I always believe in hedging bets. There's nothing that says you can't throw yourself wholeheartedly into the renovation, while also dusting off your resume and casually browsing the corporate job listings. You have the luxury of lounging around waiting for the perfect new job to come up, and if it doesn't, you're no worse off than you were before. You can even take a sick day here and there, go on interviews, and turn any job offers down if they're not mind-blowingly better than where you are now.

Update, she has a cardiac arrhythmia and the doctors want to put in a pacemaker and she won't let them. Spouse thinks he can convince her on this point.

It occurs to me that I don't know as I can continue to tell the story. It's not my story; I can't tell it accurately; I shouldn't speculate; and it's about my friends, and it's not fair. If I knew more, would it be something I could post online? Maybe not.

Spouse is an occasional dwellar, by the fact that we have been friends for 34 years. I hope someday he will tell the story himself.

It isn't like you're doing an investigation for Rolling Stone, just passing ongoing glimpses to friends. :)

One of Mum's oldest friends has one of our favourite friends; tumerous growth. Fucking cancer.
The growth is malignant.

It's in his thigh and Mum says it's visible, and as hard as wood. Ignored by his wife, who went with the if-we-don't-talk-about-it-it's-not-there approach. Same woman who told Mum all I needed was "tough love" and she shouldn't let me live with them any more. And we know how that worked out. Although having mistakenly read a letter Mum sent to a friend this May I think I know what was behind that advice. Mum wrote that I was 42 and living like an 18 year old - not a word about my mental health issues or how hard I'd been fighting my addiction. Huh.

Anyway.
Prognosis not good.
The consensus seems to be that once you can actually SEE cancer, you're looking at excising it. And it's high up enough that it would mean a complete limb amputation. 73. Not a great age for massive surgery.

Still, the full diagnosis is not yet in. There is still a little hope.
I don't like his wife, but he was always very kind to me. He's in the system now, so at the very least he'll be getting some pain relief. He's been in serious pain for well over a year now.

In different news, I went to see Still Alice last night (special showing at Otley Courthouse with a Q&A after). Yes, I knew it would upset me. Yes, I cried. I cried my way through my own tissue and then through the one the man next to me offered. Fuck dementia as well.

It's lymphoma. He's going through chemo. Part hospital based, part home care.
And it's not just in his thigh, it's affected some of his major organs.

But he is not in pain any more.
So he's probably happier than he's been in the last year.

Sorry, Sundae. :(

I lost my shit on a bunch of customers today in a very big way, although it was only 1/10 of what I had for them.

Maybe I'll get fired. It was pretty intense, even if they were total douche bags. I did, however, warn my boss that I was a ticking time bomb and he might want to deal with these people himself.

He did, I guess because he had to ring them up.

Sorry, man. I hope the boss is understanding.

Thanks.

I wrote out a more detailed post but wasn't sure how identifiable it might be.

The f bomb was dropped, among others and aspersions against people's parents

I don't know, I thought one of the hardest parts for me of my job - or any service job where you interact with people - is having to keep nice and calm when they are behaving like complete douchebags.

But today I stayed in after my shift for a few minutes with my boss to handle the morning pressure, and had a phone call of just that kind, and my boss was like "why are you... No just hang up. you don't need to take that shit, when someone talks like that just hang up."

Hopefully your employer thinks the same.

It's a bit awkward because we are friends. Not super close, but we've known each other a long time. I know he has issues with this class of customer too, (twice the work, half the money)
On the one hand, he'd rather not have these people as customers, on the other, he doesn't want to turn business away.

I took the next three days off. This was supposed to be a very pert time thing helping out friends who were short staffed, but it has become more than part time and I can't really handle that amount of stress at this point.

I guess I'll find out this friday.

I know I didn't say anything he wasn't thinking.

This helps, I'm sure.

Hopefully.

Don't you wish every conflict had douchebags though?

The tough situation - who also happen to be my answer for the thread title today - are those that are annoyingly lacking in douchebags, the ones where everyone just does what makes sense and is perfectly right from their perspective out of where they sit on the board, but in the meantime this reshapes the board and bring it to slowly collapse on itself into a shitty game where everyone looses to different degrees.

Examples include the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, developing countries vs the green movement, and as I found out last night, my would-be love life.

I am pissed off at myself for not truly realizing what the situation was until after I've put myself out there and have become way too emotionally invested, pathetically failing to comfort myself with some degree of pride in making the choice to opt-out of the game once I did realize what was happening, and overall extremely disappointed at what it means, sporadically cursing and punching walls every time it sinks in a few more inches into the emotional mud.

