November 2009

Wednesday the 18th
Dr. Mind called me this morning, concerned that I make today’s appointment; I was too, but because I worried I’d wreck the car getting there. Parking’s still fucked up there and she said she’d talked to her supervisor, but to no results.

My swollen left arm is throbbing, as is my knee.

When I got there, of course both of only two slots were filled. I circled a bunch of times and nearly gave up, but at the point-I just didn’t care, so I parked directly behind the last car in a striped no-parking zone. Immediately construction workers began stringing a electrical line off of a new power pole to the right of my car and ran it directly over my roof. I groaned and started to close the door and restart the car when the construction guy said he wouldn’t hit it. I asked if it was okay and he said it wasn’t his call one way or the other, so I got out and went to my appointment.

I told Dr. Mind I was convinced the car would get towed but she said as long as the handicap plaque was on it; I was okay. I spent the hour reading my diary notes from the previous two weeks. I’ve never really come right out and told her how close to suicide I am, but today I did. I’m no longer getting enough from Medicare and GB to make the bills and the bitch of it is, it’s by only by about $20 a month. If I call the city about the electric meter being fucked up again, I’ll start getting $100+ bills again and I’ll really be sunk. Every part of what once was a good body is now beaten, battered and near failing. I’m gaining weight like crazy because of lack of exercise and I can’t depend on my memory more than three days ago, which is why I keep this journal, I keep this journal on line, because if my computer fails, I could never replace it… at least here I know it’s safe, and now I can’t depend on staying upright while standing or sitting. I’m finding it harder and harder to fight on.

I could understand these problems if I were in my sixties but now? More and more I feel like Job enduring the tests of Satin.

Dr. Mind walked me down to my car, promising to take care of any tickets, and miracle of miracles it was still there and nothing on the windshield!

I came home, took a Percocet and went into a coma. I’ve got so many review articles I still have to write for BC. When I woke up I listened to the first CD of the complete copy of Night Castle by Trans-Siberia Orchestra and actually liked it, while I was working on the blueprints for my boyhood home. I find that if I’m busy doing something else, I tend less to skip to the next track when I don’t like a song. I listened to the first half and thought it was pretty decent. I’m hoping to complete the article tomorrow… hoping.

Around 10PM the percocet wore off and I had to take another. My head feels like I have a continuous hangover and my ears are ringing really loud to the point where I have to listen to music on headphones just to counter the constant high-pitched tone.

…Just another day on the edge of sanity.




Sunday the 1st
Every so often I wonder why I keep this journal in such a public place. I guess I think that long after I'm gone this will still be on the web and some part of me will remain... who knows. We all want immortality... well most of us anyway.

I was determined to get out to Walgreen’s today to get that ink cartridge refilled but couldn’t get past the front door. This is so frustrating. The five-year anniversary of the attack comes up on the 6th and the nightmares have returned.

I talked to Betsy yesterday; she called me on her cell on her way to the jewelers to pick up her engagement ring. She’s so damned happy. I talked to Norm for the first time and jokingly told him I was getting frustrated waiting on him, because she was getting so boring talking of nothing but him for the last year or so. He sounds like such a great guy.

Tomorrow I go to see Dr. Knee, I’ve been running around the house changing all of the clocks…. Then again maybe I should leave them alone and be 45 minutes early instead of 15 minutes late all the time. He shares the parking garage with all of the doctors at Grant Hospital and it’s nearly impossible to find a parking slot without driving all 10 floors of it first. I’m planning/hoping to get out first thing and go to get the printer ink cartridge refilled. It’s a gamble because I think the last time I tried it, it didn’t last very long, gave lousy print quality and the color cartridge didn’t even work so they gave it to me for free-ink and all.

I cleaned out Mischief’s litter box and made sure she has at least a week’s worth of food.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m scared I’ll have another heart attack and unexpectantly fall somewhere. It was a strange experience to hear my head hit the concrete but not feel it and for my eyes to be wide open watching. Something I don’t want to repeat.

Hope; damn it, I need hope-from any source. I used to think winning the lottery would solve all of my problems, but now I know that money won’t stop the nightmares nor the chemical depression and the PTSD. I’m so tired of jumping at shadows or things that aren’t there. Mischief just jumped up on my desk and I nearly jumped out of my skin.

When I go out today I’m going to make a concerted effort to smile as much as I can. Maybe the weather will be nice and I can put the top down.


Monday the 2nd
I just got home @ 6:16 PM: I hurt/ache so bad, I came so close to killing myself today. I went and saw Dr. Knee, then went to the bank next door to get money for gas and it was closed??? Goddam National City Bank closed the branch today!, drove north and got the ink cartridge, then ran out of gas between two exits on Rt. 270 between the 670 interchange and the airport. I gave up after about half an hour of standing at the side of the road with the gas can I keep in the trunk to help others with and set out on foot towards the airport.

I must’ve walked miles and had to keep stopping to rest and it took me hours. No one would stop for me and my knee felt like hell and my chest was so tight I couldn’t breath. There were so many times I thought I’d pass out either from my heart or the pain in my knee/ankle and I nearly gave up a few times and stepped in front of an oncoming truck. I honestly don’t know what kept me from doing it; I was so miserable and without hope.

A woman with a car-full of kids finally stopped after I trudged about three miles and took me to a Speedway station... and left me there!. I filled the 2-gallon can and couldn’t see carrying it back to the car without dying in pain, if I made it at all, so I offered some guy $10 in gas to take me back to my car. Meanwhile the station threatened to call the police on me thinking I was begging from their customers for money because the cashier wouldn’t let me get cash off my debit card to offer someone money to help, so the only thing I could offer was to put gas in their tank. Half of them thought I was trying to use a stolen debit card to get cash with.

The trip took fifteen minutes to cover that I took hours on foot, we finally got to the car and there was a tow-truck trying to hook up to my car and some sticker on the back window. He said if I didn’t give him $75 in cash he wouldn’t unhook and was taking my car to an impound lot. While me and my paid good Samaritan were arguing with him, a cop pulled up. The tow truck guy tried to hurry up and leave and was almost arrested for trying to swindle me, but he convinced the officer he was new and didn’t know I still had a couple of hours before he could legally tow it away. I was too tired to be furious. He nearly got away with it, but my samaratin's pick-up truck was blocking him in and my car was still hooked up to him.

I finally got home and I’m in agony from my ankle, knee and chest; and I'm so depressed and hopeless that things like this keep happening to me.

Anyway the long version is...

I headed out to the doctor's appointment around 1 this afternoon, worried that the only dollar bill I had was too worn for the parking garage bill accepter. I couldn't see in the windows of my bank that's next door to his office, so I figured I'd wait till I came back out. Dr. Knee says I need another operation next year to remove the plate in my leg because a tendon is catching on the end of it causing me a lot of pain and the feeling/hearing of bone on bone crunching. He says the bone is now completely healed but I still need a lot of physical therapy, but you can bet that GB will use it as an excuse to cut off my checks again saying I’m “maximum medically improved”.

He wants to see me again the 2nd of January.

Afterwards, I went to my National City Bank only to discover that they closed it down… today of all days! Fortunately the bill was accepted by the automated device and let me go. I drove about 20 miles north of here to get the black ink cartridge refill I need to print the rest of the documents to get my Medicaid renewed. I bought two generic cartridges the last time I needed them a few months back and didn’t realize that they looked so much alike… until I got there and discovered I’d taken the color cartridge instead of the black one. I didn’t even know about the mistake until the lady filling it apologized that it takes longer for the color than the black. I had no choice but to buy the color one she was filling, but of course they didn’t sell the black one.

I never made it to the NCB bank branch down the street from them…

Decision-Ink/Medicaid or gas… I gambled and lost by heading the opposite direction and stopping at Wal-Mart to buy the black cartridge for $38. I had about $35 left to play with after I combined tomorrow’s disability check with what’s left of last week’s GB check. Barely enough to buy enough cheap food to last a couple of weeks and put $5 in the tank to get back and forth to Dr. Mind…

…then I ran out of gas coming home. I’ve got around $2 left now.

I’ve got to be one of the most strong-willed people on the face of this planet. Why I haven’t given up is anyone’s guess……


Wednesday the 4th
I drove out to Ohio State to see Dr. Mind and they’ve now reduced the turnaround circle to two parking slots-both were taken up by one dump truck. I circled around to the other side of the building and couldn’t find anything within a block or more, and in my condition from Monday I wasn’t going to be able to walk further than that. It hurts when someone suggests that I park in the parking garage and use Park ‘n Ride, because I’d have to explain how I don’t have $2 for the garage and wouldn’t be able to walk out to meet the bus from the garage. I chanced parking in a no stopping zone, took my diary notes up to her secretary, explained and then came home.


I got a call from Wal-Mart and it turns out that Medicare approved the prescription for Nexium 9 days ago and no one told me until they were going to put it back on the shelf because I didn’t pick it up.

I’ve been haunting the Blogcritics website in the comments section trying to snap my way out of this. I really needed to see Dr. Mind today.


Thursday the 5th
I’m really sore from that hike last Monday, so sore that I had to call physical therapy and reschedule for tomorrow.

I got an e-mail from BC wanting some promised articles from me, so I’ll have to do some writing over the weekend, probably about three articles if I can pound them out without losing my sanity.

The soldiers being shot at Ft. Hood brought it all back, that gun in my face and the beating I got. I began throwing up and couldn’t stop. Flashbacks kept haunting me to the point where I had to take a pill and go to sleep. I can still see my own blood on that wall.

Enough


Friday the 6th
Today is my fifth anniversary of the attack. Last night was spent sleeping in fits. I have a dry and sore throat, but I don’t remember waking up screaming. The flashbacks I’ve had this morning though haven’t been pleasant. My whole world changed on that day. The fun-loving partying “Jet” was murdered that night.

I dragged myself over to Physical Therapy this morning and was so stiff I could barely move. I spent most of the time very slowly peddling the exercise bike and stretching. GB gave me my regular check, so afterward I drove up to Wal-Mart and picked up my prescription and did some grocery shopping. I stopped and put $20 in the gas tank. Aunt Margaret sent me a card with $30 cash in it, god love her. It sucks that I had to put it in the gas tank. On the way home I passed the place where I ran out of gas and checked the odometer to where I got picked up. I walked 2 ½ miles but it sure’s hell felt like 10. I covered the distance in about 30 seconds.

I don’t dare turn on the TV because it’s full of reports about the soldiers being shot at Ft. Hood. Like me, they were taken by surprise and never given a fair chance to defend themselves.

Maybe I’ll win the lottery tonight…


Saturday the 7th
Last night was a nightmare, but surprisingly not about the attack. I found myself in a crashing plane, which I survived only to be crushed by the building we hit falling down on us. There were others, but I can’t remember them, only screaming.

I had to drive out to Wal-Mart again today… are you ready for this? They gave me the wrong prescription! Oh it was mine, but not the Nexium! Fortunately it was in the upper 60s and I got to go there with the top down and the stereo up. I found a little laser toy for Mischief for only $5 that shines a tiny red dot on the floor and the wall for her to chase… problem is (and you should see this coming) she stares at the device in my hand instead of where it’s pointed. Not only that but when I move the dot close to her, she acts like she’s scared of it and moves away instead of chasing it.

sigh

I’ve been seriously thinking of buying a gun to protect myself with; that can only result in disaster... I'd be more scared of pointing at myself than others.

I tried to write some articles and couldn’t get started. This problem with my monitor still continues, I can still reset it when it happens but it’s annoying as hell.

I discovered another reason why my Google Analytics keeps telling me that nearly everyone is spending zero time on my websites; apparently they have to view more than one page on the same site so it has a way of comparing entrance times. You’d think that’d be an easy fix, but according to the blogs I’ve been reading, it isn’t.

I keep thinking about all of the friends I had in San Diego and how I miss flying out there three-four times a year. I also miss the waiters at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas flirting with me for my big tips and them giving me free drinks at the blackjack tables, and the rollercoaster on top of the building downtown that seemed to fly over the edge and scared the hell out of me. I miss taking the controls of Brian’s jet en-route too.

I think I figured out why I never open my curtains and look at my beautiful balcony/view… I’d probably fall over the railing without thinking about it. There was a time when you couldn’t pry me away from that terrace what with all the flowers and vegetables in buckets I used to grow. I’d drag neighbors in just to brag and show… Now I won’t even open the door for them, and god that hurts.


Tuesday the 10th
They say that police officers succumb to bullets more often than criminals because they know what the bullet is doing to them and panic. I keep looking up depression and PTSD on the theory that if I understood them, I’d know how to control them. Apparently it doesn’t work that way. My problem is I know it’s happening, I see and feel it happening, but I’m helpless to do anything about it.

I’ve spent the last two or three days in a mental coma. The killings at Fort Hood haunt me because those soldiers weren’t given a chance to defend themselves. It’s like playing a friendly game of chess; you can’t say let me take that move back in real life. I just stood there helpless while I was beaten on. The only thing that saved my life was I figured I had nothing to lose and began screaming for help. I didn’t hit the panic alarm on my car remote, even though I tried yelling “Panic Lock”. That locked the gearshift and the key in the ignition, but didn’t kill the engine or start the anti-carjacking feature.

Anyway, I know the depression is making me sleep all the time, I know the effects it’s having on my mental stability, but knowing it doesn’t help. What’s worse, I wrote a review about the latest Mod Squad DVDs, created custom artwork for the thing, but barely remember doing it.

One day I’m going to get in the car and just drive until I’m out of gas again and wake up somewhere in Pennsylvania or Indiana with no money to buy gas to get home again. The nightmare where I crash the car into a bridge abutment on purpose plagues me again. Lately I’ve been staying awake as long as I can until I’m so exhausted I have to sleep.

Tomorrow I don’t see Dr. Mind because of the holiday. I’m going to try to get it together and call the place that’s going to help me with Medicare, and then try to assemble the paperwork for Medicaid… again.

The fucked-up feeling of “what’s the use?” seems to overwhelm me. If I can’t talk Huntington Bank into taking the certificate for the car payment, I won’t be able to afford the insurance, or the phone and the car payment’s due on the 15th.


Thursday the 12th
It’s really starting to get to me, I can’t stop sleeping. It’s 1:40PM and I’ve slept 12 hours and I’m sitting here yawning and can hardly keep my eyes open. I don’t know if it’s the depression or something physical, but whatever it is, I’m barely functioning. I’ve got to find that letter from Huntington Bank and call them, because my car payment is due the 15th. If they don’t accept the coupon they sent me to use in the mail, I won’t be able to make my car insurance on the 28th of nearly $600. The phone bill is coming due the 20th and I don’t know who to pay. Every time I sit down to look at the paperwork I fall asleep. In fact anything I do that requires thinking makes me physically sleepy, regardless of how much sleep I just got.

I don’t know if it’s my heart, or blood sugar (which appears to be normal) or one of the drugs I’m on. I have no energy at all, and I can’t stop fucking falling asleep!

I just got off the phone with some company connected with Social Security that helps people reapply for help with prescription drugs, and it seemed to go well. Why Medicaid isn’t like that is a mystery. I’m still trying to assemble all of the paperwork needed for that.

I haven’t heard from Betsy in so long, nearly a week. The last time she called, her cell phone kept messing up. I just tried signaling her to call me back but so far no word. She’s up in the mountains somewhere where a signal won’t get through probably.

When I get home from Physical Therapy, I’m going to work on my review of Eddie Izzard’s latest concert DVD. The graphic I created for it last night looks great.


Friday the 13th
EVERYONE RUN AND HIDE-IT’S THE APOCALYPSE!!! Something went right… and on Friday the 13th!!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m… I’m smiling. Huntington Bank honored their “skip a payment” coupon!!!! IT’S A MIRACLE!!!! I actually might have enough to catch up on the bills. Of course next month’s payment is $35 more, and I’ll have an extra payment at the end of the contract but for now it’s fucking good news!!!

Maybe I’ll win the superlotto tonight?

Now if only I can stop sleeping all of the time. This has to be a chemical imbalance in my brain connected to the depression, because I’m happy but still sleepy.


Sunday the 15th
I’m scared. I’m really frigntened. I can’t stay awake for more than a couple hours at a time. This is written at 4:40AM Sunday morning and I hope it’s not my last entry. I woke up around 3, went in and sat on the toilet and felt funny and an hour and a half later I woke up on the floor in the bathroom.

Yesterday morning I woke up with a really bad sore throat and felt hot. I’ve just taken my temperature and it was 99.0 which wouldn’t be alarming if... I just tested my blood sugar and it was 113 so that’s not it. My left elbow is really sore and I’m worried I may have hurt or broke my arm. My god what if I had another heart attack?

--------

8:20PM, well I'm still alive. My fever's up to 99.6. my left elbow is still really swollen and sore and I'll have to get on the phone and make an appointment with Dr. S/clinic tomorrow.

I don't even remember falling, just one moment I was sitting the next I was on the floor. It worries me I was out for an hour and a half. It's kind of rocking my world. I thought I was safe within these walls, but now I worry about walking around in my own apartment or doing chores that require a lot of standing.

What if I pass out while I'm driving.

I called Aunt Margaret and asked her to check on me daily. God this sucks.


Monday the 16th
1PM, Well if I don’t kill myself in the shower somehow, I’m taking myself to the hospital emergency room. I haven’t passed out again, but my arm is getting more and more painful and swollen. The Keflex isn’t working on the infection. I tried to get an appointment to see Dr. S/Clinic this morning but no luck; they said to go to the E.R. so…

I called Teresa this morning in case she has to take care of Mischief, and that’s about all I can do.

I went to print out my patient information and the red ink that didn’t work in the refill cartridge works now! Well that’s something good anyhow. God will it never end? I had a nightmare last night that my attackers hacked off my left arm. It feels like it.

Lately I’ve been waking up to the sound of the doorbell and other loud noises that I know aren’t real by just checking to see if Mischief beside me woke up, which she didn’t. That insane asylum just keeps getting closer and closer.

My new article on Eddie Izzard’s latest concert got no comments at BC, but the guy who sent me the review copy sent a nice e-mail saying he liked the custom graphic I did for it out of screen captures.

Off to the shower, then the hospital…

11:21PM, I’ve discovered that by taking the sling off of the splint that’s holding my left arm at a right angle, and turning the keyboard diagonally, I can type, but I’ll have to make this quick.

I spent 5 hours at the emergency room. The doctor said it’s infected and that a small chip broke off of my elbow apparently pierced the skin and went back in, which created the opening for the infection to enter. It turns out the bug is resistant to the Keflex I’ve been taking and they gave me a different antibiotic… but only one pill, and a prescription for more. The trouble is when I take a prescription into a pharmacy it takes days for “prior authorization” from Medicare and the infection is growing while I wait. He also prescribed some pain meds, which I’ll also have to wait days for.

They took x-rays to discover the elbow fracture, and then it took two hours to tell me because they inadvertently placed my paperwork with an other patient, so everyone waited around at the desk for paperwork that wasn’t coming. While I waited for them to sort it out, I tried to call Dr. Mind’s office. This is just getting too much for me to handle, but it was after 4, so all I got was a recording because her secretary left. She’s normally not in on Mondays, but I hoped I could get a message to her, as I’ve been admonished about calling her cell phone.

They put me in a temporary splint and I have to see a doctor tomorrow. I had to try to drive the car one-handed through the tight twists and turns of that parking garage. The parking cost $5 I didn’t have to spare because the emergency department is the only one in the whole damned hospital that doesn’t validate parking. Fuck. I just barely made it home. How I’m going to drive out to see Dr. Mind Wednesday is anyone’s guess, but if I have to get there on my hands and knees I will, because I’ve already missed two consecutive sessions.

The GB check this Friday was supposed to cover next month’s rent because the check after that doesn’t come until the 4th and the rent is due no later than the 3rd. By Huntington Bank letting me use the coupon to skip yesterday’s car payment, that means I’ll have enough to cover the car insurance on the 28th. Everything depends on my talking my apt manager into taking a check on the 1st but not cashing it until the 4th when I can combine it with the disability check on the 3rd to pay the rent... leaving me broke.

I just figured out today that the December car payment + the $35 fee to skip this payment is in jeopardy… it’s due on the 15th, but with one coming on the 4th and the rent being paid off of that, the next won’t come until the 18th… three days late, which the bank won’t allow.

And of course I haven’t mentioned the phone or electric.

I got home after dark and it took half an hour of being pissed at myself for being afraid to leave the car. They want me to call Dr. S/Clinic in the morning or an orthopedic surgeon before it’s decided if I need a cast. I’ve got a physical therapy session I’ve got to go to tomorrow. I can’t miss any more sessions, but I don’t know how I’ll live through it. That and I can’t get this thing wet in the shower. People always suggest “wrap a garbage bag around it,” not knowing how impossible it is to position a garbage bag so it won’t leak using only one hand.

Tonight’s going to be the tough part. The only part I can sleep on without pain is my left side, I can’t sleep on my back, nor with my right arm/shoulder breaks still healing. Tonight I’ll have to try on my back. I can’t sleep on my stomach because my left ankle no longer bends, which is agony on my toes.

Tomorrow, I’ll have to figure out how to make the doctor’s appointment, or if he’ll even take me tomorrow. Drive up to Wal-mart 20 miles away and beg and plead with them to at least partially fill the antibiotics until I can get it authorized, and then get back home without wrecking the car.

My arm hurts from typing, so I’ll have to sign off for now.

I haven't had any problems or hassles from GB for 6 weeks. I know better than to ever allow myself to feel safe and secure. This never used to happen to me before and God I don't ever see an end to the constant problems. I have a feeling that if something doesn't change, my forseeable future will be... "Blogging on the edge of suicide"…


Tuesday the 17th (with update)
6:20AM
I couldn’t sleep because of the pain. I’m going to try to get to Wal-Mart just as their pharmacy opens at 8AM and hope I don’t spend the whole day waiting for the prescription to be authorized.

I’ve got to find a way to buy one-handed food. All that I have left in the house requires cooking, which means holding the pan with one hand and stirring it with the other. I’m sitting here trying to figure out how to survive the next 6 weeks if they put a cast on my arm and trying to find solutions to all of these survival problems when it’d be so much easier to just give up.

My left arm/elbow aches like hell in this sling, probably because it’s swollen from the infection I can’t get antibiotics for until later today. My ears are ringing so loud I can barely think, my right shoulder with all the pins and screws in it hurts even worse because I wound up sleeping on it last night. I won’t even start with my knee.

I just tried to take my morning meds and I can’t get my hand to reach my mouth. Injecting my insulin is going to be really fun.

I woke up to the sound of my doorbell again this morning, and like before Mischief never looked up or made a move so it was all in my head despite how real it sounded. It’s funny how through all of this I thought the one thing I could depend on not failing me was my mind… now I’m not so sure…

Update:
I didn't make it to Wal-Mart until noon. I just couldn't go out the door, but I eventually did damn it. With everything aching, the last thing I needed was not to be able to find a motorized handicap cart, and by the time I walked all the way over to the other end of the store and didn't find one there either I was pissed. I started recognizing the symptoms of a rage coming on, so I made a conscious effort to calm down and sat on a bench and waited while a greeter went out searching for one for me.

25 minutes later, he never came back...
...worse, the pharmacy is on the complete other side of the store... so I walked back. I don't look like an old man, but I sure felt like one. I got to the pharmacy counter and turned in the prescriptions for the pain and antibiodics and she said it'd be about 25 minutes while they authorized and filled it.

Meanwhile I figured I'd buy some drink mix and check out one-handed food. No carts at the lobby, so I found another customer service manager and she promised to find the person that was looking for one and tell them I was waiting at the pharmacy.

I checked back at the pharmacy and a miracle-it didn't need "prior authorization" so I waited... and waited.

Half an hour later when prescription was filled, I got up and told the CSM that it was now two hours later and left, deciding to stop at my local Kroger's. I found everything on sale at the price Wal-Mart sells it, so I was set and only spent 38 prescious dollars.

If it hadn't been for the temperature being maybe 5 degrees colder than needed, I'd have put the top down and enjoyed the sun.

On the way home I suddenly remembered I'd had a physical therapy session at 2:15 this afternoon, so I went over and showed Tressa my cast and explained. She said she'd work out some kind of modified plan for me by Thursday.

I just remembered that I go to WorkHealth this Friday to re-authorize my checks. Technically Dr P/knee has done all he can do until the bone has healed enough to go back in and remove the plate that's rubbing against the tendon making it hard to walk. They can say I'm now maximum medically improved and cut off my checks right in the middle of this financial crisis, and of course they won't tell me until after they've done it. Without this Friday's check I won't make the insurance payment when I combine it with what little I have left, without the check coming December 4th I won't make the rent by combining it with the disability check and the car payment has to come out of it too, because I don't dare be late again. A part of me says prepare for the worst.

I HATE LIVING LIKE THIS

After I got home, I summoned the courage to actually open my insurance bill. $561.29 due the 28th. I'm going to call Huntington to find out what the absolute minimum insurance is that I need and not be inviolation of my contract.

10:20PM I woke up from a bad dream/nightmare? about calmly sitting at my desk here typing away while my three Somolians methodically set the apartment on fire around me. I actually just kept right on, coughing and typing and rooting for the flames to reach me faster. The Somolian in the middle that had the gun that night ran up to me and asked what I was typing, and before I could answer, he shot me in the face and I woke up screaming.

My ears are ringing louder than ever; it's sort of a continuous I pitched tone. It's the antibiotic, I'm almost sure of it-that and all of the other drugs. When I woke up my leg hurt like hell from the abuse it took today. My left arm hurts like hell and I can see myself staying completely stoned on prescription Percocet-which I'm afraid of becoming addicted to.

New problem; I'm afraid to take a shit for fear of passing out again and winding up on the floor again. Now I really am full of shit.

I spent the rest of the evening sort of in mourning for apparently losing what's left of my sanity.

October 2009

Friday the 2nd
Some time back I wrote an article on the new series of dollar coins and how “In God We Trust” had been relegated to the edge of the coin instead of either face… as it should be. Though years old, it has today seen many comments by born-agains that insist that our founding fathers built this country as a Christian theocracy. I place a bunch of quotes from our founding fathers themselves refuting their arguments and all hell as broken loose. It feels good to get my former “dander” up on a subject.

Social Security deposited my check early today so I’m free to spend it all on the rent etc.

I’m back on the potassium pills because my legs are cramping something awful when I wake up. Now that I have a small amount of money I’m going to have to get busy and buy last month’s prescriptions while I still can. With the changing of the weather comes hopefully a changing of my luck… of course I’ve thought that before.

Today is the 4th anniversary of my taking a job at Donatos Headquarters with a desk, as suit and an office, responsibilities, and a phone and a lot of self worth. Too bad it only lasted three months before it was all swept away again.

Sunday the 4th
I spent most of the day reading the Brokeback Mountain novel I spent most of 2006 creating by combining Annie Proux's beautiful short story and the movie putting back pieces that weren't used from her novel and components I made up to support where I took the story onward, adding my own touches and finishing the tale up to and slightly beyond Ennis' death in 2006. I was actually moved to tears a couple of times at how I fleshed out the love scenes between them, and had forgotten how powerful of a writer I could be, especially the part after Ennis had to go on without Jack and I continued the story on past the movie's end after that wardrobe door closed.

Since highschool I've been writing a spy novel called "System 10" and its sequel "A Ghost of a Chance." it seems like every time I'd really get going I'd get a taste of succeses and I'd have to put it away and when I got back to the manuscripts technology had changed so much I'd have to start from scratch. One friend loved S&M and offered me a bundle to spice up all of the interrogation scenes and I nearly ruined the whole thing. Then I took the changes back out, but he paid me a pretty sum to send him an autographed/unpublished copy of that version of it. I've squandered an opportunity the last five years being trapped in this apartment. I'm seriously thinking of finishing both manuscripts now. System is over 500 pages and complete and "Ghost" is a third written on paper and a 2nd third in my head. Maybe the experiences I've had lately might add something to my writing. At any rate, give my Brokeback novel a look and tell me what you think of it (see the shortcut to it above).


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Here's a teaser of how I fleshed out Jack's murder into a whole chapter instead of the mere seconds given it in the movie...
After traveling about a hundred yards down the long private dirt lane that led to the ranch house… his boyhood home, through the blowing dust, he saw old lumber, or a post from the barbed wire fence that’d somehow fallen over and he smiled that his new truck could run over it without even noticing.

As he bumped over it, the front right tire blew out and he cussed his head off as he struggled to stay in control.

Jumping out to inspect it, he exclaimed, “Shit!”

He pulled off his jacket, slapped it across the hood overhanded and reached in to shut off the truck.

After scanning the surrounding weathered out-buildings of his youth and hearing only crows cawing and cows, he rolled up his sleeves, got under the back of his truck and pulled down the spare, jack and tire iron, then set to work getting the front tire off.

A sound distracted him, as an old battered Chevy pickup pulled up behind him that he recognized as his father’s. His smile to his old man changed to surprise as the door of the passenger side opened too and his hated father-in-law, climbed out. Two husky young farmhands wearing worn overalls that he’d never met before, leaped athletically out of the old bed, bouncing the back of the truck on creaking shocks and started looking for something beside the old dirt road together.

His dad smiled as they approached, “Trouble son?”

Jack puzzled that his parents were supposed to be up north, and that somehow Newsome and his father even knew each other, much less that they were friends. While Jack was still mystified, distracted and off guard, his father-in-law appeared at his side, reached for the tire iron in Jack’s hand and said, “Here ‘Rodeo’, let me help you with that.”

“Well thank you,” responded Jack with a surprised grin. “Rodeo” had become a nickname over the years that Lorene’s old man used to deride his son-in-law with disrespect. Jack's brows furrowed in puzzlement because it clashed with the warm smile his father-in-law now wore.

“What happened?” his father asked.

“That post was layin’ across the road,” replied Jack gazing over into his dad’s eyes. He turned to look for it and found that one of the young men that’d come with them was now carrying it toward him. The other farmhand was nowhere to be found. As the stranger approached with a threatening grin, Jack noticed that the big wooden post had a bunch of new shiny long nails driven through it, so that the ends were all pointing outward. As he came closer, the ranch hand gripped it like a slugger about to belt a home run out of the stadium.

The long grass rustled behind the truck, as the other man came up behind him, tire iron in hand.
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My knee has steadily gotten worse since the 4-block hike to see Dr. Mind Wednesday. God, I used to ride a 10-speed 20 miles a day, and we used to rearrange production schedules in San Diego so I could run 5-6 miles around the convoluted hilly streets. With them tearing down two buildings on campus I wonder if I can even count on being able to see her, much less being able to park somewhere.

I can’t seem to let go of the past, the good past not the bad. I’d worked so hard to achieve success and then I realized how little it meant when my own family didn’t witness it first hand, save for the cash I’d send them for no apparent reason on a whim. I got a accused of it and looking back on it, I wonder if I really was trying to buy their love… well you get what you pay for.

Thank god for my sister Betsy and the friends that became family here and across the country.

After mentally festering on Thursday, I picked up the phone Friday and made a doctor’s appointment to renew a lot of my prescriptions. The appointment’s not until Monday after next but I think I have enough to last till then. So far the only things I’m in danger of running out of are lo-dose aspirin and a heart med called Kozaar. The big question is if I’ll have to pay full price for them.

I called Dr.P/ankle’s office to check on the physical rehab extension but Cheryl won’t be back from vacation Monday.

It’s getting harder and harder to breath with the changing of the season to colder, it’s the muscles the cut through for my heart operations.

With help, I’m about $35 ahead of the bills. Next month’s car insurance would be an adventure. The Megamillions jackpot is up over a million dollars again. Ha ha.

I haven’t heard from Dave in Australia lately; after that red storm Sydney had I hope he’s okay.


Tuesday the 6th
I figured it out-I GOD DAMNED FIGURED IT OUT.

But now I don’t know what to do with that revelation.

I smiled at them-my attackers-and that smile and tens of thousands like it have haunted me since. As those three young black men walked up to me halfway into my car… I smiled a welcome at them. I was so used to smiling at customers, I was so used to smiling at friends, at total strangers that it became second nature to me. Back when I was a muscle hunk for a year I loved people approaching me for a closer look, to be with me or maybe sneak a touch of my abs or pecs.

For a brief year I became the man I fantasized about walking up to and caressing and touching. Having lived it, and then letting it slip away taught me that it didn’t matter what you looked like inside because of all of the conceited jerks who looked just like me that I met along the way and decided that 5-days a week in the gym just weren’t worth the delusion. Especially when I realized that unless I became a slave to my diet and exercise regimen it’d all vanish as quickly as I’d built them up. I bought a Volvo once and didn’t realize just how many there were on the road too until I actually owned one because I’d never noticed them all before. I never realized that having ripped abs and delts wasn’t an exclusive club for only those with the right kind of genes or luck, until I had them and then realized how big of a crowd I’d joined.

Then those three Somolians beat me almost senseless and beat that smile off of my face. Oh I’ve smiled a lot since, but not “that” smile. Before that night I went out of my way to help people who needed directions somewhere, financial help or just a friend to listen to. The grin automatically crossed my face almost without thinking.

Art customers who badly wanted a portrait of a dead or beloved relative got one from me when I agreed to help them recover a look or expression that no photograph could capture. Acquaintances who needed money to feed the kids or keep the electric from being shut off got one. And worst of all during my annual saving season toward Christmas I gave myself one when I’d deliver pizzas for extra money, I’d smile at total strangers who were wiped out and amazed that I’d be driving a brand-new luxury convertible to deliver their food instead of a beat-up junker, that I could talk to my car to make it start, or turn on the stereo or disarm the alarm. Amazed little kids got one and I got one in return from them when I’d do it. I was so used to total strangers complimenting my looks or my car that I didn’t fear them when they walked up to me to ask directions or to start up a friendly conversation.

But now every time a stranger walks up to me for any reason I become scared or wary of them because the last time I gave a trusting smile, I was nearly beaten to death.

IT’S NOT FAIR-IT’S WORSE THAN THEM ALMOST TAKING MY LIFE. They stole my trust, they stole my friendliness, they ripped from me the ability to make new friends with the first blow of the butt of that gun.

All I have left is waking up screaming in the middle of the night from reliving that horrible moment, of seeing my own blood smeared on that wall, after walking painfully into an emergency room and weakly announcing that I needed help, of realizing that no one would open their doors to shelter me in case my attackers came back.

In that moment they stole my whole outlook of human nature forever.

I can’t forgive them for taking that, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t get it back, so I can’t forgive myself for not being able to find it.

Maybe that’s why I think of suicide so often. Without that, my life isn’t worth living…


Friday the 9th
Still no paperwork from either Social Security or GB, I wonder how much time I have before my paperwork expires and I have to start the whole process all over again. I finally succeeded in turning one of the nightmares around and woke up remembering watching my attackers running off in fear… now if I can only remember how I did it.

They’re talking about taxing bloggers for free stuff they get to review… great, just what I need. Then again, I doubt that I’m making enough to hit the lower limit of income before I’d have to file a return.

I though I saw my attackers out of the corner of my eye and succeeded in not panicking in the middle of Wal-Mart yesterday.

I woke up around 5:30 this morning and checked the checking account-GB deposited the right amount-two in a row. After I pay the car payment and double phone bill I’ve got about $40-45 left. Fortunately I bought all those groceries, I I should be okay.

Mischief finally stopped sneezing all the time, god I was worried.

My right shoulder hurts like hell, nothing new. I’ve been really trying to walk without limping and it’s near impossible, but I’m still trying. Now if only I could win the lottery.

I'm seriously considering writing my first astronomy article in a while, they just discovered a HUGE ring around Saturn.


Sunday the 11th
I finally got my article published about Saturn’s enormous new ring today. There’s got to be a way to make money off of this, but I have no professional credentials to impress potential employers.

I went down this evening to take a big garbage bag of trash to the dumpsters, just to prove to myself that I could and had a panic attack in the parking lot. I hate this so much. I “saw” someone hiding behind a car in the carport and fled to my own car locking myself in. After about half an hour of convincing myself that he wasn’t there, I couldn’t get out of the car, so I drove to Kroger’s hoping he’d be gone by the time I got back, in my house slippers and a 4-day beard, and bought some bread and a 2-liter of pop only to discover I hadn’t brought my wallet. Fortunately I had about $6 in my pocket and a lady let me borrow her Kroger’s discount card.

I checked my food stamp card and I’ve got exactly .58 on it, so they didn’t put my pathetic $16 on it.

On the way back from my car in the dark to the apartment building I was never so scared. This is so fucked, I used to live most of my life after sunset and now I’m a little fucking baby afraid of the dark. Yesterday’s mail brought the statement from Social Security, if I don’t get anything from GB tomorrow, I’ll have to go down there in person… what an adventure that should be.

I’ve got a doctor’s appointment tomorrow and I’ll get my prescriptions refilled. I’ve got to remember to have him do the potassium supplements so my leg will stop cramping in the morning. If Medicare part B still covers my prescriptions I should be okay, but if not, I’ll need about $225 for prescriptions that I don’t have. It’s so hard living on the edge of a financial cliff.

Mischief hasn’t sneezed once today and I’m relieved about that.

I’m going to have to cure myself of this one way or another, I spent the evening commenting on various BC articles. I’m going to have to up my dosage of Cymbalta back up to where it should be instead of hoarding it in case they take it away again. When I’m not on it I’m downright insensitive and rude to people and don’t realize it until after I’ve already clicked enter.


Monday the 12th
I saw my doctor for the first time this year. I’ve missed all of my appointments up until now because I was in the hospital nearly the first half of the year. I’ve got a four-page updated medical history on the computer with my current prescriptions that I was going to print out for him, but I'm now completely out of ink, both color and black cartridges so I’m screwed. I gave up and took him all my pill bottles. He gave me a quick once over and said he’d give me a chest xray next time I came in because of the pain when I take a full breath.

I’M TOO FUCKING YOUNG TO HAVE ALL THESE OLD MAN PROBLEMS. It’s probably from all that shit I was doing when I was growing muscles a while back.

Anyway, he gave me refills on all 14 prescriptions but I could only afford two. They snuck me onto their calendar last week, so I wound up sitting there for nearly three hours for an opening, and then realized I might not have enough for the parking garage fee. The nurse said if they tried to charge me the $5 full day fee to hit some security button and explain my situation and they’d let me through with the $4 I had… thankfully it only cost $3.

I drove out to Wal-Mart and refilled my two prescriptions that I was low on and came home. Fortunately I’ve got enough of a backlog stash of pills that I can hold out until my next check in two weeks. Unfortunately that doesn't include my pain meds.

This time after the bills were paid I’ve got $1.51 in the checking account, but I’ve got enough groceries, so as long as nothing comes up, I’ll see. If the bank levels a minimum balance fee, I’ll have to pay an overdraft charge again… groan


Tuesday the 13th
My next door neighbor woke me up this morning pounding frantically on the door like the place was on fire. She said I was screaming like I was being murdered and she almost called the police. She knows about my nightmares and wasn’t going to complain to them, just that it sounded like I was being attacked.

This is getting me down. Am I losing my sanity? I'll laugh at that-I have already!

My arm hurts like hell and so does my knee. They’re predicting snow this Friday so my joints must be predicting the weather again. God how I’d like to be in Australia with my friend Dave right now, they’re just transitioning into spring there.

Mischief is over her sneezing fits thank god, I was really worried about her... now if I only knew what caused them.

Same shit-different day.


Wednesday the 14th
I saw my shrink over at OSU today. With no ink I couldn’t print out my diary entries for her so I made a few quick notes and went over. My memory problem is still about the same since the heart operation and I’m beginning to wonder if there was some brain damage from when I died twice in the E.R. that they didn't tell me about.

I circled the parking/construction area and couldn’t find a slot so I sat at the end of the line at the curb waiting for someone to pull out and a campus cop pulled up and said I couldn’t stay there. I explained my situation and he was nice enough to tell me to put my car over in a no-parking zone by the front door of Dr. Mind’s office as long as I was only going to be there an hour. There are some nice people in the world. When I came back out, there was a ticket on the windshield and I got really pissed, then read it and it was a courtesy reminder ticket with a $0 fine so no one else would ticket it.

I told my shrink about “seeing” the guy out in the parking lot last week; she didn’t seem surprised. She told me she had a conference next Wednesday and she wouldn’t be in her office… with no money, I’ll probably not leave my apartment for two weeks-good time to grow a beard?

I’ve started having problems with my beautiful-and expensive 24” monitor. It’ll come on and instantly go back off, but the LED on the power button stays on? If I click it a few times it’ll come back on but this isn’t a good sign. I've been worrying about my 6-year old compuert going, not this. I need this big screen to be able to read text until I can get my eyes fixed. I spent the day working on my new politics page banner and also I’ve added a new news ticker with the latest headlines hoping to get some people to stay on longer… now if only I could get them to click some of the ads. Speaking of which, for some reason my politics page has been taken over by the religious right’s political ads, and ads for dating Muslims-not that I object to Muslims dating, it’s just it’s a political page, not a lonely hearts club.


Thursday the 15th
Now that I’ve got the political news ticker working and it looks great, I decided to ad it to my science, entertainment, and Brokeback Mountain pages. I redid the science banner and it looks great… until I logged onto it. I do my graphics in a .bmp format but the main webpage is displayed in the .jpg format and all that beautiful detail is not only blurred, but the colors are faded. Sometime when I have time to experiment I’ll have to find a workaround for it.

I did an inventory of my food and I’ve got enough till Saturday next week if they actually send a full check next Friday.

I’m seriously thinking of rolling a bunch of nickels and blowing $2 on a lottery ticket to cover tomorrow and next Tuesday. The current jackpot is $200 million. I’d send everyone that helped me through the bankruptcy in 2007 $10,000 each for the hundreds of dollars of help they were wonderful enough to send, I’d give my sister Betsy 10 million for staying by my side (so to speak). I’d probably send my friends Brenda and Teresa 5 million each, and Dave in Australia a million just for offering his help when I was so broke and just when I thought no one cared and was about to give up too.

Pipe dreams.

I’ve started to get a backlog of review materials (Books, CDs DVDs) from BC to review. I just wish I could dump this depression shit and get in the mode of writing it all down. It’ll come…


Friday the 16th
Gads it’s turned cold. Living in a top floor penthouse has its advantages in the winter. The heat from the lower apartments seeps up here and all the concrete holds it and keeps me warm. Good thing too. Michief’s litter box is starting to get an ammonia smell to it and I can’t buy new litter until next Friday. Thankfully I’m still getting free electric somehow-but who knows how long that’ll last. I’ve got to keep the bathroom exhaust fan on all the time to keep it from spreading out into the hall, which is probably sucking the heat out, but like I say with free electric until if they ever fix the meter, I’m okay for now.

My computer monitor is giving me problems again on and off and I can’t figure out what’s going on. I’ve tried jamming a toothpick in the power button to hold it in, but for some reason that doesn’t seem to be the problem. It just goes black without warning and something blinks in the upper left hand corner of the screen that vanishes before I can read it, so I don’t know if it’s the monitor or what. Usually turning it on and off a few times fixes it, but not for long. I dug in and checked my power-saving settings to make sure they were still off and they were... hmmmmmm

Someone won the lotto tonight so it’s down to 12 million again and after all, what can you do with 2-3 million after taxes these days anyway… I mean really?

