Two Steps Foward, A Step And A Half Back

 I made it back to the VA yesterday , seems as if I'm still alive. Then I drove up to my daughter and her family for a visit. They are nice enough to have put me on their family plan so now I have a new phone and number. Friends and relatives should e-mail me for the number. Not that it will do much good, seems I spend abouut half my time wandering through the house looking for where I left it.

 The VA is sending me all my private doctor records so that I can use them to file for my service connected disability.  I'm not sure what my percentage will be, it depends on how the various problems will build up. Each of my ailments will be a certain percentage. We'll see.

 I was working on the paperwork for my cut of Linda Lou's postal pension when I reached an impasse. Seems I can't find the checkbook or the box with the bazillion new checks so I can't finish that until morning. Well more likely afternoon since I do not seem to do mornings very well. Linda Lou could always find stuff. Each day I remember ways in which I needed her. Of course I always paid for her finding things with many rude comments.

So, Which Side Do We Bomb?

 So Obama and some of the left want to bomb Syria. On one side in Syria are the Ba'athist  bunch of Assad, only a step or two removed from the old National Socialists of Germany. On the other side are the people allied with the alQ bunch. In the middle are the ordinary people trying to live their lives and raise their families.

 So Obama wants to send some of those very expensive cruise missiles over there but has promised to not send enough to really change anything. On May the seventh, 1965 another Democrat decided to send me, and a whole bunch of other people somewhere far away but promising to not really hurt Uncle Ho. Remember how that worked out?

 Pinpricks may work in acupuncture but they do nothing in warfare. Especially when one does not know whom one is to shoot. Assuming we could decide which side to shoot, there is no upside for America. Nor an upside for the ordinary humans of the area. If we should destroy the alQ types fighting Assad that strengthens Iran which helps America, how? If we should destroy Assad that puts the alQ types in charge of yet another area of the world. That helps America, how?

 If we simply degrade Assad's government but not enough to let the alQ types win, that simply lengthens the fighting. That helps, um, that helps, well I just don't know. Maybe someone in one of those seven States of the USA that only Obama knows about.

 The last thing I know about this mess is that if we weaken Assad the Islamist opposition will have more strength to spend on murdering the local Christians, which seems to be their favorite sport.

 Excuse me for not getting really excited. about intervening.

Got My Internet At Home Back

 When I called yesterday to make a (partial) payment on my bill I cried about not having my at home Internet working. They sent a tech and and it's going now.

 In other news I am almost finished filling out the paperwork to get my little sliver of Linda Lou's pension, not a whole lot but it will help. And it's a week and five days before I get up to the kids and pick up my new phone, when I have it and figure out the number I'll pass it on to folks who know me. If I forget anyone, e-mail me.

 At about the end of last month I had my 28th AA "birthday" and then Saturday evening I went to my group's Birthday meeting. It starts earlier than most of the meetings here, with a covered dish supper. I decided to make a big pot of thick chicken noodle soup so I did. Then I loaded a box of crackers, my pepper mill and my shaker full of sea salt in the van, went back in, got the big pot o' soup, set in down on a chair on the deck, closed and locked the door, got in the van and drove to the meeting. When I got home the soup was still sitting on that chair. Foo. Oh well, I froze some, ate some and there are still a couple of bowls left.

 Today is my sister, Carolyn's birthday, Happy Birthday, Sis! She is the reason Mom didn't feel like a total failure as a parent. Me? Mom used to make a few buck renting me out for a bad example.

Bumped The Sat Dish for the Intertoobz With The Mower. Pills In The Mailbox.

I got my mountain of pills in the mail from the VA. The good news is that the poor, long-suffering taxpayer is giving them to me. The bad news is that they've switched a few of the pills and I'm having to re-acclimate to the new ones. So I'm kind of sleepy and unmotivated.

 In other news, either we bumped the sat receiver with the lawn tractor or the ground has shifted, still have to go next door with the laptop to get the Internet. Not so bad, I'm getting some extra reading in. Other than that, nothing much going on.

Sunspots Or Something.

 For some reason I cannot connect with the Internet at home, believe it's some kind of solar flares or sunspots or something.  carried the laptop over here to Patsy's, along with a crockpot full of chili and beans. She's providing the corn tortillas. Not the best I've ever made but not the worst, either.

 I went to the VA Hospital for my vesting physical, my health care will be provided by the US Government. So I win that one. Hopefully I won't be going to that VA Hospital where they use unsterile colonoscopy things.

 Next month I start fighting about a disability pension.

Mind Like A Chicken!

 I had my appointment with the VA for mty vesting physical, the one where I beg and plead for them to take over my medical care as my monthly pills run half of my income.

