Kind of an odd week. I’m trying to figure out the best way to go through everything that happened.
Day-by-day doesn’t really work, unfortunately; many unexpected focus-shifts.
Health
My neurologist at Georgetown is doing something to go along with this research out of UCLA.
After the first few doses, and the Keysimpta, I became very accustomed to it. Normally, I’d take it in the afternoon after I’d finished work, and think nothing more about it. Nothing significant on last few MRIs, so either it’s working, or I’m still in remission.
But, as part of my somewhat-forced transition into disability, she changed my diagnosis to (Secondary) Progressive MS. Her colleague in the Neurology Department who’d seen me a few years ago, had put that in his paperwork in probably 2022.
Part of me didn’t want to accept that, but the signs have been there for a long time. I tried to do everything I could to stay in shape enough to see through what I’d been hired to do.
Anyway, with that, lots surrounding the preparations for getting into the study. There is a risk, sure, and I can probably go back to the Keysimpta if there’s problems, but this new approach might be best for me.
With the study, they’re going to cover pretty much all my MS-related medical expenses for the duration, which might be five years. The med is a twice-daily capsule; I think I can figure out how to take those. They’ll also cover my transportation to and from Georgetown, as well as the tests at Georgetown. Blood draws every three months. MRIs at prescribed intervals. Okay. That I’m accustomed to those sorts of tests, now, helps a ton. Even if we move, I think I can figure out getting there as needed. Since it’s done apart from insurance-covered care, I don’t anticipate any major issues. If we end up back in Tidewater, I hop on the Northeast Regional, and go from Union Stations to Georgetown. If it’s somewhere farther away, I fly to DCA or IAD. Fine. Should I finally say that DC is now my home?
But, more MS-related stuff, I did see her a couple of weeks ago. She wants me to do more physical therapy to improve balance and walking. So, Thursday, I went to see a physical therapist at Georgetown. Nice visit. Provided three strengthening exercises to do, and he wants to see me twice-a-week.
Hm. Yeah, that’s going to take a lot of time, and will likely eat basically a third of a day, but fine. It’s not like I’m doing anything else big at the moment. Told him of my travel plans next month; that should be fine. If he, himself, isn’t available, I can work with one of his colleagues who does neurological stuff.
Georgetown replaced the coffee shop on the lower level with a Dunkin franchise. *digs through archives to see if I’d written here about it* Nope. But that coffee shop they used to have there was the source of the worst coffee I’d ever had. This was the period where I was getting my Tysabri infusions at the Clinical Research Unit. I knew it was very cold outside, and I was going to have to wait for a while; okay, cup of coffee to warm me up. I think I had about three sips, and ended up throwing it away.
Anyway, it’s now a Dunkin. Pretty busy. And the coffee is okay, generally affordable. Big latte to take me through the ride back home.
I can do this a couple of times per week. Apologies to the cabbie if I stink of sweat; I can do this.
I spent yesterday trying to figure out how much it’d cost, and what the twice-per-week visits would cost. For Thursday’s trip, all I’d paid was my fee for Paratransit, and the bit I’d spent buying coffee and Munchkins. (They were trying to clear out what they had for the day. I was hungry. Not necessarily the flavor I’d normally have chosen, but they were good. My wife liked the half I left for her, too.) Okay, so that whole trip cost me twenty bucks, maybe, between the paratransit and the coffee and donuts. Hm. Okay, well, I can probably swing that regularly.
But how much did I owe the hospital, and how much will I have to pay if I do the twice-per-week thing? Many rounds of looking, fighting with the insurer’s iOS app, and several phone calls.
Ouch.
Probably $200 per week.
Where am I on my out-of-pocket max for the insurance?
Yeah, that’s probably not happening.
We’ll see what my neurologist says when she’s back Tuesday. The place I went last time doesn’t really focus on the sorts of things the guy I saw at Georgetown wants to work on. If memory serves, going there was something like $80 per visit. Maybe?
Money
Speaking of that, I finally got my denied private disability payment, minus the portion the lawyer kept. There’s a lot I could say about that, but my comments are reserved for the National MS Society who referred me after the period of performance. They may relay my thoughts as they see fit. I am doing the Social Security Disability stuff, too, as the private insurer is going to force me to do that at some point. That process takes an incredible amount of time; I don’t expect the first denial until probably Thanksgiving.
