Sorry I haven't been around much

[Betty]

Sorry I haven't been posting much, & it seems like I've disappeared a lot.

I've been here every day & on the servers taking care of things, updating our software, security, & looking around as usual. But I haven't had the time, energy, & health to do much else here lately.

As most of you know after stabilizing my COPD for over a couple years, it got much worse over the summer. It never improved again after that. Suddenly before Christmas it got even dramatically & terribly worse. Just getting up to the bathroom to go poo was a dreadful, traumatic experience of gasping for air almost suffocating to death. Every few steps I had to stop, gasping to catch my breath. It would take a miserable & desperate couple hours just to go poo & make it back.

I have no health insurance. So I have no legal prescriptions to get meds, treatments, or oxygen. A single trip to the doctor could cost me months to years of my rent money. I'm also home-bound. Without meds or portable oxygen I can't step out of my apartment for more than a few minutes without desperately gasping for air anyway -- and doctors don't make house calls anymore.

With well filtered air in a climate-controlled apartment, I'm just barely able to get by. Outside of my place my breathing gets substantially worse. My food & supplies have to be delivered to me. I can no longer get down the stairs. I'm stuck up here. I had to give someone my keys, to bring my food & supplies up to me once a month.

I was forced to borrow a ton of money & buy a small oxygen machine. It helps, in that I won't die of suffocation or a heart attack just trying to go poo, but other than that, it doesn't make my life much easier... I'm just not in danger of imminent death anymore with the new machine.

Even with the huge loan, I could only afford a smaller undersized oxygen machine... and it's AC powered, so not portable or mobile. Got long hoses for it though. It's just not powerful enough or makes enough O2 for my condition.

It takes me 40-60 minutes of desperately gasping for air to go poo instead of 2 hours. And at least with the O2, I probably won't die, pass out, or shyt my panties trying to go. I can bend over to pick something up twice before getting way too out of breath instead of just once.

The huge loan to pay for an oxygen machine, & supplies to survive was actually an advance on a payment for a big job I got that I can do right at home. The job is going well & is almost completed now. But the money I made on the job, I borrowed over a month ago, & it's already spent. The job has been keeping me very busy (on the computer).

This is a 1 time job, but may open the door for offers for more work in the future.

So I've been very busy, & in terrible, miserable health.

Hopefully with your prayers, help, & donations, it will all just be temporary & there's a light at the end of this dark terrible tunnel.

In the meantime, rest assured. I'm still here taking care of our sites, servers, & security. Betty's is still functioning normally. I'm just too busy, ill, & tired to be as sociable as usual or post lots of cool stuff.

My highest priority at here will be the safety, security, functionality, & reliability of Betty's. The social graces & frills will have to wait until I have more time & feel a little better.

[andyg0404]

Betty, it sounds like you are eligible for Medicaid, have you ever applied? It's for people with low incomes who aren't eligible for Medicare.

Andy G.

[Bertha]

I'm sorry if I offend anyone's politics, but I cannot understand America's medical system and its resistance to Universal Healthcare. The NHS, with all its faults, would have treated your COPD and provided you with any equipment/oxygen required. I hope you are feeling a wee bit better Betty.

[Betty]

Betty, it sounds like you are eligible for Medicaid, have you ever applied? It's for people with low incomes who aren't eligible for Medicare.

LOL. I qualified for the minimum retirement age at the end of June 2017. If all goes well, I might finally get my first retirement check at the end of this March.

Because I worked in both Canada & the USA, & legally paid taxes on the income earned in both, I can qualify for some benefits in Canada if I become a Canadian citizen & actually live there. But I can only get benefits from the country I live in, not both, even though I paid taxes on my earnings from both countries.

So what benefits I would get from either the USA or Canada by itself really isn't much, even though combined, it would have been a survivable retirement. Almost half my life's income was earned in Canada, & taxed in Canada. When I was younger, I worked a lot in Canada all the time. But I'm not a Canadian citizen, & never had a legal Canadian address.

