Is there a doctor in the family?

As most of you know sister 1956 has been staying with me on and off since January. She does travel back to our home town so she can help watch her granddaughter and then she stays with my brother if she needs to.

She is a heavy smoker and of course being in the middle of a life crisis her immune system is run down. She has had one of the worst coughing bouts for over two weeks. It seriously sounds like she is going to cough up a lung. It is brutal.

My Sister-in-law (married to brother 1953) is in the hospital currently for some medical issues that I may talk about in another post. His son became a doctor last summer. He was visiting also - he works at two different hospitals and this one happened to be one of them. We all settled into the small hospital room and we chatted about things. Listened to each other tell stories - you know - regular family visits.

Sister 1956 left for a while, not sure if she went to the bathroom or just needed to walk around (it was much too far to walk to have a smoke). I was telling my brother about my sister and her cough. I was trying to get her into stat care to get medicine, but she didn't have money. She recently signed up for Obamacare but her doctor visit ended up being $182 and she is to pay $92 out of pocket. She was a bit dismayed about that. We may look for another doctor.

We were not paying much attention to my nephew as he was on his cell phone texting or reading etc...When my sister came back in we chatted some more.

My nephew sat up, asked my sister a couple of questions about her cough and proceeded to phone her in a prescription. His half sister is a Pharmacist in my town. (His sister is a mortician. Not a practicing one but she graduated from the school).

Lickety split. Just like that. My sister had her medicine. A z-pak, cough medicine and a steroid.  She has no regular doctor. She recently started a new one in my town so she could continue her high blood pressure medicine. I did remind my nephew about her high blood pressure. Before this she was getting prescriptions at a free clinic and it was a hit and miss episode as she is not well known for keeping up with taking care of herself. Letting her prescription run out etc...

She has the family curse. Take care of everybody else and some strangers before even thinking about ourselves. Hopefully now she will get well and nip this horrible cough in the bud.

Did I mention that my daughter has a severe case of strep throat and laryngitis? Yeah. She said the doctor is probably going to say they need to come out on Thursday. Wha..?

Mama needs to sit down.

On the line

My daughter's current beau works in the kitchen of an upscale restaurant. His brother also works there. His brother is younger - nineteen while my daughter's beau is 21.

The brother was in the hospital four days last week for his back problem. Neither one have medical insurance of any kind. Their father (still do not know which one is their biological - they have had several step dads) is out of the  picture. Neither son gets along with current step dad and their Mom kicked them out as she prefers her current husband over any child she bore. Three siblings share an apartment in town.

The brother is small in stature. His diagnosis was spinal cord trauma. His brother said it is from lifting large vats of chicken, grease etc... One is supposed to ask for help when lifting them but some people are stubborn and get an attitude of  "I don't need no stinkin' help!"  Or mostly, there is no available body to help. Sadly.

So, he left the hospital with a prescription of Vicodin. How American. He is back to work. There was talk of him filing for workers compensation, not certain if he is or did. Maybe his employers talked him out of it. He is supposed to be doing light duty, but we all know how that goes, right? When you are young and you have no parental backup, you have to take what you can get.



My daughter's beau is working 12 hour days. This upscale restaurant cannot keep help. Listening to the way he tells it, the managers and supervisors are all screaming at each other and people just leave. The turnover is tremendous.

My daughter's beau is applying for two other jobs this coming week. We are hoping he gets it. Twelve hours Friday, Saturday and Sundays really stink.

I always crowed about how "good" the food was at the restaurant. But at what price? At least I don't hear any horror stories from my daughter's beau about slimy food or bad food. That all seems to be on the up and up or he just does not speak about it.

If it wasn't for their darn bleu cheeseburgers (picture above is stolen from the Internets again - not in any way affiliated with the restaurant) - which are to DIE for, I would ban that place. Aw, have mercy.

Just a side note (if anybody cares) my daughter's father was never in the picture, either. I preferred it that way. (I only owe her an explanation). I never have accepted one dime from public assist or any man. I made certain I had a good job with good insurance and was able to care for a child all on my own before I decided to have one. Call it a trust issue, call it what you may.

Regardless, I give my daughter full support when she is having work issues. She is still covered  under my insurance (thank heavens for that law) and is very close to going full time at her job with her own benefits. I would advise her against working in an establishment that was so careless for their personnel that they would suffer in such a manner. She has my total support.

I feel for those young adults (and any person for that matter) who do not have health insurance. The stress of deciding whether or not to go to the doctor or the hospital is a huge risk.

