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10 hours ago, Technico Support said:

What the hell kind of pharmacy runs out of drugs?  It's almost like losing money running a casino.

Oh, they didn't say that they had run out, the excuse was that due to the holiday they were "too backed up" to fill the scrip. I certainly don't wish to appear unsympathetic to the staff, but really, how hard is it to print out a label and count out 120 pills? Keeping in mind that they use an automated counting machine, so the pharmacist merely has to estimate the quantity, let the pill counter do its thing and then either add or subtract the necessary amount.

As to keeping limited quantities of certain drugs on hand, that's pretty commonplace. In Seattle there were a number of places (including a pretty decent-size chain) that simply didn't carry anything stronger than 7.5 mg hydrocodone. In a lot of small towns down here, there will be big signs proclaiming, "No Oxy here!". Don't know if that's for real or not as I always go to Safeway (which, believe it or not is only 2/3 the cost of the same thing at Wal-Mart.)

FWIW: My pharmacist has advised me that Friday mornings is the worst time to pick up a scrip as that's delivery day, and if they are going to run out of something, that's when it's likely to happen and the delivery truck generally doesn't show until 11AM and then everything has to be checked and rechecked; so you might have to wait around until 2PM or 3PM. No thanks to that.

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A good friend of the missus died today. Complete fucking bombshell. She was only 37 years old and fit as a fiddle. In the morning she had light stomach pains. Nothing to worry about. By 1.30 this afternoon she was dead. The doctors still don't know what happened. Here's the fucking kicker: she was seven months pregnant. The baby didn't make it either. Jesus.

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On 7/8/2017 at 2:12 PM, Roman said:

A good friend of the missus died today. Complete fucking bombshell. She was only 37 years old and fit as a fiddle. In the morning she had light stomach pains. Nothing to worry about. By 1.30 this afternoon she was dead. The doctors still don't know what happened. Here's the fucking kicker: she was seven months pregnant. The baby didn't make it either. Jesus.

Jesus. Thoughts be with her family/friends and yours in this difficult of times.

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My wife and I are trying to save up for a house, get out of debt, and find a sane way to tackle our student loan problem. On the way to work yesterday, my car's coolant light came on and I was running completely hot. The hose or pump that connects to the radiator had melted away and was leaking through, which may have been tied to some other lingering issues I had which basically set me back about a grand. Well, they finished everything that needed to be done (hose, motor mounts, spark plug and valve cover) and the car was still rattling. Turns out I had a bad wheel bearing that had to be replaced, so basically after getting my car towed, I'm out $1400 that I currently don't have.

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Hand foot and mouth can go kick rocks.  What, the blisters weren't bad enough, so you've gotta have a bunch of strains where going through one doesn't confer immunity to the others?  This is round 3 for my son in the 10 months since he started daycare.

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That's awful news, @Roman. I don't even know how to process that.  :(

I hear you on the car trouble, @Chaos.  I went to get in my car to run a short errand today, and it wouldn't start.  Jumped it off, and it cranked, but had my mother take me to the bank and post office in her truck.  Left the car running while we were gone for a few minutes.  Turned it off and went to turn it on again.  Dead.  But the bell comes on when I first put the key into the ignition.  So I'm thinking it's just a case of not driving the car much now since I'm unemployed along with the car taking too much western heat in the evening.  I'm going to try to jump it again tomorrow and see.

Sorry to hear about your son, @Robert C. I try not to get preachy when it comes to child-rearing since I'm not a parent myself.  But the anti-vaxxer brigade is too much. Wouldn't surprise me if your baby is playing with another wee one whose parents figured out a way to buck the system and not get their kid immunized.

 

 

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On ‎6‎/‎19‎/‎2017 at 5:09 PM, Craig H said:

Anyone here married to or have a girlfriend, boyfriend, or partner that works a night shift or is a nurse? Am I just worrying over nothing and thinking of stupid shit like Grey's Anatomy too much? For as much as I think about that, I also tell myself that show is probably as far fetched as it gets and I've seen maybe one episode of it. Should I not sweat the whole night shift thing as much as I am? Am I overthinking the connection she'll have with her co-workers and the potential loss of connection here at home?

