Life Beyond the Casinos

I have had this title looming in my drafts for over a week. Originally, I was think how as we get older we have to adjust to new environments and situations. But now that I have stewed on this for awhile I think it’s got nothing to do with getting older. These adjustments are a part of everyday life. They are key to my sanity and survival. The desire to be happy and content verses the reality of sometimes being depressed and anxious.

My firsts thoughts go out to the the world and how totally messed up our politics are at this time. I have adjusted to this in the past. But this time it seems harder. When Reagan became president I was not happy with some of his politics. What kept me going was that he supported defense and my family depended on defense contractors for our livelihood.

When Bush Sr. became president, our defense contracts were canceled. I was laid off. My father managed to keep his job solely because he was invaluable as a chief scientist on several missile programs. I was just a tech writer and program scheduler. I was expendable.

I did find work, but it was a struggle. People looked at my job history and were not willing to give me a chance. I found work in a professional organization, LACMA (Los Angeles County Medical Association). They produced a magazine and did mass mailings for membership drives. My computer skills were in demand. Of course, the pay and benefits were nothing like what I made working for defense contractors. It was a step in a new direction, which lead to a job at a medical imaging company, and finally at a hospital in Reno Nevada. So adjustments were made. Success was ultimately achieved.

This time is different. I am retired. If I wanted to I could watch the shenanigans of this administration 24/7. It floods my social media feeds. It depresses me. I have to step away. I have been searching for that adjustment. But it is more then just the news. It is affecting my life. My health insurance, the cost of living, my finances (Social Security), everything has become unaffordable or so it would seem.

For my health insurance, I let it rollover into next year with the same plan. I soon discovered my drugs were no longer covered. I could still get them but at 20% of cost. For January my share of costs would be $662.55 and my husbands would be $587.75. That’s a jump in expenses that would require some major sacrifices to our quality of life.

I talked to a friend in North Carlina and she put me on to a new insurance company. The catch is that I applied after the December 7th deadline. The company was very nice and worked with me to find a loop hole in this deadline. It turns out that if you have a chronic illness, such as diabetes you can still switch plans after the deadline. The issues is that we have to get that approved by Medicare. We are anxiously awaiting their response. If they don’t approve us, we can still change during the January to March enrollment period, but it would not take affect until February. Should this be the case we are trying to stock up as much as we can before the end of the year so that it might get us through January.

The new plan has a drug co-pay of $47 per tier 3 prescription. That brings the cost down to $141 for me and $94 for my husband. That is manageable.

So I am making adjustments. I have been spending my time decorating the house inside and out. We are going to attend a Christmas party at the Clubhouse this Saturday. On the 23rd we are having our own Christmas party for our friend and neighbors. In the mean time we are eating at home more and trying to minimize other expenses as well. We did take a trip to Las Vegas. I love to see the decorations at the Bellagio and the Wynn this time of year. Unfortunately, we probably should not have spent that money. But I am going with it being part of my sanity.

Here are some pictures of our decorations and some from our trip as well.