Anger Management

Ugh, Brightdreamer, the "lose weight" shrug and response is awful. It's terrible that your family has to go through that.

This is the second time in three weeks I have texted my mom permission to visit and she suddenly has plans the day of, and then acts like we never agreed on it, or pretends to be sad. It was one thing when I realized my mom had only visited me twice in one year, despite the fact that she has a car and for her to drive over takes twenty minutes in good traffic. Now, it is this. She routinely blames -me- for not visiting, and -every- time, I patiently lay out, bus by bus, my commute and how long it takes me. (Three buses, it all adds up to two and a half hours typically, but an hour and a half if I want to be there at nine in the morning.)

My real issue is with myself, actually. As someone clever put it, I'm repeatedly "auditioning for the approval of people who don't like me." I guess I could say I keep taking the bait and get worked up over it, but--my DAD does this, not my mom. My dad and I have a horrible relationship, and my mom and I used to be close. I wish I could move on.

Lovely. My HMO now sends me a robo call telling me I need an appointment (which I do) so please hold. Then I sit there for 10 minutes while they play me four different commercials in between musak. Finally a human comes on the line and asks me what I'm calling about. They called me!

So what is this, line people up on hold so the person on their end never has to wait between calls? At least if I call and get put on hold I know ahead of time and can plan for it instead of getting a call interrupting what I'm doing only to be put on hold anyway.

Then the next available appointment isn't until May! I'm not well. My rheumatology doctor said I need to see the GI doc and I can't get in to see them until May!

And the anti-national health insurance crowd thinks the US system is better because if you were in the UK or Canada you have to wait to see someone.

Sigh...

I signed up for Medicare last week. Hard to negotiate the menu but easy enough once I get there.

So today I get a letter saying something on the form didn't match my SS information. Really? I've only been paying taxes with that name and SSN since I was a teenager.

I try to talk to someone, the wait time is more than an hour! This is the third time I've tried to call, always with the same wait time.

So I go online to my file, they gave me a code to get to the page. But I try and it says 'something is wrong with the data on that page so you cannot access it'!

WTF.

I filled out the form they sent me for corrections but I have no idea what I supposedly put down that was wrong. Maybe my mom's name was Mary Frances instead of Frances Mary? I don't have a friggin clue and both my parents are dead.

Hopefully a real person will look at the form instead of whatever program kicked it back to me.

This totally sucks!

Hopefully a real person will look at the form instead of whatever program kicked it back to me

Yeah, good luck with that. I didn't have a problem signing up for Medicare, but ended up going into the office to sign up for Social Security.

MM

MaryMumsy said:

Hopefully a real person will look at the form instead of whatever program kicked it back to me

Yeah, good luck with that. I didn't have a problem signing up for Medicare, but ended up going into the office to sign up for Social Security.

MM

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I'm hoping the same thing, some auto kicker sends out the form but a person then looks at it. Thing is they didn't say what was wrong.

I still have a nightmare with SSI. They don't show all my tax filings. But it's the same thing, you need an appointment to get in, you call for an appointment and the wait time is an hour. I'm writing to Patty Murray, my Senator. I've gone to my Congressperson with the tax issue before and got nowhere.

Why me!

Finally got hold of someone at the SS office. Regardless of the fact I've filed taxes and filled out legal forms my whole life using my actual name, sometime during 1970 my nick name was entered in my SS file. I was in high school in 1970.

The woman on the phone had no idea how that was supposed to have happened without a legal name change which I have never done.

Now apparently I have to go on person to the SS office and bring proof of my name, my driver's license and one other thing.

The SS office here says don't show up without an appointment. The SS woman on the phone said I didn't need an appointment. She's in New Mexico. The SS office is in WA State.

Do we have an emoji on this board for tearing one's hair out?

Hopefully you still have your social security card, with your real name on it. Things were a lot looser back in the sixties and seventies. Possibly you had a weekend or summer job while in high school and they submitted your W-2 under the nickname and it got added to the (paper) file.

