outlook: not so good

Unfortunately, I'm not talking about the e-mail program. But luckily, I'm also not talking about S's dad's prognosis. Even though he's not doing so well on the chemo and they've had to reduce the dosage. The daily radiation is fine and hopefully will see results.
The problem is that his former employer has disputed his unemployment claim for misconduct (because he swore at his boss's brother after being being called incompetent among other things). So yeah, that's awesome. It means S has to have a conference call with his former boss and a mediator to tell their sides of the story and then see who they judge is in the right. Which is funny because his boss wasn't even in the state when it happened. And I'm not holding my breath that he'll get to come out on the winning side; this'll be awesome for his PTSD/depression.
On a lighter note, I found cheap(ish) plane tickets to visit my darling baby niece and we're headed to the Great North on Thursday afternoon to spend the weekend. It'll be 4 months since we saw her the first time and by the time we do, she might even be crawling. I'm not much of a baby person, and of course I'm totally biased, but she's the most adorable baby!
Well, lunch break is over. Best get back to it since I'm the only breadwinner in the house now. My joking about being a sugar mama has come true! Oh nos!

while we were away

So I didn't think anyone would actually notice my absence all that much since BlogHer. But apparently I have been missed. The reasoning behind my silence is the result of numerous things. After I got back from an amazing time in NYC, I joined the new rec center (first ever gym membership for me!) because of the employee incentive of it costing $12.50/month if you go just once a week. We've also been dealing with a plethora of renovation stuff. After almost 4 months of waiting, and sending back a sliding glass door that was incorrectly ordered by the association contractors, we finally had a new deck door in October. With that they had to rip up our kitchen floor because of rotting underneath where the door leaked. Over a month of splinters and walking on plywood, we currently have Durock down waiting on tiling to be completed.
And here's where things get to the bad and the ugly. S's dad is a contractor, who planned to help us. He put down travertine in the half bath and started patching the walls in there over Thanksgiving, but he'd been feeling sick. Two weeks ago Thursday he turned yellow, painless jaundice, and went into acute care that Friday morning. A CT scan showed a mass in his pancreas, he refused to be admitted because his wife was sick and opted to be seen in the clinic where I work that Monday. Pancreatic adenocarcinoma. The size of the mass (3cm) meant it had probably been growing for 2 years. I scheduled him for the necessary procedures with the best docs on Wednesday and Thursday. Spent Wednesday afternoon with S's mom while he was in the procedure. Two days ago they saw the surgical oncologist and Friday they see the rad oncology doctor. From the biopsies they believe he's a good surgical candidate for resection, but they want to use chemo and radiation to try to shrink the tumor as much as possible before they go in to remove it. At the very least the biopsies came back clear that the cancer had not metastasized to his liver.
Pancreatic cancer has something like a 3% survival rate and S's dad is only 60. He's an extremely large presence in all of our lives. My parents live 800 miles away and because S's parents live on the other side of town, they have become my family these past 4 years. Right now all we can do is take it one day at a time and whatever the experts recommend.

ack!

i'm about to leave & the gps my parents sent me (so i could "find" my way home to nodak for my brother's wedding next month) is drained of charge. and they sent the wrong power cords. oh dear!
hopefully the googlemap directions i printed off at work will suffice. although suzanne's sister tells us that there's a construction detour. argh! it will be sheer luck if we get to suzanne's parents' place this afternoon and to the sheraton eventually.
better pack up the laptop now, take out the grover monster & hit the road. wish me luck!

on my way!

i've now ordered some cards for blogher to pass out in case anyone wants my details. guess i'd better get to it and start blogging some more substance.



i'm extremely excited and anxious at the same time! for now, i'll just anticipate the long holiday weekend, so i don't worry myself sick.

worries

i realize i've been missing in action lately. part of it can be explained by the increased attention to grover. another issue is that in the past couple of weeks i've been having some blurry vision. some of that could be a result of my colitis. eye inflammation or problems can originate with other inflammatory conditions. i have an appointment with my eye doc on monday. it's not particularly fun & can be somewhat scary. computer eye strain, since i sit in front of a screen all day at work, doesn't seem to be helpful in easing the blurs and floaters when they appear either.
though considering that the hospital is announcing that its 130 layoffs will start today & tomorrow (need to cut $45 million from the budget) maybe i don't need to worry about sitting in front of my work computer anymore. i'm merely a 'support' position, not a healthcare provider & after all, they say they are trying to avoid reducing quality healthcare. we shall see.

