Chad's thoughts

Well, Yesterday My mother and I went to the Oklahoma State Fair in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, like we do every year. This year, however, was different. Why? Well, that is because it was easier to get in. It was easier to park even in the paid parking. It was easier to make it through the gate. Then again, it was far less crowded than it ever was. In fact, it felt empty even though there were people there. Could it be because of the price to get through the gate? Could it be because of the price for paid parking?

What was odd was that there were very few cops there. To be honest, there were very few security guards that I could see there. It felt rather questionable being there. Hell, I’m pretty sure people could have started stealing stuff and most likely wouldn't have been caught. It also seems the only people that were guarding anything were the shop vendors.

Now I have been saying for years that the Oklahoma State Fair in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was not worth the price of Admission. This year was no exception. I mean, who wants to pay $17.75 for an ADULT ticket and $10.50 for a CHILD ticket if you are not lucky enough to get the tickets before the Oklahoma State Fair in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, starts? That's not including how much the Oklahoma State Fair in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, charges for the rides and games.

Now, the only good thing about the Oklahoma State Fair in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, is that my mother had some fun, even though she had a hard time with the America 250 wheel. The only bad thing about the Oklahoma State Fair in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, is that my mother had a hard time with the America 250 wheel. Maybe next year, something like the America 250 wheel will be more handicap-friendly.

It seems that I have the ability to make the Government mad at me. The funny part is that I didn’t even mean to either. I guess the Government doesn’t like it when people ask them questions. I mean, I understand why when one of the questions is “What I don’t understand is if the Social Security Administration is rounding down to the whole dollar, then why is the Social Security Administration running low or going to run low in funds?” but I then again, questions like these would make anyone on the Government level squirm. What’s worse is that the question is a valid question to ask the Government. After all, the Government keeps going on about how the Social Security Administration is running out of funds. So much so that Benefits from the Social Security Administration are expected to be cut down to around 80% by 2032, if I remember right. I wonder what people will do when that happens. I guess it’s expected because the Government wants to get rid of the people that is costing them the most money first. What’s sad is that the Government is trying to get rid of the people who have, in one form or another, kept the Government on some level.

I guess it’s no worse than being a Full-Time Primary Family Caregiver to your mother like I am. Why is it worse to be a Caregiver than to be a person getting any kind of Benefits from the Government? Well, that's easy. According to the Government, Caregivers don’t exist unless you went through any of their training. It doesn’t matter if the Caregiver keeps better records than the Government. I mean, after all, you don’t hear anything about a Caregiver losing billions due to not knowing where the money went.

You know, when I was in school, I would get told that if there is a problem, to bring it up to my Representatives. However, when it gets to the point of getting questionable answers as replies, it makes someone like me question if they truly are the Representatives for me. Twice over when it gets to the point for someone like me to wonder if the Representatives I Email even truly read the Email in the first place. So in my case, the only way I can get any kind of financial assistance for being a full-time primary family caregiver to my mother is to take my mother off traditional Advantage Waiver services and move to the CD Pass Program. If you ask me, that is asinine. Why? Well, I was asking for $200.50 a month. Now, if I am understanding the CD Pass Program, it would be $9 per hour, and the hours paid would be up to the state.

Now let’s do some Math, and I’ll show you why giving me $200.50 a month would be cheaper. So if I were being paid $9 per hour (I believe that is the minimum) and I was only allowed to work for one hour a day as a caregiver under the CD Pass Program, you would take 9 and multiply it by 31 days for this month, which is August. That would look something like this: 9 x 31 = 279. Now, if you subtract 200.50 from 279, you would get 279 – 200.5 = 78.5. That would save the state $78.50 for the month of August. That is why telling me to “…speak with your mother’s Advantage case manger about transitioning from traditional Advantage Waiver services to the CD Pass Program” is asinine. Yes, that is a direct quote from Adult and Family Services | Long Term Care  of Oklahoma Human Services (OKDHS). Maybe this is the true reason why the State of Oklahoma is going broke. Better yet, maybe this is why we used to see in the news about Caregivers abusing the people they are Caregivers to. And it seems that the Senators or Representatives don’t want to step into the conversation unless you give them money on some level. So here I am trying me damndest to keep my mother out of a nursing home while being told to just stick my mother in a nursing home.

I guess in the end this is the true Oklahoma Standard, so don’t expect anyone in the Government to understand your problem because they truly don’t give a damn.

You want to know what I find interesting? It’s when I email all 100+ House and Senate Representatives, and I get a reply from a Representative that tells me who is supposed to represent me. What that Representative fails to understand is the fact that I included my legislators in the Email. It's like, do the legislators not understand that I included everyone for a reason? Maybe that’s what's wrong with the state of Oklahoma. I mean, if a legislator has no clue as to why someone is doing something, then why be a legislator at all? I asked valid questions and got back a reply that was asinine, to say the least. I mean, yeah, I understand that the legislator was trying to help on some level, but to miss the part where I name the District and the Executive Assistant is rather telling to me. I guess it’s to be expected since the True Oklahoma Standard is to just ignore the Oklahoma people on some level unless they make it on TV after a disaster of some sort.