As far as health aid, we're still working on that. Believe me, it would have been really nice. Spending almost $1,000 that I didn't have for an O2 machine & other treatments just to survive a few more months wasn't fun. Going on almost 2 years spending over $200/mo. importing inhalers for COPD. It probably would have cost even more to buy them legally with a prescription locally... plus well over $1,000 per visit just to see a doctor to get the prescriptions.

I was reading an article last week, where in India to treat a certain type of hepatitis, one has to take a pill that cost them $3-$4 every day for 6 weeks. They charge over $1,000 each for the exact same pill made by the same company here in the USA!

Our heath care system has been broken for decades, & most Americans are either too uninformed or naive to even know it. Most of us don't even know that the life-saving $400-$600 epipens used to treat serious allergic reactions in the USA only cost $10-$24 overseas.

[samantha1]

Hi Betty,do they pay well for retirement pensions in the states.

[Betty]

It depends on how much you made in your life & how much of you got deducted out of your weekly paychecks towards those benefits. So basically, we're just getting back what we paid in benefits during our life. Payments are spread our over your life expectancy. So at the minimum retirement age of 62, they pay you back what you put it, in monthly checks, under the estimate that a 62 y/o male on average, only has 10-13 years left to live. Some live a bit longer or a bit less, but it all averages out to around a life expectancy of 72-75 years old.

But for my jobs during my life, almost half my taxes & benefits were paid to the Canadian government & system when I would work there, & a little more than half was paid into the USA system when I worked here. But I can't get any Canadian benefits that I paid into, unless I become a Canadian citizen, & live there. And if I do, I can't collect any USA benefits.

So no matter what I do or where I live now, I'll can only get about a half a lifetime of benefits from either country, but not from both. But I did have to pay USA income tax on everything I earned in Canada & taxes on everything I earned in the USA.

Right now they're writing new laws to restrict & reduce retirement & disability benefits. Every paycheck for all of our lives has money deducted from it for retirement & disability benefits. This was done under the guarantee that we would get it all back if we became disabled or reached retirement age. But now the government wants to pass laws to keep more of it instead... money that we paid in benefits deductions all our lives, that was promised to be paid back to us later!

[samantha1]

Hi Betty,is that because of this  president wanting to cut down on everything,this cannot be right that they can do this,also how fair that you worked in Canada and USA ,but cannot be paid from both places.

[patricialacey]

Hi Betty my mom was recently diagnosed with copd although she's still in good shape (for an 85 year old).
My son started researching alternative therapies before she starts going downhill.
He discovered that a lot of people are getting good results from cbd oil.
It also seems to help alzhiemers sufferers and as her doctor says she is in the VERY early stages we feel we just have to give it a try.
Also since my liver transplant involved a living donor who had an amyloid liver which causes early onset alzheimers, I'm going to go down with it in 10 years or so myself, therefore I'm going to give it a try myself.
Nothing to lose & everything to gain!
check out this guy's story.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4orguPO_doA 

[Robyn Jodie]

The US so-called "health care" system is badly broken. The ACA ("Obamacare") was a baby step in the right direction, but the changes to it made as part of the latest "tax reform" package are all but guaranteed to send it into a death spiral -- rising prices forcing more younger healthier people to go uninsured, leaving only older sicker people in the system, causing prices to rise, forcing more younger healthier people to....  Well, you get the idea.
The Ryan/McConnell/Trump plan for poor people reminds me of Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad' claim that Iran doesn't have any gays.  And their method of hanging gays is more direct, and could even be considered more humane (at least it's over quickly), than the US's policy of letting poor people get a curable disease but hold off seeing a doctor till it is so bad it is no longer curable because they can't afford it. :-(

[Betty]

He discovered that a lot of people are getting good results from cbd oil.

