See ya BYU

PS: Brad has his Bachelors in Exercise Science!!! Yay. I'm so proud of him. Now he just has to find a job, he will walk in April, and we are both done with good ol BYU.

Ping, you qualify for a Miracle!

So, my work is changing our insurance to a high deductible plan. Yuck, that's like death to a diabetic. Luckily they gave us lots of deductible options, but still, to have to fork out $1500 before my insurance will pay for anything, well, it just sucks.

After learning this, I started to think about things to do to prepare. Work told us to save some money. And yes, we are also going to have an HSA which will help...but I need things immediately all the time. So since insurance unfortunately won't let me stockpile on insulin, test strips, and pump supplies, I started to think what

I could do.

That's when I realized that my pump's warranty is WAY expired. I called Animas (my insulin pump manufacturers) and they told me that the warranty actually expired in 2008. Holy cow! For those who know me well or have lived with me, then you would know that I have been through a few pumps (well 5) in 6 years. My first pump broke when I accidentely hit it against my bed frame. The second pump got water under the screen somehow (the pump is waterproof). The third pump had some malfunction so the screen was not working (huge freak out moment my freshman year, specially since I was away from home). My fourth pump, I think that was because the enter button stopped working. And my fifth pump, I think it had a bad crack in it. The last pump replacement was in 2008, I guess right before the warranty expired. So this last pump had lasted me for over 2 years!

And it's still going strong. Impressive for my track history.

However, with an expired warranty, that means the next time my pump breaks, I have to buy a whole new pump. And guess what, pumps aren't cheap. So that's when I decided that I needed to hurry and get a new pump before next year, when I would have to pay $1500 and then 20% (where right now I only pay 20%). So I kicked it into high gear. Problem was that I had less than 2 months to pick a pump, get authorization from my insurance, and get the pump. From previous posts, you all know how indecisive I am.

So long story short, after reading up about all these different pumps, looking at customer reviews, I decided to get the newest Anima

s pump, called the One Touch Ping. Since I got my pump 6 years ago, technology has evolved. Awesome right. So all pumps "talk" with a blood glucose meter. This means that when I check my blood sugar, my meter tells my pump what it is so my pump can automatically correct it. Cool beans. It's all to help make the pump more like what a normal working body does. Sweet, cept my insurance does not pay for the One Touch strips, but that's a different story.

So I picked a pump, insurance approved it, and I was told that I would be responsible for $1020. Well compared to the total cost of $8500 (which is more than my new Civic is worth), $1020 isn't too bad. But with our current circumstances of Christmas, Brad graduating and trying to find a job, my typical expenses, well $1020 is a lot o

f money. Then, my miracle came. I was told that Animas has a trade program, where my old pump model could qualify me for a $700 credit. So they ran the serial number, and I did! So instead of paying $1020, we only have to pay $320 for a brand new blue pump! That was the best news ever!

Well after my wonderfully long story, point is, I have a new pump, it is navy blue just like my civic, and it came with a new meter, and I am blessed to only have to pay $320. Miracles do happen. Brad and I are both very happy and now I just need to name my pump (after the first two pumps broke, I decided that naming them might help them to last longer :) I have had Alfred, Donald, and Herbert. So I dunno, Hugo sounds pretty good, but we will see.

I quit!

Well, I wish I could say that. Dang diabetes, it ruins everything.

I just had one of those days. One of the girls I worked with called in (second time this week someone has done that). What did that mean for me, that I had to do it all alone. Granted, Paige helped out, but when you aren't an MA, you can only do so much. Oh my goodness, it was madness. The patient questions kept stock piling on my desk and I literally was running down the hall. At one time I had to clean the EMG room, transfer data, room the next EMG and room a new patient and pull a DR report, all at the SAME time. It was madness. I can't move fast enough to do all that and Paige couldn't do it. I wanted to scream so bad. I should have gotten paid double for today cause one person cannot do 2 peoples jobs.

So my head hurts like no other, for the second time this week I didn't get a lunch, and I'm fed up with it all. This is madness and it needs to end. How many times do I need medical people to tell me i'm stressed.

At my dentist check up, the dentist told me that my teeth were great, but he saw evidence that i was grinding. He looked at me and told me that I didn't look like a person who would be stressed. I wanted to laugh.

Every massage, whatever girl was working my back would tell me, "I can't believe how tight your back is!"

