Recently in court Category

I betcha that  bcbsnc would be just as furious about what happened today at the pharmacy as Humana is.
I've been posting about my pain medication saga on this blog and my other blog, for the last couple of days now, and had found a pharmacy with the very last of the generic medication in stock, all of the way down in North Port today.

So my friends drove me down to the pharmacy in North Port this afternoon in a massive thunderstorm and heavy rain that lasted the entire drive down there, and half of the way back home, in order for me to get the last remaining stock of the generic Oxycontin HCL 40mg ER, which is Oxycodone HCL 40mg ER.
The pharmacy that I found it at didn't have my full prescription of 90 pills, but they did have 80 of them, close enough.
So I went for it because my doc had said because of that whole mess, that he was not going to write me a new script until he figured out what would work best for me because I am allergic to the equivalent med which is morphine sulfate, (MS Contin) and I am severely allergic to morphine, and also because Fentanyl patches don't work, and the Fentanyl injections are too dangerous and I refused them.

I went into the pharmacy and handed over my script and the pharmacist filled it, ran my insurance for it, and my co-pay was going to be $2.40, and that's when the pharmacist told me that she was losing money because of the insurance.
"What?" I asked.
"Because I am accepting your insurance for this medication," the female Indian pharmacist said, "I am losing money on it."
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"Let me explain. I pay $40 for the medication, Humana is only going to pay me $20 for it, you are only going to pay me $2.40 for it, so I am losing $20.00 by accepting your insurance and giving you this medication" she said.
"Ok, what does that mean for me?" I asked.
"It means that unless you pay me $20.00 for the medication, I cannot let you have this prescription" she said.
"Uh, ok, um, I haven't gotten paid yet, let me go see if I can borrow it from one of my friends" I said, and I went out to the truck to ask Deb and Nic if I could borrow $20 until I got paid Friday night.
Nic let me borrow it but told me I was being yanked.
I said that I knew that and would deal with it later, but right now this was the last pharmacy in the whole damn state with my med, I needed to get it and would report the theft and insurance fraud when I got home.
I went back in and instead of paying the legal amount of $2.40, I paid the theft price of $22.40, got my med, and we drove back home to Sarasota.

What the pharmacist did is called price gouging for one, theft for another, and insurance fraud for a solid third.
It is against the law to accept and charge an insurance company for the medication, actually charge the patient the real co-pay amount, and ask the patient to pay another price on top of that.
I know by going to the Humana website and logging in to my account, that I can see how much the medicine costs, my co-pay amount, and how much Humana pays the pharmacy when they submit the claim to Humana.
The medication costs $670.62, my co-pay is $2.40, and then Humana pays the pharmacy $668.22.
 
That is actually what it says on the My Humana page for today's (Friday October 16th, 2009) prescription fill at the pharmacy I went to today.
At my usual pharmacy that I had been getting it at for a full year before this whole Purdue lawsuit mess, the price of the med was $789.95, because they were getting the generic version from a different pharmaceutical company than the one I got today.
My regular pharmacy was getting them from Watson Pharmaceutical, and they were round and orange-ish-yellow.
Today's pills were manufactured by Dava Pharmaceutical, the pills are round and purple.  
The different pharmaceutical companies all make their pills look different, and they charge different prices for them.

But that's really neither here nor there, what this pharmacy did was illegal.
And she knew it too.
It is an independently owned pharmacy, the husband and wife own it together, she's the pharmacist, he's the cashier, 1 cash register, 1 tiny little store.
She so totally knew that what she was doing was illegal, and she took steps to prevent being caught.
On the patient medication print-outs, there is always a strip at the top that says the name, address, and phone number of the pharmacy, it says the medication name, how much it costs, and how much the co-pay is.
This little strip is perforated to be torn off for the patients use.
The pharmacist tore it off so that I wouldn't have access to the truth.
She made 1 mistake though, she let me keep my cash register receipt that clearly says that I paid $22.40 for 1 prescription, and the receipt has the name, address, phone number, and the name of the pharmacist right at the top.

