Week 863
Day 6035 - 1/8 - Worried about food
Today I am worried about food money. I have something like $35 left in the food account and I should have hit my cycle day 2 days ago. Looking online it says I'm disqualified for not turning in my paperwork, but on that very same page it shows my 'paperwork was received' on 12/3, and has been 'waiting for review' since they got it over a month ago. So I got disqualified because they haven't processed the papers I correctly sent in? That makes no sense. I don't know if they are running super behind or if maybe my caseworker quit and a new one wasn't assigned to me and that's why my paperwork hasn't moved, but at this point I let a message two days ago, and just left another one. I didn't expect I could lose my food money for something that wasn't my fault. I have, realistically, about 4 days before I'm going to be burning into actual cash unless I go into extreme savings mode and start doing things like eating $0.50 ramen packets pretty frequently. Which, sure, maybe I can do for one of my meals per day a few times a week, but stretching into more will likely make me sick pretty fast. Even once a day every day would probably make me feeling not great by the 3rd day. At this point all I can do is wait for a return call and hope for the best.
I did get my eyes checked out by the fancy eye doctor Monday. The doctor's guess is that 5-6 years ago when the blurriness first started (and I suspected bad contacts) I probably had a very bad eye event due to my bad blood pressure. I don't remember the doctor's fancy words for it, but basically it sounds like a heart attack of the eye. My blood vessels got blocked, swollen, and have been bad since then. The blind spot and wiggly vision in my right eye is apparently a symptom caused by that blood clot event.
The bad news is untreated it could have led to permanent blurriness, or worse, full blindness. And there may already be permanent damage done. 
But the good news is that apparently this is a very routine surgery to fix. And my fears that it would involve a poking of a thing into my eye is actually exactly what they need to do, three times. So, I have two more needle in the eye pokings to look forward to.
But the true good news is almost everyone recovers back to normal vision some time after the third poking. So far I seem to be fully recovering back to normal pretty quickly. So while only time will tell, in theory in a couple of months I should be back to good vision all the time. At least as good as it gets now that I'm getting older and it's not ever going to be as sharp as it used to be.
Day 6036 - 1/9 - Mostly better eyes
Today my eye is mostly better. I think I only felt like I needed to put drops in about three times all day compared to when I was at the library yesterday and was doing it about every 45 minutes.
There hasn't been any word from my food benefits person yet. And I called and left a message back on Tuesday morning, and again last night just before he would have left for the day. At this point I really wonder if he's stopped working there and for some reason my case didn't get forwarded to someone else. If I don't see the money tomorrow I'll check online and then maybe around 3 call his office to verify he still works there, and if so that he isn't out on vacation or something. This is not ok that I did everything I was supposed to do and now my file has been sitting unapproved for something like 5 weeks.
Day 6037 - 1/10 - Upset system
Today I have a bit of an upset system. Thing may be upset due to lost sleep over everything I'm concerned about, or it could be from extra stress over failing to get in touch with my food people again.
My social worker still hasn't returned either of my calls, so in the afternoon I called the general number for his office. I explained what is going on to the person who took 10 minutes to reach, then after waiting another 15 on hold, the call was disconnected. Seriously? It's 2025 and you can't handle transferring a call correctly? I'd hoped the not immediate return call meant they were investigating what's going on, but I never got a call back. Though I suppose it's not entirely surprising being after 3 on a Friday. I guess I'll give them until Monday afternoon and then call the main number again. At that point I'll feel like I have no choice but to fire a court appeal if I'm not given an answer.
I guess besides that the day was pretty ok. I will probably do eye drops a couple more times before I fall asleep tonight, but that will only have been less than half a dozen times in the past 24 hours. My eye is almost totally normal feeling again. And in hopeful news, my vision has been pretty much close to as good as it gets lately. There have been no dips to medium or bad vision since my first poking, so hopefully things are getting better.
Day 6038 - 1/11 - Still food stressed
Today I am still stressed about food. Last night it even woke me up for an hour in the middle of the night. I had left over food today from yesterday, so I didn't get to see if any money has appeared, though that seems unlikely with nothing being done with my account for 5 weeks, and two messages left unreturned.
I wanted to work on my pen and paper gaming stuff today. I did manage to get a tiny bit done, but with how exhausted my brain is from stress and lost sleep it was nowhere near what I'd hoped to do.
