Playing Catch-up: Groceries & Get-Well Wishes

Okay, it’s late and I’m tired and my back and shoul­der are killing me.  I need to go to bed.  But I don’t want to let another day go by with­out post­ing my expenses.  Let’s see if I can make this quick and simple:

Tues­day, Sep­tem­ber 15, 2009

Kroger Pharamcy — $29.09

My T3 thy­roid med­i­cine.  It was the T4 thy­roid meds that I scored big on from my doctor’s office the other day.  This stuff I still had to pay for.  And obvi­ously it’s not cheap.  Not sure why it didn’t qual­ify for insur­ance cov­er­age; it is the generic.  Usu­ally I only pay $10.00 though my records are a mess and I can’t remem­ber if this is always this expen­sive or if some­thing went wrong with the insur­ance billing.  I should call and look into it.  “Should” is a dirty word though.  It might not happen.

Kroger — $70.68 ($44.96 on gift card; $25.72 on credit card)

• Kroger mega-pack T.P. — $6.39 (saved $1.50)
• Hori­zon 2% milk — $4.89 (saved $0.30)
• 2 Hori­zon choco­late milk — $3.49/ea. (saved $0.50/ea.)
• Dole Orange/Peach/Mango juice — $2.99 (saved $1.00)
• Welch’s dried fruit Berry Med­ley — $4.99
• Santa Bar­bara Olive Co. green olives — $3.99 (yummy!)
• dozen Nest Fresh eggs — $3.69
• 2 DiGiorno piz­zas — $6.59/ea.
• 5 navel oranges — $2.95
• mini car­rots — $1.00 (saved $0.99)
• 2.84# bananas — $1.59
• 1.72# hon­ey­crisp apples — $5.14
• 2.33# gala apples — $2.31
• French’s yel­low mus­tard — $1.50 (saved $0.79)
• 2 Amy’s frozen bur­ri­tos — $2.00/ea. (saved $0.29/ea.)
• Rudi’s organic whole wheat bread — $4.59
• 6 bag cred­its — ($0.30)

The day’s total:  $99.77

~ ~ o o O o o ~ ~

Wednes­day, Sep­tem­ber 16, 2009

Doc­tor co-pay — $50.00

It was time for The Daugh­ter to go back for her first check-up with the endocri­nol­o­gist.  Her blood test showed that her thy­roid level had improved but was still on the very low end of nor­mal.  Together with that result and the news that The Daugh­ter had felt bet­ter last month but had recently started up with the uncon­trol­lable after­noon nap­ping and low energy, the Dr. upped her dosage.  We dropped the pre­scrip­tion off on the way home and she’ll pick it up tomor­row.  In the mean­time, it’s half of what I take and some of the sam­ples I got from his office last week are for the cor­rect dosage (I’m sup­posed to just take two) so she can start on the higher dosage imme­di­ately (tomor­row morning).

Kroger — $21.35

While at the store drop­ping off The Daughter’s new pre­scrip­tion, nat­u­rally she wanted to pick up a few odds and ends.  Below you will see an item that I was loathe to buy and extremely reluc­tant to admit to here in pub­lic.  But the point of this blog is full finan­cial dis­clo­sure so here it is, uncen­sored.  You should note that The Daugh­ter and I made a deal –  I would buy this par­tic­u­lar “for­bid­den fruit” for her under two con­di­tions:  1) she will not longer request nor buy for her­self pints of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream (her con­ces­sion, I really had no big issue with the B&J though it is quite expen­sive, com­par­a­tively speak­ing); and 2) she would not ever admit in pub­lic or to any of her friends that I buy this stuff for her.

• 2 boxes of Lucky Charms cereal — $2.99/ea.

I agrued that B&J ice cream is actu­ally health­ier for her because at least the ingre­di­ents are clean and pro­nounce­able.  She was uncon­vinced.  She’s totally hooked on these nasty things.  I can’t believe we’ve strayed this far from the path.

• Quaker chewy gra­nola bars (not much bet­ter) — $2.73/ea.
• Orbit gum — $1.29 (she was never allowed to chew gum when she was younger; where did I go so wrong?)
• Fruitabu Twirls — $4.69
• Nex­care Camp Rock tat­too band-aids — $3.49

If you’re going to com­pro­mise your val­ues, might as well crush every sin­gle one of them at the same time, right?

Hos­pi­tal Gift Shop — $11.49

This evening at about 7pm I received a text from my mom.  My nephew had been skate-boarding, had an acci­dent, and bro­ken his arm.  My sis­ter and her hus­band had dashed out to take him to the ER.  The next mes­sage informed me it had been a com­pound frac­ture.  As the night wore on, more of the story came out.  A neigh­bor had found him wan­der­ing in the street hold­ing his arm.  He was in shock.  She found his phone and called his par­ents.  More news came in too.  It was a mul­ti­ple com­pound frac­ture and will require sev­eral surg­eries start­ing this evening.  More tests were required.  A jaw frac­ture was feared.  And head injuries.  I didn’t hear more about those pos­si­bil­i­ties so I’m assum­ing they were ruled out.

Before the extent of the injuries had come out, I start­ing think­ing it would be nice to send him a lit­tle get-well gift.  I was think­ing some­thing edi­ble because what use does a 12-yo boy have for flowers?

Not sure where to begin, I Googled “send gift to patient in XX hos­pi­tal” and one of the first results was the hospital’s gift shop which hap­pened to remain open until 9pm.  They didn’t have any info about plac­ing phone orders but I thought I’d give it a try.  The young woman who answered the phone was so incred­i­bly won­der­ful and help­ful and friendly.  She walked me though their selec­tion of good­ies and bal­loons and mag­a­zines and helped me pick out some candy and a balloon.

Then she checked on the patient’s sta­tus — I wasn’t even sure where he’d been taken though I had assumed it was the hos­pi­tal just a few blocks away from their house; the hos­pi­tal where his dad works.  I was wrong.  There are two hos­pi­tals in the area and my nephew was in the children’s hos­pi­tal a block or two away from the hos­pi­tal I had called.  Since the children’s hos­pi­tal didn’t have a fully staffed gift shop, the store clerk took my order and offered to drop the gift order off after work.  Wow!

The order only came to $4 and change so I added a sec­ond bal­loon and a bag of salty snacks to go along with the candy.  I got a text shortly after 9 that his gift had arrived and had, at least momen­tar­ily, helped lift his mood.

All I can say is thank good­ness they have health insur­ance.  And bless the young woman who went above and beyond this evening.

Related posts:

1. Day 118: Groceries
2. Day 204: Groceries
3. Day 291: Movies, Gifts, & Groceries
4. Day 114: Gro­ceries Galore!
5. Day 294: Groceries