Inside Marcy's Mind

From Rhine Cruises to Resilience: Marci’s Journey Through Health Battles and Holiday Joy

• Marcy • Season 1 • Episode 29

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After a magical journey through Europe, filled with the festive cheer of Christmas markets and the scenic beauty of a Rhine River cruise, I found myself confronting the reality of a breast cancer diagnosis upon returning home. This episode captures the essence of my voyage, celebrating my 34th wedding anniversary in Amsterdam, and exploring how these experiences have reshaped my perspective. Inspired by my resilient nephew, I'm navigating this personal challenge with renewed strength and insight. Join me as I share not only the highs of travel joy but also the impactful lows, aiming to offer support and encouragement to listeners.

Beyond personal stories, I tackle the intricate maze that is the healthcare and social security system. From finding alternatives amidst pharmacy closures to dealing with surprise medical bills, I provide practical strategies to empower you in managing these hurdles. Plus, as someone who thrives in speaking over writing, I reveal how AI tools like Google Gemini have revolutionized my communication as the head of my church's stewardship committee. And amidst these serious discussions, I sprinkle in a touch of festive cheer with America's cookie obsession, hoping to spread warmth and joy this holiday season.

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to Inside Marci's Mind. My name is Marci Beckes and I am your host, and that was my third take. This one thing a button was pushed on the microphone, I don't know, but that was my third take, just FYI, just so you know, this doesn't always go as smoothly as it seems. I hope it seems smoothly, but nonetheless that was my third take this morning. So maybe that gives me a hint of how this episode is going to go, but hopefully not. Hopefully we are smooth sailing. I know that at some point I'm going to have to stop because Craig will come in from his run, but right now I'm all alone and able to talk with you. So did you miss me last week? I, you know, I got home from Europe on Tuesday, wednesday, I had doctor's appointments and I just blew it and I decided to not worry about it because this is supposed to be something fun for me and I just let it go. I was going to try to put in an episode, I was going to try to do all kinds of things and just decided you know what I'm doing my best, I'm just. One time I, my nephew, had hurt his arm pitching and I texted him to see how he was. And he said to me aunt Marcy, I'm just doing my best over here, I'm just doing my best, and I thought you know, chris, those are good words for life, and I am just doing my best over here. So I got a little bit about my European story to tell you A little bit of traveling information. I have an update on my health issue that I'm going to be talking about probably a lot because it's a big part of my life right now, so I'll catch you up on where I'm at on that, and then we're going to talk about some ways to outsmart the system, and that's Patrick that just has a lot to say this morning. So apparently Patrick wants to be on the podcast too. I don't know if you can hear him, but I can, so let's get started podcast too. I don't know if you can hear him, but I can, so let's get started. All right, I am home from Europe.

Speaker 1:

What a fun trip. I will be honest, as you know, and I shared in my last podcast that I was diagnosed with breast cancer just before I left on my trip, and that trip was really needed. It did put me in a little bit of a la la land. And when I came back it smacked me right in the head that I have cancer and I have a lot to do. So that was kind of a bummer part of it. And so my trip was wonderful, I'll tell you, it was the Christmas market, you, it was the Christmas market.

Speaker 1:

Viking River Cruise is what we took down the Rhine and it was just immensely beautiful and fun. And Patrick, that'll do. Beautiful little towns, big towns, big, medium cities, I would say, and small cities and just relaxing. You know, if you want to be pampered and taken well care of, a river cruise is the way to go. It's stupid cruising is what I call it, because you don't have to think and you know I was not in the mood to think. And my favorite favorite thing and I paid for it a little bit is they have one of those fancy coffee machines on both sides of the ship. It's small, it's like, and they have pastries and things like that in the morning and cookies in the afternoon. But I love that coffee machine. I don't know, at the end of the cruise I had some stomach issues. I don't know if it was maybe because I visited that coffee machine too many times, but I love that coffee machine. I could just get myself a little cappuccino, a little, whatever I wanted every day. That was fun.

