Our help desk department is usually... special. They out did themselves today, however. In "fixing" a problem, they wiped out all the email (ALL the email!) from sometime Friday afternoon until 3PM today. It us apparently unrecoverable >:/


Now I'm trying to remember what all I had come in, which items were critical and how to go about re-obtaining and/or recreating all that information. Splendid.

Well, I didn't really sleep last night so much as take a nap and then hit the stores. There were some things I really, really needed and the sales were good enough to make me suck it up and go to actually shop instead of just point-and-laugh while people watching. 

( Nattering on about shopping at the Maul )

( And the craziest store? Menards, of all places... )

Once home, the window installation guy was here and he went about replacing the last three of the windows in the house that do not have insulated shades. As usual, he was wonderful, friendly, and efficient - if you need new windows, I have the guy for you! I think I already feel the difference in my bedroom. :) It's an expensive upgrade, but I think worthwhile in comfort and dollars. I wanted to install the programmable thermostat, but found I did not have the right tools and I think I want to have someone clueful supervise since there seem to be too many wires in the old thermostat. Besides, it obviously has mercury in it and so I need to figure out how/where to dispose of it anyway.

The rest of the day has been laziness and napping, but I should do something productive soon... maybe I'll tackle the dryer and some of the simpler home improvement projects and/or sewing I have planned. Or maybe I'll take a bath. :P

Yoiks, it has been a week! First the work whine, then I'll do a 35th Anniversary recap.

On May 1, Care Wisconsin took over the care responsibilities for about 400 developmentally disabled and physically disabled patients. Unfortunately, we did not acquire all of their staff, so while the parking lot and building are suddenly bursting at the seams, everyone is a little stressed about the additional workload. The biggest issues with the pharmacy transition were systems related and reasonably quickly resolved. I still have some eligibility/Low Income Status questions to look into on Monday, but that took until Friday night for IS and the Pharmacy Benefits Manager to get me the data I needed, so I would not have been able to fix it until then anyway. Most of the rest of my frustrations have been reasonably simple requests for prior authorizations, questions about the new process at the new site, and training the new NPs (we're only getting 2 of the 6 that had previously followed these patients) on the new formulary and drug ordering process. I ended up working a fair bit extra this week - including on Thursday, my usual day off and pre-event panic day. :P Generally I didn't mind, but the extra stress on Friday was less than welcome.

The most obnoxious interaction I had came, of course, right at the end of the day on Friday as I was desperately trying to leave to finish prep for the 35th Anniversary event - I still had set-up, guest-prep, sewing, and some packing to do. On Thursday, May 1, one of the new NPs asked me about a PA she had requested on Wednesday, April 30, the last day of the old program. I called and verified that the PA was active under the new program and, indeed, since the patient is terminal and should not have to have his narcotics delayed during any end-of-life crisis, extended the PA for the next six months. Friday, May 2, the same NP came back to me saying that the pharmacy still could not process the script. I called and spoke with the (really rather rude) pharmacy billing wonk. We went a few rounds where I reassured her that the PA was entered, that it had been entered and valid since 4/30, and that it should be currently available. However, she kept talking in circles, looking for confirmation that the drug would be paid for (WTF? I just said you had an active PA), that she wanted to hear this from someone in charge (Umm... remember that part when you asked for my job title and I gave it as Pharmacy Services Manager? ...as I did all three times you asked?), that she wanted me to tell her what billing codes to enter into her software (Hmm - do I look like one of your IT guys?), and clearly not understanding relatively basic English words (you don't know the meaning of "extant"? really? Gods help us). Eventually, it came out that she had no clue as to what she was entering wrong so that HER computer system was giving her an error, the IT the guys were already gone for the weekend and she expected me to walk her through it. Uh, no. Sorry, I do not know your computer system and I cannot troubleshoot your software (which I have never seen or used) for you, especially when you cannot provide me with basic information about it. Ugh. Finally, I gave up and told her I would have the Pharmacy Benefits Manager contact her directly to see if they knew anything about her technical issues - they deal with many different pharmacies and I was hoping they might know something about their software. So, I called the PBM and - here's the kicker - that pharmacy had not even attempted to file a claim for that patient since April 30, before the PA was entered. Gack! The stoopidity is astounding. Eventually, we worked out an interim solution and I'll probably have to talk to someone with a clue there on Monday to send a retroactive claim.

