Tag health care

The highs and lows of 24 hours

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I write. It’s what I do. I got a random text last night from a colleague of a friend who I think would mesh with me on a personal level. We’re scheduled to have lunch on Monday. She texted last night– she’s a fellow journalist– hoping I could review her application for a special project. Let’s just call it a grant.

I needed that last night. I received a text from her this morning. She’s never requested my professional skills before, and I didn’t really think about that before I agreed to help her. I just heard, “I need someone to look at my thoughts.” And the former managing editor/grant writer in me just kicked in. She was on a tight deadline, and I was close to bedtime. But I did what I could.

Her text this morning said, “Holy shit. You’re good.”

But let me back up… and let me tell you why I’m struggling to digest the 24-hours of my life that started with 3:30 p.m. on Valentine’s Day and ended after work yesterday.

Happy Valentine’s Day, The Teen!

So, The Teenager considers the hamburger chain Fuddruckers one of her favorite restaurants in the world. Which is funny when you consider her favorite, favorite restaurant in the world is Kachapuri in Moscow. And mine, too.

We had a Fuddruckers a few blocks from her grandparents house for a couple years when she was in preschool. Her connection to this place goes back that far.

They closed it when she was about four. The two closest Fuddruckers now are in Hershey (1.5 hours away) and in New Jersey (1 hour away). We drove by the exit for the Hershey Fuddruckers during our service dog appointment Monday. But I wasn’t hungry, and at this point I can confirm that poor diet spikes my blood pressure.

Somehow, we negotiated a trip to Fuddruckers in New Jersey for Valentine’s Day. But a wrinkle came to the plan when her car’s service appointment took longer than anticipated, and more money than anticipated. But we decided to go anyway. Because at this point, the poor kid is miserable. She got nailed with owing federal income tax, her car insurance has doubled and her car is an enormous money pit that might be a ticking time bomb. Really, the transmission might be next. But we’re working on manifesting luck and joy. Hamburgers, it is!

I locked up the house and I discover an envelope in the incoming mail. The design of the envelope itself ruins the surprise of what’s inside. These kids today, they have all the tension stripped from their lives.

Now, our trip to Fuddruckers was officially a celebration.

And this Fuddruckers, according to the Teenager, is way better than the Hershey Fuddruckers. We’re apparently connoisseurs now.

Note to self: my bacon bacon jamburger was amazing.

Conversations in the car got a little heavy as conversations in the car normally do, and I went to bed missing my family. But that’s another feeling for another day.

Wednesday, February 15

I performed well at work on Tuesday. Perhaps too well, at 132 fixes. My official observation was nearly 107%. I felt the warning creaks in my body Tuesday night that maybe all the car rides and the full day at work might have stressed my lower extremities.

This story takes a turn, and could have ended in tragedy, but it didn’t. But it’s a lot of emotion and a friend nearly lost their life. So if that doesn’t appeal to you, stop reading.

There’s a crew of us at work. We all used to work second shift together. Then we moved to the 10-hour Sunday cohort, Then we moved to day shift. When they rearranged to break schedule to make larger lunches, we gravitated together. And I’d like to believe we have a bond.

One of us went to the hospital Superbowl Sunday with chest pains. This person has a history of past heart attack. And the hospital, from what we understand, tested for hernia, gall bladder and gave an EKG but never did cardiac enzymes. They sent our friend home. This person has been in intense chest pain on and off since Sunday. This person forces themselves to come to work on Wednesday, because we all need to work. We’re not living lives of leisure and passive income.

We’re sitting at our normal morning gathering spot in the breakroom, and we had seen the car of the person in question, but this person had not arrived in the breakroom. We figured this person needed to talk to supervisors. Makes sense.

I receive a text. “Are you at work? If so come to my car.”

I do.

My friend was sitting in the car, tears streaming, clutching at the chest, stating there was pain in the arm. My friend was about to throw up from the pain. Apparently, my friend planned to drive to another hospital after a supervisor offered to call an ambulance. We went into the building, where my friend went into the bathroom. Another colleague had to escort her out of the restroom.

This is when another friend declared that an ambulance had to come and told our supervisors to call. And our security head monitored vital signs.

Our most confident and bossy colleague went to the hospital and we’re told she kept the staff on their toes.

Our friend had a heart attack in front of us.

Our friend received the care needed, but THREE DAYS after first going to the ER.

THREE DAYS.

I’m angry at the system. And I feel guilty for not pushing harder for better care sooner.

But right now, we’re all solemn and grateful that we didn’t lose a friend.

ADVOCATE for yourself and your loved ones.

