July 31, 2006

My how I wish I would have adhered to the axiom, " if it ain't broke, don't fix it." I tried my microphone on the other side of my face and had to change the settings as a result. Now I am having difficulty getting the settings exactly back to where I had them previously. My accuracy has diminished significantly and it will probably take a few more weeks to get back my ability to dictate relatively decently -- of course this does not factor in my inability to talk properly. I am never short on self-deprecating comments, as everyone can plainly see.

Despite all my grandiose plans, today proved to be less productive than I had originally anticipated. I did get my hair cut; I did manage to get Austin's glasses adjusted, even though they aren't quite right yet; and I even managed to purchase some new tubing, which I absolutely desperately needed for any type of independence; although I didn't make it by the hospital to turn in my wheelchair or the office of my home builder. I just couldn't get my butt out of bed this morning. If all of the things that I have on my plate aren't enough, my mattress is just about ready to go kaput. I am now desperately asking people on the Quad list to give me advice on how I might go about trying to acquire a rotating mattress through Medicare. They should cover this cost, given that prevents pressure ulcers and is vital to my remaining healthy and independent.

The kids will be returning to school next week and this will mark when my brother's family is scheduled to be living in their new home. I have had them with me so long it is going to be a great transition trying to get used to being alone in my house all over again. Once they have moved I am going to be trying to get my office set up in a rudimentary fashion. I need to make sure that I keep everything away from the walls so that I can employ someone to paint the room in the very near future. Well, I'm going to close for now and hope that I can possibly get more done tomorrow. Perhaps my desk will be rearranged and cleaned. Maybe I might even be able to get the majority of my paper work sorted through and I might even be able to work on getting all of my account balanced out with Quicken. That is probably a bit too much to bite off, but I can always hope. It would also be nice to be able to get a decent blog written, but I just seem to say that the screen thinking about what I am going to write instead of actually writing.

Nonproductive Friday

Once again, another nonproductive day. I don't know what is going on, but it is possibly the impending change in my living arrangement. My brother's family will probably be leaving next weekend I will have to get used to other accommodations once again. They have been living with me for eight months, so I have grown accustom to having everyone around. At times it has seemed to be a bit stifling, but others everything I seem to go well. Since I am living in a new house and neighbors around me are not as familiar as my previous once, I am a little bit more apprehensive. It could also be that I do not have my office set up yet and the prospect of painting and get everything done in there is not appealing.

I hope this thing is legible. I tried putting my new microphone on the other side of my face and I had to change my volume setting. Now I am back onto the other side, but everything needs to be retrained again. Argg. I shouldn't have messed with the microphone. Everything was going pretty well. I well, maybe I'll learn next time.

What the heck

Today was another nonproductive and virtually noneventfull day. Yesterday, was another story altogether. Since I was staying down, I expected Sunday to be like most other Sundays -- in that all I do is watch television. This, however, was not the case at all. Early in the evening, just as I had finished eating, my scalp developed an inordinately horrific itch. At first I thought I was going through dysreflexia (extremely high blood pressure caused by some sort of pain producing affliction), but I wasn't experiencing the normal bladder discomfort. Like a good quad, I had my brother look my body over to make sure nothing was wrong and then take my blood pressure. Everything seemed to be OK. "What the hell is happening?!" And yes I did ask the question out loud. It was at this point my sister-in-law came in and informed me that my face was a dark shade of crimson. Of course she didn't use that particular color, but it sounds better now. After turning on all the lights we soon discovered my body had welts developing all over it. They were developing so fast it was difficult to count how many there were. I was having some sort of allergic reaction, except we could not determine what was causing this allergy. No new medication, my typical Sunday meal of pizza -- since every Sunday is "Pizza Sunday" --, and even the normal brand. My head and neck were itching so bad that it was painful. Two hours later, one tablet of Benadryl, a quarter of a tube of hydrocortisone, and all was better again.

