Sickness in the House!

 Merry Christmas all!  

Ours is rather unorthodox this year.  Many of our traditions are being temporarily set aside due to illness.  Yes we found out, rather personally, that the worst flu this year is Flu A, and it's running ramapant through the U.S.  

DH returned home from a tour a week ago yesterday.  He was home two days and said that Thursday "I have this cough".  Fast forward to today and my poor man has been miserably sick ever since.  Woke up Friday morning with a temp of 99.2.  Same the next day, and then it hit.  Three days of 101+ temps.  Add to that no sleep due to excessive coughing, and aches everywhere.  

Fortunately we have a wonderful, great, fabulous doctor.  How great?  I texted his office after hours on Friday hoping he might see it over the weekend.  He called me soon after.  Gave instructions for DH's care and said "Keep me posted".  He had told us to get one of the flu covid test at the store and test him.  Well DH has Flu A.  This is the flu that is putting more folks in the hospital and even in the ground.  So we have a Nebulizer and and O2 concentrator that we bought during the Covid craziness for our oldest son.  Haven't had to use the O2 concentrator, but I made sure I had it ready.  Hubby's O2 kept dancing around the 90 mark.  Yesterday Morning our Doctor called in a chest Xray to a local imaging center, and off we went.  It was normal thankfully.  No pneumonia.  

So I have droned on about this for a reason, really.  

DH and I don't have insurance.  He's retired now, but too early for Medicare.  As a result we cash flow or save up for Medical things.  In this case, we had no Dr visit.  We weren't required to come in for him to tell us something we already knew.  When we got to the imaging center I told the nice lady behind the desk that we weren't filing insurance, and would be paying in full that day.  Our bill was $100.  That's it.  She told me that had I filed insurance; the bill would have been more like $500.  Insurance would have paid $300, leaving us owing $200.  In our case, had this been last year with the insurance we had then.  Our bill would have been $500, and we would have owed $500 because we had to meet our deductible first.  All of this expense doesn't even count the premium we paid with each pay check for the privilege of paying more for Doctor visits.  Now why would this be the case; over charging patients with insurance?  Because when you have insurance and pay your bill by their rules, you're paying for three other patients that didn't pay their bill. 

INSURANCE IS A SCAM!  There I said it.  It is.  Many of the problems in our healthcare system can be laid at the feet of the insurance industry.  Doctors decisions are based on what insurance will and won't cover.  "Pathways" which are a series of doctors orders that are printed up ahead of time for a doctors signature.  Those "Pathways" aren't created by doctors, but by insurance companies.  I had a cardiac pathway when I had my Heart attack 7 years ago.  It was that pathway that told them I should be on a statin to lower my total cholesterol lower than the 146 it was at that time.  Did ya know that total cholesterol less than 150 increases "All cause Mortality"?  That means in increases my chance of dying sooner over all.  Yet the pathway told them to put me on a statin they wanted it lower.  

Our primary physician doesn't file insurance, though we could have used the receipt from paying his bill and file it ourselves.   That is when we had insurance.  Did you know you can do that? You can go in to a medical establishment and tell them you're self pay.  Pay your bill.  Get a receipt, and file it with your insurance company for a reimbursement.  It can go towards your deductible and after that is met, go for reimbursement.  People just assume it's either self pay or insurance, but you can use them together.  Not as great as not paying a premium, but better than playing the game by only their rules.

Because our doctor doesn't file insurance, his decisions are based solely on what's best for each patient.  It's been the best decision we've made.  

We hadn't used the insurance we paid premiums for in about 5 years.  We just held it in case of a hospital stay and paid cash for everything.  I was great, and much cheaper.  Now we don't have insurance, pay no premium, and cash flow everything.  

Okay.  Now that I'm done venting about that!  Cute Kitten pictures for the holidays"

FINALLY!

 Today is the day I finally got into the kitchen to handle some kitchen business!

About a month ago we had 14 roosters processed.  The plan had been to do it ourselves, but my dh had an unexpectedly long tour and it needed to be done.  So we paid to have them processed.  Can't say I was sad to do it, but it wasn't a cost effective way to raise meat chickens.  However, once we figured in the cost of a lessoned learned; we broke even.  For the past month I've had these boys taking up space in the freezer.  Last week I used up my last quart of home canned chicken bone broth.  It was time.  This will be an on going process, but one that is totally worth it.  Even with the expense of paying to have them processed; the cost of my hoe canned bone broth is cheaper than buying it from the store.  I took our two rooster and placed them in my good size crock pot.  They barely fit.  They had to cook a bit before I could lay the lid flat.  I went ahead and added some celery, onion, salt, carrots, and vinegar.  I covered the whole bit up to the top of the crock pot; covering the birds.  I let them cook over night.  Next day I removed the meat, strain off the broth, and put the bones, veggies, and everything but the meat back into the crock pot.  I added more water to the top of the crock pot, a little more salt and a little more vinegar and let this slow cook for 2 days.  I just strained it off and am now canning 6 quarts of bone broth.  No artificial anything.  This is the stuff colds and flu remedy's are made of!  I had put the first broth into the fridge to keep until the second run was ready.  The first broth had gelled so nice.  This is the collagen we need and people pay big bucks for in a powder.  Save your money!  I will keep doing this until I've gone through all the birds, then I will move on to the two turkeys I found on sale for .57lb.  The deboned meat will go into the freezer or be canned if I'm so industrious.  Chicken or turkey, I can use it in any poultry recipe.  You don't have to grow your own poultry to do this.  Whenever you cook a whole chicken, make use of those bones as well.  This same process can be done with any bone in meat.  Beef broth, ham broth, chicken broth; are all things I can store( freezer or pantry)and not have to purchase from the store.  It requires limited hands on work.  It's, I believe, one of the easiest things to make to save at the store.  Bone broth can allow less meat to be used in a recipe because the broth will add taste and nutrients to meals. 

My second kitchen task; well second and third I guess.  Is to dehydrate!  I bought 5 bunches of celery before Thanksgiving while they were on sale for like .98 each.  I dehydrated all 5.  Do you know that once dehydrated all 5 bunches fit in 1 quart jar?! 

 Crazy!  If you don't have a dehydrator, chopping and freezing is an option too.   Now my dehydrator is full of garlic harvested this year from my garden.  

The dehydrator is full, but it barely looks like I made a dent in the harvested garlic.  This will also be a process until I get through all the garlic.  Once dried I plan to pulse it into garlic powder in my blender.  Voila!  Organic garlic powder for the cost of energy used to dehydrate it.  This comes back every year.  

Homemade pizza is on the menu for tonight, and probably some bread for general use.  My work in the kitchen, home, and garden saves us money, and allows us to eat better to boot.  

10 years ago, before I left my job to come home permanently, a co-worker asked if I thought I'd be bored.  I told her I would have plenty to do.  My job as a homemaker is not one of soap operas and bon bons.  It's a  job.  As it should be.  Make no mistake.  We all work for someone.  We can work for an employer or work for ourselves.  I choose to work for myself, my husband, and my family.