Politix Raining Down on the Last Day of January?

Sunday, January 31st, 2016 -( 0หšC / +32หšF — Dark and fairly warm for this time of year in Atlantic Canada @ 8:37 pm )-

Snowman Doing Yoga Headstand.
I had to look twice at the snowman before I realized what was up. ๐Ÿ™‚

— I spent too much of last night trying to undo weird glitches on my laptop – Then I switched to this computer to look up “How do you delete a user account that isn’t working right on a Mac with OS X 10.9.5?” ( It won’t accept its passwords – and nobody logged in and changed those passwords, so I haven’t the foggiest what might be going on there. )

Jesse Ventura Tweet
Jesse Ventura likes the idea that Donald Trump is dismantling the Republican Party in the U.S.A.

— But ya know what? There’s a lot of back and forth grumbling about politiks, especially back in the “States” where the Iowans are about to kick off another round of Presidential Election Season maneuvering.

Leading Democratic Candidates Records and Attitudes compared.
Michael Moore has been tweeting up a storm about the differences between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. – Somebody from Fox News believes Michael Moore is laughable because he generalized about the Republicans stance on issues he believes are very important – Fox News Pointing their finger at anyone’s shortcomings? That’s what’s laughable.

— Michael Moore has been poking holes in a lot of arguments about the Republicrats’ race to the White House, including citing poles that say that Bernie can’t get enough Democrats’ votes to beat Trump – But when Independent voters are figured into the mix Sanders clobbers Trump – But Hillary wouldn’t.

Conservative claims they created a budget surplus debunked.
Meanwhile, in Canada, There are ‘Spin-Wars’ going on with Conservatives claiming they handed the new Liberal Government a Big Surplus. As this series of tweets and retweets (above) points out, The Conservatives tried to un-fund several areas and with-held funds earmarked – for instance – for Veterans Health care – Where they shut down 9 regional offices – which made it harder, nearly impossible for some vets to get help for their PTSD issues – which resulted in and “Epidemic” of Veterans committing suicide, and then the Minister of Veterans Affairs became extraordinarily unpopular by appearing on television newsbyte news handing the Prime Minister a cheque for a Billion Dollars in ‘savings’/money not spent saving veterans’ lives. So what we had here was the rich robbing the poor and powerless and handing each other the spoils of their privateering. EI = Employment Insurance. The Harper Conservatives tried to make it so hard for downsized / laid off and retired workers to get help that the middle class is shrinking catastrophically up here – Retirement Benefits were basically ‘put on hold’ with retired citizens waiting so long for their benefits to start that it really looked like the Conservatives were hoping the retirees would drop dead before they could collect any of the money they’d earned over their life times.

— A lot of people are now openly calling ex-Prime Minister Stephen Harper a Corporate Fascist.

Bedroom Tax.
And in the United Kingdom – Something that some of us thought was a joke that couldn’t be true – looks like it’s reality : The elected government over there wants to institute a “Bedroom Tax” with provisions that exclude the Royalty and the very rich from having to pay anywhere near as much as the middle class and especially the poor – who would be paying for this new tax – which sounds like an old Monty Python Routine.

— [ ‘Carers’ listed above would be ‘Home Health Care Providers’, as in: someone taking care of a sick parent or relative, or foster child, etc. ]

Intelligence Versus Confidence?
– I’m not entirely sure who the ‘she’ is – referred to in the comment that accompanied this tweet. I’m not even sure it’s someone in the UK, but that would be my best guess – And the quote is something worth pondering, if only to wonder if it might be more true if a couple of the words were slightly changed.

— How about, “The problem is that Sensitive People take their time to think about the consequences of their propsed actions while Belligerant people turn their minds off and charge straight ahead swinging virtual and verbal clubs and axes at anything in their way.” ?

New York City?
And this final photograph of the evening reminds me both of times when New York City felt like a wondrous and almost strangely beautiful place and it ‘scared the living cement out of me’ with the brutality of its indifference and greed.

— This is probably enough damage for anyone’s peace of mind to suffer through tonight –

— jda —

– uh –

Friday, January 29th, 2016 -( -2หšC / +28หšF — already dark & snowing lightly here in Atlantic Canada @6:51 pm )-

Leopard
– “Wow-” I’m not sure I could get a shot this magnificent, even if I owned several thousand dollars worth of camera equipment and had the patience and insanity to move into a place where such a beautiful creature might need to eat me for lunch.