At $29.95 per ounce for the oil before shipping & taxes, I'll have to pass on that one. Recommended dosages would cost $120-$2,000 per month. On my budget I'm spending an average of $20-$40 a month on food. I make almost everything from scratch... even my bread, & stock up on dry or canned goods when there's a sale. Non-perishables keep for years. One can get a huge bucket or bag of rice, dried beans, flour, beans, or ramen for just a few dollars. Those buckets or huge bags last months. Kitties even like the beans, rice, & ramen, so I mix it in their food so they're not getting just dry cat food all the time. Their dry cat food is only around $9-$10 for a 16 pound bag. It lasts about 5-6 weeks.

So far what works best for me is a coffee or chocolate coffee every 6 hours. The chocolate coffee seems to do a little better. Been experimenting with beet juice (expensive) or beet juice powder (cheaper & mix it in a cooled down sweet chocolate coffee). Spinach powder is supposed to have a similar effect & is cheaper, so I've been mixing that in a cooled down coffee too. You ruin most of the benefits with heat, so they should not be put in hot food or beverages. So the coffee has to be just warm or cooled down. I get a bargain on instant coffee, so I can make my coffee cool or cold too. With sugar, instant chocolate mix, & a spoon or 2 of dry milk it's a delicious warm weather drink. Tastes almost like ice cream or a shake. The spinach or juice powder ruins the taste a little but I'm getting used to it.

The results are not dramatic, but there is a definite improvement. More importantly, by trying to keep up the routine, my condition has been improving gradually over the past few weeks. I've also been taking 100mg of CoQ10 every 6 hours (300-400 mg a day). It also has improved my condition a little.

My COPD stablized for a couple years, but over the summer made a dramatic turn for the worse. Then it good much worse again just before Christmas to the point I thought there was a chance I would suffocate & die. That's why I had to borrow a shytload of money to get a small O2 machine. It may be too small, but I can concentrate it in a 42 liter medical grade O2 storage bag for those times I need a full solid flow of O2 at higher concentrations. I like it so much I'm buying 2 more O2 storage bags for spares. If there's a power failure, 3, 42 liter bags full of 90% O2 can get me by a while if I carefully ration it. Or sometime when I'm busy, I won't have to stop to refill a bag right away at 1 liter per minute if I have a spare full one around.

Anyway, with the dietary supplements to increase my blood nitrates & NOX, CoQ10, & a new 1 a day vitamin designed just for people over 65, my condition has improved to about where was before it got worse around the beginning of winter. If it continues to improve at this rate, I'll be as good as I was before it got worse over the summer in another month or 2.

The real surprise was the results from the CoQ10. I've taken it before with no results, so stopped. But this time I'm taking 300-400mg a day instead of 100-200mg, & it's making a difference.

I also borrowed more money & ordered a battery backup for my O2 machine. The O2 machine is small & undersized for what I should have, but it doesn't run on DC or batteries. It runs on 120 volts AC (USA power) & draws 100 watts. So I needed battery backup that would actually put out household wall voltage with a pure sine wave to run the machine... not just a battery. The one I'm getting will run the O2 machine for a little over 2 hours... or enough power to refill my O2 storage bags 3 times. And it can be recharged from a cigarette lighter socket if household power is out.

The next stage in a month or 2, will be to get a second small cheap O2 machine just like the one I got around Christmas. The 2 combined together with a T-adaprter to the hose, should give almost the amount of O2 I would get from a big, heavy, more expensive machine. With 2, I still have some O2 available if one fails too.

I like having backup plans. It's like the battery backup supply I'm getting is only half the size that I really should have, but it's also half the price as the one I should have. So I can always buy a second smaller one at a later date to run my O2 machine twice as long. But if 1 fails, I still would have a working one. Ordering parts for broken stuff could take weeks... if I can fix it.

2 half sized O2 machines will make just as much O2 as one full sized O2 machine. 2 half sized back power units have just as much power or run time as 1 full sized one. But if 1 fails, I still would have some O2 & some backup power if I have 2 of them.