The worst part is, I would have probably "won", except that in this case winning just meant loosing slowly with more pain rather then faster with less. I chose less. Maybe one day, under different circumstances... Wishful thinking.

This:

http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/...l#incart_river

I read about the crash and saw the cars and then... the polo coach emailed parents and told us it was a friend of the team and she had told the boys and it didn't look good. Hector was visibly shaken when I picked him up from practice. Thor is away at band camp and doesn't know yet. My kids all knew this polo player. He coached Thor this summer. He's Hebe's age. Saline and Skyline come together to form Wolverine Water Polo out of season. The varsity polo team are away at a tournament, so Hector has support, at least. Oh Fuck. Just needed a little outlet for my grief I guess.



I'm just

Sorry to hear that, monster, stay strong for the kids, but that doesn't mean brush it off by any means. You can help them grieve while you do, it's easier together, knowing you're not alone in your feelings.

very sorry monster.

So sorry to hear this, monster.

That's a horrible message to have to deliver to your kids. I am sorry.

That is terrible.







Much lower level: Pete took Lil G to try to get the passport process underway. Remind me to stop blanket defending postal workers.

Very sorry to hear that, monster. Terrible news.

Sorry Monster.

From Mum. She's referring to my fuck lymphoma card, which had an E-type Jag on the front, because that man does love his cars.

[abbreviated names for privacy]
* my asterisk.
From here (MacMillan cancer charity link)
Given the amount of time he has already been suffering, I have a bad feeling about this.

Found out last week that not one, but four staff got into my oncology records last winter multiple times over several weeks. Just for shits and giggles, apparently. Right around then all the daily death-wishing and hopes for maiming and other disasters started, and went on until the end of May when the staff of the practice we share space with got so disgusted they told me. They'd told my managers in April but nothing was done. I overheard a phone call to my nurse manager in the late winter in which she was being chastised, and she was highly nervous when she hung up; still, I didn't know details and never heard anything from the hospital. I forgot about it until it popped back into my head during a meeting with the CEO on Aug 14, and like a dummy I blurted out, "I think X got into my medical records!" He looked at me sideways and asked, "Have you filed a complaint?" I shook my head, still processing the memory (chemo brain), and he said heartily that the great thing was not to look back but to move forward.

So on getting home I moved forward by picking up the phone and requesting an audit. And now I know, except that it's much nastier than I ever imagined and makes me sick. The hospital covered it up too, and then blamed me for all the shite that happened after.

I am just drained. This has been the worst year ever.

Bloody hell, hon, what a total headfuck.

God's teeth, some people are just fucking weird. What goes through their brains? Baffling.



I was wondering how you were. Nice to see you - wish you weren't having to deal with this shit.

WTF... OK, there's a few layers of fucked up there. How do you even get your shit and giggles from looking at someone's tumor pics to began with? How does that become a giggle worthy moment?

I know, right? That's several steps beyond normal workplace douchebaggery.

How transparent. Move forward without the lawsuit part? Nuh-uh!! The stakes just got RAISED!!

Are these not at least four provable HIPAA violations, due to willful neglect and not corrected, each of which indicates between $50,000 and $1,500,000 in fines, and up to a year in jail for each offender?

http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/phys...orcement.page?

I don't even know what it is.

It feels like it's somewhere between evil and necktie. WTF is going on there? What's making them tick that way?

I realize the hypocrisy of saying this while condemning them for what they did to orthodoc, but I am having the strongest urge to play around and pick apart their brain matter.

There is no way to privately sue (directly) for a HIPAA violation. The government can pursue criminal charges against both covered entities and individuals if it decides that files were accessed for personal gain or with malicious intent ... I would say the latter applies in my case, and I hope the government agrees, but who knows. Maybe publicly wishing and hoping for my death every day for three months doesn't meet the test. Depending on how many times my records were accessed over that multi-week period, every time is a separate violation with its own penalty. Also, the failure to notify and correct carries fines for every day not corrected. After all these months, that's going to add up. So the hospital is going to be unhappy about that. The fines will probably be more than I would collect in a lawsuit.

A lawsuit would have to be for invasion of privacy and/or emotional distress, damage to reputation, etc. It is possible but it can't be related directly to the HIPAA violations.

