December 2:
Today was long and interesting. Got up at 5:00 AM, as usual, got ready and met my mom at a Junior High School in a neighboring city. She was having her one-day Christmas craft show and I went along to support and help her. She had virtually everything set up by the time I got there. It was from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM and she sold about $150 worth of merchandise. Not bad for 7 hours. I helped her break everything down and we had to load up in the rain. You can read more about this day here, but it got me excited to put some of my diamond painting stuff in her next craft show. And I ended up buying a bunch of things on Temu in preparation. Oh, did I tell you guys? I’m into diamond painting now. It’s like paint-by-number only you glue shiny beads onto the canvas instead of painting. It’s pretty fun. A bit hokey, but I enjoy it.
December 11:
Wow – look at how much time has gone by since my last entry. But there’s not a lot to write about. I’ve been pretty bored at work – nothing new there. However, we did have a meeting this past Thursday where we introduced ourselves to our UAT group and were told that the people currently working UAT have not been told they will not have a job in a few months. Awesome. So. We’re waiting for that to happen so that we can start shadowing them and watching their progress. I’m sure it won’t be awkward at all! I’m sure they will welcome the people coming in to take their jobs with open arms. Gah! Their contract runs out February 15th so … another two months of stealing work from other people’s folders. Because that’s what I’ve been doing, ya’ll, stealing. I’ve been trying to be sneaky about it but … I HAVE to practice! I can’t just sit around and do nothing! Even if I felt okay with the company paying me not to do anything, (which I absolutely don’t!), I can’t just not do anything! I’m a proactive kind of girl so … I’ve been reduced to stealing from others until either A. I get in trouble or B. they assign me something concrete to work on. To say I feel a little dirty right now would be an understatement. It’s been confirmed, my side of the family is coming over to our house for Christmas, on Christmas Eve day. My great-niece will be there, she’s six, (seven?) and it will be fun to spoil her. Otherwise, it will be a day of stuffing our faces and playing games. Nope, I’m not ready for Christmas yet. Our boys are men now so other than gift cards and cold hard cash, I don’t know what to give them. It would be nice if they could open SOMETHING up on Christmas day. Mom is really struggling getting through the holidays without dad. She is doing a great job of keeping a stiff upper lip around all of us but I know she spends her nights crying. It breaks my heart and I feel helpless – I don’t know what to do or how to comfort her. Everything sounds so … trite when compared to the sheer strength of her grief. She’s been staying busy though, which helps, so I’m really proud of her for that. Kevin is now officially retired and he’s feeling a little … directionless. He has a TON of things he can do to keep him busy but when you work all your life and suddenly you don’t have that responsibility anymore, it’s a weird adjustment.
December 12:
Good grief, I’ve got someone shadowing me tomorrow. Me. Ms. Bored McGee, responsible for showing someone what to do. I haven’t even been doing this job for 8 weeks yet and here I am, training someone. Typical, right? So, I have no idea what I’m doing with this chick tomorrow. I guess I can show her the art of stealing. I’m pretty good at that. I did make some notes and we do have some cases, (that I stole), to work but … I think I’ll hide the list of cases I stole because I don’t want her going back to the other girls saying, “Wow. Karen is so busy! You should see her desktop!” Then, they will connect the dots and think, “so THAT’S where my stuff has been disappearing to!” Brandon’s car is still leaking. But luckily, it’s not leaking oil, it’s leaking water. He took it back to the mechanic and the guy was like, “yeah, no. I’m not taking this thing apart again.” Which is disappointing but I’m not sure he should have the same guy work on it again. The car is working fine. It drives fine. And his water level is okay, so it must be a slow leak, but Bran doesn’t really trust his car anymore so now he’s nervous. Kevin and him worked on the numbers on how much it would cost to buy a new car, a used car or leasing a car and they came to the conclusion that he just needs to drive this car until it won’t drive anymore. Thanks to Bidenomics, cars are almost too much to afford nowadays. The weather has been amazing. Sunny and mid-50’s. What a warm, unusual December. It must be climate change! *snort* I’m kidding. I’m sure we’ve had warm, or even warmer, Decembers in the past. Weather is cyclical, people. Hence the reason we have averages. Made a turkey breast in the crockpot yesterday, along with real mashed potatoes and had that for lunch today. Yum!
