What a Beautiful Mess

Well, good news on a few fronts. First, when I called in one of my medications for refill today, we learned that it will only cost $65 a month instead of $145. We aren’t sure why, but we think it’s because of the special Rx discount program for residents of our county. The other one will still cost $208 a month, we think, but this one savings was big enough savings to make us at least a little relieved, and we managed to get the really expensive one filled just before my Medicaid extension ran out at the end of December.

Second bit of good news is that Mike’s unemployment coverage doesn’t seem to have run out. He just had to put in the first week’s waiting period, so we have a week of no income from that front. That’s not great, considering that my freelancing has been nearly at a standstill for a couple of weeks (one project a week, at half or less of what I need to be making a week), but we can deal with it so long as it doesn’t drag on.

The third bit of good news is that Mike feels his interview on Thursday went well. He is one of five people being considered for the position, and he feels his chances are good. He is the only one with chemistry experience, which they really need. Plus, he has a little bit of management experience and experience with manufacturing and polymers from his job at CSI in Crawfordsville. Callbacks are supposed to be done late next week, so we’re keeping our fingers crossed that Mike gets to be one of them. Or even that they just decide to hire him outright with no need to do callbacks. Lol. Maybe that’s a bit too much to hope for, but at least there’s some more hope in our household.

My vision has stopped making drastic improvements, so it’s really hard for me to tell if change is being made. Mike seems to think my responses have improved when he “tests” my periphery, so maybe it is. Or maybe I’m just learning how to cope a little better. But I’m finding in the past week or so that I’m not nearly as sensitive to light glare and different types of light as I have been for the past several months, and I’m having an easier time reading small fonts on the TV at a distance than I was. It’s really hard to tell, though, if holes in my vision are clearing up when I can’t even tell in the first place where the holes were/are. I can read smaller and smaller things more easily still, so I’m led toward thinking my visual acuity is improving more, but I really think that has a lot to do with the obstructions being gone so I can actually make things out better. Bah, but who knows? (I still start to panic sometimes, like trying to walk in snow in a strange parking lot, when the snow blind seems worse than it ever did before my eyes had problems and when I couldn't distinguish any different depths and people are walking by quickly and cars are zooming by but all I can do is shuffle along and hope I don't fall or stumble. Nearly every day, I think about how much I feel like I'm "old before my time," having vision problems I "shouldn't" be having until I'm in my 70s or 80s, at least. And I know how they feel, I think.) I just try to keep my faith and keep praying, as my husband and friends remind me to do.

So, all in all, we’re doing better here in the Stringham household, though trying to avoid going out. The “winter storm” that hit the other day only brought us a few inches (5 or so) of snow, and the roads are clear, but the drifts at the end of our driveway actually made the Montero get stuck the other day so that we had to shovel it out a bit, and getting the mail feels like going wading in knee-deep water.

* Stringham high: Less-expensive drugs than we thought!
* Stringham low: Winter blahs
* Stringham super-high: Mike had an in-person INTERVIEW!