I want more

I want more time, so I can work on all of my diabetes related needs. Medication, exercise, meals, testing, insurance issues, these are all items that need a considerable amount of my time to take care of. They are also things that I know I don’t give myself the time to take care of the way that they should be taken care of. These items occasionally do float to the top of my “to do list” but they rarely stay there. I know from the results of my last A1c (4.9) that I am doing mostly ok with all of these diabetes related time issues, but mostly ok is not really ok with me.

I love my job and probably spend more time doing it than I should. I love being a volunteer firefighter and probably spend more time doing it than I should. I love my family and don’t spend near enough time doing that than I should. I don’t love diabetes and don’t spend near enough time doing that than I should. I look at all four of these things, family, diabetes, work and firefighting and I wonder which areas I can take time from and give to the areas that I should be spending more time on.

I know from the outside it looks like the choice is easy, less work, less firefighting. After saying that reality kicks in and tells me the reason I have the position and pay that I have at work is because of the hours I put into it. The reason I have the position that I have at the fire department is because of the hours that I put into it. I know, I know, positions and promotions don’t mean squat if you don’t have family and health.

I really liked where I was at in my life before diabetes came along. The balance of my time with family, firefighting and work seemed pretty good before diabetes came along. But alas diabetes did come along, gobbling up any extra time that I had and beating me over the head wanting more of my precious time.

In the end I know what I have to do, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

I want more time!

Saving money the insurance company way

Its time to refill my meds, I usually use mail order to get the most for my money on prescriptions. This time around I am switching back to my local pharmacy to get the most for my money.

I am fortunate enough to have two insurance companies, the problem with that is they each have their own preferred mail order suppliers. Neither insurance company is willing to work with the other ones billing codes. I have spent a great deal of time on the phone with both of my insurances trying to come up with something that will allow me to keep getting my medications through mail order but neither one is willing to budge on how they do things. I know that getting my medications through mail order saves the insurance companies and myself money, but since my secondary insurance won’t work with my primary insurances billing codes that means I don’t get reimbursed for what I have paid out of my own pocket.

The whole point of having two insurance companies was to save money. Late last year when my then current primary insurance changed its prescription plan it was going to cost me a lot more money to get all of my medications. At about the same time my company had open enrolment on its health insurance program. I checked and found that its prescription plan would save me more money. After figuring how much it would save me and then subtracting the cost of adding another insurance I found that I would come out a few hundred dollars ahead at the end of the year. I know that sounds completely out in left field. I worked the math on it several times and always got the same answer. Who would have thought it would be cheaper two pay two insurance premiums.

I guess that at this point I have found the flaw in my two insurance companies to save money plan, getting the secondary insurance to pay for anything. I knew that their had to be a way to make it work. After spending a considerable amount of time pouring over both of my insurance companies’ prescription plans I finally found a way to make it work. All I have to do is quit trying to save money by using mail order to get my medications filled. I found that if I use my local pharmacy they will file both insurances for me, no out of pocket co-pays, no fun forms to fill out, no hours spent on the phone trying to get them to pay. The only glitch with using my local pharmacy is that I will now have to remember to get my refills each month instead of every three months.

Who would have thought to save money a person would have to pay for two health insurance plans and get their medications filled the most expensive way that you can?

Why should I hide?

I was testing my blood sugar at a basketball tournament this weekend and it got me to thinking about where I test and who I test in front of.

I’ll start with where I do not hide. When I’m at home I will do any of my diabetes related items, test, inject, insert sensors etc. Most of my close family knows about my diabetes and for that matter there are at least 7 people that I would consider my close family that have diabetes. I never think twice about doing diabetes stuff in front of all of them.

The next place to talk about is when I am out in public around strangers, once again this is a place that I really don’t care who sees me do the diabetic stuff. In fact I kind of enjoy testing amongst strangers. I like to watch peoples reactions, see the look on there face, trying to figure out just what the heck I am doing.

The last place to talk about is at work. For me work falls into two categories, one that would be closely related to the family category and one that falls out in left field. While I am at my main office I will do all of the diabetes things in front of all of my day to day coworkers. I am pretty comfortable with all of my coworkers, which when I think about that it seems odd. At my main office there are around 60 employees. When I think about that number of people and the fact that I don’t really see any of them outside of work it makes me wonder how I have become so comfortable around them that I don’t hide my diabetes. I guess that last sentence says something about the atmosphere that I work in.

Now for the left field category. This would be my business contacts. I have about two to three suppliers that come into my office each week and I go on about six business related trips a year. I’m not sure why, but I’m just not comfortable testing in front of these people. I would like to think of these people as just… well people. For some reason I try not to do any of my diabetes related stuff in front of this group of people. I don’t know if it’s the fact that I don’t want to talk about it with them or maybe subconsciously I think they will see diabetes as a sign of weakness. A lot of my suppliers in the industry that I work in are still way behind the times, some more so than others. Computers are very new to most of my suppliers and the industry overall is still in the beginning of understanding technology. With that being said I think, or maybe I just feel like diabetes would be a subject that is very misunderstood in this industry.

I think from here forward I will try to get more comfortable with doing my diabetes stuff in front of whoever is in front of me. Being self conscious about diabetes could cost me more than a business relationship of two.