Tuesday, October 10, 2006
I was in
bed by 1am. My wife already dozing off so we listened to a bit of Coast. Not bad. Talking about myths and legends and big birds. I was asleep by about 1:40am. I got up about 2:am when Anne got up suddenly and crashed the touch lamp on her way to the bathroom. I tried to sleep after that when she came back to bed but at 3:30am I decided to get up and do some reading until my show came on. OPP and eventually GT. I read “Old Twentieth” until 4:20am or so and decided I’d had enough and went to watch a a bit of OPP. “Okanogan People and places.” I watched one show of GT on Sandon. I believe. And I enjoyed that. I did the cbi thing and only took 8units instead of 18 because I’m not sure I have enough to last me the end of the week. I think if I can conserve today and tomorrow, then I should have enough insulin to last me until Friday. I hope. After Wednesday, I’ll go back to full units.
I’m having my first coffee, waking up slowly.
Speaking about my insulin and all, I took a bsl reading and sitting at 10.3. That was at 20 min ago. My blood sugar levels will come down over the next hour or so. Since I’m not on a medical plan, other then Alberta Health Care, I have to pay for my insulin out of pocket. Same with my needles and lancets. To break it down insulin is $720/year , Needles are $329/year and lancets are the cheapest of items at $38/year, I use the sane needle/vile of insulin. Probably not a good idea but I don’t share the needle so that’s a plus. Another plus is the test strips. I’m supposed to test 4 times/day. Now The Alberta Monitoring (AM) pays for only monitoring diabetes nothing else. A package of test strips x2 50 containers cost $100. At shoppers I get club points towards other merchandise at Shoppers drug mart. But I don’t test myself 4 times/day. Like I should be doing. I barely test my blood sugar once every other day. My Alberta monitoring account is from April 1st to April first. So far out of my pocket I’m paying about $1,130 year. Now if I was ro test myself 4 times daily like my Doctor suggested I do, If I tested my bsl 4 times/day my $550 AM fund would exhaust itself in six months. So add another $550 onto that., is $1,270/year. And I’m supposed to be taking something called Metforin (MF) and I have no idea what it does. MF is another expense. I should ask Pat who’s diabetic at work and ask him how much he pays Lets round it up to $1500/year. Out of my pocket.
Now before you go off saying I’m complaining, I’m not. I cut corners. I don’t take MF and I use the same needle for one container of insulin and I use the same lancet. Now I have no idea what these cost saving measures are doing to my health but for now, I don’t feel to badly. I know over time the effects will tell but for now being a relatively young diabetic as of July 2004, it’s too early to tell. Okay did I ask to become diabetic? Yes. I drank Coca-Cola like it was water in my 20’s and 30’s heading against advice. You get what you pay for. I drink diet Coke now and even then I try to monitor how much of that I drink. I’m not into alcohol but I’ll have a beer maybe once a month. If I’m lucky, But Alberta Health Care doesn’t cover this stuff and I’m working just a bit over 20 hours/week.
Still with Anne’s job and my job and the bit of black sheep money she gets once a month since we’ve been married over the last 6 years life has been comfortable. Working part time like this allows me the time to write. To read and sleep. I don’t do much of that now. Now I could work full time at the job. But I have other issues as well besides being diabetic. My scoliosis, which seems to be all right. Thank god there’s no medication for that. In BC they give you a (or used to ) an AISH pension for that. Until you turn 65 that is. I think it’s ASIH Assured income for the severely handicapped. I tried going on it here in Edmonton back in 1990. They paid back then $800/month and covered all of your medical needs. You were also able to work and earn $200 pt time over and above your AISH income. My brother is on it for his scoliosis in BC but he has 2 children (they don’t have it) and Stephanie and Patrick are in their 20’s. I would have loved AISH back in 1990, My rent was something like $250/month for a cute bachelor apartment. 9710 156th St. Here in Edmonton.
You can do a Google Earth search and it’s still there. The building beside the house with the white picket fence but in the Google earth shot you can’t see the fence but the building beside it was where I lived from 1985-1995.. I moved to the L shaped building right across the street in 1995 when I got kicked out of my nice little bachelor. But that’s another story. I wish I could attach a URL to the Google earth shot. Speaking about the GE shot of my little bachelor apartment. I faced the street. The apartment is still there obviously and it’s the one just right of the sidewalk leading into the building. Closest to the corner house.
But getting back to Alberta Health Care, I’m subsidized for that. So it’s not out of pocket. If you can get your T4s in early enough. It’s a headache to go through every spring. The other alternative is to work full time. I can work those hours 1:30pm-9pm and work Friday morning. Ideally that’s what I’d like to do. But My wife likes me home because she doesn’t like being alone here in this place. She can’t work full time as she has issues of her own. So for now, we’re stuck in this situation. For now,
The other thing I don’t like working for time although, afternoon/evening full time is a lot better then working morning/afternoon full time because that’s when Rob the boss is around giving people stress. The afternoon evening is easier. Less Rob, little stress except during those 3 hours in the afternoon. But the afternoon shift is harder then the evening shift to get sales. But since I’m a tap shooter now (the “elite” of the company) I get certain advantages. It's not that Rob is a bad guy or anything but he has his days.
Anyway, more on that later. This has been a huge blog entry to say the least and I want to go off and make my blog rounds.
I was able to catch a bit of Raw last night and it wasn't bad. On a scale from 1-10 I'd say it was a 7. Nice to see the "Million Dollar man" and "IRS" The 4 horsemen. it was their season opener and their family reunion. Sorry for the extra long post. Oh well. I'll check for typos later.