So, the week ended in stress (everyone's) and tears (not mine, but more than one of the admin-types) and I'm not entirely looking forward to tomorrow morning. :P

Awhile ago I bought this, in large part because I noticed the labeling on the bottle. I just had to share.



OK... so knock off "energy shot." Great.

And here are the warnings:

This product contains caffeine. Do not use if pregnant or nursing. Do not put into eyes. Keep out of reach of children.

Great. Duh. What?!?

I know people do stoopid things but, really? In your eyes? Yoiks.

Please bear with me, this is a longish post... It has been a busy and difficult week with no posts, so now I have a bucket of little tidbits saved up that have been simmering for a few days - some brain stew, if you will. I likely will have one or two significant posts on specific topics in the coming days, but to get the little stuff out:


Linen
The first batch of linen came in. The good news? It will be $4/yard. The bad news? It is significantly lighter weight than the previous batches from this seller. I have some linen from other sources just arrived or enroute (from jtdiii and other dealers) so I should be able to fill all the orders for light-medium weight black linen, but I now have some excess 55" wide black handkerchief weight (~3.5 oz) linen for sale. I have about 60 yards, $4 a yard while it lasts - comment or email.  The gold linen is also in and cut, so orders for white, black, gold, and brocade linens will all be available for pickup at Coronation.


Birdies
Tweet and Derelei have pretty obviously decided to be a bonded pair and she has been making nesting-type gestures for a bit now, so I bought her a nesting box. However, this as brought issues with Astrid to a head - the boys were willing to accept the box as Tweet's and only Tweet's. They quickly clued in that they should not mess with it beyond the occasional nibble on a corner. Astrid is naughtier though. She was all interested in the box and, even after some pretty solid smack downs, insisted on messing with it. Nevermind that before this time she showed no interest in nesting and, even if she were interested, her potential partner options are... erm... poor. I lurves the boys, but they are somewhat lovably defective. I'm not even sure that they are clear that she's a girl. I eventually had to separate them so poor Astrid is spending some time in "birdie jail" - a smaller cage I keep for such eventualities. I'll give them a few days to cool down and then see if giving Astrid a box too will solve the problem. Keep your fingers crossed for me...


Work
Gods, work is eating my brainz. It is public enough now I can explain. Care Wisconsin is part of the Wisconsin Partnership Program (WPP) that serves at-risk populations of special needs patients. Care Wisconsin's population is almost 700 frail elderly patients. One of our sister WPP organizations, Community Living Alliance (CLA), serves Developmentally Disabled (DD) and Physically Disabled (PD)  populations. For a variety of reasons, they will be transferring all their Partnership patients to us as of May 1. That is nearly 400 extremely complicated patients suddenly joining our plan all at once, for a total census of 1,100 patients for whom I am responsible. Yoiks. This also means that since the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services won't let the get rolled into our existing formulary, I have to maintain and report on two separate programs through the end of the year (read: gigantic headache). Plus, the Nurse Practitioners at CLA are not used to our model of practice, so there will be a huge amount of adjustment and hand-holding in the coming months as the new staff and patients are integrated. I will have some pharmacy help for the month of May and we are looking to hire someone ASAP, but with the pharmacist market being what it is, I'm not very hopeful. We have a great work environment, great benefits, and we are doing good work. However, it is hard work and the compensation is below average, even for Madison, so it is hard to attract people away from the "big guys" like the UW and Walgreens. Throw in the added fun of developing the 2009 formulary and my days are packed and often long.


Sewing
I am so inspired by the books I have been reading, the files I have been obtaining from museums, and the lectures I went to in Milwaukee. Now I just need 20 yards of a scrumptious white and gold brocade, 100 yards of matching narrow trim, 40 yards of matching wide trim, 15 yards of a scrumptious velvet, 50 yards of compatible trim, 500 pearls, 1000 free hours to work on it and a budget of $4000 to appropriately accessorize. :P The late period stuff is so pretty, but SO expensive. (Note to all y'all beginning sewers - more expensive to do it right, not actually and harder, however.) At least I have a giant stash of pearls... Anyway, dread_ex, ladyroisin, relativelylucid, casslee, corvusjoyous and likely others will hopefully benefit from my recent studies as they have clarified how to correct some issues I've seen in dresses and how to go about correctly drafting others... Now just to find at least some of that time and motivation...


