This post will be a bit different since we found out someone in our department tested positive. HR is notifying everyone he came in contact with, and they like will need to self-quarantine for 14-days. I only received a forwarded partial email but it appears he was in the office last on Thursday 8/13. I went into the office on Sunday 8/17 and did spend some time near his desk since it’s right beside the shredding bin. I think four days is enough for any virus in the air or on hard surfaces to dissipate or become inert. I also didn’t touch anything on or near his desk. Still, kinda scary.
Anyway, my test on Tuesday came back negative. Even if I was infected on Sunday, it’s probably not detectable after only two days, but makes me feel a bit better.
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Also got a group text that one of my cell group member’s wife is sick with fever and tachycardia. She got tested but he said it may take 14 days to get the results back. That’s almost useless. Until now, I didn’t personally know anyone that was infected. Now I found out about two (maybe) in one day. I feel we’re far from done with this pandemic, regardless who is president.
Joe will bring us together to end this pandemic and make sure that we are prepared for the next one.
I believe the AC unit in our house had been on constantly for the past 72 hours. It’s still very hot at night so my dad just leaves the AC on at 76 degrees. We have window fans and box fans on a couple of windows but they just blow in warm air. Luckily, we have not experienced a rolling blackout at our house. Actually, even though there are a lot of warnings, I don’t think there were any blackouts since Friday.
If you look at the actual demand versus forecast from the previous day, there is a flatting of demand near peak times for Monday and Tuesday. Maybe this is the result of all the alerts and warnings as people cut some of their energy use. The question is whether this is predictable since CALISO is definitely not account for it a day before. Here are the demand charts for Friday, Monday, and Tueadsy.
Friday 8/14 – actual demand and forecast match up pretty closely
Monday 8/17 – definite gap between actual demand and forecast starting at 2:00 pm
Tuesday 8/18 – same as Monday, a gap between actual demand and forecast starting at 3:00 pm
Compared to Friday actual peak of ~47,000 MW, the previous day forecast for Monday and Tuesday were 49,000 and ~50,000 MW respectively. However, the actual usage came in at ~45,000 and ~47,000 MW. Did CALISO over forecast demand, which resulted in all the emails and alert warnings? Or were we going to use more power than Friday but was moderated somewhat by the emails and alert warnings? It does seem that with 52,800 MW of peak supply, there’s enough power without rolling blackouts but I could be wrong.
Not Arizona or Death Valley hot but pretty warm… and we can’t run into a mall to cool off. Good thing we have central AC installed in the house. Otherwise I’m going to work just for AC and cold drinks, quarantine or not!
Limit the number of people in your home; do not allow visitors
Separate yourself (at least six feet away) from others in your home
If you are unable to stay six feet away from other in your home, everyone should wear a mask or a cloth face cover over your mouth and nose
The paper the first nurse handed me on Monday had these points 1) highlighted, 2) circled with a pen, and 3) had large hand-drawn arrows pointing to them. I think she was being super passive-aggressive because I complained about the long home quarantine when they did nothing of the sort the last two times I had procedures done at the hospital. Instead of telling me that things have gotten worse in Orange County hence the new procedures, she said that it’s always been like this when it definitely is not true. The nurse that actually took the swab today was more laid back. After the test he said the hospital will contact me if the test is positive, but come Friday anyway since it won’t change anything.
Felt like they stuck the entire swab up my nose and into my throat.
At home, I mostly sat at my desk in the office. My mom was in the same room on her computer but several feet away so close enough. I cooked my own dinner and brought it to the office to eat instead of joining my parents at the dining room table. Also, they did not leave the house today so chances of getting sick from them, if it hasn’t happened already, is pretty low.
At every dialysis session, the nurse usually listens to my lungs and heart. One of the fears for dialysis patients is not clearing enough fluid, which can build up in the lungs causing pneumonia. When she listened this morning, she said my heart beat was irregular. Ugh, words I did not want to hear. With so many health issues, once you think you treated something, you want it to go away. I listed to my fistula and I can hear the skipped beat. Crap.
