making progress…
Thursday, April 15, 2004
I got another update from my parents about my brother...
He is starting to become aware of things. The nurses will ask him to do things (move his finger, etc), and he responds by doing what they ask.
Sometime last night my dad was talking to him, and my brother opened his eyes & mumbled. That was the first time he'd done that since he's been in the hospital.
So he's making progress, which is good. Now we just wait and see just how much damage his brain suffered in the injury.
Even though my parents haven't mentioned the doctors bringing up this term, I found it at
The Brain Injury Association's webpage:
Coup-Contrecoup Injury
- Coup-Contrecoup Injury describes contusions that are both at the site of the impact and on the complete opposite side of the brain.
- This occurs when the force impacting the head is not only great enough to cause a contusion at the site of impact, but also is able to move the brain and cause it to slam into the opposite side of the skull, which causes the additional contusion.
Since they originally told us he had an injury to his frontal lobe, and then that there is also a fracture at the base of his skull (which I can only assume means there is an injury to the brain there, as well), it would seem this applies.. except I don't think they've ever used the word "contusion" when referring to his injuries... Whether that means they don't consider the injuries to be contusions, or they just prefer not to describe them that way, I don't know.
This, of course, is my own speculation, based on what we've been told by the doctors. I think when I talk to my parents next I'll ask them if they can get a "full story" from the doctors and to ask them to use the technical terminology when referring to any injuries to his brain (call it what it is, people). I don't think they deserve any less than the real explanation.
That's all, folks...
They’ve finally used the word…
...coma**.
Even though he thrashes, tries to sit up and opens his eyes, because he is not aware of his surroundings and does not acknowledge them when my family tries to talk to him, he is technically in a coma.
They also finally admitted to my family that there was a fracture at the base of his skull.
Way to withold information, you bunch of prats.
There is talk of moving him out of the ICU and into a normal room in a few days, or even to a rehabilitation facility so they can do physical therapy to keep his muscles from atrophying, since they can do the same monitoring of his vital stats there as well...
** I went to the Brain Injury Association of America and found these definitions:
Coma
Coma is defined as a state of unconsciousness from which the individual cannot be awakened, in which the individual responds minimally or not at all to stimuli, and initiates no voluntary activities.
- Persons in a coma appear to be asleep, but cannot be awakened
- There is no meaningful response to stimulation.
Persons who sustain a severe brain injury can make significant improvements, but are often left with permanent physical, cognitive, or behavioral impairments.
Department of Defense and Veteran?s Head Injury Program & Brain Injury Association of America (1999). Brain Injury and You.
Vegetative State (VS)
Vegetative State (VS) describes a severe brain injury in which:
- Arousal is present, but the ability to interact with the environment is not.
- Eye opening can be spontaneous or in response to stimulation
- General responses to pain exist, such as increased heart rate, increased respiration, posturing, or sweating
- Sleep-wakes cycles, respiratory functions, and digestive functions return
There is no test to specifically diagnose Vegetative State; the diagnosis is made only by repetitive neurobehavioral assessments.
Giacino, J. & Zasler, N. (1995). Outcome after severe traumatic brain injury: Coma, the vegetative state, and the minimally responsive state. Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation, 10, 40-56.
So, I think
"Vegatative State" describes his current condition better than coma, because he's doing most of those things. Although my parents haven't mentioned whether he's following any sort of sleep/wake cycle, he
is breathing on his own, and he does spontaneously open his eyes. His heart rate also increases if he seems to be in pain (which is also when he tends to try to move or thrash), and decreases when my parents talk to him while he's riled up. So he's in there somewhere.
That's all, folks...
my brother
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
Just a quick update...
They took the breathing tube out yesterday. He's breathing on his own, if somewhat labored. The CAT scan from yesterday showed no additional bleeding, and no brain swelling.
They're easing up on the sedating & pain meds to try to get him to wake up, to see if they can find out how much of anything he remembers. He's still not truly "aware", although mom said she's been able to calm him when he gets agitated*, so apparently he's at least recognizing her voice.
