Sunday the 20th
Big news… I hope.
I’ve been absent on and off for the last few weeks because I’ve been so crushingly depressed that I couldn’t function, but now I’ve found a project that just might pull me out of this both emotionally and financially… if it isn’t too late.
I’m starting a new business from the “virtual” ground up. Using tools from Amazon, I’m building a cyber store “Jet’s General Store & Gay Pride Shoppe” from scratch. As with any business, the problem is what to decide to stock the shelves with. The cool part of this is it only costs me my time, and once I have it set up, it virtually runs itself!
No money! Details to come, but it’s very time consuming.
Details to follow soon
Tuesday the 1st
A really nice man from Dr. Mind’s church group gave me a ride to my eye surgery this morning. He also insisted on giving me a ride home too, saving my beautiful Eisenhower silver dollars from ending up in the pocket of some ungrateful cab driver. In gratitude, I gave him one, which he accepted graciously.
Surgery has become such a regular thing to me that it’s nearly mundane, though never what I expect. I think the thing that nearly drove me crazy was people coming into the prep room and all of them asking me the same question, some in the presence of other, but some lawyer in an office demanded that they ask.
“Are you allergic to any medications?” “Are you allergic to any anesthesia?” “What is your birthday?” and two guys came in and standing side-by-side, one asked, “What eye are you having operated on today?” and then put a mark over my left eye. Then the other asked, with the first still standing there, “What eye are you having operated on?” and then put his own mark over my eye. Hospitals are not run by doctors… they’re run by lawyers.
I thought I was going to be awake for the operation like the last time, but I went under and woke up just in time for them to pull my eye lens out. One moment I could see, the next I was blind, then just as quickly I could see again. Everything was tinted brown. It turns out that the lens is tinted to protect from ultra violet rays. I knew it was coming, but I still hated knowing that my color perception would now be permanently altered. She said not to worry, that my brain would retrain itself and within a few days I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
Still, it’s a strange feeling to know that one eye will see one color and the other something else, but that my brain will be able to reconcile that. They issued me a small metal oval-shaped eye patch with holes drilled in it that reminded me of a kitchen sink drain strainer complete with a black rubber seal around the perimeter. Inside of it was a cotton pad that’s supposed to keep my eyelid closed and the whole contraption was taped to my face.
Dr. Mind’s church friend Paul came and got me and I was surprised that the operation took nearly two hours instead of the half an hour I was given the impression it’d take. When I got home I was still groggy and spent the rest of the afternoon sleepy. I woke up this evening with a headache and the cotton-padding pressing against my eyelid is driving me crazy. DON’T RUB IT!!!
I have to go back in tomorrow, but can’t find a ride, so I’ll just have to drive myself one-eyed… that’ll be fun.
I’m sitting here trying to figure out what to do about the rent. The latest that I can turn it in is the 3rd, but GB doesn’t deposit it until Friday the 4th. The only thing that I can think to do is to turn in the check to him after 3PM when the banks flip their transactions over and hope he doesn’t cash it until Friday. God it sucks to have to think like this; I used to pay my rent a fucking year in advance.
I’m sitting here typing this out and have only now noticed a bright orange mystery armband with a strange word on it. NKAM… ? It means No Known Allergies to Medications. I went the whole day and never noticed it there until now.
Wednesday the 2nd
This should be fun, because Monday was a holiday, I’m going to go through the whole day convinced this is Tuesday instead of Wednesday. My little office fan is getting harder and harder to start. The blades are practically frozen and I have to spin them to loosen them up before I hit the switch to turn it on or risk burning out the motor.
I finally couldn’t stand it any more and pulled the cotton out of the eye shield. I had the feeling that it was getting in my eye under there. My eye was all crusted over at the opening and I had to clean it out anyway after first cleansing my hands with rubbing alcohol and letting them dry. My vision is blurred, which I should’ve been prepared for, but wasn’t. I dutifully taped the shield back on and drove over to the clinic. She said that it looks good and that she’ll take the stitch out next week. She gave me a little canvas pack with a pair of the big sunglasses that shields from all directions. I love those things. They’re identical to the pair that snapped in half. I hope these last longer.
I drove home without my glasses, as I can see so much clearer with my left eye. The problem is that none of the lines that I see are straight; they have little dimpled indentations in them. She says it might be a little leftover swelling and to let it go a week… let’s hope.
When I got home it was strange not wearing my glasses to watch TV or look in the aquarium. Now I’ll have to have the right eye done. The downside of all this is that with the artificial lens I now need reading glasses. I see distance with my left and read with my right now… sigh. She suggested breaking the left lens out of my glasses, but I’m afraid I’ll damage the frame and I can save money on prescription reading glasses if I can keep the frames intact. She gave me another eye drop so now I’ve got to do three of them four times a day… groan.
I updated this journal but Blogger wouldn’t let me post it. Something about them being temporarily unavailable so I guess I’ll store all my journal entries on my computer until they fix whatever’s wrong. I went in and custom designed some carousel ads at Amazon but Blogger wouldn’t let me post those either. I really like my new Gay Pride and Entertainment Page banners. I’ve revamped them and given them expanded news tickers with all the up-to-the minute news. I’m going to do the same thing with the others if they ever allow me to post stuff. It looks like they’re changing the page that allows us to change the web page appearance and there’s probably a software problem.
Amazon says that I’ll get a commission on anything anyone buys from my site as long as the use the link-whether they buy that particular item or not… hint hint. For a while I was actually buying groceries there like sugar-free Tang and stuff because it was cheaper.
My left eye keeps getting crusty around the edges and it’s hell not rubbing it. I’ve still got to wear the eye-shield when I sleep and that’ll drive me crazy.
My session with Dr. Mind went well. I’m still worried about the rent check. I ran into Rich my apartment building manager and told him there may be a problem with my Workman’s Comp check and he said that it wouldn’t be a problem to not cash it until Friday. That’s a load off of my mind.