Since they successfully stuck needles in my arm today, I could not listen through my fistula. I just checked now (9:00 pm) and everything sounds fine. Fitbit said heart rate is 62 bpm. Hopefully it was very temporary and my heart fixed the rhythm by itself.
While I was driving home from taking the COVID-19 test, I heard some discussion on KPCC (public radio) about Biden’s plan to get rid of long-term capital gains. In addition to raising the top marginal income tax rate, long-term stock gains could be taxed at 39% instead of 23.8%. That’s about 15% difference. This is important to me since I am planning a long slow retirement if I can’t get a kidney transplant soon. My current compensation at work had a fairly large stock component, and right now, there is an offer out to buy employee stock. The most important decision on which shares to sell always comes down to complex tax regulations.
Currently, the thought is to sell shares with the highest cost basis that’s been held for more than a year. This way, you minimize the capital gains due to the high cost basis, and qualify for long-term capital gains tax rate. If you think the tax rate on the stock sale will increase by 15% next year, then you would sell the cheapest stock to maximize gains, which are taxed at 15%-24% (capital gains). Otherwise next year you may have to pay a lot more for the same stock sale.
It all depends on who you think will wind the election in a few months. I already got screwed by Trump over his $10,000 limit on SALT (state and local tax deduction). It’s only fair that I get screwed by the Democrats too.
I spoke to the rounding nephrologist this morning during dialysis. Today it was Dr. Amer Jabara. I believe he currently the medical director for all the inpatient and outpatient dialysis treatment at St. Joseph Hospital. I was originally referred to him by my primary physician but was directed to another nephrologist at his office. I also saw him several times while I was in the hospital for heart surgery and he made the decision to take me off PD and back on hemodialysis.
I gave him a brief update of the drama at UCLA Transplant Center. I’ve been updating the rounding nephrologist each week and they regularly update their notes so I think he knows the story. He said if would be super easy to biopsy the kidney once they take it out of the donor, and even if the tumor/legion/cyst is malignant, the transplant center can remove it prior to transplanting it into the recipient. If it’s benign, the usually do the same. Since my sister is a perfect match, he thinks we should go ahead and pursue the transplant and see what happens.
If what he said was true, and there’s no reason to doubt him, then why did we wait two years? They could have done the transplant two years ago with the tumor/legion/cyst only at 10 mm and removed it from the kidney as part of the procedure. Maybe they’re afraid that it’s malignant and if they don’t remove all of it, the tumor may spread in me after transplant? I think the odds are super low in that case. More questions for our meeting with the transplant medical director. All I know that the two years on dialysis were not good for my health.
Since I’m supposed to be quarantined after taking the COVID-19 test, I decide to get lunch first after dialysis, then go get tested. I was deciding whether or not to get a breakfast burrito but ended up at Raising Cane’s again. I got the Box Combo, which has four chicken fingers. For some reason, the box had five chicken fingers instead. It’s like I won the lottery!
I then drove back to the ER parking lot to get tested. I was afraid it would be busy but there was no one in line. I pulled up and had to wait about five minutes; I think the nurses were on break. Since I registered yesterday, it was quick. A nurse checked my ID and stuck a swab up my nose for five seconds, then I was done. He also said they will let me know if the test came back positive, but it won’t affect the procedure on Friday.
The COVID-19 drive-thru test station at St. Joseph Hospital
Now I got to keep away from my parents at home for a few days.
Along with everyone else, I’ve been watching more streaming videos on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and of course, YouTube. YouTube was purchased by Google a few years ago for a lot of money, and they really need to monetize the platform to make some of that money back. I’m not sure how successful their paid model works but since it’s Google, they also have lots of advertising. Before, it was maybe one video ad before the actual video you’re watching, but now it seems to be at least two ads, then more ads randomly interspersed in the video. The increase in ad quantity is very noticeable and they often come at the worst time. At least on TV there are designated ad break times so the flow of the show still works.
