September 2010

Sunday the 5th
II went back in and put the 4th gay news headlines ticker back into my Gay Pride page today. I’d originally taken it out because it seemed to slow down the page when loading, but when I experimentally put it back in, it didn’t make a difference. The news tickers display a total of 48 different sources from around the world and apparently a lot of people visit just to read them… now if I can just get them to click on a few ads while they’re there.

I want to cry every time I see a salad dressing commercial. If I could afford it, all I’d eat would be fresh salads with some grilled chicken breasts for protein. I’ve gained so much weight from cheap junk food in cans and I miss the celery and carrot sticks I used to munch on constantly.

I got dizzy again today and nearly toppled against the aquarium; that’s all I’d need is broken glass, fish and 80 gallons of water all over the floor.

I’m still a bit concerned about Mischief walking around with her tongue sticking out of her mouth by about a quarter of an inch. She doesn’t seem to be panting and I’ve double and triple checked her water. She’s showing absolutely no symptoms of anything. I guess she just likes sticking her tongue out at me. (sigh).

Tomorrow I plan to spend the entire day on the phone trying to get ahold of “Jobs & Family Services.” When I lost their paying my $100+ help with my Medicare part B premiums, it spelled doom for my budget.

I’m thinking seriously about buying seed for next year and doing a vegetable garden on the balcony. I know I can grow green peppers tomatoes and cucumbers but I’ve never tried onions and carrots. I could end up like Oliver Douglas from “Green Acres” before he bought the farm growing veggies on his Park Avenue penthouse’s terrace.

When they finally finish operating on my leg this month, I’ll be able to haul water out there.

Had a case of the lonelys today. One of the most important things anyone needs is to feel like they’re the most important thing in someone else’s world. I haven’t had that in six years. I’m so depressed it wears on my self-worth.


Monday the 6th
I looked at Jet’s General Store’s logo today and decided if I’m going to carry such a large variety of stuff I’d better make the store look a little bigger, so I’m planning to make the image a little wider without losing the “country store” feel to it.

I spent the whole day feeling like I was in danger. I can’t explain why, but I jumped at the sound of anything and if Mischief wandered into my peripheral vision it’d startle me.

I spent the evening watching Bette Midler and Eddie Izzard concerts trying to stay in a happy mood.


Tuesday the 7th
Along about January this year I started noticing a moss growing around the rocks in my aquarium that looks for all the world like lawn grass. In the months since, I’ve found it’s almost indestructible and I can tear some off and plant it somewhere else and it goes wild. I’ve wrapped it around the power cords for the pumps and the water returns and within days it’s thick enough not to be able to see them. I think that’s why the fancy guppy population as suddenly gone berserk lately, the babies have somewhere to hide.

My aquarium plants are doing so well now for some reason, I took the plastic ones out long ago… but now I’m starting to put them back in with a twist. I have some 30-inch-tall plastic Hornwort plants that are about an inch in diameter. I tore big pieces of the moss off the main plants and wrapped it tightly around their little plastic fronds and within days the moss had completely engulfed it to the point where it looks like I have three inch diameter moss columns growing all the way to the water’s surface (sort of like a kelp forest). The fish swim in and amongst it and the effect is great. Sort of like using a wooden trellis to grow vines or grapes with; after a while all you can only see is the plant. I’ve put five of them together and it looks incredible. The tank is four feet wide x 13 inches deep and 30 inches tall.

I have a bar stool in front of it so Mischief can sit and watch the fish and she loves it too.

I used to have two 100-gallon tanks next to each other-one salt one fresh and used the 80-gallon to propagate plants, and treat them for snail eggs before I put them in the main tanks. God I hate being broke.


Wednesday the 8th
I went in for my pre-surgery appointment at Grant Hospital this morning. I was cutting it close time-wise because it took forever to answer a bunch of questions and have blood drawn before I had to be at Dr. Mind’s in time. I kept expecting someone to walk up to me and demand a $100 payment like last time, but fortunately no one did. It probably helped that I told anyone and everyone that would listen to please note that this was a workman’s comp claim before someone billed me. We didn’t have to do an EKG since I had one from my visit to Dr. D/Heart a week or so ago.

All through my session with Dr. Mind I kept wondering what it was going to be like after GB takes her away from me. With Anthem screwing me anywhere I turn, there’s no way I could afford the 20% that Medicare doesn’t pay.

My god; it’s been 6 years since I had a lover. It’s like I won’t let anyone close enough to emotionally hurt me. I used to think it was fear of the physical beating, but now I think it’s resentment of how many so-called friends abandoned me after my world fell apart. After I stopped throwing bi-weekly poker/birthday/get-together parties in the game room when I was in town, or took art clients out to dinner all of the time.

