The Conservative Cave
Current Events => The DUmpster => Topic started by: Las Vegas Leviathan on January 10, 2014, 06:57:29 AM
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Here is a long but entirely necessary post about how 2013 treated Jeanette and I.
Every single word of it is truth. Pinky swear, cherry on top...the works.
If it's just a tl;dr wall of text to you, please understand that I composed it and posted it out of loneliness and fear in this current moment. More truth: I have done my utmost to be self-sufficient during this time, and have actually made myself proud all things considered. Here is hoping that we'll be back to a semblance of normalcy and more stable health this year, with the help of better medical care.
Oh, and a great and blessed new year to all of you here irrespective of how you feel about Jeanette and I.
Here goes:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024309273
So, let me tell you about my 2013. I guess in my life this would be defined as the year of "that which does not kill me will…maybe…somehow...sort of...I suppose...make me stronger." I managed to survive – among other things – a near-death experience, the amputation of a limb, blatant medical malpractice, trying to maintain sanity amidst constant pain, and now having to witness my dear sweet wife of over 10 years attempting to cope with severe medical issues of her own. By the way, have I mentioned that all of this has gone on while we've tried to eke out an existence living well below the poverty line?
Yeah, 2013 was one awesome year.
First, a quick introduction and a bit of back story. I am an emotional food addict – just one among millions – who has paid the price with a lifetime of weight and health issues. My weight peaked at approximately 520 pounds as of about five years ago. Before this I became severely diabetic, and developed circulation problems in my legs which required repeat hospitalizations for cellulitis infections. As a result of this, my mobility steadily declined until I was almost completely unable to walk. If not for the presence of someone in my life whom I loved with every fiber of my being, and who loved me every bit as much, I very likely would not have even cared about my fate. But that power of love is what convinced me that something needed to change, and somehow I was going to stick around. My solution was to adopt a plant-based diet, low in calories and fat but high in healthy carbohydrates and nutrients. Over a period of about four years, my weight got as low as 285. However, because I was uninsured during most of this time, I was unaware that my steady weight loss was not enough to reverse or at least slow my diabetic condition. More about this in just a moment.
My wife, whom I met 2002, had been grossly overweight years before I met her. She stands about 5'3" to my 6'3", and at one point in her life weighed about 250. She was poor, and worked at several menial jobs including one stint at a chicken processing plant near Enid, Oklahoma. Her diet of choice consisted of chicken which she could buy wholesale, and junk food such as Cheetos or chips. Her weight also dropped, until by the time I had met her she was down to a much more healthy range in the 160s. Following my lead, she continued to slowly lose weight and is currently about 145. However, she did not know that she too was in the throes of severe diabetes. In recent years, she has received minimal medical attention for this, but lack of truly adequate resources and medications now has her starting down the same horrible road I have traveled.
Getting back to my experience this past year: as I previously stated, I was down 285 by February and was awash in excitement thinking about being below 300 for the first time in over 20 years, and how awesome I was going to feel when I finally hit my preliminary target weight of 225. But, the most frightening experience of my life caused everything to change. What happened was, I was just sitting in our room watching TV or playing around on my computer, when I stood up to go to the bathroom. Immediately upon standing, my heart began to race, I became very dizzy, and was hardly able to breathe. I thought maybe I was experiencing the onset of a rare random panic attack, because it felt like that but actually far worse. I tried to breathe and calm down, and slowly made my way to the bathroom just to pee. During the two minutes or so that it took me to do this, my legs were trembling so badly and I felt so weak that I seriously thought I was going to pass out. I made my way back to my chair in the bedroom and continued to try and get my breath. Within 15 minutes or so, I started to feel close to normal again. But later when I stood up, the same thing happened again. I then proceeded to tell my wife what was going on, and laid down on the bed saying that if I did not feel any better by later that evening I would need to go to the hospital. At this time I had only Medicare Part A, because I was not aware that there were programs available to help cover the costs associated with Part B. That evening, I was indeed rushed to the hospital, and was found to be severely dehydrated and ketogenic. I also had several infected sites on my left foot which had to be treated with three kinds of IV antibiotics over a course of 42 days.
I began my hospitalization at Desert Springs hospital, which is just over a mile away from my home. Once I was stable I was transferred to a long-term care facility where I finished my antibiotics and was deemed fit to go home. This all would have been well and good, but for the fact that I was assigned the single most incompetent and ineffective doctor I have ever dealt with or heard of in my life. Now, keep in mind that one of my conditions brought on by severe obesity is a tendency to retain large amounts of fluid, especially in my legs. When they told me I was dehydrated upon admission, I took it for granted that my weight would not remain at 285. I expected that maybe I would jump back up to about 300 or 310 and then slowly start losing weight again with the almost entirely vegetable diet I consumed while in the hospital. I also figured that I would likely be put on a diuretic such as Lasix to keep my water retention from becoming extreme. Over the course of my first 30 days in the hospital and care facility, my weight skyrocketed all the way to 354. That is a gain of 69 pounds in one month, and nearly all of it was in my bruised and infected legs. I was being weighed several times a week, and once I passed 310 pounds in but a matter of days, I made it very clear to my nurses and this idiot of a doctor that I wanted to be placed on a diuretic. Despite the fact that my insurance at the time did not allow for any visits to specialists on an outpatient basis, I was instead scheduled to see a cardiologist. This visit consisted of me filling out the required paperwork, only to be told there was no way I could be seen, even though I made that abundantly clear in the days prior to that appointment. This doctor also was very adamant about wanting to discharge me straight home rather than to a long-term care facility without even taking the step of verifying whether or not I had a bone infection in my foot or leg, despite all appearances suggesting that I did. My wife and I had to invoke my right to not be discharged due to lack of proper care, whereupon in a matter of just an hour or two I was whisked down to the imaging room for an MRI. This did in fact show that I had bone infections in both my big toe and heel of my left foot. Would anybody like to explain to me how home health nurses would've been properly equipped to deal with this? To make a long story short, I was finally put on doses of a diuretic, and my legs were lightly compressed to help bring down swelling which became so bad that I almost needed help to swing my legs up into bed as they had become so heavy. Ultimately, I fired that quack of a doctor, and was assigned a new one who actually acted like she gave a damn about my health and my recovery.
I came home to another problem which had become completely out of control. My wife and I lived in an apartment with a long time friend of mine, who was unfortunately suffering from depression and who also was a food addict who, as he was approaching his 60th birthday, had begun to let his hygiene and personal space go completely to ruin. This led to infestations of both roaches and bedbugs, as well as a pervasive nasty odor throughout the entire apartment. Our cats had their litter boxes in our room, yet our room was by far the cleanest looking and smelling area of the house. It was so bad that the home health agency I was assigned actually refused to see me anymore. So, we decided that in spite of very limited funds due to my disability checks being our only income, we would have to find a way to move. I was granted the freedom to get out and about once again with the help of a power chair, so my wife and I cruised all over the neighborhood looking for a new place. We settled on some studio apartments which are literally in the shadow of the UNLV campus. We urged our roommate to go ahead and move with us into his own separate apartment so that we could remain friends (because he is a great guy with a heart of gold in spite of his issues), and we would be able to help each other if we needed it. He agreed to do this, and we all set our moving date for the month of September. Naturally, this is where things on my end really go completely to shit.
During the latter half of August, I once again started feeling really weak and just generally like things with me were not right. I had full Medicare by this point, so I was seeing specialists for wound care and pain management. The wound care doctor I was seeing was another absolute moron. The wound on my heel developed into an opening big enough to stick a finger into, and all the way down along the bones of the foot, and I took my wife's word for it that this smelled absolutely horrific. The wound care doctor did a culture on the outside of the wound, and claimed it came back negative. He never bothered to order any kind of test which would have revealed that my bone had turned completely gangrenous and rotten. So here I am, August winding down and a major move on the horizon, and I am becoming increasingly weak and confused. On August 29th, my wife came home from running an errand to find me collapsed on the floor in our room next to the bed, begging for her to help me up and back into bed. I was otherwise completely incoherent and barely responsive, so the paramedics were called immediately. I was rushed back to Desert Springs hospital, and this is when that same doctor I had earlier in the year was assigned to me again, and this time he literally nearly killed me.
My memories of the 29th through 31st of August are nearly nonexistent, but let me go over what little I do remember.
I have very vague memories of trying to fight the staff in the emergency room. My wife was there and trying desperately to calm me down. She claims that I actually pushed her, hard enough to nearly knock her off balance. The ER staff was trying to get security to put restraints on me while my poor wife frantically explained that in the 11 years we had known each other, I had never behaved violently toward her – not even once.
I then remember having the very same quack son of a you know what doctor coming into my room at his usual midnight or 2 AM, and me begging him to actually pay attention to me and to make sure I got the best possible standard of care. He assured me that oh, yes, he was going to do an excellent job this time.
Next, I remember on the afternoon of the 30th, a specialist came to my room while my wife sat with me and held my increasingly unresponsive hand in lieu of being home and packing for our move. Neither of us remember whether this specialist was a foot doctor or a wound doctor, but I very much remember him telling us that at the very least, my foot was done for. All I could do while lying in that bed was nod my head and feebly agree, as did my wife who could no longer bear to see me suffering. This specialist then went out into the hallway and met with my assigned quack useless idiot mother****er of a doctor, and argued with him over what was going to happen next. The specialist was shot down by the quack, and instead of being scheduled for amputation surgery, I was discharged to a long-term care center different from the first one I had gone to previously, which was fairly good. This new place was next door to Sunrise Hospital. I was there for a total of 23 hours, during which time my final memory was of my wife having to go to the other unoccupied bed in my room to watch TV because the one on my side was broken. I became too unresponsive to eat or respond to any sort of stimulus. Finally, a staff doctor was brought in to determine that I was on the brink of death and needed immediate emergency care.
I was rushed to Sunrise Hospital, where I quickly was treated for near fatal sepsis, had my left leg amputated just below the knee, and remained in intensive care for over a week while only given a 50-50 chance of survival. Needless to say, the primary doctor was now a completely different person. Through all of this, my wife somehow managed to coordinate our move to the new apartment, while visiting me regularly and keeping my spirits up. She truly deserves the best of health and everything life has to offer. To know that she has remained by my side throughout these recent ordeals is absolutely amazing. I am thus saddened all the more to see her own health now going into decline because of emotional issues and bad food choices which she made many years ago.
My story of 2013 ends – and that of 2014 begins – with a small ulcer on her big toe turning into her very own bone infection, for which she is currently now also in Sunrise Hospital, where she will be undergoing surgery to remove that toe plus some of the bone behind it. Thanks to the affordable care act, she is going to be eligible for Medicare herself, but the system here in Nevada is very bogged down and so there have been delays in getting her coverage up to speed. This may affect how soon after surgery she will be coming home, and if it happens sooner rather than later we may be in a world of problems. I am here alone with our cats and only three short visits from a home health nurse per week. The agency's Social worker will be coming by on Saturday to discuss any possible help which may be available to me for cleaning, cooking, and other tasks which I am either only marginally able or completely unable to do without assistance. Our previous roommate can help me with very simple things, but he is also not in great health and his personal care is a little better but honestly is still in need of work.
As for the complete waste of oxygen who was supposedly in charge of my care in the hospital when he wasn't busy trying to kill me, all attempts to sue him for his blatant malpractice have led nowhere. Between "tort reform" and the fact that my diabetes related health problems occurred because I was previously diabetic, no attorney I spoke with even had the slightest interest in taking what I feel would be an open and shut case, given that an expert opinion was overridden when I was clearly at death's door.
So, I guess we shall remain poor and just barely scraping by until my wife's disability is hopefully approved. We both agree that in her current condition it would be a fool's errand to try and find any sort of steady employment as she is simply way too much of a risk, and there is no telling if another small wound on her legs could almost instantly become yet another crisis.
I know that there are literally millions of people in this country who have it as bad as we do, or even far worse. I also know that more than a few of you are members of message boards such as this one. I thank you for allowing me this opportunity to unload a great emotional and physical burden, and for dignifying this very long post with a read.
May all of our 2014's be better than the horror – which for me at least – comprised 2013.
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Why couldn't you post your essay in paragraph length installments ?
Say for instance a paragraph following any comment.
That might limit you somewhat though.
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You need to sign up for wishadupe I'm sure your generous buddies at DU will shower you with riches, or k&r and healing white light.
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Thanks for the update.
Bad things happen to people all the time, and we're ultimately measured by how we handle them.
I always thought, personally, your biggest flaw was a lack of imagination, creativity, in problem-solving, and then following that, a lack of audacity. You're in a bad situation, and expanding your mind so as to see more of what's in people and the world, would open up new options for dealing with those problems and hassles bedeviling you.
I surely hope you find a larger sense of imagination and creativity.....and after that, acquire audacity.
Dare to do the new or untried, even if it ends with egg in the face or miserable failure. Dare, and dare, and dare again, dare despite all the seeming odds against it. We all make mistakes--I've made mountains of them--but life gives us infinite chances, not just a few, to make things better.
Good luck, and may 2014 be better.
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Shit, Kirk. My eyes glazed over in the first paragraph, so I scrolled down to the last sentence for the conclusion.
All I have to say to you is this: Stop whining, pull up your big girl panties, and act like a man. Get your *******ed Democrat pickpocket hand out my wallet, and make yourself useful.
