Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Teeth and Cats

Teeth and cats go together.  Cats have teeth.  I have teeth and I love cats.

So I went to the dentist today, for a checkup, since my coverage may or may not be ending soon.

No cavities!   Yay!

But the assistant, oh no.  She had told me when I went in the first time I had my teeth worked on about a year and four months back that she had unfixed cats.  She was going to get them fixed.  She hasn't. She claims they were always pregnant.

Now she has three moms with litters, at least four unfixed adult females.  Plus others.  Plus others, I thought.  Uh oh.

I'm supposed to be out of the game.  I have no funding, no nothing.  But I am still obsessed with stopping feline overpopulation.  When she said her sister usually gives away the kittens free on craigslist, my brain exploded.

I told her I would find a way to get them fixed, and I would find someone to take at least the oldest litter of kittens, allegedly 8 weeks old, six of them.   I called Heartland from the dental chair as the dentist came in to try to check my teeth.  "Hold on," I said, "this is important."  "So is this," she said.  I conceded.

Heartland can fix the first two females next Monday AND take the six 8 week old kittens.  I texted the assistant this evening the THRILLING news. I have nine minutes left on my prepay.  I used three of those to send the two texts.  It's thrilling to me.  I live for this stuff.  I don't get much of it anymore.  Fixing cats, stopping the reproduction, solving big situations.   Am I a has been?

The only issue is who will pay for it.  Be $80 for the first two spays.  She said she could partly pay.   Oh boy.

Well, I'm not cancelling. It'll work out.   And the kittens will get fixed and vaccinated before getting homes!

Slinko approves of this message!


Monday, September 29, 2014

Understanding is MIne

I now understand why I thought my partial dental coverage was ending and why it really isn't.  It's a switch in what part of dual insurances will pay for it.  I think.  My understanding of insurance and government language and policies is willfully close to ignorance.  I cannot get a grasp of the language involved or even the acronyms.  These things seem beyond my capacity to understand despite my best attempts to do so.  I'm not that dumb, so why I cannot understand such documents and their language use is frustrating.

I can do math, understand science, but I can't understand insurance or government written papers.

In other news, my phone issues might be resolved!   I won't be using the lifeline trac phone after this month.  I can't see the one inch square screen and my fingers are too big to punch the tiny buttons.  My minutes for the month are long gone, so I've been subsisting without.  Until I remembered Google talk.  I rediscovered it when desperate for human contact in the last weeks.  I can call out on it free but no one can call in.  The reception, even on a very cheap mic, is crystal clear!  I love it.

However, my younger brother became fed up when he could no longer get in touch with me and knew no one else could either.  He's putting me on his plan, since he gets ten lines and is only using seven of those.   He's sending me a phone, might get it this week and I am very very grateful because it is hard to be alone and isolated and then to also not be able to chat on the phone.

My neighbor had thought about letting me on hers since she gets five lines with her plan and uses only two.   But that hasn't panned out, so I'm so happy my brother is letting me on his.  I don't know anything about having a plan with all these lines for other family members, since I've never had a "plan" with a cell, just prepay.  I've liked prepay because if I could not afford minutes I didn't buy them and did without.  But, when I could not afford the cheapest minutes per month, I had to give that up and get the set amount, with the trac fone, not enough minutes for a month.  I could text if I wanted to text but I needed a 10x mag glass to see that one inch screen, with my old eyes.

I should be reachable again by the end of the week.  In the meantime, I use google talk to call out and chat.

Around here it is not uncommon amongst the people I've encountered, to have no cell service other than what a person can afford in prepaid, sometimes worth a week of calls, no internet, no gas in their car gas tank or no car, and only the TV you can get with an antenna.  People around here are poor and make do.  This is the way it is for many many people.

I feel stupid not understanding the whole insurance issue, or how I could still be partially covered for dental in 2015 when it says I'm covered now but won't be in 2015.  I still can't figure out how I am still covered, but I'm told I will be, that its just shifted, to some other part of my insurance.  (or something).  I feel ashamed that I don't understand it still, but pretended to.  Not ashamed really, just relieved to be pretending to myself to understand so I can dump the experience and the attempt into the delete file in my brain, an action I've wanted to do since the damn big plan book came in the mail.   I think it belongs, in my brain trash can.  I don't want to be attempting to organize the incomplete illegible files on this in my nightmares.  I'll just have to remain in the muddle on it and trust the patient customer service rep who tried very hard to enlighten me. I'm fine letting my brain outsource this one.

