Health
The headline is the 'Rona. Last week on October 6th I felt like I was getting a cold. Chest congestion mainly but it extended up to my sinuses. Just a regular upper respiratory infection. Nothing to worry about. Sadly, the symptoms mimic COVID except that I had no fever. I didn't feel safe going to work feeling this way though so I tested myself for COVID and it came back negative. Then I tested myself again on Friday and negative. I felt sick Saturday and Sunday, but I wasn't going to work so I didn't bother to test myself.
This is when the worry started to set in. It's been awhile since a cold took me down for this long and COVID was spreading all over the facility. I repeated this process... feeling sick, testing, negative result, on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I had Thursday off as I was working the weekend but I felt even worse with a really bad sore throat. So that afternoon, after getting set for working the weekend, I went ahead and tested myself just so that I could have that peace of mind.
Fuck.
It came back positive. At this point I'd been expressing symptoms for a week but only now tested positive. Mom was also feeling under the weather... did she have it? Did I give Mom COVID!?
To be honest, the symptoms aren't that bad. It's like a really bad cold. I guess I have the vaccine to thank for that. The only odd symptom is sleeping problems. No, it's not coughing or sinuses keeping me up... I just can't sleep. For three nights in a row I've tossed and turned for over an hour. I know some people that do that nightly, but I normally take about five minutes to drift off. Last night was the most acute as I laid down at 2330 and was really tired. At 0030 I got back up as I was still tired but just not falling asleep. I stayed up for another three hours, finally lying down at 0330 and tossing and turning for at least 20 minutes (I recall seeing the clock read 0350). I then got up at 0730 and couldn't get back to sleep.
I think the symptoms were the worst on Friday as they felt a little better yesterday. Today, when compared to yesterday, I don't feel better but I don't feel worse either. At this rate I should feel fine by Wednesday. Who knows if I'll test positive or negative on Thursday.
I'm also really keeping an eye on Mom. Her symptoms don't seem as bad, but she just doesn't have the wiggle room I do. As bad as I feel, I still don't need oxygen and can get up and get around on my own. Mom doesn't even start THAT good so any decline is BAD for her. Oh, and yes I'm considering going in to the doctor and getting the oral pills, but I don't see a big value there. The pills do their best if they are taken within 72 hours of symptoms coming on. For me that was five days BEFORE I tested positive.
While getting COVID-19 is the main health issue, I'm also dealing with two slow rolling problems. I finally saw both my endocrinologist and neurologist since my last update. The endocrinologist was very happy with my diabetes. He cut my insulin by more than 50% (45 units daily down to 20 units daily) and wanted me to get a continuous glucose monitor. That's the thing that hooks onto your arm and stays put for 7 to 10 days. To take a glucose reading you just hold your phone up to it and BOOM you have a glucose reading.
He actually wanted this the last time I saw him but I was opposed because of working in the prison. It'd set off the metal detectors and I'd have to get special permission to get in (and out) with it on. Not impossible, but a pain. But now that I can walk all the way into work with my phone, let alone a medical device connected to my arm, I figured why not? Well, it seems insurance is why not.
The doc set up the prescription and sent it to my local pharmacy. I'd pick it up then come back into the office for his staff to set up and educate me on. Well, I took a vacation and they didn't have it ready before hand. I honestly forgot while on vacation and remembered about a month after he'd sent in the prescription. When I asked they said they no longer had the prescription. When I asked the doctor's office, I was directed to a medical distributor who was setting me up with some other company. It was all kind of shady if I'm honest.
Well they came to a point where the 'other company' was asking me the insurance style questions with the distributor on the phone with us. I told them how much insulin I take, how many times a day I take it, and how many times a day I currently check my blood sugar. Well, it seems that my answers didn't qualify me for a continuous blood glucose monitor.
The distributor said he'd call the office and I'd be contacted by either the office staff or him. That was over a month ago. I'm done with this for now. I'd like to have one as it would be easier to check my sugars, but I don't really need it.
The neurologist. Ironically I had a migraine the day I saw him. We went over the effectiveness of the Nurtec and agreed it wasn't good enough to pursue prescribing it as a preventative. The next step is Botox. While Nurtec is supposed to be more effective, it doesn't take away that Botox can reduce migraine frequency by between 50 and 90 percent. About the only problem is that it takes three months between doses so if the initial dose is to small, it's almost a full season before we can try a larger dose.
