Blog | Ah, What a day

Wrapping up 2025

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Wrapping up 2025

This has been one hell of a year. Yes, I have had worse, but I have definitely had better. I will make bullet points so you can scim over the content easier.

TLDR;

- Health is getting better.
- I might be able to return to work in a few years.

My Health

I’ve been on steroids for a long time now, and with that there are some side affects that creep up. One of which is Blood sugar issues. This is something I have been fighting and losing the battle to, but I have started with a new medical team with promising results. I won’t be giving out the specific details, but it’s starting to look up.

As for my legs and the edema, this has improved as well with the use of several devices to manage the lymphatic fluid build up. I started with just compression socks, and now I’m using a machine that does a draining massage. The cause of this is still not pointing at any one thing as an ‘ah ha’ moment, but it could just be the summation of all the factors. These are the top factors that I have: stomach surgeries, diabetes, and COVID.

Work

According to the doctors, I might be able to go back to work in a number of years. It’s not really known at this time if that will happen or not. Either way I’m good with, afterall I’m just glad to be alive still.

I’m continuing to hone my skills on a number of fronts, and hopefully, if and when I go back, I will have a path to get me back in the game.

Status Update as of March of 2025

Thu, 13 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

What has been going on?

Over the past several months there has been a lot of things I’ve been working on and trying to get back up and running. One of them, that was on the back burner was the ahwaday.com website. This was the most visible, and I will be going into all of the things that I was working on. For now, I’m going to list them.

Website
Development projects
Wood working projects
Health progress

Website

Last year sometime early, I started having issues with Wordpress (the software I was using). The problems I was running into were update and plugin related. While wordpress is an extremely extensible web software; it comes with any of those extensions/update can break a multitude of pages. This is why I have chosen to go with a more simplistic method of delivering website content for this site.

I chose to go with Hugo, HugoBlox, Gitlab, and Cloudflare Pages. While I do still keep a copy of everything local, it does a lot of the heavy lifting of pulling/building/deploying the website. While it’s not as interactive, it’s a lot faster and less prone to errors because the pages are now in a static format instead of pages rendered by PHP and database connections.

Development Projects

There are several projects I’m still working on dealing with Game Servers (ARK and Palworld), they are strictly for the gaming community I’m apart of. Maybe one day I’ll take some screenshots and/or do a youtube walk through showing things off.

As for the other development projects, I’m hoping to get some mental energy to continue on them. I will expand on these projects at a later date.

Wood working projects

As some of you know, I love working with wood. I recently started fractal burning wood and trying to finish them in a way that people would like them. The first one I did, will be turned into a coat rack for my dad. This is one of the things he has really wanted since he got sick.

I do plan on making more, and I will get around to it soon as I get my energy levels back.

Health progress

This is one of the topics I could bitch and moan about for a long time. The last few doctor visits have been interesting to say the least. My condition, Scelorosing Mesenteritis, is rare autoimmune disease. With this in mind, there aren’t a lot of ‘sure fire ways’ to deal with the disease other than to try medications that will help with inflammation. Currently, I’m trying a breast cancer medication, and they are trying to get me off of a steroid. This has been a mixed back of problems with it, and the main problem is that it has taken my energy levels down to a new low. I’m hoping it will get better, but from what I have read into the doctor’s faces, I’m not very optimistic about it.

Until next time, enjoy your life.

10 Weeks of Hell - Surgery and more

Sun, 19 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I have been thinking about writing about this for over a month. This morning I woke up and decided it was time to get it out in the air. To set the scene for this, imagine you are in severe pain with no way to understand what is happening.

What started it all

November 10, I woke up with severe pain from another intestinal blockage. This was after I went to bed on November 9th with no problems. I felt a little bad, but it was nothing abnormal. When I realized what was happening I called 911 to get transported to the hospital. They were able to get me partially easy, but after a few days, it wasn’t resolving itself. This wasn’t the normal case of these episodes, but a surgeon promised me that he would be able to fix what was happening. He told me that he was going to do it through laparoscopically, but after he got into the surgery, he had to open me up fully with a 5-6 inch vertical cut. The surgeon described my gut was in a bad state, and described the adhesions that he found as a ‘cobb-web of cobb-webs’.

Healing Journey

I woke up in severe pain on November 13th, and the only thing that really helped was Fentanyl. This was the only thing that would mostly get me at ease. While the side- effects of this drug are horrid, it got me somewhat easy. A few days later I was trying to get up and move, and I was able to make some progress with pain medications. They had me on foods within a few days as well, and everything seemed to be working ok. Little did I know that my intestinal tract was traumatized from the surgery, and when the intestinal tract is traumatized, it’s common for it to become ‘stunned’. This lasted until the first part of January, and I was in and out of hospitals from November 10th till January 17th. During this time, I was in Mission Hospital, Advent Health, CMC Main, and Mercy. I want to go into details about each of these experiences, and I will get to that later. Eventually, my intestines started working again, and my body would have changed beyond my own belief. During this time, I lost 80 lbs, and my diet was changed pretty dramatically. I’m now on mostly soft and liquidy foods.

Mission Hospital experience

While this hospital is the biggest hospital in Asheville, we need a better hospital here. The general surgery team was made up of multiple doctors, and it amazes me that some of them are very arrogant. I was on a track to get my body back to a working order, and the doctor on-call changed to the ‘head’ surgeon. This is when things went down hill fast. Soon as he got in charge again, he changed the method of treatment. While the prior surgeon had me on a path of recovery, he threw that out the window and went on his own path. This resulted in me having more issues, and the recovery was prolonged.

Advent Health

After my experiences at Mission hospital, I decided I needed to try another hospital. When I got there, they were able to get me in some sort of less pain state, and I saw the surgeon that did my surgery 16 years ago. He stated that the situation with me was to complicated, and I was needing better medical treatment than they could provide there. That’s when they were looking for another hospital that would accept me. After a few days, they said I was being transported back to Mission. This wasn’t going to happen cause I refused to go, but I had to sign out of the hospital against medical advice (AMA) if I didn’t want to go to Mission. This was a decision forced by the hospital staff at Advent Health. This is when mom was informed, and she drove from Charlotte to Advent Health to take me to Mercy hospital in Charlotte. When I signed out AMA, they rolled me out in a wheel chair without a mask to protect me from COVID into the lobby where there were COVID patients waiting for treatment. I was given 2 hours before they were going to leave me in the lobby waiting for a ride. In my opinion, this was the worst treatment I had during this time.

