2009? It Sucks!

We're neary halfway through the year and, I have to say, 2009 has not impressed me a whole lot. I think I'm ready for 2010 already. The one real high point has been getting Streak but, other than that, it's been a pretty bad year all around. I am tired, exhausted and overwhelmed all the time. It's partially complications from all the health issues, and not doing as well as I should, however it's also due in part to the fact that a lot of crap just keeps happening. To give you an idea of what this year has been like, here's a sample of the last four days worth of crap:

• Called co-op's conversion contact person to check on status of our conversion to a condo and to check on the status of our application. We were informed that they ran the application only in Nicole's name (however, they did pull my credit report, too). Was told that we could not apply for a mortgage jointly as we were not a married couple, and two friend cannot do this.
  
  
• I screamed a bunch about discrimination, fair housing acts and threatened to get my lawyers (specialists in real estate law) involved if they tried to pull any of this crap on us. They back pedalled and said that my info was "lost". Was probably somewhere at the main office in New Jersey. My personal information which I had given to them, including Social Security Number, employment history, etc. Everything a scammer would love to have if they wanted to do identity theft and attempt to open credit in my name.
  
  
• Made appointment to officially submit our application to the financing company. That pre-approval application they had us filed previously? It was for no reason. They weren't going to use it, hadn't done anything with the info except pull our credit and lose my info. Had to scramble around to dig out statements, W-2s, info on former employers, etc., to bring info to application.
  
  
• Called Meijer and submitted refill requests through their automated phone system for two prescriptions. I am in the process of trying to get info on how to submit my 90 day prescriptions the doctor just wrote for these two older prescriptions to a mailorder company my insurance company seems to use exclusively (my benefits specialist said any pharmacy could fill 90 day orders, but a survey of local pharmacies shows that is not the case, and we must go through the one company). Unfortunately, our benefits specialist has this info and is on a couple week long vacation, so I have to wait for her return to do this.
  
  
• Went to pick up prescriptions, but was told they only received the request for the one refill (nevermind that the computer was supposed to submit the two as a batched request and had never had problems doing so before). Waited around for them to fill my second prescription.
  
  
• Picked up my two prescriptions and paid the full amount ($60) for them. Went home and, as I had 2 more days worth of pills for both meds, did not open them up at that time.
  
  
• Went to open my pill bottles. Opened Cozaar, the prescription that they'd had to scramble to fill last minute. It had 10 pills in it, but should've been 30. I pay $51 for a 30 day fill of this prescription, so I was pretty stressed. Pulled out the manditory drug information sheet that comes with the prescription. Stapled to the info sheet for my Cozaar was a yellow piece of paper with the following on it:
  

  Sorr for the inconvenience, but we are temporarily short on your medication.

  
  Following that was a list of my name, RX#, the prescription's name and dosage, and the date. Then there wa the following on the form:
  

  We owe you 20 at no charge. The balance should be in by:

  
  Nothing was filled in. After that was a note: "Please call the pharmacy before coming in and bring this slip with you. Thank you." No phone number listed, and the phone number I use is just for the automated system, so I will have to try to find a human contact number on their website. I'm wondering when the pills will be available? Trips to Meijer are not that easy as I do not have a car and either have to pay 1/4 an hour of my pay and spend 2 hours to get it via bus (or walk 6.5 miles round trip), or I have to try to coordinate an overlapping time in my schedule with Nicole, which is not always easy. I think we'll be able to do it on Monday. I hope they have the Cozaar available then.
  
  
• Went to the loan application employment. It was excruciating for me, as I have been a loan officer and if I'd been as much of an incompetent fool as this lady was, I would've been demoted or fired. We had to watch her constantly to make sure she included all info, and had to argue with her a few times to make sure she didn't throw things out in her stupidity. She almost forgot to list $5,000 in one of my retirement accounts in the retirement funds assets section. She almost forgot to list one of my banking accounts (the one with the highest balance, naturally!) in my assets. She used a hunt and peck typing method, but was slow and stared at all the info with an expression rather resembling that of befuddled chicken before slowly entering it on the computer. She kept second guessing what she was doing and double checking, which didn't make us feel any more confident in her limited abilities.
  
