Can we talk?

My 83-year-old sister was recently involved in an automobile accident, one that totaled her car and deployed the airbag. She hit her head on something and it was bleeding. Though she basically felt OK, those around her urged her to go to the ER, so she did. Over the course of five hours, she was shunted here and there for a variety of tests, including an EKG for her heart, a cat scan for her head, an x-ray for her chest, and a blood sample. (They also gave her a cup for a urine test, but she ignored it and they never asked for it. Note to sister: see if it appears on the bill!) It turns out she was fine test-wise, but not comfort-wise. Nobody came to look her over to check her head or anything else. No one explained the purpose of the various tests. (A urinalysis! Give me a break!) She had a million questions, but no one to ask.

This is all too common. When I recently went to the orthopedic doc to get a cortisone shot in my knee (my idea), a physician’s assistant came in and asked some questions. He also said I should get an x-ray, even though I’d had one just over a year ago. He hinted that it was an insurance issue and needed for comparison purposes. But when I saw the doc, he seemed in a rush. As far as I could tell, he never compared the x-rays. He did give me the shot, but I wanted to discuss a couple of things. He didn’t. He just wanted to get to the next patient.

When my husband was seeking help from his gastroenterologist, he never did see the doc. It was always the physician’s assistant. When my daughter wanted to discuss a change in pain meds following a knee replacement, they had no interest in discussing options. They were done with her.

Doctors don’t get paid to talk to you. Remember Sarah Palin’s “death panels?” When congress was considering legislation that would allow doctors to get paid for counseling Medicare patients about end-of-life issues, Palin made it sound as though the bureaucrats in Washington would decide who was “worthy of medical care.” Because of her efforts, the provision was not included in the Affordable Care Act.

Please. Can we talk?

For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.

Safety regulations: way overdone, in my book

I am essentially a bleeding-heart liberal. But at times, I consider myself a libertarian, especially where regulations are concerned. Of course, many regulations are valuable, such as those regulating financial institutions. But many go overboard. Take ladders. I went to the OSHA site for ladder regulations and counted more than 80. Some made me laugh out loud as I visualized the ladder users disobeying instructions. For example: “Ladders shall not be moved, shifted, or extended while occupied; When ascending or descending a ladder, the user shall face the ladder.”

As a result, ladders are littered with safety messages. Have you ever read those?  Who does? I am saving you the trouble by giving you a summary of what’s on our ladder:

• On the last step: "Danger. Do not stand at or above this level. You can lose your balance."
• On the right side: “Failure to read and follow instructions on this ladder may result in injuries or death; and, “Caution: Keep body centered between side rails. Do not over-reach. Set all four feet on firm level surface. Wear slip resistant shoes.” [Question: What four-footed creatures use ladders?]
• On the inside and outside of the rails are 21 instructions for proper setup and use—too numerous to mention, but here are two: “Use extreme caution getting on and off ladder;” and, “Never walk, bounce, or move ladder while on it.”
• On the back: “Do not climb back section.”
• On the drop-down shelf; “Not a step.”

I say, just leave me alone and let me take my chances and live dangerously like this guy.

For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.

The trials and triumphs of left-handed people

My sister, who is left handed, tells me that she got a new stove cooktop and that the knobs are all on the right, which is a very awkward setup for her (and others like her, of course). She has a litany of woes of this sort. For example, gas pumps: “If you face them, the nozzle thing is on your far right, so you must train your right hand and arm to do the job.” Obviously, it’s a right-handed world. At least left-handed children are no longer forced to write with their right hands, as was the case with my friend Ruth, who tells me that “The hand change hurt my learning ability so much that it affected my self-esteem.”

There are plenty of advantages to being left handed. Most of you lefties process language on both sides of your brains. (Right handers process language mostly on the left side.) This may make you excel at language skills. Five of our last eight presidents were lefties, including Obama, Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan (not Trump, as you’ve probably surmised). 

Lefties are also over-represented in intellectually demanding professions, such as college professors, and appear to excel in math and music (Einstein and Newton were left handed). Lots of our cleverest people are/were left handed, such as Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, and Jimi Hendrix. Leonardo da Vinci was famously left-handed. The list is actually quite long.

An interesting study found that left-handed men who finished four years of college earn 21 percent more than right-handed men with the same education. Oddly, this discrepancy doesn’t apply to women. Some theorize that left-handed men “think more like women;” that is, they can process several threads of information simultaneously. Because women already think like women (are multi-taskers), being left handed confers no added value in the marketplace.

Who knows? Maybe dealing with right-handed gas pumps and stove knobs serve to strengthen the already superior brains of you lefties! So get over it!

For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.

Go green (burial, that is)

A green burial is one in which they wrap you in a cloth or stick you in a cardboard box and bury you in the ground. The tricky part is finding a cemetery that will have you. Unfortunately, burial in your back yard isn’t allowed.  

Neither traditional burials nor cremation are earth-friendly body disposal options. Here's why: 

Traditional burials. Here’s what goes into the ground each year in the U.S.:

• 4.3 million gallons of embalming fluids
• 1.6 million tons of reinforced concrete
• 17,000 tons of copper and bronze
• 64,000 tons of steel.

Cremation. Here's the energy required and pollutants emitted from burning one body:

• Uses the same amount of energy required for a 500-mile car trip; roughly the same amount of energy as a single person uses in an entire month.
• Releases 400 Kgs of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere  plus a host of other pollutants and carcinogens, the worst of which is mercury from dental fillings.

Maybe by the time you die more green burial sites will open up. One can only hope.

For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.