I hear him getting ready, now. It is 8 o'clock on a Sunday morning. Another twelve to fourteen hour day coming up. And, he goes. He grumbles, but he goes. I have never seen him drink caffeine of any kind. I would imagine it won't be long until he leans on that crutch as most of us do. I ask him if they feed him. It is a restaurant, of course they do. I advised him to stay hydrated. He said "yeah." Sigh.

MRI

Having an MRI is like being in a tube with some kid and that kid has one of those toy ray guns (except is the size of a super soaker) and you never know what button he is going to push and make all kinds of pulsating pounding noises. Rat-a-tat-a-tat...Boom...boom...boom.....bang...bang...bang. You also do not know how long it is going to go on and when it is going to start/stop. Sheesh!

Support

My grand nephew had some support when he had his tonsils removed on Friday.

Electricity has been off here during the monsoons in Eastern Ohio the past few days. Trying to keep my head above water (figuratively). Many roads are closed in the area due to flooding. Not much time to post.

Meeting family for dinner in Roscoe Village tonight.

Too much food

You have to understand. I get out and about. Quite a lot, actually. I like to eat at restaurants. I don't have to cook and clean up and usually the restaurants fix better food than I can. I am not a shy person. I used to be. But, not anymore.

I think this may have been my third or fourth trip to the Golden C (in my life). I went last year. I don't go often enough to remember how it is set up. The photo above is off the Internet, not my photo. I downed two iced teas (sweetened) by the time we went to get food. It MUST have been a sugar rush.

I was like "Look at that chicken!" "Look at all this fish!" "Look at the desserts!"

There were 12 of us. I was jacked up. My head was spinning as I tried to talk to everybody.

My poor daughter. During one trip, I looked around the corner and blurted out "Ice Cream!" and trotted back to the table.

A lady turned and asked my daughter "Has she been here before?" My daughter said "Yes." The lady then asked, "Is she on medication?"

My family got a good laugh out of that one when my daughter relayed the story.

That about matched an earlier incident. I told sister '49 - "Look, WHOLE chickens!" A nice looking gentlemen to my right laughed and said "Want to split one?" I laughed. I get this a lot.

My daughter thought the cook at the steak counter was really enchanted with me. He kept telling me story after story while I was getting some food on my plate. I laughed and chatted back to him. I do this all the time.

Hey, life's too short, man. I just have a good time. I get jacked up, I crash. I am not bi-polar. Honest.

On a more serious and solemn note, my niece who just had the baby was admitted to the hospital this evening with pre-eclampsia. Her blood pressure diastolic reading (bottom number) was over 100. They are working on getting her blood pressure down and relieving the headaches.

They almost sent her back home because she did not have an unusually high amount of protein in her urine, but they decided she did have the pre-eclampsia after all.

This didn't stop my nephew from bringing the baby to the buffet. The (full head of hair) baby slept through the entire meal. My nephew then bundled him up and he and the 12-year-old went off back to the hospital. He said his wife was just sleeping anyway. She wasn't up for much of a visit. The four-year-old went back to Grandma's house where he has been staying the past couple of days.

When we left the restaurant it was snowing. What?! Arrgghh! Enough, already!

No snow, but a snowman

Sitting atop a tree at the museum

Alas, we have no snow yet here in eastern Ohio. Not any that I have seen, anyway. Maybe this week-end I'll see a few flakes. Not that I am courting snow. Oh, no. I don't want to start the shovelling, yet. Not me.

It is this time of the morning that I am most relaxed. The dogs were all taken outside about an hour ago. They have eaten and are all sleeping peacefully. The cats have been fed and have retreated to their respective corners. The coffee is made and I am reading e-mails and blogs. I don't have to go to work. I have until ten or so before I need to really do anything.

My daughter starts a new job. It isn't really her first. She had a quick stint as a telemarketer when she was 15. Say what you will about the pain of enduring that ordeal, but she learned a lot at that job. She knows more about credit cards than I do. Well, almost. Anyway, she has been picked to work at a very popular nation-wide (perhaps world-wide) toy store. You know the one I am speaking of.

My greatest concern about this is the distance she needs to travel to get to work. I'll just have to grit my teeth and bear it. She needs a job. And, even if it is only seasonal, she needs the experience of having a job to get another one. Well, she is excited to say the least.

This will put a damper on the help with taking the dogs out, but I will manage.

My plate will be full over the next few days, so I want to wish you and yours a happy, healthy and fun-filled Thanksgiving. Some of you are sick and out right now, and I hope that you are soon out of the hospital and home in time for the Christmas and New Year.

May each and every one of you have laughter this week-end (in abundance), food (in moderation) and peace (in your hearts).

