I may be opening a big can of worms here, but it has to be said… the health insurance situation in the United States is a total mess.  That is my opinion, take it or leave it.  It just seems to me that our Doctors should be the ones making the decisions as to what medications to prescribe or what procedures to order.  Those decisions should not be dictated by some person sitting at a desk in an office someplace working for a health insurance company.  I can’t tell you how many hours of my life I have spent fighting our insurance company to get them to pay for something they should have paid for in the first place.  Or fighting to get them to approve a prescription before three other cheaper drugs had been tried first.  I assume you all know what I’m talking about.  And well, if not, you know what they say about assumptions.

Anyway, one of my “benefits” is that I can call a nurse 24/7 to ask medical questions.  I used this “benefit” a few weeks ago when I had a migraine that was different than usual and I just couldn’t get rid of it.  That nurse told me to go to the ER after much talking and eventually I did.  Which really turned out to be fruitless anyway.  At any rate, apparently that conversation got me some further attention this evening.

At 9:50pm this evening my phone rang, and on the other end of the line was a registered nurse.  This nurse was calling from my health insurance company, a company I won’t mention here.  I guess they have started some other new “free benefit” that entitles me a personal RN that will call me from time to time (every two weeks) to check in, make recommendations and to generally see what she can do to help me out.  She even told me she can help me get claims paid?!?!?  Seriously?  I mean really, did I just have the conversation?  I am already in my jammies, maybe it was all a dream.  I guess I’ll find out in two weeks when she calls me back.  She gave me a direct number to reach her and until I talk to her again she was going to get me a list of contracted neurologists that had a specialty in the migraine field to replace mine that has moved to Ann Arbor.  (FYI, not as easy to find as you might think.)  Seriously? Seriously?

I’m shocked.  I’m confused.  As of right now, I’m pleasantly surprised.

On to other news… Card class was last night at Scrap Palace.  I love sharing ideas with other people, and last night was no different at all.  I had a blast!  There was a full house there last night, 24 students, and I’m pleased to say it went fairly smoothly.  Each student had 14 cards in their kits and we usually only do 12 cards in the two hour class.  I thought I might run over my allotted time so I had prepped the dickens out of these kits.  I had precut everything, inked all the parts, even adhered some of the little stuff together.  I’m convinced that it was all that prep that got us out of there on time.  :)  You would be amazed at just how much time it really does take to ink everything.  I was pretty surprised myself.

At the end of each class I raffle off my complete set of samples.  They all go to one person and last night that person was Ms. Irene.  I love it when people seem genuinely excited and pleased to get to take home the samples, and Irene really was.  She is such a sweet lady!!  Thanks for coming Irene!

The next card class set for September 25th is going to be all winter holiday and seasonal cards.  As of right now there are six spots left so if you want a seat book it now.  You can drop me a line, call me, or rsvp at the my card group listed on meetup.com.  There is a link on the right in the sidebar area.  Check it out.

There are a few other class offerings in the works for Scrap Palace and I’ll let you know when I have that all ironed out.  I need to get some samples finished and then work from there.  So if you have any project suggestions please send them my way!

I’m off… it’s time for bed. :)  Night-o.

~j