My Life On Line4
Last edited on: Sunday,  June 04,  2006,  10:45 AM,  Central Daylight Savings Time

A Chronology of events in my daily life.
This is page four of My Life On Line.


MyLifeOnLine4
Sunday,  January 01,  2006,  10:06 AM,
Central Standard Time
entry no. 0070

Happy New Year.  Yea right.
Guns,  guns and more guns.

And a few flying fireworks!

Have you heard the saying:  Stop the world and let me off!  ?

I would like to stop time.

MyLifeOnLine4
Saturday,  January 14,  2006,  11:42 AM,
Central Standard Time
entry no. 0071

I have a toe nail infection.
I have neglected my feet.  Since that day I helped my youngest step son going up and down a 45 degree ramp wearing shoes that are not really designed for anything but casual walking.  I bruised the big toes of both my left and my right feet.  The thing is,  I didn't notice because I seldom bother looking at them,  but one day while getting undressed to bathe I noticed the extreme dark discoloration under both big toe nails of my feet.  I was scared to death.  I didn't know what had happened,  but I researched it on the internet.  I went to WalMart and purchased a bottle of MYCOCIDE NAIL SOLUTION NS,  an antimicrobial solution that kills the germs that cause infection.

I have been using it for about seven days but I read the instructions and realize I have only been applying the solution once a day when the directions clearly indicate 2 to 3 drops on the affected area twice a day, and I realize I have been under medicating my toes,  even though there is some lightening of color and in parts of the toe nail on both beet there is some return to normal color in some peripheral areas.  It seems the medicine,  along with daily foot baths,  is working but,  I need to adhere to the proper regimen of applying the medicine twice a day instead of only once!  Good thing I have an appointment in Dermatology Monday.  I don't know how many applications will be required to fully irradiate the problem.  Maybe the doctor there can take a look at them and reassure me that my toes will be okay.  My dermatologist in the year 1995 recommended a prescription to LOTRIMIN AF for treatment against toe nail fungus.  I saw a bottle of the same medicine on the store shelf of WalMart,  which is where, upon further observation I came across the MYCOCIDE,  which clearly showed a photograph of a toe that was discolored nearly the same as my two big toes on both my feet so I read the information on the box and realized it said there are several things that can cause toe nail infections and one of them is trauma and the other is toe nail fungus and furthermore,  if you have diabetes which I do not have,  thank God,  could exacerbate the problem.  So I bought the bottle of MYCOCIDE NS and started using it.

I was so happy  about finding it without having to wait about 8 more days to see my dermatologist that I started using it but didn't read the directions for it's use properly and had been applying only a single daily dose,  thus making healing take longer than it should.  Now I know.  I will start a new regimen of twice daily applications and I plan to let my doctor know I am using it.  I have been obsessing on this situation since the day I discovered the darkening of my two big toe nails under the front outer edge toward the cuticle and this was about 10 days ago so I have been dealing with this problem only about 8 days now.  No matter what the doctor says,  I plan on making foot care one of my newest top priorities from now on.



I know I will not be calm about it until I get the reassurance of a qualified physician.

MyLifeOnLine4
Monday,  February 06,  2006,  6:12 PM,
Central Standard Time
entry no. 0072

It's been a while.
My toes are doing better.  The doctor told me the darkness underneath my big toes was blood and that it was the result of trauma to them.  I have been applying Miconazole Nitrate 2% topical cream as an anti fungal and  Lotrimin AF 1 topical anti fungus lotion with Clotrimazole 1% to fight underneath toe fungus that causes thick and discolored fungus build up over time just beneath the toe nails and into the nail bed itself.  Fortunately for me the only toes affected by this toe nail fungus has been and still is only my two big toes.  The remaining toes are fine.  I realize the benefits of daily washing and the use of pure corn starch powder on the feet before wearing shoes to go out in and purposefully walking around the house all day bare foot. 

For the past 30 days I have been doing this and as the toes lighten up at the nails and grow further out the natural color of the flesh is coming back as the blood stained nails push forward from the base of the nail.  I know now the importance of wearing properly fitting shoes,  not too tight nor too lose.  I think it's a good lesson for me at least to keep changing socks every day, and letting the sun on them when possible because the ultra violet light of sunlight even through a window glass upon the toes helps fight against any kind of potential fungus that otherwise would grow in a dark sock and shoe and also dampness would prevail in a shoe all day.  No wonder people have so many problems with their feet.  I actually sleep better after taking good care of my feet.  I promise never to ignore my poor feet again.  They may be at the lower end of the body but they are what keeps me up and get me around and to treat them well is to help keep myself well.

My wife has to go back for another visit about her breast because she has a suspicious lump.  It is solid and it is over an inch in length.  A biopsy will be scheduled and probably during that same day or a few days after that a surgery to remove the lump.  If the lump is non malignant then she will not have to get chemo or radiation therapy for it.  If it is not it will be the most serious time in her life and in mine.  I pray to God this very minute that she will get through this and that soon she and I will be able to put it all behind us and get on with the rest of our lives.  Amen.

We watched another episode of Bleak House last night on KERA 13 and it was pretty darn good to watch I think.  We plan on watching a little TV tonight.  I am recording the series 24 on Fox 4 TV on network and earlier we will probably watch the last episode of the season of Surface with that boy and his pet hybrid lizard called Nim for Nimrod.

That is about it.  I don't really feel like writing down much today.  I have to go for now.

