Cursed?

I'm starting to think that maybe we're bad luck.

I mean, look at our last 18 months. Then note that Tuffy's cousin, Blue Rose, came up to spend her summer visiting us and helping out. She was also supposed to take a Calculus class and couldn't, but that seems more based on bureaucratic red tape than anything we did.

She had been feeling a little ill for a week or so before she came up with us, and on Tuesday morning, we found her passed out on the bathroom floor. Not a good sign. After her symptoms continued to worsen, we took her to Rorysaurus and Little Monkey's wonderful doctor (we're lucky Blue Rose was under 18 or we'd have had no idea who to take her to), and after a visit on Weds, she was sent to the ER because she was in such pain that they were afraid her appendix was about to burst.

So, we went to Children's ER and then to her room in the not-quite-so-sick annex, where she protested being dragged to the doctors, insisted she was fine, and eventually started lying to doctors to see if they'd let her go home. Tell me, does she look "fine" to you?



Me neither. So, we made her promise to be honest with us, got her to eat some food and admit that she was in pain to the doctors (it let them put that in her chart as well as got her some pain medication) and let her come back home (her dad, who drove up okayed it). In four or five days of eating again, she felt fine, and the peds figure she has a very small ulcer that is acting up whenever she forgets to eat. They'll know to scope her next time.

Anyway, then, last weekend, we couldn't find Miss Manhattan. She didn't show up for work (unlike her), didn't call (unlike her) and didn't respond to email/facebook/texts/phone calls. I started to worry. Sure enough, she was hospitalized with a kidney infection and hadn't taken her phone with her. ::sigh:: Anti-bios and pain drugs later, she's back to her cheery New Yawk self, and has a new internship where she gets to finish up her RN this summer. Good news, but I'm starting, like I said, to think one of us has been hexed.

The end of MediCal and a wheelchair

That's right, ladies and gents. California is broke and so they have cut Needlenoggin's MediCal. Not just reduced it (like they have done to everyone else) but cut it. Gone. No Rx coverage, no doctor's visits, nothing. Aren't they awesome?

If you'll recall, though, right before all of that, we finally got the wheelchair from Wheelchairs of Berkeley. We'd had a miserable time getting the chair from another company 45 minutes from here, so we tried to get it from WOB. We eventually got him measured by a nice lady, and the chair got ordered. However, we had folding vs folding back issues, and the piece had to be re-ordered. Fine.

So we went to go pick it up, and they'd ordered the correct piece in the wrong size. Rad. I asked what the @$@%@$^ had happened, and was told they'd have to re order the next one, and we'd get it in a few weeks. When we expressed our displeasure (I believe it was, "Come on! It has taken nearly a year to get this chair! How did you order the wrong size?"), we were told, no joke, that "I think everyone has to take some responsibility here."

What?!? I should take responsibility for the fact that you ordered the wrong piece, and not even in a size that was anywhere on any order (we've discussed 20, 19 and 18 inch chairs...In what size did they order the back piece? 16!). And we called to confirm the order of the folding back-chair BEFORE it was ordered! She just vetoed our order, and got the other one.

Anyway, Needlenoggin gave up, came home, switched backs off of his 10 year old chair onto the new green one (a long process if you've never done it before), and now we're waiting for the new back to come in, and we'll just do it again by ourselves.