 Now I had the paper from the VA, I had a postcard from the VA, both telling me the time, place and date. So I took a long nap, got up and stayed awake the rest of the night so I wouldn't oversleep/

 So, I got there a full half hour before the time, only to discover I was there on the wrong day, I should have been there the day before. Now I have been reading for over sixty years, someone please tell me why I cannot read and understand the dates on, not one but two, printed documents.

 They were kind enough to do my lab work, anyway and one of the ladies told me to go up to the clinic I had been supposed to go and talk to them. The receptionist there told me that I had been rescheduled for about two weeks away. I explained that I was out of around half of my pills and had almost no money.I then proceeded to do some world-class begging, pleading and groveling. She put me in a (rare) weekend slot for tomorrow morning. So I'm going to lie down for a long nap and then stay up until it's time to go to Dallas, again.

 Wish me luck.

I'm Just Fine, Except...

 I got an E-mail note from the un-named blogger at Middleoftheright.blogspot.com  wondering how I'm doing. I guess I'm doing as well as one could expect.

 I'm somewhat depressed, of course, lonely and am still fighting to get my money straight. This coming Thursday I report to the VA Hospital n Dallas for the physical where I beg the grateful Nation for my monthly supply o' pills. Assuming this works I'll be okay. As it is, my pills run about half of my disposable income.

 I'm still wrestling with the government over the $349.00 a month from Linda Lou's pension that I'm supposed to be getting. After I taked to them they promised to get it to me within a month. Instead, of course, they took the deposit from my bank account. Oh well, And then the air conditioner in the front of the house died.

 I do have the bedroom air still going and plenty of fans so I'm still doing better than, say, Wyatt Earp. I'm very pleased that we bought the lot with the big oak tees, they shade the house in the afternoon.

 After I get the VA Medical straightened out then I start fighting about the disability pension from the VA. I'm told that I am an automatic lock for some 20-40 percent disability and I am working with a guy who swears up and down that he can get me a hundred percent.I'm not sure that I deserve a hundred percent but I would be as happy as a pig in clean mud with a big bucket of fresh slop if I could get fifty.

 So, anyhow, it's just a matter of time before the money worries are straightened out. Until then it's just a matter of one foot in front of the other. My mind is a lot easier when I remember to count my blessings and thank the Lord for them.

 Oddly I have much of Linda Lou's stuff cleaned out but the house seems more cluttered than ever. Oh well, that too will come together.

 These are only some of my blessings.

 Update, 8/3/13: The neighbor fellow that is a journeyman plumber and an apprentice electrician fixed my air.  I am truly blessed.

Stupid Bank. Stupid Government.

So Wednesday I was on my way to the VA Hospital in Dallas to apply for medical care, now that my insurance had changed my monthly pills went from around seventy five bucks a month to somewhere north of four hundred. On the way there I had stopped at the credit union to check out how I could keep track of my balace online the way Linda Lou used to. Well I found out that I cannot do that until I can take a death certificate there so I checked my balance while there, seems that I had two dollars in my account, instead of the seven hundred odd I was supposed to have. Seems that although the social security people put both our monthly deposit in on the day Linda Lou died, they have some way of taking that money back. I'm not sure how that works and that is another thing I cannot check until I get those copies of the death certificate.

 Meanwhile, one of the things I cannot pay is the cell phone bill, along with my TV and internet. I'm not sure how long I'll have the online capability and I only have enough gas in the tank ror a half dozen trips to the nearest small town and library. It might be a pang without the intertoobz and the Western channel.

 Oh well, there's plenty of food in the house and my power bill is paid up, along with the water, with food, A/C and water I'll make it. And there's enough food. I'll be digging into the emergency stash of pork'n'beans, Ramen, tuna and rice, along with the hamburger and chicken in the freezer.

 Assuming I get my medical from the VA I'll have my social security and around three hundred and fifty per month from Linda Lou's pension. That's enough to live on a meager diet and no travel. I'm told that I have a couple of ailments that are presumed service connected for Viet Nam vets so I may eventually get a twenty to forty percent disability pension and that might mean I'll have a nice lower middle class income and, since the house, land and car are all paid for, with my income turning fairly comfortable. Until then, though, I'll be throwing around nickles like they were manhole covers.

 The thing that is most annoying about this is that I was getting used to going to meetings again. Oh well, I'll muddke through, one way or another.

Back To Going To Meetings.

 It's been a while but I am back going to meetings, early in sobriety I was told that when one hits a rough patch, one should double up on AA meetings, so, there I was. Of course, some of the folks there don't really believe that someone with nearly twenty-eight years would still need support. Then I drove home at shortly after nine PM, didn't have it in me to stop near the lake and watch the fireworks, just drove home, picked up Bingo T. Pug, aka Lt. Commander Fatboy and went in and got online.

