At the end of this post I have a conversation about the whole 'Us vs Them' thing (hence the graphic!), but to start, I have a bunch of issues to catch up on. First, the job issue. Yes, I'm continuing on the job search and yes, it is now a job search. I have been in contact with my former supervisor and hopefully future HUM but her position is not yet available. BUT as my current supervisor and HUM are now aware of my intent to move on and are both supportive of my intent to move on, they've pointed out that a position nearby has come open. Not only did they point it out but they've made introductions between the HUM there and me but got me a tour of their facility. And on top of all that, the position DID come open.
So, I've applied to that. I'm fairly sure I'm not the only one to throw my hat in the ring, but maybe having my supervisor and HUM be so gung-ho about me will help out and having the HUM show me around was a good thing. As she showed me around I was with my current supervisor and she'd introduce us to some of the staff there. My supervisor would of course introduce herself as a supervisor at our facility and then I'd introduce myself as an RN at the same facility. The HUM would then step in and mention to the staff that I was applying to the open supervisor position. Maybe making sure that the staff knew I might one day be their supervisor and not just another nurse from another facility? Maybe I'm looking to much into it, but even my supervisor was impressed with the tour. She's received several tours of their facility before but she's never received as thorough of a tour before.
The position was only open for a week, so it's closed now. I can hope that they'll schedule interviews in the next week or so. And if this doesn't happen... well I still have my original facility as it's position hasn't opened up yet. Plus this week I got the chance to correspond with a nurse I worked with when I was new. She's a supervisor at the only women's facility here in Michigan and I shared that I was looking to move up to a supervisory position. She seemed excited and mentioned that they were going to be looking for a supervisor soon, plus the facility she's temping at will be looking for two supervisors soon. In total that's five nurse supervisor positions opening up between now and the end of summer that are all within driving distance of me.
Yeah... I won't end this year in this job. I'll be a nurse supervisor by year's end.
Migraines. So I started to topamax on March 19th. That was at 25mg. I was at that does for 2 weeks then bumped up to 50mg for 2 weeks. Then 75mg for 2 weeks, then up to 100mg. The neurologist had me move up slowly so that I could detect any side effects and mark any differences. I noticed the side effects almost immediately. Most notably... language problems. I struggle much of the time to find words, mostly proper nouns. People's names, the names of drugs, specialists names. For example, one of my tasks is to hand out medications to my patients. Most medications have two names, the generic name and the more common brand name. A good example is a common blood pressure med Lopressor. Lopressor is the brand name that most people know but the generic name is metoprolol tartrate. Now Lopressor is something that just rolls off my tongue and it's the name that most of my patients know, so I almost always refer to it that way even though it will say metoprolol tartrate on the tag. When I try to pronounce metoprolol tartrate I tend to slow down and have to look at it and sound like I don't know what I'm talking about... in other words my patients would lose confidence in me. But with topamax doing it's thing with me I'll be explaining their meds, look down and see the label reading metoprolol tartrate, look up at them and start saying "Okay, and here we have your...." and I'm waiting for my mind to kick in with Lopressor. But it doesn't come. It just isn't there. The word is more or less erased from my memory. After a few seconds of umm and err and uhh I have to look back down at the card and read off the metoprolol tartrate name and continue on with that because I just can't remember the word Lopressor. The same will apply to people's names. It's embarrassing and it happens often and makes my speech stilted and pausing and hesitant.
This would be barely tolerable even if it made the migraines go away, but it hasn't done that. It has lessened them. It's made them occur less frequently and it's made them less severe, but not in nearly a significant enough way to make the side effect tolerable.
There was one 10 day period though that was heaven on earth. You see, I have what I classify as three types of headaches. A minor headache that's entirely tolerable. On a 0-10 pain scale, where 0 is no pain at all and 10 is the worst pain imaginable, this minor headache would be between 1 and 3. It lasts between 20 minutes and 3 hours. I can often take a tylenol or motrin or both and either completely eliminate it or reduce it almost completely away. And even if I don't take medication, it's tolerable. Next there are major headaches. These are more intense, say between a 4 and an 8 on the same pain scale, and they last between an hour and multiple days. Meds, even large doses of meds, will reduce the pain but won't eliminate it. This pain is throbbing and pulsing and is often affected by light and/or sound and is the same type of headache I'll get during a migraine. Finally there are migraines. Not all of my migraines include a headache, but when they do, it's of the major headache variety, and it's then combine with the inability to think, an increased sensitivity to light, blurry vision, an increased sensitivity to sound, and a loud intense ringing in my ears.
