A former Wisconsin resident adjusts to life in a big city, deep in the heart of Texas.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Me, Simpsonized
That last post was a bit of a downer, I think. In an attempt to end the holiday weekend on a more cheerful note, I decided to post this you can see what I would look like as a Simpsons character.
I was fairly happy with the result, although they didn't have an option for salt-and-pepper hair, so you'll have to imagine that on your own.
I mean, things could have been worse. However, having a surgical procedure done (albeit outpatient) to get skin cancer removed (albeit of the least severe variety) and having to have a skin graft done as a bonus is not a fun way to start off the week. I'm not worried about it very much, since the surgical procedure I had done has over a 99% success rate for the particular type of skin cancer I had removed, but it still wasn't a fun Monday by any stretch of the imagination.
Recovery is going ok. It's kind of a pain in the ass to take a shower and not get the bandage wet, so I got a lovely stylish shower cap at the local CVS store, in an area of the store where I have NEVER walked through before during my previous trips there. The area where the skin graft was done hurt like the dickens when the anesthetic wore off, and the doc didn't want me using anything stronger than Tylenol, but it is feeling better now, although I do think taking some time off from work is a good idea. I always instinctively put the phone to my left ear (which is the one that got operated on) and I imagine repeated banging of the phone against said ear could be detrimental to the skin graft successfully grafting. Of course, you might say, I could just be a man about it and remember to only put the phone to my RIGHT ear, but when you've been doing things the same way for over a decade, habits are hard to break. I think that by next week it will have healed enough that I can answer the phone with either ear safely.
My volunteer job did intrude on my recovery this week. I guess I've never really talked about what my volunteer job entails here before. For the past year or so, I've acted as a court appointed special advocate for kids in the foster care system. As a volunteer, I only work one case at a time, which helps the kids, their parents, and their foster parents with a sense of continuity. I can also visit the foster homes personally and verify that things are going well for the kids on my case. Sometimes we get to do fun stuff with the kids (I took them out for pizza one time, for example) but mostly we're there to be an extra set of eyes and an extra voice for the kids best interests. We also can be called upon to testify in court when a final determination for the kids placement takes place.
The case I was working had four elementary school age kids. Nothing like a challenge for my first time! We do work with professionals at the volunteer agency who assist us with advice, phone calls, and in the writing of court reports, which helps immensely. I don't know if I did as many things as I possibly could for the kids whose case I was assigned to, but I think I did help some. Just having a single person there through the majority of the process is a big help, since during the time I was on the case, there were three different CPS (Child Protective Services) caseworkers assigned to it. They were all good at their jobs, but everyone in CPS is overworked to some degree. Anyhow...last week was the final court hearing.
I can't go into details about the case, obviously, but the parents involved had not completed (or even really started) their family plan of service in order to be reunited with their children. In Texas, they have to have done this within a year, or eighteen months at a maximum if the judge extends it. It had been eighteen months since the kids were taken into CPS custody, and last week in court, the parents' rights were terminated.
Today was scheduled as the final visit for one of the parents, their mother, to see her kids. I suppose I could have called in sick for this, as I'm still healing from my surgical fun, but I felt kind of duty-bound to be there and see things through to the end. (Also, there was no answering of the phone involved.) One of the kids asked about the bandage on my ear, and I just said I'd had to have something removed at the doctor, since saying the word "cancer" seems to really scare people (especially kids.) The first part of the visit, with the kids' grandparents, went pretty well. Then the second part of the visit started, when their mother showed up...
I have a limited amount of sympathy for a parent who is ordered by the court to show they are a suitable parent and completely squanders that opportunity. That being said, it was REALLY hard to watch what will probably be her final visit with her kids for the forseeable future. She had made each of them a small scrapbook and read it to them, got lots of pictures, and did a lot of crying. Her sister was there for moral support, and she cried some herself, as did the kids.
The CPS worker assigned to their case was in court today, and my volunteer coordinator was busy with another case as well, so the CPS supervisor asked me to monitor the visit and try to make sure the mother didn't promise the kids anything impossible (like that she'd somehow manage to get the kids back someday.) So, I got to sit there and watch. The whole visit with their mother only took about an hour, but it felt much longer to me.
I'm not going overboard, and I'm not driving anywhere, and I'm no longer on any prescription medications...so please pardon me if I have a stiff drink tonight and try and wind down a little. I do admire all the people who work in CPS, as frustrated as I might get sometimes with that agency and its bureaucracy. For the most part, they're overwhelmingly dedicated people doing an extremely tough job. This weekend, I plan on relaxing and taking it very easy. If I do venture anywhere outside, you can be sure I'll wear sunscreen.