In conclusion: If you and your wife refuse to take care of yourselves, but expect all the rest of us to support your asses for life, then the human gene pool is fortunate you haven't reproduced.
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Mornin' LVL.
Haven't seen you over here for a while.
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So, I guess we shall remain poor and just barely scraping by until my wife's disability is hopefully approved.
Only if you choose to.
Thinking that a disability check for whatever ails your wife is somehow your ticket to a better standard of living is a pretty shitty way for a grown adult to handle their financial planning.
You are what you make of yourself.
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Whoa, wait, your title.
We've seen your threads on Skins's island and elsewhere, but in homage to the fact that you had more backbone, more spine, than the general run of primitives, we purposely laid off.
A primitive actually registering and showing up here--Atman and :jugs: :yahoo: excepted, of course--instead of hiding behind Skins's skirts--does garner brownie points with us.
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Only if you choose to.
Thinking that a disability check for whatever ails your wife is somehow your ticket to a better standard of living is a pretty shitty way for a grown adult to handle their financial planning.
You are what you make of yourself.
It's an absolute last resort. Not proud of it in the slightest, but yes -- an extra few hundred per month would put us where we could get basic needs met and maybe even have a few bucks to see a movie or something now and then.
Just a few of the tales of Jeanette's job hunting are documented here. She really and truly busted her ass and was given nothing but the short end in interviews and constantly being told that places weren't hiring.
In fact, she was gearing up to go through another major round of applications (many of which are now computerized, cover multiple job sites with one application, and can only be renewed every 3 or 6 months) when her toe turned swollen and nearly black.
Very few people actually choose a paltry government check over work. I worked for over 20 years with only one 3-month period of unemployment during the recession of the early 90s. I worked for a couple of years as a "floater" cashier for a convenience store chain, driving all over greater Minneapolis-St. Paul and pulling 75-80 hour weeks for months on end. I then did the casino thing for 9 years straight and could never get into a job that paid over $30k per year, simply because of my credit score which was crap due to (guess what?) medical debt.
I own my health and my screw-ups due to emotional issues. Jeanette does too. But what's done is done and nobody deserves dying homeless and broke.
I'll tell you what: If I were to discover that someone here - even someone who has held us in great disdain - were struck by an accident, illness due to a vice catching up to them, or anything else which left them in dire straits, I'd still be one of those voices demanding that they be granted basic security. And if nobody else could step up to help then I'd damn well want our government to take care of it. Anything less is total barbarism and anarchy to me. YMMV....
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Whoa, wait, your title.
We've seen your threads on Skins's island and elsewhere, but in homage to the fact that you had more backbone, more spine, than the general run of primitives, we purposely laid off.
A primitive actually registering and showing up here--Atman and :jugs: :yahoo: excepted, of course--instead of hiding behind Skins's skirts--does garner brownie points with us.
The title was an attempt at humor and not an insult or accusation. As I already said, I've been up forever and I'm just trying to pull through until Jeanette is safely out of surgery, which is scheduled for sometime today. Not sure if morning or afternoon yet, but I'll be rolling over there to keep her company as she wakes up, soon as my nurse is done with me and the floor's clean, cats fed and clean litter, etc.... Even that basic stuff wears me out, but I'm not just giving in.
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Well, Kirk, I wish Jeanette the best in her surgery. May it be successful, God willing. :cheersmate:
Also, H5 for showing back up here.
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The title was an attempt at humor and not an insult or accusation. As I already said, I've been up forever and I'm just trying to pull through until Jeanette is safely out of surgery, which is scheduled for sometime today. Not sure if morning or afternoon yet, but I'll be rolling over there to keep her company as she wakes up, soon as my nurse is done with me and the floor's clean, cats fed and clean litter, etc.... Even that basic stuff wears me out, but I'm not just giving in.
Well, now you know why you haven't been featured here.
I didn't think it as an "insult" or "accusation," but more as an expression of surprise that you haven't been featured in the DUmpster for the longest time.
Well, now you know; when a primitive has the balls to come over here, register, and gab a bit with us, the primitive earns at least grudging respect.
Nobody forbids a member from posting about a certain primitive--although I tend to get rather grouchy when someone brings up my good pal Manny, the "MannyGoldstein" primitive--it just happens naturally, this recession from parody and criticism.
That's a lesson the sparkling old dude never understood. He came over here, he registered, but then he never said anything. Trust me, many people here would've jumped at an opportunity to chew the fat with the sparkling old dude, but he just wouldn't do it.
In case you don't know, the sparkling old dude has pretty much "retired" from Skins's island allegedly because we make fun of him. Well, it's his own fault. If he'd dialogued with us a bit, there would've evolved some respect for him, and Hell, he might've even been made moderator of the cooking and baking forum here.
We don't like our hand of friendship being spurned--and that is the best way for a primitive to be featured in the DUmpster.
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"Nobody deserves to die homeless and broke"
Let me mull on that for awhile.
I may declare that a basic human right.
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Additional:
The best way to make an enemy of a man is by telling him he doesn't count, he doesn't matter.
When J.C. Superstar told this, during the late 1970s, to members of a religious denomination predominant in the southern states--that they didn't count, they didn't matter--well, suddenly we got the "religious right" (quotation marks intentional), which happily proved they do count, they do matter, and it's a good idea to respect them.
That's right; Jimmy Carter created the "religious right," by telling them they didn't matter.
And as walrus-face, the brain-damaged primitive, found out a few months ago, after saying we didn't matter, learned, we do in fact matter, and it's a good idea to pay some attention to us.
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Well, now you know why you haven't been featured here.
I didn't think it as an "insult" or "accusation," but more as an expression of surprise that you haven't been featured in the DUmpster for the longest time.
Well, now you know; when a primitive has the balls to come over here, register, and gab a bit with us, the primitive earns at least grudging respect.
Nobody forbids a member from posting about a certain primitive--although I tend to get rather grouchy when someone brings up my good pal Manny, the "MannyGoldstein" primitive--it just happens naturally, this recession from parody and criticism.
That's a lesson the sparkling old dude never understood. He came over here, he registered, but then he never said anything. Trust me, many people here would've jumped at an opportunity to chew the fat with the sparkling old dude, but he just wouldn't do it.
In case you don't know, the sparkling old dude has pretty much "retired" from Skins's island allegedly because we make fun of him. Well, it's his own fault. If he'd dialogued with us a bit, there would've evolved some respect for him, and Hell, he might've even been made moderator of the cooking and baking forum here.
We don't like our hand of friendship being spurned--and that is the best way for a primitive to be featured in the DUmpster.
The only reason you didn't see much out of me in 2013 was I was in one medical facility or another for 126 days out of the year, and none of them even had so much as a couple of old laptops on a card table for patients to go online with. Not even reliable wi-fi, not that we had a capable device until it became absolutely necessary to get a cheap smart phone for Jeanette to coordinate our move, calls to/from this or that government agency, and even prospective employers whilst spending time with me.
Nevada health care standards are ranked near the bottom in the US for a reason.
Oh, and I actually agree with you on many levels with regards to the whole creativity and audacity thing. I know why I have chosen to keep my inner self cooped up and out of the light now. It's something that I needed a long time to come to grips with and I'm finally trying to change that. Better late than never...?
The audacity came on in a rush when I tried to comprehend a doctor actually waving off the opinion of an expert in my needed field who knew I was dying. That 23 hours in a really, really bad nursing place was nearly it. I found less than half a dozen malpractice attorneys who would even grant me a quick interview with a secretary, and they all refused to take a case which was THAT clear-cut because damage caps are set so ridiculously low in this state now. "You mean your diabetic amputation was due to your being diabetic? Well sorry, but our little risk/reward formula says your percentages are too low. Have a nice day!" If a doctor denied you a needed treatment and then you found out about it after nearly dying from such basic neglect, I'd want you to get a settlement no matter who you are. Maybe not millions, but give me a break! Everyone's life has a value in the face of that degree of neglect.
And just so you know, I have never attempted - or even seriously considered - a court case against anyone until now, except for one other person who nailed me on my bicycle in a hit-and-run in the late summer of 1988. I sent another driver after that asswipe to get the plate numbers, and the guy almost caught up and got it, but the next light turned red.
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Well, Kirk, I wish Jeanette the best in her surgery. May it be successful, God willing. :cheersmate:
Also, H5 for showing back up here.
You'll know about it either on the DU or here, no later than Saturday morning. It's all up to how close I am to passing out when I come home from visiting her later today.
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Better late than never...?
Yes, of course, better late than never.
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Well,assuming all of this is true,it sure has been a rotten year for both of you.
The question now is whether you let it make you or break you and that is solely in your hands.
I am going to talk to you as a man and be honest,given how excited lawyers are to take up malpractice cases and none will touch it then my gut feeling is that some details may have been "forgotten" here.
Regardless,do wish you can still both become productive members of society even if it means volunteer work trying to keep others from going down the road you did.
A question though...you now have the best medical care our tax dollars can buy (not snarky,a fact) and even if half of what you describe is true then do you see the reality of what socialized medicine brings and why so many come here for private treatment outside government funds?
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Here goes:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024309273
If you're going for comparisons of reaction, here's what I see.
Yes, you're getting sympathetic posts from DU, but what they have to offer lands you in the same place a year from now that you're already in.
The suggestions here my be tougher, but taking the overall emphasis to stop focusing on the negative and doing what you can to create some positive at least gives you a fighting chance to improve.
2013 was a lousy year for a lot of people, me included. 2014 isn't looking to be that much better for most people, if any at all. But it is what you make of it. I don't want sympathy for 2013 or even a reassuring pat on the back that it's OK. But what some people might need is a "tighten your belt and get positive about what you can control" type speech. So, get doing what you can do (And no, that isn't an invite that I want to hear about it).
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"Nobody deserves to die homeless and broke"
Let me mull on that for awhile.
I may declare that a basic human right.
Oh, I've known people who deserved it plenty.
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Wow, Kirk, you gave us a whole 1/2 hour to find your 2013 saga? While I'm sorry you and Jeannette have gone through hell in 2013, there are even more people with sad, sad stories to tell from 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012.
You know, the ones who worked in the coal mines and lost their jobs and way of living because you dipshits believed in a slick marketing campaign by David Axelrod and David Plouffe? You and your fellow idiots elected Barack Obama, a guy who never held any meaningful job in his life. Yeah, that guy.
What about the people whose companies have been forced to be so lean because of a burdensome tax policy? You know, those 40 and 50-something men and women who have saved and scrimped their entire lives who lost everything because bank lenders were forced to give mortgages to people who they knew couldn't afford it?
Let's not even get into Obamacare, which forced me out of business after 15 years, a business I started from the ground up. A business where I worked seven days per week, sometimes 12 to 15 hours per day.
My husband is one of those 50-something year old men who has worked his ass off his entire life. We have lived a relatively frugal life so we could save our money, put our son through college, and take care of ourselves as we grew older. Yes, he still has a job but who knows when it will end? And while he makes a very good living and is paid well for his years of service, we are being taxed to death.
So excuse me if I feel very little sympathy for you. If you voted for Barack Obama and any other democrat, you are really reaping what you have sown.
What socialism has done for Detroit, Barack Obama and his merry band of thieves in congress and the senate are well on their way to doing for the rest of the country.
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"Nobody deserves to die homeless and broke"
Did that barely-sentient sponge really write that?
What a load of shit.
Kirk, no man deserves any physical thing in this life. Your natural right to Property (home and money, to use your specific examples) extends only as far as your ability to make, earn, or trade for them. You have no claim on the property of another man, just because you want (or "need", to use the language of the Moochers) them.
If you die homeless and broke, it will be the natural consequence of your life choices. And you certainly deserve to receive the consequences of your actions.
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I think Kirk needs to come to an understanding what conservatism is all about.
Most of us at conservative cave are compassionate conservatives and the rest are libertarian. I'm a compassionate conservatarian. I believe there are people in this country who need help through government means. I have no problem paying taxes for those people, you included. But what's happened is the liberals in this country have made it so easy for people to be labeled as "disabled" and for young women to continue to have baby after baby and to rely on the government to take care of them.
Abortion, gay marriage? Who cares? I don't. That's your business.
We compassionate conservatives are being asked to care for so many people (some deserving, many NOT deserving) while also having to take care of ourselves and our families. At some point, the bubble is going to break. We are very close to the breaking point.
When government is small and more people are allowed to keep more of the money they earn, they spend, businesses will hire and more people will pay taxes into the government. The limited government will then have more than enough money to pay for those who are truly disabled and the elderly.
Conservatives aren't racists, sexists, or homophobes. As Rush Limbaugh says, we want everyone to be successful. Most conservatives don't look at people and see the color of their skin or what sex they are. We see people who have potential to be the best they can be. Liberals have made it so that those who do reach their potential are punished through taxation and name-calling.
You really do need to get off of the democratic underground, stop watching MSNBC and listen to Rush Limbaugh every day for a month. I would bet that by the end of that month, you would see what I'm talking about.
Up for the challenge, Kirk?
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Did that barely-sentient sponge really write that?
What a load of shit.
Kirk, no man deserves any physical thing in this life. Your natural right to Property (home and money, to use your specific examples) extends only as far as your ability to make, earn, or trade for them. You have no claim on the property of another man, just because you want (or "need", to use the language of the Moochers) them.
