Ten and a Half Years

I can't beleive it has really been that long since I've posted. It seems like a blink of an eye yet my universe has completely changed. Loss of those held dearest and gaining the long forgotten dearest souls. Happiness has changed meanings as time marches on. Age provides a better focus of what is worth attention and emotions. I'll try not to let another decade pass without a post. I've missed it.

Stroke at 49-fundraiser

Stoke at 49

The link above is for a fundraiser campaign for my husband.

The Great Depression of the 2010's musings part 15-Stroke Recovery from a Disabled Point of View

I've written in the past about my husband's stroke at the age of 49. That was 1.7 years ago. He has been classified as disabled due to the limited mobility of his left leg, hand and arm. Both of his feet have no feeling. Yesterday we discovered that the numbness is moving further up his left leg. It is now above the ankle. 

As of last week we were finally able to get him to Cook County Hospital. For any of you who have never had the need for County or who have had the privileged of having insurance, you are indeed lucky. The average wait time has been well over 2 hours to see a doctor. The entire building is dirty and you feel the need for a shower when you get home. Some of the staff is kind but the majority have the attitude that you are bothering them. They snap at you. Talk so rudely. It was truly a depressing experience. Yesterday he had an appointment at the Podiatrist. My husband has not had his diabetes, neropathy, or blood thinners checked in over a year when they cut Medicaid. After we'd been there for an hour he had to use the restroom. Yesterday was a rough day for his mobility. It was very slow. We went to hunt a bathroom down. While waiting for the restroom closest to the clinic 2 people cut in front of him. My husband was too tired and his pain was making it difficult to walk. We walked down the hall to the next bathroom, half way across the hospital. It was being cleaned. We had to walk farther down the hall to a 3rd bathroom. By the time we got back to the clinic a trip to the bathroom took over half an hour. Didn't matter, they had not even begun to put his paperwork together at the front desk. By the time they called him up to sign his paperwork 1.5 hours had passed.

I do believe it was the most depressing day we have ever had in a hospital. The conditions the poor are subjected to is disheartening. I know my husband will be able to see regular doctors in the hospital we have been going to as soon as Medicare begins in November. I just find it apalling that a man has a stroke, is left disabled for life, has conditions and medications (diabetes, neropathy, blood thinners) that require constant monitoring and yet is not entitled to Medicare (a system he has paid into for the past 30+ years) until 24 months after he has had a stroke. There is so much he will never gain back because he was not able to continue Physical and Occupational Therapies. I just don't understand how people assume that everyone is out to milk the system and take their hard earned tax dollars. My tax dollars and my husbands went into a system that was suppose to cover such crisis's. Instead all I read in the papers are more cuts to benefits that people have paid into. It is heartbreaking and sad.

The Great Depression of the 2010's musings part 14-Rejection, dejection and pain

When someone is on the edge of sanity, has a family history of debilitating depression and suicide, here are a few tips on what not to do: 

1-Tell your lifelong friend whom you have always thought of as family that you "need a break" from their friendship. Especially when that persons back, mind, and spirit are slowly breaking with every blow that this life is delivering. Worst thing is to, when they tell you they are on the ledge of life, leaning more towards death, to just stop all of the steaming piles of dung dumping all over their lives and soul, is to tell them the ultimate FU-"Call a helpline or check into County Hospital" This is telling the person not to call you. A real friend does not abandon a drowning person. Words cannot describe the pain of this loss. Of all of the things in life that could be counted on as a sure and true thing was a best friend. That is lost. 27 years of family/friendship cut with a sword of words. I suppose the true feelings of that friend all along. 


2-If you meet your long lost father when you are the ripe old age of 30 and his wife treats you and calls you one of her daughters. Don't expect to really have a place in their hearts. I always thought my father and his wife cared about me. When I joined FB and Mom2 was on there around the same time 3 years ago or so she sent me a family request for me to be her daughter and her my mother. I accepted this gladly. This afternoon I saw a request from her to list me in her family group as Stepmother. It was a painful request. I would have preferred she deleted me rather then demoting my status in her and my fathers lives.


Relationships are something I was never any good at. I am sure it is because I have always come from the rejected persons perspective since birth. You would think it would become easier to deal with the losses in life but it never does.


It is amazing to me to see how little people actually see the ones they say they love. I don't mean with visits but with the circumstances and surroundings in which they live. The weight of all of the calamitous events that occur, one right after the other as the person they once knew gets sucked into the abyss of financial, physical, mental and spiritual ruin. It isn't until that persons funeral that they say, "I had no idea she was struggling so much. I wish she would have said something." They cry, act as if they were there the whole time, helping, listening, or just reaching out a hand to keep the person from being lost forever. People don't really care the way they say they do and then you get surprised by a caring thought or concern from those you don't expect to. People that are far away and have heavy plates of their own. A tender word or thought that can brighten a moment in your blackened day.