A long August

My niece in San Diego last month

I had the family reunion on the 2nd of this month. Since then this month has not been much fun for me. I have had five doctor appointments, with two more to go this month. I have had two car appointments (my car and my daughter's car), I have had jury duty twice, two college scheduling sessions, and have one dentist appointment and one veterinarian appointment yet this month.

In July, I had four doctor appointments, and two veterinarian appointments.

In September (so far) I am looking at five doctor appointments (one a mammogram, yay!) and a dentist appointment for my daughter.

But, today was the worst. I had a cystoscopy. If you ever had one of these, you would remember it. It is much more painful for men, I suppose. Still, it hurt like the dickens. I am still having pity pains.

I am not seriously ill. Not in any way. One is a procedure I am finally dealing with, the other is my foot and the others are routine. Everything is just falling in this 60 day time span.

Sprinkle in a migraine about once a month and I am very chummy with pain these days. My foot is currently soaking in Epsom salts. The water has long gone cold. Chong tried to drink out of it, I stopped him. Silly pup.

And, they threw in a tetanus shot for good measure! It is swelled up and as sore as a bad bruise. Scientology and their belief of keeping doctors and medicines out of their life might be looking pretty good to me right now. (Just kidding!)

One shot for my daughter, please

As if scars aren't bad enough, a keloid develops. The break is over. Six months. Back to the surgeries and the scars. And the lovely keloids. I will make an appointment at Akron Children's Hospital for the removal of three moles. Oh, excuse me "Children's Hospital Medical Center of Akron". How can I forget it's proper name when my insurance agent was so adamant that I get it right!?

For over forty years everybody in Ohio has known the establishment as Akron Children's, but when I called my insurance company last year they kept telling me that the hospital does not exist. The web site lists it as Akron Children's, all the nurses, doctors and any other personnel in the state of Ohio calls it by "Akron Children's". Why would I even dream it had another name? When the agent finally figured out that it was listed in her database under "Children's Hospital Medical Center of Akron" she was irate and told me that I need to give her the correct name. Good grief.

So my daughter got a shot of cortisone in the keloid. Why doesn't blogger's dictionary recognize this word? It stung and we hope that the growth subsides just leaving the scar. How did the girls in my daughter's gym class put it? "Did you get shot!?" I guess my daughter's back looks like she was shot with rifle spray. How many now? 12.... 15? Dysplastic nevus (nevi).

When my daughter told the dr. she wanted three new ones removed, the dr. kept saying "If you think she needs them removed." I had three separate doctors say that "Yes" the moles need to come off when we started this madness five years ago. Now they aren't so certain. What? Did the Medical Association publish an article saying that maybe they were removing too many moles unnecessarily? Like hysterectomies in the 80's? Now the doctor is leaving it up to me. Oh, excuse me. Up to my daughter. She is 18, now. She can decide for herself. We went from "These moles have to be removed!" a couple of years ago to "Well, if you think it's necessary."

Every mole removed has been tested and come back benign. I have wondered through the years if this was really necessary? What do you do when three different doctors say "Yes." I did not intentionally seek out different opinions. I am not that obsessive.

The first doctor that alerted us was rude and my daughter did not like him at all. She was 12 or 13 and this guy just creeped her out. So we found a female dermatologist. She agreed. The moles needed to come out. After about six removals I asked my family doctor. She agreed they need to come out. After so many we started to go to a plastic surgeon. He didn't really give an opinion - he just removed the ones in the more delicate areas.

When my daughter had a rash in January that doctor just freaked out. Why did she have them removed? Who did that job? We got the impression that the job was ugly and messy. Thanks doc. Made us feel like crap. Seriously. You think that doctors would have better reaction skills. They should teach that in medical school.

Am I rambling? Probably. I am tired and I am starting to get angry. My daughter wants them off. They have her afraid that every little mole is a potential door to cancer and death for her.

Did you know that virtually every prom dress made has no back to it? My daughter (like me) does not care for the hoopla of prom anyway. Good thing. Every now and then I would hear my daughter mention tanning lotion. She would put some on because as we have had it drilled into our heads for five years now, tanning beds and sunning are death.

I always hated the sun anyway. Anyone with migraines will tell you this. Sunshine equals headache. I shunned the sun. I was lily white. At 43 I began going to a tanning bed. Wow! I loved it. Especially on cold, rainy days. That stopped cold when my daughter was forbidden to go. They said it would be certain death. Or, they made her fear it as much.

I know it is for the better. I know this. It doesn't help my daughter when she compares herself to all the girls in school that are bronzed and showing their backs in their beautiful flowing prom dresses.

