Yikes, August 2009

8/30/09, two:

"Using a conservative definition, 62.1% of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical; 92% of these medical debtors had medical debts over $5000, or 10% of pretax family income. The rest met criteria for medical bankruptcy because they had lost significant income due to illness or mortgaged a home to pay medical bills. Most medical debtors were well educated, owned homes, and had middle-class occupations. Three quarters had health insurance. Using identical definitions in 2001 and 2007, the share of bankruptcies attributable to medical problems rose by 49.6%. In logistic regression analysis controlling for demographic factors, the odds that a bankruptcy had a medical cause was 2.38-fold higher in 2007 than in 2001. CONCLUSIONS: Illness and medical bills contribute to a large and increasing share of US bankruptcies."

— The American Journal of Medicine (2009) 122, 741-746

8/30/09:
We were gone most of the day Saturday but today are staying home so that I can be close to a toilet– Ye Ha, what fun. Today I am preparing for my 6th colonoscopy since 1993, filling up on apple juice, broth and soda whilst emptying the contents of my bowels... In 1993 they debated about doing the shorter sigmoidoscopy (which I would never recommend bothering with) or the full colonoscopy. I requested to have the full inspection, which was fortuitous as they found an adenoma above the level a sigmoidoscopy would have inspected. My inspections since have found nothing alarming so I get to have them only very 5 years now. If you would like to learn more you can click on the toiletbike and read the last half of the second paragraph of the section on colon adenocarcinoma.

Carol returned home the end of this last week, and she is glad to be there. Carol is able to walk with her walker short distances and is working hard to gain strength back in her legs and other muscles. The weather is beautiful, with sun minus stifling heat. Perfect weather to go home to.

More later, got to run– yikes!

No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately.— Michel de Montaigne

8/29/09:

8/28/09:
I've been slacking off, it seems. Isn't that what summer is partially for?

We went up to Lynden to the annual antique farm show a couple of weeks ago and saw some interesting old cars there. We saw a decked-out old Hudson, complete with gun and rose in the back seat. I enjoyed the the story behind the lovingly restored Ford and enjoyed seeing the mint, never restored 1906 Queen Model K Touring Car. Clicking on the underlined words takes you to the linked picture...

Last Saturday we went up to Lynden again, for the County fair. It was a perfect sunny, real warm but not too hot day, full of sights, sounds, smells and tastes. We had yet another good time, being alive together. Click here to see Cindy finding Jay after stopping at the restroom. Not much more exciting than that, eh?

The picture to the left is of Jay when we were out taking some measurements of the yard when looking at fencing. Yes, fence-measurer Jay, who if you click on links to a picture of me loading 3 Arctic Beauty Kiwi vines in the truck last Saturday before we took off for the fair. They are planted on the far side of the house, with some rails to climb up when they have a mind to. They are supposed to get variegated leaves, be cold hardy and have small, smooth-skinned fruit. The adventures never cease when one is so easily amused...

We are heading down to Seattle tomorrow to see a play and will report back about it when I get around to it, meantime have a great weekend!

Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy (February 22, 1932 - August 25, 2009)

I hope for an America where no president, no public official, no individual will ever be deemed a greater or lesser American because of religious doubt– or religious belief.— A speech at Liberty University, October 1983

I recognize my own shortcomings– the faults in the conduct of my private life. I realize that I alone am responsible for them, and I am the one who must confront them. I believe that each of us as individuals must not only struggle to make a better world, but to make ourselves better, too.— Apologizing to his constituents, Oct. 25, 1991

I think about my brothers every day.— An interview with Reuters, 2006

We know the future will outlast all of us, but I believe that all of us will live on in the future we make.— Accepting an honorary degree from Harvard, December 2008

8/22/09, deux:
Lots of figures are being tossed about for estimates of how much it will cost to reform health care in the US. The main, alarming figure is one trillion. That's a 1 followed by 12 zeros, as in $1,000,000,000,000. My understanding is that figure is the cost over 10 years, and the figures vary because plans vary.

That's a lot of money, hard to wrap one's mind around what it means. Even more information is needed though, because it takes billions to become trillions... so how much is a billion? A billion is a 1 followed by 9 zeros, as in $1,000,000,000. Yeah, so how many billions are in a trillion? You guessed it, one thousand billion make a trillion. Yikes... Maybe this will help give you some perspective:

(Inflation adjusted figures from Congressional Research Service study completed last year)
Cost of WWII = $4 trillion
Cost of Vietnam War = $686 billion (over 2/3 trillion)
Cost of Iraq War (thru this year) = $694 billion

Spending at this scale, the scale that includes war and health care, is serious business. It is a business that will shape our collective future, and our destiny. Choice is the name of the game, as always. And once again our choice is not whether we will spend this kind of money, it is how. How will we spend the next massive amount of money, how will we decide to shape our future this time? Who will benefit? Why? Damn, those silly questions that go 'round and 'round...