The Great Depression of the 2010's musings part 13-Dreams

Last night I dreamed about Chris. I went to my family's Christmas (which I normally do not do) and Chris was there. It was in present day so I knew he was dead and had been dead for the past 15 years. Everyone was ignoring him. I was amazed. They saw him. Knew that he was there but acted indifferent. I went up to Chris, told him how happy I was to see him and how wonderful it was that he made this amazing journey to be there. I hugged him. It was so vivid. I had my arms around him and my head on his chest. Loving him. Feeling a long missing hug. When I woke up I still felt Chris' hug.

The Great Depression of the 2010's musings part 12-The Horrors of Youth

When I was a very small girl of 4 I fell in love with a song that came out 2 years before. When I heard this song I would sing along and it made me so happy. I made the mistake of singing this song one day at my JW babysitters apartment. As soon as they heard a 4 year old singing "I'm on top of the world looking down on creation.." the slap to the face came. I was told that I was placing myself above god and would have to be punished for my sin. I was beaten with the special wooden paddle with my name on it. It was a paddle just for me because I was so horribly sinful and was beaten more then the other JW children. Below is the evil song that is full of sin...

 

How can people be so cruel to innocent children? Why do they feel the need to destroy innocence and replace it with fear and self loathing? I never sang that song again. The thought of it is pain, fear, and loneliness.

The Great Depression of the 2010's musings part 11-Teacher Bashing, Again

An article in the Chicago Tribune ran a story about CPS teachers union asking for a 30% increase for teachers over the next 2 years for the added 90 minutes a day teachers are asked to work. I am putting up the link to the article. State High Court Sides With CPS in Dispute Over Teacher Layoffs 2012

Below are the comments from the page. What is interesting is the comment page was shut down rather quickly. The only way to access it is through the link I am posting. Other than that there is no way. The question is why? Discussion board/comment section

The most important question asked was the reason the comment section closed, in my humble opinion. It was shortly after I posted this question (highlighted in pink) that they stopped allowing comments.

* I have highlighted my comments in yellow and the contradictory ones in puke green. Maybe someone can tell me if I am crazy or are people really this insensitive and cruel.

PatCole at 1:23 PM February 17, 2012

Those teachers were wrongfully terminated. Plain and simple. I find it strange that the very same people that blast public school teachers for standing up against such treatment are the same that would lose their minds if it happened in their professions and work places.

PatCole at 1:18 PM February 17, 2012

Teachers, especially public school teachers are underpaid. Unions are a great thing ( never mind those that get corrupted like any large organization might possibly be ). Unions have actually been the most stabilizing force for employees in the 20th century until they and governmental regulatory agencies were infiltrated and undermined enmasse by right-wingers beginning in the Reagan era. Any union's power to negotiate protects employees and helps create a standard that even non-union employees can strive for.

Across the country, most people's wages (under economic adjustments) have been sliding downward since 1980 or so. People, like teachers in professions that serve the public good have been under attack and sliding further by the powerful who wish societal advantages like quality education, healthcare, vocational retooling onlly exist in their class. Public Education ( and the people that fight for it ) are one of these things these type of people feel should be under-valued by not only them, but also the very people they wish to keep under-educated, underpaid, and ill-informed.

 

CityChic at 12:02 PM February 17, 2012

The arrogance and ignorance of the CTU is unbelievable.  30% raise in 2 years? 

Sure!  They deserve it!  What, with a 50% graduation rate.  Congrats teachers.  You're doing a bang up job. 

Let's reward more FAILURE.   

History Teacher Lady at 11:41 AM February 17, 2012

If you were contracted to be paid a certain dollar amount an hour and your boss told you that you would now be working an additional 1.5 hours a day without being paid for it, how would you react?

If your boss increased your workload by 50% (filling a classroom with 30+ students) permanently with no compensation, how would you react?

The massive layoff of 1,300 teachers in 2010 effected my position and that of many History Teachers. Of that percentage that found positions in CPS again, I wonder how many were History Teachers? My position was given to a teacher that was not qualified nor endorsed to teach my subject. History/Social Science is one of the first academics to be cut. Just ask your child what they did in Social Science on any given day. If you get an answer, I would be surprised.

How many of those who hate teachers so much in these comment sections have ever spent time, I mean real time, not a few minutes dropping off your kids or going for mandatory report card pickups, in the classrooms, playgrounds or lunchrooms? If you truly believe that teachers are "these lazy people who have all the time in the world", request a tag along with a teacher for a day. Not just the day that starts when the students get there but when a teacher arrived until when they leave. Teaching is a passion and gift. Why belittle those who impart knowledge to our children?