The chiropractor kept asking me if anything at work or home involved heavy lifting that would aggravate my back cause I had a HUGE knot on my shoulder. I told him I didn't lift anything heavy, work was just stressful. "I'll say, this is a HUGE stress knot!"

My hair is falling out, my face is breaking out, and I dream about work. I'm tired, worn out, and my body can't handle it anymore. I just want to throw the towel in.

But I can't. Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

On the up side, Mandy will be back Monday and I only have 7 more work days, then it's christmas vacay/craziness.

Happy Holidays

Welp, I have learned that having a dark colored car means it always looks dirty. I thought white was bad, but this is about the same, at least cause we park in the open and snow is white. Poor Honda.

As for exciting things, Brad and I have officially been married for 3 years! Yay! For our anniverary we went to the Anniversary Inn again (cause last year was so much fun). We stayed in the Bridal Veil Falls room. It was really pretty, unfortunately the camera was forgotten, so no pictures. I was a little concerned about the weather cause everyone was saying that it was going to be a big blizzard. I kinda freaked out and almost wanted to cancel the whole thing cause I didn't want to get stuck in SLC, especially since my little sister was in town staying with us for Thanksgiving. Luckily, Brad does not fear snow, so he laughed at me being ridiculous and we went. Of course, the "blizzard" turned out to be just light snow mixed with a lot of wind and was no big deal at all. But, we got to eat at an almost empty Tucanos because of it :)

The week of Thanksgiving was an adventure. My little sister, Robyn, came down from BYU-I to spend Thanksgiving with us. Awesome. So here is how the week went:

Monday: we saw Harry Potter in IMAX! That was awesome!

Tuesday: Brad and I went to Tucanos and the Anniversary Inn

Wednesday: I made pumpkin pie and cranberry sause, we all did a puzzle, and just hung out

Thursday: Thanksgiving. I learned that Thanksgiving is stressful because everything has to be cooked at relatively the SAME time. Frustrating for me. My first attempt at mashed potatos was not perfect, but it went okay and the ham was delicious! We also watched Toy Story 3 (while waiting for everything to cook) and then The Back Up Plan after dinner. Love Toy Story and did not love Back Up Plan.

Friday: Brad and Robyn woke up early and went Black Friday shopping. Brad and I went to breakfast while Robyn hung out with a friend. Then all three of us tried to get a few things (and I thought I was going to die in JCPennys. How, from being "trampeded". Yup I made a new word, it means trampled in a stampede. I thought it was pretty ingenious, even if it was a total mistake on my part. So needless to say, our shopping didn't last long, cause we went home to the refuge of a quiet apartment.

Saturday: We saw Tangeled! So cute! I love that Disney is reverting back to the old ways of movies! Yes, I mainly wanted to see it because Chuck (Zachari Levi) was in it, but the commericials also looked cute. The funny part was Brad listening to the BYU Utah game on his ipod while waiting for the movie to start. Boo to the refs, that's what I got to say. But whatever, blue is the best color ever and I love cougars. Plus, you gotta love it when a guy's nickname is Juice. Haha, can I just say that I'm so glad football is over! (I told Brad that I was glad this was the last year we were going to college football games and he didn't like that. He loves the game/atmosphere. Meanwhile, I have a hard time liking a game that takes 4 hours to watch 1 hour of play. Dumb. But I am glad that BYU's team really came together. It started out rough/really bad, but no one can deny the fact that BYU got better. K, I'm done.

Sunday: We drove Robyn up to SLC to catch her shuttle back to Idaho in the storm.

Yup, so we watched a lot of movies, did a few puzzles (3) and had a lot of fun. Now, I can listen to christmas music! Yay! I love Christmas, I just don't love living in the snow :(

Fence Sitting

So, I have always been an indecisive person. I have a hard time picking between things and making up my mind constantly. Just ask Brad. He will ask me what I want to eat and 98% of the time, I can't tell him and ask him to pick. So Brad has made it his mission in life to turn me into a decisive person (good luck!) Well, with this whole car crash fiasco, I have had a lot of decisions to make.

So with our car, as it was considered a total loss, State Farm told me that we could turn the car over to them and receive a check for the worth of our wonderful car, or we could keep the car and they would give us less money (as it would be considered a salvage vehicle). Big decision basically. Do we keep the car we love and fix it ourselves and hope the money we receive pays for everything...or do we turn the car over and buy a new one (resulting in a loan).

