Tuesday, November 17
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Tomorrow is the anniversary of the Jonestown mass suicide. For no apparent reason (other than morbid curiosity), I was looking at the Wikipedia entry for this and ended up looking at other cases of mass suicides, which then led me to an entry on mass hysteria.
That’s when I saw something called…I kid you not…”Penis Panic.”
Make no mistake, Japan doesn’t like fat people. Japan has some of the world’s lowest rates of obesity — less than 5 percent, compared to nearly 35 percent for the United States
Concerned about rising weights, Japanese lawmakers last year set a maximum waistline size for anyone age 40 and older: 85 centimeters (33.5 inches) for men and 90 centimeters (35.4 inches) for women.
Under Japan’s health care coverage, companies administer check-ups to employees once a year. Those who fail to meet the waistline requirement must undergo counseling. If companies do not reduce the number of overweight employees by 10 percent by 2012 and 25 percent by 2015, they could be required to pay more money into a health care program for the elderly. An estimated 56 million Japanese will have their waists measured this year.
I wonder if there’s an exemption for Sumo wrestlers?
Today I shopped for doctors. I knew this day was coming, but I can’t wait any longer.
I smoked cigarettes from about age 23 until around 28. Then I quit for about 7 years, only to restart them after my divorce. When I started again I chose the “ultra light” variety…you know, because they are “ultra light”. I smoked for another 3 years until December 12th, 2008. That’s when I smoked my last cigarette.
That’s also when I started having some serious breathing problems.
Cooincidence or not, I was almost immediately stricken with a bout of bronchitis. 3 months later, a second one hit and this one came with one of the biggest scares I’ve ever had…waking up and not being able to breathe.
If you’ve ever had a nightmare where you’re suffocating or drowning, imagine having one of those terrible nightmares, and then when you wake up, YOU STILL CAN’T BREATE. Not a very pleasant feeling. It was like my lungs were waterboarding me for smoking.
I went to an emergency walk in clinic. You know, one of those 24-hour urgent care clinics? My mom calls them a “Doc-in-a-Box”. I had made the mistake of going to an actual emergency room once before. I don’t have health insurance so I am forced to be aware of the actual costs of medical care. The dollars I trade are dollars I earned, and my “insurance” is whatever I can pay within my a credit card limit.
This particular clinic cost me $270 to see a doctor (wait time: 3 hours). Plus $80 for a test to check the level of oxygen in my blood (a clothespin type device placed on my index finger). Once the doctor finally saw me, I watched as he read me a series of questions from his computer screen, and clicked on choices based on my answers. This lead him to a diagnosis of chronic bronchitis.
He prescribed me a Z-Pack, some oral steroids (Prednizone) and a one month supply of an inhaled steroid powder Asmanex and a referral to a pulmonary specialist because…and I quote, “you might have asthma.”
Between the visit and the cost of filling the prescriptions, I was out about $750 (not to mention the 2 weeks I couldn’t play piano, and the non-prescription meds I bought). But I felt better. I was breathing better. After a while, I was able to start sleeping normally again (you’d be amazed at how hard it is to fall asleep after you’ve experienced the horror of waking up while gasping for air).
But about a month after the Asmanex prescription ran out, I started having the same exact symptoms, minus the flu-like sypmtoms: Shortness of breath, wheezing and coughing (but nothing coming up). The sleepless nights returned as quickly as my anxiety.
I made a few calls to pulmonary specialists. Um. yeah. That’s not happening without health insurance or some sort of grant. IF you can get an appointment, it’s $400 to see someone and the tests start at $1000…and go up from there. But the Asmanex seemed to be doing the trick…maybe? At $160 a month, I sure hoped it was doing something?
So I returned to the walk in clinic, slapped down my $270 for another visit. This time I learned a trick to skirt the 3-hour wait. When they asked why I was there, I said “shortness of breath”. It’s just the speed pass they have at Universal Studios…straight to the front of the line!
They gave me an an Albuterol breathing treatment on the spot ($90). I was glad to have it…immediate relief.
This time I saw a different doctor…an English bloke. I gave him the whole history and told him about the prohibitive cost of the pulmonary specialist. He listened to my lungs a bit with his stethoscope and said, “I’ll save you the money, you’ve got asthma!”
Yay! Wait…what am I cheering about? I have asthma but I’m feeling like I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance! I was so confused at this point, I actually felt relieved. He wrote me another script Prednezone ($30) and one for 3 months of Asmanex.