December 13:
I’m brain dead. My brain is puddle of mush and it’s running out of my ears. (I needed to clean my ears out anyway). I trained today. But really, we trained each other because remember, I’ve only been working this new gig for about seven weeks now. I was pretty surprised that I was asked to begin with, and a little annoyed, not gonna lie. I can’t even be incognito, or fly under the radar, and I’m STILL picked off. lol I’m happy to help and I actually enjoy training but it’s the blind leading the blind at this point. And OF COURSE, everything that could go wrong, went wrong. It was one of those two steps forward, one step back kind of day. However, we learned a lot about troubleshooting and we had some laughs so it was all good. One of the supervisors contacted her and said she could hang out with someone else tomorrow if she wanted and she told her, no thanks, I’m happy with Karen. Ha! I don’t think this supervisor was trying to imply, “Ew, Karen! Really?” But rather, um, Karen has only been at this for 7 weeks, I’m not sure she’s the best choice and … I would have to agree. But hey, I’m a team player and it’s a good opportunity for me to learn some things, too. You really learn a lot when you have to explain it someone else. I’m continuing to steal work. In fact, one of the girls currently on the UAT (Urgent Action Team) team sent out a blast message with a “gentle” reminder not to work the requests that come through marked as urgent. Which I did, because I’m a stinker like that and I need to practice for when they set me free to roam the field on my own, so yes, she was directing that message at me. Am I used to being called out for doing more than my job? Yes. Do I care? Nope. Unless management tells me to stop, I will continue to be sneaky and steal work now and again. A few girls are out today so yep, I will be raiding their cupboards for juicy request morsels. I’ll be glad when my stealthy days are over and I’m actually in charge of SOMETHING. This sneaking around bit gets old, fast.
December 16:
Mom came over today for our weekly Saturday get together. We ate at a chicken salad place, Chicken Salad Chick, I think is the name of it. It was good, but too much bread. I think we’ll just get the scoop of chicken salad next time. The chicken salad was a BBQ blend and it was … okay. Not my favorite. We also got the potato soup and THAT was good. We’ll go back, just sans bread next time. After that, we came back home and watched a few more episodes of Survivor. We’re on Season 5 and they just surprised the players by making people change teams. I love when they do that. Really shakes things up. My mom says she wishes she could go on that show. I have a hard time seeing her on the show but you know what? I bet she would rock it and surprise everyone! We worked on some crafts after Survivor. Mom is making a really cute kitty purse for her great-granddaughter. She’s the only kid in our family right now so it’s fun to spoil her. Kev and I picked up some Culver burgers and concretes, (their concretes are a Saturday night tradition) and watched Insurgent, the second movie in the Divergent series. I like it, Kevin is bored.
December 17:
Normal Sunday chore day. Kevin’s folks came over at 3:00. I want to say this was the first time he has left his house since being in the hospital, but I could be wrong. He hasn’t been out much though, so it was a big deal to get him out. Kevin drove my car over to their house because it was easier to get him in/out of my car than it would have been with his truck. Jim did really well. He was getting around great and the headset/hearing aid he was wearing actually allowed him to hear our conversation. If I haven’t mentioned it, Jim is off Hospice and they put him on Home Health. How often does that happen?? It’s a miracle that he was able to come back from the brink of death. Kevin feels like this time with his dad is a bonus. My MIL bought a deli tray, HUGE deli tray, and we all had sandwiches, cookies and cake. We played the Left/Right game, which is a tradition with his parents now. They didn’t stay very long, just a few hours, Jim started to wilt and you could tell he was getting tired, so Kevin took them back home. It was great to see them both and Kevin said they REALLY enjoyed getting out of the house. Blake made it over but Brandon did not. He’s been sick. I feel like there is a lot of sickness running around right now. Brandon feels like he got it from a truck driver that came into the office. I asked Kevin to take over some Vitamin C and some Zinc for him. Hopefully, that helps.
