The Cheese Is In The House

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The rest of it fits, but actually I'm not the cheating kind. I'm quite monogamous by nature.

IBS = Fun (NOT!!!!)

Warning: graphic, crude, visceral humor as a way with coping with a messy and painful condition.
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According to medical textbooks, IBS stands for Irritable Bowel Syndrome. My son has more accurate words to assign to those hated letters. Those words are I Be Shittin'. And it is the truth. But if that were the only problem, it would just be an annoyance. However, with those excessive bowel movements comes screamingly painful abdominal cramps, sweating, chills, shaking legs, and a desire to drive a harpoon through one's abdomen and end the agony.
This has, comparatively, been less bad than some occasions when the pain was bad enough to rival labor cramps, but still, no picnic. There have been a couple times when the pain was so bad I thought about going to the ER. This time I just have a hot abdomen, some painful cramps although not knock-me-over painful, and the inconvenience of having to go to the can every 15 minutes.
How do I know its IBS and not just something I ate?
The bowel movements with IBS, at least in my case, are often normal consistency, they are just too frequent, and there are accompanying abdominal cramps. I sometimes have constipation, sometimes diarrhea. But whatever the case, this shit sucks. I guess I just have to count my blessings that a bad bout generally only happens about once a month. Some people have to face the horror daily.

Blood Pressure

I watched a forensic pathology show which featured the tragic story of a man in his late 30's who had developed schizophrenia after 2 severe head injuries in his youth. He ended up in a halfway house. While there he died in his sleep. The medical examiner found that untreated high blood pressure had contributed to atherosclerosis, which in turn contributed to thickening of his heart, which in turn contributed to fluid on his lungs. That scared me into finding my blood pressure cuff. My blood pressure has been high normal to borderline high for a couple of years. Today it was 157/85 while resting. That ain't too good. My brother had to start taking blood pressure meds when he was 35. He is not overweight. I am overweight, but I'm not sure how much is the weight and how much is heredity. I could definitely stand to lose a pound or 50.
I'm going to monitor my blood pressure daily for the next week and make an appointment with the doctor. My current doctor is pretty conservative about prescribing medications so if he thinks I should try a blood pressure med, I will. My mother, unfortunately, has had a terrible time with side effects from blood pressure meds. I tend to be pretty intolerant of most meds as a rule, so it could be a challenge.
I used to take Inderal for hand tremors but then discovered that the tremors only happened around the time of my period, so I stopped. The only side effect was that it made me tired, but I'm tired all the time anyway. I'll take it again if I have to. It's better than developing atherosclerosis, which also happened to my father, who had untreated high blood pressure and ended up having a hemorrhagic stroke 4 years ago. I've been having more heart palpitations recently and it's kinda worrying me.

My Apology

I submitted this on Joe Apology in August of 08. It still applies.

To the Residents in My Care
Though you never see me grumble to your face, I do it behind your back before I come into your room when you need something. It isn't you personally. It's just that I'm tired all the time and never get enough rest. This position is so easy compared to what I used to do that I really don't have the right to be grumbling but to be honest I'd rather be napping or writing or playing computer games than taking care of you. Sorry I'm such an asshole. I actually do care about what happens to you. I'm just old before my time and crusty inside.

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!!! :-)

There isn't always a positive outcome

This is a piece of a response to a friend whose husband died of cancer in December. While at a parade, the American Cancer Society was tossing t-shirts and she happened to get one that said "survivor," and it infuriated her. Can't blame her there. The shirt actually served to remind her that her husband did not survive, but she did and now has to go on without him. This did not inspire Pollyanna "the sun will come out tomorrow" feelings, it inspired sorrow and hopelessness. Maybe "that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger," but like any cliche, it also pisses you off.

I did say more than is written below but this is the only part that's relevant to the point I want to make.

My father gets the Stroke Connection magazine and he feels about it's approach the way you felt about the t-shirt. Not everyone survives cancer, and not everyone who has a stroke makes a full recovery and is able to go back to a productive life. While giving hope these organizations should also not be forgetting about the reality, about the people grieving the loved ones lost to cancer, about people grieving the functions lost to stroke.