*(which is rather ironic considering the two of them butt heads A LOT, and sometimes viciously)
The hospital staff say there's a possibility of a personality change (we're hoping for a good personality change if that's the case), memory loss (his injury was to the frontal lobe), and potentially even the loss of remembering how to do mundane things like walking... although they're not too worried about the latter since he does thrash his arms & legs when he gets agitated, so on some level he still remembers how to move his limbs.
For now it's a waiting game.
Eee-oooo-Eeee-oooo-Eeee-oooo!
Sunday, April 11, 2004
I got to spend about 3.5 hours at the hospital tonight.
My youngest brother rolled my other brother's pickup. Less than 1/4 mile from my parents' house in Chino Valley... He had
just left the house, to go get something to eat.
My brother has a lead foot. My dad estimates he was probably going 40+ mph, down a bumpy-as-hell dirt road, in a truck with no shocks. He lost control, spun and rolled it.
There was some speculation of alcohol.. My brother's friend, who was also in the truck but was able to walk back to the house to alert my other brother about the accident, said he thought he had two beers. But my dad thinks it was maybe only 1 beer, since he & mom had left their house to go visit my sister about 20-30 minutes prior to when my other brother let the one who crashed take his truck. But either way, I don't believe it really had much of an effect on him, as he tends to drink often, so his tolerance level is probably a little high.
At any rate, he's in the ICU. No broken bones (amazingly), but one of the lower lobes of one of his lungs is partially collapsed, and his brain was injured... The CatScan they did revealed some blood in his brain, so he will be getting a visit from a neurosurgeon some time in the morning to gauge the damage and determine whether surgery will be needed.
They flew him to a trauma unit in Phoenix because the hospital in Prescott isn't equipped to handle trauma emergencies. So, since I am the only one in my immediate family who lives in Phoenix, my parents asked me to go to the hospital to be there to answer any questions the medical staff may have for us and to act as a relay on the status of my brother to my parents, while they drove down from Chino Valley.
This is the brother of mine who is an absolute pain in the ass. He is a drug addict, alcoholic, manic-depressive, has ADHD, is border-line bi-polar, probably schizophrenic(sp?)... Basically he's fucked up in a big way.
My parents are hoping that this accident, should he survive with all of his facilities intact, will finally knock some sense into him. Not to be crass, but depending on the damage to his brain, maybe it will, finally.
He's a pain in the ass, but he's still my brother. Although I tend to avoid him most of the time (he is an expert button pusher, knows just how to annoy and piss someone off), I still love him. When my mom called to tell me about the accident and to ask me to go to the hospital until they could get there, and before I got a full "first glance assessment" from her from the paramedics, I started to cry. I knew that it was serious since he had been flown into Phoenix, but not yet knowing just
how serious, it was unnerving.
But, for now he's stable. He's sedated, and is on a breathing machine (due to the lung AND the brain injury.. the hospital staff tell us that with a brain injury it can be difficult for a person to regulate their own breathing, which makes sense).
I've asked my parents to call my cell phone to leave voice mail later today after they hear from the neurosurgeon on his prognosis.
Now to go color some easter eggs... as it was what I was preparing to do when my mom called with the news.
That's all, folks...
Custody battle, nearly overwith
Thursday, November 20, 2003
Well, my brother has custody of his daughter now. I am not sure if it is full custody or not (her mother is still allowed to call her to talk, supervised by my brother), but at least she is home.
However, her brother is still in foster care in Iowa. Apparently because my brother isn't "foster parent" qualified, he cannot take custody of his daughter's brother, because he is not his blood relative. The only good thing about him staying in foster care is it means he's not being given back to his mother. And the foster mother is a decent woman, and the boy has improved many times over since being given to her care.
Eventually I hope that maybe my brother can get custody of his daughter's brother as well, as he is technically the only father that boy has known his entire life. His own blood father relinquished all parental rights before he was even born. (his mother is a manipulative bitch who was purposely getting pregnant by miltary men to "trap" them... the other guy washed his hands of her completely, but my brother fell for her ploy, hook, line and sinker... she ended up running up all sorts of credit cards in his name, ran him $50K in debt in a matter of weeks...)
But anyway, it's good to know he at least got his daughter. She's certainly much happier for it.
back from the road trip
Sunday, September 28, 2003
Got back at around 8:30p. The Sony is all settled in at its new home. We took a copy of Trophy Hunter 2003 in case my dad's old version (the very first one, I believe), won't run on the new system. He asked if his Jack Nickolaus(sp?) golf game would work on the new computer.. I told him I wasn't sure, since it is also an older game, and sometimes older software just won't run on the new OS (winXP).
