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Those rapid heartbeats really make you feel funny inside, don't they? Glad they busted yours. SVT possibly?

About a year ago I had a cardiac ablation. I had a spot in my heart that was irritable - causing PVC's (premature ventricular contractions), and in one instance V-Tach (ventricular tachycardia). These are not usually good things, but in my case the cardiologist said "no problem, this is the good kind". Apparently I had an irritable spot in my heart that was causing these anomalous beats. The fix is simple - stick a wire up into your heart and fry the bad spot. (Doesn't sound so simple to me!) Anyway, to find the bad spot (which is less than a millimeter in size), they do everything they can to irritate your heart - pump you full of all kinds of cardiac stimulants. Once they get the bad spot to start misbehaving, then they can identify its location and fry it. You are in the operating room under anesthesia at the time of all this (duh!) Well, my heart wouldn't misbehave in the exact way they wanted it, so they woke me up from anesthesia to holler at me and annoy me even more to send my heart into a bigger tizzy. I remember waking up, looking over at the heart monitor, and reading 22x (two hundred twenty something beats per minute). That was one nasty feeling in my chest! I was like, "put me back out!", "put me back out!" You know something is terribly wrong by the feeling in your chest.

The ablation fixed me probably 90%, and two Rx drugs did the rest. Cardiologist says I'm no more at risk of problems than the normal population. One good thing came from this - they did all kinds of tests on me prior to the ablation to make sure there wasn't something bad wrong. Nuclear scans, echo cardiograms, stress tests, dye traces, and all sorts of stuff I don't even know what it was. So I did find out I don't have any blockages or narrowing, which is kind of nice to know.

But I will never forget that feeling in my chest when I got woken up in the OR. Never! So I feel for you Jim. I know what it's like ... not so fun. Glad to hear they got you cardioverted (or whatever they did).
 
zannej said:
Ugh. That sucks! I don't suppose you can persuade your son to reimburse you for the babysitting fees since she's his girlfriend & you're on a fixed income. I hate when people do that kind of crap. It's bad enough to do it to strangers, but worse when it's family. But, I have friends who deal with it all the time. My best friend has the worst luck plus really crappy family who just take from him all the time. His mom uses meth & is constantly hitting him up for $ but never pays him back. She didn't even raise him but she constantly comes around and wants him to fix her car or do stuff for her. She does come and help clean up the yard & do stuff sometimes-- mostly when she's high on something & can't keep still & has the urge to clean. She owed him $600+ but when he asked for it back she quit her job. She knows he's got a kid on the way & his finances are in the toilet, but she still mooches. Same with his grandfather. The old man was put in a nursing home but checked himself out so he constantly calls my friend or drives by and lays on the horn until someone goes out there to make him cut it out.
We are lucky that Mom gets Dad's death benefits/pension from his work in federal law enforcement. She technically gets his military retirement death benefits but the federal deducts the entire amount of his military pay from their payments so she doesn't actually get both (some kind of BS about "double dipping" to screw families of veterans). I don't know if it's legal, but they are doing it.
Since we're rural and the only thing we can get is satellite, they have us over a barrel & the internet is very expensive but has a hard data cap.

I'm very sorry. That really really sucks. :-(

My kidney stones acted up so I had a case of "anal glaucoma"- Couldn't see my a$$ doing anything today. Other than cooking for Mom, I napped. Allergies are acting up so I was sneezing & coughing. Cats keep wanting in or out-- I have my two orange kitties on my lap.
I talked to my best friend today online & he's depressed over his financial situation & the car troubles. He never learned how to be responsible with money so he buys things he shouldn't but even if he spent wisely, he still gets screwed by other people stealing from him or screwing him over. A lot of people owe him $ but will never pay him back.