Speaker 1:

One day when you're on the Rhine, you go through 61 castles along the Rhine and that you just cruise and you sit and have your coffee and you look and they tell you about them. It was amazing. One other cruising morning we were cruising during the morning hours. We got into port in the afternoon. My bed was right next to a huge glass picture window. So I chose that day to just stay in bed until noon and I watched the world go by, the little towns, the little cities, the little everything. Craig brought me coffee, which was a delight, and literally I just laid there and watched the world go by. So it was enjoyable. We were there with cousins and with Craig's sister and it all went really well and had just a good time. I think a good time was had by all.

Speaker 1:

Craig and I spent a few days in Amsterdam. Again, I still wasn't feeling great, but it is a city where my nephew Dennis lived and his wife Melissa for many years five years I think, two years in Switzerland, five years in. I want to say what a beautiful city and I, I, I bet it was hard for them to leave. You know, I'll tell you, living in a big city like I do. Patrick, give it a rest, I'm sorry. This morning he wants mice on the TV, so I'm going to stop, I'm going to put his mice on and then we're going to continue. All right, we're continuing and I've already messed this up. So, yes, it is a sign this morning that things are going to get messed up. But cities I look at as livable now that I live in one. So Amsterdam, what a beautiful city, what an amazing city and I just full of life, full of young people, full of old people, full of all kinds of people, and my nephew and his wife, melissa, lived there and they gave us some places to go and we we did eat at their favorite restaurant on our anniversary Our 34th anniversary was December 8th, and that was a delight. Even though I wasn't feeling great, I managed to eat a little bit and enjoy the food and it was cute because I sent my nephew a picture of the restaurant and where we were and he knew exactly where we were sitting and that was kind of sweet.

Speaker 1:

I've been an aunt. For those of you that don't know, I've been an aunt since I was 10 years old. My nephew, david, is 10 years younger than me. My niece, patrice is 10 years younger than me, so I'm 63. That makes them 53. So when I'm talking about nieces and nephews, I'm not talking about little kids people, just so you know. I am a great aunt and I am a great, great aunt and I'm going to be a great, great aunt again because there's some baking in the oven. So that's all on my side of the family and I am also an aunt on Craig's side of the family and I am now a great aunt on Craig's side of the family a few times. So being an aunt is a blessing, a definite blessing. Always has been, always will be, and let's see what else. I think. That's it about my trip. I'm excited. Today is my Christmas luncheon with my lady friends from the pool is my Christmas luncheon with my lady friends from the pool, so there'll be, I think, 20 of us. Chicago Yacht Club for lunch and I was asked to make a slideshow with using pictures from different eras of everyone. It's really cute and that should be fun, but not before I have to go to the doctors, to my breast clinic. So that's.

Speaker 1:

Let's give a little update on my health. So I was diagnosed just before I left on my trip with breast cancer. How I found my breast cancer was through a dream. I dreamt that I felt a lump and, sure enough, when I woke up there was one, and it's not small. So got on that. I actually went to California and when I got home I got on that and, uh, sure enough, after all the things they do, they found out it is breast cancer.

Speaker 1:

My surgery will be January 8th, which is my son's 30th birthday, and this is my sixth sense of humor. So you can laugh or not laugh, I don't really care. But I told, promised him I would not die Cause I w I don't want to be one of those moms. It's like, yeah, my mom really screwed up my birthday. She died on it, so I'm not going to be one of those moms. I promised him and he laughed and said that I have more plans on his 30th birthday than he has. So yeah, there's that.

Speaker 1:

I've been at the doctors every day this week with different appointments. One of them was to check to see if I had more breast cancer that they had seen things on. An MRI turned out to not be so. Yay, hallelujah, praise the Lord for that one. But I did find out that my cancer is what they call estrogen risk receptive. But it's not. It's low on that scale and high on other cancer scales. And I don't know all the terminology, I don't really care, to be honest. I just know what they're doing to take care of me and I am going to have to have chemotherapy um, probably starting three to four weeks after my surgery.

