Hit-and-Run - Emergency Threatens Livelihood (gofundme campaign)

[MarshalGraves]

Bad news.

My own therapy is going well-ish. My doc is furious with me, because I've been trying to work AMA, and it's not doing my stitches any favors. My tendon is doing well, it's about where it should be, recovery-wise. I am to avoid whiplash and the like for several months, just in case.

No word from the lawyer. Calling him up tomorrow for an update.

Here's the bad news. My best and closest friend, Kat, has been hospitalized. Her medication went nuts and started depriving her of sleep and induced paranoia and severe mood swings, which was not on the list of known side-effects, so they're looking at a bad drug interaction.

The last I heard from her, they're 'putting her in a facility' and she has no idea when, or even if, she'll be able to come home.

I miss her.

[MarshalGraves]

Bad day.

Couldn't go to therapy, today. Had to have my car towed and put in the shop. It wouldn't start. Checked the battery, it's fine. Tried to jump it, anyway.

I give up. I just....I give up.

The world doesn't want me to succeed.

[MarshalGraves]

Bad day.

I made them take the stitches out. They told me to keep them in for another week or so, but I told them the damn things have been yanking at my skin without splitting it for over a week, so they took the stitches out.

My shoulder is raw and red, and it freaking hurts right now. Caught the bus to my shrink's office, was late for my appointment, and now I have to call my shrink twice a day because I'm on suicide watch.

Lawyer and I spoke yesterday. He expects a response from the Department of Public Safety 'within thirty to forty days', and has backed down from 'we're getting the full 15,000' to 'I'm optimistic we'll get a return on this claim'.

Still no paperwork from the private clinic. Can't get my car out of the shop. The insurance company told them to fix all the damage. So, they'll fix it, and Allstate will pay for all but $500 of the damage.

Do know why it wouldn't start. Burnt-out solenoid.

Goddamnit.

[MarshalGraves]

No more therapy updates.

I'm not going to therapy anymore. Since I got the stitches out, the pain's been slowly going away. Won't add to my debt anymore than I absolutely have to.

I've been begging under a bridge to try and get the money to get my car out of the shop.

Bills are due in six days. I don't have the money. I'm behind on my rent, the roomie might be able to negotiate with the landlord for more time, but the last rent check bounced and he's already angry at us.

Sorry, guys. Looks like I'm gonna choke at the finish line. Be better off if I was just gone.

I give up. I'm sorry.

[Bob Schroeck]

People, it's been 9 days since MarshallGraves last posted here. Has anyone heard from him in other venues or off-line?

[Black Aeronaut]

Sorry, I meant to get back to everyone about JJ.

He's okay, for a given value of 'okay'. He's really hurting for money right now.

On the plus side, he says if Allstate gets huffy, his lawyer is going to sue the hell out of them. He's already gunning for that clinic that tried to swindle them - at the very least, what they did was insurance fraud, and criminal malpractice at worse.

[MarshalGraves]

I'm alive. Sorry. Had some last-minute good luck that took care of this month's bills, barely, and Allstate grudgingly has supplied me with a rental.

Downside, the rental wasn't even parked outside my house for 12 goddamn hours before I got a parking violation. I know *why* I got the violation (the plate does not match my address, and New Orleans can be pretty draconian about parking because of all the one-way streets).

I did manage to get the antidepressants I was prescribed. My emotions are all kinds of out of whack, now. Shrink says that's normal, once I level-off I should be fine. I've been having manic-jags and super-depressed jags. I've been avoiding posting anywhere for the most part. BA's already touched on the important lawyer-y bits. Still not going to therapy. Stitches are out, skin's healing, shoulder itches from time to time, and all I was doing was rolling my neck and holding awkward head-tilts. Can do that at home.

On the one hand, yay, September's paid for. On the other...still don't have my car. Rental's only good 'til the 22nd, and I can't work in it unless I'm careful with the mileage and my riders don't report me for not being in -my- car.

[hazard]

Marshal? Take this to the court anyway. A sensible judge is likely to null the fine.

Still, ask your lawyer, he'll have a better sense of this than I do and it's kind of part of his job.

[MarshalGraves]

Hello, all.

If you worried, I'm sorry. I'm still alive.

Thanks to a couple of awesome, awesome people, I'm still up. Managed to pay my bills and get my antidepressants, and I've been on an emotional roller-coaster almost since.

It's taken me this long to get to an almost-even keel. I've been having mood swings, manic to super-depressed, with very little in-between. I've also been sleeping like a rock more often than not.

I've gained weight. Ten pounds in a week and a half. I just feel so hungry, but not actually hungry. It's hard to describe.

I haven't had the strength to update in a while. Again, sorry if I worried you.

For actual update bits.

Lawyer is, by turns, confident and irritated as hell. He's confident the Department of Public Safety will return an Affidavit of No Response from the guy who owns the truck that hit me, and his kid.

He's irritated because Allstate is being difficult to deal with. If they do not respond favorably, he said, the guns go down and the cannons come up. Meaning he's got a Plan B: 'sue everybody'.