Thank goodness I did not go into anaphylactic shock. At this very moment I still do not know what caused the problem, but I suspect the pizza may have gone bad when the electricity went out the other day. This supposition is supported by the fact that my nephew ate one piece of the pizza I had left over and became violently ill a few hours later. The only thing which diminishes this contention is my niece also had one piece and has remained unaffected. Except, she took off the olives and green peppers. Too bad I don't have Monk here to do that funny hand waving thing and proclaim what or who is really at fault.

BTW, we did check the refrigerator and freezer and everything did appear to be OK.

TGIF?

Today has proved to be a rather not uneventful day, thank goodness. Many of the things I set out to accomplish were achieved, however, I continue to be bogged down with the enormous list of things which need to be done in my house before I will be satisfied. It is very difficult to wait until my office is ready, but I will have to just bide my time. This entry is going to be relatively short, as nothing really happened. I did get a chance to watch the movie "The Village" with my niece and nephew. It was extremely enjoyable to see them holding pillows over their face whenever any scary moments approached. Well, I'm going to close for tonight and probably will not have anything to write about or the next few days. I am going to be going to a friend's birthday party tomorrow, so I know I will not be on the computer at all on Saturday and I will probably end up staying down on Sunday. By how I hate to stay in bed, but my sister-in-law definitely deserve some time off.

Enthusiastic, but lacking power

Please excuse me as I sit here in a state of desolation and reflect on my ex-wife's recent visit. My current melancholy feeling will dissipate rapidly as I become accustomed to the solitude once again, but let me share what you about what has transpired over the last few days. This has been an unbelievable weekend and the fact that I am writing on Wednesday should get some indication of how arduous it really did was. Let me see where do I begin? Initially I wanted to start by writing about how lucky I was to have moved when I did, but that seems to be rather trivial given some of the complexities I encountered over the last few days. Although... now that I think about it, I believe I will begin there anyway. The neighborhood in which I used to live, Westchase Florida, has been undergoing some much-needed upgrades by Verizon over the last few weeks and these improvements usually include extensive digging. It seems, the other day, some subcontractors of Verizon accidentally struck a gas line and this necessitated an emergency visit from the fire department and local police. One would think everyone would be evacuated, but that is not what transpired. All of the residents of the village were prevented from entering the potential danger zone and all of those who were in the affected area were required to stay put. The problem for all of my friends that still live in that community and especially the new owner of my old house is the gas leak was directly under my former driveway and this neighborhood is a series of cul-de-sacs which has only one entrance and exit. Many of the residents were therefore unable to get in or out of their houses. My first reaction was to giggle and feel tremendously sorry for the new owner, but later I begin to thank my lucky stars I was able to move when I did. If they, the fire department, had followed normal protocol and shut off the electricity, can you imagine what I would have looked like had I been still living there? Given my inability to sweat, my need for some sort of power source to aid me in exiting the house on my own, and Florida's harsh, unforgiving humid climate and you come up with a potentially deadly concoction. I would probably have been a clump of goo.


Well, on Saturday I had planned to completely rearrange my garage since my brother is moving in the near future, at least that is the plan, and I was expecting a shipment of furniture to arrive on Sunday, which meant I needed more room in which to temporarily store my old furniture. After working in the hot garage for a few hours and taking periodic breaks, we, my sister-in-law and I, decided to make some pizza for dinner, mainly because it is extremely easy and doesn't require constant supervision. Just as the first pizza was finishing the electricity when out. Thinking this would only last a few minutes, I did not panic. After 20 minutes, however, I began to become concerned and decided to call the electric company. When I was informed, via an electronic message, that they were aware of the outage and anticipated having it repaired in just under 4 1/2 hours, I knew I had to do something. Being one for thinking on my feet, I decided to collect my brother and the rest of his family, and head off to the movies. At least there was air-conditioning and something entertaining to watch. To say was a madhouse is a bit of an understatement and I won't even get into the stress involved in just getting the tickets and making sure my family had a seat here. Although, based on the number of people I continue to see at the movies buying a multitude of snacks, I would have to say our country is well on the way to a healthy recovery, in addition to the fat farm. My how I can easily digress. Anyway, just as the movie was about to start I had my brother call to see if the answering machine was working yet -- this is how I determined if the power has been restored. Low and behold, my voice filled his ear. While this was good news, I was infuriated that I had just spent a tidy sum to see "Pirates of the Caribbean" and I had not even really wanted to watch the movie. It was the only one we could get into which was remotely kid friendly, so watch it we did. (By the way, this movie isn't worth all of the hype).

