Catching up
I haven't posted for quite some time, mostly because I'm not really sure where to start.
I filed for SSI in June(ish). My application got denied in a very standard and routine fashion. I'm currently meeting with a lawyer to formulate an appeal due in the first full week of February. The whole process is tedious and demoralizing, and the medical component (both historical and current) is quite simply painful, including the actual pain of a three-hour functional evaluation. If I don't do it, however, it won't get done, and I'm running out of other options. So here we are.
I finally got my health mostly stabilized, courtesy of the Lupron injections I started in late May. Once we figured out that the two-month shot wears off after six weeks, we were able to get to the point where it's stable enough that I'm able to improve long-term. When I can get the shot, that is; just about every time there's some kind of hang-up, partly due to the computer system not having an option for ordering a medication every six weeks (thanks to my GP for figuring that one out). Right this moment I'm slightly queasy because the last shot started wearing off nearly a week ago, and I got a reply from my gyno (stating that yes, she did order it, no matter what the appointment clerks say) about 45 minutes after the appointment line closed today, Friday. So it's going to be at least another three days, and the whole rigmarole is driving me batty.
We figured the shots were a stopgap until I could have a hysterectomy, which was ordered and which I was prepping for until the insurance decided to deny coverage two weeks before the surgery date. So I'm continuing with the shots (and the accompanying circus) until I can do enough research to feel assured that the much more likely oophorectomy will solve my problems just as well, rather than leaving me in a position where I still have some symptoms but we can no longer justify the Lupron shots. That process is on hold because I'm absolutely fed up with medical stuff right now and I have my hands full with SSI. I should probably get around to giving my doctor a handicapped placard form to fill out, though, and podiatry is probably going to be calling with an appointment to check out whether orthotics will help with my feet (which still seize up on a regular basis). I had figured my feet would adjust to the extra weight I put on, but they haven't, and while it is coming off it's doing so too slowly to wait.
Other than that, the astonishingly wet winter we're having is playing its customary havoc with my system; in the last couple of days we had two drops in air pressure, each of which was 10 mmHg in a few hours. I'm not feeling up to doing much, and my pain levels are way up. When the weather clears (briefly) I feel much better, so I'm simply hunkering down and waiting. I'm knitting a lot.
When I feel decent, I'm playing a great deal of Ingress. I've made a large number of friends in the area, both in the greater East Bay and in the Diablo Valley itself, and though they're still too new to really call a real support network, it's eased my isolation considerably. The game itself appeals to me, and I enjoy the challenge -- given the stranglehold the other team has on this area, it certainly is that. I'm making a dent, though, and just the other night my chief opponent praised me effusively (to my face) for my strategy and teamwork over the last couple of months. He's a monster player himself, and I hadn't realized I was striving for his respect until I suddenly got it. It's changed the face of the game for me, just in the last few days... I'm going to see whether we can start some cross-team social stuff, and I may end up in the odd position of becoming good friends with someone whose in-game actions regularly drive me up the wall.
One of my own teammates is quite appealing -- I think I've figured out that I have a squish on him (thanks to the Jackal for reminding me of the term for a platonic crush). He's been somewhat busy, though, and between that and the weather I haven't seen as much of him as I'd like to. If I start burbling about hayeswise, though, that would be why.
It's the regular ups and downs besides that, I suppose. The Jackal bought a house. Akien bought a house. We had to have the two acacias in the front yard taken down after one blew over and made the other lean even more; it was right before a monster storm, but they were taken out before the leaning one could take out the neighbor's fence. I'm hoping it'll resprout from the stump. Everything's either flooded, or ankle-deep mud, or both. I haven't had the energy to work in the shop this week, but I've been making a little progress on a few things when the weather is fair. I need to fix the chair so I'm not standing so much out there (my poor feet notwithstanding, it costs too many spoons). I need to think about this year's garden, and bare-root trees.
So that's where things currently stand. We survived 2016; we'll see how 2017 treats us.
I have an account as Torquill on Dreamwidth, and that's where I posted this. You can sign in with OpenID to comment on the original post, or you can go ahead and comment here; either way works.