When I got home, I immediately called my insurance company to report what had happened.
The Humana rep was aghast at what I was telling her, she placed me on hold while she got a supervisor and asked what she was supposed to do for this kind of thing, and then she told me that they had all of the pharmacy's information in the system already because the pharmacist had submitted the claim, I really did pay the legal co-pay amount of $2.40, and she told me that they were sending me a form to fill out, that I would need to photocopy all of the paper work that I did have, like the receipt and the patient print out showing that she tore the patient use information strip off, and that I would need to explain exactly what happened, what the pharmacist told me, and then she told me that I needed to report it to my state's price gouging hot-line, and the police in North Port, which I did.
I left a voice mail for the hot-line in Tallahassee because that's what you're supposed to do, and I spoke to a detective at the North Port police department who told me that I would need to go back to NP and file a report and bring the evidence and my witnesses with me.
Both Deb and Nic said that they would be happy to go to NP with me and fill out the report, especially Nic because she's the one who loaned me the $20.00 to pay for it, and was just as shocked as I was that the pharmacist did that.
All 3 of us were in shock that she ripped me off for $20.00 when she had submitted the claim to Humana for the full price of $668.22, claiming that she was going to lose $20.00 by accepting my insurance.

Can you freaking believe the week I have had just trying to get my freaking medication?!?
Totally unreal right?
I mean, who the hell else would have this kind of luck?
This is the kind of stuff that happens to me all. of. the. time, and this pharmacist knew that she was the last pharmacy to have the medication, she knew that I had to have it, so she totally took advantage of those facts and she stole $20.00 from me, lied to me, submitted the claim to the insurance, so that's fraud, and she totally, illegally, price-gouged me!!
Seriously people, this kind of crap only happens to me.

Because I don't want any other person in the south west Florida area to be ripped off, I am telling everyone right here on my blog, to never, ever, go to D & A Pharmacy in North Port Florida, located at 3015 Bobcat Village Center Rd. in the Bobcat Village Shopping Plaza.
This is a picture of their store front happily provided by the pharmacy to be listed on Google.

Never go there folks.
Ever.

As I posted on Tuesday, I was having to wait for my insurance, Humana, and my doc's office to agree on either paying for my pain medicine or forcing my doc to write a new script.
Well, neither happened.
It seems that Purdue Pharma won in federal court, to be the ONLY manufacturer of Oxycontin HCL 40mg ER.
Actually, Purdue Pharma now has the patent on ALL controlled-release oxycontin until April 16, 2013.
That's right, they fought and won the right to be the only maker of all controlled release oxycontin until 2013.
That's total crap.
I was taking the generic, oxycodone HCL 40mg ER, but seeing as only the brand name is being produced, my insurance refuses to cover it because of how expensive it is.
Because the only equivalent alternative medication is morphine sulfate, my doctor did not write me a new script for medication.
He was going to write me a script for Fentanyl, either the patches or the injections, but I refused based on the fact that patches do not work for me, I have damaged nerve endings in my back still, I cannot even feel it when being touched by a hand, stung by a bee, anything on my back, so without nerve endings, the medication in the patches would never be absorbed and be able to work.
I also declined it based on the horror stories of that medication that I have heard about and seen on tv programs like Dateline and 20/20.
People suck on the Fentanyl pain patches and have a heroin like experience, and it is also highly addictive because of how strong it is when used in the liquid injection form.
I do not need a highly addictive heroin-like medication in this house.
I am already physically addicted to some of my pain meds, I don't want to be emotionally addicted to something like that, I've never done heroin, and I certainly don't want to take a medication that is like heroin.

So anyway, I do not have my regular medicines, and I am in quite a bit of pain.
It is amazing just how bad the pain is without my usual regiment of medications, all I want to do is stay curled up in a ball on the couch, every single part of my body aches, all of my joints ache like crazy.
Just doing the grocery shopping this evening was a test of sheer will power to make my body walk there, walk the aisles, and walk home.
As soon as I got home, I put everything away and curled myself up like I was sitting in an egg chair.
Curling up is the most comfortable position right now, my other pain meds are not even touching the arthritis pain that I have, it's horrible right now.
My ankles, knees, hips, pelvis, lower back, and my neck, are just throbbing in pain.
We're heading into a cold spell, well cold for Florida, and I am so feeling it.
I'm really kind of ticked off at my doctor for not trying to find an alternative medication that I can take.
I also can't believe he wanted me to take 100mg of Fentanyl, that stuff is like heroin man, I don't want that crap.
I don't want to take it, I don't want it in my house, I don't want anything at all to do with it, but he thought it was a good alternative.
I think I'm going to call Purdue Pharma tomorrow and ask them for help.
I cannot get my insurance to cover the medication, and I cannot afford to get my script filled for their name brand product.
It would take me 2 months of SSDI payments to pay for just 90 pills, it's very expensive like I said on Tuesday.
It can't hurt to ask them for help seeing as their little war over a patent has caused me to be without my meds right?
Their greed has caused me to be in pain since Tuesday, maybe, just maybe, they will help me and cover the cost of it or send me some.
I've heard stories about some of the pharmaceutical companies helping people that way, maybe they will help me.