December 18:
Back to work. Today is the last day the new girl is hanging out with me. It’s been a wild four days with her. A lot of problem solving, which, I don’t have a lot of patience for, quite frankly. But I need to get used to it because there is a lot of problem solving in this job. I am ready to hand off the new girl, though. I had to give her some of my work to practice on and I don’t have a lot of work to hand off, so, I’m ready to get back to my normal self. She’s very sweet though. We have a lot in common. She’s also a medical assistant, she came from Peds, (aw), married and a grown son. We had a lot to talk about. They haven’t assigned her an alpha yet either so she’s also sort of floating, though, she’s still training. I think she will do fine once she gets more familiar with navigating the insurance websites, but I think she will struggle a bit as she doesn’t seem like she thinks too quickly. I found myself rolling my eyes a few times at some of her questions. I don’t mean to be a jerk, but I get impatient with people. I know, shocker. Kevin and I did a lot of Christmas shopping when I got off work. We headed to a Walmart in a different part of town because when I went on the hunt for gift cards last year, our nearest Walmart didn’t have squat. We bought some food to make the taco soup I’ll make for Christmas Eve and some gift cards. Kevin wanted to buy Super Mario Wonder, a switch game, for LeRoy but that Walmart didn’t have it. When we checked online, we saw that another Walmart had it so we headed over there to buy it. While we were there, we bought the boys a waffle, stretchy shirt, and a dress polo shirt for Brandon to wear to work in the summer. We then headed over to Dollar Tree, (though now everything is $1.25 – no longer just a $1, thanks Biden!) and bought a ton of stuff for stocking stuffers. Kevin bought quite a bit for LeRoy’s stocking, too. We ended up shopping for nearly three hours but we made a large chunk in our Christmas shopping. The boys’ Christmas gifts are arriving from Amazon either today or tomorrow and then … we’ll be really close to being ready for our party on Christmas Eve. I ended up walking 14,000 steps today. Woot!
December 19:
I’m so ANNOYED!! I’m going to have to go to the dentist. I’ve got a crown that has been loose for a while and now, whenever I accidentally chew on that side of my mouth, (because yes, I’m chewing on one side of my mouth right now), it’s painful. Whenever there is food on that side of my mouth, I can feel it pull the crown up and instant discomfort. I shouldn’t say pain, it’s not really painful, just uncomfortable. I’m predicting they are going to tell me I need ANOTHER root canal. I think I’ve had .. four or five to this point. I need to call and make an appointment for a cleaning so they can take an xray and tell me what needs to be done. I just had a root canal earlier this year. Honestly, I’m tempted to just have all of my teeth yanked out. Found out today that medical assistants got a .75 cent raise!! Wow! Except … it does not apply to me. Because according to Human Resources, I’m no longer a medical assistant, even though I still have a valid medical assistant certificate, (which I just renewed, by the way, it cost me $143!!). I’m confused and a little pissed off, quite frankly. This .75 cents is cost of living that has gone up these past three years because .. Bidenomics … and I get why they are giving it to existing medical assistants, they ARE undervalued, in my opinion, but also … I’m chopped liver now, I guess. We’ll see how this trickles down to my end of the cesspool in the coming weeks but for now – wow. I feel a little bit insulted. Stepped into a boxing ring today – with an insurance company. I had two cases pending from the same insurance company and MAN, did I have to jump through some hoops. One office needed to contact the patient to ask if he had had an MRI done that was approved back in June by another provider because the insurance company wouldn’t pay for an additional one without knowing if it was done or not and the doctor responded back to me with, “I don’t see he had the MRI done with us, unless he had it somewhere else.” *Facepalm* THAT’S WHAT I’M ASKING! So. I said screw it, I called the patient myself because it would have taken too much time to get someone from the doctor’s office to do it and the patient told me he hadn’t had it done. I called the insurance company back. Nope, not good enough. They needed either the original provider’s office to call and withdraw their authorization, and by the way, they wouldn’t tell me who the provider was so I couldn’t contact them myself, or the patient would have to call himself and tell them he didn’t have it done. I told the office that. But before the patient could call, the insurance company denied the request! AARGH! The patient ended up saying forget it because he was getting ready to get a new insurance beginning January 1st so he’ll just wait and try again at that time. Sooo much time wasted. I need a punching bag in my office.
