Just Hello

It's time for an update, any update. I am in hot and steamy, despite the bad draught, Atlanta, GA. Mom and Dad had a car accident and we decided it would be best for me to come here and finish packing the house to prepare them for their move to the retirement duplex.

My oldest daughter, with her spouse and two progeny, came for a visit of a little over a week. Her little son loves to drum anything that will make sound. So he drummed for most of the week - he loved drumming two boxes and banging on the fire screen with his elbow in between which made a nice clash. His sister mostly sucked quietly on her fingers and watched all the activity.

I don't see the Doctor until November, but so far I do not have large bulbous lymph nodes so that's good. I am up to a count of 30 slowly enlarging nodes, but they are all still small. The rest of me still feels fine.

The biggest issue that we are working on is insurance. The laws have changed in Missouri and I am apparently "uninsurable" despite having faithfully maintained our insurance status all these years. No insurance company wants to risk the odds of my leukemia and my chronic asthma as pre-existing conditions. This means that I will supposedly be kicked into the Missouri State Insurance Pool which was designed for uninsurable people like me. This will be bad coverage at a steeper rate and I will lose all my current doctors; it also comes with a lifetime cap of 1 million dollars per person. This sounds like a lot of money until you contemplate the fact that bone marrow transplants cost between $500,000.00 to $1,000,000.00 and that is the only known cure for this disease! I think my asthma meds alone will reach the one million cap in a few years (joke).

So we've been wrapping our heads around all this, trying to figure out what to do. Is there anything we CAN do? We're busy exploring all our options. It's impossibly ridiculously complicated to figure out the possible contingencies when there are so many unknowns.

*********

It is now October and I am home. It was an exhausting, but happy, 3 months in Atlanta with my parents and with my sister dashing over from Birmingham whenever possible. Mom and Dad are well settled in the Retirement Community. It has about 4 villages composed of quadruplex apartments, a village for children at risk, an assisted living apartment building, apartments for HUD housing candidates, a nursing home, and a hospital. So about a community of 4000 clients and staff. There is beautiful Georgia landscaping all around and a wildlife manager to boot. People have been very friendly and helpful to Mom and Dad.

Claire and I have cleaned out the house; it looks clean and repainted, but not spectacular. I keep fantasizing about going back down with a group of people and doing some work to make it snazzy. As you can see I had a hard time leaving... We are hoping for a miraculous sale as Mom and Dad need the money.

We've been tackling the insurance issue and we may have found a solution - it's called high risk insurance and is expensive, but we can carry it for now. Meanwhile, John lost his contract work. Since most companies do not hire between November and March we are looking at a possible long dry income free spell. Something more to pray about!

I told John that we are in an unusual place with very little "security" in our lives. It is oddly liberating, but it also causes a few nights of tossing and turning. We are looking for work anywhere in the US, Canada, or any other English speaking country (I didn't do well at teaching John French).

I am supposed to visit the oncologist on November 18th. We'll have to see what happens with the insurance. I'll update you on all that.