Fed Up With Doctors and Medications

Completely non-ODP related. Just needing to vent some frustrations. I have been struggling to loose weight, control type-2 diabetes, boost good Cholesterol (whatever that is ), and correct an under-active thyroid for several years now. About a year ago my doctor (if you can call him that) put me on two new meds in addition to my Thyroid medicine that had actually been making me feel 100% better and that I had been on for the previous couple of years.

The two new meds were for boosting good cholesterol and the other for helping my blood-sugar (diabetes). The later of the two has not been much of a problem, but the ‘cholesterol pill’ has caused me nothing but headaches. The common side effect is a ‘flushing of the skin’ a couple of hours after taking it. In fact I get what can only be described as a sensation of being sun-burnt over my entire body. Very uncomfortable at night, which is when it was recommended I take it. I struggled with that for 6 months.

About 6 months ago, I was given yet another medication. This fourth med is supposedly required by my insurance to protect my kidneys from the diabetes. This is the worst of the bunch. Its side effect is chronic dry cough, which I have suffered with for 6 months now. I take this one in the morning, but its near impossible to sleep – up all night coughing. The last year has been sleep deprived, misery for me. I bet I only average about 6 hours of sleep at night, broken in half by waking with a cough fit every few hours.

On a positive note, I have lost nearly 50 lbs in the last year and am more active than I have been years. My favorite past times – hiking, hunting, and sport shooting/archery have become increasingly easier to enjoy. However I feel like utter crap most of the time now, and I am convinced that it is either the last medicine or a combination of the last three thats doing it. Today is no exception.

I gave my semi-annual blood test deposits yesterday. Received the wonderful news today that after 6 months of all these new medicines, loosing more weight, and suffering through the side effects, that my ‘numbers’ are all worse than before! I am so fed up at this point, I can’t express it. I am scheduled to see the doctor later this week, and at this point I am set to tell him to take his medicine and put it where the sun doesn’t shine. My wife may argue, but I can’t see where suffering through them is been anything positive. If he doesn’t change things, I will by flushing the rest of these ‘new’ meds down the toilette.

Ok, thats my rant for the day. You can now be returned to your regularly scheduled programming.

Myth: DMOZ Backlog

The definition of “backlog” is :

An accumulation of jobs not done or materials not processed that are yet to be dealt with”

It is a myth that DMOZ has a backlog of submitted sites. The reason this is a myth, is that the sites that are submitted via the public interface are not guaranteed inclusion. In fact, they are nothing more than suggestions for the editors to use if they choose to, for the purpose of building the directory. There is no backlog, only a surplus of resources available to editors for their use in building the directory. Nothing more, nothing less.

I don’t know where this myth started, nor the reasons behind it. I can say in all honesty though, that in some categories public suggestions are a complete waste of time and a poor resource for the category. In other cases, they are an invaluable resource for the category. It depends solely on the category in question, the quality of the suggestions, and the editors choosing to edit there. For me, when editing in a small Regional locality for example, the public suggestions can be very helpful and save a lot of time searching in most sub-categories. The exception to that is Real Estate and Automotive categories. I find the vast majority of publicly submitted sites to these regional sub-cats are very poor resources and usually won’t look at them. On the flip-side of things, in certain topical categories for example, I will rarely if ever look in the public suggestion pools for possible inclusions. Its far more productive to search out sites on my own than to wade through the muck in the spam ridden unreviewed pools there.

There is no guideline that requires an editor to ever enter the unreviewed pool. I can tell you from experience though, that the suggestions are sometimes very beneficial and an editor usually gets a feel for which areas are better than others as their own experience grows. There are literally dozens of different resources available for building the directory, from site suggestions and personal searches, to bill boards, phone books, and bumper stickers. There is room for all of these resources and they are all welcomed help to the editors trying to build categories. Lets just not think of one of them as a backlog, simply because there is a large quantity to choose from.

[Off Topic] They just reported another after shock this morning, didn’t feel this one but they said its the largest one yet.[/off topic]

Rough Wake Up Call Today

Well had a rough (literally) morning today, sometime around 5 a.m. local time I was awakened by a loud rumble and the bed shaking. Upon opening my eyes, I could feel the entire house pulsating and rumbling. It sounded like a big thunder roll combined with strong winds. My first inclination was a Tornado. I have been in a couple tornadoes and the feeling was similar. My wife though reminded me that there was no storms in the area for this morning, thought maybe an Earthquake.

The rumbling lasted about 10-15 seconds and then just slowly trailed off. I got up went to the restroom, checked on the boys and laid back down for another half hour of sleep. When my alarm went off at 5:45 a.m. , I turned on the Weather Channel and found out my wife was right! The reports I read indicated a magnitude 5.4, small in comparison to west coast quakes, but big to us Midwesterners who only feel the ground shake once a decade or so.

Its the second earthquake that I can remember, but there could have been more. The last one I remember was at least 10 years ago, I didn’t feel it but my grandmother whose house was almost right on top of the fault line, said it rattled her off the couch. This one wasn’t quite that bad, but it was enough to wake me up and rattle the windows. Doesn’t sound like much damage locally was caused, some minor reports of cracked windows, etc. Sounds like Louisville, KY felt it harder as I heard a report that at least one building was damaged there.

Just another note in the personal journal, fortunately it wasn’t the big one that could occur.
Regards.

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**Updated**
They just announced that the quake has been downgraded from 5.4 magnitude, to 5.2 magnitude. There are reports coming in of cracked windows in Indianapolis, IN and buildings damaged in Louisville, KY. Speaking to family and friends locally, they rumbling probably lasted closer to 30 seconds and confirming my previous thoughts the quake hit at 5:39 a.m local time. I thought it was just past 5:30 a.m. but the weather channel listed it as the local time in southern Illinois which is an hour behind.

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**Updated – 11:45 a.m.**
Apparently just felt our first aftershock. I am working in a solid concrete box, so I was unaware of this new event. My wife did call and said from her 3rd story office they could feel the walls pulsating and the noise of the shaking. The radio just confirmed it as an aftershock. No reports of any other problems associated with this, but they are advising everyone to tie down loose objects in preparation of unknown future aftershocks.