Rant in A Flat Minor

I was in the midst of composing a post yesterday when I closed a Java Applet and my browser closed as well. Another example of the pettiness of Windows XP over the fact that I use Firefox rather than Internet Exploder 7.

Regarding the latest headlines concerning the pet food recall... wheat from China??!!? WTF!!??! We pay crop subsidies to U. S. farmers. We pay U. S. farmers money NOT to farm, and we IMPORT wheat from China. Call me nationalistic, but there is something inherently wrong with that particular scenario.

Oh, I'm sure it's buried somewhere in the legislation that gave China MFN trading status that we had to import so much of their wheat. The truth be told, I'm still pissed that China was given MFN status in the first place. Given their history of human rights violations and an economy that is shouldered by a work force that amounts to little better than slave labor, there is absolutely no way that China should have even been considered for most favored nation status. Period! It does prove, however, in spite of what may be said during the up-coming presidential campaigning, the Democrats are just as swayed by big-money and special-interests as the Republicans. I'm planning on voting for the first candidate who has balls enough to say that we can reduce the national deficit by slapping a $20 per pair import tax on Nikes (or substitute another company whose shoes are being made for pennies on the pair overseas).

Ended up chatting online with a lady who lives across town from me. Seems very nice, very interesting. She expressed concern that I would be judgmental of her because she is in a wheelchair and is over-weight. Seems she has encountered people online in the past who acted this way. How shallow and vicious. When we all have our own issues and short-comings and problems, how petty and small-minded to and self-deceived to judge someone else on such a vain and false criteria as physical appearance.

How about those Bears.... (attempt at clever segue for a friend who is referenced from time to time in these dronings)....

I was talking to the referenced friend the other day. He was asking how my doctor's appointment went. I've been off work for two weeks and to the doctor's office twice in that time due to a flare in my rheumatoid arthritis. After we had talked for a bit about RA, he apologized to me for not knowing more about this disease and how serious some of the implications of it can be.

Being that is my corner of cyberspace and I am free to do with it as I choose, I will now take the time to deliver a public service briefing on rheumatoid arthritis.

What is generally referred to as arthritis is often osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis is a "wear and tear" type of arthritis that degenerates the joints. It can result from injury, usage, age, obesity. If you live long enough, you will develop osteoarthritis. Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disorder. Your own immune system sends antibodies to attack and destroy your joints as if they were some type of infection. Children can have rheumatoid arthritis. Approximately 2.5 million people in the U. S. have RA, as it is abbreviated. RA is a deforming and crippling disease. RA damages not only your joints but internal organs as well, primarily the kidneys and the lungs.

Fatigue is a major component of the disease. Morning stiffness that can last up to 2 hours is not uncommon. Chronic pain from inflammation and damage to your joints is a fact of life for most people who have RA. Clinical depression can result from the chronic pain as well as from the life-style changes that this disease can necessitate.

The disease is managed by taking medications which suppress the immune response - steroids, methotrexate - a chemotherapy drug, Enbrel and Humira - which block a substance referred to as TNF (tumor necrosing factor- I don't want to get too technical, look it up for yourself if you're inclined.) which is a protein that is produced during an immune response, hydroxychloroquine - an anti-malarial drug which is used in RA and lupus to decrease pain and swelling of the joints and possibly prevent damage by disrupting the cellular response in the immune system, but they aren't sure exactly how or why hydroxychloroquine does work.

Now, if these drugs were only a little bit smarter and targeted only the antibodies which attack your joints, life would be peachy. However, an immune response is an immune response... whether it's from the bacteria which is going to give you pneumonia or the little immune globulins eating away at your knees. Ergo, you end up with a decreased immune response to infections as a result of these therapies, some medications being worse than others for this.

~steps down off soapbox~

Eleven years into treatment of this disease, I think I've pretty well managed to do major damage to my immune system, as evidenced by the 3 1/2 months of successive respiratory infections that I had from mid-November until the end of February.

Life does go on. I've been released to return to work, but only 24 hours a week. I don't want to go back on the arthritis meds. I'd like to give my immune system a fighting chance at being able to strengthen itself and have some immunity to some of the krud that my grandchildren bring home from school (or my coworkers or patients spread around).

It has gotten late, and I'm tired. Rest assured, more ranting to follow.

Awnings and Dawnings

As I was driving up North High Street in the north campus area this afternoon, I took note of the faded awning at the restaurant at the corner of Patterson and High. That restaurant has probably been through eight changes of ownership and cuisine in the fifteen years that I have known it to be in existance.