  How she handled gathering info for the ECOA reporting on us was like a "how not to do it" lesson. She looked at us sideways and said "you're not Hispanic or anything, are you?" suddenly out of the blue, when we were in the middle of a conversation about how long it would be before we found out of we were appoved or not. It was clear in her mind that she was ignoring our questions and moving on to something else, but her timing of the question made it sound like it'd take longer to process if we were Hispanic. Nicole started to look upset at the question, so I quickly told her "it's for the ECOA reporting", reminding her that I'd told her she'd probably be asking us this info, and she calmed down. If I hadn't been quick on my feet, I think Nicole might've started getting angry at her and denouncing her for discriminating against Hispanic folk.
  
  
• The end result of the application is that we felt a little more likely to be approved, but still not certain. And we still do not know when we'll know if we're approved, how we'll be notified, when we'll know how much our unit is appraised for, when we'll close if we are approved, how much exactly they will roll in as extra fees (last estimate was $5,000), etc.
  
  
• I checked my insurance company's website and found that they're doing an initial refusal of payment for my recent cardiology appointment, my echo, blood tests, etc., and they want to bill me over $2,000 for my routine visit. I need to dig out my notification of coverage from Blue Cross Blue Shield so I can present it to them as proof that there was no lapse in coverage and try to get them to cover part of my costs. If I am lucky and they'll accept it and allow that, as a higher risk individual I am allowed such luxuries as a pneumonia vaccine, monitoring of my blood to make sure my meds aren't messing with my electrolytes, etc., then I will only have to pay....OK, looking it up now....shoot, it's more than I thought! Probably somewhere between 3 weeks and 4 weeks worth of take home pay. I have just over 2 weeks worth of take home pay still stashed in my flexible spending account, so I will only, probably, have to use a week or a week and a half's pay to pay for the rest of it. Once this is all sorted out and paid I will "only" be required to pay for 20% of the costs of any additional, non-prescription, medical stuff required for the rest of the year, as I will have exceeded my $1,300 deductible, and insurance will cover 80% of it.
  
  As I have to do another round of doctor's visits, echos, blood tests, etc., in November, this means I will have to pay somewhere between another week or two weeks of pay for my required contribution on my medical expenses at that time. Given these costs just for routine monitoring of my condition, I am really not sure how I will be able to save up to pay the nearly $5,000 I will have to contribute towards my defibrillator when the doctor deems it necessary to install that. I can not really afford the meds and deductibles and copays as it is. Doing a quick calculation, to pay for my bronchitis and flu treatment, my routine meds necessary to keep me alive and functioning, my two manditory sessions with the cardiologist and all the lovely equipment to monitor my condition and make sure I'm not about to keel over and die, roughly 1/6 of my income after taxes are deducted will go to pay for my medical expenses this year. This is with me skipping the routine doctors visits I should have, not following up on an eye problem I really should get looked at, etc., because all my money has to go to cardiology stuff, etc.
  
  
• In addition to this, in the past four days I've had two episodes of feeling dizzy, lightheaded, unreal, chest pain, nausea and/or extreme sudden fatigue where I was not certain if I'd be able to muster up enough strength and energy to keep standing and working. It sucks that I am paying a couple months worth of income each year for medication and treatment and I am still feeling so damn awful all the time, I'm just also really broke, too, in addition to feeling like crap. I'm having a lot of wild, sudden fantasies of just dropping my meds, discontinuing medical treatment, etc., so I would not be so broke and would not have to deal with both side effects from the meds and feeling like crap from my conditions. Sometimes, lately, it really feels like it might be worthwhile to take the risks and just live my damned life, not be so broke, and be prepared to be trading in a couple extra years of life for less monetary stress, less medicine side effects, less stress surrounding doctors visits, test results, etc. I'd feel like crap, but I already feel that way now. I'd just be feeling a bit worse and be at higher risk for sudden cardiac death from the arrythmias and tachycardia, but I wouldn't be so stressed and broke and constantly, constantly running figures trying to determine how the hell I am going to manage to pay for everything.
  