A Monday mammogram, a dose of anxiety, some more commentary on cerebral palsy (and fitness) and a really yummy dinner

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I had a mammogram scheduled for this morning with my “regular” radiology tech. I went into work late, which meant I could sleep in and isn’t that the best way to start a Monday morning? At five a.m. I woke and starting cuddling my foster cat, Tripod Louise, debating whether or not I should get up. I normally rise for work at 4 a.m. so I have time to do Parisian Phoenix stuff or creative writing before clocking into my shift at 6:30 a.m.

But as I lay there at 5 a.m. today, I realized that I had set up the delay feature on my amazing coffee pot, and yes I still adore my Ninja K-cup, travel mug, and standard carafe brewer. I had coffee waiting in the kitchen. If I waited much longer it might not be fresh. If I fell back to sleep, it might not even be hot.

I fed the fat cats their weight management food and went downstairs where I promoted my latest idea, the photo scavenger hunt book. Check Parisian Phoenix’s submission page for more info.

I arrived at the hospital for my mammogram at 8:05 a.m. I went into the lobby and grabbed my registration number. Luckily it was two away from the last number I heard called. I started rooting through my purse for the doctor’s order and found it crumpled and stained with coffee.

A Dose of Anxiety

While I don’t normally suffer from panic or anxiety, when my stress levels increase I am prone to physical sensations of anxiety. And I had forgotten how stressful I find doing any outpatient procedure at the hospital. Grab a number, sit in the main lobby, go to the registration office, go across the hall to radiology, check in at radiology, get called to mammography, traverse the hall, get changed, go into the mammography suite, chat with the tech, get smooshed.

It’s a lot of steps in rapid succession. I could feel my hard pounding and had to keep inhaling deeply through my nose to keep my chest from closing up.

Was I nervous? No. Afraid? No. Shy? No.

It was pressure. I felt rushed and out of control.

Building Up Another Woman

Once in the mammography suite, I learned my favorite tech would be retiring in eight days and staying on per diem because if she works one day a month she will maintain her medical insurance.

I told her I was happy for her, but also disappointed, because she did my first mammogram and she always made me feel comfortable. I told her I’m sure she helped a lot of women and that I hoped she enjoyed every minute of her retirement.

She called me sweet.

And she remembered me by my tattoo. Which is on my breast.

Foster Kitten Jennifer Grey and Bean the Dog

When I left the hospital, I got the sweetest text that our foster kitten Jennifer Grey (who moved to the Teenager’s room last night for better socialization) is adjusting well.

Forgive me, but I’m finding myself too exhausted to continue,

so from this line down, I am writing about Monday on Tuesday

4:30 a.m. Tuesday, drinking exceedingly strong coffee as prepped on the delay setting by the Teenager.

Measuring Challenge at Work

My anxiety from my hospital visit followed me to work. I clocked it 9:07, which made it hard to do the math of where my numbers should be for the day, but I settled on a total of 85 fixes. And I hit 85 fixes. I was at a table on the right, not my regular table on the left, which meant a subtle shift of balance and more pressure on my right hip. The warehouse outbound supervisor herself brought me 22 refixes, or the work already in a box, which were pivotal in keeping my numbers where I wanted them.

I heard rumblings among my colleagues that no one is hitting “full performance,” so I’m not the only one. We were joking at lunch that in a few months they may reduce their workforce by 50% if they dismiss everyone not meeting the new numbers. I don’t think they’ll do that. The company has always been more than fair in the past. At lunch, Southern Candy gave me homemade fudge. I ate too much of the deliciousness and spent the next couple hours a little queasy.

The murmurings report that employees that are shared to other departments must still hit 90% of the new numbers and that their performance in those other departments will count toward their monthly miss-the-mark allowance.

The goal for my department is 16.25 per hour, but does not include time off for our ten-minute paid breaks. So I use my own numbers. Hour one should be 17, hour two also 17, then ten minute break, and 15 to finish the third hour to reach the official numbers. It’s two more hours until my lunch, and I try to maintain 17 per hour to “make up” for our final ten-minute break of the day.

So I missed two hours and 37 minutes of work yesterday. If I divide one hour (60 minutes) by 16.25, I get 3.7 minutes per box. (For argument’s sake, let me point out that doing the same using 17 unites is 3.5 minutes. So we are talking about the impact of seconds, but it adds up.) I missed 157 minutes of work, so using their numbers I should have lowered my goal by 42.5 fixes but I couldn’t do that math in my head. We are six days into the new system and I’ve already missed my two days a month. I thought I made it with 85 fixes, but my official target might have been 87.5. That means I did 97%. We’ll see what they say today.