Library Woes
Some of you heard me complaining last week that I needed to return one of the books in my "permanent collection" - books hardly anyone else ever needs or uses and so live on my bookshelf where I can refer to them at my leisure, as I use them regularly. (whymc refers to his as his "remote library storage facility" so I'm not the only one...) However, I have not been good about checking my UW email this semester and, to my horror, I discovered last week that not only did some wretched little undergrad RECALL my book, but I was a miserable library patron and it was now overdue. Now this did not present a financial problem - the UW does not charge overdue fines - it DID however pose a problem for using ILL (Inter Library Loan) services, which were the reason I was logging in at all. Blast and Damn. So, I swiftly returned the book so I could have my ILL rights reinstated.

Tonight, I discovered that the wretched little undergrad who recalled the book was none other than
jinglymushroom... who was recalling it forilaifire. ;P At least I know the boy is using good sources.


May Day/Jararvellir's 35th Anniversary
Jara's Anniversary event (May 3) is coming up quite rapidly. The theme this year is an educational symposium. While there are a fair number of classes already on the schedule, we could use more. Please contact me if you would be willing to teach! My "One Kingdom" track only has one opening left, but there are many throughout the day. Also, Jara folk in particular - get in your Baronial and AoA recommendations ASAP so I can start plotting to give people what they des... errr... to reward people appropriately. ;)


Quest
I am planning on attending Quest this year and just bought the airline ticket, so I am pretty firmly committed. (It falls in May when I will be having back-up at work, so by god I'm going...) Since I don't get out to that end of the Kingdom terribly often, I am thinking about offering a class or two. Last time I was out there (Crown Tourney, Fall 2007) I offered both Research and the Pictish Tunic classes. Both of those classes had only about a half dozen students each, so it probably would be OK to do either or both of them again, but I have many others in the repertoir, including Pictish history, Whipcording, 10 sewing tips in 5 minutes or less apiece, dyeing, misc sewing and embroidery techniques, autocratting, waterbearing,  rapier armor/garb, beginning illumination, surviving War, building a period/periodiod kit, etc. plus others that could be developed based on interests/needs. The dyeing and C&I ones would be harder to transport materials for and/or teach in uncertain outdoors conditions, but the rest are do-able. Any of you folks with more of a grasp on the interests and needs of the West end of the Kingdom want to chime in on what I should offer to teach (either from the list or as a wish-list?)? Conversely, anyone who has been to Quest, could you tell me what you most recommend about the event?


Yay! That's all for now! Watch tomorrow for either a report on inspirational research or a session on pharmaceutical education, depending on time and my whim. Maybe you'll be "lucky" and get both.

Gah. The gods hate us. Yesterday, I was able just to wear a light spring jacket. Today it is stoopid with cold and snow again. It's just wrong! I want the spring I was promised! *pout*

Thanks to damej for tipping me off to this article, published two weeks ago in JAMA and exerpted below.



*************************************************************************

Commercial Features of Placebo and Therapeutic Efficacy

"It is possible that the therapeutic efficacy of medications is affected by commercial features such as lower prices... Each participant was informed by brochure about a (purported) new opioid analgesic approved by the Food and Drug Administration; it was described as similar to codeine with faster onset time, but it was actually a placebo pill. After randomization, half of the participants were informed that the drug had a regular price of $2.50 per pill and half that the price had been discounted to $0.10 per pill... In the regular-price group, 85.4% (95% confidence interval [CI], 74.6%-96.2%) of the participants experienced a mean pain reduction after taking the pill, vs 61.0% (95% CI, 46.1%-75.9%) in the low-price (discounted) group (P = .02)."(emphasis and colors added – jsh) JAMA. 2008;299(9):1016-1017.

*************************************************************************

*snerk* Would you like a regular or extra-strength placebo?

Crapcrapcrapcrapcrap - and miscellaneous other dirty words.

Work just hugely exploded. I don't know how much I can say and about what, but my life just got significantly more complicated.

This is so not fair for a Monday morning.