The whole process will kill you.
Or at least make you want to choke someone.
A friend of mine is currently going through the disability appeal process right now, for the 2nd time, and she is not happy.
Applying for disability and going through the whole process is a really rough time, it's hard.
You go to doctor after doctor, get test after test, you can have 20 doctors all saying that you are permanently disabled, and if just one of the governments approved doctors says that you're not disabled, then that's it, you get denied for disability.
I swear the absolute best way to even apply the first time, is to get an attorney.
Just get a lawyer right from the start, they know how it works, they do it for a living, trying to do it on your own is nearly impossible.
I tried telling my friend Nicci this, she didn't think she would need one, now she is desperately looking for one to help her.
The paperwork is just overwhelming, the whole thing is really, you need professional help to apply and get approved.

I was so sick yesterday and last night, most of this morning, and I'm just finally starting to feel better.
I don't know what it was, but man, my stomach was just wrecked, I was throwing up, cramping up, in tons of pain, and my feet that were swollen and had gone down, had started to swell again.
I managed to pull myself together to go to my new pain doctor appointment, and went for my 3:15.

It's a very strict office I'll tell ya.
They make you pay your co-pay or self pay before they see you, and there was this one guy who was $10 short of his $350.00 fee, and they turned him away, told him he had to reschedule it, they don't mess around man.
I had enough to pay my co-pay and for my scripts, but I was 2 days too early for my insurance to fill them, so I have to go back to the pharmacy tomorrow morning and pick them up before I go to my surgeon appointment at 2pm.

But anyway, the new doc is very strict but also very nice.
He took a look at my records, my CT scans from the 19th, and my blood test results, and we started there.
He said, "So you had spine fusion in 2006 from T3 to S1, wow, that's really big."
I said, "Yeah, but I just had another one, I'm now fused from C1 to S1, the whole spine."
He said, "Wow, you are the biggest spine fusion I have ever personally seen. Did you say that you're having another surgery?"
I said, "Yeah, I see my surgeon on Wednesday, and hopefully he'll have a date and a plan for what and when we're going to do. C1 and C2 collapsed after the surgery in September, my head is stuck down, I don't have much movement at all in my neck, muscle spasms in my back and legs, sometimes the spasms are so severe that if I'm sitting at my desk with my feet up and my keyboard on my lap, the spasms actually throw my keyboard clear off my lap and knock over my foot stool. But C1 and C2 were congenitally fused from birth, there's no disc space there at all, so I have no idea how he's going to fix me."
He said, "Yeah, I'm looking at your CT scan and I honestly don't know how he's going to do it, I'm not a surgeon, so I really don't know, but I can now understand why Doc R. sent you to me. You are much more complicated than the patients he usually deals with. He's a rehab pain manager, he helps people get better and get off medication, and honestly, I know you probably don't want to hear this, but I don't see you coming off of medication for another 5-8 years, maybe the rest of your life based on what I'm reading in your records. You not only have had major spine fusion and another one going to happen soon, but you have arthritis, stenosis, nerve impingement, and a lot of disc damage. It could be years before anyone even thinks of taking you off of medication, or never at all. I'm sorry."
I said, "That's ok, I already knew I was bad off."

So he wrote out my scripts, added a muscle relaxer, which I hate taking because they make me sleep for anywhere from 6-8 hours, so taking those 4 times per day, I'd be sleeping all of the time, and he added Lyrica , which is for neuropathic pain.
I didn't get to pick that one up because it needed like pre-authorization or something, and I may not pick it up at all because as of right now, the Walgreen's website says it's $82.46 for just 30 pills.
That's crazy!
I refuse to pay that much for a medication that I have no idea if it will even work for me yet.
Maybe it hasn't been processed through my Humana insurance yet, but if it has and that's how much it costs, I may not pick it up at all, or I may wait until I get my tax refund back on Thursday.
I don't know yet, have to wait and see, but as of right now, it's still not ready for me to pick up anyway.
Apparently, they still don't have the authorization for it.

