cyclonefence
cyclonefence's JournalAn earworm
I have inflicted on myself this morning, which I share in the hope of ridding myself of it:
They named the baby Voldemort.
You're welcome.
I probably have breast cancer (again)
About a week ago, I noticed a bloody discharge from my nipple on the breast where I'd had cancer in 2012. Ironically, I was just "aged out" of my annual oncologist's office visit. My pcp sent me for a diagnostic mammogram and ultrasound, and for the first time ever in my experience, the radiologist came out immediately and wanted to make sure I had an appointment to see a breast surgeon. My last mammogram was last February and was clear, and now I apparently have a largish mass. I've had a hell of a time scheduling first the ultrasound--ended up going to another facility--and now getting an appointment with the breast surgeon. The wonderful surgeon who gave me my lumpectomy last time has moved out of state, so I'm starting over.
I am not worried about the cancer. If I'm reading the NIH statistics correctly, there's a 93% survival after five years rate, and I weathered surgery, chemo and radiation just fine last time. My concern now is antsiness, waiting for the process to start. I tried to call for an appointment on Friday, but the lines were so busy I had to leave my number, to be called back "on the next business day," which it has recently occurred to me is Tuesday, not Monday. I'm going nuts with the uncertainty and waiting. I want to sleep until Tuesday.
My other concern, a much more important one, is for my husband. He is so worried about me. He carries the real burden of my treatment, when it comes, and I don't know what to do to help him feel better. My job is easy, once the process starts: I do what they tell me to. It's out of my hands, and I'm not afraid. But no one tells him what to do, and I know he is afraid. We have been married 49 years, and this will be my third cancer (the second was kidney), so the poor man has had to go through this twice before. For various reasons (mostly unwanted advice from nutcase cousins) we agree not to tell anyone in the family until we have to--i.e. if I lose my hair--but I'm going to tell him I want him to talk to his friends about it, if he wants to. I don't care about people knowing I have cancer; it's just that I don't want to be put into the position again of having to be kind to crazy people while I feel weak.
If anyone has suggestions, I'd love to hear them. Otherwise, I just need a place to vent.
Update on my Navage experience
Some weeks ago, I posted about my newly-acquired Navage device, which had been suggested by my ENT as a last resort before more sinus surgery. I was having trouble making it work properly, getting gallons of salt water into my mouth. Several kind folks responded with suggestions, all of them encouraging me to keep at it. I really was on the verge of returning it for a refund.
Well, I did stick with it, and eventually it worked! It washed a gratifying amount of gunk from my sinuses into the reservoir. But the next time, I had the same problem with water going into my mouth. But then it worked again! I finally noticed that it made a difference--although it shouldn't--which side of the nose piece went into which nostril. If I put the sucking part of the nose piece into my right nostril, I get flooded; if I put it into the left nostril, it works like a charm.
I don't know if this will help anyone else having trouble learning to use this device, but it's worth a try before you give up. As I say, it shouldn't make a difference, but apparently my nasal anatomy is such that I have to use it this way, and maybe someone else does, too.
Mostly, I want to thank those of you who encouraged me. Use of this device has made an immense difference. I know I have infection because of the color and thickness of the mucus I expel, but I don't feel ill and have not had to go back on antibiotics since I started using the Navage. It seems that as long as I can keep my sinuses cleared out, the infection can't take hold. These weeks are the longest I've been this summer without having to go to the doctor or use antibiotics/prednisone, and I am delighted.
Will Mueller release a preliminary report before the mid-terms?
I'm getting nervous, hearing on cable about what Trump could do after he fires Sessions. He can appoint as interim AG anyone who has already been confirmed by congress for *any* position--say, Betsy DeVos--who could then shut down the special counsel's investigation and have the information sealed and not released at all. Or allow the report to be written and then sealed.
He might have to fire Rosenstein in the process, but it was news to me that he can appoint anyone he wants who has already been confirmed as interim AG.
Please, somebody tell me this is not so.
Anybody else hearing from "Dave, your local carpet cleaner guy" multiple times?