Interesting because I think my comments will probably reflect the possible position of your future wife and it is probably much worse in my case.

My home is in Maryland, but my job is still here in Virginia and that means that I am away from home A LOT.

I know my very significant other loves me, but my absence does indeed put a lot of friction on our relationship.  She's at home and has to deal with the bulk of the daily housekeeping stuff while I am at my 'rents.  It kinda works out because my folks are getting to the point where they are infirm and need quite a bit of help around the house, yet they're too stubborn to relinquish that responsibility to a professional caregiver.

They'd rather burden.... er... rely on me and my sister.

You're not apeshit insane, Craig.  The disconnect is very problematic.  My girlfriend believes she's bearing the load alone and I am either just goofing off or I think that my home is just a retreat. 

In turn, I resent the idea that I am here just sitting on my thumbs, because that mortgage and the other house bills aren't being paid by themselves.  I am taking care of my financial responsibilities and I also have face a two and a half hour commute at least twice a week to get back home to her.  I sometimes feel that what I actually do for our mutual security and stability goes unappreciated just because I am not there to wash dishes or take out the garbage every night.

You two are going to have support your own psyches, I'm afraid.  You are responsible for your own mental well being.  No one can make you feel happy, but their unhappiness will affect you greatly.  I have to remind my common law mate that it is unfair for her to take out her frustrations about the current situation out on me. 

If Momma ain't happy, no one is happy and It is not my job to be her mental cheerleader all of the time.  She needs to learn to manage her own mood and find more positive ways to vent.

I, in turn, need to give up a little more of my me time for the greater good.  I try to be more proactive when it comes to household stuff during the weekend, but I don't like being busy for the sake of being busy.  I also try to spend quality time doing the things she likes to do rather than trying to find a happy medium, but that doesn't always work out.

It's nice to dwell on all of that when two become one romantic bullshit, but at the end of the day you are two different people with likes and dislikes and relationships are about co-existing, not melding.  You're both going to have to acknowledge and respect each other's differences and that's not easy.

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On ‎6‎/‎23‎/‎2017 at 3:55 PM, Craig H said:

I hope these feelings get better. I hope the sadness and loneliness fade away over time.

That's what I'm dealing with right now.  

My woman invariably gets chippy on the day before I head down to VA. 

We'll disagree about something small and it will turn into a full blown conflagration.

Why? 

Because she feels it is better to be angry with me for having to leave rather than be sad because of my absence.

I can't tell you how to deal with it because I don't have an answer. 

I think that things might get better when I finally find a job closer to home, but something tells me we'll more or less be in the same place because now she'll have to relinquish some of the control she had to me since I will be there to help administrate. 

Once someone assumes authority, it is hard to let go of it even if you despise having it..

The feeling of loneliness is your problem to solve, homie, because you are in charge of your own head. 

You are the general on the battlefield of your mind so you need to win that fucking war for the sake of your relationship and your own mental health.  Talk to someone (casual or professional), find a way to decompress and eustress, do something before what is in your head spills out and poisons your relationship.

My issue is that my woman honestly believes that I am responsible for her joy and I am not.  I cannot make her happy if she doesn't wish to be happy. 

She finds anger comforting and that is a dysfunction born of past broken relationships that I am paying the price for in my current relationship with her.

The sooner she figures that out for herself and assumes responsibility for her own feelings, the better off the both of us will be.

I think I have gotten all of my sermonizing out of my system for one day.  Time to go deal with this server installation.

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@J.T. thanks for the positive vibes, re-upped my meds last Saturday and all is good. I'm fortunate to have a primary care doc who is very much anti-surgery, when it looked like knee replacement might actually happen I asked what he would suggest and much to my surprise his response was "Can you lead a relatively normal life now? If so, put off the surgery until you don't see any alternative." It's pretty refreshing in these days where physicians are trained to run up the bills as much as possible to find a doctor who actually takes a pragmatic approach to healthcare... But anyway, I digress, I meant to ring in on the relationship stuff...

