Sick Day...Kinda

   I feel cruddy today. My boyfriend has the flu (not the evil super flu), and my head has been hurting all day. I think today I just want to relax.

   I used my first official b-day gift today. A free burrito from Qdoba. Hooray! I also put together my bday music list for my party next Friday. I took a great song from each year I've been alive for 25 awesome songs.

   I think I have all the components for my Halloween costume I just need to try it on and add my fake blood. Fake blood makes almost any costume better! Also, each year I want to be something specific, like a particular character, but then I end up making my own costume and I am happier. I get to be creative because I wait until about a week before Halloween when the store's are running low on items and I put together something cool. This year I waited too long for the piece-de-resistance of my costume that would have been fx contacts lenses. They are like $160 and take 10 days to ship. So, I wont have the weird eyes, but hopefully I can still pull this costume off.

   So really today is not so bad except for the crazy headache. At least I'm not at work like this.

   Mom just asked me what I was doing awake already. I asked, "What time do you think it is?" "3:15 in the morning." She was napping for like 2 hours though so she just got confused because we have had zero sunlight today.

Super-Evil Flu you are not welcome in this house!

First Week of School

   Today was my mom’s second day of adult day care. I felt like the mom today when I dropped her off. She asked me, “Are you leaving me here?” I wasn’t really sure what to say so I told her that Dad would be here to get her at five.



   It felt like day care for little kids because we the care-takers drop them off before work and the adults working there gather them into the group to join in on the current activity. They have ceramics, sewing, fitness, quizzes, lunch time, snack time and a hair salon. This…almost sounds like fun if you forget the fact that the residents would rather be at home.


   Adult day cares are a weird place. I don’t know how I feel about this arrangement yet. I need to get the first week over with. Maybe by Saturday I will have a better handle on this.


   If I haven’t said this yet let me just tell you all something. Go home tonight and hug your mother. I don’t care what your situation with her is; if she is alive and has full mental faculties, then you got it good. Put aside the bullshit and appreciate that you can talk to her about anything. I can’t even stress this point enough. Do it!




Sometimes our bodies turn against us with cancer; ain’t that some shit?

Let's Do Some Math

   I find myself looking forward to any type of a day off. Let’s do some math here.


   A week has 168 hours. I work 39 hours at my primary job. I usually work 15 hours at my second job. I normally do about 5 hours of homework each week. So I am doing 59 hours of work each week compared to an average worker doing 40 hours a week. But if we want to calculate free time that would be a whole different story.


   If I add in time before work that I wake up to get ready, travel time, lunch hour and time eating in between jobs that takes my unavailable hours from 59 to 73.5 hours. That leaves 94.5 hours for free time. If I take out time sleeping that really leaves 38.5 hours a week for free time. Don’t forget now on Thursdays I watch my mom. So that is like half free time and half occupied time. So a true free time number would be closer to 33 hours. I would give the average worker at least 59 free hours with their work hours, lunch hours, drive time and after sleep.


   Some of you may not have sympathy for me and my 26 hours less of time. But that is more than a full day less than you that I can sit on my butt, or hang out with my boyfriend, or go shopping. That’s about four and half days each month.


   We can take this even further though. Keep in mind I work for a movie theatre. People like it when you have seen the movies. So of my 33 hours, I try to spend 3-4 each week watching two movies. Not to mention that I love movies so this is a relaxing time for me. I usually find myself needing to stop at a store like Target or Wal-Mart each week for either groceries or something miscellaneous. Before work on Tuesdays each week, I go to the bank and run miscellaneous errands. Thursday nights by 8:30 I can do what I need to do, but lots of places are almost closed. I like to watch two shows on Thursdays, that’s another hour. You can see how thinly stretched my time is. I believe that puts me down to 24 hours to be able to say, “I don’t know what I want to do.”


   This is the reason I can be grumpy and be dying for my days off. I love to see holidays coming up on the calendar. My birthday will be here in 11 days so I am anxious for that. Then it will be Thanksgiving, and before you know it, X-Mas.


