Bleh snow

It is 2:00pm on a Monday afternoon, and I'm snuggled up safely on my sofa, watching tv and blogging while the storm rages outside. On a day like this, I am SO GRATEFUL that I have such a wonderful job, with a doctor who knows when it's time to cancel the day because of the weather.

Yet another reason why I'll never leave this job. :)

President Hinckley

What a shock it was tonight to come home from a very inspiring missionary fireside, and then to suddenly get a message from my sister that President Hinckley had just passed away. President Hinckley was sustained when I was 9 years old, so I don't really remember having any other prophet but him. I really did think he'd kind of just live forever. I grew to love him as I passed through those rocky teenage and adolescent years under his leadership.

I had the opportunity to be in the same room as him many times. I attended many conference sessions over the past 10 years and would spend a good deal of time just looking at the prophet. I attended 2 BYU devotionals at the Marriott Center where President Hinckley was in attendance. I also had the unique experience to be in the Celestial Room of the Timpanogos temple during the dedication (my dad was a bishop in the area at the time) and sat 10 feet away from President Hinckley as he conducted the session that Wednesday afternoon. Even then at 11 years old, I knew he was a special man and could feel the spirit radiating from him.

This is a very sad loss, but in times like this I am reminded of how blessed we are to be part of a church where everything is in its place. There is no confusion about what will happen next. President Monson is our prophet now. The church will go on. We have lost a great man, but we have not lost truth. For this I am grateful.

NYE at the CT

I forgot to post this earlier.

This was taken on New Year's Eve at the Chef's Table restaurant. I was there helping out on one of the busiest nights of the year.

Always a good dress-up opportunity. I like to wear these 4-inch heel glass slippers I have. Naturally, I end up changing into more comfortable ballerina slippers after about 2 hours. :)

NYE at the restaurant is always fun. Usually we have a jazz band that comes and plays, and we decorate the restaurant with glittery hats and tiaras, streamers, and those little paper horn things. Also (my favorite) bottles of Kristian Regale everywhere. I got to take one home this year as a momento (although it was empty by morning).

Masquerade

Last night my best friend and I went to a masquerade at the Provo Historic County Courthouse building and rocked out till midnight. It was so much fun! They were offering "vintage" dance lessons and mask decorating, although we didn't do either. They also ended the night with the masquerade song from Phantom of the Opera. There were some amazing costumes there! I wish I had taken my camera. I love dressing up!

Hair Care

Whenever something particularly stressing occurs in my life, I change my hair. I don't know why.

When I started college I bleached my hair to a dark wood-sy brown color.

When my boyfriend left on his mission, I dyed my hair raven black. Now this may not sound like much, but if you realized how really not black my hair is, you'd realize it was a noticeable change.

When I moved out for the first time and got in a huge fight with this queen bee roommate of mine, I went to St. George and came back with a head full of golden highlights. (This was double treatment - I was simultaneously in the middle of trying to discourage one of my best guy friends at the time from liking me romantically. We never did recover from that.)

When I moved away and was crying all the time because I missed living with my best friend and other single pals, I chopped my hair off.

When I was working 24/7 to finish my independent study classes so I could graduate on time, and all the other stresses from this summer - I had my hair layered, no small feat with hair as long as mine.

Today I am sporting bangs. Yes bangs, but not ones from the 90s. I like them quite a bit. :)

Purpose

I think that lately I've been having a sort of existential breakdown. You know, the kind that most people are already supposed to have gone through by my stage of life. The whole time I was in school I felt like I had such purpose, that I was contributing so much to the community by doing my part to be educated so that I could make the world a better place. Ever since I graduated I've felt a little. . .not lost really, but more like I'm not sure I'm on the BEST path. I mean, my schooling did its purpose - I was just offered a full time position that I LOVE and where I get to help people. It's not just about work though - I just kind of feel like I'm living my life going through the motions, without any real goal in sight. It's really a feeling I've had for a couple years now, but maybe I'm just more aware of it now because I don't have school to distract me anymore. This is really hard for me because I remember a time when I felt like there wasn't anything more I could ask out of life, and now instead I just feel a little helpless as I watch life happen, like I'm not in control of my own destiny anymore. I know that's not true, but it FEELS like it. Although, to be sure, that "perfectness" I remember could have just been the glory of youth, and now that I'm considered an adult I don't look at life through such rose-colored glasses. Sorry these thoughts are so scattered - although it gives a good insight into what living in my head is like. :)

Please tell me other people have felt this way.

The Wedding

I'm sorry I haven't written in a while (I don't know why I'm apologizing, no one knows about this blog!) but December has been busy. I was working at the restaurant almost every night to help out with the Christmas parties and things and that severely limited my free time.

