I might survive in my car in a situation like that, though just barely probably.
My old van, you definitely wouldn't - Sure, you have plenty of room at the back, but that is just one big crumple zone, and the driving position is forward of the front wheels, over the engine, with only the chassis, dash and some bodywork between you and the big wide world(or the back end of a dumper.)
I might survive in my car in a situation like that, though just barely probably.
My old van, you definitely wouldn't - Sure, you have plenty of room at the back, but that is just one big crumple zone, and the driving position is forward of the front wheels, over the engine, with only the chassis, dash and some bodywork between you and the big wide world(or the back end of a dumper.)
My front end is very long and arrow shaped and since its a hatchback its also slanted at the back, not only that, the materials used in 1983 on the body are a bit beefier than the ones used in newer cars.
Safer, yes. Stronger, no. Modern cars are made so they squish on impact to absorb the shock.
They squish at the front and back a to absorb energy like you say, but the passenger is extremely strong and rigid. Much stronger than cars of yesterday, especially in the areas of side impact strength.
While everyone loves to mock the smart car, it takes these strength ideals to a whole new level. Pound for pound it's considerably stronger than any other car, because it has to be able to protect it's occupants from cars 2-3 times its size and weight.
Frankly, if a smart car was crushed, anything would have been. Like I said, unless you have a M1 Abrams tank from 1983 you're pretty much boned in this situation.
I've been sick ever since I got back from Connecticon. I went to the doctors yesterday, and was diagnosed with mono and taken to the hospital for blood work. I got a call that afternoon saying that my mono test came back negative and I had a serious bacterial infection in my throat. I've been on antibiotics since then. I may have to go back to the doctors tomorrow. A terrible ending to a great weekend.
I've been sick ever since I got back from Connecticon. I went to the doctors yesterday, and was diagnosed with mono and taken to the hospital for blood work. I got a call that afternoon saying that my mono test came back negative and I had a serious bacterial infection in my throat. I've been on antibiotics since then. I may have to go back to the doctors tomorrow. A terrible ending to a great weekend.
I've been sick ever since I got back from Connecticon. I went to the doctors yesterday, and was diagnosed with mono and taken to the hospital for blood work. I got a call that afternoon saying that my mono test came back negative and I had a serious bacterial infection in my throat. I've been on antibiotics since then. I may have to go back to the doctors tomorrow. A terrible ending to a great weekend.
Did they say what organism it was? Strep?
Strep culture came back negative too. I'll know the rest of my results tomorrow.
I've been sick ever since I got back from Connecticon. I went to the doctors yesterday, and was diagnosed with mono and taken to the hospital for blood work. I got a call that afternoon saying that my mono test came back negative and I had a serious bacterial infection in my throat. I've been on antibiotics since then. I may have to go back to the doctors tomorrow. A terrible ending to a great weekend.
I've been sick ever since I got back from Connecticon. I went to the doctors yesterday, and was diagnosed with mono and taken to the hospital for blood work. I got a call that afternoon saying that my mono test came back negative and I had a serious bacterial infection in my throat. I've been on antibiotics since then. I may have to go back to the doctors tomorrow. A terrible ending to a great weekend.
As of this moment, I have 303.5 hours of vacation time, 17.75 personal hours, 14.5 hours of non-comp time, and 7.5 hours of holiday leave. My work week is 37.5 hours. That means that I have 46 days of total time that I could not be at work.
As of this moment, I have 303.5 hours of vacation time, 17.75 personal hours, 14.5 hours of non-comp time, and 7.5 hours of holiday leave. My work week is 37.5 hours. That means that I have 46 days of total time that I could not be at work.
I need to take a vacation.
Are you going to spend it all at once and take a super trip?
As of this moment, I have 303.5 hours of vacation time, 17.75 personal hours, 14.5 hours of non-comp time, and 7.5 hours of holiday leave. My work week is 37.5 hours. That means that I have 46 days of total time that I could not be at work.
I need to take a vacation.
