Further astonishment at the failure of our healthcare system

And other rants...

I started paying taxes when I was 14 at a summer job and worked throughout the rest of my high school years, in my senior year working two part time  jobs. I've worked consistently and hard ever since - the longest time without a job before I became disabled was after being laid off when the company I was working for went bankrupt & I collected unemployment for 5 months. I didn't linger on public assistance and the only thing I feel entitled to is receiving the benefits that I paid into the social security system - it is social security INSURANCE  after all.

in·sur·ance noun
1. a practice or arrangement by which a company or government agency provides a guarantee of compensation for specified loss, damage, illness, or death in return for payment of a premium.

But instead, the government took  5 long years to finally approve my disability claim, denying it again and again despite multiple doctors disagreeing with them. How many people can afford to pay their bills for 5 years without an income? I couldn't. This resulted in multiple evictions and a credit rating that was so bad I couldn't even open a credit union account. I sold everything I could, including, eventually, my car.  When I was finally approved for disability benefits, every penny that I received from food stamps over the years I spent waiting was paid back - and I am ok with that.  Although, that money (About $6,000 I think)  would have been enough to get a car again and become more independent from the government but instead it was given back to the system - and there are countless examples of  how wasteful the government is with funds  (according to this source nearly $30 billion was wasted in 2013 - that's billion with a B!) Yet, so many people complain than the needy & "entitled" people are draining the system and the cause of our deficit. *sigh*

When my monthly disability check kicked in, I no longer qualified to receive AHCCCS, despite there being a 24 month waiting period from the governments "date of disability" (which doesn't start until 6 months after the date the Doctors declare permanent disability)  for medicare to kick in. So, for 30 months, someone who the government acknowledges is disabled (and therefore, logically, in need of ongoing and expensive medical services) is left to fend for themselves - and more than likely with horrible credit.  My situation is far from unique, the SSA says it takes an average of about 2 years for a claim to be approved - that is if they approve it the first time, which basically only happens any faster when you are on your death bed.

Lack of affordable health care is still preventing me from getting the treatment I need and I am far from the only one.  In 1998 this woman was charged more than $50,000 for one of the procedures recommended for me by the neurosurgeon- a laminectomy, and in 2008 this guy avoided the $75,000-$100,000 it would have cost to get the multi-level lumbar disc replacement surgery that the  the orthopedic surgeon recommended for me - by being part of a medical study for the experimental discs. Those are just two handiest examples of countless others going through this or worse.

 I finally (with much assistance from Kendra at Representative Ron Barber's office) got medicaid pushed through and back dated to January 1st, 2014 (which has little impact considering the surgeons wouldn't even schedule an appointment until I had Insurance). I finally got in to see the spinal surgeon on February 24 and on March 1st my medicare kicked in.  Apparently this happens automatically (and they deduct the premium automatically) if you don't mail them back the card saying you don't want it. The fact that I can not get to the mailbox in my wheelchair makes that difficult and now if I cancel it there is a penalty. I don't know what the penalty would be yet because the number that is supposed to answer these questions has had a message for the last 2 days stating they are unable to take calls due to technical difficulties and the day before that they hung up on me several times after waiting on hold.  There is  program that if I can work they will let me keep both insurances and pay the premium. They're main # is also unavailable due to technical difficulties. I called their non-toll free number & left a message.*

Having medicare makes receiving health care much LESS attainable in my circumstances - the math of someone on a fixed income (not just me, but true for so many marginalized populations, your parents and grandparents, disabled veterans) paying 20% of their surgeries and hospitalizations, not to mention monthly prescription costs and specialist co-pays....granted, math isn't my strong suit, but because the premium is 10% of my income , my rent is 50%  of my income,  and since I'm not medically cleared to lift more than 5 pounds I have to pay to have groceries delivered - not cheap, plus utilities and I do choose to spend on internet, but no cable. As it is, I was living paycheck to paycheck and now that the premium has been deducted automatically, this means calls to the utility company to request an extension and that the groceries I bought at the beginning of the month have  to last until my April check comes in.

