Mon 15 Mar 2010
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Sun 3 Jan 2010
Posted by Heidi under Uncategorized
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While digging up information on the type of infection that my mom has, I discovered something really cool. She has an infection called Serratia and is noted for its reddish tint. The most common variant of the bacteria also has the ability to grow on bread, among other things. It’s actually been used as a “natural cause” explanation for Medieval claims of blood on the Eucharist by Pope Urban IV.
Science: 1, God: 0
Learning is fun!
Sun 3 Jan 2010
Posted by Heidi under Family
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I guess I never mentioned it, but my mom was released from the hospital the very beginning of December. There was this big kerfluffle about the hospital not allowing her to stay there anymore (despite the rampant infections) and whether she could get home health care or be forced to a nursing home. The latter two options were basically decided by Medicare and both would result in a huge out of pocket cost. In the end, she was able to come home. We had a nurse come by a couple times a week and we had IV antibiotics delivered to administer twice a day. She also took a couple oral antibiotics.
The IV antibiotics were actually really cool. Rather than needing an IVAC (that thing IVs are hooked to in hospitals with the buttons and numbers and stuff to determine how fast it runs in) the medicine part was in the shape of a ball with a smaller ball inside. Through a vacuum force (I’m assuming) the medicine would automagically start to infuse once hooked to her open line. It was a controlled infusion; there was a part to it that stabilized the rate at which the liquid went through the line into her IV. Just like it would be set on an IVAC except in one convenient little bouncy ball. As the antibiotics left, the ball collapsed. That’s when you could see the second ball inside – which I can only guess was the part that made the sucky-out motion possible. All very cool.
So, she spent the whole of December home. It cost $2000 out of pocket for the nurses, meds and supplies. Then, two days before New Years Eve, she fell while getting back into bed from her bedside toilet. We realized she had a fever then, as well. Wasn’t super high – but in retrospect it was high enough that she should have gone to the ER (anything over 100 during the home health state means ER, her temp was nearly 102.) This all happened in the middle of the night so her doctor was notified in the morning. He ordered blood tests and some blood cultures (which are drawn from places other than your IV to ensure any result is valid/not from human error or interference, not due to a bacteria on the outside of the heparin lock and is indeed in your bloodstream since it’s coming from multiple sources.) Oddly enough, right after this, the drains from the cyst in her liver began producing a huge output – normally we can go days without emptying a drain, now we have to do it a couple times a day – and it had changed color drastically. So Saturday afternoon her doctor called with the results; the infection she had in the hospital is back (or never left) and she has to go back to the hospital. This particular infection is incredibly hard to treat as it’s resistant to a lot of common antibiotics. She was taking a brand new antibiotic in the hospital and at home which we all had hoped would get it under control. I think her immune system is so weak right now, though, that even though it seemed like it was gone – or very nearly gone – once she had a physical setback it came back again. She had been feeling pretty crappy around Christmas and the week after. I can only guess that she had some secondary illness that compromised her enough to allow the original infection to come back.
This really is a huge setback for a few reasons. First, she has to go back to the hospital. She hates it there because she gets afraid. So somebody has to stay with her at all times. The last few times it’s been my dad after she and I fought and I refused to do it anymore. She will not let any of the nursing staff help with things like going to the bathroom or bathing – we have to do it. This is not fun work. I quit being a nursing assistant long ago. Since my dad will likely be there about 18 hours a day (or more) that means I will be stuck here without a car unless I take him to and fro. Which I may do this time. Finally, her doctor made it clear that she would be transferred to University of Maryland soon to have this cyst surgically drained and possibly removed.
Now, this last part is the big one. Obviously it means a lot of time in Baltimore. Which may mean a second car needs rented – who knows. But the surgical draining is a big surgery. She had this problem after her open heart surgery, though the infection only stuck around for four months off and on before going to Johns Hopkins. At the time, though, the doctor there really thought it was cancer so it was treated much differently. The real point is that at this point, I’m not so sure she can handle surgery. Depending on what needs to be done, it could be a very big surgery. If this is the same cyst from before, it’s one that is wrapped around her liver (it was never removed fully – the “top” was cut off and a mesh covering was placed over it to try to prevent it from re-growing.) We do know that it is a cyst on her liver, we know that it has many segments to it and that it’s growing some wicked stuff. When she was initially admitted for it post-stroke they were unable to determine the type of infection that she had. So she stayed in the hospital for 3 or 4 weeks taking a slew of different antibiotics in hopes that one would help. She came home on two broad-spectrum oral antibiotics. When she got sick in November, they quickly identified the infection and were able to treat it a bit more aggressively.
