I'll get more into the job in another post, but figured I'd get an 'update' out of the way just to catch up on a lot of little subjects.
Health
I went to the doc the other day and it was a good visit. Diabetes is going well, blood pressure is good, weight is down. About my only ongoing issue that I had to discuss was the migraines but we both agree those are the issue of my neurologist now.
The doc did order the standard blood work and urine test. Blood work was all good. My cholesterol could be better but that would improve if I'd just, you know, move around more. There is some blood in my urine, but a couple of the newer diabetes medications can cause that and it's not abundant enough to warrant concern. Then there's the colon screening. I'm not old enough to warrant a colonoscopy according to my insurance, but medical standards do want some sort of screening because of my family's history of cancer. So the compromise is a fecal test. A poop test. Basically I get this 'mascara like tool' (seriously, that's what the lab tech called it) that fits into a bottle (tightly). After having a bowel movement I rub it over the toilet paper (post wipe) to gather up some fecal matter (poop), put it back into the bottle (again, tightly) then drop it back off to the lab. IF they find blood, then they'll have the justification to order a colonoscopy.
To be honest, I'm not sure if I want a colonoscopy or not. The main reason to do a colonoscopy is to look for cancerous polyps. They'd then be able to rip a piece off, put it under a microscope, and check it out. BUT they could also find a bunch of things that aren't cancerous and shouldn't be bothered with... but since they found it, you should address it.
I dunno. I have the test and I'll do it, but I'm not sure I'd agree to a colonoscopy. We'll see.
Finances
Finances are good and hopefully will soon be a LOT better. There's a nurse shortage just about everywhere. Lately the state has fallen way behind on it's pay scale, specifically for nurse managers. They're finding it hard to recruit and retain nurse managers. Well, the group that represents the managers (technically not a union) has helped get the state to agree to a wage increase.
Quick aside. As a manager in the state service I am a "Non Exclusively Represented Employee" or NERE. As a nurse I was represented by a union and the union automatically bargained on our behalf. When nurses are hired they are told about the union and if they don't want to join are allowed to do so, but they have to be told about it. NEREs aren't told about groups that can represent them. I only heard about it from another manager. MAGE (Michigan Association of Government Employees) is the group that CAN represent NEREs. The fact is though that they aren't automatically brought in for negotiations. They have to lobby to even come talk about our wages/benefits. For the most part our raises and such are just tacked on from whatever the unions agreed to for the rest of the nurses. For example, in the last contract they agreed to a 5% raise this year for the RNs (it was actually for all state unions). That 5% raise was extended to the NEREs so in October I'll get that.
Okay, so MAGE was talking to the civil service comission about the specific problems with recruiting and retaining nurse managers (as well as some other non representative groups). According to a letter I received from them, they got the civil service to agree to a significant raise. The letter specifically said that if the legislature agrees, it will go into affect immediately. If they don't act, it will go into effect next October. Nowhere in the letter did it say it wouldn't happen. So... what's this significant raise?
20%
Twenty fucking percent!
I talked in the last update about how my average take home paycheck is $2000 and with all the overtime it had risen to an average of about $2400. Well, this raise would take it up to that $2400 all the time. That's real money. Put the 5% raise on top of that and.... damn, I'd be pulling home $2500 every other week!
Then there's the student loans. I'm participating in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program. According to this program if you work for a government agency and make 120 on time payments (ten years) while on a income dependent payment plan (which is a 20 year payment plan), they'll forgive the remainder of your student loans. I was screwed because when I started making payments I was on a normal payment plan for five years. Those five years worth of payments didn't go toward the PSLF program. Out of the nine years I've been paying on my student loans, only four years worth of payments count.
This year though, they made some exceptions. They made it so that ALL payments made count. That includes the payments made on the wrong payment plan. All I have to do is file some paperwork to make sure everything else qualifies me and I'll be a single year away from having my student loans paid off!
Now, I haven't been making student loan payments since the beginning of the pandemic but I've always kept room in the budget for those payments to resume. So a 25% raise along with a 20% reduction in bills... DAAAMMMMNNN!!!!!
And finally in the purchase area, I bought a new chair. I know, it sounds like something simple but I did a normal 'me' thing and either vastly overspent on a chair or purchased a quality luxury product. A little history on my computer chairs. I bought a cloth computer chair a long time ago. I think it was about 15 yeas ago although it feels like it was longer. Anyway, it was a 'nice' chair but certainly nothing expensive. It served me for a LONG time and did so admirably until the piston wore out. After sitting in it for an hour or so it'd have lost about an inch in height.
When I went to replace it I wanted to get something nicer. Leather? Arms? Plush? I didn't know what I necessarily wanted. I did know that I didn't want to put hundreds of dollars down though and that those stupid looking racing seats that they called 'gaming' chairs were just about useless. So I settled on a Amazon Basic Big and Tall executive chair. It cost a little under $200. It was a PU leather, had fixed arms, lumbar support and was.... well, it wasn't nice per say, but it wasn't bad. The problem was that when it was lifted to a proper sitting height, the arms were too high to fit under my desk. Add in the fact that my tiny room with my bed and computer and wardrobe does NOT have enough room for my chair to just sit out in the room and I had a real annoying problem. So, each time I wanted to step away from the desk I'd have to lower the chair about an inch and slide the chair in. When I went to sit down I had to pull the chair out, sit down, and raise it up to its full height. Oh, and the lumbar support thing was in the wrong spot so it pushed out against the wrong part of my back. Basically, it had no lumbar support.
