When we last left Grampy, his mother had just died and his son had been fired. Grampy was unemployed but recovering from a ruptured appendix and unable to receive unemployment benefits, and his wife was in the last stages of preparing for bariatric surgery....
1. Mom is still dead...obviously. I've pretty much adjusted to the trauma of missing her funeral, although it still bothers me from time to time.
2. My oldest son did find a job as a telephone tech support person for a major telecommunications company. The pay is better than his previous job but it's a long drive and they're pretty unforgiving when it comes to punctuality. His wife found work for the same employer but their work shifts are different, so it's one of those "ships that pass in the night" sort of situations at the moment.
3. I've recovered from the appendix surgery. It left a VERY large and unattractive scar, but otherwise I'm good with that...not counting my current crisis.
4. I exhausted all of my unemployment benefits but was able to start drawing early Social Security benefits, so it sort of balanced out. The money is still tight, but we're not starving.
5. The wife had her bariatric surgery. She's lost some weight and her diabetes has stabilized, which was what she had hoped for. She hasn't lost as much weight as she had expected and still needs insulin, so it wasn't a complete success. Another down side is that her ability to tolerate different foods is about nil. Two or three bites of most foods and she's done. More than that makes her want to throw up. Unfortunately she can tolerate things like cookies, ice cream and potato chips...which accounts for her not loosing as much weight as expected.
6. I signed up for bariatric surgery after the wife completed hers. The insurance company didn't balk at any of the doctor visits, tests, etc. until the last stage. I even had my gall bladder removed because they saw some "sludge" in it. I got all of my ducks in a row for nearly six months and the surgeon contacted my health insurance provider for approval on the surgery. Surprise! My insurance policy specifically denies all forms of weight loss surgery. What??? Yup, health insurance Nazi says "No weight loss for you!"
7. My daughter finally graduated college and got a good job working for the school in an area similar to what she was doing in the student work program. She's not 100% happy with the job, but tolerates it and is making reasonably good money.
8. I don't hear much from my youngest son, but he seems to be content and is working pretty much full time as is his wife.
9. I now have two grandchildren.
So that's pretty much all I can think of at the moment...back to the crisis at hand in my next post.
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