free roxana!

this morning, while checking my e-mail on yahoo i see an article titled "us journalist sentenced to 8 years in iran" or something similar. my first thought is 'oh no! please don't be roxana!' as i click and a new window opens to reveal a familiar face.
roxana saberi graduated from my alma mater, concordia college, a couple years ahead of me. it's not a huge school & i knew of her while we attended, but don't know her personally. over a month ago, i was led to a facebook group, release and return journalist roxana saberi from ir custody.
this seems to be the classic case of a country that trumps up whatever charges it wants to convict someone they deem a 'threat'. she had been living in iran the last 6 years as a freelance journalist, with dual citizenship (her father is iranian and her mother japanese & live in fargo, nd). as i understand it, roxana was initially charged with purchasing a bottle wine, illegal in muslim iran. then, they charged her with illegally practicing journalism after her press credentials were revoked in 2006. this morning reports of her trial, a one-day affair behind closed doors that her father was not allowed to attend, say that she has been convicted of espionage, spying & reporting back to the us government, and sentenced to 8 years in prison. she has already been held in evin prison outside tehran since january and is understandably deteriorating mentally and emotionally, if not physically. she has been talked out of a hungerstrike once. i cannot imagine being held in an iranian prison, let alone being a woman imprisoned in these circumstances.
this is truly a travesty of justice. her father says roxana told him that she had been coerced into confessing and recanted the charges. both senators from north dakota have expressed their concerns and hilary rodham clinton is involved as well and presented a petition to the iranian government. roxana's lawyer (thank goodness she has a lawyer!) has stated that he will appeal the conviction.
please, please, please if you are so moved, say a prayer for roxana or contact your own congressperson. i will be.

water, water everywhere

i guess my parents' house is flooding. last night, mom said that it was predicted to crest with another 3' by tonight & the house could only withstand another 1 1/2' before the basement filled with water. in the 30+ years since my parents' built the house, they've never had water get into the basement. despite the fact that the river is directly across the road from the house, the foundation is built up enough to keep all but the worst flooding out.
my brother is activated with the national guard, so he can't help out much as they're sandbagging other places besides the folks' house down in that area & stationed at the armory 10 miles away. dad is running all over helping other people out, but not bothering about the antique dressers in the basement, the bedroom sets from my grandma's house, etc. as if mom could hoist a full size mattress up the stairs or the dressers on her own. she's already pooped from numerous trips up & down the stairs over the last week, trying to move things as the water threatened. her knees aren't that great to begin with & 100 trips up & down the stairs isn't much fun for the strain.
yesterday my dad was interviewed by the local news about the flooding and my mom had to one-up him by walking to the bridge nearby and running into the nd state governor inspecting the area. they had a nice chat.
my bff of 25 years sent me some pics her mom e-mailed of their place and the bridge near ours. you can see them on my facebook page. we all live within half a mile and then next door is the family business for the past 40 years. good luck selling that now once it's completely flooded.
the last flood i remember in that area was during my junior prom in 1996. almost didn't make it out for the banquet because water was running across the roads. and not that i remember it, but the spring after i was born, in 1979, my folks' had to bring me to my aunt & uncle's place in town rather than stay in the valley. in 2001, my college town flooded and then last summer iowa city. maybe s was right in that he told my mom last night that i'm a jinx.

