Wonderful Trip Home Today

We are currently experienceing one of the wonderful Spring snowstorms.  The 38 mile drive home was adventurous to say the least.  At times the group of cars I was driving with was creeping along the interstate at 30mph.  What fun!  The roads were covered in snow, slush, and ice.  These 3 conditions were scattered randomly throughout the drive home.  I didn’t see any vehicles off the road, but then again I couldn’t see much.  Well, I made it home safely and I guess that is what counts.

Cancer Treatment

My wife is a nurse and she is absolutely amazed at the treatment my father-in-law is getting for esophageal cancer. I am also. During the week he has two pumps that are pumping chemotherapy treatments into him constantly. On the weekends he has the luxury of only one pump. Apparently these pumps are dosing him with two different types of chemo at lower doses, but they are given all day long. He is also receiving radiation treatment two times per day. It seems excessive, but evidently you must be super aggressive with this cancer.

In one week he has been literally sucked of all his energy. This is the price of all this treatment. The scary part is that we have 5 more weeks until the break. I am worried about what the end of week 2 will bring us. It is interesting that so much focus is given to the cancer patients and survivors, but not as much on the family members or friends who help these people through these ordeals. My wife and her sister are absolute wreaks over this ordeal. My mother-in-law is in a deep state of denial. As the newest member of the family, I sit back and watch, trying to help wherever I possibly can. Cancer adds a huge responsibility to the family members willing to take it on. There is much worrying about holidays, birthdays, this appointment and that other thing.

Hilarious Hillary

Hillary’s bogus story about dodging bullets in Bosnia is hilarious.  I think it is time for her to just give it up.  Why does she think that this would make anyone vote for her?  Especially if it was not true.  I think she is possibly going to learn the lesson about this new age of media/internet; if you do something it is probably on video somewhere, so just go ahead and tell the truth about it.

The Generation Gap

I have been observing an interesting generational conflict at the store for the last two weeks. We had to hire another employee due to one of our employees quitting. Well long story short the 50 something boss an unapprecitive of the 20 somethings piercings, jewelry, and clothing, etc.  This is actually rather entertaining to watch.  The problem has been moderating the conflict between the two.  For example, I have to explain to the 20 something why the boss is concerned with whatever they are complaining about.  For some reason most of the younger employees really like to push the limits, but the boss doesn’t always make their concern known in terms that make sense to these employees.  They are pretty good about correcting the problem when it is made clear to them why it is a concern.  The 20 somethings are guilty of trying to get a rise out of the boss, from time to time, and this just adds fuel to the fire.  So I get to explain to the boss what they are trying to say.  All in all, it makes for a fun day indeed.

Letter to Hillary about Healthcare

Hillary,

I have peripheral neuropathy.  I currently have insurance through my wife’s work and its not that bad, but not as good as the insurance that I previously had through my former health insurance company.  I was wondering about your plan to make sure that every American had health insurance.  Is this going to cost me an arm and a leg?  Heres my problem.  If my wife decides to change jobs and is not able to get insurance through that company, I am basically shit out of luck.  No insurance company is going to give me a decent rate because I have a disease.  Its not like it will kill me, but I do have to go to the doctor at least twice a year, take expensive medications, and get expense tests from time to time.  Insurance companies do NOT like this.  Will your plan prevent this kind of discrimination or not?  Will your plan pay for my medications, doctor visits and expensive tests without spending hours on the phone and taking all my money?  Oh yeah, a friend of mine brings up a good point.  Do you intend to be insured by this plan, see the doctors that will be available to me on this plan, and take the medications offered by this plan or do you intend to seek coverage elsewhere?  Well, let me know, because MY quality of life may depend on your answer.

Sincerely,

N3RVP4IN

Barack Obama v. Hillary Clinton

The Democratic race for the nomination is slowly becoming one of the most stupid things I have witnessed in politics.  Here is why.  Michigan and Florida screwed up by trying to get there voice heard first and now they and Hillary Clinton are crying about it.  Guess what?  If you don’t follow the rules you get accountability/punishment for your actions.  To Michigan and Florida I say, you have been given your accountability now shut-up and deal with it.  Hillary Clinton is acting like a desperate person.  The only reason she wants these two states to count in the nomination is due to the fact that she is behind.  So quit being a baby and get on with this thing.  You can still win, but I don’t want a cry baby leader.

Buying Wire

Yesterday we had several people who came in to purchase various types of wire and/or cable. I had no idea that this was such a difficult process. The first incident involved a customer who wanted to purchase a shorter piece of coax cable to connect his tv to the wall outlet. Initially he wanted to purchase a 1 ft. piece of cable. Now I am all for selling customers what they want, but I am not about selling them something they can’t use. After about 15 minutes he finally settled on a piece that was 2 feet. Personally, I would have wound up the excess on the existing cable and called it good, thereby saving the money for the new cable.

We then had a customer that was in need of speaker cable. He was in search of the smallest gauge that we could find. After finding this (non-recommended) wire he mentions that he needs about 400 feet of it. Its a RadioShack not a contractors store. RadioShack long ago stopped selling the wire by the foot from hugh spools. However, I did helpfully point him to one of the local businesses that we deal with.

The next incident was a customer who found the speaker wire that he wanted, but the spool had 30ft on it and he insisted that he only needed 20ft.  He processed this for 30min. before he finally decided that he would buy that larger amount.  I can’t believe that a person would waste half and hour over this.

The Cancer is Treatable

So we have spent about 24 hours in hospitals and doctors offices the past few days.  The culmination of this process is that the esophageal cancer is treatable.  The tumor has not penetrated the wall of the esophagus into the lymph and blood systems.  It is in a bad location and needs to be treated immediately.  So on Monday he starts chemotherapy and radiation treatments for 6 weeks to try and get the tumor into an operable condition.  If all goes well, there will be surgery to remove the tumor and affected tissue.  I don’t know much past this, but I am sure I will be fully educated soon.

My wife is going crazy.  She is a nurse and her father is sick.  If she doesn’t piss off every nurse and doctor we meet in the next 6 months I will be surprised.  I’m sure they understand and have seen this before.  The family, of course, looks to her to make the decisions about treatment and this puts some strain on her.  I get to be the support for the support person.  She has had numerous breakdowns of the past few days, as I suspect anyone in this position would have.

My Absense

I feel I must explain my lack of commenting lately.  The first reason was my trip to Mexico.  The thing that happened next has taken up my time since returning.  My wife’s father has cancer, a very nasty one at that.  She is a nurse and of course the family wants her to make many decisions about the various treatments and tests.  WOW, what a cluster.  My wife and I have spent a lot of time setting up this appointment and that test and so on and so on.  I have just been very tired mentally and sometimes physically.

To make matters worse the neuropathy is in the middle of a flare up.  Every morning I get to “walk with daggers in my feet”.  My fingers and hands are also blessed with sharp pain.  Of course, the answer is to increase the medication.  Well, I’ve done this once and today will be twice.  I don’t think that it is doing much of anything, but I will be as patient as possible.

Out of the Country

I have been out of the country for the last 3 weeks and access to the internet was not that great.  I actually think that my wife planned it that way.  Thats okay, because I told her that she could not bring her cell phone.  If she had it would not have been a vacation at all.

Needless to say I didn’t post anything for the last 3 weeks and there is quite a bit to get caught up on.  Right now there is a lot to get caught up on at home and work.  Thankfully nothing fell apart at work.  I am told, however, that the boss was a little frazzled at times.  Guess thats okay because he is leaving me here with the new guy, the old guy and the teenagers to fend for myself.  Well, its off to the grind for me, maybe someone will inspire a gripe.