moon phases

Started this before change to "New Blogger", as backup in case of trouble with digiphoto blog "In a Small Dark Room", or rants & links blog "Hello Cruel World" . Useful - at one stage Dark Room was there, but like the astrophysical Dark Matter, we could't see it ... better now, but kept Just In Case.

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There is nothing. There is no God and no universe, there is only empty space, and in it a lost and homeless and wandering and companionless and indestructible Thought. And I am that thought. And God, and the Universe, and Time, and Life, and Death, and Joy and Sorrow and Pain only a grotesque and brutal dream, evolved from the frantic imagination of that same Thought.
Mark Twain (letter to Joseph Twichell after his wife's death)
[me, on a bad day]

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WRITER'S LINKS
Absolute Write Paypal donation button:

Absolute Write is one of the leading sites for information on writing and publishing, especially the scam versions thereof. It has a broad, deep online community with an enormous message base going back years. Now it needs help. See the details and discussion here
Preditors and Editors
Everything you wanted to know about literary agents
On the getting of agents
Writer Beware
Miss Snark
Writer's Net

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(and my Wish List)

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Health in the USA - Words Fail (Repeated from Earlier)  

Health Care Horror post, from 2006, though original story is 1998. I'm worried this lady isn't around any more

CONSUMER WATCH
Home » Protecting Patients » Patient Told To Reuse Colostomy Bag For 5 Days
PERMALINK: www.consumerwatchdog.org/ patients/ articles/ ?storyId=16193

Repeating the whole story here, because the link's changed at least once already, and might get lost. As a fellow colostomate, this is a particular horror for me.

CONSUMER STORY — May 06, 1998
Patient Told To Reuse Colostomy Bag For 5 Days
Consumer Watchdog
Michelle Leasure - Baltimore, MD
As told by Michelle Leasure:

I am a disability advocate and work for an agency that not only serves the disability community, but is staffed by people with disabilities. I have several disabilities, one of which is an incontinent ostomy. I do not have control over my bowels, and must wear a colostomy bag to contain my waste. Under Maryland law, ostomy supplies are 100% covered by insurance agencies.

When my employer changed insurance providers on September 1, 1997, I could no longer get the supplies I required to live. I have had my ostomy for three years and this was the first time I had ever had problems. I fought with my insurer for two months before I received any supplies, and at that time the supplies were incomplete. Many of the doctor-prescribed items were denied as unneeded, so I was forced to purchase them myself.

At the time, my salary was $500 a year above the poverty level and I soon found myself in financial trouble as a result. When the few supplies I got at that time ran out, my co-workers and myself went back to battle with my insurer, and it was January before I received more supplies, again not all that I needed.

I was told by my insurer that I was expected to use disposable bags for five days each. Now pardon me for being so graphic, but it's necessary. I work in the public arena, and I was expected to (and this is verbatim) "wash the bags out in the public restrooms that I frequent, walk (I use a wheelchair) to the sink with my ostomy exposed, and finish washing the feces out into the sink, then reattach it to my flange." It would be the same thing as asking a mother to empty a diaper, rinse it out in the sink and reapply it to her baby for five days.

I have systemic lupus, so I also have a compromised immune system. To even ask anyone, let alone a person with immune problems, to use public restrooms in such a fashion, is sheer and absolute insanity.

In mid-April, I finally received a full month supply of ostomy products, but I had been out from work for 2 1/2 months, living in my bathtub, because I had not had the supplies for that long. I even spent a week in a nursing home as a result of this and had another stroke, requiring a hospital stay, because of the stress from this battle.

I am a person who could get the medical benefits I require from Medical Assistance if I were to quit work and go on welfare. The bizarre thing is, I want to work--and I am paying into the system, but cannot get the services I'm entitled to and work so hard for.

I was supposed to have corrective surgery to fix the bilateral spinal implants that "fell out" of their socket and are currently free-floating in my right side. I actually have to push them back inside my body several times a day and night. My insurer has only one doctor they will allow me to see that can do the work on the implants and he is unavailable to see me until the end of May. That is just to see him--I have no idea if he will be able to schedule the surgery then, or if I will have to wait another six months. I cannot stand the discomfort much longer.

I have been told that because of the ERISA loophole my insurer is protected from legal liability for delaying and denying the medical care that I so badly need. I am convinced that if I were able to hold my insurer legally accountable I would be getting more attentive care.

Labels: colostomy, health, health insurance, insurance, medical, medical insurance, USA

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 3:50 am

 
Dust Day (23rd September, 2009) in Sydney  

I raced up & took some photos from my flats' roof, trying to match some of the views I've taken on clear days, plus a few more that I thought looked good. It did have this strange effect — the feeling that "either there's so much stuff in the air it can't get into my lungs, or there's something missing from what is getting in" on my ventures out
that kept them brief.

Here's the link to the Flickr set
www.flickr.com/ photos/ sketchesbymez/ sets/ 72157622437316334

One of the pictures has become quite popular, which is pleasing and terrifying in equal measure. (In this Flickr Gallery by Tom Coates, and two ABC slideshows) I've had trouble with my image editor, so didn't put a watermark on any before I uploaded, which means it doesn't always have attribution (snarl). This has spurred me to getting a dedicated little watermarking program. It's like backing up data; so many people don't really get it working until they've had that first really bad experience.