On my PC’s, I typically use Chrome as the browser. There is a plug-in for Chrome called Adblocker for YouTube that works very well in blocking ads. On iPhones and iPads, if you run the YouTube app, there is no ad blocker available. I think you can run YouTube from a browser but iOS devices always try to run the corresponding app instead from a browser. I also have an YouTube app installed on my Samsung Smart TV. It’s convenient since you can control the app from your TV remote but here, there is also no ad blocker. I’ve attached a cheap Chromebox to the TV and can actually run YouTube in Chrome instead. I’m feeling the ads are intrusive enough that I’m going to start avoid using the TV app and use Chrome instead.
I understand they need to make some money, though I feel Google grossly overpaid for YouTube. It’s really their own problem that hey need to recoup some of the $2 billion they spent. Again, some ads are okay but once you start spamming and affecting the viewing experience, people are going to find ways around it and here we are.
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Also, the longer the video, the more ads you can insert. At 10 minutes, YouTube allows you to insert ads in the middle of videos instead of just at the beginning. If you look around YouTube, you will see a ton of videos that are 10:01 long. This is when content creators stretch a 6-7 minute video to just over 10 minutes in an attempt to grab more advertising money. It’s also noticeable when you watch the video because it’s painfully obvious there are lots of crappy content inserted just to make the video longer.
Ooh, I just got the email update on case count at my work location and it went up by 3 over the weekend. We now have had 114 cases. Hopefully they were infected offsite, i.e., at home or in the community instead of at work. By going in Sunday, I did not come close to anyone else in the building. I probably only saw about 5 people anyway.
About two weeks ago, my dad gave me a haircut. It’s been six months since I went to my hairdresser so my hair was getting long. I thought it came out okay. My dad has been doing this on-and-off for awhile. When we were living in Canada, he cut our family’s hair and several relative’s hair as well.
Since everyone is stuck at home, he wanted to cut his hair tonight. My mom refused to help him since she messed up previously and left a blank spot on his scalp. So of course, he asked me to cut the hair on the back side of is head since he can’t see or reach back there. He gave me the hair clippers, and said not too short.
Not my hands. Not his head.
The hair clipper was large and heavy so hard to maneuver. I think I did okay except he kept his head bent forward as I was cutting. When he stood up, everything shifted and looked different. I replaced the hair guide/guard to cut shorter and tried again. It did cut shorter and I think there is one spot that I cut too short. It looks okay when his head is upright, but you can see a whiter spot when he bends he head forward. I brought my mom over to see and she said it was fine.
I have an appreciation for my hairdresser now. My dad was always super slow when cutting hair. When you’re a kid, it seems like forever. I know I would take forever trying to make the sides match perfectly. My hairdresser would cut my hair in <15 minutes, even after 4-5 months and it would come out the same consistently. I guess it takes a lot of practice to be confident in your motions and not screw up.
It wasn’t this bad. At least I didn’t try to carve my initials or some other words on his head.
I just received a call from UCLA Transplant Center. They want to set up a video call between myself, my sister, and the transplant medical director. The donor coordinator already called my sister with the news and this is what I got.
The committee met again today and still couldn’t decide. It appears that the risk of biopsy and an additional scan is greater than the risk of the cyst/object being a cancerous tumor. I didn’t know radiology scans were that risky. However, the risk of cancer is not zero so the medical director wanted to discuss everything with us, and get my consent on accepting the “additional” risks of using my sister’s kidney. I think this would be of greater concern to the patient if it was a purely elective surgery but compared to spending another 5 years on dialysis waiting for a deceased donor? Sign me up.
We were thinking that the risks to my sister were the same. If the cyst was not cancerous, then we want the kidney donated to me for transplant. If it was cancerous, then it probably needs to be taken out sooner than later. Two years ago they said if the cyst was benign, they can remove it from the donated kidney before inserting it in me. I guess the “additional” risk is a higher chance of cancer? How does that compare to the mortality rate of more dialysis?