I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening “seeing” things. I’m a little upset as the floats and the remnants of the hemorrhage weren’t removed from my eye. She said that’d have to wait for a separate operation-they have to know exactly where they are before they go in and with the cataract they couldn’t see them. I hope it’s the swelling, but I still can’t completely focus my eye; I mean it’s really close but not “quite” there.
Thursday the 3rd
I spent some time custom designing Amazon ads for my webpages. I’d take an hour getting it just right only to have Blogger not let me in. Unfortunately I can’t “back” up to the worksheet once I finalize it, so I lose all that work and have to start over again. I think I found a way to float two carousel ads side-by-side to have twice the number of items in the same space as one… I’m dying to see if it’ll work.
The craziest thing happened. I went to Yahoo’s help desk to try to fix a problem with my outgoing e-mails defaulting to red text no matter what I do. Some girl named Jada requested permission to download software to log into my computer and operate it remotely from her keyboard so she could see what I was seeing, which she did. The next thing I knew she was also downloading software for the Yahoo live toolbar that I didn’t want saying it’d solve the problem… it didn’t. Finally she said I had somehow gotten a web-stationary installed on my e-mail page and she uninstalled it and everything went back to normal.
I asked her to uninstall the toolbar, but she talked me into keeping it temporarily to see if I really didn’t want it… then it got strange. We were communicating through a little window on the screen and as I was signing off she asked if I was satisfied with her help. I said yes and tried to log off. She asked if I was very satisfied with her help and though I wasn’t I figured if I could get rid of her I agreed I was satisfied and tried to close the window. She again said she needed me to type out that I was very satisfied and I decided I’d had enough and of her and closed the text window.
The next thing I knew she took control of my cursor and opened a basic word processing program called Notebook on my screen and asked again for me to type out that I was very satisfied with her help. This was fucked up. I manually shut off my computer and modem. Restarted it and suddenly had Yahoo stuff all over my wallpaper. I went into add/remove programs and dumped everything, but after restarting the computer could still not get rid of the Yahoo live software from my wallpaper. I tried “system restore” but there were no restore points. WTF
I called AT&T and reported the incident and after about an hour’s work, a very nice guy and me finally restored my machine back to before she started fucking with it.
I found out that McAfee isn’t letting my computer save fallback positions on my System Restore software because it’d mean undoing their constant updates. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr
MY EYE ITCHES. What’s worse is that with my left eye catching so much more light, my brain tries to default to it while I’m reading, to the point where I have to cover it to read with my right eye, because the artificial left lens is for distance only. Speaking of which, I tried opening one eye and then the other and yes-just as she promised, my brain has recalibrated so that I perceive the same color in both eyes instead of the left being tinted… very strange.
I went over and gave Rich my rent check and spent the day trying to enter these diary journals onto this page without success. It’s a problem with all six of my websites, so it’s something on their end. I felt really drowsy and spent the rest of the day and night sleeping, waking occasionally, but falling back asleep again within an hour or so.
Friday the 4th
FUCK-FUCK-FUCK-FUCK-FUCK
GB didn’t deposit my god damned check this morning. GOD DAMN IT ALL TO HELL. My lease is up next month, I’ve got other tenants bidding on my penthouse and my rent check is going to bounce with my lease renewal sitting on Rich’s desk. GOD DAMN IT.
I fought tooth and nail to keep from going into a rage. I wanted to pick up something and throw it, I wanted to destroy something I was so mad.
Calming myself, I called GB and got Jennifer’s voice mail. I called my lawyer and got his voicemail and then his assistant’s voicemail. I called Rich and played on my apparent psychic abilities to predict the future day-before-yesterday and told him GB didn’t deposit my check. He said he’d hold onto it and not deposit it until tomorrow. If it bounces I have to pay a $50 fee to him. FUCK.
Lawyer K’s assistant called to say he was gone for the weekend and that she was getting Jennifer’s voicemail too and to let it play out and call her if I don’t hear anything in a couple of hours.
They do this every time I’m stupid enough to let myself feel safe. I could feel it building in me and tried to reach her office at OSU but it kept going to voicemail. I called their main operator and he said there’s a new girl filling in at that department and a backlog of calls and to be patient… great.
Jennifer called back to say they never got the C84 from Dr. T, so they couldn’t deposit the check. BULLSHIT!!! That appointment was May 12th and if they didn’t get the authorization, they never would’ve deposited the check on May 21st. I swear they’re taking great joy in fucking with me. I called Dr. T/WorkHealth and they said they sent the paperwork on the 12th. The receptionist (who’s a friend) said she’d resend it by fax, and she was as outraged as I was.
I called Dr. Mind’s cell phone, (a sin unless it’s an emergency) and hung up, determined to figure this out for myself. Visions of crashing my car through GB’s headquarters door in Dublin OH and spraying the place with machinegun fire began running through my head. Frustration and anger were building really fast.
I got Jennifer’s voicemail again and controlled my temper long enough to tell her that Dr. T confirmed sending the C84 to her last month. She called back within a few minutes and promised that it’d be put into my account today and would be available tomorrow. I tried to call Rich and explain the situation, but he was gone from his office..
I called Lawyer K’s office and spoke to his assistant Meghan and laid it all out for her about it being the worst possible time because of my rent check possibly bouncing with my lease up the end of this month.
Dr. Mind called me… damn it I forgot the call would register on her caller I.D. and I apologized all over the place. She wanted to know if there were any calls she could make and I said no, I was going to try to handle this myself. I used to be able to handle problems like this all the time and laugh it off. Some bill would come due and an art client hadn’t sent a check. I hate that I can lose control so quickly. My hand hurts from pounding my fist on the desk in frustration. I took a double dose of Cymbalta.
I called my bank and explained the situation and they said there was nothing they could do until the electronic transfer took place and/or my rent check hit my account. They charge $36 per attempt to cash a bounced check… great. Just what I needed.
In the middle of all this Tressa called to say I’d missed my physical therapy session today, which I’d totally forgot. I checked my schedule and it says I don’t have one until next Monday??? We rescheduled for Tuesday. That’ll be fun since I’ve got to go to the eye clinic that morning.
