Jump to content
DVDVR Message Board

So, How's It Going?


Gonzo

Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, JLSigman said:

When I quit working 8 years ago because of multiple chronic illnesses, everyone was like, "Oh I'm so jealous!" and I'm like, "Hey, you wanna deal with this for me?" It sucks. 

Yeah, the novelty of staying home wears pretty thin after a few years. I know whereof I speak. 

  • Like 1
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Going to be a long couple of weeks.

My father hasn't got long left - side effects from a year of chemo starting to really show. I'm not even convinced he's going to last the flight from the UK, but is adamant he wants to see our daughter/only grandchild before he goes. 

Also wants to bring his camera gear with him (relatively famous photographer) to take some photos of her before he goes. Wife is ecstatic about this. As someone who remembers the uncontrolled physical abuse that came with getting "the perfect shot" every time, I'm a little hesitant to let her near him in that setting. On the other, he's probably not in a position to do much, and a small part of me kind of hopes he does, so I can be the one to end him.

Keeps calling me wanting me to sign some paperwork for a trust fund he's setting up for future royalties to be diverted to her when he goes. Again, very conflicted on this, but figure that's 17 years time's problem, and its a conversation topic far more palatable than most. 

It sounds shit to say, but, I was promised a year to live over a year and a half ago, and he's still here. Closure would be handy.

  • Sad 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, Control said:

Start of term is super stressful and I don’t get to sleep much, and then I teach 300+ students, so I’m just wide-open to an assault by their germs.

I have been on night duty for the past few days and I won't conclude it until next Thursday.  I inevitably will get sick next weekend as the human body was designed to rest at night and I am awake and working when my immune system is at its least effective state.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

My grandfather is moving into a memory care home today.  His Alzheimer's finally progressed to the point that my mom and her sisters couldn't keep him at home any more.  He's my last living grandparent and to be frank there's not much of him left.

  • Sad 8
Link to comment
Share on other sites

That sucks.  I know how it goes.  I don't think my grandfather had full-blown dementia or anything (aside from problems with UTIs), but it was like that with him.  He nearly died from a freak issue with his hepatic vein in '07 and died in '12, and sometime around mid-09, the slide started down into some other person none of us recognized.  I last spent time with him in January 09, and that memory, warts and all (you know, like casual racism & sexism, as opposed to the later warts of smearing shit on walls), is the one I choose to have of him.  

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, Zimbra said:

My grandfather is moving into a memory care home today.  His Alzheimer's finally progressed to the point that my mom and her sisters couldn't keep him at home any more.  He's my last living grandparent and to be frank there's not much of him left.

Yeah, my sister and I convinced our mom to move Dad into a home because his Lewy Body Dementia is at an advanced stage.

He's been there for a couple of weeks now.  It's an expensive proposition, but my dad's pension pays for most of the cost and it's better for my mom because she's not physically capable of taking care of him by herself.

Sometimes I wonder if my father is actually mentally hobbled though. 

The mother fucker has apparently been sandbagging on his physical therapy.  He constantly complained about pain and how he could barely walk when he was in rehab for his fractured hip, but on the day we moved him from the hospital to the memory care facility, the son of a bitch made a break for the back door and was almost able to climb over a security railing. 

I managed to catch him and get him off of the fence with the help of some of the facility staff

Is he really crazy?  Like a fox, maybe.

  • Sad 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 minutes ago, J.T. said:

So, Odessa.  How long will you be locked down at APG today thanks to the fucking person that shot up that Rite Aid distro center?

I am off today. Plus, I believe things are back to normal at the gates as of a little while ago.

it was funny to hear Aberdeen mentioned on BBC 5 Live and they mean the “Mary-land” one and not the Scotland one. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

25 minutes ago, odessasteps said:

it was funny to hear Aberdeen mentioned on BBC 5 Live and they mean the “Mary-land” one and not the Scotland one. 

Alan Kasujja, the Ugandan anchor for the BBC World Service on NPR, pronounces it Murray-lund.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What the fuck?  This is absolutely insane.  I'm glad my mom retired from teaching a few years ago, she was at the elementary school that's right by there.  And it's another of those instances where the fucker offed herself instead of being jailed and questioned.  It's just maddening as it'd be great for once if they could take these fuckers in and figure out what would make them do this shit.  And I don't think I'm out of line in saying this shit needs to stop, especially considering there were two other mass shootings in other states within a couple days of each other.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Since Sandy Hook it's been pretty clear the US is not ever going to do shit about mass shootings.  This is just how we live now.

The shooting in Middleton was a few miles from my home, so that's cool.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/17/2018 at 11:32 AM, Zimbra said:

My grandfather is moving into a memory care home today.  His Alzheimer's finally progressed to the point that my mom and her sisters couldn't keep him at home any more.  He's my last living grandparent and to be frank there's not much of him left.

Grandpa died this afternoon.  He went peacefully in his sleep with my mom sitting next to him.

  • Sad 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm in the home stretch of yet another fellowship application, and I'm very much at the stage where I want to throw my computer off a cliff.  And then I'll leap in right behind it, because, fuck it, that's why.

On the other hand, if I get it, $7k a year raise.

But I'm not going to get my hopes up about that.   The one I did in grad school got nitpicked out of funding range; won't be surprised if it happens again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Friend of mine is going to get on an airplane in a few hours and move several states away.  We just found out Tuesday.  Doesn't feel she can stay in touch with anyone who knew her and her ex-husband as a couple.  Wife and I went to see her this morning fully prepared to do... something.  Talk her into staying, tell her she at least needed to keep in touch with her friends, something else.  Not sure what we thought we'd do.  I've been rehearsing conversations in my head since Tuesday, but five minutes after we got there, I knew this is something she needs to do.  She's miserable here.  And telling her she needs her friends is hollow considering how little time we've spent with her since the divorce and how much we've hung out with her ex-husband.