— Um – after reading a delightful ‘friendly warning’ message in the new wordpress blog I was tricked into signing up for – “From time to time we may need to [ stick ] ads [ into your blog messages ] to keep your blog free [ hint – hint – send us money ] ” – I went and downloaded, activated another blog with the intent of copying everything from the one I didn’t want in the first place, and, after messing around with settings etc. I learned that it’s really hard to get your favourite fonts ported over into your self-hosted blogs – And – while I was changing fonts in the “Appearance / Editor” css coded listing – the whole freakin thing went bonkers like it decided I wanted it to look like something that could fit on an iPad or my Sweetie’s Tablet – I ended up wasting an hour trying to find a place to click on “I do not want this to look like no stupid mobile device blog” before I deleted the theme I started with and imported a new instance of that theme (“Twenty Sixteen” – you are probably looking at it right now.)

— Um. It took me all freakin afternoon to ‘create’ the blog, copy and paste maybe 5 articles/posts – and I was about to start writing my hopefully uplifting novel when I foolishly checked email and twitter – and – oh well –

Jim Wellington shared a link.
18 hrs ยท

stuff from effbook
My friend, Jim, posted and commented on Paul Kantner’s life and passing and a couple of his friends commented on that –
Jefferson Airplane guitarist and co-founding member Paul Kantner has died. Kantner died Thursday (Jan. 28) of multiple organ failure. From 1965-1972,โ€ฆ
yahoo.com
Kc Staples likes this.
Comments
Jim Wellington
Jim Wellington No way I can “Like” this. Dangit. Too many people I looked up to are leaving the planet – Um, maybe some of them finished their job? raised the planet’s vibrations to the best of their abilities and it’s time they got a rest?

Like ยท Reply ยท 18 hrs
Christine Kantrowitz
Christine Kantrowitz Heavy year so far.

Like ยท Reply ยท 9 mins

Jim Wellington
Jim Wellington You got that right – Some sources say that a lot of very good people have given all they had and moved us a little bit closer to “Heaven on Earth” – but have burnt themselves out in the process, and/or even very good people who can’t let go of the past won’t be able to face the kind of ‘Brave New World” they dread might be ahead of us. Me? I know I’m seeing very positive spiritual progress in the right direction, even while the ‘dark side’ is throwing their most desperate last gasping dis-heartening weapons at us. They can’t win. There are too many of us. Hug everyone you care about and know we are amplifying each other’s love, compassion, prayers and intentions and inspiration and sending that on to whoever needs it or wants it or can value it. – Every morning the light is a little stronger and everything coming toward us is singing, “You are Loved!” & “Thank you for being there!”

Like ยท Reply ยท Just now

 

— And I couldn’t let that go by un-praised.

Niagara Falls in Winter.
How do you look at a world this beautiful and want to destroy it? -Okay, so it might be a bit on the chilly side today, but human kindness is warming us faster than inhuman neglect and abuse can ruin all our lives on us.

— & so – tired as I am, I needed to write a little more here to share with anyone who might care before I go knock myself out working out the tougher mind-bending plot twists in a novel that’s supposed to make everybody who reads it feel happy they’re alive and at least trying to be nice to each other –

Golden Eagle in Flight.
I saw my first Bald Eagles since I moved to New Brunswick – Now somebody says at least one Golden Eagle has returned to marshland not far from where I sit.

— I took screen shots of several hopeful photographs from quite a few tweets I read this late afternoon, and I think only one or two of them are about to find their way into this little article here-

Iroquois Caucus says no to Energy East Pipeline.
My sisters and brother and cousins grew up believing we were part some kind of Iroquois – had traces of blood from one of the Iroquois Tribes in our veins – Maybe the Earth sings to us while we sleep and dream. Maybe we hear Her screaming when the bad guys decide they have every right to tear Her apart and try to kill Her in their quest for a little spending money while they make sure the rest of us starve and run out of healthy water and air.

