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Mar. 17th, 2016 11:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckMy doctor got back to me about the question of the pneumonia vaccination. Apparently, it’s not due to the asthma but to the cancer. Any sort of cancer is seen as indication that one ought to get vaccinated. I’ve also checked, and Medicare doesn’t cover that vaccination except under part D which I don’t have because I have prescription coverage from two other sources. I think this means I will have to go the much, much less convenient route and make an appointment at UHS to be vaccinated. The dratted thing costs more than $200, so it’s not something I’m able to cover out of pocket the way we do flu vaccines for Scott and Cordelia ($30 or $40 each). I suppose I could call and ask Aetna if they’ll cover the shot at Walgreen’s. They did the flu shots last fall, so maybe they’ll cover this one.
I have confirmed that nobody will pay for the shingles vaccine until I’m actually fifty, so I can’t get that until the end of May 2017. Scott, however, needs it and can get it covered. That means I do have to call Aetna because, while getting to UHS is inconvenient for me, it’s nearly impossible for him because of work pretty much always giving him overtime when he has doctor’s appointments. Drat. I loathe making phone calls. But, if I don’t do it, Scott will put it off.
Mom got back to me last night with a list of causes of death that includes my great-grandparents on her side and two of my great-great-grandparents. I guess a relative who does detailed genealogy is useful for this sort of thing. One of my great-greats died of cancer in 1939. My mother doesn’t know what kind of cancer, though. His wife died of the measles in 1907. One great-grandfather died of black lung and the other of lung cancer. One great-grandmother died of pancreatic cancer and the other of heart failure (she had colon cancer that was successfully treated before that). I have no idea how many of these folks smoked. The one who died of heart failure lived until 1984, so I knew her, and she didn’t smoke at any point that I remember. I just don’t know if she never did or if she quit.
Both my mother’s father and her sister who had Down’s are listed as having died of Alzheimer’s. I know Mom is scared of ending up with it. She’s seventy; my step-father is nine years younger. I’m a little concerned about them having gotten dogs that are between a year and eighteen months old as, if something happens to them, there isn’t anyone who could take the dogs.
Cordelia’s teachers are begging for more chaperones for the overnight field trip. They need a parent in each cabin, need at least one more man and one more woman, and would prefer two (I think the extra is in case someone gets sick or has an emergency and can’t come). Part of me keeps thinking that I could do it, but I know I really, really can’t. I can’t manage to sort one bag of junk in the basement. I don’t see how I could manage walking around all day, cooking over a fire, then sleeping rough. Even when I was well, I couldn’t have done the walking around all day part.
Last night, we had two friends over and played Paperback. I describe the game as kind of like Scrabble but without the interlocking words. Scott and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cherydactyl described it as like Dominion but with making words. There are three types of cards: single letters, two letter combinations, and wild cards. Everybody starts with five wild cards and the same five common consonants. A hand is five cards, and players try to make the highest point word they can with the cards they have. Those points can be used to buy new cards (one can see what’s available before making the decision of what to buy), but unspent points vanish rather than carrying over. Some purchased cards have special characteristics that make them more valuable if one can use them in a word. Most vowel cards can only be used once and then are permanently discarded. That makes wild cards and the two letter combinations, which pretty much always include a vowel, essential. The game is a balance between building up one’s deck with cards that will yield points and buying wild cards. At the end of every turn, the hand and any newly purchased cards are discarded into a pile that the player will shuffle and reuse later. Buying wild cards is expensive but is a victory condition. We played cooperatively which meant we had a turn deadline to clear all of the wild cards. Playing competitively involves buying wild cards in an effort to build up a certain point total with them. We almost won, but we couldn’t clear the last wild card which costs (I think) 17 points. That’s the sort of thing that only happens with an extremely lucky combination of cards.
And I have seventeen CDs left to listen to in that huge Johnny Cash set I got from the library. That's out of sixty three. It's taken me nearly four weeks to get this far.
I have confirmed that nobody will pay for the shingles vaccine until I’m actually fifty, so I can’t get that until the end of May 2017. Scott, however, needs it and can get it covered. That means I do have to call Aetna because, while getting to UHS is inconvenient for me, it’s nearly impossible for him because of work pretty much always giving him overtime when he has doctor’s appointments. Drat. I loathe making phone calls. But, if I don’t do it, Scott will put it off.
Mom got back to me last night with a list of causes of death that includes my great-grandparents on her side and two of my great-great-grandparents. I guess a relative who does detailed genealogy is useful for this sort of thing. One of my great-greats died of cancer in 1939. My mother doesn’t know what kind of cancer, though. His wife died of the measles in 1907. One great-grandfather died of black lung and the other of lung cancer. One great-grandmother died of pancreatic cancer and the other of heart failure (she had colon cancer that was successfully treated before that). I have no idea how many of these folks smoked. The one who died of heart failure lived until 1984, so I knew her, and she didn’t smoke at any point that I remember. I just don’t know if she never did or if she quit.
