Well it has been a while since my last post due to being unable to stay up on my feet for any length of time.My issues related to my back injury have taken over my entire life.The pain clinic docs decided to put my pain medicine back to almost the same level it was,minus about 15mgs a week.This is a minor reduction compared to the 225mg a week reduction i mentioned in my last post.The reduction is in the immediate release medicine,as opposed to the slow release or extended release medicine that was increased from every twelve hours to every eight.This is a tremendous relief as the 12 hr dosage did not last as it was supposed to.The last three hours or so was brutal,and with the reduction in immediate release i had no extra dose for the middle of the night.I wish there was a magic pill to help,but alass this is not the case and i must continue with the regime dictated by the pain clinic.My family will continue to suffer from the effects of having me in constant chronic pain.The medicines help,but they only diminish the level of pain.I find it very hard to endure at night especially,and lack of sleep is taking a toll on me as well.My mood needless to say,is miserable.When i pick up my new prescription today i hope that it will help to alleviate some of this,but until i allow either surgical or larger prescription solutions i most likely will continue to be miserable.
On the family front i got news i was very unhappy with yesterday regarding the childrens educational plans outlined by the school district.First i will begin with my older son,Jeromy.He is,as i noted in my last post,having major problems with school.The school is new to him and it has much higher standards than the school he was in for the 6 years prior to this one.That was one of the reasons we put him here,with thew main reason being we wanted both of our children in the same school.He is now being tested for learning disabilities to discover how bad the situation is.As i eluded to in my last post i am very disappionted in the school he was in prior,as they never made any problems with his ability to learn an issue.His grades were average,but i was never made aware that he had any problems that would require extra attention.The level of his abilities are much farther below his grade level and may require him to repeat this grade.I will co-operate and help his teachers in any way i can and i hope we can address these problems without him being held back,as i believe that would be very bad for his self esteem.The next few school years are critical in his developement as a person in my opinion,and it would be wrong to hold him back.The process of pinpionting his deficiencies will take some time,and in the meantime there is no way of helping him catch up to his classmates.I can do everything within my power but without the school componant being in place it will be very difficult.I am not a profesional educator,i am just a dad with no way to formulate a proper gameplan for his specific needs.The first meeting i had with the 6th grade team of teachers they made me aware he had some abilities behind his grade level.The problem was that all of the avenues for addressing the problems,such as extra help,after school classes,ect..had been filled up already.So unless we could afford a private tutor or private institution there was no way to offer him the help he needed.So the farther into the school year we got the farther behind he was.Now we are at a point where it seems impossible to have him caught up in time to move ahead with his class at the end of the year.
When i was on the phone with the school psychologist having this conversation about Jeromy being tested for learning delays and deficiencies,he casually mentioned that my younger son matthew,who has been diagnosed pdd-nos(pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified)which is in the autism spectrum,is about to be declassified learning disabled and put into regular student status.This was quite a blow that i was completely unprepared for,and i had a hard time with the rest of the conversation after that.Matthew is a wonderful kid and he is doing very well with all the therapies they have been providing,such as speech,occupational,and physical,and i believe without these he will slide backwards fast.It is the first year he has been without a 1 on 1,and my opinion is he needs to continue with an iep and until his specialist says different,should remain classified as learning disabled.I will fight the district on this decision and use all the resources available to me to advocate for both of my children to recieve all the help they can get to become successful,productive,honorable citizens.There is no one else who will advocate for my children with more motivation than me.Professionals in the field who are child advocates,especially for kids with diabilities,are limited by work related codes of conduct,large caseloads,and can only do what is within their limited scope of duties as dictated by upper management and State education law.I will continue to post updates on this as they develope.
On to commentary on national news and related topics.As i am sure everyone by now is aware,the landmark reform to the Health care system is now law.My opinion has been discussed in past posts,and i continue to feel the same way.My family is insured through my wifes job,and i am curious to see if there will be any changes in that policy.I also am covered under workers compensation for my back injury,and i am very curious if there has been any changes to work related injuries and how they are handled and paid for.The scale of this new law is such that i think it will take quite a while before we will see any lasting positive effects on such a large industry.The fact that alot of the projected savings are coming from cutting waste fraud and abuse form medicare,while at the same time promising no reductions in benefits i have trouble believing in savings that are based on certain things happening.This and other projected savings to fund this giant new government program are just that,projections.The reality is,from past experience,that giant new entitlement programs cost alot of money to enact and continue,so we as a nation will watch and see if this is just another in a series of attempts to use government power to control what are supposed to be privately owned and controlled areas of our economy.The massive bailout of the financial industry that was dubbed TARP for troubled asset relocation program is another example.This was supposed to give the government the ability to purchase,hold,then re-sell the assets responsable for all the turmoil in the finacial markets.It was an unprecidented move to backstop the hemmoraging of cash by most of the major players in the whole of the financial world.These companies were gigantic complex entities that the people incharge of setting financial policy for the United States deemed them "too big to fail" and
convinced Congress to allow this massive rescue package from The Federal Reserve.One of the reasons was it was an emergency situation that could have ruined the entire economy.They projected a depression style collapse of the stock market followed by an implosion of the banking industry that would have global implications.The way the financial giants were operating involved short sighted profit grabbing without long term vision of results of new very complex financial tools like derivatives and credit default swaps on the very markets used to buy and sell them.The size and scope of alot of these companies were so massive and so intertwined that the collapse of one meant the collapse of the whole group,or "the house of cards" senario were it would mean catastrophy for the whole world.When financial powerhouses are allowed to operate under one view of capitalism ,is that "moral hazard" or the fear of risky unscroupulous behavior being discovered and having negative finacial consequences for the offending corporation will keep the market honest.But under that view,these corporations should have suffered the consequences of their risky behavior and should have been broken apart and sold just like any other corporation in any other industry would have been.Instead,the government intervened,backstopped the losses with the power of the Federal Reserve issuing billions in cash reserves to these collapsing corporations.This money was lent at 0% interest rate and was not tied to any timeline for repayment,as opposed to a loan to an ordinary citizen by a local institution such as a bank or credit union which would be subject to an interest rate and a timeline for repayment.Regular folks don't have access to the discount window at the federal Reserve to borrow to help pay bills,i don't understand why these companies and corporations after being deemed to have the same rights under the constitution as individual citizens,are treated as special by our Governments Financial entity.The reasons for this TARP program being created is not exactly what it ended up doing in the marketplace.It did not purchase these troubled assets,instead it purchased shares of stock in these companies allowing them to pay off short term debts and in effect started the whole house of cards scenario again.There has been no change in the practices such as credit default swaps or trading in morgage backed securities.These and other risky behaviors used as common business practice by these financial intitutions must be regulated and put under some sort of watchdog government agency.Anyways,we shall see if anything else can get done with this partisan environment.The picture i am posting today is of matthews first bikeride of spring.Until next time,thank you for reading. spacewalker
No comments:
Post a Comment