I also wanted to point out the sidebar gadgets I added.  I could not resist messing with it and added one at the top right, where you can play videos from my youtube channel and also a ticker showing off the general location of visitors to my blog, which is awesome because I like to see all the different places people come from. (I do my traveling by google maps).

Saturday, September 27, 2014

Cat Pic Saturday

Starr is doing great after her teeth cleaning and seven extractions!  Starr says THANK YOU to everyone who donated to help her.

Rogue enjoys last summer sun!  Rogue too feels so much better after getting all but four of his teeth pulled this year.
Sassy stretches out in the cat run to enjoy the sun.
Mums too enjoys the last of summer sun in the cat run entrance to the cat yard.  Mums is Tugs sister and Sam's best friend.
Teddy with Juno.  Teddy is best friends with Juno, the seed warehouse Siamese.  Teddy is also Starr's brother.  Teddy, Starr and Honey are the three cats here from the Corvallis homeless camp.
Willy Wonka and Bluebell watch me from the cat yard.  The cats play wildly in the cat yard each morning, racing around with cat toys, wrestling with one another and charging up the trees.   Winter with its rain and sometimes flooded yard will be a little less fun.  I will think up ways to make it more fun.

Slinko has become adorably tame, dancing around, wanting petted, held and played with. How strange that he behaved feral for an entire year here, then suddenly reverted back to tame boy. He can play for hours.  He is enjoying life but still bumps heads with Starry and Slurpy now and then.

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Worried for my Teeth

I get my new Medicare Advantage plan packet, which is thicker than War and Peace and comes like clockwork every year.  It's more boring than War and Peace, so you have to be very very bored to read any of it.  As if it is not enough to get the one inch thick booklet from the Medicare Advantage plan I'm in, I'll probably also get one from Medicare too.

I'm confounded and confused by the layers in medical insurance.  I'm on medicare, but to get medicare I have to have a medicare Advantage plan through a private source.  In my case, it's Samaritan health.  They have a local monopoly, from the mountains to the coast and claim nonprofit status.

Since I fall way below federal poverty guidelines, I have medicaid as secondary insurance.  Medicaid is state run and in Oregon, it is called the Oregon Health Plan.  But there are different plans even under that.  Then you have to join an HMO, privately run, to get OHP.  I hope I am confusing you.  I don't know for sure that this is all accurate, but it is what I think is the big picture of the layers.

Here, where I live, the OHP HMO is owned and operated by the local health care monopoly that owns the hospitals and doctors from the mountains to the coast.  Your doctor works for your insurance company.  This seems like a basic conflict of interest.  Back to the point.....

I have no choices even though the monopoly will claim I do.  To get OHP as secondary, I have to use IHN as the OHP HMO.   It's the only local HMO providing care through OHP.  Since my primary insurance is medicare, technically I would have a choice, but I don't, unless I want to drop having a secondary insurance.  No getting IHN without signing on to a Medicare Advantage plan owned by the monopoly.

Now we have another layer, called a CCO or Community Care Organization.  These were created regionally by Oregon to save costs on health care, through preventative and wellness programs theoretically.   They get a set amount of money to cover the number of people in the CCO.  Total money the state gets for medicaid or...ok, I'm fuzzy here, but the gist I think is total state money combined with federal gets divied up between the state CCO's, who use it, and when its gone its gone, for that year.  So they better use it wisely.  Something like that.  I'm hazy on it.  I have no clue about these layers.  Nobody knows anything and its just a whole lot of awful.

I have a nurse practioner as PCP at a health clinic and it can take twenty minutes on hold to try to get an appointment a month from now.  A month from now anything wrong this minute will be much worse or resolved.     So it's kind of funny all around.

My Medicare and medicaid have been dumped into the CCO, still through a medicare Advantage plan and OHP HMO IHN.  But it's called a CCO now and it's supposed to be all inclusive, include physical, mental, dental and what not care.  Nice, right?