If you die homeless and broke, it will be the natural consequence of your life choices. And you certainly deserve to receive the consequences of your actions.
Yikes ! You told a lib that there are consequences for actions. They HATE that.
I once considered not having consequences for actions be declared a basic human right.
But I haven't been able to work out all the little details yet.
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Hopefully, loconuts will read and reflect upon this tale. This is your future loconuts.
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Kirk. We no longer consider you the super star you once were considered. Your social standing is falling.
Reinvent yourself this coming year. Stay away from the McDougal forum. Post more at the DUmp. Bring Pam Dawson back with you from the fat farm forum.
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Welcome back, Kirk. It's good to see you haven't forgotten that you still retain a key to our door. I'm going to dispense with the niceties, and hand you some brutal reality. Considering our past interactions, I really don't expect you to either listen or respond - but I'm going to press forward, regardless.
It's an absolute last resort. Not proud of it in the slightest, but yes -- an extra few hundred per month would put us where we could get basic needs met and maybe even have a few bucks to see a movie or something now and then.
Provided by whom, Kirk? Since it's not coming from your own effort, to whom are you looking to raise your standard of living to where you can afford even the smallest of luxuries? I haven't been to a movie in years, Kirk, because they are expensive and there are other things that demand my ever decreasing cache of monthly net income.
So, who is responsible for putting more into your hand?
I'll tell you what: If I were to discover that someone here - even someone who has held us in great disdain - were struck by an accident, illness due to a vice catching up to them, or anything else which left them in dire straits, I'd still be one of those voices demanding that they be granted basic security.
Demanding "basic security" from whom, Kirk? To whom would you make your demand? Considering your ideology, the answer would appear to be obvious, but I am truly curious as to the entity/ies you would petition to make this happen.
And if nobody else could step up to help then I'd damn well want our government to take care of it. Anything less is total barbarism and anarchy to me. YMMV....
What do you call forced support under the penalty of prison? What do you call confiscation of one man's earnings at gunpoint to be handed to another? What are your words for that, Kirk?
Very few people actually choose a paltry government check over work.
Yet, you're one of them. Your own words and actions cement that fact.
Just a few of the tales of Jeanette's job hunting are documented here. She really and truly busted her ass and was given nothing but the short end in interviews and constantly being told that places weren't hiring.
In fact, she was gearing up to go through another major round of applications (many of which are now computerized, cover multiple job sites with one application, and can only be renewed every 3 or 6 months) when her toe turned swollen and nearly black.
You were both offered a position at a Vegas car rental company in December of 2012 by one of our own members. Do you remember what happened? Do you remember how many excuses both you and Jeanette came up with as to why you couldn't do it? Do you remember that opportunity passing you by? I do.
We both agree that in her current condition it would be a fool's errand to try and find any sort of steady employment as she is simply way too much of a risk
Second verse, same as first... This seems to be a constant refrain in your life, Kirk.
I worked for over 20 years with only one 3-month period of unemployment during the recession of the early 90s. I worked for a couple of years as a "floater" cashier for a convenience store chain, driving all over greater Minneapolis-St. Paul and pulling 75-80 hour weeks for months on end. I then did the casino thing for 9 years straight and could never get into a job that paid over $30k per year, simply because of my credit score which was crap due to (guess what?) medical debt.
Oh, bull-shit!
You floated through life, no concern for getting some kind of training or skill, wasting your youth, and generally taking the path of least resistance. The reason you never got a job making more than $30K a year is because you never did anything to earn more than $30K a year, Kirk. The jobs you describe don't deserve more than $30K a year.
The medical debt/credit score excuse is just that - an excuse. My first marriage managed to fold, spindle, and mutilate my credit and I managed to not only keep my job but also maintain a security clearance while I dug myself out of the hole I put myself in. The reason I make what I earn today is because I kept learning and growing with a broad skill set. Something you failed to do.
Don't whine, it's your fault. You own every inch of your failure.
I own my health and my screw-ups due to emotional issues. Jeanette does too.
"Emotional issues"? C'mon! You make a shit ton of excuses, Kirk, but this "emotional issues" bullshit is by far the worst one since you still have a boogey man to blame for your failures instead of the guy in the mirror. And now your boogey man has cost you your leg. It's a shame he can't be held responsible, isn't it?
I swear, only in a country as great and rich as America could obesity be attributed to emotional issues or poverty instead of a lack of personal discipline...
But what's done is done and nobody deserves dying homeless and broke.
So what do you "deserve", Kirk? What do the rest of us owe you for being a failure? I'm relatively sure at many points in your life (your visit here in 2012 being one of them), you scoffed and sneered at those who kicked you in your ass to try and get you going in the right direction. Were you too proud and arrogant to listen to them?
I found less than half a dozen malpractice attorneys who would even grant me a quick interview with a secretary, and they all refused to take a case which was THAT clear-cut because damage caps are set so ridiculously low in this state now. "You mean your diabetic amputation was due to your being diabetic? Well sorry, but our little risk/reward formula says your percentages are too low. Have a nice day!" If a doctor denied you a needed treatment and then you found out about it after nearly dying from such basic neglect, I'd want you to get a settlement no matter who you are. Maybe not millions, but give me a break! Everyone's life has a value in the face of that degree of neglect.
From your first post:
Before this I became severely diabetic, and developed circulation problems in my legs which required repeat hospitalizations for cellulitis infections.
I also had several infected sites on my left foot which had to be treated with three kinds of IV antibiotics over a course of 42 days.
I had bone infections in both my big toe and heel of my left foot.
There's a very good reason you were denied, Kirk. Your own words provide it.
My solution was to adopt a plant-based diet, low in calories and fat but high in healthy carbohydrates and nutrients.
You took an already severely diabetic body, continued to pump sugar (carbs) into it without the balance of protein and animal fats, refused to exercise, and you lost half of your leg for it.... *SMFH* Kirk, there are no such things as "healthy carbohydrates" to a diabetic; you should know that. It's not like you weren't warned, though. From 2012, in a post to you:
Kirk, John McDougall is a partisan ideologue who has sold you a very destructive vegan diet. His diet, based on some bullshit "paleo-diet" myth that our ancestors ate a majority of grains is a load of crap. Consuming between 700 and 1100 calories a day will certainly make you lose weight, no doubt, but it's in a way that POWs lost weight when they were in the Hanoi Hilton. You have deliberately put yourself on a starvation diet that consists of "starches" (ie carbohydrates - ie sugar) and next to no protein that will serve to do nothing but run your blood sugar through the roof and cause your body to break down your muscle.
Wake up, Kirk, you are following a charlatan whose advice will kill you. Are you so blind as to not see the damage you are continuing to do to yourself? Have you given any thought to the lack of consuming easily absorbed calcium (ie milk) that McDougall preaches has done to your bones?
Your diet should include easily absorbed minerals and fats that our bodies process, ie animal products. These fats, Omega 3 and 6, are necessary for you to live healthy. Eat more of the 3s than the 6s with a well balanced diet that includes less "starches" and your life will improve dramatically. You, as an adult, need a minimum of 1500 calories per day to prevent your body from consuming itself. A minimum of 1500 calories, with exercise, will also prevent your immune system from weakening which will keep you healthier.
That diet has caused you to loose a lot of weight, Kirk, but the only long term benefit will be to those who have to carry your box to your final resting place.
http://www.conservativecave.com/index.php/topic,82016.msg1009234.html#msg1009234
At this time I had only Medicare Part A, because I was not aware that there were programs available to help cover the costs associated with Part B.
Again, from 2012, in another post to you:
In Nevada it's very easy to get part B insurance that includes Medicare Advantage plans that include free part D coverage for Rx drugs.
I have dealt with this for years with patients.
Nevada also has a state program to help with the cost of the part B, and the copayments on the part B & D, and also the premiums.
In fact, Kirk if your wife is on Medicaid or "county benefits" and you have part B, Medicaid would end up being your secondary coverage and you would have ZERO co payments, what a great opportunity this would be for you to get some of your own health issues repaired?
As I have mentioned in another post Humana's Medicare Advantage plan for those that have part B, not only includes prescription drug coverage at no extra cost, it provides a few one way trips to doctor appointments every year and several other perks. They have thousands of providers in their networks that are great doctors.
If you want to move forward, you need to take the first step. If you want to bullshit people on DU that you have no way to get medical help, that is up to you. But not only do I live in Nevada, I work in healthcare. For a very large corporation that I know you have heard of in your city.
The bullshit won't fly here, Sir.
http://www.conservativecave.com/index.php/topic,82016.msg1010124.html#msg1010124
You have lived your life on excuses, Kirk, for one failure after the next. Quit making excuses, stick around here, and get away from your enablers at DU. We'll kick you when you need it and get you pointed down the right path so you don't have to wait with your ****ing hand out anymore.
For the love of God, man! Set yourself free!
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H-5 for Wasp. Your recollections of his past visits, the advice given to him and missed opportunities are devastating.
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Very few people actually choose a paltry government check over work.
You lie.
In ten states and the District of Columbia, welfare pays more than the entry-level salary for a teacher in that state. In 38 states and the District of Columbia, welfare is more generous than the average starting salary for a secretary. And in the three most generous states, welfare pays more than the wages for an entry-level computer programmer. In eight states, welfare recipients receive benefits worth more than the median salary there.
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/welfare-better-deal-work
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I'd still be one of those voices demanding that they be granted basic security.
And you'd be an idiot for demanding that. Healthcare is neither a right nor a guaranteed "security"...never has...never should be.
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I came home to another problem which had become completely out of control. My wife and I lived in an apartment with a long time friend of mine, who was unfortunately suffering from depression and who also was a food addict who, as he was approaching his 60th birthday, had begun to let his hygiene and personal space go completely to ruin. This led to infestations of both roaches and bedbugs, as well as a pervasive nasty odor throughout the entire apartment. Our cats had their litter boxes in our room, yet our room was by far the cleanest looking and smelling area of the house. It was so bad that the home health agency I was assigned actually refused to see me anymore. So, we decided that in spite of very limited funds due to my disability checks being our only income, we would have to find a way to move. I was granted the freedom to get out and about once again with the help of a power chair, so my wife and I cruised all over the neighborhood looking for a new place. We settled on some studio apartments which are literally in the shadow of the UNLV campus. We urged our roommate to go ahead and move with us into his own separate apartment so that we could remain friends (because he is a great guy with a heart of gold in spite of his issues), and we would be able to help each other if we needed it. He agreed to do this, and we all set our moving date for the month of September.
So you fouled your taxpayer funded nest packed up leaving the cleanup to the landlord only to move on and repeat?
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H-5 for Wasp. Your recollections of his past visits, the advice given to him and missed opportunities are devastating.
Thanks. If history is any indicator, I expect neither a response nor acknowledgement. It seems it would undo Kirk's victim mentality.
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:clap: :clap: :clap: and H5
Oh yeah, Kirk, I shattered my right elbow three years ago from a fall while riding my bike, and I am still suffering from complications of that accident - to the tune of about $100K. My portion? $7K. Did I like paying that? Hell no! Did I pay it? Hell yes. That's called being a responsible adult.
So your bullshit excuse about any one of us being unlucky enough to have medical expenses is just that - an excuse. I know many people here have their own medical problems and they take responsibility for them. You? Not so much.
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Thanks. If history is any indicator, I expect neither a response nor acknowledgement. It seems it would undo Kirk's victim mentality.
I expect this whole episode is the opening for another DUmp wishadodo scam and the blob wisely brought the sad tale over here since Cave members actually have funds.
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I expect this whole episode is the opening for another DUmp wishadodo scam and the blob wisely brought the sad tale over here since Cave members actually have funds.
I don't believe that. He's been here before, as you have seen, and didn't beg. For that matter, he's turned down an offer for employment and a knee brace.
No, I believe it's more an issue of "see, the government dole is not enough, there needs to be more". Funny thing is, all of the bullshit gets swatted right back along with many pleas for him to listen and get the **** away from the DUmp.
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I don't believe that. He's been here before, as you have seen, and didn't beg. For that matter, he's turned down an offer for employment and a knee brace.
No, I believe it's more an issue of "see, the government dole is not enough, there needs to be more". Funny thing is, all of the bullshit gets swatted right back along with many pleas for him to listen and get the **** away from the DUmp.
Good points. I don't have advantage of witnessing the history you've seen.
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Don't give a shit about your year, Kirk.
As long as you vote dimocrat, I only wish you worse.
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H-5 for Wasp. Your recollections of his past visits, the advice given to him and missed opportunities are devastating.
And how. Wasp dissected LVV. He exposed every attempt at dishonest and irresponsibility. Wow. LVV should be utterly grateful for the chance Wasp gave him for introspection.
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Very long.
Very boring.
I fell asleep 1 PPH in.
Come back later when you learn how to write.
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TL/DR
You can often judge a lunatic by the number of words in his post.
Check out LocoNuts, UGP, and now the whale.
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Glad to hear you and the missus are still alive. There is only one other bit of advice I would add to this thread.
Get screened for pancreatic cancer. Both of you.
That ridiculous diet you were on did way more damage to you both than expected because you are both diabetic and shouldn't have been on it in the 1st place. All those starches put your malfunctioning pancreas under additional stress, and the lack of proteins pretty much obliterated your immune systems along the way.
You will need to be screened SPECIFICALLY for it. -because once PC shows up in a general cancer screening, or as a sudden onset of jaundice -its already too late to do anything about it.
