I just cannot believe it!   The way our military is treated upon returning home by the very government they serve is atrocious.

I’m on the St Christopher Conference of the St Vincent dePaul.   We help low income people in the county with utilities, food, rent, etc.   This morning I get a phone call from the St Vincent dePaul store.   A man came in this morning with his water bill.   He was told it was going to be shut off today.   He filled out the application like everyone else and guess what?    Yes, he’s a returning Marine and he’s waiting for the government to  pull it’s  head out of it’s arse and take care of him.   I do not see why it has to take so long for the social security office to determine someone’s disability.    Not to mention the mountains of paperwork.  

There really should be a fast track for our returning military.   They’ve had enough to deal with over there.

Well I’m finally back and ready to start ranting again.   I joined eHarmony over a year ago when they were advertising that you could do a profile for free and it came back that there were no matches for me.   Well, yes I am very unique, thank you very much.   I figured at least I wouldn’t have to weed through a ton of weirdos and people who had nothing in common with me at all since eHarmony claims to have such a strenous match process and all that jazz.  

Well several months ago I started getting several match emails every day, so many in fact that I kept going over the limit of matches a free account can have.   The main thing I noticed though with my perfect matches, they all lived hundreds of miles away.   Even in other states.   So I was basically spending an hour every so often just deleting men who lived to far away.   I searched the site trying to find a contact us so I could ask them how to fix it so I could limit the distance but oddly enough I could not find one anywhere.   A major site like eHarmony does not have a readily available contact us.  

Well this weekend was a free weekend that ends today.   I received a communication request from a man who lives 30 minutes away.   I was shocked, first match I ever received from someone who didn’t live over 500 miles away.   As I returned communication, I noticed we didn’t seem to have a whole lot in common.   I didn’t think to much of it.   After returning the communication I seen that once again my match section was overfull of men from other states, so I started closing the matches and I noticed on one of the matches, it said flexible matching, click here to learn more.   So I clicked to see what that was.   It seems that eHarmony’s ads state the following:

Our patented Compatibility Matching System® narrows the field from millions of single men or women and matches you with a highly select group of compatible singles — singles who have been prescreened on 29 Dimensions™ of personality: scientific predictors of long-term relationship success.

That all lets you know that eHarmony is serious about being different from other match sites.   They use a 29 dimensions of personality to find you your perfect mate.   You have to spend an hour filling out hundreds of questions to help determine your personality, likes, dislikes, etc, so that eHarmony can match you based on 29 dimensions of personality.   In small print when you click on a match, it now says   This is a flexible match.  What is this?  underneath the details of the match, so that basically you don’t even notice it there.   I noticed it for the first time today.   It seems that if eHarmony can’t find you a perfect match, then they just relax their standards and stick you with somebody.   For this they chage $59.95 a month or if you want, you can save money by purchasing 12 months at one time.   Pretty sad if you think about it?   Basically eHarmony is telling you right now, it could take at least a year to find you somebody.  

I am so tired of companies promising you something, but when you stop and really listen and look around, it’s all lies.

My mom gave up her battle with cancer Wednesday May 27th and went home to God. A part of me is overjoyed that her pain and suffering is over and she’s in heaven now with my Dad, but in one space of a second I not only lost my Mom but I lost my best friend.

Yesterday at the visitation people kept coming up to me and saying it doesn’t seem possible, she was such a tough lady, I never thought she would go. My sister-in-law told me that on Tuesday when I was out of the room, she had told Ilene that she was tired and just wanted to go home and did Ilene think I would mind if she just gave up and went. Ilene told her I would understand and deep down I do and I’m really glad she didn’t ask me, cause I’m not sure I would have been strong enough to tell her to go.

At the funeral home everyone kept standing around and looking at her and I could see her in mind raising up and telling everyone to quit staring that she was trying rest. Someone told me that they had never really met my mom and I told them that they had really missed out and it was so true.

I used to see and hear about what other mothers were doing and how they were choosing to raise their children and every time I would go to mom and I would hug her and thank her for being my mom. I would see a commercial on tv for some fancy new baby thing that a mother just can’t live without and I would tease my mom that I was lucky I lived since she never had any of that fancy stuff.

She will be forever missed and never forgotten. I know she is now watching over me as she has always watched over me.

I love you Mom.

Thursday night I had to call an ambulance to take my mom to the emergency room, she wasn’t acting right.   We got to the ER around 10:45, they told us around 1am that she would be admitted, it was after 3:30 in the morning before they actually moved her into a room.   They came in at one point and told us her potassium levels had went to low and asked if she wanted pills or liquid potassium.   Of course my mom said pills were fine.   They brought her 4 pills and left her all slumped over on the gurney to try to swallow 4 pills and water.   She gagged and threw up.   Instead of the girl grabbing a nearby garbage can, she runs out of the room to get an actual spit tray.   What happens?   My mom tries to hold it in her mouth until she comes back and in the process I honestly believe she inhaled some of that because right after that her breathing changed and her oxygen levels dropped from 99 to 63.  I could see the machine clearly.   They said no she didn’t aspirate any of it and just put it off.  Then she told them she needed to use the bathroom, they told her in just a minute.   She waited about a half hour and asked again, they told her were going to insert a catheter in a few minutes.   She waited again.   The nurse told her to just go to the bathroom and they would clean her up later.   I’m sitting there getting a little upset.   Two hours go by and I ask my mom how she is and she says she need to really go to the bathroom, I said the nurse said to just cut loose and mom said she couldn’t, it didn’t work that way.    So I got the nurse back in the room and told her again that my mom needed to go to the bathroom.   She explained that mom’s blood pressure was elevated and her oxygen level was low and they didn’t want to try laying her flat to insert the catheter until her oxygen levels came up (which her oxygen levels were find when we got there if you remember).   I asked her if a person was angry and irritated if that would that cause the same type of problems my mom was having and she said well it can.   I said well she really needs to go to the bathroom and she’s getting pissed.   She said again they didn’t want to try to insert the catheter right then and I asked can you not put her on a bed pan and she was like well I guess we can.   Soon as they get her on the bed pan and my mom starts going, low and behold, her blood pressure drops back to normal and her oxygen level goes back up a little.   I pointed it out and the nurse agreed.   Suddenly the nurse is trying to be all super sweet and nice and explaining that the other girl is a student nurse, yada yada.    Fine but isn’t the the RN supposed to supervise said student?

Finally get mom into a room around 3:30am, it’s 5am when they finally get her in bed and they finish asking all their questions and I go home.   They wake her at 8am for breakfast, then again at 9am for medication.   I won’t even go into the food they brought her, I’ve tasted of it each time and to say it’s not good is an understatement.    It doesn’t even look appetizing.    I’ve told them every day that she is supposed to sit straight up while eating and for 30 minutes after each meal.   Today at lunch is the first day I was able to get them to actually sit her up and that’s because her doctor realized today that they have not had her out of that bed since she’s been there.   Also, this morning she is still sleeping and lethargic and I said something and mom told me she didn’t get any sleep, they come in every hour on the hour scaring her to death and she can’t sleep.   So the doctor had a note put up not to wake her up unless absolutely necessary.

I do not understand the hospital at all, people are there to rest, to heal, to get better.    That takes rest and proper care.   As you can see by our experience so far we have not received that very well.   Don’t get me wrong the people working at the hospital are great people personality wise, but I think some things could be improved when it comes to patient care and I definitely think something needs to be overhauled in that kitchen.