Greetings from a hospital room in Northern Florida. I’m not the patient. I’m taking the night shift of a tag-team family vigil at the bedside of our 95-year-old matriarch, who had some sort of episode that rendered her battier than usual. We’re not sure if it’s a reaction to a new medication or some sort of brain malfunction. In any case, she bears more watching than the nurses can provide.
She’s a tough old bird, so I suspect she’ll pull through. She was lucid enough to hassle me about my slovenly appearance, which is an improvement over talking to hallucinations. When I get home, I’m going to instruct my daughter to drop me off at the peak of the Skyway Bridge with a stepladder on my 90th birthday, if I make it that far.
Since I’m on the road and knew sitting around a hospital room all night watching an old lady sleep with no wi-fi would drive me batshit, I bought one of those hotspot thingies from Verizon. What a fucking rip off! At the rate I’m going (a few hours of dealing with work emails and general web surfing – no movies, gaming or video downloads), I’m going to burn through $100 bucks in prepaid data charges over the next few days. Any pro-tips from the well-traveled?
dead existentialist
Don’t buy one of those hotspot thingees.
cbear
Hey Betty,
Most hospitals have free wifi—have you checked that?
The Dangerman
Basically what cbear said; a hospital will have a hotspot and, if it’s not public, tell a nurse you need to work while on bedside duty. You shouldn’t have to ask too many times before you get a password. They want you there, too.
arguingwithsignposts
I’m in a small town, and they have wi-fi in the hospital rooms!
Ash Can
Sorry; no advice — just good thoughts, for you and yours.
TruthOfAngels
I have a mobile hotspot from 3 (I am a limey) and a 3Gb sim card costs me about £12 (about $18) and gives roughly 180 hours of general web surfing. If Verizon cannot sort you out similarly, I blame George Washington ;)
greennotGreen
A friend’s batty elderly mother was restored to a much better degree of rationality when a family member examined her lengthy list of meds and, in consultation with her doctors, eliminated all but the most essential ones. Big, big difference in quality of life. I hope that is the case for your matriarch, Betty.
greennotGreen
Oh, and BTW, having spent way too much time in hospitals myself recently, I agree that the hospital is likely to have free wi-fi.
Betty Cracker
Thanks, guys. They actually do not have wi-fi here, as dumb as that is. The only free wi-fi in this piss-ant town is at the library. I’m definitely going to cock-punch someone at Verizon tomorrow. This is ridiculous.
Hill Dweller
Chris Christie is linking to pictures of him and Obama touring some of the damaged areas on Twitter.
Willard has to be seething.
opie_jeanne
Betty, I just lost my tough old bird father at age 94. I hope your TOB makes it and goes on to make many more disparaging remarks about your mode of dress.
Redshift
We have a Virgin Mobile one, which gives us 500MB for twenty bucks. It’s usually plenty for email and basic web surfing.
J. Michael Neal
Sigh. There are vastly more people in this world who *say* that they would like to read your stories than there are people who actually *will* read them. I’m pretty sure by about two orders of magnitude.
cat
My wife’s grandmother would hallucinate at times too. It was usually related to an infection, but after a few more infections she eventually started “sundowning” almost all the time and was pretty out of it once she got tired. I guess old people don’t feel like sleeping, but they should be sleeping so they get loopy and hallucinate.
LanceThruster
Sorry about your family travails, Betty, but marvel at your ability to share them in an entertaining manner.
Well wishes to all.
SectionH
Good luck with the old lady. Mr S rang my phone this evening (I was upstairs) to tell me my aunt had taken all her clothes off and was just standing in the middle of the tv room. He’d retreated instanter, without being seen, but he was rattled. She’s 86, has PD, and has been getting really muddled lately. By the time I got there, she’d started moving again and was putting on her nightgown. But I wasn’t thrilled with the preview of what I fear is ahead.
Sorry no advice on the wifi issue.