I know when I got married (1972) I changed my name with social security before we actually got married. I think now you have to go in with the marriage certificate to do a name change. And if you get divorced you need to submit a copy of the decree to change your name back.

MM

MaryMumsy said:

Hopefully you still have your social security card, with your real name on it. Things were a lot looser back in the sixties and seventies. Possibly you had a weekend or summer job while in high school and they submitted your W-2 under the nickname and it got added to the (paper) file.

I know when I got married (1972) I changed my name with social security before we actually got married. I think now you have to go in with the marriage certificate to do a name change. And if you get divorced you need to submit a copy of the decree to change your name back.

MM

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So weird. I changed my son's surname officially to mine (because he never used is father's name) but that meant his SSN had to be officially changed. He couldn't get a bank account until we officially got the name changed.

The court order was not enough. We had to get a corrected birth certificate. It was another 'why me'? Apparently when the court order was filed with records something got screwed up and they changed his name to something altogether different. It was so bizarre. The woman at the records department told me I couldn't fix it without permission from the father. It wasn't his father! Not only that but we had an affidavit from his father when I got the court ordered name change. The woman at the records department acted like I must have been lying.

After much stress and a lot of phone calls, it finally was straightened out at the records department. They found their mistake. I got the corrected birth certificate. Went back to the SS office with the court order and his birth certificate. The woman behind the counter told me I need two pieces of ID with his original name. She kept reading her form over and over to me. What child has two pieces of ID? I think he was about 8. But worse than that, he'd never used his dad's surname. I filled out his school records with my surname and no one ever asked for proof.

After more stress and my refusal to give up and leave the window, a supervisor was summoned and signed off on the official name change.

Insanity!!!

Of course the IRS never cared that my SSN hadn't matched my name, apparently since 1970. Employers don't care. It didn't matter for my driver's license or my passport. Only the bank and people who issue SS cards care.

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I am woefully behind in the Game of Thrones saga, having only been reading Book 2 recently...

I'd just gotten to the part where Tyrion Lannister had fallen off the ship when some frenemy was standing above him with a sword ready to slice his head off.

My eyes were getting too tired to stay awake, so I regretfully closed my Kindle, did a quick mail check and saw this from my Quora feed...(spoiler alert):


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Reading MaeZe's problems with SS is making me wonder what troubles my son is about to face. He's applying for a passport so he can go to Greece for a Spartan race. He called me with questions about his father, DOB, place of birth, stuff like that. I didn't have answers for everything. He was making light of it, saying nobody can get it all exactly right, but I was getting worried. I reminded him that the name on his birth certificate is not his (now) legal name. Not even close. First, middle, and last names he never used after he started school. His SS card, school records, military records are all in his "adopted" name. There is not one legal document, baring his birth certificate, that bears his original name.

It is my understanding that the name he assumed is his legal name, but he can't prove that he is who he says he is when he has to produce his birth certificate. He still thinks this will all work out, given his years in the army, but I think he is going to be running troubles instead of a Spartan race.

How's your son's passport situation, WriteMinded? Sounds so similar to my son's name issues. We got his name changed legally just so I could get his passport with my last name. We went to Japan and I was concerned they'd require me to show custody papers or something. I have no idea where those are.

The SSN didn't come up until we wanted a bank account. And now with Medicare.

My Medicare is straightened out, now to get the darn health insurer to make things retroactive until April 1st along with the Medicare. It's going to cost me a lot of money if they won't be kind.


In the meantime, why me again? I found my expensive and very nice mailbox was hit by a car sometime last night. It's bent, though the box is OK. Asshole(s). They had to know they hit it and they had to know they were hitting and running.

What really gets me going? I drive truck for a large company and it seems like people in small cars have an obsession with pulling out in front of me, cutting me off, or driving like miss daisy up steep hills in front of me. Makes me want to run right up over their car and squash it like a bug.

Stubbing my toes, omg, the pain, the vein popping pain.. Instant anger! Death to all inconvenient toe stubbing objects.

Nothing enrages me like the "should OF" and "would OF" constructions strewn throughout the emails my supervisor writes. He also uses "loose" for "lose." Before you jump to the conclusion that I'm a bad person, you should know that this man is a former English teacher and current high school principal.