MyLifeOnLine4
Monday,  February 10,  2006,  10:32 AM,
Central Standard Time
entry no. 0073

We're going to the hospital in less than thirty minutes.
SJ is trying to get mentally prepared for what awaits her.
I had to use the CPAP machine to get to sleep. I sat up for 2 hours trying to dose off until I put the CPAP to work.  I have Central Sleep Apnea so even though I've lost over 60 pounds since my initial diagnosis and sleep study over night at the hospital when I was hooked up to hundreds of wires and probes to monitor my vital signs I have to watch out because even if the fatty layer has receded and minimal obstruction to the upper air ways is realized,  I have this problem with the brain.  My brain has tendency to slip out of gear during the sleeping process and therefore I have Central Sleep Apnea,  in more simple terms,  my central nervous system,  effected by some place inside my brain,  turns off the controls that regulate normal breathing.  For every night I go to sleep without the CPAP machine I risk damaging my heart.  It's pretty damned scary.  I have tried to sleep without the CPAP many times and sure I snore less frequently,  but that isn't the issue with Central Sleep Apnea.  Central Sleep Apnea is the indirect result of some form of head trauma and subsequent brain damage. 

Maybe I was hit in the head as a kid.  Yep.  I have been hit in the hid more than once but moreover I was shaken by my first grade teacher when I was living in Indiana.  I went to first grade class in Emerson Elementary and my first grade teacher didn't appreciate the fact that I suffered from Hyperactivity Attention Deficit Disorder.  I was taking Retalin in  a syrup base.  She began shaking me every time I started manifesting restless behavior.  I told my mother about it.  She believed it was happening.  My father insisted I get a crew cut to make my hair so short that my first grade teacher would have a more difficult time shaking my head by the hair as she had done, and eventually she was fired from her job when both my parents brought the issue up with the principal of Emerson.  I don't know how many times I was shaken by my first grade teacher back in Indiana but I can tell you this much for sure,  it had to have bad effects to my brain because I developed Central Sleep Apnea and this diagnosis was a year after I was first diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder 1 with rapid cycling. 

I figure the reason I got brain damaged because of my first grade teacher in Indiana shaking me in the middle of the classroom because she had no understanding or tolerance for hyperactive and attention deficit children.  I was a victim then and I'm a victim now.  I was played with as a young boy by my brother and later I got a double hernia of the abdomen and as if that wasn't enough,  I was sexually molested when I was under 5 years old and because it took place so long ago and my memory so clouded by years of passing time I can never prove it ever happened to me. 

I'm not trying to have a pity party.  I'm trying to put my life into perspective.  I'm 48 now and I still remember some of the good and bad memories of my childhood.  Maybe it will all coalesce one day into a logical form of memory that I can make more sense of.

I hope SJ and I get out of the hospital soon.  The wait,  however long,  inside the waiting room where the word wait was probably coined is nothing to the anxiety and worry over what fate my wife may have awaiting her in the presence of indifferent doctors and technicians in a hospital that is over crowded and under staffed,  where the pain and the boredom of other patients blend together into an atmosphere of loneliness and restless of mind stir like the the inner workings of my mind.

MyLifeOnLine4
Thursday,  February 16,  2006,  5:29 PM,
Central Standard Time
entry no. 0074

We watched the movie Three Kings with George Clooney
This morning four Dallas Police officers were shot around South Polk trying to serve a warrant at a house and this took place somewhere around 8 AM this Thursday morning.

My brother called.  He never even played his answering machine messages.  I tell you.  I'm fed up to the eye brows with him ignoring my calls.  He will call me and tell me he went to a funeral today and that he got a certificate for 2 years of sobriety at AA.  But,  then he asks me if I'm going to a wedding that I wasn't invited to. I asked him if he knew that I called the day before and left a message about the Westminster dog show and he said he didn't check his messages.  I argued with him about it.  I told him that if he wasn't gonna play back my messages then I had best not bother even calling him in the future.

I mean I hung up on my brother.  That's how angry I got over this situation.  I will not tolerate being ignored.  Several weeks back he told me he often ignores his answering machine.
He added that many times when he is in fact home,  he will simply not answer or play back the messages.  I asked him why he had a phone.  He said part of the problem was a guy from the AA.  This man keeps calling several times a day and several days again and again and he's afraid of getting into a lengthy conversation with him so he pretends to not be home and never answers the phone. I told him that if there had been an emergency it would be too darn bad if he just ignored the phone.  What if our car broke down and he was laying down in the bed or setting on the couch eating fried chicken wings and drinking coke and he just decided not to bother even answering his phone. 

2 can play this game.  If he refuses to answer my calls I can refuse to pick up the phone when he calls me.  I too can play this game.  But,  really,  I don't like this so called game.

He just had to put in his last 2 cents worth in before I hung up the phone on him.  And this is partly why I did hang up on him.  He said,  so I guess if you don't wanna bother calling me cause I won't answer my messages I won't bother calling you when my daughter dies!

I am tired of playing games with him.

simply put.  I've had enough.

Now it's about 5:42 PM.  I am depressed,  angry,  my last cup of coffee was too weak.
I have to prepare for rain and cold weather tomorrow at the hospital because I have a follow up in Derm.  Dysfunctional thoughts have I many.

MyLifeOnLine4
Thursday,  February 23,  2006,  3:01 PM,
Central Standard Time
entry no. 0075

Tuesday my wife was told the bad news.
We sat for several hours before she was called in for a pre surgery consultation and tests.
I sat for a few more hours alone,  while she consulted the surgeons.  She finally came out of there.  She was unable to keep her balance. She didn't speak a word to me until we got out to the car.  She told me it's over.  She feared the worse and it was this:  She was told that she would be coming back in a week for a lumpectomy and that afterwards she would have to be given radiation treatment for a period of days to insure no cancer returns to the area in question.  It was all she could to do maintain her composure.  I drove us back home.  I have never dealt with this kind of situation in my life.  I pray to God that she gets a safe and prompt surgery and that there are not any complications from it.  All I want is for my wife to be okay afterwards.  I don't want to loose her during surgery.  Although it's not likely that she will die from a lumpectomy from being anesthetized but it wasn't long ago when a former friend of my younger brother and family died under anesthesia while undergoing an operation to correct an abdominal hernia.  So,  it's remotely possible but I have said a number of prayers.  I'll add more later probably only after the surgery has been completed and write on how she and I deal with the consequences of the ongoing treatment and the subsequent emotional after effects of this dreaded surgery to save her life from a tumor that simply does not belong and  with God's help and the experienced hands of the two surgeons,  SJ will come out of this all the better for it.  God be with her.
amen.

