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Posts Tagged ‘emergency medicine’

On Alert

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , on January 17, 2021| 3 Comments »

Do you feel as if your limbic system is on constant high alert?

In a nutshell, the limbic system is a part of the brain that is in charge of the “fight or flight” reflex; run away from the lion or fall in love with the lion tamer. It’s a bunch of cortical cells responsible for our very survival.

“These nuclei serve several functions, however most have to do with control of functions necessary for self preservation and species preservation. They regulate autonomic and endocrine function, particularly in response to emotional stimuli. They set the level of arousal and are involved in motivation and reinforcing behaviors. Additionally, many of these areas are critical to particular types of memory. Some of these regions are closely connected to the olfactory system, since this system is critical to survival of many species.”

https://www.dartmouth.edu/~rswenson/NeuroSci/chapter_9.html

Smelling danger is one thing, but feeling as though a casual walk during this pandemic might endanger your life is another. It’s become almost normal for us to second guess and debate every decision. Should we go to the Walgreens early in the morning, is it safe? Can’t the Bride come inside our house now that she has been vaccinated twice? What about the Grands? I must admit to feeling much better since my daughter and the Groom have received their second Covid vaccines, but according to the CDC the next peak of deaths is expected in mid February. Don’t let your guard down!

After all, you don’t want to be the last person to die of this virus before the vaccines are completely distributed.

And speaking of distribution, state governors are reporting that the promised vaccines kept in reserve by the federal government don’t exist. That along with the BIG LIE about the election, we’ve been served another BIG LIE about vaccine distribution. I didn’t find this surprising, because Mr T has shown his true colors time and time again. Expecting him to be something he is not would drive anybody’s limbic system crazy.

We are a nation on guard. Barricades have gone up around Nashville’s Capitol building. State capitols around the country are on “High Alert” this inaugural week – DC is teeming with our National Guard, looking more like Paris during the Jewish high holidays. I remember when the Paris police almost didn’t allow the Bride to enter a synagogue, because she “didn’t look Jewish.”

The rest of Europe cannot believe America has come to this. Today, Germans wonder if Americans ever heard of the word Volksverhetzung, in English “incitement to hatred.” This is a crime in Germany, as it should be all over the world. Unfortunately, parents continue to teach their children to hate. Racist, anti-semitic tropes were never gone, they have only just been allowed to grow through social media. In my wildest dreams, I never thought I would see a confederate flag in the Capitol; Nazi slogans and swastikas flying along with Trump flags last week.

Jewish families know we must never allow silence and indifference to win, we must always be ready to flee a mob of red shirts or red hats. This will be my last post before Joe Biden becomes our 46th president. He has an ambitious agenda ahead of him. First and foremost, attacking this pandemic. After many unanswered phone calls, and rebooting of websites, to try and obtain a Covid vaccine, we got lucky. By the end of this month, Bob and I will be fully vaccinated. It wasn’t easy. Obtaining a vaccine for a population not totally familiar with technology has proven nearly impossible.

“It feels like I’m trying to get a Beyonce ticket!” a daughter said while trying to help her mother navigate vaccine portals.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/01/16/covid-vaccine-hunt/?

Bob heard through the medical grapevine about a public health facility giving drive-thru vaccines. The Bride told us to get in our car and take a chance. And because he is an ER physician, on call for Covid emergencies and willing to put shots in arms should the need arise, and because we showed up at the break of dawn, we’re halfway to Covid immunity.

I could finally breathe. My limbic system however, will take awhile to calm down.

Ada’s favorite quote

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Ob-La-Di

Posted in an expository essay, Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, Climate Change, tagged , , , , , , on July 10, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Today is a big day – we have a doctor’s appointment, but it’s not for us.

Ms Bean is due for her annual well-dog visit! She is out of her heart worm preventative and I’m pretty sure she will need a shot of something. As new coronavirus cases climb in TN, I was thinking about cancelling, but then Bob walked into my office yesterday and said, “They are doing curb-side Vet visits, we just call them from the parking lot.”