I watched some redneck drama unfold on FB. So, there are two friends of mine who are stepbrothers. Dustin's dad is married to Arley's mom & Dustin adores the mom bc she took better care of him than his birth mom. I don't know the full details, but apparently Dustin's dad was a total jerk to Angie (the mom/stepmom) & then wanted sex. She refused so he told her he was dumping her. Set something on fire, threw it in the room with her, and locked her in the room with it to try to burn her to death. She managed to get out (not sure how) but didn't press charges. She left & he tried to go over to her later but she called the cops to make him leave. So he threw out & destroyed all of her belongings as well as the belongings of his grandkids (Arley's kids). Mind you, Arley just lost his house and everything he owned in a fire just before Christmas. So he can't afford to replace stuff. Anyway, Dustin & his dad apparently texted each other back & forth about it with the dad threatening to pull a gun on the cops if they showed up for him & then threatening to go buy drugs and kill himself & basically being a drama queen. Dustin kept telling him "Ok, Bye" but his dad kept texting him. The dad said "Don't call me ever again!" and Dustin gave the same reply-- but his dad kept messaging him over and over. Anyway, after Dustin posted the screenshots, his dad replied with variations of "F*** you" over and over to the post. oh, and one of the texts was the dad asking for a gun & Dustin telling him "No". Crazy a-holes in this area. Dude should really be in jail for what he pulled.

It makes me glad that I stay out of drama like that.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to find out about tax codes to figure out if my friend can stop getting totally borked & getting triple-dipped on his taxes. Taxes are deducted for federal, taxes are deducted by his company from NJ, and taxes are deducted from his returns by Louisiana. He works at a casino for a company based in NJ. The NJ company is taxing him even though he doesn't work or live in NJ. My sister linked me an article saying that companies from many states (including NJ) allow the employers to keep the taxes as a incentive to operate in that state. So, it's not even going to the government, the company is keeping it. From what my sister said, the $ should be split between the two states if he has to pay taxes to both and that it shouldn't reduce his returns at all because they are supposed to split his taxable payments, not take even more out. But what happened was, after paying full taxes to NJ, Louisiana took almost $4k of his returns out. I know that even though we live in Louisiana, since the pay my mother gets is from federal, she's exempt from state tax here. I'm trying to figure out if my friend should be exempt bc his pay is from NJ & he pays taxes to NJ. Or if he should not have to pay taxes to NJ and only pay to federal & LA...
Anyone know? It's really sucking bc he's pretty much getting almost 50% of his income taken out in taxes & 50% of what he does get goes to his lying ex.
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My son pays child support.
He has Medical Insurance, dental, vision on his daughter.
He took a wage cut to keep his job, so he could stay in town to be near his daughter.
My son pays me to watch his daughter.
He can't afford to pay more than what we agreed on.
He has his daughter every night for several hours every evening after work.
He has her every weekend, except the 1 one weekend he works.
Then I watch her.
He also buys all her clothing,, food,pull ups(panties)
He pays for everything his daughter needs.
 
They not together anymore.
They haven't been together since my grand daughter turned 6 months old.
My grand daughter will be 3 in June.
She went back to her oldest daughter's dad.
Her oldest daughter is 14 years old.
So no my oldest son can't afford to pay more.
He still has to have a place to live, groceries, have money for his monthly expenses too.
He pays for the food his daughter eats at her mother's house.
At his place, the only place he doesn't buys groceries for is my place.
I buy what she needs at my place.
Not all men or women are dead beat parents like my ex husband.
My son takes care of his daughter's needs.
He has even started her college fund already.
I chip in when I can, but haven't able to for the last 3 months.
My grand daughter's mother pays nothing on either girl.
My son and I have already started teaching my grand daughter how to cook simple meals.
How to make warm tea for sore throats.
She helps Granny quite ( or hinders depending on your point of view) a bit.
I'm not the only one she stiffed on babysitting.
She also stiffed her own sister to the tune of $5000.00.
So I got off lucky compared to her sister.
 
Leaving for Colorado in an hour. I got the car prepped last night, just have to pack up my gear and I'll be on my way. Will be flying back from Denver next Tuesday - I was able to snag a round trip from Denver to Des Moines for $134, so I was able to make the flight pay for itself. Don't like leaving a car at an out of state airport, though...
 
Working for the county highway for free.

Three years ago the county highway ground up the asphalt road. Used the ground up asphalt as a base to widen the road before laying a 2" top coat. County patted themselves on their backs on how many more miles of roaded they have "Fixed" to justified the new road tax. Unfortunately (for the Taxpayer) the base was substandard and county didn't address the drainage problem. With the road widen our mail mailboxes have been taken a hit every time the county plows snow. County got my mailbox this winter. Called for Locates, telephone has a buried cable here somewhere. Hand auger a hole three feet from the edge of the road. Cemented in a new post in and mounted my mailbox. There!

