When things are going so hard, I stop and remember why I'm here...

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Life is love. It's love that created this beauty, and love that sustains us all. It surrounds me, out here in my yard. My simple plants and flowers, growing and thriving and putting out this incredible graceful joy for us all to behold.


No matter what happens in our lives, nothing can ever take these visions away from us. Until our days are over, we share in all this every single second of our lives. We're part of it too, we're completely and entirely a part of that life force.


I remember to come outside in the midst of all the difficult, urgent, scary issues I must attend to. When I see these plants and flowers I remember what really matters; it gives my strength back to me.

So many of us are living, these days, with serious misfortune. In the midst of that we may have some great good fortune as well. It doesn't get canceled when things get rough.


I see this beauty, it humbles me and makes me profoundly glad. I hope everyone reading this who's having it rough can feel the blessings of their own good fortune too. They're almost always there, those good-fortune bits. Sometimes we have to set aside our pain and grief and fear in order to look for the good that remains. But why not? When things are going badly anyway, what do we have to lose by taking a deep breath and a half hour to forget it all?


Here and there in my life - not often - I've received a sneer or two for this *stop and smell the roses* bit. Well, screw 'em all for that. I'd much rather be in my shoes than theirs. Their roseless shoes, the poor fools. They could be blessed with a wealth of free, sweet beauty, and they choose instead to indulge in valueless games like *Who's the Most Cool?*

Choose sterility, or riches beyond measure? That's an easy answer for me.
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FABULOUS News! Walter Failed His DOT Physical!

And even better than that: he's found a local disability doctor who has already acknowledged, in writing, that he can't work as a commercial driver.

She's also perfectly willing to say so, and to stand up for him in that onerous process of filing and documenting claims.

Walter's employer, as of a couple days ago, has adamantly refused to reinstate his Worker's Comp claim. They sent the disability insurance paperwork to his new doctor yesterday, so we hope to get it processed soon. Once that's safe, we'll sic our Worker's Comp lawyer on them. What they did is outrageous.

I'll post on the details as soon as I can. And, I'll try to keep you all updated better than I've been.

I'm afraid this series of events knocked the wind out of me. A lot has been going on, and it seemed like the new troubles just wouldn't stop coming. Having a doctor on Walter's side now has settled me down.

I know lots of people are in the same boat these days. I hope they can find a piece of strength to hang on to, like that new doctor for Walter.

Meanwhile, we have no income, and haven't had any for several weeks now. The Nov. 1 mortgage payment was made; my mother, bless her, lent most of it to us. She has no more to spare.

We need to pay around $150 for our meds, and get some food and such. It's hard for me to ask for help. But we need it now, and badly. If any of you can spare even a small amount right now, we would greatly appreciate it.

And I promise you, we'll send it back around to others as soon as we can.

Happy Belated Thanksgiving, Everyone!

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Yes, we had a very nice Thanksgiving. Not that we did anything, oh, turkey-ish. We had a quiet restful day instead, which made us both very happy.

Thanks for all the well-wishers who came by here in comments and email. Right back atcha. And I certainly hope that if any of you are among those who Christmas shop on that Fateful Day After the Turkey, or the weekend, you not only Survived but Thrived.

I'll never join your ranks. The ability to enjoy a shopping scene like that is a profound mystery to me. But I've met enough humans who clearly and honestly did enjoy it to accept that they're being truthful. My hat is off to all such out there.
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I've Found a Culprit: Cipro Ruptures Tendons

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I am calmer today. Weekends are my *Nothing But Yardwork* times. It's peaceful out there, and the neighbors driving by and the dog walkers and general Front Yard Fan Club have been wonderful. *You're back, you're BACK!!!* They surround me with unexpected sweetness, they see me out there in the yard again and break into these huge happy grins and stop walking and talk to me as I weed and groom the yard, sometimes staying for hours and hours, just visiting. Lovely people. Most of them, I don't even remember their names. Usually I remember the dogs' names though. heh!

Today I picked pea pods from my gorgeous tropical pea vines, of the very very very blue flowers, and got a big pile of precious seeds. Traded plants and news with the guys across the street, who fed me a fabulous cranberry and goat cheese appetizer. I told them if it were MY guests coming I'd eat the whole appetizer before anyone showed up. Raked some, weeded some, trimmed the orchid tree a bit. Slow, slow, gentle.

I'm going to try to keep everyone up to date, even if by short little posts. Fellow bloggers, now you know why I haven't been by your place reading and commenting even after the allergy coma was over for the year. My hand just doesn't work very well any more. I didn't want to say out loud how bad it was; maybe it would get better...but it didn't and probably won't, so it's reality time.

When sitting down at the computer, I used to answer emails first, then read all y'all and comment, then answer comments on my own blog, and then write a post. Now I'm going to re-order my priorities backwards. I've missed communicating with you, it'll be hard to do the emails so much later. But I know, absolutely, that you'll bear with me. I feel blessed, and not because of counting my blessings. Feeling Blessed Without Counting seems to make their value increase exponentially, somehow.

All right. Here's some news.

Walter's been looking into voice recognition software. Being home helps, for some technical computer reasons I'm not up on. With his own health so damaged now, he's become slow like me. It'll come. For either of us to push ourselves too hard is not a good thing these days.

