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The AntiDating Patch

I wrote this in 2009. I was in one of THOSE moods, where I had completely given up on ever dating anyone or anything again. There are some anatomical terms in here but I don’t think it qualifies for x-rating.

The Antidating Patch!
New from Astronomical-Zenith!

Tired of dating? No one interesting around you? In fact, are the single people around you creepy losers who make your skin crawl?

You are not alone! You need the patch. FDA approved and tested, the AntiDating Patch will repel people of either sex who normally would want to date you. People are contrary beasts, so this will make them want to date you all the more, but you will remain aloof, pure and free of sexually transmitted diseases, as if you were hermetically sealed in a plastic bag or old refrigerator.

Herbal remedies make the same claim but they have not paid the large sum of money to the FDA to fast track their product or even to evaluate it at all. Also, 35% of dating sufferers using the herbal remedy are actually unhappy about their privates turning blue. We are unsure about the rumor that parts have fallen off. The herbal company did change its’ formulation recently, but they don’t have to tell you that on the label, because it is a natural product, no FDA evaluation needed, and in fact, it is treated just like other natural foods including carrots even though we remain unconvinced that it fell off the tree in patch form!

The Antidating Patch is safer, more thoroughly tested, doesn’t turn your privates blue (except for one person) and we price it to reflect those facts! For men, choose Thong, Old Lady Full Coverage Underwear, or Bikini style patches.* Consider shaving off all that nasty hair before applying to skin. You may want to wear it on your arm, where the ladies (and gents) can see it. NO, YOU ARE NOT, REPEAT NOT, TO STICK IT ON YOUR PRIVATES. THIS MEANS PENIS, WANG, DOINK, TUBESNAKE, DORK, BALLS, TESTICLES AND WHATEVER ELSE YOU CALL YOUR PERSONAL EQUIPMENT. DON’T STICK IT THERE. WE WON’T BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANYTHING FALLING OFF IF YOU DO. For ladies, choose Boxer, Itsy Bitsy Tight Well Hung (ethnicity of your choice here) or Speedo. Don’t put it on or in your privates, but we know you have more sense then that. This would include boobies, tits, yumyums, mams, breasts, ‘gina, down there, silver beaver, box, cunt, slit, vagina, anus, hole and anything else you learned to call it.

Side effects are rare but include and are not limited to hearing alien voices, high blood sugar, we swear that your privates don’t turn blue or really mostly not. That’s just a faint tinge. Fainting, homicidal behavior, acting like George Bush the Younger, delusions of grandeur (oh, we just said that, didn’t we?), jumping off of buildings, hating sex, loving sex, becoming pregnant (only one man so far and some ladies) and irritation of the privates. Also they can get cranky from lack of use.


*Little Girl style will not be marketed since even though many gents loved it in premarketing testing, those damn strident militant feminists** were up in arms again. We just don’t get it. Those whacko women also didn’t like the Little Boy style for women.

**I qualify for all but the militant bit.

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directed flight

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: deja vu.

This bird has a GOAL. This is a directed flight, like an arrow. Can you guess the bird?

Here it is in the tree top, the goal.

Landing in the tree, getting situated, takes a minute.

Yes, it’s a great blue heron. She reminded me of a tree topper: an unusual angel. It takes a big tree to support this angel, here:

She is at the top of one of the far trees.

Deja vu: seeing the Covid-19 numbers rise in the US again and grieving about that and Afganistan and Haiti and sending love to all the grieving that we don’t even know about.

I took these pictures in September 2017, down the street from my house. I love the great blue herons and I love to see them in trees. They look so wonderful and peculiar in trees.

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grounded

This is a poem that I wrote in 2015 or before. It was previously posted here and on everything2.com. I just read a blog where two hockey dads are dead of covid-19. The author is writing about grief. I wrote this when I was struggling with grief and how to really let it in.

grounded

grief is an ox
that stands in the room with me
and overshadows
everything

no
grief
is a plow
pulled by an ox
I try to guide it
in the furrows

no
grief is the heavy ground
the plow turns it
the ox pulls
I guide it
in the furrows

no
I am grieving
I let it be close
I don’t push it
in to an ox
in to a plow
in to the earth
I let it in
I grieve

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plane view

I took this last month when I flew to Michigan for an almost brother’s birthday. He turned 50. The rising sun was just amazing and I could see the mountains beautifully. Yesterday’s photograph was also from the plane. I flew from Seattle to Chicago. In Chicago I took a taxi to the train station. There I waited for a train for four hours and then rode up into Michigan. It was my first real journey with the oxygen concentrator. My carry on had the concentrator, three back up batteries, my camera, a laptop and phone and charging cords for all of them. A heavy bag and I had to pull out laptop, batteries and camera at security. Fun, eh? But I had enough oxygen for a 12 hour journey and could plug in on the train. I could have plugged in on the plane too, but the cord was in the overhead compartment. Anyhow, it worked. Oxygen tubing, N95 mask and second mask over the N95… whew.

I also learned that I need to let the airline know 48 hours in advance that I am traveling on oxygen. They tend to seat you by a window so no one trips over your tubing. Though I was in an aisle seat on the way back. Anyhow…. made it, hoorah!

