Alin's Site

Window with sealants partially applied

Finally, it’s about time! Dad finally got the materials and time to be able to fix my window that has been cold and drafty since they broke it to get the bed moved in. It took this long because dad is very busy with other things and it didn’t get severe till the last week or so since the window’s previous seal degraded. Dad went ahead and sealed it up really tight caulking the entire perimeter with special no odor silicone caulk so I don’t have respiratory attacks and also added Neoprene adhesive strips to further seal the window. It’s not all 100% dry yet so it’s still a little tacky the caulk so pulling aside the window shade is a little difficult right now and the window is ugly looking but I’d rather have an ugly looking window and be warm than be cold. Besides I only look out the window once in a while to check what is going on otherwise the window shade is down and I don’t even think of it.

Thank’s dad!

Really pissed off on the phone

I am seriously ticked off today. The insurance company yesterday said that all of my wheelchair parts are approved. Then they called the office today and said that they have not approved any of the parts aside from a few non critical parts and want MSRP prices and HCPCS codes for all of the parts. Me and my case manager are real pissed. So I at 4:00 PM today got on the phone with manufacturers and everyone and compiled a list and authorization letter and faxed it into my doctors office at 4:47 PM, talk about shaving it close to the closing time of business. Hopefully all of this stuff will get sorted out by the end of next week.

Angry on the phone transition

I swear to god insurance companies can literally put you in a mental hospital. Today I literally went ballistic with how sheerly stupid the insurance company is. Me and my “case worker” at my doctors office have been working on getting these damned wheelchair parts approved with the insurance company and they have been real bozos. Especially today with them asking for more codes when we don’t have anymore, we can’t give them anything better than K0108 (Misc. Wheelchair Accessory) for most of my parts because the head honcho idiots at CMS / SADMERC do not give us enough product codes! So we decided to just code everything as K0108 just so we can get the damned authorization to order the parts, and let the wheelchair company fix any problems IF they occur AFTER I get my parts! About friggen time. I been going for these parts for over 6 months now dammit! I got a call into the wheelchair guy and will hopefully get official status that the orders have been initiated tomorrow.
More updates to follow!

If you are not in the loop with this situation then please look back to this post

Neurosurgeon Dr. Shaun T O'Leary

Medtronic Intrathecal Baclofen Pump Programmer

Today I went back to my Neurosurgeon’s office for a follow up on last week’s refill of Baclofen. He increased my pump dosage as we usually do for now. It was 240 mcg/day and now we are at 280 mcg/day if am still not up to a optimum dosage within the next few weeks then we will increase it again. We also talked about Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy as an option for my contractures and he also mentioned Deep Brain Stimulation to help with my contractures. We still don’t know where to go from here. So far my idea is to do the Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy and if that does not work go ahead with the Deep Brain Stimulation device. Both are not exactly “easy” procedures. This is not to be taken as a decision that we are going to do surgery, we are beginning to consider it though!

Please note the links are for informational purpose only and the procedure I receive may differ widely.

Dead BlackBerry Storm

Tonight is a bit sad for me today. My BlackBerry is having some hardware issues that although small are creating horrible stress on the battery and are making it drain faster than it should. The green phone and BlackBerry logo keys are brightly lit by the backlight system as they should but the go back and end call / power button are very dimly lit. And another weird thing is whenever I put the unit into lock mode. The green phone and BlackBerry logo stay lit up thus, draining from the battery and placing undue wear upon the respective LED back lights.

Verizon was great on the phone tonight. They are sending me a new BlackBerry to arrive on Monday. Since mine is still functional I did not qualify for the emergency overnight replacement service. I will make sure to keep you all updated on the grim future of my current BlackBerry and the receipt of my new BlackBerry.

This is going to be a real pain in the butt since I have to move all my settings and crap from my old BlackBerry to the new BlackBerry. Thankfully I will have the old BlackBerry next to the new BlackBerry to look at the settings and simply copy off the old one like you copy off someone else’s test in school lol. But, as for all the applications I have to go out and re-download all that crap again.