I guess the good thing is how fast the reply was. Yeah, that was the fastest 11 minutes I have ever seen when it comes to a reply from any government official. I just wish it was related to the question I asked. Just in case you are wondering what question I asked, it was “Is there a way for me to get some kind of financial assistance for being a full-time primary family caregiver to my mother?” As I said, the reply I got back was “I looked up your state legislators and they are:” with the list of the people that were included in the Email. I guess in a way this shows me that all legislators don’t like to answer questions unless you are in their District, and if you are in their District, they just ignore you.

In the end, it is what it is, and all we can do is just let the Masters/legislators do what they wish.

Well now that the HUD inspection is said and done I guess I could talk about it since I'm a little recouped. I was up for about 26 hours straight. I worked on the kitchen for most of the time. I did work on the bathroom a little bit. Either way in the end it felt like all the work I did was for nothing. Why? Well that's because of how the inspection went.

Just in case you want to know it went a little like this. The inspector and both of the housing authority maintenance men made it to our unit just as I was dosing off. The chubby maintenance man came in first then the inspector followed. The inspector seemed to wait for the skinny maintenance man to come in. After the skinny maintenance man came in the unit the inspector closed the front door. That's when the inspector noted he could see light through the top of the door. While the inspector was noting that the skinny maintenance man went to the kitchen. When the inspector was done noting the front door he went to the kitchen. I heard the skinny maintenance man and the inspector talking about the door seal of the refrigerator. The skinny maintenance man and the inspector the moved to the hot water heater closet. After that they both went to my room. After that both of the both of the housing authority maintenance men and the inspector left the unit.

Now what I find it interesting what they didn't check on. They didn't see the check to see if the stove top burners would light on their own. They didn't test the smoke detectors. Yes I said smoke detectors not smoke detector. Why do we have more then one? Well that's because one inspector for some reason said we needed four. Oh and let's not forget about not checking to see if the sink faucets work a long with how good the sinks drain.

To me this inspection feels off. It feels incomplete. It was made out to be a bigger deal than it turned out to be. Mind you I have been in the same unit for over 17 and half years now. I know what HUD looks at for the most part because of that. This inspection feels like it was more of a scare tactic then anything else. Hell the inspector didn't even inspect all the units so it was not like he was pressed for time.

Either way it is what it is and there is no point in worrying about it. All I can do is wait for the nasty gram and call it a day.

Well, today we got a notice about the inspection on the 13th of this month. The funny part some of it goes over the very thing I have been telling the people at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). That includes the derelict vehicles on Wetumka Housing Authority (WHA) property. Hell, the notice even had something about wanting to make this place a home for the tenants. However, the executive director (ED) fails to understand that he already damaged that presumption when he started attacking tenants he didn’t like on some level. The ED doesn’t see that such attacks on tenants will just make them not want to report any issues they are having with their unit. It has even gotten to the point where some tenants, including myself, are better off just addressing the issues with our units ourselves unless it’s a big issue that requires some major work to address it. Why? Well, that’s because all small issues seem to be placed on the back burner until it becomes an issue that might require a tenant to leave their unit, then rush the work. I know this because it happened to me and my mother.

I guess it’s expected that it’s only going to get worse before it gets better at this point. I mean, after all, before every inspection we clean our unit to the best we can with what little funds we have. Hell, we even went in the hole at the back a couple of times getting cleaning supplies. Even when we did that, it still was not enough to make it through the inspection, according to our now ED. Why do I say that? Well, that’s easy. According to our now ED, we have never passed an inspection for the 17 years we have been here. With that being said, we should have been evicted years ago due to HUD policy, if that is true. Now I don’t know all of HUD or WHA policies, but the policies I do know are from the course of the year that I worked for WHA, so I do have a little understanding of the policies. Maybe if things weren’t run in such a questionable manner, WHA could be seen as a home for its tenants.

Well, I have an inspection to get ready for, and maybe after that, an eviction. So don’t have too much fun, or at least try not to.

Well, things seem to be coming together now, at least with getting help for mother. As of the 1st of this month, mother is finally back on Medicaid, or what Oklahoma calls SoonerCare. The ladies who were supposed to show up actually showed up, even though they were a tiny bit late. The nurse started talking to me and asked a couple of questions. When it got to the questions about people coming in and helping me, I told the nurse it would be best to ask my mother. That’s because it really depends on what my mother wants to do, since I had been trying to get her into this Waiver Advantage Medicaid Program for a while now.