Adapting to a virtually unusable left hand is still harder than I thought it would be. It makes me even clumsier than before. Today, finally, I got no new cuts in my fragile skin. But at the very end of the day I fell. I was using only my right hand to pull the back door shut. It's sticky, you have to give it a good yank shut before it can lock. My hand slipped off the knob and I fell backwards, hard, laid full out on the tile floor. I'll have some bruises tomorrow. That's no biggie. Worse than that, I broke my fall by landing on the bad hand, bending it sharply backward at the wrist - and for once, my splint was off. Tomorrow will tell me how much damage the wrist took.

Walter got me back up. Uh, he has to do this for me from time to time. We automatically adjusted our movements so he went straight up and back without twisting to the side. I was so afraid it would hurt him, but he says the way we did it, he was okay. Oh, relief, relief.

Financial update. The disability and health insurance premium check was already re-deposited by the employer. I'd called in and left a message asking for forbearance...and that call was never returned. They redeposited so very fast, perhaps they were hoping it would bounce again so they could cut us off. But it didn't. With some help from a friend and my last hoarded bits of *mad money,* we were able to cover that sucker in the nick of time. It is PAID, and Walter is still safely insured. We have to do it one more time before November 30. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

The electricity hasn't been shut off yet, and on Monday I may be able to work something out for that.

Chase had sent us a nasty *10-day* letter, demanding payment by the 22nd or they'd call the loan. I phoned in and told them I'd pay on the 26th, when my Social Security check comes. After asking the rep to read the file notes, I reminded him we've communicated with them constantly, we haven't abandoned the house, we haven't been ducking them, we've never exceeded 30 days past due, and every late payment was because of medical issues. Chase told us in the beginning that if we never went over 30 days, we'd have no problem with them. We're more than 2/3 of the way through the special double-payment *repayment plan,* and wouldn't it be better for all parties to keep it going till the end? Of course it would.

This rep, shockingly, was quite nice, and agreed to the four-day extension with hardly any arm twisting at all. Maybe current events have inspired Chase to be a bit more flexible. Good. They're still next on my hit list, because they deserve to be.

And yes, do I long to get back to those current events, and put out Part 2 of that musty dusty history, instead of dealing with this icky health stuff. Patience, k. Patience.

On the house front, we go to mediation with Citizens on our hurricane claim December 9. We've now enlisted the help of our excellent neighbors across the street for that. One is very experienced with insurance matters in general, the other is a great designer for everything to do with living spaces and landscaping, and both are excellent rehabbers. Walter and I are now out of the running for most any physical work.

I want the insurance repair funds to go to someone I both trust and care about instead of strangers, and I know they can handle a lot of the repairs quite well; I've watched them work. They can also assess who to hire for roof contractors and whatnot. Even though I can normally oversee this sort of thing blindfolded and with both hands tied behind my back, I'm obviously too emotionally wrapped up in this house. Sort of like how doctors shouldn't practice medicine on their own family members. It's been three years since Wilma, and I haven't taken care of business properly, which tells me a lot.

Crap. For someone who loves to yammer away talking talking talking on my blog, cutting myself short when the hand says I must will not be easy. It's already That Time. Crap.

Okay. Two last bits: Cipro, an antibiotic I've taken daily for perhaps a year now, got a *black label* warning in July for rupturing tendons. With the exception of the Achilles' Heel tendons, that damage has my name all over it: elbow, hands, shoulders, below the knee. Here's some links.

And - again - I'll say it every single time you folks do this - your comments and the support I feel pouring toward me from you have given me a much better day. You guys are great. Thank you.
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Home Again

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We're home, we got back Sunday. We're safe. And home is a wonderful place to be just now.

It's also a dusty mess, and to our horror we discovered we were invaded by pests in our absence. Such a lot of work! The plumbing in the kitchen went out, too; only some great luck and quick action by our excellent friends H and Danny kept the damage down to a minimum. I've been lugging hot water to the kitchen sink to wash dishes ever since.

But the weeds aren't nearly as bad as I'd expected, and I have an orchid blooming. The house cradles me, I suddenly see where the slang came from to call one's house *the crib.*

I need that. I'm sorry to say I have no other good news for you today. So here's the time for a caution: if you're in need of cheery reading tonight, you'd better skip this post. It's dismal.

Hmmm...Long story short: Walter's injury-triggered costochondritis is getting worse all the time. It's progressed to his sides, his back, and his shoulders. We were sent home unexpectedly early, with all worker's comp benefits suddenly cut off - including medical care. Walter's employer appears to be deliberately moving him onto a disability claim rather than Worker's Comp. Why? Because that way they don't foot the bill.

Unfortunately, since I'd relied on certain information about the timing of the Worker's Comp income, the check I'd just mailed for the disability insurance premiums bounced last night. The funds that covered it were suddenly required for gas to drive home. They wouldn't even give us the $186 fuel allowance they did for the trip up to Missouri.

Yesterday I saw my rheumatologist. He said what I'd expected. My entire left hand, all five fingers, wrist, forearm, and possibly shoulder look to be permanently and painfully crippled. Many of the tendons are on the verge of rupturing, and once they do, they cannot be repaired, especially on patients like me. After they rupture, you can no longer move whatever they're attached to, like your fingers.