I spent the afternoon sorting through all of my unopened medical bills over the last year that I’d thrown into a cubbyhole in my desk. I started feeling really depressed and “what’s the use” knowing nothing will come of this… again, just like the five rejection notices I’ve gotten so far just this year. What’s the most I hope for? $14 stupid dollars worth of food stamps per month for all the work and anxiety. What I really need is their help with my $100 copay with Medicare, which is what’s killing me in the first place.

At around midnight I realized I’d been staring at my monitor screen for five hours without doing anything… I’d even forgotten to eat.


Thursday the 9th
Sorting unpaid medical bills most of the day. My god there’s about $20,000 or more. No wonder I’ve got collection agencies hounding me day and night. The tough part is that Grant Hospital is billing me and so is their collection agency. Which means I have to sort through everything by date and by price to make sure I don’t have any duplicates and have them reject me because they thought I was trying to submit two bills for the same medical procedure.

Even though I haven’t posted any diary entries for the entire month of September, someone in Fredericksburg Virginia is still daily checking. I’m still scratching my head over who I know there, and I’m beginning to suspect that maybe GB is reading it every day trying to find some excuse to cut me off of my checks or benefits.

My check from them comes tomorrow. I still sweat it out as to whether I’ll get a deposit from them every two weeks. The bitch of it is that it’ll be gone on bills before Friday’s even done. I’m going to have to be super careful on groceries this time. I’d like to make Jennifer over there try to survive on only one cheap meal a day of two little cans of ravioli just to see how she likes it.

It’s 3AM and I’m still only about ¾ of the way through a year’s worth of bills. I still haven’t assembled my lease, birth certificate, Social Security card and all the other stuff they want. I fear I may have to go through this without any sleep at all tomorrow.

I’m yawning through tears.



Friday the 10th
I got maybe an hour of sleep last night… well this morning before I had to get ready to go to “Jobs & Family Services” (what most people call welfare. I remember the last time I went, I was denied for not having one electric bill page of the previous year and another document that I can’t even recall. I gave up.

As I’ve said before, I’m white, but have black family members on my Father’s side, so I fall into a very bad funk when I suddenly become irrationally afraid of them. I got to the waiting room in time for the appointment, and fortunately at 8:15 in the morning, the place was almost deserted. I had an envelope that was nearly 2 ½ inches thick, so if I failed this interview, I could be able to tell myself that it was impossible and to legitimately give up even trying (even though Dr. Mind tells me not to).

I sat there in the waiting room and tried to relax and compose myself, and a door immediately to my left that I thought was to a closet opened up abruptly and a young black man called my name out and I came face to face with my new caseworker-obviously not the “Mary” I was expecting.

He led me down a long hallway and looked back impatiently at me that I wasn’t keeping up with him on my sore knee. I tried to apologize and explain about that and he ignored me. After a series of turns through cubicles we arrived at his desk. I tried to explain about my PTSD so he wouldn’t take it personally and he told me he wasn’t interested in it and was too busy to hear my story.

In the past they’d go down the checklist that I’d been given in order and ask for documentation. I pulled out my Social Security card and he said he didn’t need it? I next pulled out my current lease… he didn’t want that either. I was nervous about the electric bills since I only had actual bills from March. When I reluctantly handed them to him, he held up his hand impatiently and asked me to stop handing him things until he asked for them.

I began having flashbacks from the attack as if maybe he was one of them. Fortunately he didn’t have a Somolian accent but I still couldn’t meet his eyes. He asked for my utilities and I’d lost track in the folder where I’d just laid the power bills, so I handed him the phone bills instead. He became agitated because they were printouts of the previous year’s payments instead of the actual bills themselves. I tried to explain that I’m billed on-line and don’t get bills. He gave me a stern look and said that was no excuse; I can print out the actual bills on line if I’d taken the time to look.

My ears started roaring like I was going to have one of my frustration rages, and I tried to explain again how I was being treated for a nervous problem after the attack and he looked me in the eyes and told me flatly he wasn’t interested and that we needed to speed this along.

From that time on I never met his eyes or even looked at him again; in fact as my frustration with the situation grew, I just propped my elbows on the desk and buried my head in my palms with my eyes closed..

He spotted my electric bills and said he wanted them instead and that since I had those, I shouldn’t have given him my phone bills because the county counts electric in my name as my being responsible for all the bills in my household. I clenched my jaw, handed them to him, and then picked a spot on the distant wall to stare at while he shuffled through them in silence.

He worked on his computer for a while and kept getting up to ask someone this or that for a few moments and then would return as wordlessly as he’d left. I went back to burying my head in my palms and fighting to keep from running out the room.

It turns out my case was still open because I still had an unused .51 cents on my food stamp card. UNFUCKINGBELIEVABLE. He smirked that I was again eligible for a whole $16 a month in food stamps and seemed to indicate the interview was over. I asked about the medical bills I’d brought for the spend-down and he pursed his lips at me and got up again and went to ask someone. It was as though he had no idea what a spend down was.

