Full Page Version

Tue, 08 May 2007

Why People Hate Medical Professionals, Part II

So, today I finally got to go back to my orthopedist to find out what the MRI showed in my shoulder. Good or bad, you'd think the news would have ended the story, wouldn't you?

Not so much, apparently. When I was escorted to the examination room, I asked the nurse, very politely, to give the doctor a message. I asked him not to even come in if he couldn't find anything wrong, just to have the nurse come in and send me home if that was the case. You might find that a strange request, but I just couldn't bear to to hear yet another doctor tell me I had yet another "chronic condition" (Translated: "It's all in your head, or unknown to science. Either way, there's nothing I can do for you, so come back in a month and tell me if it hasn't gotten any better."). I've already got 2 bad knees, a bad heel, and a magical exploding eardrum that fit that bill, and I really don't need another one to add to it!

Looking rather confused, the nurse left in a hurry. In about 3 minutes, the doctor came in. "Good news, even if it's bad news!" thought I. He told me straight out that they'd found some minor tearing of the cartilage in my shoulder. Then he poked at me a little.

After the twisting and prodding, he said the amount of tearing was small, and probably wouldn't need surgery, because, "It's the kind of thing people go through their whole lives with, without even noticing." My eye started to to twitch at this, and I asked the fatal question, "So then, is it what's causing my injury?". "Probably not. I can't see any cause for the specific symptoms you are describing."

After I was done strangling the bastard, I sneaked out the back door of the office.... In my head. In the real world, I asked him if there was anything at all he could do to help me. He gave me a script for some anti-inflammatory drugs, and said it. The very thing I instinctively knew he would, all along. "I want you to come back in a month if the symptoms persist."

Do you think there's a doctors' conspiracy trying to make me burst a brain aneurism, or do the fates just hate me????

[/Blaise/Rant] permanent link

Wed, 02 May 2007

Why People Hate Medical Professionals

I went for an arthroscopic MRI the other day. What a lovely little slice of Hell that was!

Just for a little background, a few months ago, I hurt my shoulder. For no apparent reason, one night I picked up a pot and screamed in incomprehensible pain as someone drove a spike through my shoulder from front to back. It was pretty bad, and after an X-Ray and 2 months of physical therapy with no conclusive cure, my doctor sent me to an orthopedist. The orthopedist said he wanted an MRI. Then he said that he would prefer an arthroscopic MRI, if I would agree to it. Surprised at the question, I asked what it would entail that was different from just a plain vanilla MRI. He said, as nearly as I can quote, "They'll need to give you an injection first before they put you in the machine." Given the number of shots I've gotten in my life, some of them even radioactive (one before a CAT scan and one before a gamma-ray bone scan), I told the doctor it wouldn't be a problem.

So I went in for my appointment. I sat down in front of a receptionist, who plopped about 15 sheets of paper in front of me, each of them a form I had to fill out. One of them even had an essay question entitled "A detailed description and history of the injury". After twenty minutes of writing, I flipped to the next page, and was confronted by another essay question entitled "A detailed description and history of the injury". I answered this one "See other form. My shoulder hurts!" (Did I mention I'm right-handed, and I hurt my right shoulder?).

Anyway, my final exam complete and my shoulder aching like hell, they finally escorted me to a changing room and thence to what looked like an X-Ray lab. I was a little confused, since I thought MRIs were big round things they slid you inside, so I asked the nurse what the story was. She said "The doctor will be using the x-ray machine to ensure that the needle is positioned properly inside your shoulder."

INSIDE my shoulder!?!?!?!?!!

Apparently, my "injection" was actually a 10 minute proceedure where they pierce the capsule of the shoulder joint with a 3 inch steel spike attached to a hose that has a water-balloon full of saline solution at the other end, and then slowly inflate the joint, to provide better contrast for the MRI! That was a whole lot more invasive than anything I had expected, and I considered backing out, but that pain in my shoulder convinced me to go through with it.

As the nurse pulled the gown off my shoulder, I pointed out my tattoo there, and asked her just to be sure not to go through it with the injection, as I recently had it re-inked, and didn't want any scarring to mess it up. She looked uncomfortable, and left the room. Next thing I knew, I had two doctors standing in front of me gabbling euphemisms like "potential concern", "unusually large", "unfortunate placement", and the sort. I gathered that while the "injection" wouldn't damage my tattoo, that tattoo ink contains iron oxide particles, and any metal in the MRI could heat up and cause problems. I pointed out that my orthopedist had been looking directly at the unusually large, unfortunately placed tattoo in question at the very moment he sent me to them. They were amused. "Well, this isn't his specialty." I told them I hoped orthopedics was! They came to an agreement that I had a high probability of safety, but I should definitely speak up if my shoulder felt like it was burning, so they could shut down the scan.