Life goes on.

We waited for nearly an hour this week in our car at one of Nashville’s three Covid19 assessment centers. You don’t need a reason to get tested in this state, but if anyone asked we had a good one. We had been vacationing in FL and nobody was wearing masks! Nurses were riding around in golf carts with their blue paper aprons blowing in the breeze. As we approached the first white tent, I was having second thoughts. But Bob was determined, so I let a nice (nurse/medicalstudent/intern?) swab both nostrils.

Ob La Di!

They gave us a paper with the website portal to get our results, and said it may take a number of days because this was their busiest day evah! I guess Fourth of July revelers were atoning for their social distance transgressions. And after hearing horror stories of an 8-10 day wait for some people, like the Mayor of Atlanta, I just tried to forget it. Denial usually works for me. But the Bride was running out of N95 masks, again, and seeing more patients with the virus.

La la how life goes on.

In TWO days Bob had his results! He is negative for the coronavirus, yippee! But then, where were my results? I kept refreshing the page, over and over again. I kept checking my emails. We were in the same car, we had simultaneous swabbing going on, it didn’t make my eyes water like Bob, maybe they lost it? Y’all know about my luck with anything remotely medical. I just knew there was a screw up, something must have happened to my sample. Four hours later:

“No Virus Detected.” I actually had to ask Bob if that’s the same as “negative,” because my catastrophic thinking was getting the best of me. “Yes, you don’t have the virus,” he said. Then he followed that up with a lecture about being super vigilant from now on – no more stores for me I guess:

Happy ever after in the online marketplace.

TN is distinguishing itself by having an alarming number of deaths due to Covid19, more than 700 so far. Just look at the graph for “Deaths per Day” data; we went from an average of deaths in the single digits, to more than 20 per day in just a week. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/tennessee-coronavirus-cases.html

Yesterday, Bob dropped off a care package of fruit and croissants for Great Grandma Ada and Grandpa Hudson. This isolation is wearing on them, as it is on us all. Life as we’ve known it will never be the same. And I have to look at the silver lining. I have to believe that Greta Thurnberg’s generation will save the planet, that our Grands’ generation just might save humanity.

Take that Ob La Di La DA!

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Reigning In

Posted in an expository essay, Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, Memoir, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 30, 2020| 3 Comments »

The rain has started, now the beach is just a memory.

All last week, I sounded like a stereotypical old person: “We didn’t have sunscreen when we were young;” or “We only had black and white TV, no Internet!” I could have told the Grands that I had to walk 10 miles uphill to school, but that would be a lie. I did have to get dressed up in a snowsuit, hat and gloves to wait for the school bus…with other kids … because parents hadn’t heard about random kidnappings yet. Before Climate Change.

No helicopter parents back in the day, I would just stand outside in my playpen watching the activity on our street in Victory Gardens, while Nell did her daily cleaning inside. Once I started school, I’d be shooed out the door after tearing off my Sacred Heart uniform, and hanging it up, to ride my bike renegade around the neighborhood. School was a dull, dreary day full of sitting at my desk with my hands crossed into a ball, gazing at the brick building across the street through the window.

Today Metro Nashville schools have decided to reopen in the Fall. But in true Trumpian fashion, they are passing the buck to the parents in this Time of Coronavirus. It’s up to each and every family, you have a choice – 1) send your child to school, or 2) continue learning online with a remote curriculum. The American Academy of Pediatrics has weighed in – they want every child to get back to school!

