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Swine Flu: This is the real deal, according to a friend of mine who's a very experienced infection control nurse.
So, what can you do?
1. Don't panic. Get educated. Be smart. Yes, it's infectious. Yes, it's scary. So be intelligent.
2. WASH YOUR HANDS. Early. Often. I don't usually like anti-bacterial soaps, but right now, I'm carrying Purell Hand Sanitizer with me (on my keychain, in my backpack, a bottle in the car...- yeah. Before and after the ATM, etc...) and using the sanitizer wipes at my grocery market's entrance. Yes, I know some people are sensitive to it, and can't use it. That's ok. Soap and water works just fine. But them as can, could, and that'll help keep germs from spreading via all those publicly shared things like ATMs and grocery carts. (and everything else you touch: doors, bus bench backs, etc. etc. but ATMs and grocery carts are known to be great reservoirs.) I've been informed about Vicks Foaming Hand Sanitizer also available. I put the whole listing so you can choose where to order from.
3. If you're really worried, get some masks. Just enough to keep your coughing from spreading in its usual 3-feet-in-all-directions cloud, and enough to keep other people's cough-cloud from getting into your nose and throat. (The only really useful scene in the movie "Outbreak" is the one of how airborne infection can spread. The rest of the movie is more or less melodrama, as well as geographically insanely incorrect.)
4. Remember: Infectious agents need very specific things to spread. A useful model is the Chain of Infection model: infectious agent, reservoir (where it lives when it's not infecting someone), portal of exit, means of transmission, portal of entry, susceptible host (and back around to the infectious agent, ready to swing through the chain again).
Break that chain at any point, and the power of the infectious organism is broken, too. This is why hand-washing works, why you should cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze (preferably not with the hand with which you're next going to touch the ATM or grocery cart, but by sneezing into your shoulder or the crook of your elbow).
To my friends who live in places already affected, my very best love and good wishes to you. To the rest of us, let's be good, and wash our hands.
[Editorial comment: This is why we vaccinate, even though it's likely that a vaccine for this strain of Swine Flu won't be available soon. Mechanism of vaccination, and some numbers: (Wikipedia article, WiseGeek article, and yeah, I know the objections to vaccination, I do, but I also know the huge dent in my Dad's back from where part of a rib was removed so he could have a pulmonectomy for Diptheria, and how crappy two weeks in bed with Measles worrying I might go blind was, and how scary Rubella was for pregnant women, too, and how horrible the deaths of the children who got Measles with secondary pneumonia in 1989-1991 in California were. {I worked in the PICU at Oakland Children's during that epidemic- It was not good.} If you're not going to vaccinate, fine. Just be prepared for the possible consequences not only to your own or your child's health, but to your community's as well, because it's work, dealing with an epidemic. Yes, the vaccine developers and manufacturers can do a better job. yes, we should hold them accountable. But, yeah- community health is the responsibility of the community, not the manufacturers, not even, in the end, the government. Of the people, for the people, by the people...etc., etc.) End Editorial comment.]
If you're sick, STAY HOME. Tell someone you're sick, but STAY HOME. If you must be out, cover your mouth, wash your hands early and often, eat well, drink LOTS of water (not soda), and go home early- don't linger about out in the world. MomsRising Petition for Family Sick Leave act. Yes, it's only one country, yes, it's only one segment of the population, yes it's a start.
x-posted, sorry for the repitition.
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I know I'm spamming with the Amazon links, so no more of those until I have fresh movies up there, and start putting books up. (My books are so old, and not pristine, but a lot of them are out of print, and I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be reading them anytime soon, so why not let them find new homes, if they can?)
But it's working, it's working- I've made some money at it, I've made some space, getting the movies to new homes, I'm supporting the economy (at least the Postal Service and the mailer-envelope people, and Longs, Walgreen's, and Raley's), and I'm feeling oddly accomplished about it all.
I'm also managing to do some yoga and stretching every night I work (though not always on my nights/days off, there's just not the space in my room). I take my yoga mat and block and strap and pillow and ice packs with me to work, and do what I can. And that's helping, too.