I had just enough food to last till today. Checking the inventory I’ve got 6 packets of Lipton chicken noodles and sauce. If I only eat one a day that’ll take me to next Wednesday.
I was so pissed, that by this evening I didn’t realize I hadn’t eaten today, and by then I wasn’t hungry. The way my stomach’s bubbling, my double ulcer is probably opening up again.
Saturday the 5th
I woke up screaming in the night twice last night. I relived the beating again and the 2nd one had something to do with them holding everyone I loved hostage unless I gave them the money I “owed” them for not having enough when they robbed me the first time.
No deposit was made into my checking account. I want to cry, if only to release the frustration and anger. I got two reminder calls today about my follow-up eye appointment on Wednesday and that I have to be at the hospital clinic on Tuesday. I suffered full-body shudders all day and my chest still aches from them, and had realistic flashes of my door being broken down or the sound of it ringing. There’s got to be a way to sue GB for this torture. I’d bankrupt the goddamned company-not out of greed, but to punish them for what they probably put thousands of people through worldwide just like me.
Wal-Mart called me this morning wanting to know if I still wanted the refill of Norco painkiller I’d ordered for Betsy. Damn it. I told them no because her check never came for it. The prescription expired June first and they can’t wont’ cover it unless I pick it up today and I’ve no money to do it with. I found a bunch of my neighbor’s mail in my box yesterday; Betsy’s check is probably in someone else’s… par for the course.
My eye hurts like hell and so does my knee. There’s probably a big storm coming. I didn’t eat anything yesterday and I’m so mad today I’m not really hungry. I’ll have to force something down or I really will have an ulcer from the stomach acid.
I spent the day either dozing off for brief periods or fighting trying to get this posted on line and failing. Around 11PM I ate a package of noodles and sauce combined with the last can of chicken I had.
Sunday the 6th
I tried to stay awake all night last night because I figured I’d have nightmares again, but I was so exhausted that I fell asleep around 3AM. Fortunately I slept straight through. My knee turned out to be a reliable predictor again and we had tornados all over the state. The damned thing still hurts so I guess we’re still in for more bad weather today.
I’ve noticed Mischief is licking her nose a lot and a few times she seems to be walking around with her tongue about a quarter inch out of her mouth. If she’s sick I don’t know what I’ll do… I guess I’d sell some more antique books to pay the vet. I’m seriously considering selling my antique piano to try to get ahead of this disaster of finances. If I could just find around $2,000 to pay the insurance ahead, maybe a month in utilities and then relax I think I’ll be all right. What I really need is a backlog of cash against when GB fucks with my checks.
It’s inevitable that my rent check will bounce, although I should probably wait until tomorrow to make that prediction. I’ll lose $85 in bounced check fees between my landlord and the bank. It just dawned on me that that means I not only won’t have enough to buy any groceries if this bullshit comes to pass tomorrow, and I won’t have enough for the car payment on the 15thbecause I don’t the next check until the 18th…if it comes at all. That also means I won’t have money for the co-pay for the clinic on Tuesday. I can imagine me and Mischief living under a bridge soon, I wonder if I’d actually be able to exist on her dry cat food until this whole thing’s resolved.
Sometimes I really wonder why I don’t just end it all… This is just getting to be too much and I really don’t see it getting any better in the future. If it all falls apart tomorrow, I just might.
I still can’t get Blogger to accept any entries on this or any other of my websites. I left an e-mail message with them… not that that will do any good. My knee hurts so much I actually resorted to a Percocet for relief.
I spent the day working on a new graphic for the science page. It’s strange having to close my left eye so my right eye can focus on the screen. I resorted to putting the eye shield on, which helped a little.
Monday the 7th
I kept waking up to the sound of the phone ringing or the doorbell all night, so I got very little sleep… gee, I wonder why. I turned on my office fan and discovered I’d left it on all last night and the motor finally burned out… great. That’s the only thing that masks my ears ringing loudly in the silence of my den and I’m so used to the movement of air in here that I’m beginning to sweat like a pig… What fucking next?
The GB check wasn’t deposited this morning, as predicted. I’m going to have to spend the rest of my life emotionally cowering and preparing for the worst instead of something good happening. I called Rich, but got his voice mail. I got his janitor J.J. finally who said he’d just gone to the bank… I’m fucked. I called GB and “just by coincidence” just like the last five times-Jennifer is away for a week and some inept assistant is working in her place. She said the deposit was made last Friday and that there was nothing she could do on her end. I called Lawyer K and he in effect said that I should consider myself lucky that they’re taking action this fast-usually it takes months instead of days… which didn’t help my mood.
Dr. Mind called and offered to make some calls, but I didn’t think it’d do any good and I’m still trying to convince her… and myself, that I can stand on my own two feet and handle this myself. I called the bank to find out if the deposit was caught up in electronic channels somewhere but they said they can find no evidence of the deposit and GB was no help.
The rent check may not hit my account until tomorrow, and then it’s a race to see what shows up first. I get the feeling PNC will put the rent check in first and let it bounce intentionally so that they can charge me and overdraft fee. Don’t laugh; I’ve been reading articles about them doing it all of the time.
I tried putting my diary entries in again, but Blogger’s still down.
I almost picked up my dead office fan and hurled it cross the room, but I stopped myself. I did 120mg of Cymbalta today instead of 90mg.
The TV news was filled with the tornados that ripped all over the place yesterday… maybe I should rent myself out as a tornado siren.
Tuesday the 8th
I had the dream about crashing my beautiful convertible into GB’s offices again, but I don’t remember if I used a machinegun this time… Just as well, I guess. I checked my on-line statement this morning and I’ve been charged an overdraft fee at the bank… just great. I called Huntington to ask about a grace period on my car payment and was told as long as it hit the bank before the 25th (ten days) it wouldn’t even be considered late. That at least gives me enough for groceries and maybe a cheap fan, but I might not make this month’s phone and or electric bill.
I called and ordered a refill of my Cymbalta prescriptions to pick up.
