Questions...

Well, sending out my blog to family and friends has spurred a few questions that I'd assumed everyone already knew the answer to. Typing that, I feel a little conceited now...because that would imply that I’m SO important that EVERYONE must be talking about me in order for EVERYONE to already know what’s going on, right?

Anywho…the question that has flooded my email today is what’s wrong with me? Am I ok? The answer is both yes & no. For the last several years, I’ve had problems with chronic pain in my left hip and thigh. It would vary from slight to severe. The last 3 years, it’s steadily progressed, and for the last year and a half, it’s been unbearable most times. I’ve been to several doctors and have been diagnosed with degenerative bone disease. The bones deteriorate away, making rough edges where the nerves go through, so they are constantly irritated. In my lucky case, I got it in my lower spine and pelvis, which are weight bearing bones, which causes more rubbing of the nerves, which causes more inflammation, which causes more pain….you get the idea. It’s to the point now that I’ve been told that I will be in a wheel chair soon. As in, staring it in the face. Ironically, the way to prolong that, is to use a wheelchair now when a lot of walking or standing is in order. That way there is less “wear & tear,” thus enabling me to do things longer. My wheel chair was ordered a few weeks ago. I’m supposed to go pick it up, but have been prolonging that as well. Denial can be a great tool. NOT!!!

I’ve been off of work because of the pain. I was missing so much work that I was gone more than I was there. I’m also on very high doses of pain medications at all times. I’ve been to 3 pain management clinics. All have procedures that such that they want to do and that they seem to think will be highly effective. The problem is that my insurance won’t pay for them. When Michael started working at the hospital way back when, we didn’t put the entire family on his insurance. We only put him on because I had family insurance available at the airport for a much lower cost. Overall, my insurance has been great! This is the only thing that we’ve run into trouble with. Well, the hospital that Michael works at has their own pain management center at their central location. They don’t have to get any kind of approval on his insurance because, well, they ARE the hospital providing it. Therefore any care provided at the hospital or by the hospital staff is 100% covered. There’s not even a copay. Michael had gastric bypass surgery in September, and we had to pay a total of $700 for services not provided at the hospital. Not bad for a surgery that costs THOUSANDS of dollars. Anyway, during open enrollment we added the family to Michael’s insurance for this year, thinking that January 1st, I could be in the pain management clinic getting some much needed treatment, and get back to work. We then found out that any added members to insurance don’t have coverage for the first 90 days of the year. **Sigh** So, now we’re looking at April 1st. My short term disability is for a maximum of 6 months, and will therefore run out April 9th. Hopefully, they’re magic! If not, hopefully I can go back on limited duty or something while we work out the things that we need to with pain management. Now that I’ve written a book about that…

Question number 2 has been about Logan, and why we have him, and what the status is, etc. Logan is Jennifer’s son, our grandson. There was an *incident* Memorial Day weekend. I picked him up from Springtown at about 2am on that Monday morning. He went home for a few days before CPS removed him and did a placement with us. We had him until September, when Gilbert (Logan’s dad) petitioned for custody and won. Gilbert also messed up quite a bit. Being in the army, he moved to Tennessee with his family and things seemed to be going well. Logan came back here November 19 to start his holiday visitation time. He was supposed to stay until December 29. The entire time that we had him, we couldn’t get a hold of Gilbert. Just before he was supposed to go back, we filed the petition for custody. Gilbert & Jennifer both agreed to give Michael & I custody to keep Logan out of foster care. The judge granted us custody on January 10. We have a hearing in August to determine Jennifer’s status and to see if she can have unsupervised visitation yet or not. At this time, her visitation is 100% supervised until she resolves the issues that she has. Once they are resolved, she may be able to petition the court for custody. Right now, we’re taking it one step at a time. Logan is adjusting well and of course spoiled rotten by Grammy, Papa, and all of his aunts & uncles!

Hope that clears up some of the blanks!