Category Archives: Health

HSA, FSA, and the Cost of Being Healthy

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There are a lot of different versions of health benefits available these days. Even when you are fortunate enough to have insurance through a company plan, it seems basic healthcare costs have skyrocketed over the last decade. For instance, my co-pay to visit any sort of specialist is $50 a visit. Assuming I ever need to go to a specialist for more than one visit, which is often the case if you need to see a specialist, that adds up fast.

My last company offered an HSA plan, where instead of paying for a more expensive plan, they’d put $100 per month into your account. The deductible was high, like with all HSA plans, requiring a $3000 spend per year before additional fees would be covered at all. So it was basically a high-risk plan, with an HSA savings account that, theoretically, would be beneficial as a separate retirement account if you were healthy and didn’t need to touch the money. You could either leave the funds inside it to gain basic money market interest, or you could open an investment account where you could put the money in a handful of mutual funds available.

The good news is with HSAs, even when you no longer have the insurance plan open with them, you can still use any money put inside there for medical costs in the future. Plus, the money that goes in is tax free and as long as you use it for a qualified medical expense the money that gets spent is tax free too. But there’s a catch… Continue reading →

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Facing Reality of Cancer as Autumn Leaves Burn to Umber

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As I’ve written about previously, my father has cancer. He was diagnosed three years ago with advanced stage prostate cancer. If you’ve been reading my blog, you know I have an interesting relationship with my dad. I wouldn’t say we’re the closet father-daughter pairing in the world, but regardless he’s still my father and I’ve always imagined watching him grow old and having him around as the grandfather to my future children — he was always good with really little kids. I wanted him to meet my kids, and for them to have him as a grandfather. I’ve always known he’d be a much better grandfather then father.

But everyday that goes by, I know this is more and more unlikely of how life will pan out. With cancer, you can be fine one day and the next your conditions can deteriorate rapidly. Living far away, I try to visit often, but in between there is little conversation. He doesn’t like talking about his emotions or what he is going through, though lately he’s admit to being depressed. He won’t admit to being depressed about dying, per say, more so that the drugs they have given him have removed his testosterone and have “feminized” him. Really, though, I know he’s equally, if not more depressed because he’s terminally ill. But I don’t know how to deal with that. He doesn’t want to talk about it. I want to be a support for him, but I don’t know if I can handle it, even if he was willing to talk.

The day today on the east coast is cool and crisp, with a heavy grey sky, and bright yellow leaves on the trees falling off in the wind to dry and die on the ground. Another year has come and gone — and things are slowly changing. Everything is aging, myself included. I don’t like change, but I’m not resistant to it. I’m more in denial about it. That will all change the day my father’s condition gets worse — which is any day now. That will all change when I need to decide how important it is for me to be out here with him through his final days, however long they may be, or to maintain my life across the country, far from his inevitable deathbed. I don’t like to think about it, but it’s getting to a point where I’m going to have to. I don’t know if he would want me here, he hates being seen as weak. But I’d want to be here. It’s strange knowing that in the next year or two, this is something I will have to face. It’s part of life, but he’s still young at 60, and I’m not ready for him to go. I keep hoping that someone will discover a cure for prostate cancer, and everyday there’s a new treatment available, but never a cure.

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Occupy Doctor’s Office & Health Insurance Agencies

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They say the occupy movement is unfocused — it’s about all these various things we’re upset about — but a lot of the movement is about the lack of transparency in between bureaucracy and us common folk.

When I got home yesterday, I went through my mail and discovered a “explanation of benefits” mail from a recent “surgery” I had on two pilar cysts on my head. The doctor’s office never knows about costs — they don’t really care about how much you end up getting charged, as long as you pay it. Even with medical insurance from work, the two cysts removed cost me $550. Last time I had two cysts removed it was $300, so I was a little surprised that the cost went up $250. But I haven’t found a way to identify how much any medical interaction will cost in advance of the treatment… it always has to be a big surprise after the fact.

Another example… I went to a regular yearly gynecological exam a while back, which is covered by my insurance. Or is it? The gynecologist decided to do an ultrasound to check out my polycystic ovaries which — big surprise — still had cysts on them. That procedure wasn’t covered by the free annual checkup description, as it was considered diagnostic, and ended up costing me a few hundred bucks. Continue reading →

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Health, Diet, Life: A New Road to Thin

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Many of us have issues with our bodies. Either that keeps us fit or causes us to slip off the diet deep end. I’ve struggled with my weight and eating all my life, even more than my money issues. They seem to be heavily connected.

