Category: Life


FQ: Do-Overs and Living Without Regrets

Filed Under: About Me, Life by Lord Andrei — Leave a comment
2010.03.15

This is another posting that are comes from the site Formspring. Again, these will be marked with a FQ at the beginning of the post title and the post will be appropriately tagged. (Eventually, I’ll stop adding this upper bit)

Is there anything you wish you could do over and do differently, and if so, what? Is it possible to live a life without regrets, or are just the words of the young and arrogant?

Nothing beats a light-hearted and easy question. Once again I have to give two answers to the first part. The quick answer, which is not the accurate one, is “Of course, there’s tonnes I’d love to go change.” (Correct answer is forthcoming)

I’m one of those people who’d love to go back in time and whisper in my younger self’s ear a few choice phrases at the right time. I’d love to lose a few savings accounts and find a couple of lost treasures. My grandmother’s kitchen table had SCORES of photos from my youth from the time I was born until about the age of 10. I would KILL to see those photos again. As it is, I now have ONE photo from my childhood that is not a school picture. And even those are only recent additions.

There are {en:Significant_other|SOs} that I’d love to stop my self from dating and mistakes I made in the carelessness of youth. There’s one very special person to me that I lost due to a combination of bad timing, bad decisions, and worst of all: being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Do I wish I could do over and do differently. … The correct answer is “No.” Does the idea entertain me to no end? Oh, absolutely. And I can sum up the accurate reason for never wishing this in one word. “Aiden.” I wouldn’t have my son in my life right now if anything in my life had been different. Even though the film is utterly traumatic, I recommend “The Butterfly Effect.” Actually, I don’t. I think I’d like to go back and prevent myself from having seen it. Read {en:Ray_Bradbury|Bradbury}’s “{en:A_Sound_of_Thunder|A Sound of Thunder}” from his collection “{en:R_is_for_Rocket|R is for Rocket}” ({en:Serenity_(film)|Yes, I’ve read a book. Try not to faint.})

And anyway I did role-playing games as a kid. I know what a Dungeon Master thinks when you make a wish. This never works out well. This is a true moment to enjoy what you have and not try to “what if” yourself into “what could have been” from the myriad of infinity. Granted… Having a child you love will do that to you.

But wait… there is more. Is it possible to live a life without regrets, or are these (ed. mine) just the words of the young and the arrogant?

I must greatly fight the urge to type, “Yes” and then end the post. But would I regret such a move? Personally, I think regret is a natural process of maturation. Just because you’ve done something that in your heart was the best decision, it doesn’t mean it’s not going to hurt, cause annoyance, sadness, … what have you.

I am estranged from the immediate blood family that raised me. This was neither an easy decision nor a quick one. It took a lot of soul searching, a lot of learning who I am, and what I need to be a healthy and functional individual. Most of this happened as the result of the loss of my father. Some could reason that his condition was aided by me telling him to go to a shelter. There have been so many things that I have done, that even after years of doubt and pain, in my mind, I know they were the right things. Doesn’t make it any easier. Not having a father today to ask what I was like as a boy as I try to raise my own… Oh, yeah… There’s sadness and sometimes there is even depression.

Look at the definition… It’s {en:Regret_(emotion)|regret}. I think it’s actually an incorrect definition of ‘regret’ that causes the young and arrogant to say that they shall live without regret. The problem is that most people think, “If I have regret; then I admit that what I did was wrong.” There are many actions I wish I had not done. Some seemed like the right decision at the time. Some still seem like the right decision. Some absolutely were the right decision and I still wish I hadn’t done them.

Do I feel that I had consciously violated ethics or morality in my life? No. Do I feel that I have actively been dishonourable at points in my life? I do not know. I think honour is one of those things that is like Karma. It can be spent and earned. Honour is not something we teach to the young. Matter of fact we completely cheapen the idea of Honour by tying it to excellence, which is at times very far from Honour. And as an A-Honour roll student in my youth… I know of what I speak.

