palmd | September 2, 2009Weigh in this morning: 205 lbs. Still looking asymptotic, but decreasing. Yea!
I had some stress-related over-eating, which isn't (obviously) a good coping mechanism, but in general, I'm doing better.
palmd | September 1, 2009The Drake Passage is infamous. Supposedly, it's nearly impossible to make the crossing to without throwing up----a lot. But few "civilians" ever get to experience the passage, and it's ultimate goal----Antarctica.
Devorah Bennu is an exceptional science writer and photographer. Reading her blog is like getting a daily dose of National Geographic, except free and good. Her science career was famously interrupted, but she has used the interregnum to become one of the webs best popularizers of science.
And now she has a chance to go to Antarctica as an official expedition blogger,…
palmd | August 31, 2009For the last five hundred years, white America has feared black America. When physical chains were broken, the fear only increased. Rumors of black on white atrocities frequently circulate in white communities that live on the edge of black communities. As my home town integrated, rumors of white women being raped weren't uncommon. One particularly tenacious rumor had it that a white boy had been castrated by a group of black men at a local mall.
All of these rumors were, of course, untrue, and served as both a barometer of fear, and a tool of control. If fear could be maintained,…
palmd | August 31, 2009So, I cheated as usual over the weekend, but not as badly as I might have. I had a seriously awesome bike ride with my kiddo. And today, I'm not terribly hungry.
I'm finding that certain things just whet my appetite. One of the drawers in the office has a bad of mini chocolate bars. I can't do it. If I have one, I'll eat the whole bag, which in addition to making me feel shitty will piss off my secretary.
So I'll go pick up a chicken ceasar (oil and vinegar) on my way back to work, and enjoy the belt-tightening.
palmd | August 30, 2009China's a communist country, totally different from the capitalist U.S., right? They probably have some sort of socialized health system that makes Canada look downright libertarian. Right?
No.
I was talking to a friend (who I'll call "Pu") this week. She was surprised that I had to bend over backward to get someone insulin.
Pu: "In China, this would never happen."
Pal: "Really? You mean because the State would take care of it?"
Pu: "No. In China, you pay a deposit for your care, and have to pay as you go, or that's it. Can't afford insulin? Tough. Go home and die."
Hmmm...socialist…
palmd | August 30, 2009From time to time we see an article (usually from LA) about hospital patients being "dumped" on street corners. I don't know how wide-spread this problem is, but the systemic problem that leads to this is common and serious.
Most American hospitals are required to render emergency care to anyone who comes in the door. In practice, this means hospitals provide a great deal of uncompensated care. For example, if some guy with a couple of bullet holes is dumped in front of the ER by his "friends", the hospital is required to stabilize him. But let's say they then wish to transfer his care…
palmd | August 30, 2009The "summer without summer" continues with fall blowing in early. Sitting outside with the kiddo yesterday we found a garter snake sunning itself (and it was pretty big for a garter snake!). Despite the strong north wind, we hopped on the bike and rode up to the school where she'll be starting kindergarten in a couple of weeks. This isn't a hilly part of the country, but when you're a bit out of shape and pulling seventy pounds of nearly dead weight, even a little rise slows you down. PalKid had plenty of questions about why I was going so slow (annoying) and about what the gears do (not…
palmd | August 28, 2009Here in the northern hemisphere, flu season generally starts in the fall and rapidly falls off at the end of winter. This past flu season, we had a "two-fer", with an initial dip in cases, followed by a spike in new cases attributable to the novel H1N1 ("swine") flu that emerged late last year.
The bimodal flu season of 2008-09
This is my first pandemic, and it's been fascinating. The sudden drop in cases at the beginning of summer was matched with a sudden increase in cases in summer camps and military installations. The high attack rate is particularly dramatic, although the…
palmd | August 27, 2009I sometimes feel that if I don't crank out two posts a day, I must have "lost it", whatever "it" is. But I've got the shpilkes and I have to write something.
The end of the week is hard. Wednesday and Thursday are long days for me, and after I put my kiddo to bed Tuesday night, I often don't see her again until Friday night. This isn't cool at all. She start kindergarten in a few weeks, and I'm trying to arrange my schedule so that most mornings I can get her up and get her to school before I go to work. That'll mean getting up earlier and fighting with a cranky kid, but it'll…
palmd | August 26, 2009So, I ate a big meal last night and I'm at 206 today. I think I've gotten a little out of hand with the "cheating". I'm going to have to be more attentive to what I'm shoving down my gullet. Ugh. Well, back to work, then.
palmd | August 25, 2009The Right is desperate---desperate to derail any sort of health care reform. Notably absent from their diatribes is any debate on the merits of one plan or another. They know that the only way to convince Americans to keep the terrible system we have now is to make them think that any reform would be worse. And so they are blowing their dog whistles, talking about "culture of life" and "culture of death", and along the way encouraging ignorance about one of the most important aspects of medical care.
