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How should my food be paid for?
Poll ended at Tue May 01, 2018 3:31 pm
I pay my own cost 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
My daughter pays for my food 100%  100%  [ 1 ]
My daughter pays for the increased cost 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Total votes : 1
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 Post subject: Re: An odd question on who should pay for something
PostPosted: Tue May 01, 2018 3:08 pm 
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Joined: Tue Jul 02, 2013 9:00 am
Posts: 1322
Location: Wylie Texas but in Alaska for a while
Thanks again for the comments and support.

some more background.

My daughter's original injury was a shattered leg from a sledding accident. She bounced out of a toboggan and her leg hit first. During the surgery to repair it it was decided to giver her a femoral nerve block. But she was still under, and they did not use a guided needel. They severed her femoral nerve. It took 2 months to figure it out.

The pain from the damaged nerve is severe. She eventually had a spinal cord stimulator put in that allowed her to do a little on here won. She could drive, and shop. But she was still on high levels of opioids and tried several different pain control medications. Some of which heightened her irritability and moodiness. The first stimulator had 2 leads and over a year both of them failed. During the operation to replace them the process to pull them out of the spine irritated the nerves. When they inserted the new ones, they had to wake her up to test the location. As soon as they started to wake her the pain increased to agonizing levels. Her pulse was 180 and she could not tell them if the location was right. They put her under and waited to see if it would settle down. They tried 3 times and finally gave up and pulled everything out.

She was hospitalized for 10 days on a morphine drip to control pain. They increased her fentanyl to 200 mics and she still had pain that drove her heart up to 220. We had to take her walker and drape it over her leg because the sheet toughing her leg was painful. If the sheet was off and someone walked by the breeze blowing across the leg caused pain and a spike in her heart rate.

It took a year to get her stable.

During this time the husband decided to divorce her.

We tried a second type of spinal cord stimulator which failed. When they pulled the leads from the trial it set her back. It took another several months before she was stable again.

She was still on 200 mics fentanyl, 8 mg hydrocodone every 2-3 hours and valium.

We tried a third type of stimulator which provided some relief. She has come down on the hydra to only 2 times a day. Ovre the next year she may continue to improve.

She knows that fentanyl withdraw is a bear.

She has been in the Emergency room several times because she was reducing the drugs and went into withdrawl. IT took a few times to realize what it was.

To tapper her off of fentanyl, it would take 16 months, and every 2 weeks she would have withdrawal symptoms as they reduced the amount.

She is looking for a program that of rapid detox that would sedate her for 2 days and go cold turkey,

At this point she cannot care for herself.


She also lost her dog that was her best friend, ex=specially after the ex left. She had gotten a second one that ws supposed to be her husbands, He decided he did not want it because he planned to travel on his time off.

The settlement is not enough to pay for a carer for the next 50 years. Alaska law limits damages, in any other state the settlement would have in the 10-20 million range, to pay for the care she needs.

She plans on moving down with us. The plan is to buy a new place and have two houses or a duplex.

That way if she improves she can have independence and if not we can provide support.

She will be paying for her house.

She and her ex bought a fixer upper thinking that they would flip it. He fond out that he does not like diy. They both worked in the oilfield on the slope. They decided it was nice to go play on the time off. (I do not blame hem at all)


So I am now doing the house repairs so we can sell this house.

She has lost a lot over the past few years.

She can never work again.
He husband left her
Her dog died
The Spinal Cord Stim failed
The nerve damage has caused CRPS. Complex Regional Pain syndrome.
Her sympathetic nervious system has gone haywire.
She is still in so much pain some days that it hurts just to get up and go to the bathroom.
She spends all of hter time in her bed, except when we get up for PT and DR appointments.

Before the first stim broke, she was driving herself to PT 5 days a week, She could shop and provide basic care for herself. She needed a helper to clean and unload the unload the groceries. But she could care for herself with a little help.

We are not sure if she will recover to that level again.

She is on heart meds because her resting pulse was 120 going up to 180 if she dis anything, even talk.
The nurses at the heard dr did not belive her when she told them the symposm at intake. She proved it by sitting with a pulse ox meter on. She talked ahd the pulse went up. She stopped and it went down. It took 5 times in a row before they believed her.

The CRPS spreads and she now has problems controlling her bladder and bowels.
She cannot stand because her legs swell and become painful after 5 minutes.

She is basically bed ridden except for PT and DR appointments.


I am one of 10 kids. My parents put themselves through school and I remember both of them going to school as I grew up. They both got masters. My father was an engineer, and eventually went into teaching.

They instilled a strong sense of family and never gave yup on any of us even as some of my brothers and sisters dealt with alcoholism and other problems.

As my wife's mother was dying of breast cancer we ere just moving back form a 12 year deployment to the UK for my work. We rented a hospital bed as we waited for our things to come out of storage and did home hospice.

Her father had Alzheimer's and we cared for him in our home for several years before it got so bad he had to be in a home.

My mother them moved in and we cared for her for the last several years of her life.

This is all to say that my mother succeeded in instilling a strong sense of family in us.

She has lost so much that I cannot leave her and let her loose the rest of her family as well,


By the way on the opioid crisis.

Opioids are the only thing that has controlled her pain.

We have tried everything else.

I know that 150 deaths a day is a lot.

But prescription drugs are not the main cause and controlling them will not solve it.

Medicare's own data show a reduction in opioid prescriptions under Medicare over the past 5 years.



