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.