Widows and Orphans

The Best Laid Plans . . . Maybe

No matter how well I plan, nothing goes the way it should these days. Do you know that feeling?

I wish I could say this was a temporary situation, but I’m looking at over a year of constant barriers and interruptions to my workday. The sad thing is most of them are not due to my mistakes.

I should have time to get stuff done, but other people and organizations continue to construct roadblocks.

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” Matthew 6:34

I’ve focused this blog on grandparenting over the last few years since two of my grandchildren live with us. Children who end up in foster care or the care of a relative often bring more than baggage with them. In our case, we have several diagnoses: ADHD, OCD, Anxiety, Autism.

I’ve hit most of these in stride, but a lot of setbacks come from the government and pharmaceutical issues. ADHD meds are controlled substances. In our state, you HAVE to visit the prescribing doctor every 3 months. Since they have different doctors due to their specific needs, that’s eight times a year I have to fit one of these appointments into my schedule.

After the appointment, the doctor submits 3 separate prescriptions for the same medication to the pharmacy. These can NOT be listed as refills. Each one has a “do not fill before” date on it. Not satisfied with that restriction, insurance will not let them fill the prescription until 30 days after you picked up the last prescription. Since the scripts are not refills, you have to call the pharmacy and speak to the pharmacist in order to fill it. Call a day too early, and the pharmacy tells you to call back the next day. That’s enough of a pain, right?

But oh no, I’m not done.

My granddaughter’s prescription is often on back order. Why? Because in December it became available in generic form. Great, right? Nope. No one can get the generic form. It’s back ordered, too. Since there’s a generic available, the drug company no longer offers a discount coupon. For the same reason, insurance doesn’t want to pay for the brand. It’s not cheap.

If they’re out of stock, I can call other pharmacies to see if they have either form, but these prescriptions can NOT be transferred to another store, even in the same company. If I find it, I have to call the doctor who has to cancel the existing prescription with the current pharmacy and submit a new prescription to the new pharmacy.

My grandson’s prescription is not available in generic and it’s not on our insurance formularies. He is intolerant to the less expensive alternatives, and it took us forever to find this one. We can’t switch. For the last 3 years, once a year, his secondary insurance required a physician’s authorization. With authorization, they cover the prescription. In November, I proactively asked the doctor to do the authorization. The insurance company said they didn’t need it. This month, they do. He qualifies based on their criteria, but they’re refusing to accept the authorization. It’s not cheap if they don’t. After multiple attempts to get it approved, I gave up the other day and paid the higher price. That hurt.

These aren’t one call and done situations. They take a LOT of time to navigate when everything works. When something does go wrong, they take days. Time I need to use elsewhere.

My husband and I are nearing retirement age. We can’t afford to have our costs go up because the kids’ insurance wants to give us a hard time. I can’t afford the extra time from my work that I devote to these problems.

I wish I could say these are the only issues setting me back, but I could go on and on. I’m continually having to spend time on a problem not of my own making rather than do the work I’d planned to do that day. It’s getting ridiculous.

In the verse from Matthew listed above, it says not to be anxious. This is hard. I have a To Do list. Up until last year, I had minor setbacks but nothing major setting me back. Now? I’m lucky if I cross one thing off my list each day. In fact, I almost didn’t take the time to write this post because of the time factor. I decided to anyway because I’m fairly sure I’m not the only frustrated parent, grandparent, or caregiver out there.

I do trust God to take care of things, but it’s hard when this world requires so much from me. I’m not a worrier, thank goodness, but I am a planner. I’ve seen my grands without these prescriptions. They don’t do well.

I guess I’m like the father in the Mark who tells Jesus, “Lord I believe. Help my unbelief.”

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Another Year Without Their Mother

Image courtesy of Pixabay

I’ve tried twice to write a post today; one that expresses my feelings and what’s happening in our lives right now. The two posts I started to write morphed into something else. One of them has potential, but I saved it for some other time. The other one was whiny. I feared people might misunderstand my message, so I deleted it. So, here I go again. Maybe there’ll be some message worth sharing in this one.

We spent crazy, busy, hectic days with various parts of our family over the Christmas break. We made the trip to Charleston to celebrate our youngest granddaughter’s first birthday. We cooked, we gifted, we overindulged, and we got very little rest. That’s probably why I’m not on my game today. The first week back on a normal schedule has been tough.

The grands are showing a bit of wear and tear, too. It’s hard to come down from the highs of the holidays and return to the routine. I’m glad for the return to schedules, but I’m struggling to get moving. For the grands, there’s the added grief of not spending Christmas with their mother. We know where she is—jail again—but we don’t dare form any expectations as she awaits her latest hearing.