When dealing with a person who is doing what is literally the worst thing that you can do to another person (holding them responsible for your happiness, thus abdicating your primary responsibility in life). There really isn't a great answer and certainly not an easy one. There is no easy answer other than to remain as chill as you can. The sort of person who thrives on being angry or upset also thrives on pulling other folk into the web. The closest to an easy answer is to remind yourself that you are absolutely powerless over how someone else feels, in fact, the only thing that you can control is how you react to a given situation. My wife is a lot better now, but she still has the mind-set of worrying about what other people think or may think. Her family is much. much worse, there are five sisters, (there were five brothers, all deceased now), and at any given time at least one sister isn't speaking to one of the others and of course the warring parties insist on dragging everyone else into the conflict. The latest was the oldest sister demanding that the third youngest be in effect excommunicated from the family for not paying what was considered her fair share of the cost of a sheep that we cooked for a family picnic. The younger sister felt that her contribution in terms of picking the critter up and having my brother-in-law butcher and cook the damn thing was worth considerably more than the shared cost that jumped from $25 to $30, yes, that's right, we're talking about a differential of five bucks per person here, can anyone be surprised that two fucks I don't give about the sheep? See, this is the kind of shit that goes on every day and could quite easily make you bugfuck insane if you allowed yourself to be drawn into the drama. 

We've stayed happily married for 34 years by remaining aware of one truism, we are different people, the things that I'm interested in I'm totally passionate about, the things that aren't of interest might as well not exist, there is no middle ground for me. Kathy can go to the casino and spend ten-twelve hours there. Me, whether winning or losing, I'm bored to tears after about an hour. Conversely, find me a good pinball machine and I can sit there for four or five hours. Also, as my wife pointed out years ago, if I'm not at home, I'm either at a bookstore or a bar (I'm rather easily amused). There are some activities that we enjoy together, we both play darts at a pretty high level, there are a number of TV shows that we enjoy watching together, but the differences are HUGE. I've written, edited and/or published somewhat over 100 books, Kathy has never read one of them in its entirety. She will "read" a story that she's transcribing for me, but as far as sitting down and reading for enjoyment, that's just not going to happen and I gave up trying to get her to read a long, long time ago. She's figured out how to hot the bullet points on a particular title if a customer calls with questions and I'm not around, so from a practical business standpoint, she's as knowledgeable as she needs to be and for me to assume that she'll like doing something because I do would be incredibly arrogant on my part, but I see other folk doing that sort of thing every day and it always ends badly...

Accept the other person just as they are, any change in their behavior calculated to please you is bound to be insincere and probably comes with a whole big bag of resentments.

Anyway, the bottom line to any successful relationship is the willingness to accept the other person just as they are. If you think that the person is going to change for you, you are deluding yourself. Any such change is going to be based in resentment and likely short-lived and when the inevitable blow-up occurs, it will be ALL your fault. Now isn't that something to look forward to?

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22 hours ago, tbarrie said:

I learned on Friday that my mother has liver cancer. Completely out of nowhere. I won't know how bad it is until she sees a specialist, hopefully early this week.

God damn, dude.  I'm sorry to hear that.  Best to both of you.

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On 7/16/2017 at 8:14 AM, tbarrie said:

I learned on Friday that my mother has liver cancer. Completely out of nowhere. I won't know how bad it is until she sees a specialist, hopefully early this week.

Positive vibes sent your way! Hopefully they caught it early.

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1 hour ago, OSJ said:

Positive vibes sent your way! Hopefully they caught it early.

They did. Thank God we have a nurse in the family - my sister-in-law noticed her jaundice and convinced her this was something she needed to see a doctor about immediately. 

 

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I feel like a paranoid lunatic, because someone is apparently trying to ruin my life/career and it sounds ludicrous and childish to say, but I can't put it to bed.