I didn’t have time to sulk over it because I had to be at the clinic this morning. I gave the woman who collects the fee a sob-story about the rent check bouncing and I couldn’t get any money out of my checking so I didn’t have the $10 co-pay for her. She let it slide, but she didn’t seem happy about it.
I’ve dropped another 10 pounds since I was there last, probably from malnutrition. I told him about running out of Furosemide/Lasix for my water, but that I haven’t had any mushiness on my shin so I wasn’t concerned and neither was he. I told him I went off the Potassium supplements too and he seemed okay with it. He increased my insulin to 30 units a day plus the regular Novolog before meals. I told him I was low and he gave me three Lantus pens. Fortunately I didn’t get rid of the needles for them so I still have a supply of syringes and pen needles.
He also gave me some 5mg pills of Crestor. I’m on the 10s, so I’ll have to take two, but I’m glad I have them. He told me he wants to do a glucose workup on my next visit in two months and if I run out of Lantus to call and he’ll see about getting me more. I went there and forgot my glasses, so I sweated it out that I wouldn’t be pulled over. My vision is really improving. As I was pulling out of the parking garage a car slammed into me, and I realized it was a flashback or “daymare” and that I was okay, it shook me up it was so real… god will this never end. I had to get out of the way of a car that really was barreling down on me after I’d slammed on the brakes in the middle of the street.
I went to physical therapy and a new girl was being trained. Tressa confirmed that GB will only be paying for her to train me to take care of myself at home until I can have the operation, at which time I’ll have to start therapy all over again.
I drove up to Family Medical and picked up my Cymbalta. They tell me I don’t have any refills left, so I’m going to have to figure out what I did with her paperwork from the last time. Then I went on to Wal-Mart and picked up a minimal amount of groceries and got halfway home when I realized I’d forgotten the damned fan. I’ll have to pick it up tomorrow after Dr. Mind. God I’ve got the eye exam tomorrow too… She’s going to pull the stitch out of my eye… eeeeeek!
I got home too late to go down and see First-Link about a local food bank. I talked to Dr. S’s social worker about it and she says they still can’t help me as long as I have Anthem.
A rat in a maze.
I felt really drowsy around 8pm and missed NCIS tonight. Oh well it was a rerun anyway. I woke up around 11pm and fell back asleep. I’m proud of myself, I remember to set the clock radio for the eye appointment tomorrow morning.
Wednesday the 9th thru Tuesday the 15th
I’ve spent nearly the whole time either sleeping or half in a coma, and not leaving the apartment except to go to physical therapy twice. Hell I used to only be home that often. Every time I try to force myself out to meet new people I begin having flashbacks and I can’t make it out the front door. Physical therapy seems more interested in getting me to do a home program than on working with me on-site. The stress on my knee is really starting to be painful and despite my fear of becoming addicted to it, I may have to ask Dr. S for a new prescription for Percocet.
Last Wednesday’s follow-up eye appointment was uneventful except that she pulled the stitch out of my eye. She also gave me another eye drop to add to the two I’m using already and I’m to use them until I run out. I asked her when the other eye would operated on and she flat-out told me she wants to take a few months to see if the diabetes will try to attack the good left eye and made it sound as if it was likely to happen. She doesn’t want to risk doing my right until she’s sure of the left healing because it’d leave me blind if anything happened. I don’t see her again until sometime in August.
Try as I might, I couldn’t talk the bank out of the bounced check fee, nor my landlord out of the fifty-dollar penalty for a bounced check. Most likely that means almost no grocery money as the next check will be taken up with the car, Allstate, phone and possibly electric. No, the phone charges extra for a late payment so I might try to juggle the electric until the first of next month, or maybe try to juggle a double bill in July. I went over Friday and gave Rich a check for $50. We joked around about it bouncing, but the owner wouldn’t let me out of it, even though Rich explained the situation. I even took the direct deposit receipt with me to show him that the paperwork said it was deposited on the 4th.
I can’t look at myself in the mirror, that’s how much I’ve changed physically. It’s like looking into the eyes of a stranger and now that I’m back in physical therapy all the good times in the gym come back to me, and the hurt that I can’t do what I used to do haunts my dreams.
I escape it all by sleeping a lot. When I wake up between 7-9PM I actually have to check to see if it’s AM or PM and since I wake and sleep two or three times a day it’s becoming harder and harder to keep track of what day it is. I’ve started trying to force myself to stay awake until I fall asleep from exhaustion and I’ll go two or three days without nightmares just until I think I’m finally safe from them and then wake up screaming in the night.
Mischief is starting to worry me. I keep catching her with her tongue just slightly out of her mouth and it’s mystifying the hell out of me. She doesn’t seem to be panting and she licks her nose a lot too. Of all the cats I’ve ever had, I’ve never seen this before. I’m beginning to suspect maybe she has sinus problems, but she’s not coughing or sneezing so I’m stumped. I’d give almost anything if I had enough to take her to the vet’s.
I’m beginning to wonder if the switch to Crestor is making my ears ring even louder. Sometimes even the fan won’t drown them out. I miss my little desk fan. I had it on the shelf behind me here in the den, but I couldn’t afford another so I have a giant box fan in its place. Even set on “low” it’s like a mini hurricane and any papers that aren’t weighed down go flying.
I’ve spent a lot of time setting up the Amazon ads on my most popular site. The Gay Headlines page is getting more readers than I ever dreamed of, but even though I’ve taken a lot of time tailoring the ads to match items that the articles are about, no one is buying anything… Oh I’m getting a lot of ad clicks (for which, unlike Adsense, they don’t pay for mere clicks,) no one seems to be buying. It’s got me stumped.
To occupy my mind I’m going to work on the Science page next and then Entertainment.
My stomach won’t stop bubbling and I worry about that double ulcer that I was taking Nexium for. It’s sort of a “catch-22,” worrying about an ulcer can cause an ulcer… ha ha. I’m starting to live with this feeling in my upper throat like I’m about to throw up, but it’s only a burp.
It’s been weighing on my mind to just sell everything I have and just disappear with the clothes on my back, my cat and my car…
Big news… I hope.