The call is scheduled for next Friday. I’ll try to talk to one of out nephrologists about this before then to see what they think.
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Just got another call. The time we just scheduled for the call is no good. It seems there is something on the medical director’s calendar. Don’t they have a shared online calendar like in Microsoft Outlook or something? At work, we try to keep our calendars updated so anyone can see your availability to set up meetings. Surely they have something like that at UCLA Medical Center?
Off I go to the St. Joseph Hospital ER to get a COVID-19 test for Friday’s fistulagram. My dialysis nurse was surprised that the test is administered in the ER, as if they don’t have enough to do. At St. Jude Hospital last time, they had me go to a testing lab onsite for the test, and no quarantine afterwards. Maybe the pandemic got a lot worse after early June.
To go to the ER, there is only valet parking (yay Orange County) so I have to pay for that. Also they’d better not charge me $5,714 for the test. I think that’s what my last visit to the ER cost and it turned out to be nothing.
Also I hope there is no line this early on a Monday morning.
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Update: 8:00 am
Ugh. I’m back after about 45 minutes and it was a huge waste of time. First, the test wasn’t in the ER, just the parking lot of the ER. They have a drive through tent set up for you to get swabbed. Because it looked like a last minute setup, there weren’t any markings in the lanes so it too me awhile to figure out where to go based on the vague directions from the parking attendant. Also, the nurse at the drive thru said they’re testing for Thursday’s procedures today. I guess the test takes three days to come back? Once I’m tested, I have to quarantine myself, even from family members. All this is news to me based on the conversation I had with the surgeon’s nurse.
Ugh again. What a huge pain in the ass. I live with my parents and they do all the cooking. Now they have to stay six feet away from me or wear a mask inside. I understand the need to contain COVID-19 but it seems the hospital is putting all the burden on the patients. I know they have a faster test. Why not have the patients tested before the procedure so you know they’re not infected, and save people from three days of quarantine? I need to go to the hospital two hours before my procedure and most of the time it’s just sitting in pre-op waiting for the next nurse. They can easily swab me right in the beginning and have timely test results before the procedure. Instead, they are depending on my parents to stay away from me in the same house? Which is more reliable? Are the fast tests more expensive? It’s not like the hospital is paying for anything. It’s all charged to one insurance or another.
Anyway, to avoid an extra day of home quarantine, I’m waiting to do the test tomorrow instead. They did register me today in order to save time for tomorrow. I’m guessing the lines will be much longer at 10:00 am after dialysis then at 7:30 am in the morning. Seriously, even if they can’t do the one hour test, surely there is an overnight test or something. It’s as if the hospital is making things easier on themselves by making things harder for all their patients.
Hmm, I often hear people brag that if California was a separate nation, it would be ranked #5 (2019) in the world between Germany and India. If this economy is dependent on electricity, why can’t we figure out how to provide a stable and inexpensive source of power after all this time? I got this email from SoCal Edison this morning:
We need your help. Very hot weather is expected to continue for most of Southern California through Wednesday, causing stress on the power grid. Since this heatwave began, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) has issued two statewide Stage 3 emergencies and directed SCE to reduce its electrical power load, including through rotating outages of customers.
I know there rolling blackouts at work on Friday, and I heard that some neighborhoods in Tustin had their power shut off for about an hour. It’s probably people running their air conditioners more hours than usual. CALISO has a lot of interesting information. Here is today’s forecast:
I guess the problem is the gap between forecasted peak demand (49,726 MW) and available capacity (44,426 MW). If so, the gap is over 5,000 MW. It’s even more interesting if you look at the supply and demand curves by hour. Here is Friday’s data:
The demand peaks at around 5-6 pm, probably when people get home from work, fire up the AC, and start cooking dinner. I know our house had the AC going basically 24 hours since mid last week. At the same time, a large part of the supply starts to drop off (green line). That’s our renewable power supply, which is mostly solar. Solar generation peaks during noon at about 11,000 MW and drops off to basically zero after 7:00 pm, just when there’s peak demand. You can see we have to start up all the natural gas generation plants to fill the gap.
