November 18, 2011

What a week its been.  I only threw around my resume twice this week.  Its not always a good idea to throw my resume all over the place.  It doesn't do me anygood or the company any good.  I put a resume in at Practice Management center, which is a billing company.  My cousin Donna said that they hire people with minimum billing/coding experience and train them.  Perhaps it would give me a foot in the door in order to get some coding experience.  Thats all it would take.  I sent my resume to my cousin and she sent it on to them.  I have yet to hear back.  Other than that, its been a very quiet week.  She also gave me a few other companies that I need to call and find out whether I can send my resume.  Not sure if they are hiring but its worth a shot.  Can't hurt to ask them if I can send it.  I wish I had more to tell you but I am thinking people are on vacation this week and next week due to the thanksgiving holiday.  I will keep trying though.  Its not easy to stay productive with this. 
My greatest fear is that my credit history is keeping me from getting interviews.  Its not the greatest but I did pay off 2 credit cards and about $8,000 in debt this year alone.  Maybe I shouldn't worry too much.  I did pay my car off too.  It is a tight job market right now. 
I started the online insurance agent course.  I haven't done too bad on it.  Its very different than the medical field.  The 1st chapter was the insurance terms.  There are alot of them.  I took the chapter test 3 times (60%, 66% and finally 75%), I am now on insurance basics.  It also touches on financial info.  I have some questions on the financial end of insurance.  I will have to call Jim or Dennis to ask some questions to get some clarification.  I am so bad, I haven't worked on it in a day and a half.  I gotta get back into it tomorrow morning for a few hours.  I might have to take it to my parents and work on it on their computer for alittle bit too.  I need to go back out there and clean the house for my father.  Mom is still in Florida  with my aunts and uncles to spread my grandmothers ashes (finally - she died last year (see October 2010 journal)).  Tomorrow is their little ceremony.  She'll be back on sunday afternoon.  I can't stay there all day tomorrow because I am going to the Buffalo Sabres game with my running friend Rick, he will be over to pick me up at 5:30.  I will have either make sure I get home to eat before hand or stop at Mighty taco on the way home from Angola.  I will get everything done by 3:30 and head home. 
Guess what happened yesterday, I went to the Nephrologist appt (gonna have to pay for this visit dearly without insurance now).  On the way home, I hit the 219 to get back to the NYS thruway.  As soon as I hit the 90 about 1/2 mile down the road, my car clicked off.  I had to coast to the side of the road and wait for the NYS trooper to help me call a tow truck.  Yes, it was alittle scarry to be on the side of the thruway during rush hour (this happened around 5-5:30pm). right infront of the West Seneca Route 400 sign - 6 lane highway.  I thought it was my battery/alternator because the battery light came on when it the car turned off.  Then the lights on the inside turned right off.  I pressed the onstar button, re joined them (I figured with 74,000 miles on the car, its best to get onstar for another year) - the state trooper came barreling down the road with his lights on when it was discovered I was on the side of the road.  He was courteous and professional, called a tow truck for me.  Tow truck guy came within 5 minutes, put my car on tow and brought me to a garage about 4 miles away from my place (I didn't know of any garage closer - I've only been living in the area for 2 years).  When I got to the garage, I gave him my debit card and settled with the tow truck ($60.00).  Talked to the garage manager and told him what was going on with it.  I tried to call my friend Tom to pick me up but he wasn't picking up his phone (later on, he knew someone was calling him but wasn't picking up due to the caller id saying "private, private" - whatever!!).  The garage manager was nice enough to take me home (I am gonna send a nice thank you card to him).  The next day, I get a call early morning but I have my phone on silent upstairs in my bedroom and didn't hear a thing (I wasn't feeling the greatest yesterday and was very tired) but he called about 9:30am and hung up.  I thought, what the hell!  I called him back - told me the good news, I was out of gas - I knew I was on "E" but was pushing the envelope by driving to Orchard Park (they got 1 inch of snow by the way) trying to get to a delta sonic gas station by the Galleria Mall (which was about 10 miles away).  I definitely learned my lesson on that one.  If I am gonna get that low, get gas when its before the last line on the gas guage (not at the E line, thats the danger line).  It was a cold day/night yesterday (we got 33 degree weather, brrrrrrr).  So - I knew my friend Jim worked his business out of the house and he was able to take me to get my car.  He picked me up at noon, we laughed all the way over there (until we cried - what a dingbat I am!).  Pd my 31.00 (thank god it was 431.00 - that what it would have been if it were the alternator/battery).  I personally think it was also a wakeup call in regards to the battery.  I can't get that out of my mind.  Its the original battery on the car (2006 Saturn ION 3) 5.5 years old (batteries last 4-6 years).  Talked to Tom about it and he seems to think its time for a new battery.  He seems to like those diehard batteries.  We'll look into it next week (he has to work this weekend and its production week so he may have to work over for a few days, he is a machinist/maintanance at delmonte milkbone (like you vic, thats why I understood your type of work).  I have to pay closer attention to the car.  After I got the car, Jim and I went to Friendlys for lunch (I am still full from that - no dinner for me - its 10:42pm).  Went to the bank to deposit my PTO time from Kaleida health ($1100.00, taxes were taken out), then went to delta sonic for a nice car wash (it needed it).  I patted the car dash board and appologized to it, I said "awwww...I am sorry that I didn't feed you with gas yesterday, here is a car wash to make you feel better".  LOL!!! I know...Gotta be kind to your car or else it will bit you in the butt.  She felt better after that.   