I’ve been absent on and off for the last few weeks because I’ve been so crushingly depressed that I couldn’t function, but now I’ve found a project that just might pull me out of this both emotionally and financially… if it isn’t too late.
I’m starting a new business from the “virtual” ground up. Using tools from Amazon, I’m building a cyber store “Jet’s General Store & Gay Pride Shoppe” from scratch. As with any business, the problem is what to decide to stock the shelves with. The cool part of this is it only costs me my time, and once I have it set up, it virtually runs itself!
No money! Details to come, but it’s very time consuming.
Details to follow soon
Tuesday the 1st
A really nice man from Dr. Mind’s church group gave me a ride to my eye surgery this morning. He also insisted on giving me a ride home too, saving my beautiful Eisenhower silver dollars from ending up in the pocket of some ungrateful cab driver. In gratitude, I gave him one, which he accepted graciously.
Surgery has become such a regular thing to me that it’s nearly mundane, though never what I expect. I think the thing that nearly drove me crazy was people coming into the prep room and all of them asking me the same question, some in the presence of other, but some lawyer in an office demanded that they ask.
“Are you allergic to any medications?” “Are you allergic to any anesthesia?” “What is your birthday?” and two guys came in and standing side-by-side, one asked, “What eye are you having operated on today?” and then put a mark over my left eye. Then the other asked, with the first still standing there, “What eye are you having operated on?” and then put his own mark over my eye. Hospitals are not run by doctors… they’re run by lawyers.
I thought I was going to be awake for the operation like the last time, but I went under and woke up just in time for them to pull my eye lens out. One moment I could see, the next I was blind, then just as quickly I could see again. Everything was tinted brown. It turns out that the lens is tinted to protect from ultra violet rays. I knew it was coming, but I still hated knowing that my color perception would now be permanently altered. She said not to worry, that my brain would retrain itself and within a few days I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
Still, it’s a strange feeling to know that one eye will see one color and the other something else, but that my brain will be able to reconcile that. They issued me a small metal oval-shaped eye patch with holes drilled in it that reminded me of a kitchen sink drain strainer complete with a black rubber seal around the perimeter. Inside of it was a cotton pad that’s supposed to keep my eyelid closed and the whole contraption was taped to my face.
Dr. Mind’s church friend Paul came and got me and I was surprised that the operation took nearly two hours instead of the half an hour I was given the impression it’d take. When I got home I was still groggy and spent the rest of the afternoon sleepy. I woke up this evening with a headache and the cotton-padding pressing against my eyelid is driving me crazy. DON’T RUB IT!!!
I have to go back in tomorrow, but can’t find a ride, so I’ll just have to drive myself one-eyed… that’ll be fun.
I’m sitting here trying to figure out what to do about the rent. The latest that I can turn it in is the 3rd, but GB doesn’t deposit it until Friday the 4th. The only thing that I can think to do is to turn in the check to him after 3PM when the banks flip their transactions over and hope he doesn’t cash it until Friday. God it sucks to have to think like this; I used to pay my rent a fucking year in advance.
I’m sitting here typing this out and have only now noticed a bright orange mystery armband with a strange word on it. NKAM… ? It means No Known Allergies to Medications. I went the whole day and never noticed it there until now.
Wednesday the 2nd
This should be fun, because Monday was a holiday, I’m going to go through the whole day convinced this is Tuesday instead of Wednesday. My little office fan is getting harder and harder to start. The blades are practically frozen and I have to spin them to loosen them up before I hit the switch to turn it on or risk burning out the motor.
I finally couldn’t stand it any more and pulled the cotton out of the eye shield. I had the feeling that it was getting in my eye under there. My eye was all crusted over at the opening and I had to clean it out anyway after first cleansing my hands with rubbing alcohol and letting them dry. My vision is blurred, which I should’ve been prepared for, but wasn’t. I dutifully taped the shield back on and drove over to the clinic. She said that it looks good and that she’ll take the stitch out next week. She gave me a little canvas pack with a pair of the big sunglasses that shields from all directions. I love those things. They’re identical to the pair that snapped in half. I hope these last longer.
I drove home without my glasses, as I can see so much clearer with my left eye. The problem is that none of the lines that I see are straight; they have little dimpled indentations in them. She says it might be a little leftover swelling and to let it go a week… let’s hope.
When I got home it was strange not wearing my glasses to watch TV or look in the aquarium. Now I’ll have to have the right eye done. The downside of all this is that with the artificial lens I now need reading glasses. I see distance with my left and read with my right now… sigh. She suggested breaking the left lens out of my glasses, but I’m afraid I’ll damage the frame and I can save money on prescription reading glasses if I can keep the frames intact. She gave me another eye drop so now I’ve got to do three of them four times a day… groan.
I updated this journal but Blogger wouldn’t let me post it. Something about them being temporarily unavailable so I guess I’ll store all my journal entries on my computer until they fix whatever’s wrong. I went in and custom designed some carousel ads at Amazon but Blogger wouldn’t let me post those either. I really like my new Gay Pride and Entertainment Page banners. I’ve revamped them and given them expanded news tickers with all the up-to-the minute news. I’m going to do the same thing with the others if they ever allow me to post stuff. It looks like they’re changing the page that allows us to change the web page appearance and there’s probably a software problem.
Amazon says that I’ll get a commission on anything anyone buys from my site as long as the use the link-whether they buy that particular item or not… hint hint. For a while I was actually buying groceries there like sugar-free Tang and stuff because it was cheaper.
My left eye keeps getting crusty around the edges and it’s hell not rubbing it. I’ve still got to wear the eye-shield when I sleep and that’ll drive me crazy.
My session with Dr. Mind went well. I’m still worried about the rent check. I ran into Rich my apartment building manager and told him there may be a problem with my Workman’s Comp check and he said that it wouldn’t be a problem to not cash it until Friday. That’s a load off of my mind.
