Category Archives: Personal

Personal

When Concepts Don’t Match Up

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Some of you have probably noticed I’m not writing at the same pace that I normally do. Once again life has gotten in the way, this time with my grandmother falling and breaking her hip and my having to be out of town to support my mother.

It’s been interesting, frightening and frustrating over the last bunch of days. The interesting part was when I called 911 and they sent the fire chief and two firetrucks before the ambulance arrived; my grandmother would have loved watching that spectacle if she could have moved as she loves sitting in the window watching the day.

The scary part was first trying to figure out just how badly she was hurt, learning she had a broken hip and required surgery, and trying to determine what kind of surgery she needed. Turns out it was only the hip and a fracture, which only required 2 screws, and the surgery and initial recovery only took about 3 1/2 hours; whew.

Then the frustrating part, which leads to the title of this post. I went back home because they said all was going to be well, so to speak. Then the next day I get a call saying she’s nonresponsive and won’t eat. This is frightening because she’s 90 and hadn’t eaten in 3 days. I drive back to get Mom and go back to the hospital, worried that these might be the last days for her and wondering if anything could have changed things. Not that she’s been the physically strongest person over the last few months but this just seemed to come on really fast.

We get to the hospital and she’s sleeping. We let her sleep while trying to let a few people know what might be going on. Then the nurse finally shows up and says they tried to get her to eat but she wouldn’t respond to them and wasn’t talking. So I try and indeed she’s not talking, but she’s responding to yes and no answers with, well, yes and no sounds. I ask what we can try to give her and after hearing it all I suggest we run with the lemon ice, since I know she likes lemon.

I get it open, put a little bit onto a spoon, say “Miss Hazel, here comes something you might like” (yes, I call my grandmother Miss Hazel; she likes that), put the spoon on her lips, and she opens her mouth and takes it in.

Mom was stunned; the nurse was stunned. I wasn’t stunned. What I was is frustrated and irritated because of the scare I’d had with the phone call. See, something that working in hospitals teaches you is the patterns of people with certain responsibilities. My mind had been thinking that something nurses really don’t fully understand is that sometimes a person just can’t feed themselves for whatever reason. The talking is one thing, but as I said, she’s 90 and hadn’t eaten in 3 days, has had surgery and anesthesia and was kind of weak to begin with; what were they expecting, miracles?

Actually, yes. See, hospitals aren’t equipped to be nursing homes; it’s not in the make up of the people that work there, nurses or anyone else. They don’t think about trying to feed people; they don’t have the time. But I knew I had to give that a shot because it would tell me whether she was alert or whether she had decided it was her time. She consumed the entire cup of lemon ice; I had my answer.

So here we are at the dilemma stage, although it’s kind of a foregone conclusion. She has to be moved to either a skilled nursing facility or a nursing home. She needs rehab, but right now she also needs someone to feed her. Mom can’t handle either of these at this stage, and hospitals aren’t equipped to do it either.

Everyone at the hospital has been nice and everyone has played their role the way it’s supposed to be played. But I need to now make them step up and make themselves seen, as the only doctor I’ve seen in the time I’ve been there was the surgeon; that’s not going to get it done. But I know how to do it; funny, but there’s a swagger one can have when they work in certain types of places, and I noticed I had that swagger yesterday, as if I was still at a level to demand and request certain things without question. What a feeling!

So, I’m hoping I’m close to not being as sporadic with so many things as has been the case over the past week. I’m so far behind on work and blogging, but family always takes precedence. And I hope through this little story I’ve given you a little more education on how hospital people think.

Personal

Ding Dong Osama’s Gone

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I don’t often write two posts in one day but I figured today is an exception, since my other post was planned ahead of time and this one is, well, more timely to what’s going on in the world.

Of course by now everyone in the world older than 12 years old knows that Osama bin Laden was taken out last night. He wasn’t even hiding really; he was “holed up” in a mansion in a little city in Pakistan living pretty well. Had cable, internet access, and both one of his wives and children with him. He was only minutes away from a Pakistani military base and less than 30 minutes from the capital of Pakistan. It seems all those proclamations made by the Pakistan government that there was no way he could be in their country have been made to seem kind of ridiculous.

However, this isn’t a post on beating up on Pakistan. It’s basically a post about what this means, doesn’t mean, and other such stuff. In essence, I’m going to kind of give my opinion on this event because, well, I figure I have something to say. And in case anyone is keeping score, yes I am using this same picture on two different blogs today.

First thought; happy he’s finally been caught, killed, and disposed of. Short and sweet, and not a single American lost his life. I’m happy with the whole thing, and can move on from here.

