can't send it back until I give them a release! Chris basically said "you had surgery, we'll get the things we need. When do you expect to go back to work." My answer, I would like to go back as soon as I can, but seeing as I cannot do anything on my own without possibly falling and causing more injury....so you see my point.
Chris was awesome, he was like "no problem, I'll follow up with you after your next appointment. Feel better soon!"
So different than dealing with the nurses at work.  Here was them today "So you're calling out? Ok I'll update your file" Me: "I am most likely going to be out for an extended period of time as I submitted a claim for short term." Them: "That doesn't matter, you still have to call in every day".
Yeaaaaaaah, we'll see about that.

So anyway. That's pretty much been my month.  I have been home sitting doing nothing, and itching to do something!  Laundry, cleaning, driving, or working! Anything, and I can't :(

Sorry for the long post....here's a picture of the flowers my grandmother sent me (my Nanny) :)

Post Surgery And Doing Ok

*Warning there are some graphic details below about my surgery*

I had my achilles reconstruction surgery on Tuesday.  I was the first one scheduled for the day, and had to be at the University of Virginia Medical Center at 6am.  I finished work at 1:30am and got home at 2am.  We had to leave by 4am to get there on time (we were late anyway due to fog and hubby getting a little lost).
So needless to say, I was exhausted before the surgery even started.

They did all the fun stuff before knocking me out.  I was going to be only 'half' knocked out, not a full knock out since they put a block in my knee.  Kind of like an epidural for my leg!
But, they found out I was going to be prone (on my stomach) for the surgery, so they had to change to a full knockout with breathing tube and all.

Last thing I remember after being wheeled into the OR was "you're going to feel a warm sensation in your IV......." and then waking up in recovery with something in my eye. Never did find out what it was, but that was a pain (literally!).

Surgery didn't go as planned.  They were supposed to cut 3cm of my achilles tendon off to remove the calcification and do a Y incision reconstruction.  In non medical terms, they were going to cut my remaining tendon in a Y and stretch it down and reattach it.
Turns out that because my condition was so bad, that when he cut my achilles off, it was so tight that he couldn't stretch it down to reattach because it left a 6cm gap so he had to harvest a tendon from my big toe. No big deal unless I was a sprinter!

After recovery we left for home.  On the way I had to go to the bathroom so bad, so J stopped at a rest stop on I-81.  We don't have my temporary handicap tag yet but J didn't care, in fact I think he parked in the "State Police Only" spot.  The Handicap was right beside it too! lol

Here's my complaint.  I may not have all been there yet, but Handicap parking should NOT be as far away from the building as it was! PLUS, the handicap bathroom was the furthest from the bathroom door, and when I was leaving the bathroom (as someone had held the door for me going in) I went to push the 'switch' to open the door...and it DID NOT WORK.  Disgusting.

I was even more exhausted just from that.

The rest of the day was pretty much a write off.  After eating something and taking my pain medication, I went up to bed and stayed there until yesterday around 3pm.
J stayed home for me again.  He's been so good at taking care of me.

J also started school yesterday.  This should be fun for him!

I came downstairs and stayed on the couch until he came home from class and then back upstairs to bed (getting upstairs is fun! Um, NO).

Tory obviously knew I was not myself. Me laying on the couch and Tory laying on me.

I have been down on the couch since J left for work this morning and I finally feel normal.
And I'm not in as much pain as I thought I would be, which is good.  I hope that the healing goes well, and I can walk sooner rather than later.

Note, if you are going to have any kind of foot surgery, buy a Knee Walker.  It has been awesome at getting around downstairs.