You Might Be a Nurse If….

Every once in awhile a list of things which, if they apply to you, might mean you are a nurse, gets circulated around.  Each time it comes around, there is usually a new addition, or more, to the list.  Some of them are perennial favorites of mine, like:

You might be a nurse if you recognize you can’t cure stupid.

Or…

You might be a nurse if you consider a tongue depressor an eating utinsel.

Or…

You might be a nurse if eating popcorn out of a clean bedpan is a completely natural thing to do.

Or…

You might be a nurse if you’ve ever heard someone with a nose ring, a brow ring, 12 earrings and sleeve tattoos say “I’m afraid of shots”.

Or…

You might be a nurse if your friends and family hate to watch medical sitcoms and dramas with you because you spend the whole time pointing out errors and upside-down X-rays.

I could go on.

But there was a new one on the latest list sent around to me and it cracked me up cuz it’s sooooo true!!!!!

You might be a nurse if you wash your hands BEFORE you go to the bathroom!!!

Still crackin’ up at that one!

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Obama Bought Us A Goat

A man comes to the rabbi and complains about his life:

“I have almost no money, my wife is a shrew, and we live in a small apartment with seven unruly kids. It’s messy, it’s noisy, it’s smelly, and I don’t want to live.”

The rabbi says, “Buy a goat.”

“What? I just told you there’s hardly room for nine people, and it’s messy as it is!”

“Look, you came for advice, so I’m giving you advice. Buy a goat and come back in a month.”

In a month the man comes back and he is even more depressed:

“It’s gotten worse! The filthy goat breaks everything, and it stinks and makes more noise than my wife and seven kids! What should I do?”

The rabbi says, “Sell the goat.”

A few days later the man returns to the rabbi, beaming with happiness:

“Life is wonderful! We enjoy every minute of it now that there’s no goat — only the nine of us. The kids are well-behaved, the wife is agreeable — and we even have some money!”

Let us hope and pray it doesn’t end up being a Judas Goat.

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To Vaccinate or Not To Vaccinate

Being a nurse, I occasionally get the person who wants my opinion on whether or not to vaccinate.  Because I was recently approached to offer my opinion, I have a few thoughts I’d like to share on the subject here.

The non-vaccination movement is largely based on the work of a man named Andrew Wakefield.  His worked ”appeared” to link the MMR (measles mumps rubella) vaccine to causing autism.  Many well-meaning parents who feared that their children would develop autism choose to not have their children innoculated with this vaccine, or in many cases, with ANY vaccines.  It has recently come to light that Mr. Wakefield’s very limited study was in fact, fraudulent.  You can read that story HERE.  There are others who simply think that vaccines are “toxins” to which they don’t wish to expose their children.  And there are those who believe that there’s a government conspiracy in there somewhere.

Children are routinely vaccinated for a number of diseases.  Some of the vaccines they receive are measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus, diptheria, pertussis (whooping cough), rotavirus, hepatitis B, polio, haemophilus influenzae type b, varicella (chicken pox), and meningitis. 

Because most parents DO vaccinate, the children who live amongst them who are unvaccinated generally enjoy an environment free from many previously common communicable diseases.  This is called “herd immunity“.  The more people who have immunity equals a lesser chance for those who DON’T have immunity to be exposed.  When the numbers of the herd who are immune drops, the potential for the non-immune to contract and spread these diseases to other non-immune individuals (and vaccinated individuals who have less immunity) rises.  The magic number for herd immunity is about 90%.  When the percentage of immune individuals drops below that 90% number, the chance for diseases to spread in a community begins to increase.  So what happens when a community “bucks the herd”?  Well, we can look to Boulder, Colorado, for the answer to that question.  Boulder holds the dubious distinction of being one of the least vaccinated communities in the United States.  And it has a high rate of whooping cough as a result.  Whooping cough (pertussis) is endemic in that community.  A community where, to be a bit cheeky, parents are more concerned about fumes from paint and carpet than they are about potentially deadly communicable diseases.

Because of aggressive vaccination programs, smallpox (which swept through the indiginous populations of the Americas and killed millions) is unknown to us today.  Polio, which struck terror into the US population in the 20th century, has been all but eradicated from the western hemisphere.  How often do you hear of someone having diptheria?  How about tetanus (lockjaw)?  In most developed countries, these diseases have become almost entirely a thing of the past.