So, if it won't run, and he doesn't get himself a new copy before Christmas, that is something I will probably put on my list to buy for him as a gift.
The temperature up there during the day wasn't too bad, I guess. It was around 94 degrees, I think. But that is only two degrees cooler than it was at our house before we left. (we're basing the temps off of the digital thermometer in our truck). It was at 2:30p, when we got there. When we headed back home at 6:30, it was down to 73 degrees according to our truck. Niice. :o)
And what was the reading when we drove into our driveway when we got home? 94 degrees. Woot! It dropped a whole two degrees since we left Phoenix! Bleh.
It was a pleasant trip, I think. A little stuffy in their house since they didn't have any A/C running, but other than that, it was good. Got there, set up the computer, then took a tour of the house (since the last time I'd been there was before my parents had moved in and I'd only seen parts of it from the outside looking in windows). Also had my digital camera (whose battery, I found, is going bad.. it said "full" after I charged it last night, but it only had 60 minutes on it, where it used to have twice that at full charge. grr...), and my mom requested I take some pictures of some various faults here & there about the house to record what was already broken before they moved in. Cracked tile in the kitchen, a nick in the countertop by the kitchen sink, some burn marks in the carpet near the fireplace, bleach marks on the carpet in a bedroom, pictures of how the closet doors (the folding kind) won't close properly, the gates outside either broken or set so far from the fence they won't even latch.. and a few places inside the house that appeared to have some water damage, as well as a crack running down a wall in the living room, which appeared to be "repaired" but it was still obvious the crack was there.
She wanted to record them as proof that they had not caused this damage, in addition to recording them for the land lady in case my parents ever need to have them repaired, which would be done by the rental management company, and charged to the landlady. She also asked me if I could try to locate the land lady in California so my parents can have her direct contact info in case the mgmt company tries pulling the wool over her eyes with inflated repair charges.
Anyway, we had dinner (pork chops in a home-made shake-n-bake type breading consisting of oats, cornmeal, and various spices; baked potatoes; white rice; and cauliflower-leek puree (potato substitute, for me and whoever else wanted any)), and then afterwards I showed a couple of programs on the Sony to my parents... Quicken & Trophy Hunter 2003.
I also had worked on a "bills budget" plan for them last night before bed and showed them the file I had typed up, how the income vs. bills compared, and how to break up the amount paid to the bills monthly between my dad's Social Security check and my brother's income (VA check for school, which can be used for school stuff as well as general living expenses).
I didn't quite get to launch into the "You'll do it my way or else" speech, mainly because my brother was not present. Well, he was, but he had Reserves yesterday and was suffering from what we assume to be heat exhaustion, today. He spent nearly all the time he was there either laying down on his bed, or in the bathroom with dry heaves, since he can't keep anything down. If he doesn't improve by morning, his girlfriend is going to be taking him down to the VA Hospital.
So all I could do was show my parents the basics of using Quicken, and the bills-breakdown file I typed up in Notepad. However, the only way this setup will work, is if my brother gets control of how he spends his damn money. He needs to realize that
his name is on that lease. My parents are just listed as "residents", they could not be applicants because of their recent bankruptcy. And to even qualify for the place, my parents' neighbors back at their old house agreed to co-sign with my brother in order for them qualify to be able to even rent the place. So, if he doesn't put forth his share of the bills (his percentage equals the rent and car insurance, when they get it), not only will he be making his own credit worse, but he'll be screwing with someone else's credit. People who went out on a limb for my family by co-signing with him.
I'm sure they'll just love it if he defaults on his share of things and puts a big fat red mark on their credit rating He's gonna be living there once the semester is overwith, and his daughter may be living there if he is able to obtain custody of her, and he signed that form knowing he'd be responsible for part of the bills at that house. The sooner he realizes this, the better.