CityChic at 11:59 AM February 17, 2012

Do you honestly think a teacher deserves a 30% raise in 2 years? 

Who do these people think they are?

 

History Teacher Lady at 12:10 PM February 17, 2012

Do you expect to be paid what your employer has contracted you for? Or do you like working for free?

History Teacher Lady at 12:12 PM February 17, 2012

Or do you like having your salary cut?

CityChic at 12:26 PM February 17, 2012

Lady - omg.  Where to begin?

Please explain to me how the CTU was EVER contracted to get a 30% raise?  If so, that is straight up CORRUPTION. 

You people are disgusting criminals - THIEVES.

You're already overpaid for producing a crap product.  You should be ashamed of yourselves.  Absolutely PATHETIC. 

CityChic at 12:28 PM February 17, 2012

I love how not getting a 30% raise is equal to working for FREE.

Omg, you're a teacher?  No wonder the kids in CPS are morons.  Look at the non-logic of the stupid teachers. 

Seriously, you should find a new profession.  No child deserves to be around such stupidity.

History Teacher Lady at 12:49 PM February 17, 2012

Hmmm. contracts obviously mean nothing. That is why the teachers were not given their contractual 4% raise last year.

If you'd read my post, I am no longer a teacher. I was one of the 1,300 laid off non-tenured teachers.

Again I will ask, if you had a certain dollar amount that you were paid each hour and your boss wanted you to work an extra 1.5 hours a day and not get paid for it, how would you feel?

You people? What people are you talking about? People that educate children? Or the ones who have been laid off because of budget cuts and program cuts? Maybe I was stolen from, ie, my teaching position being given to an unqualified unendorsed tenured teacher. Or the career I left to give something back to the community or the city I love. But I have not stolen anything.

When the decision to lay off my position came, my students were 10+ percentile points increase on their ISAT's while 4 percentile points is good standing for the city. I cared and gave much for my students at the expense of my own family. For you to boil students down to a product is shameful.

History Teacher Lady at 1:08 PM February 17, 2012

One of the first things I made sure was understood in the classroom, respect for one another. You don't have to like the people you are in class with but, like family, you have to respect them. Name calling is never an effective way to carry on an argument or disagreement. To effectively debate you need to understand both sides of the issue and debate/discuss. Name calling is for those that have no valid argument, so instead feel the need to intimidate.

 

ChicagoG2 at 11:28 AM February 17, 2012

rationalevoice.. unions treated like crap??? it's the TAXPAYERS that are being treated like crap and extorted by the unions.. they destroy EVERYTHING.. auto ind. steel ind. EDUCATION... all you union hacks bring up is what they did last century... time has moved on and feeding at the trough is finished. TEACH because you LOVE to teach; not because you can retire early with benefits.. almost EVERY teacher I know is more worried about their benefits... which shows you why the schools SUCK so bad in Chicago (also blame libtards WELFARE and lowering of expectations for that too)

ChicagoG2 at 11:22 AM February 17, 2012

The UNIONS want raises when the schools are the worst in the nation, when all of us are taking cuts, when all of us are either paying for our health and retirement or NOT having it... and these idiots want a raise. WAIT until we cut their pay, CUT welfare entitlements.. this Welfare City will look like Greece with all the TAKERS rioting... eventually we WILL have to cut entitlements to the TAKERS and they WILL fight

Conley65 at 11:21 AM February 17, 2012

The important sentence here is "many have already found...jobs within CPS."

Even though teachers' unions and Democrats whine nonstop about the layoffs of teacher, the fact is that very few are actually laid off. Is it a layoff when somebody is transferred to another job down the hall in a slightly different category? According to CPS. What about somebody who iad "laid off" for a week or a month or two and then brought back? Is that really a layoff. No, it isn't. T

Layoff numbers are fakes-these teachers, many of them seriously bad at their jobs, are not losing their jobs, they are being shifted around. This is a ploy to get more money out of the taxpayer for Chicago and the region's execrable public schools.

We need to stop acting like sheep. I would bet most of those 750 are working at CPS right now, and the others chose not to take jobs offered at CPS

Reporters need to do more than copy down what the CPS PR flacks hand out.

 

History Teacher Lady at 11:47 AM February 17, 2012

You are only talking about the tenured teachers. Those that were not tenured did not get shuffled to anyplace but the door.

Would love to know how many non-tenured teachers were re-employed by CPS. Why isn't that number there?

Pork Chop at 11:18 AM February 17, 2012

Chicago democrats. Unions. And the city is broke. Enough said.

ChicagoG2 at 11:23 AM February 17, 2012

Forgot to leave out the billions we spend in Chiago on WELFARE fraud... just look at the ghetto and you'll see how well the libtards system works

Gigi T at 11:15 AM February 17, 2012

30% raise over two years?