MyLifeOnLine4
Sunday,  March 05,  2006,  11:52 AM,
Central Standard Time
entry no. 0076

I'm in some kind of funk.
After my wife's surgery, there is a 2 week wait before we know how bad it is.
For two weeks or longer both of us must live in limbo.  It's like not knowing if she has cancer,  or how serious is the cancer and if treatment must start,  what kind of treatment and how much and for how long and finally are both of us psychologically prepared to deal with this?

I tried to use Seroquel,  just 25 mg the other night to help me sleep.  After I woke up the next morning I became irritated and agitated.  She don't want me taking seroquel,  which was prescribed to me years ago at or around the year 2001.  I took it from about September through February.  Then I suddenly stopped both the Seroquel and the Adivan.  I developed extreme anxiety and a new thing happened to my hearing.  I began to get a case of ringing in the ears,  otherwise reffered to as Tinitis.  It has been with me to this day but as every year passes by the intensity of the high pitch sound in both ears has subsided somewhat.  It's a lot less like the sound of distant locusts and a lot more like a running water from a bathroom faucet that is running very slowly.  The thing is,  I don't know what caused it.  If it was stress,  noise pollution,  an infection or a reaction to the complete withdrawal of Seroquel and Lorazepam, also referred to as Adivan.

In the year of 2003,  in the month of August and lasting from August to October,  for approximately 2 months long I became completely unable to speak.  Acute Laryngitis.
It was triggered off by the emotional response to fear.  The thing is,  I've said it before in an earlier blog entry but it's so clear in my mind as if just yesterday.  There were hazmat units arriving at Parkland.  There were rumors that there was a chemical explosion and I assumed the explosion had occurred at Parkland in the ER perhaps!

But the arrivals at Parkland were both victims  and Hazmat teams from a local airport facility where a spontaneous explosion occurred when certain volatile chemicals in storage became unstable due to a breech of the container or containers and the explosion launched smoke and gasses and flames and it was the gases that were inhaled by several people and thus the subsequent arrival at Parkland ER Trauma Center with people being washed off and given oxygen and other tests and treatments from exposure by both persons from the ER at Parkland and from the Ambulance and Hazardous Materials Unit drivers and other personnel.

But I was already shaken up by the worry about an explosion of chemicals and because I went home thinking all along there had been a terrorist attack at Parkland Hospital instead of what was the truth and what was actual,  which I found out by watching the evening news with my wife.  I had been asked to do Mirroring with my Psycho Therapist the week before and I was nervous about that too.  When I began loosing my voice I didn't expect to loose it for little over 8 weeks!

I had laryngitis because of fear and stress and the laryngitis made me even more fearful,  thus I was working up a negative feedback system in my mind and in my body's reaction to my mental state.

I am Bipolar in the first place.  Stress causes me to break out in pimples and it can make me even upchuck at times.  I have frequent heartburn from GIRD.

So back to my wife's cancer.  She went through a heck of an ordeal in the pre-op stage of her breast surgery.  She is so darn sore and tender in that area and discolored,  like every color of black and blue and colors somewhere in-between that it looks as if the doctors were using her breast as a punching bag!

I had a system crash.  The computer fucked up right after I installed two distinctively different browsers.  The first program was Netscape 8.1 and then shortly after that the desktop icons that stand for HTML documents became generic.  Then the next problem was that after I ran the install for Microsoft Internet Explorer Version 7.1 beta 2 over iE 6.0 the program Netscape 7.2 did not work.  The links were there and the programs existed in the programs group,  but no matter how hard I tried none of the aspects of Netscape 7.2 worked,  that is, the navigator, the composer, the mail and newsgroups,  all were gone to shit!  Then I opened up Norton Anti Virus 2005 and the window displayed nothing.  I was able to get the statistics window in Norton Internet Security 2005 to open up and refresh but for some reason or lack of reason Norton Internet Security Anti Virus 2005 failed to open up it's internal main menu window.

I realized that something had gone wrong but what?  I had to back up thousands of files and put them onto DVD-R and CD-R discs until after about 8 hours was ready to do a destructive recovery.  The bookmarks and folders in Netscape 7.2 mail and newsgroups were lost forever.  I had to reinstall hundreds of files and programs and still after all that  I have some issues.

The thing is that I didn't realize is the beta version of Internet Explorer the 7.1 beta 2 is not available for download now.  But it was last week!  I noticed when I downloaded a page I got a different icon on the desktop.  The reason is the 7.1 beta 2 produces a new kind of HTML.  It's MHTML.  It uses Mime encoded information embedded inside the HTML document or something similar.

Why the beta version of the new iE 7.1 by Microsoft is nowhere to be found for download now is a question for me to answer.  But if what happened with Norton and Netscape were to happen again,  and I can't say for sure iE 7.1 beta 2 or NS 8.1 are the reasons for my computer to fail to work  but I dare say if I do locate the URL to download the actual iE 7.1 beta 2  I won't be downloading it any time soon.  I prefer to wait until Windows Vista comes out sometime in the very near future.  From that I can get the latest browser to work with the latest operating system.  I hope Netscape 7.2 keeps working within the new environment of Windows when the time comes.

Windows Xp is fine for now!  So far I only have one issue and that's with 'Norton Anti Virus 2005 does not support the repair feature' message when I boot up my computer every morning.  I do know,  however the program that uses too much of my memory that I got rid of recently before my computer crashed is called Boinc for SETI@home.  It dials up the server without my permission or knowledge until I found that the settings could be changed so the it would in fact not dial up without my permission or knowledge but the computer made lots of noise with the processor was running past 65% as the resources were being over taxed by Boinc.  I can no longer participate in the SETI@home project.  unless I buy a super computer!  Which I can't afford.  You got 50,000.00? to loan me for one? Just being goofy.