December 20:
Brandon’s car has a leak. It’s a water leak this time. Kevin has been busy watching YouTube videos, (thank goodness for YouTube! I just wish they weren’t so tyrannical), and he thinks he knows how to fix it. He said when he was in Brandon’s car looking around the mechanic that replaced Brandon’s oil/water pump and timing chain seemed to do a pretty good job. I was so relieved to hear that! We were worried that the mechanic screwed Brandon. But Kevin bought the parts and he fixed it!! He’s such a good man! Handy to have around! ha! Brandon didn’t go to work again yesterday. He’s feeling better today. I feel like there is a lot of sickness going around right now. LeRoy is feeling sick now, too. Hopefully Blake and Kevin don’t catch it. Finally bringing myself to eat the eggs the chickens are laying. I still have to buy normal eggs, because we’re all eating eggs and though most days we get five eggs, (we have five hens), some days we don’t so we run out. But I have noticed that the yolks from our grandchickens are a lot more yellow than the ones we buy in the stores. I’m assuming this means they are more nutrient rich, which makes sense because Kevin feeds them REALLY well. It’s safe to say they are spoiled.
December 21:
Had a pretty productive day, at least, productive for me right now. Did about … six (?) cases and they all got approved, eventually. Some of them went to review, which means I have ot upload clinicals so the nurse reviewers can look at the documentation to determine if the request meets medical criteria. Not that I can take very much credit for that, it’s really the doctor’s documentation, but I have figured out that if I highlight the pertinent information in the notes and then upload those notes, I tend to get more approvals than denials. I’m learning tricks, ya’ll. My supervisor sent out an update today – they’re working on giving us access to a new program that is supposed to streamline the UAT process. So, I’m assuming that we’ll be busy learning this program next month, shadowing the current UAT team and finetuning our specific process. I’m excited for this. I focus better when I’m under pressure and I’m an excellent multi-tasker. I feel a little poopy today so I’ve been loading up on Vitamin C and Zinc. I’ve also been forcing myself to get on the treadmill after work every work day and that’s really hard when you feel like animal dung. I’m proud to say though, that I’ve been on the treadmill every work day since starting my work-from-home journey. I’m walking about 50,000 to 60,000 steps Monday through Friday. And you know what? I’m enjoying it. Because I sit on my butt ALL DAY. It feels good to stretch my legs and lungs. Kevin and I sorted through our Christmas stash tonight – I think we’re nearly ready!
December 23:
I’ve got a tooth hanging on by a thread. Well, it’s a crown that’s taking the rest of the tooth with it. It’s been loose for a while and I’ve just been putting off calling the dentist because … who WANTS to go to the dentist? But tonight, I ate something, which pulled it nearly off and now it’s sitting askew and throwing my bite off so … UGH. Annoying. It doesn’t hurt, it’s just uncomfortable and distracting. I’ve been eating on the opposite side of my mouth for weeks now and well, it’s caught up with me, just in time for Christmas. AWESOME! But I have no one to blame but myself. I’m predicting that the dentist will pop it off, (I hope – or it comes off before the dentist appointment, which I would prefer, honestly), and he will say I either need a root canal or have it cut out. Because there isn’t any tooth left to attach a crown, he will probably suggest I have it cut out and just have a hole, which I already have on the other side of my mouth from a tooth that broke off when I was pregnant with Blake. I had my first root canal on that tooth which was AWFUL and I threw up immediately after getting out of the chair afterward, but I think I would rather have another root canal than have it cut out. I’ve had several root canals now, not fun, but not scary anymore, and if the end goal is to have a hole, I would prefer the less invasive way, but we’ll see what he says. Sometimes I just wish I could get all of them pulled and get false teeth, I think I’m headed there anyway. And I’m not even that old! But I have always had bad teeth. UGH – so annoying!
