Addiction

Hi, my name’s Ethan, and I’m a B-movie-holic.

I’ve been clean for a month.  I last watched a Michael Madsen action flick one Sunday afternoon.

It’s been a struggle, but I simply decided I had better things to do with my time.  Some days my girls wear me out, and all I want to do is retreat to the bedroom with my Kindle.

I watch a couple episodes of Grimm every couple weeks, though.  It’s kind of a methadone for B horror.

All this to say I cannot believe the stupidity of a person who managed to accidentally off himself trying to get into rehab.

According to NPR (I really need to stop listening to that), a 31-year-old man got addicted to his prescription anxiety meds.  After a couple years, he decided he needed to clean up.  Unfortunately, he didn’t have insurance and couldn’t afford a thousand-dollar-a-day private clinic.

So, he applied for insurance, got it, and tried to check in to a public clinic.  Unfortunately, they had a one month waiting list.  At the end of the month, he was told he actually had to fail a pee test to get in.  So he told his mother he had to take some of his drugs, went to sleep on a couch, and never woke up.

That sucks.

First off, how much did you take?!?!  I mean, for the love of all things holy, all it would have taken is a single Xanax to make you test positive.  I understand overkill (you should see me build bookshelves), and you could have taken two to make sure you lit it up.  But to kill yourself, you had to have had half a dozen or more.

My big question is, though, if you were clean on your own for a month, why did you feel the need for rehab?  According to a government study, 86% of cocaine users kick it without any clinical or legal intervention.  How does the .gov define not being addicted?  Not having used it in a month.  Your own government calls you clean, dude!  You don’t need to apply to a rehab program as a patient…you need to apply to it as a counselor.

After my abysmal performance during the Dot’s sedated MRI, the Shieldmaiden insisted I go get some pharmaceutical intervention for the Dot’s surgery.  I got clonazepam.  Given that I cannot refrain from eating an entire Pringles can in two servings, I decided to ask for the smallest number of pills I could.  I got six to take half a pill up to three times a day for four days, which I suspect is the record smallest benzodiazepine prescription that pharmacy has ever filled.  I figure if I watched three episodes of Heroes a day on Netflix until I finished the series (which totally jumped the shark at season two, and I very much regret watching any further), then God only knows what I would do with a thirty-day prescription of Diet Valium.

If you got clean on your own for a month, you do not need to slink into a clinic convinced of your own helplessness.  You need to [redacted] walk tall.  Be proud, my friend.  You have more willpower than I, that’s for sure.

What killed this man is the conviction throughout this country that no one can do anything for themselves.  Everyone needs professional help.  From roto-rootering your drains to teaching your own [redacted] kid to ride a bike, you can hire anything out.

At the very least, use an escalation of force.  If you go a week clean on your own, try making it two.  Make it a month, and you’re probably free (right there with the 86% of the population that can kick crack on their own).

If you can’t do it on your own, try amateur help.  For one thing, it’s free and for another, there’s no waiting list.  Need to kick a chemical dependence?  Go join [Insert Your Addiction Here] Anonymous.  Plus, even if you can make a month without [IYAH]A, you should probably be there, anyway, to lend your wisdom to others.

Make professional help your last option.  The old saying is, “When seconds count, cops are only minutes away.”  In this case, if you’re in crisis, professional help is a month away.  You might as well be waiting for a knee replacement in Canada.  Why not try something in the meantime?  If nothing else, if it turns out you can succeed on your own or with [IYAH]A, then you’ll at least save a copay.

Stats

I just discovered audience stats for my blog.  Not surprisingly, most of my page views have been inside the US.  What is surprising is that that's only 60%.  So, since I am apparently international, an open letter to my audience:




Dear Russians,

Did I offend you?  You're number 2 with 295 views, but none in the last month.  What did I say?


Dear Germans,

I can only assume most of you are extended family members who went Googling our last name.  Hi, family members!  Come visit some time!


Dear Chinese,

I know it's probably just some automatic search algorithm that turned up this blog after my Tienanmen Square post, but please don't hack me.  I have no trade secrets.


