I wish I had a cash cow about now.
Last weekend, the boys were up unacceptably early, so like any good parents would do, we gave them milk, turned on the TV, shut the doors and let them wander around our bedroom while we tried to sleep some more.
“Uh-oh!” says Nate. “Uh-oh! Uh-oooooooooooh!”
The next thing I hear is Sip telling me Nate has just handed him my glasses… with the left earpiece snapped clean off at the hinge. Uh-oh.I really need new glasses. I took them to three different places and all have said they can’t be fixed. I tried to have the lenses swapped into my prescription sunglasses frames, but the frames are just different enough that they don’t fit. Awesome.
I can’t go to Lens Crafters and get the handy glasses-in-an-hour because they are out of our vision plan network. Double awesome. I have to go somewhere else and wait a week or two for new glasses. I’ve been wearing mine with one earpiece, which is causing the other earpiece to stretch and they are all crooked. Then it gives me a headache. Not to mention how ghetto I look. Like I have money for new glasses right now.
Then there’s Ace’s therapy. We found out our insurance is changing again, because a lot of people’s doctor’s weren’t in the current network. The good news is that the OT is now in network as of June first and services are covered at 90%. The bad news is that won’t kick in until Ace’s deductible is met, which is $1,250 and currently at $0 to date. Awesome.
I’d been paying for OT out-of-pocket because that’s $70 vs. the $100 if it went through insurance. That made is cheaper, but that also didn’t go towards our deductible. So I’m going to have them bill it to insurance and I will have to pay the extra $30 per visit for those visits, then pay $100 per visit going forward until we’ve paid $1,250. Add that to the money I am pulling out of my ass for new glasses and we’re set!
We’ve never had a ton of money, but we’ve never been this broke before, either. Things were fine until gas and food prices went up, Skip’s company got rid of all OT pay and bonuses, we had medical bills coming in left and right (from my pregnancy, the boy’s birth and NICU stay, a surgery Skip had in 2007 that we are still dealing with, Nate’s broken arm). Add in two car accidents and a bunch of other nonsense and our savings is gone and we’re barely making ends meet. Heck, half the time I don’t even know HOW we manage to make ends meet, but we do.
We’re working on fixing all of that and getting to a better place financially, but in the meantime… where’s that cow?
But gee, Sommer, the important people say that the recession is ending, so you should have plenty of money.
Everyone jacked up their prices (grocery stores, post office, etc.) due to the high fuel costs, but when the fuel cost came down, their prices stayed high.
Hope the cows come home soon.
Sommer- aren’t you getting any service through Early Intervention? See, here, I have to access clients’ insurance, but if there is a deductible, the state takes care of that. The families are never sent a bill directly from me. they pay a family coordination fee that is a sliding scale to the state. most have no fee at all. Most insurances don’t pay for speech, so the state pays me.
Whatcom Center for Early Learning is excellent, but you’ll probably face a long waiting list like we did when Joaquin was in the birth to three program. Julie Johnson is an excellent resource there (if you talk to her, tell her I said hi). You could get a speech and OT home visits for free, plus a structured play group with a certified special education teacher once each week (their therapist are awesome, too). Even though we had all of that, I still doubled up and got Joaquin into private therapy, as well (Connections and Susan McNutt’s NDT/SI Therapy).
I know what you mean about the cost of all of that. Our insurance is totally screwy right now. I need to take a day off from work just to figure it out. There really ought to be more *free* services for early intervention. It’s so important.
No cows here… I think we could use a herd between the two of us. :)