— But I wanted this to be an almost entirely positive article – dangit –

Hemmingway quote
The world is a fine place, quote from Ernest Hemingway. My maternal grandmother says we’re related to him. –
bilingual quote
Knowledge & Education should create citizens that are difficult to push around – ๐Ÿ™‚
Donate furniture to Bhutan.
– Beautiful Peaceful Photograph – I have to look into this. When we’re finished with supplying our newest refugees with their basic needs and enough extra to let them know their gentle God is alive and well in Canada – It looks like the Bhutanese need our love and assistance, too –

— Enough for today? I’ve gone beyond and have almost nothing left to write my soul saving novel with – It is now 9:43 pm. –

— jda —

Wednesday – Economic Warfare & Slavery –

Jim W. posted this on “Latest News From Arendel” – Copied and Pasted below:

=====

Wednesday, January 27th, 2016 -( +5หšC / +41หšF — Grey skies & damp in Atlantic Canada @ 8:00 am )-

Schnarr Subsidies Facts
Corporate Welfare? In Canada – ‘Fossil Fuel’ Corporations get $34 Billion dollars in taxpayer funded subsidies – In the UK – Google gets a sweetheart deal, which, when exposed, leads to a hand slapping pittance in back taxes. – Meanwhile – Provincial Governments in Canada – crying “Poverty!” are trying to convince taxpayers that they will need to pay new tolls that could cost heavy commuters $1,000.00 to $1,500.00 more every year?

— Economic Warfare —

— The oil and gas industries received $34 Billion dollars per year in taxpayer-funded subsidies? Mid-priced Electric cars cost about $31,000.00 Canadian Dollars. They figure there are 9 million families in Canada?

Schnarr 'Strategic Studies in Government Greed & Fraud"
– So the ‘government’ of New Brunswick has been ‘studying’ how to fraudulently fleece the citizens of New Brunswick and anyone else who uses their roads, and reduce their health care benefits and other services which New Brunswickers are entitled to. And, from the looks of this photo (above) it looks like they believe they can get away with that. –

— The Province of New Brunswick, crying poverty, has told the people of New Brunswick that their ‘duly elected government’ is trying to decide how to institute tolls on New Brunswick’s highways to raise money because they’re not bringing in enough tax revenues? ***Why don’t they raise taxes on the corporations that have been getting away with downsizing, knocking hardworking people from their ability to pay those taxes, which may be fraudulently reported to the media which, in turn, ‘report’ those fraudulent figures to the news-consuming public.

— Walter Burien – of cafr1.com [ (CAFR+the number 1) dot com ] is an investment counselor who has been trying to explain that virtually every level of Federal, State or Provincial, County, and municipal government has more income streams than they admit to, that tax revenues amount to one third of their actual income, and if they’re not receiving two thirds of their income from non-tax revenues, well then, shame on them for being incredibly stupid – Mr. Burien has been trying to explain this for years, has been politely screaming at seemingly sleeping citizens who, apparently, would much rather plug their ears than listen to him.

Schnarr Pipeline schnarr.
The existing pipeline would be ‘upgraded’ & converted to carry crude oil instead of gas through areas threatened by possible ‘Fracking’ and extended to where the crude oil would reportedly be shipped away from Canada to where foreign jobs would either be created or insured at the expense of any possible Canadian jobs. Renewable Energy Development would create a lot more jobs and a lot more economic stability for a lot less money.

— The proposed Energy East Pipeline upgrade would bring oil from Alberta to Saint John, New Brunswick, – reportedly: not to be refined here, an operation which would create Canadian jobs, but to be loaded on ships and carried off to refineries in the USA, where US citizens would have job security that is lacking in Canada?

— Meanwhile, Fracking has been shown to create earthquakes. Earthquakes endanger pipelines. Oil pipelines that split open spill poison into the groundwater. Poisoned groundwater forces humans to pay extra for water that isn’t poisoned, and it kills animals. Animals that die from poisoned water include farm animals that people eat, and pets that people love, and wild animals, like the Beluga whales in the Saint Lawrence River/Seaway.