Stroke Connection tends to focus on stories of people who have made good recoveries, in order to give new survivors hope, I think. In 2004, my father had a hemorrhagic stroke that affected the basal ganglion area of his brain. He did make some recovery, but he still walks very slowly and must use a walker. He never did get much function back in his right hand. He feels very bitter and disappointed. He wrote to Stroke Connection and told them that they should include stories about the other half of the people who had a stroke and did not have a miraculous recovery, who are enduring day to day. And I agree with him. The magazine is basically a good thing and he likes reading it, but he'd like to hear about more people like him who have to deal with being permanently quite handicapped.

I'm not trying to condemn the good works done by the American Cancer Society and the American Heart Association, just imparting a thought.

Hemorrhages on the Sclera

This is what my eye looks like right now. This actually isn't my very own eye, but, interestingly, the picture I found is the same color as my eyes. So, this is what my eye looks like right now.

This can happen from trauma, even trauma such as a really forceful cough, but in my case it happens spontaneously when I am very exhausted and/or under a lot of stress.

Today I told my son that if it weren't for the fact that I take B vitamins and eat meat, I would think I was anemic as exhausted as I was feeling. I slept most of the day away. (well, I do work nights...) Tonight when I saw myself in the mirror, my eye looked like this. Ah hell...

As for stresses, well, the financial ones never end. It's on my mind constantly.

The Chubby Curmudgeon Strikes Back

Here was my forum response to this article. I liked what poured out of my slimy little brain, so I'll repeat it!
I am a 43 year old person who has, sadly, put on quite a bit of weight over the last 15 years, in part due to admittedly less than perfect eating habits, in part due to medication and health conditions such as hypothyroidism and polycystic ovarian syndrome. However, I am no less healthy than my slimmer co-workers. I have only called in sick twice in the past three years. I had to go to the emergency room once a little over a year ago--for ear wax that was pressing against the ear drum and caused me vertigo and also a frightening blood pressure spike. Hypertension runs in my family, but it doesn't seem to have anything to do with weight. My brother, who is now 39, had to start taking blood pressure medication in his early 30's, and he is not overweight. My blood pressure is on the borderline and I'm watching it. But I still don't have to take medication for it yet. The medications I take are lithium for bipolar disorder (which does cause weight gain) and thyroid medication. I am also fairly active, so the myth that all heavy people do is sit around eating is just that--a myth. Most of the big people I have known have been hard-working folk. Rather than engaging in prejudiced behavior against one segment of the population, let us try to find a solution that works for everybody.

Terrible and Funny Tales From The E.R.

For a good time click here.

How Low Can You Go?

Does it get any lower than stealing from the poor and the elderly?

The people in the retirement community where I work like displaying decorations and knick-knacks on the doors and shelves outside their apartments. Usually nothing gets taken. But one lady likes to display wreaths on her door for various holidays. Her Valentine wreath had a bunch of tiny dolls among the decorative pink and white heart garland. Some lowlife clipped all the dolls from the wreath.
Why would anyone do that?
In another incident, a woman had been "working" retirement communities in the area. Our building is locked at night but during the day it is open. This woman came in, knocked on one of the residents' doors and pretended she was looking for someone, asking the resident if she could help. The perpetrator then said she was thirsty and asked for a glass of water. While the resident was getting the water, the woman stole her purse. She then proceeded to chat with the resident for a few more minutes before leaving. A few days later there were reports in the paper of similar incidents at other retirement homes.
None of this helped calm the unfortunate victim of this unsettling crime, who was an Austrian immigrant that had lived through the horrors of World War II. Her cognitive abilities were declining and that in itself was causing severe anxiety. The night after the incident she called me to her apartment. I talked to her for 20 minutes in an attempt to calm her but I fear I wasn't able to do much good. Then her abilities to care for herself at all began to decline. I'll never be sure how much of this was psychosomatic. She ended up in the hospital and from there was transferred to our facility's health care center. She never returned to her apartment, dying in the health care center a few months later. She completely shut down emotionally and her physical faculties followed.
Granted, "Gwenda's" short term memory was beginning to fail her, but before this incident she would walk around the building twice a day for exercise and every morning before I went home she would be there at the office for her medicines with a cheery "Gud Mornink, how are you?" After she was victimized, she became a terrified shell of herself. While she didn't say so, I'm sure that the invasion of her home brought back memories of a frightening time in her existence, perhaps some that she had repressed for years. Her drastic decline following her victimization was shocking and, I think, completely unnecessary.
Shame on those who victimize the most vulnerable so callously! But due to the fact that they have no conscience, I suppose that they feel no shame.