Both my mother’s father and her sister who had Down’s are listed as having died of Alzheimer’s. I know Mom is scared of ending up with it. She’s seventy; my step-father is nine years younger. I’m a little concerned about them having gotten dogs that are between a year and eighteen months old as, if something happens to them, there isn’t anyone who could take the dogs.
Cordelia’s teachers are begging for more chaperones for the overnight field trip. They need a parent in each cabin, need at least one more man and one more woman, and would prefer two (I think the extra is in case someone gets sick or has an emergency and can’t come). Part of me keeps thinking that I could do it, but I know I really, really can’t. I can’t manage to sort one bag of junk in the basement. I don’t see how I could manage walking around all day, cooking over a fire, then sleeping rough. Even when I was well, I couldn’t have done the walking around all day part.
Last night, we had two friends over and played Paperback. I describe the game as kind of like Scrabble but without the interlocking words. Scott and
cherydactyl described it as like Dominion but with making words. There are three types of cards: single letters, two letter combinations, and wild cards. Everybody starts with five wild cards and the same five common consonants. A hand is five cards, and players try to make the highest point word they can with the cards they have. Those points can be used to buy new cards (one can see what’s available before making the decision of what to buy), but unspent points vanish rather than carrying over. Some purchased cards have special characteristics that make them more valuable if one can use them in a word. Most vowel cards can only be used once and then are permanently discarded. That makes wild cards and the two letter combinations, which pretty much always include a vowel, essential. The game is a balance between building up one’s deck with cards that will yield points and buying wild cards. At the end of every turn, the hand and any newly purchased cards are discarded into a pile that the player will shuffle and reuse later. Buying wild cards is expensive but is a victory condition. We played cooperatively which meant we had a turn deadline to clear all of the wild cards. Playing competitively involves buying wild cards in an effort to build up a certain point total with them. We almost won, but we couldn’t clear the last wild card which costs (I think) 17 points. That’s the sort of thing that only happens with an extremely lucky combination of cards.And I have seventeen CDs left to listen to in that huge Johnny Cash set I got from the library. That's out of sixty three. It's taken me nearly four weeks to get this far.
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Date: 2016-03-17 04:24 pm (UTC)That is quite an array of cancer incidence, though bets are that pretty much all the men and at least half the women smoked at some point.
[/genealogy and genetics geek]
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Date: 2016-03-17 06:22 pm (UTC)My father's father's part of the family is murkier. Both of Grandpa's parents were dead before I was born in 1967, and I don't remember hearing much about them apart from my father hoping that I was a reincarnation of his grandmother. Grandpa died of cancer, but he smoked until he was in his 40s, and he worked long hours out of doors with no sunscreen and, for as long as I can remember, had to have lots of cancerous growths removed from his skin. My impression is that that got into his lymphatic system and then to his brain.
I suspect that Mom has seen the death certificate for my great-great-grandfather. She's very, very thorough when she does research (she's an attorney who has worked for Legal Aid type organizations for the last forty years. She's never had the luxury of having someone else do her research). If Mom had more information than just 'cancer,' she'd have given it to me.
I believe, though, that that bit of the family has been in the Michigan thumb for generations. It was kind of scandalous when my grandmother went away to go to high school (she worked her way through as a maid. She was the first in her family to go because there wasn't a local high school at all) and even more so when she didn't come back.
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Date: 2016-03-17 04:18 pm (UTC)I didn't know you could get a Shingles jab, although I have already had it.
I love Johnny Cash - the last few moths Mum was alive that is about all she listened to.
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Date: 2016-03-17 05:51 pm (UTC)Shingles is horrible enough that I want Scott to have the vaccine immediately.
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Date: 2016-03-17 04:46 pm (UTC)Gabrielle
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Date: 2016-03-17 05:48 pm (UTC)I don't think I can handle more calls today. That makes three, and I'm pretty stressed by it. Phone calls are hard.
Some of the clinics on the list might be on Scott's way home from work. Maybe. That might be the way to go for him, and then I just take a cab to our normal clinic. It's a PITA, but it may be the only way to go.
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Date: 2016-03-17 06:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-17 06:28 pm (UTC)Though fifth grade camp was not rough sleeping, not for the girls. The other school that came at the same time we did brought twice as many kids as they'd said they were going to. The girls in Cordelia's class ended up bunking in the infirmary which was air conditioned and had a back up generator so that we could still find the bathrooms when the camp lost power one night. My understanding is that the boys had it rougher in as much as there weren't actually enough beds in the cabin they got moved to.
But I don't sleep very well on hard surfaces, so camping of any sort means not sleeping and paying the physical price for that in terms of fibromyalgia pain.
This place has cabins, but they're described as 'rough.' They're not heated which could be an issue in Michigan at the end of March. There also will be no potable water but what the class carries in, and the bathrooms will be port-a-potties at some distance from the cabins.
no subject
Date: 2016-03-18 11:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-18 11:37 pm (UTC)Of course, when I was ten, I could actually sleep on the ground and feel rested.
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Date: 2016-03-18 03:08 am (UTC)Sorry you have to deal with the hassle.
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Date: 2016-03-18 03:14 pm (UTC)I will survive the hassle, I'm sure. It will be stressful and frustrating and mean that other things don't get done, but I will get through.