Janice Langbehn’s life partner, Lisa Pond, was hurried to hospital with a brain aneurysm during a family cruise with their three children in 2007. Janice and her children were denied access to Lisa’s deathbed, even though there was no medical reason to prevent it. They waited for hours and only got to see Lisa after she had just died. Janice did provide the hospital with the medical power of attorney document.
From the report:
[...] the hospital refused to accept information from Janice about her partner’s medical history. Janice was informed that she was in an antigay city and state, and she could expect to receive no information or acknowledgment as Lisa’s partner or family. A doctor finally spoke with Janice telling her that there was no chance of recovery.
Janice filed a lawsuit against the hospital, but the court dismissed that, yesterday.
The court ruled that the hospital has neither an obligation to allow their patients’ visitors nor any obligation whatsoever to provide their patients’ families, healthcare surrogates, or visitors with access to patients in their trauma unit.
Literally…Food that nature provides us in its original form.
That means
FRUITS….VEGETABLES….
GRAINS….SEEDS……NUTS…….
HERBS…..basically all edible plant life.
Of course now the questions begs to be asked….
What is false food?
In essence……
DEATH
Literally……Food that has been altered from its original form.
That means highly
processed foods made
with chemicals and additives…..
hydrogenated and damaged oils……
refined sugars…….starches……..flour…..salt
basically, dead food.
We all start out as a single fertilized egg cell smaller than the period at the end of this sentence. By the time we reach adulthood, it is estimated that we are made up of approximately 50 to a 100 trillion cells depending on our body size.
Every single day of your life
your body sheds an estimated
90 billion Dead Cells
to make room for
90 billion NEW cells.
Where do you think the body gets the raw materials required to make these new cells? Well, it can only come from on of these two means….
From nutrient dense true foods or
Over time, the body will steal nutrients from its own bones, tissues and vital organs.
We may be living in a modern age…
but that does always mean we are wiser.
There is this wise old saying….
An ounce of PREVENTION
is worth a pound of cure.
Nothing could be closer to the Truth when we are talking about our health. By eating highly nutritious true food, we can prevent rapid degeneration of our bodies.
Prevention has been practiced by ancient cultures for thousands of years…
It is well known in the East that disease is really a manifestation of imbalances within the body. By combining, enhancing and concenrating whole foods into specific formulas that actually nourish the body’s stressed organ systems,
the body begins to function in a more natural, balanced state.
Nature always seeks BALANCE so does your body.
Disease is your body’s way of Telling you that you are malnourished and out of balance. It is literally a cry for Help.
True food can help. Of course you can suppress this cry for help by taking drugs to mask the symptons, but be aware of the adverse drug reactions….
WARNING: May cause chills, fever, nausea, vomiting, constipation, headache, muscle pain, drowsiness, depression, stupor, hallucinations, confusion, speech disorder, chest pain seizures or sudden death, just to name a few.
Over two thousand years ago, Hippocrates, who originally wrote the Hippocratic Oath, which all doctors pledge to uphold said,
“Let food be your medicine and let medicine be your food.”
Do you remember the old saying….Have we forgotten?
An apple a day keeps the doctor away?
Back when this saying was first coined, these was a ripe truth wrapped in the core of this meaning…
Unfortunately, now you have to eat 26 apples to get the same vitamin and mineral content that 1 apple from the early 1900’s used to supply.
Why? What happens? It is because we stopped replenishing the earth.
So does this mean we should forget about eating apples or other fruits and vegetables and simply depend upon multi-vitamins instead?
NO, because vitamins are only a small part of the big picture.
My wife took our 4-month old to his pediatrician this morning in Harlem. His doctor is black. My wife gets along very well with her and they started talking about race in Harlem. My wife stated that I talk about race on my blog and the doctor shared some of her experiences as a black doctor in a gentrifying neighborhood.
She stated that when new patients are referred, some grill her about her medical credentials, what school she attended, and whether she is a licensed pediatrician.
She stated that sometimes when she is meeting a new patient, she enters the exam room and the parents assume she is a technician or assistant. One parent told her that there were no paper towels in the dispenser.
The doctor reports that the medical field does not train or talk much about race and black doctors have very little professional support or literature to address racism when working with patients.
Last summer, the American Medical Association apology for decades of discrimination against black doctors and their silence during landmark racial legislation and policies.
Vague, useless.The other reviewer is right: stick to med school study-help books written by MD’s (i.e. those that have gone through med school), not by psychologists/educators. Not to mention it’s overpriced.”How to study in medical school” for example is half the price of this book, but sooo much better and more applicable.
Product Description Written in an easy-to-read conversational style this book contains the keys to medical school academic survival, enabling students to manage their time and develop optimal study habits.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Study Without Stress: Mastering Medical Sciences (Paperback)
True that many patients do not report their symptoms properly-this could be due their attitude ‘there is nothing wrong,it will go away-I am scared what the doc will do’-some may be genuinely not aware of symptoms.
It is the duty of the Doctor to check the patient thoroughly and find if something is wrong.
( I am reminded of a quip in Tamil movie-the Doc
asks the patient’What is your problem”
Patient” you are the doctor ,you find out.’
Fact is many doctors do not read pulse, use Stethescopes ,call for
patient History in person,family history of ailments.They cursorily
ask for symptoms and straight away prescribe medicines without even
asking for contraindications of the drug on the patients. Or worse
still, refer to multitude of tests to be run through.
Doctors must presume that the patient is illiterate in matters of
Health , check them thoroughly , physically examine them , ask for
detailed Family history of ailments and interact with patients
patiently.As I see it, it would take take a minimum of 20 minutes for
this procedure.Tell me, how many doctors spend such time with
patients?
Lure of money makes them hurry through appointments.Many Doctors are
‘hangers on’ to the patients, as in the case of Michael Jackson,who
prescribe what the patient wants and not what he needs.
Patients are also responsible in that they respect the Doctor who
refer them to fancy tests and costly medicines.They should remember
that costly tests/medicines need not be the best.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/whos-to-blame-for-a-missed-diagnosis/?apage=3#comments
Dr. Val Jones has recently uploaded 3 videos as a part of a long series of patient education and inspirational story videos. These feature hospital safety described by Paul Levy, author of Running a Hospital blog.
“Paul Levy, President & CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, discusses his innovative approach to keeping patients aware of the safety record of his hospital. Produced by Dr. Val Jones.”
Paul Levy, President & CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, discusses how patients can have a better hospital experience, by keeping themselves informed and having an advocate. Produced by Dr. Val Jones.
Paul Levy, President & CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, discusses how to keep in touch with friends and family while in the hospital, and how to get the best aftercare. Produced by Dr. Val
Jones.
Vision ray glasses, a vision correction, eye protection, protection from UV rays, are sold in Kelantan. They are eye protection glasses from defective ultra ulamak violence.
Using one on a “UV” protection mode would ensure one with a vision of a modern Islamic country. While driving on the roads in Kota Bharu, the “Serambi Mekah” or the “Verandah of Mecca“, on “UV” protection mode one would see highly sophisticated road systems; cloverleaf intersections, multileveled distribution roads, an underground sealed sewerage system, underground electricity transmission lines, highly sophisticated pedestrian walkways and malls, man made rivers flowing between roads and hinterland with grown colorful flowers , modern homes and many other high tech gadgets no one ever imagined.
But once you switch on the “normal use” mode, your vision will be immediately turned to ordinary day picture of a PAS State of Islamic Country, in which case parental guidance is needed for the grown up, from collapse in unbelieving state of mind. Caution is needed when you are to switch from any of the modes in a very short span of time; you need to use one of the modes for at least for a day use to prevent visionary disorder.
It doesn’t cost a lot to buy the glasses; you could get one in any PAS “ceramahs” in any the homes of PAS initiated gatherings free of charge.
For those who bought them, the last Raya driving home was fascinating which one of smooth driving experiences ever, compare with those without one. For the latter group, driving home was horrific because they couldn’t visualize and see the good road system PAS had developed over the past 20 years, and had to go through massive traffic jam.
Next time buy one of this vision correction glasses for you to wear while entering the most modern state of Islamic country in the South East Asia Region.
But caution: parental guidance is needed when using one.
Excuse me? There’s an old saying: the devil is in the details. A corollary of that: we’d rather the devil we know than the one we don’t. None of that matters to Democrats on the Senate Finance Committe, however. Yesterday the Baucus Caucus defeated a measure to make the bill public. Kentucky Republic Sen. Jim Bunning proposed the ammendment to give constituents the opportunity to review and comment on the bill. That’s a pretty radical concept for a representative democracy.