But I did get a majority of what had been owed since last Summer. And, even on this stunted bit, we should be able to pay our bills with even more tightening.
Next steps are figuring out what to do going forward. I guess I can’t do what I’d planned, and contribute to Roth IRAs because the income will be from insurance, not work.
I can put money into my brokerage account, and further juice those, but I’m inclined to go with one of the managed investment firms. Getting to where I’d need to be to start actually looks straightforward.
But it’s something for next week. I’m also going to have to pay one of my credit cards. Yes, doing that isn’t a big deal, and I shouldn’t be concerned; we’ve got enough to do it several times over, but I’m still uncomfortable with owing anyone anything.
Even the delayed-payment thing I have for my tooth issue gives me a bit of anxiety. But that sort of brings me to…
Politics
I wanted to write something about some of the things that happened over the past week. Just can’t find the motivation to finish.
The Virginia Democrats lost at SCOTUS on their
Day-by-day doesn’t really work, unfortunately; many unexpected forus-shifts.
Health
My neurologist at Georgetown is doing something to go along with this research out of UCLA.
After the first few doses, and the Keysimpta, I became very accustomed to it. Normally, I’d take it in the afternoon after I’d finished work, and think nothing more about it. Nothing significant on last few MRIs, so either it’s working, or I’m still in remission.
But, as part of my somewhat-forced transition into disability, she changed my diagnosis to (Secondary) Progressive MS. Her colleague in the Neurology Department who’d seen me a few years ago, had put that in his paperwork in probably 2022.
Part of me didn’t want to accept that, but the signs have been there for a long time. I tried to do everything I could to stay in shape enough to see through what I’d been hired to do.
Anyway, with that, lots surrounding the preparations for getting into the study. There is a risk, sure, and I can probably go back to the Keysimpta if there’s problems, but this new approach might be best for me.
With the study, they’re going to cover pretty much all my MS-related medical expenses for the duration, which might be five years. The med is a twice-daily capsule; I think I can figure out how to take those. They’ll also cover my transportation to and from Georgetown, as well as the tests at Georgetown. Blood draws every three months. MRIs at prescribed intervals. Okay. That I’m accustomed to those sorts of tests, now, helps a ton. Even if we move, I think I can figure out getting there as needed. Since it’s done apart from insurance-covered care, I don’t anticipate any major issues. If we end up back in Tidewater, I hop on the Northeast Regional, and go from Union Stations to Georgetown. If it’s somewhere farther away, I fly to DCA or IAD. Fine. Should I finally say that DC is now my home?
But, more MS-related stuff, I did see her a couple of weeks ago. She wants me to do more physical therapy to improve balance and walking. So, Thursday, I went to see a physical therapist at Georgetown. Nice visit. Provided three strengthening exercises to do, and he wants to see me twice-a-week.
Hm. Yeah, that’s going to take a lot of time, and will likely eat basically a third of a day, but fine. It’s not like I’m doing anything else big at the moment. Told him of my travel plans next month; that should be fine. If he, himself, isn’t available, I can work with one of his colleagues who does neurological stuff.
Georgetown replaced the coffee shop on the lower level with a Dunkin franchise. *digs through archives to see if I’d written here about it* Nope. But that coffee shop they used to have there was the source of the works coffee I’d ever had. This was the period where I was getting my Tysabri infusions at the Clinical Research Unit. I knew it was very cold outside, and I was going to have to wait for a while; okay, cup of coffee to warm me up. I think I had about three sips, and ended up throwing it away.
Anyway, it’s now a Dunkin. Pretty busy. And the coffee is okay, generally affordable. Big latte to take me through the ride back home.
I can do this a couple of times per week. Apologies to the cabbie if I stink of sweat; I can do this.
I spent yesterday trying to figure out how much it’d cost, and what the twice-per-week visits would cost. For Thursday’s trip, all I’d paid was my fee for Paratransit, and the bit I’d spent buying coffee and Munchkins. (They were trying to clear out what they had for the day. I was hungry. Not necessarily the flavor I’d normally have chosen, but they were good. My wife liked the half I left for her, too.) Okay, so that whole trip cost me twenty bucks, maybe, between the paratransit and the coffee and donuts. Hm. Okay, well, I can probably swing that regularly.
But how much did I owe the hospital, and how much will I have to pay if I do the twice-per-week thing? Many rounds of looking, fighting with the insurer’s iOS app, and several phone calls.