I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening “seeing” things. I’m a little upset as the floats and the remnants of the hemorrhage weren’t removed from my eye. She said that’d have to wait for a separate operation-they have to know exactly where they are before they go in and with the cataract they couldn’t see them. I hope it’s the swelling, but I still can’t completely focus my eye; I mean it’s really close but not “quite” there.
Thursday the 3rd
I spent some time custom designing Amazon ads for my webpages. I’d take an hour getting it just right only to have Blogger not let me in. Unfortunately I can’t “back” up to the worksheet once I finalize it, so I lose all that work and have to start over again. I think I found a way to float two carousel ads side-by-side to have twice the number of items in the same space as one… I’m dying to see if it’ll work.
The craziest thing happened. I went to Yahoo’s help desk to try to fix a problem with my outgoing e-mails defaulting to red text no matter what I do. Some girl named Jada requested permission to download software to log into my computer and operate it remotely from her keyboard so she could see what I was seeing, which she did. The next thing I knew she was also downloading software for the Yahoo live toolbar that I didn’t want saying it’d solve the problem… it didn’t. Finally she said I had somehow gotten a web-stationary installed on my e-mail page and she uninstalled it and everything went back to normal.
I asked her to uninstall the toolbar, but she talked me into keeping it temporarily to see if I really didn’t want it… then it got strange. We were communicating through a little window on the screen and as I was signing off she asked if I was satisfied with her help. I said yes and tried to log off. She asked if I was very satisfied with her help and though I wasn’t I figured if I could get rid of her I agreed I was satisfied and tried to close the window. She again said she needed me to type out that I was very satisfied and I decided I’d had enough and of her and closed the text window.
The next thing I knew she took control of my cursor and opened a basic word processing program called Notebook on my screen and asked again for me to type out that I was very satisfied with her help. This was fucked up. I manually shut off my computer and modem. Restarted it and suddenly had Yahoo stuff all over my wallpaper. I went into add/remove programs and dumped everything, but after restarting the computer could still not get rid of the Yahoo live software from my wallpaper. I tried “system restore” but there were no restore points. WTF
I called AT&T and reported the incident and after about an hour’s work, a very nice guy and me finally restored my machine back to before she started fucking with it.
I found out that McAfee isn’t letting my computer save fallback positions on my System Restore software because it’d mean undoing their constant updates. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr
MY EYE ITCHES. What’s worse is that with my left eye catching so much more light, my brain tries to default to it while I’m reading, to the point where I have to cover it to read with my right eye, because the artificial left lens is for distance only. Speaking of which, I tried opening one eye and then the other and yes-just as she promised, my brain has recalibrated so that I perceive the same color in both eyes instead of the left being tinted… very strange.
I went over and gave Rich my rent check and spent the day trying to enter these diary journals onto this page without success. It’s a problem with all six of my websites, so it’s something on their end. I felt really drowsy and spent the rest of the day and night sleeping, waking occasionally, but falling back asleep again within an hour or so.
Friday the 4th
FUCK-FUCK-FUCK-FUCK-FUCK
GB didn’t deposit my god damned check this morning. GOD DAMN IT ALL TO HELL. My lease is up next month, I’ve got other tenants bidding on my penthouse and my rent check is going to bounce with my lease renewal sitting on Rich’s desk. GOD DAMN IT.
I fought tooth and nail to keep from going into a rage. I wanted to pick up something and throw it, I wanted to destroy something I was so mad.
Calming myself, I called GB and got Jennifer’s voice mail. I called my lawyer and got his voicemail and then his assistant’s voicemail. I called Rich and played on my apparent psychic abilities to predict the future day-before-yesterday and told him GB didn’t deposit my check. He said he’d hold onto it and not deposit it until tomorrow. If it bounces I have to pay a $50 fee to him. FUCK.
Lawyer K’s assistant called to say he was gone for the weekend and that she was getting Jennifer’s voicemail too and to let it play out and call her if I don’t hear anything in a couple of hours.
They do this every time I’m stupid enough to let myself feel safe. I could feel it building in me and tried to reach her office at OSU but it kept going to voicemail. I called their main operator and he said there’s a new girl filling in at that department and a backlog of calls and to be patient… great.
Jennifer called back to say they never got the C84 from Dr. T, so they couldn’t deposit the check. BULLSHIT!!! That appointment was May 12th and if they didn’t get the authorization, they never would’ve deposited the check on May 21st. I swear they’re taking great joy in fucking with me. I called Dr. T/WorkHealth and they said they sent the paperwork on the 12th. The receptionist (who’s a friend) said she’d resend it by fax, and she was as outraged as I was.
I called Dr. Mind’s cell phone, (a sin unless it’s an emergency) and hung up, determined to figure this out for myself. Visions of crashing my car through GB’s headquarters door in Dublin OH and spraying the place with machinegun fire began running through my head. Frustration and anger were building really fast.
I got Jennifer’s voicemail again and controlled my temper long enough to tell her that Dr. T confirmed sending the C84 to her last month. She called back within a few minutes and promised that it’d be put into my account today and would be available tomorrow. I tried to call Rich and explain the situation, but he was gone from his office..
I called Lawyer K’s office and spoke to his assistant Meghan and laid it all out for her about it being the worst possible time because of my rent check possibly bouncing with my lease up the end of this month.
Dr. Mind called me… damn it I forgot the call would register on her caller I.D. and I apologized all over the place. She wanted to know if there were any calls she could make and I said no, I was going to try to handle this myself. I used to be able to handle problems like this all the time and laugh it off. Some bill would come due and an art client hadn’t sent a check. I hate that I can lose control so quickly. My hand hurts from pounding my fist on the desk in frustration. I took a double dose of Cymbalta.
I called my bank and explained the situation and they said there was nothing they could do until the electronic transfer took place and/or my rent check hit my account. They charge $36 per attempt to cash a bounced check… great. Just what I needed.
In the middle of all this Tressa called to say I’d missed my physical therapy session today, which I’d totally forgot. I checked my schedule and it says I don’t have one until next Monday??? We rescheduled for Tuesday. That’ll be fun since I’ve got to go to the eye clinic that morning.