Except it isn't.   It's even more bungled and confused than ever.   Need information?  Good luck!

My shiny new inch thick plan specifics epic novel arrived in the mail and I began leafing through it, for no good reason, while drinking my morning coffee.

I go right to the comics section, oops, I mean annual notice of change in plan page.  This is the kick you in the gut page.  Or the You've Won! page.

  On page seven of the Annual Notice of Changes for 2015 I find this and my stomach goes all lurchy:

You may not be able to read this, as its blurry.  On the left it says Preventive Dental Services.  These are exams, extractions, teeth cleaning and fillings.  All else covered was dumped long ago.  Things like crowns.  Except pregnant women and kids can get them.  Even illegal immigrant pregnant women, I'm told.  I wonder if that's true.

On the right there are two columns.  One reads 2014 (this year) and the other 2015 (next year).  Under 2014 (this year), it reads:  Preventive Dental Services are covered.  Under 2015 (next year), it reads: Preventive Dental Services are not covered.

OMG.  No more dental coverage.  At all.  Not even for extractions.  It says emergency dental procedures might be covered if a person is in the hospital.

Here's the thing.  People way way down under the poverty level cannot pay for dental work out of pocket.  It's impossible because it costs too much.  There's nothing a person on SSI can do to save enough money to get that done, even if you saved every penny you got and didn't pay anything out for rent or utilities or food or washing your undies, and hid it all away in a hole, then dug it up to present to the dental receptionist, it's still not enough money.  It's just the way it is, too great a disparity between what is charged and what a person on disability gets.

I'm not saying we should get free extractions and fillings.  I'm saying there needs be an option, like affordable dental care, so we could save up and pay, but there's nothing out there now like that because dental care costs is beyond affordable to pay completely out of pocket for people in low brackets and for many people in middle income brackets.

 So I'm saying Oregon should reduce standard of care, to lower costs, so people can have an option to take care of their teeth.  Like let techs pull and fill teeth.  Something like that.  Otherwise, an entire population is locked out of any options and faces the future full of mouth misery.   We all get old and our teeth break and fillings fall out and we get cavities.  Poor people are no different.  That happens to us too.

I'm sad.  I like my teeth.  But I don't have the money and I never will have the money to pay out to get Xrays, cleaning, exams, fillings and extractions.  One appointment would wipe me out.

I have coverage a few more months.  I wonder if I should try to get all my teeth pulled now, to reduce the suffering I will have until I die with mouth issues.  I think it could be called a medical necessity, if all coverage for even the smallest dental care ends in three months.  There are no other options out there.

Already, vision exams and eye care have been axed from coverage.  Not just your copay has gone up--axed from coverage.  Hearing exams also.

These things are all important in preventing further health problems.  Dental care might be the MOST important preventative care.  I say that because I see what bad teeth does to cats.  I say it from experience that life is hell when your teeth hurt.   Your world becomes that pain.  Think you concentrate on a good diet, when you can't eat without pain?  Just saying, dental care is frontline in keeping your health good.  So all this CCO wellness preventive care bullshit is just bullshit.  In my opinion.

We need an option.

Sure, I suppose maybe back alley dental clinics will arise, some guy with a chair, pliers and straps will pull your tooth for $30, no questions asked, on either side.  In Oregon, that's a crime, called "practicing medicine without a license" and it applies to you, yourself, too, if you pull your own tooth.  You could be arrested.  They got you wrapped up between that rock and hard place here.


Not asking for free dental extractions and fillings.  I'm saying we need an affordable way to get these things, pay for them, and there won't be one in three months, when the CCO stops covering dental care and with the unspeakable cost of dental care, so that most could never in their dreams pay for it out of pocket.

I'm saying, Oregon, time to let technicians pull and fill teeth, to lower costs, so I can pay to care for my teeth.

I think somewhere out there may be cheaper dentists, solo acts, not bought and sold by a big corporate owner.  After all, the price for cat dentals can vary depending on the dentist by hundreds of dollars.  So, my guess is, out there somewhere, are cheaper more affordable dentists for people too. 

