This whole situation is too outlandish and bizzare not post about it.
My mother's boyfriend is in the hospital right now. He is quite a bit older than she is, has middle stage Alzheimer's, and has become quite frail. He has just gotten in to a program which provides an adult day care, further support as needed for the person in their home, and comprehensive healthcare through the program. He currently lives in the household and my mother is his caregiver.
Day before yesterday, he returned home from the program and it was evident that he had had an innoculation of some sort (turned out to be pneumococcus). His arm was bruised and swollen and painful, and he felt chilled and tired, but could walk and was coherent. A few hours later he became incoherent, unable to walk by himself, and unable to get to the bathroom. The program was notified and an ambulance summoned, and he was taken to the ER of a local hospital. He was eventually given a room, diagnosed with pneumonia (what the vaccination was for, it was too late and the reaction helped to mask earlier symptoms) and started on antibiotics.
My mother did not try to spend the night that night, but went down the next morning. She found him very much improved, quite lucid, and clearly responding to the antibiotics. She was in and out throughout the day and he continued to improve, was eating heartily, and looking like he would be ready for release the next day.
She was away for a few hours that evening and returned to the hopital at 9:30 pm to find him semi-delerious and unable to communicate verbally. It took my mother a while to piece together what had happened, and the wildly inappropriate "treatments" that had brought him to this state.
The apparently tested his blood sugar for no good reason. He is not diabetic and has no history of diabetes or any other blood sugar issues, and no blood sugar related symptoms. They found his blood sugar to be a few points above the official limit for normal, and so gave him an injection of fast acting insulin?!
After this he was having difficulty walking to the bathroom and getting confused about the urinal, so they placed a Foley catheter. Not a condom catheter which is non-invasive, or just using Depends. No, they had to place the Foley.
The Foley was uncomfortable and upsetting to him, so they decided to sedate him with a shot of Morphine?!
Morphine of course is a very powerful narcotic painkiller, but it is not a sedative. The effect of the Morphine on him was to make him completely disoriented and extremely agitated. Oh, and the one thing they hadn't given him was the Aricept and Nemenda that he has been on for years for the Alzheimer's. The runaround that my mother got in trying to get him those medications is a different story.
Finally, at around 11:00 that night, in order to counteract the extreme agitation from the Morphine and the catheter, he was given a drug called Zyprexa. At the time it was given, they told my mother that it was a substitute for the Aricept?!
My mother then came back home for a couple of hours and we did some rapid internet research. What we learned about Zyprexa is that it is a powerful antispychotic, and that Eli Lily has gotten into a shit load of trouble for encouraging doctors to prescribe it off label to treat agitation in elderly people with dementia, for which it is not effective.
We also learned that it is given every 24 hours because it has a half-life of 21 to 54 hours, and that the half-life is considerably longer in the elderly and that extreme caution in dosing is reccomended. It is not in any way, shape, or form a substitute for Aricept.
Oh, and they didn't know about his vaccination earlier the day before, so they gave him another one (for the illness he already had). This is the level of communication that exists between this program and the hospital with which it is affiliated.
At this point it was decided that he could not safely be left on his own at this hospital, and my mother went down to spend the night there with him and make sure they didn't do anymore damage, something whicht they apparently strongly discourage.
She has been there with him all day today. She has power of attorney and has told them not to give him anything besides his regular medicatication and his antibiotic without first informing her and getting her consent.
He has been knocked completely on his ass by this last drug. He is sleeping most of the time with only brief periods of semi-awakeness. He has been largely unable to either eat or drink. A person recovering from pneumonia needs fluids, and they apparently had not seen fit to place an IV. He has gradually been becoming a bit more coherent throughout the day, but a very slow process.
My mother has just been informed that they are no longer allowing overnight visitors, and she must leave him alone there tonight.
This is how things stand at this point. What the fuck is it with the healthcare system in this country? This man was given four different inappropriate medications in the space of a few hours, as well as being placed with an inappropriate urinary catheter. How many other people does this happen to? How many frail elderly people who have no one to advocate for them go into the hospital for something relatively simple and routine and never get out, or are sent to nursing home because they develop accutely worsened dementia symptoms? How many younger people does this happen to? How many people are there who think that hospitals are safe places to entrust their loved ones and end up with an unexplained tragedy on their hands? Is this another type of death panel that is operating in this country?
