Health Stuff

Well, I am the ashamed own­er of a hand­i­capped park­ing per­mit now.

I know that there’s noth­ing inher­ent­ly shame­ful in hav­ing a dis­abil­i­ty. I have no prob­lem under­stand­ing and even advo­cat­ing accom­mo­da­tions for any­body else with a disability.

I’m just still ashamed about mine. That whole “invis­i­ble” thing does­n’t help at all.

I haven’t men­tioned it to my par­ents yet. I won’t be unless it becomes unavoid­able. I don’t want to deal with them right now. They’ll def­i­nite­ly think I got it dis­hon­est­ly or am just play­ing the sys­tem or something.

The vis­it to the rheuma­tol­o­gist on Thurs­day cost $275 and result­ed in noth­ing but the per­mit, a let­ter to my school that isn’t what I told them the school requires, and orders for lots of lab work I can’t afford to get done. They sug­gest­ed that I go to Gwin­nett Clin­ic for it. I can’t use them—I’m not a res­i­dent of that coun­ty now. So they sug­gest­ed the Cobb Coun­ty health depart­ment, and we went there Friday.

The first appoint­ment I could get with the nurse prac­ti­tion­er there was on June 23. Note to self: do not get less-than-ER-sick with­out lots of advance notice.

Appar­ent­ly, there is a com­mu­ni­ty clin­ic for res­i­dents of Cobb Coun­ty. To be seen there, I have to go to DFCS try to see a spe­cif­ic social work­er. I have to take all man­ner of receipts and such that I don’t have since we’ve just moved (proof of exact util­i­ty costs and so on—I can’t quite fig­ure out why). I doubt it will be easy to get an appoint­ment there any time soon, either.

Sup­pos­ed­ly I have too much income to qual­i­fy for Medicaid—that’s not hard for any adult. Thank God­dess for Peach­care for Katie!