On any given day, I have one of those headaches. I'm thankful when it's a minor headache day. It's 'not bad' when it's a short major headache. And a long major headache or a full blown migraine is hell on earth.
I mention all that because while I was tapering up to the 100mg dose, right when I was at the 75mg dose, I had a 10 day spat where I had no headaches.
None.
I would fully accept all the langugare problems I currently have, and then some, if I could live like that. It was heaven. It was a bliss I haven't had for years and years and years. And it ended with one of the worst migraines I ever had. It was like all the headaches were building up and then let out in that one migraine. Most of my migraines now have a 'migraine hangover' meaning a major headache with ringing in my ears and pain in my neck and shoulders for a day... but that migraine headache lasted for 3 days.
10 days of heaven followed for 3 days of hell.
So last night after about a month of being at 100mg of topamax a night, I'm moving back down to 75mg. I see the neurologist again in a month, and unless I can get that heaven back, I'm going to be tapering back down anyway, so lets give it the best try we can. He even said that I could stop the taper up at any time if I had a good result... well, if I can stop on the way up, I'm sure he won't have a problem with me going back down since 100mg didn't give me as good of a result as 75mg did.
And if this doesn't work, I imagine I'll taper off topamax and then find out what botox is like. Yes... botox can be used to treat migraines.
Fucking botox.
Mom's health has been okay. She did have a cyst on her back that she let go for too long. When she got to the doc she had to go on some major antibiotics and even have it lanced. It's been a week and I'm fairly sure it still needs work as it's still producing purulent drainage. And as self centered as this sounds, it's still true. It pisses me off that after a full day of taking care of this nasty shit at work, I have to come home and do it here. All because she didn't go to the doctor for this months beforehand.
My mom's sister (my aunt) came over for Memorial Day, and I have to say she's not doing well at all. She really needs to be wearing oxygen at all times. She has it in her car, but she doesn't wear it in to the house because it's cumbersome. It's not a huge problem because we obviously have oxygen here and she's not moving around all that much... but even the little bit she's moving around here wears her out. So when she's ready to get back in her car she has to pick up her dog, go down the steps, step out into the breezeway, step down the driveway, get into her car, then put on her oxygen. That little bit of effort was almost too much and it took her a good 4 minutes to catch her breath with the oxygen on almost full blast (8 liters!).
I found out through my Mom that my aunt is feeling bad on so many days that she's often canceling doctor's appointments because she doesn't have the energy to go into them. And sadly, she just doesn't have a support system around her. She has two children but they live hundreds of miles away, so my mom is her support system... and Mom isn't strong enough to be anybody's support system as I'm Mom's support system.
(I started writing this on June 2nd. I stopped because... reasons? I'm now picking this up a little more than a week later on June 11th.
Anywho, My aunt really needs a better support system, but she just doesn't have it. In the meantime, she does what she can, when she can, however she can. She scares the hell out of herself and anyone around her as she doesn't seem to ever remember what her own boundries are and screams past them leaving her gasping for breath and needing to put her oxygen on just to catch up and not, you know, suffocate. I'm just afraid that one day she's going to push herself too far and not have the wherewithall to get the oxygen on in time and end up with serious defects from hypoxia or worse, end up dead.
As it's a week after I started this, lemme update the two earlier subjects. Still no word on the job front. I'm not surprised or worried by that as it's a State position and that's not exactly a fast way to get hired. If I had to put a time frame on getting this job, i'd say I'll be working there by late August or early September. So an interview wouldn't be surprising to occur in July, even though the position closed in late May. The other position did finally open up and I put my application in for it. It doesn't close for another week or so though.
I've been down to 75mg of topamax for over a week now and no migranes. No major headaches. I'm still holding my breath for one and I'm still scared that the migraine hangover will be terrible, but I'll wait and see.