So is California’s focus on solar power wrong? I have about 3.7 MW of solar panels on my house so unless my AC is running or I’m charging the car, I’m a net producer during the day. Ironically, I wanted more panels on my install but Edison would only allow me 12 panels. I managed to get 14 installed but I still don’t know why they limited the solar supply, especially when we still have rolling blackouts. When the AC is on, I don’t generate nearly enough power to compensate, thanks to Edison’s restrictions.
Where’s nuclear power? If you look at the supply chart, there is a flat dark blue line of ~2,250 MW. This is the Diablo Canyon Power Plant near San Luis Obispo, the only nuclear power plant in California since San Onofre shut down. Diablo Canyon is also scheduled to be shut down, seemingly due to protests from environmentalists. I’m a big supporter of renewable energy. I installed solar panels on my house, and I drive a 100% electric vehicle. I have not gone to the gas station in almost four years and ~60,000 miles. But it’s got to make economic sense. I think the vitriolic opposition to nuclear power is stupid and short-sighted. We should be focused on more research for safer and cleaner power, with the goal of fusion power that runs off seawater. Instead, we build tons of solar farms that are only good during the day. At least the sky is sunny most of the time in Southern California. Could be worse…
I thought a lot about this when I was on PD. The cycler needed to stay on for 10+ hours each night. What if the power goes out? I think it shuts off after 30 minutes or something and you’re supposed to skip dialysis for that day. What if power goes out for > one hour each night of the week? Do all the patients just get sick or die? I looked into a battery backup but it appeared I needed either a huge data center backup unit, or a Tesla Powerwall. How many dialysis patients can afford that on their own? If I ever consider home hemodialysis, this will become a concern again.
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I ended up paying ~$850 for electricity in June. That’s for all the net usage for 12 months since I have solar panels. At $0.20/kW, thats about 4.25 MW of electricity I had to pull from the grid last year since I don’t generate enough with only 14 panels to cover my usage. Wish you had those MW today huh, Edison?
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Update: 3:30 pm
Just got another email from Edison warning customers of pending blackouts. Of course they only say it will be an hour long but not the location. Do they not plan this out ahead of time or do they throw darts at a map and shut down areas at random? I think I’ve heard that they do not want to give criminals a heads up of areas that will be without power, but you also don’t let your customers prepare either.
If you look at CALISO now, the forecasted peak demand is 47,264 MW versus an updated available capacity of 50,632 MW. It seems like they always over-forecast the peak demand and find additional supply. At first, I thought CALISO just spent money and bought power from other sources outside the region but that had gone down steadily since 6:00 am. Instead, there is a huge ramp in natural gas power production. Is there new capacity brought online just now? Can’t they forecast this with any degree of accuracy?
Our AC is still on and has been all day. I have not charged my car yet. I already have the charging set up so if I plug it in during the day, the car will wait until after midnight to charge. Since I have flat electricity rates by hour, I mainly did it to reduce the load on the house wiring. I thought the AC would be off by midnight so I can avoid running 100 amps through the breaker box. Both are on dual 50 A breakers.
The email mentioned the alert period lasts until midnight but the critical times are from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm. Let see if the lights start going off in about an hour. I have my cable modem and Wifi router on a battery backup so I can still blog in the dark for a few hours if the power goes out. Probably sweating profusely but I’ll have Internet.
When I went to my office today, there was a washable cotton face mask on my desk. It’s all black with our company’s logo on the lower left (my left). I saw a few on other people’s desks. I think they handed out one per employee. It’s pretty cool as our CEO wore it on TV; there is also a huge market for our company logo’ed clothing. It still smells funny since the masks are made in China, apparently a few months ago in May, so it may take time for the chemicals in the material and dye to dissipate. I’m actually worried that if I wear it to dialysis, a few of the techs will want one too, and I don’t know how to get more, even if I have to buy them.