Thinking Sunday would be a day of relaxation turned out to be the wrong thought. While I did get a chance to sleep in for a while, I was surprised later in the evening when the power went out once again. I couldn't believe my luck or lack thereof. Sure I had escaped a gas leak, but after talking with some of my new neighbors, I had now learned that this was not an isolated electrical loss. It seems this has transpired six or seven times over the last couple of years. And the culprit seems to be the transformer next my house. We had a similar aggravating situation at my last residence. Believe me when I tell you there is nothing more aggravating than paying a lot of taxes for a good infrastructure only to learn the cheap ass electric company is using old-fashioned aboveground lines to tie in your new "high-speed low drag" underground system. It is even more frustrating when only a portion of the neighborhood is affected and it is your part that is suffering. Thinking I had moved away from these problems only to discover the electric company had installed a substandard transformer next to my house, was infuriating to say the least. After calling and learning it would be at least another five hours until they could restore power was even more angering. Why did it have to happen on a Sunday? Hardly anything is open! Sitting in a dark house illuminated by candlelight can be romantic in the right situation, but with the thermostat is rising and with my wife having already departed, this would not be one of those moments. Once again I was loaded into my van with my brother's family and off we went, only this time to do some shopping at Wal-Mart. Knowing we were unable to open the refrigerator, we refrained from purchasing anything cold. So, despite the $70 worth of merchandise I purchased, this trip was still not as productive as one would like. With the electricity still out and the clock pushing 11 p.m., it was decided we could procrastinate no longer -- we had to get home. Arriving a few minutes later to the site of a large electric truck with yellow flashing lights produced euphoric whooping and yelling -- and that was just the adults. The children were ecstatically bouncing up and down in their seats. This unbridled enthusiasm, however, was short-lived when we discovered the electricity would only be one for about an hour before they would be replacing the transformer. Knowing I had some SCI procedures to complete that night only complicated the situation. Even though I didn't get much sleep, I am breathing a little easier now knowing that I have a new larger transformer. Hopefully the electricity will remain on indefinitely now. It is amazing how much we take things like electricity for granted until you are without. Then again, I have read so many entries on the Internet which remind me of this daily. If you are in need of a reminder, just look at Keith's blog. All of this has been a wakeup for me. It is giving me the catalyst to look at how I can possibly exit my house via some sort of battery backup. I guess it is time for me to do some creative thinking once again.

Given the length of this entry, I believe I will shorten up the remainder of it. Monday wasn't bad, but thunderstorms prevented us from utilizing televisions or computers the entire afternoon and evening, therefore no blocking. On Tuesday, as I started this post, I experienced one of the worst cases of hypoglycemia I have ever had. I ended up in bed for the remainder of the evening, but I feel great now. Yes it is tricky for me to keep everything in check, but that is what I must do in order to keep driving on. And rest assured, that is what I intend to do. All of this being said, I am glad to be back on the computer and writing once again. I do have quite a few ideas, but I am not sure how quickly they are going to flow into anything remotely coherent. My gosh this thing is a monstrosity. Now I have to go back and check to see how many errors I had made. I know I'm not going to catch all of them, I'm sure everyone will understand. If not, tough. Just kidding.
Spater,
Billy

State of carelessness has returned

Well, my ex-wife has left and I am once again in a state of melancholy. Hopefully this feeling of desolation will not last long and I will be able to get a little done in the near future. It is often difficult to take your mind off other people when they are gone, but I am normally able to do this by keeping myself focused. Right now focus seems to be something I am seriously lacking. I really need to be concentrating on some sort of career or on finding something to take my mind off negative things in my life. There is still quite a bit to be done around my house and this will probably consume a large amount of my time, but eventually money constraints are going to put a crimp on this and I will eventually have to start looking elsewhere. I am seriously looking into getting a business started, but I really need to find a good idea. It is still upsetting when I think about the opportunity I had about five or six years ago to open a copy shop in an unbelievable location. I could be raking in the bucks as well as keeping my time completely occupied. Oh well, water under the bridge.