I buried my forehead again and that’s when I noticed something between my elbows on the desk. A handwritten sign on an index card that said “DO NOT lean your elbows on this desk”

I wanted to get out of there. I wasn’t scared, I just needed to get out of there like someone who was claustrophobic and found themselves trapped in a closet with no light and the door bolted closed.

His supervisor wandered by and saw me and got concerned, then asked me if I was all right. I explained about the attack, my fear, how he refused to let me explain so he wouldn’t take it personally and she was about to say something when he returned. He asked her about my “spend-down bills” and I showed her the stack and she became puzzled and asked why I hadn’t been mailing these in. I told her that I’d gotten several letters saying I wasn’t eligible for help, nor had received any assistance since last August. She looked pissed and said if someone had taken the time to explain it to me better, it was because I’d stopped sending in my bills that I became ineligible in the first place. I told her that I’d spent the first 9 months of 2009 in the hospital and didn’t get the memo and since I was away from home couldn’t mail them in.

She took the stack from me and said she’d scan them herself and asked me to follow her. She had an assistant scan them while she sat me down in her cubicle, which was in the next aisle, but adjacent to the caseworker I’d just been with, and asked me to clarify why I seemed so upset. She was a really nice young black woman and I explained how my grandfather was black and how it had nothing to do with race but was from flashbacks and panic, but I felt bad and was frustrated that he wouldn’t let me explain why I’d reacted to him the way I did.

I had a feeling this isn’t going to go well. I got home to realize I’d forgotten to ask about them helping me with Medicare part B’s co pay. I tried to call them and of course couldn’t get through.

I checked the bank statement on line and I got the GB check but it’s gone already. I miscalculated somewhere and the only way I can buy food is to put off the phone bill until the 24th, which means another $5 late payment fee. Shit, I remember when I’d pay my phone bills six months at a time in advance, now I’m fretting over five lousy bucks. The problem is that since the rent will come out of the disability check on the third, I’m going to have to put the majority of the check coming on the 24th on the phone, electric and car insurance and then spend very carefully on groceries. Then mandatorily save what’s left over to be combined with next month’s disability to barely pay October’s rent with maybe $5 left for groceries.

This is all giving me a headache. Does anyone still wonder why I haven’t grown another ulcer?

I used my mini grocery cart to precariously balance a huge garbage bag of opened junk mail and envelopes down to the dumpster this afternoon.


Saturday the 11th
Today’s the 9th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center. The TV’s been filled with specials all day. I’m kinda pissed to realize that within a year of it being hit, the Pentagon was rebuilt so that you can’t even tell it was damaged, but almost nothing’s gone up in nine years at ground zero. I spent the morning looking at footage I’ve stored of the building impacts on my computer.

I couldn’t stop sneezing this afternoon and I’m starting to feel cold. I’ve actually turned off the fans in the house. I curled up in my bed under three blankets and fell asleep. Around 10 I woke up from another nightmare. I was trying to get away from my three Somolians by leaping from the top of one of the World Trade Center buildings to the other and just as I was about to jump it collapsed out from under me.. I didn’t die when I landed and they came out the front door and began beating me with an oversized gun.

God will this never end? I wonder what will happen when I get cut off of my Cymbalta. I’ll be able to get prescriptions, but won’t be able to afford it with Anthem’s co-pay.

I’ve been worried that the change over from GB to Social Security might entail them trying to take the $3,000 GB overpayment from me again and I might not have enough to survive. That and the changeover could take so long that I could miss a couple of rent payments.

You’d think by now I’d be used to this, but I’ve been caught off guard so many times, I have to be constantly ready for the worst or suffer the consequences.


Sunday the 12th
I started feeling a really bad sore throat today. I used to get these bouts with strep throat every spring that’d last seemingly forever. Fortunately they stopped around 1999, but this feels just like it.

Looking over my e-store layout, I’ve come to realize that I’ve gotten away from the original concept of “you can afford it here” and I’m afraid I have to start over. The idea was to have most of the items in three categories: “affordable” “Reasonable” and Famous brands and Designers” and I’ve strayed away from that, so I’m going to rework it, starting with the Men’s department.

I got a nice call from Aunt Margaret today; they’ve put her on a light dosage of Cymbalta like me. I hope it helps her. Betsy’s gone to working just weekends up at Clear Lake and will be laid off soon. That’s got to be rough on them. She told me that according to Char’s Facebook page Bill toppled a tree in her mother’s yard over onto their motor home.

I decided to venture out to the new Wal-Mart near where Teresa lives. It’s cloudy, but warm and I miss “cruising around with the top down.” I discovered that it’s closer in a straight line, but longer to driving it. It was nice, with skylights and a more organized layout but the prices were two or three cents more there than at mine on Morse Rd. On the way home a car full of young black guys pulled up beside me at 70MPH on Rt. 70, all smiles and just having a good time. I nearly wrecked the car when one rolled down his window and began yelling at me. I nearly sideswiped the car on the other side of me in panic, only to realize he was screaming “Nice ride!” I smiled back, took a deep breath and floored it away from them. My heart did some pounding for a while, but they peeled off at the next exit.