Last month I applied for a lateral move that would take me out of regular tax examiner work to take over inventory control. I didn't get it, but was offered 60 days as my 10-person team's technical lead (responsible for answering tax law questions, taking escalation calls, etc) instead in spite of never having gotten certain pieces of training that hasn't been offered since 2009 here. I took the temp promotion, but realized quickly that no one was actually coming to me with questions. Last Friday I overheard 2 veterans (one of whom had explicitly turned down this job, one of whom didn't apply but is 40 and has been at the IRS since she was 18 and takes poorly to getting errors on casefiles reviews) complaining about my selection.  They were talking about taking it to our manager and "will shr have the guts to back you up?" and shit. At the time I said "fuck it, the boss has my back." But today when I got in, there was an email from the Inspector General's whistleblower account thanking me for filing a complaint I didn't file. I can't find out what was filed without spending a hundred bucks on a FOIA request that will take longer than the investigation. So I don't know if they stupidly put my name and email on a (false as far as i know) criminal allegation against me, or used my name on a bogus accusation against someone else. Either way, someone is apparently trying to fuck up my world over a temporary promotion that will end in five weeks. I am absolutely going mental and I just want to curl up in a ball and give up and make this go away.

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Back in March, when we were in the midst of our 500th day in a row of snow cover here in Spokane, my mom (who just moved here in June 2016) got a phone call from her neighbor.  "Have you seen your driveway?"  "No, why?"  She goes outside and someone had stomped, in about 5-foot high letters in the new snow, the word "GAY".  Her neighborhood has a private Facebook group and she made a post asking if anybody else had gotten a similar message (they hadn't).

Fast forward to last night.  Her doorbell rings at 10:30pm.  She didn't answer it but did see no one there when she checked.  Goes out at noon today to get the mail and finds a piece of paper left behind by the bell ringer.  It was a printout - made in March, back when the item was posted, of her FB post about the snow thing.  On the back was written "SEE YOU NEXT WINTUR".  

Safe to say she's a little unnerved by the whole thing since it's just so incredibly random and bizarre.  She's got a security coming out in the morning for an estimate.  She'd had a Ring doorbell system installed back when the first incident happened but it was such a steaming pile of garbage that she returned it and hadn't gotten around to get something else.  She will now.

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You shouldn't have to pay $100 to find out what was in a complaint that you yourself supposedly filed.  Since you did nothing wrong, I wouldn't hesitate to talk to as many people as you need to in order to find someone where you can say "Hey I didn't actually file this" and they can hopefully make it disappear.

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Okay, an update after another work day (and not sleep deprived on the Metro this time). 

Today I got in touch with my union steward, who was not a lot of help. She suggested that  I contact TIGTA (the inspector general's office) and tell them I never submitted a complaint.  I patiently explained that the e-mail came from a donotreply address as the result of a web form submission, and nothing on the website or in the manual gave any way to contact them aside from (a) leaving a voicemail on the whistleblower hotline, (b) sending an email to the whistleblower address, each of which I did but each of which is a one-way channel.  She basically said that they will support me if the IG office approaches  me, but there is no purpose to being proactive on a complaint that may have just been farted into the wind.  My boss and her boss are both out this week, so I will be approaching my boss when she returns Friday rather than dealing with an acting manager.

I also found out today thru gossip that only about half the stuff I overheard on Friday was about me.  The employees in question really do think it was a poor choice to give me the job when I haven't been trained on older task types and are frustrated at having to wait for me to ask another tech lead.  That's totally fair.  But apparently they changed the subject while complaining about me 5 feet away from me, and most of the hardcore vitriol and plans to complain to management were actually about someone else (an employee who was popped into our team when he went from nights to days, and who has had multiple sexual harassment claims filed against him including by one of the venters.)  I feel like a little bit of a dumbass, but the TIGTA complaint is still fucked up and worrying and I'm still going to file a FOIA request. It turns out the $100 was just an estimate/generality, and it will probably be much cheaper since I have a timestamp that will reduce the research time to hopefully no more than an hour.

So in short: there is definitely something weird going on, and I am still not well liked in this position, but I'm no longer convinced that people are capital-letters Out To Get Me.

 

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My stepdad had a heart attack today. He's a 64 year old maniac, still workin' his ass off doing home renovation. He was doing a job on someone's roof, in 85+ degree heat, and had to pack up and head home because he wasn't feeling well. Had to pull over because it got so bad and some lady called 911. 

