It's Important to Floss

I took the girls to the dentist yesterday. 

This is what it's like when you don't have any money.  All four girls need braces.  A couple of them need them badly.  One child may someday have to have teeth pulled if she doesn't get them.  Another has a major cosmetic issue.  But they most likely won't get braces.

I'm trying not to be anxious about the future, but my husband is only working part-time.  My parents have helped us out--a lot.  Paid our mortgage, health insurance, used van payment, and phone bill, just in the last month.  They also help with groceries.  But they can't keep helping us at this level indefinitely.  I've tried and tried to get government help, and tried and tried to find work online that I can do.  The online proofreading business is just not going anywhere--they have no new websites to proofread, and haven't had any for weeks.

Braces are just out of the question.  And they always have been.  When you live under the poverty limit, you're too busy trying to keep a roof over your head to worry about braces.  Not to mention joining any extracurricular activities, or taking vacations.

I see other people's kids getting braces, but mine can't have them.  I wonder if this will have any affect on who my girls marry, on their careers.  If they escape the poverty, maybe they can get braces as adults.  I keep telling them to go to college, but my husband has just graduated and there is no job out there.  I keep hoping that they'll be able to get financial aid, because of course we haven't been able to save anything for their college.  I hope they don't have to take out huge amounts of student loans.

This is what it's like to be poor.  If medicaid decides to cancel us, I have no choice but to jump through every hoop they ask us to, over and over again, so that my kids can have dental care.  Sometimes they're quite rude, too, the people I have to talk to to try to get help.  I've learned to let them know immediately that I'm reasonably intelligent--I use as many big words as I can.  I get treated better that way.

I've filled out the same paperwork over and over.  They'll say that I have ten days to get it to them.  I've pretty much learned what paperwork I need now, and I have it ready when I re-apply, so I can send it the same day I re-apply.  Because ten days is not enough time to get their forms in the mail, and then get everything they ask for back to them.

They've cancelled us twice because of my husband's National Guard.  When he went into basic training, they insisted that he was working here at his civilian job, and in Oklahoma for the military (quite a distance from here), at the same time.  We had to get a letter from his employer in the mail stating that he was on leave, and then mail the letter to the government, and they had to process it, all within ten days.  This didn't happen fast enough, so I had to send them everything--copies of drivers' licenses and birth certificates, even.  As is they didn't already know who we are.

It happened again last year when he went to Germany for three weeks with the Guard.

I now keep copies of everything I might need, and plenty of stamps, and big yellow envelopes, so I can immediately send them whatever they ask for.  We also have to have a printer with a copy machine attached.  They would like us to have a fax machine, but we can't afford a land line.

I want my kids to be able to go to the dentist.

I personally don't go to the dentist unless I am in a lot of pain.  And then my parents have to pay for the root canal.  My husband is lucky--the military is taking care of his teeth now.  I read once this winter that dental care is one of the main reasons some poor people join the military--after a childhood of dental neglect, it's the only way they can get their rotting teeth taken care of.  I brush and floss a lot.  Unfortunately, people with CVID often have a lot of dental problems, because after all it is bacteria that causes tooth decay.

I'm aware that we're lucky to have a dentist in the neighborhood who takes medicaid.  Some people have trouble with transportation because they're poor, and then can't find a dentist that will take them.  Kids have actually died because of infected teeth.

We still owe the dentist money from the first National Guard incident, when medicaid cancelled us without telling us, and we found ourselves with a big surprise dental bill.  The dentist's office has been very nice about this.  They're always nice to me, even though my kids are on medicaid.  We pay them a little bit once in a while.

But braces are the least of my worries right now.  I'm trying not to wonder if at some point we'll get our utilities shut off.  I've wondered if people will at least pay our mortgage so we can keep the house.  Will we lose our minivan, meaning I'll be trapped at home unless my husband is here.  Will I lose my internet access.  I'd be grateful for my survivalist tendencies--we'd at least have a wood stove this winter.  But we wouldn't even have water.  Would we have to throw out most of the meat in the deep freeze?  Maybe we could get a hand pump for the well?  How would my kids get baths?  And what would happen to the pets if we had to move in with my parents?  Would I be able to get enough people to move my piano?

I just try not to think about it.  And, really, a lot of the stuff we worry about never happens.  But this episode of financial hardship is worse than the others have been.  And it's been going on since Christmas.

I'm still waiting to hear from Social Security, but that could be weeks or months, and the answer will probably still be no.  I've been told that the county FSSA office has no right to withhold food stamps and medicaid from us because I'm not working, only welfare money.  I could always consult a lawyer, but lawyers aren't for poor people.  Maybe I should try to reapply, but just for food stamps.  I know people who don't work and get food stamps.  I think I'll do that, but I don't expect it to work.

There just isn't anything I can do.  I want to do something.