On a lighter note, click on the medicine bottle for an amusing ad.

The only interesting answers are those that destroy the questions.— Susan Sontag

8/22/09:
I run across pictures on the internet all the time, as do you, and save them in a file for future use here. The tear to the right has resided in that file for a while and, as is the case for almost all there, I have no recollection of where I gathered it from, but it is an interesting illustration of tears.

It has been awhile since I put on a poem, a blessing to some. The follow bit is a small part of a poem by Rose Kelleher, the picture links to her website if you are interested.

Other women weep and no one cares;
their ugly snuffles only irritate.
When funerals and tumors slow them down
their bosses yell at them for being late.
They stand in stalls and flush to hide their cries.

— excerpt from Poor Dolores, Rose Kelleher

8/18/09:
I ran across a button image during an internet search that said something like feminism is the radical notion that women are people. There is a website that sells such wild buttons and you can go there by clicking the button pic to the left, another button I liked.

Female equality is a very modern concept, and one that still riles people more inclined to respect only brute force. According to Wikipedia those wacko French started all the women's suffrage crapola in the 18th century— France once again messing up the calm world of small-minded Americans. It has all been downhill since then...

Women remained good for only a limited number of activities (we all know the main one) until the second war to end all wars. A social change WWII unintentionally ushered in was the presence of women in the work force. My cousin Diane reminded me of this fact in an email she forwarded about an interesting article in the magazine to the right, the July 1943 issue of Mass Transportation. The article lists "Eleven Tips on Getting More Efficiency Out of Women Employees". Click on the magazine cover to find out those secrets those of you at the management end of an organization should know, they are very interesting opinions. Thank you Diane, hope you are feeling better and your tooth is fixed!

So the real world in which people have and share such profound thoughts continues. If the right-wing wackos are lucky we will continue to find ourselves without health insurance/care every time we are unemployed or underemployed for the foreseeable future, unlike any other "advanced" nation. Do you think rather than calling it a "public option" it would have more cognitive appeal if it was called "expanded Medicare"? The public option already exists, and is the main option, for those over 65 or those who have been deemed disabled by Social Security for more than 2 years. People use that public option to purchase private health care. Hmm, pretty darned scary. Yikes!

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.— Marie Curie

8/15/09:
It has been a cool week with some sprinkles and the tomatoes are looking forward to the heat that is predicted for next week. The cool weather here has not helped the hot tempers brought to a boil by deliberate misstatements designed to derail health reform. Interesting, wonder who would have a vested interest in stopping health reform? Use your own imagination and powers of deduction. Do you have a Living Will or have you ever known someone who has received hospice services? Yes, apparently very frightening things for some people to even be informed about. Our current system actually does deny care for some, but let's not think about that...

I finished a book I had about the history of the National Geographic Society by Robert Poole. It was interesting but not a book most people would find exciting. Today I ordered 3 books online, spendthrift that I am. The picture to the left is a plate from one I ordered, Art Forms in Nature: The Prints of Ernst Haeckel, and if you click on the picture you can see some other cool images from a Google search. The original book is from 1900 "Kunstformen der Natur". More later on the other 2 books, if I remember.

Earlier in the month I wrote about having an unusual mole removed from the side of my foot. Since then I have hobbled some and have worn my loose, fake crocs so the incision area did not rub on a regular shoe. I had the stitches out Thursday and am cleared for returning to swimming for now. The mole turned out to have "atypical" cells, not cancer yet. Unfortunately the margins were not clear. When they take a biopsy and there are cells of concern they look to see if the edges of the biopsy have normal cells. If the edges or margins show all normal cells they consider the biopsy to have "gotten everything". Mine did not so I have to go back and have a larger slice removed in mid-September, which means more stitches and no swimming again. They will keep taking larger and larger slices until all the margins are clear... what fun, I know you are jealous. More on that later too. Ciao.

Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man.— Bertrand Russell

8/8/09:
A year or two ago I may have written about being shocked when an 18ish girl selling me tickets at the movie theater asked if I wanted senior tickets. At that time I had reflexively blurted out "how old do you have to be?" and then declined the discount after learning I was too young. Today Jay and I went to the annual antique farm equipment show up outside of Lynden and when the older lady in the booth asked "two senior tickets?", I simply responded "yeah, sure". Yeah, give me the discount... yikes. We enjoyed looking around and may have some pics later of a car or two we found interesting.