Sleep remains an issue. Mostly that's just night shift. And a bit of arthritis, now, and sometimes too much monkey-mind scampering over the synapses. Otoh, I'm eating more healthily- I know this for a fact, because I'm doing better keeping track of my expenses every day week or two- it's part of the Financial Intelligence track of Your Money or Your Life, and I like breaking it down into the exact things that I buy. It helps me see what habits I'm in, where I'm not paying attention, and where my life energy's leaking away from where I want it to be to somewhere else, somewhere that doesn't contribute to my over-all well-being.
I'm not able to visit as much on AIM or YIM as I'd like. I hit Facebook off and on, but can't really keep up with the green patch goodies and pirates vs. ninjas (sorry). I'm doing a bit of writing, here and there, but most of it's just scraps and doesn't make its way out of the notebooks. When I read, I'm reading Adrienne Rich and Ariel Dorfman and Ray Bradbury and Barbara Tuchman and Howard Zinn, but mostly I'm not even reading, these days. I'm nearly done with the two critical thinking papers (down to the freakin' wire, what?) and will be graduating in May, then off to Europe, and friends, and beloveds, and adventures.
It's ok. I feel, for the most part, accomplished, well cared for, intelligent, able to think for myself and ask for help with things I can't do by myself, and really. That's not bad. Can't complain about that. :)
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| 2009-03-03 10:18 |
| If your heart is in your dreams, no request is too extreme... |
| Public |
| compassion, health, weta |
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Or, if you catch the eye of WETA: who made a mermaid's tail for a woman who lost her legs. God bless you, Richard.
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So, it's not like there's not writing in my head. There is, pages and pages of it. Little AU, other fic, poems. Health/nursing care stuff. Philosophy. Humor. Links dumps. Travel plans. Stuff I've been reading. SLEEP. (oh my god, I could talk about sleep forever, and isn't that just the way night shift is?) Family. WORK (although that's harder because of confidentiality).
I'm constrained by a lack of comfortable places to write (type, keyboard, scribble with a crayon) at the moment.
Anyway. At work, things getting busy, so must move along. Just wanted to drop in and say "hi".
Oh! and people to whom I've promised things: Your Money or Your Life; tea; fic; actual human contact- NUDGE me. When I'm really really tired things get lost in the shuffle, and then when I'm less tired I lose track of which shuffle I'm trying to sort to find the things I promised to do.
Reminders are good for the forgetful. :-)
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With thanks to ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) imafarmgirl in whose journal I saw this. you're such a grand, generous resource person (among your many other talents).
Jan 21, 2009
http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/living/37893109.html
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – White Bison Inc. is a 20-year-old Native nonprofit organization that focuses not only on alcoholism recovery but also on the ways in which a history of colonization contributed to addiction in the American Indian community.
Operating from a modest office on a quiet street, White Bison reaches Native communities well beyond this city south of Denver that is home to Focus on the Family and the North American Aerospace Defense Command.
One of White Bison's key programs is the Wellbriety Movement, which extends past sobriety into the talking circles of its multicultural, cross-country Hoop Journeys, firestarter circles for local sobriety efforts, and other grassroots, culturally based programs and practices.
Central tenets of the organization are contained in White Bison's "The Red Road to Wellbriety in the Native American Way," a 12-step program adapted from Alcoholics Anonymous' Big Book. The book has personal recovery stories chronicling the lives of Native addicts from various communities and walks of life.
In many ways, the organization reflects experiences of its founder and president, Don L. Coyhis, Mohican, who addresses Native history in "Alcohol Problems in Native America: The Untold Story of Resistance and Recovery-the Truth About the Lie," which he co-authored with William L. White, a senior research consultant for Chestnut Health Systems.
Provided with an accurate history of North America, Native people can heal from alcoholism and other illnesses that result from colonization's legacy of intergenerational trauma, Coyhis said. "The truth about what happened to us is very important, but the story wasn't told. I found out the truth about the lie."
"It is time Indian people rejected alcohol, not because some Indians develop alcohol problems and alcoholism, but because alcohol is a symbol of efforts to exploit and destroy us as a people," the book states.
Coyhis said the result of silence about intergenerational trauma is similar to the effect of messages passed on by dysfunctional families.
He likens the result of silence about community trauma to the effect of messages in dysfunctional families. "I grew up thinking I was no good, not good enough, not very smart. When I found out I wasn't dumb, everything changed – relationships, jobs I applied for, just everything."