Mercy Hospital

When I got to Mercy, I was in severe pain, and they were able to get me back pretty quick due to all of the symptoms my body was exhibiting. I was given pain meds to get me somewhat easy, and then they started doing diagnosing of what exactly was happening. They admitted me within a few hours, and I was in a room 8-10 hours after I got to the ER. They done pretty much the same thing that Mission done; NG Tube then they done pain meds to combat the pain. Once I was able to eat again, it was pretty much the same thing that Mission did, clear liquids ramping up to solid foods. This was done a few times, and each time I seemed to handle it ok. When I got to mom’s house, things would go south quickly to where I would end up in the ER again. This happened until I was put on TPN and just a liquid diet. This allowed me to stay at my mom’s for several days. The first cleaning of the PICC line, it got infected. I ended back up in the ER with a high grade fever, and they administered several days of antibiotics. They kept me on TPN for a few days, and started me on a soft bite size diet which seemed to agree with me. They kept me until we made sure I was able to handle a few days of soft bite size meals.

CMC Main

I ended up going to this ER one time. This was an experience which was not pretty or fun. I was put in the ER triage, and ended up vomiting a lot of liquid up. Once again, I was given pain meds for the pain level I was under, and then I went through a series of waiting areas. We (mom and I) both caught COVID from this experience. This ultimately spread through mom’s house hold, my sick grandmother was there, and once they decided I was going to be admitted, I was transported back to Mercy. I ended up having COVID over Christmas, and this was the worst case of COVID I had. Ended up vomiting and diarrhea EVERYWHERE, and I ultimately ended up getting dehydrated due to all of the symptoms. I was then put in a room and wasn’t allowed to leave. Each time someone came into a room, they were covered head to toe with protective gear. This made me feel all sorts of dirty. It was amazing how that feeling spread through my mind and body. I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone.

Final Thoughts

While this experience was horrible and terrifying, it has changed me. When you are faced with what I went through, it makes you appreciate a lot of things differently. I have been told by several people that they didn’t think I was going to make it through this, which is odd to hear. While I understand where they are coming from, it’s still a shock. I have spared a lot of details of this, just to make things a bit easier to be heard. I sincerely hope that no one ever goes through what I have been through.

I will be writing another post soon about what is happening post hospital stays. With some details of what they have identified me of having.

Challenging times

Sun, 18 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

As some of you know, my nephew was in a car wreck a few weeks ago. He was travelling back home from dropping a co-worker off at Ingles on Merrimon Ave. Michael, my nephew, has been through the ringer since this, and I wanted to talk a bit about what has happened and is happening. I will also share somethings that has been bothering me. I have also setup a GoFundMe fundraiser for Michael’s expenses currently and after his discharge. You will see it attached to every page of mine at the bottom.

Michael’s accident

As I said before, he was travelling back home when he came across a hill near Beaver lake on Merrimon Ave, and he remembers that he saw headlights, then nothing else. Turns out he was in a head-on collision, and the driver of the other car was a drunk CNA. He woke up with blood everywhere, and he was in an extreme amount of pain. He had to be cut out of his car, and the first responders were surprised he was still alive and conscious of his surroundings. He was able to tell them to call his dad and his girlfriend. I haven’t been told much more about this, but just thinking about this type of situation that happened to my nephew, breaks my heart.

Michael’s recovery

While Michael has been going through multiple surgeries, and now he’s going through physical therapy. I often wonder how he’s going to be after everything is said and done. While his spirits are normally high, there are low times. I have sat with him a few times for assisting him and keeping him company, but there is a double edge sword to that, I will explain later. Last time I was up there, he was not able to get the pain medication to keep him easy, and this has been an on-going issue. While I understand that they don’t want him hooked on it, it’s still something that would help the over-arching goal of getting him better. I’m not going to say all of the bones, ligaments, and joints that were damaged, but I will say that he has a long road ahead of him. One thing that I keep my mind on, he’s going to be able to walk again, and this is a HUGE blessing.

Double edge sword

When I have stayed with Michael for multiple hours (4-5), my body doesn’t like it. When I say my body doesn’t like it, let me explain. When I get away from the room, and the situation, my body starts doing the whole pins and needles type of sensation. This is due to the amount of stress I’m putting my body through when I’m up there, I think, and then on top of the situational stress, PTSD. You are probably asking, why PTSD in a hospital. I’ve been in and out of the hospital for the last 16 years with my GI issues. A lot of these stays were alone, and I was in a lot of pain.

Hospital Staff and Skill levels

Up until 2019, the stays weren’t horrific, but since the stays are down right scary due to the lack of empathy and skills of the staff. Last I heard, the number of nurses that are travelling nurses is as high as 95% of the nurses in the hospital, and one of the nurses was complaining about how much the travelling nurses are focused on the money aspect instead of the patient aspect. This is what you get when you have a hospital that doesn’t give two shits about the level of care as to the bottom line. The last stay I had, I had to explain to them how to insert an NG Tube. This is something that should be common knowledge with nurses, and then to top it off, she wasn’t able to secure the tube to my nose. It ended up falling out, and then I had to get another one inserted. Keep in mind, the first nurses were travelling nurses, and the second NG tube was done by a regular RN. The second nurse knew how to do it, and it wasn’t nearly as painful as the first.

Conclusion

While I have ranted on about my experiences with this whole thing. I don’t want to diminish the impacts this has had on our whole family. My brother has Covid, and the rest of us has at least been exposed to Covid. This means we will not really be able to go around Michael until we are all cleared. We all haven’t sleep good since the wreck.

HCA/Mission Hospital

HCA has turned a hospital into a nightmare for healthcare. There are on-going legal actions for over-charging and monopolizing the health care of Asheville/Buncombe County. We should have some other fashion of health care that actually cares about our health.

Family triumphs and tragedies

Sun, 04 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The past few weeks has been a roller coaster of triumphs and tragedies. Right now, I’m more focused on the tragedies than the triumphs, but I want to take a few minutes to talk about everything good that has come out of the past.

Tragedies

On August 26th, my nephew was in a serious car wreck, and while this is a tragedy, he was alive. Since then, he’s had 32+ hours of surgery to get his back body back into shape; now its time for the healing portion of his journey. We all have found new found faiths due to this branch of life that was dealt. While we are all having problems dealing with understanding and coping with the situation that Michael has been put in. I just hope that we all learn to work with each other to keep his best interests, health decisions, and his well being at the forefront. Everyone’s problems has made the situation more challenging, we can work through them. My personal views persuade the decisions and thoughts I have about some of the people involved in the situation, and these are things I’m aware of, those thoughts still come to my mind. These thoughts SCREAM for attention due to the past experiences, and how they have affected my family and me. I hope to be able to put those aside, and put his best interest ahead of all of this.

The second thing that has happened, has to be one of the more discouraging things that happen to people with health issues. I have been having GI issues for years, and last week, my GI doctor said that I have two options to possibly find what is going on. He suggested another exploratory surgery or to wait and see. While I have already went through one of those surgeries, I’m not doing that again unless there is evidence of what they are looking for. When I responded with that information, the GI office hasn’t replied or anything. This is extremely frustrating to me, and I’m sure there are a lot of people that are having this same experience. They say the United States has the best health care system in the world, but I have been having problems like this for a long time. I don’t see how that can possibly be true.

