Waiting

(written 10/28/13)

Need. To. Rant.

Waiting.  I'm tired of waiting.  If it was just for me, that'd be one thing, but this is my son, who has special needs who doesn't understand waiting, nor does he have the ability to wait.

Waiting.  Since he was an infant, I have been struggling with his tantrums, his oddities, his differences.  Now he's 8.  Eight years of waiting and trying to mold him into a good young man, a contributing member to society.

Waiting.  For almost four years now, we have been waiting for doctors and counselors to help us with him.  To head off major problems like suspensions, expulsions, injuring others, and self-injurious behavior.  Four years and all of those major things have happened anyway.

Waiting.  Tired of waiting for doctors and counselors to stop acting self-important and start helping my son, we started seeking evaluations and were put on months-long waiting lists.

Waiting.  Waiting for the school to recognize the problem that we had seen all along.  Day after day of destructive and violent behavior and time spent in the recovery room with the behavior interventionist or being sent home because they can't handle him, yet refusing to assess him for special education, even with a doctor's recommendation, and calling his behavior "average" when they are forced to assess him.

Waiting.  Waiting for evaluation reports to be sent and for assessment testing to be completed.  Waiting for the verdict of what they are going to do with him.

Waiting.  Answers to simple questions that no one wants to respond to.  Listening to people back-pedal and explain and skirt around the issue and refuse to acknowledge me.

Waiting.  The state's finding that the school was not in compliance with state law after a two-month investigation, which brought out lies and covering up.  Findings that will not likely help anything since what's done is done and there's not much they can make up for.

Waiting.  Two months before appointments were available with a new psychiatrist and a new therapist, who will hopefully be able to help more than the others did.

And meanwhile, in the midst of all of this by people who decided at some point in their life that they wanted to help children yet have lost the focus somewhere along the way, there's a little boy who is lost.  A little boy who doesn't understand why he is the way he is.  A little boy that feels unliked by his peers and different from the other kids, made abundantly clear by isolation inflicted by the school.  A little boy that is so anxious about making mistakes that he won't even try.  A little boy who is so frustrated with it all that he has asked numerous times to be checked into a hospital so someone can fix him.  A little boy who is so depressed that he often remarks that he wishes he was dead or that he wants to kill himself and a couple of times has been prevented from grabbing knives to do harm to himself.  A little boy that thinks he is all alone and no one else understands or has struggled like he does.  A little boy who has to try five times as hard as the next kid to pay attention and learn and comes home exhausted from the effort.  A little boy who learns differently and processes slower but is expected to keep up with the status quo.  A little boy who can't even enjoy birthday parties or theme parks or entertainment centers because it's too overwhelming for him.  A little boy with a hyperactivity problem that is expected to sit still all day and had his recess taken away long-term last year.

Bureaucracy and covering your own rear end.  That's what it's all about.  Not about this little boy that has been on crisis mode.  When did the school become this way?  And it's not just him.  I hear stories from other parents who have been fighting the same battle.  There exists a parent advocacy group just because this happens so often.  And even aside from special education, the stories I hear from my daughters about what goes on at school, the lack of teaching, the kids in crisis that no one seems to care about.  Little girls who are not little girls anymore, but exposed to sexuality and violence and drugs as young as the fourth grade.  Having to explain to your daughter what a vibrator is because her 9-10 year old classmate said she was using one and being afraid to allow what used to be an innocent slumber party because fifth grade classmates decided to experiment with homosexuality after their parents went to sleep.  Girls that are so confused that they are cutting themselves and contemplating suicide and experimenting sexually and getting pregnant as early as age 13.  In schools where rapes can occur during school hours.  Teachers yell at them to "shut the f*** up!" or laugh along with other students at special needs' kids and don't defend students against peer bullying, despite all the attention called to the bullying problem in this country.  I know there are good teachers out there (one example) and we have known some excellent ones, but they are outnumbered and fighting an uphill battle.  And in most cases, the problem is lack of parenting.  It just makes me sick.  I know we can't shut ourselves off to the world, even if it feels like we should.  But, how long, Lord?  How far will it go before you return?  I wonder if we are better or worse than it was in the days of Noah when God was sorry He made man and destroyed all but one righteous family.

We are waiting, Lord, for your return.  Anxiously.

Gas Prices & Healthcare

I know everyone is sick and tired of the gas prices and probably even more sick of hearing about it. But, since this is my blog and I can talk about whatever I want, that's what I am going to talk about. If you don't like it, don't read it! ;P

I have been so frustrated lately about finances. The thing is, we make a good amount of money. And we still struggle. I don't understand how people who make less than us or even as far as minimum wage make it! I have a gas-guzzling Ford Expedition, so I fill it every week at $90 lately. And I don't go anywhere! I drive the kids to school, I go to work, we go to church once a week. Occasionally I run an errand, but I try to limit that--go to the grocery store on my way home from work, pay bills over the phone or online, save up errands and do them all at once, etc. Add Chris' gas usage and we are over $150 a week. It's ridiculous. I've already told the kids that we are doing nothing this summer. We can't afford the gas! Last summer, even though it was high (though about $1 a gallon lower than it is now), we still went lots of places. This summer, if we are lucky, we will see the zoo and the YMCA occasionally. Any fun to be had, will be had in the backyard! I'd sell the Expedition, but we still have 2 years left until it's paid for!