I used that chair for 5 years. It actually felt a lot shorter, but time flies when the world is ending I guess. Anyway, I was just tired of the whole 'move the chair up, move the chair down' thing. One day while at work (I'll explain more in my next post about the new job) I was reading up on computer chair reviews. It talked about how the best chairs had a LOT of adjustments that you'd use only once, but made sure you'd get a chair that fit you perfectly. Hell, why not spend some REAL money on a REAL chair and get exactly what I want? They recommended either a Steelcase chair that went for $1,500 or a Herman Miller chair that went for $1,300. Yikes! I mean, yes, I DO want to get a great chair but does it need to cost more than a grand?
I mulled it around a bit and talked to my brother R about it. He recommended the gaming chair he'd bought a few months back. Now, R isn't a good salesman. Why did he get the chair? Because it's good of course. I was afraid he didn't do his homework as I was immediately turned off. It was a gaming chair. It's shaped like a race car's seat which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. I mean, why the hell would I ever need bolsters in a chair for my computer? In a car it makes sense to hold you in while you corner, but I don't plan for any G forces to push me out of my chair while playing computer games. But I sat in it and it was good. It was fine. The arms were VERY adjustable so I was sure they'd fit under my desk. It had lumbar support, but like most chairs with lumbar support it hit the wrong spot in my back. And while the chair's cushion was firm, R said that it was very comfortable for long sessions at his desk. I can spend hours at my desk so having a chair that stays comfortable is almost as important as it being initially comfortable.
So, I did my research. I learned that R's gaming chair wasn't exactly cheap. He got it for the pre-pandemic price of $500. The current price was over $600. Not cheap, but still half the price of the other ones I was considering. While it was certainly a gaming chair, it was the 'King' of gaming chairs. Quality materials, great build quality, good warranty, very good adjustability. The newer version actually even had lumbar support that could be raised and lowered, so I could actually use it!
When you check out reviews of chairs and include gaming chairs, its generally "gaming chairs are cheap and if you want a real chair you get a Herman Miller or a Steel Case because they're just better". But when they compared this chair to the Herman Miller or Steel Case chairs it was just a bit less desirable. That's even after throwing out all the 'and it looks sweet too' style comments. If it's just about as good as those chairs AND half the price.... well, I'd be stupid to NOT get it.
So, I'm now the proud owner of a Secretlab TITAN Evo 2022 Series chair in Royal Blue. And you know what? It's great! I made a point of sitting in it for longer periods last Sunday and I actually found that I could sit in it for hours without getting up and was still comfortable. In my old chair I'd have to get up every hour or so just to stretch my legs. Even then, my butt would practically go numb after a few hours of that. Now? It's fine. It's comfortable. And it fits under my desk. So yes, I now have a gaming chair.
Family/Friends
The trip to Toronto was fun. Driving across the border is honestly no big deal, especially with the Passport card. Seeing E was great. My only problem was that we never made it to the museums and the music festival was a bust. Most of the bands we wanted to see weren't there (don't know why or what happened). But hanging out in and exploring a new big city with a good friend is always going to be one of my favorite things.
One particular experience that's worth telling was going to my first tapas restaurant. Tapas just means ordering a bunch of small dishes that you share instead of a big plate of food. E and I decided that just about everything looked interesting so we got the 'Chefs Choice'. They'd bring us whatever was good. And every single dish was amazing! Not only was the food amazing, the presentation was good and fun. The servers brought the food, set it down, and then gave us the history and description of the food. It was the first time I ever had bone marrow. I've always thought that sounded nasty, but OMG it's SO GOOD! It's like the best butter you've ever had! And afterward to 'celebrate' the marrow, I ordered a 12 year old scotch and drank it FROM the empty bone. I have the photos (taken by E) to prove it. If we met, went to that restaurant, and did nothing else, that would have been a great trip. Since we had a long full weekend of similar experiences it was a wonderful trip!
Family wise; Mom went into the hospital this past Tuesday. She'd been feeling "under the weather" for the past week. It honestly IS hard to say what the differences is between her having a mild cold where she just feels sick and when it's going to interrupt her ability to breath. This went into the latter category. We called the ambulance and got her into the ER where things just went downhill.
IF this were just about her breathing it would be fairly straight foward. They did their bloodwork, got a chest x-ray, and got a CT scan. They found some blood clots in her lungs that may have been there since January (the last time she got a CT scan) and they could fix it by putting her back on blood thinners. Keep her overnight to make sure the blood thinners are fine, then send her home. Easy Peasy, Lemon Squezy.... right?
