That's so sad. It seems that MoMo's case was complicated by the heart failure, which--if it does similar things to both cats and humans (think swollen ankles)--may have caused more fluids than normal in her body, anyway. At least, so I assume, because the subQ fluids were always rapidly absorbed in the case of my last two cats, who surprised the vet by living 'way beyond what he had expected, thanks to Ubiquinol (a more easily absorbed form of CoQ10) and my giving them gradually more frequent treatments with subQ Ringer's solution. They always absorbed the subQ fluids rather quickly after the fluids had a brief stay in the cat's belly, having run down under the skin and accumulated making something like a little flabby pouch in the loose skin there. Considering the fact that MoMo had heart failure on top of CKD, she probably had little time left with you no matter what treatment she received, and you did everything you could in your power to save her. Please don't blame yourself, but dwell instead on the happy life she had with you. It is natural to have regrets after a loved one dies, and I, too, have wished in the cases of a few other pets that I had tried some other things, but I have decided that we need to give ourselves peace as we remember them. Surely they would not wish any added pain on their beloved owners. It's good that you still have some pets to love.

Breenthumb - we used to get those calls too. You are right, they never even tried to tell us they could beat the cost for coverage. My only isse with them is that they wouldn't sell coverage for our DS and DILs house. They bought it in 05, the year after the 4 hurricanes came through central Florida within a month or so of each other. With so many retired military in this area, they stopped new policies on homeowners. We were shocked to hear this but so many insurance companies did the same thing. Anyone who is former military or a dependent of a military can get coverage. Not sure how it works if parent did not have their insurance but its worth checking. Customer service is exemplary!

chisue, understand the lesser of two evils. They use prednisone for my disease too. Thankfully, I've never been bad enough to have to use it on a daily basis. I'm allergic to one of the main drugs to treat my disease so if my current drugs really stops working I will have no choice but to take those awful , dangerous and expensive drugs. Hopefully it will never come to that. I have one older brother that did not move to the States when my family moved and so I've really been thinking about how much easier it was for him to retire in Canada. No jumping through all these hoops to figure out how to get his health care needs covered. Emma, what I understand is that they don't have to insure you if you have had a gap in insurance and are outside the 6 month open enrollment. Our situation was a little confusing to these insurers because our medicare part A automatically kicked in at 65 and our B took effect two years later when my husband turned 67. So they carelessly were just looking at the date part A kicked in and assumed we'd had a two year gap in coverage. Some asked if we'd been on cobra. They were asking for proof of insurance until I reminded them that medicare B was just starting and we were within the 6 month open enrollment. The drug plan still said that if I had not been covered they would have raised my premium.Not sure if that is legal under the 6 month open enrollment, but I didn't research it anymore sine it didn't apply to me. In my case, if I went without and then ended up going on one of those $3000 a month drugs and then decided at that time to get part D, no one would be too excited to insure me . And you can bet if one of my drugs was $3000 a month and they agreed to insure me, my premium would be pretty hefty. Our total costs for the two of us are around $480 a month United(AARP) is $116.78 for me, $121.94 for my husband. It is community based which means they can't raise your premium just because you are a year older. It goes up according to your zip code. In my state there were only two options for community based or issue age --the two that can't be raised because you are a year older. All the others were attained age which will go up for each year older you get. Then medicare B is $99.90 for each of us. I'm paying $27 for my part D and my husband picked the cheapest for 15 a month. I didn't figure it was as important to get the perfect plan with drug because it apparently is easy to change at the end of the year if what you picked didn't work out so well. It just seemed to me that there was a real learning curve to getting this all arranged. Dedtired, I'm confused why you would be paying 300 a month for medicare part B or something else?? something doesn't sound right.

My DH's former employer also uses VIA. We just spoke with them yesterday and the day before to: a) Be sure we are each registered as having POA's for one another; and b) Select our Part D plans for 2019. When we called to do the Part D we discovered they had failed to 'save' the call from the day before, and only half of the POA information had been registered. Selecting the Part D plans involves two different people at VIA. The first person helps you select the plan(s), then you're transferred to a second person who sets up the legal and financial end. We selected our two (different) plans, then were transferred. The first person had sent along the wrong plans for *both* of us, so we had to go back through those loops again with another 'selection' employee. The second part took ages (due to having to listen to legal boiler plate) but it got done eventually. I'm concerned about our Medicare supplement coverage for 2019. We each have a high deductible Plan F with BSCS. The company isn't going to want *me* again anyway, now that I require expensive treatment for multiple myeloma -- even if they weren't trying to eliminate Plan F in general.