The “Phew, not going bankrupt” story
I don’t really know how interesting this is going to be for 95% of you, but someone asked me to write about it and after some consideration, I decided I would for two reasons: 1) A long-time reader asked, and I like her, and I’m a giver like that and 2) maybe even if this doesn’t apply to you and never applies to you, it is somehow informative to have some idea of how this goes, even if only just as a bit of an eye-opener about how health care works in this country right now.
So if you’ve been reading along here for a while, you already know that my daughter is now in her fourth month of residential psychiatric care, and our private insurance—which, for the record, goes though One Of The Gigantic Insurance Giants—carries exactly zero benefit for the care she’s receiving. Zip. Nada. Not a single cent of it is being paid for by insurance. I could write an entire book about why this makes me want to set things on fire, especially because our insurance DOES cover “acute care hospitalization,” which means that they DID pay for the times when the kiddo was an immediate danger to herself and spent anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks being “stabilized” at a facility that costs twice what the residential place costs. The difference is that THAT kind of hospitalization is “meant” to be short-term and THIS kind is “meant” to be longer-term and insurance companies would rather pay more for less time and OH GOD GIVE ME A LIGHTER.
In case you’re not getting my drift here, I think this is beyond stupid. Unfortunately, I don’t run the insurance companies. read more…
What to expect when it all goes sideways
It’s Tuesday, so that means I’m over at Feel More Better. It’s also the 11th anniversary of 9/11, and so I am thinking about what unexpected tragedy means in our everyday life, but I have to warn you, I don’t have any profound, meaningful way to sum it all up. There’s no platitudes that make it okay.
The reality is that sometimes awful things happen out of the blue, and somehow we have to keep going, anyway. (I have yet to see that on a Hallmark card.)
Regardless, my thoughts and prayers are with the families who lost loved ones eleven years ago today.
Slobber therapy
We interrupt your regularly-scheduled Reporting On Very Serious And Also Fairly Depressing Things to bring you this important update on where we stand in my campaign to convince Otto we need another dog
Mario’s family went away for the weekend, and so we had Kaiser here with us for a couple of days. (You remember Kaiser! He is Licorice’s boyfriend and partner in random barking, as featured in this post about our recent camping adventures.) I was thrilled because next to Licorice, Kaiser is perhaps my favorite dog. And I figured they would play together and it would be delightful. And also I am not very smart.
Shortly after Kaiser was dropped off, we had to head off to the hospital and leave the dogs alone for a while. But this was wonderful; they’d have each other to hang out with, and no one would be lonely. At least, this is what I told myself as we were pulling out of the driveway and we could still hear Kaiser barking.
“I’m sure he’ll stop once he realizes we’re gone,” I said to Otto, who was giving me A Look. “He WILL,” I insisted. “I’m sure he will. There, I can’t hear him anymore! Problem solved!”
“We’re a block away,” my darling husband pointed out.
“Shut up,” I replied, lovingly. read more…
Showdown at the hospital corral
Well, I had my wallow. It was deep and wide and dark and there’s a certain comfort in just opting out for a while. It’s not sustainable, though, because eventually I have to pack lunches and help with homework and say something to my husband other than “I just fucking hate this all SO MUCH.” (“Your husband sounds like an angel,” my therapist commented last week, as I sat on her couch, sniffling and leaking tears, and that was enough to make me smile. “He really IS,” I said. “I don’t know how I got so lucky.” And that helped, because he is and I am and not EVERYTHING is terrible, after all.)
I located my mythical bootstraps (mine are made of sweet potatoes!) and became the squeakiest wheel that ever did squeak. Which is how I ended up spending an hour on the phone with the hospital CEO yesterday.
Granted, everyone who works with my kid probably now refers to me as “that annoying bitch,” but whatever. I have never had a problem advocating for what my kids need. I’ve never had a problem standing up and possibly making myself unpopular. What I realized, though, was that in this situation, I had been handling each mini-crisis individually, always willing to say “this particular thing is not okay, let’s fix it,” but for some reason I had been holding back on saying, “This is ALL BROKEN. I want answers.” And I’m not sure why that is. read more…
You are all delicious
Thank you for yesterday—for the recipes, for the lack of judgment when I admitted how very low I had somehow managed to sink, for the encouragement. I remain grateful for all of you.
I now have a new subfolder in my recipes folder, called Sweet Potato Riot. This amuses me. I can’t wait to try more of the ideas y’all gave me. Yesterday I ended up starting to make stock (I just happened to have a turkey carcass in my freezer; doesn’t everyone?) for soup and then I remembered that it was 95 degrees outside and that I didn’t want soup. I froze the stock and made a sweet potato hash (suggested by one of you! though I just threw one together rather than following a recipe) (onions caramelized in some bacon, then sweet potatoes, turkey sausage, green pepper, and sage/salt/pepper added to it and fried up), then topped it with poached eggs. The perfect comfort dinner! And now I only have 100-something more recipes to go.
And now, back to pushing onward. I’m over at Feel More Better today, talking about the best way I know to find lost happiness. Time for me to get back on that particular horse. I’ll bring the sweet potatoes.