With a lot of effort I can shower twice a week now - up from once a week. Still can't do laundry. I have 4 pair of pants that fit enough not to fall down too much and they haven't been clean in awhile. Since I got out of the hospital on January 27th to be exact. A friend and neighbor went out of her way to insure that I came home to clean dishes & laundry in addition to taking care of my dear Charly & Glitch while I was in the hospital.

My doctor referred me to a home health care place which can provide medical equipment to make maneuvering in a wheel chair easier, but also a portable ramp that would allow me to traverse the steps and go for a "roll". The other important thing that has been Doctor recommended since last April - shower bars. I managed to spend my savings on a shower chair, cane and grabber, but that in addition to my chiropractic bills & the veterinarian bills for Charly  have left me without the option to pay for those things out of pocket anymore. If it hadn't been for a friend giving me a wheelchair then I would be much worse off.  But the bottom line is,  had it been handled appropriately, I would have had my insurance on January 1st and would have made some actual progress - I think I could have at least gotten the recommended epidural shot before it switched to Medicare since it took about a month to schedule through Indian Health (after many, many calls - they originally set it for August and even though I would have to go to a medical center 2 hours away for the procedure, they could set it up 6 weeks sooner than through the Orthopedic Institute.  There is a fair chance that the epidural shot would relieve enough of the symptoms to delay having surgery, although it wouldn't solve any of the structural damage to the discs, it would reduce the nerve inflammation enough that it wouldn't be compressing the nerve that limits my ability to stand and I could regain a decent amount of function.

The spinal surgeon confirmed what my PCP told me, that the feeling I have already lost in my left leg is gone forever and there is nothing they can do to get it back. Eventually the compression of the L4 sciatic nerve  would cause the same permanent damage to the nerve that allows me to stand (which is already shaky & my leg drops like a ton a bricks with no warning). Hmmm, permanent nerve damage that prevents standing or feeling -what's that called again? Oh, yeah, permanent paralysis!  

According to ALTCS (a program for long term health care issues designed to help people who fall off of medicaid but still have medical needs)  I don't qualify for help from them either because , although I can not safely reach or stand things in the kitchen to prepare  food the representative sat in my living room and said "It doesn't matter if you can't reach food to prepare it, as long as you can lift a spoon from the plate to your mouth" they can't cover me.

(Luckily?) I rarely have visitors and of the handful (well, I think 5 would be a handful and I've had four regular visitors, so handful-ish) that I have had over the last 6 weeks , I've known two for a decade and two for more than 6 years. Thankfully, they care enough *not* to care how dirty and smelly my clothes are.

I've lost one visitor for good - the one who called me "Love Bug" and as hard as it is to further diminish  my social circle, (and my ego boosts) he had been lying about a pretty important thing - the state of his marriage. When I figured that important detail out everything changed. As of yesterday I told him not to contact me anymore and go to counseling with his wife. I am SO ready to break the pattern of falling for unavailable men and I look forward to the day when I can easily go out in the world, which I'm convinced will drastically increase my chances of meeting one versus not being stuck in my apartment.

One of my neighbors has been walking my dog for the last week which is great, Charly needs to get out and I certainly can't take her. The challenge has been that the time she can walk her is about 10am and I'm still not getting to sleep before dawn-ish.

*Got a call back and I spoke to a representative about the "Freedom to Work" (FTW) program  - which would allow me to keep both AHCCCS (our state version of medicaid) AND medicare. It would also cover my premium & whatever my co-insurance would be. However, she wouldn't give me a minimum amount of hours I need to work to qualify, and it took several minutes of asking the same question - how do I know how much tax to pay- to get an answer. She kept talking around my questions and told me I would have to estimate it, finally she said that I had to pay 10% of whatever income I earned to the IRS in quarterly taxes - submit the ledger of my hours, money order for paying 3 months of taxes and the month after I began paying taxes on this income then the FTW benefits would kick in. She did confirm that the book contract I signed doesn't count as employment and said there was no assistance/guidance to help people become self-employed (which I had heard there was).

TL;DR:
If I could get the treatment I need then I would be able to work enough to qualify to get the medical treatment I need to be able to work.  Quite the catch-22 the system has in place.

Comfortably Numb...