As I close out this evening, I’m developing a headache and I still feel cold… this is not good. I spent the day working on redoing the Men’s department. I haven’t had any customers since the beginning of the month… this sucks. I’ve got to get the new logo done and send it out to my BC friends to display on their pages.

I’ve been hearing rumors via e-mail that Eric Olsen the founder of BlogCritics is leaving his consultant position there. I sort of expected it after he sold out to Technocrati. He no longer has control of his “baby” and even though he stayed on it’s not the same. Especially when someone else can override his decisions concerning something he created.


Monday the 13th
The sore throat is getting worse and now I’m having nasal congestion that’s draining into my lungs and a headache that’s so bad that my eye’s literally hurt. When I cough the right side of my head hurts where my jaw muscle attaches to my skull at the temple. This isn’t good. The coughing is only aggravating the sore throat and as of today I’m not allowed to take aspirin according to my pre-surgery instructions. I’m getting chills too to the point of turning off all of the fans that I use to counter the ringing of my ears. I’m tempted to go out and buy some Dayquil, but I can’t afford it.

This will be the first year in a long time that I didn’t send a birthday message to Char. Her withholding Dad’s letter for 32 years is still unforgivable and I’m still not ready to deal with… or forgive her.

I e-mailed Eric Olsen today, and he e-mailed me back that he’s indeed leaving BC. This is not good news. He said he’s announcing it on Wednesday and his wife Dawn is leaving too. Damn it.

About an hour after his e-mail, I got a mass one from him to all BC writers announcing he’s leaving. I guess he figured that if I’d found out about it, so had everyone else, so he moved his note up two days.

The congestion in my lungs is getting really bad. My voice is really low from coughing and this afternoon I gave up and went to Kroger’s and got a bottle of Dayquil. It doesn’t really do that much good on the symptoms, but the syrup in it soothes my throat.

I came home, downed some of it and hid in bed. I woke up around midnight and played chess on the computer for a while, then worked on reorganizing “Jet’s General Store”.for about two hours before getting drowsy.

My coughing is getting worse instead of better and now I feel really hot instead of really cold.


Tuesday the 14th
Today is Christopher Rose’s birthday, a British acquaintance of mine. I set up a note on the BC private community page wishing him a happy birthday and he wrote back that it was nice to hear from me. I smiled for a change today.

I’ve been having trouble with my equilibrium again today. Every time I got up I’d lose my balance and topple somewhere. It might have something to do with my ears; I hear an annoying click when I swallow. I’ve been coughing like crazy all day and my nose has been stuffed too. It’s one of those sicknesses when you become convinced that it’ll never go away. I have to think seriously about calling Dr. Mind tomorrow and canceling and if this doesn’t clear up by the weekend, I might have to cancel the knee surgery.

I slept through the whole day getting up for maybe an hour at a time. This headache is killing me and the only way to escape it is to sleep.

It started again this afternoon. I woke up to the sound of the doorbell ringing and of course no one was there. I got up and looked in case it was Rich delivering a package, but no one was there.

Other than playing chess with the computer nothing was accomplished today.


Wednesday the 15th
I woke up with an even more intense headache this morning. My whole body hurt to even move. I knocked around the penthouse for an hour and went back to bed. It’s advanced to shivering chills now and I gave up and called Dr. Mind first thing this morning and said I couldn’t make my appointment. I know I’m not supposed to do it, but I gave up and took half an aspirin for the headache.

I tried to reach Teresa again this morning to let her know I may have to move the surgery date but couldn’t get ahold of her.

Nothing in the mail again today from welfare. I hate this and it’s stupid to get my hopes up. Eric sent out an official e-mail to everyone today that he’s leaving BC… I guess we’ll see what happens when the inmates begin running the asylum

If I could’ve stopped coughing I’d have slept the whole day. It feels like my head explodes every time I cough, especially at my right temple. My throat’s getting worse instead of better and I’m rationing the Dayquil to the point of it probably not helping in such small dosages.

I worked on organizing the Men’s Department of Jet’s General Store most of the evening and tried to listen to comedy recordings on my headset to cheer my miserable self up.

Ughhh


Thursday the 16th
My throat is getting less sore. I hope it stays that way. I have an electronic fever thermometer in my middle desk drawer but it’s come up missing. Mischief taught herself how to open it because she knows I keep rubber bands and fun things she likes to play with in there. I didn’t discover this until I found some of my insulin hypos on the floor.

I tried to reach Teresa again this morning. Her accounts for texting, e-mail and voicemail are all full. I’ll try again tomorrow. Mischief has a bulk feeder and water dish so she’ll be okay and I guess the fish will be alright eating plants in the aquarium for a couple of days.