I heard my parents’ church is also making some custom masks to give out, although I heard they are only making 200. The setup costs got to be pretty high for such a small run as they are printing the church name on the mask in Chinese. Maybe I’ll wear a surgical mask over the church mask… for extra safety.
Speaking of all the computers in the home office, the Mac Air is from mid-2012 so it’s about eight years old. It’s kind of slow compared to my Intel i5 desktop, and Wifi doesn’t work that well. Tonight, there was an OS X update to 10.15.6. I am currently on 10.15.5. I asked the computer to update twice already. Each time the computer would restart and look like it was updating. When the desktop comes back though, the update dialog box is still there, and the About This Mac window still shows 10.15.5. It didn’t give me any error messages so I don’t know what is wrong. Maybe it’s trying to hint that I need to upgrade my main Mac computer.
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Apple offers a trade-in program if you buy new hardware. I check my current Mac Air, which though slow, works perfectly fine. I tried the serial number but Apple’s website didn’t recognize it… probably too old. After entering all the relevant data, I got an offer of $140 for trade-in. On eBay, they are going for $150 to $500. Sigh… I’ll probably just keep it since it’s only really used for organizing music in iTunes and my photos. I used to use Google Picasa but that won’t run anymore so I’m using Adobe Bridge 2020.
Maybe it’s because I’m sick and stuck at home all day, a lot of songs seem to trigger me to tears lately. During Divorce Care Group, I mentioned that even after 13 years of divorce, sometimes a song, picture, or even smell remind me of something and often lead to tears. Dreams are especially bad since I have no control, and some of them are so vivid that I’m confused when I wake up, even looking for my ex-wife in bed next to me.
This is one of the songs that has been driving me crazy lately. I’m sure the lyrics are describing some idealized notion of love and marriage but it’s still a great song.
Come What May Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor Never knew I could feel like this Like I’ve never seen the sky before Want to vanish inside your kiss Everyday I love you more and more Listen to my heart, can you hear it sings Telling me to give you everything Seasons may change, winter to spring But I love you, until the end of time Come what may Come what may I will love you until my dying day Suddenly the world seems such a perfect place Suddenly it moves with such a perfect grace Suddenly my life doesn’t seem such a waste It all revolves around you And there’s no mountain too high No river too wide Sing out this song and I’ll be there by your side Storm clouds may gather And stars may collide But I love you I love you Until the end of time Come what may Come what may I will love you, until my dying day I will love you (Come what may) Oh Yes I will love you (Come what may) I will love you, until my dying day.
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Something else I can’t watch without crying is the final scene from My Sassy Girl, a Korean film from 2001. Especially when she realized who he is and the single tear rolls down her face. It probably doesn’t mean anything standalone; you have to watch the entire movie first.
Another song that comes to mind in this “category” is Just Like Heaven by The Cure. At one point, I thought understood the lyrics but now, I’m not so sure. Here is a live performance in 2019; the song came out in 1987 (33 years ago!).
Hmm, Robert Smith (lead singer with the eye shadow) looks like he gained some weight. Also, bass player is using a pick! I didn’t know that was legit otherwise I would have used one too when I played bass.
