As I mentioned in the previous post towards the end of November Bill started having severe pains in his lower back. We originally thought that it was a strain as he had just hoisted an 8 foot tree onto a vehicle roof for a customer. He started taking over the counter pain meds and gradually progressed to my hydrocodone. He woke up in terrible pain around 5am and asked for more pills. I put my foot down and said he was going to the ER as he is just NOT a pill taker normally. We got there and they pretty much knew what was going on but did an MRI on him anyway. The ER doctor showed me the MRI pictures and his kidney stone was 7.4mm wide which is quite large according to her. They then came in the room and were attempting to admit him to the hospital until the stone passed until we drew the line -- thank God that we did as we received the bills and they totalled up to $7000 and that's for FOUR hours in the ER. The worst part of the entire equation is that if we would have taken the insurance offered by Prime we still we would have had NOT ONE CENT of the bill paid for by insurance as it would have cost us $700 per month with a $9000 deductible! So for 2010 we would be out even more cash for the premiums to the tune of $2800. And Republicans are saying we don't need health reform? Argghhh...give me their health insurance then as they sure seem to get inexpensive and awesome coverage!
Bill had to leave Phoenix on January 2nd to head to New York State for work. We got that message the second week in December as well as the message that he was supposed to be in Georgia on the 15th of December for a 5 hour meeting --- huh? After pricing out plane tickets to Atlanta, the price of a rental car and overnight in a hotel it would have cost us about $1000 to send him to that 5 hour meeting. Everything would have cost more as it was the week before Christmas. Fortunately his supervisors agreed and talked to the owner and said he did not have to be there. Good thing for us as his plane ticket in January ended up costing $330 not to mention his half of the hotel and meals. But seeing as he is on salary they want to keep him working as he is getting paid. Bill was not happy at all to go back to snow and cold and more snow. The company then wanted him to train at Family Dollar stores in Alabama so they flew him to Atlanta on January 22 and his boss picked him up and took him to Enterprise Alabama.
After thankfully leaving Casa Grande in early January, I, along with friends Michelle and Junior, headed over to Quartzsite Arizona as we needed to finally have a supplementary braking system put in as it is called for in some states and if we had an accident without one the insurance might not be liable to pay for anything.
Quartzsite would have been ideal.....winter in the desert on BLM land just relaxing. But of course our streak of bad luck followed me. If it was not something in the rig going wrong like something in the steering column breaking so I could not move it out of park --and in front of the gas pumps no less-- it was something going wrong money wise like a entire box of mail with checks in it failing to arrive in Casa Grande.
We left Casa Grande to head to Alabama to meet Bill on January 22 as we were making a small detour to Austin Texas to see Michelle's mom. The entire trip the rig had to be put into park from underneath in order for me to start it up and then put into drive from underneath as well. Poor Junior got his clothes quite dirty on this trip.
Driving the rig almost 2000 was definitely a challenge, especially in El Paso and Houston but I am glad that I did it. Now I know that I can do everything "normal" on the rig and even the problems that crop up that are not so "normal".
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