Ear Wax

This worked so well for me that I want to spread the word about it in case it can help someone else. The problem? Excess ear wax. Kind of embarrassing to talk about but I've suffered from it for all my life, to the point of having to have drainage tubes in my ears to prevent the multiple infections that were actually threatening my hearing as a child, and ending up in the ER once around New Year's Eve of 2006 thinking I was having a stroke or something, but it was actually excess ear wax pressing on my ear drum, which caused me to be dizzy, nauseous, have trouble walking, and my blood pressure spiked to 210/100.
The cure?
Alpha Lipoic Acid.
My mother read about this recently. She told me and I thought it was worth a try. Most of these "miracle cures" are half-assed at best and really costly, but this literally worked within five days. I still get ear wax (we do need some) but it's drier, far less copious, and way more manageable.
Alpha Lipoic Acid is a simple antioxidant. It costs around $10 for 100 capsules and is available in any natural food store. I'm not being comped in any way for saying this. I use the Now brand, which is usually the least expensive of the natural supplements brands. I just wanted to let anyone else who might be troubled by excess ear wax know that there is a possible, very inexpensive solution that may work for you too!

Aides and Techs

Aides and techs usually get the ass end of everything, from the patient themselves to the way they are treated by some doctors and nurses. But without these VERY NECESSARY people, those with the more respected licensure would be having to take care of all the ass end stuff themselves, so it's time to show more respect to the "foot soldiers" of the medical world.

This is a comment I made on a friend's blog regarding my maternal grandmother.

My grandmother had an 8th grade education because she had to go to work early on. She always thought that she was stupid. She wasn't. She worked as an orderly in a mental hospital until she was forced to retire at age 65, and she actually liked working with the patients. She knew more about them than the psychiatrists did. It's sad how society de-values people in essential positions like this.

My grandmother, unfortunately, had a very low self-esteem. Being born a girl in a very large farm family, she learned early on that boys were thought to be more valuable. All of her life she worked very hard. She took some physical abuse from her frustrated mother, who probably had psychological problems. There is a history of psych issues in that family. My grandmother suffered from periods of depression throughout her life and after she was forced to retire, she suffered from alcoholism.

Unfortunately, my grandmother's low self-esteem kept her from making decisions that might have helped her at least feel a bit better about herself. At one point the state of New York was allowing medical aides to take a test to be able to get their LPN license without having to go through training. My grandmother thought that she was "too stupid," so she never took the test. I'm quite certain that with her experience, she could have passed.

Many people who work as aides seem to come from difficult circumstances and to feel that they are a lesser kind of person, not just as far as their rank at work but as far as their rank in life. Costs for schooling are often prohibitive even with financial aid, and many aides are single mothers and finding the time to go to school is nearly if not completely impossible. It's a shame.

Working as an aide is very difficult. It's little wonder that so many become burnt out and frustrated.

I always hate it when people tell me I'm a "special person" for doing this work. Hell, I'm just buying my time looking for an out. I'm not special at all. The ones who are special are the ones who really like doing it and who are really committed to it in spite of the shit pay and the shit treatment they receive. Now those are the folks that deserve our total respect and admiration. Not some silly twat gallavanting around from party to party, forgetting her thong somewhere along the way. *cough*ParisHilton*cough* Nor some overpaid, ill-tempered sports figure or spoiled Hollywood star. No, the folks that deserve the "star treatment" are those who are overlooked at every turn--the people who care for the elderly and infirm, and who are truly devoted to their profession. They are truly a rare breed and the world is better for their having been here.

The people whom my grandmother cared for would say a million thanks if they could, I'm sure. I bet that there were a lot of sad folks at the state hospital the day that she retired. Because she really was an advocate for them. And people in that position have so few in their lives who really care. For some of them, my grandmother may have been the first and only one who did.

Caregiver Stress

This is from the Life Script Healthy Advantage Newsletter. My mother is caregiver for my father, who suffered a hemorrhagic stroke that left him partially paralyzed on his right side. She has developed high blood pressure and often says "I swear that taking care of him is going to kill me!"
My mother is basically quite healthy, other than having had a hip replacement a year and a half ago and cataract surgery six months ago. But my father has a lot of needs and has always been sort of a "high maintenance" individual.
Here is the article.

Sick Spouse Shortens One's Life
Having a spouse or partner who suffers from debilitating illness raises one's own risk of premature death, a new study finds. The study, conducted by Harvard Medical School researchers, was recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers studied medical records from more than 500,000 elderly couples, tracking the health status of both partners over the course of nine years. According to the results of their study, researchers concluded that the phenomenon known as the "bereavement effect" or "caregiver burden" appears to be grounded in statistics. Men and women with sick spouses were up to five times more likely than their peers to die from a variety of causes, including suicide, accidents, infections and undiagnosed conditions.