The Washington Examiner says Sen. Max Baucus claims it’s too difficult to put health care bill online. Baucus (D-MT), Finance Committee Chairman, said it would take his staff two weeks to post the bill on the web. So, how long did it take to post the 223 page Chairman’s Mark document, the plain-English version the Finance Committee agreed to post “before the vote”? And how before the vote do they mean? Nanoseconds? And who wrote and posted the 98 page Call to Action document? Here’s a thought: if the Finance Committee’s staff is so incompetent they can’t make an Adobe document, upload it, and put a link on the website, fire them. That might help the deficit problem just a tad.
Instead, the issue is really politics. Committee member John Kerry (D-MA) said Bunning’s ammendment “is fundamentally a delay tactic.” Um, giving people time to read the legal language, rather than make-believe plain English, is the morally correct thing to do. Since legislators themselves don’t see a need to read bills, their constituents need the time. How else can they let their representatives and senators know how they want votes cast?
Our so-called representatives, in both the House and Senate, are missing a key point. As House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said Wednesday:
The American people are angry that Speaker Pelosi didn’t allow the public and their elected representatives to read the trillion-dollar ’stimulus’ bill or the national energy tax before they were rammed through the House. Congress can, and must, do better.
At least Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), ranking Finance Committee member, gets it. “It’s what [the public] expects us to do anyway—read a bill before you vote on it.” Don’t stand for your representatives passing secret legislation. Tell your Senators and US Represenative you will not tolerate them voting for bills not posted for public review and comment. Elections are coming and they serve at our pleasure, not theirs.
Have you ever wondered what horizontal cross sections of the human body look like? Here is an animation of a full-body MRI from head to toe! (It may take a while to load but will play automatically when it has.)
The animation is from the Visible Human Project. Their goal is to create complete, anatomically detailed, three-dimensional representations of the normal male and female human bodies.
Finished reading this book over the weekend and it sheds a lot of light on America’s poorly implemented and broken healthcare system and what we can learn from countries that do it better and for cheaper. It dispels a lot of the myths that Fearmongers (I love that term) are currently throwing around in regards to Universal Coverage ”It’s all socialized medicine out there!” (p.s. We already have socialized healthcare here, i.e. the Department of Veteran Affairs, “It will ration our healthcare!” plus others. He and I believe the first question as a nation we have to answer is an ethical one. Do people in our country have a right to healthcare? Our answer is a definitive yes.
He tours over six different countries from France to Japan to India looking for options how to treat his bum shoulder. It is interesting to see the differences in practices, suggestions, course of treatment, cost and who pays. Each country is extremely different, but all follow one of three basic systems: Bismarck, Beveridge or the Out-of-Pocket model. I won’t get into all the statistics, but basically the U.S. spends the most on healthcare and gets the worst results out of all the Democratic, rich countries. About 20,000 people die in America each year from preventable diseases due to no access to healthcare.
I think a lot more research should be done before bills start getting proposed and voted on. We should follow the course of action that T.R. Reid has suggested- have delegates go to the nations that have the best Universal Coverage and pick and choose the Best Practices to implement here. We can learn a lot from France and Japan and be able to implement some of their practices. Definitely a book worth reading for everyone, considering the current situation about American Healthcare. You can find it on Amazon here.
In comments to my post on different notions of liberty and the health care debate, a person called “Person” disputes that there’s more than one meaningful type of liberty. She or he is arguing from the tradition that recognizes the importance of “freedom from” but not “freedom to.” That is, Person emphasizes negative liberty to the exclusion of positive liberty:
The truth is that statists – Liberals and Conservatives – do not believe in liberty at all. If they were honest about it, that would be fine, but they’re not. The Liberty to which I subscribe is this: That is is unethical for Person A (or a group) to aggress against the person or property of Person B, so long as Person B has not previously aggressed against others. More government in Health Care sounds like such a great plan and it is well-intentioned. But it won’t work, and even if it could would be unethical and against liberty.
Why? Because people living under a system of liberty are free to do what they want with their own property; coercion of any kind is wrong. To fund heath care the government must first tax, which is directly and undeniably antithetical to liberty. If I earn money by voluntarily working for another person (or firm), it is mine. It would be obviously wrong for a person on the street to pull out a gun and take the money from my pocket. While Liberals and Conservatives agree with that statement, they disagree that it is wrong for the government to do the exact same thing. Taxes are not voluntary; if you do not pay you will go to jail at the point of a gun, just ask Wesley Snipes. Of course, I have no problem with people who want to set up a VOLUNTARY system, to which you or anyone else could contribute as much money as you want. But to COERCE people to forfeit their rightful property is theft, plain and simple. I don’t think theft is an element of liberty.
(This is an excerpt; read the rest here.)
Person’s argument, unless I misunderstood, is that *any* form of taxation is an infringement on liberty. Period. I agree that both liberals (in the present-day sense) and conservatives see an important role for government (though they practice different forms of redistribution) and therefore stand in opposition to Person’s position, which – if I’ve understood it correctly – is radical libertarianism. If I trace out the implications of Person’s position, federal and state funding for education would be equally illegitimate. That would hold true for K-12 as well as higher ed. And in fact, many, many Americans do object to paying higher taxes to finance the education system – as schoolkids in several central Ohio districts and, more locally, the Federal Hocking schools can attest. These districts are seeing school closures, cutbacks in basic classes, and the complete eliminations of “specials” such as music and art.
Myself, I see education, along with police and fire services, public libraries, and yes, health care, as crucial to positive liberty. If we are illiterate, in poor health ill, and/or terrified of crime, we can scarcely exercise the duties of citizenship, much less reap its benefits. We’ll be unable to perform work that contributes to our individual betterment, as well as the advancement of society. Elevating people above the level of ignorance, fear, and ill health contributes to the liberties of each individual, and to my mind this easily justifies the infringement on liberty that taxation necessarily represents. The same argument applies to the payroll taxes that finance Social Security and Medicare.
Seen from this angle, taxation isn’t aggression. It’s a trade-off of one liberty (freedom from seizure of property) for another (the freedom to be able to live one’s life without avoidable impairment of health). The latter is crucial if one is to work and earn money; taxation is irrelevant when disability results in long-term unemployment. In addition, lots of individual initiative is stifled because health insurance is prohibitively expensive or unavailable on the individual market.
Personally, I could afford to teach as an adjunct from 2002 up ’til fall of 2008 only because my husband’s insurance covered me. Had that not been the case, I would have been forced to seek out other work. Locally, that probably would have meant a secretarial job at the university. (I’m assuming Wal-Mart wouldn’t have me, and there aren’t many other games in town.) This would have seriously restricted my liberty to work in the field for which I’m trained. And while I was a darn good secretary back in the day, it would have prevented me from contributing to society in the area where I believe I have the most to give. It would also be a waste of many years’ training, much of which was subsidized by generous, privately-endowed grants.
My story repeats itself throughout our economy millions of times over. The present system creates perverse economic incentives for people to stay in jobs just for the insurance, and to avoid striking out and taking risks. This, too, stifles liberty. Entrepreneurship becomes well-nigh impossible when you literally risk your life by entering the individual insurance market.
Finally, the current system already does impose a de facto invisible tax on everyone who pays health insurance premiums. Emergency room doctors are ethically obligated to treat all comers, regardless of their ability to pay. Those who are insured subsidize ER patients without insurance. I’d much rather taxation be open and aboveboard, instead of smuggled in through the back door.
President Obama’s Pledge Never to Raise Taxes on Anyone Making Less Than $250,000 a Year
Obama Goes Toe-To-Toe With Stephanopoulos On “Tax Increases”
cnn – lou dobbs – insurance mandates
President Obama lies again big time.
President Obama conspired with the large insurance and drug companies to force or coerce individuals and businesses that do not presently have health care insurance to purchase it, so-called mandatory individual health insurance coverage.
Both the insurance and drug companies benefit for the simple reason the Federal Government is forcing individual to purchase a product that millions of Americans currently elect not purchase namely– health insurance.
The insurance companies know that it is primarily the young. under 30 years old worker, who elects not to purchase health care insurance.
The insurance companies also know that the largest health care claims are for the very old or very young.
By forcing the young to purchase a product, health care insurance, they will be using these premiums to subsidize or off-set the high health insurance claims or cost of the very old and very young.
First, it is not the purpose or role of government to tell people how to spend their hard earned income by forcing them to purchase a product or service.