 I have all of Linda Lou's clothes out of the big closet, and dunno what I'm gonna do with all that room. And am slowly moving all my socks and underwear out of the two bottom drawers into the whole Chester Drawers.Funny, I have T shirts that haven't been worn in multiple years. I do need to got to the Gold Toe sock store and pick up some more of those almost knee length boot socks.  It's been almost ten years since I bought two bags of six pair each and the elastic is starting to give out. Those white cotton boot socks are the very best socks for those who wear boots.

 Meanwhile I'm doing my best to load up a bunch of .38 and .357 ammo to send to North Carolina with the kids, they are going to caravan in two cars to see the number two boy and his family. Number two boy already has my old Marlin 1894C .357 carbine and the kids are taking Linda Lou's Model 60 S&W .38. I have five hundred ca'tridge cases cleaned up and primed, now all I gotta do is load 'em up.

 I also have to write to get my DD214 and see if I can get a little help from the VA for the Peter's Semi-Portable Pharmacy. Since my insurance has changed my monthly ton o' pills has gone from around seventy-five dollars to nearly four hundred. For this I thank Obamacare.  I'm kind of used to politicians lying but to have this abortion of a bill called the "Affordable Care Act" is a new low even for Democrats.

Just Numb

 Yesterday I went to Dean and Stephanie's house to meet with all four of Linda Lou's children, my stepchildren and her two nephews and her niece. That was the closest thing the family will have to a funeral for we do not believe in enriching funeral directors. Some day soon we'll have a little get-together of our friends in the Program for Linda Lou died with almost 25 and a half years clean and sober. Someday I will tell some of those stories, I'm not quite ready yet, although I told a couple of those stories to the kids, along with how I threw her number 2 boy out of the house for farting in my face and laughing about it, several times. Only my near-legendary patience and gentleness allows that boy to now have five kids. Note: I only threw him out once, he farted several times, due to my position, and his, he was farting in my face so, out he went.

 Anyhow, I', still pretty numb, I'm not sure how long it takes to process this. I have just barely started to pack up her clothes, took a batch of her house dresses to our neighbor Patsy and am going to be shocked at how much space I'll have in the closet.

 So, don't expect much from here until I'm ready to put out the ad:

 Help wanted: Chubby girl with low morals, must have a passion for housecleaning.

 

Linda Lou Davis. 11/23/45-6/26/13

  Linda went home today, about thirty minutes after they disconnected the ventilator. I discovered that they could not do the tracheostomy because they were sure she would have died during the procedure. At any rate she never regained consciousness and died peacefully. The hospital people did everything they could think of.

 Linda Lou was the daughter of Emit Elmer and Jesse Mae Henderson, sister of Martha Wilson, mother of Andy Romero, Robin Corner, Michael Corner and Stephanie Rosnett. Granny to nine hairy legged boys and two beautiful girls. Wife to a guy who never did deserve her.

Say Goodnight Linda Lou.

 Well it's about over. Linda Lou's Kidneys have failed and her blood count has gone south. The Docs tell me that within five or six hours after we stop life support she'll be gone.

 I'm keeping her on life support for long enough for the twins to get here.

Very Slow Progress

 This morning the hospital peeps lowered Linda Lou's Oxygen* level in her ventilator from 100% to 70% and her Oxygen levels in her blood stayed fine. So they then turned the sedative drip off to see how she would breathe on her own. That's when Stephanie and I went home for lunch.

 We got back and the hospital staff had turned the sedative drip back on, seems that Linda Lou was struggling a little too much to breathe for them to be totally comfortable. Still they then cut the Oxygen level to 60% and her O2 blood level stayed good. So, I'm taking this as some more slow progress. Still I'd take it kindly if the prayer posse keeps at a steady canter.

  * I can't remember, is Oxygen a common noun or a proper noun where the "O" should be capitalised? Lordy it's been a long time since high school English classes.

One Step Forward, One Step Back.

 Linda Lou is still heavily sedated, asleep (unconscious?) almost all day and night, still intubated with a ventilator. The good news is that the MRSA is finally knocked down, little progress with the pneumonia, so far. My hope is that the anti MRSA drug down to a holding level the anti-pneumonia meds might work a little better. Of course they've fed her so many antibiotics that they've killed at the "good germs" and now she's got a fungal infection. So now she gets an anti-fungal drug pumped in through one of the three hundred and fifty-two tubes that enter and leave her.

