I have class

Now, some – OK, all – of you who know me will argue about this, but I have a receipt to prove it.

It should surprise none of you that my wife and I have been to many doctors many times. One particular practice has a billing office that is off-site, I think possibly Uranus. They have a very creative way of generating bills. I’m not sure if this was any impetus, but while discussing possible options for part-time work for me to look into, my wife and I came up with medical billing and coding.

At this point, some of you may be wondering what the heck I am thinking. I have all sorts of problems, I have no stamina and unless I could find someone willing to pay me to work three hours a week I’m not going to have any luck. On Friday, when I was talking to the doctor overseeing the neuropsych testing, I said that I would try anything if someone had a suggestion for a job. Her response was something along the lines of “What do you mean, if someone had a suggestion you’d try it? You can’t work. What could you try?”

The answer is simple. I know that I have problems. I know that I can’t work. I also know that I have no source of income, right now I am a waste of space and I have to do something about that. In other words: yes, I can’t work, BUT I HAVE TO TRY. So what if it sounds like a paradox, I can’t just sit around and do nothing. If I fail I fail, but if I don’t try I have already failed.

So, working on the firm belief and principle that I Have To Try Anything, I signed up for a course in Medical Billing and Coding. Yes, I am insane.

Like I said in an earlier post, I thought that I was ready; I was feeling pretty good about things; optimistic even. I was ready to try something new and take another major step on the road to recovery.

Slip. Stumble. Ooo, and he recovers and does not fall! But that was a pretty impressive wobble there.

Dang this is draining. I am exhausted. On the other hand I am still doing it. The class started the end of January (there was a hint about this in an earlier post) and runs through next week. I am one stubborn clod and I will see this through. I am tired but I am conscious and active and doing a heck of a lot more than I could do last year. I am not good at this, yet, but damn I’m doing something. I’ll take credit for that.

I’ve still got a long way to go, but this is a step. And in its own way it’s interesting. At the very least I know more about what that flipping billing office should be doing.

Hmm

I should probably stop posting about how tired I am.

Oh, what the heck

Here’s another one of those posts.

My long-term disability company, the one that says that all of my doctors say that I’m disabled but they just don’t understand, decided they needed to send me for neuropsychological testing. An Independent Medical Examination, where Independent is defined as a doctor that the insurance company chooses and pays. Now I am not against the testing. I think any test that can help determine where I am and what I should do next is great., but somehow I don’t think the insurance company has that in mind. I really don’t have a clue why they are doing this.

This testing is ostensibly used to determine cognitive ability. So far it’s all been memory testing. I know that some of this is supposed to reveal deficits and strengths, and, I imagine, cheats. That last part I don’t worry about. I tell the truth. Period. OK, sometimes I hide my problems but I’m getting better at telling doctors about every little thing.

The first part about cognitive ability testing, that part I wonder about. This really doesn’t feel like an objective test. It is also designed for your average moron – no, seriously, this test is not designed for anyone of above average intelligence. Trust me, if I know you, you would ace this test, in your sleep, heavily drugged.

It also appears to equate knowledge with cognitive ability. If I don’t remember the definition of a word, how do you know that I ever knew the definition of that word? Similarly, you can test my ability to remember definitions, but does that tell you anything about how well I remember the name of my family members, or what a truck is?

Then there’s the problem that this test can only show how you compare to some accepted performance standard. I didn’t have a test before I was sick so there is no baseline to compare the current results to. So there is no way to know, through this test, if I have a deficit compared to how I was before. Not to mention that they guide you through the whole test so they don’t see anything about how you initiate tasks.

Ah well, I’m just ranting. I went into Philly for the test on Friday. I don’t have the energy to do the whole thing in one day so I have to go back. It is exhausting and unexpectedly painful. I fell asleep as soon as I got home, woke up to eat some dinner, and then slept until 2:00 Saturday afternoon. Then I slept for about 12 hours or so each night since, plus naps. I’m going to be in pain until I get some myofascial release therapy.

I was going somewhere with this but I can’t remember where. My brain is on one track right now and it’s a sidetrack from the testing that leads nowhere. I do have other news that I keep meaning to post about, but that will have to wait.