“…the AAP argues that based on the nation’s experience this spring, remote learning is likely to result in severe learning loss and increased social isolation. Social isolation, in turn, can breed serious social, emotional and health issues: “child and adolescent physical or sexual abuse, substance use, depression, and suicidal ideation.” Furthermore, these impacts will be visited more severely on Black and brown children, as well as low-income children and those with learning disabilities.”  https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/06/29/884638999/u-s-pediatricians-call-for-in-person-school-this-fall

Would you send your child to school if he had an auto-immune disease? Would you send your child to school if she had a grandparent living at home? Will the poor go back to school, while the wealthy buy their kids iPads and tutors?

We’ve all been socially isolated these last few months – 16 weeks to be exact. Bars and beaches are starting to close, again, because our infection rate is going up. For anyone paying attention this is not a surprise given our glorious lack of leadership. The rate of infection and hospital admissions and ultimately deaths are directly related to the rate of noncompliance with SOCIAL DISTANCING, MASKS and HAND WASHING.

Yesterday, the Bride went back to the ER, the Groom returned to his ICU, and we had our last day of unlimited hugs with the Grands. We brought yellow, Rainier cherries over to Great Grandma Ada and Hudson. The Love Bug put her hand on Ada’s through the glass – Hudson showed the L’il Pumpkin he had the same Star Wars pattern on the inside of his mask! We all made heart signs through the vestibule window. Our eyes were tearing up as we left.

We are back in the Land of Breaking News – grieving our collective losses, reigning in our emotions after hearing Mr T did nothing, absolutely nothing when he learned our soldiers had a Russian bounty on their heads. If SCOTUS allows us to see Mr T’s taxes, his adoration of Putin will become obvious. SCOTUS is on a roll!

We desperately need something to look forward to, baseball or ballet? Today at least will be a good day. T’ai Chi Tuesday has become Pilates Zoom Tuesday and I have a loaf of Bob’s sourdough sitting on the counter! And at least the rain is dampening the Saharan dust cloud.

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Sioux or Sue

Posted in an expository essay, Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 12, 2020| 3 Comments »

Yesterday, I woke up and felt the day looming large. Every morning Bob asks me what’s on our agenda, which should be funny right? My reply was “Absolutely nothing!” I was somewhat short and slightly incredulous while trying to smooth out a bumpy start to another day in quarantine. Day number 62 or 63 or 64? After coffee, I reconsidered.

I wanted to change the sheets, I needed to do a Shipt grocery order, and before long the Bride called because she needed Bob to print something out for her. Kids today don’t have printers. Or landlines or clothes lines. Or cable TV.

This morning is different. I woke up on clean sheets and thought to myself, “Hooray it’s Tuesday.” Today I’ll be writing and listening to Dr Tony Fauci on CNN speak remotely to a Senate panel about the coronavirus. Bob’s planning on listening to SCOTUS discuss Mr T’s taxes on NPR. We’ll be having a dueling listening party in our separate offices/guest bedrooms with a background of birdsong in the garden. Deciding our lunch plans seemed a long way off.

Yesterday, I also remembered I wanted to mend a pair of pants, an old, soft corduroy pair of Eileen Fisher pants that I love. So I picked up my iPad to scroll through Pinterest because I knew I had saved a tutorial on the Japanese art of Sashiko under my “Corona Crafts” board.

Time really flies on Pinterest! Before long, I realized I’d ordered the wrong iron-on facing and I was going to need an embroidery hoop. I thought I had embroidery hoops because I’d made dream catchers for the Grands with ribbons of feathers since we’d moved to Nashville. So I opened up my overflowing office closet and began organizing my jewelry making materials while looking for an embroidery hoop… My office was littered with beads and unfinished knitting projects.

I was also trying to find a picture of me at 13 so the Love Bug could compare me to Hayley Mills. Then my phone dinged and it was Vanderbilt texting to tell me that I had an eye doctor appointment. “Text YES to confirm or NO.” And for a day with nothing planned, I suddenly felt overwhelmed. I’ve never been great at multi-tasking, but could I be developing adult-onset ADHD?

