Losing my way

I'm taking a month off from blogging. I read back through several of my recent posts (and deleted several). I was dismayed that everything was focused on work. My job has been consuming me for the last five weeks. It's all I talk or think about anymore.

I considered completely deleting my blog since no one really reads it anymore anyway, and I certainly understand why they don't. It's suppose to be a "weight loss" blog, not a "my job sucks" blog. My goal is to refocus on what's important, and take some time to think.

Someone recently commented they thought my priorities were mixed up because I had listed my job as number one, health number two, and my marriage number three. They said my marriage should be number one. Thank you Jack.

I've been thinking about this for the past two weeks and I agree my marriage should be number one in my life, or at least near the top. Without my husband I would be lost. Without my health, I'd probably be dead, and without my job...oh well, I can always find another job. :)

I found out today my sister completely lost her hearing in one ear. I love my sister to pieces and usually have two-hour phone conversations at least once a month (she lives in Alaska).

Until today I hadn't talk to her since I visited in July. She lost her hearing while I was there but we thought it was because she'd been swimming in cold water. After seeing a specialist and having an MRI she was told her hearing is completely gone in her right ear. She knew two months ago. She called once but I was on the road and never called her back.

How could I have not know this? How could I ignore my family and my husband and make my job my focus? How could have been such a idiot about life and what's really important?

This is my new priority list:

1. God, my faith
2. Marriage
3. Health
4. Friends and family
5. Job

Somehow I seem to have been lost lately. Living in a daze of airports, hotels, airplanes, and stress. I want to get my head back on straight. Live the life I want, not the one I feel forced into.

The reason for a month off from blogging is I really want to focus on what's important. I won't be reading many blogs for the next month, unless I'm in an airport or hotel with down time.

I'll be back December 1 and hopefully in a better place in my life.

Diana
169.6 <---not where I want to be...in more ways than one.

Exposed to the flu and pneumonia and I'm still not sick

It's been a lovely ten days or so around here, I must say. DH has been sick with the flu since last Wednesday (the 21st). He was supposed to work Fri/Sat/Sun (23/24/25) but ended up going to Urgent Care at the VA on the 24th because he was coughing so much he was dizzy (not to mention not hungry, headache so bad his hair hurt, fever and chills, etc). They diagnosed flu, said we were doing all we could with the tussinDM, tylenol, orange juice/fluids, and rest, and gave him an excuse so he didn't have to go in to work (and his work was very understanding about it).
We figured since he had Mon/Tues off, he should have gotten enough rest and be able to go back to work as scheduled for Wed/Thurs. No such luck. He was still coughing up his lungs (dry, hacking cough), still fever and chills, and still not eating much of anything. But he got up and went to work. Two co-workers saw him, both said he looked like death warmed over, and since he was coughing, he didn't need to be there passing it on to the rest of them (or coughing on the soy milk they make and package). Boss wasn't due to come in until 8 a.m., but Chad (used to be a supervisor) said go home, I'll tell the boss, and you call him at 8. So home comes DH, calls the boss at 8, boss says no problem, we've got the floater to cover for you.
Back to the VA and Urgent Care we go. Now they tell us, after a chest x-ray, that his flu has become pneumonia. Oh goody. Well, at least we know what it is, and they can prescribe drugs to help him get over it. So we come home with cough syrup with codeine in it, an antibiotic (not penicillin, DH is allergic to that), and prednisone.
DH has been sleeping in the recliner in the living room because he couldn't lay flat without coughing, but last night, he actually got to sleep in bed for the first time in 8 days, so I think he's feeling better. He's not coughing as much, and his appetite is starting to come back. Today, he's playing games on Pogo instead of checking the backs of his eyelids for holes while watching TV.
It's funny, because when we were at the VA on Saturday, the PA we saw told me to stay in a different room from DH and to keep washing my hands all the time so I wouldn't catch his flu, that this was about the time I should be coming down with it. Well, I've been in the same room with him the whole time, taking care of him, making sure he takes his pills, giving him his insulin shots like I do every day, getting him something to drink when he's thirsty, giving him his cough medicine, and I still haven't gotten it. So far, the worst thing I've had is my sinuses draining (and I have that every fall when it gets rainy and damp).

Totally sick of the health care debate

I've been staying out of the health care debate, for the most part. I've experienced most of the situations that everyone is talking about - no insurance at all, being on Medicaid, having insurance through work but not being able to afford to use it, and now I have Medicare and Tricare (Medicare because I'm over 55 and disabled, and Tricare because my husband is retired from the Navy).

What pisses me off about the whole health care debate is the part where all the powers-that-be think that making fat people pay more for their health insurance is going to cut costs. Fat people aren't any more costly to the system than thin people or so-called average-sized people.
You want to know the people who cost the system the most? People who drink and drive, repeatedly, and don't stop to think about how many people they could injure or kill. People who participate in sports and get injured (don't tell me that torn ACLs, torn muscles, broken bones etc aren't expensive to fix), people who get old (yeah, the longer you live, the better your chances of having things like heart attacks, strokes, broken bones, etc), people who have unprotected sex (yeah, those STDs aren't cheap to treat, and unexpected pregnancies - well, let's see now, an abortion isn't cheap - if you can get one, and if you can't, it sure as hell isn't cheap to raise a kid), people who are addicted to drugs (it's not cheap to get treatment for them, if that's even an option - most of the time, officials would rather just jail them, not a cheap option either).
All of these people that cost health care dollars are thin, average, fat, and every size in-between. But it's too difficult to figure out how to get decent health care for everyone without bankrupting the country, isn't it, unless you have a scapegoat. And who makes a better scapegoat than fat people? After all, they went after smokers and were successful in banning them from public spaces, and have even been successful in banning them from some private spaces (some cities/states have banned smoking in cars if you have kids in them, some have banned smoking in open-air parks, some apartment buildings won't rent to smokers). They've even been successful in upping the taxes on cigarettes to an outrageous amount (I can remember going to the store back when I was 8 years old and getting a pack of smokes for my aunt and paying less than 50 cents for them). Being a former smoker, I'm not going to get into the right/wrong of it all (I quit smoking when cigarettes went up to $1.50 a pack, and I only smoked a carton a month. I didn't quit because it was bad for me, I quit because I had better places to spend the money than on something that usually just burned up in an ashtray when I got busy and forgot I was smoking).
Now they're talking about fat taxes on soda/sugar-sweetened drinks and junk food in order to end their made-up "obesity epi-panic". I think the only thing holding them back from implementing that tax right now is the fact that a lot of not-fat people would be outraged at having to pay a fat tax on soda and junk food, when it so obviously is not making them fat.
I wouldn't have a problem with this so-called "fat tax" if they would guarantee that every dollar of it collected went to pay for health care for those who can't afford to pay for it themselves and don't qualify for Medicare or Medicaid. But I would say the chances of that happening are slim and none, and slim just left town.
The thing is, I'm such an obstinate bitch, a fat tax wouldn't stop me from eating junk food. Are they going to put a fat tax on potatoes and cooking oil (home-made french fries)? How about a fat tax on sugar, flour, baking soda, salt, eggs, milk, vanilla, etc (can we say ingredients for cakes/cookies)? Hell, I could have my own little black market going in home-made junk food, fat tax-free.....ROFLMAO!!!!