So tomorrow morning, I'll go pick up my pain meds, come home, and then get ready for the long ride to Safety Harbor to see the surgeon with my sister.
I'm giving Mindy the day off...LoL
Mindy does so much for me already, and she's been working hard at her cleaning business, taking care of her family, and other things, she's exhausted, so Wednesday is her only scheduled day off, so now it's really a day off for her.
I personally think she needs a nice long vacation somewhere really nice, like maybe go out to California all by herself, stay at a nice San Diego hotel, go see a few sites, and get some much needed rest.
She works way too hard and needs a good, long break.

I've made some really decent new friends over the last few weeks.
It happened sorta by accident, I met Dustin and his girlfriend Stacey through another friend, and they have just been really awesome.
They are like totally blown away by the amount of titanium I have, Dustin calls it the 'chainsaw back' because when you look at a front view of the xrays, it looks like a chainsaw blade.
But anyway, they are both just really sweet, Dustin helped me get to my doc appointment yesterday and to the pharmacy, and today, they both just stopped by to see how I was doing.
Stacey said that after my next surgery, she'll come by anytime I need help, help clean the house, help me take showers, shave my legs, brush my hair, stuff like that, because with the halo brace on, it's going to be very difficult to do things by myself.
I had been telling Dustin yesterday while sitting in the waiting room at the docs, about how awesome my teens are and have been after my surgeries, they helped me in and out of bed, in and out of the bathroom, they have even shaved my legs, brushed my hair, they do all of the grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, and so he told Stacey, and she was like well hell, this single mama needs help sometimes so let's help her.
I thought that was really sweet of them to even offer, and who knows, I may take them up on it sometimes if I'm having a wicked rough time after surgery.

Oh, Sebastian just went out and got the mail, and in today's mail was my settlement check from the Airborne class action lawsuit.
I got a check for $34.95.
Nice!

I went for my daily walk just a bit ago, all the way up to the corner store and back, I needed to get a loaf of bread anyway, and I was craving chocolate, so I grabbed a snickers too.
Yum.

When I got back, I checked the mail box, which amazingly, has not been hit by a car again in a good long while, (knock on wood) and in today's mail, I got our new Netflix movies, Hancock and Repo! The Genetic Opera.
The teens want to see Hancock, and I want to see Repo!
It looks sorta interesting and it's got good reviews on Netflix.
I also got my dvd that I ordered with my Buy.com gift certificate from a shopping mix-up, the Poltergeist (25th Anniversary Edition).
I have always loved that movie, it's been digitally remastered, and it's just a classic, plus, I had to spend the rest of the gc, it was only $6.00, so I said why not.

Then I saw it.
A jury duty summons.
I can't serve jury duty.
A) I can't get all the way to Venice every day, no car, no driver's license, and B) medically, I'm just in no shape to do it.
I take heavy duty pain meds 24/7, I have doctor's appointments up the wazoo all of the time, and I cannot sit in the same spot for hours on end every day.
I am constantly having to get up, walk around, lay down etc, so yeah, I cannot serve jury duty.
I'm all about doing my civic duty and all of that, but I can't do jury duty, not right now, it's physically impossible for me to get there and sit there all of the hours that would be needed.

On November 4th, I will be voting No on question 2, the Florida marriage amendment to our states constitution.
What does this amendment say?

"Inasmuch as marriage is the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife, no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized."

In Florida, gay marriage is already illegal, we do not need an amendment to our state constitution to say it again.
Let me say that again,
Gay Marriage is already illegal in the state of Florida.
It's already against the law 4 times, so why do we need an amendment to say it again?
Read about the consequences that have happened in other states because of the same type of amendments.

"Every unmarried Floridian will be impacted by this amendment - especially divorced or widowed seniors and public employees who, under existing programs, can share some benefits such as hospital visitation privileges and health care coverage without being married."
 
