A Demonstration of my A.D.D.

I'm kinda wondering when the torture in my mouth will end. It's only been a week, true enough. Torture may be a bit harsh of a word, I will give you that. I'm known for being a bit of a drama queen, okay another point for you. Are you getting off on seeing my suffering or can you give a girl a break, sheesh?!?!?!

Yes, I realize I totally just had a conversation with myself.

So here is how it all began...

About 6 weeks ago it came to my attention that our normal 12 months of Flexible Spending Account Fundage was shortened this year to 8 months. Somehow this information did not compute when I "read" it off the document sent over by HR or when it was verbally provided to the management team during a conference call or two. This obviously demonstrates how detail oriented I am. Needless to say this should not have even been that big of a deal because that means my annual election was also not taken out of my pay check either - instead only 8 months of it was, so the whole thing is really a wash, but for the purpose of this blog, I'm being a marytr, so OH WOE IS ME, got it?!

Okay, so as of mid November, I still had slightly over $1300 to spend and only 45 days to do it in. This is a mission only suitable for the Mission Impossible theme song. Is it playing in your heads now, my pretties? We need it so that we can continue this jaunt together.

I racked my brain thinking of how I could spend this money just short of buying up enough over-the-counter meds/supplies to open up my own Walgreens which could then be operated out of one of my spare bedrooms. This is probably 9 kinds of illegal, though.

I made an eye doctor appointment in an attempt to see all kinds of doctors imaginable before the end of the year. A day before my appointment, they called to tell me I wasn't due to see them until March. Hmmmmpppffff. Imagine how thankful I was when I developed somekind of a horrible pain on my eyelid a couple of days later. It grew into this ghastly quasi-modo other-wordly tHiNg that desperately needed the attention of an eye specialist. I made an appointment with my eye doctor again thinking this had to be worh $75 at least. They asked me for my insurance card and I very proudly exclaimed that I did not have eye insurance. They bursted my bubble explaining to me that this "problem" which turned out to be a stye fell under the umbrella of medical care and would be covered by my medical insurance so I just owed my $30 co-pay. JERKS! The eye doctor told me it would go away with hot compresses in time or he could prescribe me an eye drop I could use in conjunction with the hot compress for faster relief. Who cares about the relief - I wanted to spend the money! Give the the eye drop! Now, imagine my delight when I found out the eye drop was one of the $50 co-pay kinds!

After Thanksgiving, I went to have some blood work run in advance of having a doctor appointment with my primary care doctor. This was NOT in an attempt to spend money, believe it or not. I really just wanted to see how my dieting and exercising had improved my health. Apparently, my doctor had also ordered a urinalysis. Um...okay. Two days later I got a call from her nurse telling me I had a urinary tract infection. Now I have never had one of these before (that I have known of), but I have heard they are PAINFUL! I really didn't understand how I could have something that is supposed to be so horrific and not even know it. The nurse said I was asymptomatic. Whatever. Point was - she was calling me in a prescription which made me feel all kinds of tingly inside cuz I figured that was worth at least $15 - our cheapest generic co-pay. WRONG! It was like $4.37 or something ridiculous like that. I was so mad. I mean I'm trying to spend some money here people. The least you can do is help! Then when I went in for the actual doctor appointment, she wasn't happy with where my vitamin D levels were despite the fact that I was on vitamin D pills as prescribed by her predecessor the year before, so I was hopeful this meant another prescription, but NOOOOOO....this year they had all kinds of free Vitamin D floating around and gave me a year supply. How lame.

So the next week, I went to the dentist for my 6 month cleaning. I figured that was worth some cold hard cash. The cleaning was done, asked what I owed and was told that under my insurance, I get the 2 teeth cleanings for free a year. BUMMER! Then I had a brilliant idea! The light bulb totally clicked on! I needed to get my wisdom teeth pulled out. I asked to speak to the dentist, but she had gone for the day, so they made me an appointment to see her the next week to discuss.

Now, I know what you are thinking. Who in their right mind elects to remove their wisdom teeth just to spend some FSA money?! Well just so you don't think I'm a complete nut job, I have had dentists in the past who told me I should consider it because they do go VERY far back into my mouth and they are causing my front teeth to be crooked. The crooked thing has started to really bother me in recent years. The money is there, so why not?!

So, last Thursday @ 12noon, I went in to see my dentist. She took a look and said they could come out and that she could do them today and it was my choice to do 2 or all 4. I was not mentally prepared to have them removed on Thursday. I mean I had my hair straightening appointment later that day, but the opportunity presented itself and I am a rather spontaneous kind of girl, so... Let's do it! 2 or 4? All 4! One hour later, I walked out of there with my entire face numb - I've even talking my eye balls were tingly. I filled my prescriptions for vicodin and penicillin (worth only $8.30 - RATS!) and took my chipmunk cheeked self back to work. Apparently I brought joy to my father's world as he giggled like he has never giggled before at the sight of my chubby face and the sound of my muffled/garbled attempt at the human language. We all know I am only here on this earth for other people's amusement, after all. So, then my father made me promise I wouldn't take the Vicodin until I got home that night AFTER my hair appointment. Um...okay, sure dad. I read the bottle and it said to "use caution when driving a vehicle or operating heavy machinery", so I so did and it was all okay. I'm living proof of that.

Anyway, it's all a moot point because I was just going over my FSA account on-line just to discover that none of my doctor visit co-pays are on there and none of my prescription drug co-pays are on there because Ceridian sucks big donkey a$$ and misplaced the document I signed (the same one I've signed 3 years in a row now) allowing them to automatically pay me back for these expenses, so I just had to go back through Blue Cross Blue Shield's website to find all my Explanation of Benefits from April 1st to present day so that Ceridian can use that to pay me and I discovered they owe me almost $430 for that. Then I had to call H.E.B. to see if they could get me a list of all the prescriptions I have ordered through them since April 1st and they can because they are awesome. It's a good thing I'm not a druggie who goes to a million different pharmacies spread throughout Houston so that the pharmacists can't catch onto my shenanigans, huh?! That would have been a lot of work.

Bottom line: When it is all said and done, I will still have spent more money than is in my Flexible Spending Account, but had I NOT gotten my wisdom teeth pulled, I would not have spent enough. Does that make sense? Oh, and I will be collecting a whole bunch of money from days gone by so that's sort of like a Christmas present because this whole time I thought I already got reimbursed that money. Yay me!

Oh wait. That wasn't what this post was about. My mouth still hurts. It gives me headaches and food is getting caught in my the holes where my wisdom once resided. I find myself doing warm salt water rinses often to try to remove the intruders, but the salt water seems to be killing my taste buds. It all sounds gross, I know. I'm so sorry if I have offended your delicate senses, but...well...man up, sissies! =P Uh oh...maybe I should take my own advice.