I ran away once, when I was about 9. I rode my pink bike and  I brought Peanut butter and bread with me. It was early on a Sunday morning  and my father was in town. I left before the sun came up, I remember watching the sun rise as I rode away, with the hopes that I would never have to go back. I rode my bike further than I ever had. I was on major streets and I wasn’t sure what I was doing. A man offering car washes yelled to me it would be “half price for the half pint”. I felt self conscious and even more unsure of what I was going to do. I had nowhere to go and no one to trust. 

Things were getting bigger and scarier so I rode back home, praying the whole way that my parents were still asleep in bed so that I  wouldn’t  get in trouble. I really thought that somehow I could make it on my own, I thought I was strong enough and would know what to do once I left but after realizing that I couldn't even deal with major intersections sufficiently, I hesitated. My hopes of escape drifted away from my heart like fog in a damp breeze. My only hope at that point was to get back before they realized I was gone, so my already tired legs pedaled faster. I tried to come in very quietly and resign myself to things never getting better; the only way I could go on is to close my heart – not just to hope but to everything. Nothing mattered any more and I felt hopeless and that I would never find a way out of this prison.

There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship smoke on the horizon
You are only coming through in waves
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying
When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown
The dream is gone
And I have become
Comfortably numb.

~Lyrics from Pink Floyd- Comfortably Numb 

My parents were already awake when I got back, and there was not an ounce of the heartwarming welcomes so often portrayed in film and television. They weren't happy to see me and it didn’t matter. I felt numb and dead inside, which made the beating my father gave me irrelevant (until the next day when it still hurt to sit down).  My mother laughed at me and said with a sneer “I knew you’d come back”.

My family of origin told me from a very young age that I was "too sensitive" so I tried to suppress that sensitivity and those feelings. I have since come to learn in therapy that this is a common reaction to my situation:

One of the greatest “aha” moments of my training as a therapist came when I learned about the concept of the assigned “sick one.” In unhealthy family systems, it is often the most sensitive child who takes on this role. This child registers what’s broken in the family, and simply cannot bear that awareness. She or he tries countless ways of calling for help—many of which are convulsive, immature and unhelpful—strengthening the family’s case that the sick one is the problem. Yet in many ways, the sick one is the wise one, even though she or he probably feels broken, weak, or constantly angry. It’s the healthy family that finally becomes brave enough to listen to the painful callings of the “sick one.” When that happens, the family can begin to heal.

Love or Hyperbole?

I want to get back in the habit of writing regularly, even if it's not for the book. I'm hoping that doing so will help me get to a place where I can return to writing the book and still be able to sleep at night but I'm guessing as to how to get there...

Exhausting day so far - had my second counseling session (on 2 hours sleep) and I really like this therapist. She's kind, encourages me to be gentle with myself (especially while I'm going through this) asks good questions and from everything I have seen so far - she knows her stuff!! She's big on explaining the scientific and biological reasons  that our minds work the way they do - which happens to be one of my very favorite topics! Unfortunately she finishes her internship there next month so I will have to switch to another therapist. This was standard practice at another agency I used to go to,  the turnover was so high that in the last 2 years  I was receiving therapy  (or trying to) I didn't make it past a third appointment with any of them because they had quit or transferred - and I don't blame them, that agency was faulty on so many levels. However, the  agency I'm going to now has therapists certified in EMDR and  I've been wanting to try that for years, so they are going to try to get me with a therapist that specializes in that. 

 Had a surprise visit from J. this afternoon.  I told him I was struggling and could use a "totally non sexual hug" the next time he was in the neighborhood. (He is an ex- so I wanted to be clear)  He made arrangements to leave work early and was here  less than 2 hours after I texted , which I wasn't expecting! It was a great surprise, despite the fact that I was on the phone and missed the text that he was on his way so I answered the door a mess - no makeup, bags under my eyes, etc.  Because of the way he has always treated me, I don't feel self-conscious with me. We've reconnected recently and I have really enjoyed the conversations, his insight and his hugs. He "gets" me;  he can look at my face and read my mind so well. I think I do the same; I "get" him - we are both  complicated, multi-faceted, and natural chameleons. He not only knows how to give me what I need emotionally - but actually WANTS to! 