The same can be true for communities when the truth is known about the history of colonization, he said, but errors about what happened are often perpetuated by schools, Native studies programs, other institutions and communities. "You may question them and they'll tell you there's something wrong with you."
"When we researched Native alcoholism, we found that a number of myths were being taught," Coyhis said. "One of them is that `something is wrong with our immune systems' compared to Europeans. It's not true – there's been a study done on our immune system."
Another myth is that Indians "go crazy with alcohol," but boarding schools, taking children away from their families, and other losses are the real culprit. "What surfaces is an organized assault by government on our community.
By 1920, 99 percent of American Indian people had been wiped out and small groups were left with nowhere to go, "except future generations didn't know that because the story wasn't told," in the resulting climate of shame and sorrow.
"If you don't know about intergenerational trauma, you'll try to blame everything (about alcoholism) on `genetic disparities' which have never been tested," he said.
Positive changes have occurred in cities and in reservation communities where there are language immersion programs and cultural revitalization, "after all, one ounce of culture equals 10 pounds of healing," Coyhis said, and if that is coupled with the practice of spirituality, even greater benefits occur.
In addition to myth-busting, culture and spirituality, "What we were learning is that we need a whole new language. ... We're more colonized than we think."
For example, when such terms as "war on poverty" or "war on drugs" are used, the elders whom he consults told him that by setting up the conflict "you create an enemy where none exists."
"How you name something is very, very important," he said, suggesting that "drug czar" could be "healing czar" and a phrase like, "My name is Don and I'm an alcoholic" could become, "My name is Don and I'm in recovery."
Everyone has the responsibility to "find the truth, because it's accurate to say that `the truth shall set you free,'" he said.
The organization offers a number of recovery-targeted products, including books, material for youth prevention programs, video documentaries of sacred Hoop Journeys, meditations with Native elders, an online magazine, and, most recently, a CD version of "The Red Road to Wellbriety" for prison inmates and others with limited reading skills.
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five more weeks of uni.
as much as i'm enjoying these classes- and i am, i really am- i'll be SO glad not to be obligated outside the house 7 days a week. i really really like being home.
that said, i'm getting itchy feet again. my spring is going to be devoted to getting my finances and my body in even better shape. i've been working and saving, and i'm proud of what i've accomplished, but now come my student loans to pay off and that's going to be a change. also, i've been eating MUCH better than i have in years and years (and i was eating pretty ok, the last 3-4 years) but it's time to get regular exercise, find out what's going on with this hip, and work on being fit and having decent stamina by my 60th birthday (god, am i going to be 60 in 2011? hand me that calendar, will you? *stares*).
i ALSO have a bunch of non-uni reading to do, a rather large storage of useful-but-no-longer-necessary-to-me things to go through and pass on (yes! freecycle.org) and a garden to get going on.
i ran into one of my favorite instructors from the nursing program today. it seems i will have the record of taking the longest- maybe second-longest -length of time to graduate from the RN-to-BSN program at my uni of any student in its history to date. she said today she REALLY wants me to invite her to my graduation. i've been on the fence about walking graduation, but something she said gives me the confidence to do it.
funny, how the right word from someone i respect and know cares about how i do can change everything.
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ok. 8 weeks- no, 7 weeks, i think, of uni left. *whew*
class let out early today, so had the hip x-rays done. should find out within a week what's next, and if they show what's hurting. added fish oil and chondroitin/glucosamine/msm (which i now recall helping me with my knees some long years ago) (and thanks to stormatdusk who reminded me of them), so we'll see.
in the meantime, the same-old same-old- work, uni, trying to get enough sleep. which i'm gonna go try and do right now. xoxo until later.
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MIA a bit because of reading for uni, and fighting off a sinus infection with sleep, hydration, nutrition, and Zicam. damn viruses.
however. by my count, 8 weeks of uni left, and the two papers for Critical Thinking (which, it seems, will just need to wait until i have two well-rested, not-arrogant brain cells to rub together), and, all other things being equal, i'll be able to graduate.
and then it's just all about getting healthy, as best i can. even better nutrition. appropriate exercise, as much as i can fit in around work and sleep. saving money, to cut down worry over travel and getting older. writing! oh, writing, and beading, and gardening! and sewing! and reading for fun!
so i DO have a plan. but for today, it's probably to finish work, go home, rinse my sinuses, have a nice hot bath, rinse my sinuses again, take my meds, and curl up in bed with the laptop and my uni reading until i crash.
and if I wake up in time and feel rested enough, catch the late (8:20 pm) show of Appaloosa before work at the lad's house tonight.
and that's the news from here. how are all y'all?
