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Paying For A Doctor’s Visit

Today’s Sound Off is about Medical Care: Dear Heloise: I work in a physician’s office, and I am amazed at how many people get angry over a co-pay or refuse to pay a bill because they think medical treatment should be free. It’s not, and running an office is very expensive. First, co-pays are set up by an insurance company or Medicare, not the doctors, and you must pay it if we are to continue to help you. Next, doctors have staff, rent, supplies, mortgages, families to feed and much more. So yes, you are expected to pay your bill or work out some payment arrangement. ...

Couple With Bright Future Get On Each Other’s Nerves

DEAR ABBY: I know every relationship is different, but how do you know when to stop trying and let go? My boyfriend and I have been dating for a year and a half. Lately all we seem to do is fight or upset each other. I don’t want to call it quits, but I’m tired of being angry or sad all the time. We have been trying to fix our relationship for a while now, but nothing seems to stick. We haven’t been able to get professional help due to our financial situation and COVID, but I don’t know what else to do. We have so much potential for having an amazing life and family in the ...

Sing In The New Year

'When I'm feeling down and blue, I close my eyes to be with you.' Funny how that line from a song keeps playing over and over in my head even though I have not heard the song for years. I, like many of you, have experienced the COVID-19 blues. Conversations with friends, family members and co-workers have all turned to the same thought -- we miss each other. We have not blown out birthday candles together or laughed over an anniversary dinner. There was no opportunity to sit across from one another at a picnic table in July. The Friday night out with the girls for shopping and ...

It wouldn’t be Christmas without cookies. Cookie dough has been cut into shapes for thousands of years and several methods have been used to create designs. Molding, pressing, cutting and a combination of these systems have resulted in festive cookies in all kinds of holiday shapes like bells, stars, and trees. The most common method of shaping dough in the United States is the cookie cutter. Other cookie making tools that are popular in Europe include, cookie molds and cookie presses. Cookie cutters, presses and molds are also a favorite collectible in the antiques world. ...

Blood Thinners Are Critical in First Year After Stent Placement

DEAR DR. ROACH: My 75-year-old wife had two third generation medicine-eluting stents inserted into a branch of the left anterior coronary artery in January 2020. On 75 mg of clopidogrel and 81 mg of aspirin for nine and a half months, she has endured several serious nosebleeds, one of which required hospitalization for three days. She just had emergency surgery for a life-threatening perforated ulcer. Going forward, we are scared to put her back on those blood thinners. Could she get by with natural blood thinners, such as gingko, curcumin, vitamin E, natokinase, etc., since she is ...

Fiancee Loses Sleep Over Widower’s Many Mementos

DEAR ABBY: In three months, I will be marrying a wonderful man I’ll call Harold. We are in our 60s and widowed, me for more than 30 years and him just under two years. At first, I thought he had worked through his grief because his wife suffered from early-onset Alzheimer’s and the last six years of their marriage she was very ill. We are not living in the home they shared, but a lot of their life together is in the home we are trying to create together. Harold is a good man. I know he has a big heart with plenty of room for me as well as love for his late wife. My dilemma is ...