Losing It

We've had a bout of unseasonably warm weather as of late that has me feeling fine.  My problem comes in that because I don't feel well most of the time, when I do feel healthy and young and vibrant and not tired, I have the overwhelming urge to do everything, all at once. I have fallen into this trap time after time after time after time.  Its almost impossible NOT to. That feeling of being unhindered....GOD it is wonderful.  Life fills my lungs and I just want to FLY. So I try. Well, OK, I don't actually try to fly, I just try to, like, do the dishes and run errands and feel productive instead of feeling like a burden.  And this of course inevitably causes me to relapse, setting me back again, unable to even do what has become "normal" for me. 

 

So this time I have been good, and haven't pushed too hard.  I want this time to be as drawn out as possible.  But now I'm sitting here losing my mind wanting to be active, and forcing myself not too. I want to run and climb trees and do capoeira (grooooan), but I am not. I'm not very good at discipline. I'm much better at overindulgence. Wish me luck here folks, I could use some calming mental energy right about now.

Sounds Like a Teenager

The real basis of Buddhism is full knowledge of the truth of reality. If one knows this truth then no teaching is necessary. If one doesn't know, even if he listens to the teaching, he doesn't really hear.

-Ajahn Chah, "Taste of Freedom"

 

So when dealing with a teenager (though I KNOW its not just teens who think this way, that's just the chord that this strikes with me), how do you overcome this fact?
Even if she listens, she doesn't really hear?

How do you end up NOT sounding like Charlie Brown's teacher?

AHIP's Push for Health "Reform"

America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) recently jumped into the arena of health reform efforts, by announcing its own plan to cover most USians.  At first glance, it's one of those double take situations.  The Insurance industry wanting to cover everyone?  They have not showed this kind of desire for change ever before, and in fact they have traditionally fought reform efforts.  So what's happening now? Have they suddenly been struck with a bolt of moral lightening?  Me thinks not. However, I do see this as a very positive sign.

 

To me, this is a sign that AHIP has been feeling the winds of change, and has decided that the tipping point has come (or is on the very near horizon) for health reform in this country. There is no turning back. Public opinion and clamour has hit the point of no return. Health reform IS coming. AHIP senses this, and realizes that if they don't get on board and insert themselves now, insuring their role in the health care system, they run the risk of getting cut out of the equation entirely.

 

After all, if we get down to the nitty gritty, insurance industry profits are simply too high.  The actual dollar amount we spend on health care is extraordinary, yet our health outcomes don't reflect this. We have out of control spending on health care in this country, and we let people die because of it, while at the same time the insurance industry skims our health care dollars for profit. Reforming the system so that we don't continue to keep this insane rate of inflation on health care spending, while ensuring every gets the care they need could mean cutting insurance companies and their profits out of the equation entirely. They want to make sure that they can continue to reap such profits, and get their cut of the 46 million in this country who are currently uninsured, but who will get some sort of coverage or care if we reform the system to make sure we all have access to care. 

 

That's my take on it anyhow.

Rate Your Doctor

Found this site today. All of my docs are in the database for the site, but none have been rated. Any other Dr. rating site that I have seen doesn't have any of my doctors, let alone ratings for them. So I have hope that this one could be helpful if we can just get more people to use it.

Powerful Shame

From the Ragged Edge Online, a dramatic monologue by Laura Minges,

Disability Shame Speaks 

 

Hello. My name is Disability Shame .

I'm incredibly difficult to catch in the act, but I make people tired, confused and depressed. I feed on stereotypes and negative self-judgments.

Secret Ballots

One thing that struck me this year when I went to vote at the Franklin County Board of Elections, was the fact that the new electronic voting machines have no curtains for privacy. Apparently I wasn't the only one who was concerned about this. Voters have been complaining about the lack of privacy on the machines, but officials have hemmed and hawed about their concerns, saying that

 

voters privacy concerns about the new, unshieled machines could be eased by the way poll workers set them up.

 

That's true to an extent, but the problem that I saw at the BOE was that the machines were set up so that the voter's backs, and the screens of their machines, faced the line of others waiting to vote.  As you waited in line, you had to look away in order to NOT see the screens of the machines of the people voting. They could have been set up so that you would only catch a glimpse of other's ballots as you yourself were led to your machine to cast your vote, but they weren't. They were the exact opposite. So much for a secret ballot!  So I was pleased to see this article in this morning's Columbus Dispatch.