Now Dr Fauci is talking about the “inevitable return of infections,” and I thought about the wisdom of our Native people. A governor in South Dakota is threatening to sue native tribes for attempting to keep the virus out of their community by setting up roadblocks, “checkpoints,” on state roads.

“The chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe, Harold Frazier, issued a statement in response to the governor on Friday, saying: “We will not apologise for being an island of safety in a sea of uncertainty and death.”

“You continuing to interfere in our efforts to do what science and facts dictate seriously undermine our ability to protect everyone on the reservation,” he added.  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52615311

Our country has infected Native Americans before, we have thrown them off their land and herded them into reservations like the Cheyenne River Sioux, who have only one hospital with no intensive care beds. It happens that my Parnassus First Edition Club book this month is all about tribal history. “The Night Watchman” by Louise Erdich.

“Based on the extraordinary life of National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich’s  grandfather who worked as a night watchman and carried the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota all the way to Washington, D.C., this powerful novel explores themes of love and death with lightness and gravity and unfolds with the elegant prose, sly humor, and depth of feeling of a master craftsman.”

Today Dr Fauci is “cautiously optimistic.” I wish I felt the same way. I used to worry about violent, mentally ill patients in the ER when my daughter announced she was interested in Emergency Medicine. I never thought about a virus like this, even though Bob has dealt with Ebola, H1N1 and HIV over the course of his career. This morning the Bride called on her way to work, she is a courageous and resilient young woman, so I must let go of my fear. I must focus, and try to create an island of calm in the midst of this crisis.

I must order an embroidery hoop online. This was yesterday, in the garden.

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“I’m NOT a Doctor”

Posted in an expository essay, Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 6, 2020| 7 Comments »

But Mr T plays one on TV.

He says we should probably wear masks, but he won’t. Why? Because hey, kings and dictators don’t wear masks behind a “resolute desk.” This guy with the bad spray tan is too vain to model the best defense we’ve got for this “invisible enemy,” besides social distancing. I get why he thinks he’s a king, but how could an inanimate object be resolute? So of course I had to look up the definition of “Resolute,” an adjective:

firmly resolved or determined; set in purpose or opinion:

characterized by firmness and determination, as the temper, spirit, actions, etc.

I think we can all agree a desk cannot feel resolute, but Mr T is resolutely set in his opinions. He is vengeful, narcissistic, and mendacious. Maliciously mendacious in fact. I’ve been trying to look for the silver lining in this global pandemic. Bob and I have stopped watching Mr T’s coronavirus pressers, which are just stand-ins for his campaign rallies. I’ll occasionally listen to Governor Cuomo who is the voice of reason these days, along with a real doctor, Anthony Fauci.

Another real doctor is the Groom, who is currently researching that anti-malarial drug that Mr T is so fond of mentioning. His research on this drug started last week, LAST WEEK, along with 40 other institutions across the United States. Until we have any evidence, any evidence at all, it is political and medical malpractice for Mr T to continue to push the idea that we “may” have a possible “cure” for coronavirus.

The Groom is set to be back “On Call” in his ICU in about 2 weeks, right when our curve should hit its peak. This is not a reality show Mr T, and you are not a doctor.

Dr Sanjay Gupta on CNN is another doctor I believe; he’s been saying the same thing my husband, another real doctor keeps saying – the antibody test is going to be critically important. Not just to bring those who’ve recovered back into the workforce, but also to give everyone a certain sense of comfort. After all, my little “cold” right after the tornado may have immunized me already.

Dr Gupta and Bob have also been criticizing our lack of testing in the beginning; seeing how South Korea confronted the pandemic with lots of testing and tracing and isolating is illuminating.

“At the peak, medical workers identified 909 new cases in a single day, Feb. 29, and the country of 50 million people appeared on the verge of being overwhelmed. But less than a week later, the number of new cases halved. Within four days, it halved again — and again the next day.