Second, moving on doesn’t mean not still worry about stupid terrorists. I think Al Qaeda and the Taliban will try to use this as a rallying cry but that will fail. But it fails only because the nutcases that are ready to give up their lives to support the idiotic beliefs of the “rich” radical fake Muslims to get those virgins after they’re gone are already lined up and in place to do whatever it is they’re going to do. From what I’ve been understanding, these morons are more interested in trying to hurt the United States (which then makes no sense for them to bomb their own country but I digress) than in doing it for bin Laden. Many of them have no real idea who he is other than a name someone threw out. If you were Muslim, would you be doing something for Allah or bin Laden? See what I mean?

Third, I have to admit that the only real emotion I had last night was shock. I didn’t see this announcement coming, and once John King of CNN announced it and then everyone seemed to know about it and started telling us how it all went down, which was before President Obama spoke, it became more of a research project for me than anything else. I had no emotion; I wasn’t happy or sad or reflective; I just wanted to know more. This part was just like it was on 9/11/01, only back then I was truly emotionally invested in everything; this time around I turned the TV off at 1:30 and went to bed.

You know what’s funny? Within minutes after the President’s speech the clamor began from some circles that they wouldn’t believe it until they saw pictures of the body. How horrid is that? We have become a world that’s overall immune to seeing sick images of things, one of those things being death. If I have my way I never want to see it again except in the movies. Even there, I’m not into the realism thing; I couldn’t watch Saving Private Ryan for more than 2 minutes, but give me Independence Day, where we really only see an alien get killed, and I’m enthralled. Besides, we all know that the picture will be seen as a fake anyway; look at how many people in this country felt that President Obama’s birth certificate was fake last week after saying they wanted to see it for all these years. More idiocy.

Overall, I don’t think I’m satisfied, which is probably why I didn’t fully rejoice upon this news, even though I’m really glad he’s been taken out of the picture. I’m waiting until I hear they’ve totally crushed the Taliban and have found Mullar Omar. I’m waiting until I hear they’ve captured Al-Zawahiri, the #2 man that now moves up to #1, and the guy we’ve actually seen on TV more often that bin Laden in the last few years. I’m waiting until the day the President says “that’s it; we’re leaving Iraq and Afghanistan because the job is done.”

I might be greedy, but so be it. I’m still happy bin Laden is gone, and I’m happy everyone else is happy. And in my mind the song from The Wizard of Oz is still playing: “Ding dong Osama’s gone…”

Personal

What 26 Inches Of Snow Looks Like

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This is an easy post to write and share. I know some of you aren’t used to the kind of snowfall this area can get, so I thought I’d put up a few pictures to show you. Understand this; I’m posting this Tuesday night. On Thursday there wasn’t a single bit of snow on the ground. It started snowing Thursday although it hadn’t really been predicted to come until Friday at some point. Even on Friday, there might have only been one inch of snow on the ground.

Not any more. I took these pictures Tuesday morning after I’d shoveled the driveway for the 7th time since Saturday. This isn’t a storm by the way; this is just what it can be like where I live when what’s known as “lake effect” gets going. Officially the city of Syracuse says the snowfall is under the 26 inches I know we have. Where I live is right on the line of what’s called the “snowbelt“, which means sometimes we’ll get more snow than the city and sometimes we get what the city gets, as we’re just slightly north of the city.

You wouldn’t think 5 to 10 miles could make a big difference; trust me, in this area it does. Actually, about 30 miles north of here they have at least twice as much snow as we have. By the time the snow season is over, we’ll probably have between 150 and 190 inches of snow; some communities up there will have nearly 400 inches, if not more. That includes the city I went to college in, called Oswego. Yup, we’re gluttons for punishment, but our summers for the most part are beautiful.

By the way, you might wonder why I don’t have a snow blower. I used to use my dad’s old one but it broke and I sold it. Then we hired a guy for a few years to do the driveway, but it seemed we were really losing money on the deal. So the last two years I’ve done it. Last year we would have needed plowing only 3 or 4 times, and at $250+ a year, that made no sense. Right now it sounds like a good idea, but you just never know.

And now, the images:



My driveway after I just finished shoveling


A view of my front yard; 26 inches all around


My neighbor’s house; see, as much snow as mine


Trying to show how much snow’s on the roof


The tree out back just off my deck


Just a quick shot of some of the woods out back
Reebok Kansas City Chiefs Team Logo Padded Winter Gloves

Reebok Kansas City Chiefs Team Logo Padded Winter Gloves

  Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Mitch Mitchell

Personal

First Day At My Conference

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I’m not at home right now. I’m in Fort Lauderdale, FL, at the Annual National Institute of the American Association of Healthcare Administrative Management. It’s a national organization for basically the people who bring money into either hospitals or physicians groups, or any other type of medical entity there is that has its own billing people. That’s a job I did for many years until going into business on my own, and I still consult in that field, of course. I’m also the local chapter’s president once more, so I’m down here at a conference in an official capacity, which earns me free passage to the conference other than paying to get here the hotel room.

