4 thoughts on “Achoo”

  1. I’ve been hearing complaints that ragweed is nasty already. Seems everyone is sneezing from either that or colds.

  2. Oh yes. Weather.com keeps telling me that my area has a high pollen count, there’s no rain in sight, and both the daughter and her boyfriend have colds. Well, I bought about a pallette of tissues at costco the other day, and I have a bunch of chicken soup ready to go.

    I told my equally-suffering SIL the other day that if we moved to Antarctica, we’d find out that we were allergic to penguins.

  3. It’s been so dry that dust, disintegrating leaf debris, pollens are wafting around and had been getting to me. Since we’ve had some rain, I can go outside without the trio of sneezes on hitting the outside air, but things are drying out again. Our scattered showers this morning were brief and barely wet anything.

    For me, Claritin (generic) works for outdoor sneezing, reactions, but I still have to take Zyrtec (generic) all year, every night.

    Plus, I’m still taking Benedryl (generic) for the itching from the healing burn wounds, albeit somewhat less than a couple weeks ago. I had thought the Zyrtec would handle the itching, but it didn’t and I did need the Benedryl.

    I thought I wouldn’t need the Claritin, but I do; so all three at times.

    I did well in the hospital — until I began seeing more and different people, having made acquaintance with other longer term patients. Still took the Zyrtec daily, Benedryl toward the end of the stay (slapping at the itchy areas didn’t work any longer to kill the itch. And, oh, the desire to just scratch, but that would lead to pain).

    But…I missed my allergy shots in the hospial and then wasn’t supposed to drive very much (at all, per docs, but reality required getting, oh, food and meds), so didn’t get back on schedule until mid-August. Get to pay the co-pays for the extra visits to build up to my regular dose.

    So, perhaps, my sneezing was exacerbated by not having the regular allergy shots…

    Now, all I have to do is get Aetna to tell me WTH they’re doing about paying for my post-op outpatient care. I’ve been calling them since I got access to a phone at the hospital (after ICU and a few days in the Step Down Unit). I asked for a case manager to help me understand the best way to manage my burn care, was told someone would call, never got one callback. Bastards.

    Delay, delay, delay. They sent me a survey about last Friday’s call, where the rep couldn’t answer my questions and didn’t have access to the information which might help. She asked for help from her supervisor, got nothing and told me she would have to do some digging. No callback Tuesday or today, so far. I was not a satisfied customer.

    Aetna has been awful. When I first went to the local ER, the ER doc wanted to send me to the Regional Burn Unit at St. Barnabas Hospital by ambulance. I didn’t know if my plan covered ambulance transport, so I called Aetna. But –wowser– it was after 7PM and they have no humans to talk to people about plan coverage! Recording said to use their web site. Well, at the ER there was no computer access, and, when I did rummage around the Aetna web site later on, all I could find was email contact — and I know from experience replies take days that way. Grrrrrrr. Customer service? Hah! I still don’t know if ambulance service is covered!

    (I did not take the ambulance as I also needed to get my boy cat inside — drove myself home and then to the second hospital. In retrospect I’m not sure how I did it, but it seemed utterly manageable at the time….)

    We need Medicare for All — Improved! Actually, we need the French system: Just copy it and plump it down right here, right now.

  4. jawbone, that sounds like an awful, and awfully familiar, experience. And of course you’re right about Medicare for everybody, but we’re just dirty fucking liberal hippies who need drug testing. Also shunning.

Comments are closed.