I’ll start with a relapse in my vision, I woke up on Thursday, July 20, 2023, and my vision had deteriorated to the point of not being able to see much of anything, close or distant, everything was like a 30% gaussian blur had been applied to my vision. I’ve basically not been able to work, even at 250% zoom on my browser window, everything is almost unreadable, effectively limiting my ability to work.
My vision has improved somewhat over the past day, to the point where I can use a computer, with 200% zoom applied, meaning I can write this blog with my head about 10 inches from the screen. I went out, with the help of my wife, Erin to Walgreens and spent $50, on a credit card of course, on Thursday to buy Pataday allergy eye drops and Refresh Optive Mega-3 lubricating eye drops on the recommendation of my optometrist, which I guess have had an impact, but not as quickly as I’d hoped it would.
Continuing the medical theme, some good news, my diabetes is under control, in the past two years, my A1C has gone from over 10 to 6.7 to 6.2, and is now stable. But a side effect of my diabetes is neuropathy in my feet, which means I suffer from nerve pain, but also I have no feeling in my feet, and being the dumbass that I am, I walked barefoot out onto my concrete driveway on a 103° day and burnt my foot pretty badly, and as a result, I am on antibiotics and having to use a silver infused antibiotic cream.
Over the past few months, our 13-year-old daughter, Alya has lost more than 20 lbs, dropping from 110 lbs to just 89 lbs. She has had next to no appetite over that time period, it started with strep throat, making it hard for her to swallow, but she is reluctant to eat to this day, basically, we have to force her to eat small things, along with protein shakes. We were referred to a gastroenterologist, who wanted to do a colonoscopy on Alya, but we do not have the funds to pay for it, the doctor’s office wanted $750 upfront, which we do not have, our financial woes have been well-documented on this blog over the years.
We do have medical insurance, that we pay $657 a month for, and because of deductible and max out-of-pocket costs, we have a pile of bills amounting to about $5,000, many sent to collections, and roughly $2,000 in credit card debt due to co-pays. But, the US has the best healthcare system in the world, if you believe the politicians, who constantly deny Americans Medicare-for-all, but I digress.
As has also been covered many times, my wife, Erin, suffers from severe rheumatoid arthritis, along with fibromyalgia, and many other health challenges. But her pain management doctor has straight up said he does not deal with breakthrough pain, which often results in a visit to the ER for Erin for pain relief. A friend from Erin’s lupus group suggested a steroid shot, which Erin talked to her rheumatologist about, and got that shot, which helped with her breakthrough pain initially but didn’t last more than 24 hours, resulting in another visit to the ER, much to our frustration, we hate that our only option is the ER.
It’s frustrating that Erin’s pain management doctor refuses to help with breakthrough pain, it seems to me that breakthrough pain, would come under pain management, but what do I know? And her rheumatologist didn’t suggest any sort of breakthrough pain shot. Another RA sufferer had to suggest it to Erin, to ask her rheumatologist. You would think that doctors would be proactive to help their patients in the “best healthcare system in the world”, but the reality does not match the healthcare marketing.
I have had to put my foot down and ban Alya’s friends from our house. They have a basic lack of respect for us and our home, making a mess, and leaving when it’s time to clean up, leaving Alya to do it, which ultimately doesn’t happen, she says “It’s not fair that I have to clean up after them”, meaning that our house is left in a mess until I break down and clean. And the last time I cleaned, I found several cups with mold in them, and when I pulled the sofa out, I found plates with food on them, trash and spilled drinks, left to stain our carpet, and chewing gum stuck to the wall behind the sofa, and also on our treadmill.
Apparently, these friends, recorded me having a private conversation with Alya about the reasons I do not want her friends in our house and played it to their moms, and now they are not allowed to play with Alya, which is a win in my mind. They do not treat Alya right in my view, manipulating her to do things she would not normally do. Alya is a good kid, who doesn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, and these girls use this to control her. I’ve been enjoying the past two weeks, not having these girls knocking on my door every few minutes, and I’ve been enjoying my house being in some form of semblance, with minimal upkeep needed as we don’t make a big mess to clean up, Ive even been using my living room again.
Finally, I have deleted my Twitter account due to Elon Musk’s changes to the platform. The free speech absolutist has made users pay for that ‘free’ speech, at a cost of $8/month for a blue check. This has meant that people who choose to not pay, have their speech extremely limited. For example, my tweets used to get between several hundred and thousands of views, since Musk’s takeover of Twitter, my tweets are averaging 7 views, and that’s with a following of 150 users. There’s no point posting on a platform, where I am screaming into the void, so after 15 years, I am no longer a Twitter user.
Regardless of your political or ideological views, I believe you should have equal access to free speech, but in recent months, Elon Musk has been elevating and retweeting right-wing extremists pushing hate, racism, and misogyny. While limiting the exposure of left-wing voices, basically turning Twitter into a right-wing echo chamber, just like Truth Social as millions of users abandon the platform, which is sad. Twitter could have been great, but then Musk was forced to massively overpay for it and has slowly been driving it into the ground, hemorrhaging advertising income since day one of Musk’s stewardship.
Superfinal thought; I don’t know if it’s specific to my credit union, Meritrust. But, I don’t understand why charges appear on my online banking, then disappear, releasing those funds, making us think we have more cash available than we do. only to reappear, sometimes days later, after you have spent the money you thought you had. Causing you to go overdrawn, and hit with insufficient funds fees, which at Meritrust is $32, it’s almost like its a conspiracy to screw over their account holders, just sayin’