The awning is still perfectly functional as it covers the stairway leading up the hill from the street to the door, but time has taken its toll. Once bright white and red, it is now faded with exposure to the elements.

Funny how things change with the passage of time...

I was just coming from my doctor's office this afternoon when I took note of the condition of that awning. My doctor has been my doctor for 17 years now. Things have changed for both she and I with the passage of time.

She was my doctor before I was diagnosed with the rheumatoid arthritis. She was my doctor before Al and I went our separate ways. She was my doctor when my daughter, who is now a mother of five, was still in elementary school; she is now my daughter's doctor as well. She was my doctor when she still worked full-time before having her second son. She was my doctor long before she came to the university and took a position as dean at the medical school. She and I come from the same non-bucolic but rural background in north central Ohio. We're the product of blue-collar families who hoped for and worked hard for something better for our generation.

I've been off work for two weeks now due to swelling and acute pain in my knees. My knees finally started feeling better yesterday, less swelling but still painful with flexion of more than 60 degrees, so of course, I woke up yesterday morning with my ankles swollen. LOL Today was my second visit to the doctor's office in 7 days. My doctor was appalled at the sight of my ankles. I assured her that the swelling wasn't as bad today as it had been yesterday.

What am I to do? It's just how things go with this disease sometimes. You deal with it the best you can. You do what you can do, you let the rest slide, but you keep on going.

I've been doing some serious thinking these last two weeks, though. Funny how you tend to think a lot when you can't do much other than sit around. I've come to the realization that it's time for a career change. The resident that I saw at my appointment on Saturday of last week suggested a referral for an eval at the occupational medicine or physical medicine clinic. I had to admit that it's a very valid referral.

I'm not so hung-up on having to sign a title behind my name or make the kind of money that I make or having the authority to supervise and to dictate policy that I would consider a civil service position as an admin assistant to be "beneath me." Hell, I worked at the dry cleaners for 3 years when my RA was so bad that I couldn't keep a "real job."

I'm merely looking to be productive. That has always been my goal.

I took a time out in 1995 when Al and I split up, and I went and learned to drive a truck. Let me tell you, I've never had so much fun at a job. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE driving a truck. Now, with laptops and wi-fi, I'd never have to come home as long as I took two seasons worth of clothes with me! When the other drivers found out that I was a nurse, the guys would inevitably ask, "How can you give up a career to come do this?" Any nurse, who has been a nurse for a while, that I have told that to has gotten a good laugh. People just have no idea what it is that nurses actually "do" unless they've got one close to them. Being a nurse is not a bad job. It is a stressful, frustrating job. Very little of the stress and frustration comes from the patients; it comes from administration and policies and bureaucracy. Taking care of people doesn't lead to burn-out in nursing. The factors that influence our ability to care for people is what leads to burn-out.

So, the reality that I must look at doing something else as an occupation is becoming more settled in my mind. I don't see this as an end to a career that I have found to bring great personal reward. I view this as a new era dawning. A new lease to attain other goals and other satisfactions, face other challenges and frustrations and devise methods of overcoming and disarming them.

Some things may have changed and the newness faded with the passage of time, but the reality of change and challenge dawns hopeful.

The Internet is Definitely Male. Definitely.

I'm back with another rant. You couldn't tell by the title? Silly boys.

I have this blog cross posted to my yahell 360 page via an RSS feed. I stopped blogging on yahell due to posts vanishing into cyberspace without leaving so much as a forwarding URL.

Yahell tells me they can't retrieve the feed. Blogstop assures me my code is correct for converting Atom to RSS. Is this a y-chromosome created sort of snafu or what?

Lovely, I just got the little blurb across the bottom of this browser window telling me that a connection could not be established so attempting to publish could fail. I'll be anxiously awaiting the server error message at my next login attempt. I'm sure I cannot be the only one who gets those.

Why the sexist and biased comment regarding the internet being male? No, it isn't secondary to PMS. I don't have PMS in either form, Pre-Menstrual Syndrome or Putting up with Men's Shit.

Firstly, the internet is structured logically. No implication that women are not logical, but if the internet were female, Java would not be what it is. And C++ would be a bad joke... no, wait.... (heeheehee)

Windows XP is sort of gender neutral though in an annoying way, but Vista is surely female. Every time you attempt to do something, "Are You Sure You Want To Do This?" But, an organized female by the look of her directory. Linux would be male. Mac OS X would be male but possibly gay or at least very in touch with its inner child. OS X would be the artist of the group, looked down upon but secretly envied by wealthy big brother Windows.

