Headache-free and Happy Now!

About three months ago I started getting debilitating headaches daily. They would almost always hit in the afternoon, and they'd last a few hours at a time. Some days they made working (or any other activity) pretty unbearable. A few times they would last longer than a few hours and I'd just go straight to bed after work because I couldn't handle them. In the beginning I would take two Excedrin migraine, and that would help. As one month of this turned into two, however, the Excedrin stopped being effective. Some days I had to resort to Hydrocodone to bear the pain. It was a miserable feeling knowing that every single afternoon I was probably going to get a headache. A couple times I actually had to miss an important event or activity because of my horrible headaches.

I first thought it might have to do with staring at a computer screen for hours every day at work, but I was getting the headaches on the weekends too. I had heard before that some people would get headaches if they went a couple hours without caffeine because they had built up an "addiction" to it. I didn't think this applied to me, because I was drinking sodas constantly and doubted it was withdrawal. But, this did raise another possibilty - maybe my constant caffeine intake was causing the headaches. I had increased my Sonic visits over the past few months, either stopping for a drink before work or during lunch most every day. I decided it was worth a shot to give up caffeinated drinks to see what would happen. The first few days were typical - still headaches in the afternoon. I was taking Excedrin to alleviate them, before realizing that Excedrin has a pretty high level of caffeine also. I stopped doing that and switched to a pain reliever without caffeine. A couple more days went by and the headaches were still pretty bad. I think those days might've been me experiencing withdrawal. After about 9 days of this, I had a day without a headache. It was amazing!  I had forgotten what those days felt like.  And then, another day and another day. After 5 days in a row of no headaches, I almost cried from joy. I can't believe I suffered through months of  unnecessary pain, but I'm so thankful it was an "easy" fix. Now I strictly drink decaffeinated sodas, or water if none are available. It's kinda crazy to think about the harmful effects I was experiencing from something as "tame" as a diet soda. I'm just glad I figured this out and cured myself!

My (October), November, and December Selection

If you've read my blog in the past, you know that we typically pick a different organization to send a donation to each month.  It's fun to research charitable pursuits and find ones we really believe in.  In October I decided to change my approach, and I'm ready to share the details!  Instead of sending smaller monthly donations to a charity of our choosing, we are going to switch to a quarterly schedule.  My company has a wonderful matching gift policy, and the minimum donation amount is higher than what we've been sending to our monthly selections.  So, we will now pick one organization a quarter to support, and then submit proof of our donation to my company for matching.  This will help our donation go even farther.  It's silly not to take advantage of an opportunity like this!  If your company has a matching gift program, I strongly encourage you to participate, even if it means rearranging the timing of your donations so the amount meets the minimum necessary.  It's free money that goes to a good cause!

For the last quarter of 2009, we have chosen to support the North Texas Food Bank.  From their website, "The North Texas Food Bank (NTFB) is a nonprofit hunger relief organization that distributes donated, purchased and prepared foods through a network of feeding programs in 13 North Texas counties. The NTFB supports the nutritional needs of children, families and seniors through education, advocacy and strategic partnerships. Close the Gap is the NTFB’s 3-year initiative to unite the community to narrow the food gap by providing access to 50 million meals annually."  A dollar donated to the NTFB represents 4 meals.  Based on Charity Navigator's research, the NTFB only spends $.02 to raise each $1, so they utilize donations efficiently. They are very focused on ensuring the funds they raise support their mission.

There are other ways to support NTFB besides just donating money.  You can volunteer your time, donate food directly, or sponsor a canned food drive.  In just a few days, I'll be volunteering in the warehouse with my coworkers.  My company has graciously allowed us to take time off from work to help this worthy cause.  We'll be boxing and sorting food for distribution to the NTFB's 260 member agencies.  If you aren't available to participate in something like this, I encourage you to take part in a canned food drive.  There are numerous companies, hospitals, grocery stores, and schools holding them right now.  Take a moment to imagine what it would be like to be hungry, and then help put an end to that problem in someone else's life!  Have a great Thanksgiving.        

Just a Reminder

Life can change in an instant. Cherish the time you have with the ones you love. Don't put off something you've always wanted to do.  Take that trip, run that marathon, paint that picture. 