I don’t want to be a downer (and often get angry at my brother’s claims that Mom is dying) but there are very real chances she will not survive this. For one, her immune system is complete crap and the continued infections puts great strain on her organs. Before all of this, she already had a very damaged liver from years of living with Hepatitis. She literally has (or has had) ever strain of Hepatitis discovered at this point. Most were contracted while she was a nurse from a needle stick, which can happen to anybody. She had Hep A as a child. Her kidneys are crap, especially her left one. While pregnant with me she went into renal failure. It was one of those things where we both nearly died. I was born premature but nobody remembers how premature because of all that was happening. My dad was even asked towards the end who to save, as it was coming to that point. She should have been airlifted to a hospital in Baltimore the night before I was born, but there was a blizzard (thus setting the standard for my birthdays to come – something *always* happens.) In the end, we obviously both survived, but her left kidney has about 50% function now. And then there’s her heart. Oh, her heart. She had triple bypass in 2003, after a couple years of other treatments (including a radiation seed in an artery!) but there were two other blocked arteries that were too difficult and risky to approach. As of a few years ago, there were at least two more blocked. Her heart is not well.
So, with a handful of very important organs not functioning fully under great duress after six months of crazy infections, she is at high risk for…well, a lot of stuff. Although it’s clear that simply draining the cyst and administering lots of antibiotics isn’t going to take care of the problem (since it’s been attempted for six months) she is going to need surgery. And she very well may not get strong enough to handle this type of surgery.
Anyway, back to the preparations. Mom can’t just “go to the hospital.” She has to have an insane amount of things done first. Clothes washed and packed, every imaginable item she could possibly need gathered and all kinds of other random stuff. Like now? She wants her hair dyed. Seriously. It’s 4pm and she kind of needs to leave. She was actually told to go to the hospital to be admitted yesterday but requested to wait a day so she could get some good rest (one never actually rests in a hospital.) But, uh, I don’t think the doctor planned on her coming in the following night. And there’s a really good chance that admitting will be ill-equipped to handle her if it’s late. Doctor’s orders may have expired, short staffing, confusion, etc. After 30 years of nursing she still doesn’t get this. Or care.
Sat 26 Dec 2009
Posted by Heidi under Internets
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And we dip back into the reader suggested topics for a not-so-regularly updated post. I promise I’ll write later to sort of explain where I’ve been. For realsies this time.
Anyway, who doesn’t get excited for a browser question?? Well, not me. I love this kind of stuff. Except for the whole part where in this case I have become such a fangirl that I don’t have a good answer.
In my prior life, when I used Windows, which was way way long ago, I used EverythingButIE. I can remember Netscape, I used Lynx occasionally (which really helped later) but the earliest incantations of the Mozilla Browser kingdom just weren’t out yet. There were others, I’m sure. I think I used Opera for a bit but never got into it. We’re cool, though, in a totally platonic way.
When I switched to Linux in 2002, I used KDE as my GUI desktop client. There was a browser with it called Konqueror which I loved. (Funny aside, while reading up on KDE vs GNOME, everybody everywhere was all about the GNOME. I hated it and thought the usability was severely lacking. For whatever reason, I didn’t cyber-stalk Linus Torvalds back then, but apparently he prefers KDE and encourages people to use it over GNOME. I totally thought like Torvalds for a split second which makes me cool. For realsies.) When I installed Debian Linux a few years in, early 2005, KDE was having some temporary issues if I recall. There was some reason that made me use GNOME and my mind doesn’t have those details right now but I vaguely remember KDE crap happening. However, before this switch, I had begun using the Mozilla browser products. I was a Phoenix/Firebird user. Yeah, I’m old school. That was around 2003 I think. There were some things that worked better with Konqueror and some things that worked better in Phoenix so I’d choose based on that. When I did switch over to GNOME, I had begun using what is now Firefox all the time.
Of course, throughout all of this I was working in tech support and being forced to use IE (or worse, the AOL browser for troubleshooting…and IE for my own browsing) all day every day. I hated it.
When I moved to Tampa, I used my roommate’s iBook a bit and kind of fell in love with OS X. I wasn’t entirely sold on Safari yet, though. I believe I used Camino a bit more in the beginning. Another fun aside: people who worked on Camino actually helped design Firefox and make it what it is today. Yay Camino.