I had just enough food to last till today. Checking the inventory I’ve got 6 packets of Lipton chicken noodles and sauce. If I only eat one a day that’ll take me to next Wednesday.
I was so pissed, that by this evening I didn’t realize I hadn’t eaten today, and by then I wasn’t hungry. The way my stomach’s bubbling, my double ulcer is probably opening up again.
Saturday the 5th
I woke up screaming in the night twice last night. I relived the beating again and the 2nd one had something to do with them holding everyone I loved hostage unless I gave them the money I “owed” them for not having enough when they robbed me the first time.
No deposit was made into my checking account. I want to cry, if only to release the frustration and anger. I got two reminder calls today about my follow-up eye appointment on Wednesday and that I have to be at the hospital clinic on Tuesday. I suffered full-body shudders all day and my chest still aches from them, and had realistic flashes of my door being broken down or the sound of it ringing. There’s got to be a way to sue GB for this torture. I’d bankrupt the goddamned company-not out of greed, but to punish them for what they probably put thousands of people through worldwide just like me.
Wal-Mart called me this morning wanting to know if I still wanted the refill of Norco painkiller I’d ordered for Betsy. Damn it. I told them no because her check never came for it. The prescription expired June first and they can’t wont’ cover it unless I pick it up today and I’ve no money to do it with. I found a bunch of my neighbor’s mail in my box yesterday; Betsy’s check is probably in someone else’s… par for the course.
My eye hurts like hell and so does my knee. There’s probably a big storm coming. I didn’t eat anything yesterday and I’m so mad today I’m not really hungry. I’ll have to force something down or I really will have an ulcer from the stomach acid.
I spent the day either dozing off for brief periods or fighting trying to get this posted on line and failing. Around 11PM I ate a package of noodles and sauce combined with the last can of chicken I had.
Sunday the 6th
I tried to stay awake all night last night because I figured I’d have nightmares again, but I was so exhausted that I fell asleep around 3AM. Fortunately I slept straight through. My knee turned out to be a reliable predictor again and we had tornados all over the state. The damned thing still hurts so I guess we’re still in for more bad weather today.
I’ve noticed Mischief is licking her nose a lot and a few times she seems to be walking around with her tongue about a quarter inch out of her mouth. If she’s sick I don’t know what I’ll do… I guess I’d sell some more antique books to pay the vet. I’m seriously considering selling my antique piano to try to get ahead of this disaster of finances. If I could just find around $2,000 to pay the insurance ahead, maybe a month in utilities and then relax I think I’ll be all right. What I really need is a backlog of cash against when GB fucks with my checks.
It’s inevitable that my rent check will bounce, although I should probably wait until tomorrow to make that prediction. I’ll lose $85 in bounced check fees between my landlord and the bank. It just dawned on me that that means I not only won’t have enough to buy any groceries if this bullshit comes to pass tomorrow, and I won’t have enough for the car payment on the 15thbecause I don’t the next check until the 18th…if it comes at all. That also means I won’t have money for the co-pay for the clinic on Tuesday. I can imagine me and Mischief living under a bridge soon, I wonder if I’d actually be able to exist on her dry cat food until this whole thing’s resolved.
Sometimes I really wonder why I don’t just end it all… This is just getting to be too much and I really don’t see it getting any better in the future. If it all falls apart tomorrow, I just might.
I still can’t get Blogger to accept any entries on this or any other of my websites. I left an e-mail message with them… not that that will do any good. My knee hurts so much I actually resorted to a Percocet for relief.
I spent the day working on a new graphic for the science page. It’s strange having to close my left eye so my right eye can focus on the screen. I resorted to putting the eye shield on, which helped a little.
Monday the 7th
I kept waking up to the sound of the phone ringing or the doorbell all night, so I got very little sleep… gee, I wonder why. I turned on my office fan and discovered I’d left it on all last night and the motor finally burned out… great. That’s the only thing that masks my ears ringing loudly in the silence of my den and I’m so used to the movement of air in here that I’m beginning to sweat like a pig… What fucking next?
The GB check wasn’t deposited this morning, as predicted. I’m going to have to spend the rest of my life emotionally cowering and preparing for the worst instead of something good happening. I called Rich, but got his voice mail. I got his janitor J.J. finally who said he’d just gone to the bank… I’m fucked. I called GB and “just by coincidence” just like the last five times-Jennifer is away for a week and some inept assistant is working in her place. She said the deposit was made last Friday and that there was nothing she could do on her end. I called Lawyer K and he in effect said that I should consider myself lucky that they’re taking action this fast-usually it takes months instead of days… which didn’t help my mood.
Dr. Mind called and offered to make some calls, but I didn’t think it’d do any good and I’m still trying to convince her… and myself, that I can stand on my own two feet and handle this myself. I called the bank to find out if the deposit was caught up in electronic channels somewhere but they said they can find no evidence of the deposit and GB was no help.
The rent check may not hit my account until tomorrow, and then it’s a race to see what shows up first. I get the feeling PNC will put the rent check in first and let it bounce intentionally so that they can charge me and overdraft fee. Don’t laugh; I’ve been reading articles about them doing it all of the time.
I tried putting my diary entries in again, but Blogger’s still down.
I almost picked up my dead office fan and hurled it cross the room, but I stopped myself. I did 120mg of Cymbalta today instead of 90mg.
The TV news was filled with the tornados that ripped all over the place yesterday… maybe I should rent myself out as a tornado siren.
Tuesday the 8th
I had the dream about crashing my beautiful convertible into GB’s offices again, but I don’t remember if I used a machinegun this time… Just as well, I guess. I checked my on-line statement this morning and I’ve been charged an overdraft fee at the bank… just great. I called Huntington to ask about a grace period on my car payment and was told as long as it hit the bank before the 25th (ten days) it wouldn’t even be considered late. That at least gives me enough for groceries and maybe a cheap fan, but I might not make this month’s phone and or electric bill.
I called and ordered a refill of my Cymbalta prescriptions to pick up.