Do I reflect on actions of my youth and question my ethics at time? Oh hells yes. I can clearly see one if not two people who I can say I acted beyond improperly with and would twelve-step myself oblivion to try to make amends for the behaviour of an under-21-year old. One person that I knew has said they don’t even want to hear my name again. So much for forgiveness. These are in addition to the person I lost.

I’ve made mistakes. Granted, I don’t think that I’ve actively ever set out to hurt anyone. I have called people out on breaking the rules and have been tenacious about it. I’ve had less than pure thoughts and thank the universe that I’m Jewish and don’t believe in Hell.

So, I have regrets. This doesn’t answer the question. The question was: Is it possible to live life without regret, or are these just words for the young and arrogant. The reduction is Yes. Yes on the first half, no on the second. I think inevitably people have to decide for themselves those wonderful old concepts of “Right and Wrong” and the relative responsibility for actions in relation to a persons place and emotional connection to it.

Huh? Well, lets be honest. A psychopath isn’t going to feel any regrets or any emotion about their behaviours and they come in all ages and arrogance isn’t always on the menu.

Scared yet :?)

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A Personal Plea: Family in Trouble

Filed Under: About Me, Life, Politics by Lord Andrei — Leave a comment
2010.03.15

CPT Sampson Luke and FamilyI don’t talk about my blood family very often. I’m not just referring to online. My first cousin who is just a year younger than myself, lost her husband suddenly a little over a month ago. CPT Samson T. Luke was on a National Guard drill weekend. The family was notified that his death was an “active” status death. Two weeks later this was changed with no explanation to “inactive” death status. As a result much of the monetary, education, and health care, and funereal benefits are being denied that were previously promised. You can see more on this story from an excerpt of a CNN report.

CPT Luke leaves behind my cousin Miranda and their four children. This is an urgent matter as Miranda has been left fighting the DoD for the benefits promised rather than taking care of her family and trying to move on from this horrible tragedy. The Department of Defense is deciding if the family is eligible to receive benefits they had been promised and are entitled. If you feel moved to help  please cut and paste the letter below, dating and signing your name and address and mailing as quickly as possible as this is a time sensitive matter. Please feel free to distribute this letter to anyone that may want to help. Thank you advance for your support.

DATE
Dr. Robert Gates
U.S. Secretary of Defense
1000 Defense Pentagon
Washington D.C. 20301

Dr. Gates,

I am writing on behalf of CPT Samson T. Luke’s family. CPT Luke passed away January 10, 2010 during a Arkansas National Guard drill weekend. His wife, Miranda, and their four children were told Sam’s death was an “active” status death. Two and a half weeks later CPT Luke’s status was inexplicably changed to an “inactive” death status. This action denies the family the monetary, education, health care benefits and funeral expenses that were promised.

CPT Luke was active duty Army and now in the National Guard for over a decade serving two times in Iraq. Sam’s family has supported Sam and the military throughout his career.
This family has been through so much. They deserve the proper consideration in this matter. Please return CPT Luke’s death status back to “active” and help this military widow provide for their four young children during this difficult time.

This situation is of the utmost concern to me and I would like be kept informed of the resolution of this matter. I can be reached at:

YOUR NAME
YOUR ADDRESS
AND/OR EMAIL

Sincerely,
SIGNATURE

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Living with Chronic Pain

Filed Under: About Me, Life by Lord Andrei — 9 Comments
2010.02.18

Let me start by stating quite simply, writing an article with this as a title is damned ballsy of me. To look at me or interact with me you probably wouldn’t believe that I live with Chronic Pain. However, by the time I’m done, I hope to not only to explain the horror of living with {en:Chronic pain|Chronic Pain}, but then explain how my experience is nothing compared to the woman I love being the one who lives IN Chronic Pain.

Did the preposition throw you? I am basically a physically healthy 42-year-old, Caucasian, male. I have a son who is creeping up on the age of 3½. This of course means he has no boundaries, no patience, no strong sense of right and wrong, and most importantly, no real sense of when to back off.