I've got to abandon these thoughts here. The unable to connect message is beginning to recur with greater frequency. I need to publish or perish it would seem.

Things are things. I didn't sleep well Sunday night. Yesterday, the reason became apparent. My knees were quite swollen and painful. I nearly fell twice and had to go up the stairs, more than once, using my hands on the treads. Hated it!

So, I'm working on being ahead of the game today. I've already taken the Vicodin, Tylenol, and ibuprofen before I start laundry and the associated trips up and down the stairs. Yes, I know you're not supposed to take ibuprofen with Celebrex.

Nurse = NONCOMPLIANT

Don't tell me that's a revelation....

More later.

Links

I've added some links. One is to my yahoo page where you will find the old blog. One is to my myspace page. Don't expect to find too much there. I'm not so much into the whole myspace scene as I was merely setting up an account there so that I would have my name. LOL

My original KarmaDogma name on yahoo met with an assisted suicide when she acquired a stalker. There weren't as many privacy settings and such back in those days.

Yes, I've been KD nearly forever in terms of the internet world. Nine or ten years now? To think, it was back in 1995 that I was saying, "Why on earth would I ever need a Pentium processor? I'm not planning on running GM." And, in 2002 to my friend Steve, who is a programmer, on the purchase of a new computer for his wife, "A gigabyte of RAM? What third world country is she planning on taking over?" How times do change.

I'll be adding more links. I just wanted to pop this little blurb on here to say that they were there.

Ciao.

Vision

OK, geez... settings are acting wonky today. Gotta love it when the server hiccups. lol

Vision - the act of seeing something with the eyes; sensing or anticipating that which may come to be; an experience which, although not actually present, appears credible to the mind; a vivid, imaginative concept.... synonyms - faculty, perception, astuteness, conception, discernment, foresight, insight, perspective, retrospect, revelation...

... you get the idea.

Vision is an enigma in my reality. A quandry which has perplexed me since my early childhood. To the logical and rational left-brain, it makes no sense and should not be. To the right-brain, it presents various venues and avenues of exploration - some benign and others horrific in their implication.

Acknowledgement or denial... which would be the greater of sins?

In my formative years, there was a casual acceptance of how things were. Then, I became a part of a cult who used their interpretation of various scenarios and manifestations for manipulation and control to suit their own agenda. For many years, I closed my mind to what had always been an innate part of me. And, that part of me waned to near nonexistence.

It is approaching the 9 year anniversary of the disappearance of a young woman. A very few days after her disappearance, one of those visions with horrific implications came to me. Thanks to the years of conditioning and programming, I shut the door to my mind and refused to think about it.

A few weeks ago, for seemingly no reason at all, her disappearance came to my mind. I could not even remember this girl's name, but I could clearly recall what I had seen. I was unsettled greatly. I tried to close my mind to thoughts of her but my conscience would not comply.

I did an internet search for missing persons and was finally able to find her name and a single news article which chronicled her fate. Her body had been found just over two years ago. I had chills as I read the details surrounding where her body had been located. I closed my eyes to it, but the vision still was there, firmly seared into my mind's eye.

The family had some form of closure. Her body had been returned to them after so many years of knowing that she had to be dead not able to lay her to rest. Her murderer remains unidentified.

The quandry. There was another detail to the vision, a cemetery. The cemetery was not mentioned in the news article. The area where her body was found is quite rural and isolated, far from where she disappeared. It is, however, about 10 or 15 minutes from where I grew up and less than 5 minutes from where several members of my extended family lived. I know the area well.

It is not a large community cemetery. It is a small, old family cemetery. It is the connection to her killer.

Do I tell law enforcement? her family? post to the website? Just another of the "anonymous psychic nutballs" who proliferate in these types of cases.

The quandry.

Recent Thoughts and Events, Part One

I didn't get to this last night. I was exhausted from the week's events. My final official unofficial act yesterday was to remove 3 sutures, a week late, from a staff member's left eyebrow. Seems she was trying to shave her eyebrow near her piercing and sliced open her eyebrow. Rather than return to the ER or even to her doctor's office (God forbid my staff have a family physician to utilize rather than the ER.), she had tried to remove the sutures herself and could not. So she let them go until they were a week over-due in being removed and then mentioned to me yesterday that these needed to be taken out. So, it took me about 20 minutes, in less than ideal lighting to remove these. Gotta love what I do.

