Holy Cow

Well, Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Florida has finally decided to accept their responsibilities and pay for Ricky's MS treatment. That was the best news we've had in six months. However, that doesn't mean they aren't still trying to find ways to sink our battleship. They do not want to pay for his Tysabri, which is the drug the doctor wants him on. He tried another MS drug, Avonex, and it wasn't having the desired effect. Originally, the doctor tried to put him on the Tysabri right away, but the insurance company wouldn't pay for it, since he hadn't tried other drug therapies first. Well, now he HAS, and they STILL don't want to pay for it, so I see yet another struggle coming in the near future, albeit not as big of a struggle as it was to get that little "pre-existing" code erased from his file.

We spent yesterday making the rounds to four different doctors, between the two of us. It was a long day. We also had to spend Saturday picking out a new computer. For some reason, our two-year-old HP laptop just DIED Saturday, in the middle of me playing a game on it. We couldn't even get it to come back on. So, not knowing what else to do, we went to Geek Squad (which everyone I know is telling us we should NOT have done), and they told us the motherboard was dead and will cost $400-$500 to fix. Mind you, we just dropped $150 in January on a monitor when the screen on the damn thing died. So the computer we spend $900 on just two years ago has ended up costing us much more than that. I loved the computer while it was working, but keeping it working was just too much. So we invested in yet ANOTHER new laptop. Which disappoints me. The laptop I had in law school was an HP and it lasted me FIVE YEARS, which is ancient for any computer technology these days. Needless to say, we bought a protection plan this time. THEN we found out on Saturday that one of our friends/acquaintances is a computer guru and probably could have fixed the thing. We're actually going to give it to him to mess with, to see if he can get it running again, and, if he can, Ricky will inherit it as his own computer. The only positive to the situation is that I FINALLY took the time to get our wireless system up and running in the house we've lived in for a year. So now our Wii is updated and we can use the computer in any room of the house. It's WONDERFUL!

In reading news, I have made great progress in Comanche Moon, the fourth book (in publication order) in the Lonesome Dove series. It is just as wonderful as the other three, although there isn't as much edge-of-your-seat action as in the other books. I may finish it this week and get a review up. Next up is another review cookbook...

Joining My First Challenge

Well, I've decided to inch into the challenge waters and enter my very first-ever timed (i.e., non-perpetual) reading challenge! I'm a terribly slow reader (life seems to always get in the way), and I'm very anal-retentive about my reading, but I'm going to try to just fit my next few reads into some of these categories. We'll see how I do.

5 Point Challenges


Read a chick lit book

Read a name with a proper name in the title

Read a historical fiction book

Read a book with a one word title

Read a book made into a movie

10 Point Challenges


Read a book with a Civil War theme (any country)

Read a Biblical fiction book

Read a hardcover book

Read a book about a king or queen

Read a book set in France

15 Point Challenges

Read a book by an author you’ve never read before

Read a biography or autobiography

Read a book with a number in the title

Read any book and then post a review

Read any book but read it outside

20 Point Challenges


Read a book in a series AND the one after it

Read a book that was a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

Read a book considered Christian fiction

Read a book from The Modern Library Top 100

Read a book by an author born in July, August, September or October