Spyke

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These aren't "feel good" stories, they're "we live in hell" stories.

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I'll take a stab at explaining from my (limited) experience. US schools receive funding from many sources, but the budget is set locally (usually once a year) by administrators and approved by a locally elected school board. When administrators make the budget they have to estimate how much money to set aside to pay substitute teachers. The administrators don't know which or how many teachers will get sick so they distribute sick hours to the teaching staff evenly. You can think of sick hours kind of like getting 'shares' in the substitute fund. Now as teachers work for a district over time these sick hours continue to accrue. Basically it means teachers who have worked there for a long amount of time and haven't needed to use the hours have hundreds of 'shares' in the substitute fund. People with a lot of accrued hours can transfer them to other employees. The amount of 'shares' in the substitute fund stays the same, but the 'owners' change. Meaning the giver loses their promise of substitute coverage, but the district can continue paying for both the sick teacher's salary AND a substitute teacher to cover their classroom, AND buy those new crayons they promised. Hope that all made sense.

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Can you blame them?

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Both were named for the Kansas river. The location of the mouth of the Kansas river flowing into the Missouri establishes the longitude that the whole western border of Missouri (except for the Platte Purchase). Basically Kansas state is where the Kansas river flows and Kansas City began where the river ends.

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Update for those following my mystery health problems: I'm at the Mayo Clinic. We may have at least a partial diagnosis!

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I had the same surgery and it was very successful. Can't believe it but it's almost been 14 years ago. I got really lucky in that I still have peristalsis in the top two thirds of my esophagus so I can eat whatever I want 99% of the time. Still have to eat slow and I get terribly painful muscle spasms a few times a year.

I had the same thoughts about space after my diagnosis! I even worry about back injuries or anything that would leave me flat on my back in bed since swallowing would become difficult. Just SUPER grateful for laparoscopic surgery so I didn't have to go through the old open chest version.

Be well and swallow smoothly!