Sure, my parents will do their best to make sure the rent gets paid if he can't fork it over so they don't lose the place, but since my dad's work is sporadic (self-employed auto-body repair), their sole steady source of income is his social security check, which by itself barely covers the rent. My mother's stress levels need to come down before she can get a job she'd be a reliable worker at. My sister is living up there as well, but until they can get a second car running, she's stuck at the house like my mom when my dad is down in Phoenix finishing up work on one of his last jobs here.
It's not like my brother didn't agree to help cover expenses, so he needs to reign in his impulses, which include being a sucker and paying his girlfriend's car payment when it was overdue and the car about to be repo'd. I'm sorry, since when is he responsible for
her car? He may be using it to get around when she's in town, but that would constitute maybe gas money, or part of the car payment, at most. Not the whole of it. It's her car, in her name,
she is responsible for it. If she can't pay for it and it gets repo'd, that's her problem. Just means that he may be stuck on campus during the school week, but big whoop. That's why his dorm room is on campus. Duh. My dad can pick him up at the end of the week when he's back in Prescott if my brother doesn't want to be confined to campus over the weekend.
I think the reason this money thing with my brother pisses me off so much (and my dad, too, is kind of bad about handling money), is because I used to be the same way, once upon a time. But I was able to get it under control (with a little help from
Josh, of course. ;o) ), so why can't they?
Grr.....
Wow, leave it to a mention of my brother's irresponsibility to turn this into a big, fat, rant! hehe.
That's all, folks...
Road trip
Saturday, September 27, 2003
A mini-one, anyway.
We're taking one of our extra computers that we're selling to my parents, up to their house in Prescott to set it up for them. Their current one is around five years old I think. They've been wanting to upgrade but haven't had the money to shell out for one up front, nor do they have the credit (not anymore) to buy one on a charge card, so we're going to let them pay $50 a month (or more if they can afford to pay more) until it's paid off. I think we agreed upon $800 total.
For a P4 1.8GHz with 512MB of RAM, I think that's not too shabby a deal. It's a Sony, not some cheap PoS HP or Compaq, and we're asking about half for what we originally paid for it. I think it's been about two years since we bought it.
I was just looking at some of Sony's newer computers, and frankly, the only things one of their newer ones has over this one is the processor speed, and the fact that the new one has USB2.0 instead of the first version. Big whoop. Oh, and maybe the hard drive space. I am looking at Sony's VAIO Digital Studio RS400C, the second set up that costs $1013.99, base, before any customization.
- The new Sony has a P4 2.66GHz processor. Ours has a P4 1.8.
- The new Sony has 512MB of RAM. So does ours.
- The new Sony has 120GB hard drive. I think ours has an 80 or 100GB drive.
- The new Sony has a DVD+RW drive, and no other CD drive. Ours has DVD+RW and a CD-ROM drive.
- The new Sony comes with WinXP Home. So does ours.
- The new Sony comes with MSWorks 7.0. I'm not sure about ours, but it might. I never really installed many things off of the software disc.
- The new Sony comes with different digital media software titles. I believe ours did too, but I doubt my parents will use all of that functionality. And if they do, I can probably locate at least some of the software.
- The new Sony has some silly integrated graphics card. Ours has a GeForce Ti 4600. We bought that separately, but even the card the PC came with was not integrated, and was probably better than what the new Sony has.
- The new Sony has i.Link (firewire) and USB 2.0. Ours has i.Link and USB1.0.
- The new Sony does NOT include a multimedia slot (memory stick reader). Ours DOES. Not that my parents would probably use it. They don't own any Sony cameras.
But anyway, for $200 more, the new Sony has fewer options than ours, and a faster processor. Compared to what my parents currently have (an AMD K6-2 or something like that, compares to a P2 400 I think), ours will be lightning fast to them, so what's a measely .86MHz of speed? And without internet, they would be hard pressed to even fill up their current 15GB hard drive, so I think an 80GB will do them just fine. And two CD drives are always better than one. And if they ever decide to buy a Sony camera, well, the memory stick reader is already built right in, so they won't have to shell out $50 or more on an external reader.
So frankly, I think they're getting a better deal buying our computer. To get something that is truely comparable to ours (at least with a Sony.. I think I'd have to advise them to stay away from HP/Compaq, and probably Dell, too), they'd have to spend almost $1600 (that is without a monitor, of course, but our Sony is going to them without one, too, since they already have a monitor).
