What drives people to public service is a sense of possibility. If you haven't sensed that possibility you don't get started in the same way, you don't feel you can have an impact.
Henry Hampton


When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.
Harry S. Truman

How was your Friday?
Mine was a little strange and at  times felt like it was when I was in the hospital and having everything filtered through a drug induced haze.

I have been sleeping poorly all week, spending hours tossing and turning and getting up at strange times.
I got up about 10 PM Thursday night after a few hours sleep and spent the night watching the programs I record like Olbermann, Rachel Maddow,The Daily Show, Letterman and Poker After Dark to name a few.

That takes me to early morning when I take my 14 and 16 year old Grandkids to their bus stop. I do this because their mother is back with her crazy boyfriend and they are not safe staying there.
One nice thing about this county is that if you don't want to go to school in the district you are living in you just have to go to the nearest bus stop for the district you wish to attend. The Grandkids have gone to the school system near their mother's home for years so we keep them in it. Unlike me who went to 4 High Schools in the 3 years it took me to graduate.

I then sat around home waiting for my cute Nurse to come and take my vitals and measure and change the dressing on the big hole in my belly. Blood Pressure 120 over 53, heartbeat at 81. Temp 100.0F in both ears which means watching my political shows made me a hothead.
I also have some congestion in my lungs but not enough to make me cough.

After the Nurse left I lay down and tried to sleep again. Lots of tossing and turning later I was just drifting off. I got a phone call. I wish I could get the dog to answer the phone and take messages. It was from my health insurance case counselor. This always makes me a little nervous. I talked to her a couple of months ago when she took my case over from the lady of no who retired and while on the phone she discovered that my policy expired on Oct. 26th and nobody told her. The Boss has a policy with the same company and the caseworker just stayed with it.

I often try to picture people on the other end of the phone that I have never seen.
This is my image of my caseworker


She was just checking in to see that everything was being paid for. This always worries me.
All in all it went well though. She promised that my home nurse visits and all that would continue to be covered as long as I need them and that if I had any problems with things not being paid to call her.
She even gave me a number to give my daughter when things got violent with her boyfriend and she needed help. It's a statewide place that has contact places that will hide and protect her from the asshole. The state family services people have already said that he was not doing anything wrong. I see why families being murdered by one member who then kills themselves or cries about being abused are so common.
I told you things seemed a little off on my Friday.

I decided with her urging to call the local Social Security office to see if there had been any progress on the reconsideration of the disability case I had added more information to on Dec. 30th. The Stalling Specialist I reached after a lot of busy signals had no new information on the case and didn't seem much inclined to continue the conversation. I on the other hand couldn't sleep and have very few people to talk to in my day to day existence so I just kept on talking. After about 10 minutes he finally had had enough I guess. He broke down and gave me the secret number for the Public Service Paperweights who were in charge of my case. I told Jackiesue I would find a use for the paperweight name.
The No It All Specialist answered the phone right away like he didn't have anything to do or just didn't want to do it. I think he regretted picking up the phone almost right away.
This is my image of him.



He confirmed that they had not sent any information to the local office and said they were waiting for information from my Surgeon, family Doctor and all three hospitals I stayed in.
I pointed out that the statements from the hospitals and rehab place were included in earlier paperwork and that I had sent the Doctor's statements in the paperwork that  I had sent. I had confirmation that they received it on Dec.30th.
I went into rambling conversation mode again as he seemed to think I should be happy with the progress.
 I mentioned that I understood the problems with getting records from hospitals from all the trouble my Lawyer had getting what he needed.
This is in a malpractice case against the Butcher's apprentes who first operated on me. I have been assured is about as close to a sure win as their is .
I didn't mention the malpractice case to him though.
After I said this he got quite and I started hearing papers being shuffled around and he started listing reports that to his surprise had been received and were in my paper file though not on the computer file.
I kept talking and he kept listing the paperwork he was finding that they were needing. As near as I can tell everyone he had mentioned before was there.
He then tried to tell me they had only had the file for 11 days and when I pointed out that they had gotten it on Dec. 30th. He kinda ignored this and started a new line. He said he had to review all the information to see if I met the requirements for full disability. I pointed out that Both Doctor's statements said I would never work again. He then stated that sometimes there is one piece of information that is needed to decide the case and his job was to find that. He didn't sound like he was threatening my case but more like he was going to finish the review.
 All this came out through my rambling. I learned when I was in the 6th grade how to hide the limited brainpower I have and seem a lot simpler than I really am. It's second nature at 54 living in the area I do and seems to help when dealing with people like the ones I dealt with on Friday.

After all this time on the phone I felt like I could get a little sleep so I went to bed at 2:30 PM and slept until 1 AM Saturday. Like I said it was a lot like when I was hopped up on drugs in the hospital.

Then again a lot of this could be delusional and as always...
I could be full of shit.