We Can’t Miss You If You Don’t Go Away

Well things have gone and gotten into an international garbage fire, huh? Governments are trying to quell the crash of their society’s fears against the crumbling economies, hinting that “everything will be fine when you’re back at work, producing, happy, normal, YOU WILL BE FINE WE PROMISE OR WE WILL FIRE YOU, AND YOUR FAMILY WILL DIE IN THEIR BEDS.” In the meantime, there’s a groundswell of sentiment backing the Workers of the World. As employees (non-CEO-levels) are forced to stay home, the world’s climate is seeing rest and repair while commutes and factories are reduced to almost nil in some places. And some people with almost no personality at all are missing the normalcy of a routine that was leading them to a nice retirement card and an early grave.

Now, there’s shit to be shoveled everywhere at all times. As someone who has shoveled shit of one kind or another, and will do so in the future, I have been trying to “stay productive” in the days since being sent to work from home (WFH), going on 1 full month now. It’s different and weird and not what any of us would want, but this is reality now. Dwelling in Reality is the only way to really center yourself when you don’t know what to do next. And sometimes shoveling shit isn’t really what you’re supposed to do at all.

Yesterday I, and 50% of the employees for the company I work for, were furloughed due to the quick, sharp decline in consumer spending. I am still processing feelings and ideas about it, from “they don’t see me as important” to “now’s the time to finish up the 1,000,000 things I say I’d do if I had time.” We’re also in the middle of a stretch where our kids are not in school, and we’ve done our best to homeschool them, or at the least, not let their brains go completely pudding-like. So now I can look at all the shovels and all the shit and decide what I want to do with either of them.

I surely have more to do than I have written down. In the past year I left one job, had 3 days off, and started the new one. Shortly thereafter I tore my quadriceps tendon, which I didn’t find out for about a month, then had surgery to repair it, and currently I am rehabbing that. Also in the past year I got into a debate online (I know… dumb move) about how workers control the industry, but nobody believes they do, because you’d never be able to organize enough people to walk out at the same time to cripple an economy “just to prove a point.” My point was that if every person in a major industry took a week off, and had their company pay for it by way of paid vacation time, the industry would see a hit that would likely correct the way of thinking. That introduced a larger, more problematic idea to get past.

The idea is that people fear the loss of their income so much that they’d never do something that drastic, something that would raise the ire of the company for which they trade time for production and knowledge. Not enough people would trade a paid day off to march in a protest if that meant they would lose time to do nothing around the holidays or take a trip somewhere. I know, this sounds very Marxist, and even though I’ve read only a wee bit of Marx and usually when I was hungover. I know this leans very socialistic, because it is from a Worker’s point of view. But again, I’m not against Capitalism. But a minimum wage isn’t the least you can make, it’s the least a company is forced to pay you, and some would pay less if they could, because Profit Margins, bitch.

We have a greater power now. In a time when many of us looked at saving our jobs by going to work, we can help save communities and people and industries if we do waaaaay less than we are used to doing. There are skills to learn. There are museums you can tour, virtually. Work on your lunges. Come July you can have those bakery-fresh buns you always promised yourself you’d bring to the party. And if you would just STAY HOME AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, there can be parties to go to, with people you truly like, who have jobs with golden shovels. Won’t it be nice to be missed?

March 26, 2020 0

The Amazing Health Crises Part 1

I’m no fan of privatized health care. We’ve been in its shadow in America for so long it has been accepted as the Devil We Know. Lots of people are too frightened to go all-in on a Nationalized Health Care situation, wondering if the quality of care will deteriorate, like most things do when handed over to the government. I get it. I have dealt with insurance companies on deeply frustrating, emotional levels since I was in my early 20’s and trying to figure out why my joints were on fire and my skin was breaking out in scaly rashes. (answer, Psoriatic Arthritis!). Now imagine giving an entire Plan of Care over to Government Employees who are NOT in line to get bonuses based on the organization’s performance, and you might begin to picture a doctor’s office resembling a DMV lobby on a Monday near the end of the month…

The problems that stem from the gap in having good coverage and having “not good” coverage, or no coverage, can be filled with money and doctors. By 2032, there’s a predicted shortfall of perhaps 122,000 doctors, both in Primary care and in Specialists.
“The major factor driving demand for physicians continues to be a growing, aging population. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the nation’s population is estimated to grow by more than 10% by 2032, with those over age 65 increasing by 48%. Additionally, the aging population will affect physician supply, since one-third of all currently active doctors will be older than 65 in the next decade. When these physicians decide to retire could have the greatest impact on supply.”