Does your's not cap or something? I'm limited to 160 hours max. What's your accrual rate? Mine's 10.67/month.
As of this moment, I have 303.5 hours of vacation time, 17.75 personal hours, 14.5 hours of non-comp time, and 7.5 hours of holiday leave. My work week is 37.5 hours. That means that I have 46 days of total time that I could not be at work.
I need to take a vacation.
Does your's not cap or something? I'm limited to 160 hours max. What's your accrual rate? Mine's 10.67/month.
It does cap. Vacation caps at 300, but you don't lose the excess until the fiscal year ends. Non-comp never expires and has no maximum; since the work week is 37.5 hours, the first 2.5 over that becomes non-comp leave time. I'm pretty sure they'd have to pay you for the time instead of just erasing it, since that would sort of be like having unpaid wages. They're just compensating you differently.
Holiday leave only sticks around for a year (since holidays are annual), and personal time is reset every year on your anniversary date.
I also accrue sick leave (I'm up to 350 hours of that), but that has no maximum and never expires.
We accrue both sick and vacation time at 7.5 hours/month each (3.75 hours per pay period) for the first 7 (or is it 10?) years. After that, both accrue at 11.25 hours per month (I think).
EDIT: For the first 7 years, we accrue 3.75 hours per pay period (26 pay periods per year). Also during those first 7 years, you get bonus vacation time at the end of each year. You get days equal to the number of years that you've worked (so, 5 years worked = 5 bonus days) up to the point where you would receive 7 bonus days. After that, you accrue vacation at a rate of 20 days per 26 pay periods (5.75 hours per pay period).
Basically, you start off earning 13 days per year, and then slowly ramp up over a period of 7 years to the full 20 days per year.
I wasnÂ’t going to do this, but I think it will be therapeutic for me to get it out. Please forgive me for the length.
Our dog Ipsa is twelve years old. She woke me up Sunday morning at 6:30 a.m. when she started undergoing a grand mal seizure. SheÂ’s never had a seizure problem before. Her seizure was awful. She howled, lost control of her bladder, her entire body was wracked with the shakes, and she was gulping for air. I was trying to find a 24-hour vet, and Carole was holding her. Towards the end of the seizure, Carole looked in her face, and Ipsa snapped at her. SheÂ’s never done that before either. At the end of the seizure, she seemed like she was alright, but we were already on our way to Falls Road Animal Clinic.
Some famous celebrity vet guy owns Falls Road. The waiting rooms are plastered with framed photos of him with movie stars and movie animals. There are three plasma screen TVs in the waiting room constantly running a DVD of him treating gorillas somewhere. The vet-techs were careful to ask us for money FIRST, and then they took Ipsa into the examination rooms. This was a surprise to us, since we ALWAYS go back into examination rooms with our dogs. WeÂ’ve never been asked to wait outside before. We simply refused to wait outside and we went back with our dog. The examining rooms all had at least one framed print of the gorillas. I told Carole that, if we ever have a gorilla, we know where to go for veterinary treatment, but I hadnÂ’t seen much indication that they were very good with dogs.
They took a blood sample, and then a non-famous vet came and talked to us. She said that she that a brain tumor was high on her list of possible diagnoses. I asked whether onset symptoms could be so rapid with a brain tumor. She said, “Oh, yes. That’s exactly what you would expect.” She started pressuring us to do an MRI and a CT scan, but said that we wouldn’t know if we really should do that until the blood test results came back in 24 hours. That was at about 8:00 a.m. We said that we’d rather take her home and talk to our vet in KY, who has treated our girls since they were puppies, and who we trust not to be so alarmist.
We were not home for ten minutes before Ipsa had another seizure. We rushed back to Fall Road Animal Clinic, and tried to tell the front desk people it was an emergency and that we had been there earlier that day, but we ended up having to wait for five minutes before we could even get someone to talk to us. Then we had to wait in the waiting room while the Gorilla DVD played in the background. Finally, we were admitted to the examining rooms where she had another seizure.
