Vent thread

That sucks.   Hopefully you all can work something out.

Here's mine. When we moved in 2012, we sold our old house to my brother on a contract for deed. Now that he's had his current job for over a year and a half, he figured he would be able to refinance the loan with a regular mortgage. This would allow us to cash out and allow him to improve his cash flow due to the lower interest rates. Yeah, NO. The loan wasn't approved because of peeling paint on the exterior of the house. The irony of it all? He's a painter by trade! I sit here SMDH.  Frustrating doesn't even begin to describe it.

My youngest has a soccer tournament this weekend that requires travel to another city. The first game isn't until noon so we didn't have to get up and rush off this morning. But the second game is not until 4:30 so we'll be too late getting home to plan a nice dinner. I wanted BOTH games today to be scheduled at my complete convenience, you know?

My husband has been unemployed for a year now. It stinks. It is very hard to see the effort that he is putting in with absolutely nothing to show for it. A good friend was kind enough to call yesterday and give me helpful tips on what my husband needs to be doing differently. I wish my sarcasm could be heard through this post. It was far from helpful and extremely condescending.

Sometimes when you aren't involved in the situation it is best to offer an ear, and keep your advice to yourself. In this case I don't even need the ear because I've quit discussing the situation!

That's awful! A good friend would be helping him network.

I hope things turn around for your DH.

Mine isn't so awful, but I haven't had the time to sleep in in the morning for weeks now and I finally get a day and Special Olympics calls me at 8:05am. I feel HOSTILE. I love Special Olympics, but I want to scream from the mountaintops to never donate to them because I hate people I don't know calling me, and I hate it more early in the morning. I HATE IT.

*warning: whiny vent ahead*

I have a weird eye thing. It isn't a very common weird eye thing (it is actually a neurological thing that effects my vision.) It is sometimes hard to to differentiate between the weird eye thing and actual visual deterioration. As I get older, my actual vision is getting worse-as evidenced by my recent vision exam. Except...because the weird eye thing, the actual vision test is difficult. The technician who was conducting the exam kept getting frustrated because I was trying to explain that it was sometimes hard for my to tell her what was better (slide x compared to slide y) because of the weird eye thing. (And part of that is that apparently my eyes tend to work independently of each other so I tend to see the 'middle' of the apparatus vs the slide as a whole...hard to explain.) She was getting frustrated and snippy, I was almost crying and all I want to do is having things not fuzzy any more. 

The actual eye doctor was pretty awesome, she at least had a clue. So she was pretty understanding of my frustration and why I was frustrated. There isn't a 'cure' and agreed that the RX probably wouldn't be as effective as it would be for someone with out my weird eye thing, but it would definitely make a difference. And she helped me make an appointment with a neuroopthomologist (a rare breed) so I can follow up with them to make sure the weird eye thing hasn't turned into something else and to have someone more familiar with weird eye eye exams follow up on both the RX and how it is working.

The whole experience is precisely why I rarely get my eyes checked. I get frustrated, they get frustrated because I don't answer the standard questions the way they are used to, everyone is frustrated and I still can't see shit.

Sorry you are sleepy this morning, but glad your puppy has someone who is willing to care for them and understand what they need.

I have three vents today. 

My Dad was admitted to the hospital late yesterday afternoon with pancreatitis, a blocked bile duct and gallstones. He is on a blood thinner so he can't have surgery yet. I'm totally frustrated with his living situation and there's nothing I can do about it. 

My daughter and granddaughter have lived with us for almost 10 months. Most of the time it's good but some days I just want to scream. It's really difficult for all of us at times. The worst is when dd thinks dh is judging her. I always feel like I'm in the middle of things. 

Last one...I gave up a small message board I had been part of for many years in January after a comment the originator of the board made.  She used a nasty term to describe the then President elect and it rubbed me the wrong way in spite of the fact that I'm not a fan of his. Her language had never been used on this board prior to this and it bothered me. She had said things before this but not in the terms she used that particular day. I emailed her about it and she never responded so I chose to leave. By leaving I feel like a lost a couple of friends and I miss them. The whole thing makes me really sad. 