December 24:
Today was tough. I was in a lot of pain all day. My tooth was really loose, which caused it to mess with the alignment of my teeth so that trying to bite down on anything was near impossible and painful so basically I gnawed the food to mush so that I could get to the point where I could swallow it. Other than my loose crown, everything went well. My brother and his family came over and my nephew’s family made it and mom brought over her famous Christmas goodies. We had taco soup and mom brought over potatoes and chicken salad. It was a rainy, gloomy day, but we all had a good lunch and then we had a mini birthday party for Hazel. When she was good and distracted, we pulled out the plastic wrap ball mom wrapped up and we played that game. Mom wrapped small items, as well as numbered cards in the ball and one person would roll the dice until they got doubles while another person unwrapped the ball. You kept unwrapping the ball until the person rolling the dice got doubles and you got to keep any items that fell out of the ball when you unwrapped it. After the ball was completely unwrapped, we picked gifts based on the numbered cards we got from the ball and grabbed a random gift. You had the option of stealing other people’s gifts. It was really fun and a game I think we will make a tradition. After everyone left, mom stuck around and we watched “Home Alone” and “Christmas with the Kranks.” We then helped mom get all of her stuff together and she went home. It was pitch black and rainy and I knew she was a bit of a mess missing dad so I worried about her getting home but she made it, safe and sound. She said there was hardly any traffic out, so that was good. All throughout the day, I continued to work my loose tooth with my tongue so that by the time we sat down to watch movies, I could practically turn it sideways. I was so sick of the thing that I ended up going into the restroom between the movies and yanking my damn tooth out. I couldn’t take it anymore, it was killing me. However, I have a huge hole in my mouth now as I took way more tooth out than I expected. It looks like my tooth broke under the gum. I’m saving it and will show it to my dentist when I go in. And yes, I will make an appointment, soonish, to find out what I need to do about this gaping hole in my mouth, but you know what? I feel SO MUCH BETTER since taking the damn thing out. And I’m not gonna lie, I feel sort of bad ass for yanking it out myself.
December 25:
It was a super chill day. We don’t have littles in the house anymore, no grandchildren, (*sad face*), so we told the boys to come over at noon for a big breakfast and gifts. Brandon made it over but Blake did not. Brandon opened his gifts and seemed to like the dash cam we bought him. He didn’t stick around after lunch, he wanted to meet a buddy of his online to play a new game they bought, but he did install the dash cam and said it was “slick.” Whatever that means, lol. We had tacos at 5:00 and Blake did make it over but he was gray and still not feeling the great. After questioning him on what medications he had taken he told me he HADN’T been taking any medications but couldn’t figure out why he was still sick. AARGH! Why do men turn into children when they are sick? So, mom mode kicked in and I made him eat some tacos, drink some ginger ale, take a couple of Tylenol and then gargle salt water after dinner because he said his throat felt like he was swallowing knives. He opened his gifts, (he got the same stuff as Brandon – they have always gotten the same stuff except for a few minor clothing changes), and then I talked him into sticking around to watch a movie. Brandon wasn’t interested in a movie and went back home. Blake wanted to watch an animated movie called “Klaus” on NetFlix. Which normally wouldn’t be an option because we don’t subscribe to NetFlix anymore since they’ve gotten so woke and are putting so many inappropriate shows on their platform, (saw some buzz on “Elite” – incest, a lot of gay stuff .. really twisted storylines – and who could forget “Cuties” about eleven-year old pole dancers??), but, LeRoy had a NetFlix subscription but had canceled it because he has Roku now and there are a TON of shows he can watch through that platform but Kevin wasn’t sure if it had fully canceled and when he checked it, Christmas Day was the last day of the subscription so we were able to watch “Klaus.” Klaus is the story of how Santa Claus began. It was a pretty cute movie, to be honest, and by the time it was over, Blake felt better. I made him take some Dayquil before he left, (because I’m mom and moms can make their early-30-something children do things they wouldn’t normally do), and urged him to take some Vitamin C when he got home. He called into work and said he would be “dinged” a few points for calling in on a holiday but he was so sick, there was no way he could go in. I’m sure his employer won’t believe he was actually sick but I can attest, that he was. I HATE when the kids get sick, even as adults, because I just feel so … hopeless and ya’ll know I HATE not feeling like I’m in control of situations!