Me, wall, BOOM
We had a meeting over the phone with Chickadee’s “treatment team” (and I use that term loosely) last week, during which I’m pretty sure my head exploded. In the aftermath I had a small tantrum and then returned to all of the things I’m supposed to be doing. We took Chickie out for a while on Saturday and on the drive home I made Otto stop and get me some coffee because I was starting to feel that bone-crushing weariness that was putting me to sleep while I was sitting up. He stopped; I drank my coffee; I fell asleep anyway. And then we came home and I was futzing around online, and while reading the words of a woman who lost her child in a terrible accident I realized I was actually (do not think this is comfortable for me to admit) jealous. In a few short hours her nightmare descended and was over. Nine months into losing my child in bits and pieces, I was jealous of someone else’s loss. Something in me just… broke.
So that was me realizing I’d hit the wall. I basically crawled into bed for two days and tried to cry/sleep it off. I don’t know how successful I was. Yesterday I got up and shopped for groceries and wrote a long email to the CEO of the hospital. Today I go back to putting one foot in front of the other.
There’s a hundred things I need that no one can do for me and I’m still trying to figure out how to do for myself. I know it’s ridiculous, but what I really need right now (that you can maybe provide) is a new recipe. Hit me with a dinner idea that incorporates sweet potatoes; I am tired of alternating between veggie chili and baked sweet potatoes topped with black beans. I know it’s a dumb-sounding request, but I think it will help. Thanks.
How things are
This week has, in a word, sucked. Oh, I know, this entire year has sucked, but this week sucked even compared to the rest, which is saying something. Tensions are running high and faith is being tested.
Today Otto got up before me and made coffee. I know this because I woke up to BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP, the international signal for “it is now safe to get out of bed and proceed directly to the largest mug in the house.” My darling, wonderful husband was in the shower by the time it beeped, and I all but ran into the kitchen.
And there I found a lake of coffee on the floor. The coffeemaker was in its usual spot on the counter, but the coffee POT was sitting on the edge of the sink. Otto had washed the pot, ground the beans, filled the basket, and then hit the switch without replacing the pot; eventually the filter basket overflowed and lo, the coffee streamed down the counter and onto the floor.
I beheld the tragic scene before me and burst into whoops of laughter, so loud that the dog came to see what my problem was. And then I went to tell my husband what he did. He kept trying to apologize, and between giggles I had to tell him that it was reassuring to know I’m not the only one falling apart.
Other people look at a gift of flowers or a particularly wonderful day with their spouse and know their relationship is built to last, and I mop up a giant coffee puddle and thank my lucky stars for one marvelous, barely-flawed Otto.
Virtual school makes me virtually crazy
I think I mentioned that Monkey is taking a couple of virtual school classes this semester, and as part of filling out the hospital/homebound paperwork for Chickadee it was suggested that she do so, as well. (Translation: Oh, we are legally obligated to send a teacher out to tutor your kid, but she’s too far away for us to feel like doing that, and we are too lazy to coordinate with the district where she’s currently residing, so instead how about we pay for her to take virtual school courses and you don’t sue us? OKAY!)
Actually—now that I think of it—the craziness started really early with this. Back in the late spring/early summer we went through a whole thing where Monkey was registered for classes as a homeschooler, and that’s supposed to be paid for by the state, but then good ol’ Georgia passed a bill about something else entirely that had a wee little line in it about counties taking on the expense for homeschoolers, so we then received a tuition bill, and Otto spent an entertaining week calling around to the school district, county offices, and state legislature until someone finally paid for it. That should’ve been my first clue that this was going to be entertaining.
And then, of course, Monkey has already tried to school one of his teachers without success. Heh. read more…
Puppy love and a recipe
It’s Tuesday, and that means I’m over at Feel More Better. Today I’ve written a little love letter to Licorice, because that’s what my life has come to. Love letters to my dog. (Normally I just sing to her, you understand. You are my pupshine, my only pupshine / You make me happy, when skies are gray. / You’ll never know, pup, how much I loooooove you / Please stop snarfing butter, okay?) (I’ll be here all week!)
If you’ve ever loved a pet the way I love her (that is to say: beyond reason), you should definitely come check it out.
Yesterday several of you asked for the chocolate muffin recipe, and because I am a smart and logical person I know that if I share it with you, it exponentially reduces the number of calories in the muffins in my freezer. That’s SCIENCE. Recipe after the jump. read more…
Super important weekend things
I spent half the weekend curled up in a little ball under my desk. Oh, haha! Not really! God, there’s crumbs and dog toys and stuff under there. I do my best fetal position checking-out-of-life withdrawal either in bed or on the Man Couch. (Man Couch has recliner seats. Obviously.)
At one point while I was doing my very best impersonation of a couch cushion, Otto sat down with me and we watched Best In Show, which I’ve somehow never seen before, but actually made me laugh quite a bit. I’m glad I can share this sort of breaking news with you. (Make sure to see this movie from twelve years ago, y’hear? Also, I hear that gas recently went up in cost a little, like it’s more than a buck a gallon now. Let me check into that and get back to you.)
So there is no One Grand Event that took place this weekend, unless you ask Monkey and Licorice