A day in the district

I had a great day on Monday. I organized a tour of three counties in our senate district with my boss (Senator Carey) the Governor. So, I got to tag along with my boss and Governor Strickland as we toured a dynamite plant and several other businesses in our district. We even got to visit the General Mills plant in Jackson County that supplies the world's Totino's pizza rolls.

Here's a picture of my boss in some awesome safety glasses:


And here I am in the background, being pretty cool myself:

Endo Info

Over the years, I've done some research on this disease, and thought I'd share some of it here. Below are links to some great resources for endometriosis information and a couple of specialists. I'm continually amazed at the number of women who suffer from this disease (I've heard statistics as high as 15-20% of women in the US have endo!), as well as the lack of understanding of it by our medical professionals. After being in debilitating pain for nearly 16 years, I feel so fortunate to have finally found specialists who could completely excise my disease, leaving me with 10% chance of recurrence. I'm not pain free yet, but I'm well on my way to recovery. So, anyway, here are the links:

Center for Endometriosis Care in Atlanta. This is where I had my surgery in March. I can't say enough good about the doctors here! Dr's. Albee and Sinervo have several really informative articles on their website as well.

Dr. Redwine in Bend, Oregon has a great website for endo matters. Dr. Redwine was one of the pioneers in excision surgery and has published quite a bit on the subject.

Endometriosis Research Center is doing some great research and advocacy work on endometriosis. They have many wonderful resources on their website.

provision

One of my biggest concerns in travelling to Atlanta for surgery was the cost. And even more disconcerting was the fact that nobody could really tell me how much it would cost ahead of time, because they couldn't tell how extensive the disease was until they cut me open. Another variable in all of this was that the surgeon was out-of-network for my insurance company.

Apparently my disease was much more severe than anticipated--the surgeon's bill alone was nearly 3 times the high end of what they told me to expect. I've been keeping a running total of all the bills I've been getting (from the hospital, surgeon, etc), and all totalled, it came to a whopping $50,000.

I'm glad I didn't know that price tag going into the procedure. I don't know if it would have deterred me--I don't think it would have. The surgery needed to be done. Even if I'm paying for it the rest of my life, it was worth it to receive the extremely high level of care that I did in Atlanta.

So, anyway, I got a statement from my insurance company today, saying that they had covered the entire cost of the hospital (nearly $20,000)! Praise God!! Now, I'm just waiting to see what the insurance company decides about the remaining costs. I'm hopeful that the statement I got today is indicative of how they will handle the remaining $30K! :-)

Gas Prices!

I read an article today that said that Sierra Leone has the highest gas prices in the world: $18.42 per gallon. I was floored to hear this. When we lived there a couple years ago, gas prices were around $4.00/gallon. This seemed very pricey at the time--costs for public transportation were constantly increasing, making it more and more difficult for people to get where they needed to go. Also, the electricity for Freetown was powered by diesel generators--not exactly efficient. I can't imagine how this is impacting our friends in Sierra Leone.

I know our prices right now seem expensive, but it is always good to remember others in the world who are suffering because of this as well.