dark

last week was a real downer, in so many ways that i couldn't pull myself out of it. so much so that i cried at work. i didn't know what was going on with my health with my bloodwork coming back and the possible diagnosis of drug-induced lupus or possible thyroid disease. (and i still haven't heard back from the rheumatologist about the additional labs i had drawn on 3/13).
the big thing that kept me practically immobile was the trial in iowa city. a year ago february, a kid came to town to celebrate with his friends for his 21st birthday the next day. he went out, drank a bunch & got kicked out of the bar for getting sick, and then on the way to his friend's house for the night, ran away from the group up a street. his brother & friends called him repeatedly & called the cops to help look for him. about an hour later, he showed up with no pants and two coats wrapped around him to keep warm. he crawled into bed, saying he didn't remember where he ran off to and went to sleep.
the next day, a 75 year old man was found beaten to death in his own apartment a few blocks away. this kid's wallet, coat and shirt were found in the apartment, along with the door kicked in. the best guess of what happened is that because both buildings were the same number (513), but a different street. he runs off, thinks he's at his friend's place and got undressed to go to bed. when the old man confronts the intruder in his home, the drunk kid thinks that he's the one who broke in and beat and strangles the old man. he had at one point answered the phone when his friend called looking for him and said "there's a guy who's gurgling and it's freaking me out. i think he's dead." he still doesn't remember anything from that night, blackout.
all this happened 3 blocks from my apartment. the trial went on monday thru friday and one of the local newspapers had a reporter liveblogging the event. i didn't read the whole thing live, but every day i caught up on the testimony. at first i thought the kid deserved everything he got, life in prison, no doubt. then other things came out, like the fact that he rarely drank and his family growing up ran a program for delinquent boys to rehabilitate them, he started a bible study during the year he was incarcerated leading up to the trial. he's now only 22 & waiting on sentencing for the judge to decide (it was a non-jury trial) his fate. i still think there's no question that he killed the poor old man and that he deserves to be punished for that horrifying act, but i can't help but feel depressed about the life that he is losing as well, his own youth.
i don't know if i've come to any conclusions about why i was so enthralled by this or if i feel any better, but i felt like my own life was in limbo while the trial was in session. i was in a dark cloud of depression that took quite a long time to lift; it's not going to change what happened, but now i feel like i can breathe easier knowing that justice is working on finding the proper punishment. and it's good to know that the judge is conflicted over the outcome. makes me feel better to know that someone in such a position knows that it's not an easy situation to come to some kind of resolution.

ack!

i just hit 'send' on the first (e-)submission of my manuscript. omigosh! omigosh! now i sit & wait for a response/rejection. okay, well i'm in the thick of it now. after procrastinating for months about making the first submission-this to a literary agent- here we go.
i certainly don't expect a positive offer on my first go-around, but i feel a little dizzy that i actually did it. took nearly 4 years to write the thing & now it's mostly out of my hands until someone picks it up & then i'll have to start the editing process.
*sigh*
can i go home now? i'm exhausted. and more than a little nauseous.


greenhouse literary

not sure what to post

i'm a little slacking in blog-life in the past week. not much going on around here. that could be a good thing or a bad thing.
having dinner with s tomorrow night. we haven't been able to do our customary monday night dinner for a couple months since he started working in loss protection. unfortunately, he was laid off on saturday after getting his 60 day review. his boss was told she only had 89 hours to fill each week, including her 40 hours/week, for 4 people. since s had only been there for 2 months, that meant he was the one to go. i guess he can collect unemployment until he gets a new job since he's almost done with the military & won't be getting his monthly check from drill (the one weekend a month training/work they do in national guard) soon. i'll be glad for him to be out, though.

needs

some perspective on the situation. it's too close to have an unbiased view, but wants to avoid any judgment by outside parties.
*sigh*
what to do?

seeing the positive as a negative

whew!

that was a close one!

grrr, insurance bills

today i received a bill for $118 from the hospital (where i work). reading it over, i found out it was for 'cytology' during my annual well-woman exam (gynecology nurse practitioner) on 7/1/08. the only thing i had done was a regular pap smear and exam (that part was covered). found my explanation of health benefits form & it said the reason it was denied was that testing must go through my pcp or co-care provider. my np is my primary & if your gynecologist isn't a "co-care provider" then who is? it was covered last year (6/28/07, so it didn't overlap) & why would an annual well-woman exam be covered, but not that testing every year?
and to think, i want to become an insurance claims/biller/coder. i'll be calling bcbs tomorrow and find out exactly why this is a problem and if necessary contact sue (my np) to either resubmit or fight this. i'm almost 30. having an annual pap is preventative for more expensive conditions that insurance would need to cover; you'd think they'd want to avoid paying for treatment for dysplasia or cervical cancer or something.
rargh!


