u/hxwkmoth

I work in a skilled nursing facility.

It's pretty common for these places to be understaffed and overloaded. That's just the Boomer generation reaching the age they need advanced care and peak burnout after covid...

Generally, I don't let it get to me seeing all these families who come to see their aging parents, and in some ways it fills a part of me that wishes I could be in their shoes. I don't have parents anymore and so I take care of other peoples'.

But we have this one resident's daughter who is very... particular about her mother's care. Her mother is 98 and has advanced dementia and understandably her daughter is protective of her and visits every day. Notes down who is working and the state her mother is in, tidies up her room, everything.

Today, the short-staffing meant she couldn't get her mother down to the recliner at the time she'd have liked, and waiting an extra 20 minutes or so. It takes two staffers to operate a mechanical lift to transfer her mother, and therefore requires two aides or nurses to be free, at a time after the lunch hour when everyone needs the toilet or to lay down for nap or both. After all was said and done, the daughter cornered me and tore into me, red-faced, about how she felt her mother was being treated. It doesn't matter that we have 55 residents and 4 aides... we let her down.

And I'm generally a very patient person and don't take things personally. She was upset and needed to let off steam, so I let her. But then she made it personal by adding: "And you'll understand when your parents are old and needing care 24/7, it's stressful!"

I get it. I'm young. I'm only 33. Easy assumption to make. But damn, that stung.

I responded as diplomatically as I could, acknowledging she's right and it's not something I will ever understand because my parents are already gone from the earth, and having to care for ailing parents is not a stress I will ever know. And I promised to escalate her concerns to the DON (which I also did.)

I'm not that easy to rattle but I had to get off the floor for 15 to cool down. I almost wish I were older myself so I can avoid people making such assumptions. I wish I didn't share that about myself with her. She did apologise later. But now I have a new least favourite string of words.

I've been writing a fic about Illuga primarily, but in developing the outline I decided to include some scenes featuring Lohen, and wanted to sprinkle in a little bit of fluff and form a spark between them. I'm looking for some inspiration about their dynamic; I recognise they are both in similar positions within their militias, and both are eager to prove themselves through their own means. They almost certainly have crossed paths, with Lohen being deployed to Nod-Krai for several years and admitting to cutting down the Wild Hunt for fun- something that is also in Illuga's job description, perhaps sans the 'fun' part. So far, the only thing I know for sure is that I like to think Lohen calls him Birdie, and relishes in friendly competition with Illuga to see how many of the monsters they can cut down.

What are your views about their ship dynamic? I'm interested to hear it all, quirks, disagreements, cute gestures they might share, or little events you can see happening between them. Inspire me!

I had my bisalp done in March 2025 and it was preapproved with Cigna. For context, it was a tricky approval in the first place, as I get insurance through my employer. My employer is a Catholic agency, and so I had to retrieve a separate card for contraceptive care. This card has the same policy number, but a different group number. It was understood from the beginning that as an ACA-compliant plan, Cigna would cover the cost of the procedure as well as any anesthesia costs. So I went forward with the surgery.

The clinic has continued to bill me after Cigna repeatedly denied the claim. I have made several separate calls to Cigna to sort this out; at first, the problem was that the clinic had billed under the wrong group number. This was corrected, and Cigna was billed again. Again, they denied it. I have called twice since then to sort this out with both Cigna and the clinic- I have asked the clinic to rebill with all the proper CPT codes, and have reiterated with Cigna that they are to cover the cost of the procedures under the law, which the representative agreed to over the phone.

I continue to receive bills from the clinic to the tune of $21,000 for my bisalp. I have called the clinic and they confirmed that Cigna has not sent payment.

What the hell do I do.

edit: Just to add some more context, this has gone on so long that my plan with Cigna termed as of Jan 1 this year.

I changed a avatar picture little over a month ago and it flagged my account as nsfw, there was nothing wrong with the picture and I suspect it was AI... but as far as I know there is nothing NSFW on my account and trying to switch it off in settings won't do anything. The button is completely stuck. I tried sending in a ticket but it's been over a month and I'm not convinced spamming support will help anything. Keeping this account sfw was the entire reason for opening it and it's important to me. How can I get this fixed?