Healthcare thoughts and a book: The Treatment Trap

Sometimes an office visit for a medical complaint seems more like a marriage than a date.  You not only get  your doctor, but all the relatives - a flock of specialists to look after each body part separately.

I have watched strange goings on as a patient advocate for an elder relative for the last ten years. A kidney is atrophied, for instance, according to some test or other by one kidney doctor, then a stent is put in by a sub-specialist kidney doc who does stents, then immediattely there is a question as to which kidney was damaged, as both appear to be fine....

Or when in the hospital for a fall, the hospitalist says they are going to send a neurologist to evaluate her, and also a specialist to look at her sinuses since the scans of her head revealeved a tiny polyp that might be causing post nasal drip. BUT THE PATIENT HAS ALREADY BEEN FULLY EVALUATED and is under treatment by a NEUROLOGIST associated with that hospital.  She doesn't  care about her perennial post nasal drip and wants to go home. She is stable,  and IS SHARING A ROOM WITH SOMEONE INFECTIOUS.  So MRS X -  How about another CAT Scan or maybe we need another MRI, or five more specialists to consult on your case - If you have good insurance - they have some tests they would like to run..... Never mind that post nasal drip isn't exactly something to make you check into a hospital.

Did I mention that these days seniors go to a doctor for each part of their bodies? Besides her primary Doc, my relative has a doctor for her heart, one for her arteries, one for her kidneys, one for the colon, one for her nerves and another for her thyroid. Then several of them want to see her four times a year which always involves looking at the papers and having a chat. No hands on at all. SO Why not do the blood work and let the primary care guy decide if she needs to see them? No fee in that....

For more of the same foolishness and some outright larceny from all across the country - read the The Treatment Trap -  a book by Rosemary Gibson and Janardan Prasad Singh. It's available at the Danbury Library.  It's a sobering read.

Flash fluke - Cat with burning eyes

This is one of those accidental photos that I could never take on purpose, because as a point-and-click photog, I just don't have the skill.  Miet walked right up to the camera and got caught in the flash closeup..  The photo was taken at night, and the lamp in the background has one of those new fangled energy-saving bulbs

Sculpture in clay, from a live model

This is a larger sculpture f(or me I mean) - about 14 or 15 inches high. I made it during a class at Wooster Community Art Center quite a few years ago,. The instructor was Janice Mauro who does a lot of cool work with figures in enclosures, and with patinas that have an incredible depth.  We had a live model for the class. I had previously sketched a live model before but working in three dimensions was quite different.  This has some cracks in it now. The back of the base is broken, as is one hand. I still like the lines though.

I also took a class at Wooster with Alex Shundi, but in that class we worked with terra cotta clay. Shundi is another great instructor. I have fond memories of both of the classes I took at Wooster. I wish the center was still open.

Polymer Face – Sad-Eyed Man

I used the vignette function in iPhoto to focus on the face of this sad=eyed fellow with his doubtful look. The sculpture is polymer, mounted on a stone tile. It's one of dozens of polymer faces I created around the year 2000. Each is different.  I signed the photo in Picnick on Picasso.

The Holmes Brothers at Ballard Park

Last Thursday, I enjoyed an outdoor show at Ballard Park put on by CHIRP, (usually they are on Tuesdays). It was free, the weather and the music were good. The Holmes Brothers , Wendell and Sherman Holmes and Popsy Dixon, are originally from Virginia. According to their press relase, the band originally formed in 1979, and it doesn't hurt that they have a lifetime of stylistic knowledge to draw on. They play heavy on the blues with fabulous vocal harmonies including a sort of quavery falsetto, a little rockin' jazz, tasty guitar licks, and a bit of country. There were many toe-tapping fast-moving songs, with a few glacially slow and subtle songs. And yes, this group may have some grey hair, but so did much of the audience, including me!

One nice feature of Ballard Park is its small size. You can park in town, walk into the park, walk out Through Ballard Green Apartment's parking lot, walk down towards Maine Street walk back up Maine Street and go into the same park entrance as before, and still hear the music. A concert and exercise too!

Subtle - I didn't notice at first

How a calculating MANIPULATOR works methodically
to cut out the opposition while looking innocent

Some of us, including me are slow to see the undercurrents.  And if you are the patient sort, you just shrug and walk away, without putting the pieces together. But consider:

Suppose every time you had a good conversation with someone in a certain public social setting, a third party literally inserted herself directly between you and the person you were speaking with cooing at them about how much she's missed them, beaming at them, hugging them, petting their hair, giving them her undivided attention . How sweet everyone thinks - but whoever you were speaking with instantly forgets about their previous ongoing conversation with you and begins speaking with the interrupter. Or she sits down on the other side of them while they are speaking to you and begins touching and speaking to them so they turn away and net result is the same - you are shut out.

Once, twice, three times, you shrug it off and walk away, chalk it up to the enthusiasm of the moment. But suppose this happened repeatedly literally dozens of times over the course of a year's time. And in your observations - she only did this to you.... Yet you remain patient and polite - and no one, not even your best friends notice or care or even believe you when you finally mention it, because she is kissing up to each of them in various ways cultivating their favor. Once only, you object in the moment as it is happening - such a mean person you are interrupting this tender moment between the interrupter and the person who only a second ago was talking to you. You begin to avoid speaking to others, lest you draw her attention to them. So now you are self-censoring yourself to avoid her behavior.

Congratulations. You are in box. What was formerly a happy place of connection is now a place of sadness and loss. What would be the point in continuing to go to that place? You step out of the box and go somewhere else. You don't say where.

A Bic pic – doodling again….

This pair of characters is now pinned to my bulletin board. It's drawing with a Bic on a little scrap of blue paper. I digitally eliminated the color.

The man seems to be studying something in the distance, the woman is evaluating her next move.Or perhaps they have just returned to their car to find it has been vandalized and are looking around to see who might be on the scene.

Or that is the story I tell myself about them. So much of our relations are like that.  Someone who hardly knows you is looking at you, telling themselves a story about you, piecing together your motives, your history, or pretending to someone else that they see you clearly.. It may or may not have any relation to reality, and may also be diametrically opposed  to the story you are telling yourself which also might have little reality to it.

"Alas poor Yorick -I  knew him well" - but did you? Hamlet gets away with saying that because he is speaking to a skull.....