I tried to get on line with AT&T to see my phone bill and it wouldn’t come up. I guess the site is down, so I called to try to make arrangements to pay the bill on the 24th. It’s due on the 20th and the last thing I need is another $5 late fee. The guy I talked to said he could hook me up with a better deal on my phone service that not only gave me more features, but had free unlimited long distance… AT $12 A MONTH LESS!!! Then he told me that he could upgrade my DSL to twice the speed for only $5 a month more! Something went right! I took the offers and he transferred me over to the billing department. The lady was very nice and said it was okay to pay it late, and even took the late fee off this month’s bill.

I was startled awake this afternoon to the tornado siren going off outside my window. It’s two blocks away on a tall pole and points directly at me when it spins around. We had one hell of a storm with trees and power lines down all over the place and at one point a twister was aimed right at downtown along the I-70 corridor… I-70 is only fifty yards south of me. Except for chairs blowing around on the balcony and horizontal rain, it was exciting to watch, but fortunately I came out of it undamaged. Never saw the tornado, though at one point I almost grabbed Mischief and headed for the basement while watching weather radar on TV.

I’m now completely out of Dayquil and the congestion is getting worse instead of better.

I woke up screaming again this evening after a nap, but don’t remember why.


Friday the 17th
Betsy floored me by calling on her way up the mountain to say that she and Norm bought their wedding rings at Sears. They were having a half price sale on the very rings she would’ve bought from my General Store. I don’t blame her, but I’m bitterly disappointed. I’d hoped to use the commission to get caught up on the bills.

Grant Hospital called today to do a pre-surgery questionnaire. I told her about my throat and fever and she said to call by Monday if it doesn’t clear up over the weekend.

I was sitting at my desk here when the doorbell rang, or at least I thought it did. It sounded so real-and that’s when something amazing dawned on me; the doorbell sound I’m hearing is a mechanical bell set in apartment doors-NOT MINE!!! It’s the sound of the doorbell I was ringing frantically after I was robbed and beaten when no one would let me in their apartment! My penthouse used to have that type of door until it was upgraded to a phone system… so my doorbell doesn’t ring.


Saturday the 18th
I’m still reeling from Betsy not buying her rings from me. I tried to tell her I wasn’t mad the other day but lost the cell connection. In her position I’d have done the same exact thing.

I called the 866 number and nothing’s been added to my food stamp card damn it. I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up. But damn it all to hell it took a lot out of me to make that appointment and then sort through the ton of documentation required for the application. Never again. I give up. You’d think they’d have at least sent me a rejection notice by now.

God my whole body hurts at the joints and I seem to be coughing even more than my head hurts.

I probably have no choice but to cancel the surgery on Tuesday and risk GB using that as an excuse not to send me a check.


Sunday the 19th
I woke up this morning and the headache was more intense than ever. I’ve got no choice but to call tomorrow and reschedule the operation…. Fuck. It also means I’m going to have to buy food to make up for the meals on Tuesday and Wednesday. To make up the shortage I’ve decided to pay only $100 on the $115 electric bill in order to buy groceries and Mischief is nearly out of cat food… groan. I was tempted really badly to try to choose between more Dayquil and food, but food won out.

I drove up to Wal-Mart, GOD I miss driving anywhere at will. The freedom to just come and go as I please I think is what I miss the most; that and fresh vegetables.

There’s got to be a way out of this mess that I haven’t thought of yet and it’s really starting to piss me off that I still haven’t heard anything about whether I’ll get any help with my Medicare part B payments.

My head hurts so bad there’s no real sense in putting anything else down in writing today. I’m off to bed to escape it.


Monday the 20th
The throbbing in my head is a little better, but I can’t stop coughing. In fact I woke up around 8AM in a coughing fit. I answered a call from Aunt Margaret this morning and she didn’t recognize my voice it was so deep. I called Dr. P/knee and canceled the operation, rescheduling it for next Tuesday at 5:30 in the morning. He is so great, he scheduled me for overnight specifically so I could get 4 square meals-god love him. If I have anything to say about it, they’ll all be huge chef salads and chicken breasts.

After checking my bank statement against my spreadsheet, I just discovered that I fucked up somewhere and transposed two numbers. I’ll be short about .50 cents on the rent next month. God damn it all to hell. Dr. Mind called me this morning to wish me her best and I told her I was still as sick as I was when I had to cancel last week’s session. I told her I’d try to come in this week if I’m better and she said it was okay, if not we could have our session over the phone.

The right side of my head is killing me when I cough to the point where I only put out half a cough. I wonder if I could have torn a muscle in my jaw during one of my coughing fits; it’s damned agony.