Jennifer Aniston knows what I mean:

   He has a very comforting and nurturing energy. I opened the door and as soon as he saw the look in my eyes, his face collapsed in sadness and he gave me a big hug. It's difficult for me to cry in front of others. I can discuss most of the horrific things that happened to me without even tearing up, usually. Every once in awhile a tear or two will fall in the company of a select few close friends, but silently...We came in, I sat on the couch and he sat in my wheelchair. He has many gifts and one of them is with silence. When he looks at me I see  the power of  honesty, unconditional love  and support in his eyes; it made it ok to let the wall down and the tears came rushing forth. A phrase I heard recently from S. that really applies - he is really good at "holding the (emotional) space for me" - so that I can then experience whatever it is I'm going through. 

 He knelt in front of the couch and hugged me, ( the rest of the couch was covered in paperwork) comforted me, held me and let me cry on his shoulder for quite awhile, which I really needed. In previous conversations he has told me how much he cares for me or how special I am to him but today he looked me in the eyes and told me he loved me, cherished me and would do anything for me.  I don't think I believe the last part, but appreciate the sentiment. He  still calls me "love" or "love bug"...*sigh* 

It's been about  six or seven years since we dated and we've both changed a lot. He said today that I know him better than anyone, because I've known him through  many stages of spiritual growth. He said he feels he is about to go through another spiritual shift and he's going out of the country next week to a place that he said has always been a clarity catalyst and has changed his life every time. I'm curious to know what clarity it brings him this time - I love watching people (myself included!) uncover the truths they have always known, but forgotten. My afternoon left me in the mood for a romantic comedy,  tonight's selection - "Hitch". 

Writing and waning...

"If you bring forth what is within you, what is within you will save you. 

If you do not bring forth what is within you, 

what is within you will destroy you."

  ~Gospel of Thomas

The secrets within me are indeed destroying me and the time has come to bring them forth. I just signed a contract for some of my writings to be published - in an actual, printed on paper- hold it in your hands- feel the weight of it in your arms- book. I've been writing for years,  but mostly for myself and  never with a deadline as important as this. I knew it would be challenging but I didn't realize the degree of difficulty that would be involved. I had been nightmare free for about 3 months, which  is the longest I've been without them in more than a decade.  After only a few weeks of recounting the realities that have been recurring in my nightmares for more than 20 years I stopped being able to sleep at night or even in bed at all. For the last 2 and a half weeks I haven't been able to fall asleep before the sunrise, usually about 5 or 6 am but sometimes I'm up until as late (or early?) as 9am. 

Countless times I catch myself having to unclench my hands and my jaw or have to remind myself to breathe. Which is difficult when it feels like a boa constrictor has permanently set up residence around my ribcage. My shoulders refuse to stay at shoulder level and instead insist on climbing as close to my ears as they can. I try to  distract myself with movies or games in hopes that it will help me relax. My body is alert and awake while being simultaneously exhausted and much more so at night that during the day. When I'm finally to the point that I'm ready to attempt sleep having a favorite movie on helps me be able to close my eyes. The audio helps keep me anchored in the present and when I have a flashback or intrusive memory I can open my eyes and hurl my mind into the movie.  Eventually I close my eyes again and hopefully fall asleep without another flashback, but most nights this cycle repeats several times.  

Then there's the fact that I have been nauseated for at least part of every single day for as far back as I can remember. Doctors haven't found a medical reason and have prescribed 4 different anti-nausea medications over the years - none of which had any effect except when relieving the nausea caused by morphine in the hospital. Today it was 10:30pm before I realized  I hadn't eaten anything since getting up at noon. I managed to drink some milk and entirely too many glasses of Dr Pepper but the thought of swallowing food ...ugh....not happening today at least.  Once or twice a week a particular food will sound appetizing but after a few bites it usually doesn't seem worth the effort of overcoming not only the nausea but also the craniofacial issues, which are myriad. 22 screws in my jaw and a septum that was mangled in the jaw surgery and later crushed in 2 separate car accidents. Despite the original septoplasty and revision septoplasty where they placed bone grafts to hold open my nasal passages, I can barely draw in air through my nose. Luckily I'm usually eating home alone & my pets have yet to complain about me eating with my mouth open.