  Getting another 2 months worth of post-tax pay back each year would allow me to enjoy life a little. Right now I survive, I struggle a lot, I enjoy a few small things, like my dogs or garden, or silly quizes about whether I'm a potato or not on Facebook, but I am overall really not enjoying my life. My life is about making money to pay for medical treatment to extend my life a little longer so I can make money to pay for more medical treatment....this sucks. My life is not in existence merely to support the U of M Cardiology Center and subsidize their existence! If I had those two months worth of pay back each year I could maybe do stuff I enjoy. Maybe I could actually do something as radical as scrouge up enough $ to fly to Houston to visit my friend Ruthie, or fly to California to see family I haven't seen in a decade. Visit Alaska again and meet Zoya and John's daughter. I might be able to pay for a cab ride home on days I am too tired to walk home and the buses are not running any longer.
  
  But, on the other hand, I am 31 years old, and I should not be having to make these quality of life decisions...deciding whether to forego treatment to have more money to help give me a better quality of life, and so I only have to deal with symptoms from my illnesses, not illness symptoms plus medication side effects plus side effects from being stressed about being broke. Plus, no more dealing with pharmacies and having to declare war on them, have temper tantrums and kick their doors, yell at their techs, etc.
  
  Today I am really feeling the fatigue setting in from too many side effects of multiple medications, too many issues due to my medical conditions, too much stress from being broke, too much extreme stress from having to have no life at all because all of my money goes to keep me alive, etc. I am stressing about how to pay for past medical stuff and future, even more costly, medical stuff. Government aid would not be available to me, as I do not make minimum wage or anything, and work full time and am a single lady with no kids, etc. And I'm not yet sick enough for disability. With my conditions I will probably manage, for most of my life, to stay just well enough to not qualify, while being pretty close to sick enough that I really should be on it.
  
  
• I've also been trying to convince myself to withdraw my investment monies from my retirement funds, but have not been able to bring myself to do so, even though I've been trying to convince myself to do it for the last 6 months. It's just that, breaking into the retirement monies is like this psychological milepost in the road which says "when you reach this point and do this, it is 100% proof that you are acknowledging that you will not live to retirement age, and can you bring yourself to fully acknowledge and own up to that fact now?" I'm having a hard time doing that. I'm also greatly disliking the fact that I'd have to lose so much of my money to taxes and early withdrawal penalties. It's not a tiny sum, but it isn't a real large one, either. But it might be enough to put a sizeable dent in my debt, put some money in the emergency fund, and be enough to higher medical costs related to my probable future defibrillator implant. I've been thinking about this a lot the last few days, but I am still to scared to do this.
  

Yeah. So that's what just the last four days of 2009 have been like. Most of the days prior to this have not been much better. I am feeling pretty cranky and broke and run down and exhausted. Angry and frustrated at the incompetence I've had to deal with lately and tired of the stress that is adding to my life. Wishing that all the money I spent on medication and testing and doctor's visits would make me feel better than I do. Wondering why I keep plodding along on this futile path, not feeling any better, yet tithing vast sums of my income to a medical establishment that knows so little about my main condition they can't even be sure what is the right type of treatment for someone with my illness. I haven't seen my mom for a year, or my stepdad in over 7 years, and I miss them and do not know when I'll get to see them again. If I wasn't so broke, I'd say that at the very least, I think I need a vacation, but I cannot afford that at any time for at least the next two or three years. I would say I should head back to bed and get some more rest and maybe I'd feel a little better, but I have to leave for work in a couple of hours, so that's not possible. I'm tired of being so exhausted and cranky and broke and frustrated. And I really, really hate 2009 so far. I haven't really had a good year since 2005 or 2006. Since then it's all been tons of medical issues and stress and overbearing bosses and quitting stressful jobs in favor of ones I can better do with my issues, yet being more broke as a result, etc., etc. And I'm still sick, and I'm paying tons of money and just keep getting worse and I am hating this.