Driving her to the airport in about an hour and a half.  Going to be hard to say goodbye.  Definitely feeling crappy.  Replaying the past nine months in my head and wishing we'd done more to be there for her.  We definitely could have been better friends.

  • Sad 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sonofabitch, but this hurts... Apparently I have a broken rib or two, my doc was very conciliatory (as it's really his fault)... Here's the deal, I've mentioned before that my knees and lower back are shot. In point of fact, I'd be an excellent candidate for knee-replacement surgery except for a couple of minor details, (1.) I'm on oxygen 24/7 which is something that scares all but the best anesthesiologists as keeping me under while keeping me breathing is quite the challenge, to say nothing of the fact that even if it SEEMS to be going well there might be too much stress on my heart which will result in a heart attack. (2.)  Though I'm in much better shape than I was a couple of years ago, I am and likely always will be a member of  team chunky. That stupid body mass chart says that I should weigh 160 lbs.  the last time that I weighed 160 lbs. was when I was still the skinny weakling in junior high that everyone bullied.  By my junior year in high school I had grown about four inches in height and gained right around 80 lbs.  Anyway, that is neither here nor there as far as this thing is concerned.

Basically, ten years ago my doctor was confronted by the spectacle of a 51 year-old man who was in constant level #8 pain yet was too great a risk for the surgery that *might* relieve the pain. Chances were pretty good that I would die on the table several tines with a greater risk of not coming back each time... The other option involved oxygen 24/7, staying in a dry climate (going back to Seattle even for a visit is just asking for trouble(, and finally, relying on 4 30mg oxycodone pills per day. I really didn't like the sounds of that as I've sober a longass time and I was concerned that the oxy might set off cravings for alcohol. It didn't, and all has been well until this last year when I started getting the sensation of blisters on the soles of my feet as well as gawdawful pain. Thing is, there weren't any blsiters... It was explained as nerve pain which in rare cases can be brought on by oxycodone. Well, this shouldn't be a problem, there are lots of pain-killers out there, we'll just try something else. My doc sort of frowned on how glib I was being about this and mentioned that the reason he had me on oxy was that my condition was pretty far advanced and he hadn't thought anything else would work and that oxycodone was his drug of last resort, not the first.  But what the hell, we tried morphine in what he said was a "ridiculous" amount. Apparently, my tolerance is pretty astonishing (I know when I've been at the dentist for root canals, the dentist marvels at how much nitrous he has to give me), anyway the experimentation ended with me going back to the oxy and getting yet another scrip, this one for something called gabapentin, which is for nerve pain. Works really well, but on occasion makes me drowsy as fuck. Not something I worry about, as I don't drive or operate any machinery. 

So what happened? I fell asleep standing up, and apparently for a good while, I recall looking at the clock and it being two hours later from when I'd last looked. Of course, I was seeing the clock in a rather new perspective, that of lying on the floor and my office chair in rather a lot of pain. Kathy was out running errands, so I managed to drag myself to the bed and then leverage myself to a standing position. Near as I can figure, I passed out standing up, remained that way for almost two hours and the something caused me to fall, landing on my chair, bouncing off that onto the floor.

I decided that the less said about this the better, didn't think anything was broken until now, and now I'm sure of it.  There's also a bruise about six inches in diameter from where my hip struck the chair. This is the worst bruise I've ever had, the fucking thing is black and hurts like hell.  This gabapentin shit does what it's supposed to do as far as eliminates the nerve pain, but I guess the next time it has me feeling drowsy, I need to lie down instead of just ignoring it... Fuck, this hurts...

  • Sad 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Promotion fell through because they found negative work experience on my background check the last time I held the position; turns out that not only am I not being hired for that job, but I’m also being taken off the civil service list for that position, forever.

So I’m feeling really goddamn cross right now.

  • Sad 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

That sucks. A crap workday indeed. 

I had one of my own. Got yelled at for "unprofessional behavior" -- because nothing says professionalism like repeatedly calling the 'unprofessional' person a little bitch -- and while the guy is not 100% wrong, because I don't put in the kind of hours others do, and I don't have relationships with any of them, he still crossed a line. Or seven.

The worst is if I do anything different, he'd be stupid enough to take credit, or ugh, thank me for "improving", at which point I'd be pointedly unprofessional. 

Not a good day when the yelling starts with, "what the fuck is wrong with you" and the only viable answer to give (which you do not voice) is, "you don't want to really know, and even if you did, you don't *deserve* to know." 2018 can eat the WHOLE bag. 

  • Sad 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ugh, I am sorry you two. Work shit sucks.

 

I am deciding that I have to stop paying for something if I ever want to stop overdrafting my bank account, so bye bye $400+ health insurance. I'll wean myself off the meds with what I have left and endure the rest. Yes, it's a stupid decision, but what am I going to stop paying, the mortgage? 

  • Sad 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/10/2018 at 6:49 AM, JLSigman said:

Ugh, I am sorry you two. Work shit sucks.

 

I am deciding that I have to stop paying for something if I ever want to stop overdrafting my bank account, so bye bye $400+ health insurance. I'll wean myself off the meds with what I have left and endure the rest. Yes, it's a stupid decision, but what am I going to stop paying, the mortgage? 

For God's sake Jenn don't do that! Shop around for cheaper insurance, see if any govt. programs can help (I suspect that you might find something there depending on how your State does things), but don't suddenly try going off your meds, it can kill you. Why not re-fi the mortgage to get a lower monthly payment? Banks love thinking their going to get your property and the thing is, if you have no heirs, who gives a shit? Milk the property for all you can get while you are here and can enjoy it. You can't take a house with you.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...