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I have seen the frogs

I have seen the frogs
in the northwest

all you have to do is be quiet
near the puddles
or a pond

walk there very very quietly

in the spring they are singing
to each other
calling
a symphony of longing and joy
and they don’t hear me
when I walk very quietly
at the end of the world

as a child my father teaches me
to catch frogs

very quietly
approach the pond
or puddle

if the frog hears you
it will duck under water
you will only see a ripple
spreading out

or it will hop
into the woods
and hide

my father
would occasionally use frogs
as bait
to catch northern pike
a live frog on a hook
frogs scream
when you stick a hook through their back

I hope they go into shock then
and don’t feel much

one we’d seen this
my cousins and my sister and I
when my father got his fishing rod
we’d run through the woods
yelling “Hide the frogs, hide the frogs!”
and we would catch any frog
that was dumb enough not to hide
and quickly set it in the woods
to hide it from my father

we would check the puddles, too
feeling in the brownish muck
to make sure no frog was hidden
in the shallow puddle
come out, you must go in the woods
to survive

to catch the smart ones
normally
we would tiptoe to the puddle
hoping a frog was facing the other way
if they saw us, they were gone

slowly bend down, hand out
behind the frog
reach gently
grab just above the back legs
not too hard, don’t squish it

I was under ten
on a canoe trip
when I run to my father
“A frog! A frog! The biggest frog I’ve seen!
Papa, come help!”
My father comes.
An enormous frog is beside the canoe.
“Catch it.” says my father.
“Please! You catch it!” I beg.
My father creeps up on the frog.
His hand moves out slowly.
He grabs the frog, who tries to jump
and croaks, a bass, huge mouth.
“It’s a young bullfrog,” says my father.
“It will get even bigger.”
He hands it to me.
I take it carefully, shaking a little.
“We could eat it’s legs.”
“NO!” I say. I just want to hold it for a minute.
I turn it over and gently stroke it’s throat.
The frog goes limp, mesmerized.
I set it down gently, right side up,
near the water.
I squat by the frog and wait.
I am waiting for it to wake up.
The frog is so beautiful.
I wait until it wakes up
and returns home.

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Covid-19: simplified self care

  1. I am a Family Practice Physician for 30 years. I have had pneumonia four times. I last got pneumonia on March 20, 2021 and I am still off work and on oxygen. This is the first time I have been on oxygen. No tobacco, no marijuana, no lung disease found to date but my mother had tuberculosis when I was born and my father smoked unfiltered Camels. With the hospital beds filling up, this is to help keep people out of the emergency room if they don’t need to be there and to help people track how sick they are.
  2. Learn to take your pulse. You need a second hand. Your heart rate is the number of beats in 60 seconds. Take it at rest (which means sitting or lying down). Then try taking it after you walk. It should be regular unless you have known atrial fibrillation. Also, if you are fifty or older, you may skip some beats so that you have early or late ones. That is not worrisome.
  3. Normal is 60-100. If you are very out of shape, you might go up to 120 after you run up the stairs or walk fast.
  4. If your resting pulse is 120 or higher, call your physician. If you are very short of breath with that or your lips are turning blue, call an ambulance right away.
  5. If your resting pulse is normal, say, 70 beats per minute, and your pulse after walking goes up 30 points or over 100, you are sick. If you are very short of breath after walking you may need oxygen. Call your physician and walk… really… slowly. When your lungs are swollen, there is less air space to exchange oxygen and your heart makes up the difference. If your heart is beating at over 100 for long, it is like running a marathon. Don’t stop walking completely because you are at risk for blood clots. But walk really slowly.
  6. If your resting pulse is normal and your walking pulse is ok, try a loaded walk. Carry something that weighs 20 pounds if you can. Then sit down and check a pulse again. If it is over 100 or jumps 30 points, you too have lung swelling, it’s just a little more subtle. You need to rest too.
  7. With practice, you will have a good idea what your pulse is before you do a formal count.
  8. You can use a pulse oximeter but you have to use it accurately. The fingers should be not moving and lying on the person’s knee or table or something. Otherwise it will give inaccurate readings and scare you. With a regular heart rate, look for the light to be picking up regularly before you believe the oxygen level. O2 sats under 87% need oxygen, but also if someone is going below 95% or is a child, call doctor or ambulance.
  9. Take a multivitamin. It is a lot of work for your heart to race fast. Rest, rest, rest. I have had 4 rounds of pneumonia with lung swelling. It took two months, two months, a year and this time I am five months post pneumonia and still on oxygen.
  10. Don’t use quack supplements and don’t take veterinarian ivermectin. Hello, you are not a sheep.
  11. Remember that if someone is hypoxic, they may act goofy, happy and unconcerned or be scared or have memory loss or just be confused. I write really weird rhyming songs when hypoxic and have the poor judgement to sing them to my doctor.
  12. GETTING VACCINATED IS YOUR BEST BET TO NOT DIE OF COVID-19. AND WEARING A MASK ALL THE TIME AROUND OTHER PEOPLE.

Good luck and take care.

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do no harm

First do no harm.

