Author: Hettie D.

My name is Henrietta (Hettie) Dombrovskaya. I was born in Saint-Petersburg, Russian (actually, back then – Leningrad, USSR) in 1963, and immigrated to the United States in 1996. I love Saint Petersburg, the city I was born and raised in, and I think it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. Similarly (but differently) I love Chicago, and can’t imagine myself moving somewhere else in the observable future. I have three children, Igor, Vlad and Anna, all adults living on their own, and one (so far) granddaughter Nadia. I also believe that my children are the best thing that happened in my life. As for my professional life, I am working in the field of Information Technologies. When I was twenty, I’ve declared that the databases are the coolest thing invented and that I want to do them for the rest of my life. Thirty plus years later, I still believe it’s true, and still, believe that the databases are the best. These two statements together imply that I think a person can have it all, and indeed, I think so! Keep reading my journals to find out how I did it.

COBRA, And What To Do About It

Before my separation from my previous firm, I had only one experience with COBRA, and I didn’t like it, however, similar to last time, this time I didn’t have other options: I was terminated without any notice and didn’t have any upcoming employment. That being said, the fact that my previous firm was going to pay my COBRA for the first four months was a relief.

Everything looked easy because I just needed to go to the COBRA provider website and enroll. I enrolled, but the website didn’t know anything about my former employer paying for my COBRA, and nothing changed several days later. I emailed my former HR, but nobody replied. A couple of days later, I received a note in the mail saying that because nobody paid the COBRA premium, my coverage couldn’t be reinstated.

I emailed my former HR again, and they said that they just paid, and everything should be fine. I logged in to my COBRA provider website, and it indeed indicated that the payments were made. However, the Blue Cross website was still insisting that my insurance was terminated.

On top of that, I actually needed to go to the doctor because my back/left leg started to hurt, and by September 17, it hurt really badly, so I couldn’t stand or walk without the pain. A strong painkiller I had for situations like that didn’t help, and in general, I felt the pain was more severe than previous relapses.

No appointments were available with my primary, and they suggested I go to another office to see another doctor in the same network. Then the scheduling center couldn’t find my insurance, as expected, and my assurances that COBRA would apply retroactively didn’t work. I told them that I would self-pay, got an appointment, paid $145, got another painkiller prescription, an X-ray referral, and a referral to an ortho specialist. A half-hour later, the scheduling service told me they couldn’t send a referral because my coverage wasn’t reinstated, and they told me to call when it was.

I returned home, took a deep breath, and called PT Solutions, which is a Haven on Earth and where Cori does his magic. I asked whether there could be any time that afternoon Cori could see me, and they found a slot. I came in and explained all about COBRA and being in between, and they were genuinely sorry and asked whether it was OK to charge me $35 (do not ask! I do not understand how they can charge a co-pay without insurance, but I am telling you, it’s a Heaven on Earth right here, in Rogers Park!). And Cori examined me and told me that there is no new injury; it’s all in my back, which reacted to the stress in such a way. He made some manipulations and showed me some exercises, and told me to come back on Monday if it didn’t help.

I have been doing all these exercises at least twice a day every day, and although I am not completely out of it, things have definitely improved.

I spent the next two days calling the COBRA provider (who said everything was OK and that they would notify Blue Cross, and insurance would be retroactively applied) and calling Blue Cross, who said they received nothing. On Wednesday, a Blue Cross representative called me and asked me to call COBRA again because he had already called them multiple times and verified the email address where they should have sent a notification, and it’s still not coming.

Finally, on Thursday morning, I logged into my Blue Cross account and didn’t see the red note on it. I couldn’t believe it was over, so I called them to verify, and they confirmed. However, I still had to ask them to reprocess a dental claim from September 2 (they won’t do it automatically), and I also have to file a claim for my out-of-pocket manually…

Summary:

  • Why there are so many parasites around healthcare?!
  • The rest of the world is normal in comparison to us
  • There are some angels around us, especially in Rogers Park

And almost forgot: after I made sure that my insurance was reinstated, I immediately signed up for COVID and Flu shots, and got both of them today, so now I am ready to travel!

TIME Magazine: The Right To Disconnect

Original article here. Couldn’t agree more.

