Rudy will try again for chemo Tuesday week. That will give him PLENTY of time to recover.
He has been bummed about his numbers staying down. He's bummed about having his chemo reduced - he would have thought he'd be one who could have it increased. He has always been so strong and had an immune system that was amazing. Terri assured Rudy that other than the cancer, he was in great shape (liver, kidneys, and heart are just great) and that most others whose chemo knocked them down with blood counts so low ended up in the hospital for a couple of weeks.
As for me, I was tired today because I was recovering from a heart attack thanks to an attention-getting statement from our insurance company.
We received an insurance statement for over $41,000 with insurance paying none and Rudy and I being responsible for paying the whole thing. Claim denied.
Once I was able to breathe, I continued to read the claim and finally, in teeny-tiny font at the very end of the 3 page statement, found an explanation. They needed to know if we had a secondary insurance company. There was a form we needed to sign. Of course they didn't enclose the form, but a call today, put the whole thing back on track. I should sleep better tonight.
We are still dealing with a few other insurance glitches. They don't consider a PET scan necessary for someone with lung cancer. Luckily for us, CTCA is helping us. They put my mind at ease where the PET scan is concerned.
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| One of our painted subfloors |
The scary insurance claim came just after we had agreed to finally have a floor installed in our house. When we first moved in our current house, we couldn't make up our mind on a floor. With so many animals, we knew we'd be rough on a floor. Plus our house is passive solar, which can cause bad fading to many floor types. Wood floors, which we both love, would look terrible fast. A tile floor was considered. Eco friendly choices were considered - cork or bamboo or even real linoleum. Still, we kept putting off making a decision because nothing seemed right. After all the debating, we're getting a floor neither of us had considered til recently - a laminate wood-look floor. It's surprisingly pretty. The pattern and color is great. It looks like wood, but is tough as nails. It has a lifetime residential warranty and should hold up just fine. It's backed with cork, so maybe the house will stay a bit warmer in winter and maybe the noise around the house will be lessened.
For those who haven't been to our house and are curious how we managed with just sub-floors for this long, you might want to check out the flooring posts on my other blog. I did faux paint treatments on our floors. They were great for a few years, but we'll be very happy to have them covered up. This is really bad timing and honestly, I'm terrified of spending this chunk of money right now, even though we've had it set aside for ages, but it needs to be done. Now that the decision has been made, I'm going to stop worrying and pray that everything works out. The way I see it, if we keep getting $41,000 bills, we'll have to sell the house and it'll sell better with a floor.
Rudy has been staying super cozy in his recliner thanks to the two wonderful blankets his Aunt Betty and Uncle Emory sent him. Mmmm. They are so soft.
I wanted him to pose for a photo with the blanket. After I snapped the above photo, I told Rudy he wasn't animated enough. So this was his next pose -
That's all for now. Nothing much is going on next week, so if I don't post for a bit, it's because there's nothing much to report. Feel free to call. Rudy would probably welcome the distraction. He still can't get around people too much, but phone calls are really great. Don't worry about waking him - if he's asleep, I'll catch the phone and let you know to call back.