I saw a Wanda Sykes comedy concert on HBO tonight that made me actually laugh out loud, which felt really good.Bill Maher's off until next February so I've got to find something else to look forward to on Fridays. I remember when I used to take out all my friends to the Eagles Club... God I miss that freedom.


Saturday the 17th
I woke up screaming again this morning. I remember being chased by my three Somolians but that’s about it. I’m scared of someone coming up to me because I’m no longer able to run with my knee and ankle the way they are… moot point as I’d probably have another heart attack anyway.


Monday the 19th
I must’ve written 20 stick-on notes to myself to not forget to go to the GB medical appointment this morning. She went over my knee and was concerned about my “seeing” attackers out of the corner of my eye and wants to talk to Dr. Mind. She didn’t write out a new prescription for Cymbalta for me, and when I asked why she said I still had a refill left… let’s hope.

Tonight's episode of "Little People-Big World" broke my heart. Matt and his son Jeremy went on a skiing adventure to Mt. Hood. If that wasn't bad enough, they stayed at the Timberline Lodge. I watched the whole time with a tear in my eye saying I stood there, I did that, I remember that tree, I loved that ski lift, I remember that view. Back when I had the freedom to just drop everything and take off any time I wanted to.

The first time I went there my Sister Charlene took me for dinner and I was hooked from that moment on, insisting on driving out every time I was even near it... or on the west coast for that matter.

This damned monitor won’t stay on long enough to get anything accomplished on it. It’s long enough to play a game of solitaire, but not enough to play a game of chess if that helps you with the time frame. I hate to think if I lose use of it altogether because I owe BC a ton of articles for the stuff they’ve sent me and this is my only real communications line outside of my apartment door.

Spent the day turning it on and off trying to read what that little note in the upper corner says but so far no luck… such is life. I know I can’t afford a new one, so I may have to get brave and try to take this one apart and fix it myself once it dies. What’ve I got to lose? I’ve fixed all kinds of stuff in the past and had no idea what I was doing.

It’s bothering the hell out of me that I’ve never noticed that my web pages aren’t displaying my banners in .bmp format and are instead converting them to a lesser .jpg format instead. I didn’t think my eyes were that bad, but what finally caught my attention was the science page; I’d used a bunch of astronomy, laboratory and computer terms in different colors for a backdrop for the images and their hues are all washed out from the originals. If I can keep this damned monitor into staying on long enough, I’ll try tackling trying to keep the reds and oranges from washing out blurring and the greens from fading.


Tuesday the 20th
My sister Betsy and then my aunt Margaret called me this morning to each remind me that the loved me. I'm still seriously thinking of trying to drive out to Pittsburgh to visit Aunt Margaret, but it's a three hour trip and I'm still trying to figure out how to pay next month's car insurance premium, so the gas needed is out of the question. I'd probably visit Brenda while I was there.

It kinda hurts that my sister and mother live there and I wouldn't even think of seeing them because I wouldn't be welcome. My mother turned into an entirely different person when she moved in with her and now is almost a complete stranger.

I think I’ve got a inkling into the problem with the monitor and it has to do with its internal software trying to find a digital source instead of an analog one on my 6-year-old computer. I discovered this PC didn’t have an output for it when I bought the monitor just before I was attacked in 2006.

I’m putting a few calls into some friends because monitor hard-wired instructions are a little out of my league.

I woke up this morning and realized they didn’t give me any paperwork for the C84 that pays me this Friday to fill out. I called there and she apologized for forgetting to give it to me, so I’ll have to get dressed and go over there and fill it out.

I called the pharmacy and I’ve still got one refill left on the Cymbalta but they won’t let me pick it up until Friday because it’s less than 30 days from my last refill. Technicalities-technicalities… groan.

I stopped in at the physical rehab gym downstairs from her office and aske them to look into the mysterious call I got about GB authorizing more rehab for my knee.

It was warm out and I wanted to put the top down, but their office is only two blocks away and I don't have gas or money to go out adventuring... alas


Friday thru Tuesday the 27th
I figured out the problem with the monitor and I’ve got a temporary fix. It turns out that it wants a digital image source instead of the analog one that my 6-year-old tower is providing. The only thing I can do when it goes blank is to feel around for the third of 6 buttons under the screen that command it to go back to the analog source. Why it decided to get fussy now is anyone’s guess. I called Samsung tech support, but they said there’s no default switch to stop it from doing it, and of course it’s off warranty…

Betsy’s house up on the mountain was broken into last Friday and the news sent chills all through me. She lives down in Sweet Home with her boyfriend/fiancé and wasn’t there. She worded it wrong when she called and said she’d been robbed instead of burglarized and you can imagine what that news did to me. Apparently they ransacked the house and the only thing missing is a hunting rifle, which they forgot to steal the clip for. I don’t think I could live that kind of life where the cops are a 45-minute trip to get to your house, assuming they left right away and weren’t involved with something else. It illustrated “Murphy’s Law” though. She had this huge industrial-sized lock on the door that they couldn’t cut through with bolt cutters… so the cut through the little hasp that was holding it to the door. I’m just glad she’s okay.

Let’s see… How am I?

The GB check was deposited on Friday. I know better than to assume this is a new period where I don’t have to worry about it but… I’ve lost my food stamps because GB still hasn’t sent me an income statement that I can submit to Medicaid. I’m still to afraid to go to their local office because of the rage I might go into because of all of their shit. The last e-mail I sent to them I sent a cc to K/lawyer but I haven’t heard from either of them. Things could really get fucked up here as my car insurance is due soon and it’s almost $600. Even if I go back to paying over $100 a month, with their service charge I’d still be losing ground.

Psychologically I’m falling apart at the seams and don’t know what to do about it. I haven’t left the apartment since last Friday. I’ve tried controlling the nightmares of the attack by working over different scenarios in my head before I fall asleep. Dr. Mind wants me to kill off my attackers in my dreams, but lately my subconscious hasn’t cooperated and I wind up beating them to death and being covered with their blood and wake up screaming anyway. The five-year anniversary of the attack is coming up Nov. 6th and I think that’s triggering it. News reports of my old pizza delivery area aren’t helping either, because apparently the whole zone is turning into a nightmare in its own right. A man was found dead in in the hall of an apartment building I used to deliver to all the time, one of the bars up on Schrock road had a "St. Valentine's Day Massacre" style gang shooting involving eight people in a bloodbath and so on. I’m back to avoiding sleep until I’m too exhausted to go on and then sleep for only two or three hours, wake up screaming, and then start all over again. Thankfully I haven’t had any imaginary attackers lately out in the hall, but then I haven’t left the apartment in days. I’m still planning every time I go outside carefully to pick up enough supplies until the next time I have to go out. Considering how outgoing and friendly I used to be, this hurts so much. “Jet” is really dead; his corpse is just too stupid and stubborn to fall down. I keep having these sudden bouts of “alone” that hang over me like a cloud of choking smoke.

When I got the GB deposit, I ordered four more prescriptions that I was low on and was startled when the pharmacist told me they were free! We’re talking major medications here. I started going over my list and it turns out the most important drugs cost almost/or nothing and the most expensive things on the list are lo-dose aspirin and vitamins and stuff like that. What’s my favorite saying? “If it makes sense-it’s against company policy!” One thing I can’t refill though is the Nexium for my ulcer. Apparently Medicare won’t pay for two pills a day, only one, so they keep rejecting the prescription. I’ve got my doctor working on it.

The girl at physical therapy called last Thursday to say that GB had authorized more sessions. I called this morning (Tuesday) got her voice mail and left a message for her to call me back. My right shoulder where the top of the plate is that’s holding my arm together hurts like hell. I can’t tell if it’s weather or post-operative arthritis. I still can’t take a full lung of air without my side where they cut me open hurting like hell. I’ve been working on breathing exercises and they help a little. My left knee fucking hurts like hell and is crunching even louder… par for the course.

I’ve started working on my next DVD review of Mannix’s third season so my mind is occupied. The problem is I can’t work for more than an hour before I start yawning and having to start all over again.


4:49PM update:
For some reason Dr. P/foot's office couldn't reach me because my phone wasn't working????? so they called Aunt Margaret and Betsy. Both called to day my appointment tomorrow has been moved to Monday. Physical Therapy called a moment later to arrange my session for Thursday, so it looks like I've got a full calendar if I can talk myself past the front door.

I got an e-mail from my lawyer's assistant saying that she put in a voicemail to GB about the paperwork I need and she'd let me know.

cue soap opera music...


Wednesday the 28th
I saw a video of Sarah Palin's almost son-in-law Levi Johnson transforming himself from a halfway decent stud into a serviceable hunk for his upcoming PLAYGIRL photo shoot. I hope he embarrasses the living hell out of that born-again cunt bitch who can't keep her fucking mouth shut.

(covers mouth in embarrassment) Did I say that?

He's only doing it to start a college fund for his new baby, because Palin's closed practically every other source of income he has in revenge for not marrying her daughter after "knocking her up" He's doing full-frontal nudity and I hope he's hung like a horse so his picture will be splashed over every media outlet on the planet... with a dot covering it of course... well, maybe not. He is the sole provider for his sister too, since his mom, Sherry, went to jail following her 2008 arrest on charges of selling OxyContin.

Palin covered up a lot during the campaign didn't she?

It reminded me of how quickly I lost around 35 pounds of blubber and gained 40 of muscle myself. I just hope he knows that unless he wants to lose it as fast as he gained it, he'll be a slave to the gym for the next decade or so. Bodybuilding is something you have to dedicate a lot of time to, I know. I wonder a lot about what would've happened had I stayed on my own regiment-I probably would've eventually wound up in front of the camera instead of behind it in San Diego, gotten richer on business men wanting a night with me and died of AIDS by now. Oh well, fame has its price. I'm glad I chose the art career instead.

I drove out to see Dr. Mind and discovered that they’re reconfiguring the street so that what used to be a cul-de-sac that ends at her building is now a through way cutting across what used to be a park. Not only that, but the handicap parking is being temporarily eliminated… Just what I needed. According to her, they figure we can all afford to pay for the parking garage and then walk two blocks.

It was just barely warm enough to put the top down. If I roll all my windows up, a vacuum is created behind the windshield and the raised windows protect from side-drafts creating a well of still air up front. I can actually go with the top down, down to around 45 degrees F… with the heat cranked of course.

My lawyer’s assistant Meghan accomplished in one day what it took me nearly a month to… or so she thought. I’d asked for a simple statement showing what I was getting per month from GB to be mailed to me. Meghan received an e-mail of a PDF file of some terrible photocopies of check stubs. Unfortunately I don’t have enough money to print it out and submit. I’m considering burning the file onto a disc and taking it to Kinkos and asking if they can print them from that. That’d cost about $5 instead of the $45 for an ink cartridge.

I’ve got my first physical rehab appointment in a month tomorrow, so I’ll work on it then.

I wish I knew the friend in Fredericksburg Virginia that’s become such a loyal reader. If you click on the “get to know me” icon you can drop me an e-mail; I’d love to hear from you. I’ve made a lot of good e-friends like Dave in Australia. There’s another mystery guest from Johnson City Tennessee and Cave City Arkansas I’d like to meet.


Saturday the 31st
I got the joyous news today that my sister Betsy accepted her boyfriend Norm’s marriage proposal today. I’m in agony that I can’t fly across the country to give her hand away.

I’ve been in a coma the last two days, sleeping 11-12 hours at a stretch. Fortunately it appears to be dreamless sleep. I’ve spent most of the evening trying to convince myself this isn’t Sunday. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised considering how little sleep I’ve been getting. Only vaguely remember going to physical therapy Thursday and I’m surprised I didn’t fall asleep at the wheel. Fortunately I’m only two blocks from them.

I’ve tried having my black ink cartridge refilled at Walgreen’s before and it didn’t last long and the color one didn’t work at all, but I’m going to have to risk the $9.99 instead of buying an expensive new cartridge to try to get some of my financial stuff printed up so I can drop it off on Monday. I wish I could sue fucking GB for mental cruelty. If Medicaid wouldn’t accept the actually deposit receipts, I have no idea why they’d take badly photocopied copies of the same ones… we’ll see.

I got a letter from the bank that holds my car loan with a ticket in it that would allow me to skip this month’s payment. I’ve gotten my hopes up before and they turned me down. I’ll call them Monday and if it’s real this time, I might be able to afford the car insurance and not have to worry about it until next May.

I’ve been gaining weight because of the trash food I’ve got to buy, because it’s all I can afford. Frozen dinners and dry mixes loaded with starch sugars and salt. I’ve got a huge gym right downstairs that I’ve got a key to and still have an irrational fear of going there. It’s just too fucked up for words.

September 2009

Tuesday September 1st 2009
Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, it did. I couldn’t sleep last night and around 6 this morning I checked my e-mail. I got one from my bank. It turns out that when I bought gas last Tuesday Speedway took its damn good time charging my checking account. When I checked my balance Sunday before I bought my last supplies it didn’t include the purchase and since I came within $3 of emptying the account, when Speedway charged it five-fucking-days-later, and it went on the account this morning something happened that has never happened in my whole life… my checking account went overdrawn.

The bank charge is $34, so I’m overdrawn just under $39, nearly the amount I had to spend on groceries after I paid this month’s rent. I e-mailed Lawyer/K and he called this later morning to say GB flatly refuses to acknowledge the C84 that Dr. Knee/P issued. They did admit to owing me a week’s pay from the 24th, but wouldn’t say when they planned to deposit it, which means I could still miss this month’s rent.

I see Dr. Knee/P tomorrow, K asked me to get them to fax the C84 P signed thru the end of the year to him. Lawyer/K was pissed because GB gave him the impression they were going to deposit the money yesterday, and when I told him they hadn’t done it yet, he put me on hold and called them. When he came back he had no idea when it’d be deposited, only that it’d be “soon”.

Being new to bouncing checks, I called my bank to find out if the overdraw fee was a one-time thing or every day until it was paid and was relieved to find it was just one time. I was also concerned about them freezing the account so that nothing could be deposited and they said it wasn’t. I’ve never felt so humiliated.

I could feel myself falling apart, so I called Dr. Mind’s office, but she’s out today but her receptionist said she’d try to get a message to her. I hung up and realized my physical therapy session was this morning. It was 9:49AM I was due there at 9:45. Since I missed last Friday’s I couldn’t afford to miss this one, they said if I got there in 10 minutes, I could still get in-fortunately I only live two blocks away. I scrambled on my bad leg, unshaven or showered and just barely made it.

I can’t wait to find out what happens to me after noon today.

Time to hide under the bed?


Wednesday September 2nd 2009
Still no fucking check, I guess I’ll have to wait till the last second to pay my rent. Par for the course, I tried to print out a check for the rent and I’m out of black ink.

I’m still standing, I don’t know how, but I’m still alive.

I went and saw Dr. Mind, she’s of course appalled that the bastards at GB filed yet another appeal after we won... again. I e-mailed Lawyer K this morning and asked if there was some way he could sue them on his own for his expenses and time for all these frivolous court appearances that I can’t pay him for.

Dr. Mind wants me to start writing down my nightmares toward maybe publishing them as a sort of Twilight Zone-style book. After I saw her I went over to see Dr. Knee/P.

Under the heading of it can only happen to Jet… I got out of Dr. Mind’s around 1:30PM and my appointment with Dr. P/Knee was at 2:20. Plenty of time right… WRONG. I couldn’t get in the parking garage at the hospital because someone’s car caught on fire in there, which made me almost half an hour late. Fortunately they all knew about it (their windows face the garage) and were very nice.

He’s very encouraged by the progress, but is concerned by how the tendon or something is binding on the plate he put in there with all the screws in it. If it gets more painful or the x-rays don’t improve, he may have to go back in and operate again… joy.

His assistant in charge of Workman’s Comp claims, is miffed that GB has decided to ignore her claim/paperwork/C84. She gave me a copy of it to take to Lawyer/K’s office.

I go to physical therapy again tomorrow and I don’t even know if GB will pay for it. She put in another C9 to extend it another month, and he wrote a prescription for it so we’ll see.

I got home and checked my checking, still no deposit, and I still have a negative balance. Thank god the charge is only once per incident, my aunt thought it was daily and I’m glad she was wrong or it’d eat up my meager half-check before I even get it… if I get it.

I think Lawyer/K is finally beginning to see why I sweat bullets every time it’s time for a check to be deposited. I went on line and googled GB and complaints and couldn’t believe how many bankruptcies they caused, and how many times they ignored court orders to pay someone. I myself am a victim, as they refused to pay a $20,000 hospital bill until after it went on my credit report which raised all my credit card rates so high that I couldn’t keep up with the interest much less the minimum payments and had to file bankruptcy.

My side hurts like hell today from the heart operation and the emergency procedures afterward. It’s really hard to take a deep breath. As for my knee-hearing it crunch when I move it is almost as bad as feeling it.

I’ve been through so much in the last four years or so that it’s almost like I’m in a numb haze. I hate living like this.


Thursday September 3rd 2009
These morning sessions of physical therapy are going to be my undoing. I can’t take anything for the pain until I get back home and by then it’s agony. I’m able to move my leg at the knee back a little more thanks to the exercises I’m doing at home, and stretching helps, but I can barely walk afterward. All of my accumulated pain meds from the hospital visits are running out and I'm rationing them to when I barely need them.

I hated it; I got into my cherished coin jar and got a mint 1976 bicentennial quarter for the parking meter. The check was finally deposited so I hand-wrote a check for the rent, leaving me exactly .48 cents in my account. I drove over to Lawyer/k’s office and dropped off Dr. Knee/P’s paperwork. He wasn’t there, but I talked to his assistant for a while. I’ll have to remember to recover mileage costs and gas if I ever sue GB for the hell they’ve put me through.

All that the county puts on my food stamp card is $16 to last the whole month, so I drove up to Wal-Mart and bought some .88 cent canned ravioli, some bread, tuna and mayonnaise. I can’t believe I’m actually going to attempt to live for two weeks on .48 cents.

If I can survive this, I can survive anything… of course I’ve said that before.

I got home and sat down at my desk here for about an hour and played chess with the computer. I couldn’t get up afterward, my knee hurt so bad when I tried that I actually screamed, scaring the piss out of the cat.

I’ve started doing a new graphic for my political page. Maybe I can get my artistic juices flowing that way… we’ll see.


Friday the 4th 2009
I spent most of the day sleeping. I’ve wandered onto BC’s politics page and actually got into some of the political conversations. As soon as they discovered I was back, suddenly my articles came alive and I was busy answering comments, which made me feel good.

Someone will see an opinion that I’ve expressed and like it and research what articles I’ve written, read them and then comment on them.

I woke up with a headache today, which is never a good sign, because I almost never have them. I hope this isn’t a preliminary sign of the swine flu. My physical therapist was coughing yesterday, and I heard one was away because she was “very contagious.”

I finished up the banner graphic for my political page and I’m so encouraged by how it looks that I’ve decided to re-do the Science page next. I guess it’s better that sitting around feeling sorry for myself. I can’t drive around anymore because I’m almost out of gas.

My knee is sore. It doesn’t really hurt; it’s just a sort-of constant ache. I decided to do a sort of backwards eating schedule. I know that toward the end of this ordeal, I’ll be down to eating mayonnaise on crackers or stuff in the cabinets that I can’t stand, so I’m starting with that first so that as this drags on I’ll have better and better food to look forward to (if my resolve holds out). It’s as good as an excuse as any to get rid of the stuff that’s been sitting there for a while anyway.


Saturday the 5th 2009
I found this really great picture of earth on line and I’m going to use it as part of the banner. I spent the afternoon colorizing a picture of Albert Einstein too. I had one of those “spells” where I sat on the edge of my bed for ten minutes only to discover when I came out of it that it was almost an hour and a half. Thank god that doesn’t happen when I’m driving. It did once a couple of years ago and I almost wound up in Indiana before I woke up.

Ohio State beat Navy today. WHY DO I CARE?????? When you live anywhere near Ohio State you have to whether you want to or not. Speaking of sports, a couple of my readers over at BC wanted to know why my latest article was published under Culture instead of Sports. It’s tough not letting loose at Sussman, but I promised Lisa I’d be good on the comments section as long as he is, so I’m a man of my word.

My sister Betsy called me as usual on her weekly trip home from Crystal Lake where she works for three-day stretches. Her boyfriend was following her on his motorcycle and it started pouring down rain really hard. After about 15 minutes she pulled over to see if he was alright only to discover him laughing his head off like a kid in the rain (duh), having a ball and wondering why she’d pulled over.

God, I envy her. I’ve never met him, but hearing his voice talking to her in the background during our many calls, I’ve sort of got to know him and he’s so head-over-heels in love with her.

My ego took a hit. She’s sending me $150 that I know she can’t afford. It made me feel as bad as when I applied for county help and Social Security. I wanted so bad to turn her down, but the electric bill is already days late and I’m going to have to get cash from somewhere or miss the car payment so I kept quiet.

Dr. Mind has to go to Arizona to take care of her mother, so I won’t have a session this Wednesday. I’m not looking forward to next week for so many reasons.


Thursday the 10th 2009
The last few days have gone by in nearly a coma, sleeping sometimes more than twelve hours at a stretch.

I’m getting bills from a pharmacy that I’ve never dealt with, so I opened one and now have another ulcer-inducing problem. I'm billed because GB is going through everything with a fine-toothed comb to find things not to pay for.

My hospital stays are being dissected and they're refusing to pay for life and death required things like insulin and heart medications while I was there... Medications I was given no indication that wouldn't be covered, otherwise I'd have brought them with me. Also by their policy, since the hospital and the aftercare facility as a rule won't allow me to self-medicate for insurance/legal reasons, I have no choice but to take what they give off my regular medications list like vitamins and potassium pills to keep water from building up around my lungs-and then pay for them out of my own pocket. Medicare is refusing to cover the meds because it's a work related hospital stay and I'm stuck with hundreds/thousands of dollars of bills I can't afford.

My checking account stands at .48 and has for more than a week, and I've been existing on what food I have left by rationing myself to only a meal a day, mostly of a can of tuna, a package of Lipton noodles and sauce mix and have nearly emptied my kitchen cabinets-Yesterday’s meal was freeze reconstituted dried chopped onions with some salad dressing. I'm beginning to suffer side-effects from my meds because they require I eat when I take them, and I'm limited to how and when I can take them because I have no money for food. I have no choice but to take 13 prescriptions all at once with my meals rather than spread them out through the day.

I ache all over and it’s sometimes really hard to breath. I’m becoming more and more paranoid about sounds outside of my door. THIS HAS GOT TO FUCKING STOP. I’m destroying myself physically and mentally and I can’t find a way out.

All hope of surviving this is almost completely drained out of me, I just don’t see any way out but one, and I’m still too much of a fucking coward.


Friday the 11th 2009
E-mail to Lawyer/K
----------
Dear Chuck and Megan,
Short version:
Emergency: Instead of $441.34 as they promised you and Dr Mind, GB only deposited $283.72.

Urgent: I just remembered that the woman I talked to at the billing agency for the unpaid prescriptions yesterday said that amongst the insulin, aspirin, Potassium pills etc, GB was refusing to pay for the Cymbalta (antidepressant) at the aftercare facility-despite the court order saying they had to.

A******* Pharmacy Inc
800-858-****
********* *** facility Hilliard
Acc #********

After the knee operation my blood sugar went through the roof and extra insulin was needed or I'd have died. GB refused to pay for it too according to the woman I talked to. This is the first time of all the 11-15 leg operations I've had that they've suddenly stopped paying for it and other necessary drugs such as heart meds etc that they KNOW the hospital won't let me self medicate or bring into the hospital on my own.

That means paying inflated hospital prices for medications instead of Medicare's co-pays for them for drugs I could've brought with me to the hospital had I known this would happen.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Checking Balance Sept. 3rd-11th was .48 cents

Because of the deal I had to sign so soon after my bankruptcy, to get the lease turned into a loan, my car payment must be on time or they'll take the car immediately. My car payment is $296.91-my checking balance is 284.21 with their deposit.

With a balance of less than a dollar for a week, I have a can of chicken and a package of lipton noodles left in the house. My electric bill is past due as of the 2nd of this month and my phone bill is due the 20th. I can't buy more food and make the car payment too.

Chuck, I can no longer handle this. I must talk to you this morning because I may not be here after this afternoon. I've been putting off checking into Ohio State's emergency room/psych facility at Dr. M*******'s insistance due to my having sole control over my checking and bill pays.

I didn't realize that the uncontrolled rage two weeks ago happened until after it was over and I fear it could happen again and I might hurt myself or someone else. You'll recall that it was triggered by this very situation Friday before last.

This unnecessary and continuous ordeal has me on the knife edge of hopelessness and I fear if I don't check in there soon, with no food left, no money to buy more, and no way to solve this problem, I may kill myself.

I'm being very serious...

Dr. M****** was called away to Arizona to take care of her mother and I haven't seen her for nearly two weeks.

Update 10:40AM

I got off the phone with the lawyer, GB refused to pay both weeks of the disputed period and the money they sent was an advance on today's check (I wasn't told, so I expected a full check) so no more money is coming in and there's nothing I can do about it.

I've started making phone calls trying to find someone to take my cat Mischief. I'm trying to figure out whether to keep my beloved car or eat and where I can get $20 for cat food if I can't place her somewhere.

My head is so scrambled I can't think. Maybe if I rest for a while my head will clear.

My sister's check probably won't come for a while, she called and said there was a problem and it'd be delayed. She would've covered my prescriptions and groceries, but that was when I thought I was getting a full check...

A really nice guy from Sydney Australia left me a wonderful note on my BC website article offering me help and solace. In the midst of all this torture it was exactly the right timing and I’ll be forever in his dept for pulling me out of the well of despair I was in this afternoon. Betsy’s letter still hasn’t arrived, but I had to gamble that it will next week and drove out to get a minimal amount of groceries to tide me over.

If I gamble and lose, there goes my car. I’ve lost so many things that I’ve cherished lately that I’m almost numb to it. Everyone’s talking about how all of this bad karma has to be balance sooner or later, but what if this is the balancing for all the wonderful thanks that happened to me between the late 80s through the early 2000s?

His note gave me hope, the one thing that’s been lacking lately.

Directly underneath my knee is really bothering me since the physical therapy yesterday. It was so sore I nearly stumbled on the 5 stairs out of the apartment building. It felt so good to be out with the top down. I didn’t feel any rages or even a temper flare up so that’s hopeful. I still see my attackers out of the corner of my eye sometimes but I’ve gotten so used to it that it’s a reflex action to ignore it. Someday that’ll probably get me killed or seriously hurt, but for now it helps my sanity… I guess.


Wednesday the 16th 2009
The last week has gone by in a haze; I’ve just stopped caring about everything and merely existed on “cruise control” so to speak. Without enough for the car payment I just basically said fuck it and drove up to Wal-Mart and bought about $40 in groceries and $10 in gas. My sister came through yesterday and I got her check for $150-god love her, but with this month’s prescriptions and bare necessities I won’t have enough to pay the phone bill and the electric is already past due back on the first. It’s going to take both my BC check combined with my meager Social Security to barely make next month’s rent and then I’m broke again with no way to pay the utilities.

It’s been so long since I was late with a bill I’m not sure if the phone company will let me slide a month on a $71 bill without shutting me of. The consequence of that though would be a $150 bill next month. It gets more and more hopeless every day to the point that I can feel myself shutting down from one aspect, and being to weary to care as it all falls apart on the other.

The nightmares continue. There’s a particular one that keeps reoccurring where I step outside my front door and my Somolians are just down the hall, see me and chase me to my door, which I get shut just in time to lock it. I call the cops, but they’re long gone by the time they get here. After the police respond about 5-6 more times they threaten to arrest me for putting in false reports and stop coming… so I simply don’t leave the apartment. Fed-Ex brought my review copy of CSI-Miami and I wouldn’t open the door and just stood silent hoping he’d go away. Fortunately he dropped it off at my building manager’s office.

Physical therapy is showing some progress, but it still hurts like hell. Paul is convinced that I need to get an MRI on my knee, as it doesn’t feel right when I flex it. All I know is that it hurts. Speaking of physical therapy, yesterday I went in and he had to call GB to get authorization because it was cut off. According to him they reluctantly extended it to the end of this week, then I’m on my own.

I hate living like this. I was given a taste of the good life where I could have nearly anything that I wanted and now I’m counting pennies to make sure I can make this month’s car payment. They promise that my next check goes back to normal, but that was what I thought last time… and the time before that and etc. etc. etc.

Another thing I miss is going out to the bars with my friends and having a good time… at night. I practically lived my whole life at night between traveling and throwing poker/billiards parties in the game room for friends.

When I drove to Wal-Mart a few days ago, I nearly wrecked the car in the center concrete median on I-670 because out of the corner of my eye I thought I was some young black guys about to ram my car off the road. I jerked the wheel to avoid them, only to look and discover that there were no cars even near me. I was so distracted I drifted left into the left emergency lane in a curve and almost wiped out… fortunately no one was near me.

It so damned depressing being alone with this in my head. Being without a lover to share it with and talk it out.

Reading back on my notes I’ve noticed a lot of talk of suicide again. I guess as long as I keep talking about it, I’m safe. It’s the ones that go silent that you have to worry about… or so I’m told.

I get to see Dr. Mind today. I’m going to have to take all the money I have left and pay the car payment ½ out of my checking ½ out of what’s left of what Betsy sent me.


Thursday the 17th 2009
Just before I left to see Dr. Mind yesterday a huge ray of hope hit me. I dug out my car payment book, (I never use it as I transfer my payments electronically directly out of my checking account) Instead of the September payment stub I discovered a coupon that’d allow me to skip a payment as a reward for making twelve straight payments! The fine print was that I’d have to pay a $50 fee and make it up at the end of the loan, but still that’d free up around $225 to make the phone bill, electric bill, buy prescriptions and have enough for groceries.

After my appointment with her, I went over to Huntington Bank and they wouldn’t let me use the damned thing after getting my hopes up. Apparently through no fault of my own one of my e-pays took 6 days instead of the usual 2 so it was one day late-which is what they used as an excuse not to take it. I emptied my checking account and scraped what little cash I had left over from Betsy and made the payment. Now I have $2.12 left after I bought a couple loaves of bread and some tuna and peanut butter.

Next month’s phone bill will be double-I just hope they don’t shut it off before then because I'd lose my internet DSL as well.

I should’ve known better than to get my hopes up. My friend in Australia made a very generous offer to help me, which I turned down, but now I may have to swallow my pride and ask again. The trouble is I won’t get another check (which hopefully they won’t screw with) for two weeks and it’s not enough to pay the rent without using the tiny amount I get from Social security disability, leaving me nothing again. With the couple hundred dollars I'd need for meds and bills, it wouldn't be fair to ask him to send that much to a perfect stranger so I'll try to figure something else out. Nothing destroys a freindship like a loan.

The situation has gone from urgent to crisis stage as I don't have enough to buy this month's insulin or the heart meds. I've been living on the edge of my budget for a year now and getting screwed out of more than two weeks checks may be the end of me.

I went to the last physical therapy session that GB will pay for this afternoon and they’re worried about the way my knee is behaving. It feels like it’s in four or five pieces grinding together and hurts like hell if I use it too much. According to the x-rays it looks okay, but that’s not how it feels.

My shoulder’s hurting again, which means rain is coming. I’ve got to try to reassemble my passenger side windshield wiper before that or the stub will scrape across the glass and that I don’t need.

I guess I’ll resort to spending more of my collectible coins. Eisenhower silver dollars, $2 dollar bills. I gave Dr. Mind a $5 gambling chip from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. I’d tossed it into a drawer as casually as I used to toss coins into a jug. God I miss those days. Anyway, there’s little chance I’ll ever get back to the blackjack tables, so I told her to spend it the next time she has a layover on the way to see her mother.

This situations hurts so much, I’m crawling into myself and sleeping all the time. Dr. Mind says I stay at home all the time because it’s the only place I have control over in my life. I’d go out if I had gas to drive with or money to spend.

This used to be my favorite time of the year and the top on my convertible was never up.

alas


Sunday the 20th 2009
To deflect feeling sorry for myself, I’ve occupied myself by risking writing an new article in the political section, which has spurred one hell of a debate over at Blogcritics, so I’ve busied myself answering comments and reworking the banner head for my Brokeback Mountain page.

Every day I take inventory of my food, medications and insulin and I think I have enough to barely make it. Money’s another matter. I’m really worried about next month’s rent. Oh I’ll make it, if GB doesn’t screw me over again, but the electric and past due phone worry me. My car insurance is due in November and I’m fucked barring a miracle.

After playing with my cat, I just can’t give her away. Right now she’s the only source of love (or what passes for it) on hand in my life. Oh, my sister and aunt love me and good friends like Dave and Brenda but it’s long distance. I’ve got enough food for her until maybe the 2nd week of next month… I hope.

I haven’t left the apartment since the last physical therapy session. I’ve got to get my paperwork together just fo fight to keep 16 fucking dollars in food stamps tomorrow. I just hope I can talk myself into leaving the front door.

My knee still bothers the hell out of me; it must be going to rain again. I feel like such a gimp. I can’t sleep more than a few hours a night without waking up screaming-thank god for understanding neighbors.

I’m worried about a minimum balance charge from the bank causing me to go into a negative balance again. They’d charge me because their minimum balance would bounce when they tried to take it out of checking, then charge me $34 for the overdraft. I can’t win.

I’m hoping Aunt Margaret can send something, though I doubt it as she’s worse off than I am, and my friend Brenda might be able to send enough for the phone bill with luck. My pride is squashed and bleeding under GBs foot. I’m in the same condition I was those two weeks they’re refusing to pay me and they know it.

I can’t remember the last time I opened my curtains…


Monday the 21st 2009
I dragged myself out of bed at 7AM and began assembling the paperwork I needed to save my measly $16 in food stamps and wound up taking a two-inch thick packet with me over there. The first thing I learned was that the reason I began getting tens of thousands of dollars of medical bills is that I’ve hit the damned gap where Medicare stops paying after you reach a certain dollar level that they’ve covered-probably because of the $200,000 heart operation. I’m on my own now with nothing until they add up to god knows how much before Medicare begins helping me again. Now I know what they were talking about when they said I needed “gap” medical insurance.

Then I was told the reason that Medicaid sent me a letter saying their financial help stopped was because I stopped submitting my bills last January just weeks into my hospital stay for my heart, and when I didn’t even contact them for three months it killed everything. She refused to listen to me when I told her I didn’t understand that and said that I could’ve gotten someone to send them in for me for the “spend down.” So I’m screwed with all those hospital bills. She told me to not worry about the collection agencies because in the end they can’t really do anything. She doesn’t have to endure the multi-daily harassment calls.

Then they wouldn’t take the mailed check receipts from GBs direct deposits. They wouldn’t do because of the fucked up totals, and that someone there had put them in as workman’s comp income when they’re apparently not-even though they’ve been accepted as such for the last four years… so I have to go to GB in person and ask them for a written statement stating exactly how much they pay me. I told her I couldn’t go there because I’m so broke that I can’t buy gas-which is true, but the real reason is I might go into a rage and beat the shit out of someone if I show up in person, considering how much they’ve tortured me. One of my repeat nightmares is buying a gun and going over there and shooting the place up.

It turns out that since they screwed me over back in March and then sent me a make-up check HONORING A FUCKING BACK-DATED C84 from Dr. P/Knee, The county considers it that I made 1 ½ times what I should’ve for that month, but wouldn’t consider that I was shorted the previous month.

They accepted my printed out bank statement as my bank statement, but not proof of how much I’m getting from Social Security Disability, nor would they allow me to use it as proof of the GB income even though the check stub numbers match on the statements. When I showed her how much I spent on the car payments and insurance, she said they no longer consider car or car expenses. Since my printer’s out of black ink I’ve been altering the font color so it’s using the blue and green ink, but it ran out while printing the National City logo and my name, so she almost didn’t take that until I showed her that the account number matched my debit card.

They wouldn’t take a printed canceled check as proof that I paid my rent back in July until I showed her that my lease began in July,; then suddenly it was valid. I brought her last month’s electric bill and she wouldn’t take it because it wasn’t the current one-I tried to explain to her that I hadn’t gotten this month’s bill yet and she said last month’s wouldn’t do.

I showed her the letter that I got in February stating that I was no longer eligible for Medicaid help and she said I was wrong even though they stopped sending me Medicaid cards to help pay for my prescriptions. She said no one ever gave me credit for the hundred or so that I have to pay a month for Medicare part B and demanded to see my card saying that I had it and was paying it out of my own pocket, which I did. She says I might owe the county around $875 per month this year because of the bills she says they paid that might not have been covered. I have to copy all the collection notices with the date of service on them and take them back to her office-but I don’t have the money for the photocopies nor the gas to get there, or the parking downtown. Even though they’re deducting the money out of my check for the Medicare part B, it’s still considered income from Social Security so the computer thinks I’m making over a hundred dollars more a month than I actually am.

So, not it turns out that it wasn’t just for food stamps, but for county Medicaid help I wasn’t getting, but was getting but wasn’t getting. I’m so confused I swear I got into the car and cried.

Why?-she told me that even if I can reassemble the paperwork, get the impossible things she said I had to have, I might lose out anyway, because she’s leaving at the end of the month, and I’d have to start all over with a different caseworker who’s not familiar with the case.

Every day I get closer to swallowing all of my heart pills. It began raining and I had to wait it out because I don’t have a passenger-side wiper blade/arm assembly after it mysteriously fell off and I can’t figure out how to get it back on again. The bare arm that moves would cut a grove into the windshield if I accidentally hit the control and possibly damage it enough so that this winter it’d crack where it was engraved so I sat there beating my steering wheel begging God to stop fucking torturing me and just take me. When it stopped, I drove home.

I came home in such a blue funk I seriously wanted to end it all again.

Then the other side of me took over when I logged into my e-mail and saw all the comments on my new politics article at BC and it’s like another person took over who could cope and I was laughing and joking throughout the afternoon… until I realized I’ve got only one day left of food and no money until Friday-that’s if-and it’s a big if-GB doesn’t fuck me over again. They say they won’t but I’ve heard that before. The two weeks they refuse to pay me-I was in the same condition I am now and they know it.

I sort of went into a blue funk the rest of the day. Rich showed up at my door with my review copies of Julian Lennon’s early CD’s but I couldn’t bring myself to listen to them today, so I’ll have to do them tomorrow along with trying to condense CSI Miami’s entire season along with the DVD extras into a readable article somehow.

Tonight was the season premier of The Big Bang Theory and then CSI Miami, both of which were great, but I was too distracted by this latest disaster to enjoy them. I hung in there long enough to watch President Obama on David Letterman and was so proud I voted for him, and so pissed at the jerks that are doing everything in their power to obstruct him accomplishing anything.

I went to bed at 1AM yawning my head off… and then couldn’t sleep because of a nightmare of my attackers chasing me again. I woke up to Mischief coughing loudly for almost half an hour and got so worried about her I started bawling again because if something serious befell her I’d have to watch her die unable to get her to a vet or pay the upfront fees for him to see her. Hopefully it was just a hairball, but I had visions of her laying there dead because I can’t go out after dark out of fear, even if I had the money and gas.

Well, it’s now 6:30 Tuesday morning and I haven’t slept yet. I’ve been awake for 24-hours. Even if GB doesn’t fuck me over I’m still screwed as both checks combined will be needed to make the rent leaving nothing for the car, and I can’t ask someone to send me hundreds of dollars to get out of this.

It sucks being me. I wish I knew why and how I keep fighting to survive all of this.


Wednesday the 23rd 2009
My beloved friend Brenda in Pittsburgh sent me enough to buy half a tank of gas and enough groceries until sometime next week, god love her…. God love her.

Well, I think I have a new title for this blog… Just When I Thought It Couldn’t Get Worse.

I spent most of the morning worrying about Brenda’s help because if she sent me a check, I might have to wait an addition 5 days sitting in my checking for it to clear before I could use it because the bank would hold it because I didn't have enough to cover it. THANK YOU Bren for sending it in ca$h. Can you imagine how long it’d take to clear if my friend Dave in Australia sent me one-out of state-out of country? I’m still reeling from that; someone from the completely opposite end of the world would be willing to send me help for this disaster. There ARE good people in this world.

My pride/ego/sense of worth has fallen worse than it’s ever been. I remember McDonald’s firing me because I was gay and having to take them to court (and winning). The four years it took to clear that up and get back on my feet were hell, but somehow not as bad as this. I had good friends back then too, like B.J. Hutchi*** my former supervisor at McDonald’s who was pissed at the injustice of it all and got me a job as the manager of a water softener salt company even though I had no training at it.

That’s comical-an Akron narcotics officer bought the failing business as a tax write off, hiring me hoping it’d fall flat on its face, only to have me talk the local hospitals into giving us tens of thousands of dollars of business buying softener salt and sidewalk deicer from us. He actually had to phase me out and have his idiot brother-in-law take over to make sure it went bankrupt… considering what I’d done-not an easy feat.

Anyway, today I went to see Dr. Mind only to be appalled that they’d begun tearing out a bunch of beautiful old oak trees on the Ohio State street where her office is… then I came upon the turnaround where I parked. They’re tearing down a building there and eliminated all the handicapped parking on the circle and blocked off 2 of the 5 slots available along the curb parking. The only other parking was in the Clinic circle 4 blocks away for which I didn’t have change/money for the parking meters, and a parking garage I didn’t have money to park in with. Regardless there’s no way I could walk from either on my sore leg.

I took this week’s diary entries up to her receptionist/secretary and drove to Wal-Mart and bought gas and groceries thanks to Brenda, then came home.

I got a beautiful review copy of a LARGE picture book about Neil Diamond’s life and career today. I’m going to have to force myself back into a creative mood and get some of these damned reviews done.

I spent the evening texting Brenda my thanks and going over my recent disasters with her until it hurt too much to talk about it.

GOD, my right shoulder aches. There must be one hell of a rainstorm coming. Speaking of storms, there was one hell of a red sand/fog storm over Sydney Australia that actually had long-time residents convinced that the city was on fire in the bright morning sunlight. I was concerned for Dave and e-mailed him and was relieved that he was alright. A lot of people had breathing problems and I’m just glad he survived it.

Thursday the 24th 2009
So now I start sweating again… will GB fuck me over and screw with my check?

I’ve been burping a lot lately; I hope I haven’t developed another ulcer. Not much sleep last night, as the nightmare with the attackers poised to strike outside my apartment door plagued me again. I woke up screaming and cussing and shouting “Leave me alone!” I have to have the most understanding neighbors in the world.

My stomach problems are probably because it’s in shock that I actually sent down real food! (thanks again Brenda). I’m going to have to e-mail Dave and explain about my concern that his check wouldn’t clear for a week as the main reason I turned down his help. He’s a really caring young man and his offer probably saved my life. If there is one, God will reward him for his kind offer.

