Oh man, that sucks Latex. Glad to hear sheās getting better though. I do want to give kudos to our local EMTs/fire dept. When we realized we couldnāt even lift her due to broken hip, we called them. Arrived quickly, assessed the situation and got her loaded and on the way to local hospital with minimal fuss and induced pain. No charge, other than our usual property taxes that include fire district support. It was the multiple hospitals involved in her surgeries, and they use whatever private ambulance is next in line to do those transfersā¦and all of them out of network. The insurance company is helping us clap back - one company wants to charge double what the other two are asking, none of them want to accept the insurance companyās negotiated rate, etc etc.
What an ordeal. Latexman!
Holy cow, Latexman! I hope you and your honey have had a better year!
My allergies have been non-existent until September of this year. They blew up in my head and I had to double dose everything to keep them calm-ish. Next visit w/ the allergist that will get discussed. Makes me wonder if the shots are working.
So, last year, about July or August. I thought I had a heart attack but it wasnāt. They still required me to get a complete checkup w/ cardiology, GI, rheumatology, etc. Everything checked out just fine.
So, it seems my GI system is messed up and itās probably due to stress. Not the good kind of stress but the bad kind of stress. Seems that I may be stressed all of the time now and donāt know it. So they want me to do some psychotherapy to learn how to decompress. I will admit they are probably right. After all, my dad was in the mob and he could make Saturday morning breakfast really unpleasant. I donāt know of a year in my life that hasnāt had a lot of stress.
But, getting back to the allergy topic, I wonder if my GI system being so tense makes my allergies worse. The immune system is mostly in the small bowel, if I got it right.
Welllllll, wife had a mammogram earlier this year. They found breast cancer. She had genetic testing, a lumpectomy, and radiation therapy. The surgeon and biopsy margins indicate they got it all. So, once again, sheās recovering.
Hopefully, third times the charm. Heart attack 2023, kidney cancer 2024, and breast cancer 2025. 
Oh man, that sucks Latex. Hope she recovers quickly!
Wife had a broken jaw in the fall a year ago - and it never got properly fixed, she canāt chew her food yet. After a lot of back and forth, the insurance finally issued a complete denial of coverage for the joint replacement necessary to fix the jaw. Soā¦hopefully by the end of the year sheāll have a new TMJā¦and another round of PT and recoveryā¦and then we can celebrate with a steak dinner.
ācomplete denial of coverageā Is that as bad a thing as it sounds? (conscious we speak a different dialect on this side of the pond).
Normally our health insurance covers most stuff, with a deductible amount that we pay, up to a limit per year. We reached that limit this year with all of the surgeries my wife needed (hip joint replacement, wrist surgery with pins and plates, and wiring of her jaw in an attempt to get things there to heal).
But TMJ (temporal mandibular joint) replacement/surgery is flat out not covered, and all costs associated with that are going to be borne by us, to the tune of some $20k. Apparently, TMJ replacements were new back in the 80/s and 90s, but werenāt done well at least stateside, with lots of reversions and replacement joints failing. So (most?) US insurance companies just made a blanket āno coverageā clause in their plans. Apparently, Europe and Brazil continued working on TMJ replacements and have become the experts, with very high (90%+) success rates in recent years. Her new joint parts are being made in the latter country, CNCād in titanium and polyethylene from visual, x-ray, MRI and CAT scans done by the surgeons here in Seattle.
Hope that goes right first time then.
I will be heading to Brazil at the end of the month. I have my interview with the Federal Police and I should be walking out with my permanent residency Visa. At that point, I should also qualify for Brazilian health insurance. Iām looking forward to some of the care I can get there (for free) that I cannot get here in the US.
For example, when you go in for your annual physical, then send you home with an entire test kit. They measure your sleep pattern, hormones, vitamin levels, etc. You can even request additional MRI or CT scans if you feel they are necessary as a āroutineā exam.
Bom dia
Very interesting, Scott! Are you going to retire/move to Brazil permanently, snowbird, or what? Where in Brazil? Do you have any roots/family there? What drew you to Brazil?
Just curious, because my company (retired now) bought a resins plant in Aracariguama about 2015, and I spent a lot of time there bringing it up to standards and doing projects so they could make our products. We usually stayed in Sao Roque, because there was few accomodations in Aracariguama those days. From what I saw, Brazil is a lovely and diverse country.
Brazil is amazing. My wife is Brazilian, so ideally we will retire young enough to enjoy winters in Brazil and winters in Arizona.
She is from Holambra, about 2 hours north of Sao Paulo.
The Brazilian culture is amazing. Always ready for a festa or a BBQ and always warm and welcoming.I was just at a conference last week, representing the entire western hemisphere, and it was the Brazilians who were having the most fun at the event celebration. They also made sure everyone else was having a good time, too.
āwinters in Brazil and winters in Arizonaā, how do you do that? Wait, itās the north and south of the equator thing! 