This is My Brain on Drugs

As I mentioned in past entries, I have had some serious health issues over the past few years.  Most recently, in addition to the meds I take for anxiety and COPD/asthma, I now take antivirals and anti-seizure medications.

I got some shitty news, this morning.  Since my encephalitis and ensuing strokes in December, I have been waiting impatiently for Social Security Disability to make a medical decision so that I have at least some source of income so that I’m not 100% dependent on Drew for my survival.  He currently pays 100% of our bills including pet food for my menagerie.  In addition, he pays around $370 per month so that I can have medical insurance through my former employer.  If it were not for these two men, I would be in dire straits, to say the least.  Furthermore, I would not be able to afford my prescriptions, and I would likely die.

According to Social Security, I am not disabled enough to qualify.  Yes, they recognize that my brain doesn’t function at the level that it once did and that I can’t really move around like I used to.  They admit that they know that I can’t drive due to my seizure disorder and that I’m probably not even able to work full time.  But other than that, there’s nothing stopping me from getting a part-time job sitting in one place doing something that doesn’t require much concentration or for me to be verticle for more than an hour at a time.

If I disagree, I’m welcome to appeal the decision, but from what my seizure disorder support group tells me, they’ll likely deny my claim twice more before they approve it.  And appeals are backlogged up to 2 years.  It’s already been 9 months since the event.  My dogs need care from the vet and the groomer and we can’t afford it.  Chunk has an ugly ear infection.  Opie had just been diagnosed with possible heartworm when I went into the hospital.  And they’re dirty and shedding like crazy, so I can’t bring them into the house.  I would almost be willing to forgo all of the appeals if they would just take care of my babies.

My first instinct was to throw things and cry, but the thing closest to me was my laptop (a gift from Drew) and I’m not about to throw this.  So in frustration, I posted a picture of my denial on my Facebook wall, as well as in a group I’m in for people with seizure disorders.   After I did that, I had my weekly FB Messenger Video Chat with Adina.

Drew had a doctor appointment and let me know that we needed to leave soon.  Adina and I signed off, and I already felt a little better.

Once in the truck, I pulled out my phone and my Facebook was blowing up with friends being pissed for me and offering support.  There were also supportive messages and words of commiseration and advice from fellow epileptics who have already been through this process.

After his appointment, Drew took me to our favorite Mexican restaurant in Smithfield.  We both got our favorite dishes – his is shrimp, chicken, and steak fajitas served in a half a pineapple.  Mine is called Pollo Yucatan.  It’s Chicken with a spicy cheese sauce and shrimp.  We scarfed and chatted and I was feeling better still.  By the time we left, I was talking Drew’s head off with a whole bunch of random memories from my childhood, which I will now share with you:

Chuck, my mother’s first husband and the father of my youngest brother and sister, was in the Air Force.  We moved to Germany when I was six years old.  We lived in American housing in an apartment on the third floor.

Directly behind our building was a playground.  It was a real playground, too, not like these plastic, no sharp-edges, foam-rubber mats on the ground kinds of playground kids today have to play in.  We had a slide that was high enough off the ground a child could be seriously injured by falling.  We had teeter-totters that I learned the hard way to move out from under before it came down on my head.  We had real swing sets and merry-go-rounds, a sandbox and the whole playground was surrounded on three sides by forest.

Among the games we played was “Got it!  Dropped it!”  Anywhere from 2 to however many people could fit on the merry-g0-round would pick a special stick, and then start spinning the merry go round.  The person with the stick would drop it, and shout, “Dropped it!”  Then another person would have to pick up the stick and shout, “Got it!”  It was a very popular game on the playground.  All the kids knew how to play it.  I should mention that we were usually laying on our stomachs, and the merry go round was never going very fast.

In those days, the late 70’s, parents let their small children go to the playground alone.  I would go with my two younger brothers.  If I was six, Ed was 3, and Ira was 2.  They weren’t as interested in the playground, so they’d go swimming in the coal cellar under our building.  The door was never locked, and my brother’s loved to crawl around in that black coal.  When my mom would call us out the back window that it was time to come home, my brothers would always be black from head to toe.

While my brothers were diving through the coal bins, I was usually on the swing set.  I loved to swing as high as I could.  I’d swing and swing and jump off, just to see how far I’d fly.  It’s amazing I never broke a bone.  It was a tall swing.  Of course, I was only six, so if I went back now, it might not have been as high as I remember, but I felt brave when I let go of the chains and jumped.

One time, I jumped off the swing and landed, falling forward on my hands and knees in the sand.  My left hand felt something in the sand, so I pulled it out and brushed the sand off of it.  It was some kind of medallion with a swirly goat-like animal on it.  Underneath, there was the word, “Capricorn.”  As far as I was concerned, I had found treasure.  I raced home to show my mom.  She looked at it and made the appropriate “ooh, ahh” sounds to satisfy me.  Then she told me, “You’re a Capricorn.  This is your sign.”  I had no idea what that meant, and didn’t think to ask; so for the next several years, I thought I was a Capricorn because I’d found that medallion in the sand.

When Audra was old enough for me to be responsible for her, I used to take her on the swing with me.  She’d sit straddle my lap facing me, and we’d call it “spider.”

One time my mom and Chuck took us on a walk through the woods.  I had on a pair of furlined rubber boots.  I was kicking through the detritus on the forest floor and kicked up something metal.  It was a small silver dish, like a candy dish.  It was just buried there in the leaves and pine needles.  More treasure!  When I got it home, I took it to the kitchen and scrubbed all the tarnish off with a brillo pad.  Pretty much ruined it.

I have tons of fun memories of Germany.  The school I went to took us on field trips several times per year.  I saw a pretzel factory, and a chocolate factory, a candle factory, and a toy factory, a Roman bathhouse in Trier, all as parts of field trips.

There were castle ruins within hiking distance of our apartment.  I went back several years later, with Ben and took him up the hill to the castle.  They’d made it into a little park with a message board and a picnic table.  We stumbled on to a couple having sex on the picnic table.

And these were the thoughts bouncing out of my head as we drove home from my first trip out of the house in over a week.

Now I’m home.  Drew is tired from an adverse reaction to new medication, so I’m sitting in my writing chair, with a Bojangles’ bag next to me to rattle at the cat if he starts being a pest.  For some reason that really freaks him out.  He’s passed out at the moment.  Just like Drew.  Men!