Hello everyone,
I’ve been pretty quiet and I’d like to update everyone on where we’re at and what’s going on. Good, bad, and ugly.
(For those confused why I would need to update publicly, the sordid tale of soggy Dan can be found here, here, and here.)
Let’s start with the good.
One, I did get to that cane, in fact, I’m getting pretty good at it, and it’s largely stairs, uneven/soft surfaces, and long stretches with nowhere to sit (like a typical supersized box store) that remain a difficulty at this point. Otherwise, I’m largely trudging around fairly well these days. In fact, I even managed to handle Narrascope this year, although, I’ll get more into that in a bit.
Two, the settlement from the accident finally came in. It was certainly more than I had ever had at any point, but it also wasn’t riding off into the sunset sipping mimosa’s forever money either. That said, it fixed quite a few problems all at once. First and foremost, our lease was running out at the end of May anyway, and we had no reason to stay in Northern Michigan. My wife’s family was in Pennsylvania, and we were priced out of homes in Michigan (I could digress on Detroit, but it’s a moot point for a few reasons, mostly that it isn’t 2017 anymore.), so we decided to settle down somewhere in PA we could buy a move-in ready home. So, we did. We traveled out to Altoona, PA in mid-April and closed on a home, all-cash by May 2nd. The idea was to reduce ongoing expenses, by not having a mortgage or rent. We’ve both lived our entire lives with the sword of rental Damocles hanging over our heads. We just didn’t want our continued monthly existence to be at the whim and favor of yet another landlord (you could digress on taxes going to the ultimate municipal landlord, but it takes 2 years of delinquency to lose your home and less than $100/month feels like basically nothing in compared to average rents nowadays, but that’s neither here nor now). Next, we were able to hire the help we needed to move, as my days packing and unpacking trucks and dragging furniture up and down flights of stairs are probably over. And, we were also able to have the space to help our adult daughter move back home and get her feet under her. She has been on her own for years and there were several times we wanted to help but couldn’t. Anyone who has tried to add a tenant to a lease can understand how difficult this can get. Owning the home means there’s no one to ask. She has a bedroom down the hall from me and has managed to settle in, find (some part-time) work, and acclimate frankly better and faster than we have. It’s really nice to know she can focus on improving her circumstances for once instead of month to month survival.
Also Two (part 2!), because the paragraph was way too long. We also were able to, despite our rather atrocious credit after this last year, to pull a used car loan (2021 with <5k miles). We contemplated simply buying a newer-ish car outright, but something that would handle the mountains out here as well as not immediately nickel and dime us was fairly expensive and we didn’t want to blow through as much of the remaining settlement money, deciding it made more sense to make payments for now to keep more liquid, as we weren’t guaranteed to not run into issues after buying a home. Also, this allowed us to make sure our daughter could get around in the Honda Fit (we paid for insurance and registration, etc) when she agreed to move in with us. She had been living in Philly, and largely dependent on public transit, so moving somewhere rural was a different animal altogether. She was not in a position to fix this herself. I also attended the Blair county tax auction (after several months of research) on June 18th and bought a half acre of land for $800 and a trailer for $125. The idea being we could move the trailer onto the land and create space for our adult daughter while also giving everyone involved needed space (living with your parents in your mid twenties isn’t exactly friction free). All of that went off without a hitch, and we just received the deeds for both in the mail. Finally, I was mentioning Narrascope to Heather some months ago, and, bless her heart, she said, why don’t you go? 
…what? We’re not broke, and you’ve wanted to go for years. You should go. And I realized she was right. I could go! Not being perpetually in survival mode was strange. So, I paid for a ticket for Narrascope, conveniently in Philadelphia this year, and arranged for travel and somewhere to stay. And it was great (sans the Philadelphia Parking Authority, but that didn’t have anything to do with the conference) and it was honestly more than I had hoped for! (Honestly, if you have the excess funds and inclination, I cannot recommend it enough after going. It really hit that perfect balance of busy and diversified but also small enough to feel approachable on multiple levels.)