Second, when the Federal Government dictates that you must pay or spend your own money to purchase a product you do not want it is certainly a tax. Suggest you read the bill Mr. President.
Saying it is not a tax does not mean it is not a tax.
If you elect not to purchase a government qualified health insurance plan, you will be taxed and fined by the IRS.
Forcing the American people to buy a Federal Government Qualified Health Insurance Plan is a tax just like the cap and trade energy tax is a tax:
Cap and Trade: It’s an Energy Tax
WH Won’t Rule Out Tax Increase On Middle-Class
President Obama is selling out his young supporters who believed his promise not to increase taxes.
The insurance and drug companies will benefit most if this bill is passed and as a result so will Barack Obama and the Democratic Party with campaign contribution.
Who pays the bill?
The American people.
This is exactly what Barack Obama did in Chicago when he assisted real estate developers such as Tony Rezko in obtaining loans and legislation that benefited them.
Obama And Rezko Relationship
Obama’s Rezko real estate deal
Barack Obama did the same in the Senate by supporting ethanol subsidies to enrich large corporate farmers and ADM.
Myth: Corn Ethanol is Great
Obama and Ethanol
Face it folks, Barack Obama has been bought and paid for by the unions (SEIU, AFL-CIO, NEA), large insurance anddrug companies, and large banks and financial institutions, lawyers (especially trial lawyers), and big media.
They call it pay for play–the Chicago way.
You contribute to my campaign and I will make sure you are paid-off in subsidies, tax breaks, regulations, and legislation that benefit your business.
Barack Obama sold out to the special interests decades ago, get used to it, this President is corrupt to the core and a habitual liar.
The American people and small business are being shafted by President Obama.
Background Articles and Videos
Weasel Words
“…Weasel words is an informal term for words and phrases that are ambiguous and not supported by facts. They are typically used to create an illusion of clear, direct communication. Weasel words are usually expressed with deliberate imprecision with the intention to mislead the listeners or readers into believing statements for which sources are not readily available. Tactics that are used include:
vague generalizations
use of the passive voice
non sequitur statements
use of grammatical devices such as qualifiers and the subjunctive mood
use of euphemisms (e.g., replacing “firing staff” with “streamlining the workforce”)
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Public Option = Government Option = Pathway to Single Payer = Single Payer = Socialized Medicine = Blue Pill = Poison Pill
Obama: First We Kill The Babies, Then We Kill The Elderly, Then We Kill The Veterans–Your Life, Your Choices–Your Time Is Up!
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Reason No. 917 to start a blog: People who read it will know about you and may actually buy your book when it comes out.
That’s the only reason I picked up Ben Goldacre’s book, Bad Science. I had read his blog in the Guardian and though I don’t read it regularly, the style of writing was interesting enough for me to pick up the book.
Bad Science is about how the media and others — like alternative medicine proponents and nutritionists — who confuse people about science and one man’s work in demystifying science and pointing out the bad science. (Science in this context also means medicine and health-related stuff.)
Goldacre’s main target is the media and he is unrelenting in his critique of the way the media has spread idiotic rumours, misunderstood research, and sometimes backed people who were clearly not proper scientists. Goldacre explains the way in which proper research tests are conducted, he sheds light on the placebo effect, he takes on nutritionists, homeopaths, and of course the media.
What comes through in Goldacre’s book is that he genuinely understands science at the fundamental level and that he cares passionately about the way it’s been obfuscated by the media. Goldacre does the dirty work of the background research and is fearless in going after people who spread misinformation.
The book is primarily written for a UK audience, so those who are not familiar with some of the stories the author refers to may find that off-putting. Sometimes, the book tends to get heavy in its discussion and at those points you’ll probably skip a few paragraphs. (I guess it’s that way with most books.)
Bad Science shows us what kind of information is being fed to us in the name of science and how we can, by learning a few simple concepts and asking a few questions, avoid being hoodwinked. The next time I see a health-related (or for that matter anything related to science) piece of news in my morning paper, I’ll know enough to at least be a wee bit skeptical.
The capital reported 103 positive swine flu cases on Thursday, raising the total number of cases in the city to 1,589. Of the 103 that
tested positive, 71 are children. This is the highest number of swine flu cases reported in a day ever since the pandemic hit the capital in June.
“The number of cases are drastically increasing. But none of the 71 children tested positive is serious. A majority of the infected children have been advised home quarantine and some of them have already recovered. At present we have 187 patients and a large number of them are children,” said Dr Anjan Prakash, nodal officer, Delhi government.
Paediatricians claim that children are a vulnerable lot. Apart from taking basic precautions like washing hands at frequent intervals, avoiding crowded places etc, nothing much can be done to prevent them from getting infected.
“The respiratory tract in children is in growing stages, that is why upper respiratory infections are very common among children. Adding to the problem is their weak immune system. The infection is widespread, so it is difficult to contain it. But one should take preventive measures,” said Dr VK Paul, head of the department paediatrics, AIIMS. healthtamiflumedicineswine flufitness
Gov. Howard Dean, MD/DKos—We’re in the final stretch in our campaign for healthcare reform including a public option.
The good news is we’re winning.
I know that sometimes it is hard to tell. After all August was a brutal month filled with right-wing fear mongering and misinformation. Whether led by Glenn Beck, FOX news or Rep. Joe Wilson, too many Americans were told to disrupt Town Halls rather than participate in them. And of course the media covered every moment of it.
But the real story of August is that these scare tactics didn’t work. Support for President Obama’s Healthcare Reform Plan which includes the choice of a public health insurance option has increased since the beginning of August.
This is a testament to the fact that you never gave up. All summer we worked together to make sure Congress got the message that inclusion of a public option in any healthcare reform bill passed this year is non-negotiable. And every time Republicans tried to kill it or the insurance industry claimed it’s already dead, you stood up and proved them wrong.
Now what we keep hearing is that Congress doesn’t have the votes to pass a public option.
Once again, thanks to your help, we have proven them wrong…
We’ve asked everyone in Congress where they stand. At least 218 House and 51 Senate Democrats have said they would vote for the final healthcare bill if it included the choice of a public option rather than vote against the bill and kill reform. That’s means Congress has the majority votes needed to pass a public option — TODAY. You can check out Chris Bower’s post on OpenLeft.com from last night if you want more specifics on the Senate count.
Now is the season for action. The majority of Americans want it. Majority votes in Congress will pass it. Join President Obama in calling on Congress to get the job done this year.
ADD YOUR NAME NOW
As I said in my message to the members of Democracy for America earlier today, it’s a myth that it takes 60 votes to pass any bill in the U.S. Senate.
It’s a myth because while any Senator can attempt to block most Senate bills with a procedural tactic called the filibuster there are exceptions. Senate rules don’t allow filibusters of certain bills that affect the budget. That’s means the healthcare reform plan including the choice of a public option can be passed in a budget bill by a majority vote in the U.S. Senate.
I’ve been having some medical issues the last few months.
Now most people who are in situations like this and choose to write about it on the internet will turn their website into an ever-lengthening series of pathetic laments about how put upon they are and how difficult their lives are and how they cannot understand why a just and loving God would make them suffer so badly, but yet they will persevere and come out of their ordeal stronger than they were before.
Needless to say I am not going to be doing any of that.
I think we can all agree that the ways in which I am put upon are of my own making (large percentages of which could be avoided if I just stayed out of Atlantic City), that 99% of the difficulties in my life are caused by my inability to deal with other people (c.f. my 30th birthday), and that it is fairly self-evident why God has chosen to make me suffer (constant profanity, repeatedly murdering children on stage, sniggering jokes made in churches during friends’ weddings about God’s inability to successfully hit me with a lightning bolt). As for persevering and all, I mean, what’s the alternative? Not persevering? Giving up? Death? Fuck that noise. I have said repeatedly that I plan to live forever, so these malfunctions have to be met head-on and with maximum force.
Suffice it to say this will not become your average illness-diary-slash-ongoing-suicide-note website any time soon.
So, starting a couple months ago, I went to the doctor because I had felt kinda vaguely lousy for a while. She did the usual stuff doctors do and ordered some blood tests. A couple days later she called me back.
“You have diabetes,” she said.
“What? What? Diabetes? Really?” I asked. She rattled off some test results and a list of other specialists I needed to see. Still somewhat shellshocked, I said again, “diabetes, really?”
My doctor said, “weeeeeeeeeelllllllll…” and I remembered that this was the woman whose ministrations ten years ago put me in the CCU at Frankford-Torresdale for a week over what turned out to be an asthma attack.