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Newswise — Researchers at the Drexel University School of Public Health led by Dr. Dennis Andrulis authored a comprehensive report comparing the two presidential nominees’ health care reform plans in the context of eliminating the nation’s longstanding racial and ethnic disparities in health and health care. The report was released by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
The report, Health Care Proposals of the 2008 Democratic and Republican Presidential Nominees: Implications for Improving Access, Affordability and Quality for America’s Minorities, was issued by the Joint Center’s Health Policy Institute in partnership with the Center for Health Equality at Drexel University’s School of Public Health and Health Management Associates, a leading health care research and consulting firm. The report was funded by W.K. Kellogg Foundation in support of the Joint Center Health Policy Institute’s National Health Policy Training Alliance.( Read more... )
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Everyone should have health insurance? I say everyone should have health care. I'm not selling insurance.
—Dennis Kucinich (from Perceval Press)
I'm not so inexperienced as to think that it's enough to say "Everyone, keep yourself healthy!" Or so negative as to think that it's someone's fault if I get sick, or so naive as to think that doctors should know everything or so cynical as to think all doctors (hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, nursing agencies) are only in it for the money.
But seriously.
I'm very interested- personally as well as professionally- in how health care reaches people, and what people expect "health care" to be. How do I, a registered nurse, make available my knowledge, skills, and experience, if I'm not going to do it within the confines of a hospital system, the state/federal public health system, or an agency? Can I charge for it? Barter for goods or services? What risk do I assume? What risk does someone I work with assume?
On the larger scale, do we, as health care "consumers", have any obligation to stay as healthy as possible, to reduce the pressure on those who provide us with basic health care? When private industry takes over the municipal water supply or the garbage pick-up, how does a citizen ensure his or her neighborhood, town, city is safe and sanitary?
What is possible, at the overarching level of the State? How feasible is employer-based insurance? Insurance in general? What are the obligations of the individual-in terms of caring for oneself, for one's family, community, the organizations that provide care?
One of the things that came up at dinner tonight was that Kaiser Permanente has figured out that, with only 2 percent of medical students planning to go into primary care, it needs to take care of the primary care MDs it already has, since it "needs to make them last", as my friend put it. She is 63, had, 10 years ago, her own practice, which she had to give up when spiraling costs and sinking reimbursements made it impossible to continue and still pay off her medical school debt as well as care for her family.
You know what I'd like? If you would give me your experiences- good or bad, honest, I'm interested in all sides- with health care, lack of health care, health care access, health insurance (employer or government based, US or in another country)- how it's changed for you over time, or depending on your age, or status (student, military, married or not, employed or not, healthy or not, pre-existing condition or evolving condition). It feels to me like there's something in this- an article, or series of articles, at least, for one of the nursing magazines- and, in some paradise of enough time and energy and focus and luck, a book or two or three (perhaps one for nurses, one for the public, and those children's books I so want to write about being healthy, having a healthy community). But I can't write anything with only my own experience- so if you would be willing to share yours, or even point me in the direction of things you know or have experienced, but anonymously- I would appreciate it tremendously.
Of course, I would keep any confidences. That's my obligation as an RN- but more, it's my obligation to you as a person, one person to another.
And on that note... /ramble.
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this is harder than it looks.
it would be so easy if there weren't so much i want to talk about, and if my brain would stay awake long enough to actually help me make coherent posts.
1) tammy212 has better posts than I about the Health and Human Services "conscience rule". Deadline for HHS to decide is 10 days away now; Planned Parenthood Petition is here.
2) I love it when one sentence in a book opens the world tenfold for me. From The Wild Swan (my find from San Francisco last week) these sentences- just a bit of background information setting up Andersen's first round of travels as an adult: The Germany of independent states through which Andersen passed on his first visit was to be transformed within his lifetime. The Holy Roman Empire with its three hundred and ninety-six principalities, ecclesiastical states and free towns had been completely reorganized by Napoleon in 1806. After his defeat it was found impossible to restore the old order[...]
