Peonies and Benzos

Yeah, I know. Those peonies.

I was all Wallace Stevensy the world is ugly and the people are sad and then I walked into the dining room and saw them. There aren't even words to describe such a sight.

Thank you for your kind words and emails in response to my last post. I did a lot of digging around on the interwebs last night and read a whole lot more about benzodiazepine withdrawal. There wasn't much that I didn't already know, and what I knew was that it's all fucked up. It's insane that these drugs are used at all -- and I mean at ALL, and I know there are a lot of people out there who think a little bit of a benzo can nip anxiety right in the bud. Smoke some pot, people, find another class of prescription mind-numbers, in lieu of popping the benzos.  And when people worry about the amount of THC in marijuana, about not wanting children to get high (as opposed to the real concern that THC at certain levels can exacerbate seizures), or when physicians worry about the long-term cognitive effects of marijuana on the brain -- holy shit. Take a look at what the benzos do and the level of suffering people -- children -- experience when you take them off.

I'm assuming that Sophie is going to have really bad days, off and on, for maybe even more than a year. I'm going to have to push through my rage about this SIT U A SEE OWN, but it's going to be difficult to not constantly compare the clusterf**kery of the current mindset in epileptology to what's been going on with the approved AEDs for all these years. I'm going to keep on banging on my drum, too, until the media takes it upon itself to do some kind of story on what the alternative to medical marijuana has been like for many kids. Like mine. And yours.

Humor my rants for the time being or shut me up with peonies.

Clusterf*$%kery, part 4,345,678

Despite all the recent excitement with the press beating on my door as I attempt to muddle through the clusterfuckery that is The Cannabis System, we need to get back to our regular programming. I just spent the last 15 minutes on hold with Medi-Cal and then 45 minutes in conversation with a very helpful, very clueless gentleman at Medi-Cal. You might wonder how someone can be both very helpful and very clueless? The ability to hold opposing thoughts and ideas in unison -- equanimity, if you will -- is a skill I've perfected over the last couple of decades (ok, to be honest, it's only happened in the last five years or so), as is the very careful walking of the tightrope, swinging from the trapeze and other grand carnival acts.

So, you can take my word that the gentleman I spoke with on the telephone was very helpful and very clueless.

I called because as of February 1st, Sophie was added to our health insurance policy (Healthnet), and we dropped her Anthem policy. Sophie also has Medi-Cal, which is secondary to her private insurance, but at present, Medi-Cal is LINKED TO ANTHEM. I called Medi-Cal (my fifteenth attempt, I should add) to ask them to:

1. Drop Anthem Blue Cross 
2. Add HealthNet
3. Link Medi-Cal to HealthNet

My aim is to ensure that when medical claims are filed with HealthNet, Medi-Cal picks up the uncovered stuff, LIKE IT'S SUPPOSED TO.

Well, the helpful but clueless gentleman informed me that I needed to fill out form -- let's call it AGNES because I don't want to stress you out further with the amount of numbers I'd have to type out to indicate which form -- proving that I was indeed authorized to act as Sophie's conservator. In other words, since Sophie is over 18, her privacy is protected and Medi-Cal can't authorize the release of information. If you remember the other, now distant clusterfuckery that was gaining Conservatorship, I am officially Sophie's conservator (in addition to being her mother). God forbid this sort of snafu should have been taken care of back then with the Social Security office. He very helpfully directed me to Form AGNES but upon perusal of it, he decided that it was maybe Form GLADYS that I needed. He then directed me to Form GLADYS, and we both realized that Form GLADYS was actually the wrong form, so we moved on to FORM MILDRED after he checked with someone.  

Form MILDRED it is, and I was instructed to fill it out and send to the address at the bottom of the form. I said, There is no address at the bottom of MILDRED, and he said, Oh. Let me go and see where you send her. 

And I said OK and then I did a little pirouette on the high wire and smiled down at the admiring crowd. When the helpful but clueless man came back on, he gave me an address and thanked me for my patience. I now must fill out MILDRED, send her to Sacramento, hope that she is received and processed, upon which I will call back Medi-Cal to request that they do Numbers 1 and 2 above.

Did you get that?

I'd really, really appreciate if you, dear Reader, moved that net right under me as I do believe I might be plunging to my death at any moment.