I got my own iBook in early 2006 and primarily used Safari. But I downloaded just about every browser available for OS X back then. It was shortly after IE had been discontinued for Mac and at some point I remember having huge issues because I needed IE for something I was doing at home and couldn’t find a working copy. Then I found a super seekrit super old copy which didn’t work anyways. That is why IE fails. I honestly don’t remember everything I tried; all I’ve kept are Safari, Camino, Firefox and Opera. I mostly only use Safari but sometimes a site works better in Firefox so I keep it handy.
It should be noted that Firefox for Mac? Is clunky and kind of sucks ass. But. If I am using Windows? It’s Firefox all the way. I have actually hidden IE on the Windows machines in the house, forcing everyone to use Firefox. Makes it *so* much easier on me. I’ll also still use Firefox on Linux, though it’s been a while for me. Like years. I’m planning on reclaiming one of the desktops here to play around again. I had given my dad my old desktop and he gave my brother his. But my brother doesn’t live here and one computer sits unused. So, yeah. Mine again. It’s for science.
I honestly haven’t played with Chrome at all. I don’t spend enough time on any of the other computers to necessitate installing it and it only recently came out for Mac. Like in the past two weeks recently. And I’ve been too lazy to install it. I used to be an early adopter but…meh.
Now, saying all of this – I’ve never used Safari on Windows, or Chrome at all. Neither have a Linux version. So for portability purposes, I’d say that Firefox comes up on top in this battle. It has a strong history, a bajillion plugins (which I never use) and is cross-platform friendly. That is good in my book. But when it comes down to usability, I am a Mac girl and find that Safari is the best for Mac (unless Chrome proves me wrong.) I’ve had very little experience with Windows in the past 3 or 4 years – ever since I stopped doing tech support and started working in a data center – I stopped supporting the Windows environment and got to just use it as a workstation. I became like the millions of masses who come to work and just do work stuff. Except for when all the job duties went away and I just did Facebook stuff. Probably something unique to my situation. I’ve touched Windows Vista once and hope to never see it again. Never played with Windows 7, but from the pictures it looks a whole lot like an OS X clone. Funny one, Bill Gates.
I’ve seen increasing percentages of users visiting my site from Windows machines using Safari and that does make my Grinch-heart smile a bit. In a bwahahaha kind of way. Who knew the outspoken open source chick would turn into such a Mac fangirl? I guess it’s just that I like the way everything works. And not only works, but is absolutely beautiful while it does your bidding. I mean, seriously – Safari unquestionably has the best rendering engine of all the browsers in the wild today which leads to a pleasant experience. How long has it been since you’ve thought of time with your computer as a pleasant experience? Outside of pr0n, of course.
So, for me on my Mac, it’s Safari. And unless major changes are afoot, it will remain Safari. I will eventually try out Chrome but will probably wait until I get a new laptop. Old Euclid doesn’t like change much, he’s kind of like a cranky old man. For cross-compatibility, clearly the choice is Firefox. Though don’t get deluded into thinking it’s necessarily the best because it has issues. I do have really high hopes for Chrome but doubt I’ll get to see it in different environments so it’s hard to say for that one. I want to like it though. But, it’s probably too early to tell in its current form.
I will say, Phoenix/Firebird? Totally fucking rocked. For realsies.
Update: I did actually install and use Chrome last night. I liked it, I really did. And it didn’t make the angry spinny ball show up once. But I realized one of the huge reasons I use Safari – other than it’s pretty and works well (as a general rule.) Built in RSS reader. Sure, I use Google Reader sometimes. But, I’m lazy. You know that. I like having a browser that automagically alerts me when there’s been an update to something I read. It does some other things that I really like, but apparently Chrome does them too. Like the most visited sites thumbnail/link displaying when I open a new tab or window. And the dragging an opened tag into its own window pretty damn seamlessly.
So, again, it’s Safari forevers for me.
Sun 13 Dec 2009
Posted by Heidi under Uncategorized
[3] Comments
So it seems like my legal battle over the car accident I was in during the summer of 08 is finally winding down. The guy’s insurance has already settled for the maximum amount. His employer (he was driving for a pizza company when he hit us) has finally stopped trying to get around it by saying he wasn’t clocked in/off the clock (but doing their work off the clock and representing their business with one of those handy plop-on-roof things.) And by being off the clock – or having someone else clock him in, they’re not responsible for his actions while he was being paid. And while his shift manager gave him orders to complete.