Now, one of the reasons I wanted to write this post originally was the whole Rosanne losing her TV show thing. It's a week later and that's not a big deal any more, but I still kind of want to touch on that subject. If you don't remember (or are reading this years later), Rosanne Barr had her TV show come back late last year. She's an outspoken fan of President Trump and from what I understand, her character on the show was a Trump fan as well. On May 29th, Rosanne tweeted: "muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj" referring to Valerie Jarrett.
It's an openly racist sentiment put out by a celebrity in an overtly public manner. ABC rightly, in my opinion, canceled her show. And then the outrage from Trump fans everywhere erupted.
Now I'm not here to argue the validity of ABC canceling the show. I think it was right to do so, but I could also see them just firing Rosanne Barr and keeping the show going. I don't know how the show is structured though and I'm not sure that's even possible. If ABC kept Rosanne and her show on afterwards, well that's their call and while I wouldn't like it, I wouldn't push to hard against it. It's not like they didn't know who they were hiring when they brought the show back. I mean, this is the woman who grabbed her crotch while singing the national anthem. This is the woman who did a photo shoot dressed up as hitler while cooking jew cookies.
No, instead i'm here to talk about (argue) about the Trump fans and their various responses. Now I should be clear that while I'm talking about 'Trump fans', I'm well aware that this group of people have been around far longer than President Trump has been into politics. This same group was the majority of the Tea Party, the Freedom Caucus, the even a large part of the Christian Conservatives. They've always been on the 'right' side of the political spectrum and attached themselves to the farthest thing on the conservative side. President Trump and his antics just occupy that space at the moment. In a few years it'll be someone or something else, and they'll have a different name. But it's this group of people that I'm talking about. And also to be clear, I'm not talking about every single person who voted for President Trump. I'm talking about the people that buy every single ridiculous thing our President says, no matter how outlandish and foolish and unbelievable it is. The people that bought that President Obama was born in Kenya... then bought that his Hawaii birth certificate was legitimate, then bought that it wasn't again. The people that chant 'Lock Her Up' after 4 years of investigations with no evidence of wrong doing, but cry about a year's investigation of President Trump's campaign that already has guilty pleas.
One thing that got me was the people that wanted to 'Stand with Rosanne'. Stand with her for what? For racism? Because if you can't see her tweet as racist, then you are in fact a racist. So, yes, by all means, stand with her for that. It helps us identify all the people who are racist and just don't understand what racism is. Stand with her for voicing her first amendment rights? Well, she hasn't voiced any fist amendment complaints that I know of. No one has said that she can't say that. She hasn't even lost her twitter account. But she does have consequences for saying the things she does.
That last comparison... first amendment rights... leads me to two comparisons I've seen. Trump fans saying that the hosts of the View (and various other shows) should be fired for saying mean things about President Trump just like Rosanne was fired, and people on the left crying about hypocrisy when comparing Trump fans outrage over ABC objecting to what Rosanne does and their support for NFL owners of punishing NFL players for kneeling in protest during the national anthem. So lemme address both of these.
The first is easy enough. Racism Vs Being Mean. Yes, people have compared President Trump to looking like an ape, but Caucasian people haven't been compared to apes as a racist term. Plus, if you look at the definition of racism, you'll find: "prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior". You'll find it very difficult to point out a group of people discriminating against Caucasians because they believe their race is superior. It's not 'right' to dislike white people, but it's still not racist to dislike white people. So yes, a lot of people on TV are being mean to President Trump and not being fired for it, but that is far away and different from being Racist and being fired for it. The fact that people don't get that distinction again just goes to show that people don't know what racism is, why it's so hurtful, and why it can't be tolerated in a modern society.
The second one is more problematic. A lot of my liberal friends want to take my 'progressive' card for this opinion, but here it goes: I think the NFL owners are right. They're paying the players for their time and if they want their employees to stand and respect the owner's beliefs (or at least what the owners think are the fan's beliefs) in the flag during the national anthem, then they should do so. And if they kneel while doing so in protest, they are putting their job in jeopardy. Now, in no way am I saying that these players shouldn't protest. In no way am I saying that they shouldn't kneel during the national anthem. The fact that people are getting upset just shows that attention is getting paid to the protest. Yes, it's the wrong type of attention, but given enough time, people that are intellectually curious will find out what the protests are about and maybe have their eyes opened.