I have two frozen dinners and three cans of ravioli left for today, tomorrow and Thursday and then I’m completely out of food. The only way I can see my way out of this is to only pay $100 of my $115 electric bill and hope for the best. I’ve already promised I’d pay the phone on time this Friday to keep from being disconnected, so I’m stuck. Somehow I don’t think $15 is going to buy two week’s worth of food.

I still haven’t heard a single word from “welfare,” I’m still hurting from the near panic attack in the waiting room and what followed. More than likely nothing will come of it, like all the other times.

God this is so hopeless.


Tuesday the 21st
Strange thing, no collection agency calls for a while. I wonder if that’s good or bad. I decided to do the one can of ravioli today so that at least the next couple of days will be “full meals” if you can call it that.

Gads what I’d give for a salad.

I can’t stop coughing, it’s a good thing I canceled the surgery or I’d probably gagged to death coughing up flem with a breathing tube known my throat while I was unconscious.

I had a dream last night that I held up a Kroger’s and all I wanted was enough to make a few big salads. I woke up before I found out how it ended.


Wednesday the 22nd
I set the clock-radio for 8 this morning and called Dr. Mind to cancel our session. No sense in getting her sick too. I got her to reschedule me for 1:30 tomorrow afternoon. She says they’re closing down the back parking lot today (they don’t have a front one) and I’ll have to come in early tomorrow to make sure I can get a pass into the garage next door and still make it on time.

The “every-Wednesday-at-noon” tornado siren test woke me up and I nearly panicked until I realized I’d canceled Dr. Mind today. The mail brought a medical card! Something went right!!!! I put it in my wallet and about an hour later it occurred to me that I might have to activate it so I took it out again and discovered that it wasn’t mine. The mailman had miss-delivered a guy named Jason from the other building to me. FUCK. I just can’t win.

My head feels “woozy” like it’s in a vice. The only way to survive this is to sleep; which I’ve been doing a lot of lately. Between the coughing and the headache I didn’t even eat today. I wish I could bottle this feeling as a diet.

I should send a note to Brenda thanking her again for her help with my clinic co-pay. Knowing how I feel now being on the receiving end of it, I wonder if I’ll ever be able to help out someone again if I ever recover from this.


Thursday the 23rd
I left post-it notes all over the place so I wouldn’t forget to go to Dr. Mind this afternoon. As predicted, they’d partially closed off the back parking lot. Of the spaces back there they decided to leave everything open except the two handicapped slots-there they parked their construction trucks.

She asked me for my watch, which hasn’t run for two months, but is still correctly displaying the date on the LCD display… and nothing else. She says she’s got a friend who can look at it.

After I went over the last two weeks with her, I drove up to Family Medical Pharmacy up north to refill my Cymbalta only to find that GB “prior authorized” only one filling of the prescription even though it had two refills on it. GOD DAMN IT ALL TO HELL. We tried calling Dr. T’s with no luck and I left empty handed. I drove home very carefully so as not to wind up in Zanesville again.

I wish I had.

Today’s mail brought a full rejection from “Job & Family Services” On one part of the notice they said I would be eligible for $16 a month, but they stated that they’d added $0 to my food stamp card and said that even though I presented over $20,000 in medical bills that I didn’t meet my spend-down for help with the $100 Medicare Part B monthly payment.

Just to add icing to the cake, I got a red shutoff notice from the city unless I pay them $235 on my electric bill. All I can do is send them $100 tomorrow and hope for the best. This is just getting too much for me.

I spent the evening pondering how much easier it’d be if I just killed myself. An intentional overdose of insulin or something like that… of course I came to my senses… after a while. This stress and constant problems are just too much for me anymore.


Friday the 24th
GB deposited my check. I went on line and paid the phone bill and sent the city $100, god I hope that works, but the way things are going; I doubt it.

With no food in the house I went up to Wal-Mart and bought some chicken patties and dinner rolls for $10, leaving me 5. If I’m careful I’ll have dinner Saturday and Sunday and I can make it on three dinner rolls on Monday…I hope. I have to fast anyway on Monday night because I have surgery on Tuesday morning. I loved driving there with the top down, but I won’t be able to do it more than once more as I’m low on gas and still have to get back and forth to Dr. Mind.

The only reason I’m looking forward to being operated on is for three-possibly four good meals. Seven years ago I could never have imagined being in this situation.

I got on the computer and decided to try to text my friend Matt on his cell phone. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but this time it did. He said he missed me and wished me luck on Tuesday.

Since telling Dr. Mind about the doorbell, I haven’t heard it once… what a relief.


Saturday the 25th
I slept fitfully last night but blissfully don’t remember why. My throat is feeling better, though I still have the cough. The headache is still there, but the side of my head at the temple has stopped hurting.

I called Family Medical about whether I got the authorization today and forgot they closed at noon on Saturdays.

I watched Ohio State beat the living hell out of Eastern Michigan State something like 70-20. Me a football fan? I slept a lot between working on Jet’s General Store. Still no customers this month… (sigh)


Sunday the 26th
I finished the new Jet’s General Store logo today. I decided fuck it, and put the rainbow flag back in it. Like Bette Midler is fond of saying “fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke!”

