jennickels | my super awesome daughter

My middle daughter, Brenna, is almost nine years old. She is such a great kid. She so sweet and caring and helpful. I don't know what I'd do without her. She was a lifesaver when I was pregnant with Jack. At the end when I was so uncomfortable I could barely move she took up the slack, doing a lot of the household chores for me without me even asking. She was 7 at the time. She amazes me every day with the depth of her compassion. She is a very special little girl.

Today she also reminded me that she is a very strong, brave girl, too. She was at the park with her friend and just came home a few minutes ago. She was a mess. I guess she wiped out on her bike. I couldn't believe what I saw. She limped in covered in dirt and blood, tears streaming down her face. But did she errupt into a fit of screaming? Nope, she got herself a paper towel and started cleaning herself up even though I could see she was going into shock. She was pale and shaking and trying to control her voice. I stayed back and let her do her thing as I tried to talk her into sitting down. I noticed the more I tried to get her to sit the more wavery her voice would get. When she was focused on cleaning herself up she was strong and solid.

She just amazes me. She didn't really break down until I woke my husband up (he had the door to our room locked and I needed to get in our bathroom where I had some gauze and other supplies). When she saw the look of shock on her face she just started bawling but quickly recovered. She's now resting on the couch, still covered head to toe in dirt. Her friend was with her and they patched up her knee with some bandaids (about 6 of them). I haven't looked under them yet but it must be bad. She had blood running all down her leg when she got home (lots of blood). And on her one arm from an inch long gash at her elbow. Both arms and legs and her clothes are just covered in dirt.

I have no idea what she was doing or how she fell all I know is that my brave, strong little girl got herself up despite the pain and fear and got herself home and was able to start fixing herself up. It was a proud day for me. I know I've taught her well if she can do all that on her own. But I also know it has to do with her, as an individual. Like I said to my oldest if it had been her that got hurt the friend would have had to come get me because Meagan would have never gotten up and walked herself home. She would have freaked out like she was dying and we probably would have ended up in the ER after a neighbor called 911 from the screaming. She spazzes out over a skinned knee.

I was also so thankful we were home. Our kids are allowed to stay home by themselves (mostly the older 3). Usually they are in the house and can't leave except to sit in the yard with friends. But yesterday we ran to the store and Brenna was at her friend's house. We stopped by to tell her we were leaving and she said she'd be there or at our house. This could have happened while we were out. I know she would have cleaned herself up bravely and waited for someone to get home but I'm so glad we were home for this. It's one of my fears when we do leave them home alone. Usually they are all together (rarely does just one of them stay alone although we allow it) so I know if one gets hurt the others are there to help but still...

Anyway. I just wanted to tell everyone about my super special, amazing, brave little girl. I'm almost in tears typing this because I am just so freaking proud of her right now. And a little nervous about having to clean her up. We're keeping an eye on her because she said she banged her head and now is demanding to take a nap. That worries me more than her physical injuries.

Here's some pics of her injuries. This was after she cleaned herself up. There was so much blood all over her.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Our copay is now $150 to go to the ER.
This makes me wanna bitch-slap every politician who opposes universal health care.

At least let me buy her a bike helmet for when she's ready to ride again.

It sucks. It used to be $100 but went up this year along with our copays to doctors, specialists and urgent care (and the closest urgent care our insurance covers is a 30 minute drive in Portland although we have a clinic here in town and one in Vancouver, neither are covered, though).

Insurance companies suck so very much. What we need is laws that limit their power over their customers, if we must have them.

Ya know what torques me off to no end? Rejecting someone's policy application because they have a "pre-existing condition". WTF? SICK PEOPLE NEED HEALTH CARE.

Ugh. The whole "private companies will take care of the disadvantaged" logic is such bat guano.

Well, from a business standpoint, health insurance is INSURANCE, and buying it once something has gone wrong isn't how it works. So that I get.

However, health care relying on insurance at all, traditionally a for-profit enterprise, is frakked.

Exactly. Whoever invented "health insurance" was evil.

Several tiers of health care should be available to everyone, from wellness maintenance, to old-fashioned urgent-care house calls, to emergency trauma, to institutional intensive care, to rehab, to palliative/hospice care. Tax me for it and charge a sliding co-pay that's affordable but will discourage hypochondriacs.

No one asked me if I wanted my tax dollars to fund the invasion of oil pipeline countries.

You know what always cracks me up about the free health care argument. People against start ranting about how they don't want the someone (the government) deciding whether or not they can have a procedure.

Um, don't some suits at the insurance company already do that? My dad was lucky he qualified for insurance through railroad retirement because after his heart attack he was basically uninsurable, especially anything having anything to do with his heart.

Even with that insurance (which has to tied him over until he's old enough for Medicare) he's screwed if he has another heart attack. It only covers a life time max of like $200k. His last heart attack cost him $80k in just hospital bills (not including the doctors). After insurance he was still responsible for about $20k. He's on a fixed income and will most likely lose his house and will still owe on those bills when he finally dies (even if that's 20 years from now). He'll never get out from under that and without government sponsored health care he would have no insurance at all.

OMG Yes. I fail to see how universal health care would determine what procedures someone is willing to undergo or decline as treatment.

It's also a crime that most health care is outrageously overpriced. $40 for 2 ibuprofen in the hospital, WTF? And yet there it was on Mr. Campy's hospital bill. Thank the goddess he was covered completely, but it's because it was billable to the insurance company that the hospital got away with it.

I'm trying not to RAAAAAAGE at how screwed up US health care is that kids don't have access to basic medical care. Do your kids qualify for CHIP?
http://www.insurekidsnow.gov/state/washington/index.html

That knee looks like it needs more than a patchwork of Band-Aids to heal it.

Actually they do. We qualify for free health care for all 5 kids based on our income. We've just always had insurance through my husband's job. We're still waiting for Jack's SSN so we can get him on it. He's currently uninsured and hasn't ever had insurance and he's 13 months old. We can't get him on ours without a SSN which he still doesn't have (applied like 6 weeks ago but still nothing, stupid red tape).

That bandaid work was Brenna and her little friend (who is 8, I believe) trying to patch her up so she could get home.

I just finished cleaning her up and it looks pretty gruesome but not as bad as I thought.

I'm so glad that there's better news on her knee.

Free health care for the kids sounds so much better than deciding whether or not you can afford groceries or rent or utilities instead.

Totally ridic that the SSA, whose main function is to issue SSNs, can't issue Jack an SSN.

She's feeling much better now that it's cleaned and bandaged properly. She's outside hanging out with her friends.

Now sure what the deal is with Jack's SSN. They told me it usually takes about 4 weeks but depends on whether or not Illinois does stuff electronically (to check his birth certificate) and she had an issue with the fact that there were 2 different dates on the BC, one was the issue date and one was the filing date. I guess in WA they don't do it that way but all of the ones we have from IL have 2 different numbers because they are filing so many of them they don't do them the day they issue.

She said that could screw up the application. I haven't heard anything from them, though. I'm probably going to have to call now to find out what's going on because we need that number by October to put Jack on our insurance for next year.

Good grief, it's not rocket science. They act like he was born in a foreign country.

It's crazy. We had to have "ID" to prove he lived past birth. He's a freaking baby, he doesn't have ID. She said it's almost unheard of to actually need ID for an infant because the numbers are applied for by hospital staff. They didn't do that, though, so Jack didn't just need to get a card printed. He had to have a number issued to him. It's been a huge headache.

my super awesome daughter

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