The picture to the left is of one of a couple "volunteer" plants in my side yard flower bed this year, which I have learned are bush morning glory plants. The flowers are gorgeous and apparently the plants get up to 2 feet tall and prefer not to be fertilized or watered and can be invasive. We will see... If you click on the picture you will go to a page with two pictures of Jay standing next to his prize specimens of Mulleins. Our mulleins are weeds that grow along railroad tracks and in vacant city lots. Back in early 2004 Jay brought one home from a vacant lot near where he works and planted it in the back yard to see how it would grow in decent soil— the result that year is the picture on the left with Jay proudly showing the heights his specimen grew to that year. Since then we have had mulleins sprout up in the yard and flower beds, which we simply easily pull up while leaving a few to grow and flower. This year a number of them came up in the side yard flower bed and they really looked cool in the spring and early summer, like large fuzzy cabbage heads, making the flower bed dramatic. I left a few in the front yard, one sentinel one continues blooming even still and the picture to the right is of Jay with this prize plant— at least a foot taller than the original 2004 specimen. What fun! :)

I talked with Carol on the phone yesterday and the news is great as her white cells have begun to return and she is slowly beginning to feel better and heal from the ravages of her intense chemo-therapy. Thanks for all the good thoughts everyone has sent, keep up the good work.

More later, enjoy the weekend and don't believe anything you receive in emails that asks you to be alarmed about something— check it out, look it up. You are on a computer, use it. Ciao.

I know a lot about cars. I can look at a car's headlights and tell you exactly which way it's coming.— Mitch Hedberg

8/5/09:
Hey, it has cooled down here... what a change. The zucchini is "ripe" and prolific once again— if only it had more food value, we could feed the world. I made "lasagna" Sunday, replacing noodles with large slices of zucchini. Yummy.

The picture is of my back a couple of weeks ago, after spending much of an afternoon at the allergy doctor's office. I had allergy shots for several years and did have significant improvement in my allergies, being able to return to wearing contacts for many years. The last few years have found me more sensitive again, with added itchy/red/gooey eyes so I went in to get re-tested, thinking I was now allergic to more things. Nothing new was discovered in the many tests, although they actually do not test for all the contents of the world. I continue allergic to dogs and dust mites in particular. Interestingly I did not test allergic for penicillin either on my skin or with a blood test. I had a bad rash from ampicillin in the 1970s and so have not received any "cillins" since. Now what? Yikes... I have an appointment for early September to have an "oral challenge" test with penicillin and have to be in the office for 4 hours after taking some— or less if I react and get zapped with adrenaline because I am having a good time. More on that later.

My friend Carol has not begun making white blood cells yet, but she is working hard. More good vibes needed, keep them coming!

The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet.— William Gibson

8/2/09:
And the flowers just keep coming... yes, a small close-up of my newly-blooming yellow glads. Click on it— it links to a cool contemporary still life photo Jay took Saturday after photographing the hummingbird. Yes, a cool picture of our kitchen counter with both of us reflected in the toaster...

My friends Carol continues her battle with Devic's disease, struggling now through the Mucositis that follows chemotherapy. She has extensive ulceration and inflammation in her mouth and all the way through her digestive tract, a very painful and challenging condition after all she has been through. If you know Carol send her a card at UW Hospital, if not good vibes continue to be welcome...

Here's hoping for a more comfortable week for Carol, ciao.

Without music, life would be an error. The German imagines even God singing songs.— Friedrich Nietzsche

8/1/09:
The BIG HEAT that dominated this last week has subsided and now we are just hot and sunny. I have been working all year on getting my flowers and other perennials planted as I want them, recovering from our construction last year. I still have quite a bit to do but our flowers are in abundance and favored by neighborhood bees and hummingbirds. This morning another hummer was feeding outside our front window and Jay was able to catch it on camera. If you click on the hummingbird picture to the left you will see a larger picture taken through the front, screened window— he is a little hard to make out, in the middle of the picture.

This last week was pretty long for me. On top of the heat I had part of my left foot sliced off Wednesday at the dermatologist's and am now hobbling about some. After having a dysplastic mole removed from my back in 2001 I was told to have a yearly skin check, which I have had done 3 times since then, the last being a bit over a year ago. My visit Wednesday resulted in another punch biopsy of a mole on the outer edge of my left foot. Many, many stitches later I left the doctor's office mid-afternoon on the hottest day of the week, fondly anticipating getting home and putting my foot up. Not the case. Instead my car, parked in full sun, did not start and I waited for AAA to send a truck to jump my 3 year old car again for the second time in less than 2 weeks. Crap. I then drove to get my battery checked, went home and called the dealer, drove to the dealer and left my car– Jay picked me up. What a long afternoon! I cannot wear my regular shoes because they cause too much pressure on my stitches and I cannot swim until it is all healed, so the adventure continues— more later on that...

This last week included other, more important, adventures. My friend Carol finished 6 days of round-the-clock chemo infusions to destroy her immune system and Monday received her own stem cells back to re-build it. I talked with her Wednesday evening and she had worked with PT that day, walking a little with a walker. Carol has worked hard and maintained an incredibly good attitude, not like the pity-party I disintegrate into. Send good vibes...

Patience is needed with everyone, but first of all with ourselves.— Saint Francis De Sales

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