My throat is feeling a lot better, though I still have the cough and I’m going through with the surgery after all.

Now all I have to do is worry about how soon GB will start trying to say I’m “Maximum Medically Improved” and try to cut me off.


Monday the 27th
I did a huge load of laundry and printed out a bunch of medical records/history for the hospital tomorrow.

I usually can’t fall asleep before 5AM, I have to get up at 4… this should be fun.

I spent the day making last-minute preparations for tomorrow morning… good god I have to get up at 4AM!

Along about 10PM I remembered that my car insurance is due tomorrow! I went on line and tired to make a payment… rejected… WTF? Tried again… rejected… groan… five more times. I finally got ahold of PNC Bank customer support to discover that tonight of all nights they’re changing over to a new filing system and I have a new routing number! It took me and some guy from customer support half an hour to get it to go through.

Only to me do these things happen…


Tuesday the 28th
4:35AM I’m supposed to be at the hospital at 5:30… I wonder if I’ll make it. God I’ve got to trust my car overnight in a hospital parking lot…

When I got there, there was a spirited argument over security wanting my wallet to hold in their vault, but not my insulin and heart prescriptions. After explaining it a dozen times to as many people. They got the wallet-I got the prescriptions. The fucked up thing about hospitals is that they’re so compartmentalized that in the space of an hour and a half a dozen people will come in and ask you the exact same questions over and over again because they’re not allowed to share information with each other.

Dr. P/knee came in and said I might not be able to stay overnight because GB is trying not to authorize it. So much for a few decent meals.

I think this is the fastest I’ve ever been knocked out in pre-surgery. When I woke up I hadn’t even recovered consciousness before a nurse asked me if I’d needed to piss yet. I got to the room around 11:30 hoping for a good lunch and was handed a menu for… a liquid diet. Jello and a diet Pepsi. (Chrrrrrrist.) I discovered my leg was completely bandaged from my crotch to my toe for an operation on my knee… this had me worried, especially after Betsy called and said the hospital had me in only “fair” condition.

Another nurse came in asked me if I’d “urinated” and stated that If I didn’t by the time she changed shifts they were going to install a catheter… oy vay.

She came in an hour later and said the liquid diet was a mistake and I ordered a HUGE grilled chicken salad with extra cucumbers and tomatoes. My god it was so good. My stomach probably spent the afternoon wondering what the hell that stuff was. When Betsy called I was so stoned I could barely put two thoughts together rationally, gave up and asked her to call back. I plan to ask for as much Mrs. Dash seasoner as I can to bring home with me to cut down on my salt intake.

Aunt Margaret called me in the evening and I woke covered in sweat. I asked for a fan in my room, but so far no luck. If I succeed in staying over night, I plan to call the business office and have them send a representative to my room and personally fill out the financial aid requests, so they can’t possibly say I didn’t. I even grabbed the huge envelope of stuff I took to “welfare” so they’d have all my financial papers right then and there. I’m still fighting for myself, so I haven’t given up yet. It’s so fucked up that someone that is upper or even just middle class in this country has to lose and/or give up everything before he can get any help.

I guess they’re letting me stay the night after all, because by 7PM no one’s come in with discharge papers for me to sign.

I do have a nurse that insists on popping in every other hour to ask if I’d peed yet…. Unbelievable.


Wednesday the 29th
I woke up in agony this morning. There’s nothing more painful than bone surgery and the pain was so intense I could barely think around it.

The nurse says I’m to be discharged this afternoon. Dr. P/knee came by with a souvenir of my surgery by bringing me the plate and screws that he’d removed from my leg. I ordered a sausage omelet with bacon and cheddar cheese, hashed browns and a giant sausage sandwich on wheat toast. I was in heaven.

After breakfast I called the business office and they said they’d send someone up from the financial aid department this morning or afternoon, so I spent the time worrying if I’d be sent home before I saw them. A social worker from a separate department came up and I explained the whole story and she offered me some resources for more food banks, some help with my apartment cleaning (between the heart surgeries and knee/arm/foot I haven’t been able to walk stuff about 4 blocks to the dumpster)

I wound up running out of needles and testing supplies, as the nurses kept insisting on testing my blood glucose level every other hour. I’m used to testing once or twice a day and I had to refuse their equipment/supplies because GB won’t pay for them since they’re not part of the original injury.

I gave up and told them that the Lantus insulin hadn’t cut in yet and that I should be alright until I could get home and do an injection there. My nurse was appalled when she heard that and began sneaking me pricking devices for my fingers and alcohol swabs, God love her.

The social worker kept telling me not to leave the hospital until I’d seen the financial aid officer with Grant Hospital, so I ordered lunch… another HUGE grilled chicken salad and a cheeseburger. I have no food in the house at all-none, so I figured I better bulk up, since I’ll be in no condition to go grocery shopping for a couple of days.