We were gone for over three months. Three highly qualified Missouri doctors diagnosed Walter with the same condition: a widespread, sometimes debilitating inflammatory condition called costochondritis, which is often triggered by an injury to the chest. Yeah, getting slammed in the sternum with a 200-pound big rig trailer door in a 50 MPH wind will do things like that.

One of its worst characteristics is that it mimics a heart attack.

The last real Missouri doctor was a guy who impressed both Walter and me with his knowledge, skill, judgement, and humanity. He gave Walter two series of 30-40 cortisone shots all over his chest, sides, shoulders, and back. Once I came along and watched. He used this huge long flexible needle, probing for the right spot, and the needle would bend almost in two each time he stuck it in. It looked like Walter was getting stung all over by a huge wasp.

A week or so ago, that doc sent a final report to the employer. He said Walter'd had lots of therapy - the steroid shots, topical analgesics, anti-inflammatories, anti-spasmodics, and painkillers. He was not getting any better, and probably would not improve any more. Diagnosis? Costochondritis, muscle spasms, myofacial pain. Do not discontinue the anti-spasmodics. Do not drive while taking those meds. No commercial driving at all.

Well, the employer didn't like that report. So they sent Walter to a clinic to see yet another doctor, in *occupational medicine.* The employer sends that clinic a great deal of business, hundreds of drivers go there each year. After the exam, even that doc told Walter that he wanted to do a bone scan..

Knowing that would take a week or two to schedule and perform, I mailed the $150 check for Walter's short and long-term disability and health insurance. We'd been picking up his worker's comp check every Thursday or Friday, right on time.

Apparently after the Occupational Medicine doc called the employer with the verbal report, he changed his mind about the bone scan. All of a sudden he said there was nothing medically wrong with Walter, and he was good to go back to work.

What?!?

Like all truckers, Walter needs a DOT medical certificate to drive. The muscle spasms in his back are so bad you can see them through his shirt. He can't twist to the side. It's not just that the pain abruptly stops him. He simply can't move that way any more. He can't drive taking those meds, either.

When Walter, stunned at this news - he was told in person as he picked up what turned out to be our second-to-last check - explained his medical issues to the Worker's Comp rep, the guy smirked like the cat that ate the canary. Ah. Okay. Of course. That was the plan. It's what they dreamed up to pass the buck to an outside insurer and not have to pay the Worker's Comp benefits themselves.

Yes, we've hired another lawyer, and yes, we will also apply for the disability insurance...and hope they don't exercise their right to cancel it because the premium check bounced.

The lady at their benefits office, who had always been very professional, yet helpful and cordial with me, was noticeably less friendly and open on the phone with me today. I explained the situation to her. She said that since Walter was cleared to drive by the last doc, the thing to do is find a local doc who will again say he can't drive due to his medical condition. We'll apply for the short-term disability, then the long-term after that runs out in 90 days.

So she was all set up and ready for this, too, all clued in. She clearly knew the plan before I called.

Tomorrow Walter visits the DOT medical folks. Unless they're stone cold fools, they will fail Walter on the medical, and not take on the liability of certifying someone to drive a big rig on heavy-duty meds and with limited range of motion and reaction times.

Then we look for a doctor brave enough to tell the truth.

If we're lucky, the disability claim will be approved, and will start soon. It probably will be far less than Worker's Comp. We spent all we had on the fuel to get home. The insurance premium is still unpaid, along with the electric bill, mortgage payment, and my local pain doctor's bill. We scrimped and saved like misers, cooking in the hotel room and staying in there almost continuously for three months, not using fuel to go out and see the sights. It wasn't enough.

As for my hand...

Those of you who read here regularly know some things about me by now. I'm a cheerful person by nature. I have a lot of health problems and I've been through some hardships, like just about all bloggers have. But life is precious to me, I love living and I love my life, limitations and all.

That doesn't mean I never hurt inside. Part of the reason I stay happy so much of the time is because I'm ready, willing, and able to work at it, almost every day.

Right now, that's not easy. I've fallen down on the job.

We will keep on fighting to save the hand. There's one more immunosuppressant we haven't tried before. If that doesn't help, we'll try to see if my Medicare HMO will pay for gamma globulin treatment. As the RA doc said, it takes 3 days in the hospital and costs as much as a car: $25,000. It's the sort of thing my HMO has most decidedly not wanted to pay in the past.

The only option after that is higher Prednisone to keep the inflammation down, mega doses like 100 mg/day. I worked so hard to decrease it down to 20/40 mg/day, meaning 20 one day, 40 the next, then 20 - if you alternate the doses like that, it helps keep the side effects down. Decreasing is painful and sickening, and it's why I spent so much allergic time in bed this summer. The high dose Pred is what got me out of the sickbed I used to live in around 10 months each year. I decided to decrease when my immune system got too suppressed and my IgG tanked..

But when my left hand blew up in Missouri, I doubled the Prednisone right back up again to 40/80. It did bring the inflammation down some, and I still have only one *claw* finger. But the condition is getting worse again.

