The Thin Yellow Line
On October 9th my mother had an appointment with her oncologist. It is a three hour drive from my mothers to the doctors office. My sister in law and I went with her. Her appointment was for 1:30, the ladies wanted to do some shopping in the city so we planned to leave at 7:00. I had two cups of coffee and we left at 7:20 (not bad). After about one hour of driving we stopped at Tim Horton’s. Tim Horton’s is a Canadian shrine where most Canadians stop to give money whenever they drive near one and in exchange we get a cup of coffee.
An hour later I had to pee. In the maritime provinces in Canada there are no rest area on the highways. Everything reminded me that I had to go to the washroom. The yellow median line, yellow turn signals on vehicles, yellow school buses. I stopped at a Tim Horton’s the use the facilities. It felt good. I did not get another cup of coffee, I still had a 45 minute drive to get to the city.
Everything went well at my mothers appointment. We bought my mothers birthday present, she bought mine. We had Chinese for dinner. I bought a few books. Before the trek back I got a coffee at Starbucks, I only had ten dollars on me see we shared it! The drive home was uneventful.
$700 Billion Dollars Boondoggle
With this weeks 700 billion dollars allocation to “save” the American, no the world’s financial system, I have seen that the American government is only there to protect the interest of big business. It used to be that if an American couple/individual cannot make their mortgage payment, the bank would foreclose and the couple lose the house. The bank would sell the house. Now with this new bill if a lot of couples/individuals don’t make their mortgage payments and the bank forecloses; the bank cannot sell the houses, because of the recession (yes there is a recession), and if the bank can’t pay off their dept, then the government saves the bank by buying the houses from the bank, thus the bank can continue to make bad loans but the couples/individuals are shit out of luck.
This law will protect the billion dollar company but not the poor people that lose everything. A lot of the loans made by the American institutions should not have been made. The couples/individuals that have all their credit cards maxed out and are only making the minimum payments should not have received a loan, they will pay by losing everything they have. The bank official that made the decision for this loan will still have a job. The government are rewarding the people that made the bad decisions.
We must understand that if the government had not passed this law, stock brokers would have panicked and we would have had the biggest stock market crash ever. It is a damn if you do, damn if you don’t decision. Maybe the government should rent the houses to the couples/individuals that lost them in the first place, this would only be fair and everybody would win except the tax payers (in other words every Americans).
Second Surgery For My Mother
A month and a half ago I told you about my mothers colon surgery, well last week she had to get the same thing again. Apparently where her large intestine starts there not enough oxygen so her colon “dies”. The surgeon is not sure what causes this. This time around cancer was not mentioned but crohn’s disease was. There is also a chance that it is her blood that is coagulating at her large intestine. They are waiting for the results.
I have to say that she looks a lot better than she did the first time around. Everything is looking good the doctor wants to keep her at the hospital for another two to five days. She is in a better shape than she was when the let her go the last time. I think the doctor wants the test results before she is sent home.
Here in Canada we have medicare for every citizen which means that pretty much all medical expenses are covered by the Canadian and provincial governments. On Thursday my mom threw up on her self and we buzzed the nurse and it took five minutes before the nurse came to see what was happening, I tough to myself this is taking forever while we were waiting. When the nurse came I did not say anything, being Canadian most of us are polite. The nurse closed the privacy curtain to change my mom. So I waited patiently, I was hearing the call signal from the hall and decided to investigate. I went from one end of the ward to the other and a lot of the call light for the rooms where on, in fact they were all on, busy night. Another nurse came in and mentioned to the nurse that was taking care of mom that he was needed in another room, to which he replied he was all alone in the ward. I don’t envy his job. If you are at the hospital and it takes a little while before they get to you don’t bitch and moan at the nurse or attendant, it is not their fault the government has made cutbacks. Tell it to your representative be it provincial or federal, they are the ones that can do something about it.
Back to the subject at hand, my mom. She had a colon then a semi colon, if this continues all she’ll have left is a comma!
Hurricane Ike Causes Gas Price Increases
This morning the price of gas went up 13 cents a litre because of the fears that hurricane Ike might cause damages to refineries and off shore drilling platforms while it is battering the Gulf of Mexico and the coast of Texas. What the hell? Ike might cause damages to refineries and off shore drilling platforms in the US, Ike might cause damage, might cause damage, might, might.
Might is the simple past of may. May, according to Wiktionary, means “possibly, but not certainly”. I’ll repeat that for people that have a hard time with understand words: might means possibly, but not certain. I’ll start this blog post over again with a few word substitutions.
This morning the price of gas went up 13 cents a litre because of the fears that hurricane Ike can possibly cause damages to refineries and off shore drilling platforms while it is battering the Gulf of Mexico and the coast of Texas. What the hell? Ike may or may not cause damages to refineries and off shore drilling platforms in the US, there is a possibility, but not a certainty, that Ike will cause damage to Oil production in the US.