Speaker 1:

That will commence. Four doses, one every three weeks, so that'll be a total of 12 weeks, and then probably about four weeks after that to recover from all of the chemotherapy and possibly radiation, don't know. And then, of course, on estrogen blocking drugs for five years. A lot of that standard protocol, some of it's not. I've decided to take place in a study I go to. My group is the University of Illinois, chicago Hospital Group, and I was offered a chance to be a participant in a study to build the immune system requiring five shots five days in a row. That starts today and I've decided to do that because it not only may help me but it will help others down the road. This is something that they feel should be part of breast cancer protocol and until they have the study and the numbers behind it, it won't become so. If I can help with that, you know, maybe the can, it makes my cancer do something positive besides be a negative. So that's what's going on with that. I will keep you updated. So hopefully my last shot will be on Christmas Eve.

Speaker 1:

I will be able to have two weeks with no appointments and kind of just relax, work out, do all my things. I think the hardest part for me honestly. Well, there's a lot of hard parts, let's not kid ourselves. But I love my workouts and I love the pool and because of surgery I won't be able to be in the pool, and then because of having a port for chemotherapy I won't be able to be in the pool, but I will go to the gym as best I can and have coffee with my lady friends. But the pool is my sanctuary, it's my happy place. So to have that taken away kind of sucks. So that's where I'm at. I hope things are better for you.

Speaker 1:

I'm looking forward to the holiday. We don't have a lot planned. It'll be calm, a little bit of family time, a little bit of us time and moving forward. Are your Christmas shopping done. Mine's not Part of it is part of, it's not. It kind of snuck up on me being gone for so long. So, uh, I'm getting, I'm trying to get it together, trying to get it together and let's see, what else do we have to talk about? We talked about my trip. We talked about my health. Oh, okay, traveling let's talk about that for a minute. I am going to be a little bit of a snob at the moment.

Speaker 1:

Craig and I both have status and what that means is we've flown a lot, so we get perks at the airline. Craig gets a lot of perks because he's flown over 3 million miles on American and right now I'm a I'm gold status, so I have perks, and one of those perks is getting to board the plane early. So we were in group two in Amsterdam because we weren't flying first class, so we weren't in group one, but we're in group two. And there was a typical fricking American couple in front of me and her husband's like well, but we're in group two. And there was a typical fricking American couple in front of me and her husband's like well, this isn't our boarding time. And she's like well, the people in front of us are four and we're three and I was like. So I talked very passive, aggressively to Craig out loud so that they could hear me, because you know what people.

Speaker 1:

We travel a lot to get that status and to just stand there and take up space where you don't belong because you feel entitled is really irritating to me. If you're freaking group three, group four, group five, I don't care where you are, go at your group. And I'm telling you something American has started that thing. Now, it wasn't in Europe, but it's starting in America. If you board before your group, you're going to get a, and you know what. I am happy about that. And again, I know that sounds snobby and I don't think it should.

Speaker 1:

We travel a lot. These are the perks that we earn from an airline, and let me tell you, it's hard to earn airline perks these days. They don't come as easy as they used to, and it just really bugged me. I knew I was going to get my seat, I knew I was going to have, you know, room for my stuff, but just it was. It was her attitude. Well, therefore, in front of us, it's like neither one of you should have been in front of Craig and I. They had just called group two. It wasn't even.

Speaker 1:

Anyway, that's my soapbox for today. Go in your group people, there's a reason. They have groups. People have earned their place. Military gets to go first. People with families like there's a reason for all of that. And, dag nabbit, americans are the worst. I'm just going to, we just are. It just bugs me. Anyway, that's my rant from my traveling.

Speaker 1:

Let's just sit back and I'm going to talk to you just a little bit about ways to outsmart the system. We have a lot of systems in place social security, unexpected medical bills, pharmacy things, pharmacies closing. How do we navigate all this stuff that's happening? I got a few ideas, so hang in there and let's talk about it. All right, good morning, I'm going to take a sip of my coffee. Let's see. Supposed to snow a little bit. Today. Weather's been pretty good here, you know, um, let's talk about first thing. We're talking about pharmacies closing. Uh, and it may not pertain to where you're at, but pharmacies are closing. Um, cvs, walgreens, all that. They're closing a lot of different stores.