In that left hand, rheumatoid arthritis has vigorously attacked every joint in every finger, most of the joints in the hand, and parts of the wrist. Tenosynovitis - a sometimes dangerous inflammatory disease of the tendon sheath - has attacked virtually every tendon in the fingers, hand, back of the wrist, and some in my forearm and left shoulder. It may also be behind a terrible sickening stiff neck I got a couple weeks ago, which is only beginning to get better.

The thing is, the tendons are likely to rupture now. They've started bunching up. I have a splint to help stabilize it, because the more I use the hand, the sooner the tendons will rupture. The docs can't prevent it, and also can't repair them once that happens. My right pinkie is already crippled from the same condition. And that was only one finger.

Yesterday I asked the RA doc about trying cortisone shots, and he said the damage was far too diffuse, too widespread. I'm also not a good candidate for surgery any more, even if a hand surgeon was willing to take on such a large project, basically peeling open the whole hand and wrist and all five fingers, and doing many hours' worth of repairs and tendon grafts. My skin is so thin it can't hold stitches much, and the chances of getting it infected with MRSA are far too high.

I'm not always so very strong. As I drove home I thought of these: Plaster jackets. Orchids mounted on wood. Bricklaying. I weed sitting down, but I can't push myself up well with only one hand. It's okay to use as a sort of hook or a holder, that half-dead hand; sometimes I can even grasp objects a bit...but all the ordinary things we do each day I need help with now.

In the car I burst into tears. At every stop light I took whatever action I could think of: deep breaths and an extra Prozac and Xanax and I bit my lips until they bled, because the last thing Walter needs right now is to watch me fall to pieces in front of him. I expected this bad news, I knew it was coming. It's just that having the doctor confirm my worst fears was like a kick in the gut.

That was yesterday, Wednesday. Today I saw my primary. My blood sugar has skyrocketed, consistently reading in the 300's - 400's after I take my morning meds with no food but espresso. As she said somewhat impatiently, of COURSE it doesn't matter what I eat. Diabetes can't always be controlled with diet and exercise, especially not in the presence of high-dose steroids. I will probably have to go on insulin.

I've lived with pain since I was eight and got juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. It got worse every year of my life. Honestly, I believe I can say I have felt both chronic and acute pain in extremity.

Today, the pain from this new tenosynovitis/RA attack is so great that despite my pain meds and hot soaks and massagers and the splint, it makes me cry out in my sleep. If something touches my forefinger by accident it makes me dizzy-sick with agony, unable to breathe, and afraid I'll throw up.

And night after night, I sleep next to this man I love with my whole heart, and watch him try to turn in his sleep and cry out in pain. And there isn't a thing I can do to help him. It breaks my heart.

I know I'll be able to cope with this as time passes by. But today? Today what I feel is grief and despair and fear.
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How I Learned The Fine Art of Finance: Musty Dusty History, Part 1

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The funny thing is, the whole reason I decided upon a profession was so I could write.

I wanted to be a writer since around the age of a year and a half. Not that I could write yet. Or read. But I sure could talk, and loved stories, and especially loved stories about real life. My mother was a writer, so I learned what it meant. My parents would never push any of us to be something we didn't want to be; but it was clear way early that it would probably be either writing or science for me.

I'd heard all about starving artists well before I grasped the difference between hunger and starvation. And didn't want to be a starving artist, either. I especially didn't want to be a *hack,* to write what was needed for income, to keep a roof over my head and food on the table. Strangely enough, I have no issue at all with other writers doing that. None whatsoever. It's just that I didn't want to do it myself. Also why you've never seen an ad on this blog.

That has a great deal to do with a particularly stubborn form - and not entirely accurate definition - of independence. Not to mention, a great excuse for not dealing with writer's block.

Money, you see, was never particularly interesting to me, in and of itself. Beautiful things, which are often valuable things, intrigued me; but I didn't need to own them in order to be happy. Wealth and the material things it can buy were not of much real value, in my estimation. Only freedom was. Everywhere I looked I saw people who had money and could never be free: they were owned by their possessions, bound and chained for life.

I hadn't yet learned that one can be financially independent and still be free; and, that a financial cushion can mean the difference between independence and dependence, should a person become disabled at the age of 32.

Neither did I want to go to college. At. All. Oh Lord, I was bored to tears with school. When I graduated from high school it was a year early, at barely 17. It would have been a year and a half early, but for the lack of a quarter credit of gym. Good grief! Physical education. Which I didn't even take anyway, because of the arthritis.

The Powers That Be in my high school weren't quite sure what to do with me. Phys Ed was required for graduation. They finally decided that if Phys Ed was not to be accomplished in the gym or on the field, they must teach me about it as if it were an actual educational class.

So they told me to write papers about sports, as a sort of independent study. The choice of subject was mine. That part was fun. By the time my high school years were blessedly over with, I'd written class papers on chariot racing, cockfighting, logrolling, and, if memory serves, the Mesoamerican Ballgame.

We all have certain inborn talents of limited value. Me, I was gifted with the ability to raise one eyebrow at a time. I seem to recollect getting the one-raised-eyebrow Look over a few of those gym papers when I turned them in to the gym teacher.