Other issues that may have caused a computer crash recently were:
Spybot Search and Destroy.
not the program itself but I may have deleted a cookie that was needed for some software from working properly.
Another program in my system that can let you delete cookies at your own risk is:
Venus Spy Trap.

MyLifeOnLine4
Thursday,  March 16,  2006,  9:23 PM,
Central Standard Time
entry no. 0077

The good news is.......
My wife has been given a good prognosis.  She is said to have had removed a first stage only Papyloma,  with no peripheral indications of any known carcinogenic cells.
In other words,  there will be no need for radiation nor will she be required to take chemo therapy.  The day of her next follow-up is to be six months from yesterday.

But,  the wait,  and the worry.  Boy,  that was hard for both of us!
Not knowing if she might have 2nd or 3rd stage cancer and that took a lot of mental energy from the both of us to cope with the not knowing how serious it was or was not.

The surgery was a success,  but it was painful for her.

Today we both took the cady up to the station to have it inspected.  It passed!
Now that tops off the day with more good news that we so hoped and prayed for.
Thank you God!  So far everything is going our way,  at least,  for today. :)

I am only glad for her.  Besides that,  my older brother,  Bubba,  told me his ex wife, from decades ago,  had a heart attach and was rushed to the hospital,  once again this was a false alarm.  It turns out,  the next day,  in a conversation I had with my brother,  that she had only suffered an extreme anxiety attack and therefore was placed in doctor's care for treatment and medication to alleviate her symptoms of anxiety,  nothing more.

My brother KL called from Duncanville and he said he needed a ride back to his apartment,  and I asked how he got there and he replied he took a bus,  so I asked him how he was planning on getting back in the first place?  A bus ticket one way is only about a dollar and a quarter or so.  I figured I couldn't risk it.  If I got pulled over with him in my car on the way to his apartment from that so called place in Duncanville,  he might very well be carrying drugs that could get us both put in jail.  I told him I couldn't help out.

I paid him a visit a few days ago.  His apartment needs total restoration.  The hallways of the apartment smell of musky mildew and fungus.  The halls are very narrow and the elevator from the ground floor is so small it was like walking into refrigerator,  almost!

That's funny.

I guess that's all for now.  All I can say is:  Thank you Jesus for looking after my wife.

Take care.  I'll return to My Life On Line soon. :)

MyLifeOnLine4
Sunday,  April 30,  2006,  2:40 PM,
Central Daylight Savings Time
entry no. 0078

My wife has been having difficulty since her ankle injury last month.
besides that,  I had a heck of a time.  Yesterday,  I went to the local super market that opened up a few months ago,  replacing Village Market,  and is entirely Mexican.

Most of the employees of the store,  called El Rancho speak only Spanish.
Only the cashiers and the managers and a few of the meat market employees are bilingual.  I was shopping for my wife using a list she wrote out for me to get items on sale at that store specifically.  I was happily filling her request and weighing the produce and so forth so by the time about one hour had about gone by and I was about finished with my list,  I walked over to a shelf to pick out another sale item:  a 32 ounce bottle of Parade brand vegetable oil on sale for 99c or 1.00 one dollar. Then I turned around and my shopping cart had gone.

I looked up and down every single aisle,  looking for my cart.  It was nowhere!  I even thought that a customer mistook my cart for their own so I figured I could look into the carts of other customers to try to see if they indeed had my merchandise.  Well,  no luck.

After that I approached the back of the store and there were two men laughing and looking at each other but not at me and I got suddenly paranoid.  I had a dysfunctional thought.  I thought they may have played a prank on whitey because whitey didn't belong in their Mexican store.  I was the only anglo in this store and it was crowded with as many as 100 customers,  all Mexican with the exception of maybe 6 African Americans.

I went to the office and requested the assistance of the Store Manager.

He looked around and saw nothing himself and I think he may have thought I was imagining I spent an hour shopping in his store,  like I get off on pretending my shopping cart full of groceries is missing in that he said he never had an incident like this in his store since they opened up a few months ago.  I told him that I think it was a practical joke and I thanked him and turned away and went home and told my wife about it and I was having an emotional time of things.  I had wasted gas and time and effort just to have either a person take it away from me on purpose as a practical cruel joke on whitey or maybe even the mistake of a hurried customer who honestly mistook my cart for their own,  but I called and suggested the manager look in the back of the store to see if anything was in a cart in the back.  I named off items from the list so he would know and then I added,  after he said nothing was back there,  I wondered why after over an hour the customer who misappropriated my cart didn't mention that they were over charged by over $20.00 twenty dollars worth of groceries in their cart at the check out or when they got back home.  Can it be that a customer paid for my groceries?  along with theirs?

Probably or it was a prank by a person who hates white people.

I felt out of place in that store as if I did not belong,  as if I was the stranger who was not like the rest who didn't deserve the sale items that were marketed to appeal to the Spanish people of Oak Cliff.  I can feel racial hatred from blacks and mexicans in some instances.  Racism is a negative emotion and it can be felt when you are surrounded by almost an entire store of Hispanics in a time frame like this one,  where a Mexican revolt has recently taken place with students in major cities in regards to Washington's immigration proposals.

Perhaps I am living in a time of intense racial profiling.  I don't know but since I am white I have to figure I will be treated partly well and partly with prejudice by the Mexican and the African American communities as I go through life.

An hour or more later I returned to El Rancho and holding tight to my shopping cart,  I went through the list my wife gave me and I got everything on that list and paid with cash and drove home with the thought in mind I would not be defeated by this incident of the stolen shopping cart full of groceries at El Rancho Grocery Store and that I would push on and survive it.

