Need a Doctor, Good Luck

If you read my other post, you know that I have been unemployed and I had a job as a teacher.  I was a general music teacher in a private school and I loved my job.  I enjoyed working with the children very much.  I was hired at a time that a music teacher didn't need a degree and could be hired based on experience and I had an abundance of that including years of teaching stringed instruments in a private studio.  This was rewarding work, but didn't quite cover the bills.  I wasn't that good at keeping the records, either.

So, this is why unemployment has been difficult.  Due to the nature of teaching in the school where I was, I worked a lot.  One by one, I had to give up my outside activities.  First I gave up playing in the local symphony, then I gave up this other side job  I had teaching string players in a wonderful ensemble with strings, recorders, xylophones that are called Orff instruments designed especially for teaching children about music and all of these children sang.  Anyone who has ever played a violin, a viola, a cello or a bass knows that you lose a great deal of technique if you don't keep playing.  So for now that door is closed to me now.  I was stuck about what to look for next.

One of the things you promise to do when you are collecting unemployment is to take whatever job you can get, or something to that effect.  I got a call to work in another private school, this one being primarily daycare.  The age group I was with was the babies.  I liked that a lot, too.  What I didn't realise was that in all these years I had lost a lot of the physical strength I once had.  By constantly leaning over and picking up these  beautiful babies, I was putting a bad strain on my spine.  Suddenly one day, I pinched a nerve so badly that no amount of medication took the pain away.  It was severe.  When I went back to work I told someone that I wouldn't be able to pick up the heavier babies for a day or so.  The company sent me home and told me I could only come back with a doctor's note.

Oy Vey!  No health insurance anymore.  That ended with the previous job.  No money to go to a doctor.  I began my search to find someone who could give me a note to go back to work.  I headed to the local health department.  I was very surprised to discover that they only took care of teeth, administered pregnancy tests and checked for STDs.  None of these things would get me back to work.  They did however offer me a piece of paper explaining a nurses' clinic that would be available the next day and the address where I could find it.  They told me to show up at least a half hour before it started.  I went home and went about my business for the rest of the day.

Next day I got into the car in plenty of time to show up for this clinic.  When I got there they told me that the clinic had moved and sent me to a different address.  I went there.  They told me that the clinic no longer met there and sent me somewhere else.  This may have happened another time; I have lost track since then.  The last place I went to told me that the clinic had been cancelled because not enough people were using it and sent me back to the health department.

So I go to the health department.  The health department tells me about a clinic that would be available the next day on those premises.  A group of doctors come out on Thursdays to see people.  Come about a half hour early.  I went home and went about my business.

The next day I arrive at the health clinic about an hour early, having seen previously that there is no telling what might happen.  When I arrived the line (which was outside in the elements) was already very long, about 50 people.  Many of them were set up in lawn chairs with coolers at their side, playing games on their phones, talking to their friends or family, eating breakfast and whatever activities you could think of for a long wait out on a side walk.  This was about 10:30 or 11:00 am.  They would start seeing people around noon, I had been told.  Noon came and went.  It was nearly 1:00 pm before anyone came outside to talk with us.  We were told to have our picture IDs, proof of residency and a bill addressed to us at that residency.  I was prepared and had all of that on a clipboard along with the note that I had to have signed.  He told us first in English and I translated into Spanish what I could to the person in line next to me.  Then he gave the same directions in Spanish.  That was good to hear because many of the people standing there didn't speak a lot of English.

Then they passed out 25 tickets and told us those 25 people would be seen at around 5:00pm when the clinic would open. If you left, you would lose your place in line and not be seen.  If you didn't get one of those 25 tickets you still might be seen if anyone with a ticket didn't qualify to be seen.  I counted the number of people in line ahead of me standing there without tickets and calculated the probability of enough people with tickets being turned away and decided that it was very highly unlikely that I could be seen that day.  All of the people who received the first 25 tickets would have to be turned down, most of the group of people between me and the first 25 and then I MIGHT get a chance.

This was the free doctor care in my fair town, which was beginning to look archaic and anything but fair to me at this point.  I went home with visions of Russian peasants after the fall of Nicholas and Alexandra.

A week later the pinched nerve did its terrible deed again and this time I didn't bother to medicate because I knew it was useless.  I tried to endure it as best I could.  I've had an abscessed tooth before and this is the only pain I've ever endured that was comparable.

With some luck, I was able to sell some of my stuff that I had and made enough to pay some bills and make an appointment with my chiropractor.  I had also made an application to return to unemployment and was already looking for a new job.  When I spoke with the agent from VEC, she explained where the process would lead from there.  Someone would review my application and I would receive a letter.  I received the letter and it said that I would be receiving a phone call from someone who would check out my story.  The phone call came and I told them what happened and she said that I would hear back.  She called me back that day and I was surprised with the quickness and efficiency of her return call.  She told me that my story checked out; that they said pretty much the same thing that I had said except for one thing.  They told her that they were still holding this spot open for me and that I had been a good employee and that I was welcomed to come back when I got the doctor's note.  This surprised me because enough time had passed, I had picked up what I thought was a final paycheck and had signed some papers that felt like they acknowledged some kind of separation. 

I went to the chiropractor and was stunned with how much pain was still in my neck.  All she had to do was touch it and I felt it.  She knew exactly where the pain was coming from.  We made a plan for my recovery, decided that I was in no shape yet to be picking up the weight of babies for yet a little while and I saw her a few times, then she signed my note to go back to work.  I went back with the note and they said, "No Thank You."  They didn't believe I had the strength for the job.  Neither did I really, but I was willing to do my best.

I reapplied to VEC again.  They denied me because they said I left my job voluntarily.  I disagree, but there you have it.

And there are people out there who don't see the need for better governmental health insurance. 

Overcoming the fear, second try.

I am relatively new to blogging, so my first attempt at trying to write about this ended with me having nothing more than a title.  Here is my second, and hopefully better try.

I had a job that I loved, working in a field that I loved and working with people that I admired deeply.  Who could ask for anything more.  About two years ago, during my lunch break I was out in my car listening to public radio, probably Kojo Nmamdi which was my usual lunch time habit.  One statement was made that stuck with me.  It had to do with the possibility of financial success of private schools.  They said that it was very nearly impossible.  Education is costly and private companies lose money.  I remember feeling thankful that the school where I worked was still in business and seemed to be doing well.  At the end of that school year I received my contract to work again the next school year.

When I returned in the fall I discovered that the company which owned our school had changed hands and life began to change rapidly.  Other than to say that this was the beginning of the end of education at that school in the fashion we all knew and the end of employment there for most of the teachers, I won't be talking about that.  I wish them all the success in their new educational outlook.  There are many wonderful elements they are trying to introduce.

This was the beginning of my unemployment and the beginning of my adventure in a new world of uncertainty, self discovery and a new education in the world of faith.  I was transformed from a life that depended on my ability to work to a life where I have had to trust God to supply all my needs.  I was very surprised to discover that most of my needs have been personal and spiritual.  Yes, somehow I have squeaked by financially, and I really can't say how. 

One of the first things I had to learn was how to put the worry elsewhere, on the shoulders of the Almighty where it should have been all along.  I was becoming more and more aware of my vast ability to worry.  Nights became sleepless.  I was trying with all of my effort to hang on to the faith that God was going to see me through this.  I didn't realise how very small my faith was.  I tried to keep a good face on it all.  I tried to keep my public conversation positive.  Notice that I am using the word, "I" a lot here.  That is where I was; still involved with me and my actions; not God and His faithfulness.  I'll stop here for now because I want to blog a bit about my life and some issues that have been very important and instrumental in who I have become and why.