Thursday, August 7, 2008

Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipović: For the love of God, get new shorts!


After I was finally shot up with gallium this afternoon, Fred and I locked ourselves in the bedroom to watch a Pride DVD --Shockwave 2005. Fred fell asleep pretty quickly but I was up and down, hurting very, very badly and incredibly hungry (high dose steroids again!). I don't know why the pain is up and I pray it eases sometime soon.


Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipović and Samoan Mark Hunt had an interesting match. Cro Cop issued some authoritative head kicks -- that he is so quick as a heavyweight is remarkable; he doesn't telegraph his kicks, either --but Hunt merely shrugged off these blows that would knock most fighters unconscious. Hunt won by split decision, which was the right call, as he was more aggressive and inflicted more damage. (Another split decision was definitely *wrong* -- allowing Wanderlei Silva to keep his belt over Ricardo Arona.)


Anyway, what inspired me to write this short, stupid post? Mirko Cro Cop's fighting shorts. If it is a matter of money, let me be the first to contribute. If it is a matter of superstition, a few sessions of hypnotherapy will clear that right up. While it is true that he works for the secret police, it is unnerving that his shorts seem to bear testimony somehow! They are old, they are tight, they are weird. And since this is a man determined to toss his legs up in the air, please, dear God, let's get him some decent shorts. There are some things best left to the imagination, and Cro Cop's package is one of them.


This has apparently been an editorial about Mirko Filipović and his fighting togs.
I have a personal calling to elevate the level of discourse in the blogosphere, one earth-shattering post at a time.

Here are the 12 fights we watched -- I won't reveal the results:



Wednesday, August 6, 2008

The Working Girl


Monday, the Fredster was guiding my wheelchair as it was being lifted into the car, when a very lanky-skanky prostitute came sashaying by (we're located between two major thoroughfares), and called out to him, asking if he wanted a good time (I'm chopped liver or she didn't see me. Or both.). When Fred cheerfully answered that no, he was fine, thanks -- without missing a beat, she wanted to know if he needed help with yardwork, then! I about fell out of the car at the look on his face!

sashay (v.)
1836, from mangled Anglicization of Fr. chassé "gliding step" (in square dancing), lit. "chased," pp. of chasser "to chase," from O.Fr. chacier "to hunt," from V.L. *captiare (see
capable, and cf. chase, catch). The noun is attested from 1900.
--Online Etymology Dictionary

Mal à la gorge







Quel matin catastrophique! Ecoutez, écoutez, tout le monde, je dois vous faire une annonce de tristesse profonde: J'ai mal à la gorge. Oui! Moi, diva exceptionelle, mal à la gorge! Fred --un coup de fil immédiatement au médecin! Et toi, Retired Educator, conduis-moi vite à la salle d'urgence. Chop-chop, allons-y!

[Oh God, not again. She has the least little scratchiness in her throat and it is off to the races... call the doctor, drive me to the Emergency Department (Room? Department? Cela ne me fait rien -- but WhiteCoat cares, apparently.). All so that she can sing that stupid L'air des bijoux -- over and over and over again. Still, she does have her public, and she is scheduled to perform a matinée today. I'm sure she won't have to wait... not after they get to know her and the deleterious effect she might have upon a room of sick people.]
Va-t-en, Dobby! Chaton bizarre. Fou, même. J'ai mal dormi à cause de lui, ce petit fou. Ma pauvre voix en démontre le résultat: mimimimimi, tousse-tousse, lalalalala! Comment serai-je capable de chanter le grand air de Boudon aujourd'hui, alors que ma gorge est si douloureuse, la vie si cruelle? Jésus a pleuré, tu sais. Et Jésus a pleuré. [She always pulls that old "and Jesus wept" crap. Jeez. And... right on cue, she commences to sob.]