 Early afternoon: A turn for the worse, she's developed a condition known as B. I. C. or B. A. C., the Doc had a difficult accent. Anyhow she is bleeding from one area and clotting in another. At any rate this has a fairly high mortality rate, in the neighborhood of fifty-sixty percent. That's the bad news, the slightly better is that since they discovered this and started treating it, her platelet count is improving some. We'll know in a couple-three days.

 I'm going to pray some, then go curl up like a sick bear.

Another Bunch Of Straw. Poor Camel.

 S yesterday I was having my first cup o' coffee and the case manager from HealthSouth called and wanted to know how Linda Lou was. I suggested she walk down the hall and ask her, whereupon she explained that LL had been taken to the hospital. So after I told her that the folks at HealthSouth were too durned important to tell me about minor details such as life, death and emergency hospitalization I asked which hospital, of course, being the case manager she couldn't be expected to know such insignificant details. Grr!

 Eventually we found Linda Lou at Medical Center of Plano, the same hospital where all of Stefanie and Dean's Boys were born. Seems she is in the critical care unit with Pneumonia.  I saw her yesterday and she was in a full oxygen mask. This morning they sedated and intubated her. She will be out at least 'til tomorrow.

 While all this was going on I went to a Doc-in- the- box and discovered that the Sinus Syphilis and Lung Leprosy that Linda Lou had given me was really only a bad case of Bronchitis. So I got a week's worth of stout antibiotics and told: rest, fluids and take my pills.

 Anyhow, Bingo T. Pug and I are going to follow the Doc's orders and I'm going to sit around, read the Internet and take naps. I'll go see her tomorrow if she's awake.

Dear Ralph:

 Ralph, I know we don't talk much, you being busy in Congress and all but here is something I don't understand, maybe you can help me here. It's been a long time since Civics class in high school but I seem to remember that the Federal Government can't spend a nickle without that nickle coming through the House of Representatives.

 Yet here we have the Justice(?) Department spying on reporters and we still haven't got to the bottom of the Justice(?) Dept. running guns to drug cartels. We have the IRS treating right of center citizens differently than leftists and, worse, foreign relations of Obama. And we have Obama promoting the woman who lied on national TV about Benghazi.

 Congressman Hall, pardon me for being a" pore dumb redneck" but with all this going on why does the Justice Department and the IRS and the White House still get oceans of taxpayer money? I understand that certain factions of the government hate us but can't we make them hate us with their own money?

 I know there are parts of the IRS and Justice Department that are essential to the country. I'm pretty sure, though, that if we cut the budgets of the White House by some eighty percent and the Justice Department and IRS by a hundred percent until they straightened out this problem of Obama and company thumbing their noses at Congress and, by extension, the citizens of the United States of America, would stop and quickly. 

 Ralph, we haven't much time to save the country, it's way past time for you folks in the House to step up.

Adventures In Suburbia!

 So the other day the medical types decided to send Linda Lou back to the hospital where she got her knee rebuilt. This hospital, Dallas Memorial is right off the LBJ Freeway in an inner ring Suburb on the north side of Big D. I don't remember when they built this road, I simply know that it's been under revision and repair since they opened it. So, first they had to wait an entire day for a bed to open, then they brought the ambulance and took her to the wrong hospital, a place in an outer ring suburb to the east. Seems that one of them is Dallas Memorial and the other Dallas Regional, neither one actually in Dallas.

 I wonder, was this normal idiocy or is Obamacare taking over? Of course turning our entire medical system over to a gaggle of politicians, lawyers and IRS goons if far beyond normal idiocy.

 Anyhow, they finally got Linda Lou to the right hospital at four AM. Sigh. The plan is to go into that ankle Monday sometime and take out all the rods, screws and other hardware, sprinkle liberally with antibiotic beads, insert what new hardware they think should go in and hope like heck that surgery #7 is the magic one.

Friday was Karson's first day of summer vacation. He graduated from Day Care and will enter Kindergarten in the fall. His momma was babysitting a little girl just learning how to walk and so when her afternoon naptime came up I drove Karson  to the Cabellas in the outer ring suburb north of here. We looked at all the taxidermied critters and the fish an the aquarium, then we walked around some. The Great Ammo Panic of '13 is easing, there were lots of various centerfire rifle calibers, handgun ammo is coming back and a certain amount of shotgun, including buckshot. There was no #1 buck in 12 gauge, though, and not a single .22 LR round in the store.