The days before this I witnessed 6 teen age Hispanic boys in front of an abandoned house across the street.  I first was annoyed from my home by the loud screaming outside and then I looked and saw the 6 teens wearing white shirts and some wearing back packs going East on Illinois, taking turn picking up and throwing rocks into the windows of the abandoned house and breaking several panes of glass then ran further East down the street.

I reported it to Police but they told me the owner had to report it but I insisted no one lived in the house because it was abandoned,  and later I learned that the bank had foreclosed on the resident's mortgage and they had moved out leaving it up to the bank to try to deal with the current state of vandalism.

I give up.  The police don't think it is worth bothering over and why should I care?  I only live right across the street from the house that was vandalized and that makes it no problem to the Police because it was not our house specifically and why should a neighbor care about another neighbor when a crime has been committed?  Unless,  of course it is a major crime like murder.  These days the police argue that it isn't worth their time if you report lesser crimes by calling 911 for than homicide,  fire,  car crash or breaking and entering and stuff like that.  Stuff like throwing rocks and breaking neighbor's windows in broad daylight and costing the home owner hundreds of dollars in repairs has a lesser appeal to the local police it seems.

MyLifeOnLine4
Friday,  May 05,  2006,  1:46 PM,
Central Daylight Savings Time
entry no. 0079

We managed to get around a bit more these past few days
We went to Wal*Mart and my wife walked,  using the shopping cart as a walker down from one entrance to the other only to find out that there were no more motorized shopping carts available.  All were in use by other shoppers.  So she waited on a bench while I went to the car and fetched her a wheel chair.  I got her into it and pulled a shopping cart behind me while I pushed some and she wheeled herself now and then and I filled up the cart with the items she asked for.  Today she managed to walk all the way down the steps,  out to the car and from here to the North Oak Cliff library she managed to walk from the car to the library and walked inside as I held all her books and when we checked out we walked together slowly and carefully and got back into the car and drove to a Mc Donald's and I bought a cheeseburger and then we drove to a local Churches to get her the 3 piece regular recipe special for only $2.49  not including a jalapeno pepper.

Once back home we began to get ready to eat,  my burger with a cup of 2% milk and her 3 piece chicken and biscuit then the phone rang.

Bubba was on the phone.  He said it was important so I listened to him carefully as he said he got a letter from the doctor after his CT scan of the head and neck and of the chest areas.  He said there were parts of the letter he didn't understand and asked if he could come down and let us read the letter for him.  I agreed.  He walked down to our house and I set aside my half eaten cheese burger and let him in the front door and he handed me the letter which I asked my wife to read.  She did.  The letter informed us that Bubba had Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease,  aka emphysema.  He also is said to have a thickening of the liver and nodules of the Thyroid called Granulomatous nodules.
These were said to be either in his lungs or in his Thyroid glands and plaque in the aorta between the stomach and the heart.

The nodules were in his stomach.  Anyway,  I became very upset with this information.

My brother smoked since he was 12 and drank since he was 16.  He is a recovering alcoholic.  I realize I have not smoked much at all in my entire life but I had been exposed to second hand smoke from both my parents who were chain smokers their entire lives so if I don't get emphysema from it I will be very blessed.  I do,  however,  have bronchitis and I have severe allergies and I cough and have to clear my throat often and have to take Allegra during high pollen seasons.  But my brother will have to watch his diet and also be careful and avoid getting around other people who smoke,  especially at the AA meetings.

God help my brother.  I love him.  I don't want to loose him.

My wife SJ is getting lots better thank you Jesus.

My other brother KL is not at his apartment and this is because he got paid last week and he used to go get drugs back in the recent past each time he got his monthly check.

His friend T is said to have recently checked into a Rehab Center,  and that particular fact disturbs me as it is likely,  very likely that T has been a bad influence on my brother KL.

KL is a recovering drug abuser and to this day I fear that he has not completely stopped abusing illegal drugs.  The probability of him not stopping using drugs is due to their ready accessibility in our neighborhood and his past history of drug addiction to such narcotics and barbiturates as Cocaine and Black Tar Heroine and Marijuana.

I love my other brother KL also,  but I can not hold his hand and put a gun to his head to influence his daily life decisions about drugs and alcohol.

I only pray that he has not over dosed and killed himself from it.

Both Bubba JJr and KL have a history of drug and alcohol addiction and abuse.

I share some of this but I did not take it so far as they.

I used only a small amount of drugs like whacky tobbacky and Heineken beer over a ten year period of time and I quickly stopped the Mary Jane and continued off and on with beer drinking throughout my adult life until 1995 when I was diagnosed as having Bipolar Disorder and put on Lithium.  My wife is a good woman.  She does not drink nor smoke nor use abusive language.  She has been the single most positive influence on my life and my decision to give up alcohol and drugs.  It's been tempting at times,  but I continue to fight the demons of temptation as far as alcohol is concerned especially Heineken beer and frozen margaritas.

I give in to coffee mainly and I know that ain't good for you either.
I also drink my share of soft drinks like Dr. Pepper and Coke.
But I prefer milk and iced tea with most meals and stick to it day after day.

That's about all for now.  I'm tired.

MyLifeOnLine4
Monday,  May 08,  2006,  9:15 AM,
Central Daylight Savings Time
entry no. 0080

I'm starting the day off right.  By having a hot cup of coffee! :)
Well,  it's just another day.  Nothing in sight for this day.  Just play it by ear.

My wife has to call the hospital because she was told in a certified letter that she had missed a followup appointment after breast surgery.  Funny though,  her surgeon told her she didn't need a followup for 6 months because her surgery was a success and that they had found absolutely no cancer in the tissue that was removed during her lumpectomy.

The lump was referred to as a papyloma,  but it was contained within the lump and did not exceed the boundaries of it.  There was no high T-cell count in her blood draw and nothing to indicate mastasization of the tissue boundaries after removal of the suspicious lump.