Et toi, Retired Educator, comment se fait-il que tu sois si heureuse en face de mon désespoir? Hein?
[Comment? Piece of cake, la Belle Bianca Castafiore, piece of cake.]
(Sonnerie de téléphone)
Saved by the bell! It is Cranky Nurse at her doctor's office, returning our frantic SOS. She spreads melodious concern as if it were just so much manure. A *special* concoction of Magic Mouthwash has been called in to the Best Pharmacy In The Area -- felicitously close to the house. "Send one of the minions," purrs Cranky Nurse to La Belle Bianca Castafiore. "Mais bien sûr, bien sûr," elle murmure, en réponse. "Moi, il faut que je reste à la maison, silencieuse -- afin de remettre ma voix, tu sais, Cranky Nurse."
She whispered her way through the day, rinsing, gargling, slurping down beef consommé with alarming alacrity, slagging her way through dainty gobs of garlic bread -- the secret restorative of divas the world over, claims La Belle.
But she was ready to sing, come time for L'air des bijoux. And afterward she told us, laughingly:
"Ah, je ris de me voir si belle dans ce miroir!"

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

American Pain Foundation Alert and Advocacy Group Gripe


I wonder if I am alone in my issues with some advocacy groups and their mailings: the gung-ho, unbridled and breathless; the addled punctuation -- specifically, extreme exclamation point abuse. Mostly, I just want the information and tend to respect a fairly sparse missive that delivers that information and leaves the question of my exuberance alone. If I am on your mailing list, I probably support your cause. So leave my motivation... to me. I don't *do* decaf and I don't do "OhMyGod!"


That gripe made, please consider the following e-alert put out by the American Pain Foundation:



National Pain Care Policy Act of 2008

To: All individuals and organizations that care about improving pain care in America
URGENT CALL TO ACTION!

The National Pain Care Policy Act has been introduced in the Senate! With the Senate recess rapidly approaching, the time to act is NOW!



ACTION REQUESTED:



CONTACT YOUR SENATORS TO REQUEST THEY BECOME A CO-SPONSOR OF THE THE NATIONAL PAIN CARE POLICY ACT of 2008, S. 3387
The National Pain Care Policy Act of 2007, HR 2994 has been in the House of Representatives gaining more and more support since July 2007. This bill has now been introduced in the Senate thanks to the efforts of Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT). With this important bill now in both houses of Congress it is important that your Senators hear from you. With the upcoming election and recess, THE TIME IS NOW!



Click here to TAKE ACTION! Send a letter to your Senator urging their immediate support for this important legislation! Our Online Advocacy Center will send your message for you. It is quick and easy.



Inform them that you are concerned about the hidden pain epidemic in our country and as a resident of their state you are urgently requesting their support by signing on as a co-sponsor of S. 3387 before the summer recess. The letter has been written, just add a personal comment and our system will send it for you. CLICK HERE TO TAKE ACTION!



To view the National Pain Care Policy Act of 2008, S. 3387, please click here. The bill will soon be available on the official site, http://thomas.loc.gov/.



Encourage others to TAKE ACTION! Let your voice be heard!





There is strength in numbers! Thank you for being part of this united effort to eliminate the under-treatment of pain in America.



For important updates on the Military and Veteran Legislation, click here.
TAKE ACTION NOW!



Get involved! If you would like to be involved in further advocacy efforts, please complete the Advocacy Survey.


CONSIDER ADOPTING AN EXCLAMATION POINT!!! RETURN AFTER 9 WEEKS FOR FREE SPAY/NEUTER!!!

Sunday, August 3, 2008

I don't "do" decaf

Retired Educator here, fresh from catching up on my favorite blogs on my Google Reader.

Kim over at Emergiblog opens an excellent, and sadly necessary, post on Emergency Department etiquette with a few remarks about coffee. Back in the day, she recalls that patients in Coronary Care were only allowed a certain hideous form of freeze-dried instant decaf.

"No coffee for you!" cried the Nurse Nazis.

This made me think of a week I spent in the hospital back in the late 80s. The medical center is well-known and ranks in the top 10 of the U.S. News Best Hospital List.

My doctor started a medication that required me to have a certain minimum blood pressure in order for the nurse to be able to administer it. My normal blood pressure makes medicos want a crash cart nearby, so this was proving something of a challenge.


First, my nurse had me get up to a chair.

Next, walk around the room.

Calisthenics.

Move into a slow jog, a trot, a canter.

Take a shower.


60/40.


No go.


"Coffee, I need coffee, real coffee. I don't do decaf and I don't do instant." I told them.