Day 6039 - 1/12 - Worry day
Today has been a day of worry. Even though I know there won't be any info on my food money my brain has still been almost non-stop repeatedly going over 'what if' and variations on telling the story of what happened over and over. Hopefully I'll get news tomorrow, and if not, then when I call in the afternoon I can hopefully get a lead. I'd really like to it to be, 'oops, my bad, we can fix that right away,' and not something that turns out I have to complain and set up a court hearing to fight over.
I guess it was a pretty ok day other than that. I tried to have fun with my games and hobby stuff, but no good news is really crushing my spirit.
Day 6040 - 1/13 - Hopefully news
Today hopefully I'll get good news about my food money. If not I'll have to try and force them to find me news and it will probably turn into a big fight, which I don't want.
Day 6041 - 1/14 - Hopefully adjusted Tuesday
Today hopefully things for food will have been adjusted and back to normal, but as much as I want to hope that is the case, it seems unlikely with how things have gone so far.
Week 864
Day 6042 - 1/15 - Maybe sad
Today I am maybe sad, possibly due to the reminder from the food money incident that my life is still outside of my control, and even with help to survive it is not great. I started the day ready and excited to do some work on my hobby stuff, as it's been several days, but by the time I got to that point in the day I just didn't feel great anymore. I knew I could have forced myself to do stuff, but my math related stuff would have had a high chance of being inaccurate and my creative stuff would have a high chance of being garbage, and whichever I did would likely just need to be redone later. I did other things while 'taking the day off', but those things didn't seem like super fun alternatives. My day just felt meh overall.
My ankle and knee have been acting up again. It feels like the $50 insert I bought has made no change in how my parts feel. I think in a couple of years when my boots really should be changed again I'm going to give serious consideration on using it or not. It's supposed to be replaced, but currently I will very likely just try it out without them, and then try it with the then old ones, and see if I feel any different. I really can't afford an extra $50 every year or two to constantly refresh them.
Day 6043 - 1/16 - Ok day
Today I realize I may have glossed over the food money being ok because that cleared on a non-writing day. I called at my pre-determined deadline of just past afternoon on Monday. A few hours later I was called back on a number I didn't have noted, but I think it was my regular social worker. We did a routine question call and at the end he asked if I had any questions. I thought about asking what was up with the delay, but I figured, 'meh, it's resolved now I'd rather just move on.' I checked online about an hour later and to my surprise everything was approved, back in good standing, and not only was all of my expected money there, but an additional around $75. So I wonder if I got a boost for the delay or if my yearly monthly amount went up again.
Today was pretty ok. It was super cold last night, so that was the worst. But the day was pretty regular. I even managed to do a little work on my pen and paper hobby stuff, so that felt nice.
Day 6044 - 1/17 - Ok day again
Today was a pretty ok day. I just played stuff and watched some shows. I was getting frustrated with an early access game I have and now I'm trying a different class and I'm doing a lot better. It's weird that one which is more closely aligned to my natural play style doesn't work well.
I got just a little bit of celebration food now that I have my food benefit money again, so my mood has improved a bit.
Day 6045 - 1/18 - Weird knee
Today was pretty good, but very chilly. Though my knee was still feeling weird. I still wonder if the expensive inserts are actually helping at all or if my foot and knee are still impacted the same with or without it.
Day 6046 - 1/19 - Lock up
Today I had a bad surprise. Things seemed like it was going to be just a regular day, but after settling at the library for a bit when I got up to pee my back was stiff as hell. It was pretty locked up after that. Not so bad that I couldn't get up at all, but enough that every time I stood up I had to slllooowwwllly straighten instead of just getting up normally. I'd guess it has to do with all the stress from all of the cold weather as it's gotten super cold lately.
It was a pretty regular day other than that.
Day 6047 - 1/20 - Outside
Today is another outside day, at least in part. Hopefully I won't be too cold because it's been crazy cold lately. But hopefully I can be online a bit, maybe get a little bit nicer food, and the day will pass quickly enough.
Day 6048 - 1/21 - Unknown Tuesday
Today I don't know what will happen or what to expect. I'll be doing my Monday shower in the morning, so that will be different, but outside of that I expect it will be a regular homeless day.