I had another mental coma today; this one was a long one. I sat at my computer and stared at a chessboard waiting for black to move, glanced up at the clock only to discover it was nearly three hours later. I’m going to have to reactivate my screen saver before I ruin a perfectly good 24” screen.

The comments have died down on my politics article, though they’re still visiting my personal politics site here.

Time to get busy and write another one.

I’m getting worried about my car insurance; in a little over a month I’m going to have to scrounge up over $500. Time to invest in either a really good printer to make my own money, or find an easily robbed bank with a handicap ramp.

I keep thinking about how I survived this in my early 20s, hoping for some dredged up handy hints on how to do it again. Even if I completely recover physically, with a near economic depression out there who’s going to hire me with “prior medical problems” and risk my falling or something on the job?

I’d give anything if I could revive my art career. I still make calls every-so often but so far no luck. No one is spending the money they used to. I’m beginning to wonder if the majority of my customers merely hired me in hopes of getting me into bed and not that I’ve lost my looks I don’t have that advantage any more…


Back in my 20s I had a friend named Mike who taught me a valuable lesson in friendship vs love that I carry with me to this day. While working on something I put on David Gate’s “Cloud Suite” and thought of him. Of all the things I remember about him most, it’s not his killer body or the beautiful head of blond hair; it was his smile. It caused me a lot of confusion because he knew how I felt about him and though he was completely straight, he still remained my friend.

I was at that age when love and sex meant the same thing, but in his case I fell in love with him as a friend. He was the first one who without knowing it taught me that you can love someone one as a friend without there being a closer relationship required in the deal. There were times when I WANTED him, or ACHED for him, to feel his strong arms around me or to be able to caress that teasing smile, but I always stepped back just in time because I knew it would hurt our friendship and I realized it was more important that I needed him in my heart and not my bed.

With us there was a strong boundary between love and sex, and every time I tried to cross it, he let me know there’d be consequences if I crossed it… but he’d keep coming back and hang around with me, laughing, joking or just goofing off. I learned that it’s possible for a straight man to have a gay friend without walking out on him the minute he found out. It occurred to me that he liked me as much as I liked him and that helped my self worth.

That was a hard lesson to learn.

I think he was the first friend that accepted me for me, and not some stereotype and I’ll always be grateful for that. It helped me form other friendships later in life that were safe and secure. Frankly it taught me that it was possible for me to actually think with my head and my heart instead of my dick.

We remained close friends, even after he got married, even writing back in forth after I started a new life in Columbus. As the years passed we lost contact, as much my fault of the hell I’ve been going through, as by the distance and time made us strangers. I found him through Classmates a couple of years ago, but I knew we were both complete strangers now.

When I grew muscles and had killer looks suddenly I had all the friends I could ever use. Then when I tasted success and wealth I didn’t need to be a slave to my body and slowly and gradually stopped going to the gym every day. As the muscle tone turned to water seemingly over night, and then to flab I learned who my real friends were and understood the example that Mike taught me so many years ago.

Someday I hope he reads this and knows how much I appreciate the important lesson he taught me, and how much I still love him… and miss him… as a friend.




Sunday the 27th 2009
Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse…
I got the full check from GB for the first time in months. What also came in the mail put me into a mental coma most of Friday and all of Saturday… Social Security sent me a letter saying as of the end of the year I was no longer eligible for Medicare help with my prescriptions.

What the fuck?

I’ve made the same amount since this whole ordeal began; now I’m not eligible? I’ve read the thing twice and the only thing I can figure out is that it has to do with the “gap” I crossed in the total hospital bills. With their help the heart meds and insulin have only cost me around $18 a month. If I remember right before they started helping, the total without the heart meds for the insulin and other things came to about $275 a month.

How many more things can god pile on top of me before I just give up? The swine flu? I’ve got three months to hoard as much of a backlog of medications as I can, skimp on dosages as much as I can and then after the first of the year last physically as long as I can on what’s left. I figure on my 5-year anniversary of the attack in November GB will cut me off again from not only the checks and physical doctors but Dr. Mind too. I won’t be able to find work because my damned leg hurts so much I won’t be able to walk for long distances or repeatedly get in and out of the car. My heart won’t let me stand for more than a few minutes without getting exhausted, and no one will hire me to sit and type on a computer because diabetes is trying to take my eye sight, and I can’t get an employer to raise the font level to make the screen readable-My downfall at the interview at SafeLite that almost found me lost in Indiana.

It’s amazing; I can type 90 words a minute, I’ve written 101 news/sports/entertainment/political articles, but I can’t be accommodated enough to work in front of a keyboard that’s become my lifeline.

Let’s look at it one at a time.
My eyes-My right eye is clouded because a capillary exploded days after I got out of the hospital from my knee operation. With all the follow-up appointments I couldn’t get onto the clinic’s schedule for them to see me. A moot point now, as the OSU clinic where I was being treated is being torn down to make way for a new skyscraper med center and I’ll need treatments or I won’t pass the eye test for my driver’s license test on my birthday May 2nd next year. Not that it matters; if my other eye goes because of lack of treatment, I won’t be able to drive anyway… because it’d effectively render me blind. With no financial help, I can’t get the treatments I need to stave it off so I’m looking forward to going blind. An artist going blind, now that’s hell. A man who loves cars and loves to drive them being no longer able to, now that’s hell. The only remaining friends I have, I communicate with on line, but if I can’t read the monitor…

With both Social Security and Medicaid abandoning me soon I’ll stop being able to pay the rent. With over $500 due on the car insurance in November and a 90-day eviction window if I stop paying the rent in say November, I’ll be out in the snow by January next year. I’ll have lost the car to non-payment the first month I miss so living in it will be a moot point. My god, I’ve lived here 22 years… 22 damned years of the best and worst times of my life.

Maybe like that old movie about the Great Depression, I should just make a pact to be gone by Christmas Eve. Christmas used to be the most joyous time of my life. I’d save for months for it. Hell I kept delivering pizzas even though I didn’t need to so I could hoard the money away for it. My midnight Christmas raids made me feel alive and carried me the rest of the year. I’d spend 6-months figuring out which of my friends needed the most help and would anonymously pay delinquent electric and phone bills up to date and then a few months in advance. I’d leave nameless money orders in envelops on doors so they could buy their kids late Christmas presents. I’d leave bags of groceries on doorsteps and sneak away in the night before anyone saw who did it.

I didn’t want the gratitude, or I’d have left my name on it somewhere; I wanted the feeling of knowing I helped someone with no strings attached. Can you imagine what I could’ve done with that money if I’d simply kept it for myself? No wonder most of my relatives think I’m sort of pathological liar; I’d be saying how bad a financial shape I was in to hide my real wealth, and then stupidly send them expensive gifts on birthdays and Christmas.

Enough

Dr. P/foot’s office called Friday to say the extension on my physical therapy was granted by GB. Since the business office at Grant Hospital is harassing me over an $8000 back bill, I thought it was them calling so I let the answering machine take it. I’ve made a note to call tomorrow and see if they granted what was already paid for or a true extension. They do that sometimes, they’ll approve payment on something like twenty sessions from say June 1st but only through to June 30th, then not notify you of it until June 24th, so you can’t possibly cram 20 sessions into one week.

I’m going to try to drag myself out of this funk and write a review on the Neil Diamond picture book I got… article 102. I’ve noticed a ton of colleges (especially in North Carolina(???)) have been logging into my Political section lately and some Air Force base in Texas seems obsessed with my Gay Pride page-probably because the banner head lists hundreds of gay celebrities and sports figures.

Of all my banners I like the Science page best, but I put a lot of work into making those buttons on the entertainment page's control center's receiver look real.

Makes me kinda proud, but I wish I could make a living at it.

We had one hell of a rain storm last night. My knee and ankle hurt like hell and I’ve resorted to one of my few morphine pills…

Wednesday 30th
In a month and a few days I'll have been dead five years. November 6 2004 my life, my very essence was robbed of me. Everything that I worked so damned hard to become-to have achieved vanished that night. I'm a ghost who just hasn't had the good sense to go to hell where he belongs.

Brenda sent me some more help last Saturday but I still hadn’t gone downstairs until yesterday (Tuesday) to get it. I came up and found she’d sent me enough to help cover my back electric and some groceries and necessities… god love her… like salad makings.

Now I’m a little scared, I wrote and published the article on Neil Diamond-but I just barely remember doing it. By the publish date at BC I must’ve done it Monday. I’m beginning to wonder if I have a split personality and another side of me (the old Jet) takes over every once in a while.

I read the article and was amazed at how much it reminded me of… well “me.”

I’ve been under a lot of stress and I don’t know what to think about this. I’ve also done nothing about trying to get the documentation from Gallagher Bassett so I might have a chance at renewing my paltry food stamps. I just re-read the letter from Social Security… what next?

I’ve been burping like crazy lately and I can’t figure out where the gas is coming from. I hope to god I don’t have another ulcer.

I’ve got to see Dr. Mind in about an hour. I hope I can find one of only three parking slots available, unless they’ve taken them out too. I should’ve called about getting the details about GB’s authorizing more physical therapy last Monday, trouble is I don’t know if I did or not already. I guess I’ll call when I get home today. I’ve also got to call Dr. S about refilling my prescriptions-but I don’t know if my Medicare card will authorize the visit.

August 2009

Saturday August 1 2009
My brain is fried. The GB check came yesterday and Social Security came today. My god it’s been so long since I’ve written a paper check for anything, since I’ve been doing it electronically.

I was about to fall asleep last night and Mischief made a noise near the bed that made me jolt and nearly jump out of my skin. I’m getting more and more edgy about the dumbest things. I dread what’s going to happen if they cut me off of the Cymbalta.

I had some guy for physical therapy last week; we’re working on range of motion. It kills me that it doesn’t hurt when I’m doing the exercises, but it sure does an hour afterward. I’m still trying to figure out what to do about Wednesday’s hearing. It’s fucking my head up royal. I dreamt last night that I showed up with a gun and shot the lawyer for GB.

I’ve got the rent check ready and covered. The electric bill is still $10.70 a month-at least that’s something. The phone and Internet are taken care of too.

I downloaded a program for playing MP4 files that I harvest off my temp. internet files Thursday, since that’s what U-Tube seems to be going to. The damned thing grabbed all my media files and installed itself as the default player, so I had to go into my folder options and undo most of it so that Media Player plays the movies and music files. It was a pain because it changed all the icons too and you have to do it for virtually every possible type of file. The software works pretty good, but the older FLV player is better at some things so I’ve left both programs on, keeping each to what it does best.

I’m still trying to find a trustworthy program to strip the audio portion off of FLV and MP4 files without the video so I can burn them onto CDs to play in the car. The damned CD player in the car is fucking up. This is the 5th original equipment one I’ve had in the car, but since this one was the last before the warrantee on them expired; I’ve got to deal with it. The song will suddenly stop and ERR appears on the display and the only way to get the damned thing going again is to eject the disc and reinsert it. It takes up a few seconds before where it stoped and keeps playing like nothing happened, even if I restart the song again.

Chrysler is trying to blame it on burned discs, but it does it on pre-recorded store-bought ones too. I’d buy a new one if I could afford it, but… It’s a great 6-disc player, but it’s started only playing discs 5 and 6. I can get the others to play but I have to eject and reinsert them first… groan.

Thank god that’s the only major thing that’s gone wrong with the car in years!

I hope it’s sunny out there today, I’m thinking of venturing out and getting some groceries.

I installed software for Google to track my blog visitors in terms of where in the world they’re coming from down to the city. Unfortunately the line of HTML screwed up with the default background color of the pages and I didn’t realize it until last night.

It took a while to clean my blog pages of the offending lines, and when I reinstalled it in a place other than where they said to, it suddenly started working fine.

Murphy’s law… I could write a book on that!

Monday August 3 2009
I felt really weak yesterday. It kinda scared me. I’m always in pain at my leg and my arm, but it was worse yesterday because I needed some house supplies so I didn’t take my pain meds so I could drive, but no matter how mad I got at myself, I couldn’t force myself out the door.

It sounds stupid for a grown man to say this, but it’s like there’s a big rubber membrane just on the other side of the door and no matter how hard I pushed I couldn’t get through it. Maybe I am losing it. Once I succeed in getting outside with the top down, I’m fine as if nothing happened. Even when I’m on the percocet there’s still a small amount of the aching pain that’s my constant companion. The bitch of it is that I’ve got to ration the stuff because there are no refills on narcotics so even when I need it… I hesitate taking it because I don’t want to run out.

How am I going to get a job and support myself if I can’t get through my front door, or am dependable to show up for work? What if some stranger that resembles one of my attackers comes in at my new job and I suddenly flee in panic. I’d be fired for sure. I’m having trouble sleeping just thinking about what an uncertain future that represents.

I wrote a music review Saturday night, (my 99th article for BC) about one of the founders of the Alan Parsons Project’s latest solo CD. I can sum it up in two words—it sucked. It took up about three or four pages and I got an e-mail back saying I had to put this in quotations or that in italics and this had to be done in “house style” so I spent the morning jumping through their hoops and two days later it still hasn’t been published. If it hadn’t been for my getting a free CD out of the deal I’d have said fuck it and chucked the whole thing, but I made a commitment and I’ll keep it.

They’re called Blog Critics, which gives you the impression that it’s just about a bunch of amateur bloggers typing out reviews and posting them, but they have a bank of professional editors that make sure everything is neat, clean and very accurate, which kind of negates the word Blog in their logo… oh well.

Besides I’ve got the 7th season of CSI Miami coming on DVD for free in a few days and I do want that for my collection. My collection; even after selling two thirds of it off I still have over a thousand movie and TV titles. I’ve watched every one of them once. Can you imagine how long it’d take me to watch them again? Basically I’d take a few on business trips and watch them on Brian’s jet, at Brock’s house or I’d rent a DVD player.

I can’t publish the review on my page until they do because they reserve the right to have it published there first, even though mine goes up seconds later. Something about search engines favoring the first one.


Wednesday August 5 2009
I found another reason to worry this morning. I went into the appeal hearing at Workman’s Comp, bright and early at 9AM and the waiting room was packed. I suddenly felt very uncomfortable; not claustrophobic, but really uncomfortable with that many strangers packed that close together. I had to actually go out into the outer waiting room and wait for my name to be called. Lawyer K was very nice about it.

I came really close to losing my temper in the hearing room. Though it was never brought up in the preliminary hearing-that they lost, their shrink tried to imply that the main reason I was so depressed was because is-are you ready for this out of the blue?-actor Heath Ledger’s death? I’d mentioned when I’d met their shrink that I was trying to get my creativity flowing again and had written several science and politics articles for BlogCritics Magazine, and one was on Heath’s death.

They kept asserting that I didn’t appear all that depressed at their man’s examination, and when I had my minute to speak I reminded them again that the normal dosage of Cymbalta was 30mg and during his examination I was on 90mg, if I'd skipped the pills the two previous days they'd have gotten a very different report on my mental state. Lawyer K seems to think it went well and said that if they lose this appeal it’ll be a pretty much dead issue… That’s what I thought the last 5 times.

I went on to Dr. Mind’s appointment at Noon and I told her all about it. She was amazed at the Heath Ledger thing.

While I was out, I drove up to Wal-Mart and picked up some supplies.

My knee is aching like hell; I think I over did it at physical therapy on Tuesday. It’s getting to the point where I can’t get to sleep before 3 or 4AM and then I get drowsey around noon and sleep till 7PM.


Friday August 7 2009
I spent most of the day researching my new article on gay athletes. It’s slow going, and the pain in my knee and shoulder is getting too much to manage. I’m down to only about a quarter of a bottle of percocet left and as much morphine. On top of that I can’t stop sleeping all the time.

My six-year-old computer is beginning to worry me, there’s a lot of noise coming from the circulating fan and I hope it’s not the one on the power unit. Right now this computer is my only link to the outside world and I don’t know what I’d do without it. It’s in the lower compartment of this huge desk and to get it out would mean disconnecting all of the cables to the back and kneeling down to pull it out, which I can’t do. I think if I manage it, all it needs is to spray some of the dust out of it. They say most hard drives only last about five years, so I’m living on borrowed time I guess.

I’m going to try to get out today and just drive around. I’ve felt so fucking lonely lately and it’s really wearing on me, but what can I do when I’m having trouble just getting out the door.


Sunday August 9th 2009
The pain in my knee was so bad yesterday that I did something I haven’t done in a long time… I started crying. The last four years of self-inflicted solitude finally got to me, and a sudden feeling of loneliness and helplessness simply overwhelmed me. The years of pizza delivery taught me how to interact with people and I used it to interact with my art customers. I actually came out of my shell and considered other’s feelings instead of just my own. I opened up enough to actually make and keep friends, and once the art business and my side jobs in San Diego got going, life was so good for me spiritually, health-wise, financially and emotionally.

But now it’s all being ripped from me, tiny piece by tiny piece. I think I could stand it, if it was all taken away at once, but this is slow torture, and so I started crying. Being an Air Force son, I was taught never to cry, men don’t cry. While it was happening I thought I’d lose what was left of my sanity, but the more I tried to stop, the harder it got.

This is something that money can’t cure, nor will medicine. I’m so sick of feeling so all alone, but this insane fear of reaching out to people, or to try to find someone to love is so self-destructive that sometimes I wonder how I can survive much longer without it. To have a man’s arms around me, to feel like I’m the most important thing in his life…

I don’t know how I’ve gone so long without it, and yet here I am.

I’ve spent the last couple of days doing research on my new athletes article. I’ve read over the old one and it’s like a stranger wrote it. I’ve got to find my lost sense of humor, or I’m sunk.

I have a goal to finish it by Thursday if not sooner.

I tried to dig my computer tower out of the cubby hole in the bottom of my huge desk. They weren’t thinking very well in terms of ventilation or maintenance when they located it there. If I can figure out a way I’m going to try to buy extensions for all the cables so I can pull it forward enough to work on it without having to go through this again.

When I tried to lift it, I nearly lost my balance and felt dizzy, so I gave up and was relieved when I found I hadn’t hurt it and it’s still functioning.


Wednesday August 12th 2009
Most of the last two days have been spent tending to a very sore knee. I think I’m trying too hard to maximize the improvement during physical therapy at Work Health. Speaking of which, yesterday was really psychologically difficult for me. When I walked into the gym it was empty, but within minutes of my climbing onto the exercise bike, a young black man with no visible injury save a small elastic bandage climbed onto the one next to me. An older black man came in and stood uncomfortably close next to me on the other side.

I hate it, my grandfather on my dad’s side was black and I have black relatives that I loved dearly, so to fear them now because of the attack is tearing me apart, and to add a paranoia to the mix that these men were somehow scheduled by "coincidence" to see how I'd react is wearing on my mind. I actually felt like all the air was leaving the room to the point that my physical therapist became concerned. I told her the problem in a quiet whisper and told her I’d stick it out, which I did.

My knee flexibility is improving a little, but not enough for my liking.

This overwhelming loneliness and lack of a lover is hurting too. I’m really trying to distract myself from it by working on the article, but I get fatigued really fast and end up sleeping at all hours of the day and night… problem is I’m only sleeping an hour and a half at a time-if that and I’m really becoming exhausted. On top of that, collection agencies are calling me at all hours of the day and night again.

This morning’s nightmare was of taking a bunch of pills to kill myself but it didn’t work, so I took more, but that didn’t work so I took more. That’s about the fourth or fifth time for that one, and I’m wondering how long it’ll be before I start avoiding taking the important medications I should be on.

I got word that I’ve won the 6th appeal of my case. GB must be furious. About the only comfort I can get out of it is that they’re spending a fortune on expensive lawyers and getting nothing for it, and I’m spending nothing on expensive lawyers and winning.

I got into a scrap last night on the behind the scenes message board at BC. Their latest newsletter asked us to start writing “breaking news” “newsflash” articles for them. I’m becoming less and less in love with them. They want a lot of work from us, and offer us nearly nothing in return, yet they reap the financial rewards for our “volunteer” work for them.

I’d mentioned an unpublished newsflash I’d written three years ago, and how much trouble I had getting it published in time for it to still actually be a news flash. It started out as just a quickie “just the facts ma’am” thing, and I was informed that we don’t do breaking news stories at BC (back then) so I had to turn it into an opinion piece about how ineffective Homeland Security is. The Sports editor described it three years later as a garbage rant, reprinted an unpublished draft of it and stated he didn’t know why they would still publish my garbage any way.

Sites like "Digg" take only the first two or three articles on a news item and then reject the others as duplicates. Since lately it's impossible to get an article published the next day, much less within a "newsflash" hour, getting "dugg" is nearly impossible.

Since I no longer see BC articles on either Google or Yahoo’s news, sports or entertainment pages, I’m beginning to wonder why I bother with them. Maybe I’ll feel differently after I pound out my 100th article for free with them, get a little praise and start taking my Cymbalta regularly now that I know I can get it again…


Friday August 14 2009
The son-of-a-bitches at GB did it again. I had trouble sleeping last night, so I got up and checked my checking account on line and the bastards shorted my check by $31.53. I was overwhelmed by a feeling of rage and frustration and started throwing and kicking things. The tiffany desk lamp I bought from when I worked at their headquarters was the first victim.

The harder I tried to control myself the worse it got so I stomped into the living room and stubbed my toe on a bar stool. I picked it up and threw it and it hit the 80-gallon aquarium. Thank god the padded top hit the glass first, but it brought me out of it.

They have to be doing this on purpose. I have a valid C84 that’s dated to the end of the fucking year, so there’s no excuse for cutting off my checks or docking me a day’s worth of benefits.

My heart was pounding so hard I thought I was going to pass out.

I finally got back to sleep only to discover this morning that I’d strewn a bag of empty pop cans from one of the penthouse to the other and threw something that cracked one of the plastic vertical blinds in the bedroom but thankfully not the glass.

I fired off an e-mail this morning to Lawyer K and the woman that’s supposed to be my case-worker at GB… that’s a laugh, she refuses to answer any e-mails I send her because of the stupid lawyer thing where it all has to go through them first so even minor problems take up to a fucking week to get addressed, much less solved. When you're hanging on by your fingernails financially $32 is a lot... IT SHOULDN'T BE NECESSARY TO GO THROUGH THIS EVERY OTHER WEEK.

I stopped at the big swimming pool outside between our building this afternoon trying to force myself to be the old friendly glad-handed guy I used to be, but every stranger I saw made me want to run and hide. I forced myself to stay and talk for about five minutes and then got pissed at myself for fleeing to the car. I drove out to Wal-Mart to pick up some things just to be out in the sun and it helped. When I got home there were notices all over the place that they’re painting parking lot stripes tomorrow so I’ve got to park in the office building garage next door over night which will be a bitch to walk from to here on my bad leg.

The Athletes article is going slowly. It’s a bitch trying to get any details confirmed since once they say they’re gay, that’s all you get, so it’s mostly a confirmation of the statement and a few paragraphs about their professional careers, but finding details on their personal lives or lovers is nearly impossible unless I want to publish gossip, which I don’t.

I got on line and sent off the car payment, which is due tomorrow. Fortunately electronic transfers only take two days because it's due technically tomorrow but they have a grace period. To this day I've never been late with one payment in over six years.

Google added a new feature where you can click a little man onto the map and actually look around at something at street level and rotate 360 degrees! I saw my Pittsburgh sister/mother’s house for the first time. They took a truck with a 360 camera and drove it all over the country taking a picture a second or so, so you can literally drive down just about any major street/road with a panoramic view. I’ll never get lost again!

I “drove” through my old homestead Barberton Ohio last night and couldn’t believe the changes in 20 years. It’s true what they say; you can never go home again. I tried to drive through my actually hometown of Moon Township PA and while it worked fine, I couldn’t drive down where I grew up because-probably for security reasons-it’s across the parkway from the airforce bace and where the airport used to be.


Monday August 17 2009
UNGODDAMMED FUCKING BELIEVABLE. GB is now refusing to acknowledge the C84 that they themselves required me to have from Dr. P-knee (probably because it went to the end of the year) and they’re refusing to deposit my checks until I get a different one (which will only last four weeks) from Dr. Work Health-who is on vacation.

I didn’t go to last month’s appointment with them because they only authorize my Cymbalta prescriptions, and GB was appealing having to pay for them and my shrink and a decision hadn’t been handed down yet (they lost). Without the $32 they shorted me, and the next check, I won’t make the rent or the car payment.

Maybe it’s time to just put a fucking gun in my mouth and end this goddamned ordeal… I would but I’m sure that’s what they want me to do.


Tuesday/Wednesday August 18-19, 2009
Even though GB has paid me before on Dr. Knee’s C84, they’re now refusing to acknowledge it. I still haven’t heard anything more from anyone. I have physical therapy one floor below Workhealth today so I’ll go up and see what happened. Dr. P-knee’s office is pissed and they faxed Dr. Workhealth their c84 hoping that will work, since she’s on vacation until Monday.

The noise in my knee when I bend it is getting louder and more painful, the physical therapist was really concerned about it. I see Dr. P-knee the end of this month; I hope it can wait until then. Another area of concern is the long scar between my hip and knee. She massaged some oil into it and told me that the scar tissue can actually grow into the muscle beneath it that’s also mending from being cut into and they could knit together so that I’d have limited movement. She said it’s from not having the physical therapy for a month after GB cut me off.

Now that they’ve received two valid C84s let’s see what excuse (and they’ll find one) to not pay me the back pay they owe me.

After the painful P T session, I went up to Dr. Workhealth’s and the receptionist said that they received the c84 from Dr. Knee and that they sent it and one of their own on to GB. When I left therapy they told me that the scheduling problem/funding question means I won’t have another session with them until Thursday/Friday of NEXT WEEK.

The blind rage I went into last Friday really has me worried. I was so distracted I ran a light downtown-fortunately just as it changed; I just hope it wasn’t one of those intersections with a ticket camera or I’m really fucked.


Wednesday August 19, 2009
Lawyer K called me this morning, said he got all my messages and wanted to know if I’d heard anything from GB, which I didn’t, so he called them while I was on hold. She’s being very uncooperative and saying that even though it was used to pay me before they’re considering all the paperwork I had Dr. Pfoot go through is going to be ignored by them, and that I have to get the c84 from Dr. Workhealth. He warned me that they potentially could be royal bitches about it and refuse to pay me for the confused two week period that they cause with the now it’s good-now it’s not C84s, and if that happens I won’t make next month’s rent.

I talked at length with Dr. Mind about the uncontrolled rage I went through Friday at our session today and she’s concerned. She wants me to see another shrink that can recommend a “mood altering” drug. Just what I need; to be too stoned to understand what’s going on around me.

I also told her about someone putting a little chalk mark on my front left tire tread, like someone’s tracking when I come and go, since it’s in her notes that I can go for sometimes a week or more without leaving the apartment.

This sucks.

My right shoulder hurts like hell; we must have one hell of a storm heading our way.

I’m really alone and it hurts so fucking much-if I had the courage to go out and find someone to love me I could handle this a lot better.

According to my new tracking software, several people in Norway (especially Oslo) have become obsessed with reading this journal on a daily basis. Also someone in Johnson City Tennessee likes reading this too. Welcome my friends and drop me a line or a comment-I’d be glad to hear from you. Also my gay pride page seems to be very popular in Germany, Turkey and Saudi Arabia??? I was puzzled about it until I started putting the words “Air Force Base” after the city names and suddenly realized I’ve got gay soldiers reading my gay news articles from overseas military bases everywhere from Israel to Turkey! Welcome Guys, glad you’re well enough to get on line.


Thursday August 20th 2009
Every so often I find a reason to laugh… today I found two. Now that I’m learning how to use my new tracking software, I was surprised, and a little proud to find a reader in the capital city of Vietnam!?!… until I discovered he’d found this page after googling diarrhea.

My cat Mischief plays fetch. How she learned to do this is too long of a story to relate here, but at three in the morning, she woke me up with one of her little toys. I tossed it through the bedroom door in the dark and drifted back off to sleep, only to be woken a few minutes later to the sounds of her struggling and bitching about something.

In my entry hall, there was an empty 24 pack of Diet Dr. Pepper. I usually break a hole in it just big enough to get a can out of before I stash it in the fridge. Imagine my surprise when the toy mouse went in the hole, and after a struggle, she went in after it… then in the dark couldn’t get back out with her back to it.

I’m rebuilding my formerly great DVD and CD collection by writing reviews of free copies offered to Blogcritics. Today I scored the 3rd season of Mannix and Julian’s re-release of “The Secret Value of Daydreaming.”

No word from GB about my replacement check. I don’t know what I’m going to do if I miss the rent next month. I’ve lived here since 1987 and have never been late, (hell I used to pay my rent up 6 months to a year in advance!) Somehow I don’t think they’d put me out if I were late one time, but it’s the disgrace I’d feel-like when I had to apply for Social Security disability at my young age.

About the only good thing about this whole ordeal is that I get to legally park in handicapped spaces.

Speaking of applying for help, my county caseworker says it’s time to reapply for my fucking meager $16 in food stamp help. While it sounds ridiculous to go to the hassle of collecting the documentation etc and the appointments just for that, she’s also my caseworker for help with my Medicare part D co-pay which I’m apparently making too much money (?) to qualify for help pay for the $125 a month premium I’m currently paying.

I plan to take all my back overdue hospital bills and hope I can get a “spend down” credit that’ll not only pay off the tens of thousands I owe, but help with the premiums as well. Unfortunately that isn’t until late September.

The thought keeps occurring to me a lot lately as to why I haven’t committed suicide, all things considered of the events of the last nearly five years. I guess my broken heart (literally and physically) will do that for me. I started thinking about when I suddenly lost all body control without warning and fell/slammed to the concrete driveway last August. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I’m afraid to go outside, that it might happen again (though the irrational fear of meeting up with one of my attackers overrides that).

It’s a strange thing to be afraid to walk out my apartment door, but I never lock it for fear I’ll have an attack or something and the squad won’t be able to get in to save me in time. With every passing disaster, I become a little less and less afraid of dying, and it’s becoming troubling. The original title of this blog (as you can see by the URL) was Blogging on the Edge of Suicide… sometimes I wonder why I changed it, or if I should change it back.

My knee hurts like a mutherfucker right now; so does my arm.


Monday August 24th-thru Friday August 28th 2009
Monday
I went to the rescheduled appointment at WorkHealth. Dr. T-Record decided to extend the next appointment 60 days instead of the usual 4 weeks and backdated it to the day of my missed appointment on the 10th. I’ve missed appointments for my dad’s funeral or because I’ve been in the hospital and they’ve always accepted them before, so I’m hopeful. On the other hand I suspect they’ll find a reason to screw me over again.

She also gave me a new prescription for Cymbalta. I drove straight home instead of going out and enjoying the sun. The pharmacy had trouble filling the prescription last month because of some “prior authorization” problem with GB; Dr. T-Record promised to call them ahead of time, but I’m going to give it a day so I don’t waste a trip.

I slept most of the rest of the day, though I didn’t want to, because my knee hurts like hell so I took a morphine pill and knocked myself out.


Wednesday August 26th 2009
No one won the Megamillions last night so it’s up to $325 million this Friday. I don’t know why I keep hoping, but the ticket only costs a dollar.

No Dr. Mind appointment today because she’s on vacation. Lawyer-K says he’s hauling GB back into court to make them pay Dr. Mind for our current sessions, because they’ve used the technicality after they lost their 6th appeal to only pay up to the three month period of the lost 4th court appeal and no farther.

I’m so sick of going to court.

I’m kind of apprehensive because every time Dr. Mind goes on vacation, something disastrous happens… I know, superstition, but I’ve got a great track record on this. I’m beginning to think that I can actually feel my sanity slipping away.

Last night I had a nightmare that I killed myself because they didn’t deposit my check this Friday on some other technicality, so now I’m worried what I’ll do if they actually don’t.

I can’t force myself out the door to drive north for the Cymbalta prescription-it’s so fucking stupid. I know it’s a classic symptom of depression, but knowing that doesn’t make it easier to simply walk out the door… I wish I knew why. I worked on some custom pictures for the Gay Athletes article and I really like them. I’ve decided to do a tame set for Blogcritics and a racier adult version for my own Gay Pride page.

It must be going to rain because my shoulder’s acting up.


Thursday August 27th 2009
I went to the physical therapy session today early and got a new guy that they were initiating. Half the staff was telling me to be mean to him in front of his face and the other half said to take it easy on him. I actually enjoyed the day. It was like I was seeing that gym for the first time and I wanted to joyfully try every machine like a kid in a candy shop, but...

I actually could bend my leg so that my knee allowed me to go all the way around on the stationary bike machine without too much pain. The hard exercise is getting up and sitting down without using my hands on the chair arms. I can hear and feel my knee grinding.

Since I was out and it was sunny, I put the top down and cruised north to get my Cymbalta and glory-be I actually got it without a hassle for the first time in months! I’ve got to remind myself to check to see if she remembered to give me refills since I don’t see her until October.

Did I just say "Glory-be?" I've lived in Ohio too long.

I got home and my whole body ached like hell just to move. I took a percocet and slept until midnight. I transferred my Athletes article to my Gay Pride workstation to have a second/third look at it and found a few spelling and grammar errors from just checking it in a different font. I’ll end up using my BC images until I have time to redo the hotter ones for the Pride page.

I don’t know why I’m going to all that, it may increase traffic to my websites, and maybe some people will click on the ads so I can make some money, but at only pennies a click, I think I’ve made maybe 45 cents from the fucking ads in the last month so it’s hardly worth the bother, though the ads look nice.

I decided to redo the format on all my web pages to match the pride page with the table of contents up front and the ads on the side. According to the tracking software I’m getting someone from Johnson City Tennessee-probably some long lost friend from high school or maybe when I was in the porn business. I know my old partner Bill from the British Car Business moved south somewhere... who knows.


Friday August 28th 2009
I didn’t wake up until noon today and I’ve got a physical therapy session at 1PM. I checked all through the night and no check was deposited in my account. When I got up I still hoped it was delayed until the opening of bank business today, so I checked on line and sure enough GB fucked me over again. I’m scared because I’ve never missed a rent payment in 22 years here and don’t know what the manager’s reaction’s going to be.

I emotionally feel like a giant shoe has stepped on me and squashed me flat like an ant on a sidewalk, but I’m too stubborn to die so I’m just suffering here in pain. No one seems to understand the hell I go through every two weeks and this is exactly the reason why… being so close to the edge financially and not knowing if they’re going to pull something like this on me.

I called Lawyer-K’s office and got his assistant. She was nice and said she’d call GB. She called back a minute later and said my caseworker is on vacation-imagine that. That means that this won’t get straightened out for weeks, if at all and I’m almost out of cat food for Mischief and only a week’s supply of food for myself.

I spent all last night on my Gay Athletes article and it’s almost ready. I may have to do a short version for BC because they have some cockamamie word count restriction on articles… Fuck ‘em. The way I feel, this last article may be my “swan song” anyway. The fact that I’ve become gradually less and less afraid of death worries me.

To that end, I called Dr. Mind’s office to see if she was back in town, but her assistant said not until Monday. I thought of talking to her supervisor using the cell phone number he gave me, but they didn’t know if he was in his office or not and I didn’t want to bother him at home. I’m almost afraid to take my prescriptions today for fear of swallowing all of them by the bottle full.

I hate feeling so defeated, I fought all through the late 80s and early 90s to psychologically conquer this, and now it’s all slipping away again damn it.

Lawyer-K’s assistant hasn’t called back, so I probably won’t even get to talk to someone that can help me with the missing deposit until Monday, and if they make me wait till the next 2-week cycle I could lose the car because of the deal-with-the-devil deal I made with the bank just to get them to convert the loan so soon after my bankruptcy in ‘07

I just got off the phone with Dr. T-Record’s office and they faxed the damned C84 to GB last Monday. I had to cancel the physical therapy session today so I wouldn't miss any calls, they probably won’t pay for the one next Tuesday so I’m really fucked now.

They say that it’s when you stop talking about killing yourself that you actually do it, so forgive me for babbling about it, but it’s sort of a way of keeping myself safe…

----------------------
Friday, August 28, 2009 4:16:50 PM
Subject: Re: [editorbclist]
Fw: Declined: How Many Famous Athletes Are Gay? Vol. 2
Jet, I regret to inform you that your article will not be published on Blogcritics Sports.
Matt S******

Jet wrote back
> *Sent:* Friday, August 28, 2009 4:28:50 PM
I believe I'm owed a valid explanation?

From: Matt S******
Sent: Friday, August 28, 2009 4:45:15 PM
I do not want your presence in the sports section. Simple as that. Have a nice day.
------------------------


After researching the thing for over a month, after all I went through custom creating the images, the fucking asshole sports editor at BC rejected my Gay Athletes article with no explanation other than he didn't want my presence in his sports section.

just one more thing to push me closer to the edge.

I sent an appeal to the owner/manager of the website, but I hold little hope as it'll turn into a "him or me" problem with my losing.

I'll just publish it here if I don't hear anything by the end of the day.
--------
Late breaking bulletin, another editor saw the rejection and she was nice enough to publish it in the "Culture" section under a different title but completely unchanged or edited.

As yet no word from BC.

I'm completely broke and can't get work until my leg heals.

I don't know how I'm going to survive this, but I'll give it a damned good try.


Sunday August 30th 2009
I feel like I’m laying on the ground and a bully has his foot firmly planted on and pressed down my head and I can’t move… his name is G.B.. Without the check(s) they owe me, I’ll not only miss next month’s rent and car payment, but it’s possible that my landlord could reconsider renewing my lease next year because of the missed payment.

An intense anger and resentment flows through me so much lately, I've got one more reason to be afraid of walking out my front door for fear of losing it and hurting someone in a rage fit before I even know it happened... no wonder Mischief is always hiding from me.

Between waking up every three hours or so screaming from a nightmare about the robbery/beating and being convinced that I’ve reached the end of the fight because there’s nothing left in me, I’m pretty much in stasis.

I’m going to take my last money today and I should have just enough to buy cat food for Mischief to last a month or so and make sure she’s got water for the same amount of time-I’ve got those “hamster feeder” things for her that I can completely fill. Maybe Teresa will take care of her. I’ve thought of turning her free, but she’s declawed and would starve to death.

I go to sleep thinking about death. It’s a hard concept to understand simply to stop existing. There’s no awareness afterward, like going to sleep or the many times I’ve been in surgery. I was involved in a car crash and had a vision of heaven or what passes for it, then woke up in the car, crushed from behind to the seats and shoved headlong into a tree by a drunk drive going 65 and I was sitting still. Afterward as if in a surreal dream, I had the feeling I was sent back moments before I died because “it wasn’t my time yet” and though they had to pry me out of it and the car was destroyed, I suffered hardly a scratch or a bruise. I think it probably was a dream now. After actually experiencing what my doctors called death in the emergency room twice, I’m convinced that it’s simply an end. You come to the end of the road and can go no further, no awareness, no afterlife, nothing. The earth, the sun the galaxy the universe will all eventually lose all energy and wink out of existence having used up all of their gravity… so will I. It’ll end sort of like your favorite movie, you cry because you wanted it to go on, but it didn’t… it just stopped.

I think I’ve officially now lost all faith in God. Job in the Bible was put to the test and triumphed, but he succeeded in surviving… I wonder what my fate will be, not that it matters, I won’t know it… or even know that it came and went.

I wonder which title of this blog is true now; the URL is Blogging on the edge of suicide… the revised title is Blogging on the edge of Sanity… maybe it’s both?


Monday August 31st 2009
I tried to straighten things out and they only got more confused. My lawyer’s assistant says they seem to pick and choose which ever C84 the want to honor with no rhyme or reason, and are using my missed appointment for the Cymbalta instead of the physical problems as an excuse not to send me a check.

I couldn’t sleep more than about an hour and a half last night and was so wasted, I had to reschedule my appointment with Dr. P/Knee today until after I see Dr. Mind on Wednesday.

My stomach is turning knots just thinking about not making tomorrow’s rent. Every time I think I can stand up and fight for myself someone ties both hands behind my back. Now she’s saying that they might send me a week’s worth of a check, but at their whim it might not be deposited until the next cycle Friday after this. That’s only $220 too little too late.

At least on Friday I’ll get my $16 in food stamps. I also got a call from Dr. Mind back from vacation. She’s really concerned and is still suggesting I check into a rubber room.

After selling all my china and silverware, I’ve discovered a few indignities. I’m actually separating paper plates that are glued together to make them last longer since I forgot to buy some yesterday. I’m actually now washing plastic spoons, forks and cups to reuse them. I shudder to think when I run out of toilet paper.

I’m considering writing down some of my more vivid nightmares and starting a “Rod Serling” style Twilight Zone book.

Just for the hell of it, let’s do inventory…
My left eye is clouding up again, it’s needed surgery since it exploded a few months ago, but I’m getting collection agency notes from the surgeon that did it for me last time, so that’s out. I’ve got to do something or I’ll never get my driver’s license next year. I’ve got debris still floating in it from the exploded capillaries that make it like looking through a lava lamp.

My ears are ringing like a hearing test gone berserk. I have to sleep with a box fan in my bedroom just to drown it out now.

Shockingly I seem to be immune to nervous tension headaches.

My right arm and shoulder still audibly crunch when I move. The fact that I can hear it without sometimes feeling it is sometimes disconcerting. Several parts of my body can now predict the weather, my right arm, my upper chest, my left knee, my left ankle, and my left foot. Of them, I’d say the shoulder is the most reliable.

My heart seems to be getting stronger and stronger. I still have dizzy spells but I’m more and more convinced they’re because of the 14 prescriptions I take a day. They’ve cut into my chest so many times that the muscles are still very sore. It’s difficult at best to fill my lungs all the way without pain and yawning or sneezing is an experiment gone wrong in pain. My left side is especially sore where they did the emergency thoracotomy and moved my ribs and muscles.

My left knee is like my left shoulder; it makes as much noise as it hurts. I can’t bear to put my hand on it when I flex it, because it literally feels like it’s coming apart when I do.

My left ankle doesn’t move, it doesn’t worry me that it doesn’t move, it’s just that with diabetes I could hurt it trying to flex it and never feel it until I’ve done real damage.

My left foot aches when it rains… It still bother’s me sometimes that I’ve got some dead guy’s bone in there, but at least I’m not superstitious about it.

Someone quoted the late Ted Kennedy yesterday and it made me smile remembering him… “I don’t mind not being President… I just mind that someone else is.”

After yesterday’s entry, I probably got a lot of people worried. I considered deleting it, but it’s part of a journal and once you put it down, you shouldn’t take it back.

I’ll get through this somehow. If they do send a half check before Thursday, with the social security check I’ll have $30 left over after the rent (unless there’s a late fee) to buy groceries and live on until Friday of next week. Then I’ll start sweating bullets over that check coming. Their checks haven’t been right for the last six weeks-someone there has to be laughing their heads off.

Speaking of them, they filed a 7th appeal. The courts in effect told them to fuck off. I hope they’re going as broke as I am paying the fucking lawyers. If they’d just treat me right in the first place, they’d probably have spent a hell of a lot less money.