Some of my fellow students, when I finally did go to college, were the first in their family to do so. In my own family, one doesn't not go to college. My poor beleaguered mother, not more than a year or so back, bemoaned a book I'd read as a teenager, one that extolled the virtues of succeeding without college. Mom said she could have shot the author. How to explain that I have absolutely no recollection of reading that book? Like too many situations we face in our lives, I'd made up my mind, then found the written resources to justify a desire or decision after the fact.

And just what sort of profession could one enter, as a not formally educated female back in the day, and make enough money to survive? Why - real estate! Haven't you seen all those self-help books and TV shows? Around the age of fifteen, the profession that fit all my requirements, freeing me to write, was settled upon.

One small hitch: In the State of Illinois, one couldn't get a real estate salesman's license until the age of 21. Since my future first husband had little interest in earning a living, and I'd left home when I was 17, I had to work at jobs that would sustain us both before I could go into real estate. And since independence meant so much to me - freedom, respect, self-determination - I'd already been working part time since I was old enough to lie about my age and get a job, at fifteen.

This post is supposed to explain my credentials in the field of finance. Admittedly, Mesoamerican Ballgame high school papers don't have much to do with that. But I assert, quite seriously, that certain other non-finance, real-life educational experiences do.

That first part-time job was scooping ice cream at a Bressler's in one of the world's first malls. It was dead, that mall, though it isn't any more. Nobody knew quite what to do with a mall back then. My pay was $1.25/hour, which was under the minimum wage. The legal justification? *Food service* work meant we were supposed to get tips. The only one I ever got was a quarter tip from a nice older lady, who saw I'd sprained my wrist working so hard scooping ice cream, and felt sorry for me. This was my first real-life lesson in the intersections of government regulation, business needs, and the bullshit that can glue them together, often by skimming nickels and dimes from those who have the least supply of them to begin with.

From age fifteen until I was disabled out, I worked my ass off, and did so as cheerfully as possible, even though I hated most of my pre-college jobs. I had more than my share of teenage angst and anger, both; but I worked them off, instead of slacking them off. Watching people work today, I just don't get it sometimes. Certainly, I do see people who work like I did. But I seem to see too many who don't, and how can they bear it? What's worse than being too busy at work is not being busy enough. It's boring. I hate to be bored, and rarely am, because I work at not being bored.

As a part-timer I clerked at a Walgreen's, and also tried to be a salesgirl at a clothing store. That type of sales job seemed sort of...hateful, disrespectful, in my book. If a person wants to buy something, let them. If they don't, leave them alone. Who needs a *salesperson* to try to sway customers to buy when they don't want to? Why impinge upon their self-determination, if I were so fiercely protective of my own? I was not comfortable in that line of work.

My first full-time job was at a bank. It was a small neighborhood brick building/white columned bank, the principal bank of a North Chicago suburb that later became quite well-heeled. The president and the CEO were real estate developers. One was named Bert, the other named Ernie. Since these were two favorite characters in that new show called Sesame Street, we employees found no end of amusement there. ('ay, Bert! *giggle snort!*)

This was my first experience with banking, with real estate, with accounting, and with ten-key operation. I ran the proof machine, *full-time* at 35 hours per week so they didn't have to give benefits. My pay was $400/month. I had some interesting times there. I could never quite understand how the two guys running the bank could also run so many of their development loans through that same bank, legally; wasn't it a conflict of interest? Nobody could quite explain it to me...

At the time, I usually wore four-to-six-inch platform shoes. One favorite pair had an open-toed leather sandal top, and soles made of horizontally alternating shades of brown wood - dark, light, dark. Stripes.

Worn with knee socks.

That's because when I wore those shoes barelegged, management had a prurient fit about the lack of pantyhose upon my tanned but naked legs. All my skirts were below the knee, so surely management's imagination was the real culprit there! Or perhaps it was my Lou Reed black toenail polish. Understand, things were very different back then. Nobody had, or wore, or even knew about the existence of black nail polish. Just me.

To remedy this scary state of affairs, management decided they must institute a Dress Code for all employees. All my fault. Even in our dungeon basement bookkeeping rooms where customers never tread, women were not allowed to wear pants. Not that those legs could be bare, though! Knee socks or panty hose, take your pick. I hated the very thought of wearing knee socks with skirts, good heavens; but panty hose were worse. Besides, knee socks seemed like a fine ludicruous comment on the Dress Code, so knee socks it was.

One fine morning I was outside kicking my $25 car to get it started to go to work. The starter had a loose wire, so I'd stand at the driver's side fender, kick it, run back into the driver's seat to see if it would start, repeat...My next-door neighbor came by to see why I was kicking the car in my striped sole six inch platform shoes with knee socks. I explained that I had to get my car going to get to work, but didn't really want to work there any more (kick! rurrrh rurrrh rurrrh), because they'd just offered the coveted $600/month job of posting mortgage payments to another bookkeeper who I'd cross-trained, (kick! rurrrh rurrrh rurrrh), but she couldn't even run proof much less do that stupid mortgage posting machine everyone was so afraid of, but hey, she was middle-aged and I was not yet eighteen, (KICK! rurrrh rurrrh rurrrh) so obviously that made her more *qualified* and they offered her the job instead of me. So if they didn't respect my stellar work performance I preferred to take it elsewhere...

and since I was kicking that car whilst living back at the parents' house in an already very well-heeled suburb, the next door neighbor was a Vice President at the World's Largest Market Research Firm. Meaning, he had clout. And he suggested I apply for a job over there.

