13 July 2015
Fulfillment
07 July 2015
2015 so far. The pinnacle of pain, and God's redeeming love.
After the New Year's break, I tried ignoring things back at work, and instead of the teasing stopping, they had picked it up a notch. I still didn't enjoy coming to work, and didn't plan ahead in a constructive way that would give me some leeway if I ran into slow traffic or bad weather. This lead to me being about 1-2 minutes late one day when it was snowing because I couldn't get around people driving 'slow' (or sane) in the snow. I am harder on myself than they were (not one of my best traits), but I got a slow-clap from people when I walked in, which made me even more angry. It was only when I stopped talking to everyone that they slowed down, but it also caught the eye of a supervisor.
The VA had gotten a new primary doctor for Iraq vets, and he seemed more helpful than the previous one. He genuinely seemed to care, and want to improve my health. He put me on Naproxen for my leg, and that helped the pain a LOT. The only negative side effect was that if you didn't eat food with it, it makes you sick to your stomach. I took it without food, and woke up for work at my normal time feeling terrible. I called in right after waking up (0435 or so), and spent the day laying on the couch with stomach cramps. They consider anything after 0400 a ‘late call-in’, and I don't wake up until 0430 ish, so that was a negative hit on me, as well. The late call-in, being late, and me not wanting to talk to anyone lead my supervisor to put something negative in my year-end review, but not talk to me at all.
I thought things had been slightly improving at work,, and I was coming up with plans to pay my medical bills (I ended up paying around $2000 in January and February on those). The reduced leg pain definitely helped my psyche, and I thought that finally I was coming out of my funk. My friends had been holding an accountability group while reading "The Life You've Always Wanted" by John Ortberg, and invited me to join.
That was when I got the final blow. My supervisor had stopped me for a 2-minute conversation on a Sunday to 'see if things were ok', and that was the only indication that something might have been amiss. Six months of him not talking to me about being teased several hours a shift which wasn't exactly hidden, but a 2 minute conversation that day. People from other crews that worked with us definitely noticed, and talked to me about how [rude] they were. After working a night shift two days later, I woke up to a phone call that I shouldn't go into work, I was getting a ‘random’ psychological test. You don't just get random psychological tests, and I took it personal, it felt like someone WANTED me fired. So that went through my head for 16 hours before having to take the test and meet with the section at work who handles these things.
Thankfully, that morning was my first time in the group accountability call. I was able to not bear this alone, and get some much needed prayer, if nothing else, just for my mind. I was still a half of a wreck when I showed up for the test, but it didn’t take long. I'd just have to come back in a few hours and have a face-chat with the psychologist about the results. I was able to get a nap in, and that was another blessing. I got through the interview just fine, and got some tips: When you go silent, he said, you're what sticks out, not the people being pricks. I then talked with the section supervisor of that group, as a follow-up. I could have given up names, I could have changed crews, and yet I chose to stick with the same group of people without saying a word. I'm still trying to see what I can do to change the culture of the crew, but it might take a while. I need to make sure i'm not joining them, and trying to be an example of Christ's love to them.
Since that day, things have been getting better and better. My medical bills are paid off, I am on a payment plan for my debt, and we've added an additional group call for accountability (which I definitely need). I've lost almost 20 pounds, had the VA remove a lump from my head, they fixed my nose so I could breathe through it, and not need a CPAP.
I am now working on a research project for myself, continuing to work on my house when I can and I'm trying to lose weight. Next up on my body is figuring out how to get my left leg back; it's still not working right. I'm trying to establish consistent times in prayer and scripture, but with rotating shifts, I'm lucky to know what day it is, sometimes.
Today might suck, but you'll wake up with a fresh slate tomorrow, if you allow yourself that. His mercies are new every day.
04 July 2015
2014, The Finale
19 June 2015
Aaaah, life is BUSY!
Sorry that I haven't made a blog post for 3 months, things have been crazy and busy. I've had two surgeries (removing a benign lypoma from my scalp, and a septoplasty with a bunch of other pain tossed in for fun!), and getting things lined up for what I hope is an exciting rest of the year. I've also not really wanted to dig up the pain that I'll be discussing from the second half of last year.