Thanks.  She's my furry baby.

Lots of people with tough things going on.

I have nothing profound to say. But you are heard. Life can really suck and be hard sometimes.

Hang in there.

Mine is my own fault.  I didn't research as well as I should have done. I thought my renter had 30 days to move out.  Because he has been a month-to-month renter for over a year, he gets 60 days.  Ugh.

ooooh yes, the "weird eye" problems. We go to two specialists for my DD's eye problems.  Each is necessary for different reasons and they respect each other's specialty but do not always agree.  Also, they are both so focused on (and even excited about) these special and unique "weird eye" problems that we have to remind them she also has normal eye problems.   Before the "weird" stuff happened, she had your typical problems that still need to be addressed. 

I feel pretty ridiculous for mine, but I'm going to post it anyway because I was annoyed. DS asked me to bring him Burger King for lunch yesterday. I gave them his order at the drive-thru: Bacon King with mayo, lettuce, and pickle. First the screen says Bacon King, Only Mayo, Only Lettuce, Only Tomato. I say "Pickle not tomato." She says, "Only lettuce, mayo, and pickle?" I say yes. She says, "No cheese or bacon?" I ordered a BACON king. Yes I want bacon. The cheese I can let slide, even though the picture has cheese. It took her three tries, completely wiping the screen and starting over, until she had the right order. When DS opened it, he had bacon and cheese, and mayo and lettuce. But they gave him ketchup instead of pickles. So much for "Special orders don't upset us."

It's a big vent. Or a pity party. And it is gonna be long.

Monday morning I had another stroke, in the same part of my brain as the first one. I had all the typical symptoms. Face drooping, tingling and weakness on one side, and slurred speech. I called 911 and the EMTs took one look at me and rushed me lights and sirens to the nearest hospital with a stroke center, fortunately only 10 minutes away. They did a cat scan and saw a small area of new damage and confirmed it was a stroke. But the symptoms were already starting to resolve by the time I got to the hospital. So they admitted me and kept me all week for tests and observation.

Like with the first stroke, they couldn't find a cause. And it doesn't seem to have caused any additional permanent damage. My face is slightly wonky on the affected side, but you have to look for the asymmetry. And I have mild aphasia, which causes me to have trouble with verbal communication sometimes by not being able to find the right word, or phrase a sentence just right. And I have some minor weakness in my affected leg after standing or walking a bit that causes pain and makes me limp. I don't need any kind of physical or speech therapy, I came through both strokes relatively unchanged. Fatigue is the only serious problem, and I was told that might get better in time.

But, they don't know what caused it, which means they really don't know how to prevent more strokes.

I've had multiple cat scans, MRIs, MRA (angiograms), EEGs, sonograms, and various other cardiac tests and lab tests. The only thing that hasn't been done is contrast imaging, because I have a possible iodine allergy.

Nothing abnormal was ever found. I have a minor elevation in my triglycerides, but it's not near high enough to be a stroke risk. Same with blood glucose. I'm a type 2 diabetic, but tightly controlled. But when I follow up with my endocrinologist Monday they want to discuss whether or not I should start medication to bring my triglycerides down into the low-normal range, and possibly work towards getting my blood glucose to the lower end of non-diabetic just to be safe. I had high-normal blood pressure at the first stroke, so they put me on medication for that. But it worked too well and gave me hypotension. Since they had me confined to my bed or a chair in the hospital, it got down to 80/38 at one point, and that's just too low, so that medication was adjusted and may be discontinued.

They have me taking Plavix and low dose aspirin for now to help prevent more clots. And advice to follow a low fat, low sugar, low salt, moderate carbohydrate calorie restricted diet, and walk 30 minutes a day (which I had already been mostly doing anyway).

I follow up with a neurologist next month to see where to go from here. There may be an issue with transient cranial vasospasms, which would cause very brief interruptions in the blood flow to that part of my brain. But if that's the case, it's not a well-understood problem, and the treatment options are limited, and mostly what I'm already doing.

So that's that. And after 5 days in the hospital, all I have is an otherwise clean bill of health and a long list of what's not causing the strokes. But only a possible guess as to what might be causing them.