When I gave the bank my two weeks' notice, they said the other lady had turned down that mortgage posting job and it was mine if I wanted it, I could go far in banking if I wished, they even had a lady vice president already! (in Human Resources), they'd even send me to Banking School, hey there was a future for me there, please don't go...Srythnxbai.

So I took my ten-key talents yonder, and became the one-person Cable TV reporting department at the World's Largest Market Research Firm, most famous for its TV ratings. Another interesting job. Even though I was just another glorified *figure clerk,* part of my duties was to read CATV and Videography and Broadcasting magazines. One day I tried to tell my boss, VP Media Research, that cable TV would be really big one day. Oh, he laughed and laughed at my naivete! No no no, that would require legalizing advertising on cable TV, and everyone knows the Big Three broadcasters would never allow that! heh heh heh!

After crunching numbers day in and day out, I got so good I was tied for Fastest Speed with a woman who'd added up huge columns of numbers every work day for eight years. Before desktop and PC days, this was a shockingly important skill. Sometimes, under great time pressure, delegations of people from other departments would come and solemnly beg my boss to let me or her add their numbers up in a huge accurate hurry. I used a computer too sometimes, very rarely, just to send out final report numbers. This required a security escort and a telephone in a cradle. Once we had a big bomb threat, a serious one, and the entire headquarters staff all piled out of the building into the enormous parking lot. Sweating and milling around on the asphalt were scores of identical-looking young men in suits, carrying huge spools of computer tapes to save the world's market research data from mad bombers.

I was beginning to see I liked numbers.

You've only known me as a disabled blogger; but I had lots of jobs in my life, even in the short time until my 21st birthday, finally old enough to get that real estate license. Perhaps another time I'll regale you with more job tales of yore. For now, suffice it to say I was working at a certain Post Office with a certain old friend when I took the Illinois Real Estate Salesman's License course.

By then I was married and had bills to pay. I didn't quit the PO until I made my first real estate sale. The news that the sale was closing came to me in a highly unusual way, on that job: over the phone, on the midnight shift, sitting on the supervisor's desk happily swinging my legs back and forth, chatting about my *emergency* on the Official No-Employee phone.

So I quit the post office. That was in 1979. Four months later the bottom fell out of the real estate market.

I got my first education in formal finance, you see, on the job as a Chicago real estate sales agent. At the time, we had to learn finance because it was the only way to sell a bank on giving someone a mortgage.

I'll leave that story for *Musty Dusty, Part 2.*
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All Patched Up and Ready to Go

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The stuff on the hand is Lidoderm patches, not Fentanyl. That's a $25 patch job you're looking at on that hand, there. I have 4 Lidoderm patches left, meaning 2 more "wraps". But I know I'll be okay. One way or another, I think I can keep that hand working, as Walter looks into voice software.


The Fentanyl is safely pasted elsewhere, with 2" silk tape wrapped entirely around my upper arm, holding it securely on as usual. Dr. E says the maximum benefit is first reached around 17 hours after it's applied. I slapped that sucker on there around 5PM Friday. By midday Saturday, I'll be back where I'm supposed to be, pain control-wise.

One day I'll go off on a rant about why we should never feel shame for treating pain. Oh, and a fine graphic detailed disquisition on the myriad kinds of pain I feel, like that broken bone ends rubbing together one; and what living with constant pain has done to my life...But for now? A small reminder of why pain treatment must be conducted with care. Having gone five days late with the Fentanyl was an experience that could have been terrible. Fortunately, it wasn't.

To decrease properly from any opiate use, slow is the key. Going "cold turkey" like that is physically dangerous as well as painful. As part of the Pain Management Agreement protocols I have with my Florida pain doc, the doctor must agree not to leave the patient suddenly unmedicated. The problem that arose here was simply being out of town unexpectedly. I'd packed two months' worth of new prescriptions. When they ran out and we still weren't home, I had to find a local pain doc. My Florida doctor can't mail a new Fentanyl prescription across state lines, it's either illegal or against regs or some such. I knew I'd need a Missouri doc. Okay.

What threw me off was the unusual way Missouri uses a *primary* doctor. In Florida, that term means our insurance gatekeeper. But in Missouri, one can't just call up a pain doc for an appointment. Not allowed. First you must see a "primary," who then may or may not refer you to a pain doctor. It has nothing to do with insurance, it's state law (or regs or whatever).

Or, the primaries may take it upon themselves to simply write you the prescription on their own. This time? After some phone calling, faxing of release permissions, verifying my long-time status as a perfectly - perfectly - compliant and lawful pain patient, displaying printouts of the Rx records spit out of the Sam's and Walmart's computers - that's what my new local primary doctor did.

Following one's pain patient protocols is excruciatingly important. I have never *run out* of any pain med prescription before I was supposed to, or called to say they'd been lost or stolen or accidentally spilled down the sink. I show up to my appointments as scheduled. I drink no alcohol. I submit to random urine tests as requested; I have absolutely nothing to hide. I don't boost my prescriptions with marijuana here and there, even though I believe it should be legal to do so.