With egregious HIPAA violations, some people have been criminally charged in recent years just for snooping, as a deterrent to the sort of thing that has happened to me. Jail time hasn't been huge - months, usually - but has occasionally been handed out, and often fines in the $thousands along with community service. I think it's appropriate. I don't think anyone wants to imagine people snickering over their surgeries or private medical information, or taking it into the front lobby of the clinic.

Right now I am just depressed. Everyone tells me to be angry but I just want to climb into bed and disappear.

Let your lawyer figure out the best course of action. Call Saul ASAP.

You go get paid. Are you kidding me. Cancer patient mistreated by unlawful staffers. Come on now. Once charges come out, lawyers should line up behind you.

Is that the way of the Canucks? Fuckin' Sergeant Preston wouldn't go to bed, Wayne Gretzky wouldn't go to bed. :headshake But if you insist, want some company?

Get pissed and go on a tear. Lawyer up, testify before Congress, write up the whole story for the internet to be outraged over. Make an example of the scum, demand the death penalty. Well maybe not that, but forehead branding, and they'll never work in this town again.

If you want to be in charge, and demand people do their jobs properly... and I'll bet you do, you've got to have thick skin, because they'll see you as the common enemy. Fine, but you also have to have the courage to take these clowns to the woodshed when they cross the line. You go girl!

I knew I remembered something about this...
http://cellar.org/showthread.php?t=30905

Orthodoc, I think you might have had the right instinct back then - to leave. Is that still viable or is the tumor business creating medical bills that make it less then wise?

Let the lawyers take care of angry. you take care of you.

Thanks all. I think I need to refill my energy tank, there's lots of anger, just out of energy right this minute. Luckily the personal lawsuits don't have to be filed now - there's no deadline, I'm told. I took a short leave to get calm after finding out how bad the violations were - I was expecting one snooping session by the nurse manager, not what was found - I couldn't bear to look at her the rest of the day. I don't know if she'll still be there when I return, or if they'll have sacked her in the two weeks I'm off. I know what I'd do in their shoes, but who knows. They haven't done the sensible thing so far.

I am definitely going independent, one way or another. I had just proposed going independent the week before this happened, and the CEO was open to it. No formal negotiations had started, though. I should probably get things going pronto - the ONLY decent office space in town is in the hospital's new building. There is literally nothing else here. I would have to rent old industrial space and completely renovate at my own expense otherwise - possible but very expensive - and wouldn't have any access to radiology services without the hospital's blessing, and I do need radiology. Again, I will check into alternatives because in some ways being utterly separate would be nice. But this is a one-trick-pony town. I could leave but there's a huge need here for Occ Med with no competition, really. I'd like to stay. Also don't want the misery of selling this place and moving. The real estate market here is dead, we'd take a bath.

I bet a short meeting with a lawyer will do wonders for your energy tank, like Griff said, let them do all the angry.

I don't know what type of practice you want to open, but my GP (PCP will always be angel dust in my mind) has her office on the first floor of a tiny house. There's a waiting room, a bathroom, a small room with scale, BP machine, washer/dryer, and the examining room. It looks just like a house. The only doctor office-y stuff is an eye chart and an examining table with paper, and I think there is a glass jar with cotton balls, but I may just be adding that myself to fill out the picture.

It's a micro-practice.
http://www.impcenter.org/
http://www.aafp.org/fpm/2007/0900/p27.html
http://idealmedicalpractices.org/static/JFPM2007-8.pdf

Buy a hunk of plutonium from the Russian black market and negative plates. You're good to go.
Oh, and some cheap expendable help. ;)

orthodoc, you have a ton of advice here, take your pick, I won't pile on.

however, I'm really happy to hear from you again, despite these fucked up circumstances. I feel bad for you and the ... words fail me... seriously fucked up work situation. I've had my own fill of that shit and it's poison, I'm so sorry.

I know you have the things you need to succeed--mettle, resilience, intelligence, creativity, and at the risk of sounding self serving, friends. Don't overlook the fact that you have friends.

Please, please keep in touch.

Yes, she has all those qualities, but a serious handicap to being a manager. She's too attractive to be feared. When dressing down a subordinate, they don't hear a word, they're occupied with, man, she's hot, even the ladies. :yesnod:

So, orthodoc, I remembered a story from a couple months ago about the mistreatment of a patient by the medical staff. In this case, the anesthesiologist mocks the patient, and the others in the room join in with junior high school "humor", it's all very juvenile, and utterly unprofessional. Turns out the patient had his phone set to record and when he played it back after the procedure, all the audio had been captured. In court, he got $500,000.

I wonder if there's any applicable precedent in this case for you to take advantage of.