FredW
I bought a Virgin Mobil MiFi thru WallMart a couple years ago for backup internet. For $20 I get GB of data good for a month. I’ve never used it for more than a couple days at a time — when my crappy Time Warner went out and when dad was doing dialysis and I had a lot of waiting around. It’s PAYG so just turn it on when you need it. Don’t know if the WallMart special is still around.
freelancer
@TruthOfAngels:
UK and EU countries pay a pittance for telecom compared to North America. If most Americans saw what their European analogs paid for phone and data in their own countries, there would be a newborn tumbrel construction industry sprung up overnight.
freelancer
Also, best wishes for you and your fam, Betty.
JWL
I recommend a thing called a “book” for passing time. Just one can keep you entertained for hours and hours.
Scamp Dog
@J. Michael Neal: I made it through a third of The Spots of al Fahad last night before I realized I should have been in bed an hour already. It’s still open in my phone’s browser, and I should be able to get back to it tommorrow afternoon. People, give it a look, it gets the Scamp Dog Bark of Approval!
LanceThruster
@JWL:
So they come with built-in extended-life batteries?
fleeting expletive
SectionH, what is PB? My dad had dementia, then he broke his hip, then the hospital turfed him back and forth to the nursing home, one of those skilled nursing facility designated places. They were both atrocious, and I was there every day arguing and trying to finagle.
Never mind, don’t want to drag up bad stuff. It’s a rare blessing when one gets to die in one’s sleep, probably particularly to be desired if one is maybe 90.
Jay S
@J. Michael Neal:
Well duh. There are a lot more things I would like to read than I will make time to read. Sorry about that.
TheMightyTrowel
@freelancer: Here in Aus I’m back to the land of copper-wire-dsl. WTF. Also, expensive!
LanceThruster
I looked up travails to make sure I spelt it correctly and was intrigued by its origin.
Ouch!
handy
How dumb is Dim Hoft? Quite possibly the dumbest person in the entire internet.
Redshift
Since this is an open thread, I’m going to respond to something from the earlier thread that I missed while being part of a friend’s neighborhood haunted house:
I actually know Ruth Miller! This is very cool; she is not someone who puts up with any crap.
Also, the haunted house was quite successful. It satisfied our usual criteria for scariness (“It’s not Halloween unless you’ve made an eight-year-old cry!”), and, apparently due to cabin fever, we had a record 346 people go through!
Linda Featheringill
Well, you guys have certainly scared me. Thanks a lot. Maybe I’ll just stroke out one day and avoid some of the indignity.
LanceThruster
@handy:
He needs to be to tortured with a tripalium,
suzanne
An oddly partisan Halloween. I took my munchkins out trick-or-treating, and at numerous houses, the adults were asking each kid (yes, KIDS) if they were Republicans or Democrats. Invariably, these assholes were Republican. At one house, they had two bowls of candy: one bowl of small pieces of crappy candy, and one of big chocolate bars. If the kids said they were Republicans, they gave them one of the chocolate bars. YES. PEOPLE DID THAT TO CHILDREN. However, I complimented one neighbor on her Obama sign, and she ended up giving me an extra! While walking back to my house with it, a young Libertarian drunked dickhead started harassing me about it, and said, “Obama’s black ass isn’t going to fix anything!” I told him to shut his fucking mouth with racist slurs in front of my children. All in all, a weird night.
Hugs, Sarah. You’ve been blessed, obviously, to have her this long, and I hope it’s much longer. Hang in there.
TheMightyTrowel
@suzanne: Re: republican candy givers: the word douchecanoe was coined for these sorts of people.
J. Michael Neal
@Jay S: Sorry. My comment wasn’t directed at anyone here. No one on these pages has actually said that they were going to read anything I wrote, save, of course, jacypods who edits them. It’s mostly people I know in the flesh I was directing that at.
@Scamp Dog: Thanks.
Betty Cracker
@handy: On the way up here, I listened to some wingnut talk radio — Limbaugh and some local imitators. They seriously believe this bullshit. Here’s hoping they get the nasty surprise they deserve.
pseudonymous in nc
Hospitals are often built like faraday cages which makes high-speed data a bit tricky.
