The Saga Continues

Last Friday I spent the better part of 6 hours waiting in the courthouse to speak to a judge so that my ex-husband would not be able to get our electricity/gas turned off.

My ex has been trying in earnest for the entire month of March to get our gas/electric turned off by taking his name off the account, and sticking me with his unpaid bill. First, I don't see how he has managed to get so far with MidAmerican Energy, and have the utility company do his bidding.

My ex is court ordered to pay an erroneous amount that my ex told (lied to) the judge about the amount owed each month on the gas/electric bill during our divorce trial. Since that time, he has continuously run up the monthly bill by making payments late, and he continuously breaks any and all the payment arrangements that I set up with MidAmerican Energy to try to keep our lights and heat on for my children's sake. So now the monthly bill is outrageously high, despite the increases from MidAmerican themselves.

Secondly, the MidAmerican bill is in HIS NAME ONLY. However, I have always been authorized on the account for the past 16 years or so. Just since March have MidAmerican Energy expressed that all of the sudden I am not authorized on this account. However, MidAmerican is hanging fluorescent green door notices of disconnection on my door, with a number to call to avoid disconnection. When I call that number, MidAmerican won't give me any information on that account because they say I am not authorized on that account. But MidAmerican still called MY home and informed my son Ryan that they would be turning the electric off- but they won't give ME that same info.

So I had to employ the utilities commission to intervene on my behalf to avoid the disconnection. They staved off MidAmerican for the past 3 weeks or so, but the utilities commission advised me on Friday that I had better get an attorney now because they could no longer protect me.

My divorce attorney's elderly father (95) has been in and out of the hospital for the past month or so, and my attorney has to go out of town to care for his father. So he is not really up to speed on my case. I called his office on Friday, and was informed that he might be back on Monday. But I couldn't take a chance with this problem, so I went down to the courthouse and parked my butt with my motion in hand until the judge agreed to see me.

Basically, the Judge agreed with me on the merits of my problem with MidAmerican Energy, but he thought I was trying to take action against the wrong party, at first. He said that in order to get the disconnect postponed until we can figure out the legality of my ex's claim, that I had to get an injunction against MidAmerican to stop the disconnection proceedings.

Once I get the injunction against MidAmerican to stop disconnection, then I need to proceed with contempt action against my ex for failing to follow the Decree, or allowing the situation to inflame out of the context of the Decree, to the detriment of his family. Also, I don't think he can legally take his name off the bill as long as he is court ordered to pay the bill.

I don't think he can take his name off the bill and stick me with the $2,000 bill just because he doesn't want to pay it. That would be just like if I were to go down to MidAmerican and tell them that I want my $2,000 bill put into my neighbors name because I don't want to pay it. I told MidAmerican that I would gladly put the bill in MY name under a ZERO balance, but they weren't willing to do this.

BTW- My attorney and I and just about everybody that I've talked to about this agrees to about 99.9% that my ex has bought a new house and that's the main reason he is so desperate to get his name off this account so he can get service at his new place.

20/20 Tooooo Bad, Brad :0( Soooo Sad

Brash

P.S. If you don't hear from me for awhile, it probably means I didn't get the injunction in time!

Another Day, Another Disaster

Gee, I thought yesterday was bad- then I woke up this morning to much more pain. It was sleeting ice crystals this morning, making my arthritis medicines pretty well ineffective. I was walking around most of this morning like the Hunchback of Notre Dame with a severe limp, and trying to get several things accomplished. Here comes the hectic:

I am still dealing with Danny's Principal, and all the aftermath of filing false truancy against me. Then yesterday, Danny brings his report card home and not only does the report card make no mention of Danny's special needs, but the teachers wrote in snide remarks about Danny being lazy and other falsehoods. The art teacher even had the audacity to make remarks about Danny's art work not being up to snuff, when in fact, Danny cannot hold the pen or pencil correctly because of his fine motor skills disability. And of course, the Principal made out the report card as if his absences were unexcused (when in fact they were excused by doctors' notes), and gave Danny incompletes on his report card that really only reflects how stupid the Principal is. This Principal did the same to Ryan's report card.