I came in Tuesday, and actually it’s not the first day of the conference for everyone. I came in because there was board business to get to, and thus we had to be here a day earlier than everyone else. Still, it was an adventure on the day, so I’m going to talk about it.

The morning started at 4:25 with the alarm going off. My plane was leaving at 6AM, but it’s never crowded in the lines at the airport, so I figured I’d take a little bit more time than I normally would. I had also stayed up late trying to watch the football game, but I finally decided I needed at least 4 hours of sleep and took my silly self to sleep.

Got up, showered, put the last bits of things I wanted to bring with me together, and my wife and I finally leave for the airport, which is just over 10 minutes away; that’s pretty lucky. I check in easily enough, and then the first little snag hits; the bar that comes up on my suitcase so I can pull it around doesn’t want to go back down. So I’m standing there with the guy who’s waiting to xray the bag slamming down on this thing, and you know the last thing you want to do with any of these guys is have your bag look like there’s something wrong with it. I finally do get it down, though, and he just laughs; I hope it’s because he’s seen that before.

I go up the escalator to go to the gate and run into surprise number two; the line is long! Whoa; total miscalculation on my part! Now I start worrying a little bit; it’s 5:15, my plane leaves at 6, which means they’ll start boarding in about 20 minutes; ugh! But there’s nothing I can do so I just stand in line, and luckily someone comes in and opens a second line, and things start moving better. I’m carrying two things, my laptop and my CPAP for the first time; guess what they want to examine? Nothing I could do about that either, so I make it through the scanner without anything going off and take my time putting all my stuff back together until he brings my CPAP back to me, fine and dandy. I get to the gate just as they’re boarding the plane, and since they now load in zones I breathe a sign of relief that they haven’t gotten to my zone yet.

The first trip from Syracuse to Washington D. C. was fairly nondescript. I got to share my little row of seats with a very attractive young lady, but who’s in the mood to talk that early in the morning, right? I put on my headphones and listen to a book on my MP# while she falls asleep. The first trip took about 50 minutes, and then we had to wait outside the gate about 15 minutes because the plane arrived a bit ahead of schedule, and another plane was at our terminal. Once we finally get in I realize I have 50 minutes before the next flight; time to get something to eat.

Now, y’all know I’ve been on an eating plan (actually maybe you don’t), but it’s now a trip, and the doctor said if I went off my plan during my time away not to worry about it, just do what I can do. So what’s the first thing I see? Cinnabon! Yup, popped over there and got a cinnamon bun; yum! But I knew I needed some real food as well. There was a place called Five Guys, and they were serving egg sandwiches, and you could add a hamburger with it; do that bad boy! I ate my sandwich, then my cinnamon buns, and walked to my next gate, where five minutes later we loaded for the next flight, this one to Florida.

This time around I have an older gentleman next to me and I assume his wife, though I could be off on that one. It might have been his daughter; now that’s kind of scary. And his breath; oy! But there’s nothing one can do about that. Now, one thing I noticed on the first flight, and then again on this one, is how easily I can fit into the seats. Exercise and losing some inches is really working!

Get into Ft. Lauderdale and what hits me immediately is the humidity; it’s supposed to rain my entire time here off and on, and with the heat and the ocean it’s not the best combination for me. I go to baggage claim and my bag is the 4th one off the carousel; that’s never happened before. I want outside and ask for a cab and it’s there; wow, two for two. I just might make that noon meeting after all.

I get to my hotel, check in, and see I have 5 minutes to make it to the meeting. Man, I’m hungry, as it’s not 4 1/2 hours since I last ate. Nothing I can do about that, so I rush to the other hotel, since I’m not staying in the same hotel as the convention (why not? My hotel is costing me $79 a night; the other hotel would cost me $250 a night). I get there and can’t find anyone; turns out the thing doesn’t start until 1PM. Ah, time to find food.

I come back to my hotel, then realize their restaurant is gone; under renovations and won’t open until spring. This young lady tells me there’s a grill in the other building that serves lunch. I head over there, and the woman there tells me that because of the weather lunch is being served at the bar that I just walked past in the other building. I go back and the guy says they won’t start serving lunch until 1PM; what the hey? Nothing I can do but go to the other hotel to see what I can find there to eat.

Other hotel, a Marriott, has one thing open for lunch. Most of the food on the menu looked, well, yucky except for one thing; a hamburger. And that hamburger… $15! Talk about being a captive audience! I’m stuck, so I go in, order my hamburger, and then greet someone I know, who invites me to her table. I go there, finally get my burger, ask for mayo and the woman brings me two packets; I’m paying $15 for a burger and I get packets?

Finally I’m feeling good, and we head to the meeting. I find that they’ve put me on the legislative committee, which means we discuss which policy initiatives we’d like to present to government officials that can help us with medical billing issues throughout the country. My committee, led by someone else, debated this thing for more than 2 hours. I’m going along with the recommendation, even though I tend to think it won’t really solve our issues, but I’m not going to say what it is since it’s official business and not just my business.