So we weighed the options. And had a few different collision repair places and got different opinions and assessments of the damage. We also started looking at different cars. Now our Escort is a 99 with just barely 100K miles on it. For the worth of our vehicle, the only cars available are old, beaten cars with at least 150k miles on then. Yuck. So thats when we started looking for a little more pricely vehicles (by we I mean Brad). Brad figured out that we could get a good car in the 5k - 6k range, compared to the 3.5k the insurance would give us for our car.

So then Brad left it to me. We drove nice cars, found a nice one, were approved for a loan with a low APR...but it was all my decision. My dad thought we should keep the car, Brad thought we should get a new one, but what did I want? Good question.

I love our Escort. Its been a good car, we have only had to fix minor things, and my grandpa gave it to us. So sentimental value is pretty high. However, I was a little worried about the cost of having to fix it and all sorts of issues that could happen if I got hit again. This is when Brad started calling me the fence sitter. After much thought, discussions, prayers, and mechanics telling us it would be better to just get a new car, I decided to give our car up. So we found a good little civic in our price range and decided to get it. So this morning, the plan was for Brad to turn in our car and buy the new car. Then I started talking about how much I would miss the ford and how comfy the seats are (which they are really comfy and not stiff). Needless to say, I got the look and Brad told me I needed to get off the fence and make a decision.

Well we turned our car in. So I did pick a side. And we have a nice new blue '03 Honda Civic with 101K miles on it. And we can have it all paid off in a year. We both feel good about it. But I will still miss the Escort. Afterall it was my first car given to me by my late grandpa. But hopefully this Honda will prove to be fabulous just like we think and I will learn to love it too. I just hate making decisions still :( Brad's favorite part of this whole story was when he called today to tell me to go in and sign the loan, and I said "Well, I will try and find someone to take me". It must be a deep psychological error of fence sitting, cause I had every intention of finding someone and I did cause I didn't want to have to walk home.

My Traffic Cam spotlight

So, I never have any exciting news about life to talk about, until yesterday. I should be excited right? Well, everyone wants to be famous and be noticed (supposedly) and I had my shining moment yesterday morning. Ready for the story:

I was driving to work and had just merged on to the freeway from the Provo Center Street on-ramp. Just as I was trying to speed up, I noticed brake lights ahead, so I slowed down. "Wierd, maybe I should change lanes cause I don't want to be stuck in traffic and be late to work". No sooner had I thought this when I realized the car in front of me had come to a complete stop. So I slammed on my brakes and stopped just 1-2 feet behind the car. Right when I'm thinking "Thank goodness", I am slammed forward. The car behind me apparently was not paying attention to brake lights and crashed right into me. Luckily, I still had my foot on the brake pedal, so I still didn't hit the car in front of me, however, my car was not so lucky.

The first thing I noticed was that the stereo had completely come out of the dash and was hanging. The music was still playing, so I new it was okay, but it still freaked me out. So I popped the stereo back in. Then I got out of my car and called Brad. Now I should mention that due to all of the I-15 construction, there is no shoulder to the freeway, so we all tried to pull over as best we could in the 1 foot space to the side of the right lane, but basically we blocked the lane. So I'm on the phone with Brad telling him that i was hit and everything, and all the other girls from the other 2 cars are on their phones, when I realize that my glasses are not on my face. I freak out and start searching the car cause I was worried that they had flown off and hit something and thereby been damaged. Luckily I found them on the carpet under the steering wheel. Thank goodness. I walked around my good like Ford Escort and checked the front, and saw that I had no damage there and affirmed with the girl in front of me that I had not hit her. Then I walked to the rear and saw the damage. My bumper was caved in/no-existent any more. I could see pieces of it along the freeway. The license plate was hanging on pretty good still as one screw was still very much intact to some metal. I then text my manager and told her that I was in an accident and would be late.

So the girl who hit me tells me that she thinks its all her fault cause her brakes don't really work. I wanted to yell, "Then what are you doing driving! Seriously!" My estimation is that she was going at least 45 mph when she hit me. Brad asked me over the phone if I was okay or hurt. I only noticed that my sacrolumbar was sore (low back). The girl who hit me called 911 and within a few minutes, the high patrol was there. They numbered our cars by the order we were all in. Some how 2 other cars were involved. One was completely crunched, so I think she might have hit the concrete barrier when she tried to stop and not hit all of us. The other car, well i have no idea, she looked fine. So after we were all number, the UHPs had us back up and drive into the closed off part of the road that is being worked on. Luckily our accident was right next to this, so I only had to back up a few feet and then they moved cones for us to get over and off the freeway.