Now I have to decide if I want to proceed legally against Holy Family School with a civil complaint. I am getting sick and tired of this Principal's little shit games. The county attorney suggested that I get legal counsel because filing a false truancy report is a felony. Not to mention that he refuses to acknowledge Daniel's disabilities.

Then I receive a phone message from the utilities commission that my ex-husband has the gas/electric company dumping his bill on me by simply removing his name from the account. Boy, I wish I could get rid of all MY bills simply by putting the bills in other people's name! I don't think he can legally do this because there IS a court order for the ex to pay the gas/electric bill. But the utilities commission informed me that I had better get an attorney if I want gas/electric after tomorrow afternoon. Every single Friday so far in March, I have had to fend off the disconnect wolves from our house, compliments of my evil ex-husband.

I have a volunteer lawyer that is supposed to be working on all the mistakes and contempt issues involving the divorce Decree, but he is not returning my calls or emails. So I talked to another attorney about what I should do to avoid getting the gas/electric disconnected because I have 2 special needs children, and life/death health issues if the gas/electric gets cut off. He said he couldn't help me, and referred me back to the divorce attorney, directing me to have him help me. Effective dead-end, I must say.

Then I had the Social Security Administration call to review Riley's SSI, which he has been receiving for years- but it's not very much per month- but it helps. After the phone interview, the rep calls back and accuses me of purgery, when in fact I told him the truth. the rep simply didn't get the fact that just because the computer screen shows that my ex is paying child support, that doesn't mean that I am actually receiving it the same month because his employer delays mailing it for weeks. Even though I had proof from February that my ex was behind in child support, and wasn't paying on time. This stupid rep was going to deduct the payment amount going to Riley based on what it appears I was receiving. It is always good to rely on reality- if you can get someone to listen to you. I hate being called a liar. I called his supervisor to make sure she understood what support I was actually receiving, and the rep called back a little while ago to apologise to me for calling me a liar.

In between the five calls from Social Security Administration this morning, I received at least 4 calls from bill collector's that my evil ex-husband has sicked on me from HIS bills! I am so tired of dealing with all his shit!

Then I got a call from Daniel's soccer coach. He is calling rather late because his wife just had a double mastectomy, and their family is dealing with the mom having cancer. His family has my sympathy. Hopefully she will be fine. He gave me their practice/game schedule. However, this is the same soccer team that had to have Danny's birth certificate before he could play. Apparently the DMPS school district lost Danny's birth certificate, and the dragon lady that does registration for the soccer team wouldn't take his school id or baptism records, etc- only birth certificate. But she had his older brother's birth certificate- go figure, it's not like we have a foreign accent or anything- and it's only soccer!

Also, due to my own disabilities, I have been in the long, drawn out process of applying for disability for the past 3 years. My volunteer lawyer working on that case is hard to light a fire under, if you know what I mean. I am soooo crippled. Especially today, with all this stress and the weather won't quit. We have been playing telephone tag all week long- and I'm always home.

I'm still waiting for several return calls before I call to tell the utilities commission that Mid American Energy cannot disregard a court order to accommodate my ex-husband's desire to get out of paying the bills he is court-ordered to pay. I guess we'll see how that goes.

And all this happened before noon! I can't wait until this afternoon.

Disease & Discomfort

In the fall of 2005, after a lot of pain and never ending illnesses, my family doctor referred me to the umpteenth specialist: a pain doctor. This doctor evaluated me by making pain occur all over my body. Then he began to describe most of my symptoms, and my general condition. I was amazed by his acute observations and accurate diagnosis. He then pronounced the name of the disease that riddled through my body, and had made my life a living hell for the past decade or so: Fibromyalgia.