Continue reading “TIME Magazine: The Right To Disconnect” →

Cultural Events

Last week marked the opening of the new theater season. So far, I attended the following events;

  • The Prokofiev’s Piano Sonatas concert at the Guarneri Hall. It was good (the pianist, Adam Neiman, was excellent), but the lecture before the concert was unnecessarily long and not very informative. I have a feeling that everyone was just waiting for the speaker to be done and to listen to the music. Also, because of that lecture, the concert ended later than scheduled
  • Dirty Dancing at Nederlander Theater. I never saw the movie, so I couldn’t appreciate all of the details my neighbor was admiring, but I liked the music, the acting, and how the dances were staged. Not out of this world, but really nice.
This one taken by me
  • Liliom – John Neumeier’s ballet at Joffrey. The libretto is based on the play Liliom, which was also the basis of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel. Great, as always 🙂 (well, so far, the only ballet I didn’t like much was Eugene Onegin)

Pictures below were taken by me:

To be continued next week 🙂

Volunteering

Last week, I finally got a chance to come and make dinner at the ODS. This is another year of turbulence, and after my last visit there in June, when half of the ingredients were not purchased at all, and the other half were wrong (like frozen salmon pieces instead of a never-frozen half -fish), nobody answered my emails. I decided that that’s it, and there is no reason for me to even keep trying, at least until I retire.

Apparently, I was wrong, and people were still waiting for me, so I gave it another try to schedule, and finally, on September 9, almost three months after last time, I was back in the familiar kitchen. And people who remembered me were still happy to see me! Almost all residents were new, and some of them didn’t want to talk to me in the beginning, and the salmon was frozen again. However, I thought on my was there how I could deal with frozen salmon and decided to give it a try. It was definitely not a perfect solution, but Ms. N. exclaimed: “What did you do that time?! ” It ended up much better than in June:).

It was way better than my previous experiment, and mashed potatoes were pretty much flawless. And most importantly, after the dinner was ready, and after everyone who wanted to eat had eaten, we started talking. That’s something you can never predict: whether it will work that time or not, whether someone will decide to open up to a stranger, whether you will hear another heartbreaking life story or not.

I left feeling very good, and emotionally nourished, and later, Ms. N. and I exchanged text messages about how good it felt. Sometimes, one conversation is what a person need to keep going 🙂

***

I keep coming to early morning clinic escorting shifts, because the situation there is dire. I don’t know what else to say. I hope that when I will finally figure out my life, I will start coming there more often; now it’s just one morning a week. I am glad however, that I can do at least that!

Visiting Lena: part 4

Lena is the best host ever, and one of the things she planned for two of us was biking at the crack of dawn on Sunday! We had to drive to the bike path, and Lena had to fit two bikes into her car, but the experience was totally worth it! She also researched the path in advance, so that we wouldn’t have to wonder where to go in the places when the path suddenly disappears.

Continue reading “Visiting Lena: part 4” →

Visiting Lena: part 3

And Saturday was not over yet! We walked around Belle Isle for some more time,

Looked at Canada:

And then visited the Aquarium; not as big as Shedd, of couse, but still lovely!

Then we walked around a little bit more (the fountain doesn’t work!)

And that was not it! We returned to Lena’s home for dinner, and then went to a local community theater.

Life On Pause

I started this post three days ago, when I truly believed the title reflected the reality. It does not look like it as of now, but I am going to keep it anyway and continue from where I started.

I am not working at DRW anymore. I took some time before I made the world know, but since I already announced it on LinkedIn, I thought I would let people know here. (I meant to publish this post before I shared it on LinkedIn, but then life happened :))

Several years ago, I thought I would retire at 67. After working at DRW for a couple of years, I adjusted my plans and decided to retire at 65. My wealth manager approved it, as long as I still worked part-time.

For the past several months, however, it was so emotionally challenging that I dreaded coming to work (which is absolutely not my normal state of mind), and I thought that the only thing I wished for was to retire immediately.

Since, as I said, it ended up being anything but a pause, I do not want to say more at the moment. I promise to share more details in a couple of weeks. Now I am posting just so that people who know me in real life don’t think I am withholding important information from them. As of now, I barely have time to do anything, including things I was hoping to have time for. I will tell more; I promise!

Visiting Lena: part 2

On Saturday afternoon, Lena booked us a tour at Pewabic Pottery Do I have to say that one more time, I learned something I had no idea about before?

Continue reading “Visiting Lena: part 2” →

Visiting Lena in Michigan – part 1

As always, we have a packed program, and as always, I feel so loved and taken care of!

Morning in Ann Arbor.

Can you spot a deer?

Wait, there are two!!! Three!!!

Continue reading “Visiting Lena in Michigan – part 1” →

Watching Andrei Rublev – One More Time

Andrei Rublev is my favorite Russian painter and one of my favorite painters overall. The movie “Andrei Rublev ” is my favorite Tarkovsky film and one of my favorite movies overall.

The movie is sixty years old, almost as old as me, and you can still watch it without a facepalm and without adjusting your perception to these sixty years passed. The Siskel Center runs a full Tarkovsky retrospective, and when I saw that they would be screening Andrei Rublev when Anna is visiting, I immediately wanted all three of us to watch it together.

Still as brilliant as I remember it.

For those who have never watched it, especially my English-speaking friends, the trailer is not the best and does not do the film justice. And it’s not about the mysterious Russian soul. And it’s over three hours long. Worth seeing, though.