A Day Filled With Anxiety

Thursday was the much dreaded dentist visit. Not dreaded by the kids, but by their dentist-phobic mom. I have such anxiety just thinking about the dentist. I totally trust their dentist and love what a great job he does with the kiddos, but those sights and smells just drive me crazy. On top of it all I was stressing the cost. We have to pay for the visit out of pocket, get the claim form and submit it ourselves, and then hope they reimburse us. Most times the reimbursement goes back to the dentist even though the form says to send it to us. Then, once it is sent back to the union, we have to fight to get them to resend it to us. I am still waiting on reimbursement from last years appointment. This visit costs about $250 for each kid. I walked into that appointment having no idea how I was going to pay for it and just trusted in God that it was going to work out. My thought was to pull the dentist aside ahead of time and ask if he would work with us on a payment plan. God had other plans though. The dentist agreed to bill the union for us and deal with their hassle and then they would bill us for what was not covered when all is said and done in about 4-6 weeks. WOW, what a huge blessing!!! Nothing out of pocket and the hassle of dealing with billing being handed to someone else. This momma could breath a little easier once that was all decided.
Alexis in her cute shades, just waiting for her cleaning with a little anxiety
And, Andrew in his cool shades. No anxiety from him.

Alexis was not so sure about the vitamins. She chose strawberry flavor....

and Andrew chose grape.

And now it was time for Dr. Nicholls to do his thing... diagnosis: couple issues to deal with but nothing too extreme. And her brushing skills: given a thumbs up, WOW!!

And for Andrew: he just needs a tooth pulled so the adult tooth can do it's thing. He also needs to work on brushing his gums a little better but not too bad overall.

I even took the time to ask Dr. Nicholls about Aiden, who has an appointment in three weeks. I know that he doesn't have much of any experience with cleft kids (one in ELEVEN years) and was wondering if he was up for the job. Dale doesn't seem to think it is that big of a deal but for me I think I might feel more comfortable with someone who knows first hand the issues that can arise for a cleft-affected little guy. I just want someone is is proactive and not reactive to his dental needs and I don't know that I will get that with him. But, I also don't want to single out Aiden with his dental needs if he doesn't need to be. Would a yearly, quicky check at cleft team meeting be enough with this dentist as the main go to guy throughout the year? So cleft mommas, what would you do?? Go with the dentist that the other kiddos have or with a new dentist that is associated with the cleft team? I would love to get your opinions.

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Second source of anxiety? Our tax appointment. My dad used to do my taxes when he was alive, and then when Dale and I got married (the year after my dad passed) he started doing our taxes at home with Turbo Tax. This year we felt we should have our taxes done professionally because of the house issues. Well honestly, Dale tried to do them on Turbo Tax and the thing told him to seek professional help (it wasn't specific as to what type of professional help he needed, but I can think of a few things). :) So, we asked around and got the name and number of a guy we decided to go to. I was anxious about it all because normally Dale sits at the computer, tells me what I need to find, and then I go scrambling around the paperwork to find it, usually in my jammies. Can't do that with a tax guy, I needed to be more organized. So, the past few nights we have been getting things together and dreading the appointment. I was having dreams of owing HUGE amounts of money due to the house stuff and just could not shake the anxiety. Well, after meeting with the guy, having everything in order that he asked for, he crunched some quick numbers and doesn't feel like we will have to owe and MIGHT actually get some back!!! Now, that is not the final numbers, we should have those in a few days, but he did feel pretty confident that we would end up ok. MAJOR sigh of relief. I will be so relieved when they are all said and done and mailed off. And if there is a refund, I am not going to hold my breath at getting them in a timely manner from the state. They have been holding off on sending out refunds due to the budget crisis, but that is a whole other source of frustration and meant for another day.

God is good!!! Two major sources of anxiety behind me and I survived.