Now ever before all that my sugar was going wacky. My family doctor decided it had moved beyond what she could help me with and scheduled me to see a specialist in Grand Rapids. I’ve met with a doctor, a nutritionist, and an RN that were all far above my expectations in what I thought they’d tell me. Like my family doctor, they genuinely seemed to care about me (unlike the ER doctor and nutritionists I’d worked with previously).

My last appointment was with the RN and one of the main things discussed were insulin pumps. I always thought of insulin pumps as a double-edged sword. On one hand it means I don’t have to give myself shots numerous times a day, which is a good thing, I HATE NEEDLES. I don’t care who says it, my shots hurt almost every single time I take one. On the other hand though, I always thought of it as losing. That I was unable to defeat this thing taking over my body.

The RN made a very good point to me. Its not losing, its just moving on to fighting with better tools.

On Monday night I faxed the forms requesting to be setup with a pump to the manufacturer. By Tuesday afternoon I had received a call from the local representative stating he had already contacted my doctor and my insurance company and that my insurance would cover a pump and a continuous glucose monitor (ie. I don’t have to check my blood sugar 4-8 times in a day, just 1-2). Also, because I was past my deductible for the year, my insurance would pay 90%. On top of that, I was only $532.30 from my annual out of pocket expenses before the insurance company would begin covering 100%.

So, I was told I’d need to pay the $532.30 to cover my pump, monitor, and a 90 day supply of disposable bits and pieces. That’s when my heart sank. I’m unemployed. I’m a full time student. Stay at home day. My only source of income is my wife, and we have many bills.

I’ve decided to repurpose my Donation button. If anyone would feel kind enough to help me raise this money I would be very appreciative. If anyone would also like to reshare this blog post, again I would very much appreciate it.

Anyways lets get started!

SOME UPDATES

Well in the past year and a half I have:

• applied for school
• been accepted
• been denied after the fact
• had to move
• back in with my parents
• paid off big bills
• celebrated Alan’s first birthday
• finally got back in to school
• learned to hate money even more than I already did
• and having to deal with a family member losing their job

So there are a few updates. I’ll probably add more at another time.

MY FUTURE

Since I started back to school I’ve been working on my Bachelor’s in Computer Science. A good all around degree. But, like most students, I’ve found myself falling farther and farther away from the general and have found an area I would really love to focus on. Networking. Specifically Cisco Networking. The problem? I can’t change my degree or I’ll lose all of my financial aid. So I’m stuck in my current program for another year until I can graduate and reapply.

The big catch is I can actually teach myself the information and take certifications that say I’m competent enough to do the work.  The problem with that is it can be quite expensive between the tests and the equipment needed to study.  All of this brings me to ….

A REQUEST

The certification exams I would like to take over the next year will cost roughly $725 and training equipment is roughly $300-500.

What I am hoping is that maybe my friends out here would be interested in giving a little or at least passing my page on to others that might be willing to help.  I’m going to have a PayPal “Donate” link setup on my page and anyone that would like to donate should feel free.

I am open to any questions you may have. There is not much I can really give back but my thanks and updates of how my training is going.

Thank you all for reading.

On my way home from lunch today I was listening to “The Moody Blues” and one phrase from a song has just been running through my head.

“When the music plays, when the words are touched with sorrow.”

Music has always been a very driving force in my life and I’ve always thought of it as an absoluetely awesome way a good song writer can depict emotions.  In fact if I don’t feel something from a song I don’t feel it’s a good song, nor usually a song worth listening to again.  Oddly enough it doesn’t matter what the song is, it will cause you to feel something.  That feeling may be boredom but it’s a feeling nonetheless.

Lately I’ve found myself listening to more instrumental music than I have in the past.  Now granted when I say instrumental, it’s likely heavy synth and rock instrumental as opposed to classical.  I’ve found that instrumentals have more of an effect on feeling than songs with lyrics, and yes I do kinda put a difference between feeling and emotion.

Well I know find my train of thought failing (in fact I started this around 2PM and it’s now 8:30PM), so I hope my little bit of writing has been interesting.  Until next time.