Talking to mom on the phone and she is telling about seeing on the news people in her area ~ going down the street in row boats. She is up by where Theresa and Paula are. Hoping they are ok.

That hurricane missed Houston. I am thankful, I was kind of nervous about that ~ not having had that experience before. I am glad it missed us and at the same time feeling badly for the people who it has affected.

Just passing by quick ~ getting ready for work. I did an online application for another job. Don't know if I stand a chance at all, but figure you don't know if you don't try.

Hope you all are doing well.

Take care

Hi ladies.
just been real busy. So sorry I have not been on. You know how life can be...

Any way....Lyn/Lynn
I did not think to ask which one Sorry. I was sooo surprised to pick up my phone and hear your voice. Such a sweet voice too.

Thanks for calling to see If I am ok.
I am doing fine.
the flooding was about 40-50 miles south of us. In fact It would be so hard for my house to be under the water like that. I live less than a quarter of a mile from Lake Erie. The lake would have to flood for use to be under the water. We just had Back yard flooding.

Any way... I would be worried more about Paula...

Paula, Hope your are doing ok... Saw lots of flooding down your way.
be safe. Everyone. to much flooding lately.

I made it to Curves 2 days!! Aren't you proud of me...
I will get there friday again. and Keep doing that for a week before I add my work outs at home.

well I am in the middle of some house work. I hope to get on longer in the morning.

Hi Theresa,

I spoke with Paula after I spoke with you. She is OK also - she's just been having problems with her new computer.

VERY glad you are safe.

Congratulations on 155!!!!

Lynn

fyi

All Things Considered, August 22, 2007 · When Medicare sneezes, hospitals do more than just catch a cold. The federal program pays about 40 percent of the nation's annual hospital bill.

But starting in October 2008, Medicare will stop paying hospitals for infections or injuries that occur in the hospital. Under new rules published Wednesday, Medicare will soon stop payment for at least eight conditions, including common hospital-acquired infections, blatant surgical errors, and injuries that result from a fall.

Medicare's Herb Kuhn says that Medicare specifically chose conditions that hospitals can prevent. He hopes the financial disincentives will force hospitals to change the way they do business. The hospitals are forbidden from passing the additional costs on to patients.

"Over the last few years, I don't think hospitals can assert anymore that they deliver high-quality care. They need to demonstrate it," Kuhn says.

But the hospital industry has doubts about the new rules.

"The concept of a payment policy that supports quality and safety is something that we support," says Nancy Foster, who handles quality and patient safety issues for the American Hospital Association. "Whether this particular policy is the most effective way of altering payment to help induce a higher-quality care is a question that I think we need to ask."

One problem, Foster says, is that hospitals don't know how to prevent certain things — like falls.

"People may wake up in the middle of the night, need to use the restroom, not remember that the nurse instructed them to call for help first — or think they were OK, go to stand up and find out that the surgery they had has weakened them so that they are unable to support their own weight and fall to the floor and be injured," Foster explains. "No one wants that to happen. We just don't have a perfect strategy to prevent it."

Foster also says that it may be hard to implement the rules. For example, starting in October, hospitals will have to check for certain infections in every Medicare patient coming into the hospital. That's the only way to know whether those infections started in the hospital. But Foster says getting that information from a patient being admitted through the emergency room might not be appropriate:

"They're in a great deal of pain, struggling to get their breath. They're scared because it's a life-threatening condition. Is that the right time to focus on determining whether they have a urinary tract infection?"

Lucien Leape of the Harvard School of Public Health, thinks that the changes are long overdue. Leape is one of the top experts in patient safety and an author of the 1999 report from the Institute of Medicine that documented the depth of the medical-error problem.

Back then, Leape says, "We really didn't know much specifically about what we should do. It was, 'Hospitals ought to do something.' But it wasn't quite clear what it was."

Today, he says, dozens of safe practices have been developed to prevent such errors. But he says there hasn't been enough of a push for hospitals to put them into use.

"I think it's fair to say that progress in patient safety up to now has relied on altruism. It's been largely accomplished by good people trying to do the right thing," Leape says. "And what we're saying is that hasn't gotten us far enough, and now we'll go to what really moves things in our society, which is money."