Now, my mom had far fewer injuries than I did. She also didn’t miss any work, while I missed a couple weeks from the accident along with a few hours here and there to see doctors. Which ultimately put me on a thin line that, once I got really sick and was in need of abdominal surgery/lengthy hospital stays, it gave my employer just the excuse to fire me. Of course, there were no contractual obligations to keep me employed, it’s a right-to-work state. But what I had been told by HR prior to my dismissal and what I was told when I was dismissed (including the letter I got) said that they wouldn’t honor a request for a medical leave of absence.
At the time that this was happening (and some of the threads HR made to before I was let go just didn’t seem altogether legal. I had been keeping copies of emails between me and HR/Management as it went down a slippery slope…but since I was in the hospital recovering from surgery when I was fired, my emails were all destroyed.
I have another legal team working on the medical side of things (completely unrelated to the car accident, it’s the random, not entirely understood illness that afflicted me which caused the lengthy stay in the hospital, surgery, then scrambling to figure out why I was getting worse after surgery.) Doctors in Baltimore are still trying to sort it all out. But I have a separate legal team investigating it, though that’s just started.
Anyway, in my car accident there are a total of 4 different cases being presented. There’s one from each person in the car (my mom and me) to the driver’s insurance company and then his employer. The insurance company had a state minimum cap on their relevant portion. My car insurance also paid into my own doctor bills, as did my health insurance in some cases. In any case, between my insurance and the kid’s insurance, I had well-surpassed the maximum available – much more when considering any moneys collected from the other party have the lawyer’s chunk of 1/3 cut out first. I believe before the lawyer’s chunk, I still have between 10-15 thousand dollars of medical bills not covered. Not including lost wages, reimbursement for meds and travel and all that fun stuff. Somehow even with the self-insurance and insurance of the other guy, and legal fees, my mom already has a sizeable surplus. Both of our cases were presented to the company who employed the driver with a demand for an outlandishly huge amount to provide bargaining room. Thus far, though negotiations continue, she has been offered 1/4 of the amount demanded. For some reason, I can’t get in touch with the lawyer to see what’s happening on my end since my bills are so much higher, as are my losses.
My mom may actually wind up with more “free” money than I do based on how my bills have been paid and/or kept out of collections thus far. I’m not sure though. In my mom’s case she was told to accept anything the second company offers because of certain little things in her case. I don’t know. Again, I haven’t talked to the lawyer in nearly two months.
Now, back on to the positive side of things. As the case is in the final stages of wrapping up, it seems – mostly waiting on all of our authorization to collect x amount and finishing negotiating for x+n to yield the highest amount for all involved. My mom had joked (I thought) that she would pay for certain things when she got a settlement from this. Among those things are: paying off fines for my brother, getting his license reinstated, buying us both cars. Mind you, the car part? Not going to be buying snazzy, brand new expensive cars. Just decent and affordable used cars. With my current one getting signed over to my dad. She can’t drive now, and likely won’t be able to drive again as she physically deteriorates from the strokes and on-going infections and liver problems that keep her either in the hospital or on bedrest at home. She hasn’t been able to go to physical therapy since June and has lost a lot of muscle tone as well as the memories of how to use certain muscles. Point is, she isn’t in need of a car because she can’t get outside without a lot of help. And I doubt she could make her legs understand how to use the gas and brakes again.
So, there’s been this talk for months now about her buying me a car. And Jeremy, cause he totally deserves it. It’s not like he gave up his car so that it can be used for everybody whenever they need it. Which really just means that Dad runs everyone to their appointments, work (when they had it) and where ever else. Then he does errands. And does his own thing. I drive the car, at most, twice a month. In just under a year, he has put nearly 40,000 miles on my car. Which accounts for half of the existing mileage when I came here. Me? I had driven under 5,000 (even with the 1100 mile move) between July 08 and Feb 09. I have absolutely no qualms asking or getting another car. Actually, right after I came back there was already an agreement to get another car for me that I didn’t hate and transferring the title of this one to my dad. Crap happened so it never came into play. Much like me never going back to school because of taking on the role of babysitter.