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When they took off that leg, I hope they saved the flipper for a Ripley's museum somewhere.
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When they took off that leg, I hope they saved the flipper for a Ripley's museum somewhere.
I can't imagine voluntarily leading a lifestyle that requires amputation of body parts due to sloth.
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I can't imagine voluntarily leading a lifestyle that requires amputation of body parts due to sloth.
But I have observed people who deserve it.
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http://sync.democraticunderground.com/10024309273
He cross-posted this at the DUmp but Kirk got better replies here.
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But I have observed people who deserve it.
I won't go so far to say someone deserves to have a limb removed, but I will say that actions have consequences.
Right now, I have a friend that if he doesn't change his habits now, he's going to go down the same road physically as Kirk. It's painful to watch, as I've tried everything to get him to become more active, all to no avail.
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Kirk--you make no progress because you CHOOSE not to make progress. No other reason.
I took a job that takes me away from home, working longer hours, non-union, etc., over a job in a utility as a union member where I'd been for nearly a decade.
Why, you ask? Because I wasn't learning jack in my old job. Here, I'm challenged, pushed, allowed to develop new skill sets which I can use to either move up in this company, or if I should ever decide to apply my skills elsewhere, will be regarded as far more valuable than JSTRM off the street.
Oh, and the money doesn't hurt--until I see how much of it goes to fund the lazy/greed/incompetence/corruption we call a government of late.
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Hey Kirk!
What are you going to do with that stationary bike thingy that Jeanette bought you?
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Try moving to the Sudan or Somalia or Ethiopia. That should resolve any "food addictions" you might have and you will find yourself a member of the elite 1%. I understand you may not want to give up your white privilege status but at least Janelle could find some dick without having to use tent poles.
The first rule of Success In Life is: you have to want it.
Stop telling us how life is so hard as if we don't have our own issues. Stop telling us you feel bad about applying for disability.
Life hurts but it isn't conquered by giving up. You don't win the race by stopping in your tracks. You have to push through the pain and that means there is nothing in the near term except MORE PAIN. This is reality. Stealing from us won't improve anything.
I have watched 18 year old kids push themselves to puking, not once, but repeatedly for no reason except they want to do their best at a being a soldier.
And what is their reward for being a soldier?
Assuming they make it 20 years they get arthritis, broken bones and years of missed family time but they do it because they are following an ideal.
You won't even follow your own physical health.
Tell me why I should pity you when I have them to admire.
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So you fouled your taxpayer funded nest packed up leaving the cleanup to the landlord only to move on and repeat?
I don't recall ever saying we were living in subsidized housing of any kind.
We weren't then, and we aren't now.
Roaches live in the walls, and in between the floors and ceilings, of just about any apartments in Vegas if they're more than a few years old. Our former complex was built in the 70s, and the one where we are now was built in the 70s or early 80s. The fact that the swimming pools go to 8 feet deep is a dead giveaway. Insurance company rules have eliminated pools deeper than 6 feet in apartments and hotels since some time in the late 80s or early 90s.
Anyhow, one story you don't know about is about when the hot water heater in the unit above ours apparently ruptured wide open while the apartment had no tenants. We found out about it when there was a very loud, booming POP sound from our roommate's side. His hallway leading back to his room had the circuit breakers. Those circuit breakers were less than 5 feet from the closet which contained the hot water heater. The upstairs flooded to the point where copious amounts of water were dripping down the insides of our walls, hit the breakers and nearly burned down the entire building. I approached the breaker box (on a floor which was also starting to become wet) and heard electrical sizzling noises coming from the box. Maintenance came right after we called in near hysterics at about 7 in the evening, turned off all the breakers, and left us to fend for ourselves in an apartment with no power for nearly a full day. The next afternoon they finally replaced the bad breakers and threw out the bad water heater upstairs, but they in no way could guarantee that there was not more water in the walls, or that there could still not potentially be a fire.
This prompted our immediate replacement to a new apartment. Roaches appeared in that apartment by the second day, despite no food being brought over yet, no messes created anywhere, and the bathrooms having hardly been used. Our roomie just allowed them to proliferate to epic proportions with his tendency to do things like cooking greasy meat every day and not cleaning the stove (which both Jeanette and I would end up having to do), or leaving dirty dishes in his room until chicken bones were nearly liquefied or there was obvious mold present (which Jeanette and I would more often than not end up having to wash), or maybe spilling a nearly full pitcher of Wyler's iced tea on the carpet (and damned if we were going to clean his room too). You get the idea.
Oh, and have a highly educational video on bedbugs. It's only 7 minutes long, involves a really nice upper-middle class white bread family, and proves very thoroughly how our apartment complex management's "solution" to the bedbug problem would have been a waste of two days' hotel rent and delivered food or Subway. Pesticide only (does not work), and no thought whatsoever about sending in heat treatment (100% success rate).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd219z34eJo
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We weren't then, and we aren't now.
Well,,,,good for you Kirk.
As to the rest of this post, my Mom said if you can't say something good about someone, say nothing.
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Well,,,,good for you Kirk.
As to the rest of this post, my Mom said if you can't say something good about someone, say nothing.
I've said a lot of nice things about our former roomie. Facts are facts, though. I've also said that he's improved his circumstance somewhat now that he's pretty much on his own, and he deserves credit for that.
As for the people who ran our last apartments? There were some wonderful office staff, sometimes. Other than that, the actual owners were clueless idiots out to maximize profits on an investment. Otherwise they'd have done the same research we completed in under two hours, and determined that about $1 per square foot for heat treatment would have been safer, less labor-intensive and cheaper in the long run than having some guy come in and douse us in poison. See my 7-minute video post above. It's Animal Planet. Actually quite entertaining considering the subject matter.
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Jeanette update:
Her surgery was performed in under an hour during yesterday evening, by the same young surgeon who did an awesome job on my leg.
She is recovering, and should have her sutures out in about two weeks.
The only concern now is that all traces of her bone infection are gone. They'll determine that over the next several days.
And finally, her Medicare was finally put in place as of yesterday, so now the hospital knows they'll get paid....
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Well, that's good to hear.
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Jeanette update:
Her surgery was performed in under an hour during yesterday evening, by the same young surgeon who did an awesome job on my leg.
She is recovering, and should have her sutures out in about two weeks.
The only concern now is that all traces of her bone infection are gone. They'll determine that over the next several days.
And finally, her Medicare was finally put in place as of yesterday, so now the hospital knows they'll get paid....
Hey, if she is doing well then we are happy.
These things always are dicey and we take our pluses where we can.
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Jeanette update:
Her surgery was performed in under an hour during yesterday evening, by the same young surgeon who did an awesome job on my leg.
She is recovering, and should have her sutures out in about two weeks.
The only concern now is that all traces of her bone infection are gone. They'll determine that over the next several days.
And finally, her Medicare was finally put in place as of yesterday, so now the hospital knows they'll get paid....
That is good Kirk. I hope she will fully recover. Best wishes and prayers to her and you. Keep a stiff upper lip as the English say. What doesn't kill you will make you stronger.
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That is good Kirk. I hope she will fully recover. Best wishes and prayers to her and you. Keep a stiff upper lip as the English say. What doesn't kill you will make you stronger.
Since we know she is OK, I can quip that that which kills you, kills you.
It hasn't happened to me yet (or at least that I am aware of).
But only b/c we know she is OK.
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Well, Kirk, I wish Jeanette the best in her surgery. May it be successful, God willing. :cheersmate:
Also, H5 for showing back up here.
Yeah same here. I can't imagine losing a limb so on that I feel for you. What I find truly sad is that you let your health and she hers to the point you have these lasting complications and I'm speaking as an emotional eater too who now seems to have found a rut of normalcy. I perhaps played roulette with my own health for many years and for that it was the luck of the draw I suppose. What your situation outlines is that one should never play roulette with their health and ignore the emotional issues that can someday lead to massive physical problems. I'll leave it there because despite any barbs back and forth I'm sure your mind is your own hell over those mistakes and I don't believe in piling on of a guilty conscience and as an emotional eater you need to find a way to forgive yourself your mistakes as to move from that trigger into a positive existence including positive choices.
As frank said, I do hope you find some creativity in solutions when your crisis passes. My brother is a type 1 diabetic on regular dialysis, as is his fiancee. Somehow though they seem to be doing better and are happier then you and Jeanette. Whatever it is they have that you don't is what you need to find to help allay some of this(another trigger for eating issues). I think you guys have the first part which is a partner in life. Hang on to that and each other.
I truly hope this is the bottom for you both and things improve. I'm glad to see you took the first step of asking your friend to move into his own place so you can live in an environment more suitable for diabetics with wound issues. I know he's a friend, but look at you and Jeanette both--you have to look out for yourselves and his friendship is not needed if it is going to contribute to your escalating health problems. That's not being a good friend to you, but thankfully he seems to have understood this and moved on as well.
Take care and best of luck in the future.
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Well,assuming all of this is true,it sure has been a rotten year for both of you.
The question now is whether you let it make you or break you and that is solely in your hands.
I am going to talk to you as a man and be honest,given how excited lawyers are to take up malpractice cases and none will touch it then my gut feeling is that some details may have been "forgotten" here.
Regardless,do wish you can still both become productive members of society even if it means volunteer work trying to keep others from going down the road you did.
A question though...you now have the best medical care our tax dollars can buy (not snarky,a fact) and even if half of what you describe is true then do you see the reality of what socialized medicine brings and why so many come here for private treatment outside government funds?
Kirk, this is a great suggestion that once you guys are healed and things are better to at least consider some kind of volunteer efforts. You are obviously quite prolific in wordage so perhaps you could start, lead, or be a part of a diabetes network and work for how to advocate proper care in situations like yours since you have lived it. Perhaps you could offer counseling and assistance to others struggling with emotional eating, etc etc. This is that creativity thing. Even if you and J. can never leave disability, this would at least add to that quality of existence and bring up spirits which I believe contribute greatly to our overall physical health.
Again, best of luck. I will keep Jeanette's surgery and recovery a part of my prayers this weekend. She seems like a lovely lady.
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I think Kirk needs to come to an understanding what conservatism is all about.
Most of us at conservative cave are compassionate conservatives and the rest are libertarian. I'm a compassionate conservatarian. I believe there are people in this country who need help through government means. I have no problem paying taxes for those people, you included. But what's happened is the liberals in this country have made it so easy for people to be labeled as "disabled" and for young women to continue to have baby after baby and to rely on the government to take care of them.
Abortion, gay marriage? Who cares? I don't. That's your business.
We compassionate conservatives are being asked to care for so many people (some deserving, many NOT deserving) while also having to take care of ourselves and our families. At some point, the bubble is going to break. We are very close to the breaking point.
When government is small and more people are allowed to keep more of the money they earn, they spend, businesses will hire and more people will pay taxes into the government. The limited government will then have more than enough money to pay for those who are truly disabled and the elderly.
Conservatives aren't racists, sexists, or homophobes. As Rush Limbaugh says, we want everyone to be successful. Most conservatives don't look at people and see the color of their skin or what sex they are. We see people who have potential to be the best they can be. Liberals have made it so that those who do reach their potential are punished through taxation and name-calling.
You really do need to get off of the democratic underground, stop watching MSNBC and listen to Rush Limbaugh every day for a month. I would bet that by the end of that month, you would see what I'm talking about.
Up for the challenge, Kirk?
Kirk, what Em wrote is a good point and one I've said for a long time as the sister of someone who is seriously disabled and the mother of a son who will also need care for th erest of his life. Now you are in this group as an amputee, although with an able mind and continued healing, don't be afraid to move forward at some point. Disability is poverty. But my point is now that you are in this place, think of those people who are leaching who made the experience you just had in the last year possible by burdening the system with bullshit. It clogs the system up and prevents help from getting to those who truly need it and for whom most of us are happy to help in a civilized society. Perhaps that doctor is a quack, but one thing that had me thinking is right or wrong, how many people came into his care with really minor things stomping about like they were on fire with drama that desensitized him to real pain and suffering? Sure a doctor should always continue with the same concern, but being human, they are imperfect too. How much fault is his own and how much would be the people who were full of shit who desensitized him to the point that he doesn't take the really sick person to come in as seriously expecting the other? Just some things to chew on.
I just want to see the leaches and moochers leave the system so people who truly need the care can be seen properly and get the assistance they need. That to me is the most compassionate position to take. Those on disability with a valid concern should take the same position if only for their own self-preservation. It's mind-boggling to me instead many choose to vote out of fear instead of on principal. I thank God my brother is the latter.
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H-5 for Wasp. Your recollections of his past visits, the advice given to him and missed opportunities are devastating.
Yeah certainly put things in perspective. I'd forgotten of that plant based diet crap. I still cringe to this day when I see the paleo bullshit as someone who cleaned up my act several years back. Protein is a necessary component and I remember cringing now with this reminder as a severe diabetic pumping themselves full of carbs--no wonder your leg got worse. As I said, my brother is a TYPE 1!!! diabetic who has had some serious issues and a car accident that took the rest of his kidney function. He eats an appropriate diet since that reality check and is a normal weight and no longer has these wild blood sugar swings and surprise even had his leg and hip that were shattered in that accident heal(BONE) except for a slight limp where he lost height in that complete break and the slow healing process after. I used to get pissed at my brother for drinking beer and liquor in his early 20's when he was mad at the world and you ate that...I'd forgotton about some of that. Great post wasp.