@freelancer:
My sister in CommieEurope!1! got an iPhone 4S the other day. It’s costing her around $45/mo on contract, no up front cost, 2GB data/mo. I won’t buy a smartphone because I refuse to be in hock to a US carrier.
Yutsano
@Betty Cracker: I was wondering why you were up so late. No advice, just hugz.
LanceThruster
@suzanne:
He needs to be to tortured with a tripalium,
JasonF
Here’s hoping for a full and speedy recovery for your matriarch!
pseudonymous in nc
@Betty Cracker:
Some of those comments are remarkably whackadoodle on Benghazi, which suggests that there’s a whole new species of Truther/Birther spawning in the cesspit. Very fertile minds, yer wingnuts.
(All the best for the vigil.)
SectionH
@fleeting expletive: PD = Parkinson’s Disease. Sorry, I probably should have spelled it out. Actually, from the reading I’ve done about it, there’s likely a number of different underlying illnesses which all get called Parkinson’s. Dementia can be a factor with PD, but isn’t always. My aunt’s been showing more confusion lately – mild but persistent – sso this evening I was really alarmed at first.
I’m sorry you had to go through that with your Dad.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I hope your matriarch recovers and can continue to insult your appearance some more Betty.
Insults like that from someone that old are something to look forward to. :)
@suzanne:
What the dumbfucks who politicize Halloween for kids fail to realize is that they are teaching the kids who answered “Democrat” that Republicans really are assholes. What a great way to recruit for your side! Not. Some idiot at Redstate was saying they should do something along the lines of what you experienced today. Absolute shitheads, all.
‘Adults’ who are willing to screw kids over are willing to screw anyone over.
That’s the Republican party of today.
Radio One
Is there a better crime tv show right now than Leverage? The creators pointed out before they even started shooting that there are a hundred crime shows about serial killers and homicide, so they decided to do a crime show about theft. And when the protagonist says in the credits intro for the past few seasons is “The rich and powerful take what they want, we steal it back for you.”
Sophist
That’s tough, Betty. I’m beaming some positive brain vibes your way.
Also, you shouldn’t have to worry about the bridge thing. By that point the death panels will be up and running.
Suzie
My kindest and happiest thoughts, prayers, hugs, whatever your family needs or wants right now, are all right there with you and this lovely lady. I wish I could know her!
YellowJournalism
@handy: There seems to be more and more of them fighting for that title these days.
Speaking of dumbshits on the ‘net, I saw tonight that Colbert has echoed the graciousness of Trump and extended the $1 million ball-dipping offer to tomorrow at noon. I really hope Trump thinks of all the food that money would do at this time.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Good wishes, Betty.
gwangung
@Radio One:
It’s a very political show, actually. They take actual, Republican douche bags, tone them down for TV, make them the villains, and people STILL THINK THEY’RE OVER THE TOP.
Ripped from the headlines….
YellowJournalism
I meant to say “good.” Just wanted to clear that up in case Trump ever reads this and thinks he should spend a million dollars at Walmart buying canned goods, paper towels, and other things the Red Cross doesn’t need.
Origuy
I agree with greennotGreen about checking your relative’s meds. My late mother was in the hospital with COPD and started getting loopy, talking like she was living in the past. We thought she might be getting near the end. My sister, who had been a nurse, looked at the list of things they were giving her and found some bad interactions. They cut back the meds and her mind returned.
Opie_jeanne
@Yutsano: Hi. Where are we meeting on election night again? I have forgotten the name of the place.
Cmm
No surprise, the knives are coming out for Chris Christie. From Rush Limbaugh today: “He’s fat and a fool. Don’t listen to Governor Christie. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
Yep, there’s the argument: Chris Christie is fat.