I started taking the Asmanex again, and again the symptoms eased. If I stopped it for a few days, they would return. So it seems like the Asmanex is doing the trick. At least, this is a solution I can wrap my mind around (and the costs), although I’m still curious as to what this jewel-encrusted pulmonary specialist for the rich-and-famous would tell me.
So now my 3-month’s supply of Asmanex is nearing a close. For $50 I bought a Walgreens Prescription Discount Card, which saves me about $50 each time I buy a 30-day supply of Asmanex. So that makes the Asmanex $110 a month. Not cheap, but I can cope. But when you add in the $270 clinic visits to get the prescription, this is getting a but cumbersome.
Today I spent a couple hours researching websites and calling various doctor’s offices around Orlando and asked some pointed questions…the kind of questions you ask when you’re shopping for, say, new car tires. You don’t necessarily want to buy the CHEAPEST tires…you want some good, fairly priced tires.
I finally found a doctor nearby who specializes in allergies and asthma treatment to see me for $150. I’m hoping that at the least, he can give me 6-month (or more) prescription for Asmanex. I don’t know what their rules are for this kind of thing. Also, do I really have asthma? Maybe he will be able to confirm. They also have tests to check for allergies that range from $200-$400. If allergens are triggering the asthma, maybe there’s a cheaper treatment plan than the Asmanex?
This is the reality of living uninsured in our health care system in the United States. You have to shop around. You never know what you’re getting overcharged for. Do you need a test? Can you afford that test? Is the test even necessary? You have to do your own research…looking up the drugs you’re prescribed, reading websites.
I’m relatively well-equipped to handle this. Well educated, I have a car, a computer, and I’m still relatively healthy. I’d hate to see what would happen to someone who didn’t have these advantages.
Fortunately I can afford it…for now. I just wish everyone else could too. If only it could be that simple.
Jim Hu, a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, has removed more than 600 cancerous prostates with the help of a robot called the da Vinci HD Surgical System. He says that robotic assistance allows him to overcome the limitations of human doctors, allowing smaller incisions and less blood loss.
But can robots replace surgeons?
“Unless they develop artificial intelligence that can recognize variations in human anatomy, physicians will always be needed,” Hu says. “But who knows? If you had told me when I was in medical school in the ’90s that I would be using a robot to make incisions one day, I wouldn’t have believed it.”
But can we trust robots? Sadly the answer is no.
Internet addiction could easily become one of the most chronic childhood diseases in America, says Dr. Dimitri A. Christakis of the Center for Child Health, Behavior, and Development, in Seattle.
Our culture practically mandates time online, he says, with Wi-Fi connections in coffee shops and BlackBerries and iPhones that allow Internet access almost anywhere. “It would be as if we mandated that everyone drink two beers every day or everyone gamble for an hour every day,” says Christakis.
I have it.
Doctor: Internet Addiction Could Become a Chronic Childhood Disease.
Yesterday, the Senate Finance Committee rebuffed two amendments to include the public option in its health care reform bill. The first amendment, offered by Jay Rockefeller went down 15-8. Chuck Schumer’s amendment failed to pass by a 13-10 vote.
So what now?
I’ve made no secret of my disdain of women (or men) wearing of high heels. I think they’re stupid and most women look like they’re walking funny in them and they certainly increase the risk of twisting your ankle or worse.
EVEN IF I thought they looked cool or sexy or whatever, maybe wear them as part of a costume or for very specific occasions…not to the office or to the neighborhood supermarket.
A recent survey by the Royal Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists (RCP) found that 80 per cent of women in Britain have suffered from foot pain and problems such as bunions, corns and cracked heels, often because of ill-advised footwear. In this year’s summer sales, an RCP survey found that 37 per cent of women bought shoes they knew didn’t fit them.
The wrong shoe can lead to foot deformity, sprained ankles, torn ligaments, shin splints, knee pain, lower back pain and other joint or muscle problems. Any heel above 3in (7½cm) multiplies the pressure on the ball of the foot sevenfold. It can also shorten the Achilles tendon.
Save your feet, ladies! Do it for Diggz.
How to care for your feet: why women should ditch the stilettos and go shoeless – Telegraph.
I don’t think I want to look too deeply at the science behind this, but according to a new book, “Why Women Have Sex”, women cite some rather unexpected reasons, including:
Sympathy, painkiller, weight loss… the real reasons women have sex | Mail Online.
