Gently, that does sound like par for the course with drugs that have a reputation for being sold and abused. My dh has to take opioids for his brain condition that causes severe pain. He has to be drug tested every 3 - 6 months, sign all kinds of agreements that make him sound like a drug addict, and keep all appointments without fail less they will take away his meds. He is neither young nor does he look like a typical druggie if there is such a thing.

I just had to renew mine late. I only had to take the vision test because I wear glasses. I've lived in many states and overseas in my adult life and I haven't had to take a road test since I first got my license when I was 16. I only had to take a written test for my overseas license. I thought that was odd since I had to drive on the opposite side of the road. 🤪

I went ahead and ordered it! Thanks all! 😄

Ok, so the pharmacy said they didn't have a prescription for me for Ozempic. I just got done talking to the nurse and apparently insurance approved Victoza instead of Ozempic. A once daily injection instead of once weekly. I assume, from reading the website information, it works in much the same way. Anyone have experience with Victoza? At this point, I'm just happy they finally approved something because the meds I'm currently on just aren't quite doing the trick anymore. 🤪

For the 4 weeks that I was taking the sample, I felt great. Like noticeably better than I had felt in months. The first week I had some gastrointestinal upset but that's a pretty normal reaction for me anytime we change my diabetes meds. It was mild compared to how bad it was with some of the other meds we tried. Everyone is different though and what is mild and manageable for me might be miserable for someone else. If I'm miserable for more than a week or two, my doctor wants to know so we can adjust or change medications. Metformin was the drug that made me miserable all. the. time.

The Ozempic sample kit my dr gave me in February/March was great. My blood sugar stayed under 140 all day. But once the sample ran out and insurance was still fighting to not approve it, my blood sugar started spiking up even though I watch what I eat and all. Only drink water and the occasional sugar-free drink. I had given up that they would approve it but that nurse is awesome! 😄

I commented on the Ozempic Babies thread a while back about the struggle to get insurance to approve Ozempic even though I'm diabetic. Well, today my doctor's nurse finally got insurance to approve it! 😄 Now here's hoping the pharmacy has it and doesn't have to order it. Oh yeah and fingers crossed NO Ozempic babies for me please. No matter how badly ds11 wants a younger sibling, I'm done with the little kid phase. 🤣 Update down below. TL;DR They approved Victoza, not Ozempic.

So I've been working on getting things ready for this summer/next year and I'm taking it as a bad sign that the Core Knowledge teacher manuals are more frustrating than helpful. I love the idea of them but in practice... I'm not sure they are going to work for us. So here is my current revised plan for next year... Math: TGTB Math 4 Language Arts: DIY language arts; basically I'm choosing novels and then assigning copywork and perhaps sometime soon dictation. We talk about literary devices and conventions as we see them in the text and/or copywork. This has been working well as an afterschooling thing so we will continue. Spelling: Homemade spelling program using parts of SWR and Spelling Power Grammar: The Macmillan text I found frustrated him, like I said he hasn't had much grammar, so I think we will try out Beowulf's Grammar. He loves dogs lol We are also doing a little grammar practice with the copywork above as well. History and Geography: I'm thinking SOTW. I can't find my SOTW volume 1 so I'll have to reorder it. Science: At Home Middle School Life Science Making my own science studies based on the WTM science plans plus library books on whatever he wants to study Memory Work: Anki Coding: At-Home Middle School coding Japanese: his choice, just dabbling in it for now with Duolingo Penmanship: I taught him cursive in a week and he's doing great with it so just the copywork to practice

I was hunting for a used copy of SOTW 1 to replace my lost copy and I came across The Kingfisher Illustrated History of the World, published in 1993. Is this still worth getting for less than $10? I would be using it with a middle schooler with dyslexia. I can't find a sample of the inside to judge for myself.

We were in totality. Only dh's dog was with us in the backyard. She just kept looking around and looking at us like, "you're seeing this too right?" Lol

We live in a rural area and there is really no afterschool care here either. It boggled my mind when I first moved here and had 6 kids from high school down to infant. Someone really could make a killing offering before and afterschool care but having had an in-home daycare license before, I understand why people aren't jumping at the opportunity. It's not a business model for the faint of heart. We also have a pitiful rural library when it comes to book selection. That's why I pay $30 a year to have access to the big city library 2 counties over. I can check out up to 50 books with no late fees but what I use more than anything is Hoopla and Libby. I can get almost anything as an audiobook or an e-book that way. I gladly pay the $30 a year to have library access as a non-resident. It's definitely cheaper than buying all the books we need, even if I buy used. Anymore, I just buy spines and books that we really enjoyed and will read more than once.

As I look toward homeschooling my dyslexic son again next year, I find myself in a quandary about curriculum choices. For example, I love literature rich curriculum, but how do I balance that with a child who finds reading difficult? The obvious answer is to read aloud to him, which I have no problem doing, but how much and for how long should I do this? He's 11 years old so by age he would be going into the 6th grade this fall but he was held back in 3rd grade in public school due to his reading so we have him down as a 5th grader this fall. His reading ability, I think, is a solid 3rd grade level, maybe early 4th grade. He has a speech impediment that makes reading out loud even more difficult for him on top of the dyslexia. His comprehension is excellent when he doesn't have to do the work of reading it himself. Right now, I have him reading from easy chapter books after school and I'm reading "The Sign of the Beaver" aloud to him which he is very much enjoying. Over spring break, we read "Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library" which he also enjoyed. I don't mind reading aloud to him as long as it is helping him and not hurting or hindering him. But I can't decide when, if ever, that line would be crossed. I would love to do Build Your Library or Book Shark with him but I can't decide if that's a silly expectation for a dyslexic child or not. Of course, I would have to do the lion's share of the reading to him, especially at first, but is that defeating the whole purpose of using a literature rich curriculum? What if he decides he still wants to be homeschooled in high school (right now he is saying that he does want to be homeschooled through high school and we do give him a say in his education)? Is it still appropriate for me to be reading his books to him or finding audiobook versions for him since he is dyslexic? I feel really stuck on where that line is between helping him reach his full potential and being an unnecessary crutch for him. And I'm a planner so yes it is important to me to have at least a soft plan through high school even if we ultimately deviate from it. Thanks for letting me "think out loud" here. I would love to hear other's opinions on this topic.