Various people around me have received unsettling news lately, and while I am very hopeful and positive they will overcome their setbacks, I am reminded to not take anything for granted.  This is your friendly reminder to do the same. :)

 

The Komen 3 Day

The Komen 3 Day Race took place in Dallas this past weekend.  I didn't participate as a racer, but I helped in other ways!  The race path passed in front of my sister Jo's house on Saturday, so we set up shop outside to cheer on the racers.  Jo had an awesome spread available to the racers - bowls of candy, beads, kleenexes, anti-bacterial soap, and lawn chairs for breaks.  We cheered, took pictures, shouted words of encouragement, and thanked the walkers for being a part of something great.  Livy even participated too - she zonked out after an hour of cheering, so she napped on Jo's 3 Day T-shirt blanket and provided smiles for the racers. 

On Sunday, the racers made their way through Downtown on the path to Fair Park where the race finished.  Kim, Jo, my mom, and I all volunteered at Pit Stop 4 with Komen employees.  We handed out buttons, cheered the racers, replenished water bottles, answered questions, distributed snacks, and helped tear down the Pit Stop after it was over.  At that point, the racers had just 2.9 miles left on their 60 mile journey.  Many were tired, but their spirits were strong.  It's so fun to be a part of something like that, because the vibe is just so positive.  Everyone is hopeful for a cure, and knows they're playing a part in making it happen.  The most interesting part to me is just how grateful all of the participants were to us.  I hope they realize just how thankful we are for what they were doing.  Maybe next year I can be a racer instead of a volunteer. 

Be The Match - I Hope I Am!

A couple months back I joined the National Marrow Donor Program Registry, now called the Be The Match Registry.  It is a registry of people willing to make a bone marrow transplant to patients with leukemia or other life-threatening diseases.  After undergoing chemotherapy and/or radiation, a patient needs healthy blood-forming cells from a donor who is a close genetic match.  According to the website, seventy percent of patients needing a transplant do not have a donor in their family who is a close enough match.  This is where the Be The Match Registry steps in. 

Upon joining the registry online, you are sent a kit for collecting a swab of cheek cells.  You ship that back and your information is added to their database. Doctors query this database to try and find a match for a patient in need.  If you are identified as a potential match, you are called and asked to give a blood sample for more testing.  At this point, you are probably one of several people being tested to find the best possible match.  The chance of you being selected from here is 1 in 12.

If you do happen to be a close enough match to the patient, you are asked to attend an information session to make sure you are comfortable with the process.  A physical exam is also given to make sure you are healthy enough for a donation.  If all is well, you can donate through either a bone marrow donation, or a PBSC donation.  You can find out more about those here.  The patient's doctor chooses the method that is best for the patient.

When all is said and done, you will have participated in a life-saving transplant.  Think about that.  You saved a life.  Imagine if that person with leukemia were your parent, your sibling, or your child.  Imagine if no one in your family was able to donate, and the only option available for saving your family member was finding an unrelated donor.  Think of the impact it would make if YOU could be that person for another family.  That's what prompted me to join the registry.

As it turns out, I received a call last week that I was a potential match for a 10 year old with leukemia.  I went in to a bloodcare center and had blood withdrawn to be sent off for further testing.  Embarrassingly enough, I fainted halfway through the extraction process (I had 4 of 7 tubes filled), and couldn't complete the sample.  But that won't faze me!  I'm going back next week to finish the job and then it's a waiting game to find out if I'm a match.  It could take as little as a week or as long as 60 days to find out.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  Yes, the process might be daunting and painful, but that pales in comparison to the reward.

Join the Registry and save a life.   

        

My October Selection

This post is a little late, but my selection this month is unconventional.  I originally didn't plan on doing an official selection for October or November because of a matching gift program my company has.  The minimum donation amount is a little high, so I was going to forego a couple of months of selections and just do a large one in December that my company would match.  I still plan on doing that, but a charitable opportunity presented itself this month that I still wanted to help with.

A friend's dad's house burned to the ground this month, and he is basically starting over.  He lost everything in the fire, and is staying in a hotel until his house can be rebuilt.  This is a great opportunity to do some "spring" cleaning and find things around our house that we're not using.  We decided to buy new couches this month, so we'll be donating our old ones to him.  Jer will also be going through his closet to see if there are any clothes he can pass on since those are more of an immediate need.  I told some friends in Austin about his predicament and they responded by sending me a huge box of items they wanted to donate.  (Thanks, guys!)  I'm sure he's got a long road ahead of him, but every little bit of help along the way might make it more bearable.

Tomorrow we're participating in the Dallas Komen Race for the Cure and I'm looking forward to it!  I'm glad we'll be able to show Kim a cause that's important to my family.  I hope to see you there too!

