A New Challenge

I have to confess to feeling a surge of anger today like I haven’t felt in awhile. My anger came as I realized a few very hard truths about my situation.

My Medicaid was terminated. I was under the false impression that when I became officially “disabled” Medicaid coverage would continue. Obviously, I was either misinformed or I misunderstood the information we were receiving during the application process. Disability counts as ‘unearned income’ in the state of Texas and in order for me to qualify for Medicaid, we can have no income (or less than $300 or so a month).

This new development is a huge kink - - more than a kink, it’s rather devastating because the benefits I will now receive monthly as a disabled person won’t even cover one day of my TPN needs, much less everything else I need on a daily/weekly basis.

And as I was talking to a friend of mine, I could feel the anger surge within me, and I started to cry at the helplessness and unfairness I felt. I feel like I was carelessly swept to the mercy of the system and even the system has failed me, which really shouldn’t surprise me, but it did. I usually don’t harp on that which lacks fairness because I am most certainly aware that life is not fair. But, today, it rankled. Today, I gave in to a moment of fear, to the uncertainty that now faces me. I did not despair, but I was mad. REAL MAD. Mad at the mistake(s) which cost me my intestine, my ability to function, and that put me at the mercy of a system which serves itself. The mistake which has stripped our family of everything and has pigeon-holed us into a completely dependent state. To me, it is beyond tragic. It is wrong. And injustice galls.

We don’t even have the ability, on our own, to make things right.

You may think I’m complaining and I just need to suck it up, grow up, or something a bit more crude. Believe me, I’m very familiar with those unhelpful suggestions. I do them every day. But, I am frustrated, I am scared, and I want to know that everything is going to be all right. Is that really too much to ask?

Oh to be a judge and pound my gavel when justice has been served.

Trying to get through the phone lines to speak to a live person with the right answers is nigh to impossible. Navigating the Medicaid phone system is one of the most frustrating things. I very well gather rules and chains of command, but when Medicaid tells me to call Social Security Administration and SSA tells me to call Medicaid, the bile rises.

We do ‘think’ that there’s a special program called “shared cost” Medicaid that I may qualify for (if we received accurate information). We would have to pay into the system, how much, we don’t know, in order to keep Medicaid coverage.

Once this ice clears up and everyone goes back to work, we’re planning to make a family day of it and sit at the Medicaid office until we get answers on paper.
I know that this is a small problem for our God to handle. Please pray that I will see His hand of provision in spite of our lack, that I will not despair, and that this situation can be resolved quickly.

In the meantime, I need to be thankful and recognize that the company that makes my TPN is being gracious and has promised to deliver my needs every week as usual as Jeff and I try to figure out what to do. I must have it for it is what keeps me alive.

My faith is being tested and challenged, my weaknesses being exposed, and right now it is a bit painful. I WILL trust in God, but I will also ask that you lift these requests up so I have help in asking that those niggles of doubt dissipate as ice on a hot summer's day.