Nothing to Write About?
2009-01-29, 7:31 p.m.

Day 1621

Just to be sure, those deer in yesterdays photo weren�t in MY back yard. They were photographed (as opposed to shot) about 75ish miles to our WSW. Trust me, the snow depth from here to there is pretty consistent. Our printed paper keeps a tally of our total snowfall (as measured at the rottenchester airport � about 2 miles from me) and compares it to that of Buffalo & Syracuse. The winner usually gets nothing more than recognition as the snowiest city of 200,000+ population in the nation. Whoopty-doo! We�re lucky the on-line version of our paper doesn�t keep that tally or I�d bore ya to death with the numbers. Suffice it to say we had 50 inches of snow in December alone. January is going to be close to that and we really still have another month and a half of decent snow opportunities. We�ve also been blasted with the late March blizzard of 20+ inches a few times, so 150 inches total isn�t out of the question for this winter.

Now, that doesn�t all stack up at once. We won�t have 12 feet of snow lying everywhere. It compacts, melts, sublimates and generally doesn�t look anywhere near as bad as it sounds. Mostly.

Ooh ooh!! Bowling tonight. Lousy as I�ve been doing lately (only missed my average by 20 pins total last week!!), I am ever the optimist. I have the added incentive of knowing that I bowled a pretty decent game my third game last week, and I think I�ve worked out some of my mechanical issues. I think. It�s all about relaxing and letting your body do what it needs to do. Well, at least what�s appropriate for in a bowling alley.

I finally worked up the courage to look at my 401k statement the other day. In a word? Ouch. At my current rate of contribution (including my employers kick) I�ll need to work for an additional 3 years to make up for the last half of 2008. Social Security, if it exists by then, insists that I work to age 66 years 8 months to get full benefits. For the record, that�s 8 years longer than my dad lived. Of course, mom is still kickin� it up pretty good, so it ain�t all bad I suppose. I may actually get to enjoy some retirement.

As long as I�m not like The Bob. Still waiting on getting a placement for him in a higher skilled facility. The 6 that we preferred all had no vacancies for his skill level. We did ask the hospital that they remove the restraints they had him in. Initially, they had him belted into a chair because he was so wiped out he really couldn�t sit up straight. Their more recent position was that he was in restraints because he was getting agitated. Our position is that he was getting agitated because he was in restraints. If he can go 48 hours with out �needing� restraints it changes him to a less restrictive ability level. That might open up a position back in one of our top 6. Maybe.

We also made the mistake of looking up the meds he was on. It�s scary looking at the list of potential side effects and contraindications with other drugs & conditions. All of the changes we�ve seen in Bob over the last 3 months are all side effects of one or more of the antipsychotics he�s been on. Then there�s the whole �shouldn�t take seroquel (Quetiopine) if you�re already on Haldol (haloperidol I think). Well, Bob was on Seroquel already (75mg, 2x daily) but it didn�t appear to be doing much to calm him down. That�s when the Haldol injections started. The nurses at CMSS didn�t like to use Haldol (not their decision though) because the injected drugs stay in your system (and are effective) for up to 30 days!! No wonder they didn�t like it.

Now we�re left with wondering if there�s any way to sort out actual physical damage Bob has suffered from any side effects of the medication he�s been on to combat the suspected physical damage. Follow? Me too. It�s like trying to figure out what effects are from mini strokes and which are Alzheimer�s. In the end, it doesn�t matter, he�s just suffered damage, whether it be from strokes, Alzheimer�s or medication. What I wonder is if we might have any standing in court to sue for his future care costs, supposing that at least some of his current condition is due to needlessly medicating the sanity out of him. I almost feel like tossing the whole thing to an ambulance chaser and see what he can come up with.

Yah, right.

Ok. Bowling�s done. Much better night. Only one game below average, 2 nicely above, +52 pins for the night. Team even took 6 of 8 points for the second week in a row. We�re on a real streak now. 10 more weeks like that and we might get back up to .500 Of course now is the big push to try and improve your prize money payout. Last year we finished 3rd and won about $115 a man. Year before that we finished 16th and got about $100 a man. Big difference, eh? It�s a fun league and we make sure we get our fair share of the fun.

Time to go pay bills. Oh joy.

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