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Soliloquy to the Beast in the Bathroom

Funny Face has been roaming this area for years.  I was sure I got him fixed the first year I moved in, which would have been seven years ago.  Or so.  But the apartment complex tenants claim he isn't fixed and were sure he'd fathered kittens from a tenant's unregistered cat, before she was evicted. I determined to catch him again to be sure.  Sunday was the day that the stars were in align to accomplish this task.  In my defense, for questioning my usually excellent memory, he also does this....

See those marks just behind where he is sitting, in front of a neighbors' garage?  Those aren't paint stains.  In fact, I just missed a shot of him in the process of marking that garage.

But even fixed cats will mark if they feel threatened.  There have been so many big males roaming this area over the years, unfixed.  That is, until they roam into my yard.  They don't leave my yard unfixed.

The apartment complex allows tenants to feed only two cats---Funny Face and a stray female I got fixed several years back.   They like Funny Face, they say, because he's got a bad attitude and drives other cats off.

He uses my yard as a hotel stopover when he's exhausted.  He sleeps in a modified insulated carrier out back, when he wants to, or in the dead neighbors backyard.  When he comes into my yard, he's usually hurting for something, often water, or rest.  He'll come close to me, but then the hissing and spitting and growling will start.   Day before yesterday he came through exhausted, looking for water and for rest.  But I trapped him.

I wanted to be sure he was fixed.  I doubted my memory.  With all these people telling me he certainly is not fixed, I wanted to make sure.  I made a big mistake, however.  I felt sorry for him in the trap and let him out in my bathroom.  Sure he's loud and growly, but he's certainly not a feral, I reasoned.  He'd settle down, settle in, want cuddled!  He's formerly owned. 

For the rest of Sunday, I was unable to use my bathroom.  He perched atop the toilet tank and he was not going to move from there come hell or high water.  He'd hiss, spit and growl.   Then he'd come at me, striking with lightning speed, if I came within a couple feet.  I could imagine, when deciding whether to just use my toilet and hope for the best, attempting to explain to a doctor how it was my butt had been shredded.  Funny Face is a massive cat with street savvy, and potentially dangerous.  I could have thrown a blanket over him or my net and dragged him away from that crucial household appliance, the human litter box.   I didn't.  The situation entertained me, made me smile.

I let him have the bathroom, let him sleep all afternoon Sunday and all Sunday night.  He only woke, and barely so, to hiss or growl or otherwise threaten me, should I intrude on his new space---my bathroom!

So I rigged a bucket in the garage to use temporarily, one I sometimes take out camping for same purpose.  I let him have his long sleep.  He needed it, for attitude adjustment at the least.

I wrote this......to have some fun with the situation....

Soliloquy to the Beast in the Bathroom

What an idiot was I to turn loose such a cat as he in of all places a bathroom, my only bathroom, so that now, I use a bucket in the garage, resigned to this, for the evening, and night, to allow him his space, before, his nuts are lost forever tomorrow. He is loud and angry and tired and he wants to sleep perched on the tank of my toilet. There he shall sleep in peace. Who am I to take this from him? For now, he is master of my bathroom and has somehow elevated that humble room, so rarely spoken of, for the remembrance it bestows, that we humans too are animals with functions. He has elevated its stature to the room where the untamed beast resides, ready to tear apart anyone who might disturb his nap. I will not disturb his nap. No, not I. No.

  It should not be hard to capture him, cage him. No. A blanket and my net should suffice. But I am unwilling tonight to fight that fight, and hear him angry and beaten by me and caged again. That fight is for the morn and I will make it quick and humble. I do not want shredded or torn. I do not long for the fight. I know its coming and will face it and it will be done and he will be confined and soon enough. Tonight I fantasize about his motives and fierceness, which really, are probably not strong nor vicious. Tonight he dozes safely and softly, and the beast he's become has few soft moments, few easy moments like he will have tonight.


The next morning, it wasn't hard to use a blanket over him, to push him into the trap.  Off then we went to Heartland, where, it was found, he was indeed already neutered.  However, the poor boy, when I'd see him eat outside, was troubled by bad teeth.

The vet at Heartland found one broken to the root with the root infected and was able to dig that root out and clean out the pocket of infection.  She gave him a convenia injection to help him heal.  He was crawling in fleas, too, and had tapeworm segments hanging from his rear end.  So he was flea treated and up butted with droncit while under anesthesia.  He was also updated on rabies and three-way vaccinations and given an ear tip.