— When the Mayor of Montreal cried out against the pipeline, he was first accused of being selfish, then accused of trying to divide Canadians along East Versus West, or even Anglophones versus Francophones lines. Then, after a talk with Justin Trudeau, the Mayor of Montreal clarified that his stance against the pipeline was not against economic progress or opportunities, but against the shoddy inability of industry controlled watchdogs to insure that the pipelines would be properly built, properly inspected, and properly maintained. Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, for his part, has announced that he is not a cheerleader for this pipeline project, or any other pipeline project. First Nations/Native Americans – the people whose country was stolen out from under them by Europeans – who claimed they were saving the aboriginal citizens of the ‘Americas’ from ignorance, eternal damnation and poverty – have been fighting pipelines both in the east and in the west. They have also been fighting against the practice of ‘Fracking’, which threatens their drinking water and the stability of their lands.

— Canadian ‘Law’ sees mineral rights as belonging to the ‘Crown’, land owners have been shocked and dismayed to discover that their property has been invaded without their permission by somebody who dug a hole, searching for possible minerals or other exploitable resources, & left the ‘exploratory’ย  holes open and dangerous to children and other living things. And then the property owners discovered that (1) they are powerless to stop this sort of thing, (2) if anything valuable was discovered on or under their property, they would not benefit from that discovery, or its exploitation or development – at all – and (3) they just might have to pay the cost of filling any dangerous holes left in their own property, or be held financially liable if the next trespasser looking to make money at the property owners’ expense fell into a hole and injured their precious selves.

— First Nations people have been fighting for centuries to keep their land and mineral rights, citing the fact that they never did sign away their mineral rights. Miners want to be able to walk onto Tribal lands and poison and ruin the area, grab whatever minerals and ores they find there, cart the valuable substances away and gesture obscenely as they ‘laugh all the way to the bank’ and capitalize on what they’ve stolen.

Schnarr Google Schnarr -
Meanwhile, in the UK – This is probably too small for you to read it, but it tells of large tax breaks given to Google and Apple Computer –

— Corporations have also been getting away with not paying their fair share of taxes in the United Kingdom. Google, which ‘mines’ information from the browsers of anybody connecting to their ‘services’ – and selling that information to the highest bidder – has recently been slapped on the wrist and asked to pay a pittance to cover back taxes – while ‘common’ taxpayers in the UK have discovered that they are now being charged unbelievably ridiculous new taxes [ like a bedroom tax? ] that sound more like Monty Python routines than anything like a real tax that any government in the Western ‘Free World’ would have the gall to suggest.

Schnarr corporations defined
– After the U.S. War For Independence – Corporations were severely limited in the scope of what they were allowed to do and length of time they would be allowed to function. When their charters were up, and their time expired, their assets would revert to public ownership. This was before their lobbyists basically pooped all over the 99% who couldn’t afford their over paid lawyers.
Schnarr slavers.
Do you really want to support an industry that exploits slave labour?
Schnarr Elitist/Fascist Governments
Human Rights Watch is raising the alarm about governments using the politiks of fear to avoid respecting the Human Rights of their own citizens as well as the Human Rights of refugees.
Gibran Quote
Inspiring words during times when the threat of darkness is raising its head right in front of you?
Tanuki / Raccoon-Dog
At least today’s news isn’t all bad – This Japanese “Raccoon-Dog”, called a “Tanuki’ is neither a raccoon nor a dog and is not recommended to be kept as a pet. Sounds like a shame, because a dog that cute would probably be fun to share your life with.

— And so, sadly, tragically, this has been a snapshot of this morning’s schnarr news of the world as perceived and shared from Atlantic Canada.

— & On the Ethics front: In France, the Justice Minister resigned her post in protest over the new French law that strips citizenship from those accused of terrorism. So human beings with their humanity and moral values intact actually still do exist as of today, the 27th day of January/janvier, 2016. Of course, the newscast that announced this brave and ethical act went on to tell us that the Justice Minister who resigned had already been replaced by a schnarr ice-hole of an Elitist shill who was firmly in favour of advancing himself without regard for ethical behaviour, due process of any law, or the health and well-being of anybody but himself.

Yum, Ireland Sunrise -
– & This, like all the graphics included here, does not contain a valid link. You might be able to copy and paste something from the graphic itself, or you might have o ‘google it’ – or, more safely, look it up at startpage dot-com, But, yeah, I think I’d rather be watching the sun rise in Ireland than sitting here, allowing myself to become upset / depressed over the latest burnt offerings from the mass media news.

