Hi-dee-ho good neighbors!
Mollie53 here! I'm newly disabled (well, my hubby would say there has ALWAYS been something wrong with me!) and I have been looking for other newly disabled folks (or maybe NOT so newly disabled) to care and share with.
I guess my story starts WAY back in the summer of '78. I lifted a box that was WAY too heavy for me and, you guessed it, *wrench* went my back. Since then I have had recurring back problems. Well, on August 29, 2006 I had stomach flu. Well, I THOUGHT it was stomach flu. Not so. Three days later they were admitting me to the hospital with a fever of 104 degrees, and the surgeon said he couldn't tell from the CT scans just what was going on in there because it was so messed up! Yikes! As it happens, my appendix had perforated, making for a slow leak into my body cavity. After a 6 hour long surgery, my heart gave out, and wouldn't keep my blood pressure up. Then I had respiratory failure too! (Gee, aren't I just a bundle of joy!) The infection was so massive, I ended up with peritonitis and sepsis. Three days later, as I awoke from my come, I found myself hooked up to a respirator! Imagine that!
They had me drugged up out of my mind on morphine, and I lapsed in and out of consciousness for several days after that. After a total of 2 weeks in the hospital, they sent me home.
From there, my whole body went south (no, please don't start singing "oh, I wish I was in the land o' cotton!).
Six months later I went back to the hospital for more CT scans, this time of my lumbar spine and neck. Turns out I've got lumbar spinal stenosis, cervical stenosis, arthritis in my spine, right shoulder, right hip, and hands, along with some of the other "fun" things that go along with aging, like hbp, diabetes, etc.
I filed for disability benefits (of course, you guessed it, almost a year later, and I'm STILL waiting for my turn for a hearing, having been denied TWICE), and am now on Medicaid (many thanks to God!). I've got killer migraines daily from the cervical stenosis, although my doctor suspects I may have something wrong with my brain (oh, joy!) which may be causing the migraines. Of course, my husband has always maintained that "the child just ain't right in the head", but then, who am I to say he's wrong! :-))
Being new to Medicaid, they have inundated me with one program after another which will benefit me. When asked what ELSE they could do to lend me assistance, I asked them if they had a support group for the "newly disabled". You guessed it...of course not! I was on my own to see what I could find. So, all y'all are my first stop.
My back prohibits me from being on the computer for not much longer than about 15 minutes. After that, I get a case of the screamin' mimi's and gotta get back to living my life in my recliner. Well, more later! Gotta run (figuratively speaking, that is).
Mollie53 (well, I'll soon be 55)
I guess my story starts WAY back in the summer of '78. I lifted a box that was WAY too heavy for me and, you guessed it, *wrench* went my back. Since then I have had recurring back problems. Well, on August 29, 2006 I had stomach flu. Well, I THOUGHT it was stomach flu. Not so. Three days later they were admitting me to the hospital with a fever of 104 degrees, and the surgeon said he couldn't tell from the CT scans just what was going on in there because it was so messed up! Yikes! As it happens, my appendix had perforated, making for a slow leak into my body cavity. After a 6 hour long surgery, my heart gave out, and wouldn't keep my blood pressure up. Then I had respiratory failure too! (Gee, aren't I just a bundle of joy!) The infection was so massive, I ended up with peritonitis and sepsis. Three days later, as I awoke from my come, I found myself hooked up to a respirator! Imagine that!
They had me drugged up out of my mind on morphine, and I lapsed in and out of consciousness for several days after that. After a total of 2 weeks in the hospital, they sent me home.
From there, my whole body went south (no, please don't start singing "oh, I wish I was in the land o' cotton!).
Six months later I went back to the hospital for more CT scans, this time of my lumbar spine and neck. Turns out I've got lumbar spinal stenosis, cervical stenosis, arthritis in my spine, right shoulder, right hip, and hands, along with some of the other "fun" things that go along with aging, like hbp, diabetes, etc.
I filed for disability benefits (of course, you guessed it, almost a year later, and I'm STILL waiting for my turn for a hearing, having been denied TWICE), and am now on Medicaid (many thanks to God!). I've got killer migraines daily from the cervical stenosis, although my doctor suspects I may have something wrong with my brain (oh, joy!) which may be causing the migraines. Of course, my husband has always maintained that "the child just ain't right in the head", but then, who am I to say he's wrong! :-))
Being new to Medicaid, they have inundated me with one program after another which will benefit me. When asked what ELSE they could do to lend me assistance, I asked them if they had a support group for the "newly disabled". You guessed it...of course not! I was on my own to see what I could find. So, all y'all are my first stop.
My back prohibits me from being on the computer for not much longer than about 15 minutes. After that, I get a case of the screamin' mimi's and gotta get back to living my life in my recliner. Well, more later! Gotta run (figuratively speaking, that is).
Mollie53 (well, I'll soon be 55)
