Tone Parsons

Today marks the 6 month anniversary of my going on disability.

I should be receiving a phone call from my employer’s HR department soon asking me to come in for an exit interview (as company policy says: after 6 months out, you’re fired). Of course, I’ll still have my long term disability, and as I didn’t burn any bridges (actually, my managers like me quite a bit), I should have no problems going back in the future… body willing.

I am hopeful that I’ll be able to go back. I love the company I worked for! The job I had was my dream job (Senior Web Developer), I enjoyed all the people I worked with, and I loved the company culture! It was by far the greatest place I’ve ever had the pleasure to work at!

But enough of that….

An update on my missing medications from the last post. Apparently the postman smoked just a bit to much crack last week, because he delivered my meds to a house about 2 blocks away. They, in turn, drove them up to me (thank goodness!). It would have cost me over $500 to replace just one of the prescriptions (yeah… I’m on the high quality stuff!). All is good in the world!

And finally…..

Yesterday I escaped the house for a while. I hopped on the bus and headed out to the Valley Mall to meet up with my sister and brother-in-law. We started at a place called Wingers (a ribs and hot wing style restaurant) to have a beer, eat some food, and watch the radio DJ interview the Coach and some of the players from the Spokane Shock.

I don’t do ribs, and I’m leery of chicken wings that I didn’t make, so I ended up having the Southwest Salad. It was ok… but nothing worth writing about (so I shall stop).

After we left there, we went into the mall and I picked up a couple of new cell phones for the wife and I. We both got the same thing… the LG-VX9900… aka the enV, in orange. I wanted it because I totally suck at text messaging with standard phone buttons and the enV has a QWRTY keyboard (a little factoid: they call it a QWERTY because those are the first 5 letters in the left hand top row). That should make it a lot easier!

I ordered a couple of 4GB memory cards for it today (from newegg, of course!!)… so I should have them by Friday.

You may have noticed that the webcam actually has a picture on it. I was dorking around today and decided to hook it back up and perhaps start using it again.

The problem is… I’m almost never at my computer.

So… you may see a new image there from time to time. I’ll turn it on when I’m near the PC… but for the most part, I won’t be, so don’t count on it being live. An easy way to tell is to look at the time/date stamp at the bottom of the image. If it’s not the actual time (Pacific), then I’m not there.

Now… let’s talk about drugs. I have been having problems as of late getting my prescriptions filled. I ordered 3 different meds a week ago and they’re still not here (ack… I run out of one of them tonight!). I also requested 2 more be filled (they’re schedule II, so I have to have that done at a pharmacy). I have enough of those to last me until early next week, which generated an email from my physician. I tried to explain that if I don’t order a week ahead of time, I don’t always get them before I run out (and that’s not a good time for me, for sure!).

I don’t think he understands.

*sigh*

As for me… I’ve been my usual bored spittless self. Daytime TV sucks and I can’t do the things I want to do, so I end up sleeping… a lot! Of course, the meds make me sleepy, so I guess that works.

Sorry about the bitching… I’ll try to write something up later that’s a little more upbeat. In the meantime, here’s a song by Venus Hum (a band I love), called Hummingbirds.

Ok… I’m going to be lazy today and just post a video… but it’s a clever video (if you’re into Rube Goldberg type things).

When I left work those many months ago, I wasn’t too worried, because I have long term disability insurance. Because I did a “buy-up” when I purchased the insurance, I was guaranteed 70% of my current salary until I reach age 65.

Unfortunately, part of the deal is that I apply for Social Security Disability (and appeal twice if my claim is denied). If I’m accepted, my insurance company deducts the amount that Social Security pays me from the amount they have to pay me. After the 3rd denial, my insurance company will tell me that I fought the good fight, and I no longer have to deal with it (they just pay me).

If you’ve never applied for Disability benefits from the government, let me explain the process in the simplest terms I can: It’s drawn out, time consuming, and painful.

You fill out form after form, then they request the same forms be filled out again (and again) until your will to live is as broken as you are.

I think I’ve finally filled out everything they need for my initial application, as I called and talked my my case worker again today. She stated that while I’m a good candidate for disability, I’m probably going to be denied (you have to be a total vegetable to get accepted at my age of 41).

So…. once the denial letter comes, I get the joy of running through the appeal process….. twice! Lucky me!

As for me… I’ve had people ask how I’ve been doing, so I thought I’d put out an update.

Things haven’t changed much. I still hurt all the time, I’m still on heavy narcotics, and I still sleep a lot. My attitude about it, however, is improving. I’ve come to accept that this is my life now, and it’s time to get myself out of the bucket of self-pity that I’ve been wallowing in.

I’m going to start getting out of the house more and experiencing life outside of these 4 walls. I plan to go to the Spokane Shock store sometime this week to get myself all geared up for the opening home game of the season (this coming saturday). We watched the first game of the season (they played Green Bay in Wisconsin) via the web and it was great! Spokane beat them 64 – 48 (which kicked serious ass!!).

I’m also going to get on the web more often, posting both here and on my forum. Hell, I may even bring wwbd out of mothballs and back to it’s former glory (the last few posts over there kind of sucked).