Baby/Life Update

by Grant

    A few odds and ends. I *think* my wrists are finally improving. It's getting harder for me to resist working on the computer, but I need to excercise some self-restraint. The pain and numbness isn't gone, but seems to remain mild for a far longer period of time. I used to be unable to get through the week without being really discouraged because of the pain. Now I've managed to get through two weeks without taking time off on thursday to rest my arms/wrists.
   
    Titus got eaten alive by mosquitoes @ some unkown time this last week. Unfortunately, his bites are pretty inflamed and he has had trouble sleeping. I think they're starting to get better, but they're still pretty darn irritating. I find it amusing that the other night I sprayed mosquito spray on forrest and Titus, but neglected myself so now I have plenty of bites. See, I must be pretty sweet if mosquitoes like munching on me.

    On the financial front, we submitted every piece of financial information to St. Luke's Financial services. I was a little irritated at some of the questions like "Have you asked your family for help?" Why should my family pay my bills? It's my responsibility and I'm not going to go for hand-outs just so that they get their pound of flesh. I believe in paying what I owe, but some of those bills were crazy high and unnecessary. Dr. Visits before the babies were even viable cost about $1400 apiece! This was for 5 minutes with a different Dr. each time who said things were fine but even if they weren't there wasn't anything that they could do. Strictly malpractice paranoia on their part. Thankfully, our insurance guru looked over our bills and is going to dig into it some. She's a real tiger at making sure we don't get overcharged. Unfortunately, Hospitals are pretty bad at this because they have to make their money from somewhere. I learned from talking to our HR manager that most insurance companies just pay the bills and pass on the bill to their customers via premium increases. I'm not saying that St. Luke's has done this, but some costs are pretty hard to swallow. I wish we had some choice in the matter during the experience. If they'd say before they walked in the room that they were charging you $500 (which happened. Not our normal Dr. just somebody that asked how she was doing) we might scream "Nobody's home. Go away!"

I was looking at Liberty yesterday and decided to encourage her like I do with the boys. So, in a very animated voice I said, "Good job Liberty!" Apparently, I triggered her funny bone because she started laughing really hard. I did it several times and every time she laughed more than we've ever heard before.

I've got some pictures that I'll try to at least get working on today. In the meantime, if you want to see something funny, go look in the mirror.