That was about 8 weeks ago and they still don't have that set up. I'm just in a holding pattern on that while my migraines are getting worse and worse. Or if not directly worse, at least more frequent.
Finances
Since I last wrote an update I've taken a vacation (talk about it under Family/Friends), bought a computer, returned the computer, and bought my most expensive phone ever. And bought another computer. I also have a raise, another promised raise, and yet another possibility of getting a raise. Lets take these in turn.
The vacation, which I'll talk about more in Family/Friends, was actually due to me having to take two weeks of virtual leadership training for work. It seems all of their 'new' supervisors have to take this. I tried to tell them that I'd taken something similar in the department of Corrections but they didn't care. I tried to tell them I had been a supervisor for almost 4 years as a nurse manager and had been a supervisor/manager for going on 20 years before that. Didn't matter, I'd have to stop working to take two weeks, 80 hours, of "leadership" training. And of course to make it worse/better, with COVID going around the training is now virtual.
Well fuck, I tried to talk them out of it. If I have to take virtual training, I might as well go visit some friends in Texas while I do it. Right!? The only thing I'd need there that I didn't have here (or have there already) was a computer. We'd be on Teams meetings so I'd have to have a camera available. They assured me it couldn't be done via an iPad (which I already have) or a phone (which I obviously have). So I bought a laptop.
Being me, I couldn't just be happy with any old pedestrian laptop. No, I didn't buy some monster gaming laptop but I did buy one with an OLED screen with a beautiful blue metallic frame. It cost like $1200 but the money wasn't a big deal. When I got down to Texas I found out that not only were we not going to have full days worth of work, we weren't going to have any Teams meetings. I could have done this on any old computer (I could have done it on a $199 Chromebook). I probably could have done it on the iPad or phone!
Being that I had the computer, I tried to find uses for it. I of course used it for the classes as it didn't make sense to NOT use it, but there's just no way a laptop is going to compare to working on my desktop. Yeah, the 15 inch OLED is nice but my 48 inch OLED on the desktop is better. The backlit keyboard is nice, but my wireless RGB backlit keyboard is better. It has an Intel Core i7 processor, but it's a laptop processor compared to my full AMD Ryzen 7 desktop processor. It just wouldn't compare and I'm not away from home enough to get anything near $1200 out of it.
By the time I got back I'd already had the computer for over two weeks so I figured I couldn't return it. My nephews were kind of in the same boat as me in that they didn't want it. My niece might have wanted it if she hadn't just bought my old Macbook (she's an Apple gal). I figured I'd have to offer it up on Facebook marketplace or Craig's list for a big discount just to recoup some of the costs. But when I looked online at my Best Buy receipt to see exactly what I paid for it, I found out that my return period is 60 days.
I forgot I am a Total Tech member, or whatever its called. I signed up for it when I got my last phone as it cost $200 and came with a two year warranty on anything I bought. The stand alone warranty on the phone was more than $200 so it was worth it (and it now covers my television/monitor, some smart plugs, my Microsoft Elite Xbox Controller (used on the computer). I got it for the warranty but it includes this ridiculously long return policy on non consumable items... including laptops!
As long as I was getting all of the money back, I went ahead and took the leap to upgrade the phone. There wasn't anything wrong with my Pixel 6 Pro but it was... blah. Another slab of glass that was a decent internet/texting/voice device. Samsung had just come out with their newest folding devices including the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4. This is a candybar style phone that folds out into a mini tablet. It's seriously pretty cool! And it costs $1600. BUT I was okay with keeping the laptop and was getting $1200 back so upgrading the phone was more like $400!
I've been using it for about 6 weeks now and I'm in love. In it's regular 'folded' form it has a fairly tall screen. It's actually not as tall as other phones but it's narrow form factor makes it look tall. It's great for checking quick updates, reading a text, or anything that's just a quick few moments on the phone. It looks like this:
I'm going to make a full post about the new computer, but in case you don't read that one here's the skinny: I wanted to get the new Nvidia RTX 4090 but wanted to wait for the reviews. The reviews came out and said it was even better than predicted (it can double the performance of the 3090ti which is already better than my 3080). On my first sick day I figured I'd just order one up as it had only been out for a few days at that point.... IT FUCKING SOLD OUT EVERYWHERE ALREADY!!!!!
I wasn't going to lose out or wait for over a year like I did with the 3080 so I found a system builder that had 4090s in stock and bought a new computer from them. It gets delivered Monday between 1200 and 1400. If you want more than that you'll have to read the next post.