On Sunday, South Korea reported only 64 new cases, the fewest in nearly a month, even as infections in other countries continue to soar by the thousands daily, devastating health care systems and economies. Italy records several hundred deaths daily; South Korea has not had more than eight in a day.”   https://www.n20/03/23/world/asia/coronavirus-ytimes.com/20south-korea-flatten-curve.html

Of course it’s extremely hard to catch up when your president spends 2 months blaming this pandemic hysteria on the mainstream “Fake” news, like a toddler. Nothing is ever his fault! He is, after all, the greatest living con man with a “…disordered mind, a darkened attic of fluttering bats.”  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/05/opinion/trump-coronavirus.html?searchResultPosition=1

My daughter is another doctor on the front lines of this outbreak. She gets out of her car after a shift in the ER, takes all her clothes off and dumps them in their red zone (garage apartment), then takes a shower. Only after that, will she walk across her lawn and enter her home. She has had to reuse her PPE and still worries about possibly infecting her family. I believe every single thing she says.

Our family will be Zooming in for a Passover Seder this week with another doctor in the family, a retired orthopedic surgeon on Long Island. It’s Holy Week for the 2 big religions in our country and I wish you all a peaceful and safe Seder and Easter. And I wish Mr T would let his real doctors do the talking.

Here they were as baby doctors in Virginia!

MedSch Classmates May08

 

 

 

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Spring Fever

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, science, tagged , , , , , , on March 20, 2018| Leave a Comment »

It’s been a very busy first day of Spring. I took my first Nashville Yoga class after breakfast, and joined a T’ai Chi bunch before lunch! I learned quite a bit, about tuning into my body and tuning out the noise of the city. And this city can be pretty noisy; Great Grandma Ada told me even the NYTimes was writing about the Demolition Blues here in the Music City. Right down the block we’ve had intermittent blasting through limestone that shakes the house, makes me jump, and has Ms Bean running around in terror.

It’s like a war zone, I feel a bad case of PTSD coming on. Between Mr T’s morning rambling via Twitter, and the Federal Trade Commission investigating Facebook (ps here’s how to clean up your account https://www.slashgear.com/facebook-personal-audit-privacy-app-sharing-19523634/) – the random, bomb-like explosions have thrown me over the edge. The whole existential crisis of a possible nuclear showdown pales before the everyday reality of our current climate.

Hence my plan for Zen Tuesdays.

Now for the other six days of the week… While I was saying “Namaste” today, we learned of another school shooting today, this time in Maryland. The 17 year old gunboy is dead, and the girl he targeted is in critical condition. There’s another teen boy who was targeted. Enough is enough. It certainly feels like we’ve reached a tipping point towards gun reform, although I’ve felt that way in the past too. But somehow, this time feels different.

The Tennessean published an opinion piece on Sunday that was co-authored by the Bride and her friend, another Emergency Physician. They are calling on state legislators to repeal the Dickey Amendment which curtails research and funding of gun violence. Oh yes, NRA, we’re coming for you!

It is time to treat gun violence like the public health emergency that it is, and to let the scientific community conduct the necessary work to find solutions.

Unbiased medical research has led to the eradication of smallpox, the dramatic reduction of injuries and death due to motor vehicle collisions, and lifesaving advances in the care of those injured in combat.  

 We can – and should – add the prevention of unnecessary gun-related deaths to this list.     

   

It was signed by 128 TN physicians!! Mostly ER docs who see the results of unfettered access to guns. https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/2018/03/15/opinion-gun-violence-national-public-health-emergency/426997002/

Let’s face it y’all, grandpa’s rifle is NOT the same as an AR-15, and even here in the South minds are being changed. The massacre in Las Vegas shook the music industry to its core, and now teenagers are planning a March on Washington to bring their message home. Our children deserve to feel safe in school, freedom from fear is our God-given, Rockwellian right in this country. The police don’t want these guns on the street, and we the people don’t want them either. It’s about time our legislators listened…

I think the explosions have stopped. Our neighborhood has been strangely quiet for a few days now. We managed to plant our lilacs yesterday, and now they are predicting snow. Happy first day of Spring to everyone from our little Irish Star Wars colleen!

