More Good News

I got some more good news on Wednesday but I want to call someone to verify facts on Monday before I go reporting stuff that might not be completely true.  Check back in a couple of days and I'll post the details.

My PT/INR readings (how thin my blood is) have gone haywire since I started taking the cancer medicine. It thins the blood and I was on warfarin already, which thins the blood also. The combination of drugs dropped my stats past the bottom limit pretty quickly. I used to get my blood checked every four weeks, but it's now up to every week until they can get the dosage adjusted. It doesn't help that I'm having oral surgery on Tuesday and have had to go off of both medications for a few days so I won't bleed to death when they pull the tooth.

The appointment with Social Security to apply for disability is coming up soon. They're really hot for me to do it online even though I've told them repeatedly that their website won't let me past the first screen. I've had no less than two phone calls and four letters telling me how simple it is since I made the appointment.

I've mentioned the problems my wife has with her eyes. Being a former reading teacher, one of the things that frustrates her the most is not being able to sit down and enjoy a good book. Even the large print editions aren't large enough. She's been reduced to audio books on an MP3 player, which she has adjusted to to some extent, but there are a couple of problems.

First, MP3 players are tiny...with even tinier screens. She can't begin to navigate the menus so I have to get things started for her. I just purchased a new one for her last week that remembers the file position of what she is listening to and just takes a single push of a button to turn it on or off. I still have to find a starting place for new books, but otherwise it's a big improvement over the other one.

The other thing is...the audio versions of most non-public domain books cost as much as a hardback book. There's something about paying over $20 to download an intangible digital file when I can get a new paperback copy for around $10 that just sticks in my craw. It's even less if I take the time to stop at Half-Price Books.

Finally...where do two (almost three) year-olds get all of that energy? We need to pursue developing technology similar to that used in the movie "Monsters, Inc." We could shut down half of the power plants in the U.S. if we could harness it somehow.