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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.

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 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.

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.