Dear Ukrainians,

Give the godless communist bastards hell!*


Dear UK,

Here's to Scottish independence!  May it be considerably less bloody than Ireland's history.


Dear South Korean,

Sorry I haven't visited your blog recently, but to be fair neither have you.


Dear Israelis,

Lake?  Is that you?


Dear Sweden,

Love your Viking Metal.


And to all of my readers,

88,

KG7GPB


*There went any chance of my Russians coming back.

Life Coaching, Montana-style

So a wholebutt-load of fast food employees went on strike.

Their beef (sorry, couldn’t resist that one)?  They want $15 an hour.

Well, good luck with that.

They interviewed a KFC worker from Brooklyn, one Naquasia LeGrand.

She has worked as a cashier at Kentucky Fried Chicken for three years in Park Slope, an affluent neighborhood in Brooklyn. She makes $8 an hour and pays $1,300 a month for her apartment. She says fast food workers all over are struggling to survive. "We live in New York City--a multi-billion dollar city," she said. "These corporations are taking everything from us."

Really?  They’re taking everything from you?  Those bastards!  How are they doing it?  Do they have a gunman outside who demands your check from you on your way out each payday?  Has KFC hired hackers to strip the funds from your bank account? 

Oh, wait…they’re giving you a check?  They are paying you for your labor?  I’m pretty sure that’s not the definition of “taking.”

Really, if you want to look at who is “taking everything” from you, look at the state you’re living in.  You have the highest taxburden of any state.  You have rent controls, which are supposed to keep rent affordable but have actually decreased availability and affordability of housing.  $1300 a month for an apartment?  I’m going to be paying less than $900 a month for a house I’m buying.

It’s not a heck of a lot better on the West Coast.  The Shieldmaiden (who, by the way, has experience on the bad side of the register) has a former fellow student from her first college complaining about the cost of living versus his income.  Well, Cali is #45 for tax burden, and it, too has rent control, plus the further complication of free space laws.

Which brings us to my patented Improve Your Life Plan:

Stop whining and change.

Phase 1:  move.

“Go West, young man,” is still good advice.

In Bozeman, MT, McDonalds pays $12-14 an hour.  That’s almost what I made with a frikkin’ 4-year degree.  Montana has the #6^th lowest tax burden.  

According to city-data.com, Bozeman has a cost of living index of 94.3% of the US average.  Brooklyn has a 619.8%.  You can snag an apartment in Bozeman for over a grand less than that Brooklyn apartment.  LA is 135.3%, by the way.

If you go to the Bakken, you’d probably make $18.  Granted, housing’s almost as hard to find in the oil fields as in Brooklyn, but hey, it ain’t no $1300 a month.  In Williston, the cost of living index is 79.9%.

And before anybody says the Bakken is going to bust, it looks like it should be good for the next three decades.  Given that people with a GED are making over $100,000 a year (some prefer making $70,000 in nine months and going south for the winter, which after my first winter here, I thoroughly understand), that’s plenty of time to bank a poop-ton of money for when it does stop.

Which brings me to Phase 2 of the Improve Your Life Plan:

Change jobs.

Mike Rowe has been a huge boon for manual jobs.  I love his show and his work philosophy.  The only thing I wish he would mention on his show is how much money you can make if you’re willing to put up with jobs no one else wants to do.  Though, he does mention it here.

A coworker of mine's father recently sold his ranch.  Before he quit, he had a husband and wife team of farmhands.  He paid them half again as much as Ms. LeGrand is making…each.  Then he tacked on no-rent housing in an actual house on the farm.  Which, incidentally, also removed commuting costs.  Then, he sprung for their groceries.  Then, he sprung for their medical bills, including braces for their daughter.  For Pete’s sake, I had to pay for The Shieldmaiden’s braces, and we had a dental plan!

They were awfully cute, though.

Or if you want more, you can take that job in Bozeman and hit the local community college for your CNA.  Move up here and work at Valley View.  Within a year, you’ll be making $15 an hour, and you won’t even have to threaten to walk off to get it.

