Special Friends

Funny thing..the day after I write about my "3am circle", I have to tap into it, although thankfully it was during daylight hours. Debbie had a plumbing issue over the weekend that resulted in an indoor sewage spill, so she had to meet the claims adjuster at her house today.

This sounds a little petty, but I had a haircut appointment that I'd already rescheduled three times, so last night I sent an emergency email to my friend Sandra, and she agreed to bring her four kids to play with Abbie while I had my locks shorn.

Having Abbie to myself in the morning gave us the chance to take a walk to the beach. It's only about 6 blocks away, and it's ridiculous how rarely we go down there. It was a beautiful, soul-reviving day, and the ocean always gives perspective, doesn't it?

I was about a block from home when I saw San's van pull up to our house. I jogged the one block (which was enough jogging for me, sad to say), and met them at the gate. Into my SuperMom phone booth, and a few minutes later I was out the door to the salon. I left with Abbie being fed on her bed, joined by Keiko who was using stuffed animals to put on a play for Abbie. I returned to find Abbie and Keiko laying side-by-side on the floor, with Keiko holding a book up and reading to Abbie. They had french-braided her hair, had her do ballet and hula with them (they agree that she likes hula even more than ballet..a local girl!), and Abbie had obviously soaked it all in. What a perfect morning for her! I wish I could bottle hours like that and give her a dose every day. Abbie is so blessed to have friends with such tender, caring hearts.

Praise God, we got a key step accomplished in the effort to obtain the stander. It was submitted 3 months ago for an approval process that was supposed to take 30 days at the max. We were expecting it to get denied, and needed it to so that we could take the next step and access a special fund for thing like standers. After the request seemingly disappeared into a black hole, and being unable to get anyone to talk to me or explain where it was, Ray got involved last week. Because of his job he has access to places that most people don't (including me). Anyway, he was told that the approval person requested more medical justification on October 11th (43 days after we first submitted the request). The vendor nor our physician ever received anything like this. Ray asked for a copy of the letter yesterday, at which time it was also sent to the vendor (apparently for the first time). Today the vendor sent a scathing letter stating that there were reams of medical justification already on file, but sent what had been requested. Shortly after this letter was faxed to the approval authority our request was denied because it is "not a covered service." WOW! It had taken them three months to figure this out?? So, we have been delayed, lied to, and run around. Without Ray's access we would still be in the dark. On the upside, we can now move forward to use waiver (special fund) monies, and hopefully the stander will be approved soon. This is the third time we've had an experience like this, and we've only made three requests for durable medical equipment. So, when the responsible parties labeled this recent snafu an "outlier", we just smiled and thought that either we are really wierd and know a lot of other really wierd families who have experienced "outlier" after "outlier", or perhaps the system is truly broken. We are hopeful, now that we have the documentation of this latest round of madness, that Ray can have a constructive conversation with the appropriate people to effect change in this important but ill-functioning system. The bottom line...ARGH!!!

At the end of the day, though, I am standing here typing with a big smile because God is so good to us, all the time. There is peace in my home (the kids are in bed), we are all healthy, and we live freely, things that I try never to take for granted.