God is good!

I (julie) have been blessed!

A few months ago I had dental surgery to replace 2 missing teeth that I have never had. This is a 2 step process with the surgery being part 1 and then the abutments and crowns being part 2. None of my insurance providers have ever covered this procedure... until i started working at the hospital in Spokane. My insurance would cover 50%! So Nate and I decided to go ahead and do step 1. - even after the 50% coverage it was still pretty expensive, but worth it to do a surgery i've been waiting my whole life for.



After surgery a person is supposed to wait around 6 months to get the crowns put on. It has been almost 6 months so i went to a new dentist (here in NJ) to get part 1 checked up on. He said everything looks fabulous. the bone healed really well and i will only need a minor amount of gum removal before the crowns are put on....needless to say i was eccstatic!!! Until... he handed me the proposed cost. Our new insurance won't cover a dime... ugggghhhh and the cost was upwards of $5,000 for just part 2.



I cried... i sat in the dentist chair and cried so hard i couldn't see well enough to stand up.



When i got home i told Nate the whole scoop. We decided to figure out what all our options would be. The thing to keep in mind is the my temporary fix has broken 3 times in the last few weeks and is now very painful to wear. So the permanent fix needs to be soon. We don't have $5,000 just lying around so... i started calling around. Everyone in NJ will charge us between $4,000 and $7,000 and none of the dental schools will help since they didn't start part 1.



I called my dentist back home (in Spokane) just to get his opinion. The receptionist, Heather, was so helpful. They are only going to charge us $2,600 and the surgeon won't charge me a dime to remove the gum. But then the cost of airfare... would it be worth it?



I talked to my boss today and got permission to miss a few days of work in December for this procedure. I started looking at flights and the cheapest i could find would be $360 round trip. However, i would need 2 round trips to complete step 2. that means we would be spending over $700 on just plane tickets...

As i started to book the flight i happened to remember that in college I had used a debit card and safeway card that gets Alaska Airline mile rewards. I figured that i may as well check and see if there were any miles...

Surprise!!! I have enough miles to cover one round trip and half of the next one! Can you believe it. I had to fly during a specific time period so i needed to double check with my surgeon and my dentist before booking it - they can both squeeze me in.

Spokane here I come... December 7th, 8th, and 9th. (and as a side blessing God threw in a little layover in Seattle... so i get to have lunch with my parents as well)

Praise the Lord!