Then there is my wife. A woman who succeeded in my life after an endless string of failed relationships to be the one who I would trust with my life and sharing the responsibility of raising children. Nearly two years ago while taking on that responsibility by driving to pick up our son from day care, while stopped at a traffic light, she was rear ended by a 19-year-old that was speeding. The details beyond that are inappropriate for further discussion beyond that; we are still working with a lawyer to try to get fair recompense from the driver’s insurance.

The result was that she was injured. And much like childhood mental abuse the damage does not leave visible scarring. At first we thought it was mild whiplash. But, for some reason, no matter what the doctors told us at first, it kept getting worse. After 4 or 5 doctors an MRI showed us the permanent spinal damage. This is the kind of spinal damage that causes endless pain, doesn’t go away, and really has no cure; contrary to the impression that the medical industry gives you.

Now, let me explain what it’s like to watch someone you love in chronic pain. Imagine stubbing your toe really badly. The pain from that proceeds in several distinct phases: the Impact, the Blammo, the Wash, and the Recovery.

The impact. Usually it hurts immediately, but not always. When it does hurt, it’s like a blast from your body realizing what’s going on. This is the Blammo. This is when you are grunting, hollering, or expending a rather large and noticeable interjection (more often than naught unacceptable for school children).

After the Blammo we move right into the Wash. Whether the pain subsides or gets worse can determine how serious the problem is (did you stub your toe or cut it off?). The Wash is the recovery phase where the brain says, “Hey that was pain and I need to expend your daily energy supply to get you through the shock.” Typically you signify this by not responding to worried questions from bystanders. You are too busy dealing with the pain to really be able to do anything else. This is the part the sucks the most for a loved one, because the person who is hurt is suffering but really not consolable and now is not the time to offer assistance. The wash subsides and then we laugh about clumsiness. The toe may be sore for a little while after – that is the Recovery.

But hey, that’s a stubbed toe. The whole episode is maybe 2-5 minutes. Chronic Pain? From my point of view we make two very specific changes. First, The “Blammo” is sometimes incredibly subtle to onlookers. Is it any less painful? Not that I can tell. So, why should the sufferer choose to be subtle about it? Well, let’s look at the other change. Let’s pretend that the Blammo could last for 15 minutes to 6 hours. Let’s pretend that the wash lasts for 4 hours, 8 hours, maybe 4 days. And let’s pretend that the Recovery (and the exhaustion it causes) lasts for about 2-4 hours until the next Blammo. What if the Pain and the Wash basically become indistinguishable? What if one Wash caused another Blammo? What if reacting to one Blammo caused another Blammo? Do the Washes combine, overlap, or increase? What if the phases were about as clear and definable as mud?

In the case of many Chronic Pain sufferers you may also likely deal with the complication of {en:Fibromyalgia}; a short-circuiting of the touch sensors that sometimes can make the lightest touch set off a “Blammo.”

When you ache or suffer post pain wash, you are expending energy. So things like making people worry and hang over you for the hours that there’s nothing they can do about it… that’s just more annoyance that’s exhausting. And for the person watching it? It’s just the person you love suffering for most of the waking day and there’s pretty much NOTHING you can do.

As caregiver, your job is to not waste more of the precious good energy that a chronic pain sufferer has. Communication where appropriate to learn the subtle differences between “I hurt, go away” and “I hurt, be here.” While it seems that there shouldn’t be a subtle level of difference here, you have to accept that there will be because it will occur typically when the person is in the most pain. They are too busy trying to minimise uncontrollable pain and transition into a wash that won’t cause more pain.

This is a frustrating job. And it’s most frustrating because this situation typically is not the fault of the suffering person. You can find yourself frustrated at the situation but NOT the person.

At any time in this have you considered what could be going on in the mind of the person suffering? This is a person who lives with the things that they may no longer be able to do anymore. By helping them accomplish things you are taking the burden off them while at the same time parading in front of them the things they can’t do.

