Category Archives: healthcare

Am I in Saudi Arabia??

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Stephen Colbert has a few words on  Suzanne Venker  for repeating the same crap her Aunt Phyllis Schlafly has spewed since the 70s:  if women would just stop trying to be valued equally, they could find marriageable men.  Seriously. (Phyllis Schlafly also thought that a woman’s virtue could be detected in the way she moved her hips.  If she swung them a little too much, she was of easy virtue.

I hate to say this, but my mother thought along the same lines…she had my best interests at heart, but she was the woman of that mindset.  She either implicitly or explicitly indicated that a woman showing she was intelligent would discourage “good” men.  And an unmarried woman…gasp…an unmarried woman…well, there must be something wrong with her if she’s not married, for heaven’s sake.  She still, to this day, some seventeen years later, is trying to get me remarried, bless her heart.

The best quote I’ve ever read in regards to marriage and intelligent women is this:  (paraphrasing) “If a guy breaks up with you because you’re too intelligent and show it, don’t worry too much about it.  He’s just someone you would end up divorcing later.”  Classic.

Here’s another column on Suzanne Venker and not advising her daughter to become a brain surgeon because she will want to have babies.

Okay, I’m mixed on this because I do believe that kids need a parent–not necessarily the mother–to stay home at least the first five years.  I think these years are so very important in the development of the child’s sense of self and sense of security.  I just don’t think putting them in child care from the get-go is beneficial mentally.

But to say that the child should not strive for a career because she might want babies leaves out that the husband may want to stay home if she is the breadwinner.  She may want to have kids first and then go to college.  She may not want kids at all.

And it just is the old crap that has been spewed for centuries…the medical profession (men) actually put forth the idea that women’s uteruses would shrink if they went to college.  They got this *cough* brilliant conclusion after they noticed women who went to college were less likely to have kids or didn’t have as many kids as those who did not go to college.   Oh, yeah, and they also put for the idea that endometriosis was caused by…wait for it…women who delayed childbearing due to pursuing careers.  They were saying this clear into the 80s.  I kid you not.  It’s too much to actually look past biases and prejudice to see the actual cause might be environmental toxins and in my view, the effects of gluten intolerance (autoimmune response=menstrual blood attaching itself to abnormal places).

The Phallus of Empire

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…has little to do with the story behind this blog, but I thought it was an amusing comment.

And so, folks, 1989 is just waaay too in the past to, you know, remember it.  Whatsay we take Ronald Reagan’s name off of everything that his name has been plastered on since it’s ancient history, too?  I’d be much more in favor of that than removing Gilda’s name.   

Besides, she’s just a dumb woman, what do they matter?

Good Grief.

Taking the profit out of pollution

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…this has been my question all along–why not make polluting the environment a costly affair–so costly that it wouldn’t make sense to continue to pollute? Because the current myopic view is not to include the healthcare costs caused by the toxic environment.

The same goes for plastic crap–why not make using plastic so freaking expensive that glass would be the better and cheaper alternative?  Nobody mentions the ocean full of not only mercury but plastic bottles….

 

Pitocin and seizures

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Holy crap, I may be onto something with Pitocin and seizures–

I looked up Pitocin and was shocked to find out that seizures are one of the known side effects.

I found this blog.

And this from the epilepsy foundation community group.  This is absolutely criminal. Absolutely. There are sooo many serious side effects with this drug that it should either be banned or treated like they do controlled substances–you need to prove that there is a serious threat to the mother/child before allowed to put her and her baby through this hell.  Where is the accountability??

For my own birth(s), there was no reason for the doctor to have induced my labor(s)–it was around the holidays and he just wanted to get to his parties, it seems. Bastard.

Here’s a site on epidurals.  I probably escaped more injury by not having that.

More from the poor front…and Pitocin…

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I helped one of the newer residents with groceries up to their rooms, as one of them is disabled and needs grocery carts to get the heavy bags up to her apt.  Someone has taken the five carts we had for resident use (three were ours, that former management had allowed us, and two were ones that somehow escaped the nazi-ish electronic monitors that the grocery had put on them to stop the carts from leaving the lot.)  Somehow, they’ve all come up missing.  We figure residents are keeping them in their apartments, disregarding that others may need them.  I got chastised this morning for making an announcement over the intercom for people to bring the carts back down. They emphasized that I’m only allowed to use the intercom for emergencies.  <sigh>

Apparently, the ogre of a manager at the grocery store has still been complaining about us using the carts!  Unfreakingbuhlievable!  The folks that are disabled cannot lift those heavy bags for the trips to their apartments.  They can barely get them across the street. Same with the elderly who can easily drop their groceries while trying to get them home.  It’s freaking ridiculous.  Like I said before, I wonder how much this grocery store (a national chain) paid to have this stupid electronic system put in?  And for what?? Five stinking carts?!