Sure, one can get an HP/Compaq or Dell for about the same price they're paying for our Sony, but I've heard horror stories about the customer service from Dell and HP/Compaq. My parents' current computer is a Compaq, and I don't know about them, but I've always thought (even when it was new), that that thing was a piece of shit. They bought it because it was a package deal, they got the computer, a monitor, a scanner, and a printer all for less than $1K, I believe.
Personally I prefer Sony's computers, although the Alienware I currently have is pretty decent too. Hopefully the Sony won't give them any grief, it was a pretty good little trooper for me.
packratitis
Saturday, September 06, 2003
I'm a pack-rat (<objects.stuff they'd hung on to over the years that some of it filled a room that had to be at least 300 square feet in size,
to the rafters, plus another room about 110 square feet (half-full, and leaving about two feet of space to the ceiling), not to mention the other stuff they had about the house for day-to-day living. They've taken at least two 25' truckloads of their
stuff up to Prescott, and I think they may have managed to cram most of their furniture in one of those. Shoot, maybe they used three 25' trucks.
Anyway, some of those boxes were mine from when I packed up and moved out several years ago. I had asked them to find my boxes and hold them for me to pick up so I wouldn't have to haul them down from Prescott sometime in the future. They obliged.
I picked up my boxes the other night. Three filled the trunk of my car, and about six or so others were put in the back seat, with four of the smallest boxes sitting on the floor of the front passenger side. Yes, I could see out my back window, I didn't have
that many! :op All of these boxes spent a good part of their 9 years in an old van outside in the driveway. Keep in mind I live in Phoenix.
Some of it is art stuff. Surprisingly, most of my watercolor tubes survived the heat. I haven't checked the whole set, but the ones I did check still give when squeezed. My oil pastels survived without melting. Several airbrush paints survived without drying out. I also found an airbrush. I never had an air compressor though. Maybe someday I'll get one.
My watercolor paintings survived fairly well, although a little warped. But then, watercolor paper tends to warp anyway, so they were probably that way when I packed them away.
One of the boxes got wet at some point. The van had all its windows, so my parents guess that maybe a seal around one of the doors was rotted and rain came in through the cracks in the door. It was only one box that was damp (still, actually, so it must've been from a recent rain), but unfortunately it was the one that had many of my various awards from school, from junior high through high school. One of those was a letter from a former Arizona Senator congratulating me for one of my paintings having been selected to be displayed in Washington D.C. (the painting now hangs on my living room wall.. I'll photograph it later and post it). The letter has water damage and a little bit of mold on it. :o( Some of the other awards (well, certificates, anyway) have mold on them too. I laid them out to dry and sprayed them with Lysol. I don't want to throw them away, but I don't know what else to do to save them. Maybe I should get them laminated? (not the stiff lamination, but the flexible, thin laminate that three of my certificates from jr. high were covered with, so they are mold and water-damage free).
There were a few books in some of the boxes... "Dragon on a Pedestal" and "Being a Green Mother", by Piers Anthony, and about eight others I can't recall the titles to right off hand.
My yearbooks were in one of the boxes, all six, from jr. high through high school.
And there was lots of other miscellaneous stuff, most of which probably has some sort of sentimental value in one way or another. Some of it I may be able to toss. I've got my work cut out for me in the next week or two.. I had already started to clean my office over the last couple of weekends and had made a little bit of headway, but with these additional boxes that came from my parents house, well, that just adds more to what I already have to do. :o/ Plus I also plan on cleaning the rest of the house, too.
The next two weeks (well, at least one full week) certainly can't be considered any kind of "vacation" for as busy as I intend to be...
That's all, folks...
technology will be their demise
Wednesday, September 03, 2003
Who exactly am I talking about? My dad (and as a result, my mother), and my brother.
What technology? The ability to check their checking account balances over the phone (or internet).
Why? Because they're both stupid and forget that the balance they hear is NOT the actual balance of their accounts. They forget the little charges/checks here & there that are still
pending. This results in a negative account balance sooner than later.