The grands have spoken to her several times, and she made some promises that upset my granddaughter. She wants to believe her mother, but she’s finding that hard to do. Her brother falls for the promises. He doesn’t really remember life with their mom, so he clings to an ideal that he thinks he remembers.

I hope and pray she doesn’t break their hearts this time. Every time she’s incarcerated and removed from the elements of addiction and the people who she associates with in that life, she cleans up (not by choice though she seems glad to do it) and makes plans to get better and restore her family. I really want her to do that, but I find it hard to believe that she will. Her daughter has come to the same conclusion. Her son? He’s planning for the day when they’re a happy family again.

Neither of them mentioned buying her a Christmas gift this year. When I suggested we visit her, they didn’t jump at the chance.

Yet, one of the points Victoria reminded me of this Christmas was that there were good times with their mom. They did laugh and have fun. It wasn’t always bad. She sometimes even has good things to say about Amari’s father. She misses those times. She yearns for that life. And I can’t fix that. How she expresses this, at her age, is often through yelling and disrespectful behavior. We’ve struggled to find a way to help her change her attitude when speaking to us, but it’s not working. When I stop and think about it, I know there’s more going on inside her than she can tell us. But what can we do? If we let her verbally berate us, we allow her to develop poor social habits. If we punish every occurrence, she’ll never experience any joys in life. She’s in counseling, but as the counselor has told us, it’s not a quick fix. There’s work to be done.

But what heartbreak to start the new year without your mother…again. This is their 5th Christmas and New Year without her.

I don’t let myself dwell on these dismal points often. Probably why I had two false starts to my post today. It’s enough to make you want to give up. I’m not a giving-up kind of person, so I move forward. Which reminds me of a statement I heard in a recent audiobook, The Wisdom of Wolves, Lesson from the Sawtooth Pack by Jim Dutcher and Jamie Dutcher. Jamie is talking about grief and mourning in regards to humans versus wolves and makes this clarification (paraphrased):

Either you move on or you move forward. Moving on means you choose to shove the grief behind you. Moving forward means you embrace the grief and let it be part of who you are but not all of who you are. You allow the grief but don’t let it control you. 

I’m probably not saying it perfectly, but the wisdom of these words strike to the heart of what the grands must be dealing with. I believe I’m in the moving forward approach in relation to my daughter’s choices. I’m not sure where they are. I hope they’re moving forward, but I have a feeling they may be trying to move on because that’s what the world tells them to do. (Wolves are much better at moving forward than humans.)

Victoria confided in me recently that she’s gotten mad at friends who tug at her clothes or mess with something of hers. She told me they don’t understand that at several points in her life, she lost everything she had because they got evicted from their homes and her belongings disappeared. She treasures what she has now, and she hates when they disrespect it.  I’ve said it before, but the last time this happened was when they came to live with us. She’d lost everything but a few small bags of things. She knows she’s never getting any of that back. Her friends don’t get it. They tell her that her grandparents can buy her a new one. This brief glimpse into her feelings, a rare occurrence, reminds me how hard it is for them.

Sometimes I forget. Sometimes I can’t relate. Somehow I must find a way to relate and not forget. I just don’t know how.

NOTE:  I highly recommend The Wisdom of Wolves by the Dutchers. It’s an entertaining and enlightening read into the true nature of wolves, who by the way, move forward instead of moving on.

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Domestic Violence Awareness Month: From One Who Lived It

Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Forty-one years ago this month, I married the man who would become my abuser. He had already altered the trajectory of my life, and our short, three-year marriage would continue to shift my life path in ways unimaginable. I usually try to ignore the date when it comes around, but, ironically, October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

A few years ago, I decided to confront this memory differently, to share what I’ve written on domestic violence. Please be aware that these posts reflect on a very short part of my life close to forty years ago. I’ve spent the years since seeking to educate others on this issue. I won’t stop doing that until I’m gone, but, even then, I hope my words will live on to guide others to escape or avoid an abusive relationship.

Today, the links are in purple, the color we wear to remember those who suffer, suffered, or died at the hands of an abuser.

I doubt you can stomach all of these in one sitting, but if you want to know more about a serious topic in today’s world, any of these posts can be enlightening.

I pray that you will find a way to help someone in this situation. If there are multiple signs that make you suspect someone is in an abusive relationship, please speak to them. That said, do be careful how you do this.  Abusers read their partners’ email, texts, and mail. They eavesdrop on phone calls. They track their whereabouts. None of this technology existed when I went through this. It’s another example of technology meant for good being twisted into something dangerous. Make sure you don’t endanger them.