   But by the time I use a day of paid time off from work and that day arrives, I find my to-do list full so that maybe by 8:00 I have free time, and I just feel wiped the next day. Wednesday nights and Saturday nights I have found free time lately but my friends want to hang out. And yes I am including that in my free time. But we all know it’s not quite the same. Usually you just end up doing an activity everyone can agree on, but if they weren’t there I think I would be playing Zelda: A Link to the Past.


   But I don’t have any paid time off scheduled right now. I think my next vacation will be around February for my b/f and my 5th anniversary. I also want to go to Mall of America because I’ve never been.


A self-indulgent rant.

Current Events

   Tomorrow we tour an adult day care place. Mom would go there Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays all day. Wednesdays my dad is off so they will hang out at home. And Thursdays will be Gina and Mom hang-out days! It’s better than a nursing home but insurance still doesn’t cover it.


   Let me just reiterate how shitty insurance really is. We pay a chunk out of every paycheck just to earn the right for the insurance company to deny everything right in our face. What the F are we paying for?


   I think all this stress is making me sick. I sneezed all morning at work. I really don’t want that mega-ultra flu that everyone is scared of. I won’t even mention its name for fear of it hearing me, seeking me out and taking residence in my lungs.


   By the way, I believe I caught you all up on the events that led up to this current point. From here on out all blogs will be about current events. Unless I think of something that maybe I repressed.


Jumbled thoughts today.

Well-Wishers

   Mom seems to be doing okay at home. And be okay I mean still needing 24 hour care, so not great, but okay.



   I think people are under the impression this will change and get better. That’s what they tell me, “It will get better Gina.” Uhm….no. No, it won’t. Thanks though. We already know the only thing that may improve is her strength. People don’t want to comprehend that something can go bad and never get good again. But this is one of those times. I guess I can’t be mad at them for being optimistic.


   That’s the other thing people tell me, “You need to have good outlook and pray and wish for the best, because sometimes people can prove those doctors wrong.” So you want me to delude myself and tell myself Mom is fine and she doesn’t have problems? And if I am “positive” that will magically heal her cancer? Oh, that’s all I was missing: false hope. Thanks so much!


   Let me inform you of what exactly it is that she needs. Money and love. Money for therapy, speech, occupational, and physical therapy. Money for chemotherapy. Money for a day care service and money for her drugs. We got the love covered, but we have no money.


   Some of these people who are telling me to be positive gave money to my mom’s fundraiser, so I can’t point a finger at them for not helping, but don’t give me that wishful thinking crap. I don’t agree with that at all. Because when this cancer takes her life, I don’t want to be surprised and say, “But I was positive, so how did this happen?” Get real! Cancer is chowing down on her brain while people tell me to pray about it.


   I think maybe people just don’t want to acknowledge bad things in this world. Or, as a complete opposite, maybe people are too prideful to admit your problems are more massive then theirs. “It’s not so bad Gina, I have real problems.” Right.


Only realistic solutions will help, and the doctors are running low.

Social Hour

   I went to two parties this weekend. It was nice to feel like I had a social life again. And they were perfect; the kind of party with no drama. Today is Sunday. I’m starting to really dislike Sundays because I work a double every week. There is no change to my schedule. Wake up, be to work by 9, get out at 4, go home, eat dinner, go to work by 5:30, work until 11, and go home and go to bed. Period, the end, every week.


  I’m not complaining about the working 9-4 part, that would be a great shift and then go home and be with my boyfriend for the rest of the night, but no I gotta work two jobs. And I gotta work two jobs because I have credit card debt. Not as much as I had before, but it feels like it’s been forever since I stopped using them and the debt is still there in abundance.


   And so every time a Sunday comes around, I berate myself in the morning for racking up that debt and putting myself into this position. I have no one else that I can legitimately place the blame on.
I feel disconnected from my friends. But I feel things need to be that way right now, because if I over commit myself to them, then I will have to let them down to be with my mom.