"You're not supposed to have coffee. It's contraindicated. " Still, she had a curious look on her face, and was checking her watch. The med was to be given before breakfast, and time was marching on, she had report to give, charting to do, a life to live.


She left.


She came back, slinking inside, a mug (a real mug!) of steaming coffee in hand. I did mental handstands and managed to refrain from inquiring after my shot of steamed milk. Like a simpering dutiful child, I blew and slurped, blew and slurped, all under her watchful eye.


Note to readers: it is impossible to properly enjoy the beverage under that kind of woeful surveillance.


Guess what? 80/45.


Almost, but not quite.


So here is the part that you will likely not believe -- I said something about wishing I could smoke a cigarette with my coffee. Just chitchat.


Her beady eyes narrowed so that she had very narrow, very beady eyes.


Yes, she had me go in the bathroom and smoke 1/2 of a cigarette.


And B-I-N-G-O! 90/60. She gave her med, told me to keep quiet, and to be ready to do it again the next morning.


I swear! And I was better prepared the next morning, too. I kept some cream containers in an emesis basin full of ice.


I wish I knew what the medication was but I don't recall. I was more intrigued by this nurse and our transgressions.


Saturday, August 2, 2008

E-Alert from RSDSA

La Belle Bianca Castafiore ici! Zeee Retired Educator, she is -- comment le dire? -- occupée? Oui, c'est ça, elle est très occupée. Et puisqu'elle est... she is so très busy this matin, this morning, she ask, she asked to me this favor. Pffft! Elle m'a demandé de faire afficher ce petit article au sujet de... DEVINEZ! DEVINEZ! Il s'agit toujours de cette affreuse maladie, le "CRPS/RSD"! Ooooo, j'en ai vraiment marre... Why does she not never make the spotlight upon -- ohhh, sais pas -- MOI, par exemple? Mais non! I, me, she does not find enough of the interest! Harrumph. Alors... read this below and love it, learn of this disease ridicule! Me, I am doubting that she, er, qu'elle puisse passer *un* jour sans en faire mention! She has not the ability to not talk of it!

[Post-Publication Note from Retired Educator: Well, that was quite the useless introduction, La Belle. sniff. And, for the record? I will be happy to go one day (or two, or three!), without mentioning soit CRPS soit RSD! All YOU have to do is refrain from that damned refrain: Ah je ris de me voir si belle dans ce miroir! D'accord? Alors... le jeu s'en fait. -- R.E.]


{Oh, and please find below an interesting write-up on brain imaging and... well, and... that disorder I am all the time running my mouth on about... but never to the point of obsession. I can stop talking about it at any time. Anywhere. Now. Here. For example. -- R.E.}


E-Alert from RSDSA

Imaging Study Of Pain Sheds Light On Mystery Condition

Harvard School of Public Health


The first-ever functional brain imaging study of chronic pain conducted in children, done by researchers at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital and Children's Hospital Boston, has shed new light on a mysterious condition known as complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) and offers hope for a better understanding of the disorder in both children and adults.


The study, supported by the Mayday Fund of New York, is the result of a joint effort between researchers at Children's who treated the patients in the study and the P.A.I.N. (Pain & Analgesia Imaging and Neuroscience) group at McLean, who conducted the imaging tests.


"Studying pain in children offers us insights into how the brain may cure itself because the young brain is so adaptable relative to the adult brain," says David Borsook, MD, PhD, director of the P.A.I.N. group at McLean, and senior author of the study published in the current issue of Brain (abstract). "This may offer very important insights into the development of new therapeutic approaches to chronic pain-a condition that more than 50 million Americans suffer from with relatively little in terms of highly effective therapies."


CPRS is a disorder of the peripheral nervous system characterized by severe pain, hypersensitivity to stimuli, poor circulation, abnormal sweating, muscle atrophy, joint problems, movement disorders and cognitive changes, among other symptoms.


"This is a significant pain problem that often leaves individuals incapacitated, wheel chair-bound and limited in their physical abilities," notes Borsook, who added that in the pediatric population, girls are affected more frequently than boys. "It can be difficult to diagnose and without proper treatment children and adults living with CPRS live in absolute agony."


Typically, the condition stems from an initial injury, usually the hands or feet, and spreads sometimes to the opposite limb or side of the body, even to the entire body. It is more common in women and is now being seen in some girls after they have suffered sports injuries.


