A thought at 5 AM

Medical, Politics,

After waking up at 5 AM with a throbbing pain in my knee, I started thinking about the Iranian woman who was going to be stoned to death for adultery. It seems the case has now been referred to the Iranian equivalent of the Supreme Court to see if the sentence can be changed to….wait for it now, reduced to, commuted to….hanging.

I am not sure if the court’s thinking – and I am using the term thinking loosely here – is supposed to be based on legal grounds or a religious interpretation of  God’s unboundless Love; either way it seems to me, sitting here in the dark, the decision will really be made by some old man pulling an old, predigested, opinion out of his ass.

And that got me thinking about how arbitrary those in power, even the elected ones, rule. Rick Perry – what an asswipe – can let a man be executed without looking at the new evidence that might show him to be innocent. Like George Bush – or Dick Cheney, if you prefer to see Bush the Younger as weak – going to war against Iraq. Or Bashar al-Assad hanging on to power in Syria.

I want to be outraged, and I am somewhat, but it is really like being outraged that some people have more power, more prestige, more talent. No outrage changes the fact that some people are ruling other people or that the rulers, in the end, are doing what the rulers want.

Boxing Day at Sequoia

Medical

I have been on a pretty heavy duty regime of antibiotics since Friday and it is now starting to pay off. For the first time in about three weeks, I don’t feel punk.

It turns out that I – or my blood atleast – have been the host to a growing colony of Enterococcus – that is its family name, I don’t know the Christian name – that is now being beaten back by heavy doses of Vancomycin HCL and Gentamicin Sulfate given through my new PICC line. How long the colony has been there is up to question as is how it got there

Being in the hospital over Christmas has been fine which is not the say that being infected is fine; that part has been a real pain in the ass. At first, the combination of the novelty, being scared, and feeling punk resulted in my having what I could pass off for having a pretty good time but now the novelty has worn off, I feel very safe, and I feel much better.

Part of why I feel safe, is that when I say My knee hurts, a doctor show up and says Let’s run a ultrasound to make sure you don’t have a blood clot, then, when that  ultrasound shows I don’t have a blood clot, the doctor says Let’s take a blood test to see if your who-haw level is high. In the meanwhile, they don’t want me to walk until they know what the problem is.

Of course this also why I also am getting bored. Everytime I involuntary roll my eyes, a battery of doctors show up to remind me that I have a aorta valve made out of cow parts and We want to be careful.

In the meanwhile, life in the hospital is different. The temperature doesn’t change, the light level in the halls doesn’t change, the sound level – pretty high, with bells, buzzers, and calls for Code Red to Room 274 –  doesn’t change; and the level of good humor and general joy of life is extraordinarily high. I think this is because everybody is in service and it really is better to give than to receive.


 

Christmas at Sequoia Hospital

Medical

A funny thing happened on the way to Christmas, I ended up in the hospital. It turns out that I have a major blood infection and my fever went up to 103 on Thursday night. They took some blood samples, cooled me down with Tylenol and intravenous fluids and let me go home.  At 7 the next morning, they called to say that my blood was growing a culture and I should come back in, “The sooner the better.”

So here I am, getting antibiotics three or four times a day, intravenously. Much better than any alternative I can think of.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

 

 

Atrial Fibrillation and Obamacare

Americana, Current Affairs, Obama, Psychological Musings

 

Last week, I had a dizzy, nauseous spell – eposode as I don’t like to call it – and went to my doctor. Then, on the next day, to my cardiologist. It turns out that I have Atrial Fibrillation – and I don’t think that is the right way to put it, although I am or I caught Atrial Fibrillation is certainly wrong – and I am now wearing a new Holter monitor. A   Holter monitor records heart activity over a period of time. In this case seven days, my first one was for twenty four hours and was so big I had to wear it on my belt – this one is just stuck to my man boob and it lasts for seven days. Ain’t progress grand.

 

Speaking of progress, for some reason – maybe because a large percentage of doctors are conservative – the medical profession has resisted computerizing records. I am 71 and my files would require a wheelbarrow to carry around if most of them hadn’t – fortunately – been lost. The file at my cardiologist is probably about an inch and an half thick and I have only been going to her for about four years and she is only one doctor. As an aside; What we really need is a chip similar to the chip our cat has but that is going to be a real fight. I see over at Last Days News – where they tell us that These End Times Prophecies are 100% Accurate! In case you had any doubts- that a The Bible says those who take the 666 Microchip will receive the Wrath of God. I am not a Christian and I am not much of a believer in the Bible as an authority but if it really does mention Microchips, I will be instantly converted. End aside.

Anyway, on to Obamacare and computerized records. This week, both my doctors – well, I have more than two, but both doctors I went to – are deep into switching over to computers and it already seems to be paying off. My primary doctor entered her notes into the computer and my cardiologist has them the next day when I go to her office. I leave the cardiologist with a printed list of instructions rather than oral instructions and an hand scribbled prescription. I have a question about my meds and call the cardiologist, her assistant looks up my files at his desk, and in about fifteen second gives me my answer. Last month, he would have had to call me back.

By the time Obama leaves office five years from now, I suspect that few people will still want to revoke Obamacare.

Western State Lines and Handicap Parking

Americana, Politics, Psychological Musings

My theory is that the further the people making the law – or rule – are from the people having to obay the law, the more arbitrary the law and the more likely it will not relate to what is actually happening on the ground. The borders of almost all states west of the Mississippi are an example.

Most of these state borders are straight lines following a compass heading totally ignoring any relationship to the topography. Because the people drawing the lines way back in Washington had no idea of any topographic detail. They didn’t know where the streams or mountains were so they couldn’t care. California where our northeastern border runs from some arbitrary point in the Great Basin near Goose Lake, due south to Lake Tahoe, is typical. That corner of California, about the size of New Jersey, is on the Nevada side of the mountains from the rest of California and would have been in Nevada if the people dawing the lines had lived anywhere near the lines being drawn.

A couple of days ago, Michele and I went on a short walk in the Thornwood Open Space Preserve. When we got to the parking lot, I noticed that the Handicap Space was little used and it re-booted my gripe about bureaucratic rules. Having Handicap Parking at the trailhead for a walk that handicapped people can not make is stupid. That is not to say that the people who made sure the handicap space was there are stupid but that the law – made from afar – is stupid.

I do not think that this applies only to government it applies equally, maybe even more so because there is less chance for recourse, to big business. Just think of trying to get something changed through a big bank or insurance company. The rules override reasonableness. I suspect it is even more frustrating to the person charged with enforcing the law that they know does not fit the situation.

Ironically, these arbitrary rules hurt more than they help.

First, they make the enforcer stupider and more likely to make a mistake. When I first started my own building company, our lender was Wells Fargo Bank and our lending officer was a local guy. (His brother was a real estate broker, so the real estate biz was in their blood.) When we wanted a loan for a project, we had to convince him. Wells trusted him to make the right decision and he was responsible to know the project and know that it would work.

Now there are twenty five times as many rules, the decision gets kicked up to a committee and – if the project meets all the requirements – it gets passed with none of the decision makers having to actually visit the site. Nobody really has a vested interest in the project working. That is part of the problem that lead to the bank failures.

If the lending officer – who now is really only a data collector at a large bank – follows the rules and the project doesn’t work, nobody is to blame, they all followed the rules, after all. The rules are made to make the lending environment safer but they really make it more dangerous. Everybody knew there were stupid loans being made, but nobody cared.

Second, this arbitrariness pisses people off and builds disrespect for the government or company. People are more willing to cheat; to design a project to fit the rules rather than be successful. In schools, it becomes teaching to the test rather than educating students.