So, maybe you have to slave over a pile of poop, instead of a deep-fryer.  But I have it on good authority that the smell of bodily fluids airs out of clothes much faster than fast food deep-fry grease.

Let’s make it personal.  A little over a year ago, my family was in sad shape.  We had mounting debt.  My employer, Mountain State Health Alliance was broke and getting broker so pay raises weren’t exactly a big priority.  We had a nice house, but it was costing more than we could afford.

Worst of all, my job was second and then third shift.  I didn’t see the Dot and Lump for days at a time.  There may have been a day shift opening in the works, but that would have lost me my shift differential, which was 12% of my pay.

It was so bad, that for once, I didn’t delete the travel employment agency email in my box.  It advertised a job in Atlanta making a lot of money.  I short-noticed my boss (I really am sorry, Mary Ruth), and I went for it.

It didn’t work out that well.

As the end of the contract neared, I needed another job.  There were two jobs in Ohio paying a couple bucks more an hour than I had been making.  There was another position in Montana making quite a bit more.  Doubtful the Shieldmaiden would ever go for it, I still applied on a lark.  More of as a joke, really.

I told her and she rolled her eyes and said no way we were moving to the middle of nowhere.  She may have…ah…”emphasized” that statement.

The Ohio jobs were dragging their feet, and the place here had already given me a firm offer.  But given the distance from family, we were running numbers to see if we could survive two weeks without a paycheck.  We could have if I hadn’t buried two cars in 6 weeks thanks to crappy Georgia drivers, but I’m not bitter or anything…

Then I mentioned that the bright side of the Montana job was that it was day shift.  Somehow, I had failed to mention both Ohio jobs were seconds.  The Shieldmaiden’s reply?  “Oh, no.  We are not doing that again.”  Again, she may have emphasized that a bit more.

Now, I see my kids every day.  I net more than I grossed in TN.  We’re buying a house.  I have insurance that will make getting the Dot’s head surgery half-way affordable.  All it took was the courage to move.  Not on my part, because I was just operating on logic, but the Shieldmaiden officially has a pair of brass ovaries that drags the ground.

Or maybe it was just love for our growing family.  I was the sole breadwinner in TN (still am), but I was not providing much emotional support (and honestly wasn’t adequately supplying the bread, either).  We did what we had to do for the good of our children.  Sure, it took a little sacrifice—I don’t get to watch nearly as many B movies anymore—but it was worth it.

While the unnamed Californian in question probably just didn’t read the right books, perhaps he was a Breaking Bad fan and remembers this line:

What does a man do, Walter?  A man provides for his family…When you have children, you always have family.  They will always be your priority, your responsibility.  And a man?  A man provides.  And he does it even when he’s not appreciated, respected, or even loved.  He simply bears up and he does it.  Because he’s a man. - Gus

Or if you prefer a true story from someone who isn’t an amoral, ruthless drug kingpin:

My dad grew up back and forth between Kentucky and Virginia because his father was a coal miner. And when my dad was fourteen my grandpa came home and told my grandma to load up the truck 'cause they were gonna move. And when they took off they were going the wrong way—she just assumed they were going back to Virginia—and they were headed somewhere else. So my grandma said, "John, where in the world are we going?" And my grandpa said, "Well, Rose, we're going to Detroit." And she said, "Why in the world are we going to Detroit?" And he said, "Because I don't want my boys to grow up to be coal miners." And so they got as far as Indiana and ran out of gas—and that's how I got here. – Rich Mullins

What did Mullins’s grandfather know about farming?  Probably Jack Crap, but by the time he passed, he owned his own.  What did I know about 25-bed hospitals and sub-zero cold?  Roughly as much.

Eventually every adult comes to a place where he (she) must nut up (ovary up) or shut up.  If you don’t, quit whining so I can go back to my regularly scheduled human interest stories.  I hear a cat saved a boy from a dog attack.

