Thanksgiving 2008

Well yes, I am a day late, but yesterday was a long day as I am sure it was for a lot of people. We went over to a friends house (blind Kelli) and had dinner over there. As you can see from the photos Cade wasn't too keen on things. He liked the cranberry sauce until John feed him just a cranberry that hadn't popped and was tart. Then he cried when John gave him a bite. The rest of the stuff he just made faces at, although he did like the sweet pickles. 

After we cleaned up dinner we played a few games on the Wii. Cade was so tired. He just layed down on John. It was so cute. 

Not much else going on. Getting ready to go to St. Louis soon. YEA! So I am always cleaning something around the house and making sure the laundry is done. John goes back to work next week. Fun times!

Kissy Kissy

We are doing ok. I think something is up with Cade but I don't know what. He has been very crabby all day since about last Wed. I don't know what it is. He is so tired in the morning he wont take his morning naps anymore and just whines. So I put him down for a nap right after lunch and he will only sleep an hour or so, but is so tired, he will pass out on the living room floor later on. We looked to see if he is teething and see nothing new. I have tried giving him a snack or thickened juice and nothing works. I am going to try Tylenol tomorrow if nothing else works. Maybe he is teething. So John and I did our best today to try and sooth him. 

John is doing better. He is still taking pain medications for his ear. And I guess they are effecting him because he actually choose to watch The Notebook tonight! I couldn't believe it. I did very well though. I only cried for the last 20 minutes solid. John was being all cuddly with me up until the point Cade decided to bite my toe. Then he completely lost it and started laughing. 

John then gave me a kiss and Cade started laughing. So he gave me another kiss and Cade started laughing again. So now every time Cade sees us kiss he laughs at us. It is really funny to watch. 

Day after surgery

Yesterday was worse than giving birth. i was a horrible day. John is ok, to start with. 

We got told Wed. to be there at 5AM. We thought that his surgery had been moved from noon to 7AM because we know we are suppose to be there 2 hours before hand. So we get up at 4 AM, check out of the hotel and go to the hospital. We get there, and wait and wait. Ok normal. Then I hear this women complaining about how her surgery is at 8 and she hasnt been registered yet. I remember reading on the window that patients are seen in order of surgery time. So I tell Dh to go ask. He goes up there, come back grabs Cade and walks to the car. He precedes to tell me his surgery was still at noon. So we got up 6 hours early. Cade was screaming and Dh was livid and we have no where to go. So we sit in the car. Cade goes back to sleep and Dh reads a book. So we sit and wait. We go back in a few hours later to change Cade and feed him breakfast. They told us they called his name, so he gets registered. And then waits. All a sudden a nurse comes out and tells us what happened and we weren't the only ones. 

The person at the doc. office that makes the appointments was out the day the calls where made. Her replacement made the mistake and called people. Told us to be there at 5AM, the other at 7AM and the last at 9AM. Come to find out none of us lived here. We drove 3 hours, the second drove 5 (from MISS.) and the last 2.5 (From Troy). So we wait again. 

Finally at 11, they call him back and get him in a gown and IV's started and all. So I get brought back to be with him before he goes to surgery at noon. So we wait. I thought about going to the cafeteria to get food, but dh was hungry too and I didnt want to eat in front of him. Luckily I had some spare baby food with me for Cade. 

So 1230 comes around and we know that surgery run late. But then I hear this lady go to the nurses station outside of dh's room and start yelling at the nurses at how her husband was suppose to have surgery and they had been waiting since 7 and drove 2.5 hours and wanted his surgery done now. 

So I go out to see what it was about because I realize she has the same doc. as Dh. They tell her that he is delayed. So I ask how long because his was suppose to be at noon. She says they are starting at 1 now and the lady goes crazy again saying how Dh should give up his time for her husband because he is a professor at Troy Uni. I was like we are a result of a malpractice case. This can ruin my husbands hearing and career. So don't even think you are pushing us out. I was so mad. I just walked back in his room and closed the door. 

Finally at 230! The doctor arrives. He was late and it caused everyones surgery to be prolonged. I felt so bad for the rest of the other two patients because the last patient wasnt going to get in until 730 PM now. 

He went in at 3, I realized the cafeteria was now closed and had no food until dinner at 8 last night. Dh got out of surgery at 5 last night and recovery at 715. We finally found another hotel room after most of them were booked for business meetings and such. And we just got home about 30 min ago. 