The Falls Road people said that they wanted to keep her for observation and treat her with Valium and Phenobarbitol. We relented and went home. Carole went to pick her up at 5:00 a.m. on Monday, and I stayed home with her all day. We were waiting for the blood test results so that we could have them sent to our vet in KY. Carole called for the blood test results at 6:00 p.m., but was told that they would not be ready before Tuesday afternoon.
At about 6:30 p.m. on Monday night, she started showing signs of distress. I thought that it was just indigestion, but Carole was more concerned. She had me feel her abdomen. It was rock hard. We immediately took off for Doc-Side Animal Hospital because we were fed up with Falls Road. On the way, Carole said that she suspected that Ipsa had bloat. Carole was a vet-tech herself before Law School, and she reminded me that the survival rate, even with surgery, is not good.
We arrived at Doc-Side, they took her in, allowed us to go back with her, and X-Rayed her. The vet showed us the X-Rays that confirmed she had bloat. He said that he thought that he could save her, but it would cost, and we had to decide very quickly. I asked about the possible complications of the suspected brain tumor. He said that a brain tumor was “low on his list” of possible diagnoses (actual words). He said that he though it was more like a stroke, based on the blood test results he had obtained from Falls Road. “Results?”, we asked, “They just told us that they wouldn’t have them until tomorrow afternoon.” I guess that vet just had more pull with Falls Road than us or our vet in KY. Just for kick, I asked this vet whether he would expect to see the rapid onset of symptoms from a brain tumor. “No.”, he said, “That’s exactly the opposite of what I would expect to see with a brain tumor.” As an aside, he said, “You know, this breed is at risk for bloat, and I can go in laproscopically with your other dog, and staple her stomach to her chest wall as a preventive measure at the same time that I do surgery on your sick dog.” We were just shocked and appalled, but then we received a cell phone call from our vet in KY. He asked where the blood test results were, we told him that Ipsa had bloat, and he immediately said that he was very sorry and reminded us of the high mortality of bloat.
We decided to have her put down.
When we told the vet at Doc-Side, he immediately said, “I understand if it’s a money problem.” By this time Carole was in tears and she said, “It’s not that. We have plenty of money, but this dog is twelve years old, she either has a brain tumor or she’s had a stroke, and you’re talking about a surgery that basically involves taking out her stomach, cutting it open, scraping it clean, untwisting the stomach and her intestines like a garden hose, putting it all back, stapling her stomach to her chest wall, and then expecting her to recover from all that. On top of that, you just told us that you can't do the surgery here. You're going to take her to Towson Animal Clinic, about forty-five minutes away. There's no guarantee she'll even survive that trip. We just can’t ask her to do it.”
While Carole held Ipsa in her arms and as the sedative was administered, they stuck a credit card machine under her nose and asked her for her credit card. No joke. ItÂ’s that wonderful free-market capitalism at work. We got home at about 9:00 p.m.
I had a hearing on Tuesday, so I couldnÂ’t very well call in sick. When I arrived at the office, there was an email waiting for me advising us all of an emergency union meeting at which we were supposed to decide whether to take a twelve percent pay cut to possibly (no promises) prevent layoffs. We had already agreed in May to give up our cost-of-living raises this year to prevent layoffs.
When I arrived home on Tuesday night at 7:00 p.m., I found that Louisville KY, where we still own a home, was flooded. Specifically, our neighborhood was flooded. While we were trying to get one of our friends with keys to our house to go and see if there had been any damage, we received a call from Falls Road Animal Clinic. The blood test results were ready for us.
I feel like I've had a limb amputated. I feel guilty and lost. I can't help wondering whether she would have made it through the surgery, but I have to remind myself that the bloat wasn't her only problem. Even if it was, the possibility of recurrence in dogs that have survived surgery is very high. She would have taken months to recover from surgery if she ever recovered (we've heard of lots of dogs that have had the surgery and only survived for days afterwards before they bloated again and died from it. More compellingly, Carole has seen this happen many times when she was a vet-tech. She said that the only time she's ever seen a dog even survive the surgery successfully was when it was done to a two-year old Weimaraner. It was so rare that the vet wrote a paper about it.), and then she would have been looking at that heightened risk.