today i also had my 7 week remicade infusion. totally flipped out on s this morning because i was worried about having an allergic reaction again. this pretty much exacerbated all the other worries & insecurities in my head, so i let it blow all out of proportion. got upset about not knowing exactly what's happening in my life (work, love, etc) & i feel like i'm forcing myself on s to spend time at his house. at 7am s was the only one who was there to vent to, so he took the brunt of it.
i only broke out due to the benadryl & zantac (who knew that stopped allergic reactions, too?). yes, i had a reaction to the drugs that keep you from having an allergic reaction! where the iv entered my arm, all the veins were inflamed like a spiderweb up to my elbow while the drugs pumped into my system. it was weird & my arm felt cold to the touch in that spot (inner forearm below the elbow.) it went away before they started the actual remicade and i didn't break out in hives this time. not sure if it was the zantac/benadryl combo or the fact that they only infused it at 60ml/hr at the fastest. i broke out last time when they upped it to 80ml/hr.

i hate accuracy

at the chemo center again today for another infusion. two weeks early because i haven't been feeling well for at least that long. and of course i had another allergic reaction. yay hives! it's going on 2.30pm now & i showed up here at 8.30am.
i've also been really emotional & fun-time mood swinging lately. s stopped by to check on me, after he had lunch with the girl he 'dated' before she leaves for australia. he told me that he's always here for me & he cares about me. wtf does that really mean? nothing or everything. he thinks i'm worried about being sick & that's one of the lowest things on my list of priorities of what's upsetting me. yeesh! men!
and check out what my horoscope has to say for today.

Daily Love for July 2, 2008 (Today)
Aquarius
1/20 – 2/18

Daily Flirt:
Little things get under your skin far too easily today, and you should use everything you have to keep from blowing up at one point. Sometimes you just have to let yourself freak out!

Daily Couples:
A problem at home is threatening to derail the happy mood you've worked so hard to establish. Tackle the issue head-on to minimize its impact on your life. You and your partner will soon be back to normal, as if nothing happened.

Daily Singles:
Lately, you've been a tornado of emotions. It's time to better organize your feelings! These mood swings could be an after effect from your tendency to build a wall around your bruised ego instead of nurturing it.

and i can't bring myself to flat out ask him what any of this means (not the horoscope) for fear of getting the same answer he's given the last 5 months & crushing me again entirely.
yeesh! women!

cresting

from the iowa dot:

1107 AM CDT SUN JUN 15 2008

...FLOOD WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE...

THE FLOOD WARNING CONTINUES FOR
THE IOWA RIVER AT IOWA CITY.
* UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.
* AT 10:00 AM SUNDAY THE STAGE WAS 31.5 FEET...AND STEADY.
* RECORD FLOODING IS OCCURRING.
* RECENT ACTIVITY...THE RIVER IS CRESTING NOW.
* FLOOD STAGE IS 22 FEET.
* FORECAST...REMAIN NEARLY STEADY THROUGH MONDAY AFTERNOON...THEN
BEGIN FALLING VERY SLOWLY.

yay! hopefully an early crest means the water will go down sooner. as of my departure for the wedding last sunday, we had roads flooded over in iowa city. when i got back into town on tuesday the river was getting higher & i'd barely made it over the bridge in waterloo. then cedar rapids practically washed away; they're on restricted water because they only have 20-25% capacity.
thursday i took some pics of the burlington st bridge that i cross to get to work on the west side of the river.

burlington st bridge from the north side

downstream, south of burlington bridge

by friday they were threatening to close the bridge, so i ditched work to get back across & spent the afternoon helping to sandbag the main uni library & other buildings. more sunburn. the bridge was still open. saturday i went back for more torture sandbagging. after 3+ hours my arms were giving out. oh, and not to forget a reporter interviewed me for usa today. i didn't end up making the cut, but i had been taking a water break, so no big deal. the mill brought free pizza for volunteers & then papa john's brought some more over too.
my apartment is in no imminent danger. we'd have to bring back the ark if water came near it, so i'm not particularly worried about that. national guard has been out working crazy hours since tuesday & they're not allowed to go home. they're bunking them at one of the high school's because the armory is also flooded. fun times.
hopefully, as indicated above, this is the turning point and the water will start to recede after tomorrow. lots of cleanup & that will take more time than you'd think, but so long as the injuries have been few and far between, it's pretty much material loss. it's devastating, but 'things' can be mostly replaced.
my thoughts & prayers go out to everyone in downtown cr who lost their homes & businesses and the losses that have happened in ic.

