I'm having a crisis of confidence that feels like it should be wholly unjustified. I'm stressing about money, right at the point where it seems to be picking up for everyone around me... just not for me. My kids, both biological and honorary, are all gainfully employed to a level where I really don't have to worry about them. I shouldn't, but I still do. Most of them have better, more lucrative jobs than I did when I was their age. It's hard to stop feeling like mom to all of them, though. I want to provide for them, even though I don't have any real contracts coming up for my own self. I even lost my best client, not for anything wrong, but for their own circumstances suddenly becoming uncertain. But real estate is like that. The Mr has decided his side hustle is making decent money, and he's having enough fun doing it that he wants to keep going, although he's going to have to acquire proper transportation of his own and leave my car out of the equation. I should be feeling more relaxed, more secure, with everyone around me prospering. Instead, I may be feeling left behind. I need to do something about that.
In the ongoing struggle against my own body, I went for a visit with my primary care doc. I needed to update a handful of referrals to specialists, particularly since the military switched companies to process Tricare insurance. The insurance itself has been a nightmare, as the new service provider was woefully unprepared for the contract they won. (The theory around here is that they were the lowest bidder, and as government contracting goes, they didn't have to be the most qualified, just the cheapest. In fact, it's harder than one would think to justify selecting a more qualified applicant if their bid is higher.) My co-pays have gone up and my customer service experience has deteriorated. With all that stress, I'm rather amazed that my checkup went like it did. The tech who took my vitals didn't seem to accept what her instruments were telling her. Yes, my temperature was that low. Same with blood pressure. And sorry, my pulse is always hard to find. ("I promise, I'm not a vampire," I said to lighten the mood when she started to get frustrated at that point.) So when the doc saw the numbers, without an explanation, she reached into a drawer and pulled out the pulse oximeter. My pulse was 52 and my oxygen saturation was 92. She accused me of playing dead. "We like those numbers to be higher," she said with mild amusement. I had to go to a different exam room for spirometry. After four attempts, with the computer coming back with "hesitation detected: blow faster," and "hesitation detected: blow longer," each time, alternately, I finally got to stop, and by then spots were dancing in front of my eyes. Most of my numbers were around 80-81, but I have never tried to read one of those tests before, to know what the values mean. But the gist of my afternoon was this: lupus is hard on your lungs. Time to do something about it.
From the doctor's office, after a detour to drop off a ballot for a city council special election that is due by tomorrow, I went to my neighborhood pharmacy. I exchanged greetings with my favorite pharmacy tech, a sweet, pretty brunette who I've come to know ridiculously well in the last two years, and announced, "I have decided that you don't get enough of my money. Here," I handed the new prescription, "You get some more of it." This new prescription, for a brand name inhaler, has a co-pay two and a half times what I pay for the generics I usually get. And for a year the doc has been nagging me to switch to the brand name for the go-to drug for lupus. She won't let this go. So I'll be paying more for that once I cave in. I may have to switch to the mail-order pharmacy for a bunch of this stuff, to make up the difference. But that would mean I wouldn't get to see my friendly pharmacists who know me by sight, and who are responsible for at least two social interactions per month that I would never have otherwise. (Some weeks they were the only humans outside the family that I spoke to. I love them.)
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