That’s all for now.
e.Jim
bed by 1am. My wife already dozing off so we listened to a bit of Coast. Not bad. Talking about myths and legends and big birds. I was asleep by about 1:40am. I got up about 2:am when Anne got up suddenly and crashed the touch lamp on her way to the bathroom. I tried to sleep after that when she came back to bed but at 3:30am I decided to get up and do some reading until my show came on. OPP and eventually GT. I read “Old Twentieth” until 4:20am or so and decided I’d had enough and went to watch a a bit of OPP. “Okanogan People and places.” I watched one show of GT on Sandon. I believe. And I enjoyed that. I did the cbi thing and only took 8units instead of 18 because I’m not sure I have enough to last me the end of the week. I think if I can conserve today and tomorrow, then I should have enough insulin to last me until Friday. I hope. After Wednesday, I’ll go back to full units.
I’m having my first coffee, waking up slowly.
Speaking about my insulin and all, I took a bsl reading and sitting at 10.3. That was at 20 min ago. My blood sugar levels will come down over the next hour or so. Since I’m not on a medical plan, other then Alberta Health Care, I have to pay for my insulin out of pocket. Same with my needles and lancets. To break it down insulin is $720/year , Needles are $329/year and lancets are the cheapest of items at $38/year, I use the sane needle/vile of insulin. Probably not a good idea but I don’t share the needle so that’s a plus. Another plus is the test strips. I’m supposed to test 4 times/day. Now The Alberta Monitoring (AM) pays for only monitoring diabetes nothing else. A package of test strips x2 50 containers cost $100. At shoppers I get club points towards other merchandise at Shoppers drug mart. But I don’t test myself 4 times/day. Like I should be doing. I barely test my blood sugar once every other day. My Alberta monitoring account is from April 1st to April first. So far out of my pocket I’m paying about $1,130 year. Now if I was ro test myself 4 times daily like my Doctor suggested I do, If I tested my bsl 4 times/day my $550 AM fund would exhaust itself in six months. So add another $550 onto that., is $1,270/year. And I’m supposed to be taking something called Metforin (MF) and I have no idea what it does. MF is another expense. I should ask Pat who’s diabetic at work and ask him how much he pays Lets round it up to $1500/year. Out of my pocket.
Now before you go off saying I’m complaining, I’m not. I cut corners. I don’t take MF and I use the same needle for one container of insulin and I use the same lancet. Now I have no idea what these cost saving measures are doing to my health but for now, I don’t feel to badly. I know over time the effects will tell but for now being a relatively young diabetic as of July 2004, it’s too early to tell. Okay did I ask to become diabetic? Yes. I drank Coca-Cola like it was water in my 20’s and 30’s heading against advice. You get what you pay for. I drink diet Coke now and even then I try to monitor how much of that I drink. I’m not into alcohol but I’ll have a beer maybe once a month. If I’m lucky, But Alberta Health Care doesn’t cover this stuff and I’m working just a bit over 20 hours/week.
Still with Anne’s job and my job and the bit of black sheep money she gets once a month since we’ve been married over the last 6 years life has been comfortable. Working part time like this allows me the time to write. To read and sleep. I don’t do much of that now. Now I could work full time at the job. But I have other issues as well besides being diabetic. My scoliosis, which seems to be all right. Thank god there’s no medication for that. In BC they give you a (or used to ) an AISH pension for that. Until you turn 65 that is. I think it’s ASIH Assured income for the severely handicapped. I tried going on it here in Edmonton back in 1990. They paid back then $800/month and covered all of your medical needs. You were also able to work and earn $200 pt time over and above your AISH income. My brother is on it for his scoliosis in BC but he has 2 children (they don’t have it) and Stephanie and Patrick are in their 20’s. I would have loved AISH back in 1990, My rent was something like $250/month for a cute bachelor apartment. 9710 156th St. Here in Edmonton.
You can do a Google Earth search and it’s still there. The building beside the house with the white picket fence but in the Google earth shot you can’t see the fence but the building beside it was where I lived from 1985-1995.. I moved to the L shaped building right across the street in 1995 when I got kicked out of my nice little bachelor. But that’s another story. I wish I could attach a URL to the Google earth shot. Speaking about the GE shot of my little bachelor apartment. I faced the street. The apartment is still there obviously and it’s the one just right of the sidewalk leading into the building. Closest to the corner house.
But getting back to Alberta Health Care, I’m subsidized for that. So it’s not out of pocket. If you can get your T4s in early enough. It’s a headache to go through every spring. The other alternative is to work full time. I can work those hours 1:30pm-9pm and work Friday morning. Ideally that’s what I’d like to do. But My wife likes me home because she doesn’t like being alone here in this place. She can’t work full time as she has issues of her own. So for now, we’re stuck in this situation. For now,
The other thing I don’t like working for time although, afternoon/evening full time is a lot better then working morning/afternoon full time because that’s when Rob the boss is around giving people stress. The afternoon evening is easier. Less Rob, little stress except during those 3 hours in the afternoon. But the afternoon shift is harder then the evening shift to get sales. But since I’m a tap shooter now (the “elite” of the company) I get certain advantages. It's not that Rob is a bad guy or anything but he has his days.
Anyway, more on that later. This has been a huge blog entry to say the least and I want to go off and make my blog rounds.
I was able to catch a bit of Raw last night and it wasn't bad. On a scale from 1-10 I'd say it was a 7. Nice to see the "Million Dollar man" and "IRS" The 4 horsemen. it was their season opener and their family reunion. Sorry for the extra long post. Oh well. I'll check for typos later.
That’s all for now.
e.Jim
// posted by E.Jim Shannon @ 2:09 PM 