I filed for SSI in June(ish). My application got denied in a very standard and routine fashion. I'm currently meeting with a lawyer to formulate an appeal due in the first full week of February. The whole process is tedious and demoralizing, and the medical component (both historical and current) is quite simply painful, including the actual pain of a three-hour functional evaluation. If I don't do it, however, it won't get done, and I'm running out of other options. So here we are.
I finally got my health mostly stabilized, courtesy of the Lupron injections I started in late May. Once we figured out that the two-month shot wears off after six weeks, we were able to get to the point where it's stable enough that I'm able to improve long-term. When I can get the shot, that is; just about every time there's some kind of hang-up, partly due to the computer system not having an option for ordering a medication every six weeks (thanks to my GP for figuring that one out). Right this moment I'm slightly queasy because the last shot started wearing off nearly a week ago, and I got a reply from my gyno (stating that yes, she did order it, no matter what the appointment clerks say) about 45 minutes after the appointment line closed today, Friday. So it's going to be at least another three days, and the whole rigmarole is driving me batty.
We figured the shots were a stopgap until I could have a hysterectomy, which was ordered and which I was prepping for until the insurance decided to deny coverage two weeks before the surgery date. So I'm continuing with the shots (and the accompanying circus) until I can do enough research to feel assured that the much more likely oophorectomy will solve my problems just as well, rather than leaving me in a position where I still have some symptoms but we can no longer justify the Lupron shots. That process is on hold because I'm absolutely fed up with medical stuff right now and I have my hands full with SSI. I should probably get around to giving my doctor a handicapped placard form to fill out, though, and podiatry is probably going to be calling with an appointment to check out whether orthotics will help with my feet (which still seize up on a regular basis). I had figured my feet would adjust to the extra weight I put on, but they haven't, and while it is coming off it's doing so too slowly to wait.
Other than that, the astonishingly wet winter we're having is playing its customary havoc with my system; in the last couple of days we had two drops in air pressure, each of which was 10 mmHg in a few hours. I'm not feeling up to doing much, and my pain levels are way up. When the weather clears (briefly) I feel much better, so I'm simply hunkering down and waiting. I'm knitting a lot.
When I feel decent, I'm playing a great deal of Ingress. I've made a large number of friends in the area, both in the greater East Bay and in the Diablo Valley itself, and though they're still too new to really call a real support network, it's eased my isolation considerably. The game itself appeals to me, and I enjoy the challenge -- given the stranglehold the other team has on this area, it certainly is that. I'm making a dent, though, and just the other night my chief opponent praised me effusively (to my face) for my strategy and teamwork over the last couple of months. He's a monster player himself, and I hadn't realized I was striving for his respect until I suddenly got it. It's changed the face of the game for me, just in the last few days... I'm going to see whether we can start some cross-team social stuff, and I may end up in the odd position of becoming good friends with someone whose in-game actions regularly drive me up the wall.
One of my own teammates is quite appealing -- I think I've figured out that I have a squish on him (thanks to the Jackal for reminding me of the term for a platonic crush). He's been somewhat busy, though, and between that and the weather I haven't seen as much of him as I'd like to. If I start burbling about hayeswise, though, that would be why.
It's the regular ups and downs besides that, I suppose. The Jackal bought a house. Akien bought a house. We had to have the two acacias in the front yard taken down after one blew over and made the other lean even more; it was right before a monster storm, but they were taken out before the leaning one could take out the neighbor's fence. I'm hoping it'll resprout from the stump. Everything's either flooded, or ankle-deep mud, or both. I haven't had the energy to work in the shop this week, but I've been making a little progress on a few things when the weather is fair. I need to fix the chair so I'm not standing so much out there (my poor feet notwithstanding, it costs too many spoons). I need to think about this year's garden, and bare-root trees.
So that's where things currently stand. We survived 2016; we'll see how 2017 treats us.
I have an account as Torquill on Dreamwidth, and that's where I posted this. You can sign in with OpenID to comment on the original post, or you can go ahead and comment here; either way works.