My dad is living the easy life. He's been retired for over 3 years now and seems to get better at it each year. Now a full-time golfer, he has a year-round golfer's tan and raccoon eyes from sunglasses. He even gets rewards for having such a laid-back lifestyle. He has been in Mexico all week, soaking up the nice weather with my mom, which happened to be a trip he won in a golf raffle. I'm totally jealous how easy he has it, but the man has worked for decades to be able to do what he's doing now.
There are things about my dad's lifestyle which I find questionable. He has a big SUV, which is nice, but sucks an incredible amount of gas. The other problem I have with my dad is that he owns shares in Wal-Mart! When he first mentioned this to me, I rattled-off several reasons why he shouldn't buy in to such an evil empire, but then I realized his portfolio had more influence than my cheap facts. I'll tell this to my dad and any other holders of Wal-Mart stock: I hope you can sleep at night! My dad chuckled and said "Very comfortably."
Friday, September 28, 2007
Friday, September 14, 2007
El Nino
Damn you El Nino!
Why did you have to revisit us this year? Don't get me wrong, I love sunny skies, but heat waves and dry spells cause me trouble. When I'm driving to San Jose on Highway 280, I notice the waterline is considerably lower than usual this year. While I haven't heard of any local droughts as a result of the extremely dry year, I know the native plant life has been affected.
The most annoying part of El Nino, for me personally, is the horrid allergies I've had all year. I'm literally writing sentences of this blog between sneezing fits. My trusty 24-hour Claritin lost its effectiveness months ago and I haven't had the budget to try out new kinds of allergy medications. I heard somewhere that our air is coming from China. If this is true, we can add air to the list of defective product recalls. Don't ask me how.
Why did you have to revisit us this year? Don't get me wrong, I love sunny skies, but heat waves and dry spells cause me trouble. When I'm driving to San Jose on Highway 280, I notice the waterline is considerably lower than usual this year. While I haven't heard of any local droughts as a result of the extremely dry year, I know the native plant life has been affected.
The most annoying part of El Nino, for me personally, is the horrid allergies I've had all year. I'm literally writing sentences of this blog between sneezing fits. My trusty 24-hour Claritin lost its effectiveness months ago and I haven't had the budget to try out new kinds of allergy medications. I heard somewhere that our air is coming from China. If this is true, we can add air to the list of defective product recalls. Don't ask me how.
Friday, September 7, 2007
My Dear Younger Sister
Emily has always been the most energetic and eccentric sibling in the family. Her voice projects across the room quite easily, especially when she's excited during a conversation in a restaurant. Irregardless of any public embarrassment, I love my sister very much.
It's tough when I see Emily struggle with her health problem. Last year, on the morning of Thanksgiving, she had her first seizure while staying at my parent's house. My mom was the first person to hear disturbing noises from my sister's room. Because it was locked, they had to break the door down to help her. The doctors at the emergency room couldn't figure out why it happened. She never had a major health problem until now. For all we knew, it could have been an isolated incident triggered by stress. This proved to be more than a random occurrence.
My sister had another seizure a couple weeks after Thanksgiving. Over the past 10 months she has had 11 seizures. This has been extremely frustrating for everyone in my family. Each time she has a seizure, she is sore for several days afterward. Seizure patients often look like they just had a stroke. They took her license away for obvious reasons. She lives in San Francisco, so thankfully she can walk around everywhere she needs to go. Unfortunately, this also means she is far from family in Gilroy if she needs our help. I am the closest family member, so I'm usually the one in the emergency room with her when there's a problem.
I will refrain from going over most of the medical details surrounding her treatment, but they have run quite a few tests on Emily over the months. The doctors at Kaiser have been mystified as to why she continues having episodes when she is on medication that's supposed to prevent it. My parents decided to send her to Stanford which is where they found a growth in her brain. Thankfully it wasn't a malignant brain tumor, but nonetheless troubling that there is something abnormal there. This week, Emily has been in the hospital for a sleep-study. They wanted to monitor her while inducing a seizure (by taking her off the anticonvulsants and manipulating her sleep patterns). She had a seizure while they were monitoring her. The source of the seizure came from the abnormal part of her brain. Now they are likely going to perform brain surgery and remove the defective area.
I'm worried about what will happen to my sister. At the same time, I'm relieved that there is now a tangible problem for the doctors to work on. All I can hope for is that she has a successful surgery with minimal side-effects and her seizures go away. Toward the end of the semester, I will write another blog with an update on her status.
It's tough when I see Emily struggle with her health problem. Last year, on the morning of Thanksgiving, she had her first seizure while staying at my parent's house. My mom was the first person to hear disturbing noises from my sister's room. Because it was locked, they had to break the door down to help her. The doctors at the emergency room couldn't figure out why it happened. She never had a major health problem until now. For all we knew, it could have been an isolated incident triggered by stress. This proved to be more than a random occurrence.
My sister had another seizure a couple weeks after Thanksgiving. Over the past 10 months she has had 11 seizures. This has been extremely frustrating for everyone in my family. Each time she has a seizure, she is sore for several days afterward. Seizure patients often look like they just had a stroke. They took her license away for obvious reasons. She lives in San Francisco, so thankfully she can walk around everywhere she needs to go. Unfortunately, this also means she is far from family in Gilroy if she needs our help. I am the closest family member, so I'm usually the one in the emergency room with her when there's a problem.
I will refrain from going over most of the medical details surrounding her treatment, but they have run quite a few tests on Emily over the months. The doctors at Kaiser have been mystified as to why she continues having episodes when she is on medication that's supposed to prevent it. My parents decided to send her to Stanford which is where they found a growth in her brain. Thankfully it wasn't a malignant brain tumor, but nonetheless troubling that there is something abnormal there. This week, Emily has been in the hospital for a sleep-study. They wanted to monitor her while inducing a seizure (by taking her off the anticonvulsants and manipulating her sleep patterns). She had a seizure while they were monitoring her. The source of the seizure came from the abnormal part of her brain. Now they are likely going to perform brain surgery and remove the defective area.
I'm worried about what will happen to my sister. At the same time, I'm relieved that there is now a tangible problem for the doctors to work on. All I can hope for is that she has a successful surgery with minimal side-effects and her seizures go away. Toward the end of the semester, I will write another blog with an update on her status.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