So, what are some of the little thought of effects of non-vaccination?  Healthcare costs are something that we are all congnizant of these days.  Let’s say your child comes down with a fever and appears to have a viral illness of some sort.  The vaccinated child is seen by a practitioner who is able to “rule out” many possibilities for the cause of the symptoms.  The non-vaccinated child is seen by the same practitioner who now must test for many other potential illnesses.  These can be costly tests.  And the child will more than likely be requiring isolation until a source is determined.

Many of these diseases can be worse to get as an adult.  What about these young girls who grow up and want to have children.  To be exposed to some diseases while you are pregnant can be fatal to the unborn child, or leave the child with horrible disabilities.  Every pregnant woman who has never had chicken pox, was vaccinated before the varicella vaccine became available, or who has no immunity from previous exposure, knows to stay the heck away from any kid who does!  Early in a pregnancy, chicken pox can cause all manner of problems.  The pregnant mother is also at risk for chicken pox pneumonia, which can be deadly!

Other demographics who are at increased risk for disease and death because of the non-vaccinated individual are the young who have not completed their vaccinations, the elderly, and the immunocompromised.  That means that any one who has a disease which affects their immune system (like HIV/AIDS), or has to permanently take medications which suppresses their immune system (like a transplant patient, or a rheumatoid arthritis patient), or those who temporarily take medications which suppress their immune system (like someone who is undergoing chemotherapy for cancer) are ALL at increased risk from the non-vaccinated person.

Now let’s say an unvaccinated child has grown up and is considering what to do as a career?  Do you think a hospital will allow an unvaccinated person work there?  Nope.  How about if this person wants to join the military?  Teach school?  There are many professions which would now be closed to this person, or if they choose to follow these paths, they will now have to get many series of vaccines…they would have to “catch up”.

What if this child decides he wants to travel internationally?  He or she may want to reconsider any travel to a non-western country.  Or they could get all “caught up” on their missed vaccines as well as receive more vaccines depending on what they might be at risk for due to their itinerary.  Or they could roll the dice and travel unvaccinated and chance 1) getting sick, and 2) bringing disease back to their own country where they could potentially expose more people to disease.

Diseases like Hepatitis B and polio are gifts that keep on giving.  Should you contract and survive polio, you are still at risk for post-polio syndrome.  Those of us who weren’t alive during the polio epidemics simply cannot appreciate the horror.  Twenty-five percent of those who contract Hepatitis B go on to develop liver cancer.  These are not benign diseases we are talking about here.

I think that not vaccinating children is an irresponsible, short-sighted, selfish, and potentially devastating choice.

The more people who don’t vaccinate, the closer all communities come to dropping below that 90% which will put more and more people at risk.  Communities like Boulder are doing no one any favors.  I, for one, would never send my child to public school in a city like Boulder, or Ashland, Oregon (the city with the highest rate of non-vaccinated children in the United States).

The potential risks of vaccinations is far outweighed by the potential risk of non-vaccination.

Personally, I am hoping that the small pox vaccine once again becomes available.  I’ll get it as soon as it does.   Because of communities like Boulder, it is now recommended that adults get a booster vaccine for pertussis.  It is available with the tetanus/diptheria booster, and the next time my Td comes due, you can bet I’ll be vaccinating for pertussis as well.  Not because I’m concerned with contracting pertussis as it is one disease that is less serious in adults than it is in children, but because I don’t want to be the one who passes pertussis to a child.  Pertussis is a very serious infection in young children.  (Those who staff NICUs – Neonatal Intensive Care Units – are often required to be up to date on their pertussis vaccination).

It isn’t that long ago that the anthrax scare swept across America.  I was concerned about that potential biological weapon threat, but we have a growing number of potential petri dishes of biological agents being introduced into the general population each year.

I believe it is time for the non-vaccinating public to rethink their decision…especially in the new light that the “science” upon which many have based their decision has been largely disproved and the “scientist” discredited.  And because, for the good of their communities, vaccinating is the right thing to do.

That being said, there is one vaccine that I do not believe should be on the routine vaccination schedule.  As I have written before, the Gardasil vaccine which protects against HPV (human papilloma virus) should only be given to those who have chosen against abstinence, are sexually active, and especially if they are not monogamous, as HPV can ONLY be transmitted sexually.  Some would also put Hepatitis B into this category, but since Hep B is not only sexually transmitted but can be transmitted with the transference of infected blood as well as body fluids, one can be at risk in other ways as well, like through a tainted blood transfusion. 

