Happy Halloween!

Well, to everyone that is celebrating... Happy Halloween.

Classic Film Friday: White Zombie

So this film is pretty old, 1932 to be exact. Bella Lugosi stars as Murder Legendre, a Haitian Plantation owner with mystic supernatural powers to enslave the locals. The sound is kind of crappy, and the story a little too slow, but for what it's worth the whole movie is in the public domain, you can watch it right here.



What would you do if you or someone you loved was turned into a zombie? Not the brain eating kind, the more historically correct voodoo kind?

And Now... We Go to Work...

Well it has been an "interesting" week. My wife had the baby, that is obvious, but then we had some difficulty. The TTN thing, that I have already talked about. But also, they (the hospital, or more accurately my daughter's nurse) gave her too much D5 (A drug that contains 5% dextrose) . So it made my daughter's blood sugar go nuts. What a bunch of dumbasses. Thankfully, it was only 45 minutes, and she went back to normal fairly quickly. But then she was jaundice. And we had to take a bili-blanket home. Which is a whole 'nother thing.

So you think that is all. But it isn't.... My other daughter, the teenager may have the flu. Never a dull moment I tell you. And the work has just begun...

Caught in the Wild

Baby Lost

This is second hand information, but the story is good, and none of it really happened, so here goes. My wife was telling me about this dream she had. It went something like this: We were all at her childhood home, and my wife was arguing with my 14-year-old about how the baby (the one not born yet... or will be by the time you read this) needs a hat if she is going outside. So my 14-year-old gets a tennis visor. Well that goes over like a fart in church, which is to say, not too good.

My wife insists on a real hat and of course my 14-year-old does, what 14-year-olds do... gets mad and in a huff, and puts a real wintertime hat on the baby. So she (my daughter) takes to baby for a walk, but before she goes, she has to take out the trash, which she does (in a huff) and when she returns... the baby is gone.

She explains how she left the baby in this box. Why in the world she would do that? So my wife goes outside with my teenager and shows her where she left the baby, and there are all kinds of baby dolls, and my teenager say, just take one of these. I have no clue, this is not my dream. And the baby? We never found her. Who leaves a baby just laying around? These guys think it is ok...

The System

Ok, this is written a week ahead of time... for obvious reasons, but anyway. My wife said we would be ok on money with her being out of work for the pregnancy. She up'ed her disability insurance to compensate for it. That was almost two years ago. So when it comes time to collect... umm wait a minute... They don't want to pay us shit. They said it had to go to their doctor, and he would have to say yea or nay about whether or not it was a "real disability" and whether or not they would pay.

A friend of mine once said, insurance is nothing more than a gamble, they are betting that nothing will happen to you, you are betting something will happen to you. Either way you lose, which really sucks. Because even if something does happen to you, the insurance company can find a way out of paying you anyway, then you are a double loser.

It took the disability insurance company 6 weeks to pay us, 7 if you really want to be strict about it. That really, really sucks. I mean my wife is the "bread winner" of our family... by 10 or 15 bucks a paycheck, but you get the point. Take away 6 weeks of pay, and suddenly we are not ok with money. Now we had money in savings, so it really didn't hurt us. But it could have and this whole health insurance reform does not address this in the least.

One company makes it look like, if you get hurt or whatever, you have a duck take care of everything, while you concentrate on feeling better. Nothing could be further from the truth. (that wasn't my wife's insurance anyway) You have to prove that you are hurt or can't work, to them, and that can lead to stress. Now if my wife would have had the baby prematurely, it would have been paid for, cost a lot more, but paid for. Sometimes I wonder about the whole system and what if anything I can do about it.

I Endorse The Shot

Just to let you know... I took the annual flu shot and the H1N1 (swine flu) "shot" the mist up the nose the other day. And I can say, I feel nothing, which is what I'm supposed to feel. There were/are some reports of "hey I took it and now I'm bald", or "I did it and I grew a third testicle", or whatever. I really don't know what they said, but it was a bunch of hooey anyway.

If anyone is a prime candidate for having something bad happen to them, when it should be good, it is me. I came, I took, I went about my day, the end. I would say that unless you like to gamble or you like being sick, go take the shot. It's easy, it doesn't hurt, and it will if not make you immune to the flu, it will certainly make you better off than if you had nothing.

I had the flu one time, and that is not an experience I ever wish to repeat. I have been in healthcare pretty much my whole life, via my work, or my mom's work, or as a patient for different things. I have seen the insides of doctor's offices, emergency rooms, and various other clinics, go take the shot.