…to take another little blog break.

Things just got crazy busy last week, so there you go.

anywho…

Here’s what’s going on around the Teel house right now…

Noah, my Mom and I are flying to Texas in the morning for Noah’s Soma-RPM camp week.  I’m really, really excited.  We will get in to Austin around lunch time tomorrow, so we’ll have the afternoon and evening to settle in before Noah’s first session at 9:00 Tuesday morning.  I know that lots of you all are praying for us…thank you!  I have no idea if we’ll have internet access while we’re there.  If we do, I’ll pop in and update…if we don’t…well…you’ll hear from me sometime next weekend.

Doug and Jim and the Youth Group got home Friday night.  Their trip was AMAZING.  Doug, Jim and two of our high schoolers spoke in church this morning and it was some pretty powerful stuff (yep, made me cry).  Just. awesome.

Noah and Isaac had an incredible week at my parents’ VBS last week.  Isaac cried Friday night when he found out that it was the last night.  They really had fun and I really enjoyed my quiet evenings.

Speaking of VBS, I’ve got pictures posted here.

Yep…it’s a photo blog.  I got tired of trying to figure out what is wrong with this blog site…it stopped letting me upload pictures several weeks ago.  So…until I can find somebody who is much, much smarter than I am to figure out what freaky bug is in my system, I’ll just link to the other blog site for pics.

Well, I’m off to bed.  It’s going to be an early morning.

Ya’ll have a wonderful week and I’ll catch up with you later…

So gather round, my friends, for a little story about my recent experience with a government agency.

Unless you have a child with a disability, you’ve probably never heard of this thing that’s called the Home and Community Based Services Medicaid Waiver.

The deal is this.  If you have a child who has a disability that is expected to be…for lack of a better word…”permanent”…it’s likely that you are a candidate for this Waiver.  The Waiver services include things like job coaching…living assistance…etc., etc.,etc.  Basically it covers some of the costs that families incur when they elect to keep their disabled child at home, rather than placing him/her in a care facility.  The HCBS Waiver pays around $14,000 a year for such services.  The waiver is not income based…you can have two lawyer parents in the house and still qualify.

Currently, there is a seven to ten year wait list to receive the HCBS Waiver services.

Now that Noah is eight, I decided recently that it’s time to get him on the wait list for the Waiver. (I probably should have done this three years ago, but three years ago I was neck deep in the early days of biomedical interventions with Noah and did not have two brain cells to spare to think of the future…so there ya go.)

I started my search for information on google.com.  I entered something like “Florida Medicaid Waiver”.

I clicked on an option that led me to the Department of Children and Families.

After perusing the website for a few minutes, I found the object of my search.  The instructions were to fill out the online Medicaid application and select the “Home and Community Based Services Waiver” option.

Seemed easy.  So…I clicked on the application.

At the top of the application was the question…”Which waiver are you applying for?”

I clicked the bubble beside the words “Home and Community Based Services”.

After spending thirty minutes filling out an application that got all up in my business, I hit “send”.

Two days later, my cell phone rang.

A very kind but flustered lady on the other end of the phone identified herself as being from the Medicaid/DCF office.  She breathlessly said, “ma’m…I am looking at your application for services, but I have no clue as to what you are applying for.”

I replied…”um…my son Noah has autism so I am applying for the Home and Community Based Services Waiver”.

She replied, “I have no clue what that is”.

Are you counting with me?  This is the second time that she has uttered the phrase “no clue”.

Well…bless her heart…she was really very kind, so promised me that she would ask around the office and make sure that our application went to the correct person.

The next day, a letter arrived from DCF.  It acknowledged receipt of our application, but stated that the application would immediately be denied without our completion of the two enclosed forms.

The first form was a proof of Citizenship.  No problem there.

The second form was a Verification of Employment/Loss of Income form.

For Noah to fill out.

Apparently, they are expecting that an eight year old who has autism must certainly be either gainfully employed or recently terminated.

Since I was feeling just a little bit snarky at this point, I decided to wait until the next day to call DCF and inquire as to how to secure proof of employment for Noah.

As it turns out, I didn’t have to call them…because they called me.

This time it was a man calling, and like the lady before him, bless his heart…he was extremely kind.

He informed me that we will not qualify for Medicaid (I wasn’t applying for Medicaid) and that Noah needs to get on a wait list to get on the wait list.  (Now there are two wait lists?)  He also repeated about 15 times that I should “call 211″ to find out how to get Noah on the…um…”first” wait list.

What I really wanted to do was call 911.

So…I thanked my kind but entirely unhelpful friend from the DCF office and quickly got off of the phone.

Later that afternoon, I went to the post office to check our mail.

The envelope on the top of the pile was addressed to Noah.  It was from the DCF.

I opened the envelope, and contained inside was…

a Voter Registration application.

For Noah.

Who is eight years old and has autism.

Okay ya’ll…say it with me…

OH. MY.

Please.

Please.

Please.

Don’t let them take over my healthcare.

Is it hot where you live right now?