I don’t like his political stances generally, especially his anti union bluster, but I am glad he is seizing the moment to work with the administration for the good of the state, and doing it very visibly and publicly. It is an object lesson in what Obama wanted all along, collaboration across party lines to getositive results for everyone, not just the few.
burnspbesq
@Redshift:
+1 on this recco. Had the Virgin Mobile MyFi before AT&T enabled hotspot on iPhones. Great little unit, good enough service, and dirt cheap.
Fort Geek
@burnspbesq: Another +1. I’ve been running Virgin since 2008. All I wanted then was a cheap pay-as-I-go account, since I only wanted the thing as a $15 emergency phone when I was out on the road. That was $20.00 for 200 minutes, IIRC.
After some pretty bad medical issues, I decided to get their low-end Android smart phone (better voice plan). Got the phone on sale for $80; monthly is $35 for unlimited data/text and a few hundred minutes. It’s not a laptop, but it’s got decent battery life, wi-fi, Bluetooth, 3G, GPS.
Schlemizel
@J. Michael Neal:
J Mike – are you going to Duluth this weekend?
@freelancer:
Even countrys we consider less developed pay way less and get way more than we do in the US
BETTY:
Hope the TOB pulls out of this episode OK. I’m with you on exit strategies. Everyone I know that lived to a very old age, even those in very good health made me not want to go on too far. Fortunately for me with my health I don’t think that is going to be an issue. I was thinking of exiting by ice flow but given global warming that won’t happen
Schlemizel
Also tose of you who insist al lhospitals have Wi-Fi have never been to FLA. One thing I learned from my time living there is that you should expect none of the sorts of conveniences or accommodations you do in a first world nation. Unless there is a profit in it right now it ain’t happening
Warren Terra
@Radio One:
I’ve never seen Leverage (it’s not on Netflix streaming, I think), but I think it was originally based on the BBC’s Hustle, and even took one person from the cast (the actor, as a different character).
@Cmm:
Well, Limbaugh is an acknowledged expert on Fat.
dybevick
Betty,
Are you at Shands/Gainesville by any chance?
Genine
Sending good thoughts to you and your family, Betty. And since you’re in such a small town, I have no advice for temporary internet.
Lowkey
I’m sorry to hear about Matriarch Cracker, Betty! My best wishes to her, you, and your family.
As far as cheap WiFi goes, do you have an Android phone? If you root the phone, you should be able to use the 3G Mobile Hotspot functionality for nothing more than the cost of your standard data rate. (I have an unlimited data package, so for me, this is a must-have hack.)
Betty Cracker
@dybevick: No. I bet Shands has free wi-fi!
Betty Cracker
@Lowkey: I have an iPhone. I’ve heard it’s possible to turn it into a modem, but I lack the technical know-how.
HinTN
Download FoxFii. It just looks like data to Verizon. No muss, no fuss
tesslibrarian
@greennotGreen: This is what happened with my grandmother as well. My uncles were ready to put her in a home with a diagnosis of Alzheimers; my mother showed up (far too soon after her hysterectomy) and found a geriatric specialist to see her, and he changed some meds, and eliminated the high blood pressure prescription that her previous doctor kept increasing dosage on because that office took her bp as soon as she showed up having driven through traffic in Atlanta on a weekday morning, and it was always a little elevated. Go figure!
She was completely fine within a day or two of escaping from the hospital and asking a policeman where the street car was. I was so relieved, but I still want to put my uncles in home over it.
Kerry Reid
Keeping good thoughts for you and your family, Betty.
Kerry Reid
@Cmm: So Limbaugh really doesn’t have mirrors in his house, then? Or is it just that he’s such a vampire he can’t see his own reflection?
someofparts
@suzanne: Well, the first half of the holiday name, TRICK or Treat, seems to apply here. No candy for Democratic children, time for some tricks.
John M. Burt
I hate being without wireless, especially at hospital bedsides (I have done a lot of that for my father and maternal grandmother — not going to be doing any more for them, though…).
I carry a laptop and load it with pages I will enjoy reading, and also try to have a project (a story I’m writing, photos to manipulate) that can sustain me.
And then there’s the option of downloading a book or two from Gutenberg or whoever.