Hi All, Usually lurker here, only recent poster. Congrats on (finally) getting the big insurance OK! Assuming you're in US (not Canada) yes, sometimes the initial decision (decline) is by a non-doctor. I had this happen yrs. ago w/ a Workers Comp injury of lower back. This was back when MRIs were very new & still much more costly than now. They were standardly refused due to cost. When my treating Chiro said I would need MRI when pregnant, Worker's Comp refused the procedure (as usual). Only when I went to Court myself (pro se, as my atty was blowing it off), on medical proof that a pregnancy w/out it would be unsafe, to me if not the fetus as well, it was OKed. As I was in the prime of my child-bearing yrs. at the time, but not pregnant (or even married) I had the Judge order it into the record that were I EVER to become pregnant, the cost of MRI(s) would be covered, specifically so I wouldn't have to jump thru same hoops again. Never had occassion to use it. Yes, unfortunately, often times in the good old USA bean-counters rule medical procedures BEFORE docotors, appalling isn't it! GlassQuilt, May it goes smoothly as possible, w/ the least possible amount of discomfort & fastest recovery on record!! All the very best. (PG) Karen

There is only one of you and your life is the result of the choices you make. PLEASE listen to the doctor. My husband has severe coronary disease with very bad circulation. He is not diabetic. However due to poor circulation, an ingrown toe nail he wouldn't see about was the start of his demise. The infection would not clear up due to poor circulation where not enough blood below the knee. After the infection, gangrene, and 5 surgeries, he only has a stump for a right leg. You are dealing with a serious problem. It will not go a way by itself. Have a pulmonologist do tests and find the problem now. How much can you enjoy your trip when you can't walk? Is it worth it? Why not get the tests, bypass surgery or medicine to help correct the problem, and then the trip? Life is too short as it is, don't give it up as my husband did. Can't go back and change the past. I sincerely wish you the best. Lynn

I missed out on General Gallieni, but to console myself, I instead picked these up at The Celebration of Old Roses: --VINTAGE GARDENS-- Alexander Baronne Henriette de Snoy Belle Isis Cary Grant Gribaldo Nicola Marina VID Mme E Souffrain Mme Lucien Duranthon Old Master VID Orange Velvet --TOM LIGGETT-- Beautiful Blanche "Fay Wolfe" Happenstance Parfum de Blanche Patty Click Red Planet (Precious Platinum ?) --HERITAGE ROSE GROUP-- Arcata Pink Globe Excellenz von Schubert Jude the Obscure Lady Hillingdon, CL Lordly Oberon Mlle Franziska Kruger Miriam Wilkins Rush Sally Holmes Souvenir d'un Ami R. californica X R. eglanteria R. banksia normalis 'single white'