   I also feel like I have no me time. Whenever I have down time, I worry about homework or some other chore that needs done. I want, for about 6 hours, to sit at home, and do NOTHING. Just absolutely nothing of consequence.


I just want to play SNES games and pretend life is peachy.

A Day Off

   My mom came home Monday night from the hospital. She was there for 32 days with a staph infection. She has to have 24 hour care.
   So, today is Thursday, my day off. My Dad went to work and I am staying with the old lady. I decided to cook to pass the time. I made traditional Italian Wedding Soup and later I am going to make a cake. If I am in the kitchen I can keep a good eye on her. Today she just wants to wear her jammies and robe. She is watching tv, switching between two movies: Hackers and Knocked Up, an odd combination.


   Right now I am taking a bit of a break to use the computer. I woke up at 10:30 and it is about 2p.m. So far today I have showered, finished my homework, fed mom, fed myself, gave her medication, made her bed, done a full load of laundry, made soup, cleaned up after the soup, and put away all the laundry. That is a full day right there, I am superwoman!


   While it is nice to have her home, I feel like a nurse who cannot relax and enjoy myself. I felt worn out since she came home. She is starting physical therapy along with more occupational and speech therapy next week. Let’s hope that helps even though the doctors in Houston think it will not.


Back to work.

Family Visits

   Some of the family on my mom’s side flew in on Oct. 3rd. They stayed until the night of the 5th. My mom’s sister, her husband and one of my mom’s brothers came in. My brother also drove in to visit my mom in the hospital. My brother comes in whenever he can, but we haven’t seen the others in nine years.


  My main employer, who my dad also works for, decided to hold a private fundraiser for our situation. That was very sweet of them and even my friends and my boyfriend donated and they couldn’t afford to. The money was spent within two trips to Houston but that’s okay, they helped out tremendously even to think about us.

   My uncle, that visited last week, donated a fifth of the total on his own. That was so awesome of him. My aunt that also visited donated nothing. Here is where the problem lies. I have thought about this and I couldn’t come up with a way to insult someone for not donating to a charity. My Dad helped me there. You are supposed to bend over backwards for family!! Let me clarify their financial situation to you all. My aunt’s husband is a doctor and they are not in any way hurting for money. Last week, she bought my mom two sets of pajamas and four plants for her hospital room. Apparently that was her donation?

   This reason is not the only as to why I am mad at my aunt. One day, they went to go eat lunch. They had my brother and I show them a local place to find good burgers. I showed them Goldbergs. My brother and I shared one appetizer and ordered a second that everyone shared. It all came down to the check as you guessed. My new “uncle” handed my brother the check and said, “When I was a young man just starting to earn money, it would have been my honor to pay the check.” I wish I could make this stuff up; I would be richer than Stephen King! My uncle took the check and said, “No, we can’t make him pay for it.”

   Now, some people will hear where I am coming from and some will think, “What’s wrong with him paying the check?” So, let me explain. They had us along for lunch! We didn’t order meals! They were catching up with their niece and nephew! What the F is wrong with these people?!

   This reasons is not the only as to why I am mad. Heading out to lunch my aunt kept asking for help with directions. “Tell me where to turn.” “When do I turn?” However, coming back from lunch she was now a master of the roads apparently. Turning into the hospital parking lot I had to correct her though. That parking lot is apparently a little tricky for 90% of people. Mind you it has gigantic yellow arrows showing the way, but what do I know? I yelled out “You’re going the wrong way, look out! Stop stop!” To which she replied, “Shut up Gina! I don’t know how your parents put up with you! You and your brother just yadaddada!” Again, what the F?! I’m sorry I didn’t want you to wreck your rental car! Also, why drag my brother into it? He did nothing wrong. If you know me, then you know I didn’t leave it at that. I said to her, “Well, you can get into an accident or you can follow the flow of traffic!”

   “I have been driving for longer than you have been alive.”