Must be smokin Hopium.

Dilbert McClinton at 11:09 AM February 17, 2012

From someone I know who's a CPS teacher, I can tell you that most of what comes out of Karen Lewis's mouth is news to all of them.

jeff191 at 11:14 AM February 17, 2012

Just not what goes into it.

jeff191 at 11:05 AM February 17, 2012

Seriously Tribune, why run the story about Karen Lewis and the CTU wanting a 30% raise without allowing comments on it? http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/ct-met-ctu-proposals-0217-20120217,0,6829485.story

History Teacher Lady at 11:43 AM February 17, 2012

Because they do not want the 1,300 teachers who were laid off to make any comments. Lives were destroyed that June.

JF Kennedy Democrat at 11:02 AM February 17, 2012

Let's see - Johnny can't read and now 'teach' will have to go out and get a full-time job him or herself.  Tough!

jeff191 at 10:56 AM February 17, 2012

This news is going to drive Karen Lewis straight to the buffet. Someone please notify the Old Country Buffet so they can have extra shipments on hand.

ChicagoG2 at 11:24 AM February 17, 2012

are you sure Jabba the Hut eats human food????

jeff191 at 10:54 AM February 17, 2012

This is what happens when you let Mike Madigan pick the judges. Appeal to the US Supreme Court, a court that is outside the corrupting influence of Madigan.

jeff191 at 10:57 AM February 17, 2012

Errr, sorry, the Illinois Supreme Court. Except for Ed Burke's wife, who was no doubt one of the two, they're usually not in Madigan's pocket.

rationaleVoice at 10:53 AM February 17, 2012

Pretty soon....only the losers in society will become teachers.  Teaching will be the go to job for people who can't do anything else.

donttreadonme66 at 10:58 AM February 17, 2012

oh I thought it already IS!!!  Are these people blue collar or white collar workerslike doctors, laywers, architects....they need to decide. If they want to be in a union, then they get treated like it.  If they want to be professionals, then maybe the taxpayers would hold them to a higher level.

rationaleVoice at 11:12 AM February 17, 2012

@donttreadonme66  So basically you think anyone in a Union deserves to be treated like crap?  You see that is where the problem starts.  You don't want to look at teachers as people, like yourself, that educate society's children.  Besides, doctors, lawyers and architects work under CONTRACT the same as teachers.  The difference is that teachers are often bashed for asking for their contract to be honored. Yes, tax-payer money pays for teachers.   But it also pays for superintendents, librarians, janitors, etc.  If I were you I would look at their salaries. As far as taxpayers holding teachers to a higher level - what level are you talking about?  You get what you pay for.

 

donttreadonme66 at 11:23 AM February 17, 2012

@voice...yes public unions are a worthless entity in 2012!!!!  All they are good for is confiscating wages to feed the union bosses who in turn give money and support to democrats who in turn agree to support wage and benefit increases for those who support them....sounds a little crooked to most taxpayers who are FINALLY waking up to this scam!!! 

 

ChicagoG2 at 11:28 AM February 17, 2012

rationalevoice.. unions treated like crap??? it's the TAXPAYERS that are being treated like crap and extorted by the unions.. they destroy EVERYTHING.. auto ind. steel ind. EDUCATION... all you union hacks bring up is what they did last century... time has moved on and feeding at the trough is finished. TEACH because you LOVE to teach; not because you can retire early with benefits.. almost EVERY teacher I know is more worried about their benefits... which shows you why the schools SUCK so bad in Chicago (also blame libtards WELFARE and lowering of expectations for that too)

jake07 at 11:30 AM February 17, 2012

rational not-  If they act like union thugs, as the teachers have done during many contract talks, walk out when prohibbited by law, get inflated salaries and benefits for "not teaching" then yes they are deserving of crap.  There are many good teachers out there but the union and it methods are protecting the lousy ones and not protecting the students. 

Second not many doctors and few lawyers or architects are "under contract" they are usually self owned businesses or independent contractors or employees.  Those jobs have the ability to be eliminated without cause in most cases and certainly can be dumped for lack of performance.  Get some idea of how employment works with a union verses other real workers. 

CityChic at 12:11 PM February 17, 2012

rationalvoice - if these union members think they deserve a 30% raise - even if the damn graduation rate was 100% - they'd be out of their f-ing minds. 

Yes - they should all be treated like crap until they realize that they're undeserving of a 30% raise.  You people are sick and demented. 

I'm stunned and outraged that such a pathetic group of people hold themselves up so high that they are deluded enough to believe they deserve such an exhorbitant raise. 

What planet are you people on? 

Like taxpayers can even afford a 3%. 

I cannot wait until the day that unions are completely extinct.