"How Secrets Sabatge:
Although we encounter secrets in every area of life, they are perhaps most destructive when kept in the home. Families are support systems; our identity and ability to form close relationships with others depend upon the trust and communication we feel with loved ones. If family members keep secrets from each other--or from the outside world--the emotional fallout can last a lifetime.   A person who seeks to undo the damage caused by family secrets must accept that revealing a secret is not a betrayal but a necessity ...the secret wedges a boulder between those who know it and those who don't."   

I've been questioned by extended  family as to why I don't speak to my parents, even scolded for not doing so. I have always been afraid of answering that question honestly because the reaction of the other person is so unpredictable and my honest answer would make me feel very vulnerable. There are so many members of my extended family that I would love to have relationships with but with this secret wedging " a boulder between between those who know it and those who don't.", it is impossible to establish a wholly authentic relationship.  Those who don't know have a different version of family history than I do and therefore have an entirely different expectation of my role in familial interactions. 

I went into foster care because because I couldn't handle the secrets anymore. When I went into foster care I had already told my best friend and my boyfriend everything- they were safe to tell - but I wasn't able to tell anyone else that I had been molested on a regular basis for years. In court ordered therapy they had me take 6 hours of tests. When the Dr discussed my results, it was with me, my brother and sister in law (who I was living with in kinship care by that point) in the room. So when he said the tests indicated I had been repeatedly sexually abused, I wasn't able to tell them the truth. I told my mother the first time it happened and she didn't believe me, I had no reason to think my brother or sister in law would be any different. I told my brother and sister many years later after I had moved to the other side of the country. It wasn't well received by either of them so I stopped telling family.

"Since individual well-being takes a backseat to group fidelity, being the family member who challenges internal secrets is difficult. Taking the risk of opening a long-held secret to friends and loved ones may seem like an act of betrayal. The anticipated catastrophe of exclusion from the family stops many people--often long after leaving home."

The day I went into Foster Care

I hadn’t stopped crying in three days. The welts left on my backside from four nights ago (with her usual weapon of choice -  the turquoise fly-swatter with a metal handle) are almost gone and it doesn’t hurt to sit on  the chairs at school now.  Those three days have been a haze. My boyfriend, Phillip and my best friend Aimii know what happened -all of it- and they are the only ones I can hang out with now. I sit in the back of my classes and put my head down, because the tears just won’t stop. Thankfully, I'd perfected crying silently long ago. That day at the beginning of class, I had just settled my head onto my desk, nestled in Phillips brown leather bomber jacket, when Ms. Blasingame called me outside. I was only a freshman, so I hadn’t known her long, but she was already my favorite teacher. I admired her for her differences - when she talked to any of the kids, she really saw us and she really listened to what we had to say. She was also the first woman I knew who identified as a Ms. not a Miss and who made a choice not to shave her legs or arm-pits which was a social convention I had yet to question at the age of 13. 

The exterior hallway was quiet except for an occasional student slamming his locker and scrambling to class. I watch them out of the corner of my eye, not wanting to be seen. She asked if I was OK and I shook my head, but no words came out. I tried to control my breathing, it was becoming ragged, there was so much I was struggling to keep inside- too much. I don’t remember much of the conversation, but at the end she suggested I talk to my guidance counselor, I went inside, gathered my stuff and my pass to the office, not knowing when or if I would return. 

My counselor, Mr. Jones, and I had never had a deeper conversation than a hello in the halls but he seemed like a nice guy, he had a kind smile. It felt like a long walk to his office and the tears were free-falling now despite my desperate attempts to pull it together. I didn’t know what I was going to say to his secretary as to why I was there. I didn’t want to get in trouble, but I couldn’t continue like this, that I knew. Apparently, Ms. Blasingame had called ahead and Mr Jones was waiting for me. I went into his office with my head down, trying to hide the tears and it was a relief when the door finally closed behind us; I didn’t want to be seen crying.