Well actually, no. They fucked up. Mom's CT scan was with contrast. That's an ink like substance they inject into you so that they can get a better view of certain things. They'd already blown three of my mom's veins by messing around with her IVs. When they started to inject the contrast solution mom complained that it really hurt without a response from the tech. She said louder that it really was hurting her hand. Then she curse and told them again more emphatically ("HEY! THIS REALLY FUCKING HURTS!").
The damned IV had gotten pulled from her vein was was infiltrating her hand. Basically it was injecting the contrast into the area just under her skin. That's bad enough as the back of her hand looked like a balloon was stuffed under the skin, but when they got back to her ER room the nurse had her put a warm moist cloth on it. I didn't think any of it as you want to get the blood flowing and that's the appropriate method for most sprains and such. I just assumed she'd called the doc and/or pharmacist to see if it was the right action for a contrast solution infiltrated under the skin. No. No, she didn't check and No, this is NOT the appropriate action. The swelling got so bad so quickly that they had to actually cut off my Mom's rings. These were her engagement ring and the last ring my father bought her, both worn on her left ring finger. Yes, they're the rings she wears to remember her husband who passed away 17 years ago.
Fuck these fucking fuckers.
The treatment was ten injections around the swelling (which extended half way down her forearm at that point) and then wound care. Why wound care? Because the swelling was so bad that it was literally ripping her skin apart. Oh, and did the nurse get this set up? No, she just saw that they needed another IV access and instead of setting it up herself she called IV therapy to start a new one. The phlebotomist thought to get my mom aid, NOT the RN.
They took their time getting mom's blood thinners right because her hand was going to keep her in the hospital far longer anyway. She finally got out Friday morning. There's more that went wrong, but I don't want to talk about it as it pisses me off. I'm just happy that she's home and can rest normally.
Work
I'll talk about work in the next post. Not much to update, but it's a question I want to think about.
Entertainment
For awhile there I was wafting around, not knowing what I wanted to consume television wise. I got onto something... can't remember what... then finally the avalanche hit. I started to watch the 4th season of Stranger Things. It's a good show, and this season holds up well. But half way through, not even to the season break, I caught a clip that I really enjoyed:
It really got under my skin and I found out it was from the Apple TV+ series Ted Lasso. When I looked into it I found out that it was a 30 minute sit-com. I figured it would be okay to watch an episode, remember that I don't like sit-coms as a rule, and then go back to Stranger Things.
Twenty two episodes later I finished the series and am anxiously awaiting a third season. That took me a couple weeks to actually watch so I got back to finishing Stranger things. I'm not sure it's the best season, I'm not sure it's the worst season... but that scene with the guitar (if you know, you know) was pure awesome and worth the entire season (maybe worth all the previous show!).
Now, I said earlier Ted Lasso is on Apple TV+. For the most part, I'm not a big fan of Apple TV+. I've watched a few things on there and it's only $4.95 a month (after the free year I got for buying an iPhone). The first thing I watched was 'For All Mankind'. It's a fun idea... what if the Russians landed on the moon first? What would that have done to history? Well, at the end of it we're in the 70s with a lunar base, women in space, Apollo 25, and an American Astronaut stranded on the moon.
Well, while watching Ted, I saw that there were new episodes of For All Mankind. I remembered that they'd greenlit a 2nd season and figured they'd just gone ahead and started airing that. Yeah... no... they just recently finished airing the THIRD season. I watched a couple trailers and there's armed marines on the moon, missiles in space, a second generation space shuttle, and they make it all the way into the 90s.
Yup, that became my next viewing show.
But for whatever reason, my attention just seems to wander now adays. I should actually look into why as it's left me with certain shows half watched. Anyway, I got through about half of the second season then saw that Jurassic World Dominion was released. When it first came out I LOVED Jurassic Park. I believe I watched that about 25 in the theaters and countless times on video (on VHS and later DVD). I also really enjoyed The Lost World Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III.
When Jurassic World came out I liked that it was a continuation and really enjoyed it. But for whatever reason I never got around to watching Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom. So, now with the new movie out, it's the perfect time to watch Fallen Kingdom followed by Dominion, right? Nah, not me. I bought ALL the Jurassic movies and streamed them in order. I just finished Fallen Kingdom (great, fun movie) and am ready to dig into Dominion later this weekend (in my new comfy chair no less!).
Then I can get back to For All Mankind. But even that might go on hold as The Boys on Amazon finished its third season and I really want to watch that. Plus I want to finish the re-watch of Mad Men. Plus I finished the first Wheel of Time book and kind of want to watch the Amazon series. Then there's that new movie 'The Gray Man' on Netflix. There's the new Full Metal Alchemist movies coming out soon plus Neil Gaiman's Sandman series. There's HBOs Game of Thrones sequel series which looks really good.
I need help.
Anyway, I think thats about everything to update on. Most of my mind is on work and that will be its own post. Probably not long, but I want it more focused so that I can come back to it later. Oh, I'm looking forward to a new phone. Don't get me wrong, I love my Pixel but I keep seeing these foldable phones and really think one of those would be fun. I'm hoping Google releases a Pixel foldable, but don't think they will. If they don't, I'll have to decide if getting a Samsung Flip or Fold or a Motorola Razor is worth it.
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