Disability

 Well, it's official. The US government agrees I am disabled. I got my determination of Social Security yesterday.

It's a bit of a surprise, honestly. My disability lawyer told me I had a good case (they don't take you case if they don't think they can win) but he was also sure we go through the whole process. Typically, the SSA reviews your case, denies you, you appeal, there is a second-round review, they deny you again, you appeal and finally go before and administrative court judge who rules that you do actually qualify for benefits.

They ruled for me on the first round.

I'm told that there is a list of conditions - if you have terminal cancer, total kidney failure, are missing a limb or an eye, etc. they rule for you one the first round. 

It looks like maybe Long COVID makes the list.

That's... a little scary, honestly. 

Not that I think I'm going to die or anything. My condition hasn't changed from what it was earlier in the week. It just means the US government recognizes the seriousness of my condition. Which leads one to wonder... how many people in the country are sick like I am? How bad is this, not personally, but nationally?

Let me say this... if you have Long COVID (or Post COVID, or Post Acute COVID Syndrome or any of the dozen names they call this thing) and you have struggling, consider that you have options. If you feel you really, honestly can't work, Social Security Disability may be a real option for you. If you think it is, work closely with your physician to document your condition and contact a disability attorney. You don't pay them unless they win, and even then, they only take a cut of your back-benefits. It's well worth it.

Again, for me nothing has changed since yesterday... except now a weight I didn't know I was carrying has lifted. My condition is real. It has been acknowledged and it is supported.

Onward.

Week Ending 6/25

 So, we flew out to Vermont last week for Gramma Cathy's memorial service. (I tried not to mention that we were going, leading up to it, on the principle of "don't tell the internet your house is going to be empty for a week.") 

Originally, we'd all planned to go but in the end D begged off. He had classes and besides, it was better for someone to stay and watch the cats. I was actually much more comfortable with him doing that, and really, he didn't know his great-grandmother that well. The trip wasn't for him. 

I admit, I was worried about the trip. The day before we left, I'd pretty much convinced myself it was impossible. It wasn't. It wasn't easy but it wasn't impossible. 

We left Sunday, at like 2:00AM... drove down to Louisville, flew to Boston, where we rented a car and drove up to Vermont. I say "we" but Juno did all the actually work. I slept in the car to Louisville, slept in the airport, slept on the plane and slept in the car to Vermont... you get the picture. Juno even arranged for me to have a wheelchair in the airports, which was really great because I never would have been able to walk the whole way. So, yeah, not impossible.

I spent most of the week on my mom's couch, dozing, reading, and generally laying around like a lump. Mom rented me one of those motorized scooters, for getting around her building. I didn't use it much but, like the wheelchair, it was great when I did use it. I would have been even more whipped out if I'd walked the whole way from the parking lot to the door to the elevator to her apartment and back without it.

The memorial service was on Wednesday - the Summer Solstice - which was perfect for my Gramma Cathy, the druid. The service itself, in the memorial garden of All Saints in South Burlington, was very nice. One can overlook the fact that, on the other side of the trees surrounding the garden is a busy intersection with cars, trucks, motorcycles, construction vehicles, etc. drive by constantly. 

I also choose to overlook the general Christian prayer part of the service, since it meant something to most of the attendees, if not to me or, I believe, to Gramma Cathy. Those parts weren't for us. The deacon laid her ashes to rest in a spot near where Grampa Ted's ashes had been laid years ago. My mom said a few lovely words. My Uncle Kirk said a very lovely words (fewer, mom said, than he had planned) and then asked my mom to say a few more words (about my Gramma Cathy celebrated the Solstice... I think the priest noticed the paganism of it :) ). Then I went up and read my Images of God piece that I'd written about Gramma Cathy (and posted here a while back). The priest said later he was very moved. 

All in all, it was a lovely service. It was even nice to see my Uncle Kirk (who I haven't seen in like 30+ years, don't always get along with, and frankly doubt I'll see again). I did not, however, go to the lunch afterward.  

Thursday, I went to Overlook Park - so named because it's a nice hillside spot overlooking Lake Champlain. 

I spent 20 minutes sitting on a rock, looking at the lake. Then I rested for the rest of the day.

The return trip Friday was pretty much the reverse of the outbound trip... except we left at 1:00PM. You might be tempted to think that would be better. It wasn't. By the time we got to plane, around 8:00PM, I had discovered whole new kinds of exhaustion... the kind where all I could do was rock back and forth, and put everything I had into not screaming and generally freaking out on the plane. Still, we made it home.

I rested Saturday and Sunday and plan to rest for... well, pretty much July.

It was worth it every minute of it.

Onward.

Week Ending 6/18

 So, early post because tomorrow is going to be crazy (and I'll probably talk about that next week)...

This week has been really good actually. I made a lot of progress on Wyrd Girls. I got some painting done and in general, I've been resting and feeling really good. I need to remember to do that more. 