He is doing great. Has a big boob on his ear. So I call him boob man now. The pain killers are nice, he keeps telling me how much he loves me. so nice!

1 Day before John's surgery

We left around 1030 and didn't go sight seeing. There isn't anything to see here! We were going to stay at our usual hotel, but they were booked. So we are staying down the street at the Comfort Inn, never again! They are remodeling and didn't tell us! Half the rooms on our floor (there are only two floors) are open, like no doors on them and they are ripped apart. Ours is nasty, not horrible, no cockroaches on the floor. But wont be staying here again. I asked for a crib, but they tried to give us a playpen. Like the ones John and I had when we were young. It was half as talk as Cade so he would have fallen out, it was the square kind with vinyl trim that was ripped and missing. So disgusting.

So we get here a hour early or so and hang out. Hope Cade will lay down and take a nap and of course he doesn't. So we go and it goes so fast! It was great. So fast we didn't have to pay for parking!

So we decide to go to The Summit and have Panrea Bread for dinner. But it was just a comedy of errors to get there. To many to explain and go through.

John now has to be at the hospital at 5 AM, still don't know what time his surgery is. Of course we will call when I hear something. 

Baby Bean

Tonight we went out for dinner to Rodeo. We are trying to wean Cade from baby food before we go home. He does great a breakfast as there is a good variety of food he will eat. but lunch and dinner are a different story. But when we eat Mexican we know we are safe because he loves refried beans and mexican rice. I have no idea why, but he does. So now he gets his own order of it at dinner. 

Here are foods that he will eat:

Cheese

cheese quesadilla

chips

cherries

puffs

refried beans

rice

waffles with butter and cinnamon

eggs

fruit loops

jelly sandwich

lagsana

apples

grapes

Those are the only ones I can think off of the top of my head right now. 

Tomorrow we head up to Birmingham. We decided to leave a few hours early so we can sight see. Although I looked it up and there isn't much to see there. So don't really now what we are going to do since John's CAT scan isn't until 4:20. We normally go to a few shopping areas, but we are so tired of it. We talked about going to a book store to just sit and Cade can at least walk around there. I wanted to go to a park, but it is normally about 10 degrees colder there than here. And tonight it is a low of 20! 

HMM...

I swear I wrote some blogs after Tuesday, but John's mom informed me that I hadn't! I have no idea where the others went! So I will try to fill everyone in with what has been going on. Which is not much. 

Today we went for a walk this afternoon. We made homemade pizza for dinner and it was soo good! We went to the commy this morning to get things for the next few weeks. I hope to not have to go back until we get home from vacation. Might have to go for a few things here and there. 

Yesterday we went to Dothan and got a few Christmas presents. Had Sonic for lunch and came home. Just been a nice relaxing weekend. 

Oh on our walk today it was eventful. We were about half way done when this puppy black lab ran up to us. It started playing with LAV and then started to follow us. It followed us all the way to the housing office. So we stopped there and called the MP's. While we were waiting the owners came up. Which is good and the MP was nice. If your dog gets lose the MP's will come, write a report and then take it to the stray place on base. When you claim it they sort of give you grief about it. Then the person in the Army has to go and tell their Commander about it. Sometimes they get in more trouble and sometimes not. But the MP was really nice and didn't write a report so the guy wont get in trouble. On top of it all the dogs collar get loose and lost, so he would have been in trouble for that as well.

Back Home

We just got back home a few minutes ago. We already gave Cade his bottle and put him to bed. He did very well this trip. Not much fussing and crying. We stopped in Montgomery and had dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings. 

Today wasn't that bad. Could have gone a lot worse. We got to the Kirklin Center on time and got in on time. The doctor came in and went over with us what he will be doing. He will cut out the dingle berry and cut a bigger hole around it, a cleaner one, so that the hole can heal and he can put a patch over it. He said some other things, but I don't really know what he was talking about. John does, so I will have to have him write it down so I can explain it better. Then we go to the nurse who makes the appointments and she made the surgery appointment again. Telling us it is November 20th at 1 PM. So as of right now we are driving up on the 19th because John still has to get a CAT scan, although they haven't told us what time. So if it is really early we will have to leave the 18th.

So we are sitting there while she is making the appointment and John asks if he will be pushed from that appointment. She said she cant guarantee that he wont. You should have seen the look on my face. John looked at me and then at her and he was like, no, I can not be kicked out of this spot too. I forgot what else he said but he made it very clear that this was going to happen or there would be repercussions to deal with. So if another skull based tumor comes up, he will get kicked out again! So right now we are pretty irritated. 