July 2009

Wednesday July 1st 2009
The therapy place in Hilliard sent me a bill for $4 for my phone service. It is to laugh… and I would if it weren’t so ridiculous. Dr. Mind’s out of town this week.


Thursday July 2nd 2009
I got a phone call today from Work Health saying that they had to cancel my appointment on Monday. GB pulling their dirty tricks again. She asked if I had my knee surgery, and I said yes, so she informed me that GB won’t pay for their examinations and C84 forms to continue my checks and benefits. That means that since the surgery was May 21st, I can’t get checks until at least August 21st. The C84 authorizing my checks expires next Monday the 6th, so I’m fucked. I fired off an e-mail to Lawyer K, but with the holiday weekend (which is what they’re probably counting on) I probably won’t get a response until Tuesday or Wednesday next week.

My disability check was deposited today instead of tomorrow-probably because of the holiday. Now I have enough in my checking to clear next month’s rent and a few bills.

Since I sold my computer speakers, I’ve been using my headphones. They fell off the desk and the line got tangled on one of the drawer pulls. The jerk when they stopped just before the floor pulled the wires out of one of the speakers, shorting out both. I went over to Wal-Mart and bought a new pair.

Red white and boom is tomorrow. Downtown Columbus has the midwest’s biggest fireworks display and people come from other states-they estimated 350,000 this year-all of whom want to park in our private parking lot. I used to love watching it from my balcony only 5 blocks away, but now I ignore it until the artillery barrage begins… then I have to comfort a scared little cat.

The grocery stores are competing for the lowest price on pop, I’ve got enough now to last until mid-August! At $4 for a 24 pack, who could resist?

I’m having trouble sleeping again, seems I can’t get to bed before 2AM, and can’t fall asleep until 4-5…


Friday July 3rd 2009
Around 1AM I checked my checking account and GB hadn’t deposited the check. They do that sometimes-they usually direct-deposit it at midnight, but sometimes they’ll withhold it until the opening of business on that Friday just to piss me off.

I kept calling my building manager all day to see if he was in his office. I don’t want to go over there unless I know he’s there, because the handicap ramp to that building is on the other side, and I’m not about to detour all the way around it. He hasn’t answered all day and is probably out on the lake with his brother jet-skiing. I got a shopping list together, drove the car around to the other side of his building, and dropped the check off in his mail drop. I should’ve signed the lease July 1st but didn’t know if GB was going to screw with me about the check, so I had to wait.

It was nice and sunny today, so I drove out to Wal-Mart instead of Kroger’s just to enjoy the sun with the top down. I decided to try walking without my brace on to see if I could-bad idea. I came back and got it. At least I’m strong enough now to not have to use the damned walker.

A little justice… They moved the fireworks two blocks north near the Veteran’s Memorial last year, and now as a result I can only see the high shots over the office buildings, where before I could see the whole thing. This year's volleys set off little fires on the tar roof of the Memorial complex this year, just little ones, so maybe they’ll move it back where it was.

I started work on a new computer graphic for my “Gay Pride” website. It looks pretty good, but I’m never satisfied and I’ll probably tweak it a dozen times before I’m happy with it.


Saturday July 4th 2009
Today was a very down day. July 4ths used to be filled with friends all day, grilling burgers and hot dogs down by the pool, and then we’d all gather up on my balcony and watch the fireworks from all the outlying suburbs with my binoculars and telescope. I’ve got a pretty good view of the southern, western and northern horizons.

I miss my friends-I miss the fun.

I did some more work on the pride banner and turned in.


Sunday July 5th 2009
I tried going out without the brace again today and couldn’t. It sucks when I don’t have a physical therapist to guide me on what I can and can’t do safely. I needed to get out of the penthouse and so I drove around sightseeing the building walls that I’ve done giant murals on in the "short north" district. A lot of them are fading, causing me to want to get up on a ladder with some paint. Yeah right. I know it’s bad because the clients aren’t even calling to ask about an estimate. I use good paint, but even the best fades in the sun no matter how much you pay for it.

Everything I saw at the store that I have a craving for, I’m not allowed to eat. I’d love to devour a whole carrot cake right now.

Cops are out all over the place trying to keep their holiday weekend stats down for car accidents, but I still enjoyed myself anyway. I was getting low on gas and decided to only get $10 because I'm hoping the prices will fall down after the holiday... uh huh.

My eyesight is beginning to fog or haze over a little more often. I’m going to have to make that appointment. They said there was a danger of cataracts. Why not, everything else has happened.

I just realized today I haven’t been putting this stuff down, so I’m trying to catch it up now. The night was spent typing and proof reading. I hope Lawyer K has some news about last Monday’s hearing on the 29th…


Monday July 6th 2009
I set the clock-radio this morning so I could catch Rich at his office first thing at 8AM to sign my lease… then 8:15, 8:30 etc. I finally caught him at 9:30 and said I’d be right over. Before I even got my jeans on, he appeared at my door with it to save me the trip-god love him. I still have to go out anyway. Wal-Mart was out of bread yesterday!?! And I’m low on ice.

I’ve hung around the house now til nearly 2PM and got nothing from Lawyer K, so I’ll try to figure out what do do next on my own when I get back from Kroger’s.


Tuesday July 7th 2009
I heard from Lawyer K, about GB pulling their shit. He said he’s contacting Work Health and Dr. P Foot to see what the deal is. I don’t have a C84 to authorize any checks and now have no idea who to ask, so unless I get this straightened out somehow, they could succeed in not sending me any checks by trickery rather than losing in court four times.

I seem to live on the edge of just giving up, but something keeps pulling me back.

I got a nice e-mail from a friend that is a music editor at BlogCritics wanting me to design a trademark banner for his column. I haven’t been very creative of late, but I decided to try to force it out of myself. I worked on it all evening until about midnight, and thought it was perfect, but he didn’t like my putting his face or name on it… Huh? It’s for a banner over his feature column… I used to come up against this situation all the time and never reacted to a partial rejection like this before, so I tried again. Maybe I have lost my business sense after all.

2nd try: Behind a wallpaper of famous rock act names-teal on a black background, I placed Bob Dylan holding a big sign that said “The”. Then placed the word ROCKOLOGIST in big letters so the names could be read behind it. Within the word I put Jimmy Page’s famous double-necked guitar, Bruce “the boss” Springsteen, Neil Young, Jimmy Hendrix and used Eric Clapton in place of the “I”. I hope he likes this one because it took a lot out of me.

He wanted it as a favor and no money was discussed, and I was glad to do it as a friend. I’m hoping others will see it and like it, and maybe I can get my career restarted again… who knows.


Wednesday July 8th 2009
I put the finishing touches on the rock banner and e-mailed it out and went out to see Dr. Mind.

The mail brought the Workman’s Comp decision in my favor, granting me 3-6 months more of psychological care, but they could pull their shit and say that’s backdated to the day of their appeal in April and try to say the three months end at the middle of this month.

One of my biggest problems with my sessions with Dr. Mind is that she’s being forced to send her notes to GB since they’re paying for the sessions-which is unfair to me. How do you open up completely to a therapist under those circumstances? Especially when they’re using those very notes to find an excuse to cut you off for any reason.

They tried to cut off my therapy by saying I was talking about things other than the injury, like my father’s death, almost losing my car and the bankruptcy, so they didn’t have to pay for it.

I stopped at Kroger’s and bought what I needed for the next two weeks. I now have a little under $40 in checking, but at least my July bills are paid to the end of the month. God help me if an emergency comes up though…


Thursday July 9th 2009
Last night, I got all the kinks worked out of the masthead banner for his column, BC liked it, and it’s now being displayed above all of his columns. The first time I saw my work hanging from the ceiling of a department store (point of purchase materials), in an instruction manual, or in a newspaper ad, I don’t think I felt this proud. I fought my inner demons to try to bring out my creativity and it worked… and for a brief moment I was damned proud of myself.

I knew the feeling wouldn’t last long though, but less than an hour?

Disaster has struck again.

I’ve been fighting the “what’s the use” syndrome about my C84 since Monday and finally forced myself to pick up the phone this morning and DO something about it. It only confirmed the uselessness and hopelessness of the situation.

To recap: last Thursday Work Health called to cancel my appointment for last Monday because they said that GB wouldn’t pay for the exams to authorize the C84s 90 days after I went under a surgeon’s care.

Today Dr. P-knee’s office said they couldn’t issue or renew my pay-voucher/C84 because they weren’t the Doctor of Record on the case. That’s Dr. T at Work Health. Nor could they renew my prescription for Cymbalta because they weren’t the original prescriber for such a powerful drug… Dr T at Work Health is. Without the C84 I’m left with a little more than $30 now in checking. Once I run out of the Cymbalta the aftereffects are devastating.

Dr. P-Knee’s office suggested I contact my lawyer. My lawyer is out of his office. I called Dr. Mind because I’m so depressed because I’ve lost control of this whole situation, that I’m thinking of swallowing all of my pills and just giving up. She calmed me down and said she’d look into it and suggested I try to relax.

So I’m sitting here contemplating my next move…


Friday July 10th 2009
I got into the fray early on the BC writer’s board and scored the 7th season’s DVD of CSI Miami. It doesn’t come out until September, but I think I’ll get it in August in order to see and review it before the release date.

Lawyer K called me this morning and said it didn’t make sense that Dr. P-knee’s office wouldn’t issue me a C84 and said he’d call me back… so far he hasn’t. Dr. Mind called me from her office this afternoon to see if I’d heard from him, but I told her I hadn’t and she said to be patient and try to relax over the weekend. Apparently I can still get them to fax it in on Monday and still get paid next Friday… I hope so.

I hate sweating bullets every time before a check comes as to whether I’m actually going to get one or not.

….

On February 9th I died twice. That’s been playing on my mind lately. The doctors didn’t say my heart stopped, or I’d stopped breathing, they said I died. They and to twice risk CPR with a ribcage that was only being held together with wire from the recent bypass in order to bring me back to life.

I didn’t see any white lights, no wise man with a beard beaconing me, or the gates of Hell… at this point I’d say Heaven is pretty much out of the question.

I had an experience after a car wreck some years back in which my rare custom Triumph TR7 Jetfire was destroyed. I was guided as if in a dream upward by my dead cousin Billy and my stepsister’s dead boyfriend Michael. Halfway through the trip a voice said it wasn’t my time-that I’d been taken by mistake, and I woke up in a car that was literally crushed around me… but I didn’t have a scratch or a bruise. The impact was so hard; it crushed the back of the car all the way to the seats and yet I was uninjured-they even had to cut me out of the car.

Yet, last February I saw nothing, nor do I remember anything. Which one was reality; both or neither?

A mindset has been gripping me through the last few months that I shouldn’t worry about the events that are tearing at my sanity, because I won’t be here much longer. I sit on the sidelines and watch myself as if I’m a second “me” and wonder how much of my sanity I lose a day. Sometimes I’m perfectly fine, others it just drifts away on the wind like smoke.

Maybe I’ve lost the fear of dying, and the fear of Hell because neither exists. Death is just existence ending and there is nothing afterward; no pain, no pleasure, no judgment… just nothing.

The consideration of such a concept would worry any sane man, but I’m beginning to believe that I’m no longer sane. Fortunately I’m too much of a coward to test the theory by killing myself to find out either… for now.

Monday July 13th 2009
The weekend was spent mostly asleep trying to stop obsessing over whether or not I was going to get a valid C84 in, in time to get a deposit on Friday. A friend e-mailed me a bunch of names of celebrities who’d come out of the closet recently and websites to confirm them, so I rebuilt the banner graphic for my gay pride website in order to accommodate the additional names.

This morning I started out by e-mailing Lawyer K’s office, then voice mailing and then instant messaging. No answer. Then I tried Calling Work Health, who still refuses to cooperate, so I left a voice mail with Dr. T's office about my Cymbalta. Then I called Dr. P-knee’s office and again got their voicemail. So far, no reply from any of them.

This could be a larger disaster than usual, as I’m down to bare dollars in checking. I could last to the end of the month, but the gas tank is empty and there’s no money for groceries. Even if I solve this, there’s still the real possiblity of GB using it as an excuse to delay Friday’s check, send me only a week's worth, or claim they didn’t get the fax in time and then make me wait two more weeks for the make-up check.

Then there’s the problem of the Cymbalta prescription.

At 1:30 I called Cheryl at Dr. P-Knee’s office again and she said she’s sending the C84 as we speak. Well, relief but I’m not getting my hopes up, this could still fall apart like a soggy doughnut.

I called Work Health again just now, and of course I got the nurse’s voice mail again. I left an urgent message… again… for her to call me back.


2:19PM
Work Health called to tell me that there is no such rule about surgeons and 90 days, that no one called from their office canceling my appointment on the 6th, and according to their records I canceled the appointment-which I wouldn't do because my next check depended on me making it there in person to sign the C84. Since I've had to cancel and reschedule a few times before they were just as mystified that I wouldn't schedule a follow-up.

Turns out Dr. T's on vacation until tomorrow, so I can make arrangements for the prescription and my next appointment then.

Dr. Mind called to say that GB also back-dated their 30 payment approval by the court to the day that the appeal papers were filed-which was in March while I was in the hospital... which means it's already expired and they got away with paying for a period of appointments that weren't kept because I was being hospitalized, AND they don't have to pay for future appointments... unless I

Usually a C84 only coveres a month at a time, but Dr. P-Knee is so pissed about this whole thing, that he issued a C84 that doesn't expire until the end of the year!

I can see the feathers flying already.

2:41PM
Dr. T's office called to say a nurse named Lisa was the one who called to cancel my last appointment-confirming I hadn't lost my mind and/or memory. Apparently GB themselves called to say they'd cover future appointments. Since I have the paperwork from Dr. P-Knee, I wondered why, and they said Dr. T has to see me to make sure I still need the Cymbalta... oy vay.

11:02PM
Spent the day trying to relax and did some proofreading and watched TV. Right after CSI Miami I came in here to the den and stood at my desk reading mail. For no apparent reason I fell backwards. I didn't collapse, I was standing and just tipped back and caught myself on the bar before I did any damage. If it happens again, I've got a record of when it happened the first time.


Wednesday July 15th 2009
The battery in the injection pen for my insulin died yesterday. I called Wal-Mart to try to get another one, but they said I have to get it from the issuing physician, which is my old MD from 4 years ago. If I have to buy it, I’m sunk. Right now, I’m injecting myself by manually counting the clicks which isn’t very accurate. After I go see Dr. Mind today, I’ll have to stop over there.

Drove out to see my old doctor, and they said I couldn't get the insulin injection pen from them because he wasn't my current physician and the pen needs a prescription. I'll have to make an appointment with Dr. S-doctor. I drove out to Wal-mart pharmacy and they don't carry the injection pen because it's an item that only physicians give out and they can't order it.

If it isn't one thing it's another.

I got home and got another harrassing phone call from "888-toll free call". They use that so it gets around my "privacy guard" phone feature, which blocks unlisted phone numbers unless they identify themselves to a recording first and then I approve the call.

I'd had enough, they've been calling almost every two hours for three days now and it's getting old really fast. I finally picked up the phone and got a recording. Figuring I'd settle it once and for all, I hit 1, it connected and then hung up.

They called back two hours later and I let the jerk have it with both barrels-all this over a $60 Medicare co-pay that I can't afford. I just blew up on the phone, told him he could sue for all I care as I don't have anything and hung up on him.

Betsy called on her way up the mountain and after only a few minutes I lost her in a dead zone.

It's been suggested that I should add catagories to the names on my gay pride page so people could figure out who they are, so I started working on that this evening since there was nothing on TV.

Mom goes into the hospital, I wish I could go visit her...


Thursday July 16th 2009
I had to go over to Work Health today to get the refills for the Cymbalta this morning. Dr. T isn’t even a psychiatrist, but I have to get the refills from her because she’s the “physician of record” She made a point of going over my knee closely, even though Dr. P-Knee is now the official doctor over that aspect of the claim. She said she was going to call him and send in approval for more physical rehab for me.

For the first time in a long time, I didn’t want to go back inside, so I stopped back at the penthouse and picked up the errant walker that everyone was fighting about and drove all the way out to Hilliard in the sun with the top down to return it to the rehab place… before they billed me for the damned thing.

All the techs started gathering around me like I was some kind of returning celebrity and for the first time in a long time I felt good about myself.

I took some rolled coins and bought $7 worth of gas and just cruised Rt. 270 for a while and finally came home around 3PM.

I guess I'll sweat bullets again tonight waiting to see if GB deposits my check at midnight. If they do, I'll go on another trip tomorrow and pick up my Cymbalta and then my prescriptions over at Wal-Mart. If they don't... well it's a good thing I've hoarded back a stash.



Friday July 17th 2009
The check wasn’t deposited until this morning again. I had my prescriptions for the Cymbalta on the desk, cash in my checking account… and couldn’t force myself out the door. I hate this I absolutely hate this.

I don’t know whether it was physical or psychological, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open to save my life and wound up sleeping four or five hours, waking up for one, and then getting so sleepy I couldn’t stay awake and would go back to sleep for another four. I’m still having trouble with my balance, and my left eye is still clouded. One of the drugs I’m on has my ears ringing really loudly, almost to the point where I can’t sleep with it, but I’m so exhausted, I have no choice.

The fucking collection agencies just won’t stop calling. At one point I turned all of the ringers off on my phones and missed Aunt Margaret’s calls. This sucks too.

My gay pride page’s fans are beginning to send me names on a daily basis. The thing wasn’t popular until I took Brock’s suggestion and added a few naked hunks to the banner page about a year ago. I spent the hour that “Real Time with Bill Maher” was on, listening to it and reworking the banner… again.

I gave up on the maze page and deleted the whole thing.

Saturday July 18, 2009
I got on line first thing this morning and ordered my refills from Wal-Mart, now that I have the money to pay for them. I went up to Family Medical and got there about five minutes before they closed at 1PM. The head pharmacist helped when GB screwed with the prescription again saying I needed “prior authorization” before they could fill it.

Sometimes in the last four years, it’s taken as much as a week and a half to get authorization, and she was as frustrated with it as I was and she just let me have the prescriptions, knowing GB would grudgingly pay for them eventually.

While I was in there she asked how I was doing, and I took a shot and explained about the problem I was having getting a new Opticlick injection system for my insulin. She smiled, went back in her office, and got me one in a big starter kit that a drug representative dropped off yesterday… and she refused to let me pay for it and didn’t care that I had a prescription or not. Some good people really do exist in this world.

I made it over to Wal-Mart by 2 only to discover the pharmacy was closed??? On Saturday? That means I’d have to make another trip tomorrow. I did some basic shopping and forgot to get a bottle of rubbing alcohol and lo and behold, the pharmacy was open at 2:30. It turns out if there’s only one pharmacist; they close an hour in the afternoon for lunch.

It rained just barely enough to keep me from putting the top down, but not enough to prevent that annoying rattle of the wipers on the windshield.

For some reason strangers really bothered me today. I hate that it’s forcing me to live alone. I also hate how I can see the problem but can’t seem to find a remedy for it.


Monday July 20 2009
While cleaning out unwanted or needed computer programs this morning, I noticed that I had Internet Explorer 7 and 8. I figured it was left over from when I upgraded, so I used Add/Remove programs to get rid of IE7 because the computer was running a mite slow of late.

Bad Mistake

It took me til Wednesday to figure out how to get I.E. back up and running on my computer in order to go on line. The download for 8 was piggybacked on 7. (It turns out the upgrade download was still in my temporary internet folder). Once I got it up and running, I logged onto Microsoft’s site and put on a clean full version of IE8.

Anyway, I’ll try to reconstruct the last few days (Written Wednesday night)

I went and saw Dr. P-knee today. He is encouraged by the way the bone is healing despite the diabetes. He wrote out a prescription so I can get the physical therapy I should’ve gotten 4 weeks ago. There’s a band of cartilage that goes just beneath my kneecap that is rubbing on the plate they put in during surgery. It’s the grinding I feel that I thought was arthritis. I was relieved until he told me that post-operative arthritis is normal and to expect it.

He let me keep the printout of my x-rays and if I'd not seen the same thing in my leg, arm, ankle and foot I'd have fainted. A long plate with long wood screws going through bone in about 30 places... yikes. If I ever get back on my feet finanically enough to fly out to the west coast, the airport metal detectors should be an adventure!

He also looked at my shoulder and confirmed that that is arthritis, aggravated by when I was learning how to walk again on the parallel bars in Hilliard.

He thinks that I’m well enough to try to walk around without the leg brace.


Tuesday July 21 2009
Dr. P-foot’s office called and gave me a number to call to set up an appointment for the therapy to start. The fucking collection agencies are calling at all hours again. It turns out I get a call for each overdue hospital/co-pay bill of which there are about 20 over the last three years or so, times 4 times a day… well you do the math. I cringe every time the damned phone rings and I don't know how much more of this my sanity can survive.


Wednesday July 22 2009
I woke up this morning in agony. I’m trying too hard to walk normally without limping and I’m pulling muscles that haven’t been used in my left leg. I was supposed to see Dr. Mind today but waiting until I had to get ready to go, hoping the pain would ease didn’t work, so I called her, said I couldn’t come in, and took two Percocets. I definitely can’t drive while on them, which is the reason I gave her. We talked for a while on the phone and I spent the rest of the day cussing at this computer trying to get back on line.

I’m back to having nightmares about the attack, imagining they’re right outside my door, that they’ve stolen my car every night, or that I’ve been shot out in the parking lot. I FUCKING HATE NOT BEING IN CONTROL OF MY OWN MIND. Dr. Mind says part of the problem is the drugs I'm on effecting my dreams.

I’ve got an overdue review to get written on Mod Squad’s 2nd season DVDs, so I’ll try to occupy my mind tomorrow with it.

While the computer was down, I redid the graphic for my Gay Pride Page. I’m becoming amazed at just how many people are logging in to it every day.

I’m considering writing “How Many Famous Athletes Are Gay-Vol. 2” and "How many famous people down through history were gay" before my fans start bitching for new material. I wish I could make a living at this. I’m sure’s hell not getting rich on the pennies I’m getting when/if someone clicks on the ads on my pages. I’ve been monitoring the clicks and I think last month I made .43 because no one’s interested in them to just look (about .10 per), or can no longer afford to buy anything there (which is more likely the case). Sooner or later I’m going to just dump them… they’re just taking up space and I’m not making anything off of them.

Betsy called me this afternoon on her way up the mountains to Crystal Lake resort where she works. It turns out no one decided to tell me that my mom's surgery had been put off a week. I'm so used to not being part of my childhood family any more that it hardly effected or surprised me.

I'm really jealous of Betsy, she's found a man who is head over heals in love with her, and wants to make her his whole life.

About the only thing my step-sister Char is good for is "chain-letter" e-mails giving me good luck if I send it to a friend. I once asked her how she was doing and what was going on in her life and never got a response... though she still sends me silly pictures and chain mail with no notes attached. It's gotten to the point where I just delete them after I check to make sure there's nothing personal in them.

Thank god I still have Betsy, Aunt Margaret and my good friend Teresa to lean on. I'm beginning to wonder if Brock is avoiding me because he thinks every e-mail is hinting I need financial help (which isn't the case-since he's just as bad off as I am.

It sucks feeling so alone in this world. The first years of my life were so fucked up, then I got help and turned things around relationship/lover-wise, financially, spiritually, physically, and even concerning my faith, and for years it was so great, then in one sweep of fate's hand it was torn from me and I'm just as fucked up as I was before.

I haven't lost my creative talent yet, but the ability to use it, the confidence that it's good and the self-assurance to sell it has gone almost completely.

More and more I'm becoming convinced that death is nothing more than the end of existing and nothing more. While that's of some comfort from the fear of death, the fear of death is the only thing keeping me from ending my life... interesting paradox.


Thursday July 23 2009
This sleeping all the time is really starting to bother me, because I can’t tell if it’s the drugs or the depression. Woke up at 9AM only to get really sleepy at 11 and slept until 3 this afternoon. I was of course woken up by another damned collection agency.

I called Work Health and scheduled an appointment for physical therapy; the evaluation is tomorrow morning. I was hoping for next week, but the next appointment isn’t until mid-August and by then I won’t need it. I really wanted to get out and about today, but can’t get past the front door again. God, I can’t remember the last time I even checked my mail!


Friday July 24 2009
Physical therapy went okay this morning. The girl they assigned me was really nice and I think I got a lot accomplished. It’s tough when you don’t feel the pain while you’re doing the exercises but pay for it later on.

Doc P-knee took me off the leg brace on Monday, but the therapist thinks I should still wear it when I go out, but I don’t have to when I’m around the house. My x-rays look kinda scary now that I’ve looked at them. My leg bone just above the knee looks like it was broken and healed about a half inch off of where it should be with this glob of matter filling the gap, but that’s what it’s supposed to look like.

I’ve got plates and long painful looking woodscrews now in my foot, ankle, knee and arm! What’s that old expression, "he’s being held together by bailing wire and chewing gum"?

It bothered the hell out of me when I thought they were assigning me a black therapist. I'm anything but a racist, and really loved my grandfather on my father's side who was black. We had a section of our family named Davis down in southern Ohio that Dad used to take me to see when we'd go to Wheeling WVA sometimes on his Indian motorcycle. Dad was such a mass of contradictions about race, (probably because he was called a half-breed a lot growing up, and became secretive of his lineage) because he used to tell me he took me to see them just so I'd know my racial heritage and they were some of the nicest people I knew growing up. So to be afraid of strange blacks because of the attack really beats me up with guilt sometimes.

Sometimes I think my sister in Pittsburgh and brother in Seattle cut off contact from my ever meeting their families because I might let it slip that they're part black, which apparently they haven't told their husbands, wives or kids... that and that they have a brother who's gay.

I drove over to Wal-Mart and picked up some supplies. It was nice to get out in the sun with the top down. I missed some e-messages from my friend Brenda, whose birthday is coming up soon, and Aunt Margaret called, but I forgot I turned all the phone ringers off again.

Now that the Gay Pride Page is filling up with names on the banner, I’ll have to get rid of some hunks or shrink them even more-that and shrink the font size again. In either case another few articles are going to come out of them if I can just force myself to research and type them out. I’ve been programming the names of celebrities and sports figures into a file so I don’t have to type the damned things in every time I do a graphic redesign of the banner. While I like the “old school” kind of creating, it’s just too damned time consuming.

God, I hate being alone. The problem is that I know that with this depression I’m in the grips of, when I recover, I’ll be a different person than the one a new lover fell in love with, and there aren’t many guys out there who can understand and deal with what I’m going through psychologically. Maybe I should look for a psych major at Ohio State, but they’re too young and I’ve lost my looks to attract hunks like that. Perhaps a professor?

My biggest problem right now is the mental fog I seem to go into and can’t recover from; sometimes for hours. I can’t string two thoughts together and sometimes can’t remember what I was thinking about five minutes ago. Alzheimer’s scares the hell out of me, but everyone tells me it’s the drugs, it’s the drugs.

I feel so completely alone sometimes, and the aching need for a lover’s arms around me is really intense. I need to feel like someone’s the most important thing in my life and that I’m the most important thing in his. I’m so jealous that Betsy finally found someone like that. She deserves it.


Tuesday July 28 2009
I spent the weekend trying to figure out what to do financially. I’ve been imagining a line chart of my expenses vs my income and for the last couple of years I’ve been coming up short by about $25 at the end of the month, making up for it with what little cash reserve I have, mostly by skimping on cheap food and never driving anywhere I don’t absolutely have to. It also helps that they haven’t figured out that the electric meter that they claim is functioning perfectly is still fucked up, otherwise my bill would be about $125 a month instead of the zero-kilowatt service charge of $10.70 a month.

It’s to the point where the bills are depending on the next check to the point where I’ll have to write paper checks so that the 5-day period it takes for them to clear is enough time for the money to be deposited in my account. Fortunately a bill is on time when they get the check-not when it clears-but the 5-day safety gap is closing fast.

The weekend was taken up with sleeping all the time between nightmares, things like my attackers setting the building on fire to smoke me out, or an earthquake (in Ohio?) toppling downtown on top of me. There’s also the recurring one of my finding employment, but every few days someone steals my car and hides it somewhere… either that of my time card keeps getting misplaced.

I’ve been sending out experimental e-mails to some of my ex-art clients, but everyone is still cutting back expenses rather than cut employees and decorative artwork or custom print ads are not in their budgets… of which they’re very sorry about but…

Brock sent out some feelers in San Diego, San Fran and Los Angeles saying nice things about me, but so far no takers. Probably because no one wants to fly me out there and Brian sold the time-share in his jet-I couldn’t afford my share of the fuel and airport fees now anyway.

My shoulder was really sore this morning. I shudder to think that someday I might be able to predict the weather with the damned thing. My first physical therapy session isn’t until Thursday.

I’ve been trying to keep my attitude upbeat by watching comedy DVDs of concerts and shows like Will & Grace and M*A*S*H. I just wish I had something from reality to smile about.

It doesn’t help that nearly every time the phone rings it’s some collection agency about a $60-$20,000 Medicare co-pay that I’ll never be able to send…


">Wednesday July 29 2009
SOMEONE MAKE THEM FUCKING STOP.
I finally opened two weeks worth of mail and found that GB is hauling me back into court a 6th time in as many months because they don’t want to pay for my Cymbalta. As powerful of a drug as it is, for me to go cold turkey from 90mg would be disastrous. The damned court hearing is next Wednesday and I want to fly into a frustrated rage and just give up.

I need an end to this so bad. It’s getting to be fucking torture. If they’d leave me alone in peace I might actually recover from this but as it is, they’re doing more damage to me than the attack did.

I’m such a damned ball of jumbled and strong emotions I’m tempted to take the fast way out by killing myself, if I were brave enough to do it, but taking a bottle of pills probably wouldn’t work, jumping off my balcony probably wouldn’t kill me right away and what’s left other than slitting my goddamned wrists.

Collection agencies are calling me almost hourly, I strongly suspect I’ll barely make the bills next month, and I’m wondering what’s keeping me on this damned world.

I went and saw Dr. Mind today and some woman that had to be committed took half of my session up with an emergency. The only parking I could find was at a 30-minute meter, so while I waited just to get in I had to keep hobbling down and feeding the damned thing or get a ticket.

If I make it through the night, I’ll probably be alright tomorrow after the dust settles, but I really doubt how much more of this I can take.

The Knee Operation and its Aftermath May 21 & June

Now that I've had a little time, I've gone back through this text and corrected grammar and spelling... and lord; there was a lot of it...

Thursday May 21st 2009
I promised Teresa my last $100 bill for taking care of my cat Mischief and the apartment for me. She’d do it all for free, but I know she needs it for incidental shit for her new house. I waited as long as I could and then gave up and published my latest BC article on Dynasty's 4th season's DVD collection just before I left for the hospital. In the state of mind I’m in, I was almost hoping I would die on the operating table and have this ordeal over and done with. I requested a room on the 6th floor at the admitting desk, but the bone and joint ward is on the opposite end of the complex, so I don’t hold out much hope on that. I've left word with relatives all over the place, and they all know of this diary, so we'll see who cares enough to call-I know I can depend on Betsy and Aunt Margaret.

I woke up in room 367 in the bone ward surrounded by a bunch of concerned nurses with worried looks on their faces-not a good sign. I’m in one of those “trapeze” beds with four steel poles at each corner that support a frame work above me with big triangles that I can pull myself up with and reposition myself since I can’t use my legs. Without my even asking someone found a pedestal fan for right next to my bed-god love ‘em. The first thing that hit me was the pain. You know that old expression “you can feel it in your bones”; well that’s why a bone operation is one of the most painful there is.

I’ve got a great big black brace on my leg with tons of velcro and steel to hold it straight. A few minutes after they wheeled me in here I began shivering uncontrollably; after I mentioned it, one of the nurses discovered that the thermostat had been turned down to 33… This is not a good way to start this experience.

They gave me a little button with a green light on it. Every time I’m in pain, if the light is on I can push it and it’ll feed me I. V. pain meds. I ran the control cord up to one of the overhead triangles so it’s directly above my head. It hurts so much I’ve got to hit it the moment it says it’s alright for me to have more. I’ve never felt anything like this, it doesn’t come and go-it’s constant and it hurts like hell.

As expected, my TV on the arm over my bed won’t let me program out stations, and it’s one of those where you have to go through all 99 cable channels to get to the one you want and the channel button only goes up; so if I’m on channel 9 and I want 3, I have to go through them all past 99 on the way around to find it… ugh.

I spent the rest of the day burping, coughing and farting and discovered that I can hardly move at all. I put out a load of diarrhea in the bed and was so embarrassed. They said it was normal and even expected after an operation like the one I just endured, but still…


Friday May 22nd 2009
Room #367 Bone & Joint Ward
I called my answering machine this morning to leave a message for anyone that wanted to reach me. The workman’s comp hearing happened today without me being there. I think GB scheduled it intentionally that way, knowing I couldn’t attend-hoping I'd lose by default by not appearing... they don't know my lawyer very well. No word as to how it went from Lawyer K.

I shat a big loaf almost without realizing it in bed and got worried about it seeping into my leg bandage. That’s when I noticed at least one nurse seems to be in my room around the clock-almost as if I'm in some sort of private intensive care unit, which has me puzzled as to what’s wrong. I was awarded a diaper-what a humiliation. I’ve been hit with hiccups, which is very strange because I’ve never had them much in my whole life. They seem to come and go at will with no reason or cause.

I wonder if the GB check was deposited in my account today; I wouldn’t put it past them to fuck me over and then pay me back later at their leisure. I can’t remember the bank’s phone number, though I have it in my briefcase, in fact I can’t seem to remember much-it’s got something to do with the anesthetic drugs that also have an amnesia effect. I’ve started stressing about what bills I can pay and not pay just in case, and I just realized that the next checks won’t come until the first week of June and by then the insurance will be past due; so will the electric.

I realized a minute ago that I can’t remember pissing within the last day or so, and they told me it’s because I have a Foley catheter up my dick and I can’t feel it when I go because the muscles that keep it in have been bypassed… yikes.

Nurses keep frequently checking my blood pressure, my blood sugar and my hemoglobin. They all have worried faces and talk in whispers. Normal blood pressure for me is 120 over 80, blood sugar is 80-110 and hemoglobin for a male is 14. I got scared when I caught them whispering that my pressure was 80/50, sugar was at 226 and my hemoglobin was below 6 again. If any of those readings are only 5 or 10 off it's something to be concerned about, and all three of mine are.
Friday May 22nd 2009
Room #640 Heart Ward
Apparently I passed out some time this afternoon and woke up watching the ceiling go rapidly by. I was being rushed bed and all over to the heart ward! They dumped me sideways off of a big fiberglas board into a new bed in room 640 without the trapeze frame and then left me alone wondering what had happened. Apparently my vital signs got so low that they decided it was more important to have me near my friends in the 6th floor heart ward. I have no pain button now, but a nurse appears immediately at the touch of my button and sometimes without my asking and gives me a shot of morphine. Within minutes of arrival, I was also just as quickly surrounded by a horde of personnel with stethoscopes attaching me to all kinds of monitors that beeped, squawked and squeaked and all sorts of things sounding like the bridge of the Enterprise. They keep coming in, but none seem to be leaving.

I was put on oxygen and told not to speak. Nurses leave in groups and then others come in that remembered me from earlier this year and said hello which made me feel better. A doctor wanted to know why I didn’t have the trapeze any more and sent out someone to find one, another promised to find me a fan to replace the one that didn't make the trip with me here, as I was sweating profusely.

Lawyer K never called back after I called his office and left him my new room phone number; I wonder if that’s a good sign or not.

After everyone left in hushed whispers, I found that my new TV had the menu button disabled too… par for the course. I got a nurse to find my new stereo earplugs and tried them out on the TV and they worked. Some woman appeared and tried to make arrangements for me to leave!?! Christ, I only got here yesterday-this sounds like something GB is behind! She wanted me to go through a list of physical rehab places and after my last experience, that’s the last thing I wanted to think about. I called the bank and GB made the deposit (gasp of relief). That means the rent check will clear.

The one thing I've been looking forward to is the great award-winning food menu, but I'm not hungry at all, and can't remember the last time I ate.

I’m still shitting the bed, but they keep assuring me it’s alright. Around evening time, this nurse wheeled in a giant caliper thing on a crane and after some fussing attached it to a sling under the mattress and weighed me. The surgeries added back all that fluid weight I lost and I’m back up to 265-DAMN IT. She brought in a bedpan; the first time I ever used one and I about overflowed it. It turns out I still have the catheter in so that keeps me from using the bathroom... just as well, I can't move without a lot of pain anyway.

Still no word on how the GB appeal went.


Saturday May 23rd 2009
NO STOOL SOFTNER DAMN IT! I’ve been shitting all over the place because apparently someone thought I needed stool softner, so I yell that now every time they bring me pills, and lo and behold, they’re there in every batch of them they bring.

The doctor came in this morning and was pissed I still don’t have my trapeze bed and ordered one be brought up immediately. My pair of weekend nurses are named Rona and Mona, Rona’s a typical nurse. Mona’s a short little thin girl and she's known as a "tech;" someone that does the menial non-medical stuff for patients. At first glance I didn't notice that she’s got arms like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Here’s another one of those things that only happen to me. I discovered that my little TV (which is hung from a long arm directly over my bed) was somehow programmed without Ch 5 (CBS)-no CSI Miami??? no NCIS??? I called down to maintenance and a skeptical repairman said he’d be right up. Upon arrival he confirmed the problem and announced he’d forgotten to bring his master override remote. My private room used to be a double, so I have two TVs-one of which is hopelessly out of reach. He decided to just switch my TV for the other one and after some fussing got it hooked up. As he turned to leave, I discovered that the earphone jack I’d been using didn’t work on this one.

He disconnected it again and went downstairs and brought up another one, programmed it and left. That’s when I discovered that he’d forgotten to disable the “menu” button on it, so I got rid of all the channels I didn’t like so I wouldn’t have to scan through them. (They don’t have buttons so you can pick an individual channel) I learned on my last visit here that my universal remote doesn't work on these either, because the sensor was intentionally unplugged.

They pulled the catheter out of my dick today and I experimented with trying to walk with the walker back and forth to the bathroom. I need help getting in and out of bed, and on and off of the toilet, which is embarrassing. At least I didn’t shit the bed today. Unbelievably, the bathroom door is too narrow for the walker and I have to shuffle sideways to get into it! Every time I try to use the walker, I later pay for it with extreme pain.

They finally got around to telling me that I was transferred here because my blood pressure and hemoglobin fell through the floor yesterday and that my sugar is still way over 200 so they thought I’d be better off here. Probably so, as my leg hurts like hell to the point that sometimes I can’t think of anything else, no matter how many drugs they give me.

A new worry is that GB will probably try to get out of paying for the time I've spent here in the heart ward. No matter how much concentrating I do, I can't remember yesterday. This was a problem last time too, so I brought plenty of note pads and pens, because tomorrow there's a good chance I won't remember today unless I read it here.

A huge UFO hovered toward my window tonight, before I realized that the hospital’s helipad is directly above my top-floor room. Oddly enough it was so padded up there that I didn’t even hear it touch down… landing and taking off—now that’s a different matter. I asked Mona to raise the blinds all the way so I could see them approach and she broke the things pulling the string. I’ve already had my “male chauvinist pig” moment for the day when I voiced doubt that as little as she is, that she could help me off the toilet without losing control of me… bad mistake with her muscles. They sort of remind me of the brief period when I had them myself... but then they turned to blubber because I didn't have time to babysit them every single day for the rest of my life. Mona and I became instant laughing friends. Now that I can barely make it to the bathroom, (to both our relief) I don’t have to wear the damned diaper. However, now I have to “go” about 5-6 times a day because of the Lasix drugs.

I’ve started making Welch’s sugar-free drink mix in my water pitcher, which is better than begging someone to find some Diet Dr. Pepper for me.

Someone screwed with the wall clock’s hour hand, and on the hour you can’t tell what time it is because it’s exactly halfway between the number icons. I finally figured out that you subtract an hour from what you think it is… sheesh, trying to tell the time any other way is nearly impossible.

A different lady came in and wanting me to be ready to go home or to a rehab place on Tuesday. Jesus-fuckin’ Christ! I reminded her that I’d only had the operation two days ago! The doctors are talking about a long recovery because of the nature of the operation, what with them severing bone, and yet Grant seems to want me out of here in a matter of days! I picked out some place way out in Hilliard because she says it's brand new and only has been in operation for about 6-months.

I’m trying to get used to the old schedule of people waking me up at 2 and again at 5 in the morning to take a blood sample for the lab, then trying to fall asleep again.


Monday May 25th 2009-Memorial Day
They found me a box fan for my room and now I wake up confused because the sounds just before I open my eyes are identical to home and I have to look around to make sure of where I am. The nurse/doctor traffic seems to have slowed to normal. I appear to be taking more and more pills though, but results of my vital sign tests are getting more and more encouraging.

I’m more and more tempted to stop eating, as my blood sugar is getting higher and higher. That’s usually caused by either emotional stress or an infection. They came in and changed the surgical leg dressings today. There’s lots of dried blood, but nothing to be concerned about and no sign of infection. I’ve got a 2’ long surgical scar from my left hip to just below my knee that’s all stapled shut. I can’t get any of it wet yet, so I gave myself a sponge bath and Mona came in and gave me a “nuclear shampoo”. It’s stuff you don’t rinse out of your hair, but it leaves it clean and has to be warmed up in a microwave first. Afterward, I donned my black t-shirt and scrub shorts, which are a lot more comfortable than that stupid open-assed hospital gown.

They’re still trying to give me the “bum’s rush” out of here. Another lady came in and said I should get ready to leave on Wednesday. Another explained that several cases of swine flu have come through Grant and they’re trying to get everyone in and out as quickly as possible, and that it’s harder to fight viruses that are acquired in hospitals than in other facilities… which I guess makes sense. I really don’t want to go to another rehab place after what happened last time, but I guess if I have to, I’m glad the place is brand-new. The down side is that if anything should happen, Hilliard is too far away for them to bring me back to Grant Hospital downtown.

I’m starting to get mild headaches, which aren’t a good sign; they usually mean I’m about to get seriously sick. Alas, I spend most of the day stoned on painkillers. They’re saying that the percocet may be causing the headaches??? Apparently I’m taking two 5mg tablets and they’re based on Tylenol. It appears that I’m getting too much Tylenol in my other drugs and too much actually causes headaches! The pharmacy is working on switching me to one 10mg instead. My blood pressure is slowly coming up where it’s supposed to be. Doc says not to worry; heart patients need to be a little low instead of high.

I’m still sweating like crazy, which is a direct sign that my sugar is too high before I go to sleep. I’ve got diarrhea like crazy and it’s driving me nuts. One of the drugs they’re giving me gives me gas from both ends, and I’m still confounded with hiccups that come and go at will for no apparent reason.

I got a headache this evening that was so bad that I started crying as much from the pain as from fear of what’s causing it. Despite my bed exercises, my leg is getting stiffer and stiffer. The bone matter donation site on my right hip is getting very sore when I try to walk… in short-I’m a mess.


