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Heat Wave

There is a heat wave at my house. It’s been going on since Monday night when our downstairs A/C unit decided to stop working. At present, it’s a balmy 83 degrees in my office/bedroom. It made for an arduous run yesterday and a tough workout today. As for the yoga, it’s helpful to be a bit warm. Nevertheless, I’m not here for it. In fact, it’s the opposite of splendid. After all, I like to be comfortably cool.

Thankfully, we ended up going out for dinner last night to celebrate the Mayor’s birthday. My folks, uncle Jon, aunt Brandi, uncle Richard, and aunt Suelen joined us at Sushi Yama for the celebratory dinner. As much fun as it would have been to host a dinner at our house in the middle of an A/c outage, Sushi Yama was the perfect answer. We had an incredible dinner with lots of good appetizers and tasty entrees. At the end of the dinner, the bill was quite reasonable given how much food we ate.

Anyway, the heat wave will continue for at least a few more hours. Hopefully, the Hubby can fix the A/C tonight. I look forward to being comfortable at work and sleeping in my bed. Since we have no A/C in our room, I’ve been sleeping in my human-sized dog bed in the living room. It’s way too hot in our room. If I slept in there, my night sweats would have night sweats. Ironically, I had the best couple of nights of sleep in a long time. Nonetheless, I do miss the comfort of my own bed.

2025 Goal Tracker:

  • Run a 5K: in training
  • Complete Kayla Itsines program: in progress
  • No afternoon Starbucks (except for travel/vacations): I made it into February and haven’t buckled!
  • Top performer at work: on it!
  • Travel: working on it
  • Eat to lower inflammation: in progress
  • Read daily: in progress. I’m reading A Knight and a Spy 1414 (The Road to Agincourt – King’s Spy), by Simon Fairfax
  • Get out of debt: in progress
  • Financial independence: in progress

What do you do to be involved in the community?

I currently volunteer as the Teams Chair and leadership team for the Broward/Palm Beach Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (hereafter PanCan) affiliate. My friend Debbie introduced me to PanCan after she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2015. PanCan was an important part of her cancer journey. She was the keynote speaker at the 2016 PurpleStride event. Before she passed away, I promised her I’d take up the mantle and continue to advocate for pancreatic cancer patients and their families. It has turned into one of the most enriching experiences of my life. My heart is filled with gratitude for the people PanCan has brought into my life.

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2025

2025 is here and mercifully it brought a cold front with it.  This morning it was a refreshing 67 degrees when I walked the puppies.  2025 also means that we’ve seen the last of 2024.  While last year brought the spectacular high Jake and Melly’s wedding, it also brought a lot of medical issues and even surgery for the Mayor.  In fact, I ended the year with a virus.  It’s a fitting way to end the year.

As we enter 2025, the Mayor is in a good place.  He does a great job, for the most part, managing his sugar.  He is not, however, great at dealing with highs or lows in the middle of the night.  In fact, he’s downright ornery.  All three of us get alarms for his Dexcom, which means the Hubby and I are up as long as it’s going off.  When we try to intervene or sanity check the Dexcom with his Accu-Chek, he fights us.  Fortunately, this isn’t happening often.  When it does happen, it completely disrupts our sleep.

Since I was fighting off viruses myself the last two weeks, I haven’t been working out.  I haven’t been my usual radiant self over the winter break. Initially, I re-started Kayla Itsine’s High Intensity program after AEP, but had to shelve it for 10 days.  Thankfully, I was able to get back to it today.  Tomorrow, I’ll be back on the spin bike.  Next week, I’ll be back on the treadmill after an extended absence courtesy of a high ankle sprain.

This all brings me to my goals for 2025. Here they are:

  • Run a 5K
  • Complete Kayla Itsines program
  • No afternoon Starbucks (except for travel/vacations)
  • Top performer at work
  • Travel
  • Eat to lower inflammation
  • Read daily
  • Get out of debt
  • Financial independence

I’m sure the Starbucks goal will help reach the debt-free financial independence that you are seeking. I will, however, miss my afternoon cinnamon dulce latte. As the year progresses, I’ll be sure to share my progress here. I’ll close out today’s blog by offering a toast to a better 2025.

What are your biggest challenges?

My biggest challenges are managing my autoimmune and my boy’s autoimmune disorder. I find it more difficult to accept the Mayor’s diagnosis’s versus my own. There’s defiantly a strong sense of mom guilt that has come along with his diagnosis. Fortunately, as I noted above, he has done a great job managing his condition mentally and physically. I am so proud of him.