Which both reinforces that even in the known and incomplete history of the North American continent (about which, between Native American studies and Chicano/Latino Cinema, I am being given new points of view) there are orders and orders which came and went before Europe came; some of which is recorded, still, in the oral histories of the people still surviving and some, did we have eyes to see, in the geography and ecology of the continent itself.
3) I bought Miss Sarajevo. For a lot of reasons- because I have a good friend who is becoming a director of documentaries. Because people I admire and respect are involved in bringing his bookFools Rush In to the screen.
A lot of things about this film have made deep impressions on me, but the one that I'll mention here is the sight of the Bosnian National Library burning after being bombed, and Bill saying that '...with it burned basically all the history of Bosnia because Bosnia is a country with a lot of history written by monks and and clerics and whatnot and it pretty much is gone and that's a problem today because now you have a country with no real written history which can lead problems because it allows people to make up their own history and that is a problem in Bosnia today.' (quoted from the DVD.)
4) There are all kinds of ways history rewrites itself. Sometimes it's because one person pulls together threads and odds and ends of impressions and sees the pattern formerly woven that has been hidden from view by misdirection, by forgetting, by not-wanting-to-know.
My uncle, my father's oldest brother, was a bomber pilot in World War 2. I met him once. Over the years, in scraps of information from my father, I learned my uncle been shot down and captured at some point, came home very ill, and died young of cirrhosis caused both by starvation while he was a prisoner of war and partly by his drinking after he got home.
What I've put together since is this: he bombed Heroya, Hamburg, Paris, in 1943. He was shot down in France. He was held in one of the concentration camps, I don't know which one. I've walked in places that are changed forever because, before I was born, my father's older brother was dropping bombs on them.
I don't know what to do with that, really, or what it means, except that just as these two classes this term are giving me opportunities to re-view and re-learn, more globally, the smattering of history I've had in the past, so too this more personal connection to place, people, and history gives me opportunity to appreciate, to not take so much for granted, everything I have in my life.
Including my right to consider my body my own: not pre-or-post-pregnant, not a tool of the state or church or a man, but mine. I remember before Roe vs. Wade, before Planned Parenthood; I remember the thalidomide scandal and the deep shame that a man in our Friends Meeting, a physician who had prescribed thalidomide to mothers, felt as the facts came out, as he confronted what it meant to have been an unknowing part of that, and as he worked out how he, as a doctor, had to change his relationship to 'who owns the woman's body'.
This was in the 1950's. It was shocking and progressive and unusual that he spoke so, but I didn't know that- I thought it was part of some larger national conversation about how to be healthier, more intelligent, more compassionate, less insane.
And so here endeth PETDM # 14- with my (rambling, incoherent) plea to look again at what is being done in your name. I understand about conscience, I do- I could not give lethal injection. I have argued with surgeons about keeping some patients alive and allowing others to die. I recognize that there is indeed something precious and sacred about new life, and I'm not in a position to absolutely, categorically state when that life begins.
But taking away from the woman carrying the baby the right to determine her own health- that bothers me. Not developing the national conversation about the obligation of men to prevent unwanted pregnancy, to support the health and safety of communities, of mothers, of daughters- that bothers me.
So please. Go. Read. Take a stand, and stand behind it. You never know when, with the swipe of a pen or the pressing of a button, your life and all the lives you know are changed, irrevocably, and all you have left is how you've lived up until this moment.
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Oops, missed yesterday.
Otoh sleep is good.
So, the upside of no laptop at work is- am getting uni reading done.
Downside of no laptop at home is- no internets in bed. woe. lol.
Tonight off so that I can go to San Francisco tomorrow and meet up with Mom and Sister who are staying at son's. They took the train into town- how fun is that? I'll take the bus down, get a ride back up on Tues.
Then back to it on Tuesday- Chicano/Latino Cinema Tues, Native American Studies and work on Wed.
Am really enjoying the texts for these classes, which is such a lovely change. A well written text is a joy.
Write to your congresspeople about the HHS proposed changes. Even if what we need (and we might, we might, I dunno) is something that allows practitioners to opt out of prescribing birth control, redefining birth control as abortion is not the way to go about it.