Three, after much delay (it was harder than I anticipated) I finally and very recently managed to land a job here, and our monthly expenses are low enough now that the single job will cover everything, despite it being on the lower end for wages (Central rural Pennsylvania in general pays lower wages). It has also been a new experience what interviewing with a cane is like. I had far, far more interviews to receive one offer than I have ever had in the past, but it wasn’t too terrible because we knew there was still money to fall back on and there also wasn’t the threat of someone leaving nastygrams taped to our door on the 3rd of the month.
All and all, not too bad, and a definite improvement over our circumstances, even before the accident. I won’t be joining any marathons, but honestly, I was never much of a runner anyway.
That brings us to the bad.
One, all of that has taken far more time and energy and bandwidth than I anticipated, and it wasn’t until recently, around Narrascope time actually, that life began to slow down enough to allow me to shift some of my focus back here and different commitments and obligations. I have much to catch up on, more than is really even public, tbh, and I regret how much time and focus my injury, the recovery, and then the logistics of moving and resettling have ended up taking. If I could do it again (I don’t want to) there are things I would do differently, but I’m stuck with my decisions thus far either way. Fwiw, I do feel back, in a tangible way. I’ve found some other ways to help cope with pain, and my muscle relaxers are low enough now to not impact my ability to think. I feel, cognitively (probably not emotionally, but I don’t know if that’s a reasonable expectation), finally back to where I was, say Christmas of 2023.
Two, and this is probably the biggest unpleasant surprise for all three of us, we got to learn a new word together. That would be subrogation. I usually enjoy learning new vocabulary, but this is one I could have skipped. Let me back up. The Monday after Narrascope, I made a fairly routine trip to our local credit union. The credit union notified us that our savings account had been frozen by court order. First of all, we had no idea why at first, as we didn’t actually have a copy of that order right away, and two, that account was where we had chosen to put the vast bulk of the remaining settlement money. Suddenly, we had no access to funds and no ongoing income (I was still looking at this point). While our costs are lower, they weren’t zero. We eventually discovered that the state of Michigan is seeking to recover costs. You see, subrogation is the legal process where one party steps into the shoes of another to pursue a claim, typically to recover damages. In insurance, it’s when the insurer pays a claim and then seeks reimbursement from the at-fault party. It turns out that my no fault car insurance PIP had a payout cap for medical costs. So, even though they were the primary insurer, after hitting that cap, they began to reject those claims, which then fell to my secondary insurer, which was Medicaid through the state of Michigan. Medicaid paid those claims, so my providers didn’t complain, and I was blissfully unaware of how much of my recovery was being covered by Medicaid and not Geico. After the surgeries, hospital stay, numerous specialists, and well over a year of physical and occupational therapy, the total was significant.
Also Two again (part 2!), because this paragraph was also way too long. Turns out, through subrogation, a state’s Medicaid program can seek to recover costs related to an accident from the settlement awarded from that accident. Typically, these costs are withheld from the settlement amount prior to disbursement, but apparently there was a delay between the two insurers talking to each other, and my attorney released the settlement with only a few thousand taken out due to some non-covered anesthesia. Just because it looks free and clear, doesn’t mean it is though. All that aside, the initial amount being claimed would have left roughly $3000 in our savings, so we first put pressure on Medicaid to simply take what the claim and release the hold on our account. There was a delay however, and, at Mike Russo’s wise urging, we finally went to our old representative in Michigan to get things to move a bit faster. To our representative’s credit, they did intervene for us and got things to resolve. That happened yesterday. The problem is the delay was due to Medicaid not being fully finished figuring out every last bit we owed, as these expenses and claims were spread out over nearly 18 months, and each sequential claim was bouncing off Geico first, slowing things down further. As I said, our account is now available again as of yesterday, but instead of $3000 left, there is roughly $70. That was not what we were hoping for.