I had requested no ear tip, but when you're getting all this help for just $40, including that difficult root extraction, you don't complain, because it won't affect him, that ear tip, but the tooth removal and antibiotics and worming and deflea, now that will affect him.  His life will be easier for quite some time to come.

I scrubbed my bathroom top to bottom while he was gone, to kill any fleas that bailed off him and to remove his scent so my cats would not protest his temporary presence in their space.  He's off now, back to his usual, but I hope he got what he needed, lots of sleep, in the day spent in my bathroom.  His parasites are dead and his infected tooth gone.  Good day for a funny stray I've known for years.



Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Silent Starr

Starr was just a teen when I trapped her at the Corvallis homeless camp by sneaking into the camp in the night, amongst the sleeping campers to set traps and catch kittens and otherwise avoid, via tip toe trapping at night, the waking problems of alcohol consumption, drugs and drama.  That was just over five years ago.

She was among 52 cats and kittens I trapped at that one camp, with help from Poppa's president, who came down from Beaverton to help.  I had poison oak that whole summer from going in and out of the camps.  I relocated or rehomed almost of all of those cats, over time.  Starr, Teddy (her brother) and Honey remain here with me.

Starr had recently begun crying out suddenly, when eating.  It was only a few times, but I noticed. If she noticed I noticed, she'd shut up quickly and run off.  She also seemed to be staying closer to me, watching me, as if imploring something of me.  This behavior often means a cat is having pain, I've found.  Cats are so subtle and silent in their suffering.

So I made an appointment for her at a vet in a small town about 30 miles away.  She is more affordable than other vets in the larger towns.  She came recommended by a Lebanon woman I know.

Starr, turns out, has some strange disease, quite common though, but I'd not heard of it.  Feline resorption.  With this disease, which is not the same as the allergy to the lining of their teeth, I guess, that causes stomatitis, the enamel of the teeth are attacked and holes appear in the teeth.   At least the staff there said it was different.  I found this website with graphic photos of teeth being resorbed:

Click here to see it!

There is no known cause and the vet said she'll need checked again in two years, if not sooner.

Today Starr had her teeth cleaned and seven teeth pulled.

She's back and recuperating.  Poor baby.  Thank you to all of you who have donated to the medical care fund for the cats here.  Today, $325 of that was put to good use.  Here's the link to the vet bill fundraiser, should you care to donate.  It's always there on the right on the sidebar, partially showing due to my ineptitude with template manipulation.

Click here to go to the fundraiser site!

Starr should feel much better.




Tuesday, September 16, 2014

One Night Stand with Waldo

I got out of Dodge.  I spent one delightful night with Waldo.  28 hours.

I drove up for one night at Waldo Lake, up past Oakridge.   I'd always wanted to see it.  It is pristine, I'd heard, a lake with no inlet, with some of the purest water in the country.  No float planes, no generators, no chain saws, no gas boat motors are allowed on Waldo.  Thank goodness!

They're allowed almost everywhere else.  But not at Waldo Lake.

There are three campgrounds on Waldo Lake.  The southern most one is called Shadow Bay, and with 74 sites, it's large.

Farther north, along the eastern side of the lake but near it's northern border, is North Waldo Campground, the most popular of the three.  A mile south of it is Islet, which is more private, more like Shadow Bay.

I made no reservations, I loaded up my tent, my sleeping bag, my stove and my raft and took off.



 
 To get there, you take highway 58 about 25 miles east of Oakridge and turn up a forest service road, and go about 9 miles, and you're at Shadow Bay. If you go another four or so miles north, you'll get to the other two campgrounds.

I was worried smoke from the Deception Complex wildfire burning near Oakridge would cloud over Waldo.  It was sure smokey in Oakridge.  Those poor people have had to breath that wildfire air for over a month now.
Deception Complex Wildfire smoke near Oakridge




I got site 83, not far from the water.  The sites next to the water are very popular.  There were only a handful of campers in the entire huge campground.  I guess they all vanished a day before I arrived.  Thank goodness!


I threw in some cut up old cherry wood, from my tree, and had two nice campfires, one last night, one this morning.  That night, with my back twitching and convulsing so that I could not sleep, I lay there and marveled at the total blackness of the night and silence of the forest around me.  The stars came out so bright against the black I didn't mind my wakefulness and back pain, because I got to enjoy the night.