And a side note for those without anyone they care about enough to find a different job or move to BFE, the Beach Boys weren’t kidding about Mid-west farmers’ daughters and Northern girls.  I can officially say that, because after surviving a -40 winter, the Shieldmaiden officially qualifies as a Northern girl.

The Squirt

Started 04/28/2014 (What can I say?  I've been busy.):

And in one of the longest weeks I've ever had, our youngest and hopefully last child busted his way into the world two weeks earlier than expected.  Not one to accept the comfort of a warm restful existence, the Squirt insisted on joining us in the cold, harsh reality that is the world.

Less than a week old, and I already have doubts about his judgment.

Unfortunately, the cold, harsh reality that is the world did not want him out yet.  After dropping him off at the nursery, I made my way to the PACU to see how the Shieldmaiden was faring.  On my way back, I called my sister with the announcement.  I rounded the corner to the big observation window in the nursery and found myself staring at a room with the doctor, two nurses, and a radiology tech.  Usually, this sort of thing is not considered "a good sign," so despite the manifold opportunity for a bar joke, I ended the call with a simple deadpan, "Well, that's interesting.  I should probably go."

Not something your average parent wants to see.

Eventually, I was sent off to pack a bag for a possible flight to the nearest NICU in Great Falls.  I was cautioned not to tell the Shieldmaiden, lest she get overly concerned.  By the time I returned, a decision had been reached, and the flight team was on the way.

Make a prison break, and they stick you in solitary.

After a quick huddle with all interested parties, the conclusion was reached that perhaps it would be best if I went home and grabbed some rack time, then drive in the morning so that I had a way to get us both home.  I ran home, grabbed a double shot of NyQuil, and slept for almost an entire four hours (Through some experimentation, I have discovered that each shot of NyQuil provides two hours of sleep for me.  Your mileage may vary).

After waking up at the ungodly hour of 0400, I loaded out and drove off to Great Falls.  I tend to get drowsy at the wheel on drives greater than two hours (especially short-sleeped), but I had a plan:  drive until I started getting sleepy, pull over, and take a nap in the back.  Brilliant plan.

Unfortunately, my phone kept receiving texts.  Then, when I did manage to doze off for about ten minutes there was a rap on my window.  I looked up to find a Montana State Trooper with a quizzical expression.  After explaining to him that no, I wasn't injured, no my car wasn't broken, and no, the beer bottle I had parked next to was not mine (seriously, umpteen thousand miles of highway in this state and I park next to eight inches of beer bottle), he ran my license and asked when I was planning on hitting the road.  After I replied 1000, he suggested I pull off a quarter mile down the road next to a pair of grain elevators because in 45 minutes, I'd probably have my sleep interrupted two more times.  He also expressed surprise that I had made it thirty minutes without anybody else checking on me.

Ah, Montana.  Where stopping for hitchhikers and fellow motorists is expected, not condemned.  Also, traffic was light, which explains the lack of assistance I received.

A 5 Hour Energy and two cups of coffee later, I arrived in Great Falls without further incident.  I found my way to the NICU with my bag o' junk, got my ID checked, and went in to see my son.

Still not something your average parent likes to see.

No, the camo was not my idea.  Ah, Montana.

That  afternoon,they pulled the nasal cannula.  That night, they pulled the feeding tube and went to bottles.  The next morning, they told me that his blood cultures were negative, so they were finishing the last round of antibiotics and discharging him that afternoon.  A quick car seat check (They changed the handle recommendations back to lowered position only this year.  This will probably change back next year.), a final bottle, and the Squirt and I went on our first man's road trip.  He didn't seem all that thrilled.

A quick stop to drop the newborn off with his food supply mother, and then back home to crash with some Ambien.  Next morning, I picked up my now-clingy toddlers (who stayed that way for the next two weeks) and off to introduce them to their new sibling.

All's well that ends well.

By then the Shieldmaiden was ready for discharge, which was good, because I really hate being alone with two toddlers, especially since the infamous coloring-on-the-walls-in-the-same (closed) room-with-Dada-less-than-six-feet-away episode.  I still don't know where she hid that crayon.