I've interviewed with one prospective pain doctor who was a sadistic weirdo, and I declined to use his services. Once, a temporary pharmacist at my usual Walgreen's called a surgeon to clarify why I presented a (perfectly legitimate and protocol) new Rx for post-surgical pain meds. That was embarrassing. The pharmacist soon admitted to me that he did it as harassment for his personal amusement. He showed no remorse - in fact, he was still laughing - and his little amusement cost Walgreen's five figures in sales per year from my prescriptions alone. They lost Walter's business as well.

I have never, ever had any doctor or any other pharmacist question or dispute my pain meds use. Ever. I behave so carefully because it's safest for us all. And having a perfect long term history is what gave the new primary the comfort level he needed to write me my new local prescriptions.

The funny thing about it was the doctor's reaction upon seeing the Rx printouts I picked up at Walmart. Apparently he had no idea this could be done. He was really amazed. I hadn't wanted to swamp the poor man with papers, but I was paging through them, circling the Fentanyl refill histories so he could see how nice and steady I am. And he couldn't get over the fact that one can walk into the pharmacy with proper ID, say --Please print out my prescription history from January 2003 to the present-- wait a few minutes, and walk out the store with all 47 warm pages in hand.

heh! This is why doctors should always hire CPA's to do their taxes.

Anyway, the timing mess-up was nobody's fault but mine. Luckily, I had a good supply of oral opiates and the knowledge to use them correctly. Not to mention, a very intelligent, tolerant, watchful, honest, and loving partner to hold my hand through the process. Thursday was pretty rough - I'll spare you the gory details, I've had enough of this subject for now - but Thursday was soon over, and I'm safe again.

And back in business.

Well...after a niiice nap, that is.

Back to the Future

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When I became disabled and lost my livelihood, my career, I went through a two year long process of assimilating and adjusting to my new circumstances. For quite a while I kept trying to work, taking occasional high-paying temp jobs in my profession. But my health was bad enough that eventually, either the hiring company or the client would begin to balk at having me around. I scared them.

And after every temp job was over I'd end up sick in bed, often with a serious bronchial infection, and usually for as long as the assignment I'd just finished. Work for three weeks, be sick in bed for three. Work for two months, be sick in bed for two months...

When I met Walter in 1993 I was still temping. I spent three weeks in New York on an MBS portfolio due diligence team, and came home and told him about some bad things that had happened with one of the men on the job. Between that, and the fact that we were getting married and I've have health insurance at last, I decided it was time to face the facts. That became my last temp job.

I simply couldn't work any more. It was not even possible to do typing or something at home, in my semi-controlled air. I couldn't take certain due diligence work home, because we often had to work with original notes and mortgages. They must be guarded as we work, then locked up in the big bank vaults at night.

I could work at home if my health was tolerable, but with no warning I'll get swept up in a terrible spiral of allergic episodes, or 18-hour sleeping fatigues, or another infection. I always prided myself on being a dependable worker, finishing my work on time even under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. But I was no longer dependable: not because of any change in my character, but because my health could not be depended upon.

So I stopped trying to work. Walter encouraged me to re-file my Social Security claim, which was successful. The lawyer told us I'd lost about $24,000 in benefits because of my *work attempts,* subsequent illnesses notwithstanding. Thus my reward for trying so hard to Do the Right Thing.

Then, in every sense, I turned my back on my profession and walked away.

I had to. I miss it terribly. To this day I still dream, sometimes, about my old portfolios as I sleep. I wonder how certain workouts came to pass, ones we'd resolved and ones we hadn't yet when I left. In my field I was doing work I was born to do, I felt it from head to toe and out to my fingertips, and so did everyone around me. To lose it was like having a limb torn away from my body.

To protect myself emotionally, to try to keep on course toward my future, toward living my new life, I stopped following banking and real estate news. Today, I have more ignorance of such current events than the average person on the street.

Ah, but sometimes...sometimes, hearing about a bank in trouble, or the discovery of some fraudulent real estate development, my interest would stir despite myself. I'd lift my head up and sniff the air like an old fire horse retired and turned out to pasture, who still ambles up to the gate when it hears the fire bell ring and smells smoke on the air. Desert Cat brings this out in me.

And here and there, I still tell old war stories, or explain some of the workings of banking or commercial property operations or mortgages if someone wants to know.

Especially when Walter asks. Trained as a lawyer, highly experienced in business back in the old country - including in real estate developments - and with one of the most well-rounded educations of anyone I've ever met, Walter has a great background for this subject. When he reads the newspaper and asks me pertinent questions, sure I like to answer him.

With the recent extraordinary events in the world of finance and economics, those questions are complicated ones indeed. And both of us can tell that he's got a very clear grasp of what's going on. Nuts and bolts and big picture too. He says it's because of the time we spent talking about them over our 15 years together.

Still, there are gaps. These are complex matters. Walter's asked me, gently, to reconsider my position, and take the time to follow all that's going on. To talk to him about it, to explain certain aspects having to do with finance. His own great love is the field of politics. To our mutual disappointment, that's not a field I have any interest in discussing, even with Walter. But these days, finance and politics have meshed in a historically significant way. A union, if you will, of two fields that took prime status in our personal backgrounds.

So I agreed.

