Monthly Archives: May 2021

by

you know you are hypoxic when

You know you are hypoxic when … all you have left are dead soldiers….

I turn them upside down when they are empty.

No, I am not really out of oxygen. Send something for oxygen to the people who desperately need it now. Because we could be next and because really: we have so much.

by

Liz’s Wind Mill

Wind mill. Or wind tunnel. Or something.

My friend Liz and I built this the other day. The stand was a free because someone is moving. We decided that we wanted it, though we weren’t sure for what. Then we remembered the box of stuff from synchronized swimming. With me wandering the house while trying to get well and grumpy to boot, it all came together.

Fourteenth street is a bit of a wind tunnel, up a steep hill. I am not at the crest, but maybe 4/5 of the way up. The wind can really howl up the street. I have to protect the roses and tomatoes because the wind is too cold for them sometimes. I have put up “walls of plastic”, a variation on “walls of water”.

Plastic clipped to the fence to protect roses against wind.
Walls of plastic around tomatoes.

by

alternative medicine

Ok, I got this picture off Facebutt. I CONFESS. But I really want a doctor kit like this: so I can practice alternative medicine. I am disabled from Family Practice and I have to apply for disability payments (miles of paperwork) and I hear that even as a contractee I can apply for unemployment (miles more paperwork) and I see my hospital bill on line for the ER visit where I had chest pain and shortness of breath and the ER doc didn’t even give me an aspirin, so I want to know why I should pay them $900 and I am going to apply for reduced payments because last year I made 42 K, less then the nurses at Jefferson Healthcare (EVEN MORE PAPERWORK FOR THE REDUCED PAYMENTS) and really, it all sounds rather exhausting and I’d rather let the paranoia rise and hide under the bed. Where the OCD and ADHD will make me arrange the dust bunnies and dust elephants by size.

So this looks like a great doctor kit. If the patient sees me and doesn’t do a darn thing that I say, I shoot them with the gun in the forehead. If they do a little but not really very much, I set up the bowling pins and shoot them with the gun while I talk about how irritating it is to have patients use MY TAX DOLLARS though MEDICARE MEDICAID ACTIVE MILITARY DUTY AND THE VETERANS ADMINISTRATION NOT TO MENTION SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY to get advice and not follow it.

If they are merely disrespectful and tell me what Dr. Google says, I say “Duck.” and throw one at them. If they say, “I don’t take any farmasuiticals.” and bring a bag with the 12 supplement and vitamin pills they take daily, I give them the plastic pills to replace all their stupid supplements. “Here, take this. If it doesn’t work, I have suppositories, but they are four times this size so some people complain that they are uncomfortable.”

I am not sure WHAT the thing in the lower right corner is. A hair dryer? A fentenyl lollipop? Part of an old fashioned telephone?

Anyhow, someone find me one of these kits and send it to me. Pretty please. I am not allowed to do Family Medicine any more and really want to get started on Alternative Medicine.

by

art installation naming contest

Ladies and gentleman and others, my friend Liz wants help naming the art installation that she put in my yard!

Who can tell me about the chain?

The hat is clearly from either a witch or a which, I’m not sure witch.

Have at it. Let’s see, the winner will receive a prize which Liz and I have to figure out…..

by

you know you are hypoxic when….

You know you are hypoxic when you stand there sniffing, wondering why the on demand oxygen isn’t working. It’s supposed to supply oxygen when you sniff. Let’s see, it is turned on to two liters…hurry, or I will be late for covid test… what the heck is wrong?….. oh….

by

broken three

I drop the fragment of rock with the seam a second time. Now I have three pieces. I stop there. When I climb back up the bank, I have an oxygen tank, a camera and rocks. It involves quite a bit of swearing and stopping to rest while I try to get enough oxygen.

Hopefully I will get better. I don’t know when or even if. My friend B says he wants to know what the pneumonia was, that triggered this round of pseudoautoimmune misery. I shrug. “We know some things it isn’t.” I say. “It isn’t covid-19, it isn’t influenza A or B, it isn’t respiratory syncytial virus, it probably is not strep A though I still haven’t had the second blood test. It isn’t pneumococcal pneumonia. It could have been mycoplasma pneumonia or pertussis or a very long list of viruses. Doctors are practical scientists, at least, I am. If the patient is getting better, don’t chase an answer that won’t add anything. I caught something, probably in the clinics where people kept taking off their masks when they were ‘alone’ in the room. They didn’t realize that they were breathing out viruses or bacteria that could take me out.” We aren’t exactly sure if the combined penicillin and clindamycin, high dose, helped or not. I think it did, but stress makes this worse too and it was a very very stressful time. Mean people, you know, and mean family. I just don’t understand what they are thinking.

I really think that post covid-19, we should wear a mask if we go out in public when we are sick. Because you don’t know which people are the vulnerable ones. I normally have lots of energy and I don’t think people would guess that I have had chronic fatigue and that I am terribly vulnerable to infection. In the clinic I owned, after I was sick in 2014, I asked any patient who was sniffling or coughing to wear a mask. “I get pneumonia easily,” I would explain. They had the right to refuse and then I would not see them. After I closed my clinic and went to work as a temp doc, I could not protect myself. I asked the nurses to ask people to PLEASE keep their masks on, but people are people. They didn’t. I had a bit of a PTSD reaction every time I walked into a patient room and they had masks off. I wanted to run out of the room screaming but I was more restrained and just said, “Please, please, PLEASE put your mask back on, other people have been in the room.” I didn’t add “And you might kill me.” because I only had 20 minutes for the visit…..

The pieces of rock are beautiful, aren’t they?

Here is a great song. Got it from this blog: https://reflectionsofanuntidymind.blog/2021/05/07/icky/

This is all for the Ragtag Daily Prompt: workshop. I like working with rocks. I have to decide what work to do next, since it’s no longer safe for me to do family medicine. It SUCKS. I really miss my peeps.

I have to get well first. If I do, what next?

by

broken two

I pick the rock up and drop it on another rock. Inside there is a vein of quartz. And what looks like a heart, made of quartz. Beautiful. I hope the rock does not mind being broken. I am questioning myself. The rock would break eventually but I have speeded that up. Sometimes we do some really questionable things out of curiosity.

The rock did not break along the seam that I expected it to. There is still that seam. Should I drop it again?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: workshop.

by

broken 1

I was playing along a stream on Tuesday. It was darn hard to climb down to with my oxygen tank and camera. It made me very short of breath. But I love water and running water is joyous.

I was picking up rocks and looking at rocks. This rock really interested me. Look at all the cracks. When the river is higher it would wear the rock down. In the winter the cracks might freeze. I thought this rock might be ready to break. What is inside?

This is for the Ragtag Daily Prompt: workshop.