(Fellow Floridians, you don’t have to answer that.  I KNOW it’s hot here.)

As a result of the record setting heat (we hit 100 yesterday with 95% humidity…now that’s just ugly), my brain is mush.  So if this post makes no sense or tends to ramble, well…there ya go.

So after a quiet weekend (quiet on the home-selling front too…thanks for asking), we officially started a two week stretch of “crazy” yesterday afternoon.

After our annual church Father’s Day picnic (which was way fun in spite of the icky sticky hot weather), Doug, our Youth Director Jim and some of our high school kids departed for Beaufort, S.C., where they are going to team up with my sister Michelle and her husband Tim’s youth group to do some outreach in town.  There are some extremely depressed areas in Beaufort, and the kids will be going into the neighborhoods to conduct Backyard Bible Clubs as well as help out at the church’s free medical clinic.  It’s going to be an awesome time for them.  Doug is going to be the speaker during the evening sessions that they will be doing for the youth at the church, so that’s why he went along.

While Doug is gone, I’m holding down the fort here…with a lot of help from my parents.  Noah is in Summer School (half days) all week and the boys will be going to my parents’ church for VBS each evening.  (I asked if it is a “sleepover” VBS, but alas…it’s not.)  Isaac is thrilled about it all because the theme has something to do with a train.  (They are doing “Boomerang Express”, for all ya’ll in the know.)

Doug and the youth group get back sometime on Friday.  We’ve got the weekend together and then Noah, my Mom and I head to Texas on Monday.  whew.

I wish that we could have gone with Doug and the group, but with VBS (Isaac has been excited about this for months) and Noah in Summer School this week, it was just not a good week for us to be gone.  Now that we have Noah’s Camp Week at the Halo Clinic scheduled, I think that it worked out just right.  It would have been really difficult to be gone two weeks in a row.

Watching Doug and the Youth Group pull out yesterday made me nostalgic for the days when Doug and I led the Youth at Calvary Orlando.  It was an amazing time and was the perfect training ground for what we are doing now at Calvary Chapel of the Lakes.  I miss it though…and miss working with the youth.  Thankfully, we’ve got some of our precious middle and high school girls helping in the Children’s Ministry, so at least I get to spend a little bit of time with them as we work together.

Well, that’s it for now.

Ya’ll stay cool today.

Just a few thoughts and random updates…

• Apparently, no one is the least bit impressed with, or exited about, the price drop on our house.

• Doug and I went to meet with a lawyer on Wednesday morning to discuss the establishment of a Special Needs Trust for Noah.  We also talked about drawing up new Wills, as our last ones were simply a quickie Quicken concoction.  I needed resuscitation after learning that the grand total for both services would be four thousand dollars ($2500 for the Trust…$1500 for the Wills).  Since we only have like 50 cents to put in a Special Needs Trust anyway…and since the maintenance of said trust would cost money annually…we are going to wait on that one.  As long as Noah has no money or assets in his name, we’ll be fine to put that one off for a while.  We are going to go ahead with the Wills though.

• We like the lawyer that we met with.  She comes highly recommended by other parents of special needs kids.  She was very laid back…no pressuring or scare tactics…and had some very interesting stories to boot.  She loves the “random” side of the law…figuring out legal protections and provisions for people in unusual situations.  She told us that one small group of her clients is planning to be…NOT KIDDING…frozen cryogenically when they die and have sought her help to protect their assets and legal rights when them…um…”return”.  oh. my.  How much would you love to be a fly on a wall during those consultations?

• Our plans for our trip to the Halo Clinic are all set.  I’ve been re-reading Soma’s RPM manual and ordered a second one for my Mom to study before we go.  I can’t wait.

Well…that’s it for this Friday morning.  The next few days will be fairly quiet before it all breaks loose on Sunday.  More on that later…

Ya’ll have a great start to your weekend…

Well…we’re all set.  Noah, my Mom and I will be flying to Austin on June 29…less than two weeks from now (!) for a “camp” week at the Halo clinic.  Noah will work with Soma’s apprentice Erika and my Mom and I will observe and learn the Soma-RPM method along with him.  Noah is going to be “Camper #1″ that week, meaning that he is the early bird on the schedule…both of his sessions will be held in the morning.  This works out perfectly for us, as Noah is usually up at 6:30 anyway.  With the time change…Austin is one hour back from us…he’ll probably be up at 5:30 local time.  We’ll have plenty of time to get up, eat breakfast and arrive at the clinic for our 9:00 start time.  We will have the afternoons and evenings to ourselves to rest, practice and do a little sight seeing.

My Mom and Dad blessed us with a check to cover most of the expense of the camp week.  (Actually, the “camp” part of the week is “dirt cheap” in the autism scheme of things…less than $500 for all of the training.  It’s the travel and lodging that jacks our overall price up.)  It’s an enormous blessing and we are so grateful.  Thank you Mommy and Daddy for jumping into this with us!…we love you.

And now, for some “house” news.

Oh, wait.

There isn’t any.  The crickets are still chirping.

Well…that’s it for now.

What are ya’ll up to today?