Not quite done yet, I have one more thought to offer.  Were, say, an immunocompromised student attending a public school to suffer harm because of exposure to a disease brought to the school by a non-vaccinated child OR were an elderly nursing home patient to suffer harm by a disease brought to the home by a non-vaccinated child, I would not be against charges being brought against the parent of the child who spread the disease.  I think parents should be held accountable for their risky decision to not vaccinate.

And that is one blogger’s opinion.

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“Back Down the Rabbit-Hole”

By Robert Romano

“Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end!”—Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, “Down the Rabbit-Hole,” by Lewis Carroll.

Today, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will once again lead the American people down the ill-fated bailout rabbit-hole, where up is down, left is right, and right is wrong. And just as with Alice, the American economy will continue to fall “down, down, down.”

It is expected that Mr. Geithner will be unveiling the next installment of the so-called Troubled Asset Relief Program, into which the Congress has already misinvested a staggering $700 billion. It’s a program that, ironically, was not used to purchase so-called troubled assets at all—the “toxic” mortgage-backed securities.

Instead, banks were recapitalized, automakers given loans, and insurance companies rescued from suffering their own self-ordained fate. Banks like Bank of America, which according to OpenSecrets.org, received some $45 billion in TARP funds for recapitalization; Citigroup, which received $50 billion; AIG, which received $40 billion; and on down the line—all were put on the taxpayer dole. Interestingly enough—and not so coincidentally—just these three entities alone spent a combined $26.14 million in lobbying efforts and $11.48 in political contributions in 2008.

Overall, OpenSecrets.org calculates that TARP recipients received a whopping 267,208 percent return on their investment in politicians and the electoral system. And the same politicians who received the largesse continue to assure the American people that they will actually make money on this ill-conceived “investment”—since the taxpayers now technically own devalued shares in these troubled banks.

All of which may make sense—in Wonderland. The American taxpayer—already fleeced by the IRS and virtually bankrupted by profligate government spending—has now been forced to invest much-needed funds into insolvent banks. Why, that’s a lot like investing tax dollars in otherwise defunct car companies, or broke state governments, or… well, you get the idea.

Included in the next installment of TARP, according to the New York Times’ David Sanger, are “billions of dollars more to prevent home foreclosures, for fear that displacement and anger created by throwing people out of their homes, and putting more properties onto a glutted market, will create a psychological and financial death spiral.”

So, as a final insult—and in the final payoff—these houses are simply going to be handed over to the delinquent borrowers. They’ll have their principals reduced, their rates cut, and the terms extended. All at taxpayer expense as Congress steals from the people who do pay their bills to give to those who should have never been given the now “troubled” loans in the first place.

In a way, it is fitting that the flim-flam artist touting the next great bailout—which will cost hundreds of billions of dollars—is Mr. Geithner. As noted by Bob Novak last March in his piece, “Fed on a Limb,” it was Mr. Geithner as then-head of the New York Fed who orchestrated the opening of the Fed’s discount window to investment banks that resulted in JP Morgan being loaned $29 billion in taxpayer funds to purchase Bear Stearns. The taxpayers, by the way, did not receive one share of Bear Stearns stock in return. Nor a please or thank you, for that matter.

Ever since then, the nation has fallen ever further down the rabbit-hole of bailouts. As summarized succinctly by ALG Chairman Howie Rich: “$2 trillion in FDIC assurances, $1.75 trillion in Federal Reserve commercial paper purchases, $900 billion in term auction facility lending, $600 billion to insure money market funds, $600 billion to cover Fannie and Freddie’s worthless mortgage-backed securities, $550 billion for discount Federal Reserve loans, $500 billion to insure FDIC deposits, $300 billion for FHA mortgage relief, $250 billion for Citigroup debt, $225 billion for securities loan facility lending, $200 billion for Fannie and Freddie’s debt, $112 billion for A.I.G., and on down the line.” All, of course, on the taxpayer’s tab.

In the process, the economy has tanked along with revenues to state and federal governments. As a result, the federal deficit is projected to be anywhere from $1.2 trillion to $2 trillion for 2009. And the national debt grows exponentially, currently standing at $10.7 trillion. More than one economist has noted that government interventions to date have actually worsened the impact of the financial miasma.

The real trouble with the “clogged” credit markets has been—and still is—the pricing of the mortgage-backed securities. The fact is, if securities purchased come to include a plethora of foreclosed properties, they are naturally worth less than they were bought for. Like most investments that decrease in value, the holders of those investments tend to lose money. And these holders should emphatically not be the taxpayers.

The only legitimate—and in the long run, effective—solution is for those who made poor investments to lose their money. Let the foreclosures happen. Let the loans go into default. Let the holders of the securities pay the price for their own bad investments. That certain favored financial institutions would most certainly fall as a result should not spook lawmakers who are being asked now to just keep handing blank checks over to the Treasury.