December 26:
Hard to get back in the swing of things after the holidays. But it’s not as if I’m super busy to begin with though I have stolen 44 messages from various other folders that are waiting to be worked. Don’t be too impressed, these requests are not scheduled for a few weeks so I have some time to work on them. You don’t want to work a precertification too soon or you run the risk the patient reschedules the test and then the DOS (date of service) is outside the authorization window and you don’t want to wait too close to the DOS because if there is a problem, like insurance wants more documentation, etc., then you don’t have a lot of time to work out those kinks. Considering I’ve never been assigned a certain type of test and/or certain alphas to cover, I’m just picking and choosing testing for me to work on. I try to pick testing with insurances I’m not familiar with to not only get experience working with that insurance company but to challenge myself, too. Because let’s face it – I’M BORED.
December 27:
Want to hear something weird? I’ve been obsessed with streamers that play Fortnite. Weird, right? I’ve got a handful of Rumble streamers that I watch play Fortnite religiously. Not only do I find it entertaining to watch them but these streamers … are just a group of good people. They talk about their families, they seem to genuinely like each other, they’re funny and my favorite one is a Christian. He even goes so far as to read a random book from the Bible before his stream. How cool is that?! But honestly, it dawned on me today that the biggest reason I watch these people on Rumble is because they keep me company. Now that I work from home, and I’m pretty bored doing it, (can’t wait for February to get here!), I’m a bit lonely. True, I’m not really a people person – I CAN be a people person if the situation calls for it, but my go-to is being a loner. But there is only so much alone time a person can take before you start talking to yourself, (and answering yourself). I know Kevin said he would listen to podcasts while he worked to keep himself company, I hang out with streamers, apparently. An announcement was made today that one of our Team Leads was quitting. My first instinct was to think, “I could do that job! Pick me!” but let’s be real, I’ve only been with the department for eight weeks now and though I’ve had to steal work in order to do work and I know what I’m doing, no thanks to teaching myself, (can you tell I’m bitter?), I’m not ready for that responsibility yet. But someone will quit sooner or later and then all bets are off!
December 29:
First snow of the season. I hope the last snow of the season. I’m not a big fan of snow. Finished a diamond painting today. Because, what else am I going to do? I did work a few cases today – I had one that flat-out denied me because I didn’t choose the correct facility and one I had to fax in a prior authorization form, along with the records, for which I don’t even know if it went to the right area so I’ll have to call on that one, too, on Tuesday. Working from home has been great, but everything else? I’m beginning to think I made a mistake, quite honestly.
December 30:
Hung out with mom. We ate at Fazoli’s, went back to her house, watched a few episodes of Survivor, (they are getting ready to merge on season 5), and crafted to an audio book, “The Shack.” Kevin and I grabbed some Qdoba for dinner and a concrete from Culver’s (a weekly thing), and watched “Abduction.” Typical Saturday/night.
December 31:
Did typical Sunday chores, (laundry, clean bathrooms, floors, ) and then mom came over at 3:00. Though I told the boys mom would be coming over at that time, I didn’t really expect them to come over until closer to 5:00 when we had pizza. But I was pleasantly surprised when they came over at 3:00 PM and we played Carcassonne. I didn’t realize, though, that the game we pulled out was one that Kevin had bought at a thrift store and it included an expansion pack – a river. We had never played with a river before but it was hard to figure out and it added another challenging element. We played two games and my mom won the first one and Brandon won the second one. I placed last … I think both games. Typical. We had Godfather’s pizza for dinner and played a few games of Poker after dinner. We then watched “Escape from New York” with Kurt Russell and then mom left. We went ahead and watched “Idiocracy.” As the name implies, it was super dumb but it had a good message – about how people are becoming more and more dumb as the years progress and before long, we’ll be reduced to overgrown toddlers who think buttcheeks and farting are funny instead of figuring out how to keep the human race from dumbing itself into oblivion. I’m not sure the boys were big fans of the movie but that took us to midnight. The boys left shortly after that, Kevin went to bed and I stayed up till about 1:00 AM watching videos on Rumble until I fell asleep. Not a terribly exciting New Year’s Eve, but we had fun just being together. Because everyone says it, but it’s true, I CAN’T BELIEVE WE’RE STARTING ANOTHER NEW YEAR!
Write From Karen 