— Hopelessly remaining optimistic –,

~~~~~ Jim

= = = = =

Re-posted by:

— jda —

Burkina Faso ? The Atrocity of the Day Show ?

Sunday, January 17th, 2016 -( -6หšC / +21หšF — Cloudy & grey in Atlantic Canada @ 8:30 am )-

Fat Cat Distract & Deceive Cartoon
“How to distract and deceive the decent, honest, working people of this world while you pick their pockets”?

Russell Brand on inequality.
“The Rich [ top 1%? ] Don’t believe inequality is an issue? ” Quote from Russell Brand.
— It’s “The Atrocity of the Day” show in main stream media.

— Yesterday, If anyone asked me what Burkina Faso was, or where it might be, I’d admit ignorance and guess it might be a city or an island and might guess it would be in the Pacific, somewhere near Singapore?

— Today, it looks like Burkina Faso has been firmly put on the map, just south of Mali in Africa. 28 in a luxury hotel dead –ย  from 18 countries, including 6 from Canada? All of the Canadians were from Quebec?

— I have several friends who follow Conspiracy Investigators. Many of them believe that Al-Qaeda and ISIS were deliberately created by the C.I.A. and/or M.I.6 under orders from the ‘Elite’ who want to control everything and everybody and have learned that if they can keep the general population of this world in a constant state of fear, they can con anyone who believes they live in the ‘Free World’ into voluntarily surrendering all their rights, privileges and freedoms in the name of a ‘National Security’ – which then turns their own governments guns around and points deadly force at their own foreheads.

— I have heard radio interviews with lawyers and psychological ‘de-programmers’ who say they have evidence that ‘dark ops’ groups – break off ‘rogue’ units of especially US Armed Services have been ‘targeting’ individuals, kidnapping them from their homes, taking them to places where they are conditioned using “MK-Ultra” techniques, brainwashed into becoming “Manchurian Candidate” type assassins who have been hypnotized and had their memories wiped, but who can be contacted and activated any time by their handlers, had the right word whispered in their ears and sent out on a suicide mission to kill as many innocent civilians as possible and hopefully get themselves killed in the process so nobody can hypnotize them and learn what has actually happened. The Conspiracy Investigators say this has been happening since the Texas Tower killer in the 1970’s and maybe before that. Sirhan Sirhan, who was charged with assassinating Robert Kennedy, was supposed to be one of the victims or this kind of programming, and eye witnesses have testified that Sirhan Sirhan was ‘glassy eyed’ and fired his gun at nothing while the real assassin was somebody wearing a security officer’s uniform who stepped up behind Senator Kennedy and shot him in the back of the head. Other victims of that kind of conditioning include the Unibomber, the guy who shot John Lennon, and maybe most of the recent mass shootings in the USA and around the world, including the guy who shot up the six-year olds in Sandy Hook (Newtown), Connecticut – The guy who shot up the the theatre in Colorado, and others – & I have deliberately not included a few of these mass killings because I’m not sure they quite fit the profile.

— I can’t endorse my friends’ theories one hundred percent, but every time another atrocity like this hits the main stream media and tries to shock the world’s state of mind off-center to make everyone more manipulate-able, I begin to wonder again, if maybe they just might be right.

— Um, That’s probably enough bad news for now –

—jda—

“Well – Duh! -“

Welcome (Back?) To the Age of Superficiality

Duhhhh
– “You can’t call this ‘Education’-“
Duh!
– Wiki Leaks: “How to Surrender All Your Rights and Priveleges: – Begins when you believe everything your government tells you.”

— Maybe we never left the Age of Superficiality. Maybe it’s always been with us. But was it always so glamorized? Never mind ‘Glamorized’ – it suddenly seems canonized.

— Maybe I didn’t pay attention to a lot of things in the last few years. Maybe I dismissed mindless ‘entertainment’ and ‘infotainment’ as if was totally insignificant. But wait โ€“ Somebody is paying attention to this stuff. There are way too many programs celebrating celebrity. Reality TV shows look too much like they were designed to convince us that housewives in every city in this world, especially housewives who believe they are rich and powerful โ€“ are complete idiots โ€“ and not just idiots, but mean spiteful egotistical bitches who believe they should be able to kill and eat their neighbours as long as some good conservative party member makes a profit in terms of votes for their candidates – or better yet, gold and silver in their untraceable emergency escape fund.

— Remember the song โ€œDirty Laundryโ€ bu Don Henley? I thought it was brilliant. I thought I could laugh about dumbed down television news and walk away from that and never be bothered by its mindlessness again.