A highlight from December:

This devastatingly handsome guy is my favorite cousin in the world. He got married a couple days after Christmas. This was a surprisingly hard day for me - I've been having a really hard time "letting him go." Ever since we were toddlers every picture taken of me when visiting Idaho has Dare seated right next to me. As kids we played together; as teenagers we confided all our secrets to each other; as college students we talked about our dreams for the future and wrote letters constantly while he was on his mission. He's always been kind of the brother I never had. But now he has a girl he can keep forever, and it's been quite a change to have him focus all his attention on her instead of me. I mean, I always knew he'd get married someday, but it was still hard. Even still, I'm happy for him, in a sad kind of way. He's the best guy I've ever known and he deserves to be happy.

Moving on to less emotional topics - my car is almost fixed! It broke down on me a full month ago but I was so busy working I didn't have time to take it to a shop. About a week ago one of my neighbors very kindly offered to help. He knows a lot about cars and has been doing a lot of legwork for me, finding this one little piece I need for my car. It shouldn't be as big of a deal as it is, but my car is European, and parts are hard to find. :) Anyway, the part came in yesterday so it should be pretty easy from here. I'll post a picture once it's done!

The Car Analogy

This past spring, my friend's cousin adopted an adorable baby boy. I have become addicted to her blog as I have always been an adoption advocate, and I feel like she shares a lot of really good insights. She shared a story she heard at a conference about how teenage pregnancy is like a carwreck. I found it very touching and thought-provoking and want to copy it down here:

A young man and a young woman are out on the lawn outside of a very busy street. The child they are both responsible for runs out into the street. At the same time the couple becomes aware that there is a car coming at a very high rate of speed. There is no chance that the child will not get hit. The car is coming much too fast.

The couple has four options:

1. They can do nothing and watch the child get hit and killed by the car, the psychological memory of this inaction burned in their minds forever.

this is abortion.

2. They can both jump out and sandwich the child between them to brace the child for the collision. If they can stay together, there is minimal injury to the child. however, there is a
80-90% chance that they will split upon impact.

this is couples that try to stay together and/or get married because of a crisis pregnancy.

3. One of the parents can jump out in front of the car by themselves. Injuries to the child are more substantial.

this is single parenting.

4. One or both of the parents and run out into the street and push the child out of the way of the speeding car and into the outstretched arms of a couple on the other side of the street.

this is adoption.

However, even with adoption, the birth parents always get hit by the car

Patriotism

Yesterday as I was driving home from work, traffic stopped at a red light, and as we waited for the green the sound of ambulance sirens were heard. I looked in my rearview and could see, down the block, a flashing ambulance coming toward our intersection. The light turned green, and nobody moved. No one in our three lanes, nor the three lanes of oncoming. The ambulance was able to quickly move through us and continue to the person in need.

It was one of the proudest moments I have had in a while. Not for me, but for everyone who sat there allowing the ambulance to pass. Usually there's at least one or two cars that go on ahead anyway despite the ambulance, but that was the first time I have seen an intersection so completely frozen under a green light. For some reason, this stood out as an act of patriotism. To me, patriotism is about unity and working together for the greater good, willing to sacrifice. And at that moment, I was so proud to be among these fellow Americans. (As you can see my white blood is flowing today)

Hamster Babies

This past July I was convinced into acquiring a pair of dwarf hamsters. My friend S wanted one but didn't want to make the full commitment, so she suggested that we buy a couple and then switch off weeks - timeshare hamsters, if you will. I knew she wanted one, and I didn't really care one way or the other, so we went to look at a new litter this lady had and picked out these two:

S decided to name hers (the black one) Audi and I named mine Kleenex.

We ended up getting them about a week early - the mom had died unexpectedly and they were urgently in need of care. So we took a small box full of cotton bedding and picked them up. They were hilarious! They were seriously narcileptic their first couple weeks of life. They would run around for maybe 20 seconds, then they'd all of a sudden curl into a ball and sleep for 8 seconds, run around for 20, sleep for 8, repeat. I guess though that when your lifespan is only 2 years then an 8 second nap must seem like a few hours!

Like I mentioned, these are dwarf hamsters, and we got them at a couple weeks old, so when we got them they looked like little colored cotton balls running around. They stopped growing after a couple months and now they are about the size of my palm. Unfortunately S is very sick now due to pregnancy, so I've got permanent/temporary custody of the hamster babies instead of switching off weeks.

Funny story: My little sister watched the hamsters for us while I was on vacation in Florida, and when I went to my parents' house to pick them up I decided to clean out the cage. I left the top off the cage while I was washing all the play tubes because usually the hamsters don't jump out if they can see that it's a long drop to the floor. Well, half an hour later I went to go put the cage back together, and Kleenex was missing! (It's always Kleenex, the scoundrel) I became very worried very fast, because:

1. My parents live in a 3-level 1900s house with lots of nooks and crannies, and there were a lot of places a tiny hamster could get lost, versus the security of our newer 2-bedroom, one level apartment.