Thanks @Heartstrings for the recap. When I lived overseas, we were part of a program similar to this for military families that was run out of Alaska. Rainbow Resource was an authorized vendor so it should be no problem to get them as a vendor. I have no idea about places like Christian Books because the program we were a part of paid for secular curriculum only. For smaller companies and extracurriculars, we could pay out of pocket for it and ask for reimbursement from the program. Your right, it does sound like homeschoolers were tagged on as an afterthought but hopefully they will look to other states with similar programs and follow suit. Alaska's program was excellent and we really enjoyed being a part of it while we could.

@MeaganS @Heartstrings I missed it 😞 Was there anything noteworthy?

Nope, no Krogers within a 3 hour drive from here. Thanks for the suggestion though!

Yup, that's the deal with most drug manufacturer's coupons. Those who receive Medicaid and sometime Medicare are not eligible for the coupons or hardship programs offered by the manufacturer. My husband and I both receive Medicaid through disability so we have never been eligible for these things. I always check for coupons and programs when we run into these problems with getting drugs covered though. Just in case.

Because I have Medicaid as an insurance, all the coupons I've found I am ineligible for them.

Metformin is the drug insurance wants to know why I'm not on it. I had a terrible time with it, just awful. I'll spare you the gory details lol. I'm on glipazide and trajenta now but it's not always doing the trick anymore. On Ozempic, my blood sugar was near perfect. I wish insurance would just trust that my doctor knows what she is doing. Sigh.

No I can't use the mfr coupon. Yes, the doctor is working on getting either Ozempic or something else covered for me, it's just a process that has taken over two weeks already. 🙄 Right now, as far as I know, the hold up is insurance wanting to know why I'm not on one of their preferred drugs for diabetes. The doctor told them I had a horrible reaction to it (it was a miserable month on that drug) and now we are waiting for their response. It will be at least Monday or Tuesday before we hear back from insurance. I've got a stack of insurance rejection notices on my desk where the doctor has tried just about everything so far to get them to cover it. Her nurse is usually pretty good at navigating prior authorizations for insurance but this one even has her ready to pull her hair out.

Yeah, our insurance won't pay for it at all for weight loss because it is "off-label use". But they are still giving us fits over it even though I am diabetic. It costs almost $1k a month without insurance. 😲

Don't tell me this, my doctor just put me on a sample of Ozempic! Not for weight loss, though I wouldn't mind losing a few pounds, but for diabetes. So far it has worked great for blood sugar control. Now if only we could get insurance to pay for it. 🙃

My parents talked me out of a music degree. They didn't want me to be a "starving artist" and often told me that music is a great hobby but I needed to major in something that pays well. They wanted me to go into engineering of some kind. I ended up with a degree in computer science that I don't even use at the moment. I really wish I had not listened and got my degree in music. But I was young and had been taught not to question their "wisdom". Music would have made me a lot happier than computer science has. I lived for band and music classes when I was a kid/teenager. That was one thing I made sure I did completely differently with my own kids. I completely support them no matter what their choice of career may be. So far, even if their choice is not what I would have chosen for them, it has worked out well.

Food allergies can come on even though you've eaten a food many times before. Hives is a pretty serious reaction. I would look into allergy testing for sure. She would need to avoid fish and shellfish as well as antihistamines/steroids prior to the testing. Definitely do NOT tell her to take Benedryl before eating a possible allergen. She needs to avoid reactions, not try to cover them up. If she has another reaction, she could take Benedryl or another antihistamine, WHILE on her way to the doctor! But unless she is having trouble breathing, I wouldn't take anything on the way to the dr. You want them to see the full extent of the reaction.

We're not for sure homeschooling next year yet but I've been planning for ds(11) to do 5th grade next year. We will start this summer as a trial run before I decide if we will homeschool. Here's what I have planned: Math: TGTB Math 4 (It should be a little easy for him to begin with but there are some topics in the middle and end of the year that I definitely want him to have more practice on.) Language Arts: Core Knowledge, grade 5 Spelling: Homemade spelling program using parts of SWR and Spelling Power Grammar: Macmillian Treasures Grammar, grade 4 (he's not had much grammar and this looked like a good starting place for him) History and Geography: Core Knowledge, grade 5 Science: Core Knowledge, grade 5 or maybe Noeo Chemistry II, haven't fully decided Memory Work: Anki Coding: At-Home Middle School coding Japanese: his choice, just dabbling in it for now with Duolingo Penmanship: I want him to learn cursive, I'll probably just buy a workbook of some kind He will probably also have one or more Outschool classes, more for socializing than anything else. Probably Minecraft related.

You have to get the subscription based one to have more up-to-date information but even then I think it lags behind a little.