Re: Caron Watercolors

Oh, man. That's been my biggest fear for eons. Sending good thoughts.

Thanks. At least I know what to expect this time. Funny how mind over matter can help get well faster. My PT also told me the second knee replacement usually always gets better faster because of this phenomena of knowing what to expect. Now, do I pick up the phone or steep in denial?

v

That depends. How bad does it hurt?

I've been putting off my knee surgery for 33 years (and counting) because it just doesn't hurt enough to want to put myself through that.

Well, it wakes me up many times all night, I can not easily stand up from the couch, cannot bend down, sit cross legged, cross my legs, stay with the leg down more than ten minutes without throbbing, swelling the size of a small apple, hurts to walk, cannot get up once I get down on the ground...should I continue?!

Actually, the pain is pretty bad. I think if I am going to get it done now would be a good time. I have Mark home because he was laid off from Dell with the other 8,500 jobs they outsourced. If I get it done soon enough, I can be home for the Olympics and we can watch it day and night together and he will be here to water the container plants every day outside.

Hey, if you get it done we can suffer together. It's truly not as bad as you are imagining and the older we get, the longer it takes to recover. If the doc says it's a go, I'm going for it.

v

I was going to suggest all those things to you as a good rationale for having it done now, but I did want you to make your own decision and not feel like I was trying to talk you into something! :)

Unfortunately, at the moment I can't afford it. My health insurance can't find a valid reason to cancel me, so they're doing the next best thing and calling everything "not a covered expense", knowing that because of my pre-existing conditions I can't go to another insurance company without paying more than I earn.

And, unfortunately, my only Calif-based business partner has as many health problems as I do, so we'd be hard-pressed to find a two-person "company plan" willing to take us on without a healthier person to balance things out.

Calif is talking (again) about universal health care, and I'm looking forward to having that option.

Besides, ROFLMAO, I slipped the other night (Emmie sloshed half her water dish on the floor and I stepped in the puddle before the light came on enough to see it), 33 years almost to the day of the initial accident, hit the bad knee in precisely the spot of the initial injury and for the first time in years IT DOESN'T HURT! (Well, I mean, other than the bruise.) Apparently, the impact knocked something back into its proper position.

I am so torn about it. I do have cirrhosis and active liver disease causing more scarring and every time I go on the table is closer and closer. I just watched a movie I don't think I should have watched. "Rails and Ties." Very depressing and very real to me. It's going to happen, I don't know when. Subject change time!

Fortunately I have excellent coverage. Medicare is my primary now that Mark is out of a job, but we still have his full work coverage through COBRA and Dell paid for it for three months. The surgery was

43,000 dollars. FOURTY THREE THOUSAND dollars. There is something very wrong with that. Very wrong.

Are you old enough to see about AARP? They have affordable, but supplemental insurance. I never heard whether or not you won your SSD hearings and hearings and hearings.

I'm praying for everyone in America. We need this desperately.

That's actually not so odd. You may have had a piece of miniscus hanging out of the joint and when you twisted it you forced it back into the joint. Earlier in my arthritis this would happen now and then, but it did get worse when I completely tore the miniscus in half. Maybe if you are real careful you can keep that from re-injuring out of the joint. Ain't getting older great?

Feh.

v

Oh, in case anyone is fainting dead away that Karen and I are actually being kind to one another, it's only because I realized what a beyotch I was. All good and bad things must come to an end. :)

Not yet. The judge is still clinging to his erroneous notion that I have a husband who supports me and my "choice" not to work full-time, and therefore don't "need" SSD because I have a husband paying all the bills. Every decision is verbatim the same as the last, with the same false statements repeated even after having been addressed as being the judge lying about the facts/evidence in order to make the "facts" fit his desired result.

The last time we were in Court of Appeal, they were thiiiiiiis close to giving it to me, and then decided to give the judge one last chance to get it right. They ordered him to have an MD present to explain the medical evidence to him ("and this time we mean it" since he'd ignored a prior order to have a doctor at the last hearing), and instead of an MD, he had a shrink, who admitted to having absolutely no experience or information about my post-viral neurological condition, and therefore could not explain it to the judge. It's clear that this judge will do anything necessary -- including defy a higher court order -- to avoid granting benefits. So, now we wend our way through the CtApp process again and hope that they realize that giving him another chance would simply be an additional waste of time and government funds.

I am old enough for AARP, but as you say, it's supplemental insurance, so since my primary is not covering anything, I'm not sure how helpful it would be to get it. They'd probably deem everything as "should've been covered by primary insurance" leaving me paying for two useless policies.

Since I am still able to walk on the knee, I'll wait till Medicare kicks in ... whether that's 2 years after I get SSD or when I turn 65. It's never been crucial to have it done.

If you win, or when you win, Medicare will most likely be retroactive and you won't have to wait the two years. Boy it's hard to get SSD these days.

They send me a letter every few years asking if I am still disabled. Since my liver disease is degenerative, and they keep asking if I discussed returning to work with my doctor, I answered, "Well, discussion of working has long been absent from our discussions in the Dr.s office..." Even if I was faking it, which I'm not, I couldn't work if I tried. You know the fatigue. It's that malaise where you want to do things, but truly do not have one ounce of energy to do any of it. Very frustrating.

Keep going...they want you to give up and you came this far. Remember, retro!