Cranky-D

Lately I have totally gone insane with geekiness. I bought a gamecube, ps2, advance sp, and a ds. I already had a regular advance, but the last time I went back to Southern California I bought the SP because I hated the incredibly dim screen on the advance. At first I thought that was a bad move, but as it turned out, the DS will not play game boy games and I have a lot of game boy games.

The DS is the latest purchase. It just arrived today. The gamecube is cool because I also bought the adapter off ebay that plays gameboy games on it. The ps2 is there because I wanted to play all the final fantasy games and they are mostly exclusive to the ps2. I also got the grand theft auto 3-pack. So I went from pretty far behind in console land (8-bit nintendo and sega genisis) to one step behind the curve. One step behind means the consoles are pretty damn cheap to buy.

The DS has a nice bright screen. I think I’ll use it a lot. If not, so what? If I use it just a little while, that pays for it. Plus there are a lot of new role-playing titles that will only be on DS. For some reason I really like those kinds of games. I will replay them just for fun. I play all four Dragon Warrior games on the 8-bit nintendo when I had my surgeries so long ago. They really helped pass the time and make me forget about my body which was not doing very well at the time.

I haven’t been getting much sleep, since I’m worried about my father. I’m constantly tired. I hope that goes away eventually.

My father is still in the hospital. Last Monday they cut him open again because he had a blood clot that the cardiologist was worried about. Now we found out that it was associated with an infection. My father is still under some kind of drug that keeps you out of it, but he comes out often enough that we know he is aware somewhat of what’s going on. He is on antibiotics to get rid of the lingering infection.

When we started this whole thing, we were told that the chance of complications was around 2%. That sounded like pretty good odds. What has happened since then seems to indicate that the complications estimate was really low. I am very displeased with how things have been going.

I am going there this Sunday. Less than four days from now I will be close enough to see what’s really going on.

Here’s one of my problems. Perhaps the biggest one I have, even before any woman telling me what to do. And that problem is anyone trying to pull the wool over my eyes. Never try to do that. I consider it an insult to my intelligence, and since I have a very high opinion of my own intellect, that is a major transgression. The doctors (priest-kings) think that what they say and do is gospel, and their priests (nurses) use appeals to authority to bolster their claims. This has been going on almost continuously since my father first started having problems the very night after his initial bypass surgery.

I got this same bullshit when I was in the hospital around 18 years ago. Actually, it was right around my 25th birthday. I had a surgeon who I didn’t know didn’t know what he was doing. He maneuvered me into his hospital so he could practice cutting on me. I know this because he screwed the surgery up and a year later I had to have another surgeon who really knew what he was doing fix the first guy’s mistake.

No, I didn’t sue. Perhaps I should have.

Anyway, I tend to not believe doctors all that much. In my opinion, they are technicians. They work totally in the realm of the law of averages. Statistics are their friend. They can never treat an individual because they can never know the stats of an individual.

They are the equivalent of auto mechanics. They see symptoms and they suggest fixes. However, anyone who has ever owned an old car knows how to keep that old car running. People as they age are just like those old cars. You can talk statistics, you can talk averages, but the only people who really know how to keep that old car running are those who are closest to it.

That’s why I will continue my sister’s advocacy when I get there, if necessary. I truly think that we know my father better than they do. And we know a lot of what it takes to keep him alive.

My father is in the hospital recovering from a triple bypass. He is 81. No spring chicken, but his mind is still good and his health overall is really pretty good for his age. I am not with him right now, but my older sister is. My brother was able to visit last weekend and will visit again this weekend. I will be traveling to be with him the entire month of December. Since I work for a software startup company, and I am already far from the owner of the company anyway, it doesn’t matter where I work. I have my laptop, will travel.

We tend to keep a close eye on our family when they are in the hospital. We track what they’re getting in the I.V.s. We make sure that it looks like the nurses know what they’re doing. We tend to spend a lot of time near whoever is in there. For instance, I was in the hospital 18 years ago, and most of the time my family was around, often in the room, even when I was in ICU. The nurses learned to live with it.

I tell you this not to elicit sympathy or concern, but merely to set up what happened the other night.

Apparently the night nurse on Sunday was inexperienced. A few others showed up. They were all fiddling with my father’s temporary pacemaker (which has since been removed) and asking each other if what they were doing was correct. That made my sister worry, so she found the supervisor and asked why these trainees were taking care of my father. She was first informed that they were not “trainees,” but in fact R.N.s. My sister corrected her; sure they have a degree, but that doesn’t mean they know what they’re doing yet. Somehow she decided that my sister should talk to a social worker. My sister, assuming that this social worker would have something constructive to say, agreed.

The first thing the social worker asked was if my father had a living trust. Yes, he does. My sister informed him that she has power of attorney for his medical issues (I have it for the financial side). He then told her that she was too close to him. He also told her that at his age every day he lives is a blessing. She told him that she would continue to be there, that my brother would be there again, and that I would be there the entire month of December to help take care of my father. My other sister will be there in January.