Tuesday May 26th 2009
The headache came back with even more intensity today; I’m beginning to suspect that it’s tension from GB pulling anything they can think of to fuck me over. My upper left thigh is slightly swollen and tender to the touch. The doctor looked at it and said it was normal post-surgery stuff and not to worry about it. Mona came around and joked with me, perking me right up. I decided to call her supervisor and compliment her. More often than not my mouth is dryer than desert dust when I wake up. Mona suspects it’s a side-effect of one-or a combination-of the drugs I’m on, I just hope it’s not because I’m sleeping with my mouth open. I’m still sweating like crazy into the towels on my back. My morning blood sugar hit 281-I’m waiting for an eye to explode again.

My old friend Angela from my last adventure here, who's from physical therapy peeked in my room this morning and I was really glad to see her again. She had just enough time to set up an appointment with her tomorrow before I have to leave. It really pisses me off that we won’t have time together, because she really helped me last time I was here. No skipping down the hall arm in arm today, and she really felt bad that we have to start all over again from scratch, though I showed her I remembered the tricks for getting in and out of bed without hurting myself, and managed a very short walk with my walker down the hall about 20 feet before I gave up in exhaustion and pain.

I showed her that I could get the little plastic breath toy up to 2500 vs. 1250 from my last visit and took pleasure that she was impressed, because she was always bitching at me about it before.

Lawyer K called me this morning and described last Friday’s appeal hearing as a “spectacular win,” which takes a lot off my mind. I wish I could talk to Dr. Mind, but she’s in Arizona tending to her elderly mother for two weeks.

While I was down at x-ray, Angela snuck two bottles of Diet Dr. Pepper into my room, just like old times-God love her. One of Dr. P-knee’s assistants is royally pissed that I still don’t have my trapeze bed-it’s a little late, but I could sure use it to reposition myself in bed without so much pain… I’ll probably get it tomorrow just as I’m leaving.

I double-checked my bank balance again, and I’m trying to figure out a way to pay the car insurance on the 28th with the check that won’t come from GB (if it comes at all) until the first week of June.

I wound up with a male nurse tonight named Abu that scared hell out of me the first time I laid eyes on him, because I became convinced he was one of my attackers. He has an attitude problem because the tech that usually helps out called off sick and he apparently feels that he's too good to do her job of getting me ice or helping me up from the toilet. I had a nightmare about the attack. At least I didn’t wake up screaming for a change.


Wednesday May 27th 2009
Grant Hospital
I’m reluctantly leaving today. One last word about this hospital’s “room service.” They’ve got the best full-service menu and the best food, and I can call down and order it anytime I’m hungry between 7AM and 7PM. For some reason, the food isn’t quite as good this time around, and I’m beginning to suspect that it’s because I was comparing it to the garbage I was being fed at the other physical rehab place (which I'll refer to as TDW). I do love the huge fresh dinner salads I could custom create here though.

Dr. P-knee’s assistant came in this morning and changed the dressing on the incision again. I told him it was still tender and slightly swollen and he said to get used to that for a while. He says the staples won’t come out until June 1st at the follow up visit at his office and that I still can’t get it or my right hip wet. The constant “to the bone” pain is something I can’t find words to describe. It wears down my concentration on anything, never goes completely away, and demands my constant attention despite how hard I try not to ignore it.

Angela and I had fun with the workout today and I put a little extra effort into it through the pain because I trusted her. We both laughed when she got the velcro straps messed up on my brace.

Dr. D-heart made a surprise appearance and said he’s monitoring my heart closely and daily though he hasn't been in to see me. He’s still keeping me off Plavix for now and said all the tests say I’m just fine-heart-wise anyway.

Some lady came in and wanted to know how my stay at the hospital was, so I told her about all the glitches and the absent trapeze bed. It turns out she was the nursing supervisor I’d spoken to on the phone complimenting Mona.

As I was cleaning up for the trip to Hilliard, tech Kelly came in with another pair of surgeon's scrub pants to match the one I cut off to make shorts with. She must’ve searched all over because the hospital is using a different color and pattern now. She said it was to remember her by and she brought a pair of scissors to trim them with.

I called my Allstate agent and explained where I was and to get the amount I’d have to come up with; which was $551. He said to call him when I get to Hilliard and he’d try to work out an extension till I got my checks on the 3rd and the 5th, so I wouldn’t have to pay the fees for monthly installments. I’d have risked paying the full amount, but it’d bounce if Rich cashes my rent check too soon.

A couple of hunky brunette ambulance drivers came for me around three and after saying goodbye to everyone, I headed off to Hilliard. I’m worried about going there, but I really don’t have a choice.

Wednesday May 27th 2009
Hilliard rehab #203
The good news is the place is only 6-months-old; the bad news is the staff is only 6-months-old. On the way to my room on my gurney, we passed a large dining hall decked out like a classy restaurant. The place is filled with cranky old people with canes; walkers and wheelchairs giving me looks like "what the hell are YOU doing here?"

The room is semi-private-but in name only. You enter the door and there's a little alcove with a roomy bath complete with shower to your immediate left. From there, there are two curtained openings. My room isn’t a copy of a hospital room like TDW was, but was a fair copy of a nice medium-priced hotel room instead with the doorway being a standard curtain instead of a door.

Furniture is limited to a very roomy and overstuffed chair next to the bed that my open briefcase is now sitting on, a big tall and brand-new wooden wardrobe cabinet capable of hanging a good amount of clothes in with two drawers beneath it and a three-drawer side table next to the bed. One whole wall was built-in shelving and a built-in 4-drawer bureau with a new but quite little 20 inch LCD Hitachi HDTV atop it. The first thing I noticed was that the solid plaster walls were completely bare of pictures, decorations or even a clock. The tan floor tile is so mirror-shiny you can comb your hair in it, and the view out the window was of a nice courtyard/lawn off of the main dining room. In a few years that view would change as the tree/shrubs grow to the point where everything would be blocked. I guess that’s better than looking at the parking lot on the other side of the building. As I watched, a gardener began planting trees and flowers on the perimeter next to the fence.

I was told that dinner would be served at 5PM

The bed looked oddly small and had no side rails that I could use to pull myself upright with. The tech (they’re called “aides” here) couldn’t locate the remote that operated the hospital bed. Above and behind the bed was the standard three position string-pulled fluorescent light. As I settled in, I hit the call button, and a male nurse came in to introduce himself. I asked if I were looking right at the clock without seeing it. He looked puzzled around the room and said it appeared as if the room had been stripped of everything but the TV. I’d called him because I tried to get comfortable in the bed and couldn’t find the remote to raise the head up. I couldn’t believe it when he stooped down on one knee, grabbed something below the footboard and hand cranked it up!!! I’m appalled to realize that every time I’d get uncomfortable and need to change positions someone's going to have to crank the damned thing!-I’d rather suffer than do that.-ergo I if need the bed surface high to get in and out of it since it’s extremely painful to bend my leg, but it needs to be low for the meal table to fit over it with me in the bed.

I’d later discover that the bed had to be in its lowest position in order for the wheels to lock so it won’t move. This means that when I get in and out of bed because I need it raised to do so, it's going to try to slide away from me.

This isn’t turning out to be a very good start.

Apparently I don't have a roommate yet.

I realized that it was 6PM and dinner still hadn’t come, maybe I wasn’t registered in the room yet and they forgot me?

I picked up the phone to change my answering machine message with my new number only to discover the phone didn’t work. An aide said I had to dial 9 first, the same as over at the hospital-duh. When I tried that it still didn’t work and the phone appeared dead. The nurse came back in and said the phone wasn’t hooked up yet and the guy that did that had already left for the day.

This isn’t turning out to be a very good start. In fact I’m beginning to suspect I’m in the other nightmare place (TDW) with a new coat of plaster and paint. I’m also beginning to suffer from the condition I had after the heart operation when I couldn’t remember anything more than three days ago, which is why I’m keeping such close notes. If this keeps up, I may have to read yesterday's entries to make sure I'm not repeating myself.

Dinner came at 6:30 and I would soon realize that everyone confined to a room because of a handicap consistently gets their meals an hour to an hour and a half after the dining room was served. Dinner was luke warm at best and definitely not diabetic.

Someone named Amy came in and apologized for not greeting me when I arrived. She wanted to know what my first impression of the place was and I told her about the lack of a clock and how much knowing the time was important to me, the need for an overhead “trapeze” so I can shift easily because the bed wasn’t electric and I felt lousy asking someone to come in and crank it, and of the phone not working. I also told her that I thought the place was very nice and why I was so apprehensive based on my last experience at TDW that put me in the hospital. She told me that electric beds were on order and promised to get me one ASAP, and was very nice.

I hope I made a good first impression and didn’t come off too bitchy.

Someone else came in around 8PM and turned on the phone somewhere in the main office. My depression began setting in along with feelings of dread at making the decision to come here. I called home and was shocked to discover my phone had been disconnected. I tried again… and then again, beginning to feel like the victim of the Twilight Zone who couldn’t even remember his own phone number. If someone actually disconnected my phone I’d never get it back in service until Monday. Next, in near panic, I called Teresa and got a strange voicemail with music. I hung up and tried again. Now I was really upset.

I called the aide, who informed me that I didn’t need to dial 9 to get out so I’d been dialing my home with a nine in front of it and by coincidence the number was disconnected. I tried and got through and tried to relax afterward. The aide had no idea how to operate the air conditioner (a hotel model with warmer and cooler dial+fan speed,) nor why the TV took so long to come on once the remote was activated. I asked her to turn off the overhead light and it took her three tries to find the right switch.

The nice male nurse came back in to tell me that their pharmacy’s computer is arguing with Grant Hospital’s computer and I can’t get my percocet for pain probably until Monday. We’re talking bone pain here. I threatened that I’d be moaning loudly and continuously unless someone found a suitable substitute. He said he’d get right on it and asked how my visit with Amy went. After I told him, he told me that she was the head administrator in charge of the place. He said he knew of a room with an electric bed that was going to be empty tomorrow and he’d arrange for it to be brought here.

Since the TV is on one side of the room and I’m on the other, my stereo ear jacks won’t reach it. Also because of my diabetic retinopathy, it’s just at the right distance to be unable to fully focus on-three feet closer or farther away would’ve been perfect. Despite the lousy picture quality, I began longing for the tiny TV on a crane arm from the hospital that I could position over the bed at any close distance I wanted it. However the TV came with a remote.

Just when I thought I couldn’t be confounded further, the male nurse came in and administered a tuberculosis test?

When I checked into TDW, I remember something that I thought was a nightmare, but it was confirmed tonight here that it had been very real. Back then two guys came in and with barely a word roughly began stripping my clothes off until I was naked. Then they began charting every scar on me, leaving no part unchecked or untouched. Today's male nurse did the same without the fantasy roughness. He measured every single surgery scar and bruise on me, and kept careful measurements to the point of counting every staple on my body. I can only assume it was to keep me from later claiming they did something to me which would precipitate an injury lawsuit. Another reason to suspect they are more interested in money than my health.

I have just acquired a roommate, and he is a very annoying oldster that can’t stand it if anyone comes to see me, unless he distracts them to his room first. I've noticed that the aides can't even pass our door without him shouting at them. Several have lectured him on using his call button, but to no avail. The problem is; while they’re avoiding him, they’re avoiding me.

Just to put the icing on the cake, when I finally bedded down for the night and an aide cranked the bed flat, I discovered that the bed was too short for me by about three inches! This meant that laying on cotton sheets over vinyl bed covers means slowly sliding lower and lower in the bed, thus my bad leg slowly making contact and then more and more pressure builds up on my leg.

I finally drifted off and was immediately woken by the nurse bringing me a morphine pill to help me sleep from an old prescription he’d found on the computer instead of the percocet that worked better for me.

… This isn’t turning out to be a very good start.


Thursday May 28th 2009
The drug Lasix is designed to pull excess fluid from your body after surgery. The trouble is it gives you very little warning before you have to piss so it’s a race to either hobble on my walker to the bathroom in time, or rush to frantically find the portable plastic urinal pitcher. In the middle of the night I actually overflowed the damned thing for the first time and it got on the bed.

While I waited for them to change everything, I sat up close in the wheelchair so I could actually read the items listed, and played around with the TV and learned how to change the screen aspect ratio so it showed non-HD shows without distorting and stretching them sideways to fit the screen, and finished labeling each channel with what they were so that not only is the number displayed but that 29 is USA channel etc.

I woke up this morning in a lot of pain from my bad leg being compressed against the footboard in my sleep. I can feel my mind trying to wander off from the reality of this, and hoped yesterday was just a bad first impression of the place.

Apparently the oldster next door heard me complain about not having a clock and decided he wanted one too, driving the aides nuts by constantly asking them the time. It was like having a damned cuckoo clock. Breakfast consisted of a bowl of warm oatmeal, toast and coffee… I hate coffee and sent a note to the kitchen about my carbs, diabetes and requested hot tea with my meals instead. I was right about the meals, I get served about an hour and a half after the dining room does, and it tastes it too.

I decided to cheer myself up by making my Welch’s sugar-free grape juice this morning. They brought me a big 2-quart dining room pitcher and I dumped what was left of my glass of water into it to top it off. Trouble was the new carafe had a clear top on it that was so clean and clear I didn’t notice it until the water went all over the place. The Welch's tasted good and reminded me of home.

They’re still giving me the little morphine pills because the pharmacy isn’t cooperating yet.

I didn’t know it, but the GB psychological hearing was today, and Lawyer K called to say he’d gotten a continuance until Monday the 22nd because they wanted to hear testimony directly from me. Great; how to you tell someone you’re depressed convincingly?

The maintenance man showed up with my trapeze and side rails for the bed and I had to sign permission slips for him to install them. This place is definitely legally paranoid beyond belief! As I watched in amazement the trapeze was on only two legs, which bent and supported a single arm with a hand triangle above my head. After he installed it, I tried it experimentally and the thing bent forward about four inches and down toward me about three. I shuddered to think what’d happen if I put my full weight on it, and he said I wasn’t supposed to.

He got me to smile though when he brought in a clock and told me he’d swiped it from the employee break room! He put it up on the wall right in front of me and after asking how it looked I said fine and he left. When I looked back at it to check the time, I couldn’t see it. The bright lights over my bed reflected on the shiny face cover to the point where it was unreadable. I experimented and shifted around in the bed and eventually I could read it okay. I’ll ask him to move it to an adjacent wall next time I see him, but I appreciated the effort and the thought he put into it and reminded myself to thank him next time I saw him.

I called Rich, my apartment building manager to let him know my new number and reminded him that Teresa had permission to enter as she pleased but no one else.

Lunch came at 1:15, still with whole milk and coffee, sent another note like the one this morning. The cook probably doesn’t know how to use the computer yet to change my order. The slip on the tray says regular diet instead of Diabetic and Heart healthy, so it was no surprise that my blood sugar was 275 this afternoon. I’m beginning to wonder if them using two different kinds of competing insulin could be part of the problem.

I figured out most of the TV’s setup menu this afternoon and rescanned for stations that they might have missed during the original installation and found 8 new unscrambled HD stations that weren’t there before I started, that were located above channel 80. No one in the building probably knows they’re there, so while everyone else is watching analogue, I’m watching all of the local stations and a few movie channels in HD.

My oldster roommate still won’t let anyone pass our door without yelling for them to turn his light on or off, or get him water or two minutes later to dump it out and get fresh. He got pissed off at how long they took to answer his call button and insisted an aide take him on a tour of the facility in his wheelchair in order to gauge how long it should take someone to get to him, leaving out that he’s not the only one here and someone might be busy with someone else. They’re beginning to run by the open door carrying things and either saying they’re busy with doing something or ignoring him altogether.

At one point he began bitching and pestering everyone about having a sore throat and no one could find him a lozenge fast enough, so I offered the nurse a roll of my sugar free peppermint Lifesavers without the label and he went over and gave him them saying they were prescription strength and to be careful how many he took. Later he praised the nurse because they were a godsend and cured his throat right up.

I smiled… I, I, I smiled!

Hell I almost laughed!

I called Allstate and explained the situation again and they said I could have an extension till the fourth in order to pay the full amount without the installment fees. Now everything depends on if GB actually deposits the damned check.

Someone (bless them) finally straightened out the pharmacy here and with great relief I’m back on the percocet again. Craig from physical therapy came in and insisted I go to the crowded gym. I told him about how recent the knee operation was and he promised to be understanding with my limits. He floored me when he told me that GB refuses to pay for more than two weeks of physical therapy, even though the doctors say I need six! He’s going to be on my ass like over at TDW because in his words-we have to try to cram six weeks of therapy into two. The frustration I started feeling at the bastards at GB began building and building in me.

I’m beginning to think maybe they’re trying to drive me over the edge so they don’t have to pay me any more. I began having trouble with all the people being around me in the gym, and I couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong. No one looked threatening and I don’t think I was scared, but suddenly I was very uncomfortable and wanted to retreat quickly back to my room. He made me stay of course.

Afterward my leg ached like hell and I’ll have to remember to get a percocet about an hour before he comes and gets me tomorrow or it’ll be hell. The bed being too short is really torturing my leg. They tell me the electric bed will be longer and the mattress can be raised above footboard level if need be, but so far it hasn’t arrived.

Meals are still coming about an hour or so after the dining room is served, and are warm at best and I’m still getting coffee and sugary fruit juices instead of tea. I’m worried about not eating everything for fear that they’re doing what TDW did; basically feed me cheap sugar-laden food and dosing me extra insulin to cover it, so rather than risk another coma with a reading of 41, I’m eating everything on the tray.

A woman came in to talk to me about transportation arrangements to see Dr. P-knee on Monday and informed me that GB is refusing to pay for a cab to and from Ohio State on Wednesday to see Dr. Mind, nor would the pay for one to see Dr. D-heart. Those fucking heartless sons of bitches are going to drive me crazy if I let them… if they haven’t already.

Nothing was on TV so I went to sleep early. From long experience I’ve learned that wanting to sleep all the time is a classic sign of depression, but I couldn’t fight the fatigue and drifted off before I knew it.


Friday May 29th 2009
I called Lawyer K to report GB’s latest shit this morning, and to tell him that they’ve given this place the impression that all of my benefits will run out a week from Wednesday. He said he’d look into it and get back to me. I have a feeling he’s not really working for free and sees a big financial gain for an out of court settlement check from them when this is all straightened out. I’m fucked if that happens because he’ll get a third, social security deducts anything I take in as income and reduces my checks accordingly so the only one who’ll gain is he and social security. It feels so damn hopeless sometimes, that I wonder why I keep fighting and don’t just give up and kill myself. Thinking that way scares me, but if you talk about it, you don't usually do it. It's the ones that don't say anything that eventually commit suicide, so I think I'm keeping myself safe by being open about it.

Some doctor from Dr’s North Hospital came to see me since Grant’s MD’s don’t come out this far into the ‘burbs. He basically asked a bunch of questions, filled out a clipboard and left… ten minutes.

At rehab, Craig promised me a regular 3PM appointment when the place is less crowded and so I can schedule the painkillers an hour before we start his intensified program. All the time I was in the hospital, I was avoiding percocet because I was afraid of getting addicted to it, but now I can’t do without it. The doctors there said it was important that I took it every four hours whether I thought I needed to or not because I’d pay for it with intense pain. I’m beginning to suspect they’re giving me some generic equivalent that isn’t as strong. Most people don’t know this, but by law a generic only has to be 85% of the drug it’s copying. My leg and hip where they took the bone matter are beginning to hurt like hell. My right knee is taking a beating to from supporting most of my weight for the last four years.

Apparently I’ll only have Sundays off from working in the gym.

Got dinner at 6:30 and the chicken fingers were barely warm and the fries were barely cooked, soggy and cold… They’re still sending me coffee, juice and I suspect whole milk instead of no-fat skim. I hate to keep comparing this place to my former nightmare facility TDW, but it’s getting harder and harder not to. As the frustration in me began building I had my first PSTD episode and had a sort of nightmare with my eyes open and kept trying to clamber out of bed to get home and had to be restrained by the male nurse. I began chewing the skin at the upper corners of my fingernails.

They don’t have a shrink here, only a minister who keeps showing up at my door with his Bible enquiring if I've been saved, and that was the last thing I need. I’m confused about dinner and can’t figure it out because I seem to remember a half eaten sandwich on my tray and saying I didn’t want it. I’d just calmed down and had control of myself when the place thought it‘d be the perfect time to test the fire alarm and I went crazy again, thinking they’d done it intentionally to drive me over the edge on GB’s orders.

I slept for a while and the nurse (who knows I’m a diabetic) brought me a snack around 11:30 to replace my refused dinner… a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on white bread, vanilla ice cream, and a tiny vanilla milkshake in a carton??!!


Saturday May 30th 2009
The weekend night nurse HAS to be a relative of Lady Dracula from Grant because she insisted on waking me at all hours of the night for blood tests and pills. I used the walker around 6 this morning to take a shit but couldn’t get back up off the toilet because of how low it is. When the aide got me back to my bed I noticed that the leg brace was now twisted so that the knee joint was almost over my kneecap, so I asked her to help me adjust it. She said she didn’t know how, but she’d get the nurse… she came back a moment later and said the night nurse said that brace adjustments were only done by the day staff and I’d have to wait for the shift change.

I barely controlled nearly flying into a rage, and with the help of an experienced male nightshift aide, I pulled the straps loose from their velcro and did it myself. This is too fucking ridiculous to be real!

My blood sugar was at 215 this morning-gee I wonder why?

Someone showed up and tried to give me a breathing treatment. After being mystified a moment, I realized he meant it for my oldster roommate next door. People keep walking into my room to answer his frequent call buttons and yesterday I almost got his pills! I was almost taken away today for his therapy appointment too.

Speaking of the nurse call button; over at Grant you press the button and someone gets on the intercom and asks what’s needed, sending the appropriate person. Here, even though there’s a speaker in the panel with the call light that they have to switch off, no one seems to be able to use the speaker part, or at least hasn’t figured it out, and the entire time I was there I never heard a single sound out of it. I know it works because the identical one in the gym went off constantly. The drawback to that is I’d press the call button for a refill of my ice water pitcher and a nurse would show up with a stethoscope, which made me feel guilty for pushing the button. In fact I’ve been living in discomfort since I got here because I feel guilty asking someone to crank the bed into another position every time I need to move so I just lay there and take it.

Obviously there’s still no promised electric bed yet, and I don’t expect one until probably Monday… if then. My knee hurts constantly and the short bed isn’t doing it any good either.

While watching one of their commercials, I suddenly realized that I hadn’t seen my usual purple Nexium for my ulcers and asked the nurse when she brought in my pills. She pointed out a capsule that was half light purple and half pink and said it was right there… a generic. I asked her about the bed and she said it was coming.

After all the hell I got for not telling my mother, Pittsburgh sister and brother in Seattle when my heart operation was because they wanted to comfort me at my bedside, not one single one of them has called, even though I left instructions and my private phone number here on my answering machine for them. That says a lot, and proves all they really wanted to know was when I’d be out of my apartment for a long period of time.

UNFUCKINGBELIEVABLE-I got the wrong lunch today. I didn’t realize it until I looked at the paper tray slip to see if they finally got the message about my being a diabetic when I smelled the coffee, and found my roommate’s name on it. When I got mine, I still got coffee anyway. I wrote a big-lettered note on a legal pad page about hot tea instead of coffee, no juice and only non-fat skim milk and had the aide deliver it personally to whoever was in charge of the kitchen. I guess I’ll be paranoid now and make sure every pill delivery is actually mine instead of his.

A Jamaican aide got distracted to the oldster’s room to answer his trivial “open the curtains for me” call instead of my urgent one for percocet. Afterward another person joined the first in the alcove outside my closed curtain and acted annoyed that I had the nerve to interrupt their spirited conversation to find out what I wanted, stomping around the bed to shut off the call light.

Some rehab lady showed up at one just after I finished lunch instead of the promised 3PM and I told her she’d have to wait till then because I needed to get my still undelivered percocet and to let my stomach settle before I worked out. After hearing that and apparently ignoring it, she said she’d be back at 2, so I called again for the pain meds.

By 2:30 she still hadn’t shown up, nor had the percocet. Apparently the shift change is at 3 and I’d have to wait until then before I got anything from them. By then my knee was throbbing and I was pissed as hell, but controlled it by watching something on TV.

She showed up at 3 and I went down to the gym with her and worked minus the painkillers, and being pissed off and in pain makes you work harder and faster. When we were done, I showed her why I was having so much trouble by demonstrating how the footboard was compressing my bad leg. She promised that the electric bed would fix it and left to make sure I got one soon.

Uh huh

I tried to calm down and sleep early, but my neighbor had a John Wayne movie going at nearly full volume most of the evening, so I just sat there and took it. Tried draping my left foot over the side of the bed and nearly fell out of it when I drifted off. The nurse came in to take my blood pressure and the batteries on her little machine were dead and she had to get new ones.

I was feeling really down, so I asked one of the aides and her sidekick if they’d give me a sponge bath from the waist up, since I couldn’t get the staples wet, and it turned into a funny little production and for a while I actually enjoyed myself. It felt good to be clean, and clean-shaven. They sent my shorts and shirts down to the laundry and traded me a dreaded hospital gown. (I’d learn later they got in trouble for shaving me because apparently the place can’t risk my bleeding to death from a nick because of the medications I’m on.

Give me a break!


Sunday May 31st 2009
I’ve started to get to and from the bathroom without too much trouble; it’s painful but at least I’m moving on my own; though I don’t chance it more than once without paying for it by enduring an aching leg the rest of the night. I can’t believe I’d ever consider going to the bathroom an accomplishment. With the regular doses of Morphine and Percocet my knee is bothering me less than before, but it’s still sore when I wake up in the morning. I’ve tried propping a pillow under my left foot at night so that my heel is higher than the footboard, but sometime during the night it always slips sideways and I’m afraid of it falling off the bed onto the floor. There are times that I think I’ll slap the next person in the mouth that promises me the damned electric bed. For now I just resign myself to suffer-something I’m well practiced at.

I spent the morning deciding that I’m going to have to go home, get the car and drive myself to see Dr. Mind at OSU and then drive back to Hilliard in case GB won’t pay for the transport home. With the double appointment on Wednesday, I don’t see how I can afford a quadruple cab ride.

Maybe when they take me to Dr. P-knee’s office tomorrow, I’ll just disappear. After all it’s only two blocks from my apartment.

I’m working on the exercises that Angela taught me over the last few months, and I’m trying to flex my knee as much as I can. I can now sit up with my legs draped over the right side of the bed looking out towards the window, using my over-bed table as a desk. If I let it hang down loosely, I’m hoping the knee will droop down to more than a 45-degree angle.

I worked my way over to the corner of the bed closest to the TV and discovered that if I push the left or right arrow keys on the remote, a favorites menu appears that I can program all of my favorite channels into and get to them at the push of a single button… anything to occupy my mind I guess. You’d think they’d at least provide an instruction sheet for the TV, but so far I haven’t found it.

I’m tired of screaming, “I don’t fucking believe this!”
A lady I didn’t recognize until after she left, showed up at my door with a quarter inch thickness of papers that I had to sign-my admitting papers from last Wednesday-FIVE days after I got here??? All of it was in legalese that I couldn’t read or understand. I probably just signed away any rights to sue the living hell out of them I have in case something happens to me. If I hadn’t been knocked off balance by it, I’d have made her wait a few hours while I read all of it.

This IS Sunday isn’t it?

While I was trying to mentally digest all of that she informed me that I had to pay a dollar a day out of my own pocket for my phone service, which is why it wasn’t on when I got here. She promised I wouldn’t have to pay for it since they didn’t tell me, until the period after the day I signed… yeah like the promise of an adjustable electric bed. There were also fees for hair care, shaves and for all I know there’s an electric meter on my room somewhere, or maybe they’re charging me for the tuberculosis tests too. Come to think of it, they never completed the results of that test.

It was only after she left, that I realized that it was Amy the administrator in street clothes and unstyled hair.

She must’ve noticed I still hadn’t gotten the bed, because within about half an hour, it finally arrived.

Dinner was served in the dining room at 5PM; I got mine at 7:01. I showed it to the friendly male nurse just to have a witness before I ate it-Half a bowl of luke warm beef stew, a biscuit, a white confectioner’s sugar topped chocolate brownie and 7 apricot sections. No tea, no juice, no water, no milk. The nurse said he’d raid the kitchen for leftovers around 11PM for me in disgust. He came back a few hours later with a ham sandwich on a stale bun; a carton of whole milk and another vanilla shake in a little paper milk carton. Good God.

After experimenting with the new bed buttons, I finally found a comfortable position to sleep and my leg no longer is compressed against the footboard. I fell asleep on top of the blankets and woke up a few times to use the portable urinal, realizing I wasn’t sweating and hadn’t all night. Someone’s checking up on me pretty regularly, because the bottle’s always empty when I reach for it. Lasix gives very little warning; certainly not enough to get to the bathroom on my walker before pissing myself, so I stick to the urinal at night.


Monday June 1st 2009
This morning’s blood sugar was 288; considering yesterday I’m not surprised.

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out Friday’s PSTD episode and I’ve decided to leave it be and hope it doesn’t happen again. I just wish I knew what triggered it.

My left leg hurts a little less this morning thanks to the new bed; though the knee is sore like there’s a bone chip in it somewhere or maybe it’s just a crooked staple. I sat up on the right side of the bed and started drawing mazes out of the blue on the legal pad. I had them pull the blinds all the way up and let the sun shine in on me, hoping to brighten the day.

Lawyer K called today to remind me that the psychological hearing had been put off two weeks, and he told me he doesn’t think Dr. Mind is being paid for our sessions. Damn it, I knew she was paying for them out of her own pocket. As if I don’t have enough to feel bad about. I told him I was concerned that Social Security will commandeer any money I get from a settlement from GB and I’ll wind up empty handed for all the stress they’ve put me through. He said to let him worry about that.

Since my follow-up appointment with Dr. P-knee is at 2, I begged for lunch at noon because I knew I’d have to leave early and they actually brought it! A nice-guy ambulance driver took me downtown for the appointment.

I always cringe when they take the staples out of an incision, and this one is nearly two feet long, but I barely felt it. I want so badly to take a shower, but I still can’t get it wet until Wednesday. They took the staples out of the donation sites on my hips too, which are still sore. Dr. P-knee says the x-rays look great and he’s very encouraged, but warned me not to put more than a quarter of my weight on it, and confirmed that I need about 6 total weeks of therapy. I told him that I barely understood why I was only getting two from GB, and he was pissed. I promised to keep in touch with him about it. I feel so frustrated that I can barely get around without a great deal of pain and he warned me to be patient and not push too hard; after all I’ve just had a major bone operation.

Still it bothers me to have to ask for help doing basic things I used to be able to do myself… like just moving around.

By the time I got back to “the home” I was exhausted, but was ambushed by Craig as we passed the gym and he insisted that I come in and do therapy. I’d not had pain meds since this afternoon when I left, but he wouldn’t hear of it.

I was glad to hear from my sister Betsy when I got back to the room; she always cheers me up, and my Aunt Margaret called too and chatted for a while.

It’s getting embarrassing when some aide comes into my room and asks if I had a “bowel movement” every day.

My male nurse revised his theory of what caused the fit I had last Friday. It seems I get a dose of percocet around 6-7PM and a morphine pill at 8, I may have been stoned out of my mind instead of losing it. My sugar was down to 95 this evening! His idea of a reward was to bring be a couple each of Fig Newtons and sugar cookies.

I can’t go very far with my walker unless someone follows so that I can rest in a wheelchair, so that’s how I get to and from the gym. Trouble is the aides leave the damned thing parked afterwards in places that I don’t see in the dark until I’ve almost fallen over it using my walker to get to the bathroom in the middle of the night.


Tuesday June 2nd 2009
I’ve debated long and hard about including the following, but then what the hell you already know a lot about me anyway so…

There’s an A-number-one blonde HUNK that works late-night early-morning shift as an aide here, and it’s the first time in a long time that my libido has been aroused. He’s about 24 and painfully straight though. He has a smile and a cheerfulness that could melt the coldest of hearts-even mine, and is always so anxious to help me move here and there holding me intimately close, and he shows up without being called for, to ask if I need anything. They give me Lasix just before I go to sleep and I wind up using the urinal pitcher as many as 5 times a night. Somehow he creeps in while I’m asleep and empties it before I need it again (about every 2 hours or so.

I fell asleep again on top of the comforter last night and he came in and had me sit on the edge of the bed while he turned the blankets down. While he started, he had me steady myself by putting my arms around him with my face against his hard abs and for about a minute I was in gay heaven and didn’t want to let go. Then he’d gently lift me here and there in order to get the covers out from under me and then tucked me in. At one point I was tempted to kiss him goodnight with his head so close to mine as he adjusted my pillow.

He wears snug-fitting T-shirts that show off his muscled torso and white jeans that I swear his girlfriend (who is a nurse here) must paint on him just before he leaves for work. As much as I enjoy looking at this ultra-masculine “eye candy”, I wish he’d get assigned to another ward, as it accents how much I feel so alone, and how I haven’t had a lover in nearly five years. Everyone on God’s earth needs to feel like they’re the most important person in someone else’s life, but that’s something that’s blatantly absent in mine. I think when I lost my looks and my confidence; the ability to attract a lover went with it. After all how to you get someone to love you if you don’t love yourself?

A couple of nights ago I fell asleep with my hand dangling off the right side of the bed. He came in to empty the urinal and the sound of the curtain on its metal rail must’ve barely woke me. As he sidestepped between the bed and the table, his beautiful ass brushed my fingers and I thought I was going to faint. After he left I had to keep testing to make sure it was real and not a dream.

He has started waking me in the middle of the night to warn me some tech is about to come in and take some blood or my vital signs, instead of like on his nights off when she just shows up and does it. I asked him a few nights ago to find me another big legal pad to keep daily notes on-as I've well nie filled this one; I wonder how he’d react if he read these. I usually sleep “in the raw” at home, so here; I’ve started sleeping in just the scrub shorts on top of the blankets to see if I can cut down on the sweating. The trouble is after he “tucked me in” I kicked the covers off in the middle of the night because they were too warm, and apparently my scrub shorts too.

When I woke up, I was glad the door curtain was closed.

This morning’s breakfast included the usual oatmeal again. It was so cold the butter wouldn’t melt after I buried it down inside of it. I’m going to stop eating it anyway as it’s loaded with carbs and my blood sugar is still insanely high. I didn’t get tea or coffee this morning; only a glass of orange juice. I’m tempted to go over my finances to see if maybe I can order delivery, though I doubt anyone delivers breakfast.

My regular gym appointment is at 3, so I called for my percocet at 2:30 and again at 3:15. A few minutes later I was reminded via an aide that the nurse’s shift change is at 3 and it never did come, probably lost between shift messages. I “played through the pain” and wheelchaired up and down the halls while Craig attended to two other old ladies. It was as much for exercise as to try to get to know my new “home.” I never did find the kitchen to try to talk to the manager about my menu in person. I finished the hour myself with only brief instructions from him, mostly about trying to walk while supporting myself on a pair of parallel bars. After I got back to the room within an hour I was very sore and finally got my percocet, being careful to put off the morphine by about an hour to avoid what happened Friday.

My 4:15PM sugar was 113! The dinner fries were stone cold again and no tea-just juice. I wrote a note to the kitchen manager in GIANT letters on a legal sized sheet and expressed my frustration about being a diabetic and not getting anything to drink, especially the tea that I’ve pleasurably gotten used to. I spent the night watching an NCIS marathon on USA Network.

Around 1AM my leg started cramping and my hunk came in and massaged it. That kind and caring grin of his is going to be the death of me.


Wednesday June 3rd 2009
The night nurse with the random 3-6AM attacks was back again last night, with the hunk running interference. At least I woke up with my shorts on this morning. I’m still losing a lot of potassium from the near-continuous pissing from Lasix doses, but I’m losing the surgery fluids too and the water weight that goes with it. I’m beginning to hate sleeping under the covers because the velcro on the leg brace sticks to them and gets tangled.

Today is escape day. I plan to start off for home around 9AM by cab, get my car, see Dr. D-heart and then Dr. Mind, and then drive back to “the home.” I lied and said I was meeting a friend so I’d have the whole day to myself to try to get my head together and as an excuse to visit Mischief at home because I miss her so much.

I took a good shower this morning until I tried to get up from the bench and nearly slid off of it. I hurt my leg trying to stop myself before I got hold of the safety rail. No more showering solo until I’m sure I won’t kill myself in the process. I tried to stand up in there enough to get to my walker and slipped, stopping myself with my good leg this time. I wish I could shower with the leg brace. I called an aide to follow me the few steps back to my room in case I slipped.

I so fucking hate being this helpless.

I wore my denim cut-offs and a black t-shirt and wheeled myself down to the front doors after calling the cab. By 9:30 he still hadn’t arrived and I called to find out what was keeping him from the reception desk. That’s when I realized I couldn’t find my house and car keys. I wheeled myself down to my room and couldn’t find them anywhere, only to discover them beneath my wallet in the pocket of the cut-off jeans I was wearing. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Just as I got back to the front doors, the cab pulled up and to my amazement without even coming to a full stop, he took off again! The sweet receptionist who was watching actually stood up and exclaimed, “What the hell?” and called the cab company to tell them what just happened. They said he thought he was in the wrong place and left, but he’d be back. The trip into downtown to my place cost me $41!

It was a fight just to get myself up the handicap ramp with my walker and I made it by more determination than strength. By the time I got in the apartment I was exhausted. After snuggling Mischief and nearly falling a couple of times, I knew there was no way to get back down to the car, much less drive with my leg in the condition it was in. I called and rescheduled Dr. D-heart and asked Dr. Mind’s receptionist to ask her if we could have a phone session from here and told her I’d be here most of the afternoon.

My San Diego friend/business partner Brock e-mailed me from New Orleans. God the money we used to make together and the fun we had picking up sailors and marines on the beaches of the west coast. He’s almost in as bad a shape financially as I am now. After we sold the business to a studio in L.A. he moved to New Orleans to be with his family and all his hundreds of thousands of dollars went toward rebuilding their homes and trying to put their lives back together while sacrificing his own security. Hearing from him almost brought me to tears thinking of the many friends I miss so much that were scattered to the four winds in California when we closed down.

Now I just feel empty and alone. I’d just gotten my life together and was a success when all this happened. It’s like God wanted me to taste the good life, get addicted to the money and friends, and then laughed as he slowly and torturously swept it all away. I have to keep reminding myself that there is no God, just fate and circumstances. Sometimes I feel my mind going back to the fucked-up state it was in when I was in my twenties. I fought so hard to tear myself away from that and now I’m sliding back into the frustrations, the inner anger and the paranoia.

…and to think that at one time in my life I wanted to become a Presbyterian minister.

No other e-mails were worth mentioning; none from Mom, my brother or sister-not that I expected any. My sister Betsy calls me nearly every day, as does my Aunt Margaret. Blogcritics Magazine published my DVD review of Dynasty’s fourth season, and gratefully didn’t notice that I published it myself out of necessity on my own site a few hours before they did because I had to leave for the hospital.

One smile-the electric bill was $10.70 again. Despite instructions from the city auditor, I wonder how long I can get away with that? At least while it lasts I’ve got an extra $90 or so to play with. I found a 45-day lease notice that my rent thankfully isn’t going up next term… my god, my 23rd lease in one place. I'm sort of trapped here in my penthouse, not able to afford to move because I can’t raise the money to hire movers, and the first, last month’s rent and security deposit somewhere else… unless I moved into my car under some bridge.

I know I’ll never be able to take care of myself in this condition. I’m unable to stand for more than a minute without pain to cook at the stove or do dishes. Everything will have to come out of the toaster oven or microwave, and there’s no way to carry hot food with both hands operating the walker, plus drinks will spill all over the place if I try to carry them so pop cans will have to substitute, getting shaken up in the process. I experimented around and at least I’ll be able to get on and off the toilet with the sink and tub on either side to brace myself. Driving is going to be a necessity, but how I don’t know, I’ve got a back log of regular prescriptions that I’m glad I hoarded up now, but I’ll still need the pain meds and fucking GB won’t pay for a cab to get them.

It has also occurred to me that I can't drive while stoned on percocet, so how do I get supplies or make heart or shrink appointments?

It’s fucked up that I’ve pushed away nearly every friend I have over five years except Teresa, and she’s working three jobs just to survive. I’ve seen the folly of locking myself away in my apartment for over four years too, because I don’t know any of my neighbors enough to ask for help shopping etc. Dr. Nick down the hall always seems to be away on vacation somewhere and poor Vicki is now in a walker herself. It all seems so goddamned hopeless.

Poor Mischief must have been crying for me for the last two weeks, because her pitiful meow sounds hoarse. She is constantly rubbing against me and crying and I have to be careful where I aim the walker for fear of hitting her with it. It’s going to break my heart to leave today without taking her with me… hers too probably.

Dr. Mind called and I told her the recent events. Was also pissed that she’s treating me for free, and may be paying for my treatments out of her own pocket. She said not to worry and that she’s on salary at OSU regardless. I’m not buying it, because I’ve seen the bills they’re sending me now that GB won’t pay her.

I cooked a couple of frozen breaded chicken breast portions in the toaster oven for lunch. The fridge smells like rotted meat because I forgot to clean it out before I left and there’s a loose deli package of sandwich roast beef in there, and some tomatoes and lettuce. I’d clean them out, but I’d never make it to the dumpster. Saint Teresa took out all of my trash-god love her and cleaned the living room and den. I’m not going to be able to carry groceries or push them in my rolling cart from the car to the apartment.

A feeling of impending doom is setting in.

I grabbed one of my 12-packs of Diet Dr. Pepper and my talking clock and then reluctantly called a cab. I waited down in the lobby for it to come before giving up after forty-five minutes. It was a struggle to get back to my apartment just to call them and find they had no idea what happened to him, and they said they’d send another in five minutes, which they did. The trip back cost another $40 so this little adventure of mine ran $80 that I probably don’t have to spare.

I got back here around 4:30 tired, but glad I saw home and my beloved cat, regardless of how brief the visit was. 5 o’clock dinner came at 6:25 and was luke warm as usual complete with melted strawberry sherbet. At least they’re sending the tea again, but I’m beginning to hate this pretty place… well most of it.


Thursday June 4th 2009
Some girl walked in just as I was getting ready to eat breakfast early this morning and asked if I had a bowel movement, (talk about timing) and then wanted to know if it was large, medium or small. Sheesh. My warm diabetic breakfast consisted of hot tea, a bowl of oatmeal, and a biscuit covered with sausage gravy. No surprise that my noon blood sugar was 212. Lunch was no better or warmer and consisted of a warm hot turkey sandwich, sugar beets, mashed and gravy and (are you ready for this?) cherry cake. My blood sugar, despite insulin injections was around 328!