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Sexy Day

Posted in an expository essay, Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, science, tagged , , , , , , , on February 28, 2018| 1 Comment »

Bob has returned from the sexiest city in the country. The Emergency Department Benchmarking Alliance (EDBA), a group that looks at ED performance, held their summit at Caesar”s Palace in Vegas! One of the young doctors at the conference told Bob that his book on ED management was her bible during her first tour as a director. Last night, Bob said he just doesn’t “get” that city, it’s all fake news. Plus, he doesn’t gamble.

We kissed hello, and I said goodbye. The Bride and I were off to a family forum at the Love Bug’s school on “Raising Sexually Healthy Children.” The Groom was still at his conference so I was invited, and of course I was the only Nana in the group. There were only a few dads; still, we represented a diverse range of opinions and concerns about sex. Ranging from the nitty gritty of “What and When,” to how can we keep them safe in the age of smart phones and social media.

My take-away for raising a sexually healthy adult (ie imagine your child at the age of 35, which of course, I didn’t have to do) is that you stay positive about anything they may ask  you. For instance, instead of immediately saying, “Where did you hear that?” in an accusatory voice, you begin a dialogue with your child. Staying available and open as a parent means they will keep coming to you for advice instead of their peers and/or porn. At least until they turn 16.

Ideally, you should present the facts to them in an age appropriate way.

Our culture has a way of making sex shameful. In fact when the Bride was young, she had exactly one year of sex ed in school, and it was all about STDs and HIV/AIDs. Bill Clinton and Ken Starr were duking it out when the Rocker was in middle school. One fundamentalist Christian mom looked at me and said, “We can thank our President for teaching our children about oral sex.” So I guess we can thank Mr T for teaching our grandkids what…?

Do you know what the average age of first sexual intercourse is in the USA? I didn’t! It’s 16.7; but I guess that depends on what the definition of “Is” is… The speaker recommended a book to start this journey on positive/holistic sexuality with your child titled, “It’s Not the Stork” by Robie H Harris for 4-5 year olds. If your child hasn’t been curious about sex by the age of 7, this is a good way to start the conversation.

The Groom returns home today triumphant! He was just published in the New England Journal of Medicine as the lead author in a study on the use of saline vs balanced crystalloids in the ICU. He’s been interviewed on our Nashville NPR station and the local news programs, and if that’s not sexy. I mean. It’s like winning the Oscar in medicine!

I remember the Bride twirling around at 3 in her twirly skirt, saying, “sexy” over and over again. I asked her what sexy means, and she said “Beautiful!”

My favorite flowering tree, the tulip magnolia, is in bloom and spring is in the air.  IMG_2318

 

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#WinterSolstice

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 22, 2017| Leave a Comment »

It’s warm and rainy in Nashville today, the first day of winter. Our car smells like wet dog and the house still smells like latkes. This will be my second Christmas with Bob not working the ER; but, the Bride will be and her Groom will be in the MICU, sooo we’ll be doing some grandparenting on Christmas Day!

It’s been a busy week, but the highlight by far was yesterday’s Nutcracker. We all ubered downtown to see the Nashville Ballet. The scenery was stunning, the orchestra was phenomenal, and the ballerinas were perfect. The Love Bug sat entranced; like the daughter of two scientists, she asked if Uncle Drosselmeyer’s magic was real? And she waited patiently for the ballerinas to appear, and laughed as it actually started snowing on the audience during intermission!

Her Mama played a reindeer in the Berkshire Ballet’s Nutcracker when she was the Love Bug’s age.

