Five Year Plan

We finally cleaned off our desk last night. We have had an ongoing "marital issue" about him being home all summer, and well, he doesn't like to file, I do, and so there were, um, piles. He pays everything online, and doesn't see the need to file anything away....

So while we are doing this, I find my cherished "recovery plan".....

Last November, we - or rather mostly I - had devised a "5 year financial recovery plan". We needed one. The series of events goes something like this:

2000 Scotty in Jewish Hospital in Kentucky with a collapsed lung
2001 Scotty comes home from boot camp with two broken bones in each foot
2001 Scott in Grant Hospital for possible heart / clot issue
2003 Scott had 6 knee surgeries
2005 Scott had a knee replacement
2007 Karen had graves and had to go to part time work
2008 Scott had severe diverticulitis placing him in the hospital for most of 3 months
2008 Christmas week Scott has surgery to remove 18 inches of his large intestine
2009 Heidi had tumor in her brain removed in July (not on our medical cost list, but it was huge)
2010 Scott had incision related hernia repair
2011 Karen not feeling well - different tests, different doctors, etc.

So you can imagine that pile of medical bills. You clean out all of you monies one year to pay them thinking you can recover "next year", but that hasn't happened so much these past 10 years - and I know I am forgetting some - this is not a complete list here folks....

After all these years of hospital bills, drugs, drugstore runs, etc, our retirement "buildup" was looking a little bleak, nay, pretty close to empty.

Our last big "insurance-hell" argument was with the Cleveland Clinic sending us a $6,000 bill out of the blue last year. And they seem to be able to continually cough up those little surprises without any hint or prior bill... We might part-own one of the letters on the sign that Oprah so flashily walked through when she visited with her too-many-to-count doctor entourage....

Oh heavy sigh.

Lot's of people suffer with this same thing - I have talked to women a little older than me paying a lot of money just for health insurance each month. Continual medical costs take their toll.

And to be fair, while complaining about medical costs, I have to say I am so glad they are there. The medical folks and the medical buildings. I love them as much as I loathe them and as Scott says "there is no price tag you can put on your health". Lose your house? Are you feeling better, getting good treatment, in good medical hands? Alrighty then.

But, then add this one to the above list:

2011, December, Karen has cancer

My little 5 year recovery plan is now just a little piece of paper flittering down the street. I threw it away....

Scott gets irritated when I talk like that because he is not money minded by one iota, and he says the only recovery plan for the next 5 years that he is worried about is - mine.

And I do not tell you this to have you feel sorry for us. As I said, lots of people have had back to back to back to back medical issues and they are all in this same boat - unless you have a couple of million stashed away, that nice little retirement sum, suddenly looks bleak, then it is nothing. Many are in this situation.

I tell you for one reason - God is on the job.

I can't explain it, nor do I try, but even when we are not faithful to Him, He is faithful to us. Good hard working folks that work really hard for their money have given us gas cards. Friends have sent money - how they knew God's timing is only known in the heavenly realms I'm thinking.... One group of friends gave us a card that we have used at the pharmacy - and we have been there a lot lately.

Until you fall into the labyrinth of all things medical, you don't understand the stress caused by the costs - "another biopsy." - "do you realize how much out of pocket the last one was?" "Try this drug then" -- meaning the $24, or $56, or $138 you paid for the last one is a bust. There are a lot of "incidentals" along the way. Rather lots.

I remember staying at the Cleveland Clinic when Scott was so sick at $139 per night -- there were families that had been staying there for 6 weeks with their loved ones. They got a little bit of a cost break - like $20 less a night, but that still adds up to one huge bill.

Being sick is costly - and there are few insurances that can / will cover more than the minimal. Scott and I make huge deals with each other to avoid being the one to have to call the insurance company again. (and yes, I have mowed the yard on a hot day while Scott sipped lemonade and spoke calmly to our insurance company in the shade....and I was glad of it) It's not an easy place to land. I can see why some cancer patients with long term treatments lose their homes, their jobs, their insurance. Everything.

But God is on the job. And I am so thankful.

One Rabbi shows a large picture of Israel, and it looks like a desert with a few pieces of grass here and there, maybe a tree or a bush, but basically not somewhere that I would plan to picnic at any time.

He asks "what do you think that might be?" - and everyone of course answers "desert". He says "you're all wrong -- it's pasture land".

I grew up in Ohio and if I knew one farmer that put out a dozen of any type of grazing animal on that kind of pasture he would be on the 5 o'clock news that night. PETA would have him hanging by sunrise.

To me, grazing lands are lush. They are full of green grass. They look beautiful when the wind blows over them while the cows are munching.

But he said this - this picture of what I think of as pretty close to desert - this is what the 23rd Psalm is maybe closer to talking about -- we think of lush pasture lands being just that - and they last all summer. But maybe what the Psalmist was more talking about is the shepherd that takes the flock out early in the morning to that very "pasture", seeking for clumps of grass here, some there, walk on farther, find a few more clumps - and the flock is nourished as long as it is able to find those clumps that pop up overnight in the cool and dew. The green pastures that he talks about are not going to be there for the whole summer, but maybe just that day - then they shrivel and dry up in the heat. And the next day, you go out and find another "green pasture".

RVL says it is a picture of God - God wants us to know that He will lead us to green pastures, but probably that pasture is good for that one day. That day. Then you get up the next day and look for more. He feeds us bit by bit by bit, and David knew that very well tending his flocks.

So I am thinking that my "5 year financial recovery plan" was not a bad idea, it just was not going to happen. And in my misery over realizing this, God reminds me that there is a clump of grass up ahead. And another. And Karen, don't you quit looking, because I am leading you.....

If David led his flocks in that very land and wrote that Psalm, and proclaimed God's goodness after seeking day after day after day to feed his flock -- who am I to question the leading of God Almighty from one clump to the next? Who am I to sit miserably and mull over a 5 year plan that cannot happen? Maybe I have looked over the beautiful pastures of Ohio - that last all summer long - a little too long and don't get the idea very well - I am not used to desert pasture lands. I am not used to having to trust that the next clump, the next green pasture is going to be there for the day tomorrow.

The "Shepherd" idea is a little more real to me now......


Psalm 23
A psalm of David.

1 The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
3 he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
for his name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,[a]
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

5 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.