Again, I asked for my gym percocet at 2PM and again at 2:30 and didn’t get it until she showed up at therapy at 3:20... again. I spent a lot of time using the walker going up and down the halls with a wheelchair aide in tow. Craig spent a lot of time gushing over what wonderful progress I’m making and how proud he is of me, spouting enthusiastic “Good job!” like a dog trainer to a reluctant Chihuahua on one of those Animal Planet shows. I think I pulled my right shoulder muscle, as it was really sore when I got back to the room. One of the aides finally located the t-shirts and shorts I’d sent to the laundry last Sunday. I’m going to attempt a shower later this evening and it’ll be nice to have clean clothes to go with it. I got some replacement leg stockings that prevent blood clots to swap for the ones I’ve been wearing for about two weeks.

I used my debit card and paid my electric and phone bill by phone. I’ve been keeping a careful checkbook since I got here since I can’t go on line for transactions. I call the bank every day to check the balance since I had to fill out a paper slip for the cabs, which means my account number is out there with two different cab drivers.

Even after the morphine, my shoulder still hurts. I’m really drowsy and at 8:30 I’m going to turn in for the night.


Friday June 5th 2009
I woke up around 2AM with another painful leg cramp and the hunk massaged it out again, (I’d use his name but…). The nurse came in and said I’m probably not getting enough potassium again. Great; I hate those huge pills. Anyway I decided to take the shower I’d planned for yesterday evening and could barely move and between my shoulder and my knee I was in near-agony. He gently helped me get the brace off my leg and then undressed me, then guided me to the shower.

He suggested an extra towel on the bench would make it less slippery and he was right.

I was so stiff I couldn’t reach below my right knee and my whole leg hurt like hell, so he stayed in there without being asked and helped me wash. His shirt was getting wet, so he took it off and I nearly fainted. He washed my legs and back, and while I did the rest, he massaged my sore right shoulder and then watched me while sitting on the toilet seat. It was a fight just to keep my eyes off of him. Somehow I don’t think he’d let me thank him the way I wanted to thank him, but I came close several times to offering…

When I was done, he lifted me up off the seat long enough to put the towel on the floor over the drain so I wouldn’t slip and then helped me stand; he dried me off completely without my asking him to. Then he helped me to my bed and got those damned tight stockings back on and then the leg brace, all while still shirtless. While he did the upper straps of the brace near my crotch, I got hard. I turned beet red and was so embarrassed, but he smiled it off and said it happens all the time as he helped me with my shorts. My heart did one hell of a lot of pumping for a good cardio workout and it took me an hour to fall to sleep after he gently tucked me in.

It’s sad that I’m probably reading more into it than is really there out of loneliness and he probably does the exact same thing for a dozen of the old men in this place every night.

I woke up this morning and noticed a lump in my abdomen from where someone injected Lovenox probably too high on my stomach. I pointed it out to the nurse and she agreed with me. I got my roommate’s fucking breakfast again, which worries me to no end that I might be getting his medications by mistake too. Breakfast was only luke warm too and God I’m getting tired of oatmeal, or its evil twin cream-o-wheat.

I talked to Teresa this morning and told her of my sneaking off home Wednesday. I got a strange message on my answering machine from Allstate that turned out to be their ultimate computer warning I hadn’t made my payment, though I had.

At 1PM my clock went off saying “One o’clock PM” in a woman’s voice and startled the hell out of a tech standing next to it, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. We both laughed.

They moved the annoying oldster in the adjoining room to the long-term care wing, so for now I have the place to myself. At least I no longer have to worry about getting his pills or meals. I perked up after that and was cheerful. I even got my percocet on time for it to take effect before I went down for physical rehab. On the way there in the wheelchair, I met up with the maintenance man and he said he’d move my clock for me and fix the light in the shower, which has burned out already. Things are going well today and when things go well it means a disaster is coming to spoil it, but I won’t let that dampen my spirits. Maybe the psychic energy that I’m putting out is effecting events-who knows-I don’t know any other logical explanation for the repeated things that befall me.

Anyway, I was energetic enough to do wheelchair laps around the therapy desk/nurse’s station area. Craig had me stepping up and down stairs today, which scared the hell out of me because my leg hardly bends. I’ve got to admit he knows his job and was very patient. Despite the pain meds, I still feel a twinge in my right shoulder, but it’s not as bad as it was yesterday. I asked Craig about it and he told me I’m probably trying too hard and to take it easier.

When I got back from therapy, the wall clock was where I can see it now and the light works in the shower. I sent an aide to find him with my thanks. If it keeps up like this, I may have to force myself to smile and I don’t think I’m ready for any signs of the apocalypse just yet.

Some workman came in carrying something metal in his hand, frowned at my bed and remarked that he’d brought the wrong piece for an electric bed. It turns out he was here to fix my ex-roomie’s bed, so he wandered over next door only to discover there was nothing wrong with it. No surprise

The lump on my stomach above and to the right of my belly button is now a bruise. I showed it to the nurse earlier and she said someone injected my Lovenox in the wrong place and it’d go down eventually. I’m having less and less confidence in this place by the day.

Dinner came at 6:15 and was a foul looking piece of fish that I chanced one bite of and rejected it. I ordered a Domino’s pizza rather than risk another peanut butter and jelly sandwich and wouldn’t you know it, they sent the pizza on the wrong crust. My God, after you’ve avoided salt for as long as I have, you can taste it really strong when you get something with a moderate amount in it, and the pizza tasted like it was coated with it… wow. It was good anyway.


Saturday June 6th 2009
Good grief; it's like I want to sleep all of the time. I don’t think it was depression as much as exhaustion. My mouth was bone dry again this morning and the strange thing where I wake up with both my pinky fingers numb and tingling hit me again. I’m beginning to wonder if it’s one of the drugs or something with my spinal cord that’d affect both fingers at once. It usually subsides after about an hour, but it seems to happen more regularly now.

For some reason I keep getting this urge to draw mazes and have completely covered several legal-sized pieces of paper. Maybe my desire to create is coming through? I’ve experimented and still can’t draw a ball that looks like a ball, which is depressing in and of itself considering the art I used to crank out without even trying hard.

There seems to be no aspect of my life that God isn’t willing to take away from me in order to make me more miserable than I was yesterday.

My blood sugar was 251 this morning. I’m getting really bored with these daily bowls of oatmeal every morning. While wondering what I could’ve smuggled in to substitute for what they feed me, a fun memory came over me. I was declared an emancipated minor when I was 16 and lived in a motel room near school until I graduated. I figured out a way to cook in my room to save money without actually getting evicted for having a hot plate or something. I’d buy canned ravioli and stuff, strip off the labels and then leave one sitting in the bathroom sink full of hot water. When it was heated up enough, I’d eat it right out of the can. It’s funny the things that occur to you out of the blue at the oddest times.

Now today’s lunch was interesting. When I used to travel around the country on business I’d judge a restaurant by its chili, so when that’s what they served me today I was really skeptical, but to my shock and amazement it was really good. Now if only it’d been more than luke warm I’d be singing its praises to heaven. I even asked… and got 2nds! I could tell it was first-day by the taste of the tomatoes and was really tempted to ask if they’d save some overnight for tomorrow’s lunch, by which time (chili is always best on the second day) it’d have been magnificent, but I didn’t want to press my luck.

My blood sugar seems to dip after the gym, so I’m keeping that in mind and doing quasi-isometric exercises with my legs in bed. The lady weekend therapist was early, but I gave her my all. She had me on an odd leg push-hand pull machine that she was amazed I could figure out before she’d shown it to me. With the gym downstairs from my penthouse and my experience from when I used to be a hunk, it was relatively easy to figure out. She asked for 10 minutes on it and I gave her 20, just to show her I wanted to progress as much as she wanted me to.

Along about dinnertime, I started feeling a twinge in my shoulder again. I think I definitely pulled a muscle last Thursday or Friday. The machine I was on works both your arms and your legs and I had her retract the hand grips so I was only using my legs.

Maybe a hot shower will cure it later.

They served something I couldn’t identify tonight for dinner, which was later identified as Chicken Cordon Bleu, it was mostly breading and cheese, but it was good. I skipped everything else and the desert, because there wasn’t a thing on the plate that I dare eat that wasn’t loaded with either sugar or salt. So what did I do? I ordered a pizza again.

Now at first blush, that may sound silly, but in days to come I discovered that my blood sugar was lower after a Domino’s pizza than after one of their dinners!?! Now if that doesn’t say something I don’t know what does. I sent another note to the cook, and I know of at least two nurses, several aides and even Craig himself who’ve promised me that they’ve mentioned it to whoever is in charge there, but to no avail, so I’m giving up. I shudder to think how many insulin unit doses above what I usually get, that have been given to me here. At least Domino’s got the pizza right this time but at $20 a shot, I can’t afford this forever by any means.

What with only a thin sheet between the plastic-covered bed mattress and me; is it any wonder I’m developing sores in my ass? I’ve requested baby powder several times over the past week, but always the aide or nurse nods and goes after it, then they either come back empty handed with a puzzled look on their faces, or not at all. If I ever get an explanation for why they can’t give people baby powder, (it’s probably some ridiculous legal stipulation) it should be either preposterous or at best interesting. With what I’ve discovered in the last seven days, I’ll probably have to pay for it.

I took a very long shower this evening and it felt sooooooooooo good. I’m kind of leery about taking another one with the hunk for fear of getting hard again or insinuating what I’d really like to do to him. I made it all the way to the shower without help, but the brace was a bitch to get off by myself and my leg hurts because of it, so I had an aide help me put it back on. I still can’t reach my left foot, and my leg won’t bend sideways to put it up on my right knee so I can reach it that way either. I hate feeling so helpless.

I keep getting more and more pills. Tonight new ones were added that were large, round, and orange. They turned out to be a different kind of potassium supplement that’s easier to swallow; I’ll say!

I stayed awake until 1:30 watching TV. I can’t sleep tonight for some reason.


Sunday June 7th 2009
I skipped the cream-o-wheat this morning; does this moron dietician understand carbs??? As if breakfast was bad enough, lunch included a temptation nearly as strong as the night hunk tech… a large slice of chocolate cream pie, which I tried to hide under the plate cover so I wouldn’t have to look at it, but couldn’t hold out DAMN IT and ate it anyway. It was so damned good (sniff).

I spent the entire day watching Tiger Woods win the memorial in spectacular fashion. We’re so close to the course in Dublin that I can hear the blimp buzzing around.

Dinner was this fucking horrible 2” diameter mound of tuna noodle casserole on a plate. It was so dry that it actually stayed that shape, though being nearly cold probably congealed it. It was also obviously made from tuna in water-which I can’t stand the taste of. I also got a ton of peas and carrots and peach halves for desert. I know I shouldn’t and money is tight, but I ordered another $20 pizza. I know I’ll pay later for my financial stupidity now, but at this point I’m past caring.

It scares me that sometimes I actually make decisions based on the assumption that I won’t be on this planet much longer.

The cable service kept going out while trying to watch “Gone in 60 Seconds” for just a glimpse of the “Eleanor Mustang” and the other cars, and I eventually gave up and went to sleep about 8:30 PM.


Monday June 8th 2009
I still have no idea when I’m going home. I’m under the impression that GB won’t pay for me past tomorrow, but now they’re making sounds like I might actually be here until Thursday? I really don’t know if I want to go home, or if I can’t wait to go home. For one thing, I have no idea what my limitations are with my leg and could do some real damage to it without professional advice. What GB is doing should be criminal.

I’m exhausted this morning as I was pissing almost constantly last night and didn’t get much sleep. I better be losing tons of water weight. I woke up with a really sore right shoulder and I’m beginning to wonder if it’s just a pulled muscle or something more ominous.

The usual Oatmeal and a cold cheap waffle came for breakfast.

I’m getting concerned about this sudden obsession with drawing mazes, as if I’m trying really hard to occupy my mind with them instead of how miserable I feel. I guess it’s better than sleeping all day, but the need for sleep seems to be more physical than mental. At 12:30 two lunch women came in and offered me a choice of entrées, and I chose Salisbury steak, which came only 15 minutes later… and it was hot! But then again, so was the vanilla ice cream. If it weren’t for the rubber pencil eraser mushrooms that it was covered with and the obvious carbs from the mashed potatoes, I’d even say it was excellent. I asked if the meal choice was something new and they said yes, so things are looking up. (I didn’t know it at the time, but that’s the one and only time that I was ever given a choice for some mysterious reason… they probably were trying to get rid of some leftovers from last night’s dining room dinners.) Another fly in the ointment was that no hot tea came with it, and when I asked, they said they were out of it… alas.

Now come on-you have to see this one coming… The girl that came to get the lunch tray told me they were out of iced tea-not hot tea and offered to get me some. I declined.

Dr. Mind called me and for some reason I couldn’t remember anything before this morning at that moment, which worries me, so our conversation was very brief. It was good to hear her friendly, caring and reassuring voice though. The memory loss for events only hours ago is really beginning to wear on me.

An issue of trust came up today that I’ve never had a problem with the medical staff before. I called for my percocet at 1 this afternoon, so I could take it at 2PM for the gym session at 3. An old cranky nurse I’d never seen before brought it and wouldn’t let me have it unless I took it in front of her an hour early. The others let me have it to take later in order to time its effects for my therapy session. I humored her and hoped for the best.

Therapy today involved making sure I could take my leg brace off and put it on by myself, some more work on the machines and the stairs again. Craig has no idea if I’m going home tomorrow or Wednesday either.

Well, it was finally explained why my butt’s been suffering without baby powder; the law office apparently thinks I might use too much of it, it could get on the floor, and I might slip and fall on it. The reason some techs give me shaving razors and others don’t is because somehow they think I’m still on Coumadin and if I nick myself, their corporate lawyers think I might bleed to death. (sigh)

I sat and anticipated a choice for dinner, but it wasn’t offered. At 6:30 the 5PM meal arrived with a sandwich of McRib style meat on a bun, soggy undercooked and cold fries, a salty dill pickle spear, cooked carrots and a bowl of applesauce.

I ate the meat off the sandwich and left everything else. I told the nurse about it and he assured me that he’s told the kitchen repeatedly that I’m a diabetic. He brought me an egg salad sandwich and two shortbread cookies as a substitute-good God.

A lady came in this evening with a big tan shorthaired dog and wanted to know if I wanted a visit. I consented and the dog proceeded to enthusiastically sniff everything in the room vigorously… while completely ignoring me. When she tried to urge him toward me, he suddenly clambered onto the bed, just missing my leg. Needless to say it was a short visit.

I can’t seem to remember when it was, as I don’t seem to have written it down, but last Thursday or Friday I was given a 2nd tuberculosis test. This evening the nurse showed up and gave me a third one; despite my telling him I was probably going home tomorrow. It turns out that they have to read the results within 24-48 hours of injecting it and everyone kept forgetting to. I was assured that I wouldn’t get it from the repeated injections over such a short period of time, but I was skeptical.

TDW all over again, but at least they haven’t put me in the hospital, though they have a day or two yet.


Tuesday June 9th 2009
I woke up from a nightmare last night and almost instantly my hunk appeared without my so much as touching the call button. Probably because I woke up screaming. He got me to talk about it while he massaged my sore shoulder and brought me some ice water. His girlfriend came in and wanted to know if I needed some pain meds, and sort of ruined the mood. No one here has shown me more than the absolute minimum of concern except him, and I’m glad I’m going home before I start falling in love. She told me I’d be going home on Thursday by the way, and I asked her to note that I’d like to go in the afternoon if possible.

After she left, he seemed to be sad I was going… so was I. He asked if I wanted to do another late-night shower and I fought every urge in me to say yes, and said I’d like to wait until tomorrow night before I leave. He said to just call and he’d be there. He also said something about the therapy staff wanting to make sure I was safe standing in the shower without slipping or falling.

This morning’s breakfast contained a good cheese omelet, cold toast and the obligatory oatmeal and hot tea. I ate everything but the oatmeal. They’ll probably put me on a diabetic meal plan tomorrow and my last meals here will be bland.

I asked a tech for another one of their “welcome” books that contain a section to keep a diary, as I’ve nearly filled this one up with notes, and also another legal pad. It comes in a cellophane bag with rainbow strips of cloth tying it at the top. I braided them with the others I’d gotten into a bookmark.

At 11AM some lady came to try to take me to physical therapy and I told her I wouldn’t go until 3 because I hadn’t taken my pain meds yet. Apparently Craig’s is going to be in staff meetings all day. She confirmed that I’m leaving Thursday afternoon.

Lunch was Swiss steak, mashed, gravy and apricots. I found little comfort when the girl told me the fruit bowls are all in their own juices instead of heavy syrup.

Around 2:30 another woman showed up with a giant black poodle, and it was a much nicer dog. If he didn’t slobber all over me I’d say it was a nice visit, and I rather enjoyed it. I’m glad I’ll be going home to Mischief soon, I miss her so much. I thank god every day for Teresa sticking by me and taking care of my beloved cat.

This must seem so boring to you, but when you’re confined to your bed and can hardly move, the smallest and most trivial things become events.

Just before I went to the gym I asked a tech if she could change my bed linens, as they didn’t yesterday. She said she would. The lady at the gym kept wandering off on me to help this or that oldster, so I was pretty much on my own. I used the walker to haunt the halls and out of curiosity I checked out the menus on the dinning room tables and they don’t have much of a choice either, which makes me think the menus are more decoration than anything else.

I’m really becoming convinced that all the pain meds they’re giving me are inferior generics, because my right shoulder really began to hurt-even more than my stiff knee. My right leg has been taking a beating too because it’s bearing the brunt of most of my weight while my left leg heals.

Every time I went back to the gym during the hour-long session, the lady ignored me and I got pissed and went to my room about half an hour early. I discovered the bed was made, or so I thought until I discovered that someone had merely pulled the comforter up, lowered the bed flat and left. Pulling back the bedspread, I discovered the blanket and sheet were actually crumpled beneath it… un-fuckin-believable.

I went into a sort of blue funk, pissed because therapy didn’t go well and upset that I know I need six weeks of physical therapy and GB will only pay for two. I lifted my right arm and my shoulder was near my ear and I heard an alarming grinding sound. I rested my hand on it and moved it and could feel it-and got really upset that it feels the same as when my ankle collapsed. Wanting to cry, I began wondering if this ordeal will ever end, or if god is still testing to see how much I can endure before I finally give up and kill myself to end this suffering.

I closed the window blinds and sat in the dark as sadness and hopelessness overwhelmed me. I rang for the nurse and a tech said she’d get her. She didn’t show up for a while, so I made a pitcher of Welch’s and watched TV.

When the nurse finally arrived it was the cranky bitch. She practically ignored me when I explained what was wrong and proceeded to test my blood sugar instead, just like the night I wound up in the hospital over at TDW. When I insisted that she feel or listen to my shoulder, she informed me that her nurse training didn’t involve listening to joints and I’d have to wait for a doctor to see me, which probably wasn’t until next week. She ignored me when I said I was leaving tomorrow.

She pointed out my surgery scar from the quadruple break last August, and insisted my pain was probably from that, as if she were more concerned with laying blame anywhere but here.

I got more and more depressed after that, and also anger began building up in me. With my ankle and now possibly my shoulder, I could wind up a cripple in pain for the rest of my life. I asked if Administrator Amy could come see me and she appeared within minutes. I told her about the nurse refusing to examine my shoulder and how I’d mentioned it to Craig last Thursday or Friday and she felt it and said she’d have a doctor here in about five minutes and left. She said I wouldn’t be charged for the extra day tomorrow and sort of set my mind at ease… this was at 4:30PM

I asked for some pain meds that never came. Miss Crabby eventually showed up making an effort to be cheerful and failed miserably. She said the doctor had left for the day, and was surprised he didn’t stop by… I wasn’t.

I got a new roommate with a family of about 10, who insisted on conversing right outside of my curtain instead of in their room. I eventually raised the blinds and turned on the TV to drown out their voices.

Craig surprised me by showing up around 7PM and insisted I go down to the gym with him, apologizing profusely for the other woman ignoring me. I refused, and explained the earlier events. Dinner came and was a strange concoction called Mexican lasagna, which contained refried beans, lots of chili powder and was topped with black olives… yuk. After surveying my dinner tray, he was really mad because he’d told the kitchen help several times about my being a diabetic. He also said he’d confirmed to Amy that I’d mentioned the sore shoulder to him last Friday. When I still wouldn’t go with him, he left. He’s really a nice man; he’s just a nuisance sometimes.

Around 10 my shower stuff arrived with extra towels and disposable razors. I’m tempted to shower now, rather than risk getting overly horny with the hunk tonight. His girlfriend came by and said to be sure I showered tonight, so I was sure I could safely stand and get in and out of the tub on my own once I got home.

An assistant of the visiting MD showed up around 10 and examined me. His preliminary diagnosis was arthritis. Great.

I went to sleep depressed and wondering why I kept fighting to endure.

Stopped eating deserts and oatmeal and sugars dropped to mid 150s, I apparently go home Thursday instead of today.


Wednesday June 10th 2009
I’m still reeling from last night. The hunk came in around 2AM and wanted to know if I wanted to shower with him… his words. We got me undressed and into the shower and he shocked the living hell out of me by stripping all the way down to a skimpy white Speedo and got into the little shower with me. I couldn’t help it, that lithe frame, the muscles that seemed to be vacuum-sealed to his body through thin skin got to me and I got hard. On top of that, once the water was turned on, that thin white fabric turned nearly transparent and left nothing to the imagination, and that fucker was hung like the proverbial horse!

He smiled after noticing I couldn’t take my eyes off of it, and I told him I was gay. He told me he knew already by the rainbow keychain in my open briefcase. He didn’t mind and just as we were getting started with the shampoo, his girlfriend came in unannounced and reminded him I had to stand, sit and wash on my own. It was a fight to hide my erection, and she only smiled as if she knew. That he was nearly naked in there with me didn't phase her at all as if it happens all the time.

In the tight confines of the little shower, I stood up carefully while he held on to me and then sat back down again. I told him I have a bench to sit on in my shower at home and we proceeded to wash every part of me. It was insanely difficult not to explore his beautiful physique with my hands, and he seemed to not be uncomfortable at all with my roving eyes. In fact a few minutes into it, he told me he took it as a compliment.

It wasn’t easy, but I got through standing and sitting back down without slipping to show him I could, but it hurt like hell and my leg is still really stiff. Without hesitation, whenever I seemed on the verge of slipping he’d offer a strong steady hand.

After we were done, to my amazement as I carefully exited the shower, he peeled off his wet speedo right in front of me, with only a wicked smile as if he were enjoying my discomfort. Naked, he dried me off and then I returned the favor by drying his back, allowing my hands to wander down to just above one of the most beautiful asses I’d ever laid eyes on. He put on his tight white jeans and then escorted me back to my bed while still shirtless. While he helped me with the tight anti-clot stockings and my leg brace, our eyes kept meeting, and I gave up and told him how attractive he was and how lucky his girlfriend was.

His only reaction was a grin and we got into a conversation about carbs, protein shakes, diets, muscle building and gyms. I warned him not to become a slave to his body, because the moment he stopped, it’d all turn to flab, and I was living proof.

I told him I’d miss him a lot and he gave me a hug that sent me into heaven. Then he was gone. God, the money he could make in San Diego or San Francisco……

…First thing in the morning, a girl showed up with a portable x-ray machine. The space between the bed, the window and the shelving unit was so confined, that she couldn’t maneuver it anywhere near me and eventually gave up and took two films from the foot of the bed. As she attempted to leave, she bumped into my carafe of grape juice and spilled it all over the bed and me.

I absolutely hate it when someone starts apologizing and won’t stop. Yes she was clumsy, but she didn’t do it intentionally and despite my reminding her of that fact several times, she kept right on genuflecting.

Breakfast was sausage gravy over a biscuit and of course oatmeal. Lunch featured a huge sweet potato covered with cinnamon and pear halves. The promised doctor never did show up to examine my shoulder, leaving it to his assistant from last night instead. Though I kept asking, by mid afternoon, I still couldn’t get anyone to tell me the x-ray results.

Around 2 I was told I wouldn’t have physical therapy today, and at the same time the pretty black nurse said the x-rays said there was nothing wrong with my shoulder??? I asked her to feel it and she was surprised and said she’d recommend a cat scan or something similar. It turns out that Dr. B-M.D. never showed up yesterday. A woman named Mary Beth showed up to apologetically tell me that they were having lengthy trouble arranging transportation home tomorrow because the woman at GB was being uncooperative about paying for it, and that it took Amy to call her personally before it was authorized!

They weighed me today and I’m down to 225. Dinner tonight could’ve been leftover lunch for all I knew, and consisted of vegetable beef soup, potato salad, bean salad… and an egg salad sandwich! More pears came with it that I suspect were diced from yesterday’s meal. I ate part of the soup and didn’t dare touch anything else and ordered a pizza… at least that was hot.


Thursday June 11th 2009
The leg brace keeps slipping down toward my ankle, which means the metal joint supports for my knee usually end up near my upper calf. Woke up to the usual oatmeal breakfast and skipped it as usual. Spent the morning drawing another maze as opposed to laying in a mental coma wondering what would happen next. My shoulder still bothers me, even with morphine and percocet pill. I wasted time thinking about how my Pittsburgh sister, mother and brother all had fits at me about not telling them when I was in the hospital for my heart operation, so I told all of them when I was going in for this surgery and not one of the hypocrites ever called me once through this whole ordeal. I even e-mailed them that I was only allowed two emergency contacts-Betsy and Teresa, and told them all they had to do was call my home and my answering machine would have the private number at the hospital and “the home”.

The ambulance guy came to take me home, and there was an immediate fight about not being allowed to take the walker! GB wouldn’t pay for it-this is getting fucking ridiculous. While that was being argued over, I realized that Dr. B-Mwas sitting at the nurse desk-NOW he shows up! He wrote me out a prescription for my walker and told me I could get it filled at any pharmacy, to which I queried “How do I get to a pharmacy to get it without a walker?”

They finally relented and allowed me to take the walker home on loan, while they ordered another walker for me. I’ll probably be billed for it. Half an hour later, as we were about to leave, Dr. B M.D. gives me prescriptions for my painkillers using drug names I didn’t recognize-I was right, they were using less powerful generics. If we’d left when we were supposed to, I’d never have gotten them. I told them about “prior authorization” problems and asked them to call it in for me, but they refused.

I was so disgusted I just wanted out of there.

We got here home-sweet-home and he was nice enough to wheel me up to my penthouse door… only to tell me that no arrangements had been made to return the wheelchair! I was in so much knee pain by then I brushed off his objections and closed the door on him after telling him to drop it off on his next trip there. No way I can afford shipping to return them their own wheelchair!

So far I haven’t been in the bedroom, livingroom or the kitchen, I just plopped down in disgust at my desk, loved the cat with lots of ear scratching and purring, and began typing out this diary from notes I took. Dr. Mind called and I covered the whole thing over the phone. She thinks I have a real case to sue GB for emotional damages and permanent disability.

Right now, I’m just too physically and mentally weary to do anything and collapsed on my bed around 7:30.


Friday June 12th 2009
Spent the morning working on fleshing out my notes from the hospital stay. Mischief is all over me and won’t leave me alone, which is great, but mildly annoying when she hops up on the desk and sits between the monitor screen and me. She’s also learned to intentionally sit on the note pad that I’m trying to type from.

No usable snack food, but a few frozen dinners and no ice. The fridge smells like spoiled meat and I’ll have to figure out some way to clean it before I can bring perishables and ice in.

A couple of stray thoughts hit me this afternoon.
In 1912 in the wake of the Titanic disaster, the bandleader was so beloved that when his body was recovered, well wishes and gifts arrived from all over the world for his family’s funeral for him… except from the White Star Line-his employer. They sent his loved ones a bill for his two uniforms that were lost at sea. That’s how heartless I’m beginning to view GB; they could care less about people and what they do to them; they just care about money.

The other was god-fearing people must really fight with themselves. Knowing how powerful the devil is here on earth, it’s a wonder more of them don’t kill themselves in order to assure that they get to heaven before Satin ruins their chances.


Saturday June 13th 2009
I went over my budget on the computer and it looks like I’m going to have a problem with next month’s rent, even if GB sends me the check next week. I’m going to have to cut my meals down to one a day, and possibly eat everything in the house that’s been here for a while like dry noodle mixes and cans of tuna and chicken. That’ll mean having to figure out a way to stand over the stove while they cook.

The brace is just too much to bear in bed, I keep tossing and turning and the damned metal parts hurt like hell when they hit other parts of my legs, so I’m going to stop wearing it at night. Also the Velcro keeps sticking to the blankets.

Mischief is all over me lately, which I love for a change. She’s taken to laying on the desk to my right and resting her chin on my mouse hand when I’m working on the computer.

I spent most of the rest of the day transcribing these notes.


Sunday June 14th 2009
I went on-line at Wal-Mart pharmacy to order refills only to discover that rehab called them in, but with no fills or refills on my prescriptions??? Not only that, they ordered the wrong kind of insulin again. I called the pharmacy and they said my stuff was already waiting for me, which despite my request, they filled before I could figure out a way to get there. What kind of doctor orders prescriptions without refills? One paid by GB-you need look no further than the prescriptions for my cymbalta.

Teresa didn’t answer the phone. It’s going to be impossible to carry any groceries and operate the damned walker, and so I decided to buy a bunch of pop on sale, load up the mini cart with enough weight so that it wouldn't slip out from under me, and then use it to get from the car to up here. Trouble was I had to carry the cart and use my walker to get down to the car in the carport.

My heart must really be getting better, as I wasn’t as tired when I got home, nor was I panting for breath after pushing the loaded cart up the handicapped ramp to the lobby. I risked half a dose of morphine to get there and back. I spent over $100 on groceries that I can cook and heat without standing in front of the stove, and another $21 on prescriptions. I got everything put away and discovered that my daily vitamins and lo-dose aspirins weren’t part of the order. Fortunately I have the stash.

Talked to Betsy for a while and transcribed some more notes and then went to sleep. Despite the pain meds, my leg still hurts like hell.

I’ve suddenly realized that as I get drowsy in the evenings, I’m not taking my evening meds, or my bed time ones; this is not good, but I’m so sleepy at the time, I don’t remember to take them.


Monday June 15th 2009
I e-mailed Lawyer K about my concerns regarding not being able to get supplies and prescriptions because I can’t afford cabs and can’t drive on Percocets; which forced me to go without painkillers every time I have to go out. I also touched on the problem of not getting any physical rehab since the 11th and not knowing what I can do without hurting something. Also, since they wouldn’t pay for that, I was positive they wouldn’t help with a visiting nurse or someone to help me clean.

I’m trying to get all of the hospital/rehab notes transcribed before Wednesday so I can take them with me to Dr. Mind.

Betsy called me to say that Aunt Margaret’s granddaughter was raped yesterday, I felt sad but I don’t know what I’ll say when she calls. Betsy’s boyfriend Norm bought her a new computer monitor and she was having trouble setting it up, so I helped her on the phone for an hour or so. Her computer is still using the parameters from her old monitor and doesn’t have the plug-and-play feature to accept a wide screen model. I tried a few things, none of which worked and when I started getting frustrated, I got off the phone rather than take it out on her.

I began working on a new banner for my diary blog, incorporating pictures of my penthouse garden, some of my collector cars and the station wagon we had when I was a kid. It’s amazing some of the photos I found last year on dad’s computer before I had it wiped clean. I even put a photo of his 1953 Indian motorcycle in it.

I spent the rest of the day basically doing nothing but typing this and sleeping. I’m beginning to worry because this is the kind of "can’t keep my drooping eyes open" kind of sleepy, instead of the desire to sleep. My right eye is still blurred and my left is starting to cloud around the perimeter. I'm going to have to make an appointment with OSU's eye clinic-just what I don't need.


Tuesday June 16th 2009
Betsy called first thing this morning to tell me that her new monitor isn’t getting signal from her computer tower, keeping me from finishing my new blog diary title banner until this afternoon. I hadn’t taken my depression drugs yet and got pissed at her when I shouldn’t have.

Knowing the problems I’ve had with Cymbalta etc in the past, I decided to get off with her before I went too far, then changed my mind and was determined to fix her problem today. Basically her computer went on strike after she turned it off last night and wouldn’t feed the new monitor with a signal today. She wanted to blame the monitor, but every time she turned it on, it showed its own start up routine, so I knew it was alright. I went over basic things like one of the cable ends coming loose, but nothing seemed to work.

After a lot of confusion with her, I finally told her to hold her F8 key down while turning the computer off and then back on. This got her into safe mode and it booted up with my help into system restore mode. I guided her through it, she remembered what I taught her from last time, and after about 15 minutes she restored the settings to about ten days ago and presto-she had a working computer again.

I left her to call her monitor’s manufacturer about putting the correct settings into her computer so everything didn’t look all stretched out.

I’m way behind on the diary, and I don’t know if I can get it all down and printed before I go to see her tomorrow. I published a lot of it this afternoon on my website.

About half an hour afterward, my walker got caught on something and I fell-fortunately I didn’t hurt anything, but the walker fell forward and part of my shelving unit tumbled contents and all between it and me. I was trapped, frustrated and angry for about half an hour until I could struggle to stand which hurt like hell. I couldn’t bend down with my stiff leg without excruciating pain so I just sat here at my computer and played chess until I calmed down and took two Percocets. After that I slept the rest of the afternoon and evening. This is going to play hell with my sleep/wake cycle.


Wednesday June 17th 2009
Lawyer K finally answered my e-mail this morning; ignoring all of the issues but one, and stated it was rare that work comp would pay for additional transport. Oh well

I went to see Dr. Mind today and completely forgot that the city has half of the exits on Rt. 315 closed, including the one to OSU’s medical center. By the time I got done cussing at myself and trying to figure out an alternate route, I was pleasantly surprised to discover the damned thing was still open and wouldn’t close until day-after-tomorrow.

By the time I got from the parking lot to her office without painkillers so that I could drive, I was out of breath and in agony. If someone had offered me poison right there and then I’d have swallowed it gladly.

I took in what I’d transcribed of the hospital/rehab adventure. It was printed on about 40 pages. I came out feeling a little better than when I went in, but only a little.

I always feel good when I drive around, so despite the pain, I cruised downtown for a while seeing what had changed in the 4 years since I stopped paying attention. Mostly a lot of closed businesses were all I noticed. When I’m in my convertible with the top down, I don’t have a handicap; I’m just the same as anyone else on the road with the exception of maybe driving a snazzier car. It's interesting that I see a lot of convertibles, but I'm the only one that puts the top down... I thought that was the point of buying one?

I got a jolt from Wal-mart when I went to pick up my vitamins and lo-dose aspirin. I used to get them for free, or a buck each and just assumed they still were that much. With my co-pays, my monthly meds usually total around $22. I found that they're charging me $4 a piece for the damned things now-which is more than the $3 co-pays for the expensive drugs I'm buying!??, and which is about a third of the total drug costs. I'll have to see if I can beat that price or just use up my hospital backlog for a while to make ends meet.

I got home, took two morphines and slept the rest of the day.


Thursday June 18th 2009
On Friday morning I couldn’t remember what happened Thursday, or for that matter anything that occurred beyond Tuesday and had to read this to see. Everyone keeps telling me that between the drugs I’m on and post surgery, it’s completely normal, but I’m still concerned.


Friday June 19th 2009
I’m beginning to get really bored having to sweat bullets over whether my next GB check is actually coming. That may seem a little irrational, but they’ve fucked me over so many times it’s understandable. I watched a bunch of episodes of Mod Squad so I could write a review of the DVD collection, typed out a little of this blog and slept most of the day.


Monday June 22nd 2009
Teresa surprised me with a nice long phone call yesterday evening and we talked about her new house, her cats and my pain problems. It was so nice of her, but I was shocked as I was convinced she slept late until having to go into her 3rd shift job. It felt so good to talk to a caring friend... and to know I still had one.

I drove out to Dublin to see Dr. D-heart today and forgot how much I hate that city. They think they’re so classy and above everyone else to the point of not allowing any business to have a street sign-even McDonald’s can’t fly their golden arches out front, so everyone has a dinky little sign that's usually hidden behind an overgrown shrub. Anyway, because of that it was damn near impossible to locate his office and I wound up being about 20 minutes late.

His billing department wouldn’t even let me see him until I signed an agreement to apply for financial assistance. I can’t pay the hundreds of dollars in co-pays and I don’t know if I ever can. God it hurts to think I used to glance at $500 expenses and just laugh them off like they were petty cash. I took him the rest of my Plavix prescription. He donates unused portions to an organization that sends them to poor villages in Africa somewhere.

He said my heart is doing great. He pressed his hands against my back and chest and squeezed, saying that my sternum is healing nicely (which reminded me that the damned thing is being held together with wire) and said he wanted to see me back in 6 months… Christmas Eve in fact.

Since I was already out, I took advantage of the sunny day and went grocery shopping up at Wal-Mart for stuff for a toaster oven or microwave. I thought I still had half a bag of dry cat food for Mischief yesterday, only to discover that Teresa had emptied her litter box into an old bag of it and that I was actually out, so shopping today wasn’t an option.

I’ve tried standing on my own without the walker and was so unsteady; I didn’t dare try it again. I’m still wearing the brace regardless of comfort during the day and only take it off to sleep or to take a shower.

I still haven’t brought myself to open my window blinds, since I didn’t plant the flower seeds that Teresa forgot take home for her new house. Even if I had, I’d never be able to haul water out to them every day. It’s so depressing not to have flowers out there, so I just shut myself away from the sunshine.

On Dr. Mind’s suggestion last week, I began publishing some of my mazes on-line and created a new web page for them today.


Monday June 29th 2009
For all the fuss, the hearing didn’t really need me at all, I think I testified 5 minutes. Lawyer K says he thinks it went well. GB is trying to claim that I talked to Dr. Mind about non-work injury problems that they don’t want to pay for, like my father’s death, my bankruptcy and nearly losing my car. They wonder why I’m not making any real progress; probably because they demand Dr. Mind’s notes on all our our sessions (since they’re paying for them) which makes it impossible to open up to her.

I called my apt building manager and got him to agree to let me use a post-dated check for next month’s rent.

May 1st-May 20th

Friday May 1st 2009
Oh good, the latest Columbus flu victim turns out to be an EMS firefighter, he’d been in contact with 50 firefighters in the area, and the original health care worker case at OSU. That means if I need an ambulance…

It’s 6PM and a horrendous lightning storm is simulating an artillery barrage just outside the windows. Poor Mischief is scared to death and sticking close to my side.

1:29AM-I got drowsy after Real Time with Bill Maher, and went to sleep around 11PM. My sister Betsy called me at 1AM (Technically it’s now Saturday) to wish me a happy birthday, as she’s always determined to be the first to call me every year. God love her. We sort of live in the “Twilight Zone,” because here it’s Saturday, but in Oregon it’s still Friday three time zones away.

God I miss visiting the west coast.

The storm this evening turned out to be a tornado that skipped up over downtown. I actually heard the “train rumble” that everyone describes and for a moment or two was tempted to grab my cat Mischief and head for the basement, with the tornado warning siren blaring just outside my window.

Fortunately it was over as quickly as it started.

Maybe it’s a good excuse to spend tomorrow hiding under my bed instead of facing another year older.

Here's some bitter news, the 99th army is moving to New Jersey. Just one more kick in the balls. In my home town of Moon Township, PA, we and our neighbors were forced out of our homes when I was a teenager because they were planning to put an expressway "cloverleaf" in the middle of our neighborhood that would serve the Greater Pittsburgh International Airport across the parkway from us.

We were all forced to sell our houses for much less than they were worth and moved a half mile north to another location within sight of the airport runways.

Though the hills were leveled nothing was built for a few years, and then multi-story office buildings started going up amongst the trees for a new business complex. Our yard however remained empty but intact where our house used to be.

A few more years later, we could no longer visit our old homestead (though still intact-except the house of course) after it was fenced in and became part of the 99th Army Reserve's office complex after the airport was torn down and moved to the other side of the runways. Still nothing was built on the land, and still hasn't been.

What a waste.

Dammmmmit! Someone won the $225 million MegaMillions last night, and it wasn't me.
(snif) I've dreamed of winning and buying our old property back.


Saturday May 2nd 2009
I Spent most of the morning watching Hawaii 5-0 to do the review of the 6th season DVD set. Aunt Margaret called to wish me a happy birthday. The weather’s nice enough for me to go out and cruise for a while and get out of the apartment for a change. I spent from noon answering e-mails and comments about my new article on Blogcritics Magazine about Rep. Foxx trying to assert that the Matthew Shepard murder was a hoax. Her constituents should run her out of town on a rail for that.

7:30PM, the greatest thing just happened, I got a birthday call from a guy Matt, that I used to work with a long time ago when I was attacked. We started talking and it was like we'd seen each other just yesterday. It was one of the most enjoyable hours I've spent in a long time. He's married with kids and just got back from a 2nd honeymoon. It makes me feel so good that he remembered. I'll probably smile the rest of the night.

Midnight: Well I thought I was going to anyway. No call or e-mail from my mother, sister, stepsister, or brother... none of whom I ever forget on their birthdays. When you're homebound and mostly alone it's the trivial things that matter.

I've completed 5 episodes of Hawaii 5-0 for review so far. With luck I should be able to get to the other 19 by Monday night and submit it by Tuesday morning... Then I go on to a Dynasty marathon.


Sunday May 3rd 2009
I’m beginning to wonder if the effectiveness of being on Cymbalta for four years is weakening because of the length of time. I’m feeling more and more depressed lately, and I should be feeling more cheerful. Maybe the fear of dying is coming back after thinking of it as a relief; I don’t know. I do know that I’m in a lot of physical pain lately, especially around my chest. I may have to give in and get stoned on Morphine. I hate the idea and I’m terrified of getting addicted, but the pain is just too much to bear.

I’m not getting much sleep again. If I lay on either side it feels like my ribcage is collapsing and there’s sort of a bubbling sensation, so I end up sleeping on my back, which is next to impossible. I’ve slept on my stomach since the day I was born, until this happened.

I got all excited today that my latest BC article was mention on USA Today’s website, but an asshole at BC burst my bubble by saying they list thousands a day… it’s the first time for me out of 94 articles I’ve written so far, so I was proud for a little while anyway. The article on Matthew Shepard got 200 comments in just two days, and thousands of hits.

Social Security deposited my check, so I don’t have any money worries for now. I programmed my checking to take care of this month’s electric and car payment, so I have a little left over, but it pisses me off that I can’t have a good time with a little of it for fear GB will pull their shit again.

I’m seriously thinking of giving myself a birthday present and going to see the new Star Trek movie on Friday. I doubt if I can accept anyone else playing their parts, but from the previews the actor playing a young McCoy really nails it, so I’ll see. It’s the being in the dark with a bunch of strangers… God, I hate what I’ve psychologically become.

I wanted to get out to Wal-Mart and get supplies yesterday and today, but again I couldn’t pry myself past my front door. This truly sucks. Maybe it’s just being down about being another year older.