This amendment would effect domestic partnership agreements, not just homosexual couples.
This amendment would take away domestic partnership couples rights to be covered on their insurance, to visit each other in the hospital ICU department because they are not married.
It would take away existing couples benefits, it would force senior couples to choose between health care and government benefits.
The government has no right to be involved in Floridians relationships, and it would force current domestic partners to have expensive legal papers drawn up to protect the rights they already have, and have been protected by for years.

Domestic partners are not just gays, they are couples who have either lived together for years, or senior couples who have chosen not to marry at their age, young couples who chose not to marry but have lived together, had children together etc etc.
These couples need to be protected, the rights they already have are going to be changed if amendment 2 passes.

There are only 13 days left until we go to the polls to choose our next president, our local reps, and vote on other important local and state issues, and this is one of them that every Floridian needs to read up on and choose the right thing for all unmarried people in our state.
I urge all Floridians to read up on this issue and vote No on 2.

...You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to... The Outer Banks, er, Outer Limits....

It's almost 9am on Sunday morning, I've been awake all night again.
Insomnia really sucks.
It's like a form of anxiety insomnia.
Like if I know that I have to be somewhere, do something really important, i won't sleep at all no matter how hard I try.

I know I'll be fine though, I tend to get second and third gusts of wind right when I need them.
Then when we get back home, I'm hoping that I'll be able to sleep for at least a few hours (probably not) because I have some important medical stuff to deal with on Monday morning.
I have some pre-surgery phone calls to answer questions, like have I gained or lost any significant amount of weight in the last 6 months, when was the last time I had a blood test, donated blood, have I discovered any new allergies to medications, food, or latex/plastic/tape products.
I've answered all these questions before, no big deal.

Then I need to call and set up an appointment to have both my will and DNR verified again, notarized, signed, stamped, sound mind and body, yadda yadda, and I have some questions I need to discuss too.
I have a lot going on, not only is the surgery like a big medical jumbo brain frazzle, it's legal too.
Sign this, cross these Ts, dot those Is, on every page with an 'X', please initial on the line provided, sign and date the bottom of each page.
I know the routine, so while I'm initialing and crossing, and dotting, I'll be able to ask my other questions and discuss my other concerns.
I just don't want a big battle on anyone's hands should anything at all go wrong.

Time is fluid. The waters of forever close -- and passage may not be completed. The present and the future are for a moment united. And the Enemy, half-today, half-tomorrow, is locked between...

I'd really like to know what the point was of fighting for and trying to get, and "winning" a higher child support amount, if it's not going to be enforced?
I got the court papers today.
It said that starting immediately, meaning August 1st, 2008, the day he "gets paid" and makes a deposit to the child support, that the new amount of $77 per week was going to start.
It didn't.
I checked it today and he did make a payment alright, but it's an amount that he chooses to pay, not the court ordered amount of $77, it's $37.20.
I thought court orders were supposed to be enforced?

What do I have to do, pack up a few Briggs and Riley suitcases for myself and the teens, and actually go up there to speak to a judge?
Do I have to beg the judge to enforce his own order?!
This is ridiculous!
What was the point of all of that, the hearing delays, and the paperwork, and all the evidence that I had to supply, because he refused to turn his in, they refused to make him, nobody investigated, and they only have what they have because I sent it to them?!
This just makes me so mad.
Child support court and enforcement is a complete joke in this country.

The child support hearing lasted all of 10 minutes, 5 of which were spent on hold waiting for the magistrate to call the room to order, and putting me on speaker phone, swearing me in, and all that hoopla.

Present in the courtroom today was myself, the Maine DA, someone from children and family services who was there to verify that I was indeed the ex-Mrs. Cooper, social security number xxx-xx-xxxx, and to state the names and ages of my minor children that are in my full-time custody.
I named them, Mark and Sebastian Cooper, ages 15 and turning 17 in a few weeks.
Also present was my ex's lawyer, I think. I heard a low mumble "present your honor",  when the name Bob Montblahblahblah, was announced, and the judge who spoke his name so fast I didn't catch it, but it will be on the finalized child support modification paperwork which I will get in the mail within a few weeks.

