michellephilippi.com

Surprise surprise, I have come out of hiding.  I just finished photographing a project that I will be posting the week after next, but thought I’d catch you all up first.  It’s been a crazy year, people.  Crazy.

I got in to a car accident in March – right after dropping the kids off at school.  Traffic was stopped, and I nailed the lady in front of me.  Totaled my van, broke ribs, broke thumb, injured back, etc.  So there was that, and recovery, and court, and getting a new van, all that good stuff.

Then we decided that it was time to move my mom in with us.  She had some heart trouble last year, she’s 66 now, and we figured it’d be better to plan for it now rather than be reactive later.  So we built a new house – double the size of our old house, and I have my very own craft room – heh.  The new house is less than 2 miles from the old house, so no real changes – same schools, same church, same grocery stores, etc.

While all this busyness was going on, I entered in to the bariatric weight-loss program at one of the local hospitals.  I had been battling my weight and losing and gaining for over 30 years and decided it was time.  I did all the tests and procedures to get insurance to cover the surgery, and had a vertical sleeve gastrectomy on June 8.  The surgeon removed 75% of my stomach.  That’s a lot – LOL.  Recovery was longer than expected, I had to be on oxygen for a month and off work I think 3 weeks longer than expected.  It was not as easy as I thought it would be.  But I’m so happy I did it.  As of this writing I am down 63 pounds.  I eat a lot less (get full quickly), eat a lot better, and work out 6 days a week. S o that’s big.
Just as things were getting back to normal, I noticed that my insurance company hadn’t paid the surgery at 100% as they had said they would.  They told the surgeon’s office they would (twice), and I have the approval letters.  But no.  They said my plan only allows for $5000 of bariatric coverage.  And now I’m on the hook for $40,000.  HOLY SHIT, people.  I do not have $40K just sitting in the bank to write a check for that.  So there’s a little stress going on in these parts right now and I’ve been reaching out to various hospital people to see who or what can help me.  Yeah.

The aforementioned financial stress aside, we are all healthy and happy.  My girl is in 7th grade this year, and back in soccer so we have that every Saturday.  My boy is a freshman in high school and is in the marching band so we’re at the football games every Friday night for that.

My craft room is not put together yet – and it’s not going to be anything fancy or glamorous or cool, so don’t ask for pictures, ha!  But it’s a room all to myself to craft and wrap and blog.  And today I made a quick project in what space I had on my craft table (desk is being painted so I am limited on space right now) that I will share soon.

So that’s me.
Talk soon!