People who have more familiarity with hospitals than me, is this sort of scenario common? Is there any accountability for this sort of thing?
Is it any surprise that some of us are accutely mistrustful of the medical establishment in this country?
The clergyman, in his 50s, told nurses he had been hanging curtains when he fell backwards on to his kitchen table.
He happened to be nude at the time of the mishap, said the vicar, who insisted he had not been playing a sex game.
The vicar had to undergo a delicate operation to extract the vegetable, one of a range of odd items medics in Sheffield have had to remove from people's backsides or genitals.
Others include a can of deodorant, a cucumber, a Russian doll – and a carnation.
Don't go around talking about yourself and how great you are and what a loser Obama is. Demonstrate how you will get behind him and support him against McCain. Show everybody what a team player you are. Demonstrate a capacity for discipline and that you can stay on message. Don't talk about what an asset you would be, but show it. Let your behavior show what a tremendous asset you would be to Obama.
I've been adamantly opposed to her as running mate, but if she would go out and demonstrate her fitness in this manner, I might be willing to change my mind.
I know that a small number of people on this board are enamored of this ticket. I know that Randi Rhodes is saying that if Hillary wants it she will get it. I know that some pundits even think that this would actually be a good idea, that it would unite the party, that it would combine each candidate's strengths into an unbeatable team. Polls right now may even be quite favorable to such a ticket. I'm sure there are even some die hard Hillary supporters out there who won't vote for Obama unless she is on the ticket.
Quite apart from the fact that there is nothing that arouses the passions of the other side like their hatred for Hillary. The truth of the matter is that Hillary Clinton simply is not mentally fit to be Obama's running mate. In recent weeks we've seen EXACTLY how she stands up under pressure. To all except for her die hard supporters she is becoming a caricature and a laughing stock. Can you even begin to IMAGINE what she would be like on Obama's ticket, PARTICULARLY if it under conditions of coercion? Can you imagine what the Republicans and the media would do with it? Imagine the constant gaffes and the outrageous fabrications coming out of her mouth day after day after day. Imagine her spending the campaign's money like a drunken sailor. Imagine her continually undermining him and stabbing him in the back because what she REALLY wants is to run again in 2012. Imagine her and her people refusing to submit to the discipline of Obama's campaign because her "professionals" know "better". Picture Bill under those circumstances. Can you imagine him submitting to anyone at ALL, let alone that young upstart Obama?
If Barack Obama has any kind of strategic vision, he will see this. If his powers of persuasion are worth anything at all, he will be able to convince recalcitrant SD's of this reality. If he fails at this, he will have demonstrated a MASSIVE failure of leadership. The entire country will know it, and the consequences will show in the results of the general election.
I'm not saying it can't or won't happen, I'm saying that if it does happen it will be a disaster of massive proportions and will likely cost us the election.
Remember, it doesn't matter what polls say at any given moment at this stage in a campaign. If it did, Obama would have dropped out before Iowa because he would have known that it was hopeless. I truly believe that Obama has the strategic vision to see what a disaster this would be and to convey that knowledge to the movers and shakers in the party.
So when Clark didn't get the nomination, I screamed and insulted and threw temper tantrums until I got thrown off the board, and then went and massaged my victimhood until the GE, where I voted for W got behind Kerry and supported and voted for him, and was civil and respectful on this board, even though I continued to feel regretful and wistful about Clark.
I think the caucuses are undemocratic and unAmerican, and that therefore, the results of the caucuses should be deleted from this primary season, and only the delegates won from primaries should count (and that includes the Michigan and Florida primaries, obviously).
Furthermore, I think that Obama has had an unfair advantage in this race, since he's smarter, better organized, and an overall savvier campaigner than Hillary is. Those factors should not count, as they simply are not relevant to the outcome of the general election.
I'm saying all this as a very devout and loyal Obama supporter.
It's becoming very clear that Israel is never going to allow a viable one to take shape. Maybe it's time to start focusing on equality of rights and citizenship within a single state.
Lafayette Colorado. It was 78 degrees here yesterday. 