Triumphs

While my nephew was in a car wreck that seriously injured him, he is alive. They say that his head, neck, back and core areas have no damage. This is a HUGE blessing. We have been brought closer together to rally around him as well, and this too is a blessing in disguise. Considering his body being broken, Michael has been able to cheer people up. This has been something that I am amazed by.

While I had some unsettling news about my health, it allowed for my brother and me to reconnect in some sort of fashion. While it was just a few text messages, it was still some sort of communication. Which is better than what we have done in over a year. He suggested for me to go to a university of medicine and see a specialist to see if they are able to help me. I plan on doing just that. I hope that this will lead to some answers.

Conclusion

While we are naturally wired to focus on the negative, the positive is always there. You just have to look for the positive in any situation that is given to you. Even if the positive is just a small spark, it’s there…. focus on that.

Are we brothers?

Sun, 31 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I have been struggling with a conflict with my eldest brother for more than a year now. Chris, my eldest brother, stopped any form of communication with me when I had to walk away from a conversation with his husband.

History

The relationship between us hasn’t always been good. When I was in my youth; my mother made a point to try and create a division between us in several ways. The top division strategy is to label him as our step-brother. While this is true, I can say I truly hate that this was done to my other brother and I. When I was able to see what the goal was; I immediately stopped this. I’m not sure how I old this was stopped, but I do remember the feeling of betrayal by my mother in this instance. When I was 18, my brother wanted me to have my birthday dinner with him, and that’s when he told me that he was gay. I expressed this then, I do not care what you do in your love life, I will always love you. It’s still true today, as the day I was 18. This was the time I was allowed to see his house, and see who he truly was. I was so proud that he was able to make what he wanted of his life, actually happen. While our relationship has been VERY rocky, and it continued with several things that I saw happen. An example of this, we (dad, my other brother, and I) all asked him when he was going to be able to come visit again, and we got the response of, I’m not sure - I’m super busy. Then a few months later, we were out eating at a local fish restaurant, and we bump into him. We had no idea he was in town, and personally, I was hurt by him doing the whole ‘ghosting’ thing. I’m not sure why he did this, and a phone call would have been easy enough as, I’m in town, I don’t have time.

Conflict

I was in the middle of my dark time, and Chris’s husband was trying to give me advice on how to deal with my stomach issues. He was coming off as treating me as a child, and that triggers something in me to become VERY defensive. It was to the point to where I had to walk away instead of saying something I didn’t mean. I expressed this to him as well. When I talked to Chris the following time; Chris assumed I was going to call him some sort of derogatory name that is based on his sexuality. This couldn’t have been further from the truth. While I was in a state of mind of complete anger, hurt, and almost rage; those thoughts never entered my mind. I expressed to him I had to walk away before I say something mean. His (Chris’s husband) response was, I don’t think you could ever say something mean; yet again, that triggered the ‘Oh you really think that, let’s see where this goes’ response. I had enough control to walk away. When Chris followed up with me after Bryan (Chris’s husband - Name changed to respect privacy) and I had a conflict; I noticed that the things that set me off, was deleted. While I tried to find the conversation pointers that set me off, they were removed. So, I wasn’t able to show Chris was set me off, and it’s now all of my fault that I was being so ‘mean’.

Currently

While I have been blocked from all communication with Chris, and I have attempted EVERY avenue to communicate with him. Chris posted something on Facebook that stated that no cousin wants to talk to him, etc etc, and I’m paraphrasing this. He refuses to communicate with his own little brother. What kind of message does that to say? To my knowledge, every family member on our side of the family, hasn’t written him off; he refuses to communicate with us.

Final Thoughts

I have learned a lot from this whole experience, and I HATE every bit of it. If Chris doesn’t want me to be in his life; be a brother tell me. Running away from any problem isn’t a way to solve a problem, and it will eventually catch up to you. I have learned that the hard way. Don’t get me wrong, I still love my brother, and this whole situation has gotten me upset more times than I will admit to. In the end, Chris hasn’t been able to accept that I accept him for him.

Medical System in Western North Carolina

Sun, 03 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

There have been times where we all need the medical system for help. If you have been through the medical system, it’s great for a lot of things. This brings me to a few things that I have been thinking about writing about, but this last go in the hospital system tipped the brain to want to talk about it.

Emergency professionals (paramedics/ambulance people):

While people have off days and good days; the last several times I have been through this ordeal have been …. going downhill. I’ll give you a great example of these guys in great condition. My dad had a stroke, and when I called 911 for him, the ambulance drivers were there within 5-10 minutes. While they were transporting him to the hospital to get checked out, about half way there, they turned on the lights and just took off. When I got to the hospital I found out that his symptoms were showing again. Because of them, my dad’s still here, and my dad also accredits me for saving his life as well. The reason: when I hear something wrong with a family member; I drop everything and come to their aid to help. I’ve done this with so many jobs and so many situations it’s hard to understand why I haven’t been fired for leaving the job. Anyways, enough about that…. Back to the subject at hand. Take the situation like I just explained, and start comparing it with the quality of care now. For comparison sake, his episode happened in 2019, and three years have changed things that we would never have foreseen. Back to my last experience, I called 911, the fire department responded. This was largely due to the ambulance was already at the hospital caring for someone else. For the record, I don’t blame them for that AT ALL. When an ambulance did show up, the care was decent, and while I was on the hospital the tech in the back with me was trying to get an IV in. She wasn’t able to get an IV in, because I was dehydrated, but the thing that sticks with me the most, she blamed me for moving my arm in a moving vehicle. I was in a pretty good amount of pain, and during the ride I wasn’t able to get pain medication and/or medication for nausea. While it’s amazing that I was transported so fast, but when we got to the hospital I was delivered to the waiting room. The wait at Mission Hospital Emergency Room was 4+ hours, and after the last experience, I wanted to try Pardee Hospital.

Next topic: Hospital Emergency Room:

Dad took me to the Pardee ER, and when we got there, there may have been 4 patients in the waiting room and maybe 1 that was in front of me. I signed in, got the check outs done, and I continually asked for some medicine for the pain/nausea. After the last spot check, I think it was blood to be drawn for blood tests; I walked up to the little area that had several nurses. I told them that I was fixing to pass out. The male nurses, let’s call him Bob, that was there yelled at me and said then go sit down. I went back and fell back into the chair and within a few seconds, I lost control of my legs/neck. Then I blacked out, I remember a few times waking up to a HORRIBLE pain of Bob doing a sternum rub on me. I went in and out of consciousness for the next few hours. I woke up to someone pinching the FUCK out of my fingers, and/or doing a sternum rub on me once again. When I finally got aware enough to ask for someone, I asked for my dad. He was already gone, and it was already 1:30AM. I finally got in an area where they would treat me, and the first thing they did was put an NG tube in me. I will continue this in a moment, I want to talk about the people in the ER. While I was going through all off the tests; I normally talk to the professional and ask them stuff. Bob was the one that said something VERY interesting. I asked him how long he had been a nurses, 3 years. Next: Do you like being a nurses? No, he explained that COVID killed it, and it’s no longer a profession he wants to be in the profession. See Sparked Thoughts for some questions I have now. Continuing after the NG Tube installation…. They were surprised how fast the stuff was coming out. I remember them saying they had drained 2.5 liters of stuff off of the NG tube in the first 20-30 minutes. They also got the pain level down to where it was more manageable.