Monday May 4th-Tuesday May 5th 2009
These two days were beaten and battered. Trouble breathing sent me to the doctor, my article on Matthew Shepard got intense praise and intense criticism, it was featured on a webpage, not with a photo of Shepard, but of two fairy queens from a parade, shirtless, one painted pink and one blue, leering at each other, with feathers and Mohawks; in other words every negative stereotype imaginable. I said.

When I wrote him of just how infuriated I was, he wrote back to disagree with me. He said...

"I understand... I guess
Ah, but from my point of view as an aesthete those aren't negative stereotypes. They look cool and fierce. Art trumps bigotry for me"

However true that may be, it's definately NOT appropriate to accompany an article about a viscious murder, and the insensitive remarks of a North Carolina Representative on the floor of the U. S. House. (see my gay pride page)

Last night, I suddenly lost my balance and slammed my head into the footboard of my bed, excruciating doesn't cut it as an adjective. I ran out of Nexium two days before Medicare will let me refill it, so my stomach’s bothering me.

Worst of all, I can’t psychologically find a way past my front door. Tomorrow I have to pick up my prescriptions…

We’ll see.


Wednesday May 6th 2009
Dr. Mind’s receptionist called this morning and said my regular Wednesday at noon was open, so I went. We’re still working on recapturing my timeslot again. I took the legal paperwork for the GB appeal, and even she didn’t understand it… and she’s also a social worker!

It rained like hell this morning. I swear; somewhere in the city of Columbus my mother HAS to be running a driving school somewhere. People just don’t know how to drive in rain. I almost ass-ended a lady on the expressway in the driving rain doing 45 in the passing lane. I didn’t see her till I was nearly on top of her with a semi right behind me.

Stopped at Wal-Mart and picked up my prescriptions. I’m still thinking of braving a dark theater full of strangers and checking out the new Star Trek on Friday.

I’m finding myself more and more defensive toward criticism, to the point to seeing it when it’s not there. I seem to be reverting back to an earlier time, maybe as a healing process, I don’t know.

I published a news article on Maine becoming state #5 to pass gay marriage legislation. My 95th for Blogcritics Magazine. It didn’t seem to go over as well as the Shepard article, but you can’t hit them out of the park every time. The depression is really getting to me. They keep explaining that it’s just as much as not more of a chemical process in my brain, and part of the recovery from the beating, but that was so long ago.

Day-before-yesterday I got my first nosebleed in a long time and another last night. I still have a knot on my head from where I hit it, and my ears are ringing ever louder.

Live goes on.

Friday May 8th 2009
I went to Work Health to get authorization for my GB checks to continue. They gave me a two-month breather until my next appointment because of the upcoming surgery. My chest still hurts when I breathe deeply or sleep on my side… “Well don’t sleep on your side dummy!” Easier said than done, I sleep on my back, but wake up on my side.

I got to the movie theater 8 minutes late to see the new Star Trek, rushed in only to discover that I had another 10 minutes of previews to watch before it started. IT WAS GREAT, though my ears are still ringing louder than when I went in. I actually had to cover them during the action scenes it was so loud!

I got home only to discover that the workman’s comp hearing has been delayed… until the day after I enter the hospital… and they warned I still have to be there? Since my lawyer is insisting I get him a copy of the Dr. D/Heart’s authorization to operate and Dr. P/Foot’s confirmed surgery dates, I’m going to have to drive out there and get them myself on Monday, since neither of them wants to contact the other first. (Sigh)

I spent the rest of the afternoon writing a new movie review for Star Trek, you can access it via the table of contents to your left under the Entertainment section.

I memorized my 8-year-old car alarm’s model number and got the instruction manual on line. Maybe now I can make it behave… we’ll see.


Sunday May 10th 2009
I’ve spent the last two days finishing up watching 24 episodes of Hawaii 5-0. I’ve got a pretty good idea what to write for the review of it, all I have to do now is punch it out out on line. Then comes 20 episodes of Dynasty. God it's so gauling to have to actually consider using $5 to go see Star Trek again. I still remember (regretfully) when I though $500 was pocket change. I shake my head no every time I think of it.

My nose still won’t stop bleeding; I’ve gone through half a roll of paper towels. I’m not going to take my blood thinners tonight and hope for the best. I'm running my box fan in the bedroom on high now just to drown out my ears ringing. The last time, they said it was the antibiotics that were causing it, I guess maybe this time it's just the combo of prescriptions. God knows what I'm doing to myself by taking all that stuff.

I sent off an e-note to my mom for Mother’s day with no sign that she got it. No surprise there considering she ignored my birthday too, either that or my sister never showed it to her. This depression keeps screwing with my head, or maybe it’s the drugs. I have to go to the hospital tomorrow at 10AM for pre-surgery testing. Then off to get all the printed out clearances for the lawyer

A long and full day to look forward to tomorrow

Groan.


Monday May 11th 2009
The final pre-operation exam could’ve been phoned in. They had the chest x-rays and blood tests from my release a month ago, so they asked me the same standard questions and sent me home. The doctor said there's no worry about my heart, in fact they prefer recent cardiac patients because they're less to worry about than those that've been avoiding the doctor.

I stopped over at Dr. Foot’s office across the street (since I had a pass for free parking from the hospital) and picked up Dr. Heart’s clearance and Dr. Foot’s scheduling papers, then I drove them over to Mr. Lawyer’s office, washed the car, picked up some stuff at Wal-Mart and came home.

It was chilly today. Someone needs to get Ma Nature a new calendar.


Wednesday May 13th 2009
Yesterday sucked, that’s the only word for it. Something made me look out my apartment door and I found a plastic grocery bag hanging from my doorknob full of last week's mail that had been put in my neighbor’s mailbox by our idiot mailman. He’s a traveling businessman, much like I used to be, and is only home two or three times a week. I was overwhelmed. In the space of four days Mr. Lawyer’s old mail, had the Workman’s Comp hearing for the 12th (today), which I knew had been canceled, the next day he mailed out a reminder that the continuance was for next week. I’d e-mailed him telling him my surgery was for the 21st and the next notice was that the hearing was moved to the 22nd. Next came another notice of an undetermined continuance, and the last was that the hearing would be the 28th, for which I’ll still be in the hospital, and if I’m out by then, there’s no way with two unusable legs that I could get there.

I also got 2nd-notice bills for thousands of dollars-my share to pay after Medicare paid a couple of $120,000 hospital bills for my heart. It turns out too that GB is still refusing to pay for my visits for Dr. Mind, even though they lost the appeal, so that earned me a $120 for her services. With each envelope I opened things got more and more confusing. Medicaid is sending me guide books again for my benefits on the same day they sent notices saying I’m still not eligible for their help. I called the local Medicaid office and couldn’t even get through: I got a recorded announcement saying their mailbox was full and to leave a message, which they never reply to... kind of impossible if the box is full.


Wednesday
I woke early to start work on the Hawaii 5-0 review for BC… only to discover the notes on the computer were gone. McAfee Antivirus did an automatic disc defrag last night and apparently saw two articles entitled “Article worksheet and Article worksheet~2” and decided that they were duplicates and got rid of “2”… guess which one had two weeks worth of notes on it that I can't recover. I did a hard drive search for any document file with the word “Hawaii” in it and came up empty. I checked and it wasn’t in the Recycle Bin either. I’m fucked, so I’m going to try to wrack my brain and come up with something usable.

I’d just gotten into the mindset to type it out when Dr. Mind’s receptionist called to say she had an opening today, so I went. Even she (again) could make neither heads nor tails of it. I’m getting a headache, my knee hurts, and I’m not sleeping well oh I’m sleeping but only two hours at a time. It's hurting more and more to sleep on my sides because of the muscles that they cut through to get to my heart twice in the space of a month.

Today was my brother’s birthday, I sent him out an e-mail. I thought of repaying him not sending me one on mine on the 2nd, but decided not to be petty. My good friend Brenda sent me a belated birthday e-mail entitled "better late than never". I think I’ll wait and answer it tomorrow.

I better get back to work. I’m fighting the urge to go to sleep, but I’m sure it’s depression this time and I’m determined not to let it get the best of me.

Sunday May 17th 2009
Let's rewrite this a little... Since last Thursday I've been busy with getting ready to go to the hospital this coming Thursday. Picking up prescriptions, going to doctor's appointments etc. Mostly I've been trying to watch an entire season of Dynasty to review it for BlogCritics.

I guess you can file this under "You get what you pay for." I've been fighting all weekend with the final DVD of the set which has a defect in it just as Blake and Crystal are getting re-married and Kirby's about to lose her baby. I can't review what I can't see, but it was due a weeks or so ago so I keep fighting with it.

I've discovered that my computer will play some parts of it, while my DVD player will play other parts on the TV.

par for the course.

I've got to remember to refill my Cymbalta tomorrow, and make another appointment with Dr.MD before I go about my final heart exam.

ho hum

Monday May 18th 2009
I finally finished watching the Dynasty DVDs, now all I have to do is write the review. I went up to Family Medical and picked up my Cymbalta prescriptions, then went over to Wal-Mart to pick up supplies for the hospital, earphone jacks, dry drink mix, sugarless mints etc.

I found two notices in the mail that both continuances on the Workman’s Comp/GB case had been denied. I have to be in court one day after the surgery. I’ll call the lawyer first thing tomorrow morn and find out for sure. Normally knee surgery is an outpatient procedure, so maybe they don’t understand that my leg is being severed, then reconstructed so that it’s straight and that takes weeks/months to heal. I also got a letter from Social Security. They’re suing GB for not paying a bill for Dr. Mind and it was transferred to SS who paid it. Now they want reimbursement plus interest from me.

What next?

My sister Betsy called me-My mother's in the hospital with a blood clot in her lung. My aunt's had one before and says it's uncomfortable, but nothing serious. I had one that nearly destroyed my heart. There's not a whole lot that they can do except keep her in observation overnight and give her drugs to disolve it-probably coumadin like they did me. It's a good thing her lung caught it instead of her heart. I'd go visit her in Pittsburgh, but I go into the hospital this Thursday myself and I'm on all sorts of medications that won't let me drive. If they tell me that I have to be in court Thursday, that kills the operation, so I might visit her this weekend, but I doubt if she'll be in the hospital that long...

I'll pray for her tonight; and I don't do that very often for anyone or anything...


Tuesday May 19th 2009
Today was a day of frustration. Mr. K/Lawyer was in court all day and I still don’t know if I’m going in for surgery Thursday or not. With all of the continuances canceled I’m fucked if I don’t show up in court. His assistant finally called me back this afternoon and said he’d call me tomorrow morning to answer all my questions.

On top of that, now I don’t know if I should pay my car insurance for 6 months or for 1, because if I do, and they cut me off my checks I won’t have next month’s rent, and since June’s the last month of the lease, I doubt if my landlord will renew my lease in July… even though I’ve lived here since 1987.

I’ve got a ton of cleaning to do and I still have to pound out that review of Dynasty before I go to surgery on Thursday, (assuming I do.) Wal-Mart has a sale on Diet Dr. Pepper that is insanely low, so I dragged myself past my front door, put the top down and enjoyed the sun on the drive. It's kinda depressing, I used to not care about the cost of anything, now I get all excited about saving a couple of dollars of 12-packs of pop. That hit me full force when I met a neighbor in the elevator and I told him that they had 12-packs for $2.37 each and he asked me "Is that good?"

The hospital said to stop medications except the Coreg for my blood pressure and not to drink liquids after midnight. Like I needed to be reminded after all the surgeries.

Betsy called me this afternoon, and as I suspected my mom’s fine. As I told her, it’s serious, but not life threatening. They’ll probably keep her through the weekend for observation. I’m planning to go visit her this weekend if I don’t go into surgery. I’ve wanted an excuse to trek home to Pittsburgh for a long time, and this should do it. "Home," that's a good one. They say, "You can never go home" and they're right, it's not the same place that I grew up in after so many years.

I’ve thought of taking all the money I’ve had left and flying out to see Betsy one last time and then going to my favorite Agate Beach in Newport, spending a few days in contemplation and then walking out into the ocean. I’d like to be cremated and have my ashes spread out there, should it come to that. Suicide is something I haven’t thought about in a long time, mostly because I figured sooner or later the odds would catch up to me and I’d die in surgery.

Now with all the pressures coming from all sides, and no lover for comfort and solace, it gets harder and harder by the day to cope.

Don’t worry; I’m too much of a coward...

...today


Wednesday May 20th 2009
I blew out another one of those energy saving light bulbs this morning… or at least I thought I did when it went out-they're supposed to be guaranteed for five years. I have one in the lamp over my desk and reached up to see if it was in tight when it started flickering. Just as I almost it touched it, it came back on again. I shrugged and went back to work on my latest review of Dynasty. It flickered and went out again… so I reached up and again before I touched it, it came back on but then a moment later flickered out and then stayed off.

I groaned, muttered to myself and went and got a new one, screwed it in and went back to work. About five minutes later the new one went out on me. Only to me do these strange things happen. Below my desk in the foot well is a surge protector and apparently the cord to the lamp was barely long enough to plug into it. when I move the lamp around, the cord tightens and it tries to pull out of the plug. The motion of my foot when I moved my body to reach up, barely disconnected it, and when I moved again, it had just enough slack to reconnect.

(sigh)

I got the call from my lawyer this morning. It turns out the court papers say I have to be there, but it’s not like a subpoena or something and he said to go ahead and have my surgery tomorrow morning and they’ll accept my absence. It turns out that the hearing Friday is the psychological claim and the 28th is the appeal to the physical claim.

If I lose my checks, I’m fucked. I’m going to have to gamble and pay the rent and one month of car insurance, because I won’t be home Friday to find out if their check was deposited, since the hospital doesn’t have internet access for patients.

Dr. Mind told me today that I have to be one of the strongest people she’s ever met psychologically to have survived the last five years of physical and mental blows and still be standing upright. I was proud that she thinks that, but I wonder if she senses that I’m still thinking of suicide from time to time. I was so crushed when I found out about my mother and I’m still worried, though I know it’s not serious, they way things go for me I still worry.

Well, it’s 3:30PM and I better get back to work on my latest article for BC… more later.

11:19PM
HOW THE HELL DID ADAM LAMBERT LOSE??????

I talked to my sister Betsy, she said my mom's doing much better and will probably be home tomorrow. I've still got laundry to do and some house cleaning. The thought of hoping not to wake up after the operation keeps invading my thoughts, but I push it away. I still want a brother-brother relationship with him and to reestablish a relationship somehow with my mother.

You probably won't be hearing from me for a while. I expect to be in the hospital about a week or longer, and then an after-care facility until I can walk.

I'm seriously thinking of staying up all night so I'll fall asleep before they give me gas or shoot me up. I've gotten so used to this, I'm actually still awake on the gurney all the way into the operating room-WHICH IS KEPT VERY DAMNED COLD!!! That and the nurses are very un-casual about wandering off quickly with what little I'm wearing once I get there too.

April 2009

Wednesday April 1st 2009
Today was a blur that I’m not sure I want to remember. I couldn’t sleep because of the pain in my gut from the ulcer, so I took some Percocet… Realizing too late that that meant I couldn’t drive stoned.

I washed all my clothes in hot water hoping to shrink them to fit, but still had baggy jeans. I took a shower and called a cab at 2PM to meet my lawyer at 2:30, but the cabbie got lost and I didn’t get there until 2:50. A problem cropped up I should’ve accounted for, but didn’t-I couldn’t recognize my lawyer. It’s a psych thing having to do with my medications; I can remember names or faces, but not both. I finally gave up, and as bailiffs were in the waiting room calling out names, I called out his name… no one responded. Fortunately the lawyer sitting next to me knew him and went out returning with him a few moments later.

Apparently there’s no hope, or as he put it afterward, "nothing horrible happened, but then nothing good happened either." Since both parties agreed my leg still needed surgery, the point of contention became collecting workman’s comp while being delayed during my heart problems.

The psychological problems were discarded because the arbitrator had only just now gotten the papers from Dr. Mind, so they’ll be delayed for a later hearing sometime next week. In the mean time I have to try to get permission from Dr. D/heart and/or Dr. S/heart for Dr. P/foot to operate. I don’t have to have the operation next week, I just have to have an appointment.

After the hearing, I realized how much I missed my cell phone from the 90s, even though it looked like and weighed about the same as a brick. No one has payphones anymore and I wound up trekking all over the place on foot twice before a flower/gift shop cashier took pity on me and let me use his phone.

As it was, it took nearly an hour in downtown rush hour traffic to get me home.

I felt like I could drive by then and went to Wal-Mart to pick up some prescriptions, and encountered another problem: Medicare is really screwing me-I test my blood sugar 2-3 times a day, however since the prescription was for 50-test strips, Medicare decided that was once a day and that I couldn’t refill the prescription… for 50 days.

I can tell that this week is going to be a real test of my sanity.

Aunt Margaret, Betsy, and Dr. Mind were nice enough to call to see how things went, but I fear I was in a tired and foul mood. I hope they understood.

Friday April 3rd 2009
I would've classified this as “another out of the blue” disaster, but I half expected it. I called the city and paid the electric bill of $10.70 and she looked and confirmed that my meter reading has been the same since February 14th… My meter just up and stopped!?!

My fridge was still plugged in along with the heat, aquarium pumps etc, so there should've been some usage? She said the bill was a service charge, not for power consumption.

This means that next Monday they’ll be out to inspect the meter and probably replace it, then bill me for Jan/Feb, Feb/Mar, and Mar/April based on what the previous three bills were (Oct, Nov, Dec) which averaged $125 each, or a balloon bill of $375 minus the most recent three payments I made which only total around $35.

I may have to publish this as a work of fiction, because who the hell would believe it?

I sent my mother a birthday e-mail today, unfortunately she still doesn't know much about using e-mail, so I hope she gets it.

After balancing my financial spreadsheet, I've got enough for next month's rent with $40 left. Where the phone bill, groceries and prescriptions will come from is anyone's guess. I guess I'm still on a quest for a bank with a handicap ramp for robbers.

Another aspect of this is I have to cut back on my grocery budget. Cheap food is loaded with salt and sugar, and it may get to the point where suicide is a moot point and $1.00 TV dinners etc. will accomplish that chore for me.

I'm beginning to think that Social security considers me a prank caller, as I've called so many times, only to have some worker promise to call me back-and then not. So I'll wait a few days and try again. No one still is able to explain about his $3000 overpayment I'm repaying, but they keep charging me for it anyway.

Mostly I tire of constantly being convinced that it's all too hopeless to deal with any more. Unless I absolutely have to, I don't even leave my apartment to go downstairs to check the mail.


Monday April 6th 2009
Dr. Mind called me this afternoon just after I got out of the shower. I couldn't stay on the phone long with her because I had to be at Dr. D/heart's in less than an hour. I promised I'd see her on Wednesday.

When I saw Dr. D/heart this afternoon; well actually his nurse/assistant, she said all of the scars all over my chest are healing well. I told her that I had to have permission from him for the knee surgery in order to get my comp checks going again. After hearing all that’s been going on, she said she’d make a point to talk to him and get back to me in a few days.

She said my coughing fits of late may be a side effect of the Lisinopril I’ve been taking and told me to go off of it for a month, and take a new drug called Cozaar instead that was developed specifically to sidestep those side effects. She gave me a month’s supply for free from her drug rep samples, and said to try it, and if it worked for me, she’d give me more.

Discussed my problem of not being able to afford good food, and she offered no solutions, not that I expected any going in. I’d much rather be eating salads etc, rather than $1 packaged dinners loaded with sugar and sodium.

I was going to go to Social Security's office up in Worthington in person this morning, but it occurred to me that without the official papers saying I'd been cut off financially thanks to GB, the visit would be useless.

After the appointment, I drove over to Wal-Mart and bought some more stuff. I’m trying to be sure I’m stocked up for the month and as much beyond as possible, as finances falter and disappear. Now I’m a little under $100 shy of next month’s rent. That means that with the $70+ phone/internet bill due on the 20th, I’ll have to use the last of a $200 cash reserve in order to make May rent with the this month’s phone.

I’m worried all this is going to make the ulcer worse. With all this bad Karma I'm due to win the lotto... of course I've been thinking that for the last five years.

I can’t believe it’s snowing and below freezing! Thank God I didn't buy those flowers. Last weekend I was cruising around with the top down. They are predicting more of the same until Wednesday.

If the electric company came out and looked at my meter today, it’s news to me. The power obviously stayed on, or I’d be resetting a bunch of clocks… I feel a creeping bogeyman approaching with a $300 utility bill the end of this month.

I had to change jeans today because the ones I wore only last weekend are now two inches two big and they were crinkling up under my belt… Speaking of which, I have to buy a new belt as I’ve reached the last hole and it’s still too loose; either that or use a knife to make a new hole so it’ll fit.

…such is life.


Wednesday April 8th 2009
GOOD FUCKING NEWS!!! I finally dragged myself out of the apartment and checked the mail and Workman’s Comp denied GB’s motion to stop my checks. I just hope this means they’ll reinstate coverage of my visits to Dr. Mind at Ohio State.

Now we’ll see if the games begin, will they use some excuse to delay sending me Friday’s check?
Will they try to short me a week from the appeal process?

I called Dr. P/foot’s office and they said they’d schedule an appointment as soon as they got something from Dr. D/heart’s office. I called D/Heart and they said would clear me for the knee surgery, and that anything I needed to send to Dr. D could be taken care of immediately. I’m covered, if I lose the appeal, it’s a moot point as the appointment for presurgery reinstates the claim whether they like it or not.

Yay!

Saw Dr. Mind and she said I’d be covered by Medicare if G.B. still tried to screw things up for me. I’ve got to work on getting an explanation out of Social Security about this multi thousand overpayment I’m paying back.

Came home relieved and almost happy for a change.


Thursday April 9th 2009
I drove out to Dr. S/Heart’s only to discover he’d released me from his care after the visit a few weeks ago about the lump in my side. I was told that as soon as he did, Dr. D/Heart became my primary cardiologist, so his permission for the knee surgery takes precedent.

Dr. Mind called to say she’d talked to Mr. Lawyer and he was amazed at the victory we scored over the evil GB. I kept telling her that I’m at my worst now, when I should feel safe, is when I start worrying about what will befall me next. She chastised me and insisted that I remain happy and upbeat through the weekend.


Friday April 10th 2009
Morning: I checked my checking account balance and as I thought, GB screwed me… again. Instead of $441 they only deposited $283, which is probably what they owed me up until April 1. I left an e-mail with Mr. Lawyer and a message with Dr. Mind. This probably means they didn’t reinstate my Cymbalta prescription or have started paying for my visits to Dr. Mind again either.

I’m so sick and tired of cowering waiting for what shit they’re going to pull next, but I’m powerless to act against them.

Evening: With the fall of BC's Forum and no plausible explanation as to why, I fear that traffic to my six websites is also going to fall dramatically as the Forum contained links to each. I'm damned proud of that big volume of material. As for here, I'm not mourning income from my ad revenue when someone clicked on it, because I was/am only making pennies a day from the few that were interested enough to bother with them.


Sunday April 12th 2009
I spent all day Saturday and today pondering what to do with my time now that the Forum may be shut down permanently… or for the foreseeable future. I decided to go over my completed the manuscript for my novel "System 10" and got discouraged.

I began writing "System 10" in my senior year of high school, back when there were no cell phones, few faxes and the Internet was just a glimmer in Al Gore’s eye. After putting it away for a while I started up again with it around 1989 while learning how to use a computer for the first time. I’d become an assistant area supervisor for and map maker for Dominos, and along with the office I was given, came a new computer, which I didn’t know how to use, so I typed the 500+ page manuscript into it while learning how to use Word for Window’s spell and grammar checker.

Over the years that followed, I had to keep revising and updating the damned thing in order to keep up with current technologies, and because of it, many of my plot lines had to be drastically rewritten or even eliminated all together. Ergo, why didn’t he just call on his cell phone, why didn’t they just track him on GPS? And on and on. Finally around 1995 my business interests began taking off and I was doing a lot of traveling, so I put it to bed.

While on one of my business trips to San Diego, an idea for a sequel came to me, and I began writing again, this time on the sequel (A Ghost of a Chance.) I had the opening five chapters, the middle three, and I’d fleshed out the ending but then I was attacked in 2006. Now that I look back at both books, I’ve fallen in love all over again, but unless I publish them as a time period piece, I’d have to alter both novels into something that’d be unrecognizable from the original, and that sucks.

I guess I could find worse things to occupy my time.

The coming knee surgery has me worried. The radical alteration of the bone just above my left knee will leave me unable to walk or get around easily for some time, and then there’s the follow up operation to repair the knee itself.


Monday April 13th 2009
My sister Betsy called me last night and today to give me the details of a fender bender she had yesterday. Her new (and hunky) boyfriend Norm was driving her and her grandkids in Betsy’s Grand Cherokee on some errands and to make some family visits, when a car apparently tried to pass them from close behind, and sideswiped her jeep instead. Fortunately no one was hurt, and after a brief exchange the lady driver that hit them left the scene before she could even exchange insurance info (which automatically makes it her fault.)

Betsy was shaken up enough not to want to drive today on a trip with her daughter Amber, but she’ll be fine. The cops are still shuffling her around, but apparently a piece of paperwork somewhere said the other driver left the scene, so that’s okay, and she confirmed again that the grandkids are okay.

Just goes to show, just when you think your safe… Thank god for the big jeep they were in.

Apparently the damage was cosmetic, and she can still drive it.


Thursday April 16th 2009
After several days of psychologically trying to get myself out of the apartment (sometimes I go for more than a week without even opening the door), I finally got mad at myself and went to see Dr. T, GBs physician that authorizes my checks. She was instrumental in getting me the great judgment in my favor. I have to get what’s called a C84 signed by her or I can’t get the rest of my checks.

I arrived there (fortunately her office is only two blocks away downtown) only to discover that she wasn’t there today, and the only available appointment was at 7:30AM tomorrow morning… yikes!

From there I put on my determined face and drove several miles north of the city to Worthington to try to get some straight answers out of Social Security… again. I walked out more confused than when I walked in. The lady said that almost four years ago, someone misreported my income and now I had to pay it back whether it was my fault or not. They’d threatened to take it all at once and not give me a check for months until it was paid back. We’d worked it out last January so they’d only take $40 out of my check per month until around July, but with Dr. Mind’s help I signed a waiver request to have them set that charge aside. I discovered to my chagrin that the paperwork for it never went through, nor was it on their computer.

I tried to get the woman (who wouldn’t even let me see a caseworker) to understand that I’d been in the hospital for nearly four months, but she was very unsympathetic and made it sound like it was my fault for not leaving my hospital sickbed to check my mail. I also couldn’t get her to help me get a renewed password onto the Social Security page, and she said I had to log on and put the request on-line… but how do I log in without a working password?

Sigh.

My left eye is beginning to clear enough to see shapes, but the big debris chunks floating around in there will require surgery to remove. I'm still having trouble sleeping because my ribcage hurts from two surgeries and I may have to go on the morphine again. My upper body is covered with scars and pain, not the least of which was fracturing my right arm in four places. If you look at the URL, you'll note this blog used to be called "Blogging on the edge of suicide".

At least I had great weather today; it warmed up to around 62 and I cruised around with the top down and the stereo up. I stopped over at Wal-Mart and picked up some necessary supplies, then went over to Kroger’s, only to discover the stuff in their circular that was on a two day sale, well they were somehow out of. If they weren’t so close, they’d lose my business all together.

I got home around 3PM only to discover that my air conditioning compressor must be out of Freon again, as it’s only putting out cool instead of cold air. I gave up and turned on my bathroom and kitchen exhaust fans and opened the sliding glass doors. I’m still cowering in fear at what the next electric bill will look like. Either it’ll be another $10.70 service charge bill, or a three month accumulative bill.

Then I was dumb enough to open the mail, I got a notice that GB is appealing the ruling on my comp checks, and a letter from my lawyer saying I had to get busy with the c84s for the knee surgery, so that which ever way they ruled, it’d be a moot point.

One piece of good news, apparently social security disability recipients are getting a $250 stimulus check at the end of May. Thank God, now all I have to do is hope that they don’t keep it towards what I owe them. God, five years ago I’d have considered that throwaway wallet cash. I’d spend more than that taking my friends out to dinner, or throwing a poker party down in the game room.

Dr. Mind called me this afternoon to remind me to get an appointment set up with her next week. I’ve lost my every Wednesday at noon regular appointments thanks to GB. I just hope I can get them to reinstate my Cymbalta prescriptions. Then I’ll start using Medicare at Wal-Mart and Workman’s at my other pharmacy to double up on my antidepressant in case GB pulls their shit again and cuts me off without warning. It’s really important, because with the penthouse lease coming up in July, if the rent goes up, the last thing I need is to have unpredictable and violent temper storms because I ran out again.

Penthouse… I can’t afford to move out, not that I'd want to having lived here almost 22 years. Then again I couldn't if I wanted to, because I'd never get up enough for a first month's rent and deposit somewhere else.
Par for the course.


Friday April 17th 2009
I dragged myself out of bed and went to see Dr. T/GB this morning. She was very nice and wrote me a prescription for my Cymbalta. I’ve been put into one of their cycles again (no surprise) where I have to report every three weeks, which means every other visit falls into the middle of a two week pay period and I’m left with only half a check unless I verbally specify how the paperwork is sent. Also the prescription for my Cymbalta only has one refill, so if I miss one even by a matter of a day, they won’t authorize it. Fortunately, for the first time in a long time, this one went through without a lengthy “prior authorization” process and I actually got it today!

I decided to drive around in the sun today, since I was out there and didn't know when I'd be again, and I had fun-I really love driving. I’ve still got to put 1,500 miles on the car yet to get the odometer to match the title’s reading. That’s hilarious.

I got home, and no sooner got in the door, when my sister Betsy called me from Agate Beach, Oregon. One of the last west coast business trips I took landed me in Newport and I stayed at the Holiday Inn Crown Plaza on the coast. It overlooks my favorite beach and lighthouse, and Betsy called to tell me that she was thinking of me from there. She refers to it as “my” hotel. Norm took her there for her birthday.

Spent the rest of the evening talking to Aunt Margaret and watching TV while chopping up tomato and onion slices for sandwiches.

The chest pain is really starting to wear me down, but I don’t want to go around stoned on Percocet or Morphine all the time. I’m also considering starting up with the Trazadone again, just to get a good night’s sleep for a change… any one of which could be addictive.


Saturday April 18th 2009
I got a booklet in the mail today outlining my benefits for Medicaid, problem is I don’t get Medicaid unless they’re in the mood, other than that not much happened.

I wound up taking a Morphine tablet tonight; I'm developing a pain in my right side, which worries me because the damage is on the left half. It feels like a pulled muscle from favoring the left side... I hope.


Monday April 20th 2009
I started out the day calling Dr. P/foot’s office to find out if they got authorization by fax from Dr. D/heart. She’d just gotten in from an extended weekend and hadn’t time to look yet. (sigh). I e-mailed the situation to Lawyer/K’s office and his assistant later e-mailed back that the C84 from Dr.T/GB authorizing further checks should’ve been enough to get things moving. Instead they’re probably dragging their feet, gambling that if they win the appeal, they won’t have to pay me from April 1-to the date I have my knee operated on.

She said they’re confident that GB doesn’t have a chance with their appeal.

Dr. P/foot’s office called me around 6PM!?! wanting to know if I wanted to schedule surgery, even without the authorization. I said I’d rather schedule a pre-surgery appointment until I could find out what happens with GBs appeal. So I’m scheduled for April 29th, wouldn’t you know it, the only day available to see Dr. Mind.

I'm going to have to remember to call Teresa to ask if she can take care of the cat while I'm in the hospital... again. With my luck with no internet access, that's when I'll get the killer electric bill with no way to pay it until I get out of the hospital.

Right side pain came back. I'm beginning to think the Morphine pills are just sugar or something. I switched to two Percocets/Oxycodens today, and got near instant relief.

I decided to see how fast I could reconfigure my financial spreadsheet today and did it in an afternoon, adding budget formulas for money I don’t have, and how soon in the future I would have it… (if at all)

Megamillions is $130 million tomorrow night. I can only hope.


Tuesday April 21st 2009
I checked my e-mail this morning and discovered that GB had finally deposited the remainder of last weeks check, so I immediately programmed a check to go out for next month’s rent before they changed their minds. That helped me work out the final cell formula for my spreadsheet for unposted checks, so now that’s done.

If they deposit this Friday’s check like they’re supposed to, I’ll barely be okay. That’s a load off of my mind.

I took a break from re-redoing my spreadsheet-now to accommodate my prescription inventories, and went through Blogcritic’s available review materials, which is great, because I get free DVDs and CDs from artists I choose and like, and all I have to do is write a review of what I think of them.

I found a few DVD box sets and CDs of The Alan Parsons project extended versions, The Mod Squad, Hawaii 5-0, and Dynasty, and sent out e-mails for them.

My left eye is clearing up even more, but I know that while the internal eyeball will be good, I’ll still have a huge amount of debris in it, that only surgery will remove. I’ve got to get it done before I have to renew my driver’s license next year.

MegaMillions is up to about $160 million on Friday.


Wednesday April 22nd 2009
I woke up screaming my head off on the floor next to my bed this morning about 6AM. Fortunately I didn’t hurt or break anything. It was one hell of a nightmare, and I guess fortunately I don’t remember most of it. In a dark cave with my three attackers behind him, the devil with my father’s face, or my father with the devil’s angrily got in my face as I was laying on the ground screaming in frustration, “What do I have to do to finally kill you, huh? WHAT’S IT GONNA TAKE?”

My throat is still sore.

I got an e-mail saying that the four Alan Parsons Project CDs that I was so looking forward to reviewing were no longer available as they were offered last January while I was still in the hospital, even though no one claimed them. Dammit.

Dr. Mind called this evening as she was about to leave her office and I told her about it. She still wants to see me next week, if not sooner.

I was going to go out and plant all those flower seeds in the planters today, but it was just too cold out. Starting Thursday it’s supposed to be in the 80s for about four days straight. I hope I can pry myself out of the apartment. I haven’t been outside since… it just occurred to me that I can’t remember last week. This is starting to scare me. The doctors say it’s normal after what I’ve been through, but now I’m beginning to wonder about brain damage from the loss of blood.

Considering last night, I hope I don’t start staying up until I’m too exhausted to sleep again, hoping for a dreamless night.

This computer has begun running really slow, and I'm wondering if I've got a virus. I'm multiple protected by Window's Defender, Spybot, Window's Firewall, and McAfee. You'd think that would slow anything down, but until Yahoo made me switch from Norton, I was doing fine. I've tried defragging, disk clean up, and dumping my huge temp internet file. I guess what's left is uninstalling McAfee and reinstalling it and hoping for the best.

Someone started clicking on my ads, for which I’m very grateful, but they should know that if they do it more than once or so a day the group tracks I.P. addresses to see if it’s the same person and they’ll give me hell and threaten to pull the ad revenue or worse.


Thursday April 23rd 2009
I’ve been waiting, no cringing, for the latest electric bill so that I can submit it to Medicaid to help me with my Medicare premiums of about $125 a month. I've been telling them my electric bill is about $125 a month, and they want me to send the actual bills to confirm it. Only I, me, only I, could have a problem with too low of an electric bill. According to the city, this is the third month in a row I’ve used absolutely no electricity; the bill says I used zero kilowatts(???), and I’m holding another current bill for $10.70 (the service charge). That means I get to hold my breath again while I wait for next month’s bill to see if it’s a make up bill for five months! Bills due in Feb-$25.??, Mar-$10.70, Apr $10.70, May $10.70 and June?

It’s insane, really insane that nothing in my life, even when it’s good, am I allowed to enjoy it. I called the electric company last month and they assured me that it was an actual reading(s), I left a message with my apartment manager today on his machine to ask if I could see my electric meter. I wonder if it’s even possible for a meter to not be functioning and still provide power?

I drove over to Wal-Mart and nearly emptied what little I have in checking on a couple week’s groceries, gambling on GB not screwing me over with tomorrow’s check. It was in the high 50s today, but I rolled the windows up on the car, put the top down, cranked the heat all the way up, and had a good time. Tomorrow it’s supposed to be good and warm/hot, and I may stay out of the house all day.


Friday April 24th 2009
I went over to my apartment building manager’s office this morning, and found a note on the door saying he wouldn’t be back until Monday. About half an hour later his brother called in answer to my message, so I told him about the electric meter, and also asked him to get maintenance to check my A/C unit on the roof as it was putting out cool air instead of cold last week and with temps in the 80s this weekend, that’s not good.

If the sounds on the ceiling of footsteps are any indication (and not Santa Clause,) I’d say I’ll have cold air for the weekend, and with a free electric bill until they fix the meter, this might turn out to be a good thing.

When he’s done, I’m going to take my watch over to a jeweler’s and have a couple of links taken out of the band (for which a special tool is needed that I don't have, to do it without destroying it, and also I’m going to show up in person at the city utilities office at city hall and explain the situation with the electric bill, hoping to avoid a huge bill next month. I plan to drive a lot in this sunshine, and smile a lot too.

JJ our maintenance man just left; he took me down to see my power meter and indeed it isn’t spinning! He said also that they can’t come back on me and send me a huge bill, we’ll see. I’m going to shower and shave and leave for there now…

4:PM-Well this is cool-maybe some of my bad karma is turning around. I talked to the City Auditor/Treasurer, who informed me that they sent a guy out last week who reported that my meter is working perfectly… Okay. She said to “let sleeping dogs lay and that if I get any hassles to call her personally. Free electric!!! Until they figure it out for themselves! Ho Ho! Now all I have to do is keep my apt. manager from reporting it himself and I’ll be okay.

I drove up north to a little jewelry store I used to do artwork for, and was shocked to see that nearly every store in the strip mall they were in, was gone… except them! They were very nice and took out two links from my watchband and repaired the clip for about $13. I enjoyed the sun and the wind with the top down too. I’m… I’m… I’m having a good day. QUICK, someone call Teresa to come and feel my forehead!


Saturday April 25th 2009
I discovered that I can make the blog banners taller and spent all day redesigning my Gay Pride's web page banner. Then I went out and drove around enjoying the sun.


Tuesday April 28th 2009
If you’ve got the time, check out my Gay Pride page, (link is in the left sidebar) I did a lot of research and was astonished at how many famous gay people there are! I just added about 35 names to the hundred or so that were already there!


Wednesday April 29th 2009
I spent the morning with doctors, and my next round of surgeries are set for mid-May, right in the middle of GBs appeal to my Workman’s comp benefits. Joy. They’re going to try a new medical procedure, which means not having an external fixator around my thigh for months, but might entail being stoned on pain meds for a long time afterward.

They’re concerned about my heart and the possibility of a stroke too. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to hearing that news. Blogcritics Magazine rolled out their new look and redesigned webpage today and it’s a mess. It looks great, but they should’ve held off at least another month until all the technical kinks were worked out. Links that don’t work, article comments with no article titles, an absent “fresh comments” page, authors unable to publish because the damned thing won’t take an ASIN number from Amazon, articles nearly impossible to find unless they were published less than a couple weeks ago with nowhere to look for them, the list goes on and on. I tried to warn them, but all I get is static and “We know that already,” so I’ll let them alone for a while.

I’ve got a ton of articles I want to write before I got in for more surgery, and if I keep getting all their hassle, I might just publish them here than there. Their “must publish here FIRST” bullshit is really starting to wear on me, especially when we don’t get paid for contributing to the success of their website, and after four years I’m wondering if another four is worth the aggravation.

I’ve been having trouble with my car alarm. It arms, and then won’t let me back into it again without setting it off. It means using the back door way in and disarming it, but while I’m doing that, the alarm sounds for a good two minutes anyway. What’s appalling is that in broad daylight in a handicapped slot right in front of a store, no one even gave me a second glance with the thing blaring away! Then when I get home I have to crack open the manual and reprogram the remote again so I can re-arm it.

I didn’t see Dr. Mind today. It sucks not owning Wednesdays at noon anymore, but her receptionist says she’s trying to recapture them for me. I got the first volume of Dynasty season 4 in the mail, and the 6th season of Hawaii 5-0 to review. I’m glad I got the Dynasty free. With most TV series, they release the entire season in one set. With the Mod Squad I discovered they each were divided into two volumes, which cost twice as much to buy an entire season, and if what I’m reading on the box is any indication, Season 4 of Dynasty comes in three volumes! Talk about greed. I’m tempted to tell my readers that it’d be worth it to wait a year or so when the price is marked down on Amazon, to purchase it.

My ears are ringing really loud today, and the chest pains have returned when I inhale all the way. I’m wondering how I’m going to get around when I can’t walk on both legs. One is being operated on; the other is donating bone matter. I’m kind of worried that I’ll be put in a rehab place instead of being able to come home.

We’ll see, I guess.


Thursday April 30th 2009
Yesterday they confirmed a case of killer swine flu in Columbus, then it was revealed it was on the Ohio State campus. Great; now I have to worry about Dr. Mind, and also that’s where I go for treatment for severe depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder… just as I was succeeding in it becoming easier to talk myself into going out my front door, if only just to get the mail!

According to the evening news, that Columbus flu victim was a staffer. From what I've heard, despite the cases growing across the U.S. their all mild, except the kid that was visiting from Mexico that died in Texas. They also say that the masks that everyone's going so berserk to buy aren't dense enough to stop the airbourne virus.

Maybe I should cough a lot at the GB hearing and scare the piss out of them.

March 2009

Since I was unconscious most of February, I'll have to reconstruct it at a later day... Sorry

=========================================

February highlights to come:

~Triple bypass heart surgery
~Nightmare physical rehab facility
~LOW Blood sugars between 51-60
~Infection-sent to E.R.-removal of over 900 CCs of fluid off of left lung.
~Return to hospital after nicked blood vessel explodes in my chest, I lose 1 1/2 times my normal blood content, doctors have to literally slice me open from my shoulder blades to my left side to drain blood out of my chest.
~I die twice in E.R. requiring electricity and CPR
~Drug induced coma for three days
~Hospital stay from Jan 23-Mar 4
===========================================

About a week and a half after the triple bypass surgery on my heart on Jan 23rd, the fluids that were packed into my body cavities began to build up. I was rushed to the hospital again from the physical rehab facility, and a drain was put in my back so that the doctors could take over 900cc of fluid off of my left lung

Unbeknownst to me or anyone else, they nicked a blood vessel with the drain. At first the effects were unnoticed, but kept growing and I was sent home over the weekend to continue recovering.

=================
Mon Feb 16: Morning. I have no first-hand memory of this at all and this was told to me 2nd hand by nurses, emergency squad personnel and my friend Teresa over the last two weeks.

I woke up early Monday 16th with the feeling that something wasn't quite right, but I couldn't name it. I felt dizzy and didn't trust myself to drive to the emergency room, so I called my friend Teresa and asked how soon she could get here.

She said I sounded terrible and raced the 911/squad here(it was a tie-she let them in my apartment). They say I was incoherent when they arrived and would only respond to them through her.

Within minutes of arrival at Grant Hospital I went "Code Blue(?)".