You are a cheerleader. You are there to make them feel as much themselves as you can. You have to be prepared to let them burn some energy in the few good hours despite the massive dip it may occur because it is the rare sense of normalcy that makes it all endurable.

The hardest part is the communication. When a person lives in pain; finding the middle ground over something as amorphous and unpredictable as pain can be maddening. Further, trying to talk reasonably about it can be just as mentally painful for everyone as the sufferers physical pain is. (But it truthfully probably isn’t)

Because, as much as you sympathise, living with someone IN Chronic Pain, you cannot understand what it feels like. I had a strained muscle in my shoulder that was not getting taken down by OTC pain meds. It lasted for days and I felt like hell. And I still have no idea what it’d be like to have something even 10 times worse that just never goes away.

Personally, I think that any Doctor that’s going to deal in pain management should be put into Chronic Pain for a month. During that time they should have to fight their own bureaucracy and paperwork, spend hours in uncomfortable waiting rooms, be subjected to the repeat humiliation of feeling like they have no idea what they are talking about, and be given false hope at every turn.

As a caregiver I also get to interact with the medical industry. There are no cures for Fibromyalgia. There are no cures for {en:Syringomyelia}. And most of the Pain Clinics don’t know how to deal with neuropathic pain; this is pain that comes from problems in the spinal chord communicating with the brain. Pain clinics understand muscular pain. Shove a needle in your back filled with cortisone and come back in x weeks.

What’s even more fascinating at this level of the medical industry is how severely the system doesn’t work. Your primary physician is not really qualified to manage chronic pain. They ‘refer’ you to a pain clinic. Typically this is the Clinic that the hospital they are aligned with suggests. You then contact the pain clinic. The pain clinic then tells you the following:

Have the doctor contact us and send us all your medical history and your insurance. In some cases if you’re dealing with a lawyer they won’t talk to you. (There’s a fear that they may have to testify in court and risk being torn apart by an insurance lawyer who’s purpose is to discredit them rather than actually listen to their testimony). Once the medical admins on both sides (People reallllly invested in your care… okay… really invested that they’ll be able to get your co-pay and bill your insurance) have exchanged the necessary paperwork, now you wait.

You are waiting for your stack of papers to climb to the top of the doctor’s stack for evaluation of your case. This can take a month. They will tell you it should be a week… but doctors “get busy.” Interestingly, if they forget to get back to you it’s possibly because they were given the wrong number (which really should make you worry that if they can’t get that piece of information transmitted correctly, do you really trust the quality of medical records being transferred.) Maybe it was the admin who forgot to call you back. (Similar to how they may forget to call in your prescriptions when you run out of painkiller). Interestingly, if you follow up and find out why there’s been a delay that often does little more than move your file lower in the stack. I remember because I called one and asked why it’d been three weeks and they said my wife’s file was the next one up after the current one. The following week I was told it was in the top 5.

After a month of wait with two separate Pain Clinics I was told that the Doctor wasn’t going to take the case. The reason was that he didn’t handle her specific type of spinal damage. I was tempted to fire on all chambers because one actually listed her specific type of spinal damage on his web site. The excuse I got was, “That information isn’t current.”

I strongly recommend the paper to doctors called, “How Not to be a Dumbass” by the blogger Jenny Ryan also known as “Cranky Fibro Girl” who has eloquently written what dealing with these issues is like. Please read her blog.

Writing a posting like this is not easy. Because I go back to a comment above, “By helping them accomplish things you are taking the burden off them while at the same time parading in front of them the things they can’t do.”

People often ask me how life is. People often ask how my wife is. For me… this topic is my Wash. I don’t want to answer it. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t like talking about it. Especially in front of the woman I absolutely love who has to live with it.

In my opinion the world and my life would be much more hollow and empty without her in it. And that is the thought I’d rather have than to have to linger on the pain that she has to live with.

My original goal of this post (okay, rant) was the hopes to communicate that no matter how hard we try to sympathise… the pain someone caring for a Chronic Pain sufferer is unbelievable… and it is still very small compared with the pain the sufferer is living with.