She was a good dog and she did everything we asked of her. I hope that she can forgive us, but we just couldn't ask her to go through all of that. I don't think she would have wanted to try, either. Actually, I think she would be less likely to forgive us if we forced her to endure all of that pain just because we were too selfish to let her go. It would have been very, very painful even aside from whatever brain malady she had.
I'm very angry at those vets. Profit is fine and all, but there should be a point where they think about professionalism as well. If this is the kind of care the free market provides, then fuck the free market.
I'm pretty sure they'd have to pay you for the time instead of just erasing it, since that would sort of be like having unpaid wages. They're just compensating you differently.
I'm not really sure, they have caps so I don't take off too much time at once. Personally, I have no intention of getting near that cap. Time off is meant to be used.
I hope that she can forgive us, but we just couldn't ask her to go through all of that. I don't think she would have wanted to try, either. I
Joe, I'm so very sorry to what happened to you and your wife and your beloved dog. I don't think your dog would have wanted to suffer any further, and still loved you no matter what you decided.
I can't believe they stuck the credit card machine right in front of you as Ipsa was being sedated. I'm in tears from reading that story.
I'm very angry at those vets. Profit is fine and all, but there should be a point where they think about professionalism as well. If this is the kind of care the free market provides, then fuck the free market.
Your story is heart-wrenching enough as it is. The fact that both vets you went to were fairly unprofessional (and the first one outright callous) adds insult to the situation.
That is terrible. I can't believe how corrupt and callous so many veterinary offices can be. There really are too many stories like this out there. Your poor dog.
I'm really sorry for your loss. I haven't really experienced having to make all of the decisions in a life-or-death medical situation for a pet; I can only imagine how horrible it is. Dogs are loyal and loving, so I'm sure you are already forgiven.
That's so horrible, Joe. We've been through similar situations with both vets and human doctors when our family members were dying. My mom was literally handed a bill as she sat by my grandma on her death bed. It's a really insulting situation to be in. I offer my deepest condolences. That shit just really sucks.
Thanks to everyone. The problem of living with animals is that we outlive them. I've dealt with this sort of thing before, and I'm sure I'll do it again, since I couldn't bear to live without at least one dog.
I can't believe how corrupt and callous so many veterinary offices can be.
It really affects my opinion about "the free market". Those people were out for cash over anything else. The first group tried to hard-sell us on an MRI and a CAT scan, and the second group tried to hard-sell us on an incredibly invasive surgery with little chance of success. Neither group could just say, "We see that money is the last thing on your mind right now. We'll bill you." No, they needed their cash immediately. Doc-Side was so worried that they might not get their money, they couldn't let my wife just hold our dog in peace while she died. That's the type of behavior the free market encourages.
My mom was literally handed a bill as she sat by my grandma on her death bed.
Comments
While everyone loves to mock the smart car, it takes these strength ideals to a whole new level. Pound for pound it's considerably stronger than any other car, because it has to be able to protect it's occupants from cars 2-3 times its size and weight.
Frankly, if a smart car was crushed, anything would have been. Like I said, unless you have a M1 Abrams tank from 1983 you're pretty much boned in this situation.
I've been sick ever since I got back from Connecticon. I went to the doctors yesterday, and was diagnosed with mono and taken to the hospital for blood work. I got a call that afternoon saying that my mono test came back negative and I had a serious bacterial infection in my throat. I've been on antibiotics since then. I may have to go back to the doctors tomorrow. A terrible ending to a great weekend.
If it's not Strep...well, I'll hold my tongue.
I need to take a vacation.
Holiday leave only sticks around for a year (since holidays are annual), and personal time is reset every year on your anniversary date.
I also accrue sick leave (I'm up to 350 hours of that), but that has no maximum and never expires.
