Military Madness

Don't get me wrong when you read this. Being a military wife, I am hole hearted for the military, what it stands for and I am proud to be an American. Dealing with daily issues that somehow always seem to come back to how the military controls every situation and aspect of our lives can be frustrating.
Just a little F.Y.I we as a military family are not covered 100% with medical insurance and or Dental insurance. We have a co-pay for medications, doctors and dentist. But my husband it cover 100% on everything because he is an active duty military member. I think that's fantastic but what about his family? Even though we don't do his job and technically have joined the military, we as a family endure all the pain he does as no longer having an identity. I don't have a say on where we go, how long we stay there, if I want to leave my family, If my husband is deployed or anything that has to do with running my own life.
My reason for this info is so you can understand the story I am about to tell. Now listen closely its a wild roller coaster of emotions that happens in a time frame of only 48 hours.
I suffer from restless leg syndrome and so the night before all this happened I only had two hours of sleep because I had a dentist appointment for two of my girls at nine in the morning. Now remember emotions fly high when you have no sleep and anything can make you breakdown at a moments notice no matter who is around.
My daughter Saylor is on the Autism Spectrum along with my other daughter Tori. Saylor has Developmental Delays and from the time she started to learn how to eat she pocketed her food in her cheeks because she never got the concept that you can chew, swallow and breath at the same time. This ended up with rotting of all her teeth along the gum line.
When she was two and we were living back in Washington no one would work on her and then the one dentist I did find that would wanted to charge me 4000.00 dollars and have her put under for two hours. Or we could wait till she was older and he could work on her a few teeth at a time. Well, thank you very much but I don't have four thousand dollars and I don't feel comfortable putting my two year old under for a two hour time frame.
So shortly after we move to Massachusetts and I find this dentist who starts working on her with nitrous oxide and it was going great but he wanted to be paid up front at every visit. He had given me an estimate of over two thousand dollars and they didn't allow payments. Okay, fine! We Ended up getting money monthly from my in laws to help us out because the cost of living was triple of what it was on the west coast. We started using this money to pay for Saylor's teeth and then we moved again because of the water on the military base we were living on.. (That's another story I will tell.Believe me its great!!)
So we move again and are only there for a Short period of time till we move again to where we live now and That's another great story for a rainy day. Any who I try looking for a dentist to get her teeth fixed and I have no luck finding one that will work with me on the budget I am on and so I have to just pick one.
I love this Dentist they are fantastic with my girls and their needs but they cost an arm and a leg. Literally!! They charge me 105.00 dollars just to use the nitrous oxide and with three small children under the age of six and two with autism, I really don't have a choice. After taking all my girls in for their exams because rumor is that Obama is going to reduce the medical we have to give to the people with less then perfect medical.
I know Obama now lives in the White house and now has more money then I could ever dream of buying suits, cars and expensive dogs but I don't think he accurately checked the medical and dental that is provided by the military.
The Truth is that the Medical and Dental that is provided by the Military is worse then state medical and finding a doctor or dentist that takes military medical is harder then finding a doctor that takes state because the military pays less then the state. I know because I have now been on both at some point in time.
So any who, I wanted to make this as short as possible but I don't think that is going to be the case. After I take them all for exams I start getting the treatment plans in the mail and when all is said and done, I will owe them again over 4000.00 dollars and that is with my dental plan.
So I say okay, I will just have to figure it out and after paying for the last four month 400.00 dollars a month and now all my kids are done.. I find out that Saylor will not be having any more work done because her insurance ran out. What do you mean her insurance ran out? DO you see her mouth? And because of this they are not going to finish the front of her bottom and top teeth because I have no more insurance and they don't want me racking up a bill that I cant afford to pay.
The funny thing about this is that when you go to the dentist they tell you how important it is to save their teeth even as baby ones but if you don't have the money to pay for them, they are more then willing to tell you that they are not worth saving because they are just baby teeth and they are going to fall out any way.
Hello, are you serious? You want me to leave her rotting teeth in her mouth because you know that I cant afford to pay without my insurance?
Okay, so I get to the front desk after the dentist tells me I need to keep an eye on her mouth looking for gum pimples which indicates that their is an abscess and finding out that I myself have a gum pimple because I couldn't fix my own teeth knowing that my girls needed work first.
So I am standing at the counter and I ask the lady for my grand total when the lady next to her looks at the screen and says, You know you don't have good insurance?
I said I know, and if I talk about it I will start crying and of course as soon as I said that I started hysterically crying and I couldn't stop. She reluctantly hands me a piece of paper with the grand total of 2313.00 dollars owing.
Holly cow, that's a lot of money and not all the work Saylor needs is done. How is it my husband dedicates his life to serving his country and I cant get my kids teeth fixed.
Okay I am now a wreck and I still have to come back in two hours for my other daughters appointment. I paid them 100 dollars in cash and a 100 dollars on my card so I would have 30 dollars in cash to take them out to lunch while we waited. After we ate and waisted time, I went to star bucks to get a coffee, still going of two hours of sleep and my heart is sitting in my stomach.
When I got to Starbucks my older daughter started harassing me over a strawberry frapachino so when I got to the intercom I ask the guy if I could just sell him my oldest daughter for the coffee drink? He started laughing and agreed he would take her jokingly and then had the lady give me my coffee for free.
Why? I said.. And the lady said the barista just said its on the house.
I started crying again because his random act of kindness made my day.. How nice was that!!
I wish the story ends here but it doesn't. The Ending to a long and emotional day resulted in my husband and kids falling asleep before I did and I have still only had two hours of sleep and I sit next to my husband on our bed while he sleeps.
He wakes up suddenly grabbing me and calling my name. He is in awful pain and delirious from not being quite awake yet and his stomach hurting badly. After about an hour of searching the internet for the symptoms, he says he is ready to go to the hospital.
I watched my husband leave in an ambulance as my girls slept unknowingly. I laid awake again till 6 in the morning waiting to hear what was going on before I fell asleep. I don't know anyone who I can call in the middle of the night, to come watch my kids so I had to stay home waiting to hear from him.
While I was sleeping with the phone I must have turned it on because when I woke three hours later and called my husband, he was on his way home with the fire department. They gave him a ride home because he couldn't get a hold of me..
I felt awful.. The verdict was that he had Kidney stones.. Yep that I heard is the closest a man can get to child birth.
So now in 48 hours I have had five hours of sleep and my husband was in so much pain all he could do was sit trying to stay comfortable.
While he was sleeping I went and filled his prescriptions and guess what the co-pay was? Nothing.. Because he is an active duty member everything is free for him but even though I and my kids stand next to him day in and day out, moving with him and loving him while he is mainly gone at work. I and my children are not good enough to get the same coverage as he does.
I am now on an antibiotic for the abscess I have in my mouth awaiting to have six teeth pulled for partial dentures at age 32. Its kind of sad if you think about it.. I don't have the coverage I need to take care of my own teeth nor my kids that it has resulted to dentures at such a young age and my five year old has to push on her teeth daily hoping to get them loose so they will fall out before they abscess.
In the big scheme of things, I think that our government should reanalyze the care it provides for their military and their families.