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Prior Auth

The fact that the prior auth process exists underlines just how screwed up our healthcare system is in this country. Since the year started, we have had three prior auth issues with our insurer. The first was a prior auth for an MRI on Hubby’s knee to verify the extent of damage. The second was their denial of a prior auth request for a medication I’ve been taking since 2021. They denied it so quickly that I received a notification of the denial before receiving the notification that the authorization was filed. Lastly, they requested prior auth for the Mayor’s antibiotics to fight his post-surgical infection.

Now read that last sentence again. They now require prior authorization for antibiotics. Admittedly, I am not a doctor, however, I’m pretty sure that infections are supposed to be treated expeditiously. As a result, we ended up having to pay for the medication out of pocket. The doctor’s office couldn’t believe the insurance requested prior authorization for an antibiotic. This is an absolute abomination. Insurance companies shouldn’t be requiring prior auths for well-known first-line treatments.

Cigna, to their credit, did respond when I tweeted my disgust to them, Governor Desantis, Senator Rubio, and Representative Frankel. Nonetheless, it’s too little too late. I will be requesting reimbursement from their customer care team. I aim to ensure that we rein in this prior authorization nonsense here in Florida.. It is, however, a national issue. Fortunately, I work in insurance, so I can navigate the mind field pretty well. I can’t imagine how difficult the experience would be for people not familiar with insurance.

What activities do you lose yourself in?

I lose myself in baking, running, cuddling with the puppies, and reading. Those activities are my happy place. I love losing myself in a good book. Perhaps that’s why my night time ritual includes reading a book before bed with Anakin on my lap.

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Aggravating

Is there anything more aggravating than health insurance? I don’t think so. Today’s aggravation with Cigna comes from them doubling the price of my Synthroid on top of doubling my premiums. Of course, the generic is free, but unlike most drugs, Synthroid and its generic partners are not the same. Unlike other drugs, where generic may be just fine, doctors recommend you stick with what you start with. To change later would be disruptive due to differences between the drugs. This does work both ways, so if you start with the generic, you stay with the generic.

Cigna has been on my shit list for a while now. Firstly, I can no longer use the pharmacy I’ve used for 18 years. I guess they don’t want me using a pharmacy that has a majority stake in Aetna. Moreover, they’re refusing to pay for Hubby’s MRI because apparently, they know more about knee injuries than his orthopedic surgery. I guess they’d rather the surgeon root around in the operating room figuring out the scope of damage instead of the surgeon knowing and planning for it ahead of time. It’s an utter crock of shit.

What I’d like to say to Cigna

It’s aggravating because who has the time to fight with their insurance company? I’m grateful that my hubby’s injury isn’t emergent. At this point, we’d be better off playing roulette at the casino to cover our medicine bills than trusting Cigna to do the right thing by my family. After all, I’m on the hook for both the Mayor’s surgery and the Hubby’s. To be fair, I don’t think an insurer that faithfully covers their clients’ medical bills exists in this galaxy. If you find one, it’s like finding the Holy Grail. Anyway, I guess my overarching point is that Doctors should be dictating standards of care, not insurance companies and large hospital systems.

What were your parents doing at your age?

At my age, my parents were working their butts off, so my brothers and I could go to college. Their hard work and dedication to us allowed each of us to be successful. Now, I’m attempting to do the same thing with my boys. Also, when they were my age I used to make fun of them for going to bed early. Now here I am in bed by 9:00 pm every night. I guess we do eventually become just like our parents, which is just fine in my book because my folks are amazing.

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Monday, Monday

“Monday, Monday” damn now I have that Mamas and the Papas song stuck in my head. It’s been a shit day at work, which happens. It’s literally one of the most normal things in a salesperson’s life. Not all days are gonna be easy. Anyway, this is usually a non factor because anyone that works sales knows this axiom to be true except for one person who shall remain nameless. While they shall remain nameless, they shall live in shame and infamy for their ridiculousness. Anyway, time to brush that shit off my shoudlers and move on.

If I seem a bit cranky, it’s because I am. I haven’t slept well since mid August and I need my sleep. The fact that I can’t fall asleep is driving me nuts. I’m hoping since I stopped taking the prednisone yesterday that my sleep pattern will go back to normal. Hopefully, once my sleep goes back to normal everting else falls back into place. This past month has been really tough. I’ve pretty much had to cancel any and every plans I’ve had even when I was in Minny because I wasn’t up for them physically.