Last year, I quit my job delivering newspapers because the gas was too high. I wasn't profiting enough to make it worth it anymore. And it has gone up since then! I don't know how the rest of them are still doing it!

And it's not just the gas prices--it trickles down to all the businesses and the price of everything else goes up! My grocery budget used to be $100 a week (not that long ago). I had to bump it up to $150 a week and now I can't even keep it in that range. I am closing in on $200 a week and I am skimping! Chris is always complaining that there isn't enough food in the house. We definitely aren't starving, but we could definitely do better, especially when it comes to fresh produce. I try to make the simplest meals so that the grocery bill won't be so high. A WalMart brand bottle of canola oil is up to almost $4! Milk is over $4 a gallon! Eggs are almost $2 a dozen!

My question is where is it going to stop? Will it ever stop? I have heard people predicting that it will keep going up, up to $7-8 a gallon! How can we afford that? When will it cost us more to go to work than what we make going there?

I was listening to an interview with a truck driver when they had their march on Washington and I was nearly in tears out of frustration and empathy. This guy and his wife live in their truck--they have no other home. They are putting all their money into the gas tank and barely have enough money to eat on.

What I wonder is what would happen if everyone in the country went on strike for just one day! Think about it. What would happen if no one could afford to go to work. Or even just one industry. What if all the truck drivers went on strike? How would anything be shipped? Mail, food, supplies, etc. Think of the perishable items that would be lost. What if the emergency vehicles couldn't roll out? Or my job--what if all of the postal workers went on strike? Or my husband's job--he works for a trash company (he does the commercial cardboard recyclables). I know the price of diesel has been through the roof and it has to be passed down to consumers. I heard the trash service cost has been steadily going up. What would the country do if all the residential trashmen went on strike? Think of all the trash piling up. And here in our area, we are under burn bans a lot because of dry, windy conditions that can spark wildfires. So we couldn't even burn our trash.

I was talking about the costs with the girl at the checkout counter at WalMart. We were wondering if we were going to have to go back to growing our own food, raising our own livestock. What about a step further--what if we start seeing horses and buggies on the streets because no one can afford to operate their motor vehicles any more? I'm beginning to think growing a garden isn't such a bad idea. And Chris has been talking more and more about buying livestock to put out at his friend's property. Or buying property of our own with room for livestock.

I've been reading a lot of books that take place in the early prairie days and the thing that struck me was that they didn't have to go far to get the things they needed. Yeah, it may have taken longer for them to get there since they used foot power or horsepower, but in our day and age, everything is spread too far out. If we went back to walking, biking, horse and buggy, it would take us forever to get where we are going. Chris' work is 13 miles away from our house. Even my work is 7 1/2 miles away. The kids school is 5 1/2 miles away. The closest store is a mile and a half away. My mom's house is over 8 miles away. My grandparents live 11 1/2 miles away. Our church is 13 miles away. Have you ever wondered how long that would take to travel? I did, so I figured it out. These figures don't take into account traffic or red lights, just a straight constant gait. If we were riding or driving a horse at a trot (average 8mph), it would take us 11 minutes to get to the store, 41 minutes to get to the kids' school, 56 minutes to get to my work, one hour to get to my mom's house, one hour and 26 minutes to my grandparents', and 1 hour and 37 minutes to get to Chris' work or our church. It gets way worse if you were walking. If we walked at an average walking speed of 2.5mph, it would take us 36 minutes to get to the store, 2 hours and 12 minutes to get to the kids' school, 3 hours to get to my work, 3 hours and 12 minutes to get to my mom's house, 4 hours and 36 hours to my grandparents' house, and 5 hours and 12 minutes to get to Chris' work or our church. Yeah, I can see Chris walking for 10 1/2 hours a day, plus working a 12 hour day!