— But now the ‘Bubble headed bleached blondes’ are everywhere โ€“ and they’re not necessarily blonde any more – sometimes they are wearing grey hair like badges as they try to get you to spend your hard earned money to buy more life insurance (that the insurance companies welcome as ‘free money’ โ€“ maximum input with minimum output for them). – Buy more life insurance than you’d ever need so you can die with a smile on your face, safe in the illusion that your grandchildren will have hundreds of thousands of dollars to deposit as a down-payment toward a multi-million dollar education as the universities of this world become more and more greedy and less and less effective? Remember when we thought that a university education would teach us how to think effectively? Did they ever teach us how to see through shuck?

— Maybe I was able to tolerate the superficiality of many things because I thought they had no impact on the vast majority of the human race. Maybe I believed that average humans were much more intelligent and much more wise than the ‘pundits’ of Madison Avenue gave anybody credit for being. Was I wrong?

— And why, all of a sudden, with the beginning of this New Year โ€“ has it become so painful for me to sit in front of a television monitor and see smiling faces of attractive people as they try to appear completely guile-less while they attempt to deceive anybody stupid enough to believe they might be telling the truth as they read their news or sell the garbage we never wanted and never believed we needed until some hyper-attractive young member of the opposite sex smiled at us with his or her eyes dilating at the prospect of engaging in possible sexual fulfillment with the proud owner of whatever it is that they’re trying to sell you at the moment?

— Or am I completely insane to believe that, if for instance, you want to do something for the good of humanity, like feeding starving children in third world countries โ€“ or smuggling innocent followers of non-sanctioned religions out from under the military dictatorships in countries where the ‘leadership’ believes they have every right to vivisect anyone who doesn’t follow their proclamations to the letter and then sell their precious bodily organs to the highest bidder –โ€“ you should do that anonymously โ€“ and you should do it because you know that it pleases God and strengthens everything that makes life on this planet worth living? The fact that you would be doing something selfless and good for the benefit of all life on this planet is one thing. Handing somebody a huge cheque on television, more concerned about how you look while you’re doing it and ‘who you are wearing’ at the time the cameras are rolling is not what charity is all about. Is it?

— And like I hinted at a couple paragraphs up. Why has knowing that this kind of activity is going on become so much more painful in the last two weeks? Have I given up believing in the sanctity and sovereignty of each and every human being on planet Earth?

— Or have I just watched too many television commercials lately and taken them much too seriously?

ย – jda โ€“

Adventures In C-T Scan World

Tuesday, January 12th, 2016 -( The calm before the storm? )-

Photo of a beautiful walled compound tht might be Novgorod, Russia.
I have no idea where this is, but it looks like some place I would like to be – It might be in or near Novgorod – a Russian city between Moscow and St. Petersburg.

— This might contain information you might not feel comfortable about:

—Okay, I haven’t been very busy with this blog in the past couple days – Due to a minor health scare, & the shortage of family doctors where I live, I went to a health clinic last July and was referred to a specialist who, in September, performed a couple tests, found a Bladder Stone and noted that I had an enlarged prostate. The specialist scheduled a CT Scan to make sure there was nothing else going on in my digestive tract, and then told me he recommended a couple procedures, that he scheduled for late in October, which involved blasting my bladder stone and performing a ‘Green Laser’ technique to reduce the size of my prostate, both procedures were accomplished on the same day, I was sedated so I don’t know how complicated this might have been or whether the Doctor had to use two separate high-tech sets of instruments – or what – This was not exactly pleasant, and the weeks after this procedure during which I could not work were a bit on the scary side. And then I got the notice to report for the CT scan.

— Today was the date set for the scan. Before today the only things I knew about CT scans were (1) they were often used check for Cancer; & (2) they were also referred to as ‘Cat Scans’.

— People in my family die from heart attacks more often than any other causes. An aunt who drank a lot, and an uncle-by-marriage who also drank a lot, developed Alzheimer’s Disease and that was probably a contributing factor in their shuffling off this mortal coil. A great uncle I barely remember, died of Cancer ‘with a cigarette in his mouth’ in the late 1950’s.