The rheumatologist I was a patient of recently semi-retired, and was one of less than 20 in the state of Washington (his number, can’t corroborate). The provider gap is expected to be filled by Physician’s Assistants and APRNs, likely doing more triage and low-severity care before referring on to the Doctors. Got gas? They’ll check you out. The gas is presenting as a green spirit that can telepathically communicate with birds? On ya go!

So we’ll have fewer doctors in relation to (potential) demand of people. Baby Boomers (about 74 million) make up a great portion of the population, and will in turn need more geriatric services and care as they near the Final Good Bye (Florida or Arizona). Factor in a generation that was caught up in few terribly destructive health crazes (jogging, low fat dieting, voting Republican) and you’re looking at more cases of Alzheimers, Dementia, Trumpism, and judging of younger generations than ever before. What then?

Well… I don’t really know. Here’s where I’d start with getting a nationalized health care plan going.

Take SUPER GOOD care of yourself. Get away from refined carbs, which can cause inflammation, which is the underlying cause of most chronic diseases. I triggered my autoimmune issues with a diet of stress, bad sleep, low fat eating, low-grade beer, and sleeping in a weird, moldy environment in college. Keeping inflammation low-to-no will greatly lend to longevity.
Forgive all student debt for Medical Doctors, or heavily subsidize their education, particularly for specialists in fields lacking care providers. Nursing is the 8th most-popular Major in college. Pre-Med isn’t in the top 10 (one study shows Health professions & related areas is #2 in 2017 but doesn’t differentiate between Nursing, Dentistry, etc.). Computer science is #1, but that’s an entirely different pursuit. (FTR, Instagram Influencer and YouTuber are not college majors, but should be charged a quarterly tuition) Student Debt should not be a barrier to entry for the betterment of anybody’s life and education.
Get Rid of Betsy De Vos. She’s a malignancy to the education of American children, and should be treated as such. She’d rather keep people poor and under-educated, as an attempt at reserving higher education for wealthier families. She is the richest person on Trump’s cabinet. She’s never taught a class in her life.
Slow-Roll the national health care plan. Phase it in a few areas at a time. Nothing jarringly huge. Take one service and subsidize it. Radiology. Every x-ray, CT Scan, MRI is paid for by the American Government. Soon you’ll see what works and what doesn’t, the potential areas of corruption, and who stuck what in their where-now?

Ultimately, staying healthy is the best cure. Age and Life take their toll. I have a surgery on January 30 to repair a torn quadriceps tendon. Life happens. But in a nation with way more money than intelligence when it comes to spending it, we need to equate a Healthy Citizenry with a Healthy Nation. We have many more needs than faster fighter jets that will never fire a shot at a hostile foreign enemy. We need people to build solar panels and roads and tend to hemp forests.

January 22, 2020 0

Carry-On Luggage

It’s been forever since I wrote anything. I have lacked energy, motivation, insight, and probably time to do so. But honestly, I have the time, I just burn it doing unproductive crap like working or yard work. Or phone-scrolling like a laboratory crack-monkey. The motivation has been there, sometimes, but I’m not feeling too inspired lately. Then I read something, I think it was Carl Jung’s quote… (hey, Geoff, an easy way to confirm that is go to on the internet and see if this is true…)

“Life really does begin at forty. Up until then, you are just doing research.”

I have plenty of work to do, but man, Jung was a pretty deep dude.