Bella Home Medical And Rehab Logo

Ken W from Bella came out today and we really enjoyed each other for the time he was here. We discussed all of the parts below and he will be ordering all of them as is. He talked about how we probably need to go with Motion Concepts ELRs and also probably have to throw away my current Invacare tilt system in return for a Motion Concepts Tilt Recline system. So yeah over half of my chair is being replaced. He said that if the parts outweigh more than a certain amount my chair cost I might wind up getting a whole new chair! That would be insanely cool, but I am not counting on it. It all lies on the insurance companies shoulders now to give us the final green light. We have preliminary green lights from them but now we need the official and final green light. Expect more news within the week.

I found it really cool that he is paying attention to my sensory disorder, no other provider has taken the time to take that into account and it has caused problems before.

As usual when I am getting wheelchair parts I am getting excited hehe.

Bodypoint harness, no zipper. : My current harness no longer fits me correctly. We decided to go with no zipper since my dealer and I took into account my Autism and Sensory Integration Disorder and decided no zip is most often used with patients requiring extreme durability against pulling, in case of spasms. Well my case is different, pulling as in my caregiver making the harness very tight which is comfortable for me. Also no zip harnesses tend to be a bit wider than their zipper counterpart

Bodypoint fulcrum series footplate’s & Ankle Hugger’s : My low muscle tone makes it damned near impossible to hold a good position for my feet when any movement is involved. And I have spasms in my legs that interfere with positioning.

Motion Concepts gel reclining armrests : My current armrests are no good, they wobble like hell. My arms hurt after a while because they feel like rocks, and they seem to be too dang short. Also, the big thing here is they don’t recline and I need reclining armrests.

Bodypoint midline mounting kit : This is what we will use to mount my communication device / laptop to my wheelchair. Depends if it will work with the armrests, otherwise, we might have to look elsewhere as a mounting point, like the frame as in a Daessy mount. Either that or Paul who made the laptop mounting plate with RalphSimpsonCo can possibly make a new mounting bar and mechanism custom for me. Pays to have connections in the metal working biz! 

Bodypoint four point seatbelt with Sub-Asis and RehabLatch : My current seatbelt put simply is a real pain in the pump, literally. It is causing pain in my Baclofen pump area since number one it does not evenly distribute its pressure, and number two it has zero padding. It also does nothing to help my hip rotation disorder. This new belt won’t be a pain in the pump, and it will give me better pressure distribution and do something about the damn hip rotation.

Motion Concepts Power-Elevating Leg Rests : I am soon going to get my contractures fixed and need a way to maintain the range in my legs and they will allow me to make the chair “match” my bed’s position to hopefully end up allowing me to independently transfer again by way of parallel parking the chair right on top of the bed and sliding between the two. And I have poor circulation to my feet and need to move the position to get it in a better state.

Invacare MK6i MPJ+ Joystick : About friggen time, I tried ordering this on my initial chair but they threw it out since they thought it was not medically necessary. It very well was, my hand hurts a lot because of this damn tilt switch. Anyway on with the justifying points. I need it PERIOD to be able to have all the powered seating that will be on my chair. Side notes are medical necessity of centralized control over seating, and multiple drives so I can have better control over the chair. He is also ordering me the 4 little microswitches so I can operate stuff that way too.

Motion Concepts Recline System : I need it because I have degenerative disease in my spine and need to get pressure off my disks, and my butt. And it will allow me to “match” the position of the bed for a; hopefully, independent sliding transfer.

ASL Laptop Power Converter : To power my laptop since I am hopefully going to go to college soon and they probably wont let me plug in there. Obviously, necessary for vocational rehab goals.

Domain Name in browser

If you tried to access either www.alinssite.info or disabledplanet.net in the last hour you may have noticed that it was spitting out a Domain Not Valid error. This was a bit of a upgrade without notice scenario. I decided to quickly go around and consolidate the subdomain redirects in my web host control system and found out I had originally set up the two domains to forward to one domain inside the server and then forward again. This is no longer necessary as Siteground now appears to be accepting outside redirects into the server. Either that or I had this set up wrong for all this time. I’ll take the latter more seriously since Siteground is awesome and usually any problem I have with domain names is my fault with me setting something wrong with the GoDaddy control panel.