That is part of the Hippocratic Oath and yes we did it at the end of medical school. “I will prescribe regimen for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgement and never do harm to anyone.”

This is a pandemic. People are dying. A lot of people. I am not ok with people saying personal freedom, we don’t want to wear masks, we don’t want the vaccine. I take the oath to first do no harm: what about those people? They are putting their personal freedom first and do not care if they harm me. I don’t like them. Please don’t kill me. Please don’t kill my son or daughter or future daughter in law.

You can have your personal freedom not to wear a mask or get a vaccine: in your house. I don’t think you should be allowed off your property if you won’t put doing no harm to others first during a pandemic. Stay in your house. Don’t come out. It is selfish to put yourself and your personal freedom in front of multiple peoples’ lives. You can order from Amazon and order groceries and ok, you can associate with other selfish unimmunized unmasked people, but not the rest of us. Your personal freedom has a high chance of killing me. I am immunized but my immune system doesn’t work and I am already on oxygen. I don’t want to be around you. Stay away from me.

I think it is time for my community to give back to me and all the other first responders: medical, police, fire, grocery store, hospital, all the essential workers. Give back: either get immunized and masked or stay in your house.

Thank you.

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Covid-19: caring for yourself

audio version, covid-19: Caring for yourself

A friend took his father to the ER in the next bigger town, sent there for admission to the hospital from the clinic. His father is in his 90s, has heart failure, and his legs were puffed up like balloons with weeping blisters.

They were in the ER for 13 hours, never given food though it was promised, the staff couldn’t even find time to bring a urinal and his father was not admitted. He was sent home. No beds. On divert.

Ok, so when should you go to the hospital right now? Only if you really really can’t breathe….

First, the emergencies. An ER nurse friend talks about β€œhappy hypoxia” where people do not feel bad but have an oxygen saturation of 50%. I suspect that this is when their lungs really are swelling shut very fast. They will turn blue quickly. Call an ambulance. In the 1918-1919 influenza, soldiers β€œturned blue and fell over dead”. In Ralph Netter’s book on pulmonary diseases, he has a drawing of the lungs of a person who died from influenza pneumonia. The lungs are basically one big red purple bruise with no air spaces. So if a friend is goofy and their lips are turning blue: AMBULANCE.

The one in five hospitals that are 95% full or more in the US are now cancelling all of the elective surgeries: knee replacements, hip replacements, non emergent heart surgeries, all of it.

If you are not dying, do not go to the emergency room if you are in one of the totally swamped areas.

So how to care for yourself with covid-19? Like influenza, it is pretty clear that it either causes lung swelling or the lungs fill with fluid or both. With lung swelling you may be able to stay home. First take your pulse. If you have a pulse oximeter, great, but no worries if you don’t. .What is your resting heart rate? Count the number of heart beats in 60 seconds

If it’s 60-100, that is good. It’s normal. If it is 120 at rest, that is getting worrisome. If you are short of breath at rest and your pulse is over 100, call your doctor. If they can get you oxygen, you still may be able to stay home. If not, emergency room.

Now get up and walk. Do you get short of breath? Sit back down and again, count the number of heartbeats when you are sitting. If your resting pulse was 90 and you jump to 130 walking, you have lung swelling. Functionally you have half the normal air space and so your heart is making up the difference. How to cope? Well, walk slowly. Walk during the day, do get up because otherwise you may get a leg blood clot, but really minimize your activity. Now is not the time to rearrange the furniture. Also, you may not go to work until your walking or loaded pulse is under 100.

If your pulse does not jump up when you walk, next try walking loaded. That is, carry something. Two bags of groceries, a toddler, a pile of books. Go up the stairs. Sit down and take your pulse when you are short of breath or it feels like your heart has speeded up. I am in this category. My pulse is 70, oxygen at 99 sitting. Walking my pulse jumps to 99. Walking loaded my pulse goes to 125 and my oxygen level starts dropping, need oxygen once it gets to 87. I tried a beach walk without oxygen 3 weeks ago. I photographed the pulse ox when it was at 125 with O2 sat at 87. I still need oxygen.

The treatment for lung swelling is rest. This is my fourth time, so I am used to it. Some people will have so much swelling they will need oxygen at rest. If the lungs swell shut, they need to be intubated or they die. Suffocation is not fun. The other treatment is not to catch another virus or a bacteria on top of the present lung swelling. Wear mask, get vaccinated, put out the cigarrette, no vaping, pot is terrible for the lungs too and increases the risk of a heart attack.

With my four pneumonias, the first two made me tachycardic and it took two months for the lung swelling to subside. It sucked. Inhalers don’t work, because they work by bronchodilating. You can’t bronchodilate swollen lung tissue. The steroid inhalers might help a little but they didn’t help me. The third pneumonia took 6 months to get back to work and then I was half time for 6 months. This time I am five months out today and I still need oxygen. Darn. Don’t know if my lungs will fully recover. They may not.

So: rest. Good food. Avoid substance abuse. Mask all visitors and don’t go to parties/raves/concerts/anything. Oxygen if needed and if you can get it.

Take care.

The photograph is me wired up for a sleep study a week ago. The technician took it at my request. I won’t have results until next week.