2. Hamsters are nocturnal, so wherever she was, if she was safe, she was probably sleeping. So I couldn't even depend on hearing her squeaking or scurrying around.

3. My dad is not fond of the "rodents" as he calls them. I knew that at the end of the day, if I had to tell him that there was a lost hamster somewhere in his house, I would surely die. I was prepared to search for 8 hours straight before (if) finding her.

Fortunately what could have been tragic turned out okay - I found her after only about 45 minutes. Apparantly she had done a death drop from the kitchen table and run to the dining room, where she had squeezed under an overturned pot and settled down for a nap. When I picked up that pot and saw her I almost thought I was seeing things, because it was way easier than it should have been! But not only had she run off - she had taken food with her! There were seed crumbs everywhere! She must have thought she was going on a little picnic. Yeesh.

Mr. Nice Guy

Today at work something very nice and unexpected happened. It was one of those mornings where the phone was ringing off the hook and I was a little frazzled trying to update all the Christmas parties. In the middle of this madness, Tanner, one of the servers at the restaurant, came walking up to the hostess stand with a tall Irish mug full of steaming hot apple cider. He said, "Here Tasha, cuz Bizzle isn't here to make it for you this year."

How sweet!!!!!

Let me explain: My favorite coworker, nicknamed "Bizzle" by the staff, was a manager at the restaurant and the person I connected most with. We used to refer to each other as our "work husband" and "work wife." We would always go to the work parties together. Completely platonic though. Anyway, last winter, every morning when I got to work he would make me a tall mug of apple cider to warm up before the lunch crowd came. It was a very sweet tradition until about March when we ran out of cider, probably because of me. Unfortunately, "Bizzle" doesn't work at the restaurant anymore, and I miss him very much. Tanner, who has also worked at the restaurant for a long time, witnessed this scene and had the heart to remember this tradition of winters past and totally make my day. Thanks Tanner!

I Am Brown

I've had kind of a weird experience this past week. Last Sunday my visiting teachers came over. One of them is Native American. She was telling us how she had a couple experiences that week with people coming up to her expecting her to know Spanish, and how in most of her college classes she was the only non-white girl. I really enjoyed the conversation, because it was nice to have someone else to talk to about being brown besides my sisters. However, the aftermath was that I was VERY AWARE that I was brown. I have grown up in the same town my whole life and definitely act whiter than some caucasians I know, so most of my life I've never been that aware that I'm darker than most other people. But that day I went to church, and as I sat in class I looked around and realized that I was the only brown person in attendance.

And all of a sudden I felt self-conscious.

Then the next Sunday I got to go to church back east. As I sat in church I noticed there was definitely a better mix of color. Many African American, many whites, and many in between. Did I feel more at home? Not really. I mean, I definitely didn't feel like I stood out, but I've grown up with whites my whole life and that's what I'm used to, so it was a little weird to have a better mix. For the most part having brown skin isn't a big deal to me. In fact, I've grown to like it and think it is very pretty. It does bring a few problems though. For instance, there was that time in 9th grade where this guy told me that he had been talking to the guy I liked and that they had decided they could probably never marry a black person. This stung on many levels. Like, did he realize what a jerk he was, not only for thinking that, but for saying it? And did he realize that I was not, in fact, black? Looking back, I don't know if he ever did actually talk to my future boyfriend about this or if he was lying, because he turned out to be the biggest jerk on the face of the planet on many different levels to many different people (I had the misfortune of attending the same schools as him from elementary through high school graduation). Another problem is that nearly every single person I encounter will inevitably ask me, within the first 5 minutes of meeting, where I'm "from." I think this is very rude. First off, I know what you're asking. You don't want to know where I'm from, you want to know why I'm brown. Secondly, knowing what they really mean to say, I think that's a little nosy upon a first meeting. Over the years I've given many different answers and retorts depending on my mood, but usually it's just a weary "I'm from Utah. . ." and then change the subject. I've never yet had the heart to tell someone I think they're rude for asking. None of my close friends or respected colleagues asked me this question until well after we knew each other. For this I will always respect and appreciate them. I never once agreed to date a guy who had asked me this question upon first meeting. Enough of that. There are good parts to being half brown, of course! My favorite is my right to claim my White/Brown heritage when convenient. ("Ha ha, you white people all look the same. . ." or "as a fellow white American, I could never do that. . .") And I get to carry out the customs and traditions from each side that I like and discard the ones I don't without anyone's feeling being hurt. (Although my mom's pretty "white" too, so I have very few Indian traditions) Anyway, trip's been fun. . . I'll post pictures and summaries when we get back to Utah to all you white people! :D

Manners

Today at work (I also work at a restaurant) something happened that bothered me. (I promise, most of the time I love my work, these last couple posts are kind of coincidental)

I took a couple to their table and pulled out a chair. . .which the husband promptly sat in. I, of course, hurried to the other side of the table to get the chair for his wife.

