At Home in Havelock

We are still in the driveway at Jason and Jamie’s house in Havelock, North Carolina. We have gotten a wonderful grandchild fix (and enjoyed Jason and Jamie from time to time, too!) but are ready to move on. We are waiting on medical tests for Dave, and a follow up neurology visit on February 7th.

Forgive me for going on about this, but it has been so much on our minds, and must be subject to some wonder. Dave has had memory loss and some cognitive problems, like trouble saying the word he wants to say, since the auto accident last May. We were advised that recovery from this kind of problem, typical in concussion cases, is pretty much at a maximum by 12 months, so we have deliberately waited until we were here to get the necessary testing done. In addition, the pain in his neck, shoulder and arm has been diagnosed as a C-7 radiculopathy, which may or may not have been caused by the accident. He had some small episodes of “cricks” in his neck last summer, but it didn’t get really bad until October-November. An MRI is required for definitive diagnosis.

Here’s the rub. North and South Carolina have laws in place that say an insurance company will not pay medical bills until the claim is settled. We obviously are not going to settle this claim until we know for sure what the problems are and what we can do about it. So we are at a stalemate. Our insurance company (Progressive) told us to work with the insurance company of the guy who hit us (Progressive) and he has been impossible to work with. We have never exactly figured out whether he is clever or stupid, but it became obvious we could not work anything out with him. So we have hired an attorney, who explained all of the laws to us and is promising to work for an equitable settlement once the testing is completed.

Clear Choice, our health insurance, will only pay for emergency room visits, so we have been using the PIP coverage of our auto insurance to pay for accident related bills. It has not been smooth, as our attorney says “Don’t talk to either Progressive office,” but our medical claims representative (PIP money) won’t return the attorney’s calls, but will talk to me. WUH! Two MRIs is going to tap that fund. They have to do two of them, one for brain and one for neck, because they can’t use as much dye as it would take to do both scans at the same time. The PIP fund gets paid back in the settlement.

We are not behind schedule in terms of doing our Georgia parks, but we have been looking for work in the area and so have lined up a job at the Tidewater Air Services, a Fixed Base Operation at the New Bern Airport. It’’s a new job, so is hard and slow, but is keeping us busy and on the ball!

New Bern, NC is 15 miles inland from Havelock, and a charming town of about 18,000. It was the scene of an important civil war battle; the Neuse and Trent Rivers converge here, and the port was critical. There are many homes in the downtown area which were built around 1800; one little place boasts that George Washington stayed two nights in 1791! It’s the second oldest town in N.C. and the first capitol.

It is cold at night (well not cold by Bend standards, but below freezing) but balmy during the day. Our allergies are totally under control. Dave usually has the January “hack,” but not this year. Must be the gentle coastal winds. The planter boxes downtown are full of snap dragons and pansies; trees are starting to bud and people are cleaning up the long leaf pine needle mulch. A decorative bark is very evident because it is a bright rosy-rust color; Iâ™ll have to find out what it is.

Love to all,

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