His insight into the duality of human existence, of overcoming our greatest fears or darkest corners by admitting them and confronting them, led me to a lot of introspection in my 20’s. In my late-20’s, I had what was probably close to what they call a “quarter-life crisis.” Did a lot of therapy at that time, a lot of looking way back to my childhood to understand why I was in a cycle of friendships and relationships that stagnated. The only constant in those scenarios was Me, so however it played out, I had the same role every time. It was a great step forward to gain understanding of my own behavioral drives.

“His retreat into himself is not a final renunciation of the world, but a search for quietude, where alone it is possible for him to make his contribution to the life of the community.”

Fast-forward to 2019. Recently spent a fair amount of time with some people who, frankly, are carrying a lot of old shit around. And not just carrying it, but leaning it onto other people, unconsciously, because that’s what they have to offer. I don’t think it’s malicious, their leaning. There’s no reflection of whether or not it’s beneficial to carry it, and thus, no wondering if it helps to blurt out their “take” on a situation. Because some of the stuff I saw and heard was straight-up bullshit, bigoted, short-sighted, and/or stupid.

“I have always been impressed by the fact that there are a surprising number of individuals who never use their minds if they can avoid it, and an equal number who do use their minds, but in an amazingly stupid way.”

When I was 10 or 11, I had a great interest in biology and how animals were created and grew. I wondered how 2 kids from the same parents could look vastly different. I loved animals. I told my mom I thought it would be cool to be a veterinarian some day. She asked me…

“Do you think if someone brought you a sick animal that you could put it to sleep?”

So in this conversation about something not happening, in theory, for 20 years, I have to handle the hardest part of the work before I ever start? Whatever place of reality that came from, it wasn’t encouraging. I’m not a veterinarian. I didn’t share much with my mom about my hopes after that. Subconsciously I didn’t see trust there.

“We are not what happened to us, we are what we wish to become.”

Recently we’ve been working a lot on the Growth Mindset with our kids, and the teams I coach. It’s more about understanding that putting in effort leads to success, mistakes are OK but quitting is not, and taking time daily to reflect on what went well, and what we can change. This doesn’t mean we eschew dwelling in reality so that we never feel bad or think we screwed up, cranking Disney soundtracks and polishing our participation trophies. It means we focus on what’s working, praise the effort that went it a good outcome, and admit that we can get better.

So when I’m around negativity, which for some people is a default selection in their menu – to find fault everywhere and constantly express how people around them would be happier if they’d just listen to advice – I quickly tire of that cycle. I see a person who is insecure and needs validation. I see a person who is hurt and can’t or won’t heal. I see someone who needs to be listened to, but can’t ask for help. There’s a part of all of us that is flawed, imperfect, mottled, cracked, or dark. It’s a part we’re not all happy with, and most of us would never allow the world to see it. But it’s part of being Human. I’m a wreck sometimes, the way my brain processes the smallest issues while accepting horrible events.

“The reason for evil in the world is that people are not able to tell their stories.”

There are times when these people would steer conversations towards things they knew a lot about. Which is fine. But not everyone knows a lot about, let’s say, the compression ratios of indirect injection in diesel engines (it ranges from 18:1 to 24:1, but you go lower and you’re gonna bonk it out). And it’s not a lively discussion when one person has to talk about that for a long time after being told what’s-what about tariffs with China and how that impacts American spending from across the dinner table. And then they point out “Geoff’s tuned out, he doesn’t know shit about diesel engines.” True on both accounts.

There were a few times when, having pointed out, quietly, that what I was hearing from these people – complaints about how other people did their job, how other people spent their money, how other people lived their lives (even though it had zero outward impact) – was just dead-weight negatives, I was told to “not make a thing of it.” I wasn’t making a thing of it, but I’m not going to NOT put up a boundary on my good time. Life is far too short. Don’t crap in a punchbowl and call me impolite for drinking from my flask. Don’t crap in a punchbowl, period.

“Let the light of your madness shine, and it will suddenly dawn on you. Madness is not to be despised and not to be feared, but instead you should give it life.”