I just got a call from Bill Clinton's handlers wanting to know if we could come down and remove the archery equipment locker at the Stock Pavilion. The reason? They are prettying up the SP for this afternoon's speech and it is in the sightline of the cameras. WTF! The speech is being held on a floor that is probably still 25% manure by weight and the seats/pillars have not been painted in living memory... and they are worried about some Rubbermaid showing?

I convinced them to drape a banner over it and call it good. :P

Warning: Deeply bitch post.

I wanted some dry ice to make spooky drinks for a Mad Scientist party. Not hard, right?    Wrong.

I called around a few weeks ago to find that none of the places that sell it are open on Saturday. OK, no problem, just buy a large chunk and keep it in the cooler.

This afternoon, I called and verified the opening hours of the local distributer, Continental Carbonic, and was told they would be open until 4PM. Therefore, to ensure I was not pestering them at the last possible moment, I skipped my lunch, left work early, and got there around 3:25. But... the door was locked. I knocked and waited and knocked again. I then called and got a recording. I had seen some trucks parked out back, so I tried the back entrance. Yup - two semis sitting there running, back door locked and no one to be seen. I called again and this time a guy answered, saying he was out on a run and would be back in 10 minutes. I said "Fantastic, I'll be waiting out front in a..." and he hung up on me. Huh. Dumb boy, but maybe he was in bad traffic...

So I go out front to wait...
10 minutes, no dry ice guy. OK, it's snowing, maybe roads are bad... (never mind the silliness of buying ice in a snowstorm...)
20 minutes. Hrm. Not pleased, but I'll cut him some slack, it's still just before 4PM
30 minutes. OK, this is obnoxious. I call again and of course he doesn't answer. I leave a message asking him to return my call.
40 minutes. Arrrgh! I need to be home and working on my finger-shaped jello shots! Where is the slimy little bastard?!? I call him again and still no answer. Inconsiderate jerk.

At that point, I gave up and went home. Now I have a nasty letter to his boss to write on Monday. I waited almost an hour and had nothing to show for it but the burning anger of a thousand suns.

*sigh*
Rant done...

So I had a crabby day because I had to deal with a lot of stupid - at work, in stores, and on the road.

No, it is not OK to use someone else's insurance information to bill for a drug just because you can't get the patient's real info to work. Yes, it gets billed to the same insurance company, but there are strict Medicare Part D laws about keeping track of True Out Of Pocket (TrOOP) costs. We cannot accurately do that if you are billing two patients to the same account.

If you are standing in public and I can clearly see your thong out of the back of your too-tight pants and your darling little shirt is your daughter's size, do not be shocked when your small daughter also expresses an interest in dressing like a whore. Especially when you are already letting her wear pants that say "hottie" on the butt. Such a role model.

Spell check only checks spelling. If your grammar and/or use of homophones is appalling, it will not be caught by the spell check. If someone points out a repeated misuse of you're/your in a document that you are asking to be distributed to all staff and patients, the correct response is to thank them and quickly issue a revised edition wherein your stupidity is not so clearly displayed. Do not defend yourself saying, "But I used spell check!"

If you are driving over the speed limit in rainy and foggy conditions, in a black SUV, with your lights off, and someone and flashes their lights to remind you to turn on yours, the answer is not to flip them off. Turn on your damn lights before you hurt someone with your penis extension.

So, yeah, crabby. I'm going to go pet fabric. Who needs Valium when you have fabric?

EDIT: OK, so no fabric, we'll do that tomorrow. More crabby - I need to write my letter asking for a refund from UA from the flight that was canceled. :P

Flight segments: 4
Changes and/or delays: 7 (with the final leg being canceled altogether)
Average time of delay, per flight: 50 minutes
Times they have had no idea where the crew even IS: 2
Times the automatic system has hung up on me: 2
Times I'll fly United again: 0

***************************************************

EDIT: now the flight is completely cancelled, and I'm on the Van Galder bus home. *sigh* Now I'll have to deal with getting the luggage delivered, etc. Blah. Reason #47 why I hate checking luggage. Mmmmm... But the fabric makes it worth it.

Bright thought: I was paranoid for some reason and bought travel insurance on the flight, so I should be able to at least get a refund on the bus ticket.