Hospital Nurses/Staff:

Once I was in a regular room, I was cared for pretty good. While Pardee seems like an old hospital; the staff was responsive and explained things. The only complaint I do have, once I had been there for a few days and was getting more aware, the responsiveness seemed to go down drastically. Several times I was trying to get out in the hall way to find someone. The nurse bell would go unanswered for up to 10 minutes. While the first nurse said he (not Bob) had 6 patients to attend to, and something I found unsettling is the woman that was in the next room to me having COVID. While it was funny to joke about, she was having hard times. I wasn’t making fun of her hard times, just how she was talking and yelling to people. The nurses handled it VERY well though.

Sparked Thoughts:

Let’s say Bob’s views are common among the health professionals:

Were is the healthcare industry going to end up?
What is the state of the type of health treatment people are getting now?
What are the statistics on the # of health professionals compared to 3 years ago…. 5 years ago?

Conclusion:

I’m concerned where we are heading for the medical system as a whole. What can we do to help with this?

State of Therapists and Psychiatrist

Sun, 26 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Through the entire process of working on my problems, I am continually surprised. My most recent encounter has me absolutely floored.

Let me paint the picture before I go to deep. The first few meetings there were several topics brought up that were normally off limits, politics and religion. Normally, I’ve never talked about those two areas in therapy. This most recent therapists it was brought up in almost every meeting. The first meeting with her…. She was talking about she thinks these are the end of days. The first thing that goes through my mind - “Why in the hell are you doing therapy if you think it’s the end of days?”

COVID Theory

Sun, 12 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I will start out by laying down the theory, and then I will move on to supplying some evidence of why I think this way.

Theory:

Through the COVID pandemic, there has an urge of mental health diseases in the US. With the release of COVID, whether it was intentional or unintentional, it has brought on a crushing increase of mental health issues, and this brings me to my theory. I think that COVID triggered a domino effect in the health of people around the world, and with people more worried about several aspects of life than what is happening in the bigger picture of things. This whole thing is to create a smoke screen to hide what is exactly is playing out in the world. Do I know the end goal? No. I don’t even know or have a theory who is pulling the strings. The dominos are just starting to drop.

Evidence:

News outlets:

A few months back I took about 3 hours and watched several news stations. The stations I picked were ABC, CNN, Fox, and Americas Voice. I have to say, I was shocked and disappointed at what I found. I was watching it on a Saturday morning from 11 to about 2pm What I found was varying information of what was happening with COVID from complete and totally left to complete and totally right. 99% of the information was contradictorily, so say this nice. With all of the misinformation, that’s what starts the smoke screen.

COVID Information:

While COVID is a new disease, there seems to be a lot of close mindedness around COVID. Doctors aren’t receptive to any aspect of this disease, and this can be seen if you look at any sort of COVID related forum/information outlet/etc. I have been reading people on Reddit for months, and there seems to be one conclusion, it sucks. Of course, this is an understatement. For people that has been suffering from things that are long term affects of having COVID and it seems to be so random. Makes me wonder, is there something that creates this virus do extreme things to some people, and then others, it does little to nothing. Myself, I suffer from anxiety and probably increased my GI issues.

More about the doctors being closeminded. I speak about doctors in general, and I attest to some doctors are completely the polar opposite to the ’normal' behavior. While these doctors are rare, and if you find one that you can work with, STICK WITH THEM. They are like golden nuggets. I have found one general doctor that has helped me in ways that I could never think her. I won’t name her, to respect her privacy. I do wish I could find a good place to research doctors, and this would be a service/website that is not persuaded by people throwing money at them.

Final Thoughts:

While I started this blog as a part of a type of therapy for me, and it has helped me a lot. I would like to let the people out there know that are suffering from long term effects from COVID. Keep your chin up, hopefully sometime soon that there will be a break through with treatments to help with these things you suffer from. Until then, if you are having thoughts of hurting yourself, please seek help. If you are in Asheville, NC, there are great IOP programs in town to help with some of this. While they are mainly for mental health items, suicidal thoughts and/or thoughts of hurting yourself could be helped as well. When I was in there, I found a new light in many things. I hope they will be able to help you.

Until next time, enjoy this ride which we call life.

State of Healthcare since COVID

Sat, 28 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Over the last few months I have been in and out of the hospital a lot. So, I’m going to be explaining why I wanted to talk about this…

Ambulances

Each hospitalization starts with a trip to the ER via ambulance. Why an ambulance? Well, by the time I admit I need help, I’m not able to drive myself. It’s usually because of the amount of pain I’m in. While sometimes the ambulance ride ends up a positive experience (the best you can have in that situation)… Sometimes has been lackluster, at best. Seems like the care factor has been on a steady decline since the beginning of the COVID pandemic. Most of the times, I have been delivered to the waiting room instead of actually being cared for. During the ride, they refuse to give any assistance, and the reason I have gotten is that they don’t want to make it worse. I usually ask for pain medication and/or something for the nausea. While I understand the pain medication can make a intestinal blockage worse, and I would completely understand if that’s what I have been experiencing. With the # of times I have been through this, I’m pretty sure I know what to do/expect. Trust would go along way with the patients and the paramedics.

Hospitals

Once arriving at the hospital, if I’m able to get into the ER in a timely manner…. The nurses and doctors do the best they can, but with what they see on he CT scans, they think it’s a blockage. I’ll talk about this in a minute. For the # of nurses that they have on hand, there isn’t enough to care for the patients adequately. I heard the ER nurses state that she had 5-6 patients on average. Then on the floors, they are in the ball park of 7-8 patients. Now, this might not seem like a lot, but if you take into consideration that if a 2-3 patients need extra care, the others go uncared for. From what I have seen, it’s VERY rare that other nurses step into help them out. Which is understandable, to a degree. While the nurses do not have the experience with the patients, they can quickly get up to speed to a limited degree. Is this possibly dangerous? Yes, it is to a degree, but if they are following medication orders or something of that nature, it should be relatively safe to administer.

Doctors

While I’m in the ER, I am normally assigned a doctor or two, and it’s pretty amazing how quick they make conclusions. In the last 2 times I was in the hospital; they were VERY insistent on me having surgery. Both times, it’s not to fix a problem, but to go have a look at the problem. From my experience, exploratory doesn’t really help anything, but to allow for the doctors to see what potentially is a problem. I have had this before, and they said it was going to be a small incision. I woke up with a ~6 inch scar which now looks like a question mark around my belly button. Not to mention the damage they did to my bladder. Let me tell you, avoid vertical surgeries on your stomach at all costs, they hurt like hell and are hard to recover from. What is even better about the doctors, when they finally see that I’m not going to allow for surgery, they drop me like a hot potato. This has happened on two occasions, and they were from different lines of doctors and different specialties.