My doctor is a bit of an alarmist.
After I got off the phone with my doctor I did what I always do when presented with a new problem: I spent hours reading every single thing about it I possibly could. After these hours I had learned that undiagnosed diabetes has very specific symptoms, and that I had none of them. My test results for diabetes were extremely borderline, and there were other tests that had some funky numbers as well.
I thought, maybe it’s time to talk to those other doctors.
One of the other doctors I saw was a gastroenterologist, Dr. Codella. My GI’s practice is interesting: it’s this huge office with lots of cool stuff in a very nice building, and as near as I can tell I am their only patient. I’ve been there four times now and I’ve never sat in the waiting room for more than 90 seconds, and I’ve never seen another person there who wasn’t an employee. It’s bizarre. The first time I got there, when they brought me in the back (before I even had a chance to sit in the waiting room) the nice nurse-reception-type-person said “okay, we’re going to sit you down with Doctor Kira first. She’ll take your vitals and do your history and stuff before you see Doctor Codella.”
From the start this is mind-blowing; at every other practice I’ve ever been to the nurse does all that stuff before you see the doctor. The nurse took me into an actual OFFICE – like with a desk and all, as my GI visit becomes increasingly unusual – and told me to have a seat before Dr. Kira shows up. I looked around and saw the nameplate on the desk, and it didn’t say “Doctor Jane Kira.” It said, “Doctor Kira…” and then a string of consonants that I recognized as an unpronounceable Eastern European name (a subject I am obviously well-versed in). As I was looking at the nameplate I thought, “oh, hey, Kira is her first name.” Then a few seconds later I heard someone come in behind me and turned to see a woman in a white lab coat, and I was suddenly gripped by terror. My brain screamed at me:
Don’t call her Major Kira, don’t call her Major Kira, don’t call her Major Kira, for god’s sake don’t call her Major Kira…
I got through without embarrassing myself and eventually saw the GI, who ordered a bunch of tests, including a liver biopsy. He explained to me that it was a simple procedure whereby a tiny needle took little bits of my liver out so they could check them under the microscope and make sure I didn’t have something dreadfully serious.
It has been noted many times that I am not good with needles. Like, REALLY not good with needles. So I did another omnivorous research expedition to learn what was involved in a liver biopsy so as to soothe my needle anxiety. I learned that a liver biopsy is a simple procedure the way assembling your kid’s bike on Christmas Eve is a simple procedure: it’s only simple if it’s what you do for a living. To any third party it is dangerously complex. A liver biopsy actually involves TWO needles: the one they take the samples with is fairly skinny, with a gauge roughly on par with a simple hoop earring, perhaps. There is, however, the matter of the needle they put that needle INSIDE to get at your liver in the first place. That needle is FUCKING HUGE. It has approximately the same width as a plastic straw. The next time you’re at McDonald’s or WaWa or wherever and you’re getting a drink, take a look at your straw. Now imagine someone taking that, sharpening it, and jabbing it into the side of your stomach.
Oh, this is not going to be good.
But wait, I was told when Jeanes called me to schedule the procedure. I would be given a sedative. Actually I would be given a local anesthetic AND a sedative.
“I’m, ah…” I said when I spoke to the nurse who called. “I’m REALLY not good with needles.”
She actually laughed at that. “Don’t worry,” she said. “You’ll be fine, trust me. It won’t hurt a bit.”
Now over the course of a more-than-average quantity of medical care in my life I have learned an important truth when doctors and nurses talk about pain.
If they tell you “this won’t hurt,” then 99% of the time it actually won’t. Aside from things like the minor pinch of a blood test needle or the mild pricks from the spur-thingy neurologists use to test your skin, if they say you won’t be in pain you can pretty much take their word for it. On the other hand, if a doctor says, “this will hurt a little bit,” you are in for a FUCKING WORLD OF PAIN. Doctors have no conception of something hurting “a little bit.” There is either zero pain or the worst pain in the history of the human race. Their perfidy is understandable if not forgivable; if they told the truth and said, “this procedure is necessary to keep you alive, but while it’s happening you will wish you were dead,” no one would ever undergo these (incredibly painful) procedures.
But the nurse assured me that my liver biopsy would in fact be pain free, and while skeptical I showed up with my anxiety cranked up to only 7 or 8 (the general medical procedure level). As they performed the stuff to get me ready the one nurse told me that she had to put in an IV so I could get the sedative.
She looked at me and very apologetically said, “this is going to hurt a little.” She could tell I knew the code.
Fuck.
I gritted my teeth, shut my eyes as hard as I could and turned my head away (a bit redundant, that) and felt first a slight pinch and then an excruciating stabbing pain in my left hand.
FUCK!
The nurse said, “sorry, sorry,” and I could tell she actually meant it. That’s actually a bit reassuring – a lot of places you get the distinct impression they don’t give a damn if they hurt you or not.
A few minutes later we were about ready to begin and another nurse came over to the gurney I was on.
“Okay,” she said, “we’re going to give you the sedation. It’s a mix of Fentanyl and Versed. You’ll be awake for the procedure but… “ She paused for half a second and smiled. “But not really.”
“Uh, okay,” I said.
She said, “your biggest problem might be the local anesthetic. It can cause a burning sensation sometimes.”
As she injected something into my IV I said, “something that causes a burning sensation doesn’t sound like much of an anesthetic.”
One of the other nurses said from the other side of the room, “I know! I’ve been telling them that for years!”
The doctor came in, a nice man with a slight Ukranian accent. He introduced himself and explained what he was going to do. It sounded like someone giving directions to a party, but instead of “then you turn right on the Boulevard” it was “then we’re going to use a pneumatic needle to extract two slivers of tissue.”
I remember thinking, oh my god this is going to be fucking horrible.
The next thing I know the doctor was looking over me saying, “okay, you did great. Have fun at the Euros.”
“Wait, what?” I said. “Nothing’s happened.”
The doctor laughed, patted me on the shoulder, and walked away.
I said, “what the hell – “
The anesthesia nurse interrupted me. “You’re all done. Procedure’s over.” She started to unstrap the parts of me that were secured to the table and move away the equipment. “You’ve spent the last half hour babbling about soccer.”
“Are you sure?” I said as they were moving me onto one of those wheeled beds. “I don’t remember anything.”
The other nurse said, “oh yes. But you did great. Didn’t even flinch when the doc hit you with the big needle. Do you want to see the samples?”
Before I could say, “uh, not really,” the nurse held a small glass jar in front of my face with two little pink things floating in liquid in it. They looked kinda like tiny earthworms.
“Bits of your liver!” she said. No one should be that happy about bits of someone else’s liver.
Still, I had absolutely no memory of any of this. As they wheeled me out I pointed to my IV and said to the other nurse, “where can I get some of this stuff?”
She laughed. “Pretty good, huh?”
“Anything that can make me not remember having holes punched in my gut…” I said. “That has to have all KINDS of uses.”
The nurse laughed again. “Yeah,” she said. “You’re not the first person to say something like that.”
“What about the burning sensation?” I asked.
“You didn’t notice. You kept asking the doctor about hotels in Kiev,” the nurse said.
I looked at the IV. “Oh MAN I gotta get some of this stuff.”
When my test results came back it turns out there was some liver damage, but nothing earth-shattering. The entire treatment for my liver problems consists of diet changes, exercise, and taking a pill a couple times a day. So that’s, you know, good news.
Aside from that, as we all know because I am pretty vocal about it, I have the ongoing problem with my lower back. I had it under control for a while thanks to a procedure called a selective nerve root block, but then I went to Bethpage and fucked that right up, and then after that I somehow did SOMETHING to it, we still don’t know what, so I had to go and get the procedure again.
Here’s the deal: one of the discs in my lower back (L5S1, for those keeping score) got pushed out of whack a couple years ago. When I stand up it presses on the nerves in my lower back. In the intervening years since I first hurt it, at some point the disc actually ruptured a teensy bit, and now in addition to pressing on the nerves there is some juicy protein stuff that leaks out which is very bad for said nerves. This, I have since learned, produces what is called chemical radiculopathy (inflammation of the nerves from the stuff leaking out of the disc) in addition to the pre-existing mechanical radiculopathy (inflammation of the nerves from the disc pressing them up against my spine).
Put more simply: my back hurts. It hurts a lot. Eventually there is going to have to be surgery done on it, but we want to hold off on that as long as we possibly can – we’re talking, like, 5-10 years if possible. One of the things we can do to hold off major surgery is this nerve block thing. The procedure is less complicated than a liver biopsy, though it does unfortunately involve more needles.