Hate Might be an Understatement

Consider this my personal diatribe against the company that has made my life hell over the past couple of years.  If you'd like my advice, don't use First American for your home warranty needs.  Oh, where to begin?  Let's start with some background.

We own five rental properties, so home warranties are a must.  They are theoretically additional insurance you buy to hedge against major repair costs.  You pay around $450 - $650/year depending on the options you want and the home's specifications, and then pay a nominal service call fee ($50 - $60) when a repair is needed.  Ideally, this is how it should work:

1) Tenant calls you to report that something is broken.
2) You call home warranty company and report the problem.
3) They dispatch a technician to examine the issue.
4) You pay only the service call fee and all the parts and labor are covered by your home warranty.
5) If they can't repair the item, it is replaced for free.

Just as with any other type of insurance, if you don't have any claims in a year, you feel like you wasted a lot of money.  But, it's that one big problem that might arise that you have to safeguard yourself against.

So here comes our story.  Two of our rental houses also have back houses.  They are similar to a mother-in-law's quarters or a guest house, etc, but they are detached completely from the main house and are self-sustaining.  As such, we rent those to different tenants than the front houses.  When we first called to set them up with First American, we informed them of this situation.  Their pricing levels are related to square footage, and even with the back houses, we fell under the max allowable for the first price level.  So everything was good.  One of the houses had central heat and air, so we added that "option" to the plan and as a result, incurred a higher premium for that one.  Still fine.  We cruise along for a while, turning in claims here and there whenever they arise.  A repetitive problem seems to be the pipes inbetween the front house and back house on one of the properties.  They keep getting backed up and we call the home warranty each time.  They fix it a few times, and then abruptly tell us they won't cover it anymore because the back house isn't covered under our plan.  This is news to us because we thought we had a policy on the property as a whole.  They inform us that this is not the case, so we inquire as to what we need to do to get the back house covered.  They are stumped.  They can't seem to figure out how to treat it.  Is it an apartment?  Is it a duplex?  Is it a separate house?  I'm not sure why this is so confusing to them, considering they've been in business for 25 years and have surely come across this situation before.  Each time we talk to them we get a different answer and the promise of a call back.  We never do get a call back, so we keep persisting from our end.  Many, many hours of phone calls later, we are assured that they have figured it out.  But, our yearly contracts renew in February 2009, so they tell us they can't start the additional coverage until then (It's November 2008 at this point).  So we are stuck without coverage for a few more months even though we weren't the ones causing the problem and informed them of the situation from day one. 

February 2009 rolls around and the monthly premiums are charged to our account.  Hmmmm, they are the exact same amounts as the previous month.  That wouldn't seem correct since they told us we needed "additional" coverage for the back houses.  We call in and they tell us the billing is a month behind, so we should start to see the correct premiums in March.  I was under the impression that you pre-pay insurance.  Doesn't make too much sense, but whatever.  March rolls around and the premiums are still the same.  Groan.  We call back in and they tell us that no one ever set up the additional coverage we requested.  "Did we happen to remember who we talked to?"  Yeah, we wrote down the names of all 18 people we've talked to in the last year.  Fat chance.  Even if we had, would it matter?  If I told you I talked to Laura, would that change the fact that she didn't set up service?  NO.  DO IT NOW.

Now we're in April 2009 and we're beginning the dance all over again.  No one knows how to set up coverage for us.  They'll call us back.  Even if we got it set up now, we'd have to wait until next February to start coverage.  Are you kidding me?  That's unacceptable.  After many, many more hours of phone calls, we finally get through to someone who can help us.  She sets up coverage for us, and tells us what our new premiums will be ($60/mth for one ENTIRE property, and $70/mth for the other ENTIRE property).  This seems reasonable since we were currently paying $40 and $47/mth for the two properties, and adding small back houses to each would add 50% to those costs, it stands to reason.  We demand that it start immediately and not in February 2010 since we've been trying to get this done SINCE NOVEMBER 2008.  They agree to that and we will FINALLY start coverage in September 2009.