The CDC lists the following as top causes of death

•Heart disease: 633,842
• Cancer: 595,930
• Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 155,041
• Accidents (unintentional injuries): 146,571
• Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 140,323
• Alzheimer’s disease: 110,561
• Diabetes: 79,535
• Influenza and pneumonia: 57,062
• Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 49,959
• Intentional self-harm (suicide): 44,193

There are 40,000 deaths in car accidents a year. Many of them are alchol related.

No one is talking of a suicide crisis and providing the mental health needed. (which would also go a long way to helping the people who seek relief through drugs.

There are 96 gun deaths a day. 62% of them are suicide. No one is talking about a crisis here.

Every two minutes, somewhere in America, someone is sexually assaulted. In 2002, there were 247,730 victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault*. (2002 National Crime Victimization Survey, U.S. Department of Justice) *this statistic does not include children 12 and under!

But there is no talk a rape crisis.

If the current plans go through it is people like my daughter who will suffer the most. I have seen the pain that she is in. CRPS is widely considered to be the single worst source of pain—ranking higher on pain scales than childbirth, cancer and amputation

The current guidelines for Medicare opioids give an exception for cancer patients but would cut my daughter off of her pain meds.

If they cut her off of the opioids that provide some relief from the pain, (and we could not find another source) she would commit suicide. I would probably help her.


The talk of putting a tax on opioids is crazy.

People in chronic pain like my daughter are all disabled, living on Medicare. Putting a tax on her pills would add $150 per month to her cost. And to what end?

I spent an hour talking today with my daughter about what we would do if the current guidelines come online in 2019 as planned.

It would cause me to become a criminal to find some way to get the drugs she needs to not be in so much pain that her pulse goes to 220.

Sorry I got off on a tangent.


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 Post subject: Re: An odd question on who should pay for something
PostPosted: Tue May 01, 2018 5:30 pm 
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Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2016 8:07 am
Posts: 134
Holy crap Wilson, I'm so sorry to hear about all the pain she is going through.

I hope things get better for you and all your family.

Stay strong, Jim


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 Post subject: Re: An odd question on who should pay for something
PostPosted: Tue May 01, 2018 10:06 pm 
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Joined: Sun Oct 16, 2005 12:22 pm
Posts: 21602
Location: San Francisco
Under the circumstances, doesn't, "You should be paying for your own food." seem beyond the pale?
That is the least of anyone's worry.
Perhaps the topic is misdirected anger and should be dealt with accordingly.


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 Post subject: Re: An odd question on who should pay for something
PostPosted: Wed May 02, 2018 2:58 am 
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Joined: Tue Jul 02, 2013 9:00 am
Posts: 1322
Location: Wylie Texas but in Alaska for a while
I am no longer concerned about who should pay.

There is enough going on that that is a minor distraction.

what was bothering me was not who should pay, but rather the attitude from both my wife and daughter that it was so obvious that I should pay for it, ande hat I thought anything else was absurd.

I really only wanted to see if my thinking was that far from normal that no one else would think that my daughter should pay.

I do not expect it to change anything.

It just lets me feel a little better about myself for thinking that she should.

As I spent time working on things my mind got stuck in a rut, and I really only needed to hear that I was not a bad person for thinking she should pay.

In the overall scheme of things, who pays for my food is not even on the in the top 20 things I have going on.

But thinking that I as so far from any social norm that I should even consider it was getting to me.

I did get the footings for the replacement deck poured yesterday. Today I cleaned yp the work site and got the 6x6 posts cut to length.

Hopefully I can start building the new deck tomorrow.

I had actually gotten back to faceting and have the pavilion of a stone almost done, before my daughter decided that she trusted me enough to paint the house and do some of the work.

I wish she had come to that decision a year ago, I could have spent the past 2 summers doing things at a little slower pace.

But at least we are headed in the right direction.

When I get the deck done the outside will almost be done. I still need to cut up some downed trees from wind storms, and maybe get some new gravel on the drive.

Then it is inside work. At least there are no mosquitos inside.

Cement must give off a lot of co2 as it is mixed and setting. The longer I worked with it yesterday the worse the mosquitos got. I did not have any problems with them today.


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 Post subject: Re: An odd question on who should pay for something
PostPosted: Wed May 02, 2018 12:04 pm 
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Location: San Francisco
Hey, what's up with the pearl drilling? 8)


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 Post subject: Re: An odd question on who should pay for something
PostPosted: Wed May 02, 2018 12:20 pm 
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Joined: Tue Jul 02, 2013 9:00 am
Posts: 1322
Location: Wylie Texas but in Alaska for a while
I recently got the vice to hold it and several pearl drills. I have a dermal with a flex shaft, and a tub to hold water.

I picked up a few pliers to bend memory wire and two [pieces of memory wire to make bracelets.
We also went to Joanne Fabric and spent some time in their bead section picking out accent pieces and some crimp beads, crimp pliers, and several chains and the thread to tie necklaces.

She wants some caps that we have to order.

So she is set up to start making something.

I think that she is a little afraid of it, so it will take some time to get het to take the next step.

There was also a blow up with a comment she made on the group that she buys things on. A message she ,intended to be private went public, and the seller got pissed off and has blocked her.

She now has to trace all orders and see what the person (not a business) has not shipped and file a complaint with pay pal.

For a normal person that would not be to bad. But the drugs have added some challenges. She has trouble letting of things (10x worse than me) , and will fixate on the fight for hours which takes all of her limited energy.


So it will probably take a week to figure out the status of the orders.

I hope to get her drilling some beads, even for a test to give her something else to fixate on.

WE have flights scheduled for a week in DAllas. WE have to do this to keep insurance intact.

Then we come back and finish the house and pack it up.


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