I know I talk a lot about the numbers at work, but honestly it’s part of what I love about the job. 1. Numbers don’t lie. You can discuss why the numbers are what they are and develop strategies to meet them. I find calculating the numerical benchmarks to be soothing and an objective way to see how my day is going. And, while my employer would hate to hear this, it’s a good reminder that sometimes you can’t work harder only smarter and not everyone had the capacity to hit 100% of arbitrary numbers every day.

The calculations and my podcast keep my mind busy and allow me to brainstorm what I need to do for my publishing business. If I have to work full-time, I would rather work the blue-collar warehouse job than a white-collar office job that destroys my intellectual capacity and short-circuits my brain with stress. 2. I preserve my creative energy for myself. Listening to publishing-related podcasts, various sources of news, other creators and even some bizarre non-fiction stories keeps my mental focus on my goals and allows me to give my full effort to my employer while still working toward my personal goals.

3. I love the clothes. I have followed Stitch Fix since they launched, when The Teenager was a preschooler and I still had a subscription to vogue. I love seeing, touching and preparing the clothes for their clients. I love seeing the fixes, their color combinations, their textures and I love imagining the person who would wear them. I also like to make judgments of whether or not we could be friends based on their box. Because if you’re on fix #72 and I think all the clothes are hideous, that’s your style and we can’t blame the stylist or the algorithm. And since I write fiction in the fashion world, I love seeing the new trends and which items become perennial offerings.

I also took two muscle relaxers, after not taking them during the weekend. I’ve been curious if some of the strange feelings I have in my legs are from when the muscle relaxers wear off or from missing a couple chiropractor appointments due to other doctors’ visits. The jury is out– but the bottom line is with the muscle relaxers, working out and chiropractic care my body moves easier.

A much awaited visit to Back in Line Chiropractic

After work, I filled my water bottle and headed to my friends at Back in Line Chiropractic and Wellness Center. Not only is former physical therapist and chiropractor Nicole Jensen super smart and personable, but the staff contributes some extra care as well. When my schedule got out of control, office staff person B (as I don’t know if she would want me calling her out in a public forum) made sure I got not only one but two appointments so I could survive the holiday season with my mobility in tact.

I apologized to Nicole for letting three weeks go by without an appointment, and reassured her that I did not fall out of love with her. I summarized how life had gotten away from me, and by the time my trainer Andrew noticed that my legs were turning inward in an unusual fashion and I noticed I felt like the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz, I luckily had called B and had my appointment on the books.

The noises my body made were brutal, but it’s a weird feeling when you stand up and your feet and legs feel loose, move freer and have a more easygoing gait. It’s disorienting. But it’s a good reminder than sometimes I need more help than I realize.

Nicole then shipped me off to Andrew at Apex Training.

The brutal workout at Apex

I love Andrew. I really do. I respect the way he has learned my quirks and can read my form. He has learned ways to troubleshoot what my podiatrist calls my “challenging gait” due to my cerebral palsy. But last night was a killer core and shoulders work out. It was awesome, and murderous. I am gaining so much upper body strength and am very impressed with my lower body function gains.

We missed some workouts recently because Andrew caught a cold and then took some family time for the holidays, but I told him it wasn’t fair that he was punishing me with heavy weights when we lifted and high reps in the more cardio-based exercises. After all, he had canceled not me.

Needless to say, when I got home I ate the lovely dinner The Teenager (lamb, broccoli and hand-cut, homemade parmesan fries) prepared and collapsed in bed. To wake at 3:56 a.m. before my 4 a.m. alarm.

Health update: Liverwurst for medical purposes

Angel Ackerman 8 Comments

This is another in my ongoing series about life with cerebral palsy, a disability no one I know seems to understand.

I have eaten thousands of extra calories this weekend. I can’t stop myself. My weight has hit an all-new, all-time high and I am deeply ashamed of my behavior.

I wrote my primary care physician an email midday Thursday after I called out sick from work, but before I slept 12+ hours. I told him: I know you don’t have the answers regarding my cerebral palsy and its long term effect. I know I walk funny and that has caused arthritis type issues in my hip, my SI joint specifically. I understand from working with my chiropractor (Nicole Jensen, Back In Line) who used to be a physical therapist that the instability in my lower body, especially as I compensate when I am pain, comes from these complications. But the only thing that helps the pain is the CBD creams I get online— Charlotte’s Web and CBD Medic specifically.

I have 2-6 bad days a month, usually a couple every two weeks, reinforcing the idea that my late 40-something menstrual cycle is compounding issues. I only get cramps in my back, but I’m also experiencing pain at ovulation.

And it’s bad pain. Just like all my other pain. All in my lower back.