Congress should let failed institutions finally fail, and the net benefit will be that poor decision-makers are rooted out of the marketplace. And then, at the end of the day, the financial firms and banks still standing will buy everything up at a big discount—instead of the government at inflated values with the design to cultivate political constituencies.

Property values would fall, yes, but the market would finally hit its bottom, a necessary step that has been forestalled for almost a year now by over-interventionism, central-planning, and a bumbling bureaucracy.

And instead of continuing to fall “down, down, down” the great big rabbit-hole, the American economy can return to the path of fiscal sanity, individual responsibility, and eventually, national prosperity. The alternative is yet another jaunt with the Treasury Secretary as he once again morphs into the late White Rabbit and dashes madly through Alice’s Wonderland—all at taxpayer expense.

LAR CTA: The so-called “stimulus” may be on its way to passage today, but the bailouts of 2009 have only begun.  This next installment of TARP is just one more shackle around your legs as taxpayers chaining you and your children to a mountain of unpayable debt.  Contact your Congressmen and Senators and tell them that enough is enough with the bailouts and that not another cent should go to Wall Street or Washington! The Capitol Switchboard number is (202) 224-3121.

Robert Romano is the Editor of ALG News Bureau.

The above article was taken from my latest installment of the Liberty Action Report.  A great online paper I get from the Americans For Limited Government.  To subscribe, go to http://getliberty.org/. 

Certain Things Just Make You Feel Old

I feel old when I walk down the stairs and I can HEAR my left knee cap grinding.  (And that’s my GOOD knee!)

I feel old when I realize that I have been a nurse for TWENTY YEARS.

I feel old knowing that my 30th high school reunion is in only four years…if we have one, that is.

I feel old when clerks at stores and waitresses and such call me m’am, and they’ve never been in the military.

But the thing that is making me feel old (but very excited and proud!) today, is that my oldest nephew will be going off to college in August.  I just heard that he got into Hillsdale College in Michigan.   Way to go Richie!!!!  Well done. 

Yeah, I’ll be up to see you, you know it! 

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You Want The Truth?? Can You Handle The TRUTH??

The truth is, we are in the economic woes that we are in today, NOT because of failed Bush policies, not because of failed Republican policies, but because of THIS:

Now, let’s be intellectually honest, let’s accept the facts.  Bush, McCain, and their “cronies” were telling us that the canaries in the gold mines were DYING and the democrats accused them of being Chicken Littles.

And now, we are poised to light the match that may very well cause the mines to explode because of the bizarre notion that it’s better to do something (ANYTHING), even if it’s the wrong thing, than it is to do nothing.  Or horrors, to do less.

If this country was a patient, brought to the ER because it was dying of a heart attack, it would be MALPRACTICE to treat the patient for multiple gun shot wounds, a head injury, overwhelming sepsis, or worse, all of these things.  It’s NOT right to do just anything.  It’s imperative to do the right thing.  First do no harm.  Too bad politicians aren’t held to a shadow of  the same standards that doctors are.

I need Pepcid.

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This One is For Karine

Okay, so my nephew e-mailed me today and asked me a favor.  He apparently recently ran into a woman named Karine (spelling is in question…afterall it IS my nephew we’re talking about) who wanted the information on the Los Angeles regional robotics competition.  Richard asked me to send the info to Karine as he didn’t have her info BUT she reads my blog.  I can’t find a Karine as ever having left a comment (thus providing me with an e-mail address) SO I am posting that information here, in a post, for Karine, and anyone else who would like to go and support the Beach Bot/Team 330.  (I have added a permanent link to my nephew’s blog in my blogroll).

The competition is March 13th and 14th at the Long Beach Convention Center.

Gee, I wish I could go…

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Photo Friday – “Grandparents”

I haven’t posted for Photo Friday in some time.  I picked a “bad” Friday to get back to it as I have not a single picture that I myself took of any of my grandparents.  All of my grandparents have passed away.  I never knew either of my grandfathers.  I was blessed to have had my grandmothers in my life until I was in my 20′s and 30′s.  But they, too, are now gone.

Some years ago my dad went through tremendous time and untold expense to put together large binders for all of us filled with our family tree, important documents, photographs, etc.  Since I have no pictures of my own, I took a picture of one of the photocopied pictures in the binder.  My parents and all my grandparents at my parents’ wedding.

