SPew

Might as well use this. by SocialParasite - 2005-10-15 01:34:57
First order of business: Wireless keyboards and mice are awesome. There is one little thing that bothers me, though. I have to change the batteries in my mouse entirely too frequently. My keyboard has only required two battery changes in the six or seven months I've owned it. My mouse has required a change every month.

An open letter to wireless mouse makers:

Dear Sir,

Please make it so they don't use so much electricity.

Thanks.

Now to the other end of bidness.

I've been experiencing a fair bit of confusion lately. The confusion comes in the form of a female coworker who I shall dub "Lady X." The source of confusion is that the internal processes of my brain are largely at odds with one another. I have these little rules as to the types of people I would consider dating. The ones that are at odds with eachother are that:

1) She is older than I am. By 11 years.
2) She has been previously married.
3) She has kids.
4) We have the same place of employment. (this comes up because I've seen coworkers that have dated and the aftermath of the breakup, and rules my employer has in place governing workplace marriages . . . hey, I'm old enough to settle down)

And yet I find myself hopelessly attracted to her. She is funny, kind, beautiful, and all those other adjectives that I would probably use to describe an ideal woman for me. Barring my own mountain of insecurities I'm pretty sure I'm not her type . . . and yet I find myself just two seconds from asking her out every time we work together (even though she is currently in a relationship, but is fairly unhappy with how it's going). I don't even know if she likes me in that way, and I'm fairly sure she doesn't. Yet I find myself in that situation mentally over and over again. I can play it out in my head and there are two versions: the overly optimistic one, and the overly pesimistic one.

I hate feeling like this.

And now for some good news:

Jon is coming back to our living unit in the next week or so. His family ran out of options and the only thing that they could do was send him back to our unit. They couldn't justify keeping him in Hospital 1, and no other living unit is qualified to care for him.

Hah.
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Final update. by SocialParasite - 2005-09-21 03:05:44
This will be the final update about my friend's condition.

Yesterday his family changed their mind after consulting with the doctors in Lincoln, so his feeding was cut off once again. We were all quite angry with his family for being so wishy-washy and for cutting off his food and water again.

Somewhere around 1:00 PM that day I received a phone call from Hospital 1 (which is downstairs from 203 Kennedy, which used to be Pediatrics/Nursery) saying that I was to bring Jon's feeding pump back down. Phone calls had been made and BSDC had decided to take a much more firm position on the matter, parental/guardian wishes or not.

So I got a chance to see Jon. Other than his breathing being less than impressive, a fever, and an unfortunate spike in seizure activity he didn't look or act any different than he had before the surgery. If he really is terminal he is putting on one hell of a bluff.

The sudden change in the way BSDC is dealing with the situation came after phone calls were made to confer with the State Attorney Office and they made it clear that unless his family gets a court order to discontinue food and hydration we do not have to honor their current request (legal precdence being the Schiavo case). Because all of our residents are there on a voluntary admission we also have the right to "kick" them out. So word has come down from High that there will be policy drafted that will outline our official stance that we will not honor any requests to deny nutrition and hydration, and that should a court order come down compelling us to do so we will simply ask that they be removed from our facility and placed in another, due to the voluntary nature of admissions.

That is the good news. Now for the bad.

The family has decided to be very vindictive and is now lashing out at the staff that has cared for him for 36 years. Today his ex-social worker informed us that his parents have asked him to be a permanent resident of Hospital 1, and that the only staff that are allowed to visit/see him will be Hospital 1 staff, and with the move he will be assigned a new social worker. Paperwork I had to sign off on, and I had no choice. It's amazingly stunning that we are being punished for doing our jobs. We are responsible to look out for the welfare of our residents. That's what we were doing. Had this been a blatant Schiavo 2.0 I could let it go. I would have told his social worker that it's time to just let it go. But Jon is not in the same boat as Terri. Terri had a brain that was reduced to goo and only showed the most involuntary of responses (blinking, breathing). Jon is still there.

But this is the last on the matter I will be able to say, because I am now no longer legally able to see him. I think it will only be fitting to see what punishment comes from violating the rule, and how many times I can get away with it before I get fired.