With that, back to bed. Sleeping in my own bed, in the dark and quiet night: priceless.
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Slept well again last night. Not that I couldn't use ANOTHER 12 hours, but that's not going to happen today. Class, study, work. Still, sleep is good, and getting caught up on uni reading is good.
Now on to the not-so-personal things.
There are a number of things going on in US politics and in US public policy that, frankly, make me frightened, furious, and ready to take action. I keep meaning to post about them, and then finding myself so tired that I am afraid I cannot do them justice. Let me try now.
First is the draft paper before Health and Human Services that will redefine any kind of birth control as abortion. This takes my mind from one place to another, living as I have from the time of the thalidomide scandal through the introduction of The Pill, Planned Parenthood, and legal abortion and Women's Studies as a legitimate field of scholarship.( somewhat rambling pursuit of truth follows )
For a more forceful, more focused, and (probably) more useful presentation of the issues surrounding the HHS paper and what (if you are so moved) you can do about it, tammy212 has put together three well-written posts about it.
And now we have Sarah Palin as vice-presidential nominee. Which is several kettles of fish, most of which smell already. And I need to go to class. So confused sorting out of that will need to be a post for another day.
This post brought to you by the letters X and Y and the gratitude for a forum for my thoughts and the education to at least partially think this through and be able to do research and present it for discussion.
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i have seen this here and there, most recently in 's journal: Post Every Day This Month.
I thought about doing only happy things- and realized that even things that make me sad, or angry, or hurt, still have a component of- if not happy, something to be appreciated- because the fact that I have a reaction at all means I am alive, and my faculties- sensations, emotions, thoughts, feelings, reason- are all working to some degree or another.
So my first post for September, here on the back end of California time on the US Labor Day (info here) is about the gratitude I have for being alive.
I am relatively fortunate, in that my chronic pain problems are mostly small and manageable and the results of either understood injuries or, truly, of 57 years of use; the underlying health of this body is still good, and with 6 months of yoga, swimming, walking, good sleep and good food, I would find out that I live in a pretty nice little temple here. (this is the plan for Spring- yoga, swimming, walking, sleep, and good food).
I am also fortunate in that, even though I have not managed to breeze right through uni academically, I have proven to my satisfaction that I am a thoughtful person, occasionally deep, usually broad-ranging in my interests, who loves learning- the process and activity of learning- and who seems to have some skill at teaching (or, at least, explaining.) So I am glad to be finishing my bachelors at long last, even though it is a bit embarrassing that it has taken so long- because it proves to me that I have persistence, that I have goals and work toward them, which means I value them. Which means I value my effort.
So I will try to post every day this month, and even if it is a grumpy/sad/angry thing, find some good/happy in the posting of it. And with that, back to sleep with me. Latino/Chicano Cinema class for me tomorrow afternoon, and in the AM I need to take the Camera to the shop to see if they can retrieve photos from Europe, and the laptop (babyMac) to the shop to have them unstick the dvd drive and the apostrophe key for me.
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Off to work at the girl's.
Laptop is DEFFO getting a tune-up and make-over on Tues- last night it slipped off the arm of the huge over-sized recliner in the lad's room two times, and now there's a dvd lodged in the slot and no little hole to put a paperclip in through to manually unlock it.
ah well, it needed the apostrophe key fixed anyway.
*sigh*
still 150 pages of reading for class to do. no papers yet for these classes, and made some small progress on Critical Thinking. (which would NOT be so damn hard if i were not so damn just-tired-enough-not-to-be-able-to-trudge-through-the-sludge-easily.)
anyway.
A month ago i wasn't sure I'd be working full-time, and by this time next week i should have my benefits back. life is good. essentially, yes. my life is good. *nods* i still have beloveds, i have plans, i have skills and talents and can use them, and aside from being tired am in pretty good health.
catch you on the flipside.
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As a nurse, I'm firmly science-based. As a child of the 1950's, brought up on fairy-tales and science-fiction, poetry and reference books, geography and archeology, I'm equally at home in (or at least recognize some of the signposts and landmarks in) 'left-brained' and 'right-brained' experience. As a child of the 60's with my brief foray into psychedelics and a much longer, more careful sojourn in spiritual and esoteric study, I'm a believer that things connect- that living as though we are not all in relationship to each other, to all of life, all of time, all of space, lessens us.
