Hi all.
I thought I'd post a quick introduction given I've been commenting on some people's entries.
I'm Cat. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia in August of 2002, after a year and a half of strange symptoms and weirdness. I was very lucky that my GP was so on the ball, I've heard of so many people getting the run around.
Originally I was on cocktails of sleeping pills and pain medications, winding up on ambien and ultracet, but then after I got married in 2005 a lot of my stress level lowered given I was no longer living with my family and I managed to wean myself off the meds. I'm glad because five months later I got pregnant, and a lot of the pills they'd had me on could have caused birth defects in our munchkin.
The problem now comes that I'm not on insurance. I'm not working. I quit my job when I was seven months pregnant because I couldn't deal with the stress, and I was having pretty bad flare ups because I was so uncomfortable I couldn't sleep. I was on Medicaid at that time which was great, BUT because I'm not a U.S. Citizen two months after I gave birth they dropped me from Medicaid and I can't get it back.
This wasn't too much of an issue, given I'd been pregnant I lost some of the resiliance I'd built up to regular pain meds like tylenol...but until this last month I hadn't really realized how well I had been doing with just taking occasional doses of tylenol PM and melatonin. I've been having some really bad flares these past few weeks...and it sucks. The other night I dropped my son's food because my fingers just suddenly weren't working properly...I'm glad it was just a jar of food I dropped and not him, but it makes me so very nervous. I'm back on that even though I do sleep I wake up feeling like I got run over by a parade, and my legs are so stiff unless I have the munchkin in a stroller I need to use a cane.
I hate feeling so decrepit at 26.
Oh, but there's a light so I'm told. Medicaid assures me if I get pregnant again they'll give me insurance. Heh. Yeah, because I want to put my body through that again right now, and we can afford to have a second child.
Edited to add an explanation I didn't realize I needed to put in:
I've been in this country eleven years. There are a lot of reasons why I do not yet have my citizenship, not least of which the sheer amount of money finishing the process costs. I am actually in the process of trying to get my citizenship, but my husband and I do not want to owe my parents $500.
I am not intending to get pregnant again just so that I can get insurance and I did not get pregnant just so that I could go on Medicaid. I already had insurance with my former job, working for the city government, and my pregnancy was a suprise happening given I was on birth control.
It was after several months of discussion with my GP and my OB-GYN about our finances, and my health because of the stress the pregnancy was putting on my body and the stress that my employers and my job was putting on me that we decided that I would quit and we would go on Medicaid.
What ticks me off about the Medicaid issue is the fact that they were complete asses to me about kicking me off after I was no longer pregnant but keeping my son on, and basically told me that I could apply all I wanted but unless I got knocked up again they weren't going to give me insurance unless I was a citizen. If I could afford the citizenship process I wouldn't need Medicaid!
I'm very grateful that my son still has insurance don't get me wrong, because I want to make sure that he gets the best start in life, but me no longer having Medicaid also means that we don't get WIC, we can't get food stamps or anything else so it makes things a great struggle.
I cannot afford to go back to work because we can't afford to put him in daycare as he is only eight months old, but we can't afford my husband's insurance because for me to go on it would take $600 a month out of his paycheck and we barely make ends meet as it is.
I would dearly like to be a citizen. It really gets to me that I have no say in the government goings on because I can't vote, and everything else, but it's a hard process, and I don't think people realize how hard it is, how expensive it is and how long it takes.
I'm Cat. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia in August of 2002, after a year and a half of strange symptoms and weirdness. I was very lucky that my GP was so on the ball, I've heard of so many people getting the run around.
Originally I was on cocktails of sleeping pills and pain medications, winding up on ambien and ultracet, but then after I got married in 2005 a lot of my stress level lowered given I was no longer living with my family and I managed to wean myself off the meds. I'm glad because five months later I got pregnant, and a lot of the pills they'd had me on could have caused birth defects in our munchkin.
The problem now comes that I'm not on insurance. I'm not working. I quit my job when I was seven months pregnant because I couldn't deal with the stress, and I was having pretty bad flare ups because I was so uncomfortable I couldn't sleep. I was on Medicaid at that time which was great, BUT because I'm not a U.S. Citizen two months after I gave birth they dropped me from Medicaid and I can't get it back.
This wasn't too much of an issue, given I'd been pregnant I lost some of the resiliance I'd built up to regular pain meds like tylenol...but until this last month I hadn't really realized how well I had been doing with just taking occasional doses of tylenol PM and melatonin. I've been having some really bad flares these past few weeks...and it sucks. The other night I dropped my son's food because my fingers just suddenly weren't working properly...I'm glad it was just a jar of food I dropped and not him, but it makes me so very nervous. I'm back on that even though I do sleep I wake up feeling like I got run over by a parade, and my legs are so stiff unless I have the munchkin in a stroller I need to use a cane.
I hate feeling so decrepit at 26.
Oh, but there's a light so I'm told. Medicaid assures me if I get pregnant again they'll give me insurance. Heh. Yeah, because I want to put my body through that again right now, and we can afford to have a second child.
Edited to add an explanation I didn't realize I needed to put in:
I've been in this country eleven years. There are a lot of reasons why I do not yet have my citizenship, not least of which the sheer amount of money finishing the process costs. I am actually in the process of trying to get my citizenship, but my husband and I do not want to owe my parents $500.
I am not intending to get pregnant again just so that I can get insurance and I did not get pregnant just so that I could go on Medicaid. I already had insurance with my former job, working for the city government, and my pregnancy was a suprise happening given I was on birth control.
It was after several months of discussion with my GP and my OB-GYN about our finances, and my health because of the stress the pregnancy was putting on my body and the stress that my employers and my job was putting on me that we decided that I would quit and we would go on Medicaid.
What ticks me off about the Medicaid issue is the fact that they were complete asses to me about kicking me off after I was no longer pregnant but keeping my son on, and basically told me that I could apply all I wanted but unless I got knocked up again they weren't going to give me insurance unless I was a citizen. If I could afford the citizenship process I wouldn't need Medicaid!
I'm very grateful that my son still has insurance don't get me wrong, because I want to make sure that he gets the best start in life, but me no longer having Medicaid also means that we don't get WIC, we can't get food stamps or anything else so it makes things a great struggle.
I cannot afford to go back to work because we can't afford to put him in daycare as he is only eight months old, but we can't afford my husband's insurance because for me to go on it would take $600 a month out of his paycheck and we barely make ends meet as it is.
I would dearly like to be a citizen. It really gets to me that I have no say in the government goings on because I can't vote, and everything else, but it's a hard process, and I don't think people realize how hard it is, how expensive it is and how long it takes.