At first I thought he made it up because I had never heard of such a disease. Then he began to define the ambiguity of the symptoms, and how elusive the disease can be to diagnose. I thought he may be talking about a new word for 'hypochondriac'- oh great, it's all in my head. But no, Dr. Braun assured me that Fibromyalgia is a very real condition, even though it has many facets and is difficult to diagnose. He went on to say that research doesn't know what causes Fibromyalgia, nor what cures it. I suddenly felt very cheated (why me?) and pretty much went into shock as he continued to inform me about the seemingly hopelessness that circulates around this disease. It usually only gets worse, and the symptoms were endless.

I thought I had lead a fairly healthy life- I was always very active in sports; I taught swimming for nearly 15 years, I ran track and rode my bike everywhere into adulthood. I ate all my vegetables and fruits, etc. Now I hardly have any strength left, and it hurts to sit down, let alone to walk very far. If you had told me when I was 23 that I would have been crippled by my mid-forties, I would have called you crazy. I just simply did not see this coming. Then again, nobody ever does- I mean you don't sit down one day and say to yourself "you know, I think I'll develop cancer...."

I tried denial- that didn't work. It's hard to deny so many symptoms, especially when it affects every aspect of daily life- like walking, sitting, cooking, cleaning- you name it. Then I tried to self-medicate, with vodka as my choice of 'medicine'. That didn't work, either, and perhaps made it worse, if possible. And it's not just the physical pain and discomfort that gets you- it's the mental drag that knocks you to your knees, and keeps you down for years. All the symptoms, all the time make fibromyalgia nearly impossible to deal with on a daily basis. Add a severe dose of depression, insomnia and an irritable bowel and you start to get the drift of what I deal with all the time.

The thumbnail scratch of my ailments from fibromyalgia is severe muscle and joint pain, always. I have arthritis and bone spurs degenerating all my bones, including the spine. Any cold is ten times worse than regular cold symptoms would be, and this goes for all illnesses incurred with fibromyalgia. I could go on and on, but you get the idea. If it's bad, it happens with this mad disease. Then suddenly, I may have one or two fairly good days, for absolutely no rhyme nor reason. But the total pain never goes completely away- even on good days. So I have had to learn to deal with levels of pain, like how much pain can I endure before taking the serious pain meds, and then dealing with those gastronomical side affects, which are unpleasant. What a choice.

The depression is a different animal altogether- a monster, really. The demon of depression delves so deeply to the very depths of my humanity, and then immediately debilitates me to almost a coma state. I can't write or think or do anything, but fight the total grip that monster depression takes hold of me. It is like living in a black hole; even on a bright, sunny day the light cannot penetrate the darkness that is depression for me. I hate not being able to shake it off, and it hangs heavily like an albatross made of tons of brick around my neck, trying to smother the very life out of me. The tears of despair tear at my heart muscle so that it barely beats. Day turns to night, and then weeks and months pass with no end in sight. The spiral continues into the swirling abyss of mental illness that medication only slightly helps. I have been on dozens of anti-depressants, some several at a time- with only marginal relief. If anything, the anti-depressants make me realize how many astronomical fathoms I have sunk to, and they do bring me a little closer to the surface of mental health. Enough about depression for now- it's too depressing. Cymbalta does help, though.

Getting old and decrepit is really getting old and stale. I have many similar health problems of a woman twice my age, and I am not quite 50 yet. I had to have my knees injected yesterday, as I was long over due from the 6 month time period. My poor knees have little or no cartilage, and there are lots of bone spurs beneath the knee cap on both knees, as the arthritis spreads. It is an extremely painful condition that makes simple walking a daily task filled with pain and discomfort. I am not quite old enough for a knee replacement, although I have tried to talk the docs into an early surgery so I can spend more time with my kids. The pain in my knees is so great that it keeps me awake at night, along with all the other maladies.

I have to tell someone the whole procedure just to let someone else know how difficult and complicated my life can be most times- maybe for a comparison. The injection procedure starts with an anti-bacterial swab on both knee caps. Then the doctor applies a very cold liquid from an aerosol can, like liquid dry ice. She uses a 4 inch long needle so the injection can go beneath the knee cap and directly into the knee joint, between the bones. This injection hurts with some fairly intense pain, if you can imagine. First, she squirts an analgesic (like Lanacaine) into the joint, unscrews that plunger from the syringe, needle dangling from my knee, while she fills the syringe with the cocktail of anti-inflammatory and lubricants to soothe the inflamed tissue under my knee cap.