"Dave" calls from a number with the same exchange as mine. I have a call blocker, and he uses a different number every time. He calls at least once a day. I have never engaged--it's a recording, so I'd have to stay on the line to talk to a human, I guess--but I can't imagine that this is about carpet cleaning.
listening again to Trump puzzling over why Sessions didn't warn him
he was going to recuse himself. Jesus god--has no one explained to Trump why Sessions recused himself? Trump says "he was on the campaign, so he knows what was going on"--well duh. That's why he had to recuse himself, dummy--*after you fired Comey*. Why didn't Trump warn Sessions he was going to fire Comey?
Or does Trump understand perfectly well why Sessions recused himself, but he knows that his base either doesn't understand or doesn't care, and he's keeping up this drumbeat to get his supporters to want him to fire Sessions?
Just for fun, though, why hasn't a reporter asked old Smokey if Trump understands why Sessions recused himself?
What kind of education did Trump get at Wharton?
We all know Trump isn't very bright, certainly nowhere near as bright as he thinks he is. I have been struck by his ignorance of basic cultural norms, of things *everyone* knows--cocktail party conversation-type stuff. He often mentions things that everyone knows by starting out, "very few people know" which indicates of course that *he* didn't know. He doesn't show evidence of any kind of critical thinking, of being able to synthesize information, even of understanding cause and effect. These are skills that are taught in high school and in liberal arts college courses. Business degrees are a little like trade-school certification in that the point is to prepare the student for a specific kind of work--like a medical or legal degree does.
Trump likes to talk about being a graduate of Wharton. I know one person who has a bachelor's degree from Wharton--most people who mention their Wharton degrees are talking about an MBA--and he is woefully ignorant about literature, despite being an avid reader, and the other arts. Trump seems to be like this, too.
I visited the Wharton website to find out what the requirements are for earning a degree, and not surprisingly there is very little non-business material on that list. There is one required course (and that a seminar) of critical writing, a requirement for competence in one foreign language--not a course, but a test--and a couple a courses outside Wharton's business curriculum. These could be biology and geology.
He brags about being a graduate of an Ivy League university without having been touched by the skills and understanding that are the entire point of an Ivy League education.
"Insatiable" on Netflix
How can you not love a series whose centerpiece is the Miss Magic Jesus Beauty Pageant? "Who will win the crown of thorns?"
Trump, McCarthyism, and Roy Cohn
&w=800&q=85
In modern times, besides Trump, leading exponents of the paranoid model have been Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon. All these men did political battle in a paranoid style. And connecting the dots between these complicated men was a corrupt lawyer named Roy Marcus Cohn, who never held elective office, but was close to all of them.
...
Trump first hired Cohn in 1973 when the federal government investigated claims of racial bias involving Trump apartment buildings.
...
Both Cohn and Trump abhorred paying taxes. In How to Stand Up for Your Rights—and Win! Cohn devoted an entire chapter to tax avoidance. He wrote: “More so than any other institution in these free and United States, the IRS smacks of a police state with police state methods. All this procedure must be viewed in the context of where tax money goes…welfare recipients…unemployment compensation…bloated bureaucrats…political hacks, and to foreign aid, where big money is ritualistically poured into countries that hate our guts….All of this provides an incentive not to overpay taxes….”
Trump learned at the feet of the master, reporting almost a billion dollars of questionable losses, which he could use to shelter substantial taxable income over a ten-year period. Giving the spurious excuse that his returns were under audit, he stubbornly refused to release them lest the returns disclose the extent of his tax avoidance schemes, and his rumored dealings with Russia.
http://time.com/4690261/donald-trump-paranoid/
My Trump cousin-in-law pulled a new one on me last night
at a family gathering. She believes every conspiracy theory ever hatched, the wackier the better ("those flat-earth people make some good points" and "you shouldn't leave food out because Bigfoot can go through walls, and the scent of the food will draw him to your house"
as well as the standard Alex Jones disgusting bullshit ("the Newtown CT shootings were a false-flag operation designed to raise opposition to gun rights" , so it never occurred to me that an outlandish true story would strike her as false. She does not believe that Elon Musk's Tesla was sent into space. I don't know why she doesn't believe it because her sister gave her the side-eye and she quickly said "but this is not the time to talk about that." I wish I could hear her theories without passion, without any sort of emotion on either side, because I've noticed that other Trumpies I know don't care about logic, but my cousin-in-law seems to have reasonable explanations--well, reasonable to her, anyway--for every nutjob thing she believes.
Profile Information
Member since: Mon Dec 5, 2016, 05:05 PMNumber of posts: 4,483