My nephrologist went ok.  Due to the fact he had a meeting in the morning (my appt was suppose to be at 7am), I was able to move it to 3pm.  He was extremely busy with lots of patients.  The waiting room was full when I got there (there is also 4 other docs in the same office so some of them were seeing them).  I waited for 1 hour.  there was this elderly couple with their daughter waiting.  She went in then he did.  I had to wait a good 15 minutes to check in because they had to go over all their meds with the receptionist.  whew!  By the time I was called in, everyone left and it was 4pm.  They weighed me (181) then the med assistant (Jen) took my BP.  It was higher (130/90), I was alittle concerned about that.  A few minutes later, Dr Ryan had his resident come in to introduce himself (some indonesian guy, tall and lanky).  Seemed kinda on the quiet side.  Dr Ryan came in, the 1st thing he told me is "your my last patient, yay!!"  I said "I am usually your 1st patient and today Im your last".  He laughed about that.  He became very serious and engaging (perhaps because the resident was in the room with me).  we went though everything.  He said my lab results weren't too bad and not too concerning.  He was happy that my kidney results did improve some (from 34% back up to 38% (gfr) and 1.65 to 1.45 creatinine level).  took a look at Jen's findings on the blood pressure and retook it.  said he is gonna up my bp dose (lisinopril) from 10mg to 20 mg.  He was very concerned that my Vit D level went back down to 19 again.  I guess the 2000 iu didn't work well and put me back on another 12 week round of 50,000 iu.  Hopefully that will get me back to 30.  With having no insurance, he upped the refills to 90 days.  I have to pick them up tomorrow or sunday (I still have 2 more days of 10mg liscinopril and 2 more days of tamoxifen (which he redid the refill so I don't have to call them to fill it - all i have to do is pick it up).  I brought up the PET scan and we talked about the findings alittle bit (I did that because I want to give the resident some work to do).  He was concerned about the tuberous sclerosis and felt that the findings were inconclusive.  He didn't believe I had tuberous sclerosis (why would I have those red bumps on my face, impigmentation on my skin and lesions on my hands - the only thing that doesn't link me with tuberous sclerosis is that I didn't suffer from any seizures as a child).  So, he is getting the resident to do some research on tuberous sclerosis (while Dr Ryan was using the voice recorder - the resident was doing alittle research and asked me some questions).  They will be contacting the radiologist to ask about the findings.  I told them I think its very important to get an "official" diagnoses from him or my PMD.  Right now, I definitely have stage 2 PKD and a probable diagnoses of Tuberous Sclerosis.  Until I hear otherwise, thats what I have.  I thought they would have called me this afternoon but they didn't do that.  Perhaps the radiologist at the testing clinic I went to for the PET scan wasn't in (that could happen, I am sure they will be able to get some answers next week - I will try not to worry). 
So, as you can see, it was quite a week.  Tomorrow, I plan on getting up early to work on the online course for a few hours, then at 10:15 head out to my parents to clean the house (its not bad - the house needs vacuuming due to scouts shedding).  I will be there until 3:30 then head home because my friend Rick is taking me to the Buffalo Sabres game.  That should be a lot of fun.  Hes been training for a running marathon (which he ran last month), so I haven't heard nothing from him.  Sunday, should be a much quieter day.  I'll spend more time on the online course.  I won't call for the exam day until I am finished with the life insurance portion of the course and get to the health insurance course.  It will take me a month(Im a slow learner, it won't do me or Conseco insurance any good to rush this).  Monday, I will get back to business by looking for jobs again, send out 2 resumes in the next few days.  Take my gay friend Paul to the bus station so he can go visit his mother in Ithaca, NY (near you Norma). 
I will be back mid week to write another journal entry