Because my ex-husband did not appear in court or by phone, and did not turn in his paperwork at all, or not in enough time for the judge to look it over, (again, something was mumbled about interrogatories, we have the ex-wife's, do we have Mr. Cooper's? something was mumbled) the judge would not back-date the child support amount to January 1st 2008, the date the DA officially filed for the modification with the courts, because even though it's such a low amount,  Mr. Cooper has 3 other minor children who he is current on paying child support for, that paying that amount may cause him to fall behind on those child support payments.
Whatever.

So based on the income and asset information the DA does have on my ex, the child support was raised from $21 per week to $78 per week.
From $84 per month, to $312 per month.
It is a huge improvement, but really, after 15 years at $21 a week whenever he felt like working, whenever he felt like paying, it's still not a truly acceptable amount.
It will help a lot, it won't be so much of a struggle now to buy them all of the things they constantly need like the sneakers they grow out of every 3-4 months because they are growing like the giant redwoods, and the clothes they grow out of for the same reason, and all the school supplies they always need for class projects, and those odd items that the teachers require or your student does not get a credit that they need in order to graduate, and the gazillion other items that teenagers need to have all of the time.

The new child support order is to go into effect immediately, as in tomorrow's child support deposit which will be placed on that lovely Florida state child support card they made me get, *eyeroll* and the funds will be available on Tuesday by mid-day, if he actually follows the court order.
If the new amount is enforced every single week, the $312 a month will definitely help to pay for the things that Mark and Sebastian always need.
Mark is at 6foot 2inches now, Sebastian is at a solid 6feet, and they are not done growing yet.
Just over the very short summer vacation, they have both grown 2 shoe sizes, and each of them has grown another pant and shirt size, so yeah, the new amount will be a major help to provide all of the things they need.

That's all I've ever wanted, to get some help paying for the things that two growing young men always need.
I wasn't fighting for this modification as a way of getting back at my ex-husband, I simply wanted him to help pay for the things that HIS sons need.
I didn't make these babies on my own, they have a biological father that they never see and they don't want to because of the very last words he ever said to Mark.
And ya know what?
I don't blame my son for never wanting to speak with his bio-dad again.
Those words stung him so bad, it crushed him that day, and if anyone even brings up his last visit with his bio-dad, he becomes immediately enraged, and will get up and walk away to go and be by himself, to calm himself down.
He's tried over the years to email his bio-dad, to try and get past that day, and every time he messaged him on myspace or sent an email, he wasn't believed, his bio-dad always thought it was me.
No, it wasn't, and every single time he got turned away, it was just another knife in his heart.
There are so many scars there now that attempting to repair that broken relationship will be an impossible feat.
Both the boys have their bio-dad's myspace pages and ways to contact him, they have their own email accounts on their own computer, and are free to try and contact him whenever they want to, if they want to.
Neither one of them have tried in almost 3 years now.
They don't even look at those myspace pages, and we don't discuss him at all in this house unless they bring him up.
I let them say whatever they want, spill all of their feelings out, do what they have to do, and I just listen.
I gave up trying to help repair those relationships a long, long time ago.

I didn't mean for this to turn into one of "those kinds of posts", but when I see them hurting, when I hear them talk about that last visit, and how he cares about his other 4 kids more than them, it kills me inside.
I can't take their hurt away, I can't make it any better, nothing I say will ever erase the memories they have of him saying the things he did to them.
They knew nothing about the child support modification and hearing today, if and when the new support payments come in, I'll let them know that I did my best to get it increased, and we'll go start the school shopping after 2 full payments come in, which will be right in time for my SSDI to come in, and we'll be able to go get them new shoes, clothes, backpacks, and all the basics they will need, and then when we get the specialized lists, we'll use the next week's payment to get most or at least some of those specialized items. 

And then every 3 months, new sneakers, pants, and shirts.
I wish upon a star every single night that they stop growing soon.
I look like a midget standing between them, and I gained 3 full inches in height after my back surgery. *LOL*

Here it is, 5am, and I haven't been to bed yet.
I've been sitting here at my desk all night, I have two little candles to light my way as I type, just surfing the net, blog reading, forum reading, doing anything and everything but what I should be doing, which is sleeping.
I even started a load of laundry an hour ago just to have something to do.