When she injects this cocktail, the pain increases to unbearable levels, and sometimes I can feel my eyes rolling back into my head. This must have occurred yesterday, because as soon as she began the secondary injection, she told me to 'stay with her' and she began asking me awareness question so I wouldn't black out. She asked me what was my youngest son's name, and I had to think about it for a minute. Then she quickly asked me what activities does Danny like- I couldn't respond because of the pain- so I just barely breathed "I-uh-I-er don't know..."

When I went into the doctor's office, my right knee hurt the most. She did that knee first, and soon after the injection, I felt some pain relief in the right knee. However, the orthopedist kept telling me that according to the x-rays, my left knee had far more arthritic damage. This became suddenly evident yesterday after the knee injection to my left knee. I could barely make it out of the office, and seriously wanted to crawl on our front sidewalk into the house- but not on my knees. It was a conundrum. I made it into the house- albeit like an 80 year old granny- but I couldn't care less at the time.

Needless to say, I didn't sleep well last night with the two knee injections- it was hard to pick a side to sleep on, especially when it feels like you have two grapefruits under your knee caps.

The morning time is always the worst with fibromyalgia, anyway. It usually takes me at least 45 minutes to about an 1 1/2 hours to stand fully erect in the morning, every morning. The bones in my feet crunch along down every step down the staircase. My neck and shoulders ache until about mid-day. And it gets a lot worse if it's cold and dank, or a cold front is coming, a snow storm, and I can even feel extremely strong hurricane depressions, and I live in Iowa! My body beats any meteorologist around!

I can barely walk today because of my left knee- and nothing seems to help. It hurts if I put it up, leave it down, stand or sit. I just hope that the injections aren't becoming less effective- or my body less tolerant, or I really won't be able to get around. The knee injection schedule is one shot in both knees per week for 3 weeks- then I'm good to go for 6 months to a year on this newest cocktail of knee injections. I have the remainder of 2 weeks and 4 injections left, so wish me luck. I hate torture.

A Special Need & A Special Kid

Riley. He is my middle son and he is severely and profoundly autistic. Riley is 11 years old, non-verbal for the most part, and he just graduated from pull-up diapers less than a year ago. You'll never find a more loving and pure joyous child than Riley. He certainly has a challenging road ahead of him in life. But just as his name implies, he will give life his most valiant attempt.

Finding out his diagnosis at 24 months of age was an extremely traumatic event in our family, one that I wouldn't want any family to face, let alone my family. All the child's potential that you thought would over flow from a giant bucket of life, suddenly trickles down to a few drops in the bucket, a mere glimmer of the child's dreams that were once your dreams for that child.

The trail of specialists and therapies and special schools and special doctors, etc. seems endless. All that you want to be right for Riley is all that you simply cannot physically provide for him- like a 'normal' childhood, friends, or even play things- and the list goes on and on. The 'specialists' range from knowledgeable to incompetent, and you must be constantly vigilant to see that his care providers are actually doing their jobs and make sure that Riley's needs are being met.

At first, the specialists' job is make sure that you do not blame yourself for Riley's condition- for there is no known cause for autism. That is hardly any consolation. As his mother, I used to constantly rewind and play my pregnancy and delivery, wondering if the tiniest single act could have made a difference- but eventually you have to give up on that path because it is not going to change the present road, or the future.

Secondly, the specialists want to ease your anxiety by establishing "lower expectations" for your special needs child. I used to joke about lowering my expectations for Riley by saying I had already lowered expectations for Riley. Instead of going to Harvard or Yale, I expected that Riley would attend Drake University here in Des Moines, Iowa. That usually got a big laugh, and served to break the ice on a serious situation. However true or false that expectation is has yet to come to pass.

