Colon Blow

That's what Keith calls it, anyway.

Tomorrow is his once every three years or so colonoscopy to make sure the cancer has not returned and there are no polyps getting ready to become cancer. He is fasting today with the actual blowing of the colon starting this evening. We are both wondering exactly how powerful this new prep stuff that you drink is, the last time he prepped it was extremely arduous, with pills and gallons of go-lightly (heavily) and enemas. Now, you just drink a 16oz glass of blow your guts out stuff in the evening and another one in the middle of the night, the middle of the night because you are supposed to drink it 5 hours before your 'procedure' time, which makes it like 3am. Updates to follow.

I just hope they code the billing on this correctly because the insurance is supposed to pay for it when it's part of your annual screenings and all that. His endoscopy will end up being about $1500.00 on our part, what with the doctor visits, blood work, pathology, and the actual looking down the gullet. We have lousy insurance that has a big deductible and doesn't pay a cent until you reach that deductible, and who wants to be sick enough to reach it anyway?

It looks like Keith will be out of a job at the end of October unless some twist of fate keeps them working until spring. The company is not delivering coal anymore because the power plants that got their coal delivered are going to other fuels, and after a lot of downsizing because of those and other issues, there are only about 8 people left at the shop and the only income will be railcar repair work. The heads of the company don't see railcar repair work being worth keeping the shop going, so...

All of the few employees left were given printouts of other company job openings around the country and it finally sunk in that the free ride screw around all day and get a paycheck that most of them had is coming to an end. Keith could go back to North Dakota and work there, but we would have to live in a man camp trailer because there is no housing whatsoever in that state, and what do we do with this house and all of these animals?

He is going to ride it out until the bitter end so that he can collect his severance pay and go on unemployment until he finds something else.

But, in good news, our mortgage was bought out by another company and they sent us information about refinancing with some government program to help people with their mortgages by lowering the interest rates and apparently we actually qualify for a reduced rate refinance! Which shocks the heck out of me and I'm still wondering if it's for real. Supposedly we will save over $200 a month if everything goes right, and that $200 a month could make a huge difference if we are living on unemployment.

I'm going to be putting in applications at places close enough to walk or bike to, but I would be very surprised if anyone is actually hiring. Unemployment here is still at 15% and it seems that for each job opening there are about 1000 people in line for it.

So, we will see what happens. Not much sense in worrying about it, just trying not to spend any money on anything other than necessities and saving what we can in preparation for the axe to fall.