Medicare and Social Security

At the end of my last post, I griped about the increase in health insurance and how I might need to consider getting a second job to make up for the additional deduction coming out of my paycheck to pay for the insurance. If you didn’t read that post, the Cliff Notes version is that there was an increase in our health insurance and starting January 1st, roughly 27% of my paycheck will go towards health insurance.

A couple of people have reached out to us and said that we should look into Medicare or Social Security Disability Insurance for James. Stacy made some phone calls and get this: we either make too much money, or we have too much money in the bank to qualify for either of those programs. Are you freaking kidding me! I feel like we’re just scrapping by, and we make too much money? We have too much money in the bank? Yeah, because we have a disabled child that has some pretty significant medical issues. A lot of that money is put aside for him for medical expenses, supplies, and things that we think will make his life easier and that are not covered by insurance.

There is a way around the income or having too much money in the bank barriers. Stacy and I could get divorced. Because I work full-time, James would live with Stacy, who is unemployed, because he needs around the clock care. If James was living with an unemployed single mother, then he should be able to qualify for either Medicare or Social Security. Stacy actually knows of people that have gotten divorced in order to get government assistance for their disabled child. I’ll be honest here. I do not like this option. When we got married, we took a vow. In sickness and in health. That vow should not only apply to husband and wife. It should also apply to their kids. I am not sure what we are going to do here.

School

In school this week James was assigned the job of Creature Caretaker. That means he gets to take care of the class guinea pig. He needs to make sure it has enough food and water. I’m not sure if he needs to clean up after him, too, but that might be part of the job. We’re James’ caretakers and we have to clean up his poops, so I guess being the caretaker of the guinea pig would mean that James would have to clean up its poops, right?

James continues to impress us with his abilities. He is working so hard this year. We are so proud of how strong he is getting. In the video below he is holding his head up watching a Miranda Lambert video. YouTube flagged it for a copyright violation because it includes a Miranda Lambert song but would still let me upload it if I either edited out the song or muted the video completely. I chose to let them edit out the song. Hopefully that’s good enough and they won’t pull the video down.

Reaction to a Vaccine?

Yesterday we took James for a routine checkup with the pediatrician. He weighed in at 40 pounds and is 39.5 inches long. Most people would say that he’s a growing boy, but this is starting to become a problem for us. You see, James doesn’t have the ability to grab onto us when we hold him or lift him like normal kids do. His muscle abnormalities make him kind of like a limp noodle. He is basically a 40-pound sack of potatoes. He is only four years old and is nowhere near done growing yet. What happens when he is 50, 60, or even 100 pounds? My back hurts just thinking about that.

In addition to the height and weight check, he also got a dose of the polio vaccine. We’re not positive, but we think he might have a reaction to the vaccine. Today he’s been a bit irritable, high heartrate, low sats, loose stool, and a slight fever. Hopefully the next post won’t include a trip to the emergency room, or a hospital stay. If you don’t want to wait until the next post to find out how James is doing, keep an eye on his Facebook page for any updates.