The gray jays were more than aggressive.  They even would land on my leg or shoulder, to make sure I knew they were there and wanted food.  Gray Jays are also known as Camp Robbers.

This Stellar Jay was not as aggressive.  Just loud!
Water is pristine!



Looking east from the lake

Looking north from the water, with an old burned area to the left.  I rowed clear up to the north end of the lake the first day and that was not easy.   It was so quiet.  I never saw another soul out on the lake.  I just didn't want to stop.  But I hurt my back and had a very difficult night last night, in pain.  Until the Aleve took affect.  It was worth it.

Looking down at the lake from my camp.
Someone built rock forts on some of the small islands.  There are many islands.

This is my beach, right down from my campsite and a little island not far out.  In some places, the water can suddenly turn shallow with rocks sticking up, so you have to watch where you're going, when rowing a raft that can be punctured, in some areas.  It's easy though.  The water is very clear.




One of the island forts.

When I'm out alone on my raft, this is what I carry with me:  I carry a boogie board from Goodwill, has a short line with wrist strap attached.  This along with the life jacket are my emergency measures, my lifeboats, to get to shore should my raft deflate.  Also, if I go ashore somewhere and take a swim, I fasten the velcro wrist strap around my wrist and tow the boogie board for safety.  I also carry a float I found once at Foster Reservoir.  It has a hole running down its middle for a rope so I attach a length of line to it.  It's for casting out if someone were in trouble in the water, but its mainly to tie to my raft on a long length of rope should my raft deflate to mark its location, so I could come back for it.  I also carry a bag with water, some energy bars, some sunscreen and my binoculars to look at things far away or to watch birds.


The people with the red canoe and small sailboat left early Tuesday morning.  There was a young couple camped nearby, from Portland. They had a rented green canoe and took off in it before noon Tuesday.  I was a bit concerned that they had not returned by 4:00 p.m. when I left.  I told the other couple about them, but I'm sure it was all well and good.

Rowing south

Two kayaks on a beach near Islet campground, to the far north on Waldo.



Far north shore of Waldo.  I was on my way back from rowing clear up there.  I became so tired on the row back I made up songs and sang them about being so long away, from my home at Shadow Bay.....it helped!





Part of the trail that goes completely around the lake.  You can hike it, but it is very popular with mountain bikers. There are many many hiking trails in the area.  Too many to list.  It's paradise up there.




Shadow Bay boat ramp and day use parking lot.  People can come here to put in canoes or kayaks or sailboats, or to park to take off mountain biking or hiking around the lake.
South end of Waldo.  Early this morning, that's where I rowed, way down to an island at the south end, and behind it.





More of the trail around the lake.

The beach and trail up to my campsite.



Trees just below my campsite
After rowing almost all the way to the north end of Waldo yesterday after I arrived, then rowing to the south end this morning, I was ready to come home.  But then a couple camping in the same loop asked if I had seen the Gates.  I didn't even know what they meant.  So they pointed them out, clear across the lake on the far side.  Seems in the early 1900's, some Eugene engineer, decided to try to turn Waldo into a reservoir for irrigation in the Willamette Valley and began building aqua gates and a big tunnel to funnel the water out of Waldo.  He apparently did not know, or care, that Waldo has no inlet river, so once the water's gone, it's gone for a very long time.  The project eventually fizzled and concrete fills the tunnel and covers the gate, but occasionally leaks still must be repaired.

I'd never heard of this near miss for Waldo and I decided I needed to go see it, even though I knew it would take two hours of rowing, which it did.  Was worth it.





I'm home now and worn out and dirty and all unloaded to boot.  Tomorrow's another day and I'm so happy I just took off for a one night stand with Waldo Lake.  I had Waldo Lake and the campground almost to myself!

I spent 28 hours at Waldo Lake.   In those 28 hours, I did it all.

Well, I did a lot!   I want to go back and stay two weeks.  But I had 28 hours!

Made me happy!

Dog in the Road

 I went to get groceries yesterday morning fairly early. I was expecting visitors, brief ones, pop in and out, so I wanted to get done with ...