my guy with his gloves off

Be forewarned You might not like this: At last, John McCain took the gloves off (ever so slowly and with the utmost of care not to punch to hard) but gloves off none the less and exposed the deepest foundation of the opponent Barack Obama who will be known as BHO. Sarah Palin on the other hand is apparantly my kind of gal, and no PC about her.... While John is not the most ideal of true blue Republicans as a conservative, he does have a passion for this country and far more integrity than his "opponent" could dream of. He served his country with his hard line during his captivity to not take any special favors to be sent home early, he has fought hard in his political service that it is the government of the people, by the people and for the people. You can't fault him for that in the responsible way he has carried himself fighting for his people of Arizona, and I trust him with my future security for America. His ability to place conservative, pro life Supreme Court Judges will be his legacy that will go on for many decades ahead of us. He won me over starting with his debate on Rick Warren and the answers to his questions. While BHO had the fervor there for awhile of a rock star like we might have seen with the arrival of the beatles from across the pond in the past, he's lost his shine thankfully. The media is not where I get my information and truely can't stomach mainstream news, and have been in rehab from it for the last year and feel like a cleansing has occurred!

Here are my concerns as to character of BHO; leading point; sadly, he was the main proponent to the legislation in IL, where when a botched abortion occurs, the doctor can terminate the life upon delivery regardless of any chance to save the child.. This is about as far as you can take euthanasia, but than again, once that's acceptable (and it is in IL already), those of us with chronic disease, the senior citizens in nursing homes, disabled americans with a hopeless outcome should be concerned - you might be next on someones legislation to cut health care costs by eliminating our care... exposed: is it more than a coincidence that BHO has for the last 20 years (just beyond high school) in using his own words, had as a pastor and a mentor Rev Wright who spews hatred, bigotry and treasonist statements and uses the Lords name in vain. Rev Wright preached at him, married him, baptized his girls... isn't this a big influence and to only stop associating yourself with him after the media exposed it briefly? My pastor has been influencial in my life when this person is that to me..... Is it just a coincidence that he took the oath of office in the living room of Ayers who was a radical who speaks out against America, wishes after 9/11 that he had done more bombings? it goes on and on as to who he's said he admires Hugo Chavez from Venezuela who hates America! BHO worked for ACORN for his community organizing and contributed as a lawyer later in his career on there behalf and than got them government funding as a Senator? And they are now under investigation for voter fraud in 12 states? Scary is that many in his campaign who might get cabinet seats, have been heavily involved in the financial instituitions who had to be bailed out, and yet they received 100's of millions of dollars, and Obama received campaign donations from them and voted for things that were in there favor. No investigation?

NOTE TO GOV'T IN GENERAL: My household budget has to be responsible and since I'm the only one who can earn what I spend, spending has to be cut first, and that is what I expect John McCain to do for me and not Obama with his tax and spend plans and spreading the wealth of socialism mentality.

Glad to say he has been showing some fighting spirit this last week as well.

Epidural day

Ahhh.. with this Fall of not having any of our kids in a school where they play sports, it has left well LOTS OF TIME TO BE FREE! And yet I have just seemingly filled it with seeing medical doctors, having lab work done, going back to see the doc for the results... So this week I finally got into the ENT after purging my body of "ibuprofen" like products for a couple of weeks and having headaches like never before since than. Guess I really was using them alot... so anyway, the wart like thing in the back of the nostril was taken out, and stitched closed - which is painful for a couple of days! And this afternoon I was moved up in the schedule for the surgery center in Los Alamitos and Dr Mikhail did the epidural for the herniated disc's and it was fast - in and out in about 55 minutes... Shane was glad, as he only had time to run the errands to Target and get back to pick me up. So I'm feeling really good, better than expected.. and will have to wait a few days to decide if "it worked"... optimism - optimism - optimism. While I'm supposed to ice and not drive for 24 hours, tonight is Alpha and I'm not missing that.... ahhhh "Shane, what are you doing tonight"

prayer request for surgery process

As many of you know, I have been in a battle with a cyst in the left foot for two years that brings about pain with; very much standing, long stretch of walking, stepping odd angles, uneven surfaces, sudden change of direction, climbing stairs, rotation of ankle. I've had two arthroscopic surgeries that did not have success (37% failure rate) and so the following procedure had been decided on and as a last resort it was planned for Nov 17. Cartilage cells were removed from knee at the time of the last ankle surgery in March and are in Texas facility waiting insurance approval to be cultured (2 week time frame).