"CRPS is a frightening illness because it can develop as a result of a seemingly trivial injury," says Borsook. "For example, a 14-year-old girl can sprain an ankle during a basketball game, but what seems like a common and easily treatable injury can develop in to CRPS, causing extreme pain throughout her body."


In their novel study, the McLean and Children's researchers developed the first model of the illness that allows them to examine the efficacy of interventional treatments."


"The central nervous system imaging of pain in pediatric patients is a nascent development within the increasingly productive field of functional MRI (fMRI)," explains Alyssa Lebel, MD, senior associate in Pain Medicine and Neurology at Children's and first author on the paper.


"This non-invasive technique provides a unique window into regions of the brain actively engaged in pain transmission and modulation. Contrast to adult, pediatric patients are still developing these regions, along with their connections, and may show fMRI patterns of activation in response to pain that differ from adults. Additionally, children often recover symptomatically from painful disorders, such as CRPS."


Lebel notes that the research team's data provides early information about provocative changes in central nervous system (CNS) circuitry in symptomatic and recovered patients with CRPS, as well as demonstrates that the technique is tolerable and acceptable to children with neuropathic pain.


"We will continue to study pediatric patients with CRPS and with other painful disorders, such as headache, to begin to define the pediatric CNS circuitry of acute and chronic pain," says Lebel. "Such information may eventually allow current and novel therapeutic interventions to target the CNS processes ultimately responsible for the complex sensory and emotional experience of pediatric pain."


In children, the symptoms often appear to resolve in time, while in adults resolution is less common. Treatment is generally limited to pain medications and physical therapy. Because the symptoms in children frequently reverse, the researchers decided to image the brains of children with the condition both while symptoms were present and then after the symptoms had gone away-a comparison that cannot be done in adults.


"Our team took advantage of the opportunity to look at children in the pain state and the non-pain state," said Borsook, who is co-director of the P.A.I.N. Group of the Department of Radiology at Children's with Lino Becerra, PhD. "We were trying to define what happens to a changing brain as it adapts over time in those afflicted with this syndrome." A key advantage of imaging children is that they do not usually have other illnesses and are not typically on other medications that might influence the findings, he adds.


"This paper is not just a first for kids, but also has implications for understanding the adult condition," he said.


The imaging studies revealed some unexpected findings. Most importantly, the images taken in the non-pain state showed that brain recovery was not complete.


"The brain changes seen during the pain state don?t disappear during the early non-pain state. As a result, subsequent injuries could rekindle the condition or other problems could occur later," Borsook warns.


Further studies will seek to evaluate how long it takes brains to recover fully and determine the efficacy of treatments.

"Our results suggest significant changes in CNS circuitry in pediatric patients with CRPS may outlast the signs and symptoms," report the authors. They conclude that even with a more rapid resolution of pain in children, the effect of the nerve damage and other changes that occur in CRPS at a time of development of brain connections may have prolonged effects upon brain circuitry. This could impact upon pain processing in these individuals later in life.


This initial research has been pivotal in establishing a newly formed program P.A.I.N. Group at Children's using fMRI to evaluate pediatric pain disorders; the program has been supported by the hospital and the Departments of Radiology and Anesthesiology.


"It brings new research to understanding acute and chronic pain disorders in childhood," says Borsook. "Furthermore, it integrates programs that are already at the forefront of pediatric pain treatment (such as the newly established Mayo Pediatric Pain Rehabilitation Program at Children's) with modern neuroimaging facilities recently established at Children's Waltham."



This E-alert was made possible by the contribution of the members of the Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome Association (RSDSA). To learn more about becoming a member of RSDSA, please click here.

Friday, August 1, 2008

The Disconnect

Bush Praises Pakistan Just Hours After U.S. Strike

By STEVEN LEE MYERS
Published: July 29, 2008
WASHINGTON — President Bush on Monday praised Pakistan’s commitment to fighting extremists along its deteriorating border with Afghanistan, only hours after an American missile strike destroyed what American and Pakistani officials described as a militant outpost in the region, killing at least six fighters.