I've got two blog posts ready to go, pending me going over them again in a day or two and possibly some extra oversight from a buddy. I'm back in the writing mood, and I have some heavy topics I think need far more intellect than are actually being given by most of the people in this country.
03 March 2015
2014 Part 4
In part 4, I start at the beginning of summer until just before I head back to work with my department.
When I got to go back to work, I was at my employer's training center. I had to do a little training myself, to get caught up on their processes and expectations, but soon I was busy with whatever they threw at me. I can't tell you how nice it was working with that group of people. All consummate professionals, they made me feel welcome and important as soon as I was there. Despite being quite busy most days, it wasn't stressful, there wasn't conflict, and it was a nice mental recovery. I didn't feel the need to analyze every interaction with nagging questions; 'Did I say too much?', 'Will this person try to use that against me?', 'What was that all about?'.
One of my responsibilities was going to be watching people take tests, making sure they didn't cheat, helping them find courses, and getting them moved in the right direction for classroom training. This allowed the woman I was working for, who was absolutely swamped, to actually get some of her work done. I was also helping her check her tests and answers and study material against the 'base' model sent out by a regulator, so even when there weren't many people (if any) that needed computer tests, I kept busy. On the off chance that there was nothing else I could do (typically because a program wasn't 'licensed' to me, or I didn't have the credentials), I took e-learning classes, which didn't cost me anything.
I took a few on leadership and emotional intelligence, acknowledging that controlling my emotions isn't always easy. One, in particular, was both good and bad: It was about removing stress from work, which I'd had quite a bit of right before tearing my ACL. For the class, you'd make a list of what you expect to get out of work, other than a paycheck, what motivates you, and what your goals are. Then, you compare it with what your workplace's stated objectives/goals are. It'll suffice to say that, for me, the lists didn't match up, and it was fairly easy to recall instances in reality where my employer's stated objective seemed like a facade. It didn't really excite me to be heading back to my department soon.
One of the highlights of this time period, was that I was also taking college courses again, having started right after I tore my ACL. I took a Computer Management Information Systems class, which sounds fancy, but was really just an indepth class about Microsoft Office. I learned a TON taking the class, and that would pay off later in the summer, both in my summer class and at the training center. It was a class that made learning fun, which is pretty rare, especially for online classes. During the summer, I took Accounting 1, which was a refresher from a class I'd taken 11 years prior in high school, but was also much more in depth. It was very fast paced, but with a class like that, I enjoy the work. I had considered taking a second class, but I'm glad I didn't. Getting through a single accounting class in 8 weeks was enough hurry.
I tried to maintain my sanity throughout the summer by continuing a tradition of attending about one Royals game per month. I can be fully content watching the games on TV, but I really think going to the stadium, in that atmosphere, is really fun. I guess you could say that it helps when they're not always losing. I'm scared of heights, so I don't enjoy sitting in the real high seats, very often. Kauffman Stadium sits into the earth, so the first level of seats is below the level of the parking lot. Those are fine with me, even if they're more expensive. A buddy of mine and I share the cost, most games, where one of us will buy the tickets, and the other pays for gas; it works out pretty evenly. The $80-100 per trip could have been used more wisely, but life needs to be fun, at times, as well. I try to buy tickets to the 'give-away' games (bobble heads, generally, sometimes t-shirts), and we got the Alex Gordon Bobblehead this past season.
On a side note, their 2015 bobble heads look SWEEEEET. They've got various memorable events from the playoffs captured in bobblehead form, and I'm probably going to be showing up as soon as the gates open to the parking lot, those games.
Early on, I could tell that something was amiss in physical therapy when I'd do flatten my leg out, and then be told to see how much I could bend my knee. It was so early in recovery, I didn't say anything in particular, I'd just mention in passing the discomfort. I figured it would work itself out, which it hasn't, yet. It still hurts to straighten my knee, more so with weight on it. When I see how much I can bend my knee, there's a sharp pang from my hamstring (I'm assuming).
Because of my leg hurting, and spending money on Royals games, and medical bills, I didn't hardly do a thing all summer on the house. It was enough just to get the lawn mowed, much less kill all the weeds and make it look very good. I would usually do half one day, and finish the next, with a bunch of ice therapy in between. I should have been taking antiinflammatories as well, but since I generally consider them, 'pain relief', I didn't. I also wasn't stretching near as much as I needed to be.