MaeZe said:

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In the meantime, why me again? I found my expensive and very nice mailbox was hit by a car sometime last night. It's bent, though the box is OK. Asshole(s). They had to know they hit it and they had to know they were hitting and running.

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My paternal grandfather went through several innings of mailbox baseball with the local yokels until the bottom of I think the third inning, on a long holiday weekend (no mail for like 5 days), he poured concrete and rebar with his own homemade “box” that was brick and mortar. He painted the “post” brown to look like wood. He painted the “box” black.

The next inning came up and the preceding 5 mailboxes were taken down again by the hooligans. But at the driveway to my grandfathers house were the splintered remains of a baseball bat, and on the opposing side of the road about 50 feet past was a Studebaker with the back passenger window smashed out that spun out in the ditch.

The plates were traced back to the owner who promptly brought his son in to be held without bail until a judge held a bench trial and found the kid guilty of the federal crime of destruction of federal property. I obviously wasn’t there but when my grandfather told me the story, he said he felt bad until the other dad came over and paid his the cost of his lost mailboxes and his thanks for “setting his kid straight”. It apparently put “the fear of God in the kid”, who I think is now a preacher. LOL

*****

of course this is the same guy who gave me a bowl of nickels to cover our then $10 toll to cross the GW bridge to visit his ailing sister Sigrid who still lived alone in Brooklyn at the time.

Jason: I think I love your grandfather.

There's construction on my office building right outside of my window. They've been using a jackhammer all day for 3 weeks. I can't hear my clients on the phone. The building manager promised that this would be done 2-1/2 weeks ago.

They aren't even close. Send migraine meds.

I was having a lil bit of a crisis without my cigarettes, but it has been ratified.

Damn it, I want to quit! :X

Yesterday, on one of my two off-days a week, we had lovely spring weather. Just above 60 degrees, a steady cool breeze, sun's shining but not oppressive.

Today, I tried once again to submit a short story to a writing contest. Their site will not take my cards. Either of them. So despite having finished editing the story a day in advance, I wasn't able to submit it. Instead I sent it to a magazine. By the time I finished doing that and stepped out to try saber practice, it was 80 degrees outside. I will remind everyone it's May [REDACTED] 1st.

The breeze is not enough. Sole actively flenses my bare skin with relentless gamma-malice, and I'm tired enough I can't just push through it. And for some reason every insect in a twenty mile radius has decided it needs to fly directly into my face, but only when I'm not alert enough to dodge effectively. If I had telekinesis, the entire state of Michigan would be carpeted in the mind-ripped oblivion of pushy bugs.

My nose will not stop itching, which doesn't normally bother me, but I briefly fantasized about knifing this ridiculous aquiline sinus-bedecker. I'm pretty sure this would stop the itching, but have restrained myself because I'm also pretty sure there are proverbs about this.

I will accept any amount of booze you care to send. Even if it is just... in spirit. Is that a fury pun? I think it is.

Nicotine withdrawal is a nasty thing...

About 6 months ago I moved across town to be closer to the training facility and torqued my shoulder pretty bad. Didn't think much about it - just take it easy, try not to sleep on it, it'll heal on its own. It didn't. I finally went to a Dr. and he out-sourced me to an imaging facility on the 20th. I get the images back, and after about 14 days of no response, I call the Dr. and basically say - what's the deal, surgery or PT? Another 5 days and they finally call back, saying they are outsourcing me to an Orthopedic Surgeon.

So, I look up the address for this office and it's like 45 minutes away. Call them and ask if they can recommend anyone closer to me. No dice. Then out of the blue, the original Dr. calls me to give me the referral number and I pounce on them - basically saying, Look, shipping me out for the MRI, I get. And referring me to a specialist, I get as well. But at least tell me if this warrants surgery or just PT. Answer, "Nope, that's the orthopedic Dr.'s job". Well, can you at least refer me to someone closer than 45 minutes away? I don't want this guys best friend from medical school, I want someone close to me. Sure, finally capitulates and gets me a dr. nearby. Call the Dr. nearby and get the "nope, gotta see the MRI and you in person."