And my mom is at her wits end. (my dad basically has control of the checkbook) She tries to warn my dad that he cannot rely on what he hears over the phone because of pending transactions, but it just pisses him off. I've offered to hold a crash course on money management for both my dad & my brother to teach them how
Josh & I have handled our finances for the last seven to eight years or so (just estimating, I can't remember exactly how long). And frankly, when I do that, I will warn them right then and there:
I WILL be watching your accounts after this. If I see it go negative even ONCE after this, I will have no choice but to take away your debit cards and devise a way to restrict the money you spend, even if I have to put money into envelopes and put them into a safe where only mom knows the combination to and each morning she will open the safe & give each of you your individual envelopes with the money for that day, and if you spend all your money that day, then tough shit. And as for bills, I will set up each one to be paid by automatic payment so that you don't even have to worry about mailing them in. And because I will be controlling your money, as long as the automatic deposits continue (my dad gets social security deposited monthly, my brother gets VA deposited monthly), then the bills will most assuredly get paid.
If something doesn't get done, my parents will be right back in the same situation they are now (they've filed bankruptcy for the second time in their lives, and are being evicted from their home of 18 years and moving to Prescott to try to start over), and will be on their asses with no place to live, with my brother riding on their tailcoats because he's no smarter with money than my dad.
The only way they managed as long as they did was because my mom commuted to Las Vegas on a weekly basis, working as a "house mother" in the dressing room of a topless joint. The pay was good (base salary plus tip money from the dancers), but she got laid off. She held a couple of other odd jobs locally after that (in call centers) but for health reasons had to quit.
My dad works, but it is not steady work.. he is basically a self-employed auto-body worker. When the work comes in, the pay is damn good, but unfortunately it isn't very consistent.
Coupled with the fact that my youngest brother (not the same one I referred to earlier) was still living with them up until this eviction, and hardly worked at all, yet slept in their house, ate their food (as did his on-again/off-again girlfriend & two kids, although at least she cleaned around the house), and did jack shit around the house. Oh, and not to mention the drugs he does (mostly pot, but some hard drugs).
Plus, my sister, who is a smaller shadow of my brother, except that she would occasionally work and would give my parents half her paycheck. And yes, she smokes pot, too.
But, on a lighter note about my sister, it seems she has surprised my parents and claims she will quit smoking pot so she can live with them in Prescott. She also claims she will get a job at the college my brother (the first one mentioned) attends there,
Embry-Riddle, working in the computer lab (easy-cheesey work, checking people in & out of the computer lab, making sure no one makes off with a computer). Now, whether her decision to quit pot is a semi-result of my ultimatum (see
part one and
part two), I don't really know... but it could be due in part that she may not have been able to find someone here in town to live with and possibly leech off of... since I don't know whether or not she has a job down here.
Anyway, I guess I've rambled enough about my dysfunctional family.. boy they really frustrate me!
That's all, folks...
R.I.P.
Friday, August 29, 2003
My mom called this afternoon to let me know that an aunt of ours had died the other day. She will be on her way to Kansas tonight with her cousin & his wife to attend the funeral tomorrow.
I didn't really know this aunt very well, but I do remember her. My mom isn't really sure what happened, except that her aunt was recovering from
shingles, and collapsed on Tuesday or Wednesday. She was taken to the hospital and never recovered from the collapse. I'm curious if they found out why she collapsed. I wonder if the shingles had infected her brain or spinal tissues? It is possible, though rare:
Rarely, infection may spread from the nerves originating in the brain into the central nervous system (anywhere along the brain and spinal cord), where it can cause inflammation or blockage of the blood vessels, leading to stroke, paralysis, and possibly death.
Anyway, like I said, I didn't know her very well, so while I'm sad that she passed away, I'm not in tears or anything. But it does remind me of the ages of the rest of my mom's family (the aunt who died was one of my grandmother's sisters)... And also reminds me of the number of ailments my various family members on that side are suffering from or have suffered:
- My grandmother had colon cancer, it is now in remission.
- One of her brothers has had heart surgery, and is due for stomach surgery soon to remove some sort of mass.
- Her other brother also has issues with his heart.
- Her living sister has lupus.
- My mom's brother has diabetes.
So far my mom's two sisters are healthy. As for my mom, she's relatively healthy, except her memory is starting to go wonky. She's had a cat scan done but I've yet to get an update on the results of that and whether they found anything amiss.
Kind of makes me wonder what's in store for me when I get old. 😕
That's all, folks...
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