Ouch.
Probably $200 per week.
Where am I on my out-of-pocket max for the insurance?
Yeah, that’s probably not happening.
We’ll see what my neurologist says when she’s back Tuesday. The place I went last time doesn’t really focus on the sorts of things the guy I saw at Georgetown wants to work on. If memory serves, going there was something like $80 per visit. Maybe?
Money
Speaking of that, I finally got my denied private disability payment, minus the portion the lawyer kept. There’s a lot I could say about that, but my comments are reserved for the National MS Society who referred me after the period of performance. They may relay my thoughts as they see fit. I am doing the Social Security Disability stuff, too, as the private insurer is going to force me to do that at some point. That process takes an incredible amount of time; I don’t expect the first denial until probably Thanksgiving.
But I did get a majority of what had been owed since last Summer. And, even on this stunted bit, we should be able to pay our bills with even more tightening.
Next steps are figuring out what to do going forward. I guess I can’t do what I’d planned, and contribute to Roth IRAs because the income will be from insurance, not work.
I can put money into my brokerage account, and further juice those, but I’m inclined to go with one of the managed investment firms. Getting to where I’d need to be to start actually looks straightforward.
But it’s something for next week. I’m also going to have to pay one of my credit cards. Yes, doing that isn’t a big deal, and I shouldn’t be concerned; we’ve got enough to do it several times over, but I’m still uncomfortable with owing anyone anything.
Even the delayed-payment thing I have for my tooth issue gives me a bit of anxiety. But that sort of brings me to…
Politics
I wanted to write something about some of the things that happened over the past week. Just can’t find the motivation to finish.
The Virginia Democrats lost at SCOTUS on their Byrd Machine-style-redistricting, and Governor Langley decided she wasn’t going to fight further. Even despite them also throwing out the strange interpretation of of the Voting Rights Act that put restrictions only on states that were in the Confederacy. So there’s very long, misshapen, districts to have districts that are majority African American.
Those restrictions didn’t apply to the North, which is why you had people like Charles Rangel, a black Democrat, representing a district that was majority-Black in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and had turned into a majority-Hispanic district.
That wouldn’t have been allowed in North Carolina. If a district was majority-Black in 1993, it had to remain majority-Black in 2023.
Virginia passed a constitutional amendment years ago that assigned this to an independent commission. VA Dems tried to short-circuit this “to restore” fairness after the Biden DOJ sued Texas for diluting majority-Black districts with Hispanics.
The appeals were still working until OrangeManBad was elected again. DOJ under Legally-Barbie dropped the case. But TX had already embarked on mid-cycle redistricting.
I could probably go on for hours about the machinations. Long story short, Virginia probably won’t be able to gerrymander like much of the rest of the Northeast until its Constitutional Amendment is repealed. That probably can’t happen until 2029, and the “emergency” is already over.
Expand. The. House. Take a state’s census population, divide by the smallest state’s population, and round UP to the next whole number. Then there’s less need to fiddle with districts, and you basically fix the Electoral College.
But in the middle of all the chattering about the redistricting, there were primary elections Tuesday.
Bill Cassidy lost the Republican primary for the Senate in Louisiana. That’s not entirely surprising considering a couple of his disagreements with OrangeManBad.
But, in the House, Thomas Massie lost his primary.
He had been in a battle with OrangeManBad over various issues. More often than not, I agreed with Massie on spending. The system set up under Pelosi, and enhanced by Paul Ryan, guarantee that budgets done go through normal order, and massive spending is achieved through reconciliation later.
Or, sometimes not. See; DHS funding amidst the squabbles over ICE.
Much like his purported hero, RON PAUL, Massie didn’t have a ton of bills to illustrate that he actually restrained spending.
But he, along with Ro Khanna a Cali Democrat, undertook this effort to show that everyone on Planet Earth was in the Epstein Files, and that OrangeManBad had raped children.
The vast majority of sitting members of Congress voted for a “transparency act,” and Massie led some of the hearings about things that were inside the files.
Yes, there were a few things. Andrew is now “the former” Prince for good reason.
This from TheFP provided good information. Many of the things included identified people who had passing associations with Epstein, and the the most-salacious accusations circulating places like Instagram and Facebook were actually reworked pieces from past conspiracies; McMartin Preschool, “Pizzagate,” etc. Little was actionable after many of “the victims” had accepted settlement money.
