Tag Archives: doctors

October Update

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Its October All Ready!

Time flies when you are having fun. Or maybe I should ask…Are we having fun yet? For someone who is retired and should have all this time on my hands I never seem to get everything done that needs to be done. Of course my mornings are much less hurried now. The kitties get me up between 6- 6:30 am every day. No need for alarm clocks but I don’t rush around. I feed them, then I check my emails and pay any bills that have come due. After that I play a little FreeCell while I wait for my Fitbit to recharge. Once that’s done I clean kitty litter and then make my breakfast. Hard to believe but that brings me to around 9 AM! that’s when  my day really starts with making my bed and taking a shower. Then if I was lucky enough to get on the door dash schedule I go to work.

Door Dash

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Door Dash slowed way down in September. I don’t know if it was kids going back to school or summer’s end but the dashes dried up and even when I could get on the schedule I was only getting 1 or 2 deliveries. Needless to say I couldn’t keep my 30 day deal count up so I dropped to Gold Status. Now I have to schedule my dashes and for 2 weeks the only times available were midnight to 4 am. Nope- not for me so I got an unplanned vacation. Its been picking back up now so I’m back out on the road again. 

October is Doctor Visits

October seems to be the month for doctor visits. Not just for me but for the kitties too. Annual physicals and in my case , specialized tests. I’m reaching the “elderly” age when my doctor wants to be sure everything is tuned up. I think they are just looking for something to keep them earning vacations. 

I had to drug Balboa for his annual physical so about 2 hours before the vet (Ross Veterinary House Calls)  got here I dosed him. 15 minutes before the vet’s arrival I put a mildly subdued Balboa in the bathroom so he couldn’t sneak behind the bed.  He did much better with some drugs in him.

Balboa 2024- Photo Credit Deb Neumann

Balboa gained a whole pound. He now weighs 12 lbs! That’s too big for a cat his size so I’ve been told to cut back on his kitty food. 

Banner 2024 – photo Credit Deb Neumann

Banner didn’t do very well in the weight control area either. He gained half a pound so his fluffy butt now weighs in at 16 lbs. He’s now on restricted rations too.

My visit for my annual physical came in a little better in the weight department. A side benefit of doing door dash is that I get more exercise so I’m actually down 17 lbs and 2 pants sizes.

So in Conclusion

There’s more to tell you about but we’re out of time for now. In conclusion it looks like aside from being busy with all of these appointments we’re doing pretty well here. I’ll have to steal a few minutes for another update soon.

The Retired Life

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A Day or Week in the Retired Life

A friend of mine once told me he had to retire because he had so many doctor appointments it was the only way he had time to keep them all.  I’m beginning to see what he meant. It was a  celebration when I finally got my insurance straightened out- Medicare parts A & B and an Advantage plan with my old insurance company, Aetna, Now it’s time to reschedule all of the appointments I missed while I was uninsured. 

Aetna seems to be afraid that I’m going to croak on them or something. They call me 2-3 times per week to see if I have any questions. They sent a visiting nurse to my home to check on me. And they email me every day! Oh and did I mention the letters? They’ve killed a few trees to stay in touch. 

As for appointments I’ve had an annual physical, am scheduled for blood work, scheduled an eye exam and a mammogram. My doctor suggested a follow up with my pulmonary guy, my nephrologist and my hematologist. She  tossed in a vascular specialist for good measure so I put my foot down. 

Update on the Cable Decision

I got my tax refund so I felt comfortable taking $100 to buy a Roku TV. It was so easy to set up. Just plug it in to an outlet and sign into my streaming accounts. I still have my old TV hooked up to cable but so far I don’t see any reason to keep it up. I have a couple of  my shows that will be adding new episodes so I just want to see how quickly the new ones hit the stream. If its a couple of days I won’t even add a live TV option. I’ll just stream what I have.

photo credit- Deb Neumann

 

Only Murders in the Building

The first day I had the new TV hooked up I checked out  the Hulu Original, “Only Murders in the Building” and ended up binge watching all the episodes.  So I think this may work out well. I’ll keep you posted.