So then we had to go to see anistisa, which was at 330! And our last appointment was at 110! So I kindly asked if we could please be seen sooner and explained how we live so far, and poof we were in a out! We were on our way home by 315! So that was great after all the crap we have been though in the past few weeks. 

Until we got home tonight. Then I found a $600 personal property bill in our mail. How nice. We don't freaking even live there anymore! And they wont send us our tags! So I have to call tomorrow on that as well. 

I have so much to do tomorrow. I am going to go nuts. 

Long Day Hard

So today was a long long day for us. We got up and started getting ready. Had to take the dog to the boarders then go back to base to fill up with gas, its $2.05!! Then went out the other side of base and started our trip. I drove up this time. John read one of his space monkey books and Cade basically slept the entire time. 

So we get to Children's South at 1 P.M. (right on time) and when we walked in I noticed that his doctors name wasn't on the board. So I went up to the desk and they go oh she's at the main hospitals on Monday's. I looked at that woman and I think she could see the steam start to rise out of my ears. I said look, I got three phone calls to confirm this appointment. One was automated and said Children's South, the second was a live idiot who said Children's South and the third idiot didn't even say where, just said who was calling. So if you are going to freaking tell me three separate people told me the wrong place and now we can't get in, you better rethink that. I swear I have been dealing with nothing by morons in the past few weeks. Everyday I am stressed.

So she calls the hospital and asks if we can still get in and yes we can, but we need to get over there ASAP. So she told us how to get there. We get there and realize the stupid idiot didn't tell us where her office was in the hospital! We didn't even know his doctor had an office there. So then we end up in a wild goose chase all over the stupid place. Finally getting to where we need to go and running into two "sistas" with attitude. I thought to myself this can be a hill I die on. I was pissed. And then they so kindly asked me to fill out a comment survey. HEHE.

So we finally get back there. Cade is 74.6 cmm tall and weighs 21.7 lbs. WoHoo! That is great. I told her how some days it is just crazy and he pucks like he was never on meds and other days he is great. She says it will take awhile for him to outgrow it. So we just have to work with him. She said to stop feeding him orange/yellow foods altogether. Which I wasn't doing. I was giving him one a week to see if he could tolerate it. She said to stop and try again in a month. So when we get home I am going to have to go to my favorite store to take back a bunch. I asked about milk and she said that she will wait until Jan. Then we are to come up and he will have a milk allergy test to see if he still has an allergy to it. So I guess he is allergic to milk because that is what she is basically saying. I asked about how we are going to thickin it and she said we will still add rice to it. Not much else there though. Cade was really good and she is a really nice doctor. Listens to what we have to say and is really great with him.

After that we finally go to our hotel. We like to go to Hampton Inn Colonnade. They offer free-wifi in rooms, free breakfast and snacks in the afternoons. No where else does. You have to pay for wifi or no breakfast. The people here are really nice and accommodating and it is pretty central to all the places we like to and have to go. 

After we were back in the room for awhile we went to a new shopping area. Its called the Galleria. It is the biggest indoor shopping center in Birmingham. It was nice. We really were shopping for anything, but they have all the stores we would otherwise go to. So we just walked around for a while, feed Cade and then we went to California Pizza Kitchen for dinner. 

Of course we are back in the hotel now. What makes us mad is that we had to come up today for Cade and John has two appointments tomorrow and Tricare wouldn't cover an overnight stay. We are still working on trying to get reimbursed for the other trips, but aren't holding our breaths. It was a DONSA day for John today (day of no scheduled activity) so he didn't have to take off work and tomorrow is veterans day. So that sort of sucks because people are all getting together. John has two pre-op appointments and the last one is at 330. So we wont get home until 7 or 8. So that totally sucks for us. 

Alright, I am off. I am so tired and I can see that John is too even though he wont admit it. 

Nothing going...

Just as the title says, nothing really going on here. We to our "favorite" store today. We got a small mini fake tree to put up since we are not getting a real one this year. I have a few mini ordiments and it is fiber optic so we don't need lights for it. Can't wait to see what Cade does with it. 

Otherwise we didn't do anything else today and aren't planning on doing anything tomorrow either. Just getting laundry done for Monday so we have clothes to take with us to Birmingham. It is always colder there than it is here. 

"free" military health insurance.