After we are all moved, the UHP officers start talking to all us and asking what happened. They then had each of us write down our information and statements and they took all of our license, registration and insurance info. After all this, the UHP officer working with me told me to sit in my car while he filed the report. This is when I found out the the girl's car who had been in front of me, had stopped working all of a sudden, which is why she had come to a complete stop. Her car was working now, but they decided to tow it anyways so that wouldn't happen again. As her car was not affected at all, she was good to go. Some EMTs came and spoke with all of us. After I assured them that I was fine and would just go to work to have my physical therapist look at me, they left me alone.

So this morning was not exactly warm, so I'm just sitting in my car freezing, when finally I get out and find my UHP office assigned to me. He hands me a piece of paper with my information and the girl who hit me's information on it. He told me that he gave her a citation and that he filed a report. This was all stated on the handy dandy paper. He told me that I could just call her insurance and with all this information and get the details of repair worked out with them. He then told the girl who hit me the same thing but that she should contact her insurance, not mine. After all the cars that needed to be towed were moved, the UHPs stopped some traffic at the onramp and let us get back on the freeway.

I got to work and Roger, my PT, looked me over and did some tests to determine that I had no neurological damage. By now, it had been an hour and a half since the accident, so I was starting to notice a little more pain. He told me that the adrenaline was wearing off, so I would really start feeling sore and that it would last for 4-6 weeks! I laughed cause I thought he was joking, but he wasn't. He told me that massage, heat, and advil were the best things to help. I also spoke briefly with Dr. Ockey and he said that same things. Great! So as I'm working, I am getting sorer. It gets to the point where my whole spine hurts. And the longer into the day, the worse it got. Plus, my greatest pain region kept changing. Where it had first been my low back, it was then my midback and this morning it was my back that was killing me. But, Roger did give me a tens unit to help. A tens unit has electrodes that you stick on the muscle that is bothering you. It then sends like electrical impulses/shocks, to that area(s) and this helps to relax the muscle.

During the whole accident and high patrol stuff, I was talking with Brad and he got online and told me that he could see me online from the traffic cam. Of course, traffic built up at the accident spot, and as typical, when I got on the freeway, once I got passed the point where we had crashed, the freeway was moving great again. Gotta love curious looky-loos.

So there were my minutes of fame. Ha ha. Great right? Now I feel like the bionic women with all the machines attached to me and wires (my insulin pump and the tens unit). Too bad it doesn't make me really strong. Oh well. Now I have to take the poor car to a collision repair shop to get the bumper/crunched trunk fixed and get a rental (all paid for by State Farm Insurance at least). Oh and a great thing that happened as well, when the stereo was popped out, the knob to change the air from cold to hot, was broken off. The metal part that lets you turn the knob and is inside the stereo console was broken and super glue isn't gonna fix it. So now the car is stuck on hot. At least it is getting colder right?

Class Reunion

So the other day I got a facebook invite from my high school class president for our 10 year reunion. A little early, considering it won't be for another 5 years, but it still got me thinking. What in the world have I done since I graduated from good ol Rocklin High School?!

Well, here's what I came up with: I went to BYU, I got married, graduated with my BS in Exercise Science, and started working full time as a Medical Assistant in a Pain Management clinic.

Not a bad list. But I sure hope I have more to add to that by the time my reunion comes around. Basically, I'm just not satisfied with where I am. Sure, my job is great, and it is a job. And I do have a degree and my husband is fantastic. But I feel like I'm selling myself short.

So our big plan, as Brad is graduating in December (thank goodness for that!), I will be applying to nursing school. Cross my fingers I get in so that in 2 years I will have a second BS in Nursing this time. Then Brad can go to grad school and get his DPT (doctorate in physical therapy). Oh yea, and somewhere in there we want to start a family.

But hopefully, all goes well and we can be done with school by 2015. Boy do I hope we are.

On a side note, is it just me, or does it seem like EVERYONE is pregnant?! Not that I'm upset, cause I'm excited for all my friends that are, it just is crazy, cause so many of them are. Maybe that means i'm getting old...