Finally get out of that and the rest of the day is ours. I come to the hotel, hook up internet ($9.95 a day), turn on the TV and I’m watching Voyager while trying to do some things online. I learn there’s a Ruth Chris Steakhouse about 10 minutes away, so I call another friend down here and off we go in a cab for dinner. Man, I ate a lot, but it was worth it, since the nearest Ruth Chris to me at home is in NYC, 6 hours away.

I come back to the hotel feeling sluggish, and I decide I need to hit the treadmill. I do 40 minutes on the treadmill, sweating up a storm, come back to the room to watch poker, and the night is done.

I’m going to be here through Saturday, and I may not recount everything else like I did here. I did want to get a post in, though, so you know where I am if I skip another day. I want to relax some, work some, and finally try to see what this place is all about. I hope y’all are having a great week wherever you are.

  Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Mitch Mitchell

Personal

Random Thoughts Three

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In March 2009 I wrote a post that I called Some Random Thoughts. It was basically a quick hitter of commentary on some current topics and basically rants I had that I just needed to get off my chest. Then last November I had a political rant on health care in America. I’m feeling the need for my third random rants post, thus that’s what this one is. I hope you read and comment; I’m having my say anyway.

In the United States, the political season is upon us. This year it seemed to start earlier, as we started getting hammered with political ads back in July. That’s because then it was the beginning of primary season. I hate political ads, and have never been swayed by any of them. To me, most of the process is fake, and most of what you hear in an ad is a lie. One thing that’s really odd these days is that, unless it’s an ad attacking someone, they never say what party they’re with. If they’re attacking Obama, you know the person is Republican; if you’re not, you’re a Democrat. Frankly, I hate attack ads, and surveys have shown that an overwhelming majority of people say they hate them. Yet they work, and the nastier one can make their ad, the more likely they’re going to be elected. It’s the fault of the people; if more people did their own research into someone instead of deciding based on political ads, these things would go away, or at least temper themselves. We are our own worst enemies; it’s a shame.

It seems that everyone I know says they hate bullying. Yet bullying still continues, and frankly it’s starting to get out of hand. We had bullies back in our day as well, but I don’t know of a single kid who ever committed suicide because of a bully. The thing is, almost no one seems to ever help a kid being bullied. Parents say they don’t know; schools say they’re not allowed to do anything; the police say it’s not their jurisdiction. I’ve always said if I were a parent and my kid was being bullied that I’d have gone to the other parent’s house and threatened to beat that parent up, or gone directly after the kid. Sure, that’s when everyone else gets involved. Even other parents are bullying some kids, and then don’t want to take any responsibility when a kid kills themselves; y’all remember that story, right? Everyone needs to be watching their kids, but the parents of kids being bullied and the parents of potential bullies. The latest girl to kill herself was only 12 years old; neither she nor the kids bullying them were legally old enough to even be on those sites. Hillary Clinton was right; it takes a village to raise a kid. And on this topic, y’all need to go read this post by Holly.

Next, there seems to be too many kids being killed in some fashion by parents these days; what’s all this about? The latest was a pastor down south who “forgot” his 14-month old daughter was in the van and she died of overheating. There has been a rash of these all over the place; what’s wrong with people? In my very first rant I mentioned fathers who were killing their kids to spite the mother; now it seems there’s a lot more mothers killing their kids, and it’s usually because they just decide they don’t want to deal with them anymore or are doing it because they want to be with some man who doesn’t want to have kids. There really needs to be more education and more oversight on young mothers, otherwise this epidemic is going to keep happening, and it has to stop.

And finally, a word about “isms”. I put a question out on my FB business page asking people if they’d ever step in to help someone who they saw was a victim of some kind of “ism”. The only response I got was one guy who said he didn’t understand the question. That tells me that he, and others, have absolutely no understanding of what to do when they see someone being treated badly because of racism, sexism, gayism, etc. There are just too many of us deciding to “mind our own business” instead of stepping forward to help someone when they can. Are there times when you should err on the side of caution? Sure; that doesn’t mean you can’t pick up the phone and call 911 or something, does it? Bad things are going to continue happening to people until someone decides to step forward and offer some kind of support. When Rodney King was beaten, the only support he got was some guy who filmed the whole thing, and the local populace acquitted the police, not believing their own eyes. When it takes the federal government to protect someone’s rights, it shows that the entire system of common sense and decency if flawed. Remember this part of the old axiom; if you don’t stand up for someone else’s rights, when it’s your turn there won’t be anyone to stand up for you.

I think that’s enough. I have more but now I have to go drink something cold and cool down. Just some things to think about; what are your thoughts?

Tolerance