It's spring break, and there is no sub teaching work this week. No medical appts. I've been very lazy this week. I've watched some videos, read, and went to a few movies. I haven't wanted to exercise...I am not being good on that side of my weight loss.
I am physically though feeling back to normal. The "high anxiety" is lessening. It is sort of nice to be bored at times this week, after all that has happened in the last few months!!
Take care all,
Laurie
It's been an interesting day. I am developing some sleep problems... I think it is because the gunshot was at 5 a.m.--when it was dark... I am up all night the last two nights and sleep all day. This is okay this week because it's spring break, and there are no sub teaching jobs and no medical appointments.
I was referred to Adult Protective Services by someone at the Department of Human Services. They called my counselor at Riverwood Center, and had him do a "welfare" check on me. This just ticks me off. I say I am too stressed to come to the meeting, so suddenly I need psych intervention that I can't arrange on my own? Adult Protective Services is for people who don't have the capacity to help themselves out of a situation...such as elder abuse or abuse concerning someone with a disability.
Yes, I am concerned disabled, but I am quite capable of asking for help and I know what is best for me. If the person had actually called me from the Department of Human Services and had a conversation with me (nobody actually talks to me from there), he/she would have found that I am having a stress reaction within the "normal" range for such an incident, and my thoughts and fears are rational, i.e. I fear somebody coming back and mistaking my apartment for the "drug" apartment next door, which is the theory I most believe as motive for the gunshot.
I just ended up feeling like people there at DHS were trying to discredit me, in that I have some valid complaints on how they are handling my Medicaid case. It seems to be a tactic popular these days against me. Last October, I whistleblew on a agency to the state that I was on the board of directors of, for producing fradulent documents. I did this to protect my occupational therapy license. The director and the president of the board were my friends. They haven't spoken to me in 6 months now, but I am okay with it, as I have a moral compass guiding me, and can sleep at night knowing I did the right thing, not like them. But in retaliation, they have been telling people that I am psychotic, and the state didn't believe my accusations, as they were "psychotic ramblings". This is so untrue...the state believed every word, and added items to a plan of correction for the agency. So this is not the first time the "let's just label her crazy, so we don't have to change or deal with the truth" has been used in my small world lately.
Well, it's 4 a.m. -- I think I'll try to sleep again. If I don't get back into a good pattern soon, I'll talk to the docs about medication to regulate me. Such fun...
It's been rough the last couple of days. I have been in "high anxiety", but it is easing. I was freaked out yesterday, and didn't leave my room, because it is behind a brick wall. But today, I got out more, and went to counseling (we tried not to use the word "emergency", but technically that was what it was). The police think it was random, and a gang initiation rite, but my neighbor is under investigation for selling marijuana. I think the gunshot has to do with my neighborhood. I thought of putting a sign in my window with an arrow to the drug dealer, but I think that might be going overboard!!
I'm back to rational fear though. If it is the neighbors, then the people might come back to finish the job. I am being careful, in that I look if I am going to the kitchen or living room to see if anyone is in the parking lot. My "good" neighbors in the apartment complex are looking out for suspicious activity in the parking lot too, so that is easing my fears. The police are checking our parking lot more often than usual. Maintenance for the building came today and patched up the bullet holes...but I still am aware they are there.
I vomited anything I tried to eat or drink on Saturday, and I am sure it was because of anxiety. I went back on liquids for awhile, and tonight I was able to go back to ground/blended food...meat that is tuna-fish texture. I also had hives all weekend, but they went away today too.
I was much better in being able to concentrate today, and I finished tons of Medicaid paperwork. I think I faxed 25 pages!! There is supposed to be a meeting tomorrow with 3 people at the Department of Human Services about my case, and what happened with my worker. I am supposed to go, but after the gunshot incident, I said it was too much of a stressor to drive a distance to get there, sit in a waiting room with a bunch of people who I am not comfortable being around on a good day, and talking to a group of DHS workers I have never met. I have a fax machine and I have supplied them plenty of information all along. They need to be able to actually do something without me there.
I've lost 20 lbs. since the lap-band surgery. I'm fitting into many of the clothes that were given to me last year. I see the surgeon next week for my one-month post operative appt.
Well, off to bed...
Scared sh@itless! At 5 am, I heard a loud pop. Thought it was my oxygen machine. I woke up this morning to a gun shot through my wall and into my kitchen ceiling. My landlady says the people in the next apartment are selling drugs. Police are here investigating...
Read more...I had a great time in Grand Rapids. I went to an IMAX theatre and saw Monsters vs. Aliens, and then a great museum I spent 4 hours at. Then I went to the Taj Mahal of YMCAs--the Grand Rapids YMCA. They had a steam room and whirlpool just in the locker room. And then I went to a Goodwill thrift store outlet, that sold goods by the pound. I got 4 down pillows for a $1. The doctor's appointments went well, and the sleep apnea doc gave me good advice. The dermatologist did quite a few things, including taking off 3 moles on my back and sending them to be biospied. I'm not worried anything will be wrong as far as the biosopies.