Turns out he had a 100% blockage in the same artery that killed my Uncle Rod about eight years ago. There was no one around to help my uncle when the attack hit. 

He got really lucky, and so did we. That lady saved his life.

He's alright, awake and cracking jokes. He'll be home on Friday. 

Still, this is scary. He's the rock of our family. And out of all my parents, there's no way in hell I thought he'd be the first to have this kind of thing happen. 

I ain't ready to face to my parents mortality, but that's the way it is. For now, I'm just thankful he made it through. 

I hope that lady hits the lottery tomorrow.

 

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So... My weekend didn't go as planned.

I'm walking to my car on Friday. Had a hell of a cough, with some wheezing in the night. Been feeling crappy for a week but I've got two concerts to hit over the weekend. By the time I get to my car level, I'm only capable of sucking in tiny wheezes and basically hissing out air. I try to recover for a bit. A neighbor asks if I've been shot. Welcome to North Anaheim, CA.

I'm not going to make it to work. I look up the closest ER, and it's only a mile and half away. I get into my car, still wheez/hissing, unable to draw an actual full breath. I make the drive to the hospital. Find out it isn't the E/R entrance. That's the next building. Pull back out. Find E/R entrance. There's no actual parking. Parking is further away. I park at the door anyways and stumble in. They try to speak to me and get me to almost fill out paperwork until they hear my breathing. They toss me onto a gurney and throw a mask on me. With all the hacking I'm doing, I was apparently THISCLOSE to being intubated. 

An average person's blood oxygen level is supposed to be 95-100. Mine was in the 70s. After a couple hours in the E/R, I get sent to ICU. Apparently I have an infection to go with whatever crap is in my lungs, which is either bronchitis or pneumonia (was never actually told. This is going to happen a lot from here out.) 

After spending the bulk of the day in ICU, i get properly admitted to the hospital. Attached to IVs. I get one of those breathing tubes in my nose. I get breathing treatments every 4-6 hours. Continual blood draws. While they have me in the bed, they decide to go ahead and test for everything and start working on that. They still have yet to tell me what I've got. The previaling idea is hypertension, possible new-onset diabetes, COPD or congestive heart failure, and sepsis. 

Chest cleared up remarkably quickly. Had a major coughing jag on Saturday morning that really helped clear things up with the drugs. They keep asking for sputum to test and I can't provide any.

They try and give me a proper dieted meal for the possible diabetes. They have to actually take me off the IV, because it's jacking my blood sugar up 100 points.

Monday night, they decide to send me to a rehab facility. Still have not been told what I have. My doc on the case has spoken to me for about 4-6 minutes in total. He and the caseworker agree I should go, so I go for it. A medical transport takes me from the hospital to the rehab. The EMT in charge stalls for literally an hour, because he wants my BP to not be high for the trip. In retrospect, it's a good idea, as I go into a coughing jag on the way and grey-out, which gives me some weird seizure in my shoulders and disorients me for a second so I don't know where I am.

I go to the rehab. Except for one other person, I'm the only one under 55 and the one not in a wheelchair or walker. The caseworker onsite is not even sure why I'm there, since I'm literally the most able-bodied person. So I try and make it so I can leave. Any nurse that comes in, I speak my case. Want to talk to my doctor. Have been told earlier that he drops by. Didn't find out until the end of day yesterday that he simply didn't. At this point, I'm furious. My new tack is that I see somebody by end of day today or I check myself out. My insurance person and another doctor make it in today, and are completely awesome and arrange my discharge. My insurance person even sets up my follow-up appointments. 

I'm weak. I'm tired. I'm alive. Don't smoke, kids.

 

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1 hour ago, Ace said:

So... My weekend didn't go as planned.

I'm walking to my car on Friday. Had a hell of a cough, with some wheezing in the night. Been feeling crappy for a week but I've got two concerts to hit over the weekend. By the time I get to my car level, I'm only capable of sucking in tiny wheezes and basically hissing out air. I try to recover for a bit. A neighbor asks if I've been shot. Welcome to North Anaheim, CA.