Just Like Heaven The Cure Show me, show me, show me how you do that trick The one that makes me scream she said The one that makes me laugh she said Threw her arms around my neck Show me how you do it and I’ll promise you I’ll promise that I’ll run away with you, I’ll run away with you Spinning on that dizzy edge Kissed her face and kissed her head Dreamed of all the different ways, I had to make her glow Why are you so far away she said Why won’t you ever know that I’m in love with you? That I’m in love with you? You, soft and only, you lost and lonely You, strange as angels Dancing in the deepest oceans Twisting in the water You’re just like a dream You’re just like a dream Daylight licked me into shape I must have been asleep for days And moving lips to breathe her name I opened up my eyes And found myself alone, alone, alone above a raging sea That stole the only girl I loved and drowned her deep inside of me You soft and only You lost and lonely You just like heaven
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Sorry, one more song: A Whole New World from Disney’s Aladin. Marriage was actually kinda like this for me. I thought everything was going great and one big adventure until the carpet was figuratively pulled out from underneath me. Maybe I’m still in freefall…
A Whole New World Lea Salonga, Brad Kane I can show you the world Shining, shimmering, splendid Tell me, princess, now when did you last let your heart decide? I can open your eyes Take you wonder by wonder Over, sideways and under on a magic carpet ride A whole new world A new fantastic point of view No one to tell us, “no” or where to go Or say we’re only dreaming A whole new world A dazzling place I never knew But when I’m way up here, it’s crystal clear That now I’m in a whole new world with you (Now I’m in a whole new world with you) Unbelievable sights Indescribable feeling Soaring, tumbling, freewheeling Through an endless diamond sky A whole new world (don’t you dare close your eyes) A hundred thousand things to see (hold your breath, it gets better) I’m like a shooting star, I’ve come so far I can’t go back to where I used to be A whole new world (every turn a surprise) With new horizons to pursue (every moment, red-letter) I’ll chase them anywhere There’s time to spare Let me share this whole new world with you A whole new world (a whole new world) That’s where we’ll be (that’s where we’ll be) A thrilling chase (a wondrous place) For you and me
Well, I made it to work. Left my house around 2:00 pm and got here in about 45 minutes. As expected, the office is deserted. I brought in a duffel bag full of documents to dump in the shredding bin, and also dumped some old papers from my desk. After three months, my desk was filthy. I had to clean a bit before disconnecting the 30″ monitor and reconfiguring the desktop to work with 2 x 24″ monitors again. Since I didn’t have breakfast or lunch so far today, and it’s almost 4:00 pm, I went downstairs to the cafeteria and grabbed a sandwich from the fridge for $3. Not as good as Jersey Mike’s but much cheaper.
Now I have to figure out how to carry the 30″ monitor to my car in the parking structure. There is a handle on the back of the monitor but it’s still awkward since it’s bulky. I don’t want to get harassed by security on the way out. The monitor is probably over 10 years old but still works great. I think the company originally spent over $1,000 on the 30″ monitors; they’re much cheaper now.
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The monitor is a HP Z30i. They’re $300 used on eBay now. Here is the specification sheet from HP.
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Dang it. The monitor was heavier than I thought. The specs said 22 pounds but it felt like more. Luckily I have one of the newer ones, which is thinner than some of the older ones in the office. The older monitors are probably even heavier. I was totally out of breath when I got to the car with the monitor, and had to sit in the car for 5 minutes before going back to the office to finish some stuff.
The monitor is also very large compared to my desk. I already have my Mac Air connected to a 21″ monitor plus two KRK Rockit 5 studio monitor speakers on the desk already. I managed to get the 30″ set up but had to place the 24″ monitor vertically to fit the desk. I guess I can keep Outlook up and just have emails on that screen and free up the 30″ for spreadsheets and other work.
There are now five computers plus a PS3 in the home office hooked up to six LCD monitors and a 42″ LCD TV.
Since I wanted to go to work and pick up my monitor, I decided to Supercharge my car before the trip. I also wanted to “save” time so I picked up lunch before heading to the charger so I can eat while I wait. It was a good idea since the Superchargers were super slow today. I believe mine was running at 28 kW. It was also pretty full along with many of the chargers nearby. Maybe everyone is taking trips again?
Raising Cane’s drive-thru board in Tustin, CA. I think I’m addicted to their chicken fingers.
I think this is the fourth dialysis day in a row that I’ve stopped by Raising Cane’s to get lunch. Again, the secret is to eat at least one chicken finger right when you get the order, hopefully stopping somewhere and not eating and driving at the same time. They came out super hot and it tastes much better than after they’ve cooled down.
I drove back to the Supercharger which is next to the hospital/clinic and spent almost 75 minutes charging from ~50 miles to ~170 miles of range. Supposedly the Katella/Anaheim chargers are 250 kW vs. 130 kW for the ones in Santa Ana. It’s only five minutes away; I should try them to see if they do charge my car at a much faster rate.