We accrue both sick and vacation time at 7.5 hours/month each (3.75 hours per pay period) for the first 7 (or is it 10?) years. After that, both accrue at 11.25 hours per month (I think).
EDIT: For the first 7 years, we accrue 3.75 hours per pay period (26 pay periods per year). Also during those first 7 years, you get bonus vacation time at the end of each year. You get days equal to the number of years that you've worked (so, 5 years worked = 5 bonus days) up to the point where you would receive 7 bonus days. After that, you accrue vacation at a rate of 20 days per 26 pay periods (5.75 hours per pay period).
Basically, you start off earning 13 days per year, and then slowly ramp up over a period of 7 years to the full 20 days per year.
Our dog Ipsa is twelve years old. She woke me up Sunday morning at 6:30 a.m. when she started undergoing a grand mal seizure. SheÂ’s never had a seizure problem before. Her seizure was awful. She howled, lost control of her bladder, her entire body was wracked with the shakes, and she was gulping for air. I was trying to find a 24-hour vet, and Carole was holding her. Towards the end of the seizure, Carole looked in her face, and Ipsa snapped at her. SheÂ’s never done that before either. At the end of the seizure, she seemed like she was alright, but we were already on our way to Falls Road Animal Clinic.
Some famous celebrity vet guy owns Falls Road. The waiting rooms are plastered with framed photos of him with movie stars and movie animals. There are three plasma screen TVs in the waiting room constantly running a DVD of him treating gorillas somewhere. The vet-techs were careful to ask us for money FIRST, and then they took Ipsa into the examination rooms. This was a surprise to us, since we ALWAYS go back into examination rooms with our dogs. WeÂ’ve never been asked to wait outside before. We simply refused to wait outside and we went back with our dog. The examining rooms all had at least one framed print of the gorillas. I told Carole that, if we ever have a gorilla, we know where to go for veterinary treatment, but I hadnÂ’t seen much indication that they were very good with dogs.
They took a blood sample, and then a non-famous vet came and talked to us. She said that she that a brain tumor was high on her list of possible diagnoses. I asked whether onset symptoms could be so rapid with a brain tumor. She said, “Oh, yes. That’s exactly what you would expect.” She started pressuring us to do an MRI and a CT scan, but said that we wouldn’t know if we really should do that until the blood test results came back in 24 hours. That was at about 8:00 a.m. We said that we’d rather take her home and talk to our vet in KY, who has treated our girls since they were puppies, and who we trust not to be so alarmist.
We were not home for ten minutes before Ipsa had another seizure. We rushed back to Fall Road Animal Clinic, and tried to tell the front desk people it was an emergency and that we had been there earlier that day, but we ended up having to wait for five minutes before we could even get someone to talk to us. Then we had to wait in the waiting room while the Gorilla DVD played in the background. Finally, we were admitted to the examining rooms where she had another seizure.
The Falls Road people said that they wanted to keep her for observation and treat her with Valium and Phenobarbitol. We relented and went home. Carole went to pick her up at 5:00 a.m. on Monday, and I stayed home with her all day. We were waiting for the blood test results so that we could have them sent to our vet in KY. Carole called for the blood test results at 6:00 p.m., but was told that they would not be ready before Tuesday afternoon.
At about 6:30 p.m. on Monday night, she started showing signs of distress. I thought that it was just indigestion, but Carole was more concerned. She had me feel her abdomen. It was rock hard. We immediately took off for Doc-Side Animal Hospital because we were fed up with Falls Road. On the way, Carole said that she suspected that Ipsa had bloat. Carole was a vet-tech herself before Law School, and she reminded me that the survival rate, even with surgery, is not good.