Yes, everybody. The guy who hit me. His son. Lyndon Southern. The clinic. Allstate.

All of them. Because I was victimized and injured during the commission of a felony hit-and-run, and nobody's stepping forward, but someone has to eat it. If none of them want to eat their share of humble pie, he'll forcefeed the whole thing to all of them.

Oh, and Allstate finally got me a rental car. Grudgingly, it must be said.

Unfortunately, that is where the good news runs out.

I had not even had the car for twelve hours before I received a parking violation for parking in front of my own house. I know why I got the violation (the rental's plates don't match my address), but damnit, it's a rental. And my house.

At this point, I'm tentatively planning on pawning my PC. I'm going to try and make a few rides with the rental, on weekends only, if only to pay the weekly rent, but I am not very confident about that. Especially with the mileage limitations of my rental contract (30 miles per day).

Fingers crossed, right?

[Labster]

Good to see you're still alive, man. Stress eating is a thing I definitely relate to.

Computers can be pawned? o_O

[MarshalGraves]

There's a shop on Veterans Blvd that valued my PC at $750 last week, but they'll give me $400 and sixty days if I pawn it. The sixty days is, of course, to pay back the claim ticket and get my PC back. I'm on the fence about it, though.

I could outright sell it for almost twice as much, and I'd have enough for bills. But I wouldn't have a PC anymore. On the other hand, I could pawn it, but I'm not confident I'd have the money to pay back the claim ticket by my birthday (Dec 1).

That said...does anyone know how to go about getting coins certified? I have a couple of silver dimes (1948 and 1963) and a 1936 Wheat Penny. No idea how much they're worth at all, but I was told getting them certified improves the value immensely.

[Labster]

I'll throw some more money at you now that I found out I don't have to quit my job.

Looking at a random coin collecting website, it looks like your three coins have a maximum value of about $7 if they're from the rarest mint and in uncirculated condition. More than likely, though, they're worth under $2.50, where the silver metal represents most of the value.

[MarshalGraves]

Congrats on not having to quit your job! And thanks!

...And yep. That sounds about like my luck. 'Ooh, old coin, those can be super freakin' valuable!' 'Yours are barely worth eight times their mint value.' 'Awwww.'

[LilFluff]

Man, at this point after getting hit by a hit&run idiot (truly, by his own words in an interview he's an idiot. To avoid a very minor ticket and modest he instead committed a hit and run followed by a few felonies that will likely send him to jail few several years when it reaches court), various friends at work, and this, I have zero sympathy for anyone who commits a hit & run. Hopefully your lawyer takes all involved (but especially the driver) all the way to the squeezing blood from a stone stage. Of course I'm probably also a bit grumpy from almost being hit by a person making a U-turn and seeing an due-to-stupidity collision on the way to work (A: don't tail gate, B: if you're tail gating behind a van that blocks your view don't make a blind turn left across oncoming traffic).

[MarshalGraves]

Still alive update.

Still no real change on the legal front. Will be calling my lawyer tomorrow for an update. We should be closing in on the due date for the return of the 'no response' from the Department of Public Safety.

Do have a possible medical update. Apart from hopefully-unrelated internal issues, I've been feeling pain in my neck, shoulder, and upper arm, and my shoulder has started clicking when I rotate it a certain way.

I'll be getting it looked at the day after tomorrow, or tomorrow, depending on what my lawyer says.

The antidepressants are finally levelling off. Still have large chunks of time where everything is wrong and nothing is right, but those are getting few and far between.

I still ask 'what's the point' when I get out of bed, but at least I can actually get out of bed, now.

[MarshalGraves]

Mostly legal update.

Lawyer was not answering the phone, so I requested an update by email. Received bad news.

DPS rejected the first request, saying that the owner of the vehicle should not have been included, as he was not listed on the crash report, only his son was. It took them an entire month to let us know this.

Lawyer had to send out a second request.

My case has been extended from end-of-October to my birthday, December 1st, at the earliest.

Medically, my rotator cuff has apparently been stressed thanks to the surgery to my neck. Need to not use my right arm at all for a while, so it's back to the stuff I was doing back in June, minus the therapy. If that helps, yay. If not, I need to see if the hospital can give me therapy for it, or if I need to find a new clinic.

[MarshalGraves]

Update

I think I need to go back to the shrink and have my meds adjusted. I haven't been sleeping well at all over the past week. I've been awake for roughly 24 continuous hours, and no amount of warm milk or laying down and trying to stop thinking is helping.

I got my car back out of the shop earlier this week. And had to put it right back in. Someone, somewhere got very confused, and they only fixed my starter, but charged me for the full repair. I was not amused.

Fortunately, it was easy to point out the error (a starter does not cost over 500 dollars to replace) and they're doing the work Allstate and I paid for double-time. I expect to be able to pick my car up on Saturday.

Unfortunately, I had already returned the rental, so that sucks.

On the legal front, no news, probably will not have any for at least two more weeks.

So, yay. No epic disasters, this update. Just sleeplessness and some lazy or confused mechanics.