Protesting shouldn't be free. It should cost you and should demonstrate your commitment to your cause. I can't 'protest' the NFL over their new policies by not watching the games. Oh, I can say that's what I'm doing. I could make a big deal about all the commercials I'm not going to see, about the time I'm going to spend on Sunday's doing things for the cause instead of watching the Lions lose to whomever they're playing that week, or watching Tom Brady slaughter whomever he and the Patriots are playing.... but that wouldn't be honest as I wouldn't have been watching the NFL anyway. So 'not watching' them in protest is the same thing I was doing before I was 'protesting' them.
And that leads me to another larger point. Us vs Them.
I hear this far more from the 'Right' but it's not like I don't hear it from the 'Left'. What I hear is a political maneuver or statement that is made or positioned to enrage the other side. It doesn't seem to be used so much by our political leaders as much as it is by their supporters... but more and more it's being used by those supporters as they run for office. And now that they're winning, it's being used by those in power. The biggest example would be President Trump. His attacks on the media, the FBI, on anybody who attacks him or his policies. You never seem to know where he stands at any given moment.
Take for example his stance on the Iran Nuclear Deal. Look at what that deal does, what it stopped, what it set up for the future, and what it was doing. It was worked out over years between our government, and the governments of Iran, China, France, Germany, Russia, the UK, and the EU. It was strictly dealing with Iran's nuclear program and specifically didn't deal with their missile program or their support of terrorism. President Trump seems to want a similar deal with North Korea, but it has to be even more ambitious as they weren't trying to become a nuclear nation, they already ARE a nuclear nation. And what does he show them? That a deal struck with 6 of our allies and a country like them can be nullified on a whim because it will upset the 'other side'. Because it will upset 'them'.
In the 'Us vs Them' argument it made the 'Us' side very happy. His fans were overjoyed. But I haven't heard a single thing said about that deal that was bad except for the President or people speaking on his behalf saying it's bad. They give no details as to why it's bad. When they do list any details, its talking about things that aren't in the deal, like their missile program or their support of Hamas.
A similar argument could be said about DACA. About the Muslim ban (all the various versions of it). About the way he deals with the press (the failing NYT). About the G7. About Russia.
While President Trump is the loudest voice in the fray, he's certainly not the only one. I can't count the number of times I see a variation of 'Libtards go crazy over....' with the topic of the day inserted. I just don't get it though. Why does it matter what the 'liberals' think of your policy, unless you're making your policy TO upset them? When I talk about policy and the things I'd like to see our government do, I talk in terms of the things I'd like to see done. Let's take Universal Healthcare as an example. I'd like to see the whole idea of paying for all basic care be just gone for everybody. Going to the doctor, declaring bankruptcy over cancer, eating dog food so that you can afford your blood pressure medications, avoiding a doctor until you need the emergency room, not taking preventative medications until you need to take far worse corrective medications, worrying about losing your insurance with your job, worrying about covering on your child, worrying if your insurance covers physical therapy or how much physical therapy it covers. All of those things would go away if we just enacted Universal Healthcare of some sort. What I don't spend any time thinking about is how it would piss off libertarians as it increases the size of the government, or how it would piss off conservatives as everybody's taxes goes up.
I also can't imagine President Obama planning any initiative from his position as Commander in Chief to piss off the base of his political enemies. Now when he was at political rallies, did he talk about them? Yes. But did he make it part of his job as president? No. In my opinion he kept politics away from work as best he could. And so did every president before him except maybe Nixon. Bush (Father and Son), Reagan, Ford, Eisenhower.... all Presidents that I didn't like for one reason or another... but I never felt that they were playing an 'Us vs Them' game with the power of the presidency. When President Bush did his massive Tax Cuts, he did so because he thought that was the best way to grow the economy and not to tweak the noses of the democrats in congress.
Maybe facebook just makes it easier to see all these 'fans' and what they see. Maybe I'm the outsider in not thinking about political moves that piss off the other side. But even if that's the case, it's only gotten worse in the last couple years. Some of it is certainly President Trump (and candidate Trump before that). Some of it is likely the Russian hack pitting us against each other. And while I share plenty of left leaning memes.... I don't ever share ones that involve the 'Cons losing their shit over...' anything.
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