in memoriam

today is memorial day & as suebob pointed out, it's not really appropriate to say 'happy memorial day!' considering the reason for the holiday.
growing up, i never had much of an association with the military. one of my cousins joined the navy when he was 18 & was always off on some ship or other, but even my older relatives didn't have too much military experience that i knew about. yeah, my parents' older brothers both served in korea, but nothing was ever really made of it. and my grandfathers weren't able to serve (paternal g-pa lost an eye when he was young & maternal g-pa was needed as a farmer). my dad's number was up next for the draft just before vietnam wrapped up.
now with this war, i dealt with my brother placed in harm's way. i know that some of his brothers in arms lost their lives. and i have held s in the middle of the night remembering the terror of insurgent attacks on his battalion & the losses they suffered. for those who have lost a loved one and those who will in the future, any loss is too much.

sleeping alone

yesterday i was so tired at the end of the day because of the infusion on wednesday. s called in the afternoon to ask a question & i asked if i could take a nap on his cushy bed right after work, before he went out gaming. sure, come right on over. i think i made the walk home the fastest i ever have without actually running. when i got there, he told me to lay down, so i cuddled into the soft, dark bliss of his mattress. a relaxing 25 minutes later i got up because he planned to leave at 6. instead he told me i could stay & offered me back his extra key. over a month ago he asked for it back because his mom needed to use it. i gladly took it.
yesterday he'd taken a 'mental health day' from work & when he told me i was struck by how much he needed someone there. i came back about 9.30pm and he was already home. i asked if i could stay for the night, just to sleep. yes, of course. when he finally came in to bed, i told him that i got the feeling he needed someone to hold him. he agreed.
i really hope he slept well last night. i know i did.

edit~last friday we had a really intense talk in which s explained that he has told me more than anyone else about what's going on in his life, emotionally, more than his best friend or his therapist even. tears were shed on both sides. i wish there was something more i could do to help him, but i can only be here, just like he's here for me whenever i need him.

fallout

not that it hasn't been in the back of my mind, if not the forefront, but this article & this one only served to elucidate my feelings.
i guess i've known for quite some time that the va sucks in treating veterans properly. this point was brought home to me probably as much as two decades ago by an elderly neighbor who served in wwii as a decoder (sorry, not sure of the correct terminology. she decoded both messages announcing v-e day & v-j day, along with many, many more, i'm sure. she had plenty of health issues, severe asthma particulary, and she had to travel 200 miles to get to the state va every time she actually had an appointment. considering she was in her 70s then, it made things incredibly difficult.
now our veterans who've served in iraq & afghanistan are getting screwed over, even if they make it back. if they're not suffering from some physical injuries (from loss of limb to hearing loss), a huge percentage have mental health issues (ptsd, depression) that need to be treated as seriously as any physical ailment. according to the article more than 300,000 vets & only about half have sought help. i know this from personal experience with both my brother & s. my brother would never admit to any kind of stress. he's just that kind of tough guy. i don't even know half of the stories that my parents do about his time in iraq & i'm sure that's only a fraction of what horrors he actually experienced. in s' case, he's been on antidepressants for over a year and sees a psychiatrist for therapy monthly. the nice little chart of symptoms for ptsd states: "feeling numb & loss of interest in relationships & activities, feeling on edge, getting angry easily, having a hard time sleeping, and overreacting when startled" and for traumatic brain injury: "changes in mood & behavior, trouble remembering & concentrating"
huh, doesn't sound familiar at all to me. nope, i don't know anyone to whom that applies.
i'm so glad that s is getting the treatment that he needs, but other veterans are having trouble finding therapists who will be compensated by their insurance. i imagine that this doesn't help keep the suicide rates down if it takes months to find someone to counsel you.
healthcare in general is abysmal, but we need to do more. the government needs to do more. i just wish i knew what that were.

tragic

yesterday morning 6 people died here in town, before most people were awake. a mother, 4 children and an apparently very distraught father. the details are still coming out, but it appears that the dad killed his wife & 4 adopted children before trying to bring about his own demise. he finally succeeded by driving the family van into a bridge pylon. this was after being released a month ago on bail for embezzlement & money laundering charges.
why? why do people have to bring innocents with them? you may have screwed up your life & felt you couldn't go on. perhaps you thought your family wouldn't have to deal with the 'embarrassment'. but what about your parents? your wife's parents? your neighbors? your friends? the entire community? you can't take them all with you.
i just don't understand. my sympathies are with everyone who knew the family & trying to cope with the loss.