Today a letter came from my ankle surgeon Dr. Richard Ferkel, kind of a standard letter to explain what/why might be the "delay" in the surgery date originally planned for Nov. 17 to remove the cyst from the Talus Dome in my foot. I have been determined to be a candidate for the "Autologous Chondrocyte Implantation (ACI) of Carticel (cultured Chondrocytes) into the ankle. Carticel is frequently implanted into the ankle in other countries, it has not been done with a tremendous frequency in the United States. This is partially due to the elongated process the FDA takes to approve products for particular services. Carticel is FDA approved for implantation into the knee, but not into the ankle. Therefore insurance companies consider this service experimental. This doctor has had success in overturning the experimental ruling with some carriers along with the lack of any viable solutions for my problem and has done this procedure numerous times. They are working hard on my behalf to resolve this positively.

So I am asking those who have received this to please pray on my behalf this; that the letter drafted and submitted to the Aetna Insurance Transplant dept, will be approved the first time when they receive it and the surgery can be performed before the end of this fiscal year 2008 as planned. The cost of this surgery is quite high, and that I have met my out of pocket maximum for the year is best scenario for us financially, the financial implications of a delay or rejection of insurance benefits would be a big blow. The letter was dictated yesterday hopefully, and so should be sent soon to Aetna whether by mail or Fax...... grateful thanks

epidural scheduled

The epidural is now scheduled for this Thursday 3pm as they had a cancellation after they originally put me on the schedule in two weeks. two weeks of headaches, I would have been unable to live with by then. so hoping for great relief on the first try with this treatment of herniated discs.

Today I made tons of phone calls, checking insurance coverage with the Carticel Care company in TX who has possesion of my cartilage cells extracted in March for the transplant surgery. I asked some questions about how long it takes to start the culturing procedure and get the cells back to CA upon insurance approval (insurance approval is holding up the start) and he assured me that anywhere from 2-4 weeks but 6 at the longest... so the delay we are expecting might not be as long from the Nov17th date.. but since my insurance through the end of the year is 100%, getting it done with this in mind is important - just the cartilage procedure alone is $30,000. So I than shifted gears and called the surgeons insurance billing and asked him to check all of the "middle men" issues and assure me whether they are in or out of network providers (carticel, cadaver bone, 2day hospital stay) so that I know if I'm going to have any financial debt from this.. his answer was "no" all are in network providers.. so for today I am breathing a sigh of relief...

Monday musings

This weekend I've been laid out with a sore upper back from two herniated discs that are getting worse and the stiff neck and headaches were brutal, and still today it kept me home from work to do more of the same, heating pad, sitting on couch... and I finally gave in to taking pain meds prescribed for the back for my head... very little help. I'm waiting for a Pain Medicine office to get it together with insurance approval/scheduling an epidural.. after this weekend I called and got the run around as to "why" it's stalled and than called orthopedic and sicked the dr. assistant on them, so I'm not a patient bureaucracy type of person.. These dormant herniations were aggravated when recovering from ankle surgery and crawling on my butt up and down the stairs for 6 weeks at a time...

If I'm supposed to be learning patience because of needing it... chronic pain doesn't help.

Brian brought home his "new" dirt bike tonight and so he's gone showing it to the girlfriend before he unloads it (into the cleaned up garage)

Greg and Shane left to pick Ashley up from the airport, this weekend she competed in the Leukemia and Lymphoma Cancer run in San Francisco. We were very proud of her involvement in this. She ran the 1/2 marathon (13.1 miles). Which is an awesome time considering the terrain of that city and that she wasn't able to do the type of training she had wanted, but her hotel roommates had done all the training events and only beat her by 4 minutes to the finish line! She is very sore, but glad that it went well. It's not to late to support her with a donation!! mail it to her at our home address before Nov.10 Ashley's official time in the 1/2 marathon was 2:50.02 and she placed 6315th. Greg said he read that there were 20,000 entries that weekend participating in the marathon.... Isn't that terrific - and believe me she is now SORE! But for a great cause...