Speaker 1:

And what if that affects you? What if you don't have another pharmacy close by? Well, think about a few things that you can do. You can definitely. You know a lot of your plans. You can do online and have it shipped to you. But if that's not an option for one of your types of medications, what can you do? What can you do if that was the only pharmacy covered under your insurance? If you're on Medicare, you can request a special Medicare enrollment period. So if your pharmacy closes and the next closest to your plan is too far away, you might not be able to wait and get on a new plan. So you can call Medicare or call NIDA, call your representative, you know, and see if you can get a special enrollment period order by mail.

Speaker 1:

I just so you know, amazon now has a pharmacy. I mean Amazon and Disney and Apple are going to take over the world. We already know this. So, but Amazon has a pharmacy. Mark Cuban, the shark and the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, I believe, is who he owns. He also has a pharmacy company. There are independents now. So look into that. You are not stuck is what I'm trying to tell you Unexpected medical bills.

Speaker 1:

This is a big pet peeve of mine. I've talked about it before. It's another soapbox moment. I'm going to try not to get on my soapbox, but what I am going to tell you is don't pay a fricking bill if you don't believe you should. I have a bill right now for $1,700 that nobody can explain to me. My insurance says that it's all right and that's the way it's supposed to be. Well, I have an HMO. I'm only supposed to pay a copay unless I'm at a network, and so far everything I've done is in network, so that the gal could not after an hour, could not explain that to me. So then I called my group who billed it and she says I don't even have a bill for that yet. I don't even have an explanation of benefits. She goes don't pay it. How cockamamie is this crap? So, nonetheless, I'm in the middle of that.

Speaker 1:

But speak up, call, challenge the mistake and before you get things done, ask for an estimate. Don't pay right away. The first bill you get says 15 to 30 days after medical visit may not have been processed by your health insurer yet. So, even though you know mine is sitting there and it says I owe it and it's like, yeah, not yet. So I'm working on that. Compare your bill to your insurance coverage. Challenge surprise ambulance fees.

Speaker 1:

I'll tell you that in June, when I was rushed by the ambulance to the hospital. It came back that I owed $3,000 and I looked at it. They hadn't even billed my insurance. So I sent them. You know, I took that notice, copied my insurance, put all the information that they needed and sent that to them and they covered it. So just because they say you owe it doesn't mean it's so.

Speaker 1:

And I can't tell you how many medical bills I've challenged it's probably been in the 50s to 60s of medical bills that I've challenged since I've moved here to Chicago and had this insurance. And they'll say, oh, we didn't code that right. Oh, we didn't build that right. Oh, we'll rebuild that, what the heck? And the girl, when I was talking to her about the $1,700 bill, made a very big mistake with me. She said well, it's only $1,700. I said, excuse me, young lady, only I would never use that in front of a dollar amount for anyone. You don't know anyone's circumstance. And I said let me tell you something. I pay $1,300 a month for my insurance. This is one of many bills to come. It's $1,700. So this month you're saying, oh, it's only 3,000 for medical Marcy. I said I wouldn't use that word ever again. I just wouldn't. I would find another way to explain people's bills to them. So again, unexpected medical bills. Don't pay them Social security help.

Speaker 1:

The Social Security Administration says customer service is improving. I don't know about that. I go to the office versus calling. I recommend, if you have an office nearby, how do you outsmart their system? Be prepared before calling or visiting the social security office. Do as much research as you can. Look at their website, know the rules, figure things out, figure out as much as you can before you go. I know that seems counterintuitive. That's why you're going, but no Know when to call Mondays. Social security Mondays and days after holidays are the biggest for social security reps. So if a matter can wait, let it wait. It's good to know that. Consider alternative locations. Go to your offices, I'll tell you. The one in downtown Chicago has been very helpful to both Craig and I.