Medicaid is still giving me heck. I got a call this morning from my worker's supervisor, ordering me to a meeting on Tuesday with her, my worker, and the supervisor's superior. I'm not sure how I feel about the meeting yet.
On with better news. I wrote a new letter to the Michigan legislator's and I am getting phone calls and return emails about it this morning. Here's the letter:
Re: dreams deferred...
Friday, April 3, 2009 11:26 AM
From:
"District 80"
To:
"Rep. Jimmy Womack (District 7)"
hideAddress('addrExpand_to');
Cc:
"andy District 17"
group",
----------------------------------------------
Laurie
Thank you for the e-mail and I appreciate your support and advocacy for House Bills 4707 and 4708. As per my voice mail, I wanted to give you a little more information on the status.
Along with Rep. Jim Slezak, I introduced the most recent Freedom to Work legislation this week. The bills will also be introduced in the Senate by Senator Gerald Van Woerkom and Senator John Gleason. We are hoping to arrange an organizational meeting in the next two weeks to determine if the proposals will need any changes. The meetings will include representatives from ARC of Michigan as well as the Disability Network. I will make sure that our offices keeps you up to date on any activity and we will do everything we can to get this issue moving.
Again, I appreciate your e-mail and please do not hesitate to contact my office directly if you have any additional comments or concerns.
Sincerely,
Tonya Schuitmaker
80th House District
(517) 373-0839
>>> Laurie alderman
I spent a few hours yesterday watching the Michigan House and Senate tv broadcasts of a very busy day in the legislature. All it ended up doing was making me angry. I did not see one mention of health care. All the bills that were asked to be "sped up" for reading, didn't include 4707 or 4708, the Freedom to Work Medicaid reform act. Yet, health care reform is supposed to be a priority. Yes, you need to help fix the economy. But even the unemployed will need to remain healthy in this time of need. That is an immediate need..none of your "economy fixes" will produce short-term and needed help like health care reform would.
I watched a program on PBS this week on Frontline about health care. I can't get out of my head one of the points of the program, that under the American health care system, people's dreams are crushed or deferred because of health care needs or situations. One example was a talented college student who became sick during college. In order to get adequate medical care, he had to drop out of college and work at Lowe's. This is just one example of squashed dreams. How many other millions of people in the U.S. have had their dreams squashed because of health care needs??
My need for adequate health care, has trampled on my dreams. When I came back to the U.S. from Australia, where I received my master's degree in occupational therapy 4 years ago, I had great dreams and visions of my future. But at the same time, my health started failing... First, I had to deal with having a full time job (more than full-time--70 hours a week), and a crappy employer health insurance policy. I spent around 50% of my income on medical, even with insurance. I had to endure more than I should have with this employer...but I had to "put up with it", so that I could keep my health insurance during my illnesses. My need for access to health care came before my well-being or health. This situation nearly killed me 2 years ago.
From this work situation, I went to the "welfare" situation, and suddenly the Social Security Administration, the MI Department of Human Services, and Medicaid/Medicare rules were imposed on me, so that I could have health care access. This access has been life-saving, as I have recently learned from the University of Michigan. Yet at what price??
I am a highly educated person, who loves people, espeically others with little or no voice, i.e. the disabled. I am able to break barriers of the hardest to reach people in our society, i.e. I have a "gift" in reaching those people with autism. I have won human service and humanitarian awards. I've been called a saint more times than I care to admit as it embarasses me.
Yet, every decision I have made in the last four years and in the present make, is about health care access. My lifestyle is crappy, and I live in extreme poverty because all of you in the chambers of both parts of the MI legislature have chosen to do so. I fight with Medicaid and the DHS every week, just to have my income limited to $420 a month after my Medicaid spend-down, because all of you in the legislature can't enact fair and just legislation, that allows people like me health care access. You can't even make a bill that would help me and from what I gather 19k cohorts in Michigan, a priority, to allow us on SSDI awards above the poverty line, fair access to Medicaid under the Federal Freedom to Work Medicaid act. You all allow this unjust situation in that you have done nothing, as evidenced by a report I found from 2005 stating the unjust nature of the MI Medicaid system and need for reform. You have failed to make Medicaid a fair and just program for those us on SSDI. Instead, you reward laziness and make incentives for people not to work. How many dreams have you all caused to be deferred or crushed because of this inaction?? You have caused my dreams and hopes to be crushed over the last four years.
I didn't understand until now, the true reason why socialized medicine and universal health care is so important to those residents of countries practicing it. It is a matter of dreams and providing for equal access to those dreams for all. Universal health care allows people who are ill, and who work hard to achieve success, to have the same shot at achieving their success as healthy people. What cost has the U.S. as a whole had in that people have their dreams and achievements crushed by health care needs and costs? Yet, we are the country that believes in the American dream, that if you work hard enough, you can achieve your dreams and have equal opportunity to do so?? I guess the writers of the "American Dream" forgot a caveat that you have to be healthy or not need health care to do so.
Please, please, put House Bills 4707 and 4708 (the Freedom to Work Medicaid reform acts) on the fast track, instead of burying them. Give me an opportunity to dream again about my future and be hopeful again.
Sincerely,
Laurie Alderman
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