Second Opinions

Through my work, I was able to get a second opinion which might potentially lead to something life altering for myself. This second opinion was with a doctor in Alabama at a university that specializes in Gastro Intestinal Issues. I was finally able to get my GI doctor to look at the opinion, and he took it to heart and tested some of the items. This resulted in finding that my Thyroid is under active, and I also have a VERY low B12 #. Since that test, I have been doing B12 sublingually and started a Thyroid medication. Through researching these two problems, they BOTH can cause a multitude of problems with my mental health and gastro intestinal system.

I know I have said multiple times that I want to block more regularly… Hopefully that will start happening. It’s hard for me to sit down, and talk about these problems when I feel half-way decent. These times have been rough for me, and this is a form of therapy. I also hope this helps someone else.

Positions in Health and Finance

Sun, 10 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

It’s ben a while since I have put a post up, and I would like to talk about the things that have been on my mind.

Health position:

I select this topic first cause I have been going through more health challenges. In short, my gastro intestinal track doesn’t agree with me a lot of the times. I have concluded that I’m not able to figure out what is causing the issues, and I have been seeing several GI offices in the past years. This has been happening for the part 16+ years, and over the years, I have had almost every test executed on me during that time. There was one of the doctors that said I have had more than a million dollars worth of testing on me. Anyways, I have come to have less and less confidence in the health care system. I know they are doing their best, and I’m sure that my case isn’t the run of the mill type of case. I am going to be going under the procedure again this weekend, and my family has super hopeful that the outcome will at least shed more light on the problem.

You are probably thinking, what have I been dealing with? Well, it seems randomly, that my small bowel stops working. This results in a pseudo blockage in the small bowel. With this, I get transported to the hospital, and I go through the emergency room. The steps normally follow the same path:

Pain medication (usually morphine or something in that neighborhood)
X-Rays/CT scans
NG Tube
Complete GI rest

Doesn’t that sound like fun? I will go ahead and answer that, NO. That is a resounding NO. Along with all of the pain and discomfort that comes with all of this. There are the hospital/doctor/procedure bills that continue to pile up. In the first two years, I paid out $20K+. I can confidently say that this has hampered my income for many years, and my personal growth has also been altered, due to this. Imagine if you had something wrong with your body that struck randomly, and there doesn’t seem to be any way you can figure out when it will strike. How do you plan a trip? How about a vacation? How about just to see some friends? It has made me reconsider just about every aspect of my life.

So why do I don’t have a lot of faith in the health care system? Well, there are several family members that have conditions like mine. If you look at them, they seem fine, but what you don’t know about them would shock you. I’m not going to mention names, for the fact I want to respect their privacy. My eldest brother, Chris (no he’s not sick), has probably a lot more stories that would make you think more about the state of the healthcare system. I will be writing a blog post about him very soon.

Financial Position:

While, I have explained some about the healthcare bills, I want to elaborate. There have been several incidents that have BLOWN my mind. Let me tell you about two situations that I was presented with. Forgive me, I do not remember the dates of when these things happened, I will tell you what I remember.

Situation #1: I went into the hospital with the typical vomiting and extreme amounts of pain in my stomach. I was in there a 4-5 days. At the same time, a family friends went into the hospital with blood sugar problems. She was in the hospital for 6-7 days, while they were getting her blood sugar under control. I had a set of X-Rays, CT Scan, and a NG Tube. When I got out and started getting the bills; I calculated it up to close to $3K. When she was released, her bill was less than $500 (splitting the difference from my memory and my pops). I had insurance, and she had no insurance. Why do I bring this up? Well, the most significant reason is the simple fact that I have been told to have insurance or your healthcare bills will bury you(in simplest terms). How does this happen when I had insurance and she didn’t? I’m going to leave that to you to figure out. I would LOVE for an explanation.

Situation #2: I went into the hospital again, with the typical symptoms. I was in there this time for 5-6 days. I don’t remember any of the bills that came in, but I am notorious about not handling my mail in a timely fashion. When I saw a notice from a collection agency come in; I started talking to them to get a payment plan setup. After a year or so passes, I call them back asking why they are pinging my credit every month. The response I got, was that when I make a payment, they ding my credit each time. Even though I was handling the collections payments, and was keeping up with all of my other bills, my credit score was continually dropping. Yes, I did stay below the 20% threshold on my single credit card. I then did an in-depth look at my credit report. Went line by line to look into it further. I found nothing that stood out that would have been making my score drop. At this point, I ask for some advice from friends and family, and they were not understanding how the score was dropping either. Once I deduced that the collections firm was causing my credit score to drop, that’s when I asked them about the ding’ing my credit.

In summary:

There are things that I could have done better with my finances, but who doesn’t look back once in a while and doesn’t think this.

Looking forward:

I hope to be able to keep up with writing blog posts about things that I think about a lot. I’ve been working on crypto trading pretty heavily since I have been watching the markets pretty steadily. I hope to share some good news for everyone to trade by. Of course, this will not be a get rich type of thing; instead, think of it some of the things I have seen that seem to work for me.

Socially Awkward realization

Sun, 16 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

First, i would like to cover what has been going on. There has not been any life altering changes I have went through. There has been a lot of self reflection on my past, and a long with self-reflection, comes the realizations of my life. I don’t remember telling this, but about 6 months ago I realized I was socially awkward. How did I come to this conclusion? Well, I was in the shower and I was reflecting over my life. One of the main things I noticed is when I was in the neighborhood of 13 years old. I started drifting away from most of my friends. It was hard to realize something like this about yourself, and never see it for yourself until later in life. So - 27 years after it started, I FINALLY saw it for myself. What does it mean for me? Well, it means that I have to work a little harder to be close to people. Can you blame people for this? Of course you can, but in reality, it’s up to YOU to deal with yourself. So, although I have a good idea what caused this change in me; I do not blame the people that were involved. It’s just how I handled the difficult situation I was in at the time.

How am I going about dealing with this?

Well, I have always been more solo, but yet deep down, I want to be with people. So, in order to help deal with this problem, I’m putting myself in social settings more and more. Therapist calls this exposure therapy, but before I knew what this was called, I done it. When I finally cracked the shell I was in from childhood; I done this in a VERY extreme way. I got a job at the arcade at the mall. That forced me to deal with a lot of people, and it allowed me to solve a lot of my social anxiety/fears. Then when i did go through what I went through this past 2 years, it showed me another fact that I never realized. Everyone is a person, they have their own ideas, views, hopes, dreams, and yes, fears.