We arrived at Doc-Side, they took her in, allowed us to go back with her, and X-Rayed her. The vet showed us the X-Rays that confirmed she had bloat. He said that he thought that he could save her, but it would cost, and we had to decide very quickly. I asked about the possible complications of the suspected brain tumor. He said that a brain tumor was “low on his list” of possible diagnoses (actual words). He said that he though it was more like a stroke, based on the blood test results he had obtained from Falls Road. “Results?”, we asked, “They just told us that they wouldn’t have them until tomorrow afternoon.” I guess that vet just had more pull with Falls Road than us or our vet in KY. Just for kick, I asked this vet whether he would expect to see the rapid onset of symptoms from a brain tumor. “No.”, he said, “That’s exactly the opposite of what I would expect to see with a brain tumor.” As an aside, he said, “You know, this breed is at risk for bloat, and I can go in laproscopically with your other dog, and staple her stomach to her chest wall as a preventive measure at the same time that I do surgery on your sick dog.” We were just shocked and appalled, but then we received a cell phone call from our vet in KY. He asked where the blood test results were, we told him that Ipsa had bloat, and he immediately said that he was very sorry and reminded us of the high mortality of bloat.
We decided to have her put down.
When we told the vet at Doc-Side, he immediately said, “I understand if it’s a money problem.” By this time Carole was in tears and she said, “It’s not that. We have plenty of money, but this dog is twelve years old, she either has a brain tumor or she’s had a stroke, and you’re talking about a surgery that basically involves taking out her stomach, cutting it open, scraping it clean, untwisting the stomach and her intestines like a garden hose, putting it all back, stapling her stomach to her chest wall, and then expecting her to recover from all that. On top of that, you just told us that you can't do the surgery here. You're going to take her to Towson Animal Clinic, about forty-five minutes away. There's no guarantee she'll even survive that trip. We just can’t ask her to do it.”
While Carole held Ipsa in her arms and as the sedative was administered, they stuck a credit card machine under her nose and asked her for her credit card. No joke. ItÂ’s that wonderful free-market capitalism at work. We got home at about 9:00 p.m.
I had a hearing on Tuesday, so I couldnÂ’t very well call in sick. When I arrived at the office, there was an email waiting for me advising us all of an emergency union meeting at which we were supposed to decide whether to take a twelve percent pay cut to possibly (no promises) prevent layoffs. We had already agreed in May to give up our cost-of-living raises this year to prevent layoffs.
When I arrived home on Tuesday night at 7:00 p.m., I found that Louisville KY, where we still own a home, was flooded. Specifically, our neighborhood was flooded. While we were trying to get one of our friends with keys to our house to go and see if there had been any damage, we received a call from Falls Road Animal Clinic. The blood test results were ready for us.
I feel like I've had a limb amputated. I feel guilty and lost. I can't help wondering whether she would have made it through the surgery, but I have to remind myself that the bloat wasn't her only problem. Even if it was, the possibility of recurrence in dogs that have survived surgery is very high. She would have taken months to recover from surgery if she ever recovered (we've heard of lots of dogs that have had the surgery and only survived for days afterwards before they bloated again and died from it. More compellingly, Carole has seen this happen many times when she was a vet-tech. She said that the only time she's ever seen a dog even survive the surgery successfully was when it was done to a two-year old Weimaraner. It was so rare that the vet wrote a paper about it.), and then she would have been looking at that heightened risk.
She was a good dog and she did everything we asked of her. I hope that she can forgive us, but we just couldn't ask her to go through all of that. I don't think she would have wanted to try, either. Actually, I think she would be less likely to forgive us if we forced her to endure all of that pain just because we were too selfish to let her go. It would have been very, very painful even aside from whatever brain malady she had.
I'm very angry at those vets. Profit is fine and all, but there should be a point where they think about professionalism as well. If this is the kind of care the free market provides, then fuck the free market.
Sorry for the long post.
I can't believe they stuck the credit card machine right in front of you as Ipsa was being sedated. I'm in tears from reading that story.
My deepest condolences to you and your wife.
I hope everything works out for you and Carole.
I'm really sorry for your loss. I haven't really experienced having to make all of the decisions in a life-or-death medical situation for a pet; I can only imagine how horrible it is. Dogs are loyal and loving, so I'm sure you are already forgiven.
Please accept my condolesences as well, Sail.