And it's not just Medicare. If the new program proves successful, private insurance companies are also likely to start refusing to pay for medical mistakes.

Lynn

Good morning Golden Girls,
I hope everyone is safe from all the flooding that has been going on in the US. We have been very fortunate here in Michigan to have escaped the worst of it. We've had around three inches of rain the past few days but very little flooding. It rained pretty hard for a couple of hours this morning just at the time I normally take my walk. Soooooo, I just rolled over and decided to sleep for a while longer. It's so soothing to lie in bed and hear the rain on the roof......

Lynn - that's interesting information about Medicare. It sounds good in theory but I wonder how the actual implementation will go.

Theresa - Glad you're safe - Findlay is only about 100 miles south of us and the pictures I saw on television were very scary.

Gayle - Good luck on the job application - you're right, you don't know if you don't try.

Coastal Sue - Welcome to the group - everyone here is VERY supportive and friendly.

Lyn - Wonderful pictures! Looks as though you had a great time.

To everyone else - Wish I had more time to write everyone individually - maybe next time.....

Oh, need to tell you all that when I stepped on the scale this morning, it said 165.9. Doing the happy dance,

Take care all - talk later,
Heidi

Heidi, woooohoooo.....congrats!

Lyn, wonderful photos.....I could have never done the bridge....your a brave lady.

Lynn, how nice that you called and checked on our GG.....your a very thoughtful woman you know that! I know they appreciated the calls.

Gayle, you will find the job meant for you.....good luck.

Hi to everyone, I've got to get busy.....

Phyllis

O.K. Lynn, you set me off. Sorry I haven't been keeping up with the chats. God Bless you Lynn, I'm certainly not mad at you. But as you all know I had a colonoscopy last March, had my cholesteral test done a week prior to that and racked up a huge bill. Since I have to have my cholesteral checked once a year to get my meds, and the doctor has urged me for years to get a colonoscopy, I went for it. The Cholesterol test ran around $400.00 and the colonoscopy was $2,230.57. Our insurance didn't pay dittly squat, (don't think I spelled that right) This was the figure we ended up paying, over $2600 dollars. I just now finished paying for it all, wrote my doctor a very nice letter but urged him to look into the high cost of these services and people that are trying to live on social security. Maybe they should start dicussing the cost of these services before we elect to do them. I would never have had a colonoscopy if I'd know it was going to cost us out of pocket $2,230.57. Gosh, I sure do feel bitc*y today after writing out all those checks. Maybe I'll move to Russian where all the medical bills are paid for by the government. HaHa, just kidding!
Bobbi

I'd be pissed too...over 2700 dollars for 2 necessary tests?!! We'd better get universal health coverage soon. the US is SOOOOO behind the times.

Glas all is well, Bobbi

Lyn

Just a quick fly-by . . . . . . the day was gorgeous, but I spent too much of it at the Dentist and then too much more of it feeling kind of yucky.

Oh boy, Bobbi . . . what a horrid shock. Our socialized medical system in Canada definitely has it's problems (lots and lots of problems) but at least those big out-of-pocket surprise expenses aren't among them.

See you tomorrow, gang . . .

RE Falls in Hospitals...

this is long...
20 years ago I was going in for my 3rd C-section. A friend who is a nurse told me to eat nothing but yogurt for a day or so before the surgury and I would not have any of those horrid gas pains after the surgury..

She was right..worked like a charm. The down side was that in those days they pretty much forced you to use the bathroom before you could go home. I was on clear liquids for a couple of days and basically nothing solid had been in my tummy for days...I didn't have to go!! So they give me a some kind of "go" pills...then my stomach blew up like a painful balloon, but I still had nothing there to "go" with. So the next day, they come in and say "since you haven't gone yet, we have to do an enema". I was mad and told them there was nothing in there to go with and I was fine before they tried to kill me with the pills. So they come in in the middle of the night and it's enema time...soapy water no less. Of course as soon as the water went in, I had to go. The enema lady then spilled the soapy water that was in the pan onto the floor and I promptly fell down in it trying to get out of the bed and to the bathroom...a couple of days after having a section. They finally got me up and helped me to the bathroom and I "went"..nothing but soapy water. I called them all into the bathroom and said "See, I TOLD you so!!!" I hated them all.