After lunch the financial aid lady finally came, she said she could get me help with the turn-off notice on the electric bill. Though I was grateful, I didn’t tell her that I wished I’d known that before I’d sent them $100. I also got a big piece of news in the form of the Pizza shop has been responding to agencies contacting them about giving me help (and the reason for them refusing me)… by telling them that I’m still employed with them! Unfuckingbelievable.

Thank god I know how to get in and out of the car without killing my leg from all the previous surgeries! I shudder to think what’s going to happen, once the Percocet wears off. I got home around 2PM and encountered Rich putting the chaise lounges from the pool away for the year. He joked around with me about how slow I was moving, getting back at me when I did the same to him after his recent hospital stay. His next step will be to drain our big pool which means a two inch deep stream of water running down the parking lot to the storm drain.

Up in my apartment, I’d cleaned Mischief’s litter box before I left Monday morning, but I still smelled ammonia. I’ll have to get to that soon; it’s still clean but the litter needs to be completely changed..

After feeding the fish and making sure the cat was okay, it dawned on me that everything was exactly where I left it. I don’t think Teresa had checked in to see if everything was okay. I wouldn’t be mad at her if she hadn’t-after all I’d only been gone two days. I realized that I hadn’t made the bed, having done the laundry just hours before I left, so it meant fighting the sheet and blanket over a queen-sized bed…, which wasn’t easy. Of course every time I’d drift off, either Betsy or Aunt Margaret called. God love both of them… they’re the only family I have that gives a damn and I’m sure I’d be dead by my own hand by now if it weren’t for them.

I woke up around midnight and my leg was in full-blown agony mode. The next few days should be fun. I limped around the house and decided it was too much and decided to see if I could sleep the whole night through.


Thursday the 30th
I woke up around 9 and my leg HURTS. It was a fight just to get up and check the internet for news and e-mails. The points I’d redeemed on my checking account came through and I now have $20 to buy food for 8 days… Weeeeeee!

1-888-404-3721, which is a collection agency called JP recovery called me 4 times in the space of one hour this morning.

I called Family Medical Pharmacy to see if GB finally gave “prior authorization” for my anti-depressants and was surprised to find that they hadn’t. WTF. This means they probably won’t give it for the percocet and I NEED that painkiller. The pharmacy said I need authorization from Dr. T/WorkHealth, so I called them and Dr. T said the authorization was already given to her to write any prescription that I thought I needed for the injury, and that the problem was with GB not wanting to pay for it… or my Cymbalta and hinted that if they could delay it a week, they’d only have to refill it every 5 weeks instead of 4 because pharmacies will only refill after 30 days after it’s “filled” not when it’s ordered.

I next tried to get ahold of Jennifer at GB and of course got her voicemail over and over. I’ve got some kind of legal paper in all of these lawsuits that GB keeps losing that I can only contact GB through my lawyer and so I got ahold of him next… well his assistant anyway. She said the only thing to do was to keep trying. She put me on hold and got voicemail too.

By this time I was getting frustrated and could feel myself ready to explode emotionally, so I called Dr. Mind. She said to try calling the pharmacy and seeing if they’d fill the narcotic without prior authorization… So I did, and it worked.

I got a grocery list together and my calculator and drove up north and discovered that GB had put a hold on my prescriptions. An hour went by and my leg hurt because there was no place to put it up until a lady came over and moved her chair in the waiting area so I could prop it up. An hour went by, then another. I was getting madder and madder. The last time this happened I wound up in Zanesville on one of my “disassociation trips.” I decided to use the waiting time to go over to Wal-Mart. I can get these little Banquet chicken patties, 10 for $3.98 and of course when I got there they were out of them. Frustration building, I asked a guy in frozen foods to help me and he found 4 in the back, so I’ll be rationing them for 8 days.

I got back to the pharmacy and realized I was almost completely out of gas with nothing left in checking and 15-20 miles from home.

When I got there, they were still fighting with GB so I waited some more and it turned out they were fighting over the Cymbalta refill but had approved the Percocet hours ago. I almost gave up when it finally came through.

I drove home watching the gas gauge fall below the E halfway home, but fortunately I made it. With my having to empty my account to make the rent (assuming the disability check actually will show up tomorrow since the 3rd is on Sunday) I’m going to have to use some of my shiny Eisenhower dollars to get to Dr. Mind on Wednesday… damn it.

I sent off a message to my good friend Paula on her birthday this evening. I miss her a lot and I hope she’s still climbing the ladder of success at Safelite. With all this, I’d completely forgotten about my promise to call Betsy in Oregon today, when she called me I was just too exhausted from today’s events and promised to call her tomorrow morning at 7:30AM her time after she gets Norm off to work.

God it’s going to kill me not to be at her wedding.