Mr. Bush, meeting with Pakistan’s prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, at the White House, sought to minimize growing concerns that Pakistan’s willingness to fight extremists was waning, allowing the Taliban and Al Qaeda to regroup inside Pakistan and plan new attacks there and beyond.




********** ********** **********

Breaking News Alert
The New York Times
Thursday, July 31, 2008

-- 10:05 PM ET-----

Pakistanis Aided Attack in Kabul

U.S. Officials SayAmerican intelligence agencies have concluded that members of Pakistan's powerful spy service helped plan the deadly July 7 bombing of India's embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, according to United States government officials. The conclusion was based on intercepted communications between Pakistani intelligence officers and militants who carried out the attack, the officials said, providing the clearest evidence to date that Pakistani intelligence officers are actively undermining American efforts to combat militants in the region.

Once upon a time, we used terms like "lies," or "prevarications," "spin," or even the tired, lame, terribly unimaginative "that's on a need-to-know basis."
Now we talk about "disconnects," as if the matters at hand resembled interrupted chatty-cathy telephone conversations between gin-and-tonic socialites scheduling a tennis match at the club. I am sure there must be a definition of disconnect as a political term -- I just haven't found it.

I also concede that my interest in the appropriation of words, the voiding of their semantic baggage, and their subsequent redeployment as a slick, smart-ass word-weapon -- well, my interest is covered by the slick and smarmy label of cultural linguistics when it should more rightly be named a sexual fetish.

Nothing turns me on more than a good etymology that cedes before the awesome power of cultural evolutionary forces. I ain't no prescriptivist, bay-bee.

Mais, je divague: I have lost the train of my thought. Choo choo...

There is something almost Maurice-Blanchot-y about the loud evocative silence in the space of the disconnect... No, that's a lie. No, wait, that is truth itself. It's just an embarrassment to admit any sort of excitement over something so shameful.

((((An irrepressable aside! I was browsing on Amazon.com, thinking of buying a copy of L'Arret de Mort [Death Sentence], half-heartedly, half-awake going through some of the reader reviews, when I was brought up short by this one, authored by one Benjamin Sokal:

Death Sentence is awesome. There are many themes in this book, and if you pay any attention, that keeps the book interesting. It is alternatingly bleak, hilarious, and sometimes bleakly hilarious. The funniest line might be, "What do I care about that honor, or even that friend, or even his unhappiness? My own is immense, and next to it other people mean nothing." Or perhaps the line that the narrator throws in about sleeping in open graves may strike your fancy. If you do not find these bleakly funny, perhaps you are not morbid enough to read this book. Several questions which may keep you up at night are, "Who is the narrator? What is Blanchot saying about French, or other, Cultures? What is the significance of casts? Why does everyone live in hotel rooms? How does Blanchot deal with the concept of death?

Why does everyone live in hotel rooms? Lordy, I about fell out of my wheelchair, laughing. Now *that* is a good -- no! a great -- question!

Intrigued by young Benjamin Sokal and his intrepid intellect, I looked up his other reviews on Amazon, and was quickly brought up short by this:

This movie is AWESOME! The action sizzles, the comedy will have you rolling, and Dennis Rodman stars! But what I like about it most are the philosophical underpinnings. This movie is the perfect metaphor for the postmodern hyperrealist fugue theory proposed by John L. Umblaut in the 1930's. The theory is a brand of religious existentialism except with Kantian overtones. Look it up on the internet if you want more information. This movie is great. Entertaining, funny, thought provoking. Two thumbs up...Way up!

Which was a review of Simon-Sez, which was given the following synopsis by Mark Deming in the All Movie Guide:

Former basketball star Dennis Rodman stars in this action-and-espionage thriller as Simon, an Interpol agent called into action when the daughter of a close friend is abducted. In order to track down the kidnappers, Simon seeks the assistance of a pair of monks (John Pinette and Ricky Harris) who are experts in computer sleuthing. Simon Sez was Rodman's first solo starring vehicle, following his dramatic debut alongside Jean-Claude Van Damme in Double Team.

Slowly. Step. Away. From. The. Review. Avoid. Staring. Into. Benjamin's. Eyes.))))

We linguistic sorts are a sad, sad lot.

Mais je divague: I have lost the train of my thought. Choo choo.