— And one of my sisters developed an aggressive Cancer in 2006 and only lasted about six months after being diagnosed. She told us that she suspected that her ‘Medical Professionals’ – in Vermont – when she’d seen them – complaining about back pain – acted like they thought she was lying or exaggerating her back pain in an attempt to have them prescribe powerful pain killers. When she convinced them that there really was a problem and they looked a little deeper – it was already too late, they didn’t bother with the ‘Cat Scan’ – the Cancer had already spread too far and all they wanted to do was make her as comfortable as possible and twiddle their thumbs for a couple months. (“Grrrrrr!”) A couple of us were able to cheer her up by joking along the lines of, “What were they going to do? Kill a cat and stare at its entrails before deciding which Witch Doctor mask to wear while they got stoned and danced around chanting nonsense words from dead languages?”- So I guess I might be at least sub-consciously a bit uneasy with ‘Cat Scans’.

— I had lost a little weight between July and September, and then made it a point to make sure I ate a little better than I had been eating, and I’m pretty sure that is working- I do not look like I’ve just been liberated from a concentration camp these days.

— So today was the big day – my significant other took the day off and drove with me to the hospital where we arrived almost an hour early, found the X-Ray and MRI area, took a number, waited about ten minutes to be signed in and told to ‘sit over there’ until somebody called my name and told me what to do from there.

— A nurse called my name and said ‘Follow me’ about an hour and ten minutes after we got there, which isn’t too bad, since they had signs up all around the waiting room asking patients to be patient – “In case of Emergencies taking priority here – you may have to wait longer than you think-” The nurse had me change into two ‘Johnny Coats’ – one typically open in the back and the other as a cheap excuse for a bathrobe, after instructing me to ‘take off everything but your underpants, socks and shoes’ – them meet her up around the corner at the first examination room on the left. There was a young woman sitting in the examination room looking glum, and no nurse in sight. I walked up and down the corridor for a couple minutes, then stood outside the ‘first examination room on the left’ for a couple more minutes before the nurse came back from somewhere, pointed into the room – where the glum young woman in her double Johnny Coats was sitting, “Lay down on the examination table, I’ll be right with you.” – I felt like that would be a violation of the glum woman’s space and maybe even scare her into believing that I was about to show her my private parts, so I sat on the table. The nurse walked up the corridor and came back after two or three minutes and told me to lie down. – I gave the glum woman a worried glance and carefully climbed up on the table and lowered myself, making sure I was covered. The young woman continued to stare down and away, as if she had more to worry about than what I might have beneath my stupid hospital gowns.

— The nurse came over and sat beside me, described in detail how I would go into the Cat Scan room, lie down with my feet toward the machine and my arms over my head. There would be a quick scan and then I would be injected with Lasix (sp?) and then they would inject me with dye. She explained that one of those injections might make me feel like I wet my pants, but that probably would not be the case. [ I managed NOT to say, “Oh – Great!” out loud. ] I would then have a slightly longer scan, and all of this would probably take about fifteen minutes. Then she got out the I.V. stuff – and I’ve had I.V.s before – no big deal? Ouch! this one stung – When I winced she said, “Yes, this is a pretty big needle.” She got it in place then taped me up and sealed off the end of the tube which would be connected to whatever I would be injected with later. When she was finished and made sure I was not squirting blood all over the hospital, she told me follow her down the corridor a bit, take the seat she pointed to, and wait until somebody came to get me. She handed me two paper cups of water, told me to drink them both, and not go to the washroom until I was called to go in for my scan. People working in the hospital walked up and down the corridor, talking to other patients who were sitting around waiting in their hospital gowns for something or other, smiled and said, “Yes, we’re kind of busy in here today, aren’t we?” I sat there for probably half an hour. The glum woman came out of somewhere, maybe had a Cat Scan ahead of me, and was told to take a seat a couple chairs up from me. The nurse removed the glum woman’s I.V. – put a bandage and tape over the point where the I.V. had pierced her, told her apply pressure for five minutes, (“There’s the clock there? See?”) and, “If you’re not bleeding after those five minutes, you can get dressed and leave.” – This was maybe ten minutes into my half hour wait.