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I just want to see the leaches and moochers leave the system
And that describes our buddy the LVL.
If over the past few years he'd spent half as much time trying to be a productive person as he did complaining about taxpayers being stingy with their handouts, he wouldn't have ballooned to sideshow proportions, and wouldn't be in his current situation.
This is the DUmmy who sent his wife off to minimum-wage jobs so he could pay for premium video game subscriptions.
This is the DUmmy who spent several interminable posts complaining about the free transportation provided by the taxpayers of Las Vegas.
He's had a bad year, and earned every day of it. It's a sure bet 2014 will be worse.
What a waste of oxygen, and a perfect example of a DUmp democrat.
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And that describes our buddy the LVL.
If over the past few years he'd spent half as much time trying to be a productive person as he did complaining about taxpayers being stingy with their handouts, he wouldn't have ballooned to sideshow proportions, and wouldn't be in his current situation.
This is the DUmmy who sent his wife off to minimum-wage jobs so he could pay for premium video game subscriptions.
This is the DUmmy who spent several interminable posts complaining about the free transportation provided by the taxpayers of Las Vegas.
He's had a bad year, and earned every day of it. It's a sure bet 2014 will be worse.
What a waste of oxygen, and a perfect example of a DUmp democrat.
For every thing I do complain about, there are quite a few that I don't. I'm far busier trying to be productive than you may think, even if as another poster in this thread said, it's to try and motivate people not to make my horrible mistakes.
Nearly all the online stuff we play is free, with optional perks you might choose to pay for. Jeanette now logs about 5x more time in online games than I do, which still isn't a ridiculous amount, simply because my chronic pain hassles make it hard as hell to concentrate. (Lord of the Rings Online is pretty fun, too.)
The "free" para-transit actually costs $3 each ride, each way. It would be $6, but Jeanette is considered my care attendant and therefore pays no fare. As for my complaints about that service, man you have no idea. At one of our addresses, they had our pick-up point down not as being in our parking lot, but somewhere by the Hard Rock Hotel which was a full two blocks away! I missed two crucial appointments before we could finally iron that out with them. Then at our next place, we told them which building and exactly where to go in the parking lot, but they would consistently go to the wrong apartment complex, with a whole different address! Oh, and then there was that time I went to a wound care appointment at about 3pm, with a scheduled pick-up to go home at around 4:15. At just after 5pm, that entire building closed up shop and everyone went home. The next closest place where I could find a way to make a phone call was again, a full long block away, and at this point my wounds were too severe to ever make it that far. I finally borrow the phone from the valet parking attendant just before he was ready to call it a day, and the dispatch had to confirm with the driver's GPS that he tried to pick me up at some unrelated building almost a quarter mile away in a different direction! I was forced to sit there as it turned dark and cold with the wind, not exactly dressed for it either, until nearly 5:45 when a replacement bus made it to me. Had they gotten that bus wrong, I'd have had to go and literally sit on the curb until somebody found me and offered help. So yeah, I had my complaints about it! But credit where credit is due once again: since starting to use their service this time, they have yet to make a single major mistake, and I've taken about 40 or 50 rides so far. Way better percentage.
And with that, I'm one step closer to convincing you to say something nice. :bolt:
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Yeah certainly put things in perspective. I'd forgotten of that plant based diet crap. I still cringe to this day when I see the paleo bullshit as someone who cleaned up my act several years back. Protein is a necessary component and I remember cringing now with this reminder as a severe diabetic pumping themselves full of carbs--no wonder your leg got worse. As I said, my brother is a TYPE 1!!! diabetic who has had some serious issues and a car accident that took the rest of his kidney function. He eats an appropriate diet since that reality check and is a normal weight and no longer has these wild blood sugar swings and surprise even had his leg and hip that were shattered in that accident heal(BONE) except for a slight limp where he lost height in that complete break and the slow healing process after. I used to get pissed at my brother for drinking beer and liquor in his early 20's when he was mad at the world and you ate that...I'd forgotton about some of that. Great post wasp.
Thank you for your posts and your sentiments. You seem like a pretty kind person.
I don't expect anyone here to remember way back when I first started posting on the forums over at www.drmcdougall.com and you guys cross-referenced me, and most of my posts over there are gone now anyway...but, let me tell you exactly how my left leg looked when I was close to 500 lbs.
The shin had a wound on it so bad that it actually looked like one of those oceanic trenches on a bas relief map. It was about 4 inches long and two inches wide, and ran almost perfectly down the bone. This trench was surrounded by three silver-dollar sized wounds which were black as night. My big toe, second toe, and the areas on my foot behind them were nothing but open wounds and scar tissue. You could unwrap the gauze from this mess, and just watch the nasty discharge oozing its way out. Think Walking Dead, and you're just about there.
Jeanette had just lost her last job a few months prior, and so I was without Medicare since it had not yet been two years since I started on disability, and also without her insurance through that job. There was only one suggestion which made any sense, on top of the diet changes I had made which had already resulted in nearly 30 pounds gone, and that was to treat my wounds with coconut oil due to its antibiotic properties. The stuff worked almost miraculously well. Within six months, the trench/gash thing on my shin and its three orbiting nasty patches were almost totally gone, and the worst of the issues with my toes had even reversed.
My problem, despite what many here think, was not the diet itself. I was already off-the-charts diabetic before going McDougall. It was that way too much damage was already done, and the infection I had finally made its way down to my bones.
All I can tell you is that all carbs are not the same, and a starch-based diet is not round-the-clock Wonder Bread and Ding Dongs. It is stuff like oatmeal with raisins, brown rice with veggies or beans, whole wheat pasta with a fat free marinara sauce, and other stuff like that. And the closer I come to following that plan perfectly, the lower my blood sugar goes and the better I feel. Also, the less insulin I need to take (which I've only been on religiously since late last summer, by the way). Foods which are high in refined carbs, high in fat, or both will cause my control to go out the window. These problem foods also include meat and dairy, which I've experimented with to a small degree recently, and I have the regular tracking of my glucose levels to back this assertion up. Trying to increase my level of physical activity through the whole-body arthritic pain I have is the only other way I have to get my sugar numbers down further. That is a challenge, but one I continue to try and conquer.
I think some people here make this automatic connection between the fact that I'm ultra-liberal, and these PETA militant vegan types. I'm not in that camp at all. I love animals, but I don't support many of PETA's weird tactics. I don't go around trying to act like a hippie (though being called one doesn't bother me at all). I've just adopted a certain eating style based upon a lot of evidence, just as I'm forced to reject the information from such sources as Weston-Price and the Atkins Foundation based upon the evidence.
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Thank you for your posts and your sentiments. You seem like a pretty kind person.
I don't expect anyone here to remember way back when I first started posting on the forums over at www.drmcdougall.com and you guys cross-referenced me, and most of my posts over there are gone now anyway...but, let me tell you exactly how my left leg looked when I was close to 500 lbs.
The shin had a wound on it so bad that it actually looked like one of those oceanic trenches on a bas relief map. It was about 4 inches long and two inches wide, and ran almost perfectly down the bone. This trench was surrounded by three silver-dollar sized wounds which were black as night. My big toe, second toe, and the areas on my foot behind them were nothing but open wounds and scar tissue. You could unwrap the gauze from this mess, and just watch the nasty discharge oozing its way out. Think Walking Dead, and you're just about there.
Jeanette had just lost her last job a few months prior, and so I was without Medicare since it had not yet been two years since I started on disability, and also without her insurance through that job. There was only one suggestion which made any sense, on top of the diet changes I had made which had already resulted in nearly 30 pounds gone, and that was to treat my wounds with coconut oil due to its antibiotic properties. The stuff worked almost miraculously well. Within six months, the trench/gash thing on my shin and its three orbiting nasty patches were almost totally gone, and the worst of the issues with my toes had even reversed.
My problem, despite what many here think, was not the diet itself. I was already off-the-charts diabetic before going McDougall. It was that way too much damage was already done, and the infection I had finally made its way down to my bones.
All I can tell you is that all carbs are not the same, and a starch-based diet is not round-the-clock Wonder Bread and Ding Dongs. It is stuff like oatmeal with raisins, brown rice with veggies or beans, whole wheat pasta with a fat free marinara sauce, and other stuff like that. And the closer I come to following that plan perfectly, the lower my blood sugar goes and the better I feel. Also, the less insulin I need to take (which I've only been on religiously since late last summer, by the way). Foods which are high in refined carbs, high in fat, or both will cause my control to go out the window. These problem foods also include meat and dairy, which I've experimented with to a small degree recently, and I have the regular tracking of my glucose levels to back this assertion up. Trying to increase my level of physical activity through the whole-body arthritic pain I have is the only other way I have to get my sugar numbers down further. That is a challenge, but one I continue to try and conquer.
I think some people here make this automatic connection between the fact that I'm ultra-liberal, and these PETA militant vegan types. I'm not in that camp at all. I love animals, but I don't support many of PETA's weird tactics. I don't go around trying to act like a hippie (though being called one doesn't bother me at all). I've just adopted a certain eating style based upon a lot of evidence, just as I'm forced to reject the information from such sources as Weston-Price and the Atkins Foundation based upon the evidence.
God lord man. You are so far removed from normalcy, you have no idea of the effect you have on normal people. If I had a gaping festering wound on my leg, I wouldn't describe it in agonizing and disgusting detail to a bunch of strangers on the internet. If I was reduced to begging free transportation from my fellow citizens, I wouldn't be bragging on some strange board and, I certainly wouldn't bitch about the free service provided by my fellow citizens to those very citizens.
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Did that barely-sentient sponge really write that?
What a load of shit.
Kirk, no man deserves any physical thing in this life. Your natural right to Property (home and money, to use your specific examples) extends only as far as your ability to make, earn, or trade for them. You have no claim on the property of another man, just because you want (or "need", to use the language of the Moochers) them.
If you die homeless and broke, it will be the natural consequence of your life choices. And you certainly deserve to receive the consequences of your actions.
HI5 I read "most" of this thread and ....it got long and socialistic with some of the "posters" but damn If Darwin would of observed every being living in the world as being "necessary" it would be a much different environment.....BUT HE DIDN'T! Those that were successful (prosperous or other wise useful) Went on and the rest well you know the story. You have your life cause YOU made it (period) . I have quite a few peeps in my family that have the sugar disease and NONE have had removals...so it all comes back to personal choices. I choose LIFE so I do what is needed to LIVE...WORK and PLAY as I see fit. I am so tired of the "oh its not my fault its the gumments job to do XXX" EFF OFF!
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Just wow.
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Oh, and have a highly educational video on bedbugs. It's only 7 minutes long, involves a really nice upper-middle class white bread family, and proves very thoroughly how our apartment complex management's "solution" to the bedbug problem would have been a waste of two days' hotel rent and delivered food or Subway. Pesticide only (does not work), and no thought whatsoever about sending in heat treatment (100% success rate).
I am going to remember this quote. Especially the bolded part. The reason being is that libs are constantly playing the race card, and the hate card for anyone who opposes your messiah's policies.
My contention is that libs are the most racist group imaginable, and project their racism in efforts to extort adversary's silence.
In the mean time libs in a phony attempt to gain the racial moral high ground, very often let the true nature of their racist nature to leak out.
Another contention I have is that libs are very good at parroting the party line and talking points. But if those lines and points run out while the lib still has time to talk, said lib will eventually and mostly inadvertently let the truth slip out.
I don't know you well as far as one person can know another on the interwebmachine. But if I find what I suspect, you can count on me to call you out...bigtime.
edit '
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I am going to remember this quote. Especially the bolded part. The reason being is that libs are constantly playing the race card, and the hate card for anyone who opposes your messiah's policies.
My contention is that libs are the most racist group imaginable, and project their racism in efforts to extort adversary's silence.
In the mean time libs in a phony attempt to gain the racial moral high ground, very often let the true nature of their racist nature to leak out.
Another contention I have is that libs are very good at parroting the party line and talking points. But if those lines and points run out while the lib still has time to talk, said lib will eventually and mostly inadvertently let the truth slip out.
I don't know you well as far as one person can know another on the interwebmachine. But if I find what I suspect, you can count on me to call you out...bigtime.
edit '
I have a highly educational video on earwigs, it is my proudest possession.
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I am going to remember this quote. Especially the bolded part. The reason being is that libs are constantly playing the race card, and the hate card for anyone who opposes your messiah's policies.
My contention is that libs are the most racist group imaginable, and project their racism in efforts to extort adversary's silence.
In the mean time libs in a phony attempt to gain the racial moral high ground, very often let the true nature of their racist nature to leak out.
Another contention I have is that libs are very good at parroting the party line and talking points. But if those lines and points run out while the lib still has time to talk, said lib will eventually and mostly inadvertently let the truth slip out.
I don't know you well as far as one person can know another on the interwebmachine. But if I find what I suspect, you can count on me to call you out...bigtime.
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HI5 good catch my friend!!!
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^Thank you to tot's spouse, and Bad Dog, can you post that video ?
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^Thank you to tot's spouse, and Bad Dog, can you post that video ?
I would love to but, bla, bla, bla, yada, yada. DU mode off.
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Pardon me if I missed it somewhere in this thread, but what are your plans now that you are down a leg?