She is worried that because of this letter and it's contents that they might have found something a later time but that is ridiculous because professional and well educated surgeons do not make mistakes that would warrant a followup in just a few months after having found nothing invasive in any of the mass removed.  All suspicion would have been determined prior to my wife's release and post surgery consultation with her surgeon I would expect.

Other departments might want to do post surgery routine follow-ups just as a matter of course but I know my wife detests the painful and indifferent way the technicians treat her when doing a simple set of mammograms by telling her to stay still and by pressing painfully hard against her breasts to the point of excruciating.  The technicians at the hospital can sometimes make a patient feel dehumanized and humiliated by their hurry up and get it done attitudes.

Not all of them are this barbaric but many of them simply are that way.

I once had to wait 3 months to go to dermatology to have my face looked at to get medicine for adult acne wo in the 3 months prior to my appointment my face cleared up on it's own an by the time I got to my appointment I felt it useless to be there and because I had a prescription to obtain downstairs I was unable to wait over the one hour period in which my number would appear on an overhead panel before even getting the opportunity to drop off my prescriptions so I had to move on upstairs to the clinic where I would be seen and forfeit my waiting time downstairs for nothing.  Once I got in the clinic,  although a few minutes early and having registered over an hour earlier,  I had been told to set and wait.  I waited and I waited until over 2 and a half hours passed.  I got up and told the clerk at the desk that I had to go.  I had a wife setting and waiting in her car for me and  that I had been waiting long enough and I wanted to reschedule the appointment for a later time.  The clerk at the desk obliged me by giving me an appointment for 30 days later.  That was a cruel joke because I figured after waiting almost 3 hours and missing my chance to drop off my medicine at the ground floor pharmacy I should be given a break but no breaks were given.  A month later I called them up and canceled my second appointment because I simply was tired of getting the run around.

I had to cancel 2 appointments in general medicine after a yearly blood lab for just regular blood work for my annual physical because my wife had hurt her left ankle to the extent that she was laid up in the bed for days and days on end until about a month later when she and I were able to get to the hospital to have her looked at so by then her x-ray indicated she had a fracture but by now it had healed or a fracture had occurred years ago and that it had been discovered incidentally from the recent x-ray.

The fact is,  I have a new appointment I am not looking forward to later this week and I know I will be there all day or at least 5 hours.  It's silly kind of.  That you can have an appointment and that appointment is meaningless.  The fact is you can get registered at your scheduled appointment but you must and will wait for over 2 hours before a doctor will see you.

It's routine at the county hospital.

It makes me so stressed out that in spite of my daily Lithium intake of 1,350 mg I am nervous,  apprehensive,  depressed and so on just because I dread going to the hospital.

Even if I get a clean bill of health,  I will be so tired from the wait and so wasted emotionally from the time spent there that by the time I arrive home after a bumpy and speedy bus ride to and from the hospital I will not be able to appreciate a good dinner and a few hours watching even my favorite television shows with my wife in the comfort of our own living room.

My brother has been diagnosed with a level of development of the disease COPD
and that has been a very disturbing bit of information for me to assimilate.


MyLifeOnLine4
Tuesday,  May 23,  2006,  10:17 AM,
Central Daylight Savings Time
entry no. 0081

What is the deal with all these latest movie releases?
What is the deal with Broken Back Mountain and The Da Vinci Code?
There is no Code! Maybe there is a bar code somewhere!
There may indeed be a few faggot cowboys but who really wants to watch it on video?
And what is the deal with Mad Donna pretending to be Jesus on the cross?
I am sick of the current entertainment industry.  Its as if they have pushed the envelope so damned far that the envelope has fallen off the desk and pushed off into another galaxy!

I would strongly advise everyone to just say no to modern entertainment and let's wait until the next thousand years to see if anything new and decent gets created.

But no.  All the good movies have already been made and most of the stuff that passes itself off as entertainment today is trash.

Then I think,  what happened to Captain Kirk?  He's turned into Denny Crane,  with mad cow disease,  defending people in outrageous lawsuits using emotion as the primary base of winning any and every case?

Well,  I for one am very dissatisfied.  I grew up with Star Trek and from my perspective William Shatner did a huge job of carrying off the role of of a Starship Captain in a time when the universal language was English and the Prime Directive was indeed the Non Interference Directive.  We could all take a lesson from that perspective as we indeed interfere with every country we feel like interfering with.  And we live in America today where Mexicans are rallying up against English to force an issue of a Bilingual version of the National Anthem!

Finally,  every time I see a grocery ad for 10 for 10 or hear loud obnoxious RAP from open windows of a nearby car I want to cry out loud: "Scotty,  please beam me up!"

Give me a f****** Break!

MyLifeOnLine4
Saturday,  May 27,  2006,  5:21 PM,
Central Daylight Savings Time
entry no. 0082

We went to Kroger today.
After several minutes I got thirsty.  I looked around to try to find a cold frappuccino or an energy drink.  Nothing at the front that I wanted.  I decided I would pick from one of the 4 soft drink vending machines in the main lobby of the store.  They read: "OUT OF ORDER." 

From the first,  second,  third  to well,  the forth didn't say anything but the rest of them read out of order.  So I figured why not,  it happens to be the one machine that carries only Kroger brand soft drinks,  whereas the others that say Coca-Cola or Dr. Pepper are "OUT OF ORDER!"  But every time I plucked a quarter down the coin slot of the Kroger soft drink machine,  it fell back to the return drop.  I did this a few times and figured this one too is out of order,  but you know,  come to think of it,  these same machines were out of order a few weeks ago!  I asked a courtesy clerk if this forth vending machine was OUT OF ORDER,  and he replied,  "YES." 