Instead of carrying it all around, everywhere we go, I think it’s far more beneficial to admit we carry some ugly luggage. Start there. We lie to ourselves, tell ourselves things are fine while our ears are bleeding, refuse to admit we have to make a change, etc. And the luggage gets heavier. It takes more strength to put it down and open it up than it does to keep carrying it. Nobody can see it, usually. So it just looks like somebody struggling to get through the day; the baggage is invisible, but the weight of it is evident.

And the closer we are to letting go of that stuff, the more some people get uncomfortable. They don’t understand that dragging it around isn’t part of Life, it’s part of Stagnation and Death. I hope I can keep choosing introspection and reflection over wallowing.

“Every step closer to my soul excites the scornful laughter of my devils, those cowardly ear-whisperers and poison-mixers.”

May 15, 2019 0

Be Not Still, My Beating Heart

On the afternoon of March 14^th, following some busy days and nights, I got home and felt like my chest was frozen. After sitting around and letting everything reset, I felt better, but that’s not a far walk from what I had been feeling. I told myself “don’t mess around here, man, this isn’t funny, this isn’t acid reflux.”

I walked around my yard for about 5minutes, and again felt frozen between my shoulders. I had never felt anything like it, and it freaked me out. It was painful, but not like a sore muscle. I wasn’t sweating, nor feeling a looming sense of unmitigated despair any more than usual. So my wife drove me to the ER. I walked in and told the folks there what was going on, and with eyes widened the way you’d widen your eyes if somebody had a harpoon in their ear and asked if it “looked bad” but you didn’t want them to panic, they told me to sit down and do some tests. My blood pressure was up, oxygen was OK, and I went to a room for observation.

An EKG showed no signs of a heart attack. A blood test found no evidence of a heart attack. I was admitted a few hours later with the aim of being kept overnight for an angiogram. It’s that procedure where a doctor snakes a thin tube into your artery (they went in through my wrist but shaved an area peri-groinal just in case… they needed even more power over the situation), to your heart, and you watch the entire thing on an X-Ray monitor while iodine is injected in a the artery, showing any areas of narrowing or damage. I was kinda high when they did it, after they had injected me with a light sedative, which calmed me down after I had spent a good half hour crying in my hospital room. They should grow a hybrid of Sativa, Indica, and Sense of Mortality. Really burns off the white noise.

So as I’m lying on the table, the doctor comes in and tells me this is his 4^th procedure of the morning. I’m a little worried because it’s coming up on lunch time and, that usually leads to rushed or sloppy work. But the staff threw the X-ray over me and we watched my heart thumping away. I couldn’t really see anything of a blockage as they had yet to inject the iodine. I didn’t feel anything more than a poke at my wrist when they made the insertion. I just lay there with very little to think about other than my life, and my family, and my future with my family.

A minute or maybe 5 later, it was show-time. The doctor injected the iodine, enough to darken the artery we suspected was having an issue. It showed up like a black worm on the screen, wriggling beneath the right atrium as blood was struggling to get through. And there it was…

RCA-xray — *Not my heart, but I was pinched above the PDA*

My right coronary artery, had a 1.5mm area that was 70-80% narrowed/blocked/too small. 1.5mm. That’s miniscule. In the universe it doesn’t register as a blip of a blip’s blip. But it can cause huge issues. It can kill you. Is that how I wanted to go? After being run over by a Harley 20 years ago, narrowly avoiding 100’s of car accidents, almost flipping a car on 520, but I get taken out by 1.5mm of blocked artery…

A moment later the doctor said, “OK, there it is, that skinny part in the middle is the problem. Let’s get that back open here.” A stent was placed, and I could see the vessels and branches into the ventricles all grow darker, as well. They were finally getting far more blood than they had in quite a while. I was up and walking around my hospital room that night, and went home the next day, happy to go pick up my boys after school.