I really have no idea where this will take me in the end. In order to refresh my own understanding, I'll take a blog walk through some of the basics of finance. I'm pretty sure I'll get irritatingly pedantic on you from time to time. I'll have to start with a brief resume too, because of this: *Yeah, right, what makes you think you know?* Commenters do tend to say that.

For quite a while - in between the usual flower pix and boo-boo updates - there will probably be nothing but musty dusty history discussed here. I'm in a unique position for using the past to help explain the present and future. That past may end up being far more interesting to me than to you, with the events of today burning huge and urgent questions into our everyday lives. I sense the urgency, believe me. I just don't do "fast" much any more.

But I bet you'll forgive me in the end. Oh, I just KNOW you will.

Because this stuff is fun, fun, fun. Scary? Infuriating? Intimidating? Boring sometimes? Yeah, all of that.

And FUN!

I like fun.

This kind of fun? I hope you'll like it too.
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A Little Walk in the Park

Actually, a little drive through the countryside.

It's very pretty out here. We're technically in the Ozarks, although not in any mountains. Still, the roads can be hilly.

I went driving last Sunday, and had a fine time swooping up and down and around the curves on the little country highways and farm roads I came across. Luckily, such fine terrain is close by our hotel here.


There are no end of handsomely falling-down farm buildings and old silos, all dilapidated, returning to the earth from whence they came...


and theatrically blasted trees and shrubs, evidence of bad storms, awful winters, tornadoes, what have you...


signs of local economic activity...


and a sky telling me it's time to head home.

Still Holed Up in Missouri, NOT All Maudlin About Bane

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Well. Not much, anyway. Nope. Not me.

No, actually I've been silenced by my hand.

When we went to Sam's yesterday, picking up 17 prescriptions for me and 5 for Walter (the rest are due for refill in two weeks), a certain young, pretty, sweet, smart pharmacy tech spotted me. I was sitting on a Sam's scooter, my foot propped up in the basket as usual.

And she scurried up from the far end of the counter and said, --OH!! Are you the one who stutters in sign language now?--

And I broke into a huge grin, because her memory impressed the hell out of me. Told her so, too. She started giggling and said she told her boyfriend all about me. --Yeah, there's this lady who came in, and she said she got a dropped tendon in her finger so she couldn't sign right in ASL any more, so now she stutters in sign language and I NEVER heard of such a thing in my whole life, and it was actually really funny and we were laughing and laughing!!!-- I was still grinning at her as she ran away again to catch a phone call. I like shooting the breeze with folks at the store.

I didn't have the heart to tell her I stutter with both hands now. Probably that wouldn't seem funny any more. Ah, well...Such is life, eh?


Rheumatoid arthritis is the culprit that got all my health problems going. IMO, anyway. I got it when I was eight years old. My current RA doc still calls this *JRA,* for juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Maybe one day I'll remember to ask him why it's still JRA now that I'm 50.


The pix show the brand new flare in my left hand. Walter took some pix for me of both hands together, to compare them. But the thing is, my first two fingers on the right hand already had some RA swelling from a previous flare.


It tends to hit bilaterally, that way; but for some reason, my bilateral flares are often staggered in time. I can't remember when the right hand went, but I think it was several months ago. It stayed a bit swollen ever since.

Not as bad as the left, though, huh? Overnight, my hands have turned into an old woman's hands.

So the thing is, I can't type very well any more. Even if I can work the pain control down to *don't need to scream while typing* level, the stiffness makes the hand not work right. My fingers and thumb simply won't go where I tell them to. Even with all the mechanical techniques and pain meds at my disposal, I still can't get the left hand to function much.

The RA flare is all over my body really, making me sick and slow and generally full of stiffness and pain, which doesn't help matters.

To get the overall pain level down, here's my usual daily routine: elevation, massages, heat, liniment, Vitamin C, MSM, malic acid, Relafen (an anti-inflammatory), Minocycline (an antibiotic with anti-inflammatory properties), guaifenesin, Prednisone, Doxepin, Actonel, Fentanyl patches, Lyrica, Zanaflex, and oxycodone - did I mention I take a lot of non-recreational meds?


Anyway, when the usual suspects helped, but not enough to get that left hand actually typing again, I finally covered it up with two Lidocaine patches. They cost around $400 per box of 30, and aren't covered by my current insurance, so I hoard my dwindling supply like a crazy hurricane lady. But!!! I just found out the pharma company FINALLY put the patches on their Patient Assistance Program. Maybe I can actually refill my prescription! They do help some.

So I throw everything in my arsenal at it, then simply wait for it all to come together with a little reduction in the flare. That's when I can type. I'll try to seize those moments and use them well.

This arthritis flare-up will subside at some point. How much? And when? Nobody knows. In the meantime, I'll ask Walter to look into some voice recognition software. I'll keep working out whatever I can do to keep my life the way I like it.

But this does throw a monkey wrench into it. In a big way. My life has changed again.

Now: Having explained - and thereby, also having a fine excuse to complain - and filled you in on what's happening, I'd like to get back to my irregularly scheduled programming.

Not to mention, my irregularly scheduled observance of not letting life's disappointments intrude too much on my fun.

And there are events swirling around us these days that hold a peculiar, intense, particular interest for me.

Fun. Ah, yes. You may now see a level of morgue humor from me like you never knew existed.