A lot has transpired in the last three days. On Tuesday I went up to Lyster to speak with Managed Care about Cade going up to Birmingham again on Monday to get the travel reimbursement paperwork we need. The paperwork they should have sent us before we go up there to get reimbursed for our travels and out of pocket costs. I also had to talk to them about being on orders for John's surgery. I should have known things were not going to happen like they were suppose to. We are dealing with the military and our "free" healthcare here.

So first Ms. Tusberg tells us that there is nothing in the system saying that Cade has another appointment and because of that Tricare is going to deny us reimbursement again. She tells us that we will need to call Cade's doctor and ask them to fax a appointment slip to her office so she can file it. But it has to be done by Friday, since it is a weekend and we go Monday. So I call and explain to the employee who deals with the insurance companies what we need done and please do it ASAP because it is crucial we get the fax to the insurance company. So says it won't be an issue. I call Wednesday and ask Ms. Tusberg if it has been done and she says she has got nothing. So I call back and leave a voicemail. Then I call again yesterday and they said they have no record of me calling! So I asked them to transfer me to the person who deals with the insurance companies and as soon as that little twit picked up I knew it was here. And I lit a fire under her ass. I told her and said I was waiting on the phone for her to fax it right then and there and if she didn't she better hang up because I would be calling her supervisor next. She did. 

Then yesterday afternoon while helping Steph John gets a call from the nurse up at UAB who is in his ear doctors office. She asks John if he would be willing to give up his appointment for a brain based tumor that came up. She tells John the guy can wait, but it would be nice if they can get the guy in before the holidays. So John politety tells her no. Says that he has waited over three months now to get this done. It wasn't something John did, it was caused by malpractice by his flight surgeron and said no. She said that she would have to talk to the doctor and that the other option is to ask a patient who has surgery on Monday if he was willing to give up his spot to John. She told him she would call back. She does today.

She says that John doesn't have a say anymore in the matter. That they are taking his spot away and that she asked the other patient and he refused. She said that they are trying to get him in on Nov. 20th for surgery, but they are not sure yet because the doctor was going out for vacation the last two weeks in Nov. and doesn't know if they will be able to get him in until after the first of the year.

Thats it. I have played nice, and no more. I just got back from going up the Lyster. I went to the same lady who was helping us at first because neither John nor I knew who else to talk to about this. I told her I didn't know where else to go and told her what was going on. She went to get her supervisor who then said she didn't need to hear it and I need to talk to patient management. So then I get walked down to another office. And I tell Pam the entire story. How John's flight surgon put the hole in his ear drum, caused more than just a hole and how he left John in the office after he did this and went home! Leaving John there for 4 hours waiting. Finally when they were coming around locking up a nurse checking the room found John. 

Pam looked at me like I was crazy. And I told her I was dead serious. I told her the Army screwed my husband up and they need to fix him. Not later, now. We have talked to the nurse in UAB and we are getting no where. Now they need to fix the mistake they did. I said I am two seconds away from walking over to JAG and suing the flight surgeon and the nurse so you might want to do something now and not later. She said she understands where I am coming from and that we definitely have a case. I did tell her I understand it is Friday afternoon, but I do expect a call with a update on Monday. 

So we still have to go to Birmingham on Monday for Cade and stay until Tuesday because they still want John to have pre-op done. 

Thats all for now. I need to stop thinking about this before I go insane.

Don't tell me how easy it is to be a military family

I really hate it when people comment about how lucky we are to be in the military with all our "freebies". Please tell me what freebies there are, because me and a lot of other people are trying to figure this one out. We have to pay rent, we have to pay insurance, we have to pay for food, gas and everything else. Just like regular people. So please tell me where you get the freaking notion that we have it so well off. Do you realize that over half of military families qualify for WIC or food stamps. We do. And we are officers. Do you realize how horrible that is? People are putting their lives on the line for this nation and all the citizens of this nation can do is complain about how easy we have it. How is it easy to explain to your child that mommy/daddy will be gone for over a year, you will not see them, and in the end they may never come home. But I guess since we get "free" things its all ok.