I wanted to tell him everything. Maybe he would believe me even though my mother didn’t. But what if he didn’t and he made me go back? I knew exactly what I would do if he sent me back...I had checked my mom’s closet the night before and the gun was still in the blue bank bag on the top shelf, but I didn’t want it to come to that. So, I decided to tell him about the beatings, since there was still proof of that on my body and hoped that would be enough. I was told often at home that I had nothing to cry about (usually followed by “I’ll give you something to cry about!”) and now that I told my mother it was against the law to beat your children she would reply that I “didn’t know what a real beating was”.  

Mr Jones didn’t say much, he just listened and didn’t get mad at me, which I was conditioned to expect. I saw the same look in his eyes that was in Ms. Blasingame’s - concern; he actually did care. He said he needed to contact some people to help with this - the police and social services. This terrified me; I knew that I would pay for getting my mom in trouble so I finally told him what I would do if I had to go back. Saying the words out loud was like unleashing a torrential downpour of tears and emotion. I hadn’t even told Phillip my back up plan; his dad was a cop and I knew Phillip would tell him. Mr. Jones' face registered the words slowly and I could tell he knew I meant it, this was not an idle threat. The relief that came with finally being taken seriously was immeasurable. He said it would take awhile for the cops and social worker to get there; I asked if I could go to the bathroom while we were waiting. Everyone was in class so the bathroom was empty. I fixed my makeup the best I could and then stood on the toilet to look in the mirror at my back, my but and my legs to see where the welts were so I could show them easily. I returned to the office and our "on campus"police officer was waiting for me. We sat in Mr Jones' office and I told the officer everything I had told Mr. Jones, this time without as much sobbing. Some time later that afternoon the social worker showed up - Jacquelyn Mitchard was the name on the card she gave me but she told me I could call her Jackie. She was shorter than I was with  black hair slicked back into a bun and a few loose curls for bangs. She had a round face, with dark freckles across the bridge of her nose.

Now, the police officer, Mr. Jones, Jackie and I were all crammed into Mr. Jones' office and I had to tell Jackie everything I had told the others. She sat in the chair next to mine and angled it toward me. I was OK at the beginning but I started crying again as I was getting to the hardest part. She reached over and gently put her hand on my back, rubbing it comfortingly; this made saying it even harder. Harder on a few levels - this was a level of connection with an adult that was unfamiliar to me; the kindness and concern that these strangers were showing me confirmed what I had long felt - the way my family treated me was not the way everyone treated kids. My emotions were the one area of my life I had managed to gain control of and I was afraid if I lost that tiny measure of self-control I would erupt like a volcano. The kindness in Jackie's eyes and her warm hand on my back gently encouraged me to continue and I finally said it, being intentionally blunt so they knew I was serious "I can't live there anymore, I won't, not even for a day. If you send me back then I will just blow my brains out with the gun." Jackie had tears in her eyes and such compassion written all over her face. She said something comforting, assuring me it was going to be OK , that I wasn't going back and called me "Honey". I liked that, it sounded nice.

There was apparently a lot of paper work needed before Jackie and I left, we were there until after school was out and most of the kids and office staff were gone. We rode in her car to her office downtown to fill out more paperwork. She sang along to music in the car and smiled at me a lot on the way. It was a long walk through the parking lot to the huge building. She led me through different corridors until we arrived at her desk. It felt like everyone was looking at me, I didn't see any other kids there but the adults we walked past smiled and most of them said hello to me and Jackie. After almost an hour we went to a hospital in a scary neighborhood, it was night now and it was busy, many of the people hanging around the front door were proudly displaying their red "Blood" gang colors. I learned in Junior High that wearing red or blue could easily get you "jumped" and was glad I wasn't wearing either that day. We walked all the way through the ground floor of the hospital to a separate building behind it. It was blindingly bright inside, bare white walls and a white linoleum floor. Jackie explained to me that the Dr's needed to talk to me to see how they could help and to make sure I wouldn't hurt myself. I promised her that as long as I didn't go back home I wouldn't hurt myself. But, the Doctors were the ones who needed to decide, she said, and that she would be back either way. While I was being checked out she would go to my house to get some clothes for me. She asked if I wanted anything else - I asked for one of my teddy bears. Then the nurse took me to an exam room and locked the door behind them as they left. I sat on a raised exam table for quite awhile before anyone came in. It was hours later that a determination was reached that I was only a "danger to self" if I was returned to parental custody and therefore was now in CPS custody. 

