Information Please...
I really dislike going to a place to do something and getting half the information that I need. So, for a few years now I have been taking care of my mom and someone told me that I can get paid to take care of her from In home care a county program. I really didn't think too much about it for a while and went about my daily business of doing what I had to do for her. Then the day came that my brother passed away in June suddenly. He was here in the morning and by the early afternoon he wasn't and that made me think as well as being very sad in so many ways that I don't even have the words to express it. But, it made me think how fragile life is and that you never know when your time on this earth is up. Everyone wants to live a long life but not everyone does. When my brother was here we had 4 incomes and now we are down one income. It is not easy trying to live period no matter if you are rich or poor but unfortunately in this life the more money you have it makes a lot of things easier, like eating, and paying bills. So, that lead me back a couple of years ago to a conversation I had with a social worker that was here for my mom when she got out of the hospital.
That year she had so many people coming in and out, social workers, physical therapists, occupational therapists, nurses, etc...and one of the social workers had mentioned that it was going to be a lot of work getting my mom kind of back to where she was before the stroke and that I probably won't have time to work outside of the house like before unless I got a person to stay with her. I knew that my mom would not want a stranger to help her do anything especially after a few weeks in the hospital with strangers poking and prodding her to death. So, that is when I decided to do it myself. At the time I had a little money saved and when everyone pitched in with the 4 incomes we were just getting by with rent, bills, food and clothes and a little left for emergencies.
So, I wasn't worried about getting paid for doing what I had to do for my mother. She was my mom and took care of me and now it was my turn to do the same for her. But, here we are dealing with the death of my brother 4 months ago and all that comes with that. Besides missing him like crazy I realized that if we are going to try to make a dollar out of 10 cents that we need more income. My savings is on life support and the emergency money is gone just about because well, of emergencies like taking my son to the dentist and medical bills that had to be paid for both my mom and brother. And I thought about the one conversation that I had with that one social worker a few years ago.
I braced myself and knew that it was not going to be an easy thing. I knew it was going to be paperwork, travel to doctors and everything in between but sometimes you just have to "thug" it out and do what you have to do. So, after we got the paperwork done with her doctor and she got approved for in home care for about 70 something hours per month I took the long trip from my house to the place to finish the paper work. My sister and I ubered our way out there and went in the maze of the building and found the room that we were supposed to go to. I filled out the endless packet of papers and returned it to window 4 after my number was called 49 minutes after I received the number. I take it up to the window hand it all to the guy sitting behind the window and proceed to give him my ID and SS card for him to copy. He asked me for a start date. I paused a minute and thought okay I could say I will start in November, thinking to myself my start date was 3 years ago when all this happened. So, he makes a copy of a the last page of the paper for me, stamps it and then hands it to me. He said nothing else. So, I took it and left. I knew from the website that I briefly read over once that there was an orientation you had to go to and get fingerprints done and I was assuming that I would get a letter in the mail saying go to this place and do this and that or an email or something.
So, like a knucklehead I waited the whole month of October going about my business and dealt with a couple of emergencies with my son. It never occurred to me to either call them or look at the website again. So, when nothing showed up in the mail I looked at the website and at first I didn't see anything about the information I was looking for until I clicked on the handbook. In the handbook I saw the pages that told me about orientation and fingerprints. Apparently, I had to click on the link about when the orientations were for October and November. Since I had missed all of October I guess I will orientate myself in November the first one they have. After I figured out everything then I get a letter in the mail saying that it was almost the first and I hadn't attended the orientation or did the fingerprint part. I just shook my head. I would have thought that the guy behind the desk that day would have told me that to make sure I came back for orientation etc...but nope.
Well, I guess my lesson learned was to always check things out myself and don't depend on others telling me information that they are supposed to tell me because sometimes that doesn't happen and by now I should know better.
So, here we go onward and upward....
That year she had so many people coming in and out, social workers, physical therapists, occupational therapists, nurses, etc...and one of the social workers had mentioned that it was going to be a lot of work getting my mom kind of back to where she was before the stroke and that I probably won't have time to work outside of the house like before unless I got a person to stay with her. I knew that my mom would not want a stranger to help her do anything especially after a few weeks in the hospital with strangers poking and prodding her to death. So, that is when I decided to do it myself. At the time I had a little money saved and when everyone pitched in with the 4 incomes we were just getting by with rent, bills, food and clothes and a little left for emergencies.
So, I wasn't worried about getting paid for doing what I had to do for my mother. She was my mom and took care of me and now it was my turn to do the same for her. But, here we are dealing with the death of my brother 4 months ago and all that comes with that. Besides missing him like crazy I realized that if we are going to try to make a dollar out of 10 cents that we need more income. My savings is on life support and the emergency money is gone just about because well, of emergencies like taking my son to the dentist and medical bills that had to be paid for both my mom and brother. And I thought about the one conversation that I had with that one social worker a few years ago.
I braced myself and knew that it was not going to be an easy thing. I knew it was going to be paperwork, travel to doctors and everything in between but sometimes you just have to "thug" it out and do what you have to do. So, after we got the paperwork done with her doctor and she got approved for in home care for about 70 something hours per month I took the long trip from my house to the place to finish the paper work. My sister and I ubered our way out there and went in the maze of the building and found the room that we were supposed to go to. I filled out the endless packet of papers and returned it to window 4 after my number was called 49 minutes after I received the number. I take it up to the window hand it all to the guy sitting behind the window and proceed to give him my ID and SS card for him to copy. He asked me for a start date. I paused a minute and thought okay I could say I will start in November, thinking to myself my start date was 3 years ago when all this happened. So, he makes a copy of a the last page of the paper for me, stamps it and then hands it to me. He said nothing else. So, I took it and left. I knew from the website that I briefly read over once that there was an orientation you had to go to and get fingerprints done and I was assuming that I would get a letter in the mail saying go to this place and do this and that or an email or something.
So, like a knucklehead I waited the whole month of October going about my business and dealt with a couple of emergencies with my son. It never occurred to me to either call them or look at the website again. So, when nothing showed up in the mail I looked at the website and at first I didn't see anything about the information I was looking for until I clicked on the handbook. In the handbook I saw the pages that told me about orientation and fingerprints. Apparently, I had to click on the link about when the orientations were for October and November. Since I had missed all of October I guess I will orientate myself in November the first one they have. After I figured out everything then I get a letter in the mail saying that it was almost the first and I hadn't attended the orientation or did the fingerprint part. I just shook my head. I would have thought that the guy behind the desk that day would have told me that to make sure I came back for orientation etc...but nope.
Well, I guess my lesson learned was to always check things out myself and don't depend on others telling me information that they are supposed to tell me because sometimes that doesn't happen and by now I should know better.
So, here we go onward and upward....
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