Speaker 1:

Let's talk about Medicare. Medicare Advantage enrollment has been growing, so again I've had Nita. Go back and listen to Nita's episode to get your information on Medicare and how to outsmart that system. How to outsmart it is to call Nita. Her information is on my website, insidemarci'smindcom. You can call Nita. It doesn't matter where you live, because she will get you in touch with someone in your area If she's not. She covers many of the Western states. She's free people, so that's a great way to outsmart the system. What else? Unfortunately, shopping online is probably a great thing to do. I know it hurts our brick and mortar stores, but you can shop.

Speaker 1:

You can look around, phone help. You know I don't know if you know this, but Apple has tons of free classes in store. You can take your computer and your laptop. You can have a one-on-one appointment. They have group appointments. You can take your phone in and they can. You can have a one-on-one appointment. They have group appointments. You can take your phone in and they can help you.

Speaker 1:

Don't bug your kids. Go get help from the professionals. You know it just puts a big wedge between you and your kids. Asking them for technology help Because they try to help you, you get irritated. They get irritated with you. Why put your kids through that when, or your grandkids through that, when you can honestly get free help from Apple or other sources? Wherever you got your computer should be able to help you with things.

Speaker 1:

Um job searching, learn the right keywords. There's a lot of keywords these days. I will tell you something Um one of the main things you can do is look at whatever the advertisement is for the job and use the words back to them that they've used in their advertisement. It's an extremely important thing. I will tell you something I heard on the TV the other day about getting a job is that oh, it just went right out of my head, flew right out of my head. Oh, linkedin is super important. So if you don't have a LinkedIn profile, you need to get one number one. And if you are applying for a job, look for the hiring manager on LinkedIn and direct message them. So those are some how to outsmart that.

Speaker 1:

Ai using AI. Learn about AI using AI. Learn about AI. Don't be afraid of AI. Ai in writing is super important. Ai can help you a lot If you Google Gemini is free, so there's tools such as chatgptcom, google Gemini so geminigooglecom and Microsoft Copilot, and let me tell you, they can help you with your resume. They can help you with writing cover letters. They can help you write an email. You can write an email.

Speaker 1:

I've done this. I'm on the stewardship, I'm the head of chair of the stewardship committee at our church and I'll write an email and I want it to look better than what I. I just kind of get the gist of it. I throw it in Google, gemini and it and it fancies it up for me in just the right way and you can change and you don't have to use exactly what they say. But if you're sending letters and emails, nobody's checking it. You're not in school. People use AI. Well, that's all I got to say about that kind of stuff. But AI, don't be afraid Again. Google Gemini, chat GPT and Microsoft Copilot. I have not used Copilot or chat GPT, but I have used Gemini and I recommend it highly.

Speaker 1:

Don't ever take some of the things to pitfalls to avoid I'll tell you those. Don't take the results as gospel. Content can be inaccurate. Verify it, look through it. That's what I do change things, um, but it will really help you with your writing. Help you with your writing.

Speaker 1:

I'm not a great writer, so I'm a great talker, not a great writer. So there's a few ways to avoid some. Outsmart the system, avoid some pitfalls in life and hopefully make your life better. That's always my goal here. Hang in there. I got a little bit of a holiday, did you know? Okay, so here's the. Did you know for today? Did you know that Americans consume more than 2 billion cookies per year, which is about 300 cookies per person.

Speaker 1:

So let's talk about the tradition of baking Christmas cookies. They date back to the solstice rituals long before Christmas became a major commercial holidays In the Middle Ages. Cookies became popular during the Christmas season because they can be made in large batches, stored for a long time and shared easily. The most popular Christmas cookie drumroll, please, duh is the iced sugar cookie, which is simple, delicious and can be decorated in many ways. I love nothing more than an iced sugar cookie. It is all things sugar that I love. You all can say you don't like them, but I think you do. You may not be able to eat as many as me, but I know you can eat one. I know you can. So I hope this holiday season finds you full of joy, love and laughter. I hope you are warm. I hope you have family and friends to surround you.

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Marcy Backhus

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