 

Voting booths may get curtains

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Robert Vitale

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

By the time Franklin County residents vote again next year, something more closely resembling traditional voting booths might await them.

...county elections officials said this week that they'll consider buying curtains by the May primary.

Since new electronic voting machines were introduced in February for a special election in New Albany, the biggest complaint from voters has been about privacy.

Machines used in Franklin County since 1952 had included curtains for voters to pull closed behind them.

Nearly half the voters surveyed after February's election said they worried about others seeing how they cast their ballots. In the May 2 primary, one Clintonville voter likened his experience to "voting on a chalkboard."

Of course Franklin County BOE director Matt Damschroder (I will keep my opinions of him to myself), says that purchasing those curtains would cost an estimated $1 million dollars. Really? For curtains? At any rate, he says that before buying the curtains (and protecting our votes, something that he is not notorious for doing, because it always seems to cost too much),

 

elections officials will first consider cheaper options, including going to the polls themselves to make sure machines are set up in ways to shield voters from prying eyes.

Well Damschroder, I guess you should have first gone to the polling place in your own office, and seen for yourself that they were set up in the least private way possible. Especially since this has been on ongoing concern of voters since February. Do I ask too much of those officials who are supposed to give two craps about voters and our vote?

 

Our Problem Isn't with Immigrants

Some common sense and facts to counter the reactionary xenophobic cry that those damn "illegals" are coming here and demanding all these health services that our own citizens don't have access to.  The study is published in this month's Health Affairs.

 

RAND Study Says Small Fraction of Spending On Health Goes to Undocumented Immigrants

A study released by the RAND Corp. on Nov. 14 said that only a small fraction of U.S. health care spending goes to undocumented immigrants. "Overall, immigrants to the United States use relatively few health services, primarily because they are generally healthier than their American-born counterparts," RAND said.
 

The study estimates that in the United States about $1.1 billion in federal, state, and local government funds are spent annually on health
care for undocumented immigrants aged 18 to 64. "That amounts to an average of $11 in taxes for each U.S. household," RAND said. "In contrast, a total of $88 billion in government funds were spent on health care for all non-elderly adults in 2000."

 

Search Engine Fun

eXTReMe Tracking shows me how people get to this blog, and the best part of it are the google searches. Some good recent ones are:

• What kind of professions west indians in east flatbush have
• dirty bangs 
• BIG thanks for letting me know  

My new favorite search that landed someone here is:

• I still don't understand why you dumped him just because he has a
  thing for unicorns

Two News Bits

From the NYTimes. Unrelated, but put together make me feel weird inside....

 

First, a wonderful gain: South African Parliament Approves Same-Sex Marriages 

 

JOHANNESBURG, Nov. 14 — Parliament on Tuesday voted resoundingly to legalize same-sex marriages in South Africa, making the nation the first in Africa and the fifth in the world to remove legal barriers to them, according to advocates.

The nation's highest court ruled last December that South Africa's marriage statute violated the Constitution's guarantee of equal rights. The court gave the government a year to alter the legal definition of marriage.

Followed by a disgusting inadequacy: Officials Clash Over Mentally Ill in Florida Jails

 

MIAMI, Nov. 14 — State law requires that inmates found incompetent to stand trial be moved from county jails to psychiatric hospitals within 15 days of the state's receiving the commitment orders. Florida has broken that law for years, provoking some public defenders to seek court orders forcing swift compliance. 

Two mentally ill inmates in the Escambia County Jail in Pensacola died over the last year and a half after being subdued by guards, according to news reports. And in the Pinellas County Jail in Clearwater, a schizophrenic inmate gouged out his eye after waiting weeks for a hospital bed, his lawyer said.

 

 

None of Your Damn Business

This November weather puts a frown on my face. The colder it gets, the more I hurt. The wetter it gets, the more I hurt.  I've had a few too many days/weeks recently where I have had to use my cane to get around.  This has prompted a lot of meddling into my business by total strangers. "Ooooo, what happened to you?" or that wrinkled brow, tilted head and strained smile of pity.  For those who ask what happened I try to be polite and not say what I feel like saying (see this post's title), and at the same time not go into a complete medical history by waving my hand in the air, as if to swat away their question, keep moving forward, and saying: "Oh, you know....." I understand that folks have good intentions and all.  But people don't get the point, and keep on with their questions.  They don't really want to know. I don't really want to tell them. "Well you see, I have Crohn's. What is that? Well, it's an autoimmune inflammatory thing. What does that mean? Well, even though it's an inflammatory bowel disease, it causes other parts of my body to be inflamed from time to time...blah blah blah."  Thanks but no thanks.