There are a lot of other pictures and descriptions online. The Terrorgraph had a whole multipage supplement about it the next day.

Adelaide is *seething*, 'cos they've been getting days like this for years and haven't had nearly so much attention <sound of
sulking>, and Melburnians are pulling out their memories of the spectacular cloud that hit them back in February 1983, a week before the Ash Wednesday Fires — see Australian Bureau of Statistics (www.abs.gov.au) on Natural Disasters.

Health Update: Friend's Stroke
Alex is definitely improving, but until they put in a different tracheotomy setup, still can't talk. He can write, but poorly, and is exercising his working right side. I assume there's some physiotherapy for the leg & arm he can't move voluntarily. They've been able to put him into a sort of super-armchair on wheels so he can go out into the lounge near the lifts to get a change of scene, look out the windows (the ward ones face blank wall) & have 'private' talks. He still gets frustrated & depressed, understandably; as do I, & his other friends.

History Tour Links
Last weekend, a friend helped me get through an ABC-linked history walking tour. This is the photo album on the 702 ABC Sydney Facebook account (702 ABC Sydney) [open, public, you don't have to sign in or be registered on FaceBook], called Slurry Hills and Razorhurst History Walk; also a note on their blog. Good, but laid me up for 2-3 days — mostly recovering Just In Time for Dust Day.

Labels: friends, health, medical, photos, stroke, Sydney, weather

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 9:34 am

 
Rootedness & connection: where to లైవ్  
At the end of the block behind my house is a site that used to be, in the late 1920s, an orange juice bottling factory. My mother was born on the kitchen table, either of the house I'm in or one in the block behind which was demolished for a warehouse, since demolished while I lived here for a block of flats.

She had to leave school at the age of 13 because she was the eldest girl and her mother had just had twins (One is the only survivor of that generation now). She was needed to help look after the other 3 children and the house. Underage, she had to go to night school, until aged 15 when she could legally leave, or a bit after, as The Great Depression hit in 1929. That juice factory so close to home was her first job. (Later, older, she would walk to another workplace in Glebe around where the Max Factor building is or was. (She walked to save tram fare. I caught the 459 bus when I worked in the area, but now you have to walk again because of the success of the Public Transport Prevention Group.)

For many years the 1920s-style building was almost unchanged, I knew it as a tubing wholesaler (tho' you could also go in & get the odd length of conduit or whatever if you needed it). As the City West development went ahead, & fancied up the place a bit (& put in rental incentives) they moved or closed and DCC (ECC?) Electrical(?) opened up, full of unaffordable & sometimes beautiful light fittings and related objects. Some years later they moved to the Eastern Suburbs, like DeCeCe and that Gallery whose name I've forgotten, which was in the top floor of the City West Building behind the park on Gipps/Harris/Pyrmont Bridge. In the moving sale I could afford the light fitting that will go into the upstairs back room if/when all the work is done.

Empty for a while, it became the Liberal Party HQ for the election that Kerry Chikarovski was leader. Lord, I was tempted to write out a screed of criticism and suggestions for them, make a hundred copies, post a few to them, scatter them around inside, tape them on the windows and power poles, etc.

Now it's been demolished and a bigger block of flats built there. It would have made a nice small block just rejigged, but that wasn't enough profit.


This is the sort of thing that makes me feel connected and rooted in a place, even though I grew up in a different suburb, and reluctant to move away. I could move back to where I grew up, which has fairly good transport. facilities and 'amenity', but is considerably further from the hospital and its services. It may have good local government social services, but I believe the local health area is having problems. Property is very expensive there, I'd go back to my parents' flat unless I could afford my grandmother's semi-detached cottage, single story with a garden (what I'd prefer).
Another possibility is a nice place I stayed on Wigram Rd in Glebe, single story with a garden but close to transport and shops. Now the 459 bus is gone, getting to the city & on to hospital is worse, even with Light Rail added, but it's on the same side of the Harbour.

Labels: family, health, history, Pyrmont, Sydney

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 10:46 pm

 
Yet more trouble  
Went into yet another tailspin on Wednesday when, after sending back some work by email, my boss sent me her calculations on how much leave I had. It worked out that there were about 3 weeks left before I went onto leave without pay, unless I worked some extra days, either at home or going in.

I thought this meant that I couldn't afford to rent, and would have to move back to my own place, still in need of repairs and with much other difficulties, including having a 'transfer of care', with all my non-direct medical and social care (everything but chemotherapy) coming through a different health area — probably Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. After a while, and some talking with a number of people, I think with some juggling I can manage to still rent during my (indefinitely-timed) treatment, keeping me close to St Vincent's Hospital, and get repairs done to my house during that time, so I can move back there afterwards. We will see. It may be too close to the wind for me.