The staff said “Wow, you’re smart for coming in when you did. Too many guys try and walk it off.” Being proactive AND correct is very rare for me. I was even more grateful for listening to myself, and even in the face of some strong agnosticism, I fully believe that I have angels (for lack of a better term) that whisper to me.

Since this happened, I’ve felt far better than I have in about a year, and probably 3. Of COURSE I feel better – my heart’s working much more closely to “Normal”, ya big goose! If you think something’s wrong, if you have consistently high blood pressure, please go get things checked out. You can save yourself a lot of trouble, and maybe even a lot of life.

April 4, 2018 0

Staph Meeting: The Small Bug That Bites Big

About 2 months ago I hit the busiest period of my life in the past 2 years. Work was humming along, coaching teeball one night a week (not for the money) working out 3 days a week, and preparing to move to a new home/sell a home/argue about moving and packing. Bizz. Eee. I wasn’t sleeping much but felt fine. I was eating healthy and not over-doin’ it with booze. OK, I suppose “over-doin’ ” is subjective, but for my standards, I was FINE, OK, I was fine…

Then I got hit with a bastard of a staph infection on my thigh. I think I got it from the mats at the gym, though I usually wipe ’em down before stretching on them.n I’ll never use mats again. The smallest cut and a latent response to the bugs and next thing I knew, a cyst the size of half a golfball was growing on my outer thigh. The part where you sit down and it hits a chair. Or you stand up and your pocketed-phone bumps the side of it. The area where you nudge it and cry a little. I couldn’t think of it without wincing.

After about 5 days from “implantation” to “it has a heartbeat,” I had a doc take a look at it. I thought it was MRSA due to my medical training (Thanks WebMD.com!) but it wasn’t. It was the non-MR staph aureus, which bode well for me. It was also a nice little scar about the size of a penny to remind me to not F around with that stuff.

Fast forward to 2 weeks ago; final weekend of moving into the new house. 90deg-F, in and out of trucks, sweating like a training montage in a 1980’s martial arts film. And I get the smallest cut on my back from whatever. 24 hours later, IT’S BACK. The warm, infectious feeling of spreading staph! Now, I thought MAYBE it was an ingrown hair and begged my wife to hot compress it and break out the big safety pin and go to work. NOPE. Too gross for her. Too much to ask. And in hindsight that could have spread the bug much further into my system.

The next day I’m begging to see the dermatologist because my other doc was a little too happy to dig in with a knife. The area on my back spread from a Quarter-sized area of heat and pain to about the size of an adult hand, tucked under my skin. And it hurt like somebody was pressing an iron into my back, but with a lovely little Vesuvius right there in the middle, a grotesque Ground Zero of bacterial bombardment. It had moved from a red to a deep purple spot about 1/4″ across, which was not a bruise. Instead, it’s necrosis; the bacteria and eaten and killed everything in that are and moved on.

My dermatologist took one look and said “OK… well… how much time do you have this morning?” 10min later, laying face-down on the table and lidocaine injected into the infected area. A slice, a push, and doc says “Yeah, this was getting bad. You had an abscess here that wasn’t gonna stop. We’re gonna drain this and see what we can do.”

That was 3 weeks ago now. I went through a round of Cephalexin to kill it. I had twice-daily “expressions” of the area to release any fluid built up under the left shoulder blade and in my back. I couldn’t sleep but in 1 position, and not even a fair dose of painkillers could lull it to rest. People used to die from this thing, and through the miracle of modern medicine, I have a quarter-sized hole in my back, packed with gauze, and draining only a slight amount of clear fluid and blood while it heals itself. My wife has become a field-nurse of heroic proportions. She saw my inner back-meat, and didn’t flinch.

The weird part of all this is… I had been telling myself, and been told by others, to gear-down. I had about 3 high-stress, low-sleep months where I powered through it and was ready to slow-down once we moved into the new house. Well, I did. I haven’t been to the gym for a serious lift in 4 weeks. I slept more. I drank less. My body revolted against my mind in order to preserve itself like a biologic Bastille Day; my body needed resources to stay healthy, which I was refusing it due to my own agenda. Your body seeks balance, HomeoStasis, a mid-point of reserve and expression. I guess this is part of getting older; shut-down for benefit, or be shut-down.