So I have recently started looking around for someone to date, and ultimately get to know in a romantic sense. I have found that when I’m trying to talk to someone for the first time, I don’t know what to say. I usually end up saying something rather stupid/childish. While some people find that awkwardness attractive, some women see that as a ‘problem’. If they think it’s a problem, and you are being yourself, move on. There are a lot of people in the world, and don’t get stuck in a relationship that is not fulfilling to yourself.

Bad relationships

Everyone has had their share of bad relationships by the time we are my age (41). If you continually re-live those relationships by talking about them, comparing the current relationship to that worst one, you will poison the current relationship. I’m not saying forget about it, I’m saying don’t constantly think about it nor dwell on it. Do I do this? Yes, I do this WAY to often. I’m working on this, but it’s still in my mind. I am glad I now know that there is someone out there for everyone. if you find that someone, fight like hell to keep it. I have heard that the best relationships are the ones that come naturally. I don’t know this for myself, cause I haven’t been in one of those yet. I am hopeful that this will happen.

Conclusion

While our past defines us in a lot of ways. Don’t let it rule your current life. If you let the bad experiences rule your current life, you will never be happy. You have to be happy with yourself before you find happiness with other people. While you are working on yourself, look around and find friends that you get along with. One thing to keep in mind, we are all a work in progress. No one is a perfect person.

Some Links worth checking out:

Healthline - Socially Awkward

Verywellmind - Dealing with Social Awkward post COVID

A Funny or reality - not sure which

![24 Memes All Socially Awkward People Will Understand Too Well](https://imgix.ranker.com/user_node_img/50067/1001333634/original/a-conundrum- photo-u1?auto=format&q=60&fit=crop&fm=pjpg&dpr=2&w=375)

3 month check in and new ideas/projects

Sun, 24 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

3 Month Check in

So, it’s been 3 months since I started working, roughly. I started back part time on July 4th (what are the odds), and I went to full time 3 weeks after that. Since then… it’s been pretty good getting back into the grove… Then comes the learning curve that has been set upon me. With the amount of time I was gone, just about every aspect of the job has changed. Then put on top of that, having a new position and new scope, yea, it’s been a lot of learning.

To give an overview of the difference….. When I left, I was the sole developer of a process, and the manager was riding my ass about every little thing. He was making deadlines for me without any knowledge of what was needed by the requirements asked. Now….. I’m able to pick and choose what I’m getting involved in, within reason. There have been a few things that has come across my ‘desk’ that I have been excited to get involved in. In turn, I have injected myself into those processes/discussions to help.

New Ideas/Projects

With me getting into several areas as a hobby, it’s hard to just chose a few ideas and projects.

#1 - COH Log parser

I have been learning more about using Django - so I figured, why not use this as a project to learn more about Django/Python/Graphing. I have the basic layout in my mind, and I have started learning more about Django for web sites in python. Since it has been YEARS since I have used PHP, I wanted to keep with a language that I’m moving for. It’s been an interesting process working through this, but it’s coming along nicely. One of the things I found annoying so far, just getting the website ’template’ together and learning how to do CSS/HTML. I took the easy way out, I found a nice HTML/CSS/JS template, and I have started taking apart to make it my own. YES, I will be including credits to make sure people that want to know where the template is from, they can see. That’s the ethical thing to do, and I try to live my life within the ethics that I set as a kid. I will be blogging about this as well, maybe even making some tutorials about it. That brings me to idea #2.

#2 - Tutorials (blog and/or YouTube)

A friend of mine… that I have known a LONG time has decided to take up learning Linux, networking, docker, etc….. I’ve been helping him some and he has suggested for me to start making tutorials about these topics. I think this is a good idea due to the fact, I LOVE knowledge sharing. When I was in college, they wanted me to teach some classes, I turned down the opportunity. There were several reasons for this, which I will not go into. Back to the topic at hand. I will be creating some content for tutorials on a several topics. I’m hoping to start creating some content soon. Who knows, maybe I will make some videos/tutorials of me working on the COH log parse. I’m sure this will be humorous to some as I work through my thoughts/problems.

#3 - Learning the Guitar

I have been wanting to learn how to play a guitar for a long time now. I’m finally going to start dedicating sometime to learning this instrument. In the past, I have played the piano and an upright bass. I really enjoy playing music, and why not learn something new, that gets me away from technology. I’m planning on trying to get my uncle to help me learn, after all he is a very talented.

Back in the Saddle Again....

Sun, 15 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

At this point, I have been back to work for about 6 weeks. It’s been a difficult 6 weeks to get my stamina back up to what it needs to be.

Why is it hard?

Well, I went from basically being bed ridden when I was on THC. Now, I’m doing 8+ hours a day working, and a lot of times, I’m doing more stuff after work. Even though I wasn’t down for an extended amount of time. 18 months was long enough for the body to lose a lot of it’s stamina. This doesn’t factor in the mind that was kicked around the ball fields with THC. With both of those factors involved; it’s almost like learning how to walk again.

How is the work?

The work is awesome! I have missed having conversations with like minded individuals. The first few weeks I was doing 1/2 days due to doctor orders, but those days were filled with activity. Don’t get me wrong, I still don’t like having meetings 8 hours a day, but I would rather be doing that than where I was. There has been so much change since my time away, it’s mind boggling. Not to mention, I went from writing code all the time to literally doing one of the things I never thought I would like. I do more of the planning how to take down the ‘forest’ to actually ‘cutting the trees’. I have a lot of privilege’s to look at the whole aspect of our work, and then try to find a way to make changes that will make it more secure, run smoother, and run more efficiently.

Blessings..

I am blessed to have the boss, friends, and family I have. My boss, has been there with me through this whole ordeal. That says loads to his character and how much our friendship means to him. With working for a friend/boss, it does make things a bit awkward at times. For example, when he has to be a boss instead of a friend. I understand that he has to do that, and I fully accept it. It doesn’t make it any easier to manage those emotions, but having someone that is emotionally aware as well, helps talk through things with me. Friends and family, I can’t say enough about them. They are usually there to help me in the times I fall short.

On to the emotions…..

There have been a lot of emotions that I haven’t dealt with since I had a mental break down. This has been a struggle for me, and probably will be for months/years to come. I didn’t realize how ‘ingrained’ working is in my being. The important thing that I have done for myself, giving my mind and body time to accept the new emotions. This includes working through them, thinking through them, and finally, dealing with them. There have been several occasions that I have leaned on co-workers and friends to help me process these emotions. That’s one thing I encourage everyone that is reading this to do….. find some people that you count on that will help you work through some of these emotions and difficulties. I have found it very helpful to have a third party perspective when I’m dealing with the emotions. Often times, I was to wrapped up in the emotion to really see what was happening.

What do I do?

Due to security of myself, company, and my profession, I will not give specifics. What I will share is that I’m in the Linux landscape of a financial institution. Other than that, nothing else. I’m sure that will lead to more questions about this post, but any professional will tell you, no matter what you do, your emotions will be in it.

