Yeah! < cough, sneeze, cough >

YEAH! There was no storm. 

I got home to a huge pile of mail from Nortel. I put it off for a couple days because I have a cold that makes me feel bad enough, I didn't need anything more.  When I finally started opening mail, the very first letter I opened from Nortel stated that they were NOT going to stop any benefits August 31st in fact to ignore all the other letters because they were no longer valid.   Why?  There was too much push back. 


< cough, sneeze, cough >
I came home with a terrible, horrible cold. It's all Ronnie's fault, he gave it to me. I finally sucked it up and went to the Doctor yesterday. I figured I had a sinus infection or bronchitis or something bad.  He told me I had a horrible cold and gave me some cough syrup with Hydrocodone in it. Forget that codeine stuff cause I got me some Hydrocodone.  Seriously, it gave me a buzz the first time I took it. 

Today I think he's an idiot! I'm worse today than I was yesterday. Still coughing up stuff that is way the wrong color, bloody stuff every time I blow my nose, shitty headache, very congested head & chest, now my chest is hurting and my throat is sore again.  Of course my throat is probably sore from the 2, yes 2, strep test I had yesterday.  Why 2? Because the first one wasn't painful enough.

So do I go to another Doctor, the ER or what?  Why the ER you ask?  It seems when you have a bad headache and a history of brain cancer that Dr's freak and just send you to the ER to be on the safe side.

Anyway, YEAH - cough, cough - I still got benefits that I can use to hopefully get rid of this cold.  (I don't think it's a cold but that's just my opinion, heck I didn't think I had a brain tumor)

Calm before the storm

I've taken the last week off to just relax and not think.  I've spent a lot of time by the pool reading*, chatting with friends, sleeping in and eating whatever I wanted. It has helped and I'm not as stressed as I was.  No more panic attacks. 

I will be going back to reality on Monday.  Hopefully it will all go well.



*I need to better explain reading.  I don't read books like I did before.  I cannot read any books with lots of  people or much of a plot.  I read "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and it took me forever.  I was about to start taking notes on who was who and what they did because I could not remember it or follow. At that point I decided to just read it and try to remember the people and try to enjoy it.  This is a very popular book and everybody is reading it.  It's classified as "summer reading." Yeah, that's right I even have problems with the easy summer reading books.

Screwed!

Yeah I know it's been a while.  Lots of stuff happening, most of it not too good.  Mainly I've been freaking out over this: 

Nortel seeks to cut retiree benefits to 4,000
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2215538920100622

That includes me.  Yes, in a few weeks not only will I stop getting paid but I'll have to start paying for my insurance and meds.  I'll have NO life insurance.  < insert screaming here >

First I got a notification that they were petitioning the court for approval to stop all the benefits.  So I started freaking out.  The court date isn't until July 16th so I thought I had a little time to get everything together.  Nope wrong.  Two days after the notification I got my termination papers. I totally freaked.

Here's all the information.  Nortel is currently in bankruptcy not going for reorganization but going for total liquidation.  They are self insured. All the rules go out the window once you go into bankruptcy.  Being self insured means they are paying my LTD not someone like Aflac.

After consulting with a very good attorney he confirmed that I am in fact screwed.

I knew this day would come but I was under the impression that as long as the "doors" were open that I couldn't get fired.  Well, I was wrong.  Very wrong.