Jackie returned as promised and had a black garbage bag with some of my things in it and we headed to my first foster home. I asked if she saw my mom when she went and if my mom was mad at me. She said not to worry about that, and tried to assure me that I hadn't done anything wrong. Most days I hated my mom, but I still didn't want her to be mad at me. Then she said she had taken a look around the house while she was there and couldn't find any food, she looked over at me in the passenger seat and waited for a response. I stared silently into my lap. She continued, with a confused and frustrated "there was NO food in that fridge, only ice in the freezer.... girl, what did you eat?!" I didn't know what to say...My mother had told me years before that with my brother and sister gone (they were 13 and 10 years older, respectively) there was "no point in cooking meals for just two people". 

Once or twice a month we had fast food or a "take 'n' bake" pizza but mainly I ate whatever I could fix, often peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or when we had the ingredients I made a peanut butter, butter and sugar sandwich that my sister taught me to make. I was the one responsible for baking birthday cakes in the family, so I knew how to do that and often ended up eating leftover cake for breakfast and again for dinner.
But I didn't tell Jackie any of that, instead I just mumbled "I dunno". She didn't push me on it and changed the subject. 

They found a foster home that was in my school district, so I wouldn't have to change schools but I wouldn't be going back for at least a few days. By the time we got there, all the other kids were in bed, the foster mom was sleepy-eyed and in a robe and the dad was already in bed. I was ushered into a dark room  and pointed toward "my" bed with my hefty bag of clothes dragging behind me. I looked back at Jackie standing in the light of the hall near the front door, remembering at least a dozen questions I had forgotten to ask her, desperately wanting to think of a reason she shouldn't leave. She could read me pretty well already because she assured me that she would be back tomorrow, that it had been a long day and said I could use some rest. I walked the rest of way into the room in the dark and when I reached the bed the foster mom softly said "Good Night" and closed the door. Almost immediately, I heard movement in the other bed and a head popped up and called itself "Francesca"; she was about my age and very friendly. My fear of sleeping and waking up in the same room with someone I've never met subsided. We talked in darkness for hours about our "real" families, she told me about her past foster homes and said this home was a "really good one", but compared to the other places she had been, that was not very reassuring. She went into detail about the three boys and four other girls in the house and eventually, I drifted off to sleep...

Foster Care Scammer (Part One)

Recently I discovered a Face Book page called "Foster Care Kids Need Love Too" (FCKNLT) supposedly dedicated to improving the lives of children in Foster Care. The description they posted covers just about everything:

"Foster Care Kids Need love Too® provides community education, public policy/advocacy and direct services for children and youth who have been removed from the care of their parents to the supervision of the state. The organization recruits and sustains volunteers who serve in public and private agencies or work on projects designed to enhance the lives of foster, homeless, transitional and incarcerated children and youth."

As someone who once was one of those children, I'm a firm believer that they need all the help they can get. As I read through the articles and posts I came across this:  

"We make sure to provide them with the best quality of education for their mental growth; we provide the best food to our children to give them a healthy lifestyle; we provide them with the best medical facilities; and all this very rightly so, they are our children after all who will take the mantel of running this nation tomorrow, all this is their right and all of this will be provided by any parent worth their salt."

I'm not even a parent and this pissed me off. I absolutely agree that children are our most precious resource and they deserve all of this. However, in a country where so many are struggling financially (where the long term unemployment rate was essentially unchanged at 4.1 million in November 2013) and that has turned healthcare into a for-profit business I think this is an inaccurate generalization. 

But it gets worse.. Their attempt to guilt people into donating: 

"Think for a moment that just because they did not have a person in their life to guide them, these young minds which could have been put to great use of the civilization have gone rotten at the cruel hands of the unforgiving society."

By any accepted definition of the word it is offensive.
rot·ten

 [rot-n]  Show IPA

adjective, rot·ten·er, rot·ten·est.

1. decomposing or decaying; putrid; tainted, foul, or bad-smelling.

2. corrupt or morally offensive.

3. wretchedly bad, unpleasant, or unsatisfactory; miserable: a rotten piece of work; a rotten day at the office.