You thought it was over?  Haha, not even close.  I check our account after the September charges hit and I see $109 and $125.  Whoa.  What happened there?  That's quite a bit different from the $60 and $70 we were quoted.  I try to think of possible reasons for it and my best guess is that it's somehow a prorated amount and our coverage actually started a little before the monthly billing date, so they had to charge us for days past and then the following month.  If that's the case, fine.  I assumed October we'd be back on track though.  I go ahead and call them just to make sure that's going to be the case.  You won't even believe what they told me.  Their explanation for the high charges is that we are required to pay the full year's premium for the back houses, since we wouldn't wait until February when the contract renews, to start the coverage.  So they are taking the additional premium for an entire year, as if we had coverage for all of 2009, and making us pay it over the last few months of the year.  So we'd be paying $109 and $125/mth for the rest of the year and THEN start $60 and $70/mth in 2010.  Are you kidding me?  I almost threw the phone when I heard that.  I said, "Let me get this straight.  We called last year to get this going and you made us wait until February.  February rolled around and you didn't do your job.  We tried to submit claims on the back houses and you denied them because you said we didn't have coverage.  Now you're telling me I have to pay for coverage after the fact for those months where I wasn't allowed to make claims."  Their response, "Yes.  That's our company policy."  Pardon my french, but that is effin ridiculous.  They're expecting me to pay for a home warranty that I wasn't allowed to use.  By this point, they are pretty aware of my frustration, so they try to offer a "solution."  They suggest that I cancel all the policies right then and then set them all up again to get a new contract start date.  That sounds like a beating, but I consider it.  Since I'd be canceling immediately, I should be given some sort of pro-rated refund from the huge amounts they have already charged me.  They tell me that's correct, so I ask them to verify exactly how much I'll be getting back.  This is basically my make or break point right here.  I have no faith in them handling this correctly and getting me a refund, so I am demanding a very specific answer before I proceed.  Their response, "Oh sorry.  That's another department and I don't think we'll be able to tell you exactly how much the refund will be."  Okay, that's it.  I'm done with them.  I ask how to cancel immediately and she gives me the information.  Then she says, "Okay, now would you like to start the setup process again?"  NOPE!  Good riddance.  I canceled with them and had service set up for the houses, with no hassle, with a different company within an hour.  They understood the property situation and have verified that we are covered correctly (and they were cheaper too!).  Thank you, American Home Shield!                                 

As if that ordeal wasn't enough, we also had two more nightmare situations with First American.  The A/C went out in the rent house in Lewisville in July.  Did I mention the tenants have a newborn?  So they were in a sweltering hot house IN TEXAS, IN THE MIDDLE OF JULY, WITH A BABY.  I called in the claim immediately and explicitly stated how much of an emergency it was.  Surely they prioritize their claims based on the details of the situation.  You'd think, right?  I submitted it on a Thursday afternoon, so I expected a call on Friday.  Mid-morning on Friday I call them because I haven't been contacted yet.  They tell me they don't have an "emergency" option for this because they're really backed up on A/C claims and they don't have enough contractual relationships with A/C repairman in the area.  They can't even assign one to me yet, but they assure me they'll call me back later.  Friday afternoon rolls around and I finally get a call from a repair company.  A technician can come out on Saturday from 12-5pm.  What??  The temperature in the house is 94 degrees and THEY HAVE A BABY.  That's not good enough.  We need something sooner.  I tell the company I'll be calling the home warranty back and demanding something immediately.  So I finally get through with them and they tell me there's absolutely nothing they can do for me.  They tell me I should just be happy with a 2 day response time.  So I call the company back and what do you know?  All their time slots are full for Saturday and now the earliest they can get to me is Monday.  I'm in tears by now.  I am not the type of landlord who ever thinks a renter should suffer through something like that.  I go ahead and reserve the Monday time, but vow to do something else.  I search the internet for A/C repair in Lewisville and the first one I call can be at the house on Saturday morning between 8am and 12pm.  Are you kidding me?  I found a company to do it in 2 minutes and the home warranty people couldn't?  It's a Friday night and I found a company with a less than 24 hour response time.  There's an obvious failure on First American's part to keep an adequate supply of technicians available for repairs.  So we end up paying the full cost of the repair ourselves (about $400) instead of making our renters suffer through a weekend in the hell house or be displaced.  Thanks, home warranty, for being worthless!  (The last scenario involved a garage door breaking.  It wouldn't open anymore, so we called the home warranty. We paid an extra premium for the "garage door opener" upgrade, but lo and behold, find out that this upgrade doesn't cover the spring on the garage door.  That's what was broken.  We were still required to pay the $50 service call fee for them to tell us they wouldn't cover it, and then the $190 to get it fixed.  Thanks, home warranty, for being worthless!)  Now you can see why we canceled with them.