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I would love to but, bla, bla, bla, yada, yada. DU mode off.
Oh yeah...
That one.
Dang it !
It's stuck in my ear !
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Pardon me if I missed it somewhere in this thread, but what are your plans now that you are down a leg?
Are you insinuating he should get a leg up ?
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Jeanette update:
:yahoo:
Her surgery was performed in under an hour during yesterday evening, by the same young surgeon who did an awesome job on my leg.
She is recovering, and should have her sutures out in about two weeks.
The only concern now is that all traces of her bone infection are gone. They'll determine that over the next several days.
And finally, her Medicare was finally put in place as of yesterday, so now the hospital knows they'll get paid....
Great news! :yahoo:
Sorry to hear about all your health and welfare battles last year. Hopefully 2014 will be better for both of you and also for your old roommate.
I'm also sorry about the loss of your leg. I knew a transplant recipient that was also diabetic. He had many wound care stories gone bad and you could see his heel bone from the outside of his foot due to a large hole. He eventually lost the foot, then he passed away last year.
I had a very bad home health care nurse once that was treating me for cellulitis after a skin abrasion that became infected. She left the leg wrap kit in her van overnight, it was 19 degrees that night and she went ahead and used it on my leg. She promised it would warm up. I felt like my leg was in an ice bath all day. The kit did not stay on and I was charged twice. My insurance company looked into it. Both the insurance and I paid twice.
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Are you insinuating he should get a leg up ?
A leg is better than nothing.
Especially in mixed company.
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Pardon me if I missed it somewhere in this thread, but what are your plans now that you are down a leg?
(http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/Airplane_b1624e_1644418.jpg)
Golly!
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A leg is better than nothing.
Especially in mixed company.
One leg short -- Ilene?
One leg short and Chinese -- Irene?
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One leg short -- Ilene?
One leg short and Chinese -- Irene?
Don't get me started...
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I am going to remember this quote. Especially the bolded part. The reason being is that libs are constantly playing the race card, and the hate card for anyone who opposes your messiah's policies.
My contention is that libs are the most racist group imaginable, and project their racism in efforts to extort adversary's silence.
In the mean time libs in a phony attempt to gain the racial moral high ground, very often let the true nature of their racist nature to leak out.
Another contention I have is that libs are very good at parroting the party line and talking points. But if those lines and points run out while the lib still has time to talk, said lib will eventually and mostly inadvertently let the truth slip out.
I don't know you well as far as one person can know another on the interwebmachine. But if I find what I suspect, you can count on me to call you out...bigtime.
edit '
Are you, by chance, familiar with Frank Zappa and his music?
That dude ragged on everyone -- and I do mean everyone -- but did not have a spiteful bone in his body.
His material never ceases to make me LOL big-time whenever I'm seriously down.
Similarly, my use of the phrase "whitebread family" doesn't imply any sort of racism. I did, however, use it to reinforce the point that even the people you'd most associate with near-perfect standards of cleanliness can and do get bedbugs. They're (the bugs, not the people) in theaters, restaurants, clothing stores...you name it. So, if there was a bit of classism in that comment, so be it. I own it. But given that my ancestry is Italian and Hungarian, I'm just about as "whitebread" as they come, so why would I try and use racism against myself?
I don't believe in racism against whites or anyone else. I was raised in an ostensibly liberal family and was exposed to all kinds of that crap when I was young. N-bombs, slants against the New Jersey Puerto Rican population, weird comments about my very good friends when I moved to California at the age of 7 named Bassim and Gabbi, you name it. I started thinking for myself, because damn if my mother was going to do it for me (but that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish), and got over it in my 20s.
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Are you, by chance, familiar with Frank Zappa and his music?
That dude ragged on everyone -- and I do mean everyone -- but did not have a spiteful bone in his body.
His material never ceases to make me LOL big-time whenever I'm seriously down.
Similarly, my use of the phrase "whitebread family" doesn't imply any sort of racism. I did, however, use it to reinforce the point that even the people you'd most associate with near-perfect standards of cleanliness can and do get bedbugs. They're (the bugs, not the people) in theaters, restaurants, clothing stores...you name it. So, if there was a bit of classism in that comment, so be it. I own it. But given that my ancestry is Italian and Hungarian, I'm just about as "whitebread" as they come, so why would I try and use racism against myself?
I don't believe in racism against whites or anyone else. I was raised in an ostensibly liberal family and was exposed to all kinds of that crap when I was young. N-bombs, slants against the New Jersey Puerto Rican population, weird comments about my very good friends when I moved to California at the age of 7 named Bassim and Gabbi, you name it. I started thinking for myself, because damn if my mother was going to do it for me (but that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish), and got over it in my 20s.
Hey I am still looking through the tundra for the Parish of St. Alphonso...
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^Thanks freedumb2003b
That about sums up what I would have said, only a lot better
edit spd
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Hey I am still looking through the tundra for the Parish of St. Alphonso...
Sorry I stole all the margarine. That stuff is terrible for you anyway.
:cheersmate:
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I don't know if the people the most physically unfit and and with the worst diets know more than the most fit with the best diets...about diets and nutrition.
I do know which way I'm leaning though.
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Just wow.
I read this thread with a gaping jaw also. :cheersmate:
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Kirk, I am not going to read all of your pathetic self-pitying bullshit; but I have a question for you which can be answered with one word.
In your tale of woe do you ever, even once, thank the hardworking people here who are supporting your lazy ass?
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LVL,
I'm glad to see your alive and kicking, at least with one leg. Kudos to getting down to 285, losing weight, especially when exercise is difficult, to say the least. I am saddened to hear that your wife is having the same issues.
Though, as Frank says, you lack imagination when faced with a problem. Maybe it is a result of the way you were raised, maybe it's a result of poor schooling. You finally took control of something, your weight. Why then let everything else fall by the wayside. Since you are impoverished their are government and private programs to help people like you lift yourselves up, especially through education. All that time you spent trapped in an apartment could have been used to secure a degree from an online university instead of getting a max level high elf on evercrack. You could have done medical billing from your own home, the pay isn't great but a pay check is a pay check.
Like Frank said, you lack imagination. I am not attacking you, as I was very glad to see 2013 go away myself.
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Thank you for your posts and your sentiments. You seem like a pretty kind person.
Well, LVL, I am above all someone who leans on my own perspective and experiences. I have not either led a charmed life and what irritates me about liberals is they assume as much. I've seen sorrows, been abandoned, lived in poverty myself. I've also had the benefit of seeing the failure of European system firsthand through relatives, have relatives and a child who are either physically or mentally disabled. Life has given me enough to lean me to compassion, but those experiences too have revealed much to me about human nature and human nature is flawed and it's why I opposed taking all motivation to work from people who are able or coddling people too much. Human nature is adverse in most cases to advancing unless forced unfortunately. Keep in mind, I was a liberal back in my earlier years and you and I are peers. I walk a delicate line between advocacy for individuals who I believe as a Christian we should look after as a society and also advancing the Christian virtue of work for the rest. Way too many people are taking advantage of compassion to the folly of the nation. I temper both sides of myself. Thank you and I do wish you the best. I hope you will consider what I said about the plant based diet. Like I said, my brother is a type 1 diabetic so I have some experience with those needs as well. I've also dropped a lot of weight myself and maintained that now for several years give or take 20 lbs. I live life healthy now--fitness is a regular part as well as a balanced diet including meat proteins. Diet should be considered, in my opinion, as a 'most likely' outcome with regards to one's propensity. I have to walk the line with both considering the diabetes and heart disease so it's all about balance. And carbs are not my enemy either; they are essential, particularly when I'm training heavy as I've started again in the last few weeks. Carbs are fuel; protein is valuable to the metabolic processes and healthy blood. The work in unison and one should adjust their diet based not only on their own predispositions, but their activity level DAILY.
In all this though, one thing I encourage you to do is look beyond. I know it's bleak, but Kirk one thing I never ever did was give up. I'm a product of my own tenacity and hope. through my own health issues, being overweight, virtually abandoned as a teen by my parents, rape, loss of my marriage, parenting special needs children, etc. It's not been easy but I figure it's not over til I'm over. You sir, are still here. You sadly have had a grave consequence that you admit is likely rooted in past choices. That is sad, but you are still here. You ahve another chance--with more hindrance, but hope is still there because you are not 6 feet under sir. Grasp it! Grab it! And don't let go. Your life is not over, just modified.
I don't care if I'm called a damn sob sister either. Yes, you make me mad at times when I've read your stuff, but I'm also a mother hen who wants to protect and see everyone live to the fullest of their potential.
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All I can tell you is that all carbs are not the same, and a starch-based diet is not round-the-clock Wonder Bread and Ding Dongs. It is stuff like oatmeal with raisins, brown rice with veggies or beans, whole wheat pasta with a fat free marinara sauce, and other stuff like that. And the closer I come to following that plan perfectly, the lower my blood sugar goes and the better I feel. Also, the less insulin I need to take (which I've only been on religiously since late last summer, by the way). Foods which are high in refined carbs, high in fat, or both will cause my control to go out the window. These problem foods also include meat and dairy, which I've experimented with to a small degree recently, and I have the regular tracking of my glucose levels to back this assertion up. Trying to increase my level of physical activity through the whole-body arthritic pain I have is the only other way I have to get my sugar numbers down further. That is a challenge, but one I continue to try and conquer.
Seriously, Kirk, how stupid do you think the good people of CC are? How many of us that are either diabetic or deal with diabetes (up close and personal) every single day are supposed to listen to you tell us how daily consumption of medium and slow sugars vice a healthy balance with easily absorbed animal proteins and minerals does not contrbute to what happened to you?
Kirk, you're not nearly as good of a bullshit artist as you believe.
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I don't care if I'm called a damn sob sister either.
angel, I won't cal you a sob sister. You are compassionate.
I'm also a mother hen who wants to protect and see everyone live to the fullest of their potential.
Protecting your children from danger is one thing. Trying to protect adults from the consequences of their own acts is another. And expending your emotional capital on a lazy, ungrateful mooch who will take from you today, then complain about you tomorrow, is something else entirely.
Tough questions of the day: If you want to protect everyone, then how do they ever find their fullest potential? How does the baby bird learn to fly?
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angel, I won't cal you a sob sister. You are compassionate.
Protecting your children from danger is one thing. Trying to protect adults from the consequences of their own acts is another. And expending your emotional capital on a lazy, ungrateful mooch who will take from you today, then complain about you tomorrow, is something else entirely.
Tough questions of the day: If you want to protect everyone, then how do they ever find their fullest potential? How does the baby bird learn to fly?
I guess I worded that wrong. I don't mince words, even with my own children, but as someone who has been in some tough spots the best encouragement is a mix of hard ass reality(which many of you are willing to dish out) mispositioned against encouragement that plays on those harsh realities ie you aren't dead yet. Really, how I feel is this with him: :hammer: Thats what I mean by mother hen...i feel that way with my kids too--SEE THE LIGHT NOW! lol Trust me, I don't want to baby him--he does a good job of that all on his own--I want him to think very hard on this. I'm just the type of person that would like nothing more then to see the lightbulb go on and good things happen. It's quite discouraging to see someone stay in denial and in excuses to the point their body is now mutilated. I keep wondering what more will it take? I understand self-destructiveness but not to this extent. I have no intention of going to by grave with many regrets no matter how much of a beating I take so my hammer of 'get real' wants Kirk to get to the same place. That's all.
And yes I do think Kirk is his own worst enemy--sadly that is a reality for a good portion of humanity. I read a great article recently that said to the effect that it is in our natures to fight improvement because improvement is hard and requires work and really the human condition is to do as little as possible. it is why morality and ethics are so important because they motivate when our lazy, flawed bones can't. Your ethics and morality have to be able to overcome the bullshit in your past and your own lazy nature. I think what scares the beJesus out of me is looking back at age 80 and knowing I can't change anything now and the choices are what they are--I don't want to live with that regret so I'm always a work in progress, always moving, always improving as I can for my ability. Just wish more would understand time is finite and opportunities are as well..take the ones you can, while you can and run with it. I just don't limit that wish to my fellow conservatives; I'd like to see the miserable left understand that as well.
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Seriously, Kirk, how stupid do you think the good people of CC are? How many of us that are either diabetic or deal with diabetes (up close and personal) every single day are supposed to listen to you tell us how daily consumption of medium and slow sugars vice a healthy balance with easily absorbed animal proteins and minerals does not contrbute to what happened to you?
Kirk, you're not nearly as good of a bullshit artist as you believe.
This is a phenomenon I've seen with other vegetarian and/or vegan dieters, and those who are on the warpath against fast food.
Simply put-
Carbs are carbs.
Sugars are sugars.
Proteins are proteins.
Fats are fats.
Calories are calories.
Yet many of these dieters try to qualify carbs, fats, proteins, etc. based upon their origins. Now it is true that some sources result in quicker or slower release of these things, but, TBH, the human body really doesn't care about that. Proper balance is the key.
-Which brings me to another point about vegans-
Most of them are liberal.
Most of them believe in the power of science.
Most of them believe in evolution, and deny the existence of God.
Science and evolution have concluded that we are the descendants of meat eating apes. Our brains became what they are because of generations of high-protein dieting. Yet these same people believe they can deny their evolution via emotional diktat, and not suffer any sort of physical penalty.
Q.E.D.