Maybe I'll handcuff myself to his bed, or find some other form of protest to exercise. It's deplorable that we can just be walked all over by people who haven't seen their child in 20 years and have had no interest in his life up until this point. I can only hope that if I do meet them they aren't too elderly that I'll feel bad for knocking their faces through a wall.
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Update. by SocialParasite - 2005-09-18 18:25:45
Jon has had nutrition and hydration resumed because his condition has improved slightly. I'm guardedly optimistic that I won't be losing a sixth friend in two years, but I won't be too shocked if he does die anyway.

Now for some happy news.

Total money raised for the Red Cross by PokerStars:

$127,805

Thanks goes out to Space Nerd Wil Wheaton for pitching the idea for the charity event, and to Barry "Robin Hood of Poker" Greenstein for donating his winnings from a WCOOP event. Thanks also should go out to PokerStars for putting on the event. It's nice to know that my stupid little hobby found a way to help folks that really need it. I may not have won, but I didn't really care.
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My own personal Schiavo. by SocialParasite - 2005-09-17 02:59:29
What I am about to share is probably a violation of State and Federal law (HIPAA), but it's eating me alive like a cancer.

quote:

I happen to be in the position to work with someone in Terri's condition and just so happens to be profoundly retarded. Generally speaking there are only two people who are guardians of our residents: someone in their family, or a legally appointed guardian (which tends to be a direct care staff member that is willing to take on the task).

Either way each side is kept informed of the patient's health and overall quality of life. There are layers upon layers of policy and procedure that prevents your hypothetical. In fact, the farthest you can push the right to die with the retarded is a DNR order, or to order someone off of life support systems because they are dying. Which has to go through human legal rights, a physician, the social worker, and about a few thousand other overpaid "professionals" before the final okay is given. I've been through the death of two individuals in the last year. I know the process.


And now I can add that I am now going through a Schiavo.

The resident that I spoke of above wasn't 100% like Schiavo at the time, but his capacity of functioning in any way was reduced to blinking his eyes and feeble attempts at voluntary movement of a limb. He was that way because of a severe case of hydrocephaly had gradually destroyed his brain. Unlike Mrs. Schiavo, Jon was still very much there. No imagined responses on a video tape propped up by the Culture of Life. Jon could respond to yes and no questions through an established set of eye blinks (1 = yes, 2 = no), and tried to make contact with the outside world. With physical assitance he could still blow kisses to the staff, but only once or twice a day because it was so exhausting. He would even try to talk like he used to, and still tried to mouth the names of familiar staff.

A couple months ago Jon got unusually bloated around the abdomen. A bladder scan revealed his bladder contained approximately 1,000 ml of fluid. He was catheterized and the nurse reported an extracted total of 1,100 ml of urine in the charting and other assorted paperwork required by protocol. He started bleeding, but it was expected that some bleeding would happen. You just can't cath a man without running the risk of some bleeding. I've seen the quick-cath kit for both ladies and men, and let me tell you: you've got it good gals. So there was bleeding after the cath and nobody was all that excited. And then it continued into the next day. Slightly bothersome, but we were assured that it still wasn't outside the realm of normal. The day after caused more concern.

Every time Jon urinated his body was wracked with pain. The urine wasn't really urine at all at this point. It looked like a 60/40 mixture of blood and piss. Clots. The man was screaming (as much as he could, which was a faint groan) with every void. After a brief call with the doctor on duty it was decided that it would be best to place a Foley catheter in to help make urination more easy. The catheter would also prevent blood from clotting up in his urethra and causing more hardship.

I think it was only a matter of about 48 hours before the gritty stuff started coming. We were concerned and so we brought it up with our living unit RN. She said that those were just little blood clots and we shouldn't worry. This lady has gone to nursing school, has been a nurse for at least ten years, and I would make a better nurse than she is. I have no formal training as a nurse and even I know that the gritty stuff at the bottom of the drain bag is kidney stone precipitate. Of course nobody could convince her of that because she's an RN and we are just lowly DT staff. This is a fairly regular thing between the staff and her, by the way. She is always right even though she is patently wrong and there is empirical evidence to prove so.