As much as I can not comprehend what someone living IN Chronic Pain feels like, most people also will not comprehend what someone living WITH Chronic Pain feels like. I guess I can find my relief in the knowledge that I may have a community of people in similar situations who do get it.

And that is just a smidge of what it’s like to live with Chronic Pain.

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A fairly productive day.

Filed Under: Life by Lord Andrei — 3 Comments
2010.02.02

Today has been one of those days where I should be happy with the amount of work I’ve done. However, either through mild OCD or possibly due to being a closet perfectionist, the more I accomplish in a day, the more I feel I haven’t done enough.

The morning starts with the alarm clock that is shaped exactly like a small boy that is somewhere between 3 1/4 and 3 1/2. This morning he woke with his typical ‘yowl’ of penned in boredom. We keep two gates on his room because if we don’t, he goes downstairs, puts on the television, starts pulling food out of the fridge and playing computer games. Yes, I’m fully aware of the hypocrisy here.

This morning’s howl was the “I’m bored and awake and you should be too” one. Granted, the real reason for the howl is that he can now sleep through wetting himself once. What this means is if he wets himself a second time, he is now in drenched pyjamas.

Tromp, tromp, tromp.

This morning I was tired because I couldn’t get to sleep until about 1:30 or 2. This was a problem because I actually went up to bed at 11.

6:15 am…Change boy, turn on light. Play in your room; I’ll be back in a few. Go back to bed. At we’re all pretty much up and it’s morning activity time. Clean up, dress, and breakfast. This morning also involved me dumping the dirty diaper box.

Aiden now attends a Montessori school. There is less pressure on his potty training. Less = no pressure at all. This is a huge relief because there was this feeling that if he wasn’t fully autonomously using the toilet by 3 yrs 9 months he would be out of his old day care. This is not a situation we can really support.

The school tells me that he is actually doing fairly well at using the toilet on his own. Though he pretty much only goes at someone else’s insistence. We’re working on it. The boy is off to school and now I have several things to deal with.

Cobra has changed my coverage. The new coverage is cheaper per month but the co-pays are far worse. We use medical a lot so this in the long run will suck more. I had to go drop off paperwork and get back this month’s check and cut them a new check, and then later in the day it got worse. I redeposited the old check, paid the rent (which is a hefty chunk o’ change when you’re on unemployment) and finally got home around 10:15.

Last night’s insomnia must have kicked in. I tried coding for about 5 minutes and then set a nap timer for 30 minutes. I seem to have a bizarre inner clock that sometimes is quite spooky. I quickly drifted off to sleep. Cheers for recliners in the toddler-less living room. After some pleasant Z’s I looked at the timer and it was counting down the last 14 seconds. Did I mention ‘spooky inner clock.’

My current code project is a Genealogy program for Apple based hardware. (I guess I can’t really call myself a Mac programmer anymore) There’s some really great Genealogy software out there for the Mac. Personally, I really recommend Reunion by Leister. My problem with it is that like much other Mac Software it’s amazing for a single user working on a basic to high intermediate level. Letting multiple users work on it and doing some very powerful functions just aren’t there. Try as I might, Leister seems to be a one-man shop that’s not hiring.

I spent a good bit of last week doing more of the family research through Ancestry.com. I think I’ve upped the tree from 950 people to about 1100 people. I found my wife’s 8*great grandfather, the last Keith in her father’s line to live in Scotland. My ancestry (as I often comment) comes from Russian Jews. So go back 5 generations and watch “Fiddler on the Roof.” So I get to live out my genealogy thrills vicariously through my wife. Now legitimised by having spawned with her.