Speaking of painting, this is one of my latest projects:

She's a "conversion" which is to say the original model didn't look like this. She originally held a trident in her right hand and a net in her left. I carved off the net and did a "hand swap" replacing the hand holding the trident with a hand from another mini holding a sword. Then I added the axe at her waist (for no other reason but that the unit she's meant to represent in my army is supposed to have an axe as well as a sword). Then, naturally, I painted her. All in all, I've very pleased with the way she came out.

So, yeah, good week...

Onward

Week Ending 6/11

 If anyone ever suggests that you do a "clean restart" on your computer, make sure you don't disable Windows services.

So, yeah... that week sucked big time.

An annoying problem with my EA game app not loading my games library (which turns out to be a fairly common, periodic issue with the stupid, useless app) lead to some idiot at EA customer support telling me to do a "clean restart" but modifying my msconfig sys file and disabling all service. When I expressed reservations about this, he was extremely rude, insisted that if I didn't trust him there was no reason to contact customer service ever and we would never do anything to damage my computer.

Unfortunately "disable all services" includes "disable the ability of Windows to recognize your password" making it literally and completely impossible to sign into the device. My new computer became a paperweight. 

On the plus side, a serious shout out to Chukwuemeka at Mircosoft technical support. In addition to having an absolutely awesome name, he not only patiently worked with me for a hour trying to salvage the mess EA made of my computer, he also kept me calm and positive throughout the entire call. Even though, in the end, we couldn't save it and I had to get Windows reinstalled on laptop, I still think he was fantastic. If you're out there Chukwuemeka, thank you!

Of course, that drama trashed my health for the week. 

However, my computer is back. Thanks to it being fairly new, most of my files were still on the external drive I used to transfer them from my old machine to my new one and most of the ones that were not were on the Cloud (despite my best efforts to avoid the Cloud). 

Onward!

Week Ending 6/4

 Well, another week's gone by. 

I think I managed this one OK. Still having a rough time when I get worn out, which is pretty much every day... but I did manage to get four chapters of Wyrd Girls written over the weekend. Only posted one so far. Banking the rest against the possibility of not doing so well. Still, I'm really enjoying that.

Let's see... D started college last week. Just one class so far, so he can get a feeling for how this work. He had a whole plan for dealing with his homework and reports and such. Then he came to me that next explaining how maybe he'd just work on his homework later. I said - you've got two options. One, you stick to the plan. Two, you wait until the last minute and do it in a rush. I said - you're eighteen, so it's entirely your decision but if you wait until to the last minute, I don't want to hear about how stressed you are and how hard it is. Interestingly, he decided to stick to the plan. What do you know... after 18 years I maybe have parented successfully.

Onward

Week Ending 5/28

 I've been overdoing it again.

I mean, I look at my little charts and numbers for the week, and I'm surprised at how "good" they look... given that I've been feeling absolutely horrible. Seems like every day this week I've been lost in a fog of pain and confusion, unable to do the things I want to do. Then I realized, I've been pushing myself too hard. I've got things I want to do and I keep trying to force myself to keep going and do them. The result is not good. So, I'm going to try to stop doing that. 

I feel better today than I have all week.

In other entertainment news, one of my email accounts got hacked. They set up 2-step authentication on it to try to stop me from changing the password, then they hacked my Facebook account, added a credit card to it, made a post on Facebook Marketplace, removed the credit card and wandered off. Luckily, I got bombarded with email notifications about every step on their weird road. I was able to get control of my email account back (and set up my own 2-step authentication to hopefully prevent this mess in the future) and cleaned up my Facebook. That was way too much excitement for one day.

So, the 2-step authentication thing... I'd really encourage you to do that yourself. 

All in all, a long week... but like I said, I'm feeling really good today.

Onward

Week Ending 5/21

 Let's see... what interesting happened last week?

Well, my new laptop arrived. My old one had been making uncomfortable grinding noises for a while and Juno agreed that a laptop was an essential tool for me. It is, after all, my window into the world these days. So we ordered me a new one... which had to be built and eventually shipped. 

It was kind of exciting because, according to FedEx tracking, this little machine was started out on Chongqing, China (the largest city in the world, on a technicality, apparently). For what Google shows me, it looks like Chongqing has some neat tourist-y things to visit... a cool museum, etc. After leaving Chongqing, my laptop eventually arrived in Shanghai, where FedEx announced it was in an "Operational Delay." I'm guessing that means Customs.

On Wednesday morning, it was still in Operational Delay in Shanghai according to FedEx. On Wednesday afternoon, it was in my hands... leading me to suspect the tracking information wasn't 100% accurate. 

I'd like to say getting my new laptop was as fun as watching it's journey across the world. Unfortunately, it wasn't. Let me just say, I hate Windows 11 and I hate OneDrive. I don't want to store my files on the Cloud and my WiFi really isn't robust enough for that anyway. It took days, lots of swearing and calls to HP Customer Service, Microsoft Customer Service (which doesn't exist btw) and EA Customer Service (they're the game company that makes the Sims) before I got it in some semblance of working order. Needless to say, that really wore me out and I'm still recovering. 

Still, new laptop and which is more well traveled than I am and which I'm still figuring out. Should be fun.

Onward