I am beyond pissed AGAIN at tricare. So today I went with a friend to Lyster to get her meds. It didn't cost her anything. So I asked why it costs us $22 for my son's meds. She asked where we went and I said Walgreens. She asked why we didnt bring it on base and I told her because when we first got it we did and they turned us away saying they dont carry it. She asked what it was and I told her. She asked if we were referred by a PCM to a specialist and got it from him and I said yes. She said then we should go to the Tricare office down the hall and get it stamped. Then once it is stamped bring it back to the pharmacy and they will order it for us and then it will be covered 100%! WTF! why the hell dont people tell you this shit. Do you realize how much money Tricare has got out of us in the past six months because of people not informing us. We were civilans healthcare before this we have no clue how this crap works. Now I am wondering if they can reimburse us for it. Another battle to go through. 

so tired

Not much went on today. Went to Lyster (the "health clinic" on base) to deal with them and our trips to Birmingham and for John's surgery next week. Seems his doctor in Birmingham never sent the referral in. It takes on average 2 weeks for a referral to go through. With out his referral and authorization from Tricare/Humana if we go to Birmingham we will have to pay for it out of pocket. John has called three times leaving voice mails to the nurse in Birmingham and of course she hasn't replied to him about it. I went in seeking paperwork authorizing me to be John's responsible party since he has to be put under. They then noticed there was no authorization for the surgery in the first place. I just want to strangle these people!

Busy day

But not good busy. It all started with John waking me up at 5 when he tripped over the toy in the hallway. So I started to fall back asleep around 6 when Cade decided he didn't want to participate in day light savings. So he woke up crying. So I let him stay in there for a while hoping he would go back to sleep. Then all a sudden John walks in our room. He wakes me up and starts telling me about Steph. He said he went for him morning run and saw Steph on the lawn crying. She said that there was a waterfall in her house, so they walked in just in time to see the ceiling in the hallway cave in! The pipes in her ceiling busted flooding her entire house. She called housing and they said they couldn't do anything! So she called them back and told them the least they could do was turn the water off. So 40 minutes later they finally go there! So by 8 Cade and I were up for about an hour and there was a sea of cars on our street. Not to mention I have a cold that I just got Friday. And you know how colds are, they get worse everyday. So today is the worst I have felt. And I am not predicting to feel better until Thursday. 

Tomorrow I am helping Steph move her things. They said it will go faster if someone moves the kitchen. So I guess that is what we are doing. I also have to go to patient management and talk to them about getting the travel forms to go to Birmingham for Cade and about being the responsible party for John and getting the paper work for that for his surgery. Wait, aren't I always the responsible party for John? Hehe.

Day in the Park; Part 2

Day in the Park; Part 1

We went to the park today and had a picnic for lunch! It was so beautiful today. But I have so many pictures that I am going to have to do two posts because I can only upload 5 at a time. 

So we went to the park in Enterprise today. We brought homemade salsa, chips, sandwiches and lunch for Cade. It was so much fun. I even brought a sheet we could sit on. It was funny because there were others there too eating lunch. But they brought it from restaurants and only eat at the tables. So like John said we had a true traditional picnic. 

After that we let Cade crawl/walk around. He loved the grass and so did we since there was no fire ants anywhere that we could see! After that we went to the park and let Cade swing. He wasn't too thrilled about that. He kept making noises and grunting, just the same on the slide. I think its all the "negative" G-forces he doesn't like. He got to crawl around and walk again. He loves it there. There wasn't that many people on it today so we were glad for that. The part we go to is only for 2-5 year olds so sometimes it can get a bit crazy.

Otherwise we are ok. We all have colds right now. Funny how we get them the day after we all get the flu shot. So Cade is having a hard time eating right now and throws a fit whenever he does. We are having toasted rav tonight for dinner! And it's ready!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3568588351038276638&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5139574037904602073&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3069973074252499811&hl=en

Here are a few videos that I haven't had time until today to upload. Hope you like them.

Today we braved the commy and went there ON pay day! It wasn't horrible and was ok since John went with us. After that we went to Dothan to look for a heavier coat of Cade. It does get cold here sometimes and he has two lightweight jackets, but then we forget he will need a heavier one for when we go home. We finally find one at Babies R Us. I am not thrilled with it, but it will work for the time we need it. Now I just need to find a hat and gloves. I found the hat I want at Target, but they only had sizes 2t. And they never restock their boy items. So I will either have to order it off line or find something somewhere else. Although I have looked everywhere else already. 

Cade is very tired right now. We decided to give him a bath earlier and John asked if I wanted to sit in on it, and all Cade did was cry! He hated me being in there. It makes me happy that Cade is such a daddy's boy, but sad at the same time. But I know that I get him all day to myself during the week and I love that fact.