We finally got the bug planted in enough ears that they got a doctor to order a scan of his urinary tract, and guess who was right? Not Merriam fucking Kelle the Infector of Urinary Tracts RN, that's who. The guy had kidney stones like traffic backed up on the freeways of LA. In the urethra, in the bladder, and every other place one could think they could be.

Time goes by. Consults are done. Finally they place the idea before his parents: We can leave them be and he can be in incredible pain for a very long time, or we can operate and there's like a 99.9999999% chance he'll die due to his condition.

Parents decided to go ahead with the operation.

He had the operation eight days ago. Things went reasonably well the first couple of days. Jon is incredibly resilient and has, up until now, lived for some 12 years longer than he was supposed to. His initial life expectancy was somewhere in his twenties and he is now somewhere in his thirties. Someone said 36, but I wouldn't know without checking his record. Then at some point he thought it would be fun to get pneumonia. In both lungs.

That brings us to sometime in the last couple of days. His parents have decided to stop all treatments with the exception of his pain medication and seizure medication, and to stop his g-tube feedings.

As I have made it clear during discussions about Terri Schiavo I'm am all for a person's right to die. I feel that if you run out of options and there is no hope you shouldn't prolong someone's life just because you don't want them to die.

I was fine with the decision until we were told they wanted to bring him back to our living unit to die. Hospice is only paid for five days with our people and if they haven't died by then, oh well. You were too slow to die. so get the fuck out.

There are staff that I work with that have taken care of this man for nearly the entirety of his life. Some of us haven't worked with him that long, but we still love him. They had the nerve to even ask if we would allow him back on the living unit. As much as I respect a person's right to die I will not be party to that person's death, even if it is my job by some twisted fate. The general response by the living unit staff was that if he came back to the unit we would: resume his tube feedings even if it means losing our jobs and serving jail time, or we would all quit en masse. It was made pretty clear that if he were brought back to the unit we could not guarantee that his family's wishes would be complied with, but that the hospital downstairs would be a far more appropriate place because the staff down there are largely people that have never worked with him.

I never in my life have ever thought I would be involved in such a situation. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I'm ashamed that I can't help my friend die in comfort because I'm so selfish that I can't bear to watch. Even if it is my job.
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The show begins. by SocialParasite - 2001-03-07 06:25:16
*The people all take their seats. A subdued murmur filters through the curtain as the people take their seats and participate in small talk. After a few moments, the lights come on, and the curtain begins to slowly rise, revealing a semi brown-haired, blue eyed, 6'1" 275 lb male, dressed in a Valentino's uniform. The crowd quiets down, and the man on stage looks at them all, takes in a deep breath, and begins:*

I was bored this evening, and decided to see if my old web site was still around, despite the contract with Tripod stating that all pages inactive for a month are deleted.

I found it.

I designed it when I was 15, and first started using the Internet. I remember sitting in the computer lab of the public library, using their computers since I didn't have one of my own, and dreaming about how cool a site it was going to be. I never updated it again, but the thing has gotten enough hits to roll the counter over once. The page offers a little bit of information about Final Fantasy Tactics, and that's about it. I got an e-mail from some guy in New Zealand telling me how cool the site was last year. Every now and then I still get an occasional e-mail about the site, although the mail has stopped now.

Those were the days, back when I would sit at a computer, and play MST3K's Caption This! because it was funny to make fun of still frames from film on the Sci-Fi Channel. I also met my first e-friends playing CT. After a few of them thought I was cool enough, they let me in to their "private" sector of the Sci-Fi Channel's web site. We called it "private" because we were about the only people who knew about it. It was called The Buzz Bin, but they recently removed Sci-Fi Buzz from their servers, as they had threatened to do many times before.

Back in the day, I wasn't known as "SocialParasite," or "Orestes," or "ComaWhite." I was a cross between "Bomber Man," and "anal probe," which I came up with while registering my Tripod site. The first evolution was "Proberdude," but "Proberdude" only lasted about twenty minutes. When I registered for my first e-mail account at Excite!, which I still have today, "Proberdude" became "Proberman." "Proberman" stuck with me for many, many years. In fact, "Proberman" died when I first came to The Stile Project Forum. But I digress.

