Another Insomnia Night - it's not just the stress, it's the allergies. Something is pollinating or producing mold in the moldy-wet-gym-sock atmosphere that is summer in lovely Central Florida. I wake up around 3 a.m. unable to breathe. Last night I did NOT take additional Benadryl, because I've wandered around in a Benadryl hangover since Sunday morning. Between the lack of sleep, the stress and the allergies, I feel like I'm in a perpetual fog - I have to keep willing myself to snap out of it and be functional, all I want to do is sit on the couch and watch reruns on TNT, and knit.


Yesterday I actually finished something that has been lingering for months - the button band on the rose Lamb's Pride cardigan. Photos to follow, eventually, when I find the energy. I'm happy with it, it's just a plain vanilla stockinette, v-neck, but it fits nicely (though it's almost unbearable to try it on in this heat). I'll be glad to have it next winter. I've declared July "Finish My Shi...er...Stuff...Month" - in addition to new knitting, I am going to work my way through the various UFOs littering the back room. Now that the rose cardie is put to bed, next up is the gray hoodie, which needs a button band and, duh, the hood. To be followed by a sock or two, at decent intervals. Then I do believe I'll be caught up on my UFOs and can concentrate on current projects.


The Xanax sweater continues - not much progress, since yesterday was Finish the Rose Cardie Day - but I really love Cotton Fleece. It should be one of my mainstay "winter" yarns in this climate. I'm looking forward to the Elann order, too, with some sport and DK cottons and cotton blends I've never tried. I really should knit only with sport and DK cottons, blends and linens - and henceforth I intend to focus mainly on those fibers.

Next new item will be a Sitcom Chic for Sorority Girl's sorority initiation day festivities - all the girls have to wear white summer dresses for initiation day, and the air conditioning is usually set to Freezing. A cute little Sitcom Chic in white Cotton-ease should be just right, and initiation is in August so I actually have enough lead time to get it done. Cotton-ease is a really, really nice yarn - I hope Lion Brand decides to expand the line and put out more colors. Right now the color selection is its only drawback - it's very kid-oriented, baby pastels and jellybean colors, cute but not exactly flexible for most adult wardrobes. I'd use this yarn a lot more if it came in more colors.


And now for a brief rant about the uselessness of social workers. I'll spare you the lengthy, detailed and very profanity-laced rant my friends endured yesterday - the short version (which may actually end up being long, so if you don't wanna read it, click away now) is this:


In the ongoing nightmare which is my husband's slow death, way too young, from a particularly vile kind of cancer, there are of course many insurance issues regarding his care. I've dealt with at least half a dozen social workers in the past few years, who worked for the hospital, or hospice, or the cancer center, or whatever. I realized yesterday that, without exeception, in EVERY SINGLE INTERACTION WITH THEM, every bit of information they gave me was absolutely wrong. Many months ago I was misinformed about our at-home physical therapy benefits, and had to arrange for his therapy myself because the hospital social worker said "nobody would do it." It took me one phone call to arrrange it. I was misinformed about obtaining VA hospice benefits by other social workers. I was misinformed as to the start date of his Medicare benefits by others. As an aside: He can't qualify for the former because he's "too rich" by VA standards - apparently now veterans have to be living under an overpass to qualify, it's disgusting and we can thank the present administration for these policy changes that cheat veterans out of what they've earned by risking their lives for their country, but I digress - I was told that there was no income level to qualify for VA hospice care by SEVERAL social workers. Not true. Medicare benefits start date? He won't live long enough to get anything from Medicare - again, I was told wrongly about when those benefits would begin by more than one "professional." I called VA and SS myself and got the correct information, after being led astray by the professionals who were supposed to be doing this for me.


But the capper, and this is the one that really had me screaming and ranting yesterday: I have been told all along the line, by the hospital SWs, the hospice organization SWs, on and on, that my insurance does not provide for in-patient hospice care. I thought this was very strange, I mean, what do you do with a dying person who has too many needs to be cared for at home? It happens all the time, how can it NOT be covered? But I have been told this repeatedly by all the experts who claimed to have investigated this and spoken to my insurance company themselves, and too bad, so sad, your policy only covers home hospice. My husband requires nursing home care, and now that I have learned I had been misinformed all the time about his VA and Medicare coverage, I was suddenly very, very afraid and angry yesterday. We are not "wealthy" by any means, regardless of what VA freakin' thinks. I cannot afford to pay for private nursing help to care for him at home, even if I cashed in his sole, small life insurance policy early it would not help much. I will get out of this awful mess in an adequate financial state, meaning not horribly in debt, still owning my home and with a good job, but that's it. Our life savings are gone, and my husband outlived the bulk of his company-provided life insurance a year ago and there are no other benefits available. So the thought of having to pay out of pocket for his inpatient nursing home care, or alternatively home care, absolutely horrified me, because I couldn't do it without putting up the only small assets I have left, and I hope to NOT lose everything we have worked for all these years, you know? But let's remember those comforting Professional Social Workers have told me, with sad little head-shakes, that this is exactly the situation. At home hospice only, and the insurance company doesn't care if that's right for the patient or not, it's all you get. Too bad, so sad.


So yesterday I called my health insurance carrier myself, and gave them the scenario: My husband is bedridden and comatose, dying of metastasized renal cancer. He cannot be cared for at home. Does my insurance cover his nursing home care if the nursing home is providing hospice care to him?


The answer came back in two minutes: Yes, it does. The bills will be paid 100%. We're so sorry about your husband, is there anything else we can do? They couldn't have been nicer, more responsive, or faster about getting me the answer.


So this begs the question - Who were these Professional Social Workers talking to for the past several months, when every damn one of them came back with incorrect information on every single question that ever arose regarding his care? Did they even CALL my insurance company at all? Did they contact the VA or Medicare to get the current regs, which are all accessible online or via an 800 number? I can't believe they did, because it took me all of two minutes to get the right answers each time I went behind their backs to do their damn jobs for them.


So that's my lesson for today, gentle readers. Though I hope that none of you ever ends up doing this for your spouse, as I am, many of us are of the age where care for elderly parents is going to be an issue in our futures. Don't assume that you're getting correct information from those who are allegedly there to "help" you deal with a crisis. Trust not the Social Workers in a medical crisis, they are an abomination and an ignorant scourge upon the earth. Verify everything they tell you, do their jobs for them, because they can't be trusted do them competently themselves. Oh, and BTW, I went back to one of the Professionals to tell her that her information on VA benefits was not current, and her response was, "Really?!" and she thanked me for the information. Imagine her surprise! Imagine my disgust - this is only her full-time job, why should she keep current on the program requirements? How silly of me to think that she should!



End of rant.