I worked on that for a few hours. The highlight was finally beginning to code the parser. For those that haven’t read the Gedcom 5.5 specification; it’s a walk thru hell. I commented on Twitter that some people just shouldn’t write specifications. For the geeks out there you have to realise that the current version of the specification was written in 1995. This is from before the days of Unicode. DATE_VALUE has enough definitions that it may as well be defined as, “Yeah… whatever… the programmer’ll figure it out somehow.” Another programmer I know who’s playing in the same arena pointed out that it’s really a fuzzy process and then asked if I really needed to parse the data.

I told myself today, that I was going to get at least one other side project out of my head and off the ground. That was this blog. I hadn’t so much given up on my last blog (Tosocnet), as I just couldn’t bring myself to post in it. I’ve been researching Social Networking since long before the term existed. I figured a blog on the topic would be awesome! Granted. With this killer business idea in my head and things to talk (er write) about other than Social Networking… I got really bogged down. So I found other things to work on. Well until work cut my department.

So, I configured WordPress (again). This makes the 5th one I’ve configured on my server. So I’m getting pretty good at it. Granted, my wife’s still won’t let her update or change plug-ins. (On my list for tomorrow). I’m amused that the ‘theme’ that I liked most is similar to Vista’s glass styling. I think I may have taken my first minus points as an Über-Apple-Geëk.

But the blog is up. I even got a comment or two from some close friends. I’ll admit it. I’m a sucker for comments. I’m always confused how when I write something deep and meaningful, people just sort of take it in and nod quietly to themselves. When I post something ridiculous or banal; then I get 100 comments. It just doesn’t make sense to me. My wife has explained it to me several times… I think I choose not to get it.

The afternoon was marred by a lack of W-2 in the mail today (delaying my 2009 taxes again), mucked up paperwork between my Cobra management and the new medical coverage, and a failure of a fax machine (not mine). Normally, this is the time that I join in picking up the boy from day care.

Aiden had misbehaved on the ride home. He likes to kick the seat from the back. When your wife has a back injury, kicking the seat is a bad thing. He was told not to, kept doing it, and lost his computer game privileges for the evening. Granted, as a parent, this is a hard line. The computer game is solo occupation for the boy. It gives recovery time. But tonight there were books. I (sort of) made dinner. (I reheated food and made noodles). Dinner, dishes, relaxing. The family watched an episode of [en:Glee_(TV_series)|Glee].

I put the boy to sleep. Typically one of us will monitor him brushing his teeth. We then collaborate on changing him into pyjamas, putting lotion on some dry skin, and giving him his inhaler. Heather reads him books. The current choices are “The Caterpillar and the Polliwog” and “Truck in the Muck”. “But, No Elephants” seems to be travelling down the charts lately. Once he’s been read to it’s my turn to take over. This is a shame because I like to read books. Actor, director, voices… go fig.

If he’s wound up, I let him lie in bed and kick his legs very fast. After a moment I stop him and have him count to 20. Lather, rinse, repeat. This gets out the extra energy. Usually 2-3 rounds go by and then he announces, “All Done.” Aiden is also at the point where bedtime includes a request for the Potty. He doesn’t actually want to relieve himself. It’s just an excuse to delay bedtime. But since Potty requests are sacred… we try to deal with it carefully.

I can tell when he’s getting ready to sleep because he will ask to be tucked in. Of course it sort of sounds like “Duck.” He’s doing really well with language. He’s in the “Elmo third person” phase. “Aiden do it.” “Aiden get cheese stick.” Two weeks ago was my learning to translate Traympeeyo into train-pillow.

While he gets himself relaxed, I sit in the room and play iPhone games. Mostly [en:Bejeweled Blitz]. I seem to now be able to hit 80-105K fairly regularly. Tonight, I had the glee of approving my first comment on the new blog. Bless you, Joy.

Boy down. Watched last week’s Heroes. Started laundry. And decided. Okay. Post number 2. Kind of long. But, lots done today. Now I’m just kind of bored and tired. Once the dryer is done, I can move load 1 into the bin and load 2 into the dryer and just leave it for bed.

That’s a day at home while looking for work. Who knows what I’ll write next. Hopefully not another 8500 characters. And to think, in high school I thought 1600 words was hard.

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