***************************************************

EDIT 2: Bastards. Apparently the lady at O'Hare lied to me. The oh-so-helpful-barely-speaks-English guy in India WILL NOT authorize my bags to be delivered to me (after wasting 20 minutes of my time making me describe the bags (isn't that what the ID#'s are for) and their contents, and their origins, and my SEAT number for Chrissakes). And the travel insurance does not cover cancellations due to fog, and they did not give me a reason for the cancellation of the flight I was SUPPOSED to take in the first place. Grrr... I'm on hold AGAIN (time currently 25 minutes) to try to find my baggage. Very Grumpy.

Ugh. So this is apparently a day for disaster and woe.

In addition to the other bits of ugly the world has puked up on a bunch of my friends today, I went to a meeting at work to discuss our health plan. Granted, I understand how fortunate  I am to HAVE  decent health coverage, but they told us today - with no warning - that they are completely restructuring the health plan... including eliminating my entire network. Yup. I finally get in to see some specialists who are starting to control my issues and now I'll no longer be able to see them. I'm going to need to cancel the appointments I have scheduled for February and March that took me months to get. Even better, I need to pick a new primary care physician... by Friday.

The weather tomorrow morning is supposed to be foul. I am already sick and tired of the cold and the wet and the yuck. Grrr... I would be tempted to move south, except for my firm policy of living North of the Mason-Dixon line. The jumbo cockroaches and even bigger right-wing nutjobs are just enough to keep me above the frost line. Not that I have to like it... *mumble*whitecrap*mumble* Can we be done with winter now?

Then, I get to spend MORE time on a wonderful project at work. Never mind that I have a thousand things to do and this is eating my soul when I would like to be finishing up things for the end of the year so I can have a nice, stress-free vacation.  Instead, I get to spend some quality time with Madison's finest and a contingent of investigators from the Feds. Nifty!

After work, things just don't get much better - I need to haul my sorry self down to campus for my last class of the year. If the weather is as bad as they say and if drivers are as stoopid as they were during the storm last week Tuesday, this will mean that the 15 minute drive will again be a 1.5 hour drive. *sigh* At least the drive home was not bad... Last week the artist listed as one of his major influences the artwork of the Picts! Yay, geekage! Tragically, this week is student artists and it is likely to suck. However, I have used up my allowable absence due to a physically bad day a few weeks ago, so I really do need to drag myself there unless the roads are really uber bad.

*sigh* Whiny Jean. Whiny Jean with a cold. Whiny Jean with a cold just wants to stay home tomorrow, under my nice warm blankies in my nice soft bed... I WILL do the above, but Do. Not. Want.   :(

EDIT: 8:21 AM and it is already as stoopid as I thought it would be. Note to retarded school bus drivers: if I am leaving a six car lenghth gap between me and the next nearest car, please consider that I am doing so because I need all that space to stop on the not-yet-plowed road. Pulling INTO that space to cross perpendicular to traffic and then STOPPING there will, for some odd reason, make me honk the horn at you and need to dangerously swerve and slide to just barely avoid missing you and all the kids you are theoretically taking care of. *fume*

If you are driving along a nice little residential street and see one of your neighbors, a smallish woman by herself in this case, trying to push a car out of the snow, the appropriate steps are:

1. Remove head from ass
2. Stop your giant penis extension
3. Ask if they need help
4. Drive on IF the answer is no

Despite clearing the worst of the plow droppings this morning, I still got stuck in the icy gutter. I tried to wave down TWO neighbor guys with no luck. Asshats.

Thankfully, kumakun was nice enough to get up and give me a push. :) So not all men suck...

I am essentially a nice, good person, and for some stupid reason, expect others to be as well... I am then surprised and disappointed when they suck. Unhappiness.

Downs:
Work was Stoopid
Fighter practice was very poorly attended (maybe a third of the usual population?)
Therefore, only about seven people dressed up for my costume contest
We apparently had few to no Trick or Treaters, even though I left a bowl of Play-Doh cans on the porch
I need to go in to work early tomorrow (usually my day off)

Ups:
I got some cleaning done
Ambrose brought me 10 year cheddar, just because
Black Russians were tasty and half price and Robert drove home
I now get to keep dozens of cans of Play-Doh (including some Kitchen Green!)

Eh. We'll call that a wash, with a positive slant, since it involves cheese, Kahlua nd kitchen green.

It is not yet 9 AM and I need a drink. The day is unlikely to improve, either.

Hate Medicare. Hate formularies. Hate drug companies. Aaarrrg!