We also had a little BBSs we frequented on the Sci-Fi Channel's site, which can be found here. There may be a few more, but I've forgotten where they are. Unfortunately, I came in at a very xenophobic time. Shortly before I joined, there had been a major knockdown, kick-'em-in-the-teeth flame war with some asshole from Seattle who went under the handle "Wyrdrune." The group accepted me, but only after I proved I wasn't going to flame them at the drop of a hat.

We had many heated discussions at times, mostly on the subject of homosexuality (I've nearly fine-tuned many of my arguments on the subject because of my time there) over at Sci-Fi Buzz, and I did a little story writing on the BBSs.

Wyrdrune eventually returned, more psychotic than ever, and we eventually moved. We resided at a message board one of the members was kind enough to build on her AOL account. We later moved again to a more private board because Wyrdrune found us. I know it seems like we were running and hiding, but it became impossible to carry out a conversation without him taking over the board. We also couldn't ban IP addresses, so we decided to move on to a board where we had enough control over that we could safely resume conversing.

We now reside at Slugfest on an Ez Board forum. As a minor note, if any of you attack our current home, I'll have your IP banned, no questions asked. We don't take kindly to attacks. Anyway, our community now lives a lazy existence, and we have sort of drifted apart. Busy schedules with school, and work, and raising kids, and home repairs, and other things that make up the American Dream.

After a while at the current home, a friend of mine pointed me out to the Stile Project (pre-forum days). I was totally shocked by what I saw: people eating shit. It wasn't just the abundance of porno that I was given access to which kept my attention; it was also some of the weirdest, most outrageous movies I had ever seen. I quickly took a liking to the pages shocking and fresh content, and when the forum opened, I eventually joined in it, too.

I believe my first handle there was "Sandrock," which is one of the Gundam mobile suits from the anime series, "Mobile Suit: Gundam Wing." When I first showed up, I wasn't exactly the mega-cool poster I've turned out to be today (yeah, right). It wasn't until many, many forum resets and handle changes that "SocialParasite" came about. After a while, everyone accepted me, or at least put up with my existence. Then I was introduced to the next level of chat: IRC.

Up until this point, I used ICQ and various Java chat applets for chatting with people. I first used IRC to publicly apologize to Stile for wishing death on him. Yes, it was rather silly, but I did it anyway. Of course, I didn't do it in a chat room, so he never heard. I later figured out how to join #stileproject, and apologized in private. He said everything was cool, and all was well within me.

I later joined in the antics of #wotsp back during our Darktree days. I remember how much fun it was to chat with all these people that had amused me for so long in real time. It was a shame that garycoleman had to fuck things up for us, but life moved on. I still remember the little bastard flooding me so hard and so fast that it caused my modem to malfunction until I rebooted. Now that I look back on it, it's kinda funny.

Gary wasn't a jerk in private. What you saw in public was just a show, but when you got him to talk to you one-on-one, he was funny and fun to talk to. Not everyone shares my sentiments, but that's their own perogative.

I also remember when Stile went from super-cool forum administrator to mega-stupid jag-off administrator. I remember the ban-fest he had one night, and how Anti-Stile kept getting in through anonymizers to post a few more posts, and then get banned. Rinse and repeat.

All of that and a few more ban-fests now lead us to where we are now. I remember when we were hated for breaking away from Stile's grasp, and how we all swore we'd never go back. Of course, a lot of us did go back, and we aren't hated over there any longer.

It amazes me how a group of "rebels" have banded together to form their own community, and how we haven't died yet, or abandoned this place to return to the MotherLand.

Now, I'm 18 years-old, I haven't touched my crappy web page since a couple of years ago when I added contact information, and I feel as though I am one of the more liked members of the forum. I'm not saying I'm the most loved, or the über-poster; I'm just saying that as a general rule I'm not hated. Come now, do you really think my ego is that big? Shame on you!

And so, in closing, Asylum, I salute you. I salute you, and thank you for all you have offered me, and I hope that in some small way, I've given back even a small fraction of what I've been given.

*Final curtain drops, the lights go out, and the people go home*

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