I had mentioned that you are never quite sure who your advocates may be in a given situation. The three people in our nursing department who I would have least suspected to be vocally and vehemently opposed to the reason why I was pulled from the schedule were the very people who voiced strong opinions to the powers that be for that decision. And, their reason which they gave to me when they cornered me this week to let me know this, was the same. I am the one person in the department who cares that the job is done right all the time. And, here I am often thinking to myself that absolutely no one notices what it is that I actually do in the nursing department. Guess you just never know.

I will have to follow up more with these thoughts in a bit, I've got a couple of errands to run and some work to do.

It's late. I'm tired. I have to be back at work in about 6 1/2 hours, and I've been home all of 30 minutes.

It's funny how you never really know sometimes who your advocates are.

I'll clue you in tomorrow night (after I finally manage to make it home from work) exactly what that means.

Guess you'll just have to wonder where my brain is at until then.

Welcome to the Working Week

It was Monday and a full moon. I didn't think this day would ever end. It began at work at 6:40 am and ended at work at 11:02pm. I need a husband or some lottery winnings; I am too old for those kind of days anymore. If I had lottery winnings, I'd probably have several takers for the husband part. After giving some thought to that scenario, I guess I won't be mentioning the casino payments to any y-chromosome prospects.

It was a long day made longer by the fact that nothing went as it was planned. Oy!
Well, things away from work went well. Work was just an exercise in fubar. Just that there wasn't much time away from work.

I had to save this draft last night at 1am and head to bed. Exhaustion and running around in and out of the cold had taken its toll.

By the time I had hit my CPR recertification session yesterday at 12:30, I had already heard three times, "I heard you were fired." Gotta love our rumor mill. Amazing what being pulled from the schedule for three days will do at work. LOL We have people pulled from the schedule all the time, for various reasons, so it's not anything earth shattering. In fact, I was quite surprised last fall that I wasn't pulled when a resident filed a grievance against me. The fact that the person who was serving as our administrator on call when it was filed knew me well and just happened to be talking to me when she was notified of the grievance and able to immediately take my statment regarding the incident was able to clarify much regarding a decision as to whether or not to pull me during the investigation. So, my appearance at work yesterday was a shock to most and I'm certain a dismay to some. Life goes on, and as my boss told me, you can deal with it. LOL

Laundry and my grandsons await my attention. The laundry part isn't fun, but the boys are. Ciao

You didn't think I was going to post my real pic right off the bat, did you? Geez. I hardly know you. I'm a 45 year old blonde, height and weight proportionate (if that makes you feel any better about things), with a twisted sense of humor and a "Morticia Addams" streak of grey hair at my temple. I haven't decided whether or not to color it or to cultivate it, lol. I can be a coffee snob if provoked and have Type-A personality tendencies under house arrest.

Enough about me... on to the drivel...

Gabe got his glasses last week. For those of you who didn't transfer with me from my former home, Gabe is my four-year-old grandson. He has a very rare (so rare they haven't isolated the genetic marker, a lot of doctors haven't heard of this, and only about 30 people in the world have been diagnosed with it) genetic growth disorder. He weighs all of 23 pounds, is 95 centimeters/36 inches tall, and wears a size 2 Toddler in clothes. He just graduated from the 18 month size clothes. His adult size will be about 130cm/4' 2" and about 85 pounds. I told my daughter we need to make him a jockey. He'll be rich, dating supermodels, and keeping grandma in a style to which she would like to become accustomed.

Of course, his glasses are the "coke bottle lenses." My daughter was crushed when the opthamologist told her that he would have to wear glasses for life, and that even with corrective lenses, his vision would still not be normal. It was the first tangible evidence, other than his size, that there are some complications associated with this disorder.

We weren't really sure how much of a difference corrective lenses would make in his vision. It didn't take us long to get the first clue. As we were driving home on the freeway skirting downtown, from the back seat of the van, "Look at those big buildings!" When he was watching Noggin the other day, I saw him react to the movements of the characters on the TV screen. That was new. And, when he was playing the Incredible Hulk on the Xbox, he would react to the cues to the button usage at the top of the screen, and his comment, "Hulk is really big! He has big boobs!" gave us a concrete idea as to just how much he had been missing out on seeing.

My older granddaughter has decided that she wants to learn how to knit. I am assuming she is as serious with the knitting as she is with piano lessons, i. e. not very. So, of course, her younger sister wanted me to show her how to knit as well. The novelty wore off quickly for the younger girl and when she began waving the needles around like epees, her lesson was over. At that point, my seven-year-old grandson with ADHD decided he wanted to try his hand at knitting. He did fairly well until he was distracted by the television. Gabe also expressed an interest in the process, but we do not allow him access to sharp objects.

It's away to bed with me now. The older I get, the earlier 4am seems to come.