Anyway, the ladies both started asking my mother questions. Some were about medical stuff. Some were about what she could and couldn’t do. Some were about what she might want people to come in and help with. It all seemed good to go. When it came to stuff like where mothers' doctors were, I had to grab my phone and look up where each doctor was from my notes. It was a good day.

Now what I need to do is put the phone numbers of where both ladies are coming from so when they call I don’t think they are scammers. Yes, it has gotten that bad with the scammers. So bad in fact that I thought on the 2nd that I had gotten over 20 calls from scammers when in reality at least one came from one of the ladies the day before. Now I already put one of the ladies' phone numbers in my phone, and I need to make sure to put the other lady's phone number in my phone so I won’t think they are scammers. I’m also thinking it might be a good idea to give them Mother’s phone number just in case. I’m also thinking about creating user accounts on my Home Assistant for both of the ladies. Why? Well, so they can see when we are home, and so they can look at the calendar and see all of Mother’s doctor’s appointments.

Now the next thing to do is see if I can get us moved into the Tecumseh Housing Authority a little faster. Why? Well, that’s because it does not feel safe here anymore. While everything has calmed down, the damage is done, and I want a safer environment. I am tired of hoping nothing will happen to my mother while I go out and take care of the rent and electric bill. I’m tired of hoping that if something that’s part of the unit breaks, the Wetumka Housing Authority maintenance will address it sooner than three months. I’m tired of being in a place with dirty water and dirty power. That’s just to name a few things I’m tired of around here. Anyway, it is what it is, I guess.

Well, tomorrow I’ll find out whether what I did to get the Waiver Advantage Medicaid Program going was worth the trouble. After all, this was the third time I tried to get it going. The first time I didn’t even know it was called the Waiver Advantage Medicaid Program because Oklahoma Human Services (OKDHS) called it the Advantage Program instead. Hell, the ladies that called today called it the Advantage Program. So it’s still rather questionable whether OKDHS even knows the name of their own services. Anyway, the first time I tried to get it going was when OKDHS brought mothers' food stamps (which is called SNAP now) down to around $107 a month. I thought maybe there was a Program or Service that the OKDHS would help old people like my mother. Sure enough, I found out that in order to get something called Meals on Wheels, you had to go through what they called at the time the Advantage Program. So I started the process of getting into the Advantage Program to get my mother on Meals on Wheels. The end result, though, is what made it all crash, which resulted in OKDHS sending a nurse to our home to question my mother, then tell us that my mother didn’t have enough points. Yes, you read that right: they made my mother's life a fucking video game where she had to hit some high score just to enter into a program that's to help old people in some way.

Now let’s talk about what led up to the second and third tries to get the Waiver Advantage Medicaid Program. My mother and I went to the Oklahoma State Fair in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, a couple of years back. I stopped wanting to go to the Oklahoma State Fair a long time ago, but my mother still wanted to go, so we bought tickets online, something neither of us had done before. After that, we did our usual of planning, since it is and has always been a pain in the ass to get in and park. It was some time after the shootings happened, so everyone was treated like a gunman. After making our way through the so-called security at the gate, my mother did what she always did, which was to go through the buildings. Yeah, it’s something she has done ever since I can remember. This time, though, one of the buildings had a thing going on in it for old people. That's when we were told about the Waiver Advantage Medicaid Program from OKDHS.

Now, mind you, my mother and I have been looking for something that would help me be a somewhat better Caregiver in some way. Every time my mother and I got told that was some form of help I could get, it would always lead to that three-to-five-letter government agency saying, “We don’t have such a Program”. That includes OKDHS with the Waiver Advantage Medicaid Program. So I started the process of applying for the Waiver Advantage Medicaid Program. Again, I didn’t put two and two together until the end of the second try, that I already tried to apply for this before. Anyway, we made it to the medical interview, and that’s when the second try crashed. Why? Well, that was easy: the phone system at the OKDHS died and didn’t come back up until the very last day we had to do the medical interview. So we had to withdraw the application for the Waiver Advantage Medicaid Program.

Now let’s talk about the third and what looks like the final try. This go-around, I started the process of getting the Waiver Advantage Medicaid Program like before. Again, we made it through the financial interview but not without the phone system dying in the middle of it. And again, getting the medical interview done was just as big of a problem as last time. It took me telling OKDHS how unacceptable the problems with their phone system were. It wasn't until the last day of needing to get the medical interview done that the OKDHS phone system finally worked.

Now I’m wondering what’s going to happen now. Are they going to say our unit is too shitty for them, or better yet, try to take Mother out of here and place her in the nursing home? It's all up in the air at this point. All I can do is hope that they are going to help and not try to do anything that will lead to them taking Mother away. After all, I have been trying my best at being a caregiver to my mother and keeping her out of a nursing home. I have been doing this for 10 years, but it feels more like 8. I have been doing this without any help from any government agency. I have been doing this with little help from family. In the end, it is what it is, and I’ll just have to make do with whatever happens tomorrow.