I went inside to look for a soft drink and discovered that every register had a soft drink refrigerator full of a variety of 16 ounce bottles of Pepsi,  Coke,  and Dr. Pepper for sale for $1.29 each.  Yea,  that was more than .50 fifty cents as it were the machines that provide such a discount don't have anything in them as usual.  I took out a coke for a dollar and twenty nine cents,  plus sales tax and tried to buy it at the very first register but guess what? 

That guy said he just closed down his register,  that very second!  I went over to Customer Service and the woman at the register next to the other woman at the desk said in a loud voice,  "Will this be all?"  Right after that I began to reply, "Yes." but,  she added,  "How are you today?"  I just stared at her and she repeated: "Is this everything? How Are You today?" I realized she was insisting on a reply so I said in a meaningless tone of normalcy,  "I am fine,  thank you." I added,  "Did you know that all the vending machines in the lobby are out of order?"  She just said,  "Okay then."  It was as if she did not hear what I just said,  like there was a lack of communication between me and that Customer Service woman.  I brought the coke over to my wife as she was doing some last minute browsing and I did some last minute gulping. 

We were at the registers now to pay for our groceries and there were lines at every register so we saw one that seemed to be taking regular amounts of groceries and when the time came to unload them I started placing the bag of potatoes and the box of 24 ounce 7ups on the conveyor belt,  the person in front of us was still being checked out and then after about 6 minutes later when it was our turn,  the clerk said,  "You can't check out in this line.  You have too many groceries."  I looked up and saw the sign that said,  1 to 15 items Express checkout.  There were 2 such lines from the cash only express line.  I replied after loading the groceries back in the cart,  "Thanks for telling me."  It made me angry.  He could have told us the moment he saw us standing there that we were in the express line. 

By the time we managed to get over to another register there were others in front of us as usual,  and one guy was in front of us and the person ahead of him was about to finish their transaction.  Then that same woman from Customer Service walked over to where we were standing at the second checkout line and told the man in front of us that he would be the last customer because she was going to shut down this register and she walked us over to the third,  next register.  There was a person in front of us there too and another person still getting ready to finish their transaction. 

We had gone from point A to Point B to Point C.  I really got at it putting our groceries on the belt before yet another cashier would have a notion to say,  (MY REGISTER IS CLOSED,  GO TO THE NEXT AVAILABLE REGISTER.)  nothing to this effect happened,  but I was about to get ready to walk out of that store after all the jibber jabber I had to deal with,  both she and I had to deal with!

So I have a rant here.  First,  the store got no coke in their coke machines.  Second,  they don't wanna hear you gripe about the coke machines in the front of the store entry.  Third, they don't have a convenient place to get a shopping cart at the entrance of the store.

I could go on.  Yea,  why not go on?  The one single row that is lined with trees outside in the parking lot gives shade to over 30 motorists but the downside of this are the birds use the area to eat and to defecate on the cars and the lot itself.  The idea I would suggest here strongly is there should be no trees but instead,  concrete reinforced over hangs to provide shade from the heat so all the cars parked in the lot would be cooler and thus make the customers happier.

take a look at it below:


No bird droppings either!

Remove the vending machines.  I know they want to make you feel dumb when you have to ask where you can get a cold drink in the store and they know you will buy a one dollar and twenty nine cent plus tax drink because they know that the stupid coke and other soft drink vending machines at the store's entrance are never working so the store gets to make more money from everyone who get thirsty!

I know it and they know it.  Crappy stores make you feel crappy from start to finish.
There's no excuse but why should a customer have to pretend to enjoy themselves when the store is doing it's best and going out of their way to make you feel miserable?  The over crowded,  hectic,  hurry up buy this buy that mentality is enough to make me want to do all my shopping by remote courier.  We have to stand in line.  No big deal.  That is the last of my problems,  but when you see that the only lines that don't have a sign over them,  like 15 items or less or cash only or no one is at this register,  then that register's line will have about 12 people with shopping carts full to the brim waiting in line for the same bargains.  It is a rat race with no cheese.

Wy wife loves going to the store.  She is a happy camper. I am not.

Yesterday,  when she and I had to wait for her to see a doctor who was in fact PA,  which is an acronym for Physician's Assistant, who by the way was not in his office at the time and we waited and we waited and I complained and finally we left the building.

It was silly from my point of view.  The front desk didn't even have my wife on their computer but they didn't argue that we may be on the wrong floor to see Dr. Whoever
but the thing is I went back to the nurse's station and asked if a Dr. Whoever was expected in this office soon?  The three doctors or nurses or PAs all agreed that Dr. Whoever was expected but no one knew when.  When,  I thought.  They insisted I would be able to find out everything I wanted to know about Dr. Whoever by talking to the lady at the front desk.  No thank you.  I thought,  The lady at the front desk is the one who said only this: Dr. Whoever is not in yet and we don't have your wife's information on the computer and there were no appointments made to see Dr. Whoever today and just have a seat and wait.  We waited there in the hall which has been transformed into an extended overflow waiting room for excessive numbers of patients in the main waiting rooms beyond the door.

That door,  is another thing.  It won't open normally.  It remains locked unless you walk back three steps,  move to the right and press a large silver button on the wall and wait for the door to open automatically.  As I sat there the hour and a half with my wife I saw how freakishly stupid the whole setup was.  Practically everyone tried to open the door normally and practically every time that failed one of the men or women setting in the chairs in the hall looking at the spectacle would try to extend their courtesy by informing the stranger that he or she must stand back out of the path of the infra red detector and press the silver button on the wall to the right to get the door to open.  I suggested out of frustration. out loud so the entire crowd could hear,  "The door probably cost about four thousand dollars to buy and the maintenance costs on it are probably over ten thousand dollars a year. It would be best for all concerned to just remove the door and leave the opening bare,  or at least put a sign up to inform everyone THIS IS A HIGH TECH DOOR.  PLEASE FOLLOW STRICT INSTRUCTIONS BEFORE USING. "

One person laughed and the rest were just too much in their own misery to appreciate my sarcasm.  But that door is stupid.  It is a parody of Rube Goldberg from his book Inventions.  Making something that is so darn complicated just to do some very very simple task is such a parody I relate to in this situation of the Hospital automatic opening handy cap accessible IQ resistant barrier system.  Or they could just remove the damned thing and replace it with an ordinary door with a lock.  It would of course have to be unlocked during business hours and locked after business hours but give me a break.  You will laugh and almost cry when you take a look at the Hospital Automatic Opening Handy Cap Accessible IQ Resistant Barrier System.