Garage Re-organized

okay, there is that ever present drag of a job it's called "cleaning the garage" which is avoided as though it is an announced plague going through the region... But than again, when a certain one of your kids wants/needs to make room for his just received dirt bike.. he's motivated to find the room to store it and well, I/we are the recipient of a organized and cleaned out garage... it is presently going on and husband just went out to "oversee" and the comment coming from the younguns in the north 40 of the yard is that it is now taking longer because reasoning has entered the organization that was in process! ha ha ha ha ha ha I will just remain here and stay far away from the action.. But when I went out there to "peek", it was just beautiful and I didn't have to lift a finger!

oh, what to be when I grow up...

Okay, so this summer in my moments of utter discontent with the drudgery of a job that has great benefits, but insanity for mental stimulus. (yes it just suddenly bothers me).. I asked one of our pastors I work under in Alpha how do you know what your called in life to do? and his response, "Great question, I'm going to do a seminar in late Sept or Oct on just that subject and I'll get back to you on the date" of course I had hoped for the quick for dummies response. Well, this weekend was the inugural seminar with 25 people and it was a productive Sat/Sun of 7 hours of probing, reflecting, putting together a timeline, and than answering questions based on homework we had done before coming... It confirmed what I am feeling led to do, but will continue to work at UPS as I have for 27 years keeping my benefits, and just start by taking class(es) that would be educational for my interest and than see where the Lord leads me at time goes along. Alpha has been where the passion has been ignited, and will be where I stay for now..... more later as it unfolds.

in spite of it....

But I do walk...
Okay, so after my last blog spilling the details all over you... I do want to just say that I am walking in spite of the pain... 2 miles every morning with a friend who decided to join me in the "get into fighting" shape with the last 9 weeks before surgery.. and so we meet at one anothers houses (alternating weeks) at 6am, YES I said 6am - every day and walk and talk... It takes us 30 minutes to walk it, (thats my limit) before my ankle revolts. We had been trying to put together one or two nights at a local park on a cushy track, but one it was just so damn busy there for parking and than when you got onto the track, you were either being passed, or trying to pass the slow ones, and the runners on the inside of this narrow track weren't all that into sharing-too crowded. And the other thing is that by late evening, plans are off track and someone (usually me) had to change, reschedule... and so at 6am I haven't usually even decided whether I want to get out of bed and so I'M AVAILABLE for sure! So than it's a quick shower, breakfast.. or not, and than to the office in time to get a parking spot somewhere in the parking structure and than the 325 steps to my office. (yes, I have a step counter) and two miles is 4576!

Temple in teardown condition

Well, if this body is a temple, I must be in a teardown stage..... a couple of weeks has gone by since the never ending followup doctor visit with orthopeadic surgeon post surgery... My physical therapist had given me "done all I can do for you" speech a couple weeks before that stating that until the doctor determines what is going on with some testing blah blah blah blah... The strength and range of motion was at a good level, just the "using it" was at a pitifully low tolerance of pressure, shifting, sliding without a shooting painful stab through the ankle. (right where I was at the beginning) So he wouldn't do an MRI like I hoped, said he knew what it looked like when he was in there, and the pain just told him that the tumor has to come out as we knew was the possibility.. Nov 17 is the date for the bone transplant in the talus dome and the ugly procedure will once again knock me off my feet and through the recovery process I am pretty well versed in after two surgeries since May 2007, but this won't be arthriscopic.
the gruesome details as I can stomach at this point and have no great anticipation (more trepidation) about going through. An incision of about 4-5 inches will be cut on the inside of the skin crossing over the ankle bone (left foot) and they will first break the bony connection between the ankle/tibia in order to open the space where the talus dome is located (top of foot at base of tibia) in a hard to reach place.. they will than drill out the tumor and scrape it clean, and place a cadaver (dead person's) bone transplant into the space, and from the base of my tibia bone on the top side they will "skim" a membrane off of the tibia and sew this over the newly transplanted bone on three sides. They will than use my cartilage cells they biopsied from my own knee back in March 2008 (we saw this coming). These cartilage cells have been in Texas being cultured, and will be shot under the membrane and over the bone transplanted and than sew the last edge of membrane to the bone... than they will put the ankle/tibia connection back together repairing the break with 2-3 screws.. and than back out sewing it shut... DOESN'T THAT READ LIKE FUN!

30 weeks of the last two years in a cast, walking boot, 2 surgeries all trying to avoid this hair raising surgical procedure they won't even consider until your life has looked like this... so that tells me that NO PICNIC is planned to celebrate. I'm to young to live life this slowed down and so I am trusting that this is necessary and possible to walk without this level of pain and worth the process. I'm not always so cheery about it, but chronic pain will do that to ya!