Well, rat farts.
Pardon my strong language.
After getting poked and prodded for six hours at the hospital a few weeks ago, they came up with squat. For you new readers, I had an intestinal operation last summer to remove a growth before it became cancerous, then was healing quite nicely until around last November when I just kind of stalled out at around 80% better. I was still in debt to the hospital, though, so it took a few months to get that cleared up enough that I could start a new 'tab' with them. I had (what felt like) about a gallon of blood drained from me (I made a comment about 'bloodletting' and how "I feel better already!'), an EKG, some skin samples for the lab, and a "nonintrusive ultrasound test" where they tested the blood flow throughout my body.
Then it turned out my blood pressure is through the roof. I've never paid much attention to it, and the previous time I was at the hospital for an operation follow-up, about three months ago, nobody said anything so I guess it was fine.
It was 165 over something when I was there the other day. I think the nurse actually gasped when she read the meter. Normal is 120 or below. Since nothing else has changed in my life (diet, living quarters, lack of exercise, etc), I gather most of it is just stress, worrying about rent and food, and exacerbated by the fact that I never know how much work I'm going to get from the one main company I webmaster for. So, the wonderful discovery that I could stroke out any minute added another two hours to my visit.
I've had better days.
And, as noted, they came up with zip in the blood test. Now I have to decide when or even IF I'll be able to afford to take the next round of tests and whether or not I should dump my (cough!) $120/mo Internet service. After rent, that's my biggest expense. If you didn't catch the story, I moved behind the local cellphone tower about a year ago which, as it turns out, are very directional and neither my Verizon Wireless nor a Sprint unit would work. I finally found a company that specializes in rural hook-ups and sitting on top of my tower is a 4" x 6" box with a 3' antenna sitting on top of it. It works fine, but it's nasty expensive.
Anyway, that's where things currently stand. Or sit, in my case. If you'd like to help with my get-well fund, it would be sorely appreciated.
Also, I mentioned this a few months ago, but if anyone has any viable (note key word) ideas on how to make money online, I'm all ears. I've read a number of "5 Ways To Make Money On The Internet" articles and haven't seen anything viable yet. I'd grab a regular 9-to-5 job in a minute if I could find one, but these are all tourist-geared villages down here and if you don't have any experience in the restaurant, motel or scuba diving biz, you needn't bother to apply.
One thing a couple of people mentioned last time was putting Amazon links in the posts, like Glenn does over at Istapundit. The hitch here — besides being tacky — is that these things only work with big reader numbers. You're basically waiting for that 1-in-3,000 person who's currently in the market for a new set of steak knives or band saw or the boxed set of all three 'Men In Black' movies. And Maggie's just doesn't have those kinds of numbers.
My thought was to only link to Rolls Royce dealerships, realtors for large estates and high-quality diamond necklace merchants. If it only makes one sale a year, I'll be set!
Anyways, just thought I'd toss out a quick update. Got some interesting posts coming up this week, starting with...