Some of you may know that I was a dancer in a previous life, and was thrilled to dance the opening waltz myself at the ripe “old” age of 35. If I was asked when I was the happiest in my life, those moments on stage, dancing, were among the best. Maybe it’s the Flapper’s influence, she would slip out of her bedroom window as a teenager to meet her friends and dance to the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. And once the Bug was born, she tied a stuffed pink ballet toe shoe over her crib.

I asked the Bride if she had any memory of being under La Mère Gigogne’s (Mother Ginger) skirt? She said, “I remember being dizzy!”

It’s a dizzying time of year, but my wish for you today is that you stop and breathe for just ten or twenty minutes. Step away from Amazon on your computer. Pet your dog or cat and put on some Tchaikovsky, with a cup of hot tea on the side. Try to let your mind wander, or meditate. Practicing self-care can easily be forgotten when Hanukkah and Christmas demand so much attention. Remember that “stressed” spelled backwards is “desserts!”

And that the days, and therefore the sun when it reappears, will lengthen. We are beginning that stretch towards Spring, which is how I like to think of the Winter Solstice – not as the shortest day, but the beginning of longer daylight hours. https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/12/winter-solstice-2017-first-day-winter-definition-space-science/?_ga=2.23714169.2115897125.1513975428-807897739.1513975428

May you and yours have a peaceful and joyous Christmas. And thanks in advance to all those doctors, nurses and emergency personnel who will be working on Monday. You are truly doing God’s work.

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Health Virtually

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on July 18, 2017| Leave a Comment »

You’ve all seen them while running through an airport. The giant ads – no, not the picture of the Parlor Mob at JFK – pictures of doctors in white coats, smiling in front of computers. Why wait for hours at your local Emergency Department? Can’t get an appointment with your actual doctor for months? Maybe you’re too sick to drive, and just too busy to take an Uber to an Urgent Care?

Well, the Virtual Doctor is in!

The first time I saw my very own Dr McDreamy at UVA I was slightly disappointed. Like many women, I had never had a primary internal medicine doctor before…ObGyns sure, and specialists to repair meniscus tears etc. Whenever something was seriously wrong, I always had Bob to remind me this was just a virus and it would get better with time. But a real doctor, this was something new to me.

Let’s go over the best parts first: the waiting room was almost empty; he was on time; his nurse was efficient, I was blessed with some very good genes so my medication list is mostly vitamins; his resident asked all the right questions; and finally, when I saw the doctor, he sat and talked with me for a very long time. I was in love!

And now for the not so good parts: I had to drive 40 minutes to park in a gigantic cement parking garage I would later get lost in; the walk to his office was well over a mile; and the worst part of all, he never actually touched me. I never got undressed and jumped onto an exam table clinging to a paper robe. No physical exam…I left his office with appointments for tests like blood work and a mammogram.

Let’s skip ahead to that week between my fall off the steps in Nashville, and our trip to the South of France. I called my Primary Care doctor and he was away and they couldn’t fit me in. I called my Orthopedist and his office said since I didn’t break any bones, he doesn’t do muscles! I didn’t bother trying to see my Dermatologist. I wondered aloud, is this what it’s like for everybody? When you finally really really need to see a doctor, like you can barely walk and you’re about to get on a plane, they are nowhere to be found?

Well folks, I think Bob may have found his retirement second act. Emergency docs have to know a little bit about every disease and a whole lot about the ones that will kill you. And isn’t that what we all want to hear? You don’t have a terminal illness. It’s just a cold, get over it! Well, maybe they will say it with a bit more finesse, into their monitor.

Dr Ali Parsa, founder and chief executive of digital healthcare app Babylon, sees the (remote physical and mental) health trend as an undoubted force for good.
“It’s time to do with healthcare what Google did with information – using the power of technology to democratise access for all, and put a personal (digital) doctor in everyone’s pocket regardless of geography or income,” he says. http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40629742

Bob’s been doing this for years already with our relatives and friends. People send him pictures of rashes, x-rays of broken bones, brain CAT scans. He’s functioned as our collective consultant at seders and dinner parties. “My foot’s just not getting better.” Or, “Will you just take a look at all the drugs I’m taking?”