I was a bit upset with my nurse this morning at dialysis. The one tech who has the most success sticking me got both needles in Thursday so it felt that my scheduled COVID-19 test, quarantine, and fistulagram next week was mainly due to her complaints about my fistula. Since the tech was busy, she hooked me up with the catheter first, then another (there are several) tech tried to stick me. It looked good at first but again, the pressure spiked when the lines were connected to the machine. We had to go one-and-one again, using one needle and one port on the catheter. Ugh, maybe I do need to find out what’s wrong since I may need this fistula for several years.
I also managed to fall asleep awhile ago. All the staff decided at that time to wake me up to sing happy birthday, like at a restaurant. Didn’t expect that since I’ve never heard them do that before. Then they sang for another patient that had a birthday recently too. It was a nice gesture but I hate when people sing happy birthday for me. Now I can’t fall back asleep and there’s over an hour left in the session.
I didn’t know about the EPTS score. That was never mentioned to me at either transplant centers. I was led to believe that the wait list mainly depended on blood type and geography. The wait list in Southern California for B-type blood is 9-11 years and approximately 4 years in Phoenix, Arizona. If the organ recipient selection is based on this EPTS score, then I’m screwed. I found a calculator online and my number is 64%. I guess that means about 2/3 of the patients on the wait list will live longer than me post-transplant. The website also has a PDF that helps explain the EPTS score.
Interpreting the EPTS Score
The EPTS score, which ranges from 0% to 100%, represents the percentage of kidney candidates in the reference population with a higher expected post-transplant survival. Lower EPTS scores are associated with higher expected post-transplant longevity, and vice-versa (Figure 1).
Candidates with EPTS scores less than or equal to 20% will be prioritized by the kidney allocation system to receive kidney offers from donors with the highest estimated quality (KDPI ≲20%). Candidates with EPTS scores exceeding 20% will be eligible to receive these offers. They will be prioritized after candidates in the EPTS top 20%.
I think what it says is that I won’t get the best kidneys available. Those will be offered to patients with EPTS scores <20%. After that, I can’t tell if it’s wait time based or still ranked by EPTS scores. If I put no for diabetes, the number drops to 27%. I guess that’s a huge determining factor on post-transplant survival. Also, I think the patient’s age and years on dialysis affects the score negatively so in long wait time areas, your score gets worse every year, while younger and newer patients get priority. Maybe this is why some people have had three or four kidney transplants by age 20, while older patients have to wait 10+ years for a deceased kidney and one of lower quality.
I don’t know what the right answer is. The video did mention Iran’s experiment with using a market based approach eliminated the wait list. However, it did not mention whether poor people were priced out of the market. How do you determine the ethics of saving a small random number of transplant patients versus saving more lives but biased toward more well-off patients? I guess our society has decided that more people should die so we can have wealth equality.
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Ironically, dialysis and kidney transplants are covered by Medicare in the US. That means almost everyone’s treatment and surgery costs are paid by taxpayers anyway. There’s got to be a way to calculate the cost savings between a live donor transplant versus dialysis until death. Based on my dialysis statements, we can use $5,000/month or $60k/year for dialysis on Medicare rates. If a typical patient stays on dialysis for 10 years, that’s $600k. This website quotes a kidney transplant will cost Medicare $100k so we can double that for live donor transplants since there are two surgeries. That’s $400k of savings.
So it appears that Medicare can offer donors $100k for a kidney and still save $300k if the patient would have lived >10 years on dialysis. They can still have their “ethical” wait list but vastly increase organ supply, improve the quality of donated organs (live vs. deceased donor), and save taxpayers money. Maybe the complaint will be that only poor people will be incentivized to donate or some people are not healthy enough to donate, and that will be somehow unfair. Meanwhile, you are saving thousands of additional lives each year and reducing the number of suffering dialysis patients.
Then there’s the China model where government officials harvest organs from political prisoners and sell them on the black market.
Life with chronic diseases 