4. contemptible; despicable: a rotten little liar; a rotten trick.

5. (of soil, rocks, etc.) soft, yielding, or friable as the result of decomposition.

 My mind has not "gone rotten" as a result of my experiences and to perpetuate this idea is not only hurtful to those of us who have survived but potentially damaging to the kids still going through foster care without anyone to guide them.  The closer I looked the more circumspect this site was. I looked through their many "articles" on facebook as well as on their webpage and they all appeared to be copied and pasted from other legitimate articles, without any credit to the author.

I'm a member of several FB groups for "Former Fosters" or "Alumni" (as we call ourselves) and I posted in there to find out if anyone actually knew the organization or the person behind it.  No one had ever met him or could list a single thing he/the organization has EVER done for foster kids.  So I dug a little deeper. The address is in Tallahassee, FL but it is a residential apartment building. On their Twitter page  they state they are a non profit organization, but there is no listing of them under exempt organizations with the IRS or the even the Florida Corporation Commission.  I was just looking under the organizations name and his personal name but just to be sure I asked for more info and got this reply:

"We do have a tax exempt EIN number our number is 46-2257215 thank you and god bless. Also you can call the IRS for any information you have 'Drawing Success'"

However, this number isn't listed with the IRS or FCC either. Here are the pages I have found so far by Adam Purnell, who listed himself as the Founder of FCKNLT:

https://www.facebook.com/KontentOfKharacter

https://www.facebook.com/fostercarekidsneedlovetoo

https://www.facebook.com/fostercarekids.../friends

https://www.facebook.com/purnell.titan?fref=pb...

Foster Care Kids Need Love Too

Then someone posted that another Alumni DID know Adam so I contacted the 3rd party directly and had quite the interesting conversation...

Ghosts of Christmas Past...

By the time I was 11 so much hatred had boiled up inside of me because of the abuse and neglect, that my mother and I fought constantly. During one such fight, she was hanging up the Christmas lights on the house and bitching about how if my father hadn’t left us then she wouldn’t have to be doing this. “It was his job after all!” to take care of his wife and kids, etc, etc. It had rained recently and was going to rain again so I think this contributed to her need to rush. So, me arguing with and yelling at her while she was on a ten-foot ladder probably wasn’t helpful. After a particularly heated exchange I went back inside and slammed the door. I heard something a few minutes later that caused me to go outside but I don’t remember or have blocked out what the noise was. Maybe a scream, a crack or just the ladder falling over…

The winters where I grew up were damp and it was cold that night. When combined with what I saw in front of me as I swung the heavy front door open, it  felt like being dunked in a bucket of ice water. My mother was lying on the sidewalk leading up to our front porch,, the ladder toppled over in the wet garden bed and the Christmas lights dangling unfinished. She was conscious but not moving, she told me to go get our neighbor Helen, a very sweet woman who lived next door. Helen called 911 from our kitchen phone. I think I was the one who called my brother; he was out with my sister and one of our cousins and they all came over.

The ambulance and fire-truck lights soon filled the empty space of the dark night sky as the neighbors started appearing, gathering around our house and it seemed like our yard was full of people. The paramedics were asking my mom questions as I stood silently with my siblings. I can still hear her feisty answers: “Ma’am, how old are you?” “Too damn old!” “How much do you weigh?” “Too damn much!”

I was told to ride in the ambulance because my brothers car was full, but I wanted to get a book first because I figured we would be at the hospital a while and reading was the only “coping” skill I had. I ran to my room and stood in front of my pink and purple bookshelf unable to decide which book, since someone had said “just ONE!”. I don’t know how long it was before someone came in my room - and told me the ambulance was waiting on me. It was an awkward ride to the hospital, sitting in the front seat in silence.

The paramedic who was driving turned on the overhead light for me so I could read on the drive.  I mumbled a "thank you" and stared into my blurry book the rest of the way as my tears overflowed onto the page.  I wasn’t at the hospital for that long, I spent the night with my brother & his wife and they drove me to school the next morning. My mother was in the hospital for 3 days, she had fallen about 10 feet, landing on her head first, and when she came home she was different. Her vision was damaged temporarily, she lost some long-term memory and became an evangelical Christian…