Right now, though, Riley will be turning 12 years old and he is currently still in elementary school. His chronological school age is 5Th grade, but that has little to do with his academic status. His school teachers and other school specialists claim they don't like to "pigeon hole" special needs children by 'keeping' them at any certain level while they all have differing abilities at different age levels. So the school officials have developed what they call an IEP. This stands for Individual Education Plan, and that is supposed to mean that Riley's education is strictly tailor made to fit Riley, and therefore give him the best possible education without 'pigeon holing'.

The IEP is a nice try for educators, but the actual plan has a lot left to be desired. Basically, the IEP is watered down to be less than homogenized in academic nature, and is nothing more than a glorified baby-sitting plan that incorporates play and learn styling. I still cannot believe the fact that Riley has been attending this public school in Special Education for the past ten years and has yet to receive one single, solitary text book. They tell me that Riley learns better without any books- which I find to be startling and crazy. So I provide Riley with all the books and reading materials that my house will hold for him. He loves to page through books and magazines of all kinds. Riley may be non-verbal for the most part, but I truly believe he can read- he just can't tell us. Repetition is his game-he loves to watch, do, and read things over and over again. That is Riley's entertainment. That is autism.

The specialists also ordained that Riley is to have a certain amount of speech therapy, along with a certain amount of occupational therapy every week, which is more than the public schools can provide. So to fill the rest of the prescription for speech and o.t., we have to utilize another support for Riley by using ChildServe, which is a NPO set up to provide what the public schools cannot provide with the various therapies and services. Luckily, until lately, ChildServe was also willing to do sight words with Riley, a major stepping stone to teach Riley to read monosyllable words by sight. This worked great for the past 1 1/2 years. The public school just started to utilize the single sight words this year, and it has made the reading transition for Riley much easier overall this year in school.

Just like with my two other sons, I have never missed a parent-teacher conference at school. Riley had his conference last week on Thursday. I always go to Riley's conference with some trepidation because I know that it is not going to be the most optimistic report in the world, and for me- a lot of sad over tones.

This time, though, the teacher conference was a little different in that there were more people than usual at Riley's conference. This could have been good, or it could have been bad news. There are always more school reps and specialists involved in Riley's education than my other two sons- I guess that's what makes it 'Special Education'. There are the usual suspects there; the teacher, the class room assistants, speech therapist, the principal, the school nurse, and Riley's case worker, for example.

I had already had a pretty bad week, defined by a lot of bad situations that weren't connected to Riley's education at all, so I viewed these strangers with some surprise and some suspicion. We all sat at the ridiculously little tables that are meant for children, not adults, to begin the conference. Once the introductions were passed around, I felt a little more at ease.

Apparently, when Riley turns 12, he will no longer be able to attend the elementary school for Special Education, but will automatically be moved up to the middle/high school for Special Education, which is located just across the parking lot from his elementary school, so no bus changes or anything like that, which was a relief. There was the Transition Team present to make sure Riley's transition from one building to the other would go as smoothly as possible. Plus, I got to meet his new teachers and other specialists that the public school Special Ed program thought was appropriate for Riley to grow into adulthood, and try to be a 'productive member of society' ( I hate that phrase).

As we sat there and discussed Riley's IEP, and the seemingly ridiculous goals and milestones (compared to 'normal' academia), I began to feel like I was having an out-of-body experience. That surreal feeling of being there in the room, and yet not really there at all. I was immediately filled with a deep abyss of sadness for the realization of Riley's sum total of life expectancy was sooo shallow. They talked on nonchalantly, as if the dummied-down version of school, middle and high school, no less, was a simple fact of life - which, of course, it is for Special Education.

I couldn't help feeling the sadness deepening, and the hole in my soul widening as they spoke of the new expectations and non-academic goals that would be expected of Riley in his years to come at Ruby Van Meter School. He could attend the high school until he was 21, if I wanted him to, under the guidelines of the MR Waiver.

I sat there in a moment of self-pity, and wallowed there for a while, thinking all the time of all the parents, most of my friends and family that never, ever had to listen to school officials tell them 8 years in advance what their son or daughter would be able to accomplish, and how absurd this entire situation had become. Yet I sat there and listened attentively and acknowledged the absurdity in a totally complacent way. What else could I do?