There's something going on in the swamp

I remember the original of this from when I was a child. Anywho, as my effort to commemorate the day – and I remember the original one of those as well – I am putting up this picture.



I have to go to the doctor today, so I will be burning fossil fuel and adding some pollutants and particulates to the atmosphere, but I will do my best to compensate in some way. I’m still trying to figure out how to convert my car to diesel-electric.

If anyone is gathering on Belmont Plateau (as they did all those years ago), do something like a hippie for me.

Little things

There are things that I cannot do well, like manage the twist tie on a loaf of bread or stir a cup of coffee or butter a piece of toast. They are little things, but they are the things that make up daily life. They are minutiae, insignificant not only in the overall scheme of things but in the mundane order of the day.

But little things are our life. Our existence is made of many of these little things. In their own way they are life altering changes because they are so small. Because I can’t do the little things I am not quite the person I used to be.

I can’t laugh the way I used to.

I can breathe and walk – after a fashion. I am alive. That’s why I care about these things. Maybe I’m just being perverse and focusing on the relatively inconsequential parts of life. Everyone has problems, I know that, but these didn’t use to be mine. I didn’t age gracefully, I aged overnight – well, it took 2 months but I was unconscious most of the time. And I haven’t been graceful about it.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this. Maybe nowhere, though I have to think all of this through so I can get to the other side. But now I’ve derailed my train of thought. I’ll wait at the station until it gets going again.

Woe is m– on second thought

I was thinking about some things to post, since it has been quite a while, and while I was thinking and bouncing around the Internet, I quite naturally stumbled across some things – and a thought popped into my head.

I am a very fortunate man.

Every now and then I do realize that I am very lucky. I have problems, and some of them are pretty bad, but it could be much worse.

Does this mean that I won’t be posting any more of those missives about my health and deficits and amazingly lousy experiences I sometimes have? Heck no. I need to get that out, and I do hope that it might help someone else to read. But until then, I think I’ll try to hold onto that positive thought.

You know ...

I was looking at that last post, just to make sure it posted OK, and I needed to say a few things. First, that post falls into the category of things posted for people who know me who want to know how I am doing, and also posts for people who don’t know me who may be going through something similar and want to see how others are getting along – a shared experience, just in case they come across my blog.

Now, on to the important point: whenever I see TMI, my first thought is almost always about Three Mile Island. Does that mean that I’m weird? The anniversary was just about a week ago. The song I heard on the radio right before I heard about TMI way back when was Dust In The Wind.

Ah, memories, I do have a few :)

Not TMI, but …

maybe more, moderately depressing, info on my current state than you want to know – but nothing horrific; it’s just the way things are.

I am back to say that I am exhausted, which is why I haven’t been around here much. I just haven’t had the energy. There has been the standard array of doctors that my wife and I have been going to which has contributed to this. Add in the basic necessity of life activities and I am already beyond my limit.

So with all that I decided to go and add more to the list of things I do each week. I have been trying a structured way to get myself back on a work-like footing.* I thought that I was ready for this sort of thing. In fact, at the beginning of the year I was feeling pretty good about things. I was ready to try something new and take another major step on the road to recovery.

Well, I was ready to try but I sure wasn’t able. As I’ve said before, I can do things, but I need time to recover. I recently realized that what I am doing now is pushing myself past my ability to recover. I have been having increasing problems with nerve pain, but also with muscle pain. It has become persistent and I am also having trouble moving because of pain and stiffness.

I think that this is from the cumulative effects of what I have been doing for the past few weeks. I think that my body is breaking down. I am using my mental and physical energy and not replacing it.

So, I’m going to stop.

Actually, I’m going to cut back where I can. April is pretty much already booked and I can’t do much about that. But I am looking forward to May as a time when I can scale back and regroup. I’m keeping that thought in my head to keep myself going. Of course, like I tell my doctors, I’ll get through this because I’m stubborn. I wonder if they think that’s a good thing.



*This is deliberately vague because I want to keep the details private for the moment.