I finally caught up on all 132 emails I had sitting in my inbox, I even checked 3 other email accounts I had and cleared out all the spam.
I broke a nail when I got up to pee a few minutes ago, just trying to scratch my back.
Kind of a bummer because now I'll have to trim down all my other nails to have matching heights.
It sucks actually, because they were all pretty damn long and healthy.
Well mostly healthy.
Can't be too healthy if they're snapping off when I scratch my back right?
Or maybe I was scratching too hard because I still can't feel the skin on my back.
I know it itches, I can scratch it, but I can't feel myself scratching.

I have so much going on in my head, all kinds of thoughts, things I want to say but won't because it will just create more problems, and after 15 years, the child support is finally at an amount I'm ok with.
No, it's still not great, but $78 per week is a HUGE improvement over the $21 per week we had been getting for the last 15 frigging years.
I already know how the hearing is going to go tomorrow, er, today, because the DA called me, it's a done deal, we all just have to say out-loud that we agree.
Part of me wants to say no! I don't agree! because it's still not right, it's still not a truly acceptable amount, but it's the best that can be done under the circumstances.
I tried.

I have been trying for the last 10 years, and to finally have my case before the judge is such a big deal yet at the same time, a total letdown because the rules weren't followed, everyone didn't play along like they were supposed to.
I did everything I was court ordered to do, and I was actually hopeful to be allowed to have my say to the judge, to tell him what $21 per week has been like for 15 years, and I don't get that chance.
I actually wrote out what I would say if asked, and maybe after this whole thing is really a done deal tomorrow afternoon, I mean, this afternoon, I'll post what I typed out.
15 years of pent up frustration with a system that somehow justified such a piddly amount, you have no idea how that feels.
You have no idea how hard I tried, how much I fought to make it right, and it still isn't.

The stress of it all, the stress of living and trying to keep my head above the financial waters, is starting to get to me big time.
I want to just hire a couple of moving trucks and pack up all of our stuff, stick it in storage, and just go away.
Just leave, go somewhere, go anywhere, I don't really care anymore.
I'm so tired, I just can't keep getting a little itty bit ahead, and then get hit with another unexpected bill or appliance replacement cost.
It's too much for me right now.

I have the stress and worry about whether or not I'll be having neck surgery, I have the child support court hearing coming up, I have all kinds of bills and expenses due in the next few months, and every little thing is catching up with me and overwhelming me right now.
Like right. this. minute., I feel like crying, just curling up in a ball and crying and screaming and kicking and shouting.
I just want it all to stop or at least slow down.
It's one thing after another these last few weeks.
Last week, the boys got in that fight and hurt each other, I have bills I'm trying to pay and I'm not getting enough work, the economy is getting worse and I think it's affecting the industry I'm in because work has slowed down a lot.
And I have the child support court hearing next week, and I'm just not feeling up to fighting for it right now.
Like today is just not a good day, the whole thing just has me way stressed out because I have other things going on that are occupying my mind right now, and to have to deal with that a few days before I find out if I have to have neck surgery, well, it's just upsetting me so so much.
Anyone understand that?!
I just have things that I have to deal with and am worried about, and I want what's right, what's fair, but I'm so emotional right now that I am afraid that I'll end up crying halfway through the hearing when his lawyer starts asking about my health.
It was one of the questions on the interrogatories, and I know his lawyer is going to try and make it seem like I am not a good mother because of my back surgery and stuff.
My health issues have not stopped me from being a good mom, I do a damn good job, and I pay for everything by myself, and I have the back-to-school expenses coming up really soon that I will be paying for myself again..
They go back to school on the 18th of August, and they need clothes and supplies, and so that's another big expense that I have to take care of.

And then tonight the lawn mower rip cord thingy breaks, so now I have to either repair that part OR I have to buy another lawn mower.
And Sebastian was outside playing and he slipped and twisted his knee, so he spent a few hours on the couch this evening with an ice pack on his leg crying that it hurt.
It's NOT broken, but he did twist it, it's painful, I know that because I've done that and it really hurts pretty damn bad.

But you see!?
It's just been one thing after another and it just keeps coming, and it all hit me tonight.
I'm just an emotional mess tonight so I'm sitting here blogging instead of crying and being all upset in front of the kids.
These blogs of mine are not a business, they are my therapy, they help me cope with everything in my life by letting me say all of the things that are on my mind, they help me deal with my life and all of the things that happen in it because I am stuck in my house and I have no one that I can talk to.
I have had a bad day and now that I've dumped it all here, maybe I can let some of it go.