Basically what they do is they get one needle full of some jacked-up corticosteroids (like super-steroids) and another needle full of some jacked-up painkillers, and they inject them both into my back right at the spot where the nerve and my spine and the disc come together. These things combine in some magical way that I do not entirely understand, but it works like a fucking charm.
Now for whatever reason the place I get this done doesn’t offer the whole sedative thing, so I get it with just a local anesthetic. This is a case where the phrase “local” is very, very limiting: the anesthetic numbs your skin and not a whole lot else, so while you don’t feel the pricks of all the needles as they pierce your skin, you do feel them (as something vaguely akin to a slightly-blunted stick) as they press into the inner portions of your spine. While not intolerable by any stretch the procedure is not at all pleasant. It hurts. Someone is sticking metal spikes into your spine. It’s not a day at the beach.
But I knew from the last time that the procedure wasn’t THAT bad – I’ve had things, like a cardiac catheterization, that were far worse – and I knew the relief for my back would be very quick in coming, so I signed up for it without hesitation.
Lying on the gurney yesterday, though, I can hear the doctor marking the spots on my back where he is going to do the injections, and moving around the various needles he was going to use, and my anxiety levels start to rise. In this specific situation that is extraordinarily bad, since if I panic and start hyperventilating or something, all the doctor’s marks are going to get thrown off, and suffice it to say you don’t want to be heaving up and down while someone is trying to stick needles into VERY precise locations near your spine (or, god forbid, whle they’re already in there).
But I am getting more and more anxious. I can feel my adrenaline kicking up. This is not good. Something has to be done. But there’s no sedatives. Fuck! I’m going to start convulsing and the doctor is going to accidentally jab me in the wrong place and I’ll be paralyzed and FUCKING HELL how many needles does this guy need and -
Then, suddenly, something pops unbidden to the front of my mind:
I will not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. I will face my fear. I will let it pass through me. And when my fear is gone only I will remain.
I think, fuck, might as well see if it works.
So I start thinking it over and over again. I will not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.
Now I don’t know if it actually works the way it’s supposed to or if concentrating my entire brain on one thing distracted me enough to calm down everything else, but I started to loosen up and got into a nice rhythm of “I will not fear” in my head and wasn’t worrying so much about the plethora of needles getting stuck in my back.
Through the local I can barely feel the doctor mark off another injection site when he stops and takes his hands away.
“John?” he asks.
“Yeah?”
He swings down sideways so his head is at my eye level. It’s dark in the room (so that he can better visualize my back and the x-rays) so all I can see are a pair of glasses.
My doctor says, “are you reciting the Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear?”
I am too mortified to be impressed that my doctor knows the reference.
ThinkProgress—Crystal Lee Sutton, whose courageous efforts organizing Southern textile mills inspired the award-winning 1979 film “Norma Rae,” passed away on Friday after a long battle with brain cancer. Sutton’s story is particularly tragic because after fighting her whole life for rights of working Americans, her health insurance wouldn’t cover the medications she needed:
She went two months without possible life-saving medications because her insurance wouldn’t cover it, another example of abusing the working poor, she said.
“How in the world can it take so long to find out (whether they would cover the medicine or not) when it could be a matter of life or death,” she said. “It is almost like, in a way, committing murder.”
Although Sutton eventually received the medication, the cancer had already taken a toll on her.
If there is no proper genomic education in medical school, how can we expect medical professionals to be able to answer the genomic test related questions of their patients? There is still a solution (actually the easiest one is valuable post-graduate education). Let’s give them genomic tests and let them see themselves what kind of results they can receive. 23andMe now offers discounted genome scans to clinicians. Excerpts from a Times Online interview with Anne Wojcicki, co-founder of 23andme.
“Clearly we need to engage with physicians to help them to understand this information,” she said. “One of the things we’ve talked about is we’d love to get physicians comfortable with their own genomes first, have them understand what does it mean, explore the data, see what does it look like, and then go to work with their patients.
“I think that’s probably the way to do it. Physicians should be genotyped. We are talking about ways we could potentially do that. It’s important for physicians to understand what the experience is like; 23andMe is going to start putting more effort into educational material.”
Daniel MacArthur also mentioned the strange new outfit of the co-founders.Though, as I’ve previously reported, Linda Avey is leaving 23andMe.
“The University of Tennesse’s Forensic Anthropology Research Facility”.
-Otherwise known as ‘The Body Farm’.
I forget where I heard about The Body Farm.
I know it was a long time ago and I only recently remembered about it and googled it.
The Body Farm is basically a research centre in Knoxville, Tennessee U.S.A and what they do there is study the effects of decomposition on the human body in a variety of different situations:
Exposure, Submerged, That kind of thing etc…
Actually,
Wikipedia will probably explain it better than I can:
“A body farm is a research facility where human decomposition after death can be scientifically studied in a variety of settings. The aim is to gain a better understanding of the decomposition process, permitting the development of techniques for extracting information (such as the timing and circumstances of death) from human remains. Body farm research is particularly important within forensic anthropology and related disciplines, and has applications in the fields of law enforcement, medical examination and crime scene investigation. There are currently three such facilities in the United States with the farm at Texas State University being the largest“.
For the full Wikipedia article,
Click Here.
Yeah so,
Very interesting y’gotta admit.
Like I said,
I’d completely forgotten about this place.
I’m working on some pretty morbid illustrations just now and re-discovered it while doing a wee bit of online research.
I think this type of thing could only happen in America.
I’m not against this either so don’t get me wrong.
I just can’t imagine this approach to research being approved in The UK.
Whatever you think,
As per usual,
I have tracked down a video for those interested.
Obviously,
Some of it ain’t pretty but don’t worry.
I’m not out to scar you kids for life here.
All the same,
View with caution etc…etc…
PS: Incidentally, The Body Farm is proving to be a great help with my illustrations.
I am so tired. Emotionally. I can not stand being on family medicine. It is the most boring thing ever. Day in and day out, I see extremely wealthy people who have an outrageous sense of entitlement. A cough for 24 hours?? Call out the national guard. Call the President. This is an emergency! You want a Z-pack for that sore throat of 45 min without any associated symptoms? Of course! What the hell was I thinking with Centor criteria? Geez!
Ten days til this rotation is over. Amen.
I’m tired and my neighbor fed me two glasses of wine which have made me more tired. So I am going to sleep but I shall write again.
Pulsus paradoxus is an exaggeration of a normal physiological phenomenon, where pulse decreases on inspiration due to shifting of the ventricular septum from the influx of blood into the right heart. As such, PP is also associated with Kussmaul’s sign.
PP is indicative of cardiac tamponade (Beck’s Triad), pericarditis, chronic sleep apnea, croup, and obstructive lung disease.
Quantifying PP: Deflate BP cuff slowly, until the 1st Korotkoff sound is heard only on expiration. Then slowly deflate the cuff until it can be heard on both inspiration and expiration. PP exists if the difference in pressure is >10mmHg
I often found myself thinking of my own mortality when I was working as a pre-registration house officer. Too many patients died that shouldn’t have, and one often felt helpless in the face of death with too little to give, either because the patient was too poor to afford the best care, or the right facilities were not in place to offer it. Whenever those thoughts came intruding, and that was often, I would reprimand myself, and struggle to shift my mind to something else, succeeding only rarely succeed. I’d tell myself, re-echoing Shakespeare, that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come, making the case to myself on behalf of the newly deceased patient, assuaging myself of the emotional burden, and trying to get on with my life.
Then it strikes me again that death is what we are as a profession called upon to avert, to postpone, and to fight, a battle in which we oftentimes fail. At those times, my only succor would be to think the good that could come out of death. The consciousness of the dynamic spectrum that spans life and death renders one more sensitive to life, the same way darkness increases the perception of light and bondage the appreciation of freedom. This seems to me to be the geography of the common ground that health care professionals share with practitioners of the literary arts. The affirmation of life in spite of besetting evidence otherwise. Not many people experience death in its many varied forms, at such close range, and frequent intervals. Caring for the persistently moribund, tending the dying, and some times having to keep the dying aware of the imminent potentiality of death when it exists could be incredibly daunting.
This is a job that has to be done, in the hope that they might be able to savour all the beauty and the ugliness of their world that is fast rounding off before the final knell sounds and the bell tolls and death finally strikes. These are difficult roles, throwing up turbulent emotions, particularly for those that release themselves to the numinous effect of such experiences. I have found myself weeping only once, and in this case the dying patient had been unconcious for days, so it wasn’t the effect of sharing any words with the patient. It was something else. I could identify with the patient on several levels.