THE BIG POINT TO THIS POST IS YOU NO LONGER ARE REQUIRED TO TYPE IN WWW. BEFORE THE NAME! YOU CAN NOW SIMPLY DO www.alinssite.info OR disabledplanet.net AND IT WILL AUTOMATICALLY REDIRECT ITS SELF TO THE RESPECTIVE PAGE!

Bella Home Medical And Rehab Logo

So far things are looking good, urgent care claim authorization was able to get us the pre-authorization for most of the parts, there were a few more parts that we added to the authorization on a STOP THE PRESS!!! basis and are waiting for final world on. However, Ken from Bella Home Medical will be here on Tuesday to go over everything and begin writing up orders. After Tuesday all we have to wait on is the final go ahead from the insurance, and he can go ahead and order everything out. Parts are listed below with brief justification of need.

First you’re going to ask, WHY justify to the public? The answer is simple, I want people to know what each part will help me accomplish instead of leaving people in the dark and having them contacting me with dumb questions like, what’s the recline system for, what’s the seat belt for.

Bodypoint harness, zipper, or no zipper to be announced. : My current harness no longer fits me correctly

Bodypoint fulcrum series footplate’s & Ankle Hugger’s : My low muscle tone makes it damned near impossible to hold a good position for my feet when any movement is involved. And I have spasms in my legs that interfere with positioning.

Motion Concepts gel reclining armrests : My current armrests are no good, they wobble like hell. My arms hurt after a while because they feel like rocks, and they seem to be too dang short. Also, the big thing here is they don’t recline and I need reclining armrests.

Bodypoint midline mounting kit : This is what we will use to mount my communication device / laptop to my wheelchair. Depends if it will work with the armrests, otherwise, we might have to look elsewhere as a mounting point, like the frame as in a Daessy mount. Either that or Paul who made the laptop mounting plate with RalphSimpsonCo can possibly make a new mounting bar and mechanism custom for me. Pays to have connections in the metal working biz!

Bodypoint four point seatbelt with Sub-Asis and RehabLatch : My current seatbelt put simply is a real pain in the pump, literally. It is causing pain in my Baclofen pump area since number one it does not evenly distribute its pressure, and number two it has zero padding. It also does nothing to help my hip rotation disorder. This new belt won’t be a pain in the pump, and it will give me better pressure distribution and do something about the damn hip rotation.

Invacare Power-Elevating Leg Rests : I am soon going to get my contractures fixed and need a way to maintain the range in my legs and they will allow me to make the chair “match” my bed’s position to hopefully end up allowing me to independently transfer again by way of parallel parking the chair right on top of the bed and sliding between the two. And I have poor circulation to my feet and need to move the position to get it in a better state.

Invacare MK6i MPJ+ Joystick : About friggen time, I tried ordering this on my initial chair but they threw it out since they thought it was not medically necessary. It very well was, my hand hurts a lot because of this damn tilt switch. Anyway on with the justifying points. I need it PERIOD to be able to have all the powered seating that will be on my chair. Side notes are medical necessity of centralized control over seating, and multiple drives so I can have better control over the chair.

Invacare Recline System : I need it because I have degenerative disease in my spine and need to get pressure off my disks, and my butt. And it will allow me to “match” the position of the bed for a; hopefully, independent sliding transfer.

ASL Laptop Power Converter : To power my laptop since I am hopefully going to go to college soon and they probably wont let me plug in there. Obviously, necessary for vocational rehab goals.

The New Alinssite 404 Error

I have been noticing a lot of hits on the 404 error status since my blog moved from the old system to WordPress. Most of the 404′s are coming from people trying to go from google image search to an image that no longer exists in the /My_Blog/ directory of the website and now exists in /wordpress/ therefore I decided that it was now a crucial step that I implement 404 error pages. I decided to deck out the entire server and all websites managed by me with error code 400, 401, 403, 404 and 500 pages and all of them are neatly stored in their own folders. It took me about an hour of futzing with .htaccess files and various HTML pages but it is all finally in place and working!

This will also improve the way Google handles my website and any other website managed on this server!

If you want to experience the 404 error click HERE, Unfortunately the rest have to be encountered on their own. But you kind of don’t want to encounter those.