That is more or less why I let my daughter go wild with her hair. And by wild, I mean blond, black and red. Whooppee. No green, blue, orange, pink or purple. So the red faded a little and looked like magenta. So they said. I got a different definition of magenta. Nope. The school stopped that real quick. I got an idea. Why don't they make the kids stop tanning? Now there would be a worthwhile rule. Save a life! Color your hair, not your skin! I've got to stop. I'm getting belligerent.

But what will I call myself, now?

A nice lady called for the bird. She is semi-disabled. She used to have birds, but as time passed they died. She is alone now, her kids have grown. She leaves the house perhaps once a month to get groceries. Sounds too good to be true? Maybe. She said she would call me when she was on her way. That was four hours ago. :-(

This one should go on the doctor funny names list. A doctor that recently treated my daughter (at a stat care facility) has the name of Thang N Dang. Seriously! Google it. Wow! And, I just realized that the insurance is refusing to pay it. Grrrr. I guess I'll be on the telephone tomorrow morning to see what lame-o reason they are going to give me. Oh, I see now. They stated it was a non emergency. She broke out in a rash. The nurse at school said she should have it looked at. I don't take chances - this is what medical insurance is for, right? We'll see. I'll probably bend over and take it up the...aw, never mind. I'm a bit sour these days.

As I was typing, the nice lady called back and said that something came up and re-scheduled to pick up Peru tomorrow evening. I will not cry, I will not cry. She will be much better off.

Active and Feisty

This dog barked almost all day long while we cleaned up my Mom's old house. It has been 7.5 years since my Mom passed. We don't let go easily.

Some folks meander through life at a leisurely pace, some cartwheel through. My nephew is the type that cartwheels through life (active and feisty). He did Motocross for years, taught hang gliding in North Carolina and sometime last night shortly after midnight cartwheeled a 4-wheel ATV right over a cliff.

The news is reporting that the cliff was 80 feet, but we are thinking it is more like 30. My nephew was wearing a helmet. Another rider went over also, not wearing a helmet. The other rider was life flighted directly from the scene, my nephew was taken by ambulance to one hospital and then later life flighted to another hospital.

The word is that my nephew and his friend (a co-worker) were in a group of riders, following an experienced leader who knew the terrain when for some reason or another, the two of them took off on their own. The story will unfold as time goes on. My nephew, of course, has no memory of the accident. In some cases, that is how the brain handles trauma.

My nephew has a bone at the bottom of his skull that is broken. He has a punctured lung, a bleeding spleen, and a laceration on his bowel. They were in water for over an hour before professional help could arrive. The terrain was that dense. My niece's boyfriend arrived at the scene first and held their heads above water until more help arrived. He said the water was chest deep.

My nephew is no stranger to broken bones and injuries and hospitals. You don't drive Motocross for more than a decade with no injuries.

Yep. So I get up this morning and after hearing the news, I prepare to drive back to Pittsburgh. That didn't happen. My sister called to say that he is in ICU and they won't allow any more in the room than 2 at a time. My family travels in packs of 8 or more.

My sister and her family were gearing up for this fair. They have always shown cows, sheep and such. They were not showing any animals this year, but my niece sings with the band and her boyfriend is heavy into the tractor pulls.

This will be a fair year they won't soon forget.

Here's your sign

Well. I know it had been a while since I stayed in a motel room, but really. I know. I was beyond tired. There's my excuse. I came back to my room after a long day at the hospital with my nephew to discover that the lamp in my room didn't work. I called the front desk. "My lamp doesn't work, I need a new bulb." "Okay, I'll bring one up."

Stupid. I walked over to the hall and turned the light on with the switch. I called and cancelled the replacement bulb. I thought of asking her for a sign that I could hang around my neck, Jeff Foxworthy style. Then again, I wonder why she didn't suggest that I try the switch on the wall.

This was at the beginning of the month. I just found my camera and photos. I didn't take many pictures since most of my time was spent in the hospital. Their security was pretty tight, being a Children's hospital and all. Next to my nephew in the ICU was the tiniest baby. It was so sad.

One time I came out of the family room (stocked with sports furniture, t.v., kitchenette, washers/dryers, showers and a few computers) and witnessed a little girl racing down the hallway on a Big Wheelie. Her father lagged far behind. She gave me a whimsical look as she whizzed past. She stopped and turned at the cafeteria. I said to her father "She knows her way, huh?" He gave me a tolerant look. "We've been here for months." Oh.

I received our electric bill today. I said to my daughter "Hey! Our electric bill went down thirty dollars!" Oh. We weren't here. Another 'Here's your sign' moment.

I was able to mow the grass today. My little gas can was full. I wonder how much gas was when I filled it up. $2.65? It is $3.55 here today. To find the cheapest gas near you, go to www.gasbuddy.com. Choose your state, county and city.