Now, of course, the real fun begins.

The Shieldmaiden

The Beloved is undergoing a name change.  After battles upon battles which have left her scarred and bruised, she has become the Shield-maiden.

The Shield-maiden is a feisty one.  She may be short (and, for the time being, stout*), but that just makes her frikkin' Gimli minus the facial hair and plumbing.

She's still fighting.  She's on the phone almost every day with doctors, insurance bureaucrats, and occasionally lawyers.  She's fought for 2+ years to get my daughter her CVR, and in the process has gone mano-a-mano with 3 hospitals and 4 insurance companies.  She built the case through meticulous records and an amazing ability to tell a doctor where to go, and make it sound polite.  Heck if I know how.

Don't screw with her kids.  You threaten their well-being and she will F you the F up. She's burned bridges for those kids and will do it again in a heartbeat.

She, on the other side of the coin, is the only one that can really go toe-to-toe with the kids and win.  I'm the classic Da-da, and am wrapped around my girls' fingers.  If I have to, I can nut up and stare down the crying kid in the high chair.  The Shield-maiden does it every day.  Heck if I know that one, either.

The Shield-maiden isn't just brawn.  She ain't no Proverbs 31 woman, but she has the strategic and tactical mindset that has us semi-approved for a house loan at a pretty good interest rate despite a spendy husband.

Sure, sometimes her stubbornness has been directed toward me (see "spendy husband").  God knows she and I have given each other a fair number of scars, but she's got my back...well, my lower back at least*.

She f'ing rocks.  And I love her.


*apologies for the short and pregnant jokes.  Please don't hurt me.

Chicago

I will be flying out March 31 to a place I swore I'd never go.  Chicago.

It's my first business trip.  For three fun-filled days, I get to spend 8 hours playing with the Sysmex XT-4000 then another 6 hours reading manuals for it.  Fun, fun, fun.

Since I also swore I'd never go to Dallas, I'm beginning to think that I should stop saying that.  Especially since I swore I'd never go to LA.

I'm not saying Chicago is a scary place.  I'm just saying it's number 13 in murders, 16 in robberies, and 26 in Aggravated Assault.  They don't even release their total rank in violent crimes.  As opposed to Glasgow which has had one murder in over a decade.

While working in Atlanta (8 in Violent Crime, 12 in Murder, 10 in Robberies, and 7 in Aggravated Assault), I stayed in a small and really, really sketchy efficiency unit in a really, really sketchy part of Norcross, GA.  After a couple nights of watching drug deals going down outside my apartment door—and a week of limping favoring the right side of my ribs after that idiot cop hit me—I decided  go invest in a Kevlar vest.  I dropped by www.bulletproofme.com and picked up a Level II vest.  Level II is the same protection as Level IIa, but heavier and stiffer.  It was a wee bit stuffy in Atlanta (in July), but the added stiffness translated into better protection during a car wreck.  Of course, my second car wreck was a rear-end, so it didn't do me a heck of a lot of good there.

At any rate, the piece of mind brought by being secure against up to three hits from a .44 magnum was worth the $350.  Plus, in preparation for my trip to the Windy City, I upgraded my 5x8" trauma pack to Level IIIa.  It doesn't add that much weight, and I'm guessing it'll be less stuffy in Chicago in March anyway.  I can certainly take it for four days to have a better chance at surviving a meeting with a thug.

Besides, I apparently have as much to fear from law enforcement in Chicago as I do from the lawless.

According to my coworker who preceded me to the training session, the facility and the hotel they put us up in are in a nice part of town, though.  Of course, I don't believe there is a good part of any city with more than 100,000 people.  Mankind was never meant to live stacked on top of one another.  Could be worse, though.

And I shouldn't have to worry about crazy Atlanta drivers, either.  Which actually figured into my purchase as much as shootings.  Possibly more, in fact.  More cops have been saved by their vests from steering wheel columns that bullets, after all.  Maybe they could actually wear their seat belts and not have that issue, though.