The patient was about my age, sustained a puncture injury while playing football, then tetanus, generalised tetanus, with all the spasms, and respiratory failure that put a lot of stress on our resuscitative facilities. He was going to die, and there was little more we could do than to keep struggling to bag him to life, and to keep the spasms at bay. That evening, all the efforts were not going to bring him back. I kept bagging though, even after I knew he was long gone.
His mother would frequently ask me how he was doing, and I would try to convey hope, and act like I was doing something important, something that would keep him alive, something, hopefully. When the time came, I couldn’t admit to myself that he was dead, and I found it even more difficult to tell the mother. He was the hope of the family. He had been sponsored through university with the family’s meagre earnings, mostly from farming and petty trading, and he was in his final year, hoping he’d soon start working and giving back to his family, sending his younger ones to school. Then an elderly nurse came in to join me. She asked me if it was over, not in words but in gestures. I couldn’t respond. She knew it was. She saw it in my eyes. She saw the tears. She waited awhile. When she saw the futlity of my efforts, she called the time of death, and I agreed. I walked out of the room to let off some more tears and dry my eyes. The nurse had broken the news to the patient’s mother before I was back. I heard the greatest wail of my life. It rang as high as it bore deep into my bones. I was re-induced to tears, and all I could do was go back outside to do it.
I relived part of this story to a friend recently, and she told me of a similar experience. In her own case her patient’s parents saw her weep. She felt it might not be a very good thing to have been seen with the tears. She had invested a lot of emotion in the patient, and thought that she would never allow herself to be so taken again. The exchange raised a series of questions though. My friend asked me how I would have felt if I allowed the patient’s mother too see me weep? She wondered if it would have left my patient’s mother more consoled, or better in some way. Or would it have worsened things? My friend concluded the conversation, saying how it was such a good idea to conduct a qualitative study, investigating patients’ , their parents’ and other proxies’ preferences.
I forgot to mention that we already had some patient contact. Well, sorta. We had to dress up in full physician garb (shirt, tie, slacks, and a fancy white coat) and meet with patients and extract information from them. They were actually actors. The woman patient/actor I had was convincing to say the least. I thought I would have trouble taking it 100% seriously, but nope. We get videotaped and are required to watch ourselves interact. I had to do the same thing while student teaching… and let me tell you… videotaping yourself and then watching critically is sheer agony. Everyone is hardest on themselves. It wasn’t so bad. Three more of those this year, and then eleven of them or so the second year. It will be more fun once we start physical diagnosis.
Anatomy! Anatomy lab is interesting to say the least. Gertrude, or Gertie, is our cadaver. What follows are answers to questions I anticipate people might ask….
We know her age and cause of death, but that’s it.
There are five people to a body. Two cutters per side of the table and a “navigator” that reads through the lab guide and displays diagrams and tells the others what to do. There is a big LCD TV monitor above each body. It displays the lab manual and anatomical diagrams. Works pretty slick – lab manuals don’t get gross.
There are probably 30 cadavers in the lab, which means that there are 150 of us in lab at a time – med students and physical therapy students, mostly.
The bodies are embalmed. So there is no blood and no decay. The lab is extremely well-ventilated, but the smell of embalming fluid can be a little strong.
From what I’ve heard (lab rumors and insider info from Mr. R. J. Gunderson) the bodies might have been dead for nearly a year. Some definitely look fresher than others.
We wear scrubs and lab coats. Our tools: scalpels, probes, tweezers, scissors (things you used in high school dissections pretty much)
It’s harder to tell the sex of a person than you’d think. They are all naked and face down with shaved heads. On day one, we worked for a good twenty minutes on what we thought was a man, until a keen eye alerted us otherwise.
Elderly people are not the best example of superb muscle anatomy.
Anything we cut off (lots of loose tissue scraps and fat) gets put in a special bin. The remains of the body, and all the scraps in the bin, will be cremated and given to the family.
That’s about it for now. I have a History of Medicine exam first thing in the morning. Interesting stuff – I will miss that class. Bloodletting and mesmerism and trepanation… we’ve come a long way, baby. (And yet, crazies still linger: homeopathy, faith-healing, most acupuncture, some chiropractors, GNC stores, magnetic bracelets, Carolyn Walker… don’t get me going…).
We have class/lab six to seven hours per day and then have lots of studying to do aside from that. And eat/sleep. I’m struggling to keep up. I don’t know how anyone could keep up. Maybe no one is.
One more thing: Cyclones will beat the Hawks, 20-17.
[Author's note: I got pretty extravagantly creative with this. If you just want a run-down of the blog posts submitted, or a little more context as to what I'm linking to, try the busy person's edition.]
The chicken’s squawks were soon silenced, dying in its throat under my tight fingers. Its fresh blood dripped satisfyingly into a clay bowl, to which I added the powdered skull of a kestrel. A carefully handled vial of cobra’s venom was next, adding the final ingredient to the mix. I stirred a slow figure-eight pattern, as the essences of these three creatures merged: vicious, predatory masters of the air and the land, tempered by the grounded, toothless fowl, to mediate between the two forces of nature, allowing them to exist in concert.
The rest of the arrangement was all in place. Fourteen candles surrounded me where I sat, in the centre of a pentagram outlined in salt, interwoven with other runes of great mystic import, etched with black ink on the floor. Now all that was left was to add the animal essence, to encompass the whole in a boundary that encapsulated all three spirits in one being. Careful to keep a steady hand, I took my brush, dipped it into the thick red mixture, and painted the Circle.
It had taken weeks of preparation. One does not merely paint the circle of Ss’ke-pTik and presume to summon the great god himself with no preamble. Obviously the lesser obeisances had first been made, the protocols observed over the course of many weeks, to establish my worthiness to request an audience with one so mighty. This moment was the culmination of much hard work, and if I was accepted as an acolyte, I would be granted power beyond anything known to mortal man.
I cannot record here the incantations I uttered inside the circle that day, but that knowledge itself was not easily obtained. My breath trembled as I gasped the last guttural syllable, and my heart raced as I awaited a response.
I could sense him instantly. The great lord’s presence was undeniable.
“Oh majestic and glorious Ss’ke-pTik,” I began babbling, seeking to suppress the exultant joy that welled up in me, “I am humbled and gratified by this gift of your visitation. You do me much honour this day, and I have many offerings to bring forth in your glorious name… But I have a request to make of you, O noble one, and though I be not worthy, I beg that it may be granted.”
After only a moment, his voice resonated from behind me – to turn and gaze upon his corporeal form would have been the utmost sacrilege – and made my bones tremble with its might.
“What is this request, mortal?” the great lord Ss’ke-pTik asked me.
“Master,” I stammered, trying to remember the exact wording of my prepared speech, “It was exactly one year ago to this day that I first dedicated myself to your wondrous being, and publicly declared my devotion to you. I have worked diligently in that year, seeking to preach your wisdom across the land, and striving toward that day when all mankind might follow your path. I ask now that you generously bless me with the greatest honour of all, and the duty and responsibility with which it comes. I beseech you, grant me knowledge of the truth in all its guises, the ability to see through all dissemblance and cut past any cloak of lies, the ultimate understanding of all things material, and the power of absolute skeptical insight into all matters within my comprehension.”
My voice barely quavered as I spoke my request, but my nerves were only just holding out, and I didn’t breath for the achingly long seconds his majesty took in considering my words.
“You ask for all that it is in my power to give, mortal,” were his next words. “I may be persuaded to endow such a gift, but it must be earned. Prove to me what you have learned so far. Then I will decide whether your request shall be granted.”
I had to bite my tongue to maintain a dignified posture. I had not wholly believed I would even get this far, but now I had only to pass this test of wisdom and judgment, and the power of Ss’ke-pTik would be mine to command.
“O great and powerful lord of all knowledge,” I began, somehow managing to remain composed. “I have studied the ancient mystical arts, and become well versed in many of the arcane truths, to which the world remains wilfully ignorant. I offer, for your magnanimous consideration, that experts in chiropractic therapies have been discovering the ways in which a range of medical conditions can be treated by spinal manipulation, in accordance with the notions of-”
The god cut me off with a mocking laugh. “You fail to impress me, mortal! The bogosity of such claims was further confirmed recently, when Edzard Ernst published two systematic reviews into the efficacy of chiropractic. Waste not my time with this pseudo-scientific nonsense.”