GI Nightmare....

Thu, 25 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Along this whole time…. my gi track has been in bad shape. We are talking to the point of asking yourself ‘What the fuck did I do to deserve this?’ I started seeing Asheville Gastro back around the October time frame. It started with reviewing my previous medical records… then moved on to Upper endo, GI acid test, esophageal study, and then started on Carafate (medication). I started the Carafate, and 4 days later, I was in the hospital for a blockage. That episode went for 2 weeks and covered two different hospitals.

I want to point something out about this moment though:

At Mission Hospital ER , they found that I had a blockage, put an NG Tube in (they used a smaller one as requested). Then they started pumping, and I had some relief. There was a problem that I didn’t realize was happening until months later. I was in SEVERE pain during this…. Turns out, I had esophagitis, and the NG Tube was rubbing my throat all sorts of raw. Back to the stay, I don’t remember much about the thing, except for the last bit…. I remember… Dr’s telling me that I had a choice, take Carafate or leave. I knew I wasn’t going to take the Carafate, so I left. I literally walked out. The doctors and nurses stated that they thought I was addicted to opioids. I could see their point in hindsight. I don’t remember how I got down to the ground floor. I do remember walking out and thinking about how to get home. That’s when I started calling people to come and help me. Dad, Scott, Greg, Michael was the order I think. Scott is my brother. Greg is a good friend that I met in IOP. Michael is my nephew. No one was able to come except Dad. He was a good 30 minutes out. I needed a safe place to stay, so luckily I remembered I was close to IOP. I ended up at IOP, and they helped get me some water, a chair, and a safe environment for me to wait on my dad.

Two days later, I ended up in the Hendersonville Hospital ER. I had asked my dad to take me out there (it was a 45 min drive) before I was feeling horrible. By the time I got there, I was in pretty bad shape. They took me in, got everything in line for treatment. The thing I remember vividly is the doctors coming up, and in 15 minutes, they told me I had esophagitis and was helping treat that and the blockage. The doctor that put the NG Tube in, was AMAZING. I didn’t really feel the NG Tube go in. Not to mention the method he used was … a bit unorthodox, but it worked marvelously. During the whole stay, I was constantly educated by the nurses and doctors. It was a truly great experience in a horrible moment.

After everything was cleared up with the blockage, I started trying to eat with the esophagitis…. and let me tell you, that SUCKED. ANYTHING that has rough edges on the food, hurt extremely bad. I tried… popcorn, pretzels, bread, toast, …. the list goes on. I did finally find a few things I was able to eat without a lot of pain.

During October/November, I ended up in the hospital ER several times. Every time, I was in such bad shape, I wasn’t able to drive. Luckily, one of those times, the medic, from the Lester Volunteer fire department, with me, was asking about symptoms, etc, and then finally asked “Have they checked your gallbladder?” They have several times, but this time, I practically demanded it in the ER. They found that the gallbladder needed to be removed, but it wasn’t in acute status yet. With that information, I called Asheville GI, requesting a referral to a surgeon for gallbladder removal. Much to my surprise, they denied it. So I called my general doctor, they denied it as well. So I called the surgeon, scheduled it, and had the surgery. Two days after the surgery, Asheville GI called to schedule the surgery. Yea, I wasn’t too impressed with this.

Since the gallbladder removal, I have lost 20-30 lbs. To this day, my GI tract isn’t able to handle anything close to normal without having MASSIVE acid. I currently found that two Gaviscon and one Pepcid AC seems to calm my stomach some. This is on top of the Zegerid and Dexilant.

This will be continued when I get some more information that could be helpful.

Political News, president bashing, etc... what a nightmare?

Wed, 17 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

With all the political shit going on, and it’s been largely on my mind. Why not talk about it?

First and foremost, I think the whole system is corrupt. I have never voted, and will probably not vote until things have changed, drastically.

Why don’t I vote? Well, seeing I already think that the system is corrupt, but there is more information to it. When I was little, there was a classroom exercise that I remember vividly. It was during an election year, and they were talking about how the voting system works. There was one key point I remember thinking “What in the world?”. The key point that I took, our vote doesn’t have to be followed. To me, this mean it doesn’t matter. If someone up the chain wants something that the people don’t, he doesn’t have to follow what the people wanted. To me, that’s more of a “suggestion” to vote a certain way.

Next thing, the voting system. We are using systems that isn’t doing everything on our own soil. With that in mind, think about this past election. This last election was a cluster FUCK. I’ve heard for years that we use systems that were made outside of the united states to make it more efficient. This also creates a possible gap to where the data can be manipulated.

Whats the big deal about data being manipulated? Real world example, that I saw play out when I was working at Ingles. There was a DBA, Eric, he was working on the databases (obviously), and I heard “Whoops that’s not good” from across the isle. I went to go find out what happened. Turns out, the data being manipulated for points for the subs, was wrong. So some customers got 10 free subs.

Next, the validation: I have been in technology enough to know that ANY computer vision software (any software really) has flaws. Yea, I’m sure there are some that are ~90% correct. That’s still to big of a margin for comfort.

My biggest complaint is the news media. I believe that the media is partially if not fully responsible for what happened on January 6th at the white house. Why do I say this? Well, Trump has been acquitted for several days now, and daily, I’m still hearing negative and consistent things being said about Trump. With how the video clips were changed, and how the quotes where changed. What? Changed? Yea, by cutting off the clip or taking sub-contexts from speeches/letters/etc, it can change the meaning COMPLETELY. I think everyone knows that by like 15, if not sooner.

With COVID being rapidly spreading, America is in a state of ’tension’ that we have never seen. My brother jokingly said, “Watch, soon as the election is over, we will have a vaccine.” I don’t know if it was timing or what, but it REALLY made me think of “normal” Americans as sheep or cows. You know, one of the dumb farm animals that is ‘herd-able’.

That’s my concerns, views, thoughts. I’m genuinely concerned about this nations direction. I’m really hoping that this is a nightmare I can just wake up from.

Returning to leave from work

Mon, 08 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

While the title says a lot, there is a fairly good story to go with this.

While it was VERY apparent that I wasn’t able to be at work for me. I wasn’t able to convince my current doctor that I needed to be written back out. There was no reason for him not to write the note, as it would have saved a lot of hassle for me. Since he didn’t write the note, I spent the following 4 months answering questions, phone calls, and such explaining what kind of condition I was in.

After the doctor wouldn’t write me back to work, I was given the speech that was along the lines of “Get with the program or move on”. This was given to me by one of the therapists and the primary doctor at the IOP program. Needless to say, this upset me, because I didn’t understand what they looked for me to do, as I was doing the best I could.

Once everything was ‘sorted’ out from the returning/leaving work, I spent the following months just surviving. I don’t want to get on a soap box and start complaining about all of the stuff I went through. Let’s just say, I hope no one ever goes through that.