Anyway, I didn’t get much accomplished this weekend outside of baking. I did, however, get our bushes fertilized and trimmed. Unfortunately, the skies didn’t open up like I had hoped, but hopefully we get some rain today. Afterwards. the Hubby walked me through his plans for the bedrooms upstairs. Spoiler alert, they’re going to look amazing once he’s through with them. My only feedback was to get the painting and closet organizers done first, so we can maximize the space.

I did two bakes this weekend to keep myself busy since leaving the house was a risky endeavor. The first bake was a homemade toaster strudel. I’ll share the recipe in a later post, but it’s super easy. It’s literally puff pastry, the filling of your choice, and simple frosting. Honestly, this is a recipe I’ll make often when the boys are home. It’s simple, but really tasty. The second bake I made was an attempt at Paul Hollywood’s recipe of Kouign-Amann, which is a magnificent dessert from Brittany. It was a lot more complicated, but very tasty.

Describe your ideal week.

My ideal week is one spent exploring the world with my family. It’s not spent behind a desk or on a couch. I’m looking forward to the week I have planned for Jake and I exploring Utah’s Mighty Five and the surrounding national monuments and state parks. Adventure, hiking and exploring the world is something that I enjoy. I find myself at peace up in the mountains of Utah, so I’m really looking forward to my trip.

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Why?

Why must all Mondays be a clusterfuck? Is there an unwritten law in the universe that I’m unaware of? My Monday started when I woke up late for work. Now this is truly an astonishing feat as my desk is five paces from my bed. Yet here I was sleeping away like Sleeping Beauty until 8:06 am. Whoops! Fortunately, I was able to get up and on the computer without much effort. I just wasn’t mentally present for the first forty five minutes. I was so tired, I felt like a martian.

On top of my late start, my allergy/exercise induced asthma has been wreaking havoc in my lungs today. If you listened to my last phone calls, you would think I had just ran ten miles after smoking 59 cigarettes. I’d love to say that my voice sounded raspy and sexy prompting my custom get to buy , but I think they felt sorry for me. Thank god for prednisone and rescue inhalers. Albeit, I had to go out and get both since the stuff I had on hand was used up or expired. Nevertheless, the meds should help clear up my lungs pretty quickly.

In between the wheezing and phone calls, I completed my annual compliance training. It was a wonderful reminder that I longer work at a place where work place bullying is venerated especially for the upper echelons. Honestly, I miss the workplace bullying about as much as I miss smelling the reheated five day old fish. Anywhere else, HR would have put a stop to both, but hey that’s not my problem anymore. And guess what I guarantee you, there will be no reheating of five day old fish in my new office.

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Whoops

Whoops!! I was so exhausted when I got up this morning, I couldn’t figure out why. I’m usually pretty tired by Fridays, but even with the additional workouts it didn’t make sense. And then I realized I forgot to take my thyroid meds that last two days. Whoops!! No wonder it took two cups of Dunkin’ this morning to make me semi human. Now that the thyroid meds, specifically the t3, are on board I’m awake. Before you tell me to set a reminder and an alarm, I’ll let you know that I’ve set both and still manage to forget.

This weekend our excessive heat warnings will a change into heat advisories. Nevertheless, it is still sizzling hot out there. Did you know the word sizzle is a onomatopoeia meaning it’s name is how it sounds. Another example of this would be the cuckoo. You can thank me the next time you play Scrabble and score a million points with that word. Anyways, I’m so glad the insane heat is finally breaking. It was borderline pleasant when I took out the dogs at lunchtime. The last few weeks it’s been an absolutely miserable enterprise to walk them at noon.

Tonight we’re having Sushi Yama for dinner to celebrate Goalielocks last night at home. Tomorrow he’ll head back to Orlando to start school. He’s got a beautiful apartment for the year and amazing roommates. He and his roommates have been best friends since middle school. They do a good job taking care of each other and keeping each other in line. Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to a decrease in my grocery, light and energy bill. Our FPL bill last month was over $700. Anyone want to guess what it will be next month when it’s just Luke and I at home. My guess is is will be around $200. We shall see!

What change, big or small, would you like your blog to make in the world?

The only change I’d like for my blog to make in this world is to make it a better place. Not because it’s profound, but because kindness and family are the major themes. I think it’s a nice change to read stuff that isn’t overly serious. While I’m am empath, the blog doesn’t usually get too deep or too serious.

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Working Saturday

It’s a working Saturday in our house today. Well, at least I’m working. I don’t think you’d count the Mayor watching the junior game or the hubby scrolling endlessly through Twitter working. A skin is keeping me company, while Athena and Arrow hold down the fort in the family room. Fortunately, it’s been a productive working Saturday so far. It’s not bursting with leads, but it’s not slow either. The puppies, with Athena now joining Anakin, are doing a great job of keeping me company while I work.