A blood vessel had split and blood began pumping rapidly into my chest cavity instead of my circulatory system. I'm told I didn't lose units, or pints, I lost gallons, or as they put it 1-1/2 my normal blood content and I died (their words), requiring CPR and they had to pull a heart surgeon out of another operation in order to save my life. Within half an hour another was summoned and they resorted to cutting me open from my spine between my shoulder blades to a point between my left armpit and my hip in order to allow the fluid to drain quickly from my torso.

Right after repairing the torn artery, another ruptured, requiring more blood, this one was worse and they told me I died again. Requiring CPR and the electric paddles to bring me back to life. In all, my blood content was replaced three times.

I spent 3 days in a coma in Intensive Care and eventually couldn't remember anything that happened for a week afterward, or my name etc, and I spent the rest in a private room unable to move without Morphine or Percocet.

I'm currently on pain meds, muscle relaxers and heart pressure prescriptions. It's going to be a while before I can update this, so I wanted you all to know I was
alright (so to speak). The amount of fluid they added in order to stabilize my condition after three major operations added 45 pounds to me and I had to lose it before I could function, walk or even eat on my own. Last weekend through a drug called Lasix, I dropped 40 pounds and gained enough strength on my own in order to move and I've improved enough to come home.

I will not be answering the phone etc in order to regain what state of mind I had before this whole ordeal, but I'm glad all of you have sent so many e-mails of concern.

I'm going to be constantly assessed for brain damage because of the loss of blood and things are bound to be both hectic and confusing.

Please bear with me until I've recovered enough to respond...

Jet




Sunday March 8th
GB set the wheels in motion while I was in the hospital on the 17th of last month to cut off my workman's comp checks, but I'm just getting around to opening my mail. Same bullshit from them, they say my heart problems don't have anything to do with my original injuries. The original doctor they hired to take care of my knee won't declare me Maximum Medical Improvement, so they hired a different one to say it was, on the basis of only one brief examination.

It's preying on my mind that parts of my memory are missing, not only from the coma, but that afterward after I woke up, I couldn't remember what happened the previous day in intensive care. How do you remember what you lost? Could this be the very definition of losing my mind.

Flashbacks of the robbery/beating, though nearly five years ago, still had me waking up screaming in my hospital room, to the point of having them knock me out with sleep meds and morphine. My biggest fear is becoming addicted to them.

The only way I can function is on a pain medication, because my chest and ribcage have been ripped open so many times recently and they had to cut through muscle and bone to get to my heart. I found out that Wal-Mart won't have the pain prescription the hospital wrote until next Tuesday and it's killing me since Wednesday night in terms of mental stability and also lack of sleep now that I'm home. I tried calling other places to fill the prescription but their wait is even longer. It's apparently some kind of custom Morphine blend.

The doctors for the third time have tried to take me off of Lantus insulin, and onto something called Novolox 70-30 blend but I don't know how to do syringes yet as my Lantus comes in preloaded pen cartridges where I just dial up the dose and stick on a tiny needle, inject, and it's done.
So by my request, they prescribed the new insulin in pens, but Wal-Mart was all out of it, so I got little bottles... again, but no needles... again, with no scrip for them so I have to wait until Monday to get it straightened out.

All I can remember of that day weeks ago in February is that Monday morning, I didn't feel quite right, and then blink-Wednesday evening I was staring at a false ceiling and wondering how I got there. That means I was in a coma for 2 1/2 days and then woke up in the Intensive Care Unit. I'm worried that the massive loss of blood may have done some brain damage, but I'm not sure... maybe I'm just getting old.

I've had so much stripped away from me; all but a couple of my friends, my career both here and in California and Chicago, a lifestyle of carefree travel and finance. I smile that I had to work pizza delivery to shield my income the same kind of people that come after you when they've found you've won the lotto or something. Somehow I'm still surviving. I still have the penthouse that I've lived in for 22 years and the car I worked so hard to save because it's the first one I bought new, but I could lose what's left of my sanity if they cut off payments for Dr. Morrison at OSU and the Cymbalta prescription that's keeping me in an even keel.

Depression is setting in hard, I'm thinking of hoarding Cymbalta by cutting down to 60mg from 90 to make it last. Suicide is never from my thoughts, but they're overridden by another way to survive this, but I'm running out of strength both mental and physical.

I keep cursing myself by asking what can happen next that's worse than what I've already survived? Congestive heart failure, then a silent heart attack, then surgery to insert stents to keep my coronary arteries open, then a triple bypass, then a blood vessel explodes twice in my chest and I literally die twice in one day.

No court date's been set yet for Workman's Comp to take away most of my income, but the attorney I didn't know I had, assures me it'll be soon. I consulted him on a "favor for a friend" basis in 2007 just to see about Disability, and GB is sending their communications through him now. I told him I felt bad about not being able to pay him, (he's with one of the most prestigious law firms in Ohio), and he says not to worry for now.

A difficult task at best.

Today (Sunday) I have random fluid filling my mouth as if I'm close to throwing up, but after I painfully rush to the toilet, nothing comes up, not even dry heaves. My leg at the graft site appears infected, but not swollen, so I'll leave it to professionals next week. Lack of pain killers and sleep leave me barely able to function mentally. I've still got diarrhea and the water pills are draining the fluids off my legs.

Now if I had something to stem the waves of hopelessness that wash over me constantly...


Monday March 9, 2009
Woke up feeling weak, but carried on anyway, there’s so much to do that I should’ve done yesterday.

I took a blood reading and it was 100; while that’s exactly where it should be, my body’s used to 170-224 so I feel weak at “normal”.
I set to work and called Wal-Mart, but my pain meds haven’t come in yet; God how much more of this can I endure? They asked me to call back in an hour.

I called Dr. Knee’s office and his workman’s comp nurse all but agreed with GB that they shouldn’t be paying me if the heart problems weren’t part of the original injury. She wouldn’t contact the lawyer’s offices, and said they had to contact her. She said that they could reactivate the claim from her office when I’m well enough to have the operation though.

It means I’ve got to live on another $300 or more until June or July before Dr. Heart-2 will sign off on my getting the knee worked on. With a possible/probable rent increase in July and god knows what else. I’m finding it so hard to keep fighting.


Tuesday, March 10, 2009
I went on line and paid as many bills as I could. If I don’t get the GB check this Friday I won’t have enough for April rent, or the car payment afterward.

I called Wal-Mart pharmacy again this morning to see if the morphine came in, and they said it wouldn’t get there until Fed-Ex brought it at noon. At noon (to my relief) they called to say it came in.

There’s nothing I enjoy more than “cruising around with the top down,” but it’s been in the 20s and 30s with snow all over the place, so I was rather shocked when I tuned into the radar channel and they said the current temperature was 79 degrees!!! A new record for Columbus, and I didn’t care where I had to go, I just wanted/needed to be outside. I went out and power/coin washed the car, which at the time I thought was a good idea, but it turned out wasn’t-though I survived. I filled the gas tank and headed for Wal-Mart. All I could hope now was it was in the pill form and not the shots because I still didn’t have syringes. While there I picked up a week’s groceries.

Even though I have one of those two wheel grocery carts to bring things from the car, if it’s filled and heavy, it’s still very exhausting to use. I remember when I could carry all my grocery bags without even considering their weight. I’d heard that a hardware store on campus sold four-wheel carts and decided after Dr. Mind’s appointment tomorrow I’d go look for it before I ran out of money.

The mail was nothing to celebrate.

I’m starting to get collection agency notices already from hospital bills that either Medicare won’t cover or there’ve been paperwork fuck ups. The letter came that my lawyer filed for an extension on the hearing. With all the fluid they put in me during the emergency operations, I’m taking Lasix to get it back off again… but I still have an extra 20 pounds or so to go. Because of this, none of my clothes fit, and I face the prospect of going to a formal hearing in sweat pants and shirt, and offending some uppity judge because of my attire.


Wednesday March 11, 2009
The temperature dropped 45 degrees last night-forecast mean’s no more cruising around with the top down for a while.

No matter what pills I took I couldn’t fall asleep last night, and I wanted desperately to sleep through the chest and back pain. The morphine seemed to work less than the Percocet. Around five in the morning, I had to get up and set the clock/radio for fear of missing my noon appointment. I woke up at 10:30AM and made up a shopping list. Yesterday’s unopened mail revealed a bill for Dr. Mind’s services, which means GB has cut me off. I immediately called Family Pharmacy only to discover that GB had also cut me off from my Cymbalta “cold turkey” again. For once I was prepared for that, as last time I when on a rage rampage and trashed my penthouse from end to end, that it still hasn’t recovered from.

It dawned on me that with all the hospital releases came prescriptions for all the drugs they’d been feeding me, and that one of them just might be Cymbalta. If that’s true, maybe I can get Medicare to pay for it.

I cut myself from 90mg to 60, hoarding the 30 towards such an occasion. I think I have enough of the powerful antidepressant to last for another month or so, if I’m careful.

I got another letter from the lawyer including some “C84s” that’d extend my com checks for Dr. Mind to fill out, so I took them with me on my visit. It was a rough session, since we hadn’t had one in months. The hardest part is that she was informed (but I didn’t know) that GB ordered that I only have two more visits (this one included) this month, and only one next month. She said the bill was a mistake and took it from me, but I suspect she plans to pay it herself. She was only too happy to fill out her C84 and mail it to the lawyer.

The rest of the time was spent covering how alone I feel, how the depression is affecting my sleep again, and now the nightmares are back with a vengeance.

Afterward I set out for the hardware store hidden within the streets of the off-campus student houses east of OSU. After dozens of turns, I found it… it’d closed last week.

I gambled and went up to Meijer’s where I bought the original two-wheeled cart, and was surprised to find a four-wheeled one for $19.95!

When I came home from the hospital, I brought their menu with me and decided to recreate it as closely as I could. To that end, I bought a bunch of deli containers at the restaurant supply store across from Meijer’s, and portioned off cereal, food, salad, cantaloupe, red grapes, orange sherbet etc according to their guide.

When I got home, Dr. Mind called and said she mailed out the C84, but that hers wouldn’t carry as much weight as Dr. Knee’s. She said she talked to a woman at Workman’s Comp and that she was under the impression that as long as I was under appeal and the case was unresolved, that GB couldn’t cut off my checks. We’ll see Friday… which I just realized was the 13th.


Thursday March 12-Sunday March 15
This has begun to happen to me a lot under stress. I don't remember what I did yesterday, nor do I remember today. I just woke up from a daze and it's all gone; like the time I woke up in the hospital. Either I'm going crazy, have Alzheimer's, or I suffered brain damage after the emergency.

In any case, it's really fucking with my brain that I can't remember things that happened an hour ago. It's like the time I drove almost all the way to Indiana before I woke up and had no idea how I got there a few years ago.

Can you imagine the feeling that you can't trust your own mind?


Monday March 16th 2009
Well, I’m back to jotting things down so I’ll remember them. Nuff said.

I got a harassing phone call from some collection agency for over $1,700 from when I had the heart attack last August. I explained my situation. She said she’d stop the calls, but there was nothing she could do about the collection process.


Tuesday March 17th 2009
Got a nasty e-mail from my Pittsburgh sister today, implying that I'd somehow threatened her job with this blog. Considering that her name is never mentioned and we have no common friends, and that she's changed her name twice through marriage, somehow I don't see that happening.

It took me a while just to find the passage she was referring to, and then, it's too vague to even be concerned with. As usual, she's more concerned about how the world revolves around her, than to be in the least concerned that I died twice last month... which is why I still don't believe she could be that upset over not being able to come and see me in the hospital. More than likely she's just upset that my Aunt Margaret knows more about my life than she does.

I've decided not to deal with her anymore, it's just not worth the hassle or the drama. My one regret is not being able to talk to my mom, since she doesn't know how to use e-mail, my sister reads it first. I've tried calling her cell phone, but the last few times I've called, my sister either answered my mom's phone, or was near enough to be within earshot.


On the health front I've developed a lump about the diameter of a grapefruit that's sticking out about an inch, just beneath my left armpit and I may have to go back into the hospital about it, if I can't get an appointment with Dr. S, my general physician.


Wednesday March 18th 2009
Woke up this morning to sister B’s regular phone call and was in agony. The lump beneath my left armpit is getting more and more sore. It’s 7:15AM so I’m going to wait till 8 AM and see if I can get into Dr. S. If I can’t I’ll have to go wait in the emergency room.

I guess while I’m waiting I’ll update my medical history...

The hospital called and said Dr. E was in surgery. The outpatient clinic called and said my doctor will be out of town until next Monday but that it was something that my heart surgeon should see, I called Dr. S's office and he was in surgery at the hospital and Dr. D is unavailable too. I finally had to settle for an appointment with Dr. S tomorrow at 10AM.

I guess I'll just have to get stoned on Percocet or Morphine and try to endure. Before you envy me, junkies only use them to get high, but if you actually NEED the damned stuff, it does nothing special for you... except take away the pain...

Thankfully.

I called Teresa this morning in case I have to ask her to take care of the cat while I'm in the hospital, and as usual she said she would-God lover her. Spent the afternoon with Dr. Mind. It's really fucked up that this'll be my last visit with her until April 7th. The workman's comp hearing has been put back to 3PM April 1st. How do I convince myself that the following is coincodence???

A. My last authorized visit with Dr. Mind is April 1st
B. My doctor's follow up appointment with Dr. D/Heart is... you guessed it April 1st

And people wonder why I have a persecution complex?

I'm going to spend the rest of the day trying to mentally relax, somehow I don't see it happening.

I just got off the phone with my sister B on the west coast, she had wonderful news, when her co-workers and inmates at the jail found out that she was being laid off tomorrow, they fell all over themselves looking for a position there as a state worker and found one as a "gate keeper". It doesn't open up until a couple of months from now, so they went beserk on the computer and made up a resume so she could put in aplications for a temp job until it opens up and made her up around 15 copies.

It's so wonderful and I'm so happy for her, she'll get to stay where she is working with people she knows and who already love her. She said she was driven to tears when they went berserk trying to make sure there was some way she could stay there, and the prisoners went bonkers trying to show her how much they'd miss her. I've been really worried about how down she's been the closer to her being laid off tomorrow, but now that her state/sheriff friends at work are really pulling for her to stay, come hell or high water, I feel much better.

I envy her the love they have for her. I made her promise to call me and tell me about the party that's being planned for her last day tomorrow.

I just took two percocets and I think I'm getting stoned, it doesn't hurt to lift my left arm. All I have to do now is remember to set the clock/radio tonight for Dr. S's appointment...


Friday March 20th 2009
Dr. S-Heart told me yesterday that it was a grossly swollen muscle that'll take about two months to heal, nothing to be done but to suffer through it.

I got a phone call from Dr. Sk-MD this evening. He was apologizing that he couldn't see me earlier and I was really touched by his concern. I told him what Dr. S-Heart said and he said okay and that he would be in his office Monday afternoon.

Next Monday afternoon would've been my Workman's Comp hearing... (sigh)

Suddenly all energy left me around 7PM and I fell asleep and didn't wake till 1AM. This is really starting to get to me.

Sunday March 22nd 2009
Yesterday was hell, Today is still hell.

Yesterday, I was still in the throws of my coughing fits. They'd end up with my suddenly feeling like I was going to throw up, because my mouth would start watering really bad. Most of the time, I'd just swallow it (water) other's I'd run to the toilet only to lean over it and let it drip/drool into the toilet, but nothing else happened. These episodes would last about 30-45 seconds on the coughing, and as much as five minutes on the watering mouth.

On top of that, I'm burping up the most god-awful tasting gas that's a cross between mud, lawn grass and dog shit. I have a total loss of appetite, not a good idea for a diabetic. I can't tell if it's the burning sensation as food hits my gut, or the total lack of energy for getting up and preparing something-even something simple to eat.

This afternoon the coughing fits and burping continued, still dry, but now along with the feeling like I'm about to throw up, add on the feeling I'm near passing out.

I want to call 911, but another part of me says I can't afford the uncovered squad trips to the hospital, and yet another wants me to die (if that's what's going to happen) and be done with it.

I hate feeling like this. I used to be so carefree, now I can't reach backward in time and regain my health, my muscles, and my bank account, my multi-careers... So what's left for me to need to hang onto... I'm finding it harder and harder to find a reason, and the constantly increasing misery and hopelessness I fear will soon overtake what strength I have left.

I'm going to try to take a shower, empty the cat litter, and then drive out to Wal-mart for supplies... if I make it that far.

Update 1 2PM-I'd say I don't fucking believe it, but I do. I couldn't even muster the energy to go from the den to the shower. It looks like I'll colapse on the bed and sleep. I know the lack of energy is from not eating, but...
Oh to hell with it...

Update 2-6:45PM-Forced myself into the shower, it didn't help, though I feel cleaner. I changed the cat litter, and collapsed back in my chair in the den where I'm typing this.

For the first time in a long time the heaves started and I ran to the toilet, but of course they were dry... again. All I have to show for it is an aching chest. Time for a Percocet and maybe a Morphine together, because it hurts just to move.



Thursday March 26th 2009
Monday morning it all came to a head and I had to be rushed to the hospital again. The feeling like I was going to pass out, and the weakness was because I had two ulcers. I was leaking blood into my stomach and it wasn’t pretty.

Today, just to keep me reminded that I'm never safe, my left eye began hemoraging from diabetic rhetinopathy and has little drops of blood in it, and is completely blurred.

I just got home a few minutes ago from Wal-Mart and have to wait for my ulcer medication until tomorrow, so as usual it’ll take me a while to catch up.



Friday March 27th 2009
After them saying I'd have to come back today, the pharmacy told me today that my Nexium for my ulcer medicine wasn't covered by Medicare without "prior authorization" and I'd have to wait for a doctor's call to the pharmacy. It's just like the scrip for the morphine pills that I couldn't get filled for nearly a week only to find they didn't seem to do anything.

I've lost count of how many times I've screamed "I DON'T FUCKING BELIEVE THIS!"

They're making an ulcer patient wait for ulcer medication.

With the loss of 60 pounds in 4 weeks, I bought a belt today and discovered I fit in my medium jeans and my skinny jeans jacket... let's see how long that lasts.


Saturday March 28th 2009
Morning: Still no word on the Nexium prescription.

For some reason I’ve got the urge to buy flowers for my balcony, maybe some petunias and geraniums. I haven’t opened my curtains in possibly two years, much less sat out there and enjoyed the sun and view.

The stronger part says to keep fighting, to not give up, to shake my fist in the face of the fates that keep striking me down every time I get up from the last blow. An old friend named Gonzo once told me “fall down nine times-get up ten.” While nice, I’ve exceeded that limit.

I miss creating, writing, art etc because it used to be such an important part of my being. The explosion of self-confidence in the late 80s, when I began to travel and started making good money keeps haunting me. I’ve even begun to miss the fantasy cars I used to create for myself and others when I had the means and connections. One in particular: the twin of the Triumph TR9 that I got as an insurance settlement. On a whim, I decided to create a perfect duplicate of the car in case one got hit, complete with the tricked out Buick 3.8 litre V6 grand national, Borg-Warner 5-speed manual hooked up to a 69 Ford Torino 12-bolt 9-inch rear end. Stainless steel pipes, Edlebrock 4-barrel carb and intakes, custom Cyclone headers and acceleration that would press you into the seat... and of course those British Racing Green fog lamps.

I get nostalgic when I see an old movie just looking at cars in the background. The 50-70s were an era when you could just look at a car and be able to tell the make model and year at a glance. Sadly those days are gone.

My left eye is beginning to clear up ever so slowly. The debris from the hemorrhage is consolidating into big maroon clots that float in my line of sight like I’m living in a lava lamp. Yesterday I couldn’t make out anything but a blur around them, but now I’m beginning to make out vague shapes. Nothing that will give me three-dimensional vision, but it’s better than nothing. There’s always the possibly of one of the clots going to my heart, lungs or brain.

Somehow I don’t think God wants me to die that quickly. If not God, than he knows whose torturing me, and is doing nothing to stop it, so it’s the same as God himself sanctioning it.

Evening: Spent the afternoon playing phone tag between the pharmacy and the hospital and it looks like nothing's going to get done until Monday. Expected. How I didn't get an ulcer long before this I'll never know.

I'm still thinking about getting out tomorrow and shopping flower seedlings. Maybe I'll take Teresa with me. I guess that means I intend to hang around long enough to see them grow. Teresa's found a house that she really likes, maybe I'll offer her $300 a month to rent a room from her... yeah right. There's two things wrong with that, A. Friends should NEVER live together, B. I'd never be able to drag myself out of this penthouse after living here since 1987.


Sunday March 29th 2009
Spent the morning and afternoon redesigning my financial spreadsheet again, since my medications keep varying from week to week, I've decided to stop trying to track them, which gave me more screen space for tracking budget and cashflow problems.

Had a nice long talk with my Aunt Margaret today, she calls me every day to see how I'm doing, and it makes me feel less alone. Except for my sisters in Oregon, she's the only one in my family that accepts me for who I am and what I am without reservation or judgment. I just wish I lived closer to her. I used to have that same kind of relationship with my mother, but she lost her house and moved and it all fell apart like a soggy doughnut... alas.

Called Wal-Mart pharmacy and Medicare still hasn't authorized the prescription, so I've gone nearly 4 days without the ulcer medication.

Later today, I'm going to start gathering papers from files to try to fight GB trying to take my checks away... and do my laundry.


Monday March 30th 2009
I found out today that Chrysler's going under, possibly for the last time. If anything fucks up on the car, I'm screwed. According to my understanding, even though I'm the only registered owner of the car (according to the bank) Chrysler and the state of Ohio consider me the second owner because I purchased it from a lease technically making Hunting*** Bank the first owner. I've tried to explain that Hunging*** converted the lease to a loan, but according to the registration I'm the 2nd owner, which voids all original owner 75,000 mile coverages and the dealership claims I bought it "as is".

Fortunately nothing has gone wrong with it.

According to most news agencies this morning, the government now considers Chrysler a small enough company to let fail on its own without further emergency assistance. In other words they want to cut their losses and run. Apparently their only hope now is Fiat... joy!

Well I guess I could start bragging I drive an Italian sports convertible now?

I called Grant Hospital and Wal-Mart, they both say the problem is Medicare refusing to approve it because the prescription is for two Nexiums a day and they only want to pay for one. I tried to explain to them that my ulcer problem is so bad that it required hospitalization and warranted two pills a day, but now I haven’t been able to get them since last Thursday and they all say there’s nothing they can do.

I called Dr. D/heart and had to reschedule my appointment with him because it's the same day as the workman's comp hearing on Wednesday. Rescheduled for Monday the 6th.

My best friend Teresa came over this morning to check up on me, and it brightened my whole day having someone close by that cares so much. If I were straight I'd be madly in love with her. My whole attitude is so much better with her visit and the smiles she forced me to use, god love her.

While she was here, Wal-Mart called to say Medicare finally approved the prescription, and the problem wasn't what I thought it was. The approval was requested for 2 years!!!!!! of which they gave one!

I called the hospital and they said that considering the stress I was under, it's possible I'll need it for a year.

my god

My left eye is falling into the pattern the right eye did before I required surgery. The debris from the burst blood vessels is floating all over the place to the point of having to close it in order to read. For all intents and purposes I'm blind in my left eye. Even though it's gradually clearing, it's the maroon tint that's clearing, but the blurred vision is like a sheet of plastic wrap over a pair of glasses, just enought to make out shapes, but impossible to focus.


Tuesday March 31st 2009
JUST when I was silly enough to think things couldn't possibly get stranger, I checked the automatic payments on my checking accounts when I seemed to have about $250 more than I thought I should, only to discover that my electric bill for February was $25.37, My electric for March was $10.70, and my bill due the first of April is $10.79 !!!!????????!!!!

Either someone is helping on my electric, or the bills were estimates. (January was $126.90)... Now I know I spent most of January through March in the Hospital, but I did leave the heat on for the cat, and the fridge still ran etc.

The scary part is if they're only estimated readings, and they take an actual reading in April, I could be looking at a catch-up bill for over $300. If they take workman's comp away tomorrow, Social Security will raise their checks, but with them deducting the "overpayment" that no one will explain, I'll fall $300 a month short of my basic bills and expenses as it is, and that could be devastating.

Now the question is am I stupid enough to call the electric company; or just let sleeping dogs lay and hope for the best?

January 2009

Saturday the 3rd
The new year starts out with hope, after all what else do I have? Either my heart's getting weaker or the depression is getting deeper, because I can't stay awake for more than three hours at a time, which worries me. Except for finishing up my 2009 financial spreadsheet and my electronic calendar reminders, not much has happened in the first three days of the year.

I've searched all over the place and can't find my car registration. I have a feeling it was in the clear plastic bag that the plates came in, and when I had my oil changed at the dealership, it might have been discarded.

I'd intended to get out to Wal-Mart at first light, but just couldn't get moving. I still don't have a duplicate Medicare card, so I'm thinking of just taking in all the paperwork. I've resolved to do three tests a day on my blood sugar and to take all my prescriptions full strength. After doing an inventory for the spreadsheet, I've got about an extra month on most of my pills in case Disability, GB, or Medicare cut off the prescription help.

For that I'll need test strips, the most expensive part of the whole problem. That's why they give the testers away free, they make their profits on the test strips.

My state of mind is sort of an emotionless numb. Dr. Mind's back in town this Wednesday. With the exam that GB insists I have that morning, it's going to be tough getting from one appointment to her.

I have a feeling I've got a heart clinic appointment this Monday too...

I went out to Wal-Mart for supplies and left thank you notes for my neighbors D and Vicki for their Christmas cards. My damned car alarm went on strike again, and unfortunately it's years out of warranty. Fortunately when it does, it won't let me or anyone else in, rather than just going dead. It's a long and annoying process of turning my key to the "on" position, pressing and holding the secret button and then waiting for three chirps, then hitting all the buttons, one at a time and hoping for the best. Of course to get in to do this entails setting off the alarm. I was surprised to watch everyone in the parking lot at WM just keep walking on by as if nothing were happening with my alarm going off.

Today's mail, I swear I don't know where I get the strength...

First I owed Social Security for some clerical error $2,424
Then the last week of December I owed them $2,900

Back a couple of months ago I got a letter saying my Disability check would be increased to $484. A few weeks later it dropped to $464, then Medicaid said I made too much on what I'm getting from workman's comp, so they're charging me about $100 a month for medicare premiums and my check dropped to $384. Now they're saying they're taking more money out for what I owe them and my checks are dropping to $347.

GB in the meantime seems to insist that I go to their doctor's appointments that are on the same days as the preliminary tests for my heart surgery because I was stupid enough to e-mail them the dates of my exams or they'll stop my checks.

I am so close to swallowing all of my pills and saying to hell with it...


Monday the 5th
I was determined to get to Social Security today, and had another mental coma. I started sorting letters since October (none had the same amount of my checks or how much I owed them) in fact I can't even understand why I owe them. Anyway I started at 8AM and after about an hour I decided to take a break and play a game of chess on my computer, and looked up and it was after 2PM.

I don't know what I did during those last hours, but I know it's like the depression I had in 2005 where I'd sit on the side of my bed and stare at the wall for hours and think only 10 minutes had gone by.

I tried calling Dr. Mind but she was with a client. I got my federal tax books and don't know if I'm even supposed to file a return. The confusing letters just from Disability are over an inch thick.

Dr. Mind called me this evening and I told her about the latest news; she said to bring all of my paperwork with me to our session on Wednesday and she'd try to work it out into something understandable.


Tuesday the 6th
It's starting again; I didn't wake up until 6PM today. The worst part is trying to keep my prescriptions on schedule as to when I'm supposed to take them. I'm just now taking this morning's doses and unless I space them right, I'll be up till 4 tonight.


Wednesday the 7th
I went to the first half of the process to keep my workman's comp checks re-certified. I actually made it to the designated doctor's office at 20 after for my 9:30AM appointment, only to find that they'd put the wrong time on my appointment letter and I had to sit there in the waiting room for an hour and a half before they'd see me. The office turned out to be directly above the doctor's office that'll be doing my heart.

I got some cranky old man who looked at the x-rays of my foot and then ordered x-rays of my knee. I have a bad feeling about this. It's obvious that my knee is over 20 degrees out of alignment, but he could say that it can't be fixed. After all, he's being paid by the company that's trying to cut me off from my checks and financial help.

I got to Dr. Mind's office on time (barely) and couldn't find a parking slot. Wandered the offices to try to buy quarters for the parking meter, and wound up calling her up and having her come down with some. The parking guys told me that the center island meters were good for an hour, but the notices still said half an hour, because the work order hadn't been filled for the new ones... so I put a quarter in 15 min, 2nd quarter in 30min. 3rd quarter... 30min. I had no choice, our sessions last an hour so I had to gamble.

We went over all the Social Security papers I'd collected and she was aghast. The only choice is for both of us to go there together Friday after next, but I have a GB med exam to extend my benefits another 30 days on that day.

I just can't get a break.

At least I didn't get a parking ticket.


Thursday the 8th
I went on line this morning to try to complete one of the most depressing chores that anyone can do. Completing a will update and a Living will, in case I wind up in a coma the rest of my life.

Of my most cherished possessions there's my tapestry, my piano and my desk. More and more I'm beginning to believe that I'll just go out like a burnt out light bulb... so why bother? I won't feel the passing of time/eons after I'm gone.

I just got a glimpse of my calendar. I have to go to Grant Hospital tomorrow for pre-admission testing for my triple bypass. It's now a reality instead of a concept... I could be dead in a matter of weeks.


Friday the 9th
I made it to my preliminary exam for my heart operation today. They're wavering between the 23rd and the 25th because of scheduling. Everyone's bitching I don't send them a date, and I don't even know it for sure myself now.

For the first time I had to piss into a cup!

They took an EKG and sent me on my way. Monday, I have to report to the Heart Failure clinic for some blood work. I've got so many doctors now I need a score card to keep track of them. Went to Wal-Mart and picked up enough supplies to last for two weeks, I don't want to leave food to rot in the fridge like last time.

I've become less and less afraid of death, probably because I no longer believe in heaven or hell. That neither gives me comfort nor concern. Living alone does that. Maybe I'm hoping that I'll die on the operating table by someone else's hand, as I'm too much of a coward to do it myself.

I still haven't written a will, I've got less than a couple of weeks now, I better get busy. On the other hand it'd be a fitting revenge to let them fight over my stuff against the State of Ohio when they try to recoup my burial costs.


Monday the 12th
Went to the Heart Failure clinic at the hospital today. They did a blood work up on me and I'm still low on potassium, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHRGH! I hate those damned pills, they're huge and hard to swallow, so you have no choice but to let the damned things partially melt in your mouth before washing it down. Then you burp the rest of the day tasting of hard boiled eggs.

With all the cheap food I've been forced to buy lately, I was worried about my sodium (salt) content, but they said it was fine. She said it was most likely that my recovery time would be three weeks, but that I'd only be in the hospital a few days... after heart surgery??????

Come to think of if; my mom was only in the hospital a couple of days after she had surgery on hers too.

So much for saving about three weeks of prescriptions and food... damn it. My only hope now is to find a way to straighten out the whole social security/disability/medicaid mess.

I got a comment on the photo of a TR9 prototype I used to own that reminded me of the good old days when I had lots of money, confidence, and a body to go with them.

I spent the rest of the day sleeping, knocking around the house, or watching TV.

I've been tempted to go to Big Boy's and eat a "death by chocolate"-which is chocolate cake, with a wedge of vanilla ice cream in the middle, covered with hot fudge, whipped cream and a cherry. Being diabetic, it really would be death. God I can't remember the last time I ate a cherry! (No jokes from the peanut gallery please)


Wednesday the 14th
I saw Dr. Mind today, gads the roads were a nightmare, though I must admit I've missed seeing giant fluffy snowflakes. The trouble is; let a billion of them come together, through the majestic force of nature... they can screw up a whole city!

Dr. Mind's meeting me at the social security place at 9:30AM Friday morning, so I'll have to get busy assembling papers. (groan)

Had some chest pain for which I did a nitro glycerin tab, which helped. Stopped at the store and picked up some supplies and came home and slept... I do a lot of that lately.


Friday the 16th
I went to the social security office with Dr. Mind this morning. We've got a windchill factor of -25 this morning, the car wouldn't remote start, so I had to go down and babysit it fluttering the gas pedal to keep it running. At least it started.

I thought my hands were going to freeze to the steering wheel. I've got about 20 pages of some kind of waiver request to comprehend and fill out. Dr. Mind seemed to think there was reason to be optimistic, but I've got my doubts... we'll see.

I've got a 2:45 appointment at WorkHealth this afternoon.

I just found out that GB (as feared) didn't direct deposit my workman's comp check into my checking. Unfuckinbelievable.


Saturday the 17th
I woke up around 8 this morning with really bad chest pain, and burping up what tasted like hard-boiled eggs again. After about half an hour of moving around, I resorted to a nitro glycerin tab and at 9 I felt better.

I checked my checking account and BC deposited my regular Friday check today, but it's pending and I can't touch it until the 20th... bastards.

My chest is still really tight and tender to the touch. Hopefully I'll make it through to Friday. Over at BC, JOM is now going by H&C? I'm not going to leave a legacy of good articles only to have the son-of-a-bitch leave his shit derogatory remarks on them, so I may just publish them here exclusively instead. He seems to have gained some fans, that are encouraging him on, fortunately he's being an asshole on someone elses work.

Tons of snow keeps falling and it was -26 last night. My electric bill will probably to $160-200. definitely not what I need.

Saturdays are usually slow days for me, I hope this one stays that way.

I got drowsy and felt weak so I went back to bed, and woke up laying in my own diaheria. I'm so close to giving up. I cleaned it the best I could with disinfectant and then dumped alcohol all over it. Went to wal-mart and bought a new blanket and some laundry soap. The bedroom smells like shit and disinfectant. I don't think I have the strength to try to flip the huge mattress, but I guess I have no choice.

I'll be busy down in the laundry room. I've taught myself lately to not ask how this can possibly get worse.


Sunday the 18th
I woke up late this morning and everything was in total silence. I was shivering, felt cold, and my feet were freezing. My skin was cold to the touch and I thought that maybe I was dead it was that surreal.

That's when I realized the power was out. I got up and put on a sweat suit and socks and went back to bed. Mischief came in really handy today as her normal body temperature is around 102.

The power stayed out until around 3 this afternoon.

Just what I need, to come down with pneumonia just before a heart operation. I'm feeling weaker and weaker and out of breath by the day.

I watched them pull the A320 out of the murky water off of Battery Park in New York City and was astonished at how the upper half of the jet looks brand new and the lower half was almost completely shredded.

I was going to watch the Lincoln Memorial concert for Obama, but the power failure took out our building's HBO converter, so I missed it.

I checked the news on line and found the actor that played the robot in the original "Lost in Space" (Danger, Danger Will Robinson!" died of congestive heart failure. I've had two bouts with congestive heart failure myself and survived both of them. In my current state of mind I don't know if that's a good thing or not.

I got really tired around 3PM and went back to bed. Woke up at 9:30PM.

Typical day.



Monday the 19th
Started out the day with a call from Grant Hospital, the operation's set for the 23rd instead of the 25th. I was shaking my head that they were doing surgery on a Sunday, but I guess their schedule was packed. I have to report at 5:30 AM. Gads....

Tomorrow's inauguration day. A day that'll bring joy and completion to a lot of people's lives... but not mine. Oh don't get me wrong, I voted for him and supported him, but I look at tomorrow as a missed personal opportunity.

I have two siblings who to the best of my knowledge, haven't even told their grown children that our grandfather on my father's side was black.

I've always been proud of my racial heritage, (which has gotten me into trouble a few times.) So why would I regret tomorrow? If only I still had the financial means, if I had the mental strength, I'd be there in Washington D.C. I'd be there, with my eyes closed summoning the spirits of my late father and grandfather, and when I knew that they were there with me, I'd open my eyes and focus my ears and let them be overwhelmed by the swearing in of the first black president. I'd let their pride wash over me and knew that they were happy.

Of course my father maybe a bit less than his father, but that's because Dad was a stone-cold steel-willed Republican, who would probably only grudgingly acknowledge the pride he felt at that milestone, and maybe point out (aw he's only half-black anyway) to which I'd have to remind him that so was he.

I'll be watching it on TV instead, but maybe they'll join me here.

It's a strange thought, considering my feelings of late; that death is merely a cessation of existence, no heaven, no hell, no after-life. You are then you aren't.

I've only felt the spirits of two people, my late cousin Billy and Michael Plake. It's like a battle in my head as to which concept of after death is correct. I guess for most people it's a matter of which gives you more comfort.

Right now neither fits the bill for me... Unfortunately.


Tuesday the 20th
Spent the day watching the inauguration festivities. It'd figure that Bush would pick a chief justice who can't even keep the oath of office straight in his head, or at least have the presence of mind to bring a "cue card"

I fear I've gotten a cold or some congestion from the power being off, just what I need this close to surgery.

B, I my sister that calls me every morning on her way to work hasn't called in almost a week, so I called her. It turns out she's having trouble with her cell phone company and only just get it straightened out so she can make calls. I was worried.

Heart surgery is coming up now in a matter of days. It's getting harder to realize that I might only have a scant week or so to live.

Knowing my condition having read my comments on BC's website wherever I go, JOM/H&C said I should try to find a Jehovah's witness on Friday. I was so pissed I nearly quit BC and deleted my profile... but at the last minute decided not to burn that bridge.


Wednesday the 21st
Started out the day at Dr. Mind's. Since I don't have an "official" will, she asked me to write out for her what I wanted done with me, and my stuff if I didn't survive the surgery on my heart. My god that was depressing. She went over the Disability forms with me, so after I mail them tomorrow maybe something good will happen for a change.

I was waiting at the corner of 10th and High and had a flashback of my attackers running towards the car threatening to shoot me through my window if I didn't unlock the door, it was so real I almost ran the light.

I went to Wal-Mart today to pick up my prescriptions and instead of it coming to about $25 with my co-pays she asked for over $135. It turns out that while they appeal my case they shut off part of Medicare part D. It's ridiculous, they cover all my diabetes supplies EXCEPT the test strips! I could afford everything if they weren't trying to charge me for the diabetes test strips at full price... so I got everything but. This means that once I get back from the hospital, I'll have to guess at my Lantus insulin dosages.

I've got to go see GBs psychiatrist tomorrow to confirm that I'm really stressed out. I'll prove that easily enough; after I e-mailed them my surgery was on the 23rd, they heartlessly scheduled the appointment for the 22nd-tomorrow. No amount of explaining is going to convince me that's not a coincidence.

I'm getting weaker and weaker to the point that if I bend over to pick up something off the floor I get dizzy, and if I go from the living room to the dining room I get winded, panting for breath.

There are times when I hope I don't survive the operation day after tomorrow...


Thursday the 22nd
Tom came by and took my father's hard drive. I'd reformatted the unit five times, ran a strong magnet over it and then baked it in the oven. The place smells like burnt plastic. My family will probably hate me for it, but all of the hatred, and terrible things he revealed about them from within his twisted mind is now gone forever, and now it's only my burden to carry.

My family would be at each other's throats if they'd had access to it. I think my father left it to me because he knew how much it'd torture me, and the effect it'd have on completely destroying any relationships I had left with them.

I got a call from my good friend Teresa today and she will indeed come over and check on Mischief for me while I'm in the hospital-god love her. She pointed out an aspect of this heart operation I hadn't considered; the chest is completely covered with muscle which has to be cut through in order to get to the ribs and heart. Not only do my heart and ribs have to heal, but my muscles have to knit back together, and I'll probably be very sore for a long time afterward.

That's going to be rough to survive. It's possible that I may have to go to a nursing home or something to recover for a while.

Anyway, she took a lot off my mind that Mischief will be okay.

I spent two hours at the psychiatrist hired by GB today, I swear the first hour was covered asking me questions about what date this or that was operated on and he'd jot them down on a legal pad, and I kept pointing out that he had all that info in the sheet I'd just handed him... it was like he didn't care and that his diagnosis was a foregone conclusion.

Every time I tried to talk about the ordeal I was going through, he'd interupt with another question about which doctor worked on my foot or ankle or arm. What seemed like an hour went by like that.

My last supper will be home made submarine sandwiches on wheat rolls.

Should this be my last entry, it's been fun... It could take me a long time to recover, and get back to this.

December 2008

Wednesday the 3rd
Hit the ground running and paid the electric and phone on line. I'm planning to take my temp/title and finally buy plates for the car, then hand carry the documents over to my caseworker and try to get this shit with my disability check resolved. My direct deposit for December was only $328 and I'm going to be in some serious hurting if I don't get it done.

These depression symptoms are holding me back, and I've got to find some way to defeat them. I see Dr. Mind this afternoon and this being frozen for hours at a time has got to stop.

I still haven't heard from Dr. S-heart, though Dr. P-knee sent him permission to operate on my heart. I have a feeling GB's just waiting for an excuse to cut me off, so I'm going to have to take matters into my own hands.
-------------------------------
I should've known better than to think I could take control of a runaway train/life. I came home to pick up some extra paperwork I needed and found a letter from Social Security saying that because some clerk had put in that I was getting paid twice a month instead of every two weeks, I'd received over payments from Disability over the last three years totalling $2,424, which means the full amount of my monthly disability checks will be withheld by them until it's fully paid back. I won't see a check from disability until June of next year and then it'll only be a partial one. On top of that I'll be billed an additional $124 that I can't afford a month for Medicare coverage, meaning my only income will be from GB/workman's comp, whose only purpose in life is to find a way to cut off my checks.

-------------
It's 5:20 in the morning. I can't make the rent and car payment on $882 a month, much less heart prescriptions, utilities and groceries. It's all so hopeless. Over the last couple of weeks I've seen a couple of social workers and none can untangle this mess, much less explain it so I can understand it.

I'm still looking at triple bypass surgery on my heart, and operations to my knee. By February I'll have lost my car that I fought for so hard and I'll probably be evicted from my home of over 21 years by my birthday in May.

In front of me is a clear plastic glass, containing all of my heart, blood pressure pills, Plavix and Percocet/Oxycodone. beside it is a big glass of diet Dr. Pepper. The coward in me is stronger than I thought, I've just spent half an hour sorting them back into their individual bottles. I feel so defeated

It's amazing how my life can go from up to devastation in the space of a day. I'm going to call Dr. Mind tomorrow and see if I can get an additional appointment with her. If not I may not make it through the weekend.

How much more can I take?
Not much I'm afraid


Thursday the 4th
Throughout the night things just kept building up in me last night. This morning I made an effort to get ahold of Social Security, but gave up. I called Dr. Mind's secretary and found she had an 8AM opening, so I went to meet with her and she confirmed my fear that I'd read the paperwork right; I'll get nothing from Disability until July of next year because of some 3-4 year old paperwork fuckup to the tune of almost $2,500.

Apparently I looked so devastated, she wanted to admit me on an inpatient basis, but I resisted that because I have no one to take car of Mischief.

I meant to drive straight home and found myself on the other side of town instead and went to Wal-Mart. I bought enough food to last me til maybe Christmas... I hope.

I fought so