 

For those non strangers (acquaintances, colleagues) who may not be intimately familiar with my health history, but who have seen me zooming around looking perfectly fine, then one day showing up with a cane, I understand their questioning concern, but in the end, they too don't really want to know, nor do I feel like launching into the whole deal with them either. So I usually end up doing the same thing:

 

"Oh, its just one of those days...."

And if they push on, "Well did you hurt yourself?"

"No, I just have some health issues, I'll be fine." 

"Well, what's wrong?"

"It's a long story"

"Were you in an accident? Did you fall down?"

 

And then there are the people who DO know my health history inside and out, but I ALSO don't want to go into a whole rant with them, because once again, who REALLY wants to hear your long convoluted story of pain? I mean, most days that I'm not feeling well, usually its not solely one thing that's bothering me.  It is almost always some combo of symptoms and reasons for those symptoms.  I can't usually just say, "oh X is flaring up today." 

 

So, I have come up up with a new, one word term for what ails me: Itisitis.  Pretty much all of my problems stem from inflammation of some sort, hence the term. Tendonitis, bursitis, Crohn's with colitis, bulging discs, pluracy, inflammation of my soul..... all itis's.  So, if you know me and you read this, and you ask what's going on, I can now simply say: "oh, it's just my itisitis", and happily go about my day. Isn't that nice?  And if a stranger asks, I can say the same thing, and hope that confuses them enough for me to be able to hobble away without having to field any more queries.

Shame on Us

From the New York Times editorial page: A Crackdown on Newborns. This is an example of just how ugly the new Medicaid citizenship requirement truly is:

Illegal immigrants have no right to Medicaid, except in emergencies, which includes labor and childbirth. Perinatal care given to illegal immigrant women has routinely been extended for a year to their newborns, too, on the simple assumption that they need it and are automatically entitled to it, if they were born here. (The 14th Amendment grants citizenship to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States.")

But now, in a pointless exercise of bureaucratic obstinacy, these children will have to prove what is already self-evident. They must receive a birth certificate and have a Medicaid application approved before receiving a doctor's care. This could take days, weeks or months — a critical time for newborns, who receive a barrage of immunizations and well-baby checkups in the first year. Some babies may get no care at all, if their noncitizen parents, fearing arrest and deportation, decide not to seek it.

 

PSA for the Day

I got this off of a blog that I read, but this past weekend there was something on PBS's "mini-med school" about the same subject, so I thought that I should pass it along to everyone I know....read on.
Xine
***********************************************

STROKE: Remember The 1st Three Letters... S.T.R.

STROKE IDENTIFICATION:

During a BBQ, a friend stumbled and took a little fall - she assured everyone that she was fine (they offered to call paramedics) and just tripped over a brick because of her new shoes. They got her cleaned up and got her a new plate of food - while she appeared a bit shaken up, Ingrid went about enjoying herself the rest of the evening. Ingrid's husband called later telling everyone that his wife had been taken to the hospital - (at 6:00pm , Ingrid passed away.) She had suffered a stroke at the BBQ.
 

Had they known how to identify the signs of a stroke, perhaps Ingrid would be with us today. Some don't die. They end up in a helpless, hopeless condition instead. It only takes a minute to read this...

A neurologist says that if he can get to a stroke victim within 3 hours he can totally reverse the effects of a stroke...totally. He said the trick was getting a stroke recognized, diagnosed, and then getting the patient medically cared for within 3 hours, which is tough.

RECOGNIZING A STROKE

Thank God for the sense to remember the "3" steps, STR .

 

Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster. The stroke victim may suffer severe brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke.

Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:

S * Ask the individual to SMILE .

T * Ask the person to TALK to S PEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE
(Coherently) (i.e. . . It is sunny out today).

R * Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS .

NOTE : Another 'sign' of a stroke is this: Ask the person to 'stick' out their tongue. If the tongue is 'crooked', if it goes to one side or the other that is also an indication of a stroke. If he or she has trouble with ANY ONE of these tasks, go to the hospital immediately! ! and describe the symptoms to
the dispatcher.

A cardiologist says if everyone who gets this e-mail sends it to 10 people; you can bet that at least one life will be saved.