Tuesday, July 28, 2009

So stressed out now

everything was going ok here in Nashville for the both of us, then to quote the old phrase...."when it rains, it pours"
I had gone to a dr's visit about the brace on my right foot. Girl behind the desk tells me that "we are showing no insurance on you", I was shocked because we were under the impression that we had enough "banked hours" from BCBS to get us thru the middle of July. Gary had been laid off for several weeks and if he didn't go back soon-we'd have to start making "cobra payments." I had to pay $100.00 deposit before even seeing the DR. So I am in the waiting room wondering what could be going on, when I get called back. Dr tells me that i'm not wearing the brace tight enough and proceeds to tighten it up then. I tell him I don't want to tie it too tight in the first because I am on my feet all day and I have to compensate for swelling. I didn't want to be feeling like I wanted to pay anyone to cut my foot off. My arms are weak anyway because of my MS and sometimes I can't tighten it like he thinks it should be. He then tells me that i can sleep in it for short naps, but not if I'm going to sleep for several hours/overnight. (when b4 he said not to sleep in it!) Then he tells me I do have arthritis in the joints of that foot. Before he said it was an "arthritic condition" and not arthritis....when & how did this change? I was also upset because of the Dr's attitude toward me thru the whole visit.
Gary told me he called our ins. company and even though he went back to work before June was out---whomever at the company placed it on the following month instead-because it was so close to the cut off point or their records. So all we had to do was mail a $10.00 check to their address in GA. and we'd be fine. Then i go to get my RX's refilled the next week and the girl at the Walgreens tells me that my ins. /RX cards are no good. Gary has to call the ins. company again and whomever didn't put the payment on the" right screen". So again we were screwed up. We had to wait until someone from the company called the Walgreens to say that the problem had been corrected and we had insurance. Then get my pills filled.
Then the next day Gary calls me on my way home from work to tell me he got fired form the construction job he was on at the airport. What he didn't know was his foreman had called the Union hall and complained about his work at least two weeks ago, and Gary didn't even know anything about it until he was leaving his class one night and the director of the apprentice program had pulled him aside to tell him about it.
What's going to happen next is Gary will have to go before this committee from the Union Hall and they will talk with him and they will have the deciding vote to keep him in or let him go. gary's dad made some phone calls and found out that he can't have anyone there to support his cause (former co-workers, former bosses etc.) This foreman said gary wasn't "performing the work in a timely manner", and this person also said that gary seemed to be "spaced out" at times.
So when Gary goes before the committee he has to watch what he says, acts, his body language/facial expressions, choose his answers carefully, etc. if he does get kicked out of the program, he has to wait @a month goes by before he can reapply to the program again. And he'll have to go thru a more extensive interview process because of what happened before. They either tell him, "yes you can get back in" or "no you can't". If he gets back in he has to ask for advanced placement to get credit for all the classes and exp. he's had before. If they don't approve that he has to start from square one ALL OVER AGAIN. Which would really ruin his self-esteem and pride. So he has been really upset over all of this and has had thoughts of wondering if I really want to continue this apprenticeship or not. He says he can handle the schoolwork and classes just fine-his biggest worry was the possibility of coming across someone that just didn't care for him one bit and would fire him to get rid of him. (aka the chicken way out, instead of just laying him off.) he told me he was at class one night was talking to another guy in his class about what happened and when the guy asked who his boss was...Gary says "Harry Spain", then his classmate said this "Spain" fellow had a reputation of "stabbing others in the back to get ahead". This classmate of Gary's had worked with him before and didn't care for him either. So this "Spain" fellow takes a dis-liking to Gary for whatever reason and stirs up all this. Gary is wondering if the "spacing out" comment could be related due to the heat stroke he had while he was in the army a long time ago. If you've ever known someone to suffered from a heat stroke-they can't be out in the sun for extended periods of time.
So now we are just waiting to see what will be the outcome of his meeting with the committee, then proceed from there. Meanwhile we don't know yet if he can get unemployment from this, have to file for "Cobra" insurance and see if we even get approved for that. How are we going to pay for that if Gary's not working? I have to wait until sometime in Aug. to see if I can get back any or all of that deposit i paid at the dr's that one day. And if we don't get approved for Cobra how are we going to afford all the meds. we take? And if gary does get back into the program, how long will it be before he goes to work anywhere-given the current situation of the economy? And we have more questions that are still remaining unanswered. We have talked about moving back home-if it gets to that-but we'd have to have jobs to go to and a place to live before that choice is made. But we'd be making trips to and from Nashville anyway because of the VA for his dr's , and the Dr's I see for my MS.
So anyway we are under a lot of stress, and need all the prayers and good thoughts/good luck wishes anyone can give us. I will fill you in later as things happen.