Cue Mrs. Braddock's Laugh Post #4,567,234

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Rain, The Minotour, Mrs. Braddock's Laugh and What's Baked

Raindrops on roses
and echeverria
Dear, dear Jesus
thank you for rain 
and the plumeria.



Do you remember The Efforts To Acquire The Chariot and then Busgate? In a nutshell, it took about eighteen months and some serious Insurance and MediCal wrangling to get a wheelchair for the girl (because, you know, I might have been making up her disabilities and trying to acquire a $10,000 piece of metal for the hell of it), and then too many IEPs and phone calls to LAUSD that brought to mind an episode of Monty Python to get a lift bus for her. Sophie is supposed to have been riding in her chariot on a lift bus for, basically, years, but it wasn't until this week that one mysteriously arrived at her school. I got a call on Tuesday afternoon from her bus aide, Saint Charles, at about 3:30.  The lift is broken, Charles reported, we're going to be late because we're waiting for a mechanic. I threw back my head and laughed, Mrs. Braddock-style (watch this scene, if you don't know what I'm talking about). God, I love that scene. How about her psychedelic shirt, Mr. Braddock's robe, his drink, the half-baked comment -- hmmm, I digress. I told Charles that rather than wait for the LAUSD bus system mechanic (visions in my tiny little mother mind™ of The Man Behind the Curtain in Oz pulling all those levers to get the bus mechanic ), I would drive over to Sophie's school and pick her up myself, so by the time I got there, picked her up and brought her home it was about 4:15ish, and just an hour after she had been dismissed. At 5:30, the telephone rang, and when I picked it up, the Efficient LAUSD Robot said, This is a call from the LAUSD bus system. Your daughter PAUSE Soooophie is on a bus that will be approximately 75 minutes late.

Go back to that link of Mrs. Braddock's fantastic laugh.

Today, the lift bus pulled up while I stood at attention on the sidewalk and then waited as The Busdriver did some kind of maneuvering inside, walked to the front of the bus and then down the stairs and came out. I told her that I didn't think the lift would clear the curb, that she would probably need to back up to the driveway, so she stood and stared a bit and then walked back to the bus, shifted it into reverse and backed it up. The beeping sound emanating from the bus was so loud that I had to cover my ears. When the bus driver climbed back out of the bus to deal with the lift, the beeping continued, and as the lift lowered, I saw that Sophie had startled into a seizure so I asked the bus driver to please turn off the beeping sound and simulataneously put my hands over Sophie's ears to muffle the cacophony. I also noticed that the bus has a name, and it's Minotour. You can't make this shit up, as my old writing instructor used to say. The letters, spelled exactly like that, are right above the door. Now, I am prone to metaphorical flights of fancy, as you know, and I know you lovely Readers are, too. Let's have a game about a bus named Minotour.

Give me what you got.

How We Do It: Part XLVIII

It gets better.

Me

Sophie was scheduled for an ambulatory EEG this afternoon at 3:00. It's been on the books for about a month, but I haven't been thinking about it because I hate the whole process. The ambulatory part is a godsend -- no hospital! -- but there are all the leads, the stinking glue, Sophie's curly, curly hair, the clean-up, the smell and, of course, the significance. Sophie has always had an abysmal EEG -- the kind of EEG that is, frankly, pretty hopeless. She's probably had at least ten in the last nineteen years, most of them in-hospital. Every single one is wildly abnormal. I won't give you the jargon. She hasn't had one in three years, though, and we thought it was time, particularly given the dramatic reduction in her clinical seizures since we started giving her cannabis oil. Yesterday afternoon the lab called to say that the insurance company claimed Sophie wasn't a member, so I went into my clipped and efficient mode and got that ironed out (our id number was transcribed wrong). This morning, I got a call from the EEG lab with the news that they are Out-of-Network for HealthNet and that we would be subject to the 50/50 rule after the insurance company pays the usual and customary rate. How much is that?, I asked. The financial person told me that, historically, insurance companies have determined the cost to be around $120, so I would be reimbursed for 1/2 that or $60. How much is the EEG? I asked. She said, Around $1700 or so. There is no other ambulatory EEG facility in the area, and MediCal is not contracted with them either. My options at this point are to admit Sophie to the hospital for an overnight EEG (out of the question), pony up and pay (the usual choice that has strained our finances for nearly twenty years), or appeal to HealthNet and request that they pay the in-network rate (throw my head back and laugh maniacally). Reader, if you're still here, please scroll up to the video that I posted at the top and forward to :23 seconds, maybe one of my favorite scenes in the movie, when Benjamin tells his parents that he's getting married, and Mrs. Braddock throws her head back and screams the most fantastic laugh you'll ever see on film. I am Mrs. Braddock, and that's what I do in my mind whenever I have situations like this EEG one. I no longer feel stressed, to tell you the truth. What might have caused me to weep copious tears, to tear at my hair, literally, to feel the poison of anger and adrenaline coursing through my veins, has disappeared. Mrs. Braddock enters my mind, and I throw back my head and let out a screaming laugh. After nineteen years, I'm here to tell you that it gets better. That's how I do it.