Family
Twitter
Facebook
Delicious
Digg
Stumble
Reddit
Went to an all-day family party yesterday in honor of my niece the fabulous marine biologist, who’s visiting from California. It was nice – I didn’t expect to stay for so long, but I was having a good time. (And my sister-in-law very thoughtfully made a big batch of mashed potatoes, so I had something I could eat.)
The next generation is exploding. The newest is little Mo, who’s seven weeks old. I got to hold her for a long time, which is always fun. Aren’t babies wonderful? Two of my nieces will give birth to their second kids within the next few months. “Don’t worry, having two is nowhere near as complicated as three,” I told one niece.
My brothers and I stood around and bitched about our health problems, and how the young doctors treat us like we’re old coots. “They just don’t listen,” my oldest brother said.
Ain’t that the truth. Now I understand why my mother put off going to the doctor’s all the time.
11:00 am
Glad you had some good family time, Suze. Yeah, I know what you mean about the “revelations” concerning Docs these days. My mom used to say the very same things about them in the 80′s: “They’re all pretty much the same, they just want the money, and they ain’t really concerned because all they’ll do is prescribe more pills”. My mom passed away in ’90 having been prescribed a daily dose of 13 different pills, none of which had anything to do with her cause of death!
12:23 pm
My brother (a WWII baby) and I (leading edge Baby Boomer) were talking about current events and the political scene yesterday, and I said sometimes I was glad I was older so that I wouldn’t be around when things got even worse for us 99 Percenters. He said he feels the same way. We both worry about what kind of world our youngest generations will face. We both never thought things would get this bad this fast.
(I recently wrote to my Republican sinecured House representative, an inheritance One Percenter representing one of the wealthiest counties in the nation, to remind him that his name is on the legislation leading to our downfall and also blocking votes for any changes to try to control global warming or make our system more fair, and that while our entire generations will be blamed for the horrors we leave to future generations, his name will be known and he can be held personally accountable. No reply so far, and it will only be a form letter if there is anything.)
My brother and I agreed that there’s no one on the horizon who seems capable of leading the nation and the world to a better state of affairs: fair economic systems, managing our global warming and its consequences, simple civility in civil matters (much less international matters!). I added that when I was growing up we did have a simplified view that our government tended on the whole to be doing goog things — that we were told that the US stood for good and not told about the evil or less than good things our nation’s governments had done, that we lived in a pretty controlled information environment when we thought we had a free and open press. We tried to remember when we were exposed to just how horribly we had treated Native Americans. For me, iirc, it was in college before I was exposed to that part of our history, and it was through books and even movies of the time. Etc. etc.
Fortunately, he’s holding up a lot better than me, it seems. I’ve had terrible sciatica pains for months now — I finally went to a pain management doctor who says I need an epidural steroid injection for my herniated disc(s).
Has anyone here had experience with those injections? Know someone who did? Thanks for any input. I’ve been reading on the web, and it seems there are indeed sided effects and complications, but in very, very few patients…. The pain has been debillitating, to put it mildly. For a long time I could sit down after waking (when I couldn’t stand up straight from the sharp pains), an excuse to hit the blogs, but in the past 6 weeks it’s been taking up to 4-5 hours of sitting, hobbling around, to get through the pain enough to begin to have more mobility. To get things done.
Again, thnx for any input, info.
2:59 pm
When did we get old?
6:06 pm
But doesn’t science cure all?
6:07 pm
Maybe it’s insurance that cures all. I forget. (Sorry for the snide.)
6:13 pm
Other options which are ridiculed by some:
http://www.earthclinic.com/
9:23 pm
Yeah jawbone, I’ve had several epidural injections due to disc issues. My back pain always subsides for a while, but the costs is prohibitive if you have no insurance (something in the neighborhood of $1200.00 a pop). Side effects, minimal.
11:54 am
Dandy, so the effect is always going to fadea away — and the apin return? Or is this due to some other circumstances.
Thanks so much for sharing this. I know no one who’s had it done, nor do my friends.
But I’m also the only one in my circle who’d been hospitalized to be put in traction and given morphine* for back pain. It’s become my 10 for pain. It was searing and unbearable, and I saw yellow and blue electric-like lights in front of my eyes when it was occurring. I bought a used exercise thingy that allowed me to hang upside down after that, but never actually used it. It was out at my brother’s and now, sometime the the passing 20 years, it’s been sold at his local school’s autumn rummage sale. Just in time for me to need it again! Heh.
*Note for anyone how ever needs morhpine, and I was so glad I’d met someone who told me about this side effect because my docs, nurses sure didn’t. Withdrawal from morphine can cause unusual irritability and anger. With me I caught myself screaming at my cat and was ready to kick her. I didn’t, but I was totally shocked at my behavior, then recalled what I’d been told from a woman who’d been on morphine for a short while for pain. I was on, iirc, for at most 5 days.
2:00 pm
I’ve never done well with morphine either, jawbone. The upside down “thingy” to which you refer is called a Teeter, if we’re talking about the same device. I have a Teeter, use it at least once a day, and have found it helpful with my continueing back issues.
But yeah, the epidurals have been a life saver for me, and since I have insurance I only have to cough up $200.00 a pop.