So there it was. I would probably be OK, except in the possible event that their giant radiation machine set my skin on fire, but if it did, I should yell. I told them I didn't think I would have any trouble with that part!

At this point, I was really uncomfortable, and nothing had even been done yet. My shoulder was killing me, they were going to spear it a large metal rod, and then possibly set it ablaze with a giant electromagnet. Throw in that I'd now been sitting on a cold metal table for 20 minutes in a surgical gown that only covered the front half of me so that my lower extremities were numb but somehow still achy, and you've got what looked like the beginning of ONE MISERABLE DAY™. It was....

They got down to it. The doctor shaved the front of my shoulder (Yeah, they left that detail out too, go figure), and gave me an injection (the kind I originally expected) to numb the pain of the spike. Then he got to work. I looked away so as not to flinch. He told me I'd feel an uncomfortable pressure and a little pain. Then I felt an uncomfortable pressure. After what seemed like 10 minutes, but was probably 30 seconds to a minute, he said, "We're almost there." Then I experienced a pain so indescribably powerful I nearly passed out, as he punctured the exact center of the spot that had been causing me so much suffering for months. After I was done screaming, he said, "That's the worst of it."

Are you kidding me?!?!? That damn-well better be the worst of it, 'cause if it's not, and I ever wake up, you're going to die, you bastard! I'm bigger and stronger than you, and I only need my left hand to crush your windpipe!

My shoulder finally inflated and already feeling on fire, I was escorted, half naked and shivering (probably more from shock than cold) to a wheelchair, and told I had to keep my arm as relaxed as possible, and completely still at my side, because if I forced the fluid out of the joint, they would have to re-inflate it. That's right, they told me to relax, or else they would torture me some more. That little irony pretty much says it all, doesn't it?

I was wheeled into the MRI room, where a whole new set of people took over. My first observation after looking the machine over, was "I hate to say this, but my shoulders are wider than that hole you want to squeeze them into." Their response? "Oh don't worry, we'll fit you in." Eep! They gave me a set of earplugs, had me lay down, balanced precariously on a tray that just barely reached to the inside edges of my shoulder blades, and slid me right up to the machine, until the tops of my shoulders were touching the outside of the hole. "Did I mention I'm a little claustrophobic?" "Don't worry, you'll only be in there for 20 minutes or so."

TWENTY MINUTES!?!?!?!

They rolled me on my side and inserted my shoulder into some kind of shell to hold it in place, then rolled me back, and folded my other shoulder up onto my chest as they inched me over to one side, and then squeezed me just into the hole. Then they slid me slowly into the tube, packing my arms tight around my chest by wedging pillows in around me as I went.

At this point, I was in pain, my torso was completely immobilized, and my entire upper body was crammed into a space roughly the size and shape of an old-style metal garbage can. On top of everything else, I was beginning to have to fight off the irrational feeling that the sides of the tube might at any moment collapse in on me. Just then, the technician's disembodied voice came out of the aether, "How are you doing in there? Good?" Never in my life have I had to fight off such a strong urge to scream at someone. "I'll be better when we're done here." "OK, now there's going to be some loud noises."

At that moment, I learned what it must be like to have a garbage can placed over one's head and beaten by several people with baseball bats. Whang-a-da, Whang-a-da, Whang-a-da, Whang-a-da! Silence... Just kidding! Whang-a-da, Whang-a-da, Whang-a-da, Whang-a-da! And so on, for several thousand years.

Finally, they pulled me out. I was incapable of movement, deaf, and in pain, and yet I was happier at that moment than any I can remember. Then the tech came over and said "Now we just have to change your position so we can put you back in for the last two scans." I nearly cried. Then she tried to twist my poor shoulder around so that my arm was bent up and over the top of my head, and I did cry. Too late, I tried to say "No, that's what makes it hurt!" What came out was more like "No, thaaaaaAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHH! *sob*".

Five more minutes of can-banging, and it was over. I survived. So help me, if they don't find what's wrong with me, I'm gonna round up every last doctor, nurse and technician involved in this process at gunpoint, stuff them into garbage cans, and beat the living daylights out of them with a monkey wrench.

My shoulder hurts....

[/Blaise/Rant] permanent link

Wed, 25 Apr 2007

Vote With Your Feet

I hate corporations. I just do. I can't stand knowing that the person I'm talking to can be the nicest in the world, and do verything in their power to help me, and still screw me.

Two weeks ago, my cell phone broke. Everything still worked (PDA, MP3 player, etc.), but it couldn't connect to the Verizon phone network any more. Silly me, I called Verizon for technical support. Naturally, I got none, since they don't support the phone any more.

I decided to bite the bullet, and upgrade. I called back, and asked about their lineup of smart-phones. After I did some offline research, I picked one. I called them back and asked for a bottom line price for buying the new phone, and activating it on my account. The answer came back as "well, the phone costs x, and your new plan will be so much a month". I stopped the nice young lady to point out that I didn't want a new plan, or a two year agreement, I just wanted to attach the new phone to my old plan, which I was very happy with. The nice young lady then told me I couldn't use my old plan, because that plan was no longer offered.

Silly me, I tried logic. I pointed out that I had been sold my current plan with a guarantee that I could keep it for life. The answer? "That guarantee only applies if you do not change your service." I tried again. "I don't want to change my service, I want the exact same service." Her reply: "Well you're switching to a new phone, you see...". "But I don't WANT to change phones, just fix my old one." "We can't repair that model, it is no longer supported." And so on around the mulberry bush, ad-nauseam, through a supervisor AND a team leader (or whatever).

And there it was, the perfect scam. Apparently this "guarantee" I got was actually good for my PHONE's life, not mine. They had achieved the perfect synergy between apparently unrelated terms in a contract, such that in fact what it said in plain English was in fact not at all what it was saying.

Today I stand before you, a Cingular Wireless customer. I know they won't treat me any better, but at least I FELT like I won for a few minutes...

[/Blaise/Rant] permanent link

Sun, 27 Aug 2006

This Is A Test

This is a test of the emergency "Shut the Fuck Up!" system. This is only a test. Had this been a real "Shut the Fuck Up!" emergency, you would have been informed specifically as to who should "Shut the Fuck Up!" and details of the flaming assholishness that caused the emergency. This system is maintained by the Department of Homeland Infuriation, in conjunction with a nationwide network of rational, intelligent people. All three of them.

In the event of an actual "Shut the Fuck Up!" emergency, all citizens are asked to use all available means to inform the person or persons deemed the reason for the alert to "Shut the Fuck Up!".

For example, any and all politicians merit a standing "Shut the Fuck Up!" alert, owing to their inability to accomplish anything that actually benefits their constituency, while spending enormous amounts of their constituents' cash and constantly running their mouths about issues they are not even remotely qualified or intelligent enough to have opinions on. Approriate actions to deal with this alert include:

• Spitting on the designated person or group in public whenever possible
• Repeated instances of "Shut the Fuck Up!" letters, emails, facsimile transmissions, and crank telephone calls
• Loud yelling of "Shut the Fuck Up!" at political functions
• Shooting or throwing of heavy objects at video screens displaying the designated person or group members

It should be noted that any citizens acting in response to this alert should, at all costs, avoid using their response as an opportunity to voice their own ill-considered or annoying opinions, lest they themselves become the focus of a subsequent "Shut the Fuck Up!" alert.

In extreme cases, the "Shut the Fuck Up!" alert level may be elevated by the Department of Homeland Infuriation to "Shut your motherfucking cake-hole, you insufferable, flailing asshole!". In the case of this emergency, any persons in the vicinity of the designated person or group should immediately head to the nearest blunt object, retrieve it, and beat the shit out of them. Extra points for high pitched squealing and/or brain damage resulting in the loss of speech faculties...

Thank you for your cooperation.

[/Blaise/Rant] permanent link

Sat, 05 Aug 2006

Which came first, the Jesus-Fish or the Humorist?

So I have a few more bumper-sticker observations! Of late, I've been seeing lots of Jesus/Darwin/Evolution/Truth/Crazy-ass Religious Nut fish on my morning commute. While I have to admit I enjoyed the humor, until I was overexposed to the whole thing, I still can't grasp why there's an argument in the first place!

Any way you slice it, evolution and creation are one in the same. Whether you believe in a god or not.

Hypothetically, let's say for a moment that a god (ie creator and manager of the universe) exists. Let's stipulate further that he actually wanted to tell humanity about how he created everything. Even further, let's stipulate that for reason or reasons unfathomable to us, he decided that the best way to pass on that message was via one or more naked hermits living isolated in desert caves and eating bees to survive.

Given all this, we can see where so-called "creationists" got their story. Is it even remotely plausible that this prophet or prophets could have gotten the story right in the excruciating detail necessary to pass on the concepts leading up to evolution, much less evolution itself? Even if god spent a few years explaining the intricacies of how he engineered the big bang, set up the laws of physics, devised chemistry, caused chemical processes to give rise to biological ones, and used a results-driven eliminatory development process to arrive at his current release version of life, what would our hypothetical prophet have written down? Could he have possibly grasped what was being dumped into his head?

The wisest, most educated person on the planet 3000-5000 years ago couldn't have comprehended that data, much less our half-crazed, unbathed bee-eater! And even if he could have comprehended it, by divine intervention, how could he have possibly explained it to other humans? Human languages of the time couldn't even express the concepts needed to *develop* the language to explain it all.

Our hypothetical phophet would have had to fall back on the same techniques we use on our kids when they aren't ready for the full details of an explanation: "Because God Said So".

So we see that, regardless of divine inspiration, the bible's creation story cannot possibly be relied on as objective fact, but rather as an allegory used to simplify an explanation.

And that's only if god exists. Personally, I think religions are invented by power-hungry nuts who get off on telling other people how to live their lives....

Also, let's look at evidence here. Creationists have two pieces of evidence, a somewhat dubious book written several thousand years ago by our "prophet(s)", and the complexity of life. On the other hand, the theory of evolution is supported by billions of fossils, carbon dating, mathematical analysis, selective breeding practices themselves thousands of years old, and literally hundreds of reproducible experiments. Even if 90% of the arguments for both sides turned out to be false, the vast preponderance of observable evidence would still fall on the side of evolution.

Creationists who say that the sheer complexity and elegance of life are too great to have developed on their own still miss the point that our universe's most awesome wonder is it's inherent force to self-organize. Look for your god in that force, not in some silly self-contradictory myths written by people who could never have grasped the truths of the story they were telling anyway!

[/Blaise/Rant] permanent link

Mon, 24 Jul 2006

God Bless America?

I've recently begun to realize that I do not, and may never have, lived in the USA. That is to say, not in the USA I had drummed into my head for oh so many years in social studies class.

That USA is about individualism, and freedom, and responsibility, and getting out of life exactly what you put into it. When some person or persons try to subvert those rights, they are an aberration, something to be rooted out so that our country can go back to the way things should be, not just something we have to live with. Looking back, I realize that that USA was an ideal, perhaps always more of a guideline than an actual state of being.

I sat behind a truck at a traffic light this morning that bore both a "God Bless America" sticker and a confederate flag. At first I barely noticed it, because both are so common, but then it occurred to me that even the combination is one I have seen many times before, and that stood out in my mind.

"Who are these idiots?" I asked myself. The confederate flag represents a spirit of rebellion against the very nation God is being ordered to bless. It is a powerful reminder of a dark time that nearly destroyed America. How could anyone ever possibly think these two stickers belonged anywhere near each other?

I pondered this dichotomy for a while, and I finally saw the light. This person's America and my America are two different Americas. His is an America that stands for a muddled mixture of machismo, pride and self-congratuatory superiority, none of which is inconsistent with either of his stickers.

All of which led me to a much more disturbing thought. How many different Americas are there? Is there one for every American who's ever lived? Did even the founding fathers really agree on what "America" was to stand for? After all, the politics of today certainly don't jibe with most of the founding fathers' stated beliefs. So-called liberals have half-built an America that gives a free ride to anyone who has a really good reason why life hasn't been fair to them, a concept that would have been anathema to our forebears. So-called conservatives have half-built a corporate police state where it's OK for the government to monitor our communications, reading materials, and financial data without even a cursory attempt at finding a good reason to do so, again things that must have Jefferson and Franklin rolling over in their graves.

Both sides regularly create rules and regulations that DIRECTLY contradict parts of the constitution and bill of rights, simply by finding the right judge to "interpret" what the original intent was. I'm pretty sure that if the intent of something like "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed..." was actually "...only people who work for the government may bear arms...", they would have written it that way! For all their horse-drawn-carriage and sailing-ship 'primitiveness', they were generally pretty good communicators. I'm also fairly certain that "no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause" was never intended to mean "unless the president REALLY thinks it's OK", or "Warrants? We don't need no stinkin' warrants!".

I've finally come to realize that despite the fact that I've always considered myself an agnostic, I let one faith slip through into my subconsious. I have always really truly and whole-heartedly believed in an America that turns out to be a complete fallacy! Certainly, my America is probably no more a fantasy than anyone else's, but it's not less, either. So now I begin what promises to be a long and painful process of re-examining America, and figuring out where I really live.

God bless America? Whose?

[/Blaise/Rant] permanent link

Tue, 20 May 1997

BANKERS UPDATE!

The credit card I wrote that original check to.... the bastards charged me $20 for each of the bounced checks, too!

Watch here for an upcoming rant on the credit industry!

[/Blaise/Rant] permanent link

Thu, 15 May 1997

Bankers

Is there anyone out there besides me who wonders what the rules for the banking industry are? Other than to line it's pockets at our expense, I mean. I can't believe that, in this day and age, an industry so blatantly monopolistic and self serving has escaped anti-trust challenges.

Think about it for a moment. Have you ever had a disagreement with your bank? Of course you have. Have you ever succeeded in winning an argument with your bank? Of course not. Have you ever moved to another bank because of such an occurrence? Probably not, because no matter which policy it is you disagree with, they all have the same one. Want to bank after 4 PM? Not in this country. Want a higher rate of return on your savings account? Don't bother, everywhere you go savings account rates are "calcuated at x% over the current federal lending percentage", and oddly enough, "x" is always the same number.

And forget about using your ATM card without incurring a fee. This is quite possibly the largest piece of bait-and-switch ever foisted upon the American public. For years, banks touted ATM's as the ultimate solution to after hours banking, convenience, and freedom from carrying dangerously large sums of money. After years of constant assault, we began to use, and eventually to rely on, these machines. We even bought into the concept of paying for our money when we went to a machine which didn't belong to our bank. Then one day, people began receiving notices from their banks saying that from now on, there would be a withdrawal fee even when we went to our own bank's machines. I, for one, began calling other banks immediately, only to find that all of them had instituted precisely the same policy at the same time.

Then came the day I bounced a check because an automated transfer from one of my own accounts went through only 23 hours beforehand, and 24 hours were required for the transfer to clear. Of course, I had no idea of this for two weeks, until they deigned to send me a notice, at which time I immediately deposited a check to myself to cover the bounced check for recashing, since I had already made purchases based on the ATM's balance without checking my check book. Two weeks later, of course, I received another notice that THE SAME check had bounced, since they attempted to recash it less than 48 hours after I had deposited this second transfer. According to the rather smug person I spoke to on the phone, this new extended clearance period was because I had used a check instead of an electronic transfer to deposit the money.

With all this, I might still have been able to control my temper had it not been for the fact that this $50 check had now cost me $30 in fees, and the bill still hadn't been paid; and to top it all off, with investments and savings, I had over $25,000 on deposit with this bank, but was denied overdraft protection on the troublesome account BECAUSE I HAD BOUNCED SO MANY CHECKS!

Upon contacting other banks, I found that all of them would have done exactly the same thing, so I had no hope of obtaining better treatment somewhere else. Maybe it's just me, but it seems more than a little coincidental that all prices and policies in the banking industry are precisely the same from one bank to another. In any other industry, this would be considered monopolistic price setting, and the Justice Department would crush them.

Perhaps the answer lies in that the banks directly or indirectly control a huge portion of all politicians' campaign funds?

[/Blaise/Rant] permanent link

Sun, 05 Jan 1997

LAW ENFARCEMENT

Why is our law enforcement system so petty and ineffective? Hundreds of thousands of violent crimes are committed in this country each year, most of which go unpunished, despite the thousands of dollars each of us pays in taxes each year for the purposes of law enforcement.

Bearing this in mind, why is it that every two to three weeks, I am forced to wait a half an hour on my evening commute at a roadblock run by the police to check inspection stickers, tire tread, emissions, etc.? And why is it that some goober with a gun and an attitude is allowed to pull me over and drag me out of my car in a rainstorm in the middle of the night for no apparent reason, then issue my wet, frightened ass a ticket 20 minutes later because he said I hadn't slowed down enough at a blinking yellow light a few miles back, but wouldn't actually define what "enough" was?

Not that these things aren't somewhat important, but is this really an efficient use of law enforcement resources? Certainly the municipalities which extort ticket fines from the generally innocent, if unlucky, citizens trapped in these snares benefit monetarily, but do they ever use the proceeds to fund more law enforcement officers? On the whole, no.

So, what we end up with is a system where law enforcement officers, who's salaries are paid for by citizens and who should be out protecting citizens, are not only diverted to areas which do not benefit citizens, but are actually used to entrap those same citizens for minor infractions in order to forcibly take more money from them to help prop up local governments whose fiscal incompetence has left them woefully in debt.

I think I can safely speak for most people in saying that I DON'T CARE if my neighbor's windshield is a touch too darkly tinted. I DO CARE if someone is selling drugs on the corner!

Send Jimmy Bob and his cruiser driving up and down the streets watching for dangerous situations and crimes in progress, rather than interrupting traffic and harrassing innocent citizens.

The law is supposed to protect and serve the citizenry, not the government, and if we cannot expect the law enforcement system to prevent the crimes and harrassment which plague us, we should at least be able to expect it not to foster more harrassment and crimes perpetrated against us!

[/Blaise/Rant] permanent link