So, flash forward to now. It’s been almost a year. Which is just about the amount of time I can live with my parents. Plus, the year prior, either one or both of them stayed in my condo for 10 out of 12 months. My wee little condo. (Where I again shared my car with my dad.) It’s not been pleasant. So I’m obviously itching to move. I have been for a while. I thought I could save money easier, but it seemed like there was always a need to borrow my money. And while I’ve saved, there were some expensive things I’ve paid for (like health insurance coverage, doctor’s co-pays and medicines – all cost a hell of a lot.) I bought a couple of “me” things, only one totally necessary (the new phone, aka the $320 I’ll never see again…) Looking through bank statements I’ve done really well. And mostly my savings runs low when I’m not getting any income – big surprise. I can built it back up some afterwards, then it drops again when unemployment drops off before going into a new phase. I’ve actually been 4 weeks without any unemployment now, even though I’m qualified for it and it should have been set up – something is very wrong with the claiming system in that it won’t let me claim. And finding a job here has been a nightmare. I mean, the nearest job that is anywhere close to something I could do is at least a 2 hour drive away.
But, I understand I’ll have to move. I want to move. I hate it here. Not many people around here understand just why I hate living in a small town so much. But when I’m here, I am more easily guilted into doing things that I don’t want to do – like babysitting my mom. Or seeing the same people who hated me in school and who never got away from here. Not that fun to run into these people. I do have this nagging thought that I should finish school. Or something. As a FL resident it is immensely cheaper to go to school there. But will take a while to finish up what I need to finish. I wonder if I should invest a little money into certifications – like CCNA, HP-UX SysAdmin, Linux+ or even MCSE (or MCP.) All are more money out of pocket since I can’t get a student loan for them, but take less time to do so I could get it out of the way and into my repertoire to help in the job search. So that I don’t have to work on low-paid help desks the rest of my life.
Sigh. Don’t know what to do, don’t know what to do. I really want to move by late spring or early summer. Although I adore Tampa, I am not so sure it has what I need. The job search I’ve been conducting there is not promising at all. Austin has pretty good options there but part of me is still weary at living in Texas. I love Austin – plus Amber is there and a bunch of people had moved to the Dallas area (while I realize it isn’t close it doesn’t require booking a flight to see them.) Then there’s Seattle. The jobs there seem mostly to be contractual, which is a little scary. Especially for someone who needs steady work and good health insurance. But there are so many choices. And more of my friends have migrated there than any other place. One of them told me I should go where my posse is, which clearly is in Seattle. Mind you, I’ve never *been* to Seattle before. And am mostly going on the info from people I know there and their insistence that it’s the place for me/I’d be very happy there, etc. I mean, part of me is pretty sure my happiness increases with each mile I am further from my family. Even if it’s a short-term trip. Getting away has always been good. Seattle? Nobody in my family would ever go there. My parents love Tampa now and the long-term goal is to get my mom stable enough that they can go back. So, if I’m there…there’s always a chance they would show up. And then there’s Austin. Which is totally surrounded by Texas, freaking me out a bit. It’s suffocating sometimes. Awesome city, an oasis from Texas but still…sometimes Texas creeps in. Like when you drive past a random parking lot and some guy has giant longhorns just chilling there. That’s when Texas is scary. Cows with huge horns? Not quaint at all. But still, I do love Austin. I’m guessing that the best job where-ever will motivate me more to that place. No clue.
I just don’t know if I should spend any money on preparing to embark on this new job search to not start at the crap end again, even if it would mean me moving with much less money than I could be. Cause the classes for those certifications? Expensive. Also, the tests are expensive. And I no longer have an employer to pay for them…what with the one who agreed to firing me and all. Plus even though I decided to buy a new phone, I also need a new laptop. Stupid electronics and their love of death.
Hopefully I’ll be able to reach my lawyer on the car accident stuff this week. If everything goes as it should, I believe the settlement will be transferred to me around my birthday in March, maybe sooner.
Aye! I really don’t like making decisions. Too much at play. Not enough constants. I need Regular Expression man to swoop in and figure this out for me. (And if the “Stand back – I’m going to do SCIENCE” man decides to stop by, I wouldn’t complain. Science man is HOT. Regular Expression man just makes me feel inadequate, like my penis is too small. But he’s still totally helpful in the penis-undermining kind of way.)
Oooh, aren’t there “professionals” to tell you what to do with your life now? Life coaches or something? I bet I’d have to not lie in order for it to work, though. I tend to not be totally truthful to therapists and psychiatrists that are attempting to help me. Too much truth makes my (non-existent) soul itch and burn and I don’t like it.