-Fun fact - the Inuit people (Eskimo) lived on a diet consisting of nothing but meat for generations. They were all but immune to many diseases -including cancer- UNTIL they modified their diets with plants.
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Kirk, you keep saying y'all are on Medicare, is that right or are y'all on Medicaid?
KC
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Kirk, you keep saying y'all are on Medicare, is that right or are y'all on Medicaid?
KC
His wife in on Medicaid with the help of the ACA. If his wife is approved for disability she will qualify for Medicare two years after the disability date.
Kirk is on disability and receives Medicare. His Part B Medicare premiums are subsidized. I have a feeling Medicaid picks up any copays.
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His wife in on Medicaid with the help of the ACA. If his wife is approved for disability she will qualify for Medicare two years after the disability date.
Kirk is on disability and receives Medicare. His Part B Medicare premiums are subsidized. I have a feeling Medicaid picks up any copays.
Ahhhh, thanks Rob. I was wondering about how that worked.
The few libs I know try to use the 2 interchangeably and it pisses me off. I always point out the difference.
One of my friends had no idea they WERE different yet, he counts himself as an enlightened liberal.
KC
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Ahhhh, thanks Rob. I was wondering about how that worked.
The few libs I know try to use the 2 interchangeably and it pisses me off. I always point out the difference.
One of my friends had no idea they WERE different yet, he counts himself as an enlightened liberal.
KC
On CC he used the term Medicare for his wife and in a similar post on DU he used the term Medicaid. I was confused for a second myself.
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On CC he used the term Medicare for his wife and in a similar post on DU he used the term Medicaid. I was confused for a second myself.
As is he I expect. Fortunately, for him, they have people at hospitals whose only job is to hand them their bennies.
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Ahhhh, thanks Rob. I was wondering about how that worked.
The few libs I know try to use the 2 interchangeably and it pisses me off. I always point out the difference.
One of my friends had no idea they WERE different yet, he counts himself as an enlightened liberal.
KC
Didn't know there was such a thing...hmmm :rotf:
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Ahhhh, thanks Rob. I was wondering about how that worked.
The few libs I know try to use the 2 interchangeably and it pisses me off. I always point out the difference.
One of my friends had no idea they WERE different yet, he counts himself as an enlightened liberal.
KC
So if one of us was truly disabled and forced to collect money from Social Security that we paid into all our lives, we would have to wait two years for health insurance through Medicare. Really does not help much if you are terminal and only have a year to live.
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Their first attempt to be from the government and be there to help you is to "aid".
When the government starts wanting to "care" for you, you are in the loving arms of death care panels.
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So if one of us was truly disabled and forced to collect money from Social Security that we paid into all our lives, we would have to wait two years for health insurance through Medicare. Really does not help much if you are terminal and only have a year to live.
Funny how that works out, eh? It's almost as if it were planned that way.
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I can't help myself - I feel a whole hell of a lot of sympathy for you and your wife. Sure, I could point out all the choices you made that got you where you are, but that is neither helpful, nor entirely fair. My husband and I are in a financial pit right now due to the crappy economy, but I have spent endless hours and sleepless nights making metal lists of stupid things we have done to exacerbate the problem. You seem to have a clear grasp of what mistakes you've made and what changes are needed. Stay on track and make those changes, day by day.
One of the biggest things that pisses me off about the way the Gubmint administers all the social programs is that people who truly need the resources cannot navigate the system to get what they need, while generations of moochers have the system down to a science. At least once a week I stand in line behind a woman, dressed in the most expensive cloths, shoes or boots and jewelry, hair perfectly salon-styled, paying for name brand groceries (which haven't seen the inside of my shopping cart in years) with some form of government hand-out. I have friends who teach in schools that are 100% free-lunch, and they tell tales of the kids waltzing in wearing $200 basketball shoes and little leather jackets, dropped off in a Cadillac Escalade. These people are reaping stealing YOUR benefits. If you do nothing else this month, dedicate time to researching, and applying for, and GETTING what you need. Then spend next month planning a way to get off the dole as soon as you can manage it.
The best of luck to you both.
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I haven't read every post here, nor much of the original post but all I have to say is everyone has at one time or another had hardships. Would I want your troubles? NO But would you want to have a stroke at the age of 27 (and no insurance) and be diagnosed with a rare auto immune disease (Takayasu Arteritis), have three stents two years later (carotid, subclavian and vertibral arterties on the right side, the left is screwed) then find out you are pregnant while taking methotrexate (chemo, no no for pregnancy). Then after all of that have other auto immune issues, reactive arthritis and uveitis (as well as with inflammation of the macula) along with other issues?
My husband last year had a seizure, couldn't find out why and never had another one, but he couldn't drive for 6 months to make sure he didn't have another one. He rode his bike to the train station, took the train to work, rode his bike from there to work. For a total of 17 miles of riding his bike (not including the train ride) every day. I ask you to ask yourself this question, if you had both of your legs would you have done that or went on disability? He could have gone on disability. He also worked three part time jobs when he lost his first job out of college. He couldn't find a "real" job, we had just bought a new house and had a son. He finally found a job in Lake Havasu City, we lived in Phoenix. He drove back and forth every weekend so he could spend time with us. I stayed behind with our son and worked(dropping him off at daycare everyday) while selling the house. Not fun to do alone but I did it.
Virtually everyone at some point goes through financial problems and health issues as well as other unknown problems. I own my issues instead of using them as an excuse. By own I don't mean they are necessarily my fault (some have been, some were absolutely not my fault), by own I mean take responsibility to change what can be changed and for what can't be changed simply...accept. From there work on what you can change and work WITH what you can't.
I just gave you the answer, yes it is that easy.
After my stroke we had major medical bills as I'm sure you understand. I did daycare in my home to pay the medical bills. Did I want to do that? Hell no. I couldn't go to work because I had so many doctor appointments soon after the stroke plus I had an 18 month old daughter and a son just starting school. I had to be here when he got home. Daycare for both would have made me make less than me just dong daycare in my own home. I had three kids plus my own and I would take them all to my doctor appointments (my husband went with me and watched the kids while I was in the appointment) and I took them all with me to the grocery store or where ever else I needed to go. You can do something from home, like someone mentioned above medical transcription or something. You do what you have to do to make it. You will be surprised how much better you will feel and how much of a confidence boost you get from taking action and control in your life. :wink:
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I haven't read every post here, nor much of the original post but all I have to say is everyone has at one time or another had hardships. Would I want your troubles? NO But would you want to have a stroke at the age of 27 (and no insurance) and be diagnosed with a rare auto immune disease (Takayasu Arteritis), have three stents two years later (carotid, subclavian and vertibral arterties on the right side, the left is screwed) then find out you are pregnant while taking methotrexate (chemo, no no for pregnancy). Then after all of that have other auto immune issues, reactive arthritis and uveitis (as well as with inflammation of the macula) along with other issues?
My husband last year had a seizure, couldn't find out why and never had another one, but he couldn't drive for 6 months to make sure he didn't have another one. He rode his bike to the train station, took the train to work, rode his bike from there to work. For a total of 17 miles of riding his bike (not including the train ride) every day. I ask you to ask yourself this question, if you had both of your legs would you have done that or went on disability? He could have gone on disability. He also worked three part time jobs when he lost his first job out of college. He couldn't find a "real" job, we had just bought a new house and had a son. He finally found a job in Lake Havasu City, we lived in Phoenix. He drove back and forth every weekend so he could spend time with us. I stayed behind with our son and worked(dropping him off at daycare everyday) while selling the house. Not fun to do alone but I did it.
Virtually everyone at some point goes through financial problems and health issues as well as other unknown problems. I own my issues instead of using them as an excuse. By own I don't mean they are necessarily my fault (some have been, some were absolutely not my fault), by own I mean take responsibility to change what can be changed and for what can't be changed simply...accept. From there work on what you can change and work WITH what you can't.
I just gave you the answer, yes it is that easy.
After my stroke we had major medical bills as I'm sure you understand. I did daycare in my home to pay the medical bills. Did I want to do that? Hell no. I couldn't go to work because I had so many doctor appointments soon after the stroke plus I had an 18 month old daughter and a son just starting school. I had to be here when he got home. Daycare for both would have made me make less than me just dong daycare in my own home. I had three kids plus my own and I would take them all to my doctor appointments (my husband went with me and watched the kids while I was in the appointment) and I took them all with me to the grocery store or where ever else I needed to go. You can do something from home, like someone mentioned above medical transcription or something. You do what you have to do to make it. You will be surprised how much better you will feel and how much of a confidence boost you get from taking action and control in your life. :wink:
:clap: :clap: :clap:
H5 FTW!
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I just skimmed your OP, you keep blaming quack doctors. I had one doctor who would not listen to me. I had to change rheumatologists for insurance reasons (yes, I did get on insurance AFTER my stroke and diagnosed with Takayasu's Arteritis...funny it was a preexisting condition but I got insurance none the less, and this was 1995) and knew my body. I knew something serious as wrong.
The 2nd time I saw him I told him I was having similar symptoms as I was having before my stroke and I had lost weight (classic sign of an auto immune disease). He dismissed it and said I was anorexic. I have never been anorexic in my whole life. I called my neurologist that very day, was in his office the following day and put in the hospital that day. That is when they found the arteries on the right side were occluding (between the three they were 75-90 occluded). The very next day I was having angioplasty and stents placed in each artery.
YOU are responsible for your own care. If you don't think something is right, demand a 2nd opinion. I would be dead today if I didn't.
I also read where you said your heart raced a few times. I too have had that happen only it was continuous around the time I had the stents. Went to the cardiologist, they sent me home with a recorder and I got it on the second day. It was beating over 250 beats per minute. I felt like I was going to die when it would happen. Off to the ER I was sent, another angiogram (within three weeks, I had had the stents done three weeks prior) and then this cool test where a tech had a wall of knobs and buttons, put leads up through the catheter they used for the angiogram and recreated the heart rhythm. Found out I have supra ventricular tachycardia. I could have had it ablated but I had just had the stents and didn't want another procedure at the time. Took medication for awhile. Now I'm not on anything. When it happens I take quick deep breaths and can usually stop it but I haven't had it happen in the same degree it used to happen pre medication. They also say to put your hands in cold water and splash your face if you can't get it to stop. I hope these tips help if it happens again before you can get to the hospital.
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I just skimmed your OP, you keep blaming quack doctors. I had one doctor who would not listen to me. I had to change rheumatologists for insurance reasons (yes, I did get on insurance AFTER my stroke and diagnosed with Takayasu's Arteritis...funny it was a preexisting condition but I got insurance none the less, and this was 1995) and knew my body. I knew something serious as wrong.
The 2nd time I saw him I told him I was having similar symptoms as I was having before my stroke and I had lost weight (classic sign of an auto immune disease). He dismissed it and said I was anorexic. I have never been anorexic in my whole life. I called my neurologist that very day, was in his office the following day and put in the hospital that day. That is when they found the arteries on the right side were occluding (between the three they were 75-90 occluded). The very next day I was having angioplasty and stents placed in each artery.
YOU are responsible for your own care. If you don't think something is right, demand a 2nd opinion. I would be dead today if I didn't.
I also read where you said your heart raced a few times. I too have had that happen only it was continuous around the time I had the stents. Went to the cardiologist, they sent me home with a recorder and I got it on the second day. It was beating over 250 beats per minute. I felt like I was going to die when it would happen. Off to the ER I was sent, another angiogram (within three weeks, I had had the stents done three weeks prior) and then this cool test where a tech had a wall of knobs and buttons, put leads up through the catheter they used for the angiogram and recreated the heart rhythm. Found out I have supra ventricular tachycardia. I could have had it ablated but I had just had the stents and didn't want another procedure at the time. Took medication for awhile. Now I'm not on anything. When it happens I take quick deep breaths and can usually stop it but I haven't had it happen in the same degree it used to happen pre medication. They also say to put your hands in cold water and splash your face if you can't get it to stop. I hope these tips help if it happens again before you can get to the hospital.
A friend of mine who used to be a dance instructor has SVT. It was scary when it would happen when she was teaching. As her friends, when we were in class we kind of knew we were on standby if she felt bad enough that she had to stop and one of us had to take over--hey how hard could it be since we did it with her regularly right so we knew the routines. I can remember one day she got through it all and I just knew htough something was wrong. She just looked 'off'. I asked her after and sure enough:-( she was having an episode. I think she determined hers were aggravated by the beginnings of menopause and a serious medical condition her husband had that no doubt contributed anxiety on top of it. I've only had those higher rates(and nothing near that) with anxiety and it does suck. I feel fr you both on that:-(
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YOU are responsible for your own care.
:clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:
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When BEG and I spend time together, we have fun and we laugh. We both have had some life-changing medical issues that have required a lot of care and a lot of money, but those medical issues don't define us as people and as women.
Shit happens, you deal with it and move on the best way possible.
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A friend of mine who used to be a dance instructor has SVT. It was scary when it would happen when she was teaching. As her friends, when we were in class we kind of knew we were on standby if she felt bad enough that she had to stop and one of us had to take over--hey how hard could it be since we did it with her regularly right so we knew the routines. I can remember one day she got through it all and I just knew htough something was wrong. She just looked 'off'. I asked her after and sure enough:-( she was having an episode. I think she determined hers were aggravated by the beginnings of menopause and a serious medical condition her husband had that no doubt contributed anxiety on top of it. I've only had those higher rates(and nothing near that) with anxiety and it does suck. I feel fr you both on that:-(
I can tell before it's about to happen. It's almost like my heart stops for a few seconds then bam...beats faster than shit. There is no way I would be able to do anything, much less exercise while it's happening even now that they aren't as bad. When it started I literally felt like I was going to die when it happened, like I was going to pass out and die.