What I want to know is when is the government going to do something about it? Do they all have expense accounts or are driven around by chauffeurs and haven't pumped their own gas in so long that they don't feel the pinch that we do? Why can't they pass some legislation to help us? That few thousand barrels they saved us from losing to the reserve--what does that help? Pass some legislation with incentives for auto makers to create vehicles that run on pure ethanol or other alternative fuels or electricity. My husband knows someone that drives a racecar fueled by ethanol, so why can't they make regular cars to run on ethanol? I know they are making flexfuel cars now that can run on both, but why not make it a standard, instead of the exception? And where are the ethanol fueling stations? You can find some that have a blend, but have you ever seen one dispensing pure ethanol? Or let's find a way to make the Delorean from Back to the Future a reality--run off trash! That would be a great recycling method...kill two birds with one stone! There's got to be SOME alternative, some legislation! There's some legislation now that requires auto makers to bring their auto production up to a standard miles per gallon by a certain time, but I think we need something more! Is it all about the oil money?! No one wants to help the average man, they want to help the rich get richer? If we had no need for oil and gasoline, then the oil guys would suffer. Something is backwards in this country if we are more worried about the poor little rich guy than the average American workers who shoulder all the work and responsibilities, whose backs this country was built on. Sorry, soapbox...

I feel guilty at the same time that I feel this anger because I know that we are still the richest people on the planet. Other countries probably wish they had this problem. They don't have enough food or shelter, education, or clean drinking water. It seems silly to gripe about gas prices when others are dying of starvation or other things that we know nothing about. But the thing too is that how can we help these other nations if our hands are tied because we can't make our own ends meet.

If all that wasn't bad enough, I am also frustrated with the cost of healthcare. I think the picture above could be hung on nearly every doctor's office, clinic, and hospital in America, as well as applying to gas prices. And it is getting worse and worse every year. Like I said before, we make a decent amount of money, but we can't afford to go to the doctor. I remember when my dad worked at Boeing and we had good healthcare. We didn't pay much out of pocket. When Chris and I first came back to Kansas and I was pregnant with Arrena, his work's insurance was great. I had a c-section and they paid it all. Now we have some ridiculous deductible and on top of that, we have to pay 20% of all services. One of my prescriptions was over $70 a month after the insurance reduced it! I don't take it--I can't afford that. And you can't just have one bill for one visit. You are billed for the hospital, the doctor that treated you, the lab, radiology, etc. We rarely go to the doctor--we have to be VERY sick before we go and we still constantly owe doctor bills. One visit I made, for an annual exam cost me over $700. So, now I skip the exam which is not the smartest thing for me to do because I had a LEEP three years ago when I had cervical pre-cancer. I am fine now, but it is possible for it to come back. I'm supposed to be checked once a year (for the first year following the surgery, it was supposed to be every three months). But, I can't afford $700 a year (let alone every three months), in addition to bills for the rest of the family. What if one of us got really sick or hurt? How could we afford that? Because of this, I have started looking into supplemental health insurance to cover what Chris' insurance does not.

I just think it's ridiculous. We make too much money to receive assistance with healthcare from the government, but don't make enough to be able to afford our doctors' bills! Our credit stinks, not because of credit card debt, but because of medical bill debt. And like I said, it's not like we go to the doctor much at all. I remember when Chris used to say, "we have insurance, take them to the doctor." But, now I protest. Just because we have insurance does not mean we can afford to go to the doctor. If it's a virus, all the doctor will say is "nothing we can do, it has to run its course, rest and fluids, blah, blah, blah." I can't afford to take three children to the doctor at nearly $100 each visit to hear that it has to run its course. So we don't go unless it is a dire emergency. And how do you sit there, looking into your sick child's face, trying to determine if a trip to the doctor is worth it? With three children (& even with us occasionally), you sometimes NEED a doctor or a trip to the ER. We just get medical bills paid off or at least DOWN and someone else gets sick and there's more medical bills. And if it was one bill, you could pay on that a little at a time, but when they send you several bills, for doctors, labs, etc., they all want their money and they all want it right now!

My grandma pointed out that Chris could receive healthcare at the VA. NO WAY! After what I saw of how they cared for my dad, I wouldn't send anyone I cared about to the VA for treatment!

It would be so nice if we had a doctor or a nurse in the family. At least someone to look at the children and tell me if it warrants a trip to the doctor or if it's nothing to worry about or can be treated at home. I wish I had the stomach--I would love to be a nurse. I would love to work with babies, especially, but I can't handle shots, blood, other bodily fluids, etc. I'd not make it a week, though I desperately wish I could. If I didn't pass out cold, I'd definitely lose my lunch. I don't like to push my kids to be or do anything when they grow up. I want them to follow Jesus, I want them to be good people, and I want them to be happy. Other than that, they can be anything they want to be--if digging ditches makes them happy, I'm fine with that. But, I'd sure love it if one became a doctor! If I had my choice, I think I'd have a doctor, a lawyer, and a mechanic, so we have all our bases covered! Ha, ha. We can count Arrena out for the doctoring--she's even more squeamish than I am! If we could pry Kimmy away from her love of animals, she's got the stomach for it! Ha, ha.

I know, I've been ranting, but it all irks me SOOOOO much! It literally brings me to tears of frustration and anger. Is there any light at the end of the tunnel?