Anyway, while I was helping the residents take the groceries up, one, a nursing student, mentioned that she had spoken to a woman who went into labor and was put on Pitocin.  She had screamed from the pain for hours…

…again, memories come flooding back, as I remembered my own screaming from Pitocin.  I was shocked to find out that I wasn’t the only one. I thought that I was, well, just a wimp…apparently not.

Here’s a story on possible brain damage caused by it.  If you look at the comments, there is one by a clever midwife who suggested the laboring mother get on all fours to aid contractions..

…a lightbulb went on…I was told many years ago that I had a tipped uterus (backwards).  Now I wonder if I had been on all fours, this would have allowed my uterus to progress normally through labor?   The thing that gets me is that doctors know that a woman lying on her back during labor is not beneficial for contractions and can be dangerous as it depresses the major vein.  I was on my back during all three labors.

…and I can echo the horrible pain associated with Pitocin.  And no anesthetic.  I was so out of my mind with pain that I kept saying “push, push, push” while the nurse tried in vain to get right up to my ear and said to stop pushing.  I couldn’t even respond to her or anything–a somewhat catatonic state.  And I’ll always wonder what that did to my daughter–whether it’s played a role in her epilepsy.

 

Big Bird breathes sigh of relief…

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Congratulations, President Obama. Big Bird lives on…:)

I know better, but I was listening to the rightwing radio last night and they were painting a dim picture of Obama’s win.  I turned it off and went to bed to read…thinking we were going to get Bush III…

Indiana voted in Mike do-nothing Pence for Governor,  and now has a super majority in the legislature…<sigh>

…well, at least I am spared Richard my-sperm-is-a-gift-from-God Mourdock…

The news on the reaction in the Middle East.  I hope this means a peaceful movement in Israel is underway….

DN! has this up on the elections.  Elizabeth Warren is animated after her win.  Thank God.

Unfortunately, the GMO lobby won and Californians defeated the measure requiring GMO labeling. Shit.

O”Reilly had a nice take on why Obama won–because people want “stuff” and Obama was going to give it to them…

Well, now…Romney has the gov’t pay $77,000 for the care and housing of his horse…has money in offshore accounts and John McCain has so many houses he can’t even remember how many he has…all because they don’t pay their fair share of taxes…now who feels entitled?

Is it entitlement when one wants to eat? Have a roof over their head? Get medical care? I’m confused.

They went on to talk about the shift away from the standard–now women and minorities are getting their voices heard. The boys of the old school are threatened…and it will probably get uglier before it’s all done.

To my sisters who were the power behind getting President Obama re-elected:  Thank you.  We can move mountains when we focus on what’s important to us and fight for it.

I want to say, though, that women have been characterized as of “one mind”–that any woman who manages to get before a microphone speaks for all women.  They don’t.

This is one of the reasons that the middle-of-the-road women backed away from the Feminist Movement–they were treated as if they spoke for all women.  Women who wanted to stay home with their children were characterized as dull twits who lacked ambition.  Women who didn’t believe in abortion but believed in equality were marginalized, also.

And the 70s Feminists who fought against alimony because it…well, I’m not really sure why they were fighting against alimony…but as this quote by Barbara Seaman, amongst others, puts it quite well–this is something that I lost out on when I divorced.  I also got less than half of the assets (with a mortgage to pay off) and my ex got away with only paying one-fifth ($20,000) of his income to support his three children.  Although I had stayed home for eleven years, the judge did not allow for that, and had instead computed the amount of support as if I had a job!!  Yes, I had a lousy lawyer–whose partner still smirks at me to this day whenever I have to trudge back to the place I grew up in…I’ve always wondered what that smirk means….

Anyway, I hope that with the election that women and minorities will do their homework, and support thoughtful politicians who approach the legislative process with the “Do unto others…” mindset…it would make life so much easier and just might bring about Peace…

Dental decay reversed?

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Members of the GAPS diet group posted this link to a theory that teeth can remineralize following the basic GAPS diet and staying away from processed food.  Wouldn’t that just blow you away?  Put the dental profession out of business, eh?  Shhh…we don’t want them to get wind of this…you know, that whole profits against morality thing…and we know that profits usually wins…

…what I didn’t see in the bottom of the article when it listed what one needed for the teeth to remineralize was an absence of toxins…because the immune system cannot function properly while the body’s cells are malfunctioning due to chemical interference.