I decided to work to add to my production, but there are plenty of things I could be doing around the house. Our loft upstairs looks like a bomb went off in it. To be fair, a bomb named Goalielocks did go off in it. We just added a spin bike, so it would be nice to have it organized and look good. Additionally, the upstairs hallway looks like a donation room for Goodwill. I definitely need to go through everything upstairs. There’s a lot of stuff that we can donate, throw away or put away. I’d also like to get all my shopping and errands done this weekend, but the hubby’s prodigious volunteer status is really cramping my style. Hopefully, his boss will pay him before the month is out.

And now for your shingles update because I’m apparently eighty-five. Fortunately, the rash hasn’t spread any further. It is, however, mighty uncomfortable. In fact, it is both itchy and painful despite looking like it’s healing. The shoulder patch feels like it’s still there in its full glory, but looks like it’s almost gone. Truly, it is an odd and uncomfortable feeling. Moreover, my stomach is not loving all the medicines I’m having to take to eradicate the rash. I can’t wait until I can stop taking the anti-virals and antibiotics. The steroid cream, however, is doing its job nicely without killing my tummy.

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A Nefarious Tale

So my rental saga has now gone from a trilogy to a nefarious tale. Apparently, they didn’t tow the car on the 14th. In fact, they allegedly towed the car from the Marriott back to Hertz last night. This is according to Hertz. Keep in mind, Hertz sent me several text messages on the 14th indicating they had received the card and closed my case. In fact, I distinctly remember looking for the truck when we came back from the rink that night and it wasn’t there.

Unfortunately, that was only part one of this nefarious tale. Because I also got my bill. First of all, they billed me for the entire trip. Secondly, they billed me a higher rate than what I had been quoted. This, of course, begs the question: will Hertz ever get this right. Unfortunately, I think the answer to that question is no. Consequently, all transactions from Hertz remained blocked on my credit cards. But hey at least they sent me a nice letter asking for their rental vehicle back…..

And now for a not-so-nefarious tail. While I worked, the Mayor and hubby headed to FLA Live arena for a high school game. You got to love a high school game scheduled during the middle of the school/work day. Based on the updates and snippets, I saw it was a high-scoring game. My friend Christy sent me an awesome video of the Mayor’s goal. Unfortunately, they ended up losing 6-5, but I think it was fun for them to play on the Panthers’ ice.

As for the shingles/rash situation, the shoulder is looking better. It, however, still hurts and is a bit of a nuisance. The patch on my back still looks quite raw, but it hasn’t spread. I’ve decided I should probably follow up with a rheumatologist to make sure there’s not an underlying autoimmune issue at work. Nevertheless, I’m a bit overtaking a ton of pills every day.

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Change

Well, there hasn’t been much change from yesterday. Well, except I’m now taking eight pills plus using a steroid cream to keep this thing at bay. Naturally, I’m still miserable with my patches of itchiness/hell and my husband is still an unpaid volunteer. Hopefully, I’ll start to see a change in the skin irritation rather soon. I’d really like to go back to my regular workouts and wear shirts. I’ve resorted to wearing a loose hoodie over my sports bra to stay comfortable. Or at least, try to stay comfortable.

I can’t say that I’m feeling great either. I’m not sleeping well, so I’m super fatigued. Unfortunately, I think the fatigue is magnifying my discomfort. The patches are quite painful and itchy today, which sucks. I feel better today than yesterday. Truthfully, the Mayor saved the day yesterday when he reminded my hubby to pick up my script. My hubby forgot to pick it up on his way home but forgot. Since we’re down to one vehicle at the moment that would have meant I would have had to wait to get my script filled until this evening. As it happened, the rink canceled the Mayor’s practice, so we would have been able to pick it up yesterday evening. Since he had no practice, the Mayor also made dinner. He really saved my evening.

Actually, I lied there has been one change since yesterday. I haven’t received a call from Herz’s vehicle recovery department. Yay for the small victories in life. This may be a byproduct of the flurry of tweets and Facebook messages I sent them yesterday. Unfortunately, I still have not received my closed contract or receipt for the rental. Nor have I heard back from Hertz about either item. Hopefully, the lack of a call this morning forebodes the resolution of my rental car debacle. At this point, I don’t know what’s more painful the shingles or the Hertz rental experience. Either way, stay tuned for an update.