Splendid Mayhem: DHS Bites

Welcome To Holland

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

DHS Bites

AGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG.....................
So, I've been trying to get of our case worker for Logen's medicaid. We have medicaid as a secondary form of insurance. Andrea (Luke's Momma) informed me that we could have our hotel, milage, and food payed for on our St Louis Trip. The purpose of the trip is to take Logen to the St Louis Cerebral Palsy Center (One of the BEST CP centers in the states!) I didn't even know we had a case worker, for one. I've been calling DHS since Friday, leaving messages- nice ones too. Many of you know, I can get kinda hateful when things don't go my way! But, Andrea told me I should be NICE to the case worker so I can get what I want. However, I'm beginning to think nice doesn't work for some people! My mom told me to start by calling 3x today, 4 tomorrow, 5 the next, etc until she calls me back! Maybe that'll work b/c she will be sick or hearing my voice on her voicemail!

I just called and got a mean chica to answer the main line. I said, "I need to speak to Diane regarding my son's TEFRA" She said, "well you don't actually expect to talk to anybody on their lunch break, do you?" I was thinking- you could just send me to her voice mail and let me leave a message. I guess that would be to hard for you to do. She told me to call back after 1pm. Hmmm... I'll probably still get the dang voice mail! So, why does it matter if I leave a msg during her lunch break or not???? I should be able to leave her a msg at midnight if I want to!!!!!!!!!!!

This is me.... on a high horse.... I ride them alot!

1 comment:

Andrea "The H family"June 6, 2007 at 12:46 AM
Keep on them girl. Worse case, document how many times you've called and then ask for her manager. Just keep going up the ladder. I hope she calls back sooN!!
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