Virus Du Jour

There's some sort of ugly virus going around. It seems to mostly affect the upper respiratory system, particularly the throat, although there are signs that it might eventually move to the bronchi. I had an explosive, uncontrollable dry cough all day. I thought it was allergies. But tonight my throat became sore and I lost my voice. I also had a rasping wheeze for most of the night. When this disappeared it actually freaked me out a bit. I think this is due to the fact that 5.5 years ago I had pneumonia. The combination of the coughing and being on inhaled steroids for several months eventually caused a severe laryngospasm and I ended up in the emergency room with severe stridor. I tried to tell the ER attendants that my lungs were filling up just fine, it was my throat that was the problem (felt like breathing through a cocktail straw) but they treated as for asthma. The albuterol only made my throat tighten worse. I told them this was the case and they gave me epinephrine, which dilated the tissues and blood vessels, providing relief. It turns out that the tissues in my larynx were so irritated that the cold air caused my larynx to constrict. Although not as severe, tonight's sensations reminded me of that frightening incident and I started having a panic attack. Luckily I was able to to stop it using homeopathic and herbal means, in this case Hylands Calms Forte and Kava. I don't like to take Valium if at all possible. It makes me feel funny and kind of fuzzy. But I like going to the ER even less.
At this point I'm trying not to cough because it will only cause worse irritation to the tissues in my throat and unwanted choking sensations. At this point the cough is semi-productive although there isn't any discomfort in my lungs, i.e. bronchitis. So far I'm pretty sure this is a virus and not strep. My throat isn't that sore and I'm not running a fever.
If you find yourself having to cough constantly, particularly an explosive dry cough, do what I should have done and nip it in the bud with some cough syrup so your throat doesn't end up as irritated as I let mine become. Normally I let minor cold and cough run their course, but I would have been advised to stop this one. Now I need to allow my throat to heal and deal with the unsettling gagging sensations that come with having irritating the tissue with so much coughing.

Genetic mutation stuff--eyes

I will freely admit that this is a direct rip-off from this article on MSN. I can't be arsed to rephrase it. But I find the information interesting. I'm very fascinated by genetics, but they lose me at the point when you get into all the ACGTU's. It becomes too mathematical for my addled mind.

Genetic mutation makes those brown eyes blue
Scientists find that blue-eyed individuals have a single, common ancestor

Carolyn Kaster / AP file
By Jeanna Bryner

updated 12:01 p.m. MT, Thurs., Jan. 31, 2008

How did actress Reese Witherspoon get those big blue eyes? A team of scientists has found that blue eyes are linked to a genetic mutation that occurred between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago.

People with blue eyes have a single, common ancestor, according to new research.

A team of scientists has tracked down a genetic mutation that leads to blue eyes. The mutation occurred between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago, so before then, there were no blue eyes.

"Originally, we all had brown eyes," said Hans Eiberg from the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Copenhagen.

The mutation affected the so-called OCA2 gene, which is involved in the production of melanin, the pigment that gives color to our hair, eyes and skin.

"A genetic mutation affecting the OCA2 gene in our chromosomes resulted in the creation of a 'switch,' which literally 'turned off' the ability to produce brown eyes," Eiberg said.