   “Right, and I am obviously better at it!” I slammed the car door and went back into the hospital.

   Not too long after, I told my boyfriend that I just wanted to go see a movie. He picked me up from the hospital. I said goodbye to everyone else. My aunt and “uncle” were in the corner of my mom’s room. I waved and said “Goodbye.” They didn’t even respond or move. So I said, “Whatever,” quietly and have not seen them since.

Later that night I told my brother on the phone, “Just because someone is family, doesn’t make them a good person.”

What did she do to deserve this?

   Right now I should bring you up to speed with recent events. You know my mom needed to undergo chemo. My grandmother was in town to help out during this period. My mom was to have 8 weeks of chemo and go to Houston to check the progress.


   During the last week of August, we all noticed she was really tired and not very hungry. On August 27th, my grandma and I were heading to an outlet store and I asked my mom if she wanted to come with. She didn’t want to because she was tired. Grandma actually convinced her to come with and we would all eat lunch at the Cracker Barrel.

   After we ordered in the restaurant, I used the restroom. I came back and saw my mom walking towards the bathroom. She told me she just threw up. She threw up a lot. My grandma and I both figured the chemo was starting to kick in. Mom said she still wanted to eat. So we ate. Well, for about 15 minutes. She threw up again. We decided to leave. I asked my grandma later on and she told me she tipped them well. I think they deserved it. We got mom home and she did not throw up anymore and slept the whole rest of the day.

   The next Tuesday Dad took Mom for her chemo treatment. She gets two. One is a pill form and the other is an injection through a port that was surgically placed into her head. This day she got the injection. My Dad tried to impart to these doctors that Mom was not acting right. They ignored him, flat out. On Friday, she had another injection. He told them again that things were not right but this time insisted on getting a social worker to help with her care. This time the doctor decided to check her blood work. Later that day, the doctor called and said they caught an infection in her spinal fluid. Mom needed to come to the hospital for treatment right away.

   You guys, so much has happened since then and my mom is still in the hospital. She has been there for 31 days and counting. Long story short, the admitting oncologist told us she had pneumonia. She didn’t; she had a staph infection in the port in her head. The infectious disease doctor diagnosed her and never said pneumonia. She also had a seizure on a day I visited. I was about to leave and then she had one in the bathroom. Although the neurosurgeon said they couldn’t determine what it was, I know that was a seizure.

   Keep in mind, my mom has had brain tumors since 2000. But this year, the illness took a nosedive into a pile of chemo-induced vomit. And what is most likely in her future is either being in a nursing facility or having a sitter at home every day. How would you like to be 53 years old and have a lady check on you when you take a shower so she could run to your husband to squeal that you couldn’t distinguish the shampoo from the conditioner? I would hate it every day.


I think I understand better than most people what the term “A fate worse than death” truly means.

Add some Lemon Juice to that Burn Please

   Next up in our epic saga kiddies is the sad tale of August 12th. This day was a Wednesday. I need to back up a little and tell you about my mom. My mom has had brain tumors since 2000. To present she has had 11 tumors. She has had three surgeries and I believe two or three bouts of different radiations, gamma knife and nouvalis. Starting last summer, the surgeons in Omaha decided they couldn’t touch tumor number 6 and sent her to their teacher in Houston. This doctor in Houston was fantastic and got the tumor out and mom was back to her old self in a less than three days. That is speedy considering the trauma she went through with her first surgery in 2000.

   This summer the same surgeons said, “Uh no, let’s let Houston deal with these ones.” Now she had tumor 7, 8 and 9. When the Houston surgeon did the surgery, it turns out she really had 5 tumors, bringing her to magic number 11 and more bad news, he could not get them all out.


   Let’s return to August 12th. That was her surgery date this year. I learned from my anxiety on surgery day last year and took the day off instead to not worry so much. From communications with my dad I learned she went to the prep area, which is like a waiting room for prepped patients and they wheel them off one at a time, at about 6am. She was to start surgery at about 8am; I think they started at 9am, so pretty good considering the amount of traffic they had that morning.