It was a time of rest, and yet I wasn't taking things seriously enough, yet. I still wasn't preparing and making good use of the time away from work. The amount of paperwork you get for a major surgery like that is nuts. From provider bills to insurance forms, it gets a little overwhelming. It's easy to get some paperwork lost in the shuffle (for me). I need a better system of keeping track of important paperwork, that's one thing I've learned.
Fixing myself up
I'm finally getting things fixed.
Health issues that have been bugging me since my deployment, I'm finally taking care of, well, most of them. It's only taken tearing my ACL to motivate me.
I injured my left leg while in Mississippi, and I didn't go to the doctor. I really didn't even tell my chain of command because I wanted to serve, I wanted to do my part. I wasn't going to let a stupid accident in the barracks keep me from going to Iraq. I mean, I could walk fine (as long as the incline wasn't too bad), and I could run, sorta. My knee really didn't swell, but that's the area where the pain manifested itself. In Iraq, I couldn't run more than 1/2 mile without my leg being sore and my foot going numb during a PT test, but I could play basketball for hours, and run on an elliptical just fine.
After ACL reconstruction last year, my knee itself seemed good only a few months after surgery, which was great, but surprising. When I started jogging, though, my hamstring gave me issues, and continues to give me issues. It's like my left leg just isn't aligned properly. When I stand, the weight goes to the ball of my foot, not my heel. That gnarly callous I have on my right heel definitely isn't there on my left foot, and my work boots wear differently. Right now I'm just taking a big time NSAID, and it's helped a LOT, but like other things, it seems like a temporary fix to a permanent problem. We'll see where it goes, but I'm optimistic for the first time in a long time.
Sometime during the deployment, a lump formed on the back of my head. I stopped 'Biccing' my head (shaving it bald with 'Bic' razors) at that point, but I don't really remember the date. Hopefully this week, after only 7 1/2 years, it will be removed and I'll finally have some clue what it was, and maybe even what caused it to form. It's never really hurt, just more of an annoyance because people see it and ask what it is, and I have no idea. Also an annoyance because when I cut my hair, I never really knew if I was cutting the hair right in that area, or if I'd have a long tuft around it. I like 'high and tight' hair cuts, and it's RIGHT at that level that it makes it tough to cut them myself.
I haven't really been able to breathe since I've been home, not through my nose. I mean, my nose was never really a turbine, or anything, but it seems like I just can't get full breaths through my nose, leading to me yawning, or simply breathing through my mouth. It's made sleeping terrible, because I just stop breathing. The VA got me a CPAP after a sleep study. They said it wasn't the worst case they'd seen by far, but it was bad. The CPAP, though, bugs the hell out of me because while it may seem to help for a week or two, it then doesn't seem to be anything more than an annoyance which leads to a love/hate relationship with it. I've only chucked it a few times. Right now I'm using BreatheRight strips, but they work minimally to really help me breathe. The days that I have 1 1/2 nostrils are the good days.
And then there are the issues that may linger. I never got to even shoot at someone over there, and never got shot at or blown up, personally. But it's still sobering when you drive by an area, and it blows up 10 seconds later, two trucks behind you. I'm the type of person who can't let things like that go, that wishes I could have done anything to keep it from happening. They lived, and fully recovered, as far as I know, but it was close to not working out that way. Or watching a vehicle that your buddies were just in burn to the ground, just being thankful that they got out.
I think with the rise of ISIS (at least part of which was helped by parts of the US government as an anti Syrian government force) and other world events, we'll probably be back in the Middle East. I think in ten years or less, we could be dealing with problems inside our own borders, based on ideologies that democratic politicians seem to enjoy supporting (radical Islam, open borders, race baiting, class warfare, communist agitators) and the groups that they've spurned in recent years (Israel, European allies, Christians worldwide).
I'd like to be useful when these times come, so I guess I have a lot of work to do to get back in somewhat decent shape.