Medical: Blood tests from last week weren't good enough to have second dose of chemotherapy, so it was postponed to this Friday (7th March). When I went in for blood tests and to talk to the social worker, etc, I found that the appointment hadn't been moved, so the drugs weren't ordered, etc, and they had to move my next chemotherapy date to Monday 10th March. Lord knows what will happen to my chemotherapy dates around Easter, steaming up behind us quite quickly.

Labels: health, housing, medical

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 8:18 pm

 
Boyer Lectures online  
I'm alerting y'all to the start of the 2007 Boyer Lectures. This series (the 48th) is called Restoring The Senses. It's available streaming, or as a podcast or transcript from www.abc.net.au/rn/boyerlectures (don't be put off by the short excursion into philosophy/theology near the beginning). Their summary:

"Professor Graeme Clark, creator of the bionic ear, is ABC Radio National's Boyer lecturer for 2007. In this series of six lectures … Professor Clark draws on decades of experience as a clinician, surgeon and researcher to celebrate our senses. He also tells the compelling story of how the bionic ear was created, and provides an insight into the extraordinary future of bionics."

Archives, either as transcripts or audio recordings, back as far as 1997 are also available on the ABC site.

Labels: audio, biology, health, medicine, nature, science

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 11:09 am

 
Scientific American: Flu child death rate increase; Might have pre-emptive vaccine  
In Australia there's been what seems to be a similar situation, except as our population is < 10 % of the USA, so is our death toll.
Flu killed 68 children in USA this season: CDC

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Influenza killed at least 68 children in America during the latest flu season and a third of them had a worrying new complication, U.S. health officials said on Thursday.
The 2006-2007 annual flu season never reached epidemic stage, but doctors should keep a lookout for such dangerous cases in children, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
The CDC issued an alert in May for deaths of children who were infected with both flu and a bacteria called Staphylococcus aureus, or staph. It said 21 of the children who died also had such infections, some of them resistant to antibiotics.
"Only one pediatric death with influenza and S. aureus coinfection had been reported during 2004-05, and three had been reported during the 2005-06 season," the CDC report said.

I'm trying to not spend as much time on working this blog, but sometimes I throw in something like this. Maybe this one's less cheerful than others — here's something more hopeful:
New vaccine may beat bird flu before it starts

Labels: epidemiology, health, history, medicine

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 11:32 am

 
Health Care Horrors cont.: Current UK Experience of Privatizing Public Health Systems  

The Joys of Privatization: Public Health (Current UK Experience)

Second patient dies following oxygen switch
by Celia Hall
(Filed: 18/02/2006)
www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/main.jhtml?xml=/ news/2006/02/18/ noxy18.xml&sSheet=/news/ 2006/02/18/ixhome.html

A second woman has died after chaos in the system to supply oxygen at home, which was switched to private companies at the beginning of the month ...
Mr Brady, 74, a retired engineer, said that his wife had needed three bottles of oxygen a week and that he had been unable to get through by telephone to the supplying company, Air Products, ...
The day after she died he received a call about a delivery the following day

GPs told to abandon private suppliers of oxygen
by Sam Lister, Health Correspondent

www.timesonline.co.uk/article/ 0,,2-2046106,00.html

FAMILY doctors unable to obtain oxygen for their patients were advised last night to abandon the newly privatised supply service and revert to an old system to ensure that more lives were not put at risk.
As the private companies responsible for the new service continued to struggle with demand, pharmacies throughout England and Wales were asked to restart their service ...

Pharmacy leaders described the situation as shambolic and said that many chemists were now out of stock after the Government’s decision to end their £18 million contract. They said that the Government had ignored numerous warnings of the chaos that would ensue if the supply systems were suddenly switched, but had carried on regardless ...

thousands of patients have been unable to get mobile oxygen cylinders, which cost about £7.50. Some have been given £1,500 “concentrator” units instead, which they described as wholly impractical and an alarming waste of money and resources.

Blunder left trail of lethal radiation
The Times
February 18, 2006
by Andrew Norfolk

www.timesonline.co.uk/article/ 0,,2-2046104,00.html
Safety cap left off toxic cargo as it travelled 130 miles across Britain

A LETHAL beam of radiation was emitted from a casket containing highly radioactive waste on a three-and-a-half-hour road journey across England, it was disclosed yesterday.

Thousands of people were put at risk by the “cavalier” attitude of workers for the privatised company in charge of transporting the hospital waste.

Only by “pure chance” was no one directly exposed to the high concentration of cobalt-60 gamma rays that streamed from the container because of the failure to install a lead safety plug.

Radiation levels up to 1,000 times higher than a high dose rate were found ... Fortunately, the narrowly focused beam was directed downwards. Had the rays escaped horizontally, they would have contaminated anyone within 330 yards of the vehicle ...
AEA Technology (AEAT) was guilty of a series of failings: the company used
the wrong safety packaging, and had not noticed the missing safety plug.

It failed to take up an offer of training in the use of the packaging and important safety documents were signed by a member of staff who had no formal training in radiation protection, he said.

The prosecutor said “The risk created . . . was foreseeable and the degree of that risk was significant. There is no “safe” dose of ionising radiation. If no one was directly exposed to the beam, that was a matter of pure chance.”

Labels: health, health insurance, medical, privatisation, privatization, UK

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 12:11 am