I felt jolted by this harsh rebuke, but assured myself that I had much more to offer, and that I’d never really been convinced by those spine-benders anyway. “You are, of course, infinitely wise, my lord,” I grovelled, “but I am sure you will find much to please you in what I have learned. For instance, I lately heard of an ingenious device by which harmful toxins can be removed from the human body through the feet, providing an important cleansing experience!”
The chuckle of Ss’ke-pTik was less cruel this time, but equally careless and unimpressed. “Toxins, you say?” he laughed. “Are these the same toxins which are so easily produced by a simple electrolytic redox reaction, whether anybody’s feet are in the footbath or not?”
It was a question requiring no answer, so I struggled on with my next offering, still convinced that some of the knowledge I had amassed in my recent months of exploration would please my lord.
“No matter, O great one,” I said, “as the field of medicine is replete with discoveries waiting for the world to acknowledge them. A useful contact has provided me with much insight into the efficacy of the ‘flu vaccine, and the usefulness of breast cancer screening, among many others…” I trailed off hopefully.
“Yes,” said the god Ss’ke-pTik, and my fading flicker of optimism surged up into a roaring flame once more. “I will hear this news with interest, mortal.”
I took a breath, my confidence soaring as I readied myself to launch into one of my well prepared speeches.
“Just so long,” the great one interrupted moments before I could utter my first syllable, “as your contact isn’t that Doug Bremner guy. He clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and a lot of his crankery’s already been debunked.“
My hopeless befuddlement must have been obvious, but my lord did me the kindness of not laughing openly at my inadequacy this time. I scrambled to change the subject.
“Indeed, your mightiness… but I believe far more interesting is the phenomenon of inedia. Many people have reportedly reached such levels of discipline and enlightenment that many kinds of earthly sustenance are no longer necessary. Surely the ability to survive without food, for weeks or months at a time, is a truly miraculous accomplishment, and a worthy discovery.”
In the silence that followed, there was no doubting that the great lord was still present. It was a deliberate silence, and his displeasure was palpable in the air. I trembled, and could scarcely quiet the pounding of my own heartbeat in my ears to hear his response.
“You test my patience now, mortal,” he almost growled. “Do not wander idly into such matters with your ‘reportedly‘. People have died from a commitment to this idea, and it remains unproven. If you have anything further, bear in mind when you suggest it that I do not appreciate reckless endangerment of people’s lives.”
I mentally flipped through my remaining offerings, to eliminate anything that might offend, and decided to gloss over what I had learned about prevailing attitudes to various issues surrounding childbirth. If anything in my attitude could be construed as betraying a cavalier approach to the safety of children and mothers, I did not wish to imagine the wrath it may incur.
“Of course, my lord,” I grovelled. “But even a less drastic approach, for the treatment of less severe conditions, may hold much knowledge and wonder. There are those who draw upon ancient natural wisdom, to bring valuable wellness and succour to-”
“Really?” the god interrupted me again, with less anger but rising impatience. “You’re going to try and sell me on the likes of Yoder’s Good Health Recipe, or something else equally worthless and interchangeable as the most basic snake oil that every huckster on the planet has been hawking for over a century? Really?”
My god was being sarcastic at me. Of course it was his own wise prerogative to chastise me so, but nevertheless I felt my teeth start to grate. I deemed it best also to pass over the subject of TRUNATURE’s premium quality herbal supplements without comment, lest my lord say something ironic and shatter my fragile soul. I was running short on means by which to prove myself worthy.
“But… my ever-knowledgable lord,” I stammered, finding it hard to think clearly in the face of such casual dismissal of what I had thought were worthy ideas, “is there nothing which I can offer you? Is not a single element of these arcana with an ounce of merit? Surely there must be something out there beyond the knowledge of mere man?”
“More than you could ever comprehend,” he intoned. “But if it is beyond your knowledge, then why claim to know of it? That which can be known should be enough to inspire passion in anyone with a true curiosity about the world.”
“And what about you?” I pushed, with mounting frustration. “Where do you fit in, a deity who seems to believe in nothing? Are you proof that such a paradox as an atheistic god really can exist? Do you truly not have faith even in yourself?”
“Every man is an atheist to every god but his own,” said Ss’ke-pTik, entirely unruffled by any objection I could raise. “Though you would also do well to retain a spirit of agnosticism wherever you lack certainty. The two are not mutually exclusive, you know. And don’t talk to me about faith. Whatever convictions you hold to should not be blindly chosen, nor based on sickeningly insipid apocryphal stories that mischaracterise the opposing view while smugly making their own point seem unquestionable.”
I was at a loss. I had worked so hard to be granted an audience with the god I worshipped, and now that he was here I could not get through to him. I was rejected at every turn. He would not accept a single thing I had to offer, and I had nothing left with which to try to win him over. I had nothing more with which to plead for my god’s benevolence, and he knew it.
“Today is not to be the day of your ultimate enlightenment,” he said, not harshly, not kindly, but with no presumption beyond the statement of fact. “My knowledge will not be shared with you. You are not ready to be burdened with such a weight, because you would not know what to do with it. You have not yet learned how to think well enough, and without this understanding, knowledge would be of no value to you. Indeed, in such unqualified hands, it would be terrible and destructive.
“But there are those who would aid you in your search. There are places where other questioners may gather, share their ideas, and push together to achieve that knowledge you seek. Of course, the occasional unquestioning loon also gets invited along, but don’t let that put you off.”
There was a sudden rush of air, and I felt my connection to my god slipping away from me. His voice faded into nothing, as I felt him leaving me.
“Knowledge can yet be yours,” he said, “but it is not so easily won. To seek it for yourself is the very thing that gives it meaning, and the search needs no validation from some supposed god. The act of learning is its own reward. Plus it might save you from getting suckered out of your life savings. Always keep learning…”
And I was alone.
Defiance flared in me, fuelled by the anguish at being abandoned to this solitude.
“I don’t need you anyway!” I shrieked into the emptiness. “Technology is fast replacing out-dated religions such as yours! I can achieve true immortality, when the singularity arrives!” This, I assured myself, was unlikely to be refuted, and would surely never turn out to be merely an excellent money-making scheme for those selling the idea.
But I was still alone. With no candle in the dark, for they had all blown out, when the only god I had ever believed in vanished. How could I hope to go on? Was there really nothing worth believing in?
I thought about what my erstwhile master had said. That I should keep going anyway, keep learning, keep investigating, even with no god to help me. No god, no random outside agent, no celestial interior designer… None of it seemed real.
I thought about what I’d learned so far, the rumours and gossip of amazing discoveries that I’d tracked down, and realised quite how superficial it had all been. I’d never really questioned or sought to understand. It hadn’t occurred to me to be interested in whether indisputable evidence might exist against these ideas, or how I might respond to learning of such incontestable proof. It seemed ludicrous, the more I thought about it, that I’d ever expected to impress one such as the great lord Ss’ke-pTik with such ill-considered banalities.
And even if he had chosen to grant me the knowledge I sought, would that have been any more meaningful? Or would it be as shallow as my previous findings, to simply accept a series of facts from this new source of authority? If I didn’t ask my own questions, pursue my own interests, uncover truths and expose deception on my own terms, as best I could… would I really have learnt anything?
I stood up, lifted by just a hint of interest and curiosity, which I felt might one day grow into a sense of purpose. I considered just how much I do not know, and what a position of strength this puts me in. I thought about what to do next.
Long-term care specialists—including consumer advocates, providers, public officials, and policy experts—who participated in a national survey generally agreed on the need for long-term care reform. Despite some differences, key constituent groups supported the establishment of government-sponsored financing strategies, a shift toward home- and community-based care, offering payment incentives to improve quality, and more effective regulation of nursing homes, home health care agencies, and assisted living facilities.
An estimated 10 million older Americans with moderate to severe disabilities have long-term care needs, accounting for a large proportion of health care spending. Furthermore, demand for long-term care services is only expected to increase as the population ages. There is a growing consensus that some type of reform is needed to meet this demand. Giving voice to key stakeholder groups allows those with specialized knowledge of the long-term care system to communicate the importance of this issue to policymakers and the public, say the authors. Long Term Report
52 percent of people working for small businesses are uninsured or underinsured; small business owners facing high health care costs are increasingly unable to offer health insurance to employees
September 9, 2009, New York, NY—Small business owners and employees are among those who stand to benefit the most from provisions in some of the current health reform proposals under consideration by Congress according to a Commonwealth Fund report released today. Provisions to extend health care coverage to everyone and repair the small group insurance market would alleviate high premium costs, high broker fees, underwriting, and a lack of transparency about benefit packages that small business owners currently face.
