the ask@AAR: How are you doing?
Today I had one of those days that everything seemed harder than it should have. Home Depot, for the third time, didn’t show up to deliver my dishwasher so I have both dishes that won’t dry and a lot of irritation at having sat at home–for the third time–for nothing. I’m working on a photo book for my mom’s upcoming 85th birthday and my computer crashed in the middle of a work session and I lost everything. My condo board, always frustratingly opaque, sent out a new set of rules that honestly make me feel as if I live in a building run by paranoid autocrats. I’m not the most patient person on a good day, but by the end of today, I was CRANKY.
I’m cranky more than I’d like. I’m ready for normalcy and easy and we’re just not there yet.
How about you? Are you cranky? Or patient? Taking it one day at a time?
One day at a time works for me. The UK is being battered just now by huge and destructive storms with several deaths so far. Trees are down in my village and our fence is wrecked. A delayed dishwasher isn’t worth getting too worked up about just now here, listening to the gale howling outside.
We replaced our old dishwasher last year. It was over 18 years old, so we got years of good use out of it. We bought the same brand (Fisher Paykel), and this new version isn’t as well made. I now wish we’d chosen a different brand. I’m lucky that my husband is a very handy guy. He usually installs our appliances himself, which helps with some of the hassle, and he can troubleshoot whatever goes wrong better than most people who repair them.
I haven’t been able to read much lately. I’ve had a lot of lower back pain, which comes and goes. I can’t sit for too long. Frequent walks and low impact movements help me the most. I foresee a new mattress in my future, but I don’t want to spend a lot of money on one only to find out it’s still not right.
On a bright note, forsythia and daffodils are starting to bloom this week, and lots of birds are coming to my feeders. I enjoy watching them.
I think February is a difficult month for folks in the north east. It is so difficult to go outside, especially if you have some sort of mobility issue. The sidewalks aren’t plowed, the roads are narrow because the shoulder has all the plowed snow. It’s 8 degrees and windy. I am more fortunate than most but to quote the Joe Walsh song, “I can’t complain, but sometimes I still do. “ Oh, and the dog ate my AirPods.
We went back into isolation when Omicron hit because of vulnerable family members. We’re starting to go out some now that the surge is letting up, but since we have people in our lives who need protection, we may be limited for a long time to come. Will routinely visits his now widower father, 89, every couple of weeks. Will’s brother is immune compromised due to heart transplant. Three of our five children have diagnosed chronic illness that could make recovering from something like COVID a long process. I realize our country needs some normalcy but I can’t help but feel the polarization has made reasonable steps to protect the most vulnerable people very unpopular.
My husband and I provide emotional, financial, and physical support for our chronically ill children, who also suffer from varied mental illnesses, such as PTSD, anxiety disorder, and clinical depression. Two of those children live with us. They are wonderful and engaging company much of the time, but my time is not my really my own. I need to be available to drive to Dr appointments, help with food, or talk someone down from a crisis. At mid-60’s, this was not how I thought my life would go. My husband and I aren’t free to travel, for example,nor is there much privacy in our moderately sized house with 5 adults.
We face the lack of availability of affordable health insurance daily. It’s not a bullet point for us. We are in good financial shape, but since two of our chronically ill kids have no access to health insurance, we depend on Duke hospital continuing to allow them financial aid. That doesn’t include prescriptions. Like you said. Sometimes I just wish things were easier.
Thankfully, I really do enjoy great relationships with my kids. And I have a happy place to go to every week at the equine riding therapy center where I volunteer. I’m doing mostly ok, but my margins are very thin, and some days I lose perspective and get very angry. I’m working on that with my therapist right now.
Health insurance in the US is such a disaster although the Exchange has made it much better than it used to be.
Your children are lucky to have you and Will. <3
The problem with the Exchange is that if your state hasn’t opted in to the expansion, then those without an income fall through the cracks because they don’t qualify for subsidies. You actually have to HAVE an income to qualify for the ACA subsidies. Those unable to work would have been able to get insurance under the Medicaid expansion,but in state like NC, who won’t opt in, it leave the most vulnerable people without recourse.Basically,The NC legislature has decided to let hospitals bear the brunt of the uninsured. There is some talk of changing that,but the changes in question still won’t cover people who cannot work but are not (or not yet) on disability. For years we paid premium rate for our oldest to get health insurance that paid for her prescriptions, but it got so expensive we couldn’t do it any more. Thankfully Duke has allowed her into their financial aid program. But now the hospitals are so overwhelmed with uninsured patients, they have started limiting their care and only okaying patients fora few months at a time instead of a year. I’m very grateful to them, but we still pay full price for prescriptions plus any lab tests, and many procedures.
You can see one of the problems. It takes one to two years to be granted disability in most cases (if you’re granted it at all) and in the meantime, most people don’t have any insurance.
I know. One of my kids, the one who lives in India, doesn’t qualify. But it is still a vast improvement.
My sister had a similar situation recently with Lowe’s—also a dishwasher that was promised on three separate delivery dates and never showed up. Supply-chain issues/Covid/difficulty hiring & retaining workers have created a perfect storm for appliance delivery and installation. And that’s just a microcosm of what’s happening on a national level.
Personally, I’m doing fine—but it is, as you say, one day at a time. I try to limit my news reading/watching/listening, avoid doom-scrolling, stay out of the politics tab—and (outside of Romancelandia) NEVER read the comments. I’ve been enjoying watching the Olympics: in awe of the skaters, skiers, and snowboarders and the feats they accomplish. Happy to see vivid numbers going down and hope another variant isn’t on the horizon.
Covid numbers.