County didn't bother to protect the asphalt edges (berm) with gravel so now the mail route carrier makes a nice rut getting to my mailbox. And everytime it rains the runoff flows down the road instead of in the the existing ditch.

Years ago our church enlarged their playground. They needed a place to dump a truck load of sod/sand. I told them I had a spot...big chunks of asphalt were mixed in with the first load. :(

This brings us to today.

The chunks of asphalt laid in the sun and became semi-brittle. I spend this morning busting the chunks into gravel size pieces. Wheelbarrow my now black gravel out to the mailbox and used it to fill in the ruts cause my delivering my mail. I made sure the filled in ruts were lower then the road. While I had the wheelbarrow and shovel I hand dug to the ditch, slopping it all away from the road. Now when it rains the runoff can actually flow to and down the ditch instead of on the road.
 
hiwall said:
Just watching the stock market devastation.
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Devastation?

Dow Jones is still over 24,000. Normal (IMHO) is around 19,000. Stocks prices (again IMHO) have been over overinflated and pass due for a correction. Plus I figured the Liberal Politicians had to find a way to destroy the economy if they wanted to remain in office.

Yes my 401K took a hit but the hit was all in "profits" and I haven't lost what I had put in nor have I lost my former employer's matching funds.
 
Cashed in Christmas change jars this morning.
It only to me and two tellers to run all that change through the machine.
Only took about 4 hours too.
Took the money, paid on Internet bill.
It's coming down, but slowly.
Put my homemade signs back on Christmas change jars.
They're by the front door now empty.
Signs say something to effect if no change is in jars, there will be no Christmas presents here.
The signs in effect keep Children with sticky fingers out of my change jars.
Now most of you know, I sew, crochet,quilt, knit so there will be Christmas presents.
Probably just not what they want or in the colors they want.
Already 1 - 8 year old boy has made a contribution to the penny jar of 25 pennies.
Which I thought was cute.
I asked him why and he told me not all children are like his 6 year old sister.
Selfish.
He wants to be sure my grand daughter has a Christmas present.
 
Sentry18 said:
The upside (if there is one) is that oil price wars drive down prices at the pump. My wife says we could see $2/gallon.
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It's been just under 2 bucks a gallon here in a few spots. Most places right now are around 2.20 a gallon.
 
tazo2503 said:
Today, back on duty. Last night, Mercy Me...


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They are pretty good. I missed the concert when they were in the area, but everyone I know who went had a great time.

@MoBookworm1957 I'm with Weedy in thinking you need an etsy shop.
@Amish Heart I would have hung up. I get too grumpy and it's nicer that what I would probably say if I stayed on the line. It can get so frustrating.
Jim - you home yet? Hopefully all is well.
 
LadyLocust said:
I washed my car today- the real way, not the drive through. I actually prefer to wash it at home as I do a better job than the machine.
Also cleaned out two flower beds, dugs, pulled miles of crab grass, planted a few bulbs between the existing plantings. Cleaned the rest of my lavender from last fall and have it jarred. I made hubby a batch of oatmeal monsters (his fav.) Was hoping to get the summer kitchen cleaned out so I can start hanging laundry back out there on the line rather than on the clothes here in the house.
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LadyL sounds like a productive day ,we just went shopping and cooked today.
 
I'm being corny and silly not unusual for me , [ I like being silly and corny but more so when I feel good. } so time to go to bed. Haven't really had one nights sleep in a month,lastnight was a nightmare so none last night. Hope tonight will be better.

Good Night all.
 
Meerkat said:
I'm being corny and silly not unusual for me , [ I like being silly and corny but more so when I feel good. } so time to go to bed. Haven't really had one nights sleep in a month,lastnight was a nightmare so none last night. Hope tonight will be better.

Good Night all.
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You should do that more often. It lifts the spirit.
biggrin.gif
 
Curmudgeon said:
It's been just under 2 bucks a gallon here in a few spots. Most places right now are around 2.20 a gallon.
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I paid 1.83 per gallon yesterday for regular unleaded. Glad I was in the van - which has a huge 32 (36?) gallon tank - so I could take maximum advantage of the price. I remember the days, not all that many years ago, where I'd go well over $100 to fill that tank.
 
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