   At about 9:45am I get a call from my aunt, my mother’s sister. I figure she wanted an update on the surgery, but I didn’t have any info yet. Hence, I was joking around with her on the phone. She told me my grandfather had died that morning. He was in and out of hospitals back in New York for a few weeks with a combination of Lymphoma and Pneumonia. Now, we did know that he was in the hospital and my grandmother asked my mother to come see him because they knew the end was near. But my mother was less than three days away from leaving for surgery with my dad. They really had no way to do it and my dad needed me at home for bills, communications, etc. Simply put, it was just bad timing. I’m sure people can scold us for that, but if you were in our shoes, you would understand.


   Needless to say, this was a terrible day. I found out a few hours later that mom came out okay, but the surgeons did not get all of the tumors and there were five instead of the three they saw on the MRI. I suppose getting all the bad news in one day is better than having two horrible days in a row. That was one sucky day; I’d say the worst of this year so far. I hope nothing tops that day, because to top that day the sky would have to rain fire or something. As far as Mom, that is another entry, but she had to start chemotherapy for the tumor remnants.




My Grandmother gave me a very apt pin that simply says “Cancer Sucks”

Insurance Bills Blues

   Millionaires don’t have to worry about dentist bills. If Warren Buffet gets a tooth pain I’m sure he goes to Dr. RichDentist and gets his tooth filled without worrying about a $30 co pay and then a $286 follow up bill for the remainder. And you don’t work two jobs if you’re a millionaire. So, you could guess I’m not like Warren Buffet.




   Over this summer I had to go to the doctor several times and the dentist twice. Overall I believe I racked up around $2000 in bills, but with insurance I owed only about $350. However, my insurance tried to smack me with a $630 bill for blood work that my doctor ordered.


   The old doc thought I had an ulcer earlier this year, but it turns out my stomach produces too much acid. And not cool face-melting acid either but the kind that hurts when you are hungry, or after you just ate. So then the doctor had me undergo a series of blood draws to test if I was anemic, thalassemic (which I already knew that I was), my lead levels, etc, etc. I went into his office another five times just for blood work. They sent me two or three bills for $20 which I paid without batting an eye, because you know, I have that kind of money. Then, I believe in August, my insurance said, “Hang on there kid, we’re not paying for any genetic testing.”


   I then underwent the quest for financial vindication with help from my dad for I asked for no genetic testing my friends. I made phone call after phone call back and forth from the insurance to the doctor, to the actual lab that bills the tests and round and round we went. I played the infamous insurance game that not many win. And I can tell you this, I won. With my dad’s experience in dealing with these companies for my mom, he seems to know all the tricks. Although technically, in the end, the doctor lost the game because they took the bill and wrote it off. But get this, to a certain insurance company, testing for some types of anemia is considered a genetic test and they refuse to cover that. It’s not like my dad and mom had to come with to the lab and get blood drawn, so that really is a steaming load.


   The majority of my $350 came from dental work for 4 cavities. Yes, children, mommy likes her sugar. And I foolishly went to a dentist on my own. The red flags were thrown when she introduced me to her financial expert that gave me the rundown on costs for simple cavities. This “expert” told me my dental insurance company is difficult and getting an accurate price for anything is like, pulling teeth, yuck yuck! I called my parent’s dentist after that and got in on the fact that I was related, since this guy is no longer taking new patients. So, really, I’m sure these expenses, weren’t too bad.
    
   Now I am mostly stomach-pain free and cavity free and you are probably wondering why this falls into my horrible year category. Two reasons: First, I am in credit card debt so spending money is hard for me to do. I decided that I needed to get all this work done for my health so that I can work two jobs to make money. And second, this is the first year that I realized dealing with insurance companies is ridiculous and not in a cutesy way when your little brother tells you his Nintendo Wii skills are ridiculous but actually ridiculously hard! Jumping through insurance hoops is one more way the healthcare industry has an utter stranglehold on the people.