Albany Pro-Fracking Rally

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“Advocates” of the poisonous fracking practice were bused into Albany, NY.

In the book, Not in Our Backyards! by Nicholas Freudenberg (1984), the author notes the long history of corporate owners pitting unions (workers) against environmentalists.  Some union members saw the environmentalists as elitists.  They feared job loss if the company picked up and moved their jobs to another area or another country that would be more “friendly”.  This fear was not unfounded, as many companies did just that.  The threat was very real.

From this article, that blackmail is still at work–forcing people to choose having income or taking a risk with theirs and their family’s health.  It’s only after a tragedy occurs that they realize they gained a little at first, but lost their precious health or livestock or poisoned their land or water forever.

Artists Against Fracking website here. Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon beg Gov. Cuomo not to rush into allowing fracking.

Oh, and let’s not forget the resulting earthquakes linked to fracking…nobody seems to want to address that issue.

From Ohio. And Texas.

Here’s a good article from Bloomberg summarizing it.

It is stunning that energy companies who violate the rules over and over again, and again, are  allowed to continue.  Why?

Oh, and this just adds to the total picture of unethical behavior and lack of accountability.  And this stuff has been going on since the beginning of the oil industry—so why isn’t something done to correct it?

Social Security going up by 1.7 percent

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…your grocery bill, gas bill, etc. will go up by 25 percent…/snark

Link.

See, this is what I don’t get–they were just saying not two months ago that this was one of the worst droughts on record and our grocery bills were going to be severely affected–but this article states that food prices have pretty much stayed the same.

Ahem.

Like I’ve noted in my personal grocery bills, I’ve seen several items jump $1 or $2 per item in a month’s time, which really adds up if you’re on a restricted budget, as folks on S.S. are.  They know that every time there’s a S.S. increase, it isn’t enough, and the prices will go up accordingly.  (No, I’m not on S.S. or disability.)

I’ve done a quick search of several articles, and they all insist, via the Consumer Price Index that grocery prices have remained the same.

I looked up the table they publish:  http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpid11av.pdf for the 2010-2011 price list…and somebody ain’t telling the truth, here…

You have to scroll down to get specifics, and looking at something that most poor folks purchase: ground beef went up 11%.  Eleven freaking percent in one year!  White bread 5%; Cereal 3%; Bacon 13%; Fresh Fish and Seafood 8%; Eggs 9% Milk 9%; Potatoes 12%; Coffee 14%;  Butter 14%; Peanut Butter 6%….and non-food:  fuel oil 30%; water and sewage 5%; motor fuel 26% and on…

(note that medical care only went up 3%…well, now, the oil companies aren’t getting nearly as much attention from the politicos as the medical community’s medical costs increases…hmmm…twenty-six percent should garner a little more attention, dontcha think?)

But they’ll give you a 1% increase…

…so you can try to make that can of dog food go a little further…after all, the top 1% need those tax breaks so they can…feed and house their horses…and  John McCain needs another house…

 

Banning Circumcision

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There’s a group in California that is trying to get circumcision of boys banned.  I cannot understand the routine circumcision of boys–with exception for religious rites, such as the Jewish tradition.

When I had my firstborn, my son, in the early eighties, I was with the new crowd of questioning why this procedure was being done?  I guess I was more of rebel that I had thought because I didn’t want to do it to him, and the family thought I was bonkers.  Something happened, however, when a nurse was cleaning my son and doctor had to perform an emergency procedure and cut into the foreskin after it failed to return to normal position (I’m trying very hard not to get too graphic here).    After about five days, I was questioning whether this was a good idea, and caved to family pressure to have him circumcised.  One of my many regrets…

Here’s a link to Parents mag that discusses the pros and cons of it.   I used to read this mag as a guide and you can tell by the wishy-washy article that it was difficult to justify not getting a circumcision.  One of the stupidest reasons is that “I don’t want him to look different than everyone else…”

I say leave the kid alone, and if there are repeated urinary tract infections or some other health issue, then by all means have it removed…but to do so because you *may* have issues without really testing the waters doesn’t make sense.   It’s like removing the tonsils because the kid may have repeated infections.

And if the kid decides later in life that he wishes to remove it then he has that option.

And I feel the same way about ear-piercing.  I see little baby girls with ears pierced and I cringe.  Let the child make up her own mind on whether she wants pierced ears or not.

Lastly, one has to wonder at what kind of psychological damage this does–a baby being hurt like that by adults has to have some sort of impact.  I know that they did not use anesthetic when my son was circumcised–I’ll always wonder what that did to him.  They actually tried to tell me that babies don’t feel pain.  What utter crap.