 

Retirement is Hard Work

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Its Hard Being Retired

I thought retirement would be boring. My to do list just keeps getting longer and longer. You’d think once Redfin kicked me out that life would get easier but it hasn’t. Everyday I get another email from them with instructions of things they want me to do to get my severance pay.  Sign this separation agreement, agree you won’t sue for age discrimination, send back the lap top and monitors, Health Insurance, Stock plan, 401K. The list goes on. I don’t know why they can’t just send me one email with everything in it and then go away. They aren’t paying me anymore so my time should be mine.

69 Funny Retirement Memes Guaranteed to Make You Smile

Unemployment

I’m waiting for my unemployment benefits to kick in. I have to have a list every week of places I’ve contacted for work.  That’s a full time job- looking  for work since I have to provide the name of the contact person and their phone number so Unemployment can check up on me. Most of the time I’ve been sending in applications via web sites so I don’t have a contact which means digging around on search engines to find out who the HR person is for each company I apply with.

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Old Friends

I have a list of former co workers I can reach out to but haven’t figured out how to approach them yet. How do you call someone that you haven’t seen in 8 years to ask for a job? It makes me uncomfortable just thinking about it.

Doctors Appointments

One of my retired friends told me that when you hit a certain age you have to retire to make time for all the doctor’s appointments. That seems about right. In the 2 weeks I’ve been unemployed I’ve spent an enormous amount of time with various doctors and have more appointments coming up. My health insurance ends Nov. 30 but I can opt for COBRA at Redfin’s expense for 3 months then I need add a  Medicare Advantage plan. Just to find that out has been hours on the phone. 

18 Memes That Will Make You Laugh After a Bad Doctor Appointment

 

 

Whew, So much to do. Good thing I don’t have to work anymore!

 

Never a Dull Moment

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I was about to tell you that except for last minute flight changes travel with American airlines was uneventful. I received timely text messages with flight changes, happy smiling faces answered questions willingly, got priority boarding because my back was hurting and they even offered me a wheelchair. I assured them that wasn’t necessary.

american

The flights were on time and landed early at each leg of the journey. The longest layover was at LAX. Our flight from Philly arrived almost an hour early. Our flight from LAX to Maui had been changed from 2:30 pm to 5 pm so we had a long wait.

Finally our flight was called. It was a full flight since 2 other flights had landed late causing passengers to miss connections so they were crammed onto our flight until every seat was taken.

We took off on time and everything seemed to be business as usual until about the middle of the flight.

The window passenger in my row wanted to sit with her husband who was seated several rows back. The flight attendant went to ask if the other window passenger would swap seats but both the husband and his seat mate were sound asleep. That should have been the end of it but noooo. I had just fallen asleep when the attendant returned to say  the husband and his seatmate had woken up and the seatmate agreed to swap with our window passenger. It didn’t matter that I’d just fallen asleep, The flight attendant woke me up so that my whole row could get out and allow the window passenger to swap seats. Finally everyone got settled in their new seats and I resumed my attempt to get a nap in.

sick-passenger3

I had just dozed off again when the announcement came in. Is there a doctor on board? Actually they asked if there were any licensed medical professionals who could lend a had with a sick passenger. Of course that got everyone’s attention. The cabin lights, which had been dimmed, were back on full. There was a commotion in the aisle. Apparently the passenger had passed out or fallen. She was eventually moved to the exit seats as there was more room and several doctors were attending to her. The airline was lucky. There was a doctors convention in Maui so they had ample assistance.

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I saw them administer oxygen and a saline drip. Once we landed in Maui we stayed seated until the EMT’s met the plane had helped the patient disembark.

Luggage claim was very quick and picking up the rental car was also a breeze.

The only remaining snag was locating the resort. A 25 minute drive turned into a 1.5 hour search. My great directions were to look for a pink hotel but it was pitch black and nothing had any color!

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After several frantic phone calls we finally found the hotel and got checked in. That bed felt so good! I was definitely down for the count but the travel part was over for now. We were on Maui!