— When I was called, after I peed, I was led by a pleasant younger woman into the scan room. She had me lie down on a thin table with my feet toward a big open circle in a weird machine that looked like something from an old Science Fiction movie.

— The first few passes through the circle were pretty quick. The table I was on moved my feet through the circle, I could see something inside the circle – through a glass or plastic window – whirling around for a couple seconds before the table began moving again. A recorded voice told me to breathe in, hold my breath and then breath again during each pass.

— The pleasant young woman (technician?) told me I was about to be injected and could bring my arm that did not have the I.V. in it down if I wanted. I noticed that my fingernails were darkened, looked purple to me. My thumbnail looked more grey than purple.

— The nurse came in and hooked the I.V. up to something I couldn’t see, maybe just her syringe? She told me the Lasix was coming and I might feel cool as the stuff went through my veins. Then she told me the dye was coming and I might feel warm as that stuff was coursing through me veins. Ouch! That stung- I did begin to feel warm, and was surprised to feel the warmth in and around my head. So I guess blood still does get to my brain whether it is filled with dye or not. ๐Ÿ™‚

— The technician told me we had to wait a couple minutes and showed me two L.E.D. readouts that were counting down and told me the numbers I could see were the number of seconds I had left before my next passes through the circle began. I suddenly began shaking all over – it felt like chills without actually feeling cold. I mentioned that – the technician said it would all be over in a couple minutes, so I guess maybe it isn’t that unusual for patients to experience shaking like that.

— The pleasant young technician told me she had to check to make sure the X-Rays that were taken were clear enough. I mentioned the shaking I had experienced and told her I’d been worried that maybe I’d be unable to hold still enough for her to get a good picture- a couple seconds later she said, “Nope – you’re good-” and then came back from her shielded room and unhooked me from the I.V. line and pushed foot pedals that moved me away from the X-Ray circle and lowered the table I was laying on. She told me I should go back out in the corridor and find a seat and somebody would come along soon and take the I.V. thing out of my arm.

— I told her I had to visit the washroom and she told me I should do that and did not make me feel like it was foolish to mention that, but I guess I had been impressed by the fact that the nurse who had handed me the two cups of water had told me not to go to the washroom until I was called in to the scan room.

— I did go to the bathroom and was impressed by the impression that I had peed clear liquid plastic – Then I sat down and waited a couple minutes for a nurse to come along and take the I.V. needle out of my arm, tape a small bandage over the puncture and tell me to hold pressure on it for five minutes and then I could go. I think I stopped shaking some time between my trip to the washroom and when the nurse came and pulled the needle out of my arm. I thought it was a good thing I hadn’t lapsed into a zombie-like mode in which I followed all instructions literally, I might have tried to walk out of there in my double hospital gowns.

— As I watched the five minutes ticking away I realized we had been in the hospital for three hours since we got there early. As soon as I was dressed I knew I had to visit the washroom again.

— My spouse smiled when she saw me coming and asked, “Hungry?”

— I nodded and said, “Starving!”

— She smiled and put the book she’d been reading away, handed me the valuables that signs all around the waiting room warned us not to leave in our lockers when we changed into the hospital gowns.

— I was slightly disoriented. I was very happy that I had somebody with me to guide me through the labyrinth of hospital corridors.

— We made it out through the hospital’s front doors and I felt like I was more vulnerable to feeling cold than when we got there. We decided to go to a Pizza Delight and chowed down at their buffet, topped it off with a slice of lemon meringue pie and a scoop of good vanilla ice cream.

— On the way home we stopped at a supermarket to pick up a couple things. I needed another visit to their washroom while we were there.

— Shortly after we got home I began having muscle cramps and ‘charly horses’. Iย  had been told that I should drink a lot of fluids to get the dye out of my system, so we had me drink a lot in the hopes that that might make the cramps go away, also took an extra Calcium+Magnesium pill in the hopes that it might improve my muscle health.

— It is now a little after 11:00 pm. I’m still feeling cramps and charly horses, maybe not as intensely as before, but they’re still with me.

— And we’re looking forward to a possible blizzard hitting us over night and dumping as much as a foot of snow on us between now and tomorrow evening.

— Have Fun –,

—jda—

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