I didn’t have time to sulk over it because I had to be at the clinic this morning. I gave the woman who collects the fee a sob-story about the rent check bouncing and I couldn’t get any money out of my checking so I didn’t have the $10 co-pay for her. She let it slide, but she didn’t seem happy about it.
I’ve dropped another 10 pounds since I was there last, probably from malnutrition. I told him about running out of Furosemide/Lasix for my water, but that I haven’t had any mushiness on my shin so I wasn’t concerned and neither was he. I told him I went off the Potassium supplements too and he seemed okay with it. He increased my insulin to 30 units a day plus the regular Novolog before meals. I told him I was low and he gave me three Lantus pens. Fortunately I didn’t get rid of the needles for them so I still have a supply of syringes and pen needles.
He also gave me some 5mg pills of Crestor. I’m on the 10s, so I’ll have to take two, but I’m glad I have them. He told me he wants to do a glucose workup on my next visit in two months and if I run out of Lantus to call and he’ll see about getting me more. I went there and forgot my glasses, so I sweated it out that I wouldn’t be pulled over. My vision is really improving. As I was pulling out of the parking garage a car slammed into me, and I realized it was a flashback or “daymare” and that I was okay, it shook me up it was so real… god will this never end. I had to get out of the way of a car that really was barreling down on me after I’d slammed on the brakes in the middle of the street.
I went to physical therapy and a new girl was being trained. Tressa confirmed that GB will only be paying for her to train me to take care of myself at home until I can have the operation, at which time I’ll have to start therapy all over again.
I drove up to Family Medical and picked up my Cymbalta. They tell me I don’t have any refills left, so I’m going to have to figure out what I did with her paperwork from the last time. Then I went on to Wal-Mart and picked up a minimal amount of groceries and got halfway home when I realized I’d forgotten the damned fan. I’ll have to pick it up tomorrow after Dr. Mind. God I’ve got the eye exam tomorrow too… She’s going to pull the stitch out of my eye… eeeeeek!
I got home too late to go down and see First-Link about a local food bank. I talked to Dr. S’s social worker about it and she says they still can’t help me as long as I have Anthem.
A rat in a maze.
I felt really drowsy around 8pm and missed NCIS tonight. Oh well it was a rerun anyway. I woke up around 11pm and fell back asleep. I’m proud of myself, I remember to set the clock radio for the eye appointment tomorrow morning.
Wednesday the 9th thru Tuesday the 15th
I’ve spent nearly the whole time either sleeping or half in a coma, and not leaving the apartment except to go to physical therapy twice. Hell I used to only be home that often. Every time I try to force myself out to meet new people I begin having flashbacks and I can’t make it out the front door. Physical therapy seems more interested in getting me to do a home program than on working with me on-site. The stress on my knee is really starting to be painful and despite my fear of becoming addicted to it, I may have to ask Dr. S for a new prescription for Percocet.
Last Wednesday’s follow-up eye appointment was uneventful except that she pulled the stitch out of my eye. She also gave me another eye drop to add to the two I’m using already and I’m to use them until I run out. I asked her when the other eye would operated on and she flat-out told me she wants to take a few months to see if the diabetes will try to attack the good left eye and made it sound as if it was likely to happen. She doesn’t want to risk doing my right until she’s sure of the left healing because it’d leave me blind if anything happened. I don’t see her again until sometime in August.
Try as I might, I couldn’t talk the bank out of the bounced check fee, nor my landlord out of the fifty-dollar penalty for a bounced check. Most likely that means almost no grocery money as the next check will be taken up with the car, Allstate, phone and possibly electric. No, the phone charges extra for a late payment so I might try to juggle the electric until the first of next month, or maybe try to juggle a double bill in July. I went over Friday and gave Rich a check for $50. We joked around about it bouncing, but the owner wouldn’t let me out of it, even though Rich explained the situation. I even took the direct deposit receipt with me to show him that the paperwork said it was deposited on the 4th.
I can’t look at myself in the mirror, that’s how much I’ve changed physically. It’s like looking into the eyes of a stranger and now that I’m back in physical therapy all the good times in the gym come back to me, and the hurt that I can’t do what I used to do haunts my dreams.
I escape it all by sleeping a lot. When I wake up between 7-9PM I actually have to check to see if it’s AM or PM and since I wake and sleep two or three times a day it’s becoming harder and harder to keep track of what day it is. I’ve started trying to force myself to stay awake until I fall asleep from exhaustion and I’ll go two or three days without nightmares just until I think I’m finally safe from them and then wake up screaming in the night.
Mischief is starting to worry me. I keep catching her with her tongue just slightly out of her mouth and it’s mystifying the hell out of me. She doesn’t seem to be panting and she licks her nose a lot too. Of all the cats I’ve ever had, I’ve never seen this before. I’m beginning to suspect maybe she has sinus problems, but she’s not coughing or sneezing so I’m stumped. I’d give almost anything if I had enough to take her to the vet’s.
I’m beginning to wonder if the switch to Crestor is making my ears ring even louder. Sometimes even the fan won’t drown them out. I miss my little desk fan. I had it on the shelf behind me here in the den, but I couldn’t afford another so I have a giant box fan in its place. Even set on “low” it’s like a mini hurricane and any papers that aren’t weighed down go flying.
I’ve spent a lot of time setting up the Amazon ads on my most popular site. The Gay Headlines page is getting more readers than I ever dreamed of, but even though I’ve taken a lot of time tailoring the ads to match items that the articles are about, no one is buying anything… Oh I’m getting a lot of ad clicks (for which, unlike Adsense, they don’t pay for mere clicks,) no one seems to be buying. It’s got me stumped.
To occupy my mind I’m going to work on the Science page next and then Entertainment.
My stomach won’t stop bubbling and I worry about that double ulcer that I was taking Nexium for. It’s sort of a “catch-22,” worrying about an ulcer can cause an ulcer… ha ha. I’m starting to live with this feeling in my upper throat like I’m about to throw up, but it’s only a burp.
It’s been weighing on my mind to just sell everything I have and just disappear with the clothes on my back, my cat and my car…
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