Good Riddance, I Say

It's still 2012 and we're all still alive.  There was no apocalypse and my crew somehow managed to survive.  It wasn't easy.

I have been struggling with a way to describe this past year.  The title of this post will serve for now.  We have been struggling in general.  This has not been a happy holiday season.

It would seem that there are but a few groups who aren't struggling now.  One of them is Congress; currently busy not struggling with a way to save us money and benefit its constituents.  Instead, the traitorous bastards struggle with ways to get us to pay for their misdeeds and usurp the Bill of Rights.

Another group not struggling is rental car centers, or at very least, the one near us.  We're on week two of our rental, with nary a word on the body work of our car after the deer committed suicide with it.

Deer are another topic entirely.  My friend, the deer hunter, told me he had a clear shot at a deer a few weeks back.  He shifted, the deer heard it and ran.  If their hearing is that good, how does a deer miss a loud 35mph Hyundai at night with lights?  I suspect it was suicidal after all.

Some tell me this is deer season and they're about.  They sure are - they're decorating hoods all over the place.  And trust me, you don't want that kind of hood ornament.  Last weekend we were near the scene of our accident and came upon someone else's fresh accident.

Do we need to aerially spray the neighborhood with Prozac for the deer?  Are they that depressed?  Others speculate that they're just horny.  I'm just horny too but I don't go leaping in front of moving vehicles (unless that vehicle is Eva Longoria).  Some organization or other is talking about deer contraceptives, which brings me to my next point... what in the world is the pope going to say about deer condoms?  He sure as hell doesn't like them for humans.  My only thought here is that since the pope doesn't believe animals have souls, perhaps it's all equal in the end.  Perhaps if we tell the pro-lifers that we're giving abortions to the deer, they'd guard the roadways.  This way we won't actually have to touch the deer and the deer won't be able to get to the roads to leap in front of random cars.  Everybody wins (if we assume the deer aren't depressed in the first place).

HOLIDAYS

Holiday time is supposed to be a happy time.  Supposed to.
It seems that happiness took a few days off during my recent break from work.  It had gotten so bad that I cancelled xmas entirely (for myself).  As for everybody else, depression crashed into bipolar disorder, which sideswiped dream therapy, causing horrible nightmares for children.  Neuroses played table tennis with grief.  Not to be outdone, multiplicity sulked behind the scenes and refused to effectively communicate.

That aside, everything else was fine.


SOMEONE ELSE'S MIRACLE

Bro and Sis-in-law's mom had to go to the hospital for tests.  She walked in, had tests and became half paralyzed.  Brain cancer.  Then full paralysis (I strongly suspect the hospital, not cancer).  Days later, with many diagnoses, she was alert, awake, and oriented.  A transfer to hospice that was a death sentence got commuted to extended care.  My wife (the nurse) proved to a doctor that he had no idea what he was talking about.

So my relatives are celebrating and my wife scored some dignity for a dying woman.


THE WIFE'S MIRACLE

I hate health insurance companies.  This is kind of like saying that we hate Hitler.
My wife has been on the same medication for chronic pain for three years.  Because the insurance company is invested in finding new and better ways not to pay for things, they introduced the review/precertification process.  Once a year, the prescribing physician has to jump through hoops to get the medicine recertified so the insurance will pay for it.  The last time was June.

So what happened when my wife went to pick up her December pain meds?  The insurer decided that one year between reviews was no good and decided on six months instead.  Yes, these thieving bastards required another review so my wife could receive the pain meds she's been on for three years. This was made all the more amusing by the fact that her doctor was on vacation for two weeks with no way to reach him and a full answering machine.

The pharmacist, bless him, sat on the phone for twenty minutes with the insurer and got an override for four days worth of medicine (with the full copay, of course).  We had the option of paying cash for the meds, at ten dollars per pill, which we could not do.

For anyone still following, the insurer decided it was perfectly ok to completely stop a patient's prescribed pain meds due to a precert that could not be reasonably performed in one day.  This would cause not only horrible pain, it would cause the patient to go into detox.  But it's ok - this is how the insurance lobbies got Congress to write insurance law.

My wife put on her asshole hat and called the insurance company.  They were quite sympathetic to her plight but checked all the way up the chain and couldn't do a thing for her.  Her only option was to pay cash for the meds, which they would reimburse after the fact, then tackle the doc when he returns and force him to make the paperwork right.

So we're out about two hundred for meds now.  Combined with weeks of car rental, our mortgage company hopefully has a forgiveness program.

Another slew of imaginary points to the wife for keeping herself out of detox.   Notice that I am not sending kudos for bettering herself - just for scraping to get the bare minimum.   Life should not be about scraping for bare minimum.


MY MIRACLE

A few days ago I ventured across the building in search of Coca Cola.  There, in the machine, shining out like brown gold, was an actual row of Coke.  In the Coke machine, which is usually filled with Pepsi.  An xmas miracle!

But luck refused to abandon me this week.  The next day, there were two rows of Coke in the Coke machine.  And as if that weren't enough, there was silverware in the silverware drawer.  I was on a roll.  If I played numbers, this was the week to play them.

Finding soda made me feel almost invincible.


AND IN THE END

The kids were upset.  The pets were clingy.  Gifts sat unopened.  No one was happy.

We decided to hold our own xmas, the night after the other one, perhaps sending out our own metaphorical finger to the universe.

The kids got excited.  The pets got in the way.  The Hess chopper was the star of the evening.
I participated, in spite of cancelling xmas, by giving.

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We wish you a very Happy Whatever, dear reader(s).  Strength to those who need it.  Good health for all.  Keep the deer away from us.  Have a safe and happy new year and may 2013 be much less apocalyptic and much more enriching.