Currently, 39 million Americans work for small businesses (defined as those with fewer than 50 employees) and only 25 percent of them have health insurance through their employer, the report, Out of Options: Why So Many Workers in Small Businesses Lack Affordable Health Insurance and How Health Care Reform Can Help, finds.
Cello has become my medicine; I went through my toughest breakup three months ago, which was completely my fault. Mistakes I’ll regret for the rest of my life, probably, but nonetheless life moves on and I can’t just sit in place and bemoan my loss. What I’ve found in the last three months is that, my thoughts and emotions get in the way of each other and make me say, do things that I don’t mean and wish I could take back.
In the same three months I’ve discovered incredible growth in my musical ability. I’m principal of my orchestra, I’m an upper divisional player now, and I’m experiencing musicality and my work is being complimented by the toughest of the Russian faculty. These two events are not mutually exclusive.
I’ve found that, like I said previously, my thoughts and emotions get in the way of each other. I’ll sit in my room, I’ll finish a game of starcraft, do whatever it is I’m doing, but when I’ve got nothing to do, my thoughts go to her and to my emotions, to the heartbreak I’ve experienced and every reason I have to hate what I went through. This was incredibly unproductive, detrimental to my emotional health.
I didn’t realize that I could be channelling this into my playing. Now forget what you just assumed, that my emotions would come out through the cello and I’d be removed from them, because I don’t consciously let the emotions affect my playing. Instead, I practice.
I try to practice four hours at a time with lots of one minute breaks. Two hours of that four are spent working on a technical goal, working on learning and perfecting a piece of music and learning musicality and color and tone and experimenting with the beautiful instrument. This is the source of my progress, pure time spent on the instrument learning what to do with it.
The other two hours I let my brain relax. I play through music, over and over, passages that I love to play. While I’m doing this though my mind isn’t focused on the music; it’s half-consciously letting my emotions into it, I play harder, faster, stronger, sweeter, depending on what I’m thinking about; again, none of this consciously. But what this does is, it frees up my mind to work through, consciously, the emotions and stress that I have going on in my life, I work through them, put them in their proper place, and leave my 5 by 5 cubicle room feeling very cleansed and reorganized.
Cello has become much more powerful in my life in recent months, and i’m very glad for it.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (Sept. 7) — Critics of the healthcare reform package currently being considered by Congress are returning to the nation’s capital this week, cowed and repentant after having the living crap scared out of them during August’s town hall meetings.
“It’s time we started back at the beginning,” said Sen. John McCain. “I’m hearing this audible gasp telling us to ‘slow down.’”
“I’ve never seen the hostility I’m seeing,” added the former Navy pilot who spent almost six years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, apparently with his eyes closed.
Another Republican who asked not to be quoted characterized the 1,000-page insurance plan now on the table as “really, really hard to read, way too long, and containing pitifully few coloring opportunities.”
Conservative pundits have pointed out how thorough the package to overhaul the nation’s entire care delivery system has become, as if that’s a bad thing. Fox commentator Sean Hannity goes to great dramatic effect by dropping the eight-pound draft on his desk with a tremendous thud. Former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey hauled a loose-leaf binder containing the document onto one national talk show, rifling through the pages with visible exasperation at all the words. Even the presence of well-placed sticky notes could not console her.
Protestors who have been the most vocal at meetings between congressmen and their constituents complained the proposal represented socialized medicine, a government takeover, and the biggest challenge to their reading abilities since The DaVinci Code.
“I’m not stupid but I can’t read this,” shouted one man at a recent rally.
“Actually, he is stupid. Really stupid,” observed Jason Peterson, an analyst with the New York-based think tank “A Is For Apple.” “The language used in the plan has to be thorough because of the size of the task that’s being undertaken. But it’s written in relatively plain English. You can’t revamp a multi-billion-dollar system in the space of a Ziggy quote.”
Some analysts believe that even if a new care-delivery structure is to be put into place, it will have to be largely rewritten. One legislative aide suggested making the bill more user-friendly by breaking it up into verses and chapters, gluing a red ribbon into the spine so readers can mark their place, and putting phrases written by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in red type.
“A lot of these opponents from the right are big Bible readers,” said one Senate aide. “Many of them regard the senior senator from Kentucky as the son of God, and I think seeing his input highlighted would give them great comfort.”
During our last Tuesday a. m. discussion group, Ester B. happened to mention that her granddaughters were planning on going to medical school, and thereafter, joining “Doctors Without Borders.” (DWB). This evoked many exclamations of “Ooh, how fine and admirable.” The DWB sounds very glamorous and has had a good press, but there are many hard questions to ask before embarking on such a career and being dropped in some third world country with a group from DWB.
I began medical school at age 47 with the ambition to eventually work in third world medicine. I have worked in about 8 third world countries, which I located on my own, and who invited me to come and help out in my areas of expertise. In these countries I taught clinical neurology, Biochemistry and engaged in general medicine. But if I had to do over again, I most certainly, would have gone about it differently. My advice then to these girls would be: find out where the DWB is planning on sending them, what are there principal needs? If it’s infectious disease, then take your residency in Infectious Disease, if it’s trauma or wounds, get to do lots of surgery, what do these people think causes disease, do Shamans treat them currently, learn something of their religion and culture, language. What are their real needs at the moment? Perhaps your weight in a suitcase of antibiotics, or sterile supplies would be more useful then your presence, although not as self satisfying. Also, many of these places are near the most exotic and wondrous parts of the world. Therefore bring a backpack, canteen and only what you can carry. Plan your trip for when your work is up, will you be near the Himalayas, the Taj Mahal, Machu Pichu, or Antarctica? – Good Luck
Washington State University hosts Stanford at Martin Stadium this weekend. Special hand-washing stations will be set up to curb the spread of swine flu.
Posted by Audiegrl
AOL News: More than 2,000 students at Washington State University have come down with swine flu symptoms in just the first week of classes, school officials said Friday.
Classes at the Pullman, Wash., campus began little over a week ago, demonstrating how quickly the H1N1 virus can spread.
The university, where 18,500 students live and study, is advising those who manifest flu-like symptoms to skip class. “We’re telling them to follow the advice of the experts: Go to bed, drink fluids, take acetaminophen and monitor your temperature,” said spokesman James Tinney.
Cont’d
A presidential panel estimates that upward of half of the U.S. population could come down with the H1N1 this year.
To learn how you can protect your family, please visit www.ready.gov
I launched PeRSSonalized Medicine to help patients and doctors keep themselves up-to-date more easily, without any kind of IT knowledge. It is an easy-to-use, free medical information tracking tool that lets you select your favourite resources and read the latest news and articles about a medical specialty or a medical condition in one personalized place.
Now here is the newest category, PeRSSonalized Cardiology with all the quality news sites, blogs, peer-reviewed journals and web 2.0 tools. Many thanks to Dr. Ted Portnay for sharing so many useful links and suggestions.
Some reasons why it is unique:
You can search in the database. It means you will find medical information only from a quality selected portion of the world wide web.
You can personalize any of the sections.
You can also receive the newest Pubmed articles focusing on your search term. Just insert your field of interest, a therapy, a condition, etc. and click Search. Then you can add the newly created box to your personalized medical “journal”.
It’s meant to be a community-based project so we are open to suggestions. Please let us know which quality resources should be added to the database.
Alex Jones’ Infowars web site is reporting on a Heritage Foundation article concerning an Obama web site on Health Care. The Obama health care web site urges people to fight back “…against our own right wing terrorists” and to “DEFEAT ANTI-DEMOCRATIC FORCES OF HATE…”
They urge their followers to stay home on 9/11 and call their two Senators to vote for the health care bill. There is no word if that counts as their “day of service.”
The Heritage Foundation web site reports that the web site has been taken down once they were found out. Ray Cooper of the foundation begins the story:
Today, President Obama’s campaign organization “Organizing for America” sent out a notice to its “grassroots” supporters. It asked them to wage a coordinated phone campaign for health care by calling their U.S. Senators on September 11 – also known as Patriot Day in honor of the thousands of Americans killed by Al Qaeda terrorists eight years ago. It goes on: “All 50 States are coordinating in this – as we fight back against our own Right-Wing Domestic Terrorists who are subverting the American Democratic Process, whipped to a frenzy by their Fox Propaganda Network ceaselessly re-seizing power for their treacherous leaders.”
The Heritage Foundation web site has a screen shot of the actual Obama web site before it was taken down.
