Archive of ‘personal’ category

11
May
2021

I am continuing to fix the state’s screw-up.

categories: personal; word count: 364 words

For some reason, our local HHSC claimed to have “lost” the good cause forms that have been on file with Bub and Monster’s child support cases since 2014 (Monster’s had one since 2007, but a social worker took the good cause indicator off of his case without telling me in 2014). I was able to contact a customer care representative at the child support office who was perplexed that they were claiming to have lost the forms, because he stated that the good cause forms are referred with the rest of the case each time that HHSC’s automated computer systems mistakenly refer the cases to be enforced. He was able to send me the good cause waiver that the child support office has on file, which I sent to HHSC both by e-mail and as a change request, especially since he indicated that it could be e-mailed and I wanted to expedite things as far as I possibly could. At some point after that, though, family violence indicators were put on the cases as they appear to be pending closure, which means that customer care representatives working at the child support office can not see a lot of the information relating to the cases that they could once see. So I’m waiting on them to… liaison with HHSC about why these cases continue to be referred, and attempts made at working them, in spite of the fact that working either case poses safety issues to us. The state office has now gotten in on this as well, although it also appears that my local office is continuing to do work trying to figure out why these cases continue to be referred for enforcement and why folks are mysteriously “losing” documents.

The last time that this happened was in 2014, and it resulted in one case actually briefly being worked to the point of wage garnishment. I think I’ve mentioned that somewhere in here before, but the person in question… retaliated when they found out that their pay had been garnished, quit their job violently, and fled the country over it for as long as they could stay there. My only regret was that he could not stay longer.

08
May
2021

This post is brought to you by prednisone.

categories: personal; word count: 259 words

So I am on my third antibiotic for this wound of mine that will not go away. Augmentin did absolutely nothing, and fluconazole was a laugh. Now I am on fifteen days of Omnicef, which is only possible to take being on 60mg prednisone because of the severity of headaches and stomach troubles that came with it. I was seriously about to throw in the towel and stop taking Omnicef were it not for prednisone, because I was having headaches so bad that Fioricet didn’t help at all and stomach troubles so bad that I could not eat. Strangely enough, prednisone has ameliorated all of that and made taking the antibiotic tolerable. I know that it’s used as palliative care with cancer patients to help them eat and… make some of the side effects of cancer go away (gee, how would I know something like that?), so I figured that it was worth a shot in my case since I have some prednisone stockpiled here at the house. And I was completely correct guessing…

I don’t feel 100%, but I can get out of bed, eat as needed, and do things. I will gladly take that as a win.

I do think that I’m going to warn my doctors about this going forward, because it’s not tenable to have to take prednisone just to take an antibiotic. Omnicef may be something that I am not tolerant of, that I can not tolerate. And that’s okay. As long as we know about it we can work around it, prescribing different things.

06
May
2021

DoorDashing on Bub’s dime: Subway!

categories: personal; word count: 243 words

Bub and I have a new… thing that we do, although we readily invite Monster into it as well.

It seems to be our special thing, and a way that we’ve begun to bond.

We use some of the child support that he receives on DoorDash. It’s a great way to broaden his palate, and it avoids actually having to go out and get the food, which is even greater in a global pandemic. So far we’ve tried Subway to everyone’s satisfaction, and I budgeted this into his child support payments as a weekly thing. At this point, I think Bub is “down” for anything that has copious amounts of bread in it. The person that Dashed Subway for us also read the instructions that I left them, which stated not to ring the doorbell because I didn’t want it to scare our dog or my kids. I told them that I would periodically be checking to see if our food was out there, and then I found out that you can actually track deliveries, which makes DoorDash even greater as far as I’m concerned. I think we’ll try some fast food items, to include ones that I haven’t had in years (does Bub like Arby’s? would Bub like Arby’s? let’s find this out at some point). This will be really fun.

I mean, this money has to be spent some way. Why not spend some of it on fun, educational, yummy things?

04
May
2021

The state can stop playing these games now.

categories: personal; word count: 411 words

Normally, as part of some of the state benefits that we receive, cooperation with child support is mandatory.

You have to let them at least attempt to enforce a child support order if one is on file.

However, if there is any risk to the child(ren) or you that could come about as a result of this, you can get what’s called a good cause waiver against enforcement, and having one of these means that any child support order your child or children have will not be enforced as part of “cooperation” to get state benefits. My oldest son’s case has had a good cause waiver on it for nearly the entire time that he has had a finalized custody order because there absolutely is no safe way to attempt to enforce child support — the one time the state accidentally did, which is a story in and of itself and part of the reason that I am making this post, he quit his job in retaliation, and I was made aware of the fact that he… retaliated in and of itself when he did this. When this happened, it was also made clear to me that behavior from Bub’s paternal family met the criteria for emotional abuse with the risk of it becoming physical abuse “if provoked”, and a good cause waiver was placed on his child support case as well. As time went on, it was also stated that it should have qualified for one from the start, because the behavior from Bub’s paternal family was never… not there.

Anyway.

The only thing is that when these state benefits are renewed, the cases temporarily open and have to be closed back out by the child support office. This isn’t even a thing that should be happening. It’s gotten to the point that if my sons’ names cross the desk over there, their cases are immediately closed back out, and sometimes the child support office contacts Health and Human Services (HHSC) over them being “referred”, complete with the good cause waivers, in the first place. The child support office even went so far as to file motions with the court terminating their office’s assignment to both cases so that if HHSC “accidentally” refers them, they can’t work them. All they can do is close them out. The cases are not in their jurisdiction.

We shouldn’t be playing the game of “close them back out every time benefits are renewed” though.

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