Well, long and busy day at work today, then a long commute home. I’m making soup for supper, which I HOPE will translate into no more than 5 WW points, but it’s hard to tell because the AMOUNTS listed for nutritional values are probably more than I’ll get in a single serving, but who knows? I think I’m just going to go ahead and eat it, because even if the POINTS are slightly over, the calories are very slight, so if I can’t win one way, I’ll win another way! Well, of course, I do have those 35 SPARE points for the week - haven’t had to use any yet, and I’m not actually saving them for anything, so if I go a little over, it should be okay, I’m thinking. I’m using the leftover roast beef that I froze after we had it Monday night - cut it all up into cubes before I froze it, and adding it to a bottle of V-8 vegetable juice, a can of diced tomatoes, celery, carrots, onions, brown rice and black-eyed peas. I weighed some of the beef cubes on my new food scale, and 3 oz, which = 3 pts, is actually quite a lot, so I may not even have 3 oz. of meat. I’d really like to have a piece of lavash bread with my soup (100 calories and 2 PTS) but I’m not sure I’m feeling THAT brave (to add on two more points, I mean...I’ve already had 14 today).

The weather so far this week has been chilly and cloudy - very overcast, but no rain unless it’s rained at night while we’re sleeping. It’s just generally gray out there. Tomorrow they’re predicting that it may go up to 90, and that we’ll have a very hot weekend. Oh, joy!
Well, good luck, Gayle, on the application you filled out. If it’s the right job for you, then you’ll get it. Whatever job you end up with, just make sure you grill THEM and know what you’re getting yourself into, eh?
Hey, T - glad you’re back with us. Are you still working at the nursing home or did you take the other job? I’ve been getting so fed up with mine, but then I think about the bills and how bare-bones we’d be living if we had to do it just on DH’s salary, and I guess I’m glad to have it, you know? But I WILL enjoy retirement when I get to it, and that’s the truth! (And YES! I AM proud of you for your Curves triumphs!)
Well, Lynn, that was quite a thought-provoking article. I am not a big fan of our health care system. I’m of the opinion that we are grossly overpaying - or our insurance companies are, at any rate, and there’s absolutely no guarantee of receiving quality care. Nurses, for the most part, have far too much responsibility in terms of numbers of patients they’re assigned, and as a result, many of them do not provide good care. I can be very understanding of their being unable to respond immediately to a patient’s call because they’re busy with another patient, but I DO have to say that it aggravated me tremendously when I went to the nurse’s station searching out a nurse (this recently when my daughter was in the hospital following her hysterectomy) and found her nurse sitting there reading a magazine while the light for my daughter’s room was blinking right at her! On another occasion, several nurses were too busy calling in their pizza order to respond to a whole cadre of blinking room lights. Now I would never generalize and suggest that ALL nurses do such things, because over the years I’ve encountered some really wonderful and caring nurses - but I’ve also encountered terrible ones. This of course, is true of every profession - that there are good and bad to be found - but there are SOME fields, like medicine and education, where SO MUCH DAMAGE can be done by people for whom their work is “just a paycheck”. And when it comes to doctors - and HMO’s, and getting paid NOT to order expensive tests - well, I guess I could just go on all night here, so I really need to stop. Bobbi, I don’t think I would’ve even PAID that freaking bill!!!! Oh, they make me so mad! And as far as paying for their MISTAKES or their negligence...LOL, I’m going to be quiet now.
Congrats on the pounds lost, Heidi - I sure hope I’m following in your footsteps when I weigh in this Saturday. The “moment of truth” draws near...
Hi, Phyl....feel better soon, friend!
Hiya Lyn & Meowee-Linda! (Lyn? The answer is yes... )
Oh, Cat! You should own that danged hospital!
Well, gotta stir my soup...have a great evening, all you Golden Girlies!

TTFN,

Z

Hello everyone.

No FLY BYS TONIGHT!
I am home and refuse to leave for anything short of an emergency. It is just to hot and humid to leave these wonderfully cooled premises I call my humble abode. I will get some work done tonight. (After I get done here.)