From the TED website: One morning, a blood vessel in Jill Bolte Taylor's brain exploded. As a brain scientist, she realized she had a ringside seat to her own stroke. She watched as her brain functions shut down one by one: motion, speech, memory, self-awareness ...
Amazed to find herself alive, Taylor spent eight years recovering her ability to think, walk and talk. She has become a spokesperson for stroke recovery and for the possibility of coming back from brain injury stronger than before. In her case, although the stroke damaged the left side of her brain, her recovery unleashed a torrent of creative energy from her right. From her home base in Indiana, she now travels the country on behalf of the Harvard Brain Bank as the "Singin' Scientist."
"How many brain scientists have been able to study the brain from the inside out? I've gotten as much out of this experience of losing my left mind as I have in my entire academic career."
Jill Bolte Taylor/My Stroke of Insight/ TED Feb 2008
( Click )
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there.
i have made my dentist appointments. while i still have insurance, and before i leave on my trip. very kind woman who answered the phone- my intuition was correct, there'd have been nothing in the last two months that i could have made for appointments that i could actually have kept, and she does have three- an exam and x-rays; a cleaning [and more if i need a filling or whatever for this lower right molar that's bugging me], and a third one in case there's more to be done. all times i can go and only sacrifice a bit of sleep; all within the waning window of my insurance.
so.
Here is the History of Violence soundtrack for anyone who wants it; I thought I had Eastern Promises but do not- if you do and can share, that'd be lovely.
now. half 11. homework, a bit, to do, a bath, then bed. interestingly, am more calm about school- last papers, etc.- now that dental appointments are made. funny old thing, life is.
xoxox y'all.
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| 2008-03-22 04:02 |
| Random postage (combine to make full postage) (or not) |
| Public |
| fun, health, life, uni, work |
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1) there is no point to this post except that i need to stay awake the next three hours, and this might generate some comments, which will give me some stimulation.
2) i want very much to be dancing. unlikely at 4am when i'm at work and every one is asleep.
3) maybe I will have the energy to go swimming this morning. i hope so, even if it's only for 20 mins.
4) writing a paper on attribution in fanfiction for my critical thinking class is a good challenge. it forces me to focus on the logic of my arguments, not on the feelings swirling behind them.
4a) writing a paper on attribution in fanfiction brings home to me how vulnerable any act of creativity is, to any fault or foible, especially the artist's. i need to go back through The little AU - i know there are some things that i've not attributed. i'm just not sure where.
4b) writing a paper on attribution in fanfiction is making me cry. *sigh*
5) tomorrow i go to visit my son for two-and-a-half days. this is good. very very good. we'll go to Friends' Meeting (which i hope is a Silent Meeting. I could use 40 mins of silence-in-company). we might go to the Asian Art Museum, too, which is generally made of win. i will, however, like a good junkie, take the laptop with me (mostly to work on my paper at odd moments, like on the bus if i'm not sleeping).
6) there was more, but now it's time to get busy with meds and stuff for 'my' girls.
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Laptop is glorious. Feels safer, somehow, to have access at work when my Europeans are up. Feels more practical, too- can do writing for uni, research, while I'm in a more alert state.
Tickets for Europe are bought. That's the bones of getting there and back again- the inside of the trip, and the making my way from Manchester to London [and perhaps as far as Southampton- just need to work that out-] remain to be filled in.
Uni is settling in. I don't read as much as I should, or spend as much time on my actual coursework as I should, and I'm hoping to reverse that trend with my new schedule. But it's fun- not grueling and tedious, but fun.
I need more exercise. Just need it. Want it. Will have it. Have joined the gym for swimming- that'll start this weekend, swimming. Also will be walking more, now the weather's better [yes, I'm a big California baby. I like it above 40, not raining, and not windy as hell before I go for a walk].
Finances are- for the first time in years and years, and mainly thanks to Your Money or Your Life, in reasonable short-term good order. I feel like I can start taking deep breaths about money, and build up a little something to live on as I get older.
I guess that's all. Still updates in The little AU from time to time as the fellows come by and talk to me. I've a MonaBoyd simmering, a bit of Firefly, and some PotC, but nothing really ambitious or exciting.
Hope you are all doing ok. Blessings on your heads.
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