Any rational person knows that there are no proposed "death panels"---it's a blatant lie…
palmd | August 24, 2009No, I haven't given up on my diet lifestyle change. I've done a little bit of sinning, especially Friday night at Skeptics in the Pub---beer, burgers, nachos...you name it.
Interestingly, it turns out that it's more uncomfortable for me to overeat than it used to be. I'm not sure why that is (but don't throw around the "shrinking stomach" myth around here). I used to be able to scarf down a large pizza without a thought. Now, I can still do it (and still might) but I feel like shit afterward.
I wasn't too good about exercise last week, and I didn't get around to riding the bike this…
palmd | August 24, 2009People who support our current abominable health care system like to cite Canada's supposed failures as an example of what could happen to us. The argument is a non-starter---it's a straw man designed to scare people. We are a very different country, with a different economy and different needs. Even with a single-payer system, we are unlikely to have the exact same successes and failures as the Canadians. Still, the Right has latched on to any lie they can to try to scare us. That's why a recent article from my hometown newspaper is so upsetting.
Any of us who have practiced medicine…
palmd | August 24, 2009OK, it's time for another science-y post. Usually, I take on something very relevant to my specialty---it's a helluva lot easier to write about stuff I already know. But some basics are just really cool, and worth exploring, even though I'll have to step a bit outside my comfort zone. In this case, it's the heart. Because I'm venturing a bit on the wild side, I consulted an expert, whose hot, hot science helped illuminate this topic.
If you've taken a basic biology course, you probably have some idea of how the human heart works, but understanding can be a bit deeper if we look at the heart…
palmd | August 23, 2009My friend Janet has a piece up about what qualifies one to be a philosopher, a piece which is remarkably brief but says much. She points out that get a position at a university, there are certain requirements, but that one can be "off the books". Anyone can call themselves a philosopher, and if enough of us assent to their claim, well, then they're a philosopher, no matter how muddled their thinking may or may not be.
In medicine, we have a similar problem---the problem of assent. To become a primary care doctor (a category which includes internists and family physicians) the "official"…
palmd | August 23, 2009I'm really trying to understand this. Really. Why is the outcry against health care reform so much louder than the call for reform? I have a very hard time believing that a majority of people are against some sort of improvement in our system. Around here, people are losing their insurance right and left. But they sometimes seem more scared of reform than of remaining uninsured.
Those of us in favor of a single payer system are shut out of this one. "Medicare for all" is uttered only quietly among well-known co-conspirators. When people who oppose this plan, or even just oppose the…
palmd | August 21, 2009Last night's Daily Show was hands down the best discussion of the health care reform insanity on TV, radio, or web. What interested me the most was how McCaughey revealed some of her real agenda, and how she actually brought up some almost-right points. Even more surprising, Jon Stewart misunderstood some bits that need fleshing out, so here we go.
We've met McCaughey before as the right wing wacko pushing the death panel idea. She does a good job hiding her real agenda for a while with Stewart, insisting on her support for public health care, and for end-of-life discussions. Let's review…
palmd | August 21, 2009It's about time! Thanks to some terrific folks, like my buddy JB, we are having our first SE Michigan Skeptics in the Pub. This is an informal pilot, originally a small get-together, but seems to be growing. If you're in SE Michigan and want to have a beer with a group of like-minded folks, including this blogger, and perhaps some other better-known bloggers, c'mon down.
palmd | August 20, 2009Let's say you have cancer. And let's say you're really, really sick of having cancer. And let's say that you're also pretty tired of scans, chemo, radiation, hair loss, nausea. And let's say you're not really sick and tired of living, but actually pretty happy to be alive.
Finally, let's say someone says that they can get rid of your cancer, without all of those pesky side-effects. It's a win-win, no?
No.
It's easy to believe in promises that are congruent with our wishes. That's what makes human beings so easy to deceive. A case in point is the VIBE Machine, a discredited quackery…
palmd | August 20, 2009I was one of those crazy folks who loved medical school---not just the clinical years, but the pre-clinical sciences as well. The transition from pre-clinical to clinical can be rather unnerving (picture learning how to do a pelvic exam on paid models). One of my first clinical experiences was in our physical exam class. Much of this was done on each other (not the pelvics), but we were also paired with attending physicians who would take us to see---gasp!---actual patients.
The guy I was paired with was old---impossibly old. I wondered to myself if he still had a jar of leeches in his…