18 February 2015
Reflecting on 2014, Part 3
My birthday present was the confirmation that yes, my ACL was torn, along with needing some of my meniscus trimmed. I drove to Lincoln, to Lincoln Orthopedic Center to see Dr. Lawson. He's a pretty goofy guy, but a good doctor, and honest. While I was in Lincoln, I also got myself some crutches. I'd been borrowing some, and they were about 3-4 inches too short and very old. I still could not really walk, so crutches were a necessity. I also made a stop at a home improvement store to get a chair for the shower. Not being able to stand for showering wasn't fun at all.
The main thing I needed to do was keep my knee elevated, iced, and wrapped. I couldn't work on my house, or walk, or stand on both legs, so I watched a LOT of TV (mainly the combine and NFL draft prep type videos via the NFL Network and YouTube), and played lots of a game that I'd purchased, DayZ. It's a zombie apocalypse survival game, which means it's 'survival' and player vs player. I play it, mainly, for the PVP. If I want to learn or practice survival skills, I'll do that in real life. With my house, that's sort of what it's become! I joined a group, the "Reddit Rescue Force", 'RRF' for short. Doing this, you run around helping people who have gotten hurt. I had a local plumbing company do some work, though, to help me get my washer hooked up. They did a great job, and I learned another valuable lesson: Get a quote first, every single time.
So, back to life. Usually we have a supervisor review our time sheets to be a check for errors, and keep you from putting too much time down. Because of when I'd torn my ACL, I only had a few hours on that pay period on my check prior to being off shift. They didn't update anything (and I didn't check), so I got a paycheck in April for less than 30 hours over the previous two weeks. I had to call my mortgage company and get my payment moved back to the end of the month because 30 hours minus taxes, retirement, and healthcare wasn't even close to covering my house payment, much less the mortgage in addition my utilities and other expenses. Luckily, it's not like I'd spent much the previous two weeks, and I could cover my utilities, and gas to doctor appointments, but that was definitely an unneeded stress.
I wanted to return to work on crutches prior to surgery, in a light duty capacity, and was denied. I knew I'd be cutting it close to running out of all my paid time off (vacation/sick leave), but once you ask and are denied, there's not much else that can be done. So, I kept waiting, and resting, and gaming. I should have done more reading, looking back.
By the time I had surgery on April 17th, I could nearly walk without pain, even though I wasn't supposed to be putting any weight on it. I wasn't awake for the surgery, but from what I'm told it went well. I don't mean to brag, but I'm a very good patient when I'm knocked out. Afterward, I woke up in short stints about three times in the recovery room, but fell right back asleep. Thanks to the wonders of modern medicine, ACL reconstruction surgery is out-patient and I was able to go home that night, as soon as I ate my mandatory 'meal'. I had my brace, a cool-pack with a detachable large thermos to circulate the water, the On-Q medicine drip IV, and my crutches. That On-Q was AMAZING, I barely felt anything those first days, unless I turned the line down too much.
That very next Monday, (the 4th day after surgery) I was already in physical therapy! They unwrapped my knee for the first time since surgery and we worked on simple things like stretching and bending the knee. Obviously, my knee was pretty stiff, and getting it to bend even 30 degrees felt like quite a strain. I needed to get it limber fairly soon, I was supposed to be in a wedding that weekend. Thankfully, the bride would allow me to wear shorts instead of trying to figure out how to get dress pants over my brace and cool pack. That cool pack was my main source of pain relief at that point; I could tell when it was warming up because my knee would begin the dull ache of inflamed tendons, and ligaments.
The day before the wedding, I met the guys at the airport where we picked up the best man, and headed up to Coleridge, Nebraska, for the rehearsal dinner and bachelor party. The rehearsal went well, from what I could tell, apart my my slightly slow gait. The choice for the bachelor party was bar hopping back towards Norfolk with the groom and best man wearing squirrel suits. Only in part due to my limited mobility, I cut myself off early and got to drive the car back to Norfolk. Somewhere in the hoopla one of my crutches got bent, but I don't remember when. The wedding went great the next day, and the reception afterwards was a blast. They had a picture booth and tons of props, so we got some good pictures from that. Needless to say, I didn't dance, unless you consider making ice runs 'boogying'.