"In my area, and I believe elsewhere, Tracfone doesn't have any brick and mortar locations." Well, duh. That's why I told Anne to start with Verizon. It is Verizon that actually owns the phone number that was assigned to Anne's Tracfone. Tracfone doesn't own any phone numbers. It leases them from the carriers in the areas where Tracfone "provides service." Calls made from/to Tracfones use cell towers that are owned and maintained by the carriers whose lines Tracfone leases. "I know of and about the tasks you thought you'd snow me with." I wasn't attempting to snow you with or about anything. I was only attempting to find out how much you actually know about the way voice communications work. You say that you (with consultants) set the specifications for systems and equipment that was needed for your office. Big whoop. All that means is that you sat there and said things like, "Well, we need a system that can handle 142 calls per hour with 15 agents taking the calls at any given time. We need a system that can route callers to the agent(s) who are most capable of answering their questions. We need telephone sets on the employees' desks that will let them know who is calling and from what number." You helped establish the minimum specifications for a system needed by the company for which you work. I, on the other hand, determined the needs of the agencies/cities, worked with those agencies/cities to set their specs, and then designed the system that would meet/exceed those specifications. "I was a manager, not a worker-bee. I know of and about the tasks you thought you'd snow me with. There's nothing wrong with being a worker-bee but that isn't what I did." You are so condescending. If you were a worker bee, you would have known that the Caller ID information (which appears to be the root of Anne_CT's issue) is assigned to the line at the Central Office. Being a manager, you know only that Caller ID exists and that it means a person's name and phone number will show up on the recipient's phone. Yes, of course I have heard of ROLM, and I know what a PBX (Private Branch Exchange) is. Did you know that a PBX is actually a computer? Do you know what a trunk line is? Do you know the difference between Automatic Call Distribution and Uniform Call Distribution? Do you know what an IVR is and how it works? How about PRI and ISDN? Yeah, you may have heard of these things, but without doing a Google search you don't really know what they are, how they work, or how to program them because you were a manager and not a worker bee. When someone calls 911 from their home phone, the address shows up on the 911 operator's screen. Even if the caller says nothing, the dispatcher knows where to send the first responders. That's because the address information is keyed into the OE at the CO by a phone company employee. But what happens when a 911 call is originated from a business? If it's Spiffy Dry Cleaners, it's not much of an issue because the address (including Suite number as appropriate) is keyed in. But what happens when it is a business that has multiple telephones throughout multiple floors in an office building? Ever think about that? Absent specific 911 location information for each telephone number in the business, all calls originating from that business will show up with just the business address on the screen of a 911 operator. If that business uses a PBX, the PBX administrator needs to key the information into the system. Since trunk lines are shared lines, this can be a pain in the patoot. Each employee is assigned an extension number, and that extension has to be programmed into the 911 information for that trunk line. And if the employee changes physical offices within the business but keeps the same extension, the PBX administrator has to update the 911 ID information for that extension. If the business with multiple telephones throughout multiple floors in an office building uses, for example, Centrex lines for each phone, and those phone lines are assigned to a specific floor and cubicle or office number, that info would need to be keyed in by the local Telco. Sounds easy enough so far, right? But when someone on the 11th floor of a building in cubicle 136 has a heart attack while working late one night but manages to call 911 from their phone before passing out, how will the first responders know where on the 11th floor cubicle 136 is located? Different states, cities within those states, and even fire districts within the cities, may have their own standards as to how they want the location to be designated. But in my area, the main entrance to the building was the starting point, From there, the building is divided into quadrants, with Q1 being to the immediate left of the main entrance, then proceeding in a clockwise direction so that Q4 is to the right of the main entrance. Think of it this way -- If cubicle 136 on the 11th floor is in the northeast area of the building, "northeast" means nothing to a firefighter if the floor is filled with smoke and no one can tell up from down or right from left. So, for 911 purposes, cubicle 136's location would be designated as --- What? Ah, this all depends on which direction the main entrance to the building faces. If it faces west, then cubicle 136 is in Q2, but if the main entrance faces east, cubicle 136 is in Q4. (And if the building is very large those quadrants may need to be further divided into sub-quads.) Obviously, with the way folks move around within businesses while still keeping the same phone number, most of the time the 911 designation information never gets changed. Gotta hope no one suffers an emergency when no one else is around to direct the first responders where to go.... And it appeared to me that in Anne's case, her phone number was originally a landline assigned to "John Smith" and it carried his name and address as the 911 information, with his name showing up on the Caller ID as the person making the call. Then John ported the landline number to a wireless number and no one changed the 911 information because the number was still assigned to the same guy. Then, when John gave up the number (whether it was by his death and the account being closed, or by any other reason), the number remained a wireless number and no one even thought about changing the 911 information because it isn't usually put into wireless accounts -- because wireless calls to 911 ping off the closest cell tower for routing to a 911 dispatch office. By the very nature of wireless phones, your billing address doesn't matter one iota when it comes to sending first responders. I'm done. I can only hope that Anne comes home happy from her outing with her son to get her issue resolved.