good, bad, and . . .

Good news: it will freeze tonight, so I can open my bedroom window and maintain a comfortable temperature in my room without sucking in lots of things I am allergic to.

Bad news: I have no hot water right now.

(Not sure if these things are related.)

(Other) News: A letter from the OWCP came today.  It's for the hearing my lawyer asked for without talking to me.  The hearings are 5 to 9 months behind, a letter announced a while back.  That irritated me because I had sort of decided to try a famous nearby pain clinic, and the thought that I'd have to wait 5-9 months to go because my lawyer did something inexplicable made me a bit irritated.  Thinking positive, I figured that would be plenty of time to collect my thoughts and research and write a magnum opus of a letter that would help the OWCP see the human face and struggle behind my increasingly desperate(ly) irritated letters.

Today's letter says the hearing is scheduled for May.  If this is 5-9 months delay, does that mean they were actually scheduling these hearings retroactively?  (They've sort of done that to me before, actually.)

This means I have about a week to write that magnum opus letter, that triumph of logic and evidence that will show them once and for all that I am not a fraudulent fraudster (the way they seem to be treating me) but a person in pain who is a bit muddled and has been confused, misled, and treated poorly by a bureaucracy not designed to actually, you know, help an injured worker like me get better the way a normal insurance company would.  Theoretically, I work faster under deadlines, but, well, sheesh.

Probably 90 days for a decision after the hearing, and then maybe I'll be able to see the famous pain doctors.  They're probably scheduled at least that far in advance, so that might work out just fine.  I'm trying to make 100% sure they're in my regular insurance network in case these doctors, like the last pain specialist I tried, decide they don't want to follow OWCP's ridiculous and impractical rules, and I end up getting stuck with the bill.

In this week's weird neurological news, apparently my brain is interpreting temperature in my left hand partly as vibration.  Hot is fast vibration, and cold is slow vibration.  Today anyway.  (That's in addition to the more familiar tearing pain in my forearm and wrist and the ache-y time delay in my hand and upper arm and the occasional sensation of having my fingertips dipped in ice water.)

My life is an adventure.  What can I say?  : )