The genetic switch is located in the gene adjacent to OCA2 and rather than completely turning off the gene, the switch limits its action, which reduces the production of melanin in the iris. In effect, the turned-down switch diluted brown eyes to blue.

If the OCA2 gene had been completely shut down, our hair, eyes and skin would be melanin-less, a condition known as albinism.

"It's exactly what I sort of expected to see from what we know about selection around this area," said John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, referring to the study results regarding the OCA2 gene. Hawks was not involved in the current study.

Baby blues
Eiberg and his team examined DNA from mitochondria, the cells' energy-making structures, of blue-eyed individuals in countries including Jordan, Denmark and Turkey. This genetic material comes from females, so it can trace maternal lineages.

They specifically looked at sequences of DNA on the OCA2 gene and the genetic mutation associated with turning down melanin production.

Over the course of several generations, segments of ancestral DNA get shuffled so that individuals have varying sequences. Some of these segments, however, that haven't been reshuffled are called haplotypes. If a group of individuals shares long haplotypes, that means the sequence arose relatively recently in our human ancestors. The DNA sequence didn't have enough time to get mixed up.

"What they were able to show is that the people who have blue eyes in Denmark, as far as Jordan, these people all have this same haplotype, they all have exactly the same gene changes that are all linked to this one mutation that makes eyes blue," Hawks said in a telephone interview.

Melanin switch
The mutation is what regulates the OCA2 switch for melanin production. And depending on the amount of melanin in the iris, a person can end up with eye color ranging from brown to green. Brown-eyed individuals have considerable individual variation in the area of their DNA that controls melanin production. But they found that blue-eyed individuals only have a small degree of variation in the amount of melanin in their eyes.

"Out of 800 persons we have only found one person which didn't fit — but his eye color was blue with a single brown spot," Eiberg told LiveScience, referring to the finding that blue-eyed individuals all had the same sequence of DNA linked with melanin production.

"From this we can conclude that all blue-eyed individuals are linked to the same ancestor," Eiberg said. "They have all inherited the same switch at exactly the same spot in their DNA." Eiberg and his colleagues detailed their study in the Jan. 3 online edition of the journal Human Genetics.

That genetic switch somehow spread throughout Europe and now other parts of the world.

"The question really is, 'Why did we go from having nobody on Earth with blue eyes 10,000 years ago to having 20 or 40 percent of Europeans having blue eyes now?" Hawks said. "This gene does something good for people. It makes them have more kids."

New Changes

Once again I've decided it's best to combine the Medical Hodgepodge and Gerri Atrik Retirement Community blogs into one. Anecdotes about work and school as well as interesting things I learn will go here. All in one place. I like diversity, but enough's enough already.

World's Shortest Wedding

Wow, even Britney Spears' 10 hour wedding lasted longer than this! I decided to keep this the Medical Hodgepodge blog. I kind of like posting about my studies all on their own. My battle stories about the retirement community will now merge with the Strange Daze blog. Yeah, I know...who gives shit? Probably besides me, nobody. But I like to keep track.

It's A Nice Day for a Blog Wedding

Now hear this! The Medical Hodgepodge blog and the Gerri Atrik Retirement Community Blog have merged and become one for the sake of simplicity. The blog is now Caretaker's Hell. Read it and weep.

Genetically Modified Foods

This is from a biology class discussion on genetically modified foods.

While there might be advantages to having crops that are pest resistant, would the same mutations that make them pest resistant also produce negative effects in humans? For instance, might these foods take on qualities that may be carcinogenic? While there is no problem with creating hybrid foods that are already eaten by humans, for instance an apple with mixed qualities of two different apples or if the aspects of an orange and a grapefruit were combined, I personally don't wish to eat foods that have been altered in ways that might be detrimental and until the products of an insect-resistant super-crop are proved not to be detrimental to humans and domestic animals, I don't want to be consuming it.
I personally don't use products such as milk containing BGH. Maybe there is nil negative effect, but maybe not. Wherever possible, when it comes to food, I prefer not to mess with Mother Nature.