That next week would be my last week off from work before going back on light duty, so I tried to enjoy it. Other than physical therapy at the hospital, I didn't have anything scheduled for that week, and I didn't try to change that. My body was probably healthy enough to do light duty activities, but I had been told that I couldn't go back until the first full week of May, so there was nothing I could do. As it turned out with my paid time off, I had to take 20 hours of 'PTO' unpaid. In addition to losing an OT spot, and getting a super short check a few weeks prior, finances were tight.
That was one of the tougher areas of 2014 was dealing with lost income. Another valuable lesson that I had known, but hadn't taken the time to put in action was to save money, and save it intentionally. Before I purchased the house, I'd had a few thousand dollars saved up, but after I'd bought the house, and seen how much work I'd need to do to it, I emptied my savings working on the house, and hadn't bothered even attempting to refill it. I'd spent just about every penny I could trying to get tools or work on parts for the house. I hadn't known I'd be missing work, and losing money like I did, or I would have done something about it. Prepare yourself for the unexpected.
10 February 2015
Looking Back at 2014, Part 2
07 February 2015
A Lament
30 January 2015
Chiefs 2015 Offseason (OTC Edition)
Restructures:
Alex Smith: Converted $6m of base salary to a roster bonus. Saves $4.5m
Tamba Hali: Three year extension adds $25m of new money to the deal and saves $4.5m in 2015
Eric Berry: Extends Berry one more season, spreads all of this year's base salary over this season and next since he isn't likely to play in 2015.
Derrick Johnson: Adds 3 years and $18 million, saves a few million more dollars
Husain Abdullah: Adds 4 years and $19 million, $6m signing bonus
Dwayne Bowe: Post June 1st cut, saves over $9m
Mike Devito: Saves $4m Other possibility is a trade with the same savings.
Joe Mays: saves $3m
Donnie Avery: saves $3 million
AJ Jenkins: Saves $900,000
Sean McGrath: saves $100,000 (not even sure why he's still on the list)
Rodney Hudson: 5 years, $30m, $7.5m signing bonus
Justin Houston: 6 years, $82.6m Highest paid OLB by $16m, highest average for an OLB, as well. I think he'll get a deal under $80,000,000
Jason Avant: 2 years, $3 million
Ron Parker: 1 year, $745,000
Chase Daniel, Anthony Fasano
27 January 2015
A look back at 2014, part 1
On January 1st, we said our goodbyes to our hosts and boarded the train that would take us from the Mediterranean back to Geneva, where we would fly back to New York, and from there, back to Omaha. In Europe, everything went smoothly, from the trains to finding a nice hotel, to getting through foreign air ports (which is pretty rare from what I've been told). Because we'd purchased our tickets so late (sorry, dude), our return flight was disjointed in NYC. We found a relatively cheap bus/van route between NY and NJ that would get us to the airport on time, and we would be travelling right through the middle of NYC. So far, things were going great! I'd never been to "The Big Apple", so I was excited to see a small portion of the city. I even got a picture of Grand Central Station.
When we got to NJ, we got in line to 'check in' and get our tickets for the flight to Omaha, the last leg of our journey. That's when things really slowed down. There was a snow storm predicted that evening, and it started to snow while we were in line. They were preemptively cancelling flights because of the storm. We didn't notice that, though, while we waited in line for over 60 minutes in a line that barely moved. By the time we go close, the board showed all outgoing flights cancelled for the evening. I had a feeling that 2014 would be a year of chaos. We'll just say I wasn't aware just how crazy it would get, and how painful it could be.
We slept in the airport that night; well, we kind of slept. The only warm place to sleep was literally laying on the heat registers, and all of the food vendors were closed. I found out later that because we'd had an international flight, we could have stayed in one of the hotels. The next morning, we hit up the ticket counter very early because our flight the next day was a standby flight, and 2 more days out. I think we went to the counter 20 times or more, by 10 am. We took the airport busses between the buildings, because we heard that they were setting up flights for those that had been cancelled in a different area of the airport. We lugged our luggage, to find since that we'd already had a flight scheduled for a few days out, we shouldn't have made the trip. That was frustrating, to say the least. We went back to our original terminal, and checked the ticket counter a few more times. The employees were always respectful and kind, even when people got angry.