On the way home, I held Riley's hand in mine. My sadness spilled over into tears running down my cheeks with no sound emitting the sorrow. Riley didn't know I was crying until he looked at me, and then he lightly brushed my tears away on his fingers, and began to sprinkle them like holy water in the car. I love Riley so much, and I don't want to settle for the preordained minimal accomplishments set forth by who-knows-who. But what can I do?

I have watched other parents of special needs children who cannot accept their son or daughter's disability, and continue to ignore the fact that their child will never be normal. I have felt sorry for these parents because I know they have chosen the harder path of denial. It is so much better for all concerned parties to just accept what cards are dealt to you as parents, and try to make the best of it.

Even with this kernel of sanity to cling to, I can't quiet the tiny voice inside me that keeps saying that Riley's greatness is yet to come, and don't settle for the mediocre. Riley deserves more than that. He deserves so much more than that. I will give Riley all the tools and love he needs to become the greatest Riley can be. That is why God chose me to be the special parent of a special child. God doesn't give us more than we can handle.

20/20 Here's To Overcoming The 'Minimum Requirements'

Imbroglio

Beware of the Ides of March

I thought of this blog to try to weave the many trials and tribulations of my existence into some kind of discernible fabric to gain meaning and direction from the paths of my past to the roads of the future.

So far, every aspect of my life has so many involved and confusing situations, layered on top of one another like a cake the size of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and ready to topple as well. Yet, through all the confused misunderstandings and sharp turns, and even some severe crashes that have been the turnpike of my life so far, I would not be ashamed if someone were to follow in my foot steps. I believe in the good of others and that I have contributed to the positive side of life in many ways. But I know I have much left to offer- and some ways not yet dreamed of to help others.

But right now, today- my life seems to be in such a shambles, and on the eve of destruction that I question my longevity on this earth- I have serious doubts about myself being able to continuously cope with all the many facets of life and its profound complexity and sometimes confusion. People have counseled me with the adage "God does not give us more than we can handle." To which I have answered them "WHY does God think I can handle all this??!"

That is why I entitled this web log "Imbroglio Appeal". Because just like when you see a horrendous wreck or pile up on the freeway, your first instinct is to stop and stare, to view even a tiny piece of the carnage in the wreck, brings us back to being people. Every one of us has that urge to be curious-hence the 'appeal' part of Imbroglio Appeal. You just cannot drive by a train wreck and not look- it's impossible. That is how you should view Imbroglio Appeal.


The ides of March is a time that continues to appeal, marked because that was the date that Julius Caesar was assassinated in the senate, in 44BC.

Its modern-day memory is thanks, like so many things, to Shakespeare's way with words.

In act one, scene two of Julius Caesar, Caesar asks a soothsayer what the future holds:
Caesar: Who is it in the press that calls on me?I hear a tongue, shriller than all the musicCry "Caesar!" Speak. Caesar is turn'd to hear.Soothsayer: Beware the ides of March.

It is also apropos to begin this little endeavor of Imbroglio Appeal in the Ides of March, for there is much to be aware of in this modern day world. So much can change in the blink of an eye, literally. March 15 was my father's birthday- and I heard the warning of beware of the Ides of March many a time while growing up. It is a warning that goes well heeded for there is always great treachery that besiege us in the March madness.

The Iraq War, or the invasion by America began on March 20th, 2003, just to give you an example of treachery that can happen when presidents go berserk during March Madness. Our grand children's children will probably still be trying to clean up after that madness.

Each piece of the weave in the fabric of my life will be dealt with in much more detail on the more casual blog of Brash, Rash & Trash. Here, on Imbroglio, I will try to blend the complexities that I face daily into a more nuanced funnel for interpretation. My own journey to center of meaning in my own life travels.

You wouldn't believe all the constant interuptions and the varied Situations that arose during the writing of this post. Eight emergency situations happened just this afternoon while I tried to write this blog debut. Welcome to my life.

Sheila