The social worker was stunned by this. Here, then is where my rant begins.

I think I can safely assume this social worker guy is a liberal. I have never met one who isn’t. Apparently we’re supposed to just stand by while The Doctors ™ and The Nurses ™ do their thing, and thank our lucky stars they will do their jobs. And, of course, when they are through The State ™ will take over to make sure our aging father will be “well cared-for” for the rest of his life. Presumably so we can go on about our lives and not even think about our parents as they slowly drift off.

What a crock of shit. The way I was raised, family comes first, before all other concerns (except perhaps G-d, but I think He understands). It is not a burden at all to be there for him. I’m happy to do it. He took care of me, and in fact still does sometimes when he can and I need help. I sure as hell won’t give up on him yet, like I am apparently supposed to do.

These are the kind of people who want to decide things for us. They make me sick. I told my sister that if I had been there, I probably would have punched the guy out. Certainly, in my current mood, which isn’t great due to a lack of sleep, my concern, and a previously emptied patience tank, it is very possible that I would have done my best to break his jaw. If not, perhaps a nicely bleeding broken nose would have sufficed. That’s about as much concession I have in me.

One final note. My sister, annoyed that my father’s primary care physician had yet to visit him, called him up and left a message to the effect that he had better get his act together. He didn’t go in person, but he did call my father. My father informed him that after he gets out he is coming after the Doctor with a baseball bat.

That made me proud.

But after that conversation my father did indeed feel better, less abandoned. It doesn’t take all that much to make a difference. I think the fact that the family is there can be the difference between recovering and giving up.

They would just as soon you stayed away. You know how quick the left, easing into their culture of death (over the top? you be the judge), are happy to throw the pre-born and the old to the wolves.

This was cross-posted to protein wisdom

You may recall (or scroll down to the previous post) that I have been having mouse troubles. This mouse will not eat the peanut butter and therefore end his little life.

The mouse and I were at a kind of equilibrium. He would rustle around in my crap (the floor is partially covered in junk that I never seem to feel like cleaning up) and I would yell at him to stop it. Every now and then I would chase him out to watch him skid around on the floor as he ran. He even visited downstairs once; the owner of the duplex saw him, or at least saw a mouse. I went away to Chicago for five days, but the mouse was still here when I got back, and the traps remained unsprung.

Every night when I go to sleep I hear him digging through my stuff. Last night I hear a thump. Then silence. Thump. Silence. This was a new noise, so I got up to check. Thump. I turned on the kitchen light. Thump. Thump. Closer together. I looked inside a small, empty trash can I had left in the kitchen. There he was, inside. I have no idea how he got in the trash can, but he couldn’t quite jump high enough to get out. He jumped a few more times when he saw me, but couldn’t get as high as the rim. I put a small box on top to keep him in, and took him outside, barefoot. Not a good idea when them temp is 30 degrees, but I wanted to get him outside quickly.

I took him a little way from the house, but didn’t feel like taking him really far away. I let him loose in the neighbor’s back yard, and he dug his way into some dead leaves. I kind of hope he moves into their house.

Sure, I wouldn’t have minded him dying, but I wasn’t about to throw him in the trash or something like that, nor did I think I could figure out a way to grab him to kill him. Besides, my heart really wasn’t in it.

If I’m lucky, he won’t return. But I’m not holding my breath.

Update: There is a mouse in here, I don’t know if it’s the same one I put out last night. Sheesh.

Update II: The cheeky little bastard wandered right out where I could see him and sat there cleaning his fur. I have re-baited the traps with Skippy Natural Style Chunky in hopes that he ignored the Reese’s because he’s a health nut.

My first new roommate bit the dust, as I mentioned before. He got a ride to the garbage bin wrapped in a paper towel.

However, I have another roommate. He or she has been here since the last one, at least. I re-set the trap and put more peanut butter from the center of a peanut butter cup on the trigger. This mouse ignored it. Thinking that there was a “death smell” on the one trap, I set another with the same bait. Nothing.

This is a mouse that does not like peanut butter.

I hear it every night. Heck, I hear it in the same place every night. And every night I disturb it and watch it skid on the floor as it runs away. Later it’s back in the same place. So far it hasn’t disturbed any of my food, which is my real concern, but while I don’t hate mice, I really don’t want them around all that much because eventually they will find my food one way or another.

When I had an apartment, there was a mouse that used to just pass through. I think it went through the holes carrying the water pipes for the baseboard heating. I left it alone. I’m in a house now and mice move in to stay. I wish this one had just stuck to the basement, where I assume there are more mice.

I wonder if this one’s a health nut and prefers natural style peanut butter. I have a jar; I guess that’s what I’ll try next.