This journal should become more active now that my ex has departed and I have a little more time. Once again I am planning on using this as a daily Journal to chronicle what is transpiring in my life and possibly allowing some people who are not familiar with quadriplegia to have a glimpse of the life of an average high-level quadriplegic, as well as a glimpse in to my often convoluted and desultory mind.

A little better, but still upset

Since my last entry I haven't really done too much, but I feel considerably better than I did a week ago. I'm just extremely pissed off that a virus decided to invade my body while Lydia was visiting me. It is amazing how I can go for years without really becoming ill, this doesn't really count my bowel problems which have seemed to diminish over the last few months, only to get sick while she is visiting from Germany. What a bitch! Oh well, I will make the best of the time I have left. I have not really been able to do much blogging lately and this is primarily because I have not felt up to the task. I haven't written anybody nor have I really been doing too much at all on the computer. Once again I am considering taking a class this next semester, but I am really not sure whether I really will or not. After reading all of these inspiring blog lately, I am more amenable to attending a creative writing course, but I don't really know if it will improve my creativity. Stay tune or don't, it's your choice.

I had considered doing a blog on my other site, From the Mind of Quadius, but I am trying to make that area more creative, so I guess I will wait until I am inspired or until the ideas I currently have written down can be thought out a little more thoroughly.

A little under the weather

I have come down with a virus and have not been able to get on the Internet much lately. Even though I have aspired to do more blogging, have not been keeping up with those aspirations. As I am writing this I am already feeling a little weaker than I did a couple minutes ago. I will, therefore, not go to much further. I should be back in the saddle again within a day or two.

The US's last game

Despite all of the optimism I tried to maintain, something deep inside me told me the US was not going to perform well today. This unfortunately came to fruition. I could try to get upset about one of the best officials in the world making a really bad call that resulted in a penalty kick been awarded to Ghana, but that blown call wasn't really what decided everything for the Americans. It was plain and simple that they did not perform as well as expected. This definitely did not look like the team I have been watching for the last two years. Oh well, I guess it's time to just simply get back to watching the World Cup for the pure enjoyment.
I was, however, touched by how important this game was to the Ghanaian nation. The federal government there gave a half-day holiday to everyone in the country and even required their gold mine, one of their chief moneymakers, lower their use of power so everyone in the country would have enough electricity to be able to power the televisions and watch the game without any hindrance. That type of fervor is what I miss most about not living in Europe and I am watching soccer. I can still recall a 1990 walk down and unseasonably warm street in Nürnberg Germany and hearing the same television channel, which happened to be showing a 1990 World Cup, emitting from all of the open windows (they do not have air-conditioning and normal houses in Germany). I was able to follow the game play-by-play until I descended into the subway entrance. I will not even go into the celebrations I witnessed when Germany one that particular World Cup. After seeing all of this dedication to a sport, I think it's ironic that people here believe the Super Bowl is watched by everyone and thus the most important game in the world. I know, the NFL executives claim the Super Bowl is watched by over one billion people every year, nonetheless, I believe the figures are definitely not even close to these claims. I have seen figures as low as 93 million and as high as 300 million watch the Super Bowl yearly, but all one has to do is look at the 1.3 billion which watched the opening game of this World Cup and the projected 1.5 billion that will have the pleasure of watching the final game and even the greatest skeptic will understand that the World Cup is truly the most important single sporting event and the most watched in the world. Well, perhaps not the greatest skeptic, but the majority of people would concede this point.
Perhaps if total ratings worldwide were considered for every game, 64 of them, then this would give some idea of how important this sporting event is to the remainder of the world. Enough of my soapbox rantings. To bring these ramblings to a conclusion, I would simply like to say that I was extremely disappointed with the performance of the US team. People can blame their defeats on many things, but it is simply that the players did not perform when they really needed to.