For starters, I was raised with the notion that it’s the worst thing in the world to not finish all the food on your plate. Leftovers are ok, but my family always overate so leaving any food on the plate just seemed odd. So I grew up somehow assuming that restaurant portion sizes (and parental portion sizes) were what I should be eating. Of course I know better now, but it’s hard to change that mindset.

After spending a week at home with my father calling me fat about 20 times, it continued to upset me when he’d also comment on how I should have “half” of his dessert when we went out to eat. My father, morbidly obese throughout his adult life and now dying of cancer among other things, surely had good intentions — he doesn’t want me to be fat like him. But the way it comes out of his mouth always feels like an awkward jab, not to mention his constant oohing and ahhing over how “good” my sister’s figure looks (girl isn’t exactly healthy but she eats one meal a day, so she’s much thinner than I am.)

What hurts me the most is growing up with no idea why I was gaining so much weight – especially around my mid-section. Whether the PCOS caused my fat or my fat caused the PCOS is a chicken or egg discussion that’s null. The fact of hte matter is my father took me out every week for McDonald’s where he’d let me get two cheeseburgers, supersized fries and a supersized coke, he wouldn’t push me to exercise (“we just aren’t an athletic family”) and then he’d constantly make comments about my weight. It’s sad to think that although I knew my candy and fast-food eating ways weren’t the healthiest, I had no idea HOW unhealthy they were, or that a certain number of calories would make you gain weight. I don’t want to think about how many calories I was eating when I was 6-11 years old, the years I ate those supersized meals.

Regardless of all that, my challenge is facing my eating issues (just as I’ve faced my money issues) without letting my parent’s voices get in my head. Even if it feels like I’ll be losing the weight for them, it’s really for myself — I’m the one who, long after their gone, will be struggling with tons of health problems from all this built up, artery clogging visceral fat. This is really a change in my lifestyle that I needed to make years ago, but I think as I approach 28 (and the curves on my body start looking like they belong on The Biggest Loser) the change is not an option.

Luckily, my boyfriend – also overweight – is committed to getting healthy as well. He’s not going to play any games about it. If I ask him to run with me, he runs (unless it’s in the morning!) I also met a new workout buddy through Craigslist who is getting married in a year, which is great motivation for us to stick to our workouts (I have less than 4 months to lose 40lbs for my high school reunion.)

My commitment for the next month is as follows:

  • Walk/Run *at least* 2 miles 6 days a week
  • Aim for 4-6 miles a day 3 days / week
  • Basic muscle toning workouts 2-3 days / week
  • at any given meal, eat half what i’d normally eat. leftovers are my friend.
  • minimize gluten intake and cut out all sugars except limited whole grains
  • try to eat 5-6 small meals per day (really small)
  • drink 3-6 glasses of water per day

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Who would I be today if I stayed on Ritalin since I was 8?

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After being prescribed Adderall IR yesterday and subsequently taking a rather high dose in order to understand my brain chemistry and the effects on the weekend, I’ve been up and then down on one prolonged ride. In seeking more information, I’ve read countless stories of people with ADD who say how they’ve been on Ritalin or Adderall since they were very young… 6, 7, 8… and I think to myself, wow, that could be me. And although I have a sinking feeling that I might have made permanent honor roll with the help of the medicine, I’m so glad that I had the opportunity to be a little lost… to appreciate exactly why I’ve chosen to alter my brain chemistry now as an adult, instead of not knowing who I am sans medication as a child.

I don’t know how I have no recollection of the days… months(?) when I was on Ritalin as a kid. I was in 5th grade… I do recall the black and yellow pill, and how the nurse would open it up and put it in apple sauce for me to eat in the middle of the day. I liked the apple sauce, though the medicine texture was gross. I have no memory whatsoever of a chance in my ability to focus on the drug. Which is strange given how sensitive I am to meds, and the clear change I felt about 10 minutes after taking just 10mg of Adderall this morning. It  must have done something to me back then as well, but for whatever reason it didn’t turn me into an all star student, and I ended up stopping because it wasn’t helping… or maybe the dosage was never high enough, or I didn’t take it on a regular basis… I don’t recall.

But who would I be today had it worked? Who would I be if in 5th grade some pill worked like magic in saving me from my distractions and daydreaming? Maybe I would have ended up excelling in math and science, spent less time in art, instead dreaming of becoming a doctor or engineer… I’d have vivid memories of my life, as opposed to a film missing so many scenes.

And I’d also… never know who I am as an individual apart from the drugs. It’s sad that there are a lot of kids… and adults out there who had their parents keep them on the meds through the years. I’m excited to move on to this new phase of my life which will be medicated, just to see the person I become. I’m still very grateful to have had the chance to be the person that I’ve been… despite how messed up she is when she’s on her own.

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