Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Pictures of my life



Sent from my Verizon Wireless Phone

Needing to find my motivation...

Been a while again - this has been a rough year for me and my crew... I have had two surgeries this spring, then Ella had her tonsils removed, then my partner was hurt in a motorcycle accident and the other partner had to go to China to adopt his daughter ( who is too cute ) but that left me and one other doc to fill in for two, and then once all is returning to normal my 2 year old Cord had to have his tonsils out - I raise cute kids with major ENT issues and we are currently putting our ENTs kids through school - Ha ha!!! But somewhere in all that I forgot to sit down and take the time to write out my feelings...

It is good to be taking some time for me again.

As I sit here listening to "I love rock and roll" I am realizing that I should be doing something else much more productive like working out or sleeping but this is more fun.

I am not much happier with health care reform than I was and even less happy with the Presidents "economic Recovery Plan" that is not recovering anything in the part of the Country. People in Washington DC are SO disconnected from the rest of this country. And seem to be only worried with getting reelected. Why can't they all have term limits - you may have heard that POWER CORRUPTS - I am wondering if they have...

I am also still concerned with the fate of animal agriculture and agriculture in general in these modern times when most people are 5 generations removed from a farm. I find it terrifying that people are being mislead with buzzwords like Locovore and sustainable production and that people really and truly feel free range eggs make so much difference to chicken but these same people want the farmer to provide said eggs at the same cost with a markedly increased production cost. People just don't understand that the American Farmer buys all their supplies at retail cost then sells our products at wholesale - not the best business model.

I also spend my days wondering now how much good it does to call politicians - I wore the phones out this spring and summer when I was faced with a 24% pay cut from Medicare (they are already paying me at 1994-1996 rates and they wanted to cut that) and when the wonderful stupid health care bill was being railroaded through the house and senate. And no one seemed to care or to listen to the American People - I thought that they were elected to serve "We the People..."

And now on top of everything else I am juggling - Mom, MD, Physician Leadership student, Farmers Wife, my girls came home tonight with my Mom from a Girl Scout meeting and now they want me to be a girl scout Daisy troop leader - I need a CLONE.

Oh well, I guess I am Standing in deep water and bailing myself out with a straw - yup for you musical folk my droid has now moved on to Jewel....
Night from middle TN. Sweet Dreams...

Friday, September 17, 2010

Another child thru surgery

Been a hard morning. The duties of my job yet competing with my duties as a Mom. My youngest child had to have his tonsils removed and  you cannot explain surgery to a two year old. So now we are screaming and crying. Wish me luck.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Life from a Different Point of View

Hey there again -

I had a patient yesterday ask me if I had read a book - that in and of itself is not that unusual of an occurrence but I really felt an interest in this book. She was talking about Still Alice by Dr. Lisa Genova. Its a book about Alzheimer's Dementia from the point of view of the patient affected. This is a disease that I feel is often overlooked and then the patient themselves is often talked about as if they were not there. Its a hard place to be as a caregiver and a provider, you need to ask certain questions but its hard to talk about a person when they are sitting there.

Dr. Genova makes this a very really problem as you experience the disease from her point of view. In a little under two years, the patient went from being a Harvard professor to a totally dependant Dementia patient.

I have seen and help too many patients and families thru this and it was hard to read, especially as I lost my Grandmother to traumatic Dementia a few years ago. Even as a MD, I had never seen and faced the realities of this illness till I had to live it and as good as STILL ALICE is nothing compares till you have to live thru it.

If you are looking for a heart wrenching story that helps you realize how the disease works - I highly recommend this a book to read.