This happens more than I'd like. I find it very insensitive.

The Healthcare Field

I work at a medical office. It is a small office, so as the doctor's assistant I do everything - assisting in surgeries, sterilizing instruments, working with insurance companies, setting up new patient charts, filing, etc etc etc. Basically, if it's not absolutely vital for the doctor to do it himself, I do it. Which is . . . a lot. In fact, I'm in the office more than the doctor is. But he did the 8 years of med school/intern/residency, so I'm not complaining.

What does suck though is when I do certain procedures on pts but don't get paid more for it. Legally everything has to be billed through the doctor. They treat me so well here though that it's hardly an issue.

Today's post is about the insurance side of things. I just spend an hour and a half compiling a packet to send to Medicare for a pt that we only saw once in December 2006. Medicare has denied the claim 5 or 6 times by now but here I am, dutifully trying everything I can possibly think of to get them to pay instead of billing the pt. (I think I've finally got it this time - I printed out pages from their website that describe what it takes for this certain code to be medically necessary. I highlighted all the criteria that we met and wrote a long letter describing each criteria in detail and showing how we've been saying this all along. There's no way they can deny this again with their own requirements slapped in their face! At least, I hope not.)

Patients don't see this side of things. They don't see the many hours I put in PER PATIENT anytime there's a problem with their insurance. These are hours I put in researching the specific code and company and their policies. Hours digging through CPT and ICD-9 books(coding books) to see if there's any other codes we could use instead that the insurance would cover. All the thousands upon thousands of dollars we've written off for pts that we feel have legitimate reasons for why they can't pay. Hours on the phone arguing with some rep in India that they're being stupid and this claim should be paid. Sidenote: I have nothing against India. Or any other countries, including the USA, who employ insurance claim reps. My anger is more when they're stupid and don't know what they're doing. I've talked to many foreign and domestic reps who were very helpful and knew exactly how to help me. In the end, sometimes there really is nothing I can do but bill the claim to the patient, like if their insurance policy doesn't cover such things, if they still have deductible to meet, etc. Every week when we do billing I end up with a stack about half an inch thick of claims that were denied for various reasons. If I had to guess I'd say maybe about 85% of those claims end up eventually being paid by insurance after many hours of work on my part, and about 15% are legitimately denied and are the patient's responsibility.

All I want to do is help people.

So it makes me frustrated when I have pts who get mad or don't understand why they should have to pay, or are mad that they're being billed for a date of service from 4 months ago. They don't realize I spent those 4 months battling the bill for them, or that it takes a MONTH on average for insurance companies to process claims and send them to us. What's most frustrating is when the claim denial reason was so simple that there is absolutely no way that the pt can deny they had an inkling. Such as, "we are not on your provider list." I mean, for the love, people! We do the best we can with this type of thing, but do you realize that there are hundreds of different types of insurance policies? And that, for instance, if you switch policies within the same insurance company we may no longer be covered? It is the patient's responsibility to know as much as they can before going to a doctor, including calling their insurance to make sure he's covered. Another line I "enjoy" is "I paid my copay, so why did you bill me this 10 bucks?" Okay, here's the secret: most insurance companies only pay 80% and you are responsible for the rest. Here's the sad part: it's not a secret! Insurance companies very blatantly explain this to their clients when you sign up. I've only seen maybe a couple insurance companies who pay 100%. The other secret is that WE don't determine the cost of medical services. We abide by whatever fee schedule YOUR insurance company has set. So don't get mad because you think something costs too much, because you'd be charged the same amount regardless of which doctor you go to. So people, please, take 10 minutes to do some simple homework before seeing the doctor. I don't appreciate being insulted or yelled at for your lack of brains.

Anyway, I realize this has transformed from a simple observation into more of a rant. I apologize for that, for anyone who may actually read this. But it's more for me - I try not to ever go on rants about this stuff when I'm talking to someone when I know they won't understand most of what I'm explaining, and also because I don't like to bother people, but it does feel good to finally get this off my chest.

Welcome

Welcome to my blog! This is a revamped version of my older blog, so I'll start things off by transferring over all my favorite posts. I hope you will enjoy it and feel free to comment.

I went back and forth for a long time about whether to start a blog. It seemed like everyone and their dog had one, but once I thought about it, I realized that it was mostly everyone and their BABY that had one. Most of the blogs I read are proud moms posting baby news every day. Well, I don't have any baby news (except for the occasional hamster baby mention), but occasionally other things happen that I could blog about. I'm still trying to figure out how to get everything set up, but here we go!