So hot-wash every bit of clothing, bedding, and toweling you have. Steam-clean the car seats. And remember that you should take it easy now and again. Life is not a sprint, nor a marathon. It’s a nice walk around town with a few stops for friends and meals and medically-approved THC-infused brownies.

September 5, 2014 0

You Big Dopamine – Motivation, Neurology, And Execution

There is a root cause of every problem, but we don’t always know something is a “problem,” and often think whatever “is” just “is.” Like having 11 toes, that extra piggy isn’t a bother until shoes don’t fit right or somebody says “Hey, what’s THAT?” In trying to find out the Why of things in Life, I highly recommend a little RCA, or “Root Cause Analysis.” That’s the cause, not the symptom. If your carpet is wet every morning and you dry it out every night, you don’t need a carpet that dries itself (symptom), you need to stop taking Ambien and urinating in the family room (root).

I found this article about what Dopamine is, what it does, and how to start harnessing it for your own good. You don’t have to be ADD’ed to benefit from the news here, as Dopamine comes into play in many ways in our daily living and “GSD” (gettin’ shit done).

HOW TO HARNESS YOUR BRAIN’S DOPAMINE SUPPLY AND INCREASE MOTIVATION

A major issue with ADD (which I am writing to include ADHD) is the lack of dopamine or the ability to process it properly in the brain. Dopamine is the “outcome predictive” chemical. It is also the “pleasure bath” your brain is submersed into when you accomplish something. So it’s feeding your brain a signal that “Something we like can be had if we do XYZ, even if it’s a moment of saving our own ass when the cops show up.” (or whatever you do on Thursdays) This also plays into our metabolism, sleep, and interpersonal relationships. Take Dopamine down, or out, and you’re gonna be a crank.

“Increased dopamine in the nucleus accumbens signals feedback for predicting rewards. Your brain recognizes that something important—good or bad—is about to happen, thus triggering motivation to do something.”

I always research anything I think is going poorly, can be enhanced, or needs to be down-regulated, even if it’s my behavior, my kid’s behavior, or my friend’s use of the phrase “a whole ‘nother” because ” ‘nother” isn’t a word.

I have supplemented with NOW Foods DOPA Mucuna and Tyrosine, 2 natural dopamine precursors. The former provides a very easy focus and mental ecosystem of being motivated and process-oriented. The latter is a little more “tightly focused” without the kind of chilled-out feeling DOPA gives you.

I’m not a doctor, but I do advocate for my own well-being at all times. I’ll soon post a note about how I had to close a treatment-gap I had with an endocrinologist, one where the two options he gave me were so far apart you could almost fit his desire for a bigger boat in between them.

Thanks for readin’, sorry this isn’t too funny…

May 19, 2014 0

Managing ADHD Without Medication

It can be done, this whole management of ADHD and ADD without the use of medication. If you have the precursory chemical and/or behavioral makeup for either, you have likely coped for many years with the struggle of focus, focus, focus, listen, store, recall, etc. I am amazed at what I have been able to accomplish in my life prior to my diagnosis.

That being said, I still think if one goes to a doctor who is a specialist in a field, and you DON’T walk out of there with a diagnosis in their field of practice, that doctor isn’t doing very well in general. That may explain why I took my wife to the doctor last week and now I have a pap smear in April, but anyway…

This was a great LifeHacker article wherein the author stated their ability to manage ADHD while in school, and I can see how it would fit very well into the real world. Not that school isn’t real, it’s just not reality. Wait until those “Tiger Kids” start hitting the job market, with their Valedictorian status, and their ability to play 3 instruments and speak 4 languages and completely deny all levels of social leisure. Nobody wants to work with a person who can’t chill the hell out for 10seconds.

