April is nearly over and I did not get done anywhere near the things I wanted to get done before the end of April. Am I surprised? No. Am I disappointed? You bet. I have a few jobs, but can’t seem to get them in. Some of them are waiting for parts they ordered, others are undecided on which way to go. None of that helps me, but I understand. I could have painted my dash this week, but I had things booked, so I put it on the back burner. I am going to paint it Monday, regardless.

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Not too much to update. Things are moving very slowly. Still recovering from Sandy and then losing Mom, due to Sandy, then losing the van for a week (also due to Sandy). I’m not really myself, but I”m trying.

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OK, I admit it. I”m really bad about this blog stuff. I don’t update quite as often as I should. I have lots to do, but I should find time to update, even when there’s not much to update, business wise. I have been dealing with personal crap for awhile now. Since having to get out of the trap I was in at the shop in Freeport (in September), I have been sick, flooded by 7 feet of water (thank you, Sandy), snowed-in (Nemo was a pussy little snow storm compared the damage of Sandy), injured (made a mess of my hand) and none of that is anywhere near the worst that has happened.

I lost my Mom to a very sudden and unexpected illness. She got sick just before Sandy hit, then we lost power, had no heat, etc.. for 3 weeks (except the gas fireplace I put in) and she caught pneumonia, which was not uncommon due to medication she was on for arthritis. The fluid in her lungs never went away, even after several doctor visits, x-rays and more doctor visits. Taking her to a lung specialist brought us to Forest Hills Hospital. If you are sick, injured or dying, make them take you to another hospital. Although it is part of the North Shore, LIJ family, it is a horrible little shithole of a hospital and they couldn’t cure a cold or bandage a minor cut without issues.

From a rapid heartbeat and congestive heart failure, forced by the fluid in her lungs, things quickly went further south as they said she had atrial fibrilation. I’ll skip all the insane mistakes made by the hospital except that no one mentioned the dangers of this condition. In fact, we were told not to worry when we asked if thre were dangers. On Wednesday, February 6th, after spending the day with Mom and seeing her as her old self, laughing, joking, making the other patients feel better, etc…, we were told she’d be coming home tomorrow.

Then the phone rang at 4 AM on February 7th. I knew something bad happened before answering. Mom had a massive stroke, brought on by the atrial fibrilation we were told not to worry about. People can live a long, happy life with this condition as long as they are treated properly. I found out that a stroke was possible from a TV commercial for the drug she was put on in the hospital. I saw the commercial Wednesday night after leaving the hospital, but it went in one ear and out the other, as most commercials do. It wasn’t until after we were told she had the stroke that it registered. We were told she had no more than 24-48 hours to live.

They were wrong, again. After the 48 hours passed and Mom started showing signs of improvement, my sisters decided to move her to NY Presbyterian Hospital. This was Friday in the middle of the blizzard known as Nemo. I was on dialysis at the time, so I knew nothing of this. I had planned to drive back to the hospital, but the storm was really blowing and I had a bad night which I won’t go into. It’s a good thing I didn’t as she wa no longer there.

I skipped over quite a bit, but the move was made partly because one of the nurses at the shithole suggested it. You know its bad when people that work at the hospital tell you to go somewhere else. We were hoping to get a better prognosis, figuring they had no clue at the first place, but a team of doctors at NYP confirmed that there was no hope for any kind of recovery.

Mom passed around 7:30 AM on Valentine’s Day.

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Over the years, I have made many mistakes in judgement. Most of these mistakes revolve around trusting people who were supposedly friends, or at least people who claimed to be my friend. I do not take the word “friend” lightly. I go out of my way for friends. I go well above and beyond what is considered too much. I have lent friends money, never to see it again (and in most cases, it was money I could not spare). I have lent tools, never to be seen again. I have done work (lots of it), never to be paid, or even thanked, at times.

In exchange, I have been screwed, I have been robbed, I have had thousands embezzled from my bank account, I have been left holding the bag when things got tough. The only positives in all of this is I have never seen these people again. There have been very few exceptons to this rule of being taken advantage of by someone I did for and I trusted, not even to reciprocate, but to appreciate the effort.

I have lost “friends” of many years to this lack of morals on their part. While I do miss what I thought was their friendship, I do not miss them. I feel anger at them for fooling me for so long, but I feel more anger toward myself for letting it happen. It will never happen again.

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Just posting to wish everyone a happy, safe and healthy year. Hopefully, 2013 will be better than 2012. For me, it certainly can’t get much worse.

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