Family/Friends
The vacation. So I told you above that I went to Texas to visit with my friends. It wasn't even using annual leave as I was going to do some training while there. The weird part was the travel. I had two weeks of class, but would be busy IN class Monday through Friday. I couldn't exactly drive on those days. So I could either go down on the first weekend, spend almost two weeks there then drive back the last weekend or go down the first weekend then drive back in the middle weekend. As I'd have to wash clothes and otherwise prep for work on my return, I figured getting home on Sunday and having to do all of that in a few hours wasn't a good idea so I would return in the middle of the training.
The plan was to arrive on Sunday and hang out. Monday morning I'd have 'class' at 0800 with a lunch break at noon. Back to class at 1300 and done by 1600. At that point there would be a little homework but otherwise the evenings would be spent with my friends. I told them to not bother taking time off as I'd only have the evenings anyway. But then I found out that they'd canceled all of the 'live' class stuff. That was half of the days material. The new schedule was putting out ALL of the week's material and suggesting a timeline to do it with going over materials in the morning and doing homework after lunch.
Fine.
So Monday morning came and I sat down to work. I opened up the 'syllabus' and stared on Monday morning's work. I got done with the first chapter, took the quick quiz, then moved on to the next chapter. I kept that up until it was time for lunch.
I got to have lunch with J and the kids and then went back up to class. But when I looked at the syllabus, I realized that the first chapter was for Monday morning. The quiz was the homework for that afternoon. The other chapters I'd done were for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Seriously, I'd done over half of the week's work in a single morning.
SO, I got to spend a lot of time relaxing. J was working from home so I didn't want to disturb her. Instead I slept in, had some late coffee, did some web browsing (on my fancy, about to be returned, computer) and read. It was VERY relaxing. On Friday I turned in all the materials and got to hang out with A as he'd taken the day off once he realized I was gaming the system.
It really sucked leaving Saturday morning. Even the kids recognize that I don't leave on Saturdays and were disappointed as they wanted to spend time with me. And driving on the weekend, while still relaxing, isn't as nice as it is on weekdays. There are just less people driving in the boonies at 10 AM. Although that's almost equaled out by less people driving around the big cities (Indianapolis and St. Louis) around 5 PM!!!
The next week was the 'in person' virtual teams meetings. They were... well, useless. The whole experience could have been fit into 16 hours or two days of training. Even if they'd compressed it that way, it was all stuff that was either useless or something I'd already covered. I can't think of a way that they could have wasted more money by having me do this instead of working.
Friends are otherwise okay. We (A and E and myself) are planning another real vacation for around Thanksgiving but we don't have that hammered out yet. J and I are going to hang out soon, we just need to work out which weekend it will be.
Mom is doing okay. Well, except for this cold. She's finally going to pulmonary rehab which is exercises designed to get her breathing better. I don't know how much its going to help but she's not the 'worst off' in the group so that's a good thing. It does worry me that she didn't want to do this before (it was offered to her last year) but is agreeing to it now. Is she getting so bad that shes feeling out of options? I don't know, I just have to stay positive on that and let her manage her disease.
My brother B and his family are more or less fine. His son, my nephew, J is... well, he is having some major mental health issues. As in auditory hallucinations and being prescribed anti-psychotics. Its tough trying to help them out as there are so many things that can be going on and I'm sure I don't have enough information to give good advice. The information I get is filtered through B and his medical knowledge. B gets his information from J who is only sharing what he wants to share, and J is of course getting it directly from his psychiatrist but probably doesn't want to share everything.
Then there's my brother R. He's... well, he's starting to get on my nerves. Let me paint the good picture first. He's great for my Mom around the house. Even when he was working he'd take care of major and minor maintenance things around the house. This summer he's painted the house, taken down a bush, and installed the new tub. That's in addition to handling the garbage each week, mowing the lawn, and a dozen other small things that only he notices but Mom doesn't have to worry about.
And he didn't exactly leave his job on teh best of terms. He was in a bad spot mentally as his worth and integrity had been questioned pretty harshly. Those are internal things that we (our whole family) keep true. Our work ethic alone makes other people just look lazy by comparison. Our work ethic is one of the reasons I don't like my current job as people complain about how busy they are and how hard the job is while I'm at a loss for things to do.