Since when did the medical profession safeguard my information about my condition from me? Seems like it's more and more about the money, and less and less about the patient!

I feel your pain, Jason, but did you want an opinion from the nearby doctor based just on the MRI without ever seeing you as a patient? That isn't something any doctor would do, as far as I know.


On another note closer to home, my stupid kitchen faucet suddenly stopped working. Such a pain to get a new faucet.

Ugh. I can't finish my revisions because KIDS.

Could really do with a stasis pod to stick them in for a few years ffs. Let them out when they're all 5+

MaeZe said:

I feel your pain, Jason, but did you want an opinion from the nearby doctor based just on the MRI without ever seeing you as a patient? That isn't something any doctor would do, as far as I know.


On another note closer to home, my stupid kitchen faucet suddenly stopped working. Such a pain to get a new faucet.

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Sorry about the faucet breaking. That really does suck. The good news is that they’re not that hard to replace. And this is coming from someone who has tried to be a DIYer and failed more often than I succeeded. LOL

As to the Dr. though, a couple things to note:
1. He had seen me before
2. The report actually if from the imaging facility
3. I’ve never known a Dr. that has refused to give their own qualified opinion. “I think it’s only a partial tear and PT should suffice but let’s get you to a specialist to be sure...”. That sorta thing.

Isn’t that why it’s called practicing medicine? I’ve known doctors to readily acknowledge they’re not perfect. But this office has been butchering everything from my initial appt. to response times, and even once flat out lied to me about how they store patient info (in the cloud even against patient privacy requests).

Jason said:

Sorry about the faucet breaking. That really does suck. The good news is that they’re not that hard to replace. And this is coming from someone who has tried to be a DIYer and failed more often than I succeeded. LOL

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Thanks. Actually I put this one in myself years ago. But the darn pipe wrench is somewhere in my cluttered garage, my back hurts and lying upside down inside a cupboard sounds like a bad idea.

I did empty the space under the sink, made sure I had plumber's tape and some calking. I'm going to take the thing out tonight if the ibuprofen kicks in before my 'put it off until tomorrow' wins out.

Jason said:

As to the Dr. though, a couple things to note:
1. He had seen me before
2. The report actually if from the imaging facility
3. I’ve never known a Dr. that has refused to give their own qualified opinion. “I think it’s only a partial tear and PT should suffice but let’s get you to a specialist to be sure...”. That sorta thing.

Isn’t that why it’s called practicing medicine? I’ve known doctors to readily acknowledge they’re not perfect. But this office has been butchering everything from my initial appt. to response times, and even once flat out lied to me about how they store patient info (in the cloud even against patient privacy requests).

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If you talked to someone in the office and not the doc, PA or NP directly, call back tomorrow and insist on talking to the doctor directly. You may have to wait until s/he can call you between patients.

Typical scenario (no idea if it's the case with you), you see the GP. S/he orders the MRI and a referral. The staff act on this direction. But you should be able to discuss the situation with the doc directly.

On the other hand, they would commonly send you to the surgeon to discuss surgery, not make a definitive statement. You can't get around that and you probably don't want to.

I do feel your pain though, seriously. I have an autoimmune disease. My liver reacted to one of the drugs. The rheumatologist ought to be able to deal with that, it's in her wheelhouse. But, noooo. I had to go see the gastroenterologist just so he could tell me it was probably the drug. She could have simply consulted with him. They all work on the same floor of the same building. He didn't do any kind of exam at all.

Sigh.

Update. The bad faucet is out and I cleaned out the drains while I was at it. Honestly, who designs a sink so that you can barely reach the faucet connecters?

Picture me under the sink, face pushed up against the drain pipe, trying to reach around water supply hoses, the dishwasher drain hose, the garbage disposal wire and with one of the bolts I had to use the wrench on it from in between the two sink bowls. That meant I could turn the bolt half an inch then I had to shift the wrench because that's all the room there was to move it.

Now I have to go buy a new faucet.

Sigh