There are many silos of diagnoses for ADD, btw. I can focus on something I am interested in for long periods of time, including writing. For some people it may be gardening, but not plumbing repair, nor dryer vent-cleaning. So, what, that person has ADD, right? Do we have to focus on everything all the time? Maybe all I needed to get over my intellectual inferiority complex in high school was a tap on the shoulder in Trigonometry class, and somebody to tell me;

“Hey man, you’re sitting between 2 of the hottest girls in school, an hour before lunch, and you lifted weights 30min ago. You shouldn’t be interested in graphing cos t any more than you’re interested in wearing a high-top fade. Chill. Get Kristie’s number and chill.”

With all of science working as hard as it has, there has yet to be a pharamceutical breakthrough that makes boring people more interesting.

March 17, 2014 0

Can You Afford To Care Act

Already my family has taken the brunt of the Affordable Care Act’s jet-wash, knocking us off a very good plan and into the spiral of disparate coverages. Now, I can’t prove that the plan we were on 3 months ago was impacted by the machinations of ACA. I won’t call it Obamacare because the irony of “Affordable Care” is much darker to me, so it’s ACA all the way. I can’t prove the impact because I would have to see transcripts of the meetings between my company and the health insurance providers (HSP) we were with, and how our premiums went up $348/month. THEN I’d have to get clearance from the companies my firm talked with about costs and how those costs went up, break down per-person premium bumps, and then I’d start to have some proof. But that’s not as important as the Truth. The Truth is how it impacts Me, or Us, or You, or My Family. And sorry neighbor, that’s all I give an F about.

So, a month ago we were basically forced off our plan as the premiums through my company were to rise on Nov. 1 to the equivalent of a mortgage payment on a good-sized home in a decent neighborhood outside of the Seattle area (overvalued!). And with the holidays coming, we’d rather have the $700 to put elsewhere than into the coffers of the legalized racketeering that is health insurance. I have been the beneficiary and bitch of HSPs in the past, believe me. I’ve been on both sides of it. But as of now, due to the ri$e, I am covered through work, but… MY FAMILY HAS NO COVERAGE RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE!

WHAT? BUT… Every American who wants coverage gets it, right?
Well SURE… If you need to get to a new plan, things change but you get coverage! But first you have to provide certificate of creditable coverage for the previous 24 months. And that takes time. And fill out a 25-35page “health questionnaire” and then fax that in. And that takes time. And there’s the online application. There’s a person who reviews the questionnaire and makes some decisions. All of this takes time before ACA goes officially into effect in January… or is it March?

So right now, instead of paying about $600/month to cover my kids and wife we are sitting on the money and it’s not in the backalley of the local HSP. So if my kid needs a doctor’s office visit and some medicine , probably cost us about $180 out of pocket.

WAIT, dude… That’s… No deductible?

Nope, no deductible. No tax on my cover charge. No proof that I can pay for care after I’ve already payed my premium. It would save us $420/month in this scenario. And the care would be the same. Offices will take money right from you. Did you know that? Isn’t that weird? A service taking payment directly from those they serve? What a world we’re living in.

Of course there’s the trepidation of catastrophe, what if a bone breaks or a clot forms or a hemorrhoid-rages out of control and needs cauterization? Car accidents. Shark flood. Old Testament diarrhea AT THE GROCERY STORE. What then? Who pays? I guess it depends on who decides what your life costs, and you pay them.

Catastrophic insurance, if it exists for you, maybe all we need, and a little cash stash to cover the rest of it. Otherwise, sorry kiddos… Christmas is thin this year, but we’ll stuff your stockings with doctor’s office stickers and sweet magnetic calendars from the HSP stating “Happy & Healthy Is The Best Policy.” Stress kills more than anything else, and it’ll probably kill you by the time you figure out how deep in your colon the HSPs are.

