It has been raining all day; it appears as though our summer is over unless of course I blinked and missed it.  We had a total of five days during the month of July and August that a person actually felt like they wanted to spend the afternoon in the pool.  The Farmer’s Almanac suggests that we can expect snow by the third week in September.  I can only hope that it is wrong. 
 
No Name’s receptionist called me on Tuesday afternoon to tell me that he wants to see me as soon as possible to discuss the results of my latest blood tests.  My appointment is for September 3rd.  I am keeping my fingers crossed that these blood tests will finally solve my medical dilemma.  As crazy as that sounds, it is the truth.  After living like this for six years I am ready to accept almost any diagnosis if that diagnosis would enable me to have treatment that would make me feel human for a change. 
 
If I woke up one morning without severe pain, dizziness and nausea it would truly be a miracle.  If I could sleep through just one night without adrenaline rushes, pain and leg cramps it too would be a miracle. 
 
My appointment with the Old Hippie, the blood pressure specialist was scheduled for September 1.  Two weeks ago I received a letter from his clinic that my September 1st appointment has been cancelled and rescheduled for October 6th.  It is obvious that the Old Hippie does not consider my fluctuating blood pressure a serious problem.  The first and last time I saw him in April, he told me that he wanted to see me in six weeks.  This appointment has been rescheduled so often that I am wondering if he ever plans to see me again.  Maybe blood pressures of 234/110 or 198/120 are nothing to worry about. 
 
It has been a discouraging week and I have made a terrible mistake by recommending my friend Angie as someone who could take over the administration and webmaster duties of a certain dysfunctional website.   There are actually two dysfunctional websites but thankfully my friend was only involved with one of them. 
 
Angie has a 4mm pituitary tumor and has Cushing’s disease.  She does Graphic Design and Website administration from her home.  Angie spent hours and hours during the months of June and July on this site setting up a new homepage, organizing the files and links and setting up a new message board.  Angie incurred expenses with all the long distance phone calls she had to make on the website owner’s behalf.  The owner of this site assured Angie that she would be paid in full.  Sadly, the cheque that this site owner sent to Angie bounced.  It was sent back to Angie stamped “Payment stopped.”  Angie cannot afford to absorb the cost of these expenses and I feel so badly for her.  I wish I had never ever recommended her to this unethical site owner.  How could I have been such a fool and get my dear friend Angie involved with this site?   I really thought that Angie would benefit from this experience but instead she has suffered incredible stress and financial losses.
 
Upright and honest people do not send cheques for services rendered and then stop payment on those cheques.  Honest and upright people who accidentally write out a cheque without sufficient funds in their bank account would immediately correct that error.   They would make sure that the person who had received the cheque that “bounced” was compensated for the amount of the cheque and the expenses incurred by having such a cheque go through their account.  The person who wrote the bad cheque to my friend Angie insisted that the money had been withdrawn from this person’s bank account and insisted that this person’s bank had the deposited cheque in their possession.  When confronted with photo copies of the “bounced” cheque still in Angie’s possession, this person then insisted that Angie had not put in many hours on this person’s site and that Angie had not wanted to be paid.  The only way to describe these comments is delusional.  Since this site owner lives in another country and Angie lives in Canada, I suppose this person is quite confident that they can get away with fraud.  Angie has kept all the emails from this site owner.  The RCMP will be interested in the emails promising “payment in full”.