I hope Ike does not cause has much damages as what the worst case scenario they are telling us on the boob tube. It will cause some damages, we all know that but why the f@&k are they raising the price of gas here in Canada. We do not import gas from the USA for use in Canada we export gas to the US. If we follow the mentality of big oil companies, the price of beef should go up by 10 percent, because some farms might be damaged by hurricane Ike. The price of cowboy hats will go up because lots of Texans might lose theirs because of the high winds caused by Ike. I’ll go as far as stating that the price of tea in China might go up by at least 10 percent because of hurricane Ike.
Why have we all become so complacent to arbitrary price increases of gas caused by what might possibly, but not certainly happen? Are we are not men? No we are sheep lead to the slaughter.
p.s. I will again state that I hope Ike does not to cause any deaths or major damages anywhere. This post is a rant against profiteering oil companies that would sell their sick granny to the highest bidder.
p.p.s I do hope that hurricane Ike destroys houses own by the big oil executives that will profit from hurricane Ike. What comes around goes around.
Cell Phone Only For Emergency
What to write about? That is the question and the answer to why I did not post anything last week. It is harder posting in the summer, so much stuff to do, place to go and people to meet.
Last week I finally took the plunge, for years I have been anti cell phones. Why would any reasonable person want to bring a device that makes it easy for anybody with a problem to reach you and when they do reach you their problem is now your problem. When I go for a walk I enjoy the fact that I am in my on little bubble and there is no distraction, except for the iPod and speeding cars, and there are also mad barking dogs that would eat you alive if their chain would let go… I hope that chain never lets go.
According to research cell phones causes brain tumors and cancer. I think that there is also research out there that says that barbecued steak causes cancer also. Apples contains a chemical that prevents cancer but the pesticides used to protect the apples from insects causes cancer. I did a bit of Internet surfing and I can probably find that cancer is caused by everything therefore the chance that I will get cancer from a cell is very low I am more apt to get kills by a vicious dog attack, I hope to God that the chain does not let go.
Cell phones can cause explosions at gas stations. Cell phone causes medical equipment to malfunction. Cells will cause planes to crash. There are so many reasons not to get a cellular phone but I still got one. I got it just for emergencies. I won’t be using it for meaningless reasons. I will only use it for important stuff like checking the weather, ordering pizza and the like.
Now if the chain holding the dog does let go I am a simple call away from calling an ambulance, maybe I should have bought a gun instead of a cell phone that way I don’t have to call an ambulance since I would prevent the incident instead of curing it.
Vacation Is Over And Big Brother Is A Hoot
My vacations for this year are now over. I have gone to work the last two days and I need another vacation. My body has to get used to waking up at 5:30 – 6:00 every morning and this year it is harder than it has ever been. I am tired so I need a vacation. Enough of my sob story, for now.
Have you been watching Big Brother (US) this year? Big brother is one of my guilty pleasures and this year it is good. I hate everybody in the house, I shouldn’t say that, I am not taking for anybody in the house I don’t care for any of the back stabbing cry babies. I just watch it to see who lies to whom and who gets caught. It’s a hoot. This game show shows us that some people are so greedy that they’ll do anything for cash. You can’t respect any of these people.
Keeping You Up To Date
Last Wednesday I brought my mother home from the hospital, for the details why she was in the hospital see this post. I stayed with her until yesterday, Saturday, when I decided to go to my apartment to fix my laptop (see here for details). It is now Sunday afternoon and I am getting ready to return to my mothers to relax as much I can before my vacations are over.
I am supposed to go sailing with my brother next week, I hope the weather cooperates with our plans. If it does I’ll try to post some pictures of our trek. I’ll also try to post more of my own photos on the blog, like this one which is some of the view at my mothers place on the river.
Now you know why I go there to relax. See you next time.
My Mothers Colon Problem
Thursday evening my mother called complaining of a stomach ache. She asked me what side her appendix was, I asked which side did she have a pain. Right side. I told her to go to the emergency ward at the hospital, she said that she would try to tough it out.
The following morning my brother called me and told me my mother was to be transferred from a small town hospital to t
he big regional hospital. They thought it was her appendix. My brother brought her to the hospital on thursday because she could not get rid of the pain.
When I got to the hospital my mother had already spoken with the surgeon and they would be operating her that very same day. The surgeon was not sure it was the appendix, she had told my mother that it might be an infection or maybe even cancer. We found this news out on the anniversary of my father’s passing. I was starting my vacation on saturday.
They did the surgery friday evening and it wasn’t cancer or the appendix, it was part of her colon was “dead” as the Surgeon told us. They removed the “dead” part of the colon tuck the colon back in and now my mom is almost like new. She now has a semi colon!
My vacation now entails frequent visits to the hospital, I guess that is life. Next week My brother and I are supposed to go sailing. I hope the weather is agreeable.
Sad Anniversary
Today marks one year since my fathers passing. The past month I have been in a down mood, I think that this sad anniversary is the cause. There hasn’t been a day that I haven’t taught of him. We all miss you.