I have been doing my calories on the Downloaded version of Fitday for a while now. I just love it.
No worries when phone lines go wonky. So If anyone wonders why you can’t see my fit day… Now you know.
I am still averaging about 14-1600 calories. Although this week I am trying to keep it on the lower end. Need to kick things up…My weight stalled a little since I had not been to Curves for 3 weeks. Well I am back, With much care on how gentle I do my work outs. and Will be doing at Least 3-4 days a week for a while. Plus walking at home.

Zoe,
Cool- gray… wow what country are your in?
Its coming your way… the heat. Hoping the rain has worn itself out.

Yes,
I am still at the home… For now. I have asked for more than 10 hrs a week… and was told only if I work a split shift. Then it would be a whole 20 hrs!
With the cost of gas, my hubby said Not! I am waiting for the lady at The grocery store to get back from vacation, Monday. I will call and tell her I put my app in…
Who knows in a few weeks I could be working in the deli. There are not many options around here. And I flat out can’t think about getting in another factory job.
Not that many of them are here anymore. All of them went out of the country.

Linda,
I am so glad your weather is more to your liking. and I am glad the kittens are behaving.

Karen,
I agree, most of the time I hate shopping for cloths too. Maybe after we reach our goals it will be more fun? I sure hope so.

Are you taking the job at walmart? We are getting one here in our town. Still don’t know when. Sometime this coming spring I guess. We need the jobs here. as every factory in town has left. My little fishing town is just a tourist town now. but it’s still a beauty.

Lyn,
Thanks for sharing the pics. someone is a good photographer. I would have never had the courage to walk that air sidewalk. Oh, I would have wet my panties! I have a fear of heights.
You did look like you were having a blast.
Oh, I have been shopping at good will my whole life. And no shame for it. In my town there are a lot of very well off people, And we love buying their “junk” for just a little $$$

LindaD
no suggestions on the goodie cabinet. I would ask him to get some Rubbermaid tubs, and keep it completely out of your vision. Out of site- out of mind. (I hope).
I will have you in my thoughts with your job. Its getting rough to keep a job now days. and Rougher to find a good one with out going out of your own area. Good luck.

Bobby,
So glad you live in a spot with out the flooding. Its been a rough enough year for you.
I am praying that things get easier for you. Its about time.

Glynne
I am safe.
As I said to the others… I live just a few hundred feet from Lake Erie. Would have to flood the whole lake before we were in trouble. Where about is your mom in Ohio? I hope she was not in the floods.
Good luck with the job hunting. Hope you find your dream job.

Well, I really need to get up and do some work around here. I usually leave most of it till evening, When hubby is at work. Don’t want to wake him in the morning… He gets in bed about 4 am.

everyone be safe and have a good week end , If I don’t see you back here for a few.

hugs

well Lily
here is wishing you HAPPY BIRTHDAY.
AND many more to come.

Yes, this is early... I just probably won't be on in the morning.
hugs and best wishes

Howdy,

I must join the posting about the stress of expensive but limited health insurance, with my Dh soon to turn 65 our medical premium will be close to $400.00 a month more, Some times it is so tiring living on such a strict budget. Selling our home and moving to a less expensive area is something we keep fighting. The movie Sicko really hit me. We need some changes in getting medical services to our citizens. Anyway that is enough and thank for letting me vent.

Have read some posting about folks looking for work-I also would love to work part time-trying to figure out what computor classes I could take on line-like quickbooks or other bookkeeping systems. Otherwise the other jobs here are cleaning vacation homes, B&B maids, or waiting tables. -couldn't last a day doing that anymore. Anyway good luck to you job seekers.

With company last week and more arriving tomarrow, I have lost some weight-about 1 1/2 lbs. This is good for me as usually once I have some wine, company and snacks about- I will start to over eat. I been swimmming for 50 minutes a day and tomarrow will the be the 4th time this week. I think it is that has been the big help.

Linda-I also could not have resisted your sons sweet treats. I am must keep my entire house free of all sugary processed foods. Ice cream regardless of carton size as never made overnight in my kitchen-it is just one bite after another during the evening-until it was gone. Hope you can find way to solve this short of leaving the house/room when he unpacks his groceries.good luck

fair weather and good health to all
sue