Maybe I can get the name of his lawyer, haha.

But with my luck, there won't be comparable statutes in PA. There will be ridiculously high bars to proving emotional distress or invasion of privacy, or something.

Sorry, I'm irritable after talking to a glassbowl lawyer yesterday who was very dismissive. I'm talking to another one tomorrow, however. At least there's no deadline for personal injury lawsuits. I do have to get a few things ironed out in the very short term, before going back to work; I'm focusing on that right now. Then I'll work on lining up someone for the personal stuff. It seems that I have to have a diagnosis (and treatment) from a licensed therapist/psychiatrist/psychologist in PA to even have an emotional distress case considered. Invasion of privacy can fall under one of four areas, and this does seem to fit at least one. However, one thing at a time. I have to go back to work soon, and I don't want to be sitting 4 feet from the worst offender (or so it seems); have to get to work on that.

I've got nothing that hasn't already been said. Chin up, rest up, and let the lawyers chew up what needs chewing up. Concentrate on you.

Hiya Ortho!!

Sorries 'bout the shitstorm.

So we seem to all be focusing on the shitty coworkers making fun (?!) at tumor pics, and not on the fact there is a tumor to have pics of...

Orth, are you... Dying?

Only of embarrassment at the moment, she's been fighting this for awhile, and I think winning so far.

Good to hear :)

F*CK CANCER
 

The appointment Mum couldn't miss (referred to in the Bumming your Stone thread) was the results of a cancer check-up. I kinda knew it was, because I couldn't think of anything else as important that she wanted to keep secret.

What I didn't know is that she'd been having pain for a few weeks, in a specific location (part of her breast.)

Results today.
She has breast cancer. Again.

It's been caught early, as it was last time. But last time I was living with them and could help, even though sometimes she felt I was more of a hindrance...

I've done most of my crying. Away from her of course.
And I did what I was ostensibly here to do - look after Dads, take him shopping and make sure he had his medication with food at the right time.

But bloody hell. I wasn't prepared for this,
And no, I know it's not a death sentence. But it shakes my world to its core. And I shake enough anyway.
All my thoughts are with Mum though. She has Dad and me to worry about, let alone her own health (this is the order in which she'll think about things).
I love her very much.

Fuck Cancer. :mad:

Shine on, that's horrible on top of everything else. I know she'll be ok, that they caught it early, but it's bloody unfair she (and you) has to deal with this crap.

*hugs*

Fuck cancer

:(

I'm sorry Sundae. That's horrible.

That sucks.

Glad it was caught early... Still. Once people start adding the word "again" to breast cancer and legitimately been able to sing "hello breast cancer my old friend I've come to cry from you again"... Can't something be done to stop the repeats? If not an outright mastectomy then at least emptying them from mammary glands and replacing them with whatever plastic surgeons use these days... IDK, there has to be something that's more practical then having a seasonal on/off relationship with something that horrible.

Mum's immediate reaction? "Take it off - take both of them off if necessary."
But that's not appropriate for the type of cancer, apparently.

I don't know why and I won't pretend - all I know is what she told me, Mum would have them lopped off without a second thought if it would help, but has been told it won't.

Fuck cancer.

Sent by thought transference

I'm sorry, Sundae. You all deserve hugs.

shit

Fucking fuck. So sorry Sundae. :(

She had her first appointment today.
It's Grade 3. For people who haven't had experience with cancer, that's teh serious. Not the worst, I admit. But still more serious than we all thought.

It may be a full mastectomy AND chemo AND that might not work anyway.
But they have to let patients know the worst case scenario, so it might not be as bad as that.
Initial surgery scheduled for 7-8 October. Mum wants me there to look after Dad, and in case she comes home and there's complications (hemorrhage was suggested as a potential.) However slight the possibility is, Dads would not know what to do if that happened.

Christmas in London may be cancelled.
I laughed it off to Mum, wanting her to know I didn't care and she was more important.
I will cry if we can't go though. Because the above is true - she is FAR more important than a silly hotel visit. It's just I know what she's invested in it - how important it was for her, to have a special Christmas while Dad was still capable of dealing with it - even if he didn't remember it.

Sorry that I'm being all maudlin.
I know I'm not the only person with things to deal with here.
I'm just laying it out as I feel it, trying to cope with it without the old poor me, poor me, pour me another.

Not maudlin. Facing up to shit and feeling teh sad. This is allowed. In fact this is the place for all that. Massive cyber-hugs, dear! X


Sent by thought transference