The whole point of advertising is to dissuade us of the notion that we are OK and the worst offender is advertising for beauty products. I love this put on.
Fotoshop by Adobé from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.
9AM….everyday
Everyday at 9 AM, I go into Sequoia Hospital for an intravenous shot of an high-octane antibiotic – daptomycin, Daptomycin with a capital “D”? – to protect my cow aorta valve. Every day for six weeks; Saturdays, Sundays, New Years Day, at 9 AM. I do not think that I have done the same thing at the same time for six weeks in my entire life, it is very strange – not bad necessarily, but strange – and I am having a hard time getting used to it.
What is also strange is the PICC line in my arm, just below the armpit, that runs through a vain – or artery, I am not sure which – up, through my shoulder, and down to a large gaggle of pipes near my heart. According to Wikipedia, the PICC lines are used when intravenous access is required over a prolonged period of time or when the material to be infused would cause quick damage and early failure of a peripheral IV, and I think that is the case with me. I had a peripheral IV port in my hand that they used for a couple of days and my hand is still sore.
I think of the PICC as a very small, very long, hole that runs from outside my body to, almost, my heart. It is very handy: anything anybody wants in me can just be shoved in through the hole; the Flue Vaccine I forgot to get earlier in the year, a Pneumonia Vaccine I didn’t even know I should have, lunch – I guess. But, and it is a big BUT, protecting that hole from bad stuff getting in is a big deal. A much bigger deal than protecting a IV because any bacteria traveling up the PICC would end up right next to my heart which is what they are trying to protect, in the first place, by pouring in the dosages of antibiotic.
Tuesday is the changing of the covering-dressing day and it is sort of emblematic of my whole Sequoia experience and – by only slightly fantastical extension – our health care system.
The changing of the covering-dressing is almost ritualistic in its detailed, loving, complexity; it is driven, in large part, by outside vendors coming up with new, improved, and increasingly expensive ways to do it; it is staggeringly wasteful; and once you see it, it is hard to think of a cheaper, simpler, way to do as good a job. First the nurse takes a sterile envelope containing sterile gloves and opens it to to form a sterile area, then she empties all the cleaning supplies and sterile dressings on to the sterile area. After she puts on the gloves and facemask, my existing dressing is removed and the area cleaned.
Each part of the new dressing comes in a sterile package that is now waste and has to be carefully disposed of. As an aside, much of the waste has my name and birthdate on it and each time that happens, it has to be disposed of differently so that my name doesn’t end up in the garbage where somebody could see it. End aside. Then the new dressing, including a jell-packet of disinfectant, is put on to cover the entry point of the PICC.
Lastly, the new dressing is dated. Then, probably for the second or third time, the nurse asks me my name and birhdate and gives me my daily charge of daptomycin. I have no idea what all this costs, somebody once said that the daptomycin, alone, is $110.00 and it comes with its own – wrapped in a sterile covering, of course – connecting line and two syringes to flush the PICC line before and after the dose.
Then I am happily on my way, back into the world.
Four years ago last Tuesday
Michele and I were working on the Obama primary campaign making phone calls into Iowa. We believed that Obama was the Change We Need and we were Who We Have Been Waiting For. We believed that one man could change the trajectory of the country, could change the world. This year, we watched the Republicans play a strange game of musical chairs – or last man standing, or something – where each and every candidate – except Huntsman who is probably conservative enough but not pissed at Obama enough – rises to be the top runner over poor, hapless, Willard Romney1 and then sinks back into relative obscurity.
There was a time, last year, when I was pretty down over the presidency being over Obama’s head, over his detachment, over the job that Obama is doing, and I am still disappointed but I have stopped looking to him to be the answer. I think that he is a better than average president, but not the game changer we thought we so desperately needed. Still, for me, this year seems strangely hopeful.2
I don’t think that government is going to solve Global Climate Change – shit! the Federal government might not even really admit it exists until the seas rise above the streets of downtown Manhattan – but change seems to be bubbling up. From states and cities. From the private sector. And we are going to adjust to the new, more intense, weather. My biggest disappointment is that we are trashing our education system – at one time not too long ago, California’s higher education system was the best in the world and almost free – and that sucks and is unbelievably short sighted (with no “but”). Still, while our country has become unbelievably unequal, the 99% live pretty well compared to almost any place and any time in history.
Our health care is a mess – except for people like me who have single payer, commy, health care – unless you are rich, but the real problems are really how we eat and how we act and that may be changing. Or not. One thing that I think that I learned from watching Obama during the last – almost – five years is how entrenched the system is. It is much more difficult to bring about change today than it was during Roosevelt’s time; maybe because the special interests are stronger – the barnacle theory – maybe because Bush handed off the economy to Obama too early in the cycle so he ended up sharing the blame unlike Roosevelt who came in after three disastrous years.
And I am strangely hopeful, Still.
1 Who, when Wolf Blitzer said his real name is Wolf, couldn’t resist saying that Mitt was his real name also. The poor sad-sack can’t help but lie when it doesn’t even help him.
2 Maybe just because I feel better about myself and am projecting it out on the country.
Happy New Year
Home, home at last
A couple of thoughts on leaving the hospital and coming home.
First, a hospital is a spiritual place. I used to think spiritual places were solemn. Solemn as in only solemn, solemn as in the hushed silence of going into a church for a memorial service or wedding. Then I spent an afternoon at a spiritual site – it wasn’t a church, actually it was a sort of anti-church that the Catholic church has been fighting for 500 years and temple seems way too grand – dedicated to Maximón.
It was actually a major rite of passage for me, I had gone there to photograph the site and, I am sorry to say, make fun of it. As soon as I got there, I started to throw-up and shake, after a session with the Tz’utujil shaman/priests, I felt great. Sitting around, I saw solemn moments, sadness and pathos, but more laughter and hilarity. It was eye opening on every level.
A hospital is like that: it is over- ridingly a spiritual place where life in all its forms is played out on steroids. The rooms may be filled with people in pain and distress but the hall are filled with joy and humor and that energy comes into each room dozens of times a day. Becky, an astoundingly black, astoundingly gorgeous woman from Uganda, coming into the room at 6 in the morning with a wide, infectious smile, glowing as she gently takes my blood; Sherry, an Indian from Fiji, spreading calm and peace as she takes my vitals; the lead nurse, in her hijab, serenely watching her wards.
If this is the future of America, sign me up.
Second, I have left the hospital and have come home. The hospital has so many advantages, and it isn’t home. Nothing beats my own beddy-bye. Even a great hotel. I look at the calendar and I have been gone almost a week, but nothing seems to have changed. Of course it has, Christmas is gone; time has continued to flow even though it didn’t in the hospital and I am ready to slip back into that flow. Feeling serene and grateful.