"Aging In Place"

Completely exhausted and don't see any sign of it letting up any time soon. This is the second job I've had that I've kept for more than about a year and a half but things around here get stupider every day thanks to the fact that my boss Alvin N. Chipmunkk really doesn't know jack shit about health care (he ran a failing landscaping business before one of his buddies hired him as an administrator here) and he kowtows to all the family members who insist that their falling-apart loved ones don't need more care.

We currently have one woman who fell a dozen times within a week. We're doing night checks on her. I don't know why the hell she isn't being assessed for neurological problems. She's o.k. if she is the one that calls us, but the idea of taking her to the bathroom at scheduled times is right out because she can be a real bitch if she hasn't called us.

This is supposed to be the "independent living" part of the facility. People who are here are supposed to either be able to handle most things on their own with a modicum of assistance, such as having medications delivered or a stand-by assist for a shower, things of that nature. Or they are supposed to have home care because in this part of the facility there is one aide 24 hours a day for some 200 apartments and a nurse for 8-10 hours. We aren't supposed to act in an assisted living or health care capacity--that's what assisted living and health care are for! But with Alvin, these rules aren't really enforced. He's more about telling the families what they want to hear and kissing ass to the CEO's, who also don't happen to know jack shit about health care, just about the bottom line.

I'm waiting for this woman who keeps falling to break her hip or such. Or for one of these people that keeps leaving the stove on to set the place on fire. And then there are people like the demented lady who takes off her Depends and then the inevitable happens. At least the family finally got a part time aide for her, but when the aide isn't here, she will do things like leave her stove on. She once got out a wine glass which she subsequently broke. She was found stark naked trying to clean up the pieces of glass. Its a miracle she didn't cut herself.

But CEO Gloria Bee thinks that "aging in place" sounds so very wonderful. And it does sound wonderful. And maybe it could even work--if she would listen to the people who have to deal with it! But that ain't gonna happen. Any more than junior CEO Agnes Tin-Horne is going to stop throwing her weight around or Alvin is going to grow a backbone when it comes to pushy family members. In the end they will lose frustrated staff (we're already a skeleton crew) and replace them with the kind of "crack crew" that the good workers at the casino where I used to work ended up being replaced with. In other words, some crackhead that walks in off the street. And beyond that, the residents will be the ones who end up suffering all for some paper-pusher's idea of something that sounds great in theory but in reality is far more complex than they can possibly imagine.

Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act

This is an email I got from a friend. Here is a post on her blog regarding a woman who endured a double mastectomy recently and was given the boot shortly after she woke up from anesthesia.

Something important for you to consider.

From a nurse:

I'll never forget the look in my patients eyes when I had to tell them they had to go home with the drains, new exercises and no breast.
I remember begging the Doctors to keep these women in the hospital longer, only to hear that they would, but their hands were tied by the insurance companies.
So there I sat with my patients, giving them the instructions they needed to take care of themselves, knowing full well they didn't grasp half of what I was saying, because the glazed, hopeless, frightened look spoke louder than the quiet 'Thank You' they muttered.

A mastectomy is when a woman's breast is removed in order to remove cancerous breast cells/tissue.
If you know anyone who has had a Mastectomy, you may know that there is a lot of discomfort and pain afterwards.
Insurance companies are trying to make mastectomies an outpatient procedure.
Let's give women the chance to recover properly in the hospital for 2 days after surgery.

It takes 2 seconds to do this and is very important .. Please take the time and do it really quick!
Please send this to everyone in your address book.
If there was ever a time when our voices and choices should be heard, this is one of those times.
If you're receiving this, it's because I think you will take the 30 seconds to go to vote on this issue and send it on to others.
You know who will do the same.

There's a bill called the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act which will require Insurance Companies to cover a minimum 48-hour hospital stay for patients undergoing a mastectomy. It's about eliminating the 'drive-through mastectomy' where women are forced to go home just a
few hours after surgery, against the wishes of their doctor, still groggy from anesthesia and sometimes with drainage tubes still attached.

Lifetime Television has put this bill on their Web page with a petition drive to show your support. Last year over half the House signed on.

PLEASE!! Sign the petition by clicking on the Web site below. You need not give more than your name and zip code number.

http://www.lifetimetv.com/breastcancer/petition/signpetition.php

This takes about 2 seconds.
PLEASE PASS THIS ON to your friends and family, and on behalf of all women, THANKS!!! :-)