Three, since this happened, I’ve been doordashing, to the best of my ability, which, it turns out, isn’t very good. I’m quite a bit slower despite my best efforts, and frankly, the market here is understandably less generous than the tourist town of Traverse City, Michigan we left. It’s been difficult to simply keep us in gasoline and groceries, let alone keep up with bills. We had a round of utilities to pay at the end of June which frankly didn’t happen, and we’ve been playing a juggling game of putting out whatever fire was most urgent, playing for time. Ironically, since I started working, there’s the typical delay for your first full paycheck (biweekly, looks like the 22nd; I received a very small deposit on the 8th.), and, in the meantime, that’s far less time I could attempt to doordash, which actually made things worse in the short term. We had hoped that the remainder in our savings would catch us up to current once the hold lifted and then we’d be fine, or that I’d start working soon enough for it to be a moot point, but neither has been the case.
Four, we’re out of time. We can start digging out as of the 22nd, and frankly, some of the shut-off notices and other nastiness are dated after the 22nd and will thus be fine. That said, our car payment will not (our water is also on a shut off notice for the 18th as well, but I should be able to scrape up the amount required to avoid that via doordash between then and now). In fact, we have focused on keeping the utilities on and bet on catching up the car payment. That is catching up to us. Our representative understood the urgency of our situation and promised they’d pressure Medicaid to finish their shtick as soon as possible, and frankly, to their credit, they definitely came through for us. The problem is that wasn’t the relief we had banked on. And our date to cure the default on our car note is today. And we don’t have it.
And finally, now the ugly.
In the meantime, since our vocabulary lesson, things have ground to a halt. The shower parts we ordered (we inherited a clawfoot tub with a tubfiller and no shower) were incorrect (because despite our best efforts, we are plumbing ignorant) and now we longer had funds to correct that, so despite the water company fiiiinnnaalllyy coming out to turn the water off at the street briefly (there’s no separate water shut off in the house, yes, really) we weren’t able to fix that. Three adults have been taking cup baths since early May and it’s getting old. (Not to mention, me getting in and out of a clawfoot tub that way is probably one of the most difficult and frankly dangerous things I need to do on a regular basis.) Washer and dryer? We had plans to buy them used and have them delivered the week after Narrascope, which obviously didn’t happen. Add tightening the money, and we have all been digging through our closets to delay our visits to the laundromat. There’s full hampers sitting around waiting for the time and money to go clean them. Our pantry? Pretty damn bare at this point, as we’ve eaten through anything we could figure out without spending more. Also, we have done absolutely nothing with the trailer and property (we did ironically try putting it for sale as a desperation tactic, but nothing came of it) we bought, as getting that together was largely coming out of our remaining settlement money. I could go on, but you get the point.
Despite the subrogation, the amount the state of Michigan claimed was thankfully (if only slightly, lol) less than what we had left, so the state didn’t put a lien on our home (yes, they can do that). So we have that at least. Also, the wage paid by this new job does cover all of our monthly expenses. There’s not much left over (Heather is still applying) so it’ll take some time to catch everything up, but we’ll be at least solvent going forward. Also, as a private matter, we have received some help to ease this in the meantime, but frankly I don’t feel right putting this on one person despite their willingness to help, hell, maybe because of their willingness.
That said, that puts us in a place we frankly never expected to be again, and it would honestly be funny if it weren’t also sobering and frightening. We need to pay our car note by midnight to prevent a repossession, and, honestly, even beyond that trying to get through the next 10 days with everything figuratively on fire around us is a bit much. We need help and we need it urgently, and I won’t be able to solve this ourselves. In some ways, I thought removing the threat of eviction would be a relief, and it has to a degree; we would have already crashed and burned otherwise. This has been a harsh reminder that we’re still vulnerable.
That’s where we’re at. All in all, better in many ways, but also sorta screwed in the short term.
Please consider helping us fix this. It’s NOT your problem or your responsibility. That said, in the last year or so, I’ve had to make peace with the truth that asking for help when we need it and not to simply drown in polite midwestern silence IS my responsibility.
Whether or not you can or will help us, thank you, everyone, for helping us get this far and helping me stay sane in the meantime.
Sincerely,
Pinkunz (Dan)
(P.S. Sorry for the length. I would have written a shorter post, but did not have the time. Already back to doordashing atm.)