Two Days Left

“Two days left” has been our mantra all day. And it’s been a long day! It started at 8:30 a.m. as Roger was on his way to physical therapy and ended about 5:30 p.m. And we are exhausted. After we had lunch and the Stripe staff joined us in the lovely Walter Reed cafeteria, we headed to our first out-processing appointment. Thank goodness the ladies in this department were professional and cared about their work because the rest of the people we had to deal with the remainder of the day weren’t. It was at this appointment that we discovered Roger’s disability status had been changed from temporary disabled retired list (TDRL) to permanent. It’s better for Roger and us in the long run, but it wasn’t what Roger signed and agreed to and it would be worse for us in the long run if it was not right. So we spent the next hour or so trying to get proof of this change, with people from many departments and agencies saying it’s probably correct, but no one actually able to give us proof. And all these people were all supposedly trying to get an answer from the people who actually made the change but no one could. So we kept getting the “hopefully by tomorrow” response which is not what we needed to hear. Roger’s orders were cut then revoked and now are in limbo until tomorrow. Roger contemplated jumping chain to try to get something himself but decided it probably wasn’t smart. I don’t think he would have gotten any results either. So we rushed around the rest of the day getting signatures from everyone we could on his out-processing checklist for his unit. We couldn’t believe we got as many as we did before the close of business day, but we weren’t able to get them all without orders. Most of these steps are started four months before normal retirement and here we have two and a half days. At least we can start early tomorrow morning with only a few before we can go on to the next step of running around getting signatures for the post out-processing checklist. This all has to get done by tomorrow in order for any last minute things to be done on Friday so we can get out of here on Saturday. So every time we hit a little speed bump or hiccup, we had to remind ourselves there was only two days left of this BS and we’re done forever. We were so exhausted that we even declined free tickets to a Washington Capitals game tonight. That’s sad. We were really excited about seeing a professional ice hockey game, but we were too exhausted. We just woke up from a much needed nap and are about to eat some dinner so we can get to bed early in order to start all this over again tomorrow morning. I am so glad I’m here with Roger. Even though it’s been a sucky day, we did get a lot accomplished and I’m glad we are together to help each other through it. It’s so easy to get discouraged here. So please pray tomorrow is a better day. Thanks!