L to R:  “Tex” and Marcile (my maternal grandparents), my mother Cheryl, my father Richard, Edith and A.J. (my paternal grandparents)

My mother’s mother was an amazingly gifted seamstress.  My father’s mother, a fabulous baker.  I loved both of my grandmothers very much.  I wish so very much I had known my grandfathers.

When I was little, I thought my mother’s mother was mean.  She kind of was back then.  She would make me wear barrettes in my hair when she would come over to babysit and I hated barrettes.  I would take them out and get in trouble for it.  Once, when I was maybe four, she’d had it with me taking the barrettes out and sternly warned me about keeping my hands off of them or else.  So I rubbed them out in the carpet, without touching them with my hands.  She was not amused!!! 

I was one of many grandchildren.  As each of the grandchildren grew up and married, she would give them a wedding gift of handmade items – sewn and crocheted.  GORGEOUS things.  She developed OBS (Organic Brain Syndrome) and knew she was losing her ability to remember how to sew and crochet, so she made wedding gifts for all the as unyet to wed grandchildren and put them away for when the time would come.  She wanted to make sure that none of us were left out.

If you are playing, don’t forget to put the link to your entry into Mr. Linky.  If you aren’t playing, please check out the other players’ work by clicking on Mr. Linky to get to those links!

Coming up on Photo Friday:

13th February 2009: Author’s choice: Valentine Special

20th February 2009: Author’s choice: Men at Work

27th February 2009: Author’s choice: My favourite photo(s) (and a few words on why!)

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Rebate?

So I went to a car dealership today to get a rebate.  A nice big fat rebate.  I didn’t go to buy the car that had the rebate on it, I just wanted to get the rebate.

Can you believe it?  I can’t get the rebate because I wasn’t buying anything!!!!  It seems that a rebate is a return of part of the money spent!!  No money in, no money out!!!  Apparently I can’t have something for nothing.

If democrats are to be believed, then even those who haven’t paid taxes can get a rebate.  At least this is my understanding of what they would like to have happen.

Again, economics 101!!! 

It isn’t a rebate if there wasn’t any payment to begin with…

…it’s welfare.

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Why Doesn’t Congress Do THIS?

I’m sick over the nearly trillion dollar bill that congress is currently working so hard to try to get passed.

It seems there are lots of items of contention in the bill (duh).  But I imagine that there must be a few things that no one is disputing.  I’m not sure that any economic recovery bill is exactly necessary.  But if we must have one, how’s this for an idea…

Democratic Representative Walt Minnick of Idaho has put together just such a bill.  It has a 174 billion dollar price tag and focuses on infrastructure and tax cuts, two things which apparently everyone is in agreement need to be in the big bloated bills currently being debated. 

Dear Members of the House of Representatives and of the Senate, you can bring the rest of the stuff to the table later.  If you genuinely want to get something done NOW, pass this guy’s bill! 

Figure out how to spend the rest of the trillion later, while those who are getting tax breaks are busy spending their money and putting fuel into our flickering economic fire.  Getting people to spend money is the way to stimulate an economy.  Giving taxpayers their money back gives them more to spend…

Economics 101.

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500 Million Americans

“Every month that we do not have an economic recovery package, 500 million Americans lose their jobs”

~  Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House

Oh yeah, she said it.  On CNN.  Watch the clip HERE if you don’t believe me.

Now, if every American of working age was like me, and had two jobs, and lost BOTH of them EVERY MONTH, that might come close to equaling 500 million JOBS lost every month, but even if you count children and retirees, there aren’t 500 million Americans TOTAL!

Gee, maybe that’s why the dems think that a trillion dollar “stimulus” package is no big deal…they think there are a billions of working Americans contributing to the tax base…

Good grief.

There are only 300 million people that live in the United States, Ms. Pelosi.   At least try to get the most basic facts straight.

Okay, maybe she misspoke and meant 500, or 500 thousand.  But she didn’t catch herself.  Probably because politicians are so used to making facts up, to twisting facts, and to dealing with tax dollar numbers that are so humongous, that the difference between 500, 500 thousand, 500 million, 500 billion and 500 trillion completely loses its significance…

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gina wild conny tube

Yeah.  That’s the latest weird search engine criteria to have brought someone to my blog.

My dad called yesterday and chastised me for not keeping my friday commitment, meaning WHY HAVEN’T I BEEN DOING PHOTO FRIDAY?!!!!

I have no good excuse.  Unless being busy and tired is a good excuse, which even I know it’s not.

Dad, I’ll try to be better!  Thanks for the call! 

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