I'm starting to wonder if Mother is right about the water affecting me. I have been drinking the water here in Wetumka, Oklahoma, off and on for years. It has been more on than off since I've been her caregiver, starting about nine years ago. So if it's true that the water is the problem, then we are fucked. I'm also starting to wonder if that's why flies sometimes attack me out of the blue. Like maybe something in the water is attracting them to me for some reason. At this point, it's all just a guess, so I'm going to have to figure out how to test somehow. It's starting to make me wonder what all is in the water that people aren't being told about.

Anyway it's not bad yet so maybe I caught it soon enough before it got worse. This, however, shows me that there are far deeper problems with Wetumka, Oklahoma, than just government. I wonder what would happen if I reported this to DEQ? Would DEQ even do anything about it? I mean, if I'm getting affected by the water, how many others are getting affected by the water? At this point, it would also explain another reason why people are leaving Wetumka, Oklahoma.

In the end, it is what it is, and all I can do is just ride it out and report this to my doctor the next time I see her.

You know what really gets on my nerves? It’s when I'm expected to be ready for an inspection at a specific date and time then when that date and time rolls around, the inspection does not happen. The excuse that was given for not doing the inspection at an earlier date and time was “the ED needed to go to Texas.” I wonder what excuse will be used this time? Will it be the ED forgot again? Will it be that the ED just didn’t want to do the inspection? Will it be that he was told that he has to consider something else? At this point, it doesn't matter as he already won. We have already made a choice to get the fuck out like he wants. All we are waiting for is the Tecumseh Housing Authority to call us and say, “We are ready for you”.

Right now, we are also kinda waiting for next month to come around so we can move more stuff into storage. We already got a big part of my room into storage, but there is still more. Most of it is boxes and a couple of containers, and if I had to guess, it would take two or three more trips, but then again, that’s just a guess. I would also have to guess that after we are somewhat done with my room, we might shift to the living room. We could also work on my mother's room, but since that never seems to get inspected by the ED, I think we are good there so far. At this point, it doesn’t matter where we shift to because all I want to do is to make sure we are in a safe enough environment where I don’t have to worry about my mother when I go out and do my Caregiver duties. Right now, every time I leave our unit, I have to wonder if someone is going to break in to either hurt my mother or take some of our stuff. It was never like that until the new neighbors got here. Before they got here, it was peaceful for the most part, but now it seems that there are cops on my street every week to every other week. Only time will tell if it will get back to the peaceful time it once was.

In the end, it is what it is, and all I can do is hope it gets better before it gets worse.

Well, we got reinspected on 4/7/2026, like the executive director (ED) said we would. It was the ED who did the inspection. As I opened the front door, he said hi to me, then flat-footed to the kitchen, where he found that I was working on the refrigerator. The ED wrote something down on the paper he had. I’m only going to guess it was about the tile and how he didn’t see the cracks on it. If that's true, I can’t get too mad at him for not noticing them since they are only viewable if one really looks for them. The ED then went to the bathroom. I have to guess it was to see if the toilet got cleaned or not, and maybe see how bad the tub was. It was around that time that my mother had started talking to him.

Now I don’t know what my mother said to the ED because they were talking low. My mother did tell me that she asked for more time and told the ED that if he evicts, it would just make it harder for us to move into the Tecumseh Housing Authority. The ED told my mother that he was not going to evict us, at least that’s what my mother told me. My mother told me that she asked if the ED would come back on 4/10/2026, as that day we would have more stuff out of the unit by then. My mother and I did indeed move more stuff out of our unit by making two more trips to Tecumseh Car Wash and Self Storage, where we started renting a Storage unit. The bad thing about driving from Wetumka to Tecumseh is being tired afterwards, so it was and still is a one-trip there and back kind of thing.

Anyway, on 4/10/2026, we went to the bank to get my mother a new card because the card she had got nuked due to AT&T using it to make an unauthorized to themself. We made it back home before 3:00 PM because when my mother asked the ED to come back, she asked the ED to come back around 3:00 PM. Well, he didn’t show up, but I think around 3:30 PM, maintenance came around with a notice about the exterminators coming around 4/13/2026, which is tomorrow. Again, I can’t be mad at him about that either. Why? Well, my mother and I were rather tired from going back and forth between Wetumka and Tecumseh the last couple of days, plus the ED was nice when he came around to do his inspection on the 7th. One day, I’ll figure out what I said to get him to ease off, but until then, I just have to keep getting stuff put into storage so when we move, we have less to move.

In the end, all we can do is what we can do, and that’s all we are left with.