I am fair skinned, and I grew up in New Mexico. As a consequence, I have had a history of a few (non-melanoma) skin cancers that were caught early...my regular dermatologist found a basal cell he had removed had recurred, behind my left ear, and he referred me for Mohs surgery last week.
The surgery kind of sounded involved compared with what I'd had done before (although it really wasn't too bad, just some stuff to do beforehand that I hadn't expected) and when I called to ask was it REALLY necessary...they told me that it was.
I called on Friday to make an appointment with a specialist in this field and they told me that nothing was available for Monday, but then when I called back today they suddenly had availability for this morning. I was even able to find someone to drive me there and back on short notice since they told me to take Valium beforehand.
They did the surgery, and after they did the initial removal, they discovered that the area was, instead of being the size of a dime, was more like the size of a quarter (!!!) and had to remove a larger area of skin than they had expected...but the second time did the trick and the results came back with clean margins. It's nice that they verify under a microscope that all the cancer cells are gone before they sew you up.
In my case today, since the area was so big they had to do a skin graft (which they took from my right forearm) to get proper coverage for it to heal. Fortunately, since the carcinoma was behind my left ear, any scarring that does occur will not be very noticeable (except maybe by my barber.)
I am on my regular days off (working the weird 6-3 rotation that I do) and I was originally scheduled to go back to work Wednesday night, but the doctor recommended a longer break if possible. "If you're in danger of losing your job, or you're losing pay, you can go back late this week. If you have a choice, I'd recommend taking a week off." I have sick leave where I work, so I'm using it, but I did get a doctor's note.
While it sucks to have a medical procedure sprung on you out of the blue, it's good to get a problem caught early on (my doc said that, left untreated, I could have eventually lost my whole left ear) AND it is good to unexpectedly get a holiday weekend off and be ordered to take it easy. (That is the main reason I'm taking in the doctor's note, in case anyone at work thinks I'm faking things....but they do have a couple days to get my shifts covered, so nobody should be too upset.)
This is one of those cases where I'm glad I followed doctor's advice, even if I originally thought it was overkill on my primary dermatologist's part.
Having read about the Beijing Beef at Panda Express on The Impulsive Buy this week, I decided to give it a try today. There's a Panda Express not too far from where I live so I went there for lunch. The food was pretty good (I also got Kung Pao chicken) and even if it's not authentic Chinese, it's still tasty. Hey, I'm from New Mexico and I still eat at Taco Bell every now and then, so back off, food purists.
Anyhow, they always include a fortune cookie with your meal there, so after I was done eating, I cracked mine open. I looked at the fortune and initially read "YOUR THOUGHTS ARE HIGHLY RETARDED." I did a double take and looked again, this time reading what was actually printed on the paper, which is "YOUR THOUGHTS ARE HIGHLY REGARDED."
I thought it was kind of funny, and it got me to thinking...maybe rude fortune cookies would be a good thing to mix into the regular ones! After all, everyone has seen the same old bland, optimistic fortunes over and over again...why not add a few zingers into the basket? "WHY ARE YOU EATING OUT? YOU SHOULD BE ON A DIET!" People would never forget your restaurant! Of course, this might be bad for business if someone got a rude fortune with their meal who had no sense of humor.
I do remember reading a story in Reader's Digest years ago, about a lady who got a fortune cookie at a restaurant, only to find a blank slip of paper inside with nothing printed on it. She told the manager about it, expecting he'd give her another cookie. Instead, he said, "No news is good news!" and walked off.
For an interesting article about fortune cookies, you can check out this article from the New York Times, by an author who has literally written the book on them. One interesting fact from the article: the fortune cookie was actually invented in Japan, not China, and in fact fortune cookies are rarely served with meals in China itself. Since my airline flies to China, I may someday be able to verify this fact by personal experience, but not any time soon.
If I keep up these short posts, I should think about trying out a Twitter account. Of course, once I got going, this post turned out to be longer than I originally thought it would be. In any case, it's good to be getting back in the habit of blogging again, even if it's only in brief.
From a postal worker in Albuqerque attempting to explain a particular Post Office policy to me: "I don't know why they do it this way, but I'm so low on the food chain, I don't even qualify as bait!"
I don't really feel that way about my current job, although it does sum up my experiences at a few prior employers rather well.
Well, either you are throwing virtual tomatoes at me for choosing this post's title, or you are wondering, WHAT agony? Turns out, yours truly has (or had) an ingrown toenail on my left big toe. (I suppose I could have titled the post "The Agony of Da-Foot" but it doesn't have the same ring to it.) I got it removed yesterday, by a professional (are you listening, Dariush?) although fortunately, he just had to remove the right edge.
This isn't the first time my toes have gone "under the knife," so to speak. Way back in the late 80's, I had several incidents with ingrown toenails on my right big toe...and it was removed a total of I think three times, ultimately growing back rather thick and ugly-looking. I always said if it happened again I'd just get the whole nail removed, but so far I haven't had to do that.
This time, it was my left foot's big toe that was the problem. It was actually acting up on me before my trip to Amsterdam, so in order to be able to walk around while I was there, I trimmed it REALLY short on that side. Not a medically wise thing to do, I know, but I wanted to be able to ambulate without pain while I was there.
I went to my regular doc's office after I got back from my European adventure. I had caught some kind of cold or bronchial infection while I was on my trip, and wanted to get it checked out. My primary doc also looked at my toe once I mentioned it to him, prescribed some antibiotics, and referred me straightaway to a podiatrist, which is where I went yesterday (and where the minor surgery occurred.)
My toe wasn't that inflamed when I went to the podiatrist's office yesterday (probably due to the aforementioned antibiotics) but he felt removal was the best option, which I had no problem with. He also wanted to prescribe more antibiotics, and some kind of ointment. Unfortunately, when I got to the pharmacy, I was told the total for those two items was going to be about $80 ($50 just for the ointment) and that there were no generic equivalents available.
Now, I do not skimp on my health, let me make that clear. If I have to get something done, I have no problem going to see a doctor or get the medicine they recommend. But in this case, the after-insurance price of the drugs made me take pause...especially since I didn't think my toe was all that infected. And no, I'm not a doctor, but I have had severely inflamed ingrown toenails in the past, and this one wasn't like that at all. Also in the past, doctors have said that plain old over-the-counter Neosporin works fine as an ointment, post-removal. I opted to not get the prescriptions filled yesterday and called the doc's office to leave a message asking about them. Of course, nobody had returned my call by this afternoon.
I finally called back and got the doctor's nurse. I asked to speak with the doctor and got the reply of, "Is there something I could help you with?" I swear, getting a doctor to talk to you directly on the phone is like pulling teeth sometimes...but I went ahead and explained the situation to her. "Well, that's what Dr. Nag likes to use with his patients," she replied. "There's no generic available. You haven't gotten it yet? Hold on, I'll talk to him."
She came back a couple of minutes later. "Dr. Nag says he prefers the mega-overpriced foot goop but says you can use Neosporin if you insist." (OK, she didn't really say the mega-overpriced part.) "He said you don't have to take the antibiotics either, if you don't want to, but to soak your foot in warm water with some vinegar twice a day for a week." I never did speak to Dr. Nag (not his real name, if you hadn't guessed) directly today, but if I can avoid spending money on overpriced foot goop, I'm all for it.
My question is, do doctors ALWAYS choose the most expensive option in determining how to treat patients? If I didn't really need an antibiotic, why did he prescribe one anyway? Oh well. I guess I'm fortunate that I don't have any kind of chronic condition or ongoing prescriptions I have to get all the time...my mother does, and I know how much those can add up to be. All the same, I wonder if many doctors here might do better not to blindly prescribe expensive medicine if it isn't really necessary.
For those of you who say I don't post enough...you're right, and it has been too long. But, better late than never. I decided to dedicate this post to my recent mini-vacations over the last few months, starting with the trip I took to Albany last October. Bonus geek points if you get the Stephen King reference from this post's title.
I suppose that after reading my last post you might think I didn't have a good mini-vacation in New York...however, other than that incident, it was a pretty fun getaway. We went hiking on Saturday, and out to dinner Saturday night, where my friend had the wait staff sing "Happy Birthday" to me, much to my embarassment. Getting home was a pain, but I did make it on all the flights I wanted to get on, and that's the important thing. Whoever said that getting there is half the fun definitely never traveled on standby. I took the picture to the left at the summit of where we hiked on Saturday, near Lake George in New York. The person in the picture is my friend Melanie, who is much more photogenic than I am.
I didn't travel again for a few months after that, but I did manage to finally get out of town before my nephew's basketball season ended. He's in his senior year and I had been wanting to get up for one of his games...it's a bit more challenging to do that now rather than when I lived in Wisconsin, but hey, what are flight benefits for? I got to see him play in two games, actually, during his end-of-season tourney. We also went out for food and saw "Vantage Point" one afternoon. All in all, a good trip, but I did discover I do not miss snow, at all. I didn't take any pictures of the snow, but I did make a YouTube video of my nephew in a 3-point contest before one of his games.
Fast forward to this month, when I finally decided to head overseas to complete my international flight deck observation requirement for the year. I'd never been to Amsterdam, and we fly there nonstop, so that's where I headed for a couple of days. I had one day for sightseeing, which isn't much but is better than nothing. I did take some pictures this time with my cellcam and uploaded them to Flickr if you'd like to check them out. It's still a bit chilly in northern Europe, but I had a good (if all too brief) time. I was able to visit some historic sights, including Anne Frank's house, and I took a boat tour that was kind of fun. I also checked out a Torture museumto get some ideas for my storage closet which I thought looked interesting, but turned out to be a bit dull. The torture museum did have a historic guillotine set up with a sign saying "do not sit on or lie down" posted nearby. I guess lying under a guillotine blade might make for a nice picture but it strikes me as a good way to make it into the Darwin Awards. Of course, you can never tell what an intoxicataed tourist might try, so I suppose the sign was a good idea on the museum's part.
It is very expensive there. Even knowing I would get reimbursed for my hotel and meals, I still felt like I was spending too much money. Next time, I'm heading somewhere with a better exchange rate. (On a positive note, the high prices did keep me from being tempted from trying anything crazy in the Red Light district.) It's definitely a really interesting and scenic city, even if it's pricey.
I actually got a first class seat flying over, and I rode back for about half the trip in the cockpit, fulfilling my annual observational requirement, then went back to coach for the rest of my journey. I was also able to visit an ATC facility at the airport there before I flew back, which is always educational.
I'm writing this post in Albuquerque, on my latest trip to see my Mom. Beautiful weather here, although a bit windy today. Back to Texas tomorrow, where I'll finish this post up, add all my pictures, and post it. Of course, I can't just kick up my heels the whole time I come home, as there are always some maintenance items to take care of on a 40-year-old house, but since we've increased Mom's caregiver hours it does give me a chance to run around more on my own without worrying about her.
I went to see a movie last night at a theater I used to go to in high school sometimes...it was a serious 80's flashback. That place, The Guild, has been there since 1966. It was closed for a little while but now is reopened, and doing fairly well from what I hear. It's a small, one-screen theater (the only one remaining in Albuquerque) but it's fun to see a movie in that environment from time to time...plus the tickets, at $7, didn't feel like a huge price gouge.
I don't really make full use of my travel benefits, I guess, but I do try and get away from time to time. I really do like traveling when I get the chance. I figure that if you put up with all the BS in the airline industry, and you don't enjoy travel, you'd be wise to find a lower-stress and more secure job outside of aviation...at least, there must be SOME reason I'm still doing this after a dozen plus years.
Greetings all. I know, I've been gone too long (again.) I promised myself a blog entry this days off, and I haven't done one, but I did have a draft written up from last year of something I was going to blog about, so here it is, in incomplete form:
I thought I'd share an incident that occurred on a trip I took last fall to see a friend in Albany...it was a good trip but our drive to the airport wasn't.
My friend Melanie was taking me to the airport in Albany (I'd spent the weekend at her place to celebrate my birthday) and the Interstate was all backed up. I asked her if this was the only way to the airport and she said she didn't know of another one offhand, so we went ahead and got on.
I'm not sure what was causing the backup...probably some kind of accident ahead...but we were trying to merge from the entry lane (which ended about a half mile after we got on the freeway) into the next lane over, and this one tanker truck did NOT want to let us get in. We'd speed up to get ahead, and then he'd speed up...finally Melanie was trying to pull over and he sped up to the point that his mud flap touched her car and left a mark on it. She was freaking out, I was freaking out, but I think the truck driver finally realized he was about to get in an accident and backed off some. We got in front of him, finally, and then traffic came to a stop. Melanie jumped out to check to see if there was damage (there was a nick, but very minor) and to give the truck driver the finger.
Since traffic was so slow and I was running late for the airport, we didn't do an accident report, although she did get the guy's license number. I called in to highway patrol and they said the only way they could take a report was if we stopped, which would have meant missing my flight, so...we didn't stop. Actually, after looking at the map while stopped in traffic, we found a way to get to the airport and avoid the highway by getting off at the next exit, which we proceeded to do.
Looking back, I suppose that technically, the truck driver did have legal right of way...but there is such a thing as common sense and courtesy when driving, also. He really seemed willing to almost get in an accident rather than let us in front of him...but fortunately, we survived unscathed.