I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want an App or a Bot to speak to about my medical condition, but having a real, live physician on FaceTime or Skype? Sure! And the doctor or the patient could be in Katmandu, so long as the WiFi is working – this takes boutique medicine to the next level.

Lots of hospitals do this already. Did you know in most rural parts of the country, smaller community hospitals have critical care ICU docs checking in via monitors from their big city university hospital? At night, radiologists in other countries read X-Rays that are sent  digitally from the US. This has been going on for years.

I’m feeling hopeful today after the Senate saw fit to drop their misguided bill to “fix” the ACA and throw millions off Medicaid. The sheer irony of Sen McCain delaying the vote because he was busy having a surgical procedure his insurance covers illustrated their sinister deliberations. http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/18/politics/how-the-republican-health-care-bill-fell-apart/index.html

I hate that we politicize health care in this country. Until we see fit to have Medicare for all, maybe technology will help restore access and autonomy to the doctor/patient relationship. And at the very least, we would know if we need to go sit in an ER because our neck is tender and we must rule out meningitis. The doctor is on deck!IMG_0846

 

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Island Paradise

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on March 10, 2017| 1 Comment »

Now that Bob has retired, we’ve decided it’s time to finally find our dream beach house. Someplace for family reunions, holidays, and maybe even an investment opportunity on AirBnB or VRBO from time to time. The only problem is, what beach?

Of course the island we love is not affordable. So that leaves us with a few options: Outer Banks, too cold; Florida, too predictable (sorry Floridians); Texas Panhandle, nah. Working our way across country, we really loved California, so maybe? But then Hawaii comes to mind.

I was listening to an ER doc from Hawaii on NPR yesterday, he was talking about a new Bill he introduced on the floor of the senate; Josh Green, MD also happens to be a state legislator. After years of practicing Emergency Medicine he said he and his colleagues know by name the homeless people who frequent his ER, and he knows that they suffer from chronic medical conditions that would benefit from simply being off the street. So he proposed a Bill that would give docs the right to prescribe six months of housing, to be supervised by case workers. Treat homelessness as a medical condition. An unusual, intriguing and not a half-bad idea!

A small number of homeless people require a disproportionate amount of medical treatment. According to Green, a recent internal study by a major Hawaiian insurer found that over half of the state’s $2bn Medicaid allotment was consumed by a tiny fraction of users, many of whom are dealing with homelessness, mental illness and substance addiction.

Yet research suggests that healthcare spending for those who have been homeless for long periods and struggle with mental illness and addictions falls by 43% after they have been housed and provided with supportive services. Green said many of the individuals he hopes to house cost the healthcare system an average of $120,000 annually, yet the annual cost to house an individual is $18,000. He thinks that the total savings to the state could be hundreds of millions of dollars a year.  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/28/hawaii-homeless-housing-bill-healthcare-costs

Surprisingly, just a few days ago, I reconnected with an old friend, a woman who used to be an administrator in Bob’s first ER. After telling me that “Bob and retirement” are two words she never thought she’d hear in the same sentence, she also mentioned that retirement in Hawaii was something she and her husband were thinking about…and for my third coincidental island musing, Hawaii is the first state to file suit against’s Trump’s new “Travel Ban.” Aloha and Mahalo!

For these islanders, the memory of rounding up Japanese citizens after Pearl Harbor is still very real! http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39215990

Now I’ve never been to Hawaii, and I hear that each island is different. Maybe it’s time we scheduled a little trip to the Big Island, or one of the medium-sized ones? Of course, our retirement plans may fall apart depending on what the Republicans do to the ACC, and Mr T does to the global economy.

Meanwhile back at home, we’ve been planting some perennials, practicing Hygge, and dreaming of our Purim Princess Warrior!     IMG_0166

 

 

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