LIVE LONG AND PROSPER

November 19, 2013 1

Cold and F-You Season

Just a friendly reminder from your co-worker…

Just because you’re coughing up “less” blood doesn’t mean you’re “on the mend.” Stay at home.
You missing 2 days of work = 2 days of work missed. You getting 4 people sick = 4-6 days of work missed. Stay at home.
Your kid’s sickness doesn’t mean that kid should be socialized with other kids so that other kids’ immune systems can be exposed to your kid’s sickness and everybody takes a step forward in the “strong immune system” line. You are not allowed to compromise anybody else’s health based on short-sighted, negligent, selfish parenting. We’ll get through the 3 year-old’s party without you, your annoying fashion choices, and your overuse of the word “amazing.” Stay at home.
If I can hear you coughing and blowing your nose from 3 rows away, that’s too close. Stay at home.
Stay at home. Until March, if necessary.
Wash your hands. Wash ’em again. Soap and water’s fine. No more superbugs.
Stay at home.

October 7, 2013 1

Eat It

There’s no way I should be hiding all of the truth from people if this is going to be a readable blog, right? Who wants to read regurgitated horse-S from a guy who sorta speaks his mind if it’s probably not going to bother people? Truth is, if you’re bothered then I said something that hit a part of you that you’re likely not happy about. You’ll stop reading or you’ll hate me and come back out of spite. Or you’ll agree and we can say “OK, let’s go forward.” It’s not my intent to offend anybody – that’s just a bonus.

So about these homo’s getting married… KIDDING, loosen up. Every adult should be allowed to enter a legally-recognized civil union and you can call it whatever you want, as long as we’re treated equally and allowed, on our own accord, to screw it up on a case-by-case basis.

It’s my intent to share whatever I can from my personal perspectives on life, parenting, health, and work in hopes it will connect with whomever reads this, and will keep them coming back, and they’ll tell their friends. Hopefully it will be entertaining, either from a comedy or mildly dramatic view. But overall it’s unfair to ask for anybody’s time if this is boring and repetitive and another boring “DadBlog.” I’ve read a few and thought how truly boring the dad’s come across, and wonder if they’re coming off like that to get laid at blogger conferences or if they really are that wussified. I have plenty of Compromise DNA in me, but a few entries on a few other DadBlogs almost made an “innie” out of my scrotum.

Where-to from there? How about food!? Shouldn’t try and ride the horse through highest waters just yet.

We’re having a renaissance of toddler eating habits in our house. With 1 toddler and 1 nurser and everybody working full-time there’s only so much time and so many hands with-which to prepare food. Many experts (I know they are because they wrote it on a website!) about toddler eating have said to give your kid what you’re eating, and they’ll come around to it.

Let/Make them try a lot of things. They won’t starve unless you with-hold all food from them. As parents WE dictate to the CHILD what’s available to eat. It doesn’t have to be dungeon gruel and the last of the ox gristle. But if we gave in to our son’s pouting about meals every time he hit a 7 on the Grumpometer, he’d have a steady diet of cookie-rabbits and juice. While it would ensure zero hassle at meal time, it would probably damage my oldest boy’s physical and emotional development. He’d be on an unhealthy path via nutrition and constant catering to his whims. The world doesn’t work like that, we don’t work like that, so neither will meal time.

In doing so we’ve had a few shortened lunches and dinners while baby carrots were left on the plate and cries came from the booster seat. Sometimes a single floret of broccoli designated the entire table a war-zone. Then eventually a few berries were eaten. Then a lot more. Then some brown rice with chopped vegetables became a staple. And recently the baby carrots diminished by a few by the end of the meal. He actually lived, acted, and slept very well in the aftermath of regularly having various foodstuffs on his plate. We usually have a starring role for a nearly-natural chicken nugget trio, a yogurt-fruit smoothie, applesauce, whole-grain pancakes, and the like. But as a dad who has fought the weight battle my whole life I want to get good nutrition habits into my son from early on. I can’t do that if I don’t eat healthy. I’m not perfect – I’ve had sensuous moments with brownies and slices of pizza that I still think of when I’m hungry – but at the very least I want my boys to try all kinds of food, see what they like, then mash it up into a paste and bake it into a cookie shape so they’ll eat it, stay thin, and have a perfect life. The end.

January 25, 2012 0

Tag: Health