On the 2nd floor of the ACC,  ambulatory care clinics on the elevator side there are those big silver buttons and they do work to make it easier for men and women to get in and out of the rest rooms using a crutch or a wheel chair or a walker.  The funny thing is,  why don't the other subsequent floors of the ACC have such a button?  I noticed from my own personal observations that many of the other if not all the other floors along the same side of the ACC from floors 1 to 7 do not have the handicapped automatic door opening system,  or BIG SILVER PRESS HERE BUTTON.  Why is that?

MyLifeOnLine4
Sunday,  June 04,  2006,  5:21 PM,
Central Daylight Savings Time
entry no. 0083

McLaughlin was on at five this morning.
Issue one?
US Marines killing Iraqi civilians, inside their homes after an insurgency attack.
Is this what the war on terror has become?  A free for all?

I got the big picture.  It don't fit on my wall.  Sunday morning is not a good thing.  I mean,  We both get up and do our morning rituals,  she does her makeup and hair and gets dressed,  after I got up earlier to make coffee and put away last nights dishes and wipe down the stove.  The thing is,  what I really hate about Sundays is that you can't go to the library until 1:00 PM and today's high is expected to be 97 degrees Fahrenheit.  That ain't good for my complexion.

If we could leave the house at around eight and get our shopping and library browsing done before noon things would seem hunky dory.  But,  when you have to wait in the house half the day just to wait for the library to open up and several other retail stores,  you pretty well get stir crazy. 

I can't get into my blog if I am fixing to go drive out to the post office which is closed on Sunday and drop off some mail,  then drive to SAM's Club to buy a pack of CR-R discs, then swing around to Kroger at Wynnewood which is the only Kroger in Oak Cliff still in existence since they closed the Kroger at Westmoreland less than a year ago,  to buy sugar and generic toilet paper in bulk to save a few dollars,  then finally,  stop off at the library Downtown which is open at 1:00 PM to drop off some CDs, DVDs and some books and pick up some more of the same and get Back home by 4:00 PM when by then I will be famished and hot and miserable. 

The thing is,  mainly we don't have air in our Caddy and that means we got one choice,  stay home or drive during the hottest part of the day with one window down on the driver's side and two rear windows open only one quarter because they are not designed to go down all the way,  figure that?

And the window on the front passenger side is missing the glides or the guides so it won't work until I pay A K A $85.00 just to install one measly piece of plastic that can't be purchased at Auto Zone for less than $5.00 but for some reason can only by obtained from a dealership because the ones Auto Zone sell are generic and they do not in fact fit our model and make of Caddy.

By the time we get home I have gotten heat exhaustion from being in a car on a 97 degree afternoon in Big D Dallas, Texas,  and the inside temperature of the car with all the windows closed,  while parking in the lot at either the Kroger or at any other retail store,  is about 138 degrees Fahrenheit even after the 3 windows are lowered and the car is in motion getting a slight wind current.  I don't even feel like going out today after all this explanation.  The truth is not always fascinating,  enlightening,  profound or even entertaining,  but it's my life on line,  not Alias on prime time.  I can't help it that my life is full of boring diatribes of monotony and obscure sensibilities and pointless monologues.

Play me some Hanz Zimmer music from perhaps the sound track to Thin Red Line.
Sounds appropriate for My Life On Line,  for today at least.
Good day to you and God bless you and your loved ones. 
Keep cool if at all possible.

MyLifeOnLine4
Monday,  June 05,  2006,  5:21 PM,
Central Daylight Savings Time
entry no. 0084

I went in El Rancho super market to buy 3 tomatoes at a price that can't be beat,  3# for $1.00,  3 pounds for one dollar.
Five registers were checking out customers and every register was at least 8 customers long.  The line I was in had a woman who was attempting to form a second line but everyone in front of me,  where the line first formed,  simply ignored her.  She stood her ground,  with a basket full of groceries and two children at her side.  Looking at it from a hysterical perspective like something you might see in a comic strip or on Mad TV,  if not for the agony of the over 25 minute wait I could have laughed.  But I didn't.  It was far higher price to pay to stand in that line,  waiting until the second coming while loud speakers blasted XM 72 Mexican music continuously. Let me say that I like Mexican music at times,  but I wouldn't even tolerate Country or Rock or Jazz at the high decible range that comes blasting out of those speakers!

I would rather have paid $1.00 one dollar per tomato if it meant I didn't have to listen to the noisy music or stand for so long a time in a line just to make a single purchase.

Unfortunately my wife thinks it's a bargain and that means no matter how long the line or how loud the music and even if I personally don't like the experience.  But,  I beg to add,  she will be going to El Rancho in the future without me.  I have to draw the line somewhere.  I love her,  but I don't have that much patience.  I have to waist an entire day at the local county hospital more than once a month and that's enough.  The outside was hot enough to make tomato soup out of those 3 El Rancho Tomatoes. 

Sometimes I come to the point where I prefer to never go out.  Let my wife shop to her heart's content and let me just say no to El Rancho!

They do have some really good prices on produce and meat I have to admit,  but she don't mind shopping there so must simply be hard wired differently than she is about shopping.  She likes to shop, but  I like to get in and get the hell out.  It's a man thing I guess.  Women and men simply don't see shopping the same way!




                   

My web site consists
of the following pages:
: