The View from the Bottom of the Shaft

Oh, arrrrrghhhh!

2004-10-02T12:48:33Z

Of course it is old news by now that Vioxx has been taken off the market. After I jumped through all the hoops, I stiil can't take a medicine that helps me because there is a small chance it would harm me. Don Bordeux thinks like I do, that I should be able to determine for myself what amount of risk I am willing to take, and not have a government decide for me. I understand that it is the fear of class action lawsuits that is causing Merck to take Vioxx off the market. At least Kevin, MD has some suggestions as to alternatives if you can't take/can't get Celebrex and Bextra.
I am looking for some new alternative to my therapist I have been with for three years, since their agency dropped Medicaid coverage, and I can't afford much of even the lowest sliding scale they offer. I am sure some of the other agencies that are subcontractors will quit taking Medicaid, too.
The elevators are acting up again. It has gotten so bad that the Kone elevator people are talking about camping on a cot in the lobby. And then when only one elevator is working, there is always the clown who rides to the second floor, but pushes all the buttons for the other floors before he gets off. A lynch mob is being formed.....
I had a nice visit with some folks from the Community Psychiatric Clinics who came to talk to the residents. I was able to give them some information from IAADP about service animals for psychiatric disabliities.
Well, I promise to rant sooner next time. And now off to bed.

My Point of View...

2004-09-16T01:58:37Z

Last night on PBS, they had a program called P.O.V. Freedom Machines. The program was on the new technologies that can assist the disabled, and how difficult it is for many of the disabled to get the technology they need. Heaven knows, if it wasn't for my father and The Boyo, I wouldn't have the technology I need, not even this computer. The people on the program were both young and old, and had varying levels of disability. It is difficult to watch a bright, ambitious teenager denied the tools that would help her in college because she is poor and lives in a poor school district. It is difficult to watch a very talented blind woman in a job interview for a special education teacher, and know that she probably won't get the job. Seventy per cent of all disabled people are unemployed. I think the percentage is probably higher in my building, since it is for low-income people.
As well as the computer, my scooter is a freedom machine. If my father hadn't bought it, I wouldn't have it. I do not qualify for a power mobility device under the Medicare and Medicaid rules. The rules until this year were that you had to have difficulty getting around at home. Now the rule is that you cannot be able to take a single step. As Medicare Games says, the rules have changed. And even the people who have followed the new rules are getting turned down for chairs, including a nun with severe arthritis in her knees and shoulders. Some of these people could live semi-independently if they had a power chair, now they may need to go to a nursing home because they can't get around without assistance.
We really must give up the medical model for disability in this country, and adopt a social model. If a person like the nun described above cannot get a power chair, they become more dependent on the community. In the case of people who live in circumstances like mine, they may not be able to leave their apartments to go downstairs to get the mail. This means they will be socially isolated, which is a darn good start for depression. Which may lead to deterioration, increased health problems, higher medical costs, if only for the antidepressants, need for long-term care and death or suicide. People tend to not eat well, not sleep well, not exercise, etc. when they are depressed, causing more health problems. People need to get out of their rooms and interact with other people.
Now, in my case, I can walk down stairs to get the mail. I can walk across the street to "walk" my dog. I can even walk to the video store, two blocks away, and walk back. But that is the end of my range. I also have difficulty walking up steps, so it is difficult to get on and off a bus without a lift. If I go to the store with my grocery cart, I can't take my walker, too, and walking without it increases my pain. With the scooter, I can get out to the grocery store, and if I use the cart at the store to shop, I can even get home with enough energy to put the groceries away. Otherwise I will have to sit down because I am in pain. Without my scooter, I am dependent on Access to get to my therapist's office, because it is a quarter of a mile away from the nearest bus stop. It also helps me to get outdoors and get enough daylight, particularly important because my depression has a Seasonal Affective Disorder component. I don't fit the bill for "medical necessity" under the Medicare guidelines, but I would be very socially isolated without my scooter, my depression might increase, and I could end up hospitalized again. Trust me, my scooter would have cost the taxpayers less than the ten days I spent on the psych ward at University of Washington Medical Center. I think it is a good investment in keeping me going.

Top Twelve Things that Annoy Me As a Disabled Woman....

2004-09-13T09:43:55Z

And a few other miscellaneous rants.

1. Handicapped stalls that aren’t big enough for a baby stroller let alone a regular wheelchair. Heaven help you if your conveyance needs a “Wide Load” sign. Kudos however, to Bellis Fair Mall and Westlake Mall, which both have handicapped bathroom stalls big enough to drive a scooter into.
2. Doors on handicapped stalls that are installed so they swing in instead of out. You try to get a wheelchair or walker into the stall with the door in the way.
3. People who sit in the bus shelter and smoke, forcing those of us with asthma to stand or sit outside in the rain. Take your pollution to where it can go into dilution, outside the bus shelter.
4. People who try to distract my service dog. Yes, she is cute as a button, but she’s working. Leave her alone. That goes double ditto for guide dogs, whose owners can’t see you annoying their dogs. Moreover, our dogs aren’t slaves; they are much happier having work to do than they would be staying at home alone for long hours.
5. People who try to feed my service dog. She doesn’t need any more food than I give her. The man who was throwing French fries to her on the bus gets special mention.
6. People who ask what my disability is. It’s none of your business. This was especially annoying while my disability was invisible, before I got an assistive device.
7. I live in subsidized housing for the elderly and disabled. Just because I have a Belltown address doesn’t mean I have Belltown money. Target your audience a little better, save some trees and money by not sending me advertising for high-end condos and restaurants. This advertising is more annoying to me than the ads I get for incontinence products. Which I also don’t need.
8. Curb cuts that are outside the area of the crosswalk, or which require an awkward wandering to get from one side of the street to another. I hope that someday all the curb cuts will be like the new ones at Fourth and Cedar, in the crosswalk both ways and with the knobby surface.
9. I was on a bus once when a woman with a mental disorder of some sort began talking to herself. Other passengers were very rude and began laughing at her. There is nothing fun or funny about that sort of disability. How would you like it if they were laughing at you?
10. People who publicly complain in the newspaper about disabled people taking up space on a crowded bus. If said person is always on the bus in the evenings, she is probably tired and going home from work, too. Be grateful, she’s a taxpayer, unlike myself, who hasn’t been able to find a job I can do with my disabilities yet. Even the job the Social Security Administration says I could do (working in a call center, a major employment venue for disabled people) are going overseas. It is estimated that about 70% of the disabled are unemployed. Be grateful you have a job to go home tired from. It beats living on GA-X or SSI by a wide margin.
11. Inaccessible “accessible” restrooms. They have the fancy new flat handles, but no electric opener. If you are in a wheelchair or on a scooter, you have to wait for someone to let you in and out the door. IMHO, it’s not accessible unless it has the electric opener. I want to do it myself, thank you.
12. People who walk down the street talking on cell phones or with I-Pods, etc. stuck on their ears. They can’t hear me behind then, even when I ask to pass them on the left. They walk straight across your path. They can’t decide which side to walk on so you can get past them. And of course, the horn on my scooter is puny. No way you could hear it in traffic. Hang up, get the earbuds out of your ears and pay attention to where you are walking. I have threatened to get one of those portable airhorns to use, especially when they stop suddenly right in front of me. I am trying not to hit anyone.
What brought this rant on was visiting our new library, which is supposed to be very cool, (designed by Rem Koolhaus), but isn’t all it’s cracked up to be in the accessibility department. Along with the narrow book spiral, the Fifth Ave. door, which has the buttons on the wrong side in a sort of dark airlock is super annoying, (I couldn’t figure out how to get out of it until I read the news story.) The Fourth Ave. entrance doesn’t have the annoying airlock, and the buttons are on the correct side, but when you are outside, and press the button on the right, the left door opens. What, too cheap to have both doors open?
The other model of inaccessible accessibility is right down the street at the Seattle Downtown YMCA. It advertises that it is in a newly renovated, classic building. Classic, circa 1920, when young Christian men never had disabilities. There are 10 steps up to the door. There is a lift, and an intercom to call someone to assist you with the lift. The only problem is that so far, every time I have been there, the intercom has not worked properly, and I end up crawling up the stairs, which my knees just love. And then, the lift is old and balky. As I said before, accessible means I can do it myself.
Which reminds me of a T-shirt I saw at the Pow Wow. It said, “The American’s with Disabilities Act, To Boldly Go Where Everyone Else Has Gone Before.” I want one, but they were made by a state agency for the 10th anniversary of the Act in 2000.
And speaking of rants, Mark on the 19th Floor has threatened to write an Idiot’s Guide to Disability Etiquette. Jody and Katja are both threatening to collaborate with him on it. Count me in. People are always trying to help me when I don't need it, but it's difficult to get some people to help you with obvious things, like getting something down for me from a shelf over my head.
"Well," said Pooh, "it's the middle of the night, which is a good time for going to sleep..."
G’night, all.

It's been a long time....

2004-08-25T13:51:47Z

Since I posted here. Well, I was gone for a week, and didn't even have decent access to a phone, much less the internet while I was gone. The workshop I attended to become a Master Trainer in the Chronic Disease Self-Management Program were great. However, I went down there with somebody I didn't know well, and we hit it off like matches and gasoline. I will give some blame to the Mercury retrograde that is still ongoing, but there is equal blame to go between us. The gentleman thinks I am ungrateful, and I think it is poor self-managment for a couple of gimps to fly to Salt Lake City in order to get to San Jose. After all, it would increase our risk of deep vein thrombosis, and if you know how to shop for airline tickets, it isn't even cheaper. But what was done was done, and I certainly didn't have enough money to buy my own tickets. Maybe I am picky, too, but I don't think I should have to put up with little black ants in my bathroom sink just because we were only paying $45/night for the motel. I don't have them in my apartment, and I don't expect to find them when I travel. Of course, the only place I have been out of the US is to Vancouver, B.C. when I was still sort of middle-class, and there weren't any ants there.
Adding to my misery outside of the workshop is that Epona, my scooter, apparently didn't take to flying very well, and stopped working while I was in Palo Alto. So I had to drag a broken scooter home by the skin of my teeth, and with no help since I managed to totally piss off my traveling companion, and he left me with $30 and told me to get to the airport on my own. Well, I made it, so there!! I still don't know what is wrong with Epona, the technician is supposed to come later today.
Another good reason not to fly to Salt Lake City is that of course, you are on Delta, which has its hub there. I suspect something Delta did caused the problem with my scooter, and they managed to break one of the brakes on my walker, damage the baskets on both my walker and my scooter, and generally piss me off. First, they fly MD-80-90s. These planes are right up there with the Airbus 380 for lack of room at the bulkhead. And of course, the bulkhead is where they put people with service dogs. I was thanking my stars I was traveling with a Cocker Spaniel, and not a 180lb. Rottweiller. The only airline that seems to know what to do with service dogs is Alaska, where they put you in the back row, where the dog can get under your seat, and or the seat ahead of you. And they always leave an empty seat for the dog, so you are crunching your neighbors. And guess what? They have a direct flight to San Jose. Even their one-stop flight stops in Portland, OR, which makes much more sense than SLC.
Friday was given her own certificate at the workshop, and they also presented her with a little bone pin. So now she is a Master Trainer in the Cocker Spaniel version of the program.
Well, I've managed to stay up all night again, and I need to get some sleep before the technician shows up. See you later.

Playing Ketchup..

2004-08-07T23:17:59Z

OK, I couldn't resist a Kerry pun. Meanwhile back at the ranch.... I got the state to fill my prescription for Vioxx. I just had to ask "how high" when they said jump. Basically, I had to prove I couldn't make do with a cheaper drug. After three days back on it I feel "normal", for what it is worth. At least I am not having to take Vicodin several tims a day to cope with my pain load.
Tomorrow, at O'dark-thirty as they say, I am off to San Jose, CA via Salt Lake City. I totally hate the airline hub system, and if I had booked the damned thing, it would have been a direct flight. It is hard on Friday to wait so long to go potty. I can only hope there is a way I can take her outside in SLC. I am going to take training to be a Master Trainer in "Chronic Disease Self-Management." Yeah, right, like I'm eating well, sleeping well and exercising to manage my own chronic diseases. Oh, well, perhaps I will be inspired to do so.
It is strange to me, living in abject poverty at this time, that people keep paying for me to travel. I have had two trips to Colorado to see my Dad this year, and now this, all on somebody else's nickel. I never traveled this much when I was earning a decent living. (Of course, I never had time to travel when I was working. You either have time or money, not both. In my case I usually had neither.)
I wanted to slap my doc when he told me not to put myself in a victim mode because of the changes the state was making. They are just trying to help me. Bullshit! They are trying to cope with revenue shortfalls caused by the crash of the dot.com bubble here in Seattle, along with tax cuts imposed by "starve the beast of government" initiative writers like Tim Eyman. I am truly amused that his website is at "permanent-offense.org." Well, he does permanently offend me. I am proud to say the only Tim Eyman petition I ever signed was the one trying to have him designated a horse's ass. Well, even horse's asses have their uses. I hope most of the people in Washington state by now can see he is shallow and selfish, and making a living off of writing this crap.

I've been

2004-07-29T23:06:34Z

Mississippi'ed. Or maybe Cheneyed is a better word for it. I went to the pharmacy to get my prescriptions and found that my Vioxx is no longer covered under Medicaid. OK, so it is an expensive drug. And there are other, cheaper NSAIDs out there. However, I can't take enough of any of them without my stomach killing me to do me any good. So now it seems I have a choice between narcotics and bleeding stomach ulcers. My doc will only give me 30 tablets of Vicodin at a time. I am going in next week to talk about this with him. I can maybe get the Vioxx from Merck, or maybe we can figure out something different for pain. I just know I haven't had any since Saturday, and I'm hurting.
BTW, the old man who goes clamming on the Vioxx commercial amuses me no end. I can walk about three blocks before I am in a lot of pain. The last place I am going to go is out to a rainy, misty, damp beach to dig clams. I have decided that it is advertised for the folks who have a few twinges, and it really keeps them moving. Me, it just keeps me from taking narcotics as often.

Elevator Woes

2004-07-29T22:52:50Z

I have not had good luck with elevators this week. First, on Monday, the one in the Metro bus tunnel had a mind of its own, closed the door too quickly trapping Friday outside, and proceeded to go down. I was pulled out of my scooter by my handsfree leash, (which was around my waist) and up to the door, and onto my tiptoes before the buckle on the leash finally broke. I went back up expecting to find my service dog had been strangled, but she was OK. Thank you goddess.
Thursday the right-hand elevator in my building broke, trapping one of the workers for 45 minutes. Then last night the left-hand elevator broke, and will be out of commission "until further notice." The scary part is the right-hand elevator is still doing funky things, like the "door open" button doesn't work, and I found the elevator on my floor, with the door opening and closing, opening and closing. Spooky!!

A while ago....

2004-07-23T10:28:50Z

I thought it was "pick on the disabled" week in the Seattle P-I. First some guy is resentful that a disabled woman on a scooter always takes up six seats on the bus when he is going home. I wish to say to him that if she is on the bus the same time you are going home, she probably works, and is tired, too. So lay off. At least she is working and a taxpayer. Then some RN (who should know better) writes in about how people get on SSDI for "a little arthritis or a sore back." In a perfect world, she would lose her license for lack of empathy. Fortunately, it is not a perfect world, or I would have lost my nursing license for lack of empathy when I was young. I realize now through painful experience that the little old ladies in the nursing home who wanted a pain pill every morning at 5 AM probably needed it. Like I do now thirty years later.
No one gets on SSDI for a sore back or a little arthritis. I have severe degenerative joint disease in my knees. There is no cartilage left, they are bone-on-bone and very painful. I am not a good candidate for knee replacement, my orthopedic surgeon tells me, because I also have fibromyalgia and chronic myofascial pain. I am also depressed much of the time, probably because of the pain, and all the things I have difficulty doing now. However, the Social Security Administration says I can take a sedentary job, and has turned me down for SSDI twice now. I only know one person who got SSDI on the first application, and she was in a motorized wheelchair when she applied. The jobs they suggested I take, in a call center, are leaving for India at an alarming rate. Even the nurse hotline Washington Medicaid has contracted with is in Colorado. I wish people would quit listening to the right wing rhetoric, and go talk to some disabled people about what their lives are like.
The really sad thing is that I worked as a nurse for thirty years, taking care of everybody else's mom, dad and grandparents. It is a dirty, dangerous job working in nursing homes. According to "A Job to Die For", by Lisa Cullen nursing homes have an 18.2 per 100 rate of injury, higher than the construction industry, police or firemen. If I had been a carpenter, a cop or a fireman, after thirty years on the job I would have a pension.
Still, I am grateful that I live in the United States, where I do have subsidized housing, food stamps, Medicaid, and GA-X. It isn't much, but it is better than I would have in India, unless I got one of those call center jobs over there. I'm grateful for my service dog, who keeps me company, moving and sane. I'm grateful for a sister who sends me gift cards and phone cards randomly, and who bought me a plane ticket to Denver so I could be with my 85 year old Dad on Valentine's day. I'm grateful to my Dad, who bought me a scooter, because he knows what it's like to have knees that are bone-on-bone. I'm grateful to my friend and lover, who still thinks I'm attractive, and who bought me a newer used computer because he knows how much the Internet connects me to people. I'm grateful for another friend who bought me a Palm Pilot, for the times when I suffer from "fibrofog" and CRS (can't remember stuff). I'm grateful for bus lifts, and curb cuts, and all that came with the Americans with Disabilities Act. I am grateful for the Doney Clinic, which provides free veterinary care for my dog. I am grateful to Seattle Purebred Dog Rescue, who helped me find the right dog for me. I am grateful to her first owners, who not only gave her to me, but put $50 down at a vet for her shots. I am grateful for medications that keep the pain down to a dull roar.
My life is not easy, despite what my right-wing brother thinks. It is a full-time job just keeping up with the paperwork and appointments to keep my benefits. And every day I see people who are worse off than I am. But sometimes, playing Pollyanna wears me out.

I've got a new gig....

2004-07-23T10:07:46Z

Registering voters with the Statewide Poverty Action Network. I am going to try to get everybody who is eligible registered in my building. Well, maybe not the Jesus lady, who would probably vote for Bush. Speaking of politics, here are a couple of films I think would be interesting if my computer speakers were working, or I had 30-40 minutes to download them on my dialup connection. The quotation on the home page of this one is worth the trip. I also hear this site makes fun of both parties. Maybe tomorrow I will go to the library so I can see them with a broadband connection. If you want to get political, you can go to The 19th Floor, and order a Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker that is accessible. Accessible in that the names are spelled out in American Sign Language, and it has the international wheelchair symbol on it. See the post for July 18th.

Most of the blogs today are involved with what the 9/11 commission report says. At least the ones that aren't talking aboutor Amy Richard's selective fetal reduction. We will see what the morrow brings.

In other news......

2004-07-17T11:46:28Z

The Senate failed to pass the Federal Marriage Amendment. I don't get what all the hooha is about. If my gay brother and his partner, who have been together for 31 years, wish to have the blessings and burdens of marriage, I think they should. Or at least they should have some option for having health insurance, inheritance, visitation in ICU's, and healthcare directives. I know, I know, the amendment's proponents are focusing on the raising of children. Does that mean my marriage was invalid because I chose not to have children? Considering how lousy my marriage to my sexually abusive husband was, I think I will stick to the Boyo's once or twice a week visits.
Since 30% of children lived in single parent households, perhaps we should make them more able to cope. I think the stupidest thing the federal government did was send welfare mothers back to work, especially in single parent households. Who is raising these children? Daycare in most cases. If women are to raise children single-handedly, society needs to make some changes. The first is that through work or subsidies, women must have the money to support their children. This will be difficult since women make only 75% of what men do on average, if they work. Mothers on welfare get a lot less. The second thing is that women will have to band together into extended families, whether by blood or by choice. Part of the problem is that many of these women have little or no support system. Banding into extended families could provide a lot of that support.

I really got pissed off watching the report on the cuts to Medicaid in Mississippi on NOW. Mississippi is cutting their Medicaid eligibility from over $12,000 to $6,768 or $564/month. The Mississippi governor and legislators think $12,000/year is a lot of money for an elderly or disabled person. What planet do they live on? Oh, I forgot, Mississippi isn't Seattle. Still, if I'm not mistaken, $564/mo is one dollar less than the typical SSI grant that many disabled people live on. That means people on SSI will lose their Medicaid. It was pointed out that they can be eligible for Medicare, which doesn't have much of a prescription drug benefit. If I was in this position I would have to be paying out about $350 of my $565 dollars for medications. It was also pointed out that many drug companies have programs where they will provide the drugs free or at low cost. However, not all drugs are covered by the drug companies, and you might have to apply to several companies with differing qualifications to get all your meds. Many of the people at the town meeting were saying they would have to choose between buying medications and food. I guess that means Mississippi is cheap with the food stamps, too.
What is truly galling about this story is that the Democrats in the state proposed to raise the cigarette taxes instead of cutting benefits. Mississippi now has a tax of just $.18 on a pack of cigarettes, compared to the national average of $.72. Of course, we wouldn't want to tax the health-giving benefits of cigarettes out of the reach of the poor people. Oh, and I don't usually see bazillionaires smoking. They know the value of money.
The worst thing is this will backfire and cause higher medical costs, and more hospitalizations. People who don't take their medications as directed have more health care crises. (I have seen a recent study to that effect, but can't find it on the Web.)I ended up in the emergency room when I couldn't afford my asthma meds. I ended up on the psych ward for ten days when I couldn't afford my antidepressants. Fortunately, the hospital put me on "low income allowance", and bought my meds for me for several months while I was unemployed and uninsured. They rightly figured that if I had my meds, I would be less likely to use precious resources. That is why Medicare is so backward. Pay the doctors enough to see the patients without going broke, and dammit, buy their meds for them. Make sure they have enough food stamps to eat healthy foods, and pay for an exercize program for them. Then maybe healthcare costs will go down.

Does it seem strange to you....

2004-07-17T09:37:02Z

That first we hear of the obesity epidemic, then we are told that we must exercize. ''Similar to the challenge of minimizing tobacco smoke exposure two decades ago, the United States epidemic of obesity and sedentariness is now of sufficient social magnitude and cost that increasing physical activity participation can no longer be treated as an individual responsibility. It was found that the most sedentary people are those who are depressed or in poor health. Duh, folks.
And now Medicare gears up to treat obesity as an illness. Do I smell a rat? Perhaps they should read Paul campos on how fat is the last place where it is politically correct to show disgust. And how disgust is usually linked to fear of contamination.
Benjamin Disraeli is quoted as saying, "There are lies, damn lies, and statistics." I am one of those who believes that statistics can and do lie. According to statistics, I will live ten years less because of my obesity. However, my paternal grandmother, who was about the same shape I am, lived to be 89-years old. I am single, I have no children, and few friends. I am disabled, and don't have any expectations of cutting an impressive figure for the rest of my life. What do I need to live ten years longer on the public dole for? I have two pleasures left in my life, sex and food. I am not giving either of them up.
Here is something I wrote on hunger when I was homeless:

Hungry

It is hard for most people to see a woman barely five feet tall, and weighing 250 lbs, and think of her as hungry and malnourished. Fat has been a symbol of prosperity, and girth desirable in the upper class as a sign they had plenty to eat. Until lately.
Now the rich are thin. They can have fresh produce, the leanest meats, and exotic fruit. They have personal trainers to exercise them, and the leisure time to exercise. They go to fat doctors and fat farms to shed their pounds. The poor don't have these luxuries. The rich are able to afford whatever snake oil is being sold for weight loss, injections of human growth hormone, or whatever is current. There is less stress in their life; they don't have to worry where their next meal is coming from, and if they will still be able to afford the rent. Such is not true for the poor. Often they are working two jobs just to make the rent. It is even worse for the homeless on the streets or in shelters.
But this is the United States, the richest country in the world, people aren't hungry here, we have programs for that, food stamps, feeding programs, food banks, right?
The history of feeding programs has been infamous for millenia, from the bread and circuses of ancient Rome to the soup kitchens of the Irish Potato Famine. The Irish Famine is particularly instructive. Ireland did not lack for food during the famine. It was just all being raised for export to Britain, the richest country in the world at that time, under the auspices of absentee British landlords. Most of the Irish peasants who worked the land subsisted on potatoes and milk, a diet that afforded them enough protein, calories, and Vitamins B and C, provided they ate 2-3 pounds of potatoes at a meal for a working man. Potatoes were also used as cattle feed to provide the milk portion of the diet.
When the potato crop failed in 1845 due to blight, the peasants had nothing to eat, and nothing to feed their cattle. The absentee landlords insisted that the food raised for export be sent to Britain in order to pay the Irish tenants rent. If the blight had only lasted that year, things may have been different, but the crops continued to fail until 1851.
In a misguided attempt to provide nutrition to the population, the British government imported maize (corn) from the United States. Unfortunately, corn does not provide the nutrition that potatoes and milk do. Corn has incomplete protein, and must be coupled with beans to provide complete protein. It also lacks Vitamin C and B, causing the populace to contract nutritional diseases such as scurvy and beriberi. These nutritional diseases made the people more susceptible to infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, "hunger fever", and cholera. The result is that out of a population of approximately 8 million in 1845, one million people perished of starvation and famine related disease, and another million saved their lives by emigrating to the United States, Canada, and Australia. Indeed some landlords paid their passages, since it was cheaper to export the people than pay the poor house taxes for each of their tenants in the work houses. Ireland has never recovered from this famine, the population is even now less than it was in 1845.
Barbara Erinreich, in her book Nickle and Dimed, on not making it in America, says she believes there is a conspiracy to make the poor fat. I agree with her. Take food banks. I have used food banks in the past, and find that often you are given high-sugar or high-fat food. Some food banks are better than others at providing produce, but much of what is provided is marginal, unsaleable, on it's way back to the earth from which it came. Otherwise it would still be in the store for the people with money to buy. Meat is rare at food banks, often coming with the commodities from the USDA in the form of canned beef and pork. Canned with lots of fat, and obviously not the best cuts, meat that would be discarded if not canned for commodities. I have been given chum salmon, and never have found a way to cook it that is appetizing. And sometimes we get frozen meat from the fast food joints that is older than they will use.
Sometimes you are given nutritious staples like rice and beans at the food bank, but the fact is that many of the people who go to food banks either don't have cooking facilities or don't have the time to prepare these long-cooking foods..
Food stamps. Yes, if you make less than $950 a month you can get food stamps. But the most you can get is about $135 a month, and that's only if you are on GAU, and your whole cash income is $339 a month. Ever try to feed yourself nutritious foods for $135 a month? Well maybe you can do it if you eat a lot of rice, beans and pasta, and use meat strictly as a condiment. And go to the food bank at the end of the month when the money runs out.
You must have cooking facilities In order to get food stamps, so that lets out a lot of people who are on the street and in shelters. Most people on the street and in shelters are lucky to get one meal a day from the shelter or some food program. Some shelters only provide snacks. More sugary, fat-laden food no doubt. It provides calories, but not a lot of nutrition. People under stress have higher needs for vitamins and micronutrients, and they are not getting them from what is offered. This decreases their ability to function and cope with their lives.
Here at the Aloha Inn where I live in a transitional housing program for the homeless, all our food is from donations. We get one meal a day, and if we are lucky we can have leftovers for lunch. Since our food comes from the same sources as the food banks, we get a lot of sugary, high fat food. There is never a lack of desserts or pastries. What there is a lack of is a variety of vegetables. If I never see mixed vegetables again after I leave here, I will be happy. Broccoli and cauliflower renowned for being health supporting are in short supply and are often overcooked. I long for a fresh carrot where rot is not the operative syllable. My mouth waters at the thought of pot roast. Last time we had anything like that I think it was venison. I enjoyed it, but some people couldn't get past the slightly gamy taste. Sometimes the food is oversalted, and even the meat we get is often very fatty. Things like hot dogs, polish sausage, the fatty pieces of chicken. Bony pieces of fish, or the tasteless salmon.
A lot of the food is past it's prime, past it's "sell by" date. It is mandatory to smell the milk before you pour yourself a glass or put some on your cereal. And look at the pastry to see if it is moldy. The other night the tuna casserole tasted moldy. I suspect some moldy cheese got grated into it, because I know they just cut the mold off the cheese and then use it. Sometimes if the cheese has white mold it is harder to see than green mold, and often the mold goes deeper than what is visible on the surface. Sub-optimal at best, dangerous at worst.
Don't get me wrong, I am grateful for every mouthful, but the diet is not optimal for nutrition. I don't feel good unless I am taking vitamins, and I have had more colds here in three months than I usually have in three years. They have hung on longer, too. And I figure I am better off than a lot of people who are in the shelters, and on the streets. Yes, there are food programs out there, thank heaven. If you know where to go you can get a sack lunch, or have a hot meal at night. Sometimes it comes without ties, sometimes you need to work for it, and sometimes you pay by listening to some preaching.
The diet tends to put weight on people. Flo Beaumon, the program director here, threatens to make "gained tonnage" part of her annual statistics. Homeless people tend to have more chronic disease like diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure. And they are being offered high fat, high sugar, high-sodium foods, just what will make their chronic diseases worse.
I have probably eaten more fast food in the last three months than I usually do. What are you going to do when you only have a few dollars and are hungry? Are you going to buy a nutritious lunch at PCC (a local organic and health food store) for around $10, or are you going to hit a fast food joint where you can get a sandwich, fries, and a drink for around $3? Since I rarely have $10 I can spend for food at one time, PCC is out of the way, and fast food ubiquitous, you can guess the answer.
So here I am, five feet tall, 250 lbs, hungry and malnourished.

Last night I was watching....

2004-07-17T00:50:54Z

Charlie Rose interview Peter G. Peterson of the Blackstone Group about his book "Running on Empty:
How the Democratic and Republican Parties are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It". Peterson brings up some very salient points about the coming crisis in Social Security and Medicare. The baby-boomers, of which I am one, are coming. Will we have enough money in these programs? The answer is probably not, especially with people like me trying to get on SSDI. He also brings up some salient points about how we spend our health care dollars. He stated in the United States most of the people in ICU's are in their eighties, which is not true in other industrialized countries with universal health care. This strikes close to home, as my 85-year old father has spent the last six weeks in and out of ICU's, hospitals, and nursing homes. He seems to be recovering at the moment, but what a lot of money has been expended for what should have been a very simple laparoscopic surgery. Of course, it would have helped if his doctors had entertained the notion that he was suffering from gallbladder disease before it was necrotic. So he suffered in pain for a month, (OK, so they kept sending him home and telling him to take Percocet) until my brother and sister insisted he have a gallbladder ultrasound since I kept saying on the phone "It sounds like gallbladder to me."
Working as a nurse, I have seen many healthcare dollars wasted, such as giving blood repeatedly to a ninety-something cancer patient who was obviously near death. A waste in more than one way, what if your 16-year old son needed that blood after a car crash? We will have to start making some hard decisions.
One of the hardest decisions we will have to make is whether or not to continue tube feeding people in comas or persistent vegitative states. Ethicist Peter Singer states in his 1995 book Rethinking Life and Death that what makes us human is consciousness, and these "people", having less consciousness than a newborn baby or any of our close primate relatives, are perhaps no longer "human", although born to our species. How long can we afford to keep these people "alive" for years and years while 43 million Americans are without health insurance? You are paying for this, 99% of these people are being cared for on Medicaid to the tune of $100, 000 a year or more. This question is especially pertinent in light of the story Bill Moyers is doing tonight on NOW about how Mississippi is cutting Medicaid funds, and more people may have to start choosing between eating and medications. This in light of a recent study that showed that people who take their meds as prescribed live longer and have less hospitalizations. Meds are cheap, folks, compared to hospitalization. That is why Medicare is upside-down. You should have free doctor's visits and meds, and hospitalization should be a last resort.
Speaking of Medicare, it seems that now they are going to treat obesity. Yes, I have heard all the scare tactics. I just think this is a ploy for weight loss surgeons and the new ultrasound fat busterto make more money. Not to mention the pharmaceutical companies. I wonder what Paul Campos has to say about this.

I though I had it bad...

2004-07-14T06:32:13Z

until I read this guy's blog. At least here in Washington state, Medicaid comes with the puny $339 they give you to live on on GAX while you apply for SSDI. It concerns me that he hasn't posted since May. He seemed so ill, I'm wondering if the government succeeded in killing him off before his claim came to the ALJ.
I am in Round Three of applying for SSDI. I have been denied twice, and now I have a lawyer. My caseworker says it would take a "very accomodating employer" for me to work. What sort of accomodations?
1. I would have to be able to bring my service dog to work. That shouldn't be a problem, since I have no intentions of working in a kitchen.
2. I would have to have very flexible start/stop times, as I often have difficulty getting out of bed in the morning, whether from the depression, the arthritis, the fibromyalgia, or some combination thereof.
3. I don't work well with people right now. If somebody looks at me crosswise, I go into tears. If I am in pain, I tend to not be polite. All my background is in people-oriented occupations.
4. I can't sit or stand for very long without doing the opposite. If I am sitting, I need to stand up at least every half hour, so my knees don't lock. I can only stand about 10-15 minutes. I can only walk about three blocks total before I am in lots of pain. Even the sedentary jobs I have had required more sitting, standing, and walking than this.
5. I would be taking plenty of pain meds to cope with the above.
I have tried to work over the last five years with little success. I had to quit one job before I was formally diagnosed with Obstructive Sleep Apnea because I was falling asleep driving to work, not to mention at work. I got fired the first week from one job for being "too depressed." I got fired from one job for always being late. I couldn't cope with a 07:30 start time. I got fired from the last job I had for telling my boss that if she wanted my staff to do "extra" things, she needed to provide me with a real staff. I think that was a day it had taken a couple Percocet to get to work. Standing for twenty minutes out in the cold waiting for a bus doesn't do much for arthritic knees.
Compared to the guy in the above blog, however, I feel like a malingerer. I keep hoping that now that Reagan's dead, our country can lose his mean-spirited fiscal policies. How much does it cost our government to consistently send 60% of SSDI claimants to an ALJ hearing? Most of them have lawyers, who take 25% of any back award. In my case, I also have to pay back the state for the GAX monies I have been living on. I figure I will get to keep 1/3 to 1/2 of any back settlement I get. Meanwhile, I have no money for haircuts, new shoes, I have the cheapest internet access, no cable TV, no dinners out (unless the Boyo is buying), and worst of all, no Starbucks!!!!
It could be worse, however. Two years ago I was homeless, now I have my own apartment in public housing. I am lucky, because I applied when I thought I would go back to work eventually and never need it. My place on the waiting list came up with a vacancy right before all the HUD funding cuts. I am not living in a cardboard shack, I have food stamps and Medicaid. I get a stipend to feed my service dog. *sigh* But I wish my sisters would send me a Starbuck's card.

Junk Science My version:

2004-07-13T23:51:34Z

From Big Fat Blog
''Similar to the challenge of minimizing tobacco smoke exposure two decades ago, the United States epidemic of obesity and sedentariness is now of sufficient social magnitude and cost that increasing physical activity participation can no longer be treated as an individual responsibility,'' Yancey says.
Dear Dr. Vancey,
I would love to exercise. Please explain to me how to do it without being in horrible pain. I tried PT, the exercises (gentle, according to her) she gave me put me in a "sit in chair, put ice on knees, take two Vicodin" mode every time I did them. I am trying to get a scholarship at the YMCA so I can do water walking, but don't know if I can afford even the reduced price on $339/month.
Also, in case you haven't noticed, plenty of people still smoke in the US. And they are all there sitting in the bus shelters smoking on rainy days, so that with my asthma, I am forced to be out in the rain. Whether I drink, (can't with all my meds), smoke (not on your life), eat "bad" foods, (guilty), or exercise is still a personal responsibility, thank goddess.
Yes, I am obese. However, my blood pressure is low, my heart is in good shape, and other than my drugs and therapy, I cost the nation little. I even use mostly cheap drugs. I have had symptoms of sleep apnea since I was a small child, only nobody knew what it was then. My knees have hurt since I was 25 years old, and weighed 120 lbs. My normal weight father and younger brother also have bad knees. Give it up.
Gimp
P.S. After I wrote this, I read the article, which I should have done in the first place. I guess the point the Doc was trying to make is that society has to make it its responsibility to see that people are able to exercise. Like maybe it would be good to pay for my YMCA with my Medicaid?

I don't know why....

2004-07-13T23:20:35Z

I do this to myself. Staying up all night, I mean. I have not been in bed since about 8:00am yesterday morning. It's like I don't like to go to sleep unless The Boyo is here. Maybe if I had appointments in the mornings, I wouldn't do this. But I have difficulty getting up most mornings anyway, if not from the depression, then from the arthritis. I had hoped a service dog would help, would wake me up in the morning. Instead I got a service dog that just runs with my schedule, or lack of it. Of course, I did train her myself, so I have only myself to blame.

It's hot here in Seattle. But of course, it is junk science to believe that global warming is happening. Just because the glaciers are melting, it's been hotter here the last two years than in the 13 previous years I can remember, etc.

A day in the life....

2004-07-12T18:29:20Z

Today is bad and good. The Boyo spent the night here, and we made love in the morning. (I call him The Boyo because he is ten years younger than I am.) That's the good part. The bad part is that my Dad, who has been ailing for a couple of months, is back in ICU. I fear he will not make it out of the hospital alive. However, he has fooled me before. Also bad, my left arm where the plates and screws are is killing me, Friday, my service dog, peed on the floor because she is jealous of the time I spend alone in bed with The Boyo, (thank goddess I have linoleum in the apartment) and despite the promised sun, it's starting to cloud up here in Seattle. Just the thing for a depressive with a Seasonal Affective Disorder component. I know, bitch, bitch bitch.
I see my therapist later today. I now have to decide whether to change therapists, or pay sliding scale for my therapy, thanks to funding cuts in Medicaid. The agency with the therapist I have been seeing for three years is not going to take Medicaid anymore. I could switch to the already overburdened Community Psychiatric Centers, but then I would have to start all over again with a therapist. That is, if I can even get to see a therapist weekly under the new regieme. I am going on a NO Carb diet. No Cheyne, no Ashcroft, no Rumsfeld, no Bush.