My new gynecologist listened to my complaints of long-term anemia (which makes me too weak to properly deal with all these other struggles), heavy bleeding, pain every two weeks and massive blood clots exiting my body, and prescribed a couple ultrasounds.

The results have been in for almost two weeks and I can see them but I don’t understand them but they did find things, even if not large and scary, but internal organs are small.

I told him, I work with a personal trainer three times a week, and except for stress eating, I eat well and take all my vitamins. I even scheduled my upcoming follow-up bloodwork.

So which doctor do I need to talk to because my schedules anemia follow up is Nov. 2, and I would like to know if any of this can be treated and/or how permanent it is and/or will it get worse?

Meanwhile, my blind friend Nan and I visited Park Avenue Market, one of our favorite places. We both order liverwurst from the deli.

The man slicing our meat, who knows us at this point, comments that he doesn’t know how people can eat liverwurst.

I told him I don’t even like it. It is a little nasty, but that this liverwurst is better than off-the-rack liverwurst. That I’m not a big meat eater and I struggle with getting enough iron as I have a history of anemia. With the right cheese, it’s not so bad, especially with lettuce and good bread.

It’s inexpensive— so if I get sick of it I feed it to the dog and the dog loves me.

He laughed.

“So, you’re buying liverwurst for medicinal purposes?” he remarked.

Stories about cats, cat rescue and health insurance

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

The pandemic has prompted a lot of discussion about job loss, job growth, and changes in the economy. Other discussions have talked about the impact of various lockdowns and work from home situations on animal welfare, adoption and rescue groups.

** disclaimer: I am not an expert on any of these issues and the following blog post is a collection of my anecdotal experience during my life and in the last year.

In mid-July last year (2020), I lost my job at a small local nonprofit with an operating budget of more than two million dollars annually. My job loss stemmed from my supervisor’s dissatisfaction with my performance after she asked me to move from a job I was extremely good at to a job I had absolutely no experience in. (Forgive these excess prepositions because this experience was so stressful I don’t want to waste time perfecting my grammar because even writing about it gives me great anxiety.)

Around the same time, we had asked Feline Urban Rescue and Rehab for help neutering the two about 9 month old brothers, Misty and Fog, that we had trapped at our neighbor’s house.

Now, during my newspaper layoffs and even when I left other jobs, my health insurance lasted until the end of the month as the premium at been paid. Forgive my snarkiness, but at this particular human services non profit agency, the powers that be (as there is no human resource department or trained human resource professional) cancel your medical benefits on your last day to save money for the agency, because if they dispose of you before the 15th (or so I was told) the insurance agent refunds the monthly premium.

As soon as I learned I was losing my job, I asked my husband (at that point we had been separated for a year) if he could put me on his medical insurance as of August 1. After all, my July premiums had been paid.

So you can imagine my surprise when I was suddenly without medical insurance for two weeks.

Now, from what I understand, COBRA benefits can be purchased retroactively. And our local hospital has a good charity care program.

But still.

So that’s the background. We’re in a global pandemic, I’m unemployed and have $5,000 to my name, no medical benefits, and two male kittens coming of age.

Enter FURR.

When they helped us get low-cost neutering for our “greybies,” we thanked them and I said the fateful words, “I wish I had the money to give a nice donation but I just lost my job. But if you ever need a foster, I’m willing to help.”

Foster cat godmother gave us our first batch of kittens July 31.

Yes, we have been fostering with FURR for a year and a week. Foster cat godmother can’t believe that and says it feels like we’ve been around for an eternity.

Now, if you are one of my friends or a regular reader, you may recall that on August 1, our sassy little black kitten, Hades, bit me as I tried to medicate her infected eyes.

I went to urgent care that day as the finger was growing redder and redder. This was the very first day I had medical benefits and honestly I was scared that they might give me trouble as my insurance had lapsed. Was that fear rational? No. But was in understandable in American society? Hell, yes.

About six a.m. August 2, I went to the ER because the finger had swelled (despite antibiotics) and I could no longer bend it.

On my second day of renewed medical insurance.

I was in the hospital for four days. First time ever, other than during childbirth.

My neighbor— an economics professor at a local community college— and I had the discussion this winter: Who should be responsible for healthcare?

I abhor the idea that this is the domain of the employer. Your access to affordable medical care should not be tied to your job. I believe— even without “socialized medicine” (which I 100% believe in but think certain improvements are attainable without it)— with proper regulation from the government and this system abolished, individuals could find their own health care.

Insurance companies would have to shift their market to individuals instead of employers, and they would have to adapt and market more affordable products but would make their money by attracting as many individuals as they could.

Anyway, the teenager and I were talking about insurance and I was thinking about all of this.