The real pain in the rump roast is that I'll be away from my ladies for the longest stretch since moving up here.  I wouldn't mind the trip nearly as much if I didn't have my kids who get excited and say, "Dada!?!?!" as soon as my key hits the front door handle.

HIS said I can draw a laptop from supply for the trip, and hopefully it has a webcam and Skype or Google Hangout.  There's a lot of teleconferencing in BFE, so I have a decent shot.  Plus, this place goes out of its way to make its employees happy, so I could probably use my own webcam and install Skype if it wasn't already equipped.

And because I'm having fun pointing out stupid gun tricks by the CPD, here's another good one.  At least no one was hurt that time.

Let the Cutting Begin!

a.k.a. Frequent Flyer Miles

So, a little late here, but in the biggest news since the announcement of Squirt, the Dot is getting her surgery.  After two years, two surgeons, three hospitals, and three insurance companies, our fight for our daughter has an end in sight.  The beloved—who, incidentally, kicks all kinds of awesome—finally got fed up and on the advice from a cranio forum sent the Dot’s CT’s to one Dr. Jeffery Fearon of The Craniofacial Center.

At this point, I would like to point out that the name of the center is quite accurate.  The Craniofacial Center is the be-all, end-all of the craniofacial world.  Dr. Fearon is the only doctor in the US (world?) who does nothing but craniosynostosis.  Pretty much everyone else is at least a plastic surgeon who at least does cleft palate, hare lip, and—in the case of our two previous doctors—boob jobs and tummy tucks.

He also does free e-mail consults with concerned parents, which is flat-out awesome.  I suspect he does it to get weird cases.  He has 300+ publications since 1985, and I doubt you get that many without scoring some out-there case studies.  Speaking of publications, one of his most recent was an August 2013 retroactive study of 34 of the surgery that the Dot will be getting.  The nearest to that is a center in Paris…with five.

Hey, when your kid is having her head split open in two places, might as well get the best.

Dr. Fearon suggested two tests that we can’t get in this state or any of the surrounding ones.  Welcome to the frontier.  He also recommended an MRI, which, luckily, you can get in Billings.  Unfortunately, the reason we had to go Billings it has to be under sedation for a kid that young.  I have anesthesia-phobia.  See earlier post.

At this point, I would like to introduce the second hero of our story, Dr. Janet Armstrong.  Since the surgeon in Billings wouldn't return our phone calls, Dr. Armstrong cut orders for the MRI.

The MRI showed a seriously warped skull (shocker) and slightly restricted CSF flow secondary to a 5-8mm Chiari malformation.  Said malformation is known to cause transient autistic spectrum disorders.  Hmm, I wonder if maybe we’ve been saying that to doctors for two years.  Or maybe even have two years of documentation from various other docs and early interventionists in three cities in two states.

Once that was emailed to Dr. Fearon, he said she needed a suboccipital decompression for the Chiari and a cranial vault restructuring.  Everywhere else would do those separately, but he feels the risks of two trips under anesthesia outweigh the risk of adding extra cutting to one surgery.  I agree (see aforementioned anesthesia-phobia).  And with 34+ under his belt, he has to be getting good at it by now.

So it looks like we will be flying down to Dallas to get our surgery.  If we can’t get an exception, it will be out-of-network and insurance will only pay 60%.  That said, MSHA claims it can do anything, so out-of-network, they only pay 20%.  My math says that paying 40% is twice as good as paying 80%.  Or you could say them paying 60% is three times as good as a place paying 20%.  Either way, [insert rude and anatomically unlikely suggestion here] Crestpoint/MSHA!  You suck.  Not that I’m bitter or anything over about $3,000 in bills any normal insurance would have covered.

It’ll still be a steep hit, but between my 20% pay raise, grants for travel and co-pay, and an absurdly generous church family, we should come out financially intact. Maybe.

The important thing is the Dot finally has a shot at a normal life.  Here’s to awesome doctors and tenacious mothers.