Announcement For Teh Day

No, we haven't been turned into a cat. Or a toad, for that matter. And yes, we did pass on that fucking chain letter. And all the other fucking chain letters y'all mailed us (you know who you are).

Surgery tomorrow. Would you believe we have to fucking BE THERE at 6:15 am? I feel like John Wayne Gacy in that stupid movie about him, yelling at everyone, "Do you know who I AM? Huh? DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?" I mean, fucking COME ON, people. La Casa de Los Gatos does not begin to download teh wakefulness until, oh, 9 am or such. This does not bode well.

Pluses: No CPM machine that has to be strapped into for up to 8 hours per day.
Minuses: PT regularly for fucking EVAH.

Also, pain meds. I hate them. I don't react well to them. They make me vomit and feel nauseated all the time. And I can't read or think or function very well mentally, which I also hate. The last time I was on them, I actually got off them very easily mdash; I just kept forgetting to take them for longer and longer periods, and eventually decided if I wasn't suffering enough to want them I could live with the pain. Right? It can't be TOO bad if you're not groaning and writhing about. Because when I came out of the major surgery, the pain was so fucking bad, I could barely see. All I could do was groan, uh, uh, uh, like I was about to die. I remember hearing the sound and thinking, Now who the fuck is making all that noise? And it was me. Now that's the level of pain where you need medication. If it's just, you know, painful but you can still function, why bother? I mean, you're functional, right? That's better than being painfree but a vegetable from the neck up.

Also, I don't get any buzz from pain meds. The only thing they do for me is make the pain bearable. Some people talk about feeling high or a feeling of flying or consciousness-altering. I don't get any of that. If I did, maybe I could get addicted to pain meds, like a lot of medical professionals seem to. For me there is absolutely NO upside, and plenty of downside. Perhaps I should be grateful.

I'll be back pretty soon, I imagine. And since the daily pain levels will go down after this surgery, hopefully, back to blogging as well. So don't get up to any more trouble than y'all need to. BBL.

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Teh Funny!

Alright, alla youse who are always complaining that the denizens of La Casa de Los Gatos swear too much? Swearing is just like analgesics, only more satisfying, sez MSNBC citing an article in NeuroReport. How'dja like them apples?

Fuck it, I say. I always fuckin' knew that. And in my experience, nothing controls the pain like a good long string of expletives, and the more languages you can say "fuck" in, the better you'll feel after, say, getting your knee replaced.

As our good friend sgtg, Associate Terrorist Nun, might say, "Fuckity-fuckin' FUCK FUCK FUCK!" As far as I know, a relatively painfree life is lived in the SGTG household. No doubt thanks to the frequent invocation of these analgesic charms.

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The Opposite of Peace Is — War?

Been reading a lot about World War II lately. My father fought in that war. He lost the hearing on one side thanks to shrapnel that perforated