After Copestone and into IOP then back in the frying pan!

Sat, 09 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Well, the title says a lot….. Thinking back on the whole process, it was a blessing that I went from Copestone to IOP. IOP ended up giving me tools that I didn’t even know I needed, until they were talking about them. FYI : I will be pursuing getting some of most of the content from the IOP program I went through, into the school systems. Anyways, back to the topic at hand. A nice woman came and saw me a few times in Copestone, which was the boarding process to get into the IOP program. There were a few of us that were the first ones to go through the process, so they were still figuring a few things out with us. Over all, the IOP program was a good experience.

What is IOP? IOP stands for Intensive Outpatient Program. They are normally used for drug rehab and such, but it’s also used for mental issues as well, turns out. I started out doing 20 hours a week of therapy. I know, that doesn’t sound like a lot, but trust me, it’s a lot. It was EXHAUSTIVE, to say the least. There were so many people that was in and out of the program, a lot of them swear by it. The ONLY thing I wish would have happened in IOP. The DNA test to see what drugs works with my system. That didn’t happen until the first visit with my psychiatrist post IOP. What did we do in there? Well, we did a lot of talking about how we felt and other topics which were covered by the material.

During my IOP stent, I attempted to go back to work, which ended in a non- favorable way. To give some idea of what I do. I’m considered an Subject Matter Expert on one of the core Linux authentication systems for a financial institution. I have a lot of information and ideas thrown my way, and I throw them to my collogues as well. It’s a fairly high stress position, but it’s a very rewarding position. Anyways, the psychiatrist allowed me to go back to work while I was in the program. It was defined 1/2 days and I had to go to the program for monitoring. This didn’t last long nor end well, to say the least. All the information and people talking to me just overwhelmed me still. After about 4-8 hours of trying it, I told everyone I couldn’t do it. It took me about 2 weeks to get back to “normal” from trying just a few hours.

Luckily, everyone was involved understood that I wasn’t able to come back yet. With that happening, there were a series of phone calls, questionnaires, and dialogs about what I felt/feel. The understanding that my work has shown… is absolutely amazing.

What's with the posts? New look too?

Thu, 07 Jan 2021 18:24:36 +0000

Over November and December, I have been in and out of the hospital MANY times for multiple issues. In the first part of December, I had surgery to remove my gallbladder. With everything that’s been going on, I haven’t been able to work on the blog as much. I’m working on getting better at blogging.

I wasn’t happy with the look the website it had, AT ALL. So I have been searching for a while a way to change it how I wanted it. This is close, but there will be more tweaks along the way.

**Also! ** I have opened up registration if anyone wants to register. I’m looking at getting a member area/form/chat something like that. Once there are some users, I’ll start looking and poking around.

What led up to my Copestone hospitalization.......

Mon, 31 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

There were several factors that weighed in on the decision to commit myself to Copestone Mental Hospital.

All my life, I have suffered from depression and anxiety. I didn’t realize this until I started going through the IOP/PHP program that is part of Mission Hospitals, bought out by HCA.

IOP stands for Intensive Outpatient Program. PHP stands for Partial Hospitalization Program. In a later blog post, I will be detailing my experiences through both PHP and IOP.

Anyways…. with my depression and anxiety never really under control, this created a good base for anything ‘crazy’ to stick. Along with my constant negative self talk and self criticism. It’s true, we are our own worst critics. This all help put me in a place to where I was ‘ready’ for this to become a problem.

The start of 2019, was very exciting for me. We had just finished building my house and getting a Certificate of Occupation approved in early November of 2018. I moved in around 1/1/2019. This was a huge change for myself as well as my dad. We had been living together for the better part of our lives. At the first, it was awkward, but it seemed to be settling down. We were getting in a rhythm of the new dynamics of our relationship.

During the first part of 2019, we were working on my dad’s place, attempting to get it completed. This was slow going as we were still tired from working on my house. Plus, we started having problems with the driveway trying to wash away. There was a spring that started popping up in the middle of the driveway, or I thought that. In July, we were working on the driveway, and during going and getting some supplies, my dad fell up in my basement. He came back too, but he didn’t feel right or look right. The following weeks was very tiring as I was worried about him. He had a stroke in August (the first part of the month).

Eric, my best friend, had been battling stage 4 cancer for about 20 months prior to my dad’s stroke. I had dinner with him shortly after my dad had his stroke, and he was worried about me. Last part of August, Eric passed away. I was able to go say good bye to him, and the following day, he had passed.

To help with the timeline:

Uncle Passed (Paul) in June
Dad had a stroke in August (first part)
Eric passed away in August (last part)
Aunt passed (Barbara) in September (first part)

The thing that affected me the most, was the fear of losing my dad.

Why did I start the blog?

Sat, 22 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Why start the blog?

I want to share with people my experiences that I have went through. My life, as of right now, hasn’t been the way I thought it would turn out. This is something that I have found, is more common than we want to think.

Why did I choose now to start a blog?

With everything that I have been going through. I want an outlet that can be creative and helpful to other people. I have never been good at writing nor reading, so this is a great opportunity for me to work on some of my shortages as well as get some therapy. Ultimately, my goal is to help people that have suffered or is suffering from what I do.

Why did I choose blogging as an outlet?

Blogging has always intrigued me. The thought of someone creating content from their experiences, is a great way to learn about someone, as well as yourself.

What is going to be on the blog?

Starting, it will be primarily about my mental health issues. This is what I’m dealing with currently, and is something I have found that a lot of people might benefit from.

Blog | Ah, What a day

Wrapping up 2025

Wrapping up 2025

TLDR;

My Health

Work

Status Update as of March of 2025

What has been going on?

Website

Development Projects

Wood working projects

Health progress

10 Weeks of Hell - Surgery and more

Challenging times

Family triumphs and tragedies

Are we brothers?

Medical System in Western North Carolina

State of Therapists and Psychiatrist

COVID Theory

Theory:

Evidence:

News outlets:

COVID Information:

Final Thoughts:

Until next time, enjoy this ride which we call life.

State of Healthcare since COVID

Ambulances

Hospitals

Doctors

Second Opinions

Positions in Health and Finance

Socially Awkward realization

How am I going about dealing with this?

Dating with social awkwardness

Bad relationships

Conclusion

Some Links worth checking out:

A Funny or reality - not sure which

3 month check in and new ideas/projects

3 Month Check in

New Ideas/Projects

#1 - COH Log parser

#2 - Tutorials (blog and/or YouTube)

#3 - Learning the Guitar

Back in the Saddle Again....

GI Nightmare....

Political News, president bashing, etc... what a nightmare?

Returning to leave from work

After Copestone and into IOP then back in the frying pan!

What's with the posts? New look too?

What led up to my Copestone hospitalization.......

To help with the timeline:

Why did I start the blog?

Why start the blog?

Why did I choose now to start a blog?

Why did I choose blogging as an outlet?

What is going to be on the blog?