I'm not going to make it to work. I look up the closest ER, and it's only a mile and half away. I get into my car, still wheez/hissing, unable to draw an actual full breath. I make the drive to the hospital. Find out it isn't the E/R entrance. That's the next building. Pull back out. Find E/R entrance. There's no actual parking. Parking is further away. I park at the door anyways and stumble in. They try to speak to me and get me to almost fill out paperwork until they hear my breathing. They toss me onto a gurney and throw a mask on me. With all the hacking I'm doing, I was apparently THISCLOSE to being intubated. 

An average person's blood oxygen level is supposed to be 95-100. Mine was in the 70s. After a couple hours in the E/R, I get sent to ICU. Apparently I have an infection to go with whatever crap is in my lungs, which is either bronchitis or pneumonia (was never actually told. This is going to happen a lot from here out.) 

After spending the bulk of the day in ICU, i get properly admitted to the hospital. Attached to IVs. I get one of those breathing tubes in my nose. I get breathing treatments every 4-6 hours. Continual blood draws. While they have me in the bed, they decide to go ahead and test for everything and start working on that. They still have yet to tell me what I've got. The previaling idea is hypertension, possible new-onset diabetes, COPD or congestive heart failure, and sepsis. 

Chest cleared up remarkably quickly. Had a major coughing jag on Saturday morning that really helped clear things up with the drugs. They keep asking for sputum to test and I can't provide any.

They try and give me a proper dieted meal for the possible diabetes. They have to actually take me off the IV, because it's jacking my blood sugar up 100 points.

Monday night, they decide to send me to a rehab facility. Still have not been told what I have. My doc on the case has spoken to me for about 4-6 minutes in total. He and the caseworker agree I should go, so I go for it. A medical transport takes me from the hospital to the rehab. The EMT in charge stalls for literally an hour, because he wants my BP to not be high for the trip. In retrospect, it's a good idea, as I go into a coughing jag on the way and grey-out, which gives me some weird seizure in my shoulders and disorients me for a second so I don't know where I am.

I go to the rehab. Except for one other person, I'm the only one under 55 and the one not in a wheelchair or walker. The caseworker onsite is not even sure why I'm there, since I'm literally the most able-bodied person. So I try and make it so I can leave. Any nurse that comes in, I speak my case. Want to talk to my doctor. Have been told earlier that he drops by. Didn't find out until the end of day yesterday that he simply didn't. At this point, I'm furious. My new tack is that I see somebody by end of day today or I check myself out. My insurance person and another doctor make it in today, and are completely awesome and arrange my discharge. My insurance person even sets up my follow-up appointments. 

I'm weak. I'm tired. I'm alive. Don't smoke, kids.

 

Dude, be careful... What you are describing sounds eerily familiar to me. As you may know, OSJ is now on oxygen 24/7 and pretty much homebound, Yeah, I quit smoking after 45 years, but the damage was done I have COPD and while it gets almost good enough to function without oxygen I can drop from my normal 92/95 to something in the 70s with little if any warning, so it's best not to screw with it. If you're hacking up a bunch of stuff, you may be lucky and just have an infection that can be cleared up with an antibiotic. However, please do consider it a warning of things to come. People with a healthy heart/lungs do NOT get lung infections, you only get lung infections because you've put something in there that your body doesn't like and we both know what that is. ;-)

I'm not lecturing so much as I'm reminding myself and anyone who will listen why I quit smoking. I just turned 60 today and spent the day sitting at the computer, sending the wife out to pick up my birthday dinner courtesy of Arby's. Seven years ago I was the guy out there every Sunday playing ball with guys twenty years younger and raising money for charity by doing dart-a thons where i'd set records going like 33 hours straight because I had the cardio for it. I can't even play anymore because a half hour will totally exhaust me. Stay well my friend, if turns out that it is just an infection, consider it a warning and make the necessary changes, if you have COPD and I really hope that you don't, it's not a death sentence, but it IS a make major changes in your life sentence. If it's suggested that you use something like Symbicort, by all means use it. The company will usually hook you up for free if your insurance doesn't cover it. Bottom line, use whatever meds or therapy that's suggested, it's ALL important. Good luck!

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