If you take anything away from this entry, take this: fuck insurance, let’s do it Canada-style!

The Start of the Whole Mess

   So, from remembering back on this year, I think my issues with it started March 2nd. March 2nd is my dad’s birthday. This year it was a Monday.



   I remember all this because that was also the day I moved areas in my current job at the furniture store. See I worked in the dining room category as an assistant to the buyer. But the higher-ups decided to be rid of the girl working in the leather upholstery category. I was asked in February to move into her position.


   I should also mention my dad and I work in the same department, he works in bedding/youth furniture. He told me that moving categories would be a good chance to get a promotion in the long run. I accepted the transfer and March 2nd rolled around, my first day with a new team. I moved desks, back near people I worked with before (long and uninteresting story) and I was glad to try something new.


   I also work another job at a movie theatre, but on March 2nd I worked at a pizza place. I was scheduled that day to leave the first job at 4:30 and be at the next job at 5:30, something I’ve done many times. To get on with the story, my mom called me during the afternoon, saying the dog, Chi-Chi, was sick and she needed to take him to the vet. My mom has no car during the day. I called up my boyfriend and he graciously took the lot of them to the vet. My dad and I were then in a meeting for a couple hours. When I came back, my mom called again and simply said, and I’m paraphrasing, “I had to put the dog down, he’s dead.”


   “What?!”


   “Gina, he was so sick. He had heart failure. The doctor said his heart was four times larger than normal.”


   I got upset. I had no clue he was ill. Two weeks prior the vet told us he had a heart murmur. But we did not think something would develop so quickly. I was mainly upset because I wanted to go with and say goodbye and I was stuck at work. And the worst part, I would have to go to another job and deal with people for five more hours.


   By this time it was almost 4:30 anyway, but my new teammates were saying “Go home Gina.” I left and called the pizza place and asked for the evening off because I was upset. I think that’s reasonable. They told me I would have to come in until someone else came in to cover. In the end, I worked about 30 minutes there, so I wasn’t mad at them or anything. A little miffed that they just didn’t say, “Don’t even come in,” but I understood.


   So, at 6:00, I went home and found my mom and dad talking. My mom had already thrown away Chi-Chi’s food and put his bowl and bed away. It was like he wasn’t even there that morning. Needless to say I yelled at her a bit for that, but her defense was “Why shouldn’t I have? He died! That was harder for me than you!” We got over it in a little while, but that still strikes me as wrong. The three of us just sat there for a few minutes, and then I walked over and got my dad’s b-day present. I handed it to him saying, “I’m sorry the dog died on your birthday.” He was actually okay with this. He said something like, “I’ve had a lot of birthdays, and on this one the dog died, that’s okay.” That night we went to the Texas Roadhouse restaurant (steak house) and filled our faces with comfort food.


   I still miss Chi-Chi; he was cool. He was a little yapper type dog, a shih-tzu, but I liked him. I brought my mom to the humane society in hopes of getting her to tell Dad she wanted another dog, but he doesn’t want to worry about another pet during mom dealing with her medical issues. And to be honest I wasn’t ready then either.






To Chi-Chi, one cool dog.

Oct. 4th 2009

Hello, this would be my first post to this blog.

I understand that naming something for the enitre year of 2009 is a bit late to do, but realizing a year is the worst ever is something done in retrospect.

So, I wanted to basically use this blog as an outlet for my year-long frustrations. I suppose much of these initial blogs would be recapping nine months of this year. Also, please don't think of me and these postings as that of a whiny girl that should just suck it up. I do face these challenges as an adult but I need some way to vent these events on my mind. Even if no one reads this and it's my own online diary. Also, I am in no way undermining anyone else's life saying "Mine is worse than yours."

This year was filled with a lot of sucky times for me. Just to give you a taste, my dog died, then my grandfather died and all the while my mom's illness got a lot worse.
So with that, on with the bloggings!