Monitoring all week...

Life's been better healthwise. Until today, I was feeling better and better, but now I have a sore throat...aaghhh. I had two different types of overnight monitoring this week. The first is the Holter Monitor (continous electrocardiogram) which I had on for 24 hours from Tuesday to Wednesday...the electrodes were so itchy!!! And this weekend, I have a overnight pulse oximetry for 3 nights, which keeps track of my oxygen levels. Friday night the stats looked good when I would wake up, but last night they would be in the low 80's a couple of times. This is not that bad, but you have to consider I was on oxygen and my sleep apnea machine. Hopefully, though, this will give the doctors some ideas of what is going on.

The cardiologist's theory is that my sleep apnea goes bad episodically, and I start retaining too much carbon dioxide. This through some respiratory processes, becomes respiratory acidosis, which is a serious condition. Unfortunately, since my ER visit was so bad, they can't confirm it for sure, as they didn't take my blood gases which would have confirmed it there. Anyway, it's basically the same as I have carbon dioxide poisoning occassionally. I think it is a good theory, and hopefully they can confirm it with some tests. The treatment is to have me have an alarm on an oximeter when my blood oxygen goes too low, and I would wake up, turn up the oxygen or wake up for awhile to deal with it. It is manageable and preventable.

Bad news in our town this week. The largest employer, Tyler Refrigeration, is closing and laying off 500 people. There are no jobs in this town for them to go to anymore. They can't go to South Bend or Elkhart, Indiana nearby--they have the 2nd highest unemployment rate in the U.S. already. I think we are going to look like a ghost town in a few months when people try to leave to find jobs. Sad, sad, sad..

The Michigan government has just plained pissed me off this week. They stole $1 billion dollars from Medicaid from the federal stimulus to balance the state's budget. They weren't honest about the money...the state budget director kept referring to it as "flexible stimulus monies"...yeah, right. And even after stealing the $1 billion from Medicaid, then they made cuts to existing Medicaid services. It is terrible news for people like me who are already in a terrible situation, where those people on SSDI--people who have worked many years and qualified as social security disabled are forced down to living on $335 a month if we need the medical care. People who don't work on Social Security Disability (SSI), are allowed to keep their full benefit ($700) and get full benefits with no paperwork. So we in the SSDI category are penalized for having worked in our lives. I have been actively advocating for these reform bills for Medicaid to change this unjust system. But with the MI Government's actions this week, the bills aren't likely to pass, because there is no money left. It's criminal to balance the budget on the disabled, children, and elderly who receive most of the Medicaid in Michigan. But believe it or not, I can't get anyone to listen to me why this is so wrong...

Well, tired... I probably won't sub teach tomorrow because of the sore throat, but I still should go to bed...