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When BEG and I spend time together, we have fun and we laugh. We both have had some life-changing medical issues that have required a lot of care and a lot of money, but those medical issues don't define us as people and as women.
Shit happens, you deal with it and move on the best way possible.
Exactly, it helped make me who I am (like realize how great it is to be alive) but does not define me. If you were to look at me you would never know I had anything wrong with me. I don't wallow in my sickness, I live when I feel good and when I don't I take it easy. Of course right after it happened I was depressed for awhile but I did something about it.
Ya gotta do this or just go ahead a lay down and die:
"Live! Live! Live! Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!" ~ Rosalind Russell (Auntie Mame)
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I can tell before it's about to happen. It's almost like my heart stops for a few seconds then bam...beats faster than shit. There is no way I would be able to do anything, much less exercise while it's happening even now that they aren't as bad. When it started I literally felt like I was going to die when it happened, like I was going to pass our and die.
No she said the same thing. She is stubborn like that and did at least tell me once that I remember before class that she had one earlier or something and to be ready if she had to go and if I would cover. I don't know if her being used to working out and in the nature of her fulltime job having to maintain similar rigorous physical requirements made her just grin and bear it most times, but I know it could not be easy--the one time I knw for sure she was having something go on(before I knew officially) I could tell she was off:-(. She's a stubborn thing and trust me, us, her friends felt like this when she told us.... :hammer: And if she told us before hand she was feeling 'funny' we would watch her like a hawk on stage :hammer: :hammer:
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and none of them even had so much as a couple of old laptops on a card table for patients to go online with. Not even reliable wi-fi, not that we had a capable device until it became absolutely necessary to get a cheap smart phone for Jeanette to coordinate our move, calls to/from this or that government agency, and even prospective employers whilst spending time with me.
Nevada health care standards are ranked near the bottom in the US for a reason.
Huh. So, quality healthcare is dependent on number of laptops per patient, wifi access and networking capability? Provided for free, of course and forced you to buy a smart phone.
Who knew, .....those bastards.
Damn. How did we survive the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s.........
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Nevada health care standards are ranked near the bottom in the US for a reason.
Harry Reid, the suspected pederast has been working for the people of Nevada for decades.
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Nevada health care standards are ranked near the bottom in the US for a reason.
Every state's deadbeats claim their state is the worst in the nation.
It's sort of how every state's teachers' union claims their state is ranked 47th in education funding.
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Harry Reid, the suspected pederast has been working for the people of Nevada for decades.
Nevada Medicaid Enrollments Surge (http://www.8newsnow.com/story/24408210/nevada-medicaid-enrollments-surge?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+lasvegasnow%2Fhomepage+%288NewsNOW.com+-+Local+Headlines%29)
Nevada Medicaid Enrollments Surge
LAS VEGAS -- Nevada's Medicaid enrollments are higher than expected under federal healthcare reform.
Health and Human Services Director Mike Willden says the Medicaid caseload has grown by more than 10,000 from September to December, which is when the major part of the Affordable Care Act went into effect.
Figures presented Thursday to the state's health insurance exchange board also show that 74,000 have been deemed newly eligible as of Jan. 5, when the state expanded its eligibility to include childless adults.
The increase is also because of thousands of people who have never applied before, because they were not sure if they would qualify, have now applied.
"This is like a brand new population that has to shop for insurance," Social Services Manager for the Department of Welfare and Supportive Services Patrick Williams said.
To handle all of the applications, the Department of Welfare plans to hire about 410 case workers by the end of this year.
In the meantime, people who have applied for Medicaid should be prepared for delays because Nevada case workers are juggling more than 1,000 cases per person.
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I feel for your medical issues. I've had cancer a few times, autoimmune, chronic digestive issues, yadyada. You deal with them and drive on.
I don't feel for your victimhood. It's the typical liberal response to life's hardships and a complete farce. It's a mindset that's bringing this great nation to the brink of collapse.
Life ain't always fair. It never has been, it never will be. But, you still have life and instead of blaming your woes on everyone and everything try taking charge. Do something for yourself instead of waiting for another to do it for you. One might even say, Man Up.
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I feel for your medical issues. I've had cancer a few times, autoimmune, chronic digestive issues, yadyada. You deal with them and drive on.
I don't feel for your victimhood. It's the typical liberal response to life's hardships and a complete farce. It's a mindset that's bringing this great nation to the brink of collapse.
Life ain't always fair. It never has been, it never will be. But, you still have life and instead of blaming your woes on everyone and everything try taking charge. Do something for yourself instead of waiting for another to do it for you. One might even say, Man Up.
:clap:
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The sixth Rocky movie, Rocky Balboa, was a great movie. There's a quote that says everything about life:
The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you're hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!
As an English teacher, I'm partial to Ernest Hemingway, as well:
“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.â€
2013 was a tough year for lots of people. It'll get better or it won't. Our job is to persevere through the tough times. That makes the good times all the sweeter.
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Splasshdown,
Good quotes but, I am guided by the words that ended the welcoming speech from my basic training drill sergeant SSG Gutierrez a foggy morning in Ft Polk LA. He said; "Ju play ball wit me and I stick the bat up you ass". In my arrogance, I thought his fractured English had messed up the old quote. I soon found out he had provided the best description of military life ever given. Keeping his guidance in mind has given me a very prosperous and satisfying life.
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Splasshdown,
Good quotes but, I am guided by the words that ended the welcoming speech from my basic training drill sergeant SSG Gutierrez a foggy morning in Ft Polk LA. He said; "Ju play ball wit me and I stick the bat up you ass". In my arrogance, I thought his fractured English had messed up the old quote. I soon found out he had provided the best description of military life ever given. Keeping his guidance in mind has given me a very prosperous and satisfying life.
Your Drill Sergeant Gutuirrez might have overlooked the most motivating quote for you...
How dare you ?
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http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024332799
Very quick update on my wife (Jeanette) -- she is due home any time now.
My hands are hurting almost too much to type right now so long and short of it, Jeanette is coming home tonight, still almost 2 weeks out from getting her foot sutures pulled. She'll have home health and antibiotics through her PICC line.
I am concerned that this is way too soon. They tried to place her in a nursing facility, but the only one with Medicaid beds open was the dump where I spent my last 23 hours before getting rushed to Sunrise Hospital in Las Vegas for amputation surgery on my left leg. She decided upon home rather than there, and for a number of reasons I don't fault her for that decision even a tiny bit.
Her blood sugar has been outstanding while in the hospital past couple days (consistently below the low-200s and even in the true normal range a couple of times though that makes her feel hypo and sick as hell this early on). We are going to do everything we can to get the apartment not just clean, but spotless, hopefully with some assistance of some kind. Too many reasons why Jeanette needs to be mostly off her feet right now, and my options are limited in a power chair.
Okay, that's all I can handle for now. Will be back with more news later.
You guys and gals have been just excellent! Thanks again for your time and concern.
The sentiments in the last paragraph apply to a great many of you guys and gals here, too, our ideological differences aside. I have more to say here as well, but a) my friggin' fingers and b) time....
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http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024332799
Very quick update on my wife (Jeanette) -- she is due home any time now.
My hands are hurting almost too much to type right now so long and short of it, Jeanette is coming home tonight, still almost 2 weeks out from getting her foot sutures pulled. She'll have home health and antibiotics through her PICC line.
I am concerned that this is way too soon. They tried to place her in a nursing facility, but the only one with Medicaid beds open was the dump where I spent my last 23 hours before getting rushed to Sunrise Hospital in Las Vegas for amputation surgery on my left leg. She decided upon home rather than there, and for a number of reasons I don't fault her for that decision even a tiny bit.
Her blood sugar has been outstanding while in the hospital past couple days (consistently below the low-200s and even in the true normal range a couple of times though that makes her feel hypo and sick as hell this early on). We are going to do everything we can to get the apartment not just clean, but spotless, hopefully with some assistance of some kind. Too many reasons why Jeanette needs to be mostly off her feet right now, and my options are limited in a power chair.
Okay, that's all I can handle for now. Will be back with more news later.
You guys and gals have been just excellent! Thanks again for your time and concern.
The sentiments in the last paragraph apply to a great many of you guys and gals here, too, our ideological differences aside. I have more to say here as well, but a) my friggin' fingers and b) time....
Do your best to keep her off those feet, and keep the wounded foot elevated as much as possible (she will hate it - it becomes uncomfortable) and most importantly, since she will be "at your mercy" so to speak, make sure her diet is appropriate for her diabetes - keep that sugar in check! This is more important than cleaning the house. Just make sure that the route she'll use to get to the bathroom, and anywhere else she may need to go without assistance, is free from trip hazards.
Lastly, don't go sit on the beach with your best friend from college drinking until the wee hours of the night when her Mother has left her for the evening with a casserole in the oven, expecting you to be there to take it out at 6pm - do you have any idea how hard it is to get a flaming hot casserole dish out of the oven on one foot? Oh -sorry - flashbacks to what my husband did to me right after I got home from having pins and a plate put into my ankle. :-)
Best of luck!
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Holy Shit! BEG showed up!
:hyper:
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And the whining, complaining, sickening dependence of a professional leech continues to infest the board.
He's found some sob sisters, and won't let up as long as they're there to pity him.
Why the fascination with the self-serving whines of a professional democrat leech? How can anyone believe a word from a DUmmy?
People should feel more compassion for Doug's predicament than this useless waste of many square yards of skin.
Until he wallduded himself, Doug was a self-supporting, taxpaying lunatic.
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And the whining, complaining, sickening dependence of a professional leech continues to infest the board.
He's found some sob sisters, and won't let up as long as they're there to pity him.
Why the fascination with the self-serving whines of a professional democrat leech? How can anyone believe a word from a DUmmy?
People should feel more compassion for Doug's predicament than this useless waste of many square yards of skin.
Until he wallduded himself, Doug was a self-supporting, taxpaying lunatic.
It's fascinating reading, though.
I'm curious about something. A blood-sugar level of 200? Wouldn't that be in the life-threatening zone?
Wouldn't that be something like having an .83 blood-alcohol content, really high?
<<<gets really nervous when blood-sugar level approaches the lower 90s, but fortunately it recedes.
Of course I grew up in a family of diabetics, but that doesn't mean I was paying attention; all I ever noticed was that it seemed to make people melancholy and depressed and negative about things.
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http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024332799
Very quick update on my wife (Jeanette) -- she is due home any time now.
My hands are hurting almost too much to type right now so long and short of it, Jeanette is coming home tonight, still almost 2 weeks out from getting her foot sutures pulled. She'll have home health and antibiotics through her PICC line.
I am concerned that this is way too soon. They tried to place her in a nursing facility, but the only one with Medicaid beds open was the dump where I spent my last 23 hours before getting rushed to Sunrise Hospital in Las Vegas for amputation surgery on my left leg. She decided upon home rather than there, and for a number of reasons I don't fault her for that decision even a tiny bit.
Her blood sugar has been outstanding while in the hospital past couple days (consistently below the low-200s and even in the true normal range a couple of times though that makes her feel hypo and sick as hell this early on). We are going to do everything we can to get the apartment not just clean, but spotless, hopefully with some assistance of some kind. Too many reasons why Jeanette needs to be mostly off her feet right now, and my options are limited in a power chair.
Okay, that's all I can handle for now. Will be back with more news later.
You guys and gals have been just excellent! Thanks again for your time and concern.
The sentiments in the last paragraph apply to a great many of you guys and gals here, too, our ideological differences aside. I have more to say here as well, but a) my friggin' fingers and b) time....
I'm glad she is able to return home. I hope her health continues to improve as she heals. You both will be in my thoughts and prayers.
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It's almost like my heart stops for a few seconds then bam...beats faster than shit.
You must have seen me walk by without a shirt...
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You must have seen me walk by without a shirt...
:lol:
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Until he wallduded himself, Doug was a self-supporting, taxpaying lunatic.
We don't necessarily know that he paid all his required taxes. Most libs don't Especially if they work for owebuma.
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And the whining, complaining, sickening dependence of a professional leech continues to infest the board.
He's found some sob sisters, and won't let up as long as they're there to pity him.
Why the fascination with the self-serving whines of a professional democrat leech? How can anyone believe a word from a DUmmy?
People should feel more compassion for Doug's predicament than this useless waste of many square yards of skin.
Until he wallduded himself, Doug was a self-supporting, taxpaying lunatic.
Benghazi !!
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It's fascinating reading, though.
I'm curious about something. A blood-sugar level of 200? Wouldn't that be in the life-threatening zone?
Wouldn't that be something like having an .83 blood-alcohol content, really high?
<<<gets really nervous when blood-sugar level approaches the lower 90s, but fortunately it recedes.
Of course I grew up in a family of diabetics, but that doesn't mean I was paying attention; all I ever noticed was that it seemed to make people melancholy and depressed and negative about things.
200 is high but not uncommon for someone fighting diabetes.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/DiabetesScreening/story?id=3812946