But, DON’T YOU WANT TO KNOW?! Actually, without something firmer than some crackhead’s assertion to investigators, no, no I don’t.
The airing of the unredacted stuff is incredibly irresponsible. With a couple of exceptions, Andrew, Peter Mandelson, and maybe the Treasury guy who communicated with him later, there really isn’t anything terribly interesting.
The Germans were faced with similar dilemmas when releasing information collected and stored by The Stasi. If memory serves, if a living person was listed, he, and he, alone, was given the information. If the informant was still alive, the subject could disclose. If the informant and subject were both dead, the government could disclose. If the informant was dead, the subject could release.
Care was taken.
But Congress, at Massie’s behest, chose to release everything.
If you’re a politician who voted for the release, you’ve forever lost my vote.
So Massie falls into that camp, and I’m not at all sad he lost. Even if there’s questions about the guy who ousted him.
Those restrictions didn’t apply to the North, which is why you had people like Charles Rangel, a black Democrat, representing a district that was majority-Black in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and had turned into a majority-Hispanic district.
That wouldn’t have been allowed in North Carolina. If a district was majority-Black in 1993, it had to remain majority-Black in 2023.
Virginia passed a constitutional amendment years ago that assigned this to an independent commission. VA Dems tried to short-circuit this “to restore” fairness after the Biden DOJ sued Texas for diluting majority-Black districts with Hispanics.
The appeals were still working until OrangeManBad was elected again. DOJ under Legally-Barbie dropped the case. But TX had already embarked on mid-cycle redistricting.
I could probably go on for hours about the machinations. Long story short, Virginia probably won’t be able to gerrymander like much of the rest of the Northeast until its Constitutional Amendment is repealed. That probably can’t happen until 2029, and the “emergency” is already over.
Expand. The. House. Take a state’s census population, divide by the smallest state’s population, and round UP to the next whole number. Then there’s less need to fiddle with districts, and you basically fix the Electoral College.
But in the middle of all the chattering about the redistricting, there were primary elections Tuesday.
Bill Cassidy lost the Republican primary for the Senate in Louisiana. That’s not entirely surprising considering a couple of his disagreements with OrangeManBad.
But, in the House, Thomas Massie lost his primary.
He had been in a battle with OrangeManBad over various issues. More often than not, I agreed with Massie on spending. The system set up under Pelosi, and enhanced by Paul Ryan, guarantee that budgets done go through normal order, and massive spending is achieved through reconciliation later.
Or, sometimes not. See; DHS funding amidst the squabbles over ICE.
Much like his purported hero, RON PAUL, Massie didn’t have a ton of bills to illustrate that he actually restrained spending.
But he, along with Ro Khanna a Cali Democrat, undertook this effort to show that everyone on Planet Earth was in the Epstein Files, and that OrangeManBad had raped children.
The vast majority of sitting members of Congress voted for a “transparency act,” and Massie led some of the hearings about things that were inside the files.
Yes, there were a few things. Andrew is now “the former” Prince for good reason.
This from TheFP provided good information. Many of the things included identified people who had passing associations with Epstein, and the the most-salacious accusations circulating places like Instagram and Facebook were actually reworked pieces from past conspiracies; McMartin Preschool, “Pizzagate,” etc. Little was actionable after many of “the victims” had accepted settlement money.
But, DON’T YOU WANT TO KNOW?! Actually, without something firmer than some crackhead’s assertion to investigators, no, no I don’t.
The airing of the unredacted stuff is incredibly irresponsible. With a couple of exceptions, Andrew, Peter Mandelson, and maybe the Treasury guy who communicated with him later, there really isn’t anything terribly interesting.
The Germans were faced with similar dilemmas when releasing information collected and stored by The Stasi. If memory serves, if a living person was listed, he, and he, alone, was given the information. If the informant was still alive, the subject could disclose. If the informant and subject were both dead, the government could disclose. If the informant was dead, the subject could release.
Care was taken.
But Congress, at Massie’s behest, chose to release everything.
If you’re a politician who voted for the release, you’ve forever lost my vote.
So Massie falls into that camp, and I’m not at all sad he lost. Even if there’s questions about the guy who ousted him.
After that, I can’t bring myself to write further. I’d started on a longer Substack post about it, but I get too angry/distracted to finish. And I think I’ve hammered out enough for today.