 From there we went to the "Library of Guns" the room where they have the collectible rifles, shotguns and pistols and revolvers.  There were lots of special edition Winchester 94s, a takedown Winchester 92 and something that almost made me cry, an almost pristine Griffon and Howe sporter 1903 Springfield. Then we looked at an old Colt Single Action in .32WCF. Nine thousand dollars. Considering that these were usually a boy's first revolver and one could buy a new one, with a box of cartridges and a holster for a twenty dollar gold piece, well, we've come a long way. Actually one can still buy a new Colt Single Action for a twenty dollar gold piece, what has come so far is the devaluation of our money.

 From there we wandered around some more and ended up at the fudge shop. I got chocolate and Karson got Monkey Business. Then he didn't like it and ended up with my chocolate. I didn't like the Monkey Business, either. If you're ever in Cabellas and wander up to the free samples of their fudge, try the chocolate or the peanut butter.

 We stayed gone until after naptime and then we got home to Karson's brothers who start their last week of school tomorrow. Unbeknownst to me my wife and daughter have decided I will stay here until the Fourth Wednesday of June. In the second bed in a room  with a tenyear old boy. Please kill me.

The Most Fun Since The Bear Chased Uncle Willie Into The Outhouse!

  So Sunday night they decided to transfer Linda Lou to a big hospital in Dallas while they were putting her in the ambulance the big lump on the "healed" incision on her ankle started draining all sorts of blood, pus and corruption, So, eventually they got that cleaned out and got her to a fancy hospital in north Dallas, later Bingo T. Pug and I showed up her at our daughter's house in a Dallas suburb. Nobody much noticed me but the boys love Bingo.

 Yesterday they went into Linda Lou's ankle and cleaned out all the mess they could and started a culture and a couple of days they'll know exactly what bug is causing the trouble. Meanwhile her Ortho Doc is transferring her to yet another hospital, the same one in North Dallas where he rebuilt her knee where he will go in and take the next step. All the docs I've spoken with so far seem to think that will be taking all that hardware out of her leg and replacing it with less that what she has now. Or, perhaps none. Then it will be back to that hospital that deals with Staph infections where they last controlled that infection ad then back to a long term rehab hospital to build her strength back and hopefully, teach her to walks well enough to not be falling down and hitting her head on sinks and terlets and bleeding all over everything.

 The local Volunteer Fire Department is having their annual Boot Drive where they stand and the nearest stoplight and beg for a little money. The sequester has taken the stipend the Federal Government gave fire departments in Red States and transferred it to the Department of Obama Vacations. After all priorities are everything. Anyhow, no VFD substation in our front yard so we really need to stop this falling all over the place.

 Ever notice that when the politicians don't get every penny they demand they never give up their perks? It's always less for police and fire. And it's never less crap like armored vehicles for SWAT Teams but the bluesuits walking and driving beats in the neighborhoods. We need a new rule, anytime the budgets must be cut, politicians must take a random selection of registered voters in each area where the budgets cut and let the citizens decide, politicians have proven they cannot be trusted. There is always a fire station being shut down, never the fancy furniture in City Hall. Wonder why that is?

 Anyhow I'll continue to be mostly out of pocket for a while. I'd rather be at a Cowboy Action Match.

Hospital Blues

 Wednesday as I was getting ready to do the payday shopping Linda Lou fell again. She hit her head (again) and bled all over. I called the ambulance and she went off to the hospital where I threw an tantrum aking why they keep sending her home without doing anything to fix the problem. Well, the tantrum worked and she's still ther, thi think they converted a storage closet for her room but at least they're finally trying to figure out why she's ending up on the floor all the time.

 We think it's a bad reaction to the mountain of meds she's getting but they are also doing a bunch of other tests, CT scans, MRIs, etc. All the things that would have her on a waiting list for months under real socialized medicine. So far we know it wasn't a stroke or a series of strokes, that's something.

 They are somewhat concerned about her oxygen levels so it may or may not be something more than the meds, I reckon that could go either way. As it is, we're mainly waiting. And praying.

 Funny thing, Steph was visiting and her husband's best man from their wedding showed up, walking down the hall, seems he is preaching someplace in our county seat. He had his twelve year old son with him, wearing one of those fake coonskin caps like we used to wear when Fess Parker was all over the teevee. Anyway Steph noticed them and called them in the room and we got an extra prayer out of the deal. I don't know his exact denomination but if he's ever around at suppertime I'm gonna make somebody else say grace, not being overly fond of starvation. Anyhow, Texas is a big state but it's a small world.

 So, that's one reason I haven't been posting. If anyone has any pull with the main office upstairs, a prayer would be appreciated.

No Royalty

 We found a new home for Cochise' Apache Princess the other day,an older guy with a daughter and grandson living with him on some land not too many miles away. We miss her but she needed a home with a boy to play with. So, no more royalty here, I just wish the Obama regime could figure that out about no royalty.