A coworker once had an insane amount of FSA $$ at the end of the year and splurged on a bunch of massages and a new mattress. I'm not sure my FSA would cover a mattress....but gosh I wouldn't mind a new one. Orthopedic pillow?

Like 10 years ago my brother f’d up his fsa withholdings and I was given giants bags of bandaids and anti-bacterial cream and moleskin and pain killers and Imodium and pepto I still have some of it, I threw out a lot for the move because it was expired. The hsa at my last job did not cover otc stuff at all.

I did like msbelle’s brother one year. Everyone in the family got cold meds and painkillers and heat pads. I also got several humidifiers (penguins!) which proved useful over the years.

I would totally get a massage if we weren't in a pandemic. I'm a little too paranoid about that.

Orthopedic pillow?

Heyyyyyyy. That's a good idea!

Yeah, Tim withheld kind of a high amount for his FSA and then didn't use it (I think he was assuming he would use it for some of his heart surgery expenses, and he did on the day of surgery, because he paid a $500 deposit), and some might roll over to next year, but there still might be a large amount just hanging around.

Can't you use your FSA on fancy glasses frames that exceed your regularly scheduled amount?

Fancy orthopedic pillows or side sleeper pillows or weighted blankets all sound like good solutions too.

Can't you use your FSA on fancy glasses frames that exceed your regularly scheduled amount?

Yeah, glasses are top of the list for both of us. I'm just looking at other stuff, because I suspect there might be a lot of $ left in the FSA account. Tim withheld kind of a large amount. (He changed that for 2021.)

How are y’all’s teeth?

How are y’all’s teeth?

We've both had cleanings/checkups within the last 3 or 4 months, and the pearly whites are good.

I think Hec and I are both due for some fancy glasses (also, I need my progressives prescription adjusted), but first we should prod the orthodontist for a final bill because MATILDA'S BRACES COME OFF NEXT MONTH!

I am so very glad for all the testing negativity around here.

I'm slightly groggy and probably going to crash early, because today was my early morning with a 6:45 start time before a 7:00 patient conference. Today's roster of patients included someone with a congenital disorder called Ondine's Curse, named for the hapless husband of water nymph/selkie Ondine, who swore to her that his every waking breath would be one of love and faithfulness but who cheated on her anyway and was cursed with losing the ability to breathe the moment he stopped thinking about the act of breathing, so of course he fought it as long as he could but finally fell into an exhausted sleep and promptly died.

And there are people all over the world--though it's rare and fatal if not diagnosed in early infancy, so not many--living with her curse; when they fall asleep, they just stop breathing. It must have been a neonatal death sentence for many thousands of years, but now it's treated with a pacemaker implanted in the diaphragm instead of the heart. When normal function stops the pacemaker kicks in and kick-starts the function again, often without the person even noticing, and if you stay on top of your pacer evaluations and battery changes you can live a fairly normal life, aside from the abdominal scar and having to be careful around metal detectors and the constant awareness of this little bundle of wires and a battery standing between you and the vengeful selkie and saying, "NO."

At today's conference all the doctors kept going back to it, repeating Ondine's name and the curse and the strangeness of having to be constantly, vigilantly aware of the things that most people can go days or weeks or months without even noticing, much less staying intently focused on. And I went wandering afterward and read more about the nymph and the curse and medical history, and about how thinking about the myth gave centuries-ago doctors and researchers a way to talk about what we now call autonomic functions. The betrayed Ondine and her faithless husband and the curse that fell on him weren't factual, but they were true, and everyone long ago felt it before they could name it, and everyone today was riveted all over again.

Myths! They don't need to be real to be true.