Anyway, I wanted him to have time to settle himself. It was a good job market and I'm sure he could be employed when he wanted to be. But it's been almost ten months now and he's settling into being a homebody/hermit. He has a good saving saved up and his car is paid off so he has no major bills... but his drive to work isn't back. Yeah, he installed the tub and a couple months back put in the new bathroom floor, but the tub install was supposed to include all new wall paneling (or tile work), ceiling re-done, and new cabinets. He was even considering re hanging our massive medicine-cabinet/mirror and insert it into the wall like it was originally designed to be (trust me, it ain't an easy task!). None of that is done.
And now he's getting particular about other things he does. When we have a meal together, lunch on most days along with dinner on the weekends, I clear the table, he packs the dishwasher, and I was the remaining dishes. He's WAY better at packing the dishwasher so he can fit more into it, so while I HATE washing dishes I consider it a fair trade of work. But he's now become a self imposed master of the sink. When I get home from work at Midnight, microwave leftovers for dinner, and put them into the sink, he gets offended. They should be put into the dishwasher. It doesn't matter that most of the time the dishwasher is full of clean dishes that would have to be put away... dirty dishes shouldn't sit in the sink. Understand... we've ALWAYS done this. Snack dishes or glasses or whatever we use in the evening/night past dinner is left in the sink until the next morning.
This even extends on to soda cans. We have a multi-stage process for soda can storage. After drinking the tasty beverage it gets shaken out in the sink, then turned upside-down in the sink for awhile to fully drain. After that period it gets put into the 12 pack carton we bought it in until it's filled up. Then that gets taken outside, emptied into a 50 gallon bag of cans with the carton crushed into the recycling. We have the sink step because several years ago we had a big problem with ants. Leaving ANY soda in the cans meant the ants would find it and surround the temporary storage. It was gross and nasty and took more than a year to clear up.
Well, R no longer drinks soda. Without work he's putting on weight so he now takes daily walks and has cut out his soda. Coffee, water, and low or no calorie Gatorade has taken its place. The coffee mug and water glass simply go into the dishwasher when emptied and the gatorade bottle goes into the trash with the cap on keeping pests away from any remaining beverage (our recycling doesn't take them). So now the cans in the sink are mine (or Mom's). He'll take care of Mom's. With mine he's gone full on passive aggressive. I'll come out after putting a can in a half hour earlier and I'll find the temporary carton sitting next to the sink with the can sitting in front of it. In other words he saw the can, pulled it out, put it on the counter, reached onto the floor to get the carton, picked it up, and put it on the counter next to the can. All of that instead of ignoring it as we've done for years or just putting the can in the carton.
So... I don't know what to do about R. He's moody now. He acts like he's the home maker which pisses me off even more as there was only one person in that role. Dad. R ain't my dad and while he's taking care of Mom, so am I. If he were still working I'd go head to head with him on job stresses, but he's NOT working. He gets to brag about the games he plays on the computer all day while I struggle to find an hour every couple weeks to play a game.
Again, I don't know what to do about him. He's my brother but I won't let someone attack MY self worth or ethics either.
Work
There's two things about work I want to cover. The general feeling and the specifics of my COVID-19.
The general stuff is more of the same that I've been talking about. No one trusts anyone else. No one works together. The security assistants, the security supervisors, the nurses, the nurse managers, the assistant directors of nursing, the director of nursing, the director of the hospital. The AM shift, the PM shift, the midnight shift. The east side of the facility, the south side of the facility. If there's a way to draw a line between any group, that line will be drawn. Everyone complains when people call in but no one stops to care when they call in. And therefore no one cares WHY someone calls in.
I told you I had a migraine when I went to visit my neurologist. When I went into work the next day I slipped in to see the assistant director of nursing as she's someone I'm feeling closer to. Not really a work friend yet, but close. I wanted to tell her that going in with the migraine certainly made it worse and likely made it bad enough so that I couldn't work that day (the appointment was hours before my scheduled shift) but that overall it was worth it because of the new treatment I'd be getting. Or at least I tried to explain that. She stopped me and told me that if it was sick time for the call in I'd have to provide HR with the paperwork backing it up and that if it was FMLA she didn't need to hear anything about it.
I was just deflated. Here I am with a condition that's costing me (and them by default) days of work. A major health problem. And I now have good news about this condition that I want to share. But all she wanted to talk about was paperwork regarding the call in. I'd have shared the same information even if it was on a day off or if I'd come in later that same day... but all she heard was 'call in' and she was stuck on toeing the company line.
I'm working hard on trying to find a reason to stay. I haven't thought like this for years and years and years. I go into a new job figuring it will take at LEAST two years to get out of the 'new' stage. And even then, there's always room for improvement. But I'm out of the new stage now. I have most of this job down pat. I'm on to the improvement stage as in getting my monthly paperwork done before its due instead of simply on time. I figure I'll have that down by December or January at the latest.
And then what? This job is E A S Y. And it's grating on my soul to hear all these whiny bastards complain about how difficult it is. How it's just SO hard and thank GOD the day is done and they can go home and de-stress from it all. I have to de-stress when I get home, but only from my co-workers. Taking care of the patients is easy. Taking care of the nurses and assistants and supervisors is easier. And when I say its easy, I mean like "working at McDonalds" easy. Like "going to gym class in Jr High" easy. Like the "Staples easy button" easy.
And you know what I never hear about at work? Patient care. No one is talking about improving our patients health or mental health. It's security or pushing pills or pushing everything else on to the doctor who writes orders (and those orders makes 'our' job harder). In the prison I made my patients lives better. I improved them medically. Me. Yes, I also helped the nurses and therefore helped a lot more patients, but even as a manager I helped my patients. I don't get even that little bit of satisfaction here.
So... I can't see a path that lets me stay at this job for much longer. I want to make sure what I do next as I can coast at this job for a long time and don't need to jump, but it's never going to be a long term solution. I pictured myself plenty of times retiring from the prison. There's is ZERO chance I'll retire from this job.
And then there's the COVID specific response. We get a daily update from the hospital director. Every time she talks about our COVID status (updating us on how many employees have tested positive, how many patients are positive, how many units are in isolation or quarantine...) she'll always add that if we test positive outside of work we need to inform her, HR, and the clinic director. So after my test result came back, I logged into my email account and sent out an email to all three. I then called the director knowing I'd be leaving a voice mail (she was out of the office for the day). I couldn't call HR because they work from home and aren't available by phone (what? no seriously, they don't take phone calls!!!). I then call the clinic director and get the sympathy you'd expect. She'd already recieved my email and was just sending the response but her first question was "how are you feeling? Do you need to go to the doctor's office? Can we help you?"
I felt cared for.
I still felt sick, but at least I felt cared for by someone at work. Maybe this was it. Maybe this was the event that would show me how 'we' all could come together. I told her I was feeling sick but nothing worse than a very bad cold and I'd go to the doctor's office or a clinic if need be. I got the information I'd need which was that I was off for seven days. On the seventh day I could test again and if I tested negative and was symptom free, I could return to work the next day. That would be Friday the 21st. If I tested positive, which sadly is likely, I would have to wait a full 10 days even if I was symptom free. Assuming I'm symptom free, I could return on the 24th.
The weird thing is that the 24th is the beginning of my vacation. I'm supposed to get a week off. HR eventually emailed me back saying I had to use sick time but if I didn't have enough I could use annual leave to cover my COVID-19 time off (she never asked how I was doing). So if I feel fine tomorrow and am off all week... would I really want another week off? I mean, I only took this 'vacation' to get some time away from work. I'm not traveling and I have no plans for it. On the opposite side, if I'm sick as a dog all week, I might actually need the vacation more.
So, I'd figured I'd call the assistant directors of nursing and run that by them. And even though I didn't need to, I'd also tell them that I'd be off for the next 7 to 10 days. When I called it went to one of the nurse managers as the assistant directors of nursing had all taken the day off. Understand, the nurse manager is my colleague. We work together doing the same job. She didn't care that I'd tested positive. She just went into the whole "you don't have to tell the assistant directors of nursing, you need to call the director of the hospital and the blah blah blah..." right back to someone not caring about the problem and instead caring about the process.
So, I wrote an email to the assistant directors of nursing and included the director of nursing figuring it might actually be her decision. I explained the 7 and 10 day time away and how it bumped up against my vacation. I explained that I might want to skip it and asked if that was possible. I sent that email out Thursday afternoon. It's now Sunday evening and I haven't heard back. They were there Friday... I have emails from them on Friday... but they didn't answer me.
They didn't ask how I was doing.
They didn't answer my question about possibly not taking the vacation (and possibly alleviating some overtime).
They didn't care.
I hate this fucking job.
Entertainment
I've watched several good movies, seen several good shows, and listened to some good music. BUT, nothing worth writing about. Nothing really wowed me. Maybe I'll cover it later as my mind is slowly turning to mush.
I was going to write about the computer, but I think I'll do that tomorrow morning. I'm just too wiped out now.
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