I'm still on this side of the green. I check in often as well and thought about asking for a roll call to make sure everyone is still sucking air, but somehow never got around to asking.

Hate to say it but health wise I am easily going to hit my out of pocket maximum before we get March. Sigh! But I'm still here!

How are things going for you?

I'm here but things are a bit crazy. I had a full on Social Security Disability review with all the same paperwork that I filled out when I initially applied years ago. I think it ended being 60 pages of stuff. Then they sent more forms. The deadlines were ridiculous and I had to ask for more time. Then my best friend died from complications of an autoimmune disease. Then my aunt died unexpectedly. She was only 15 years older than me. Then we had a major hurricane. Then we got that cleaned up and I got COVID. My fever went so high I fainted in the kitchen and hurt myself. Then I was going to visit family for Christmas but my parents got COVID so I had to stay home. Then I went for a check up and saw my specialists who did some tests. They decided to try to figure out my balance issue since I am unsteady and feel like I'm going to fall. They sent me to an inner ear specialist. The did a hearing test and turns out my inner ear isn't functioning properly. I have lost hearing, but if you bypass the inner ear with a temporary cochlear implant, I can hear. They are going to do a specialized MRI next month to see what is going on with my inner ear and run some other tests. Turns out there are additional autoimmune diseases that can cause this. Maybe I'm not clumsy. My falling may be a symptom of yet another autoimmune disease.... because I don't have enough issues. This one can make you deaf and blind. I still haven't heard anything from Social Security but they are still paying me. The lawyer said it looked like they want to kick me off, but unless they are blind, they can't possibly justify it. I'm still ready to fight it if needed, but I will be without an income, insurance or meds during the process. I'm STILL waiting on approval for the appoint for my dysautonomia at Vanderbilt. They sent their application during the Disability madness and I couldn't get it back to them as fast as they wanted, but I waited 6 months just to get their paperwork so I was annoyed. The referral is over a year old. I think they were never working on it. I go back mid April to see a different specialist that I have seen before about my Mast Cell issues. I was officially diagnosed with Mast Cell Activation.

I'm sorry it took so long to respond. There was so much to write. My parents were down visiting. My brother was down. I had my house painted on the outside and had to finally get the fence repaired after the hurricane blew down one side and the bear took down the other side. Now I'm trying to itemize my medical expenses for my taxes. There is always a deadline for something, right?

How are things with you?

Holy smokes! I got tired just from reading what all you are going through! Hopefully disability figure out that you are still disabled. I do fear that I'll get kicked off but as I am another huge step closer to having to do dialysis because of my kidneys I guess I shouldn't fear that happening.

Healthwise this has been the roughest year I've had so far which says a lot, but I'm still sucking air according to last Fr4iday's pulmonology test and am on the sunny side of the green so I have that going for me.

And no worries on the delayed reply. As you can see I'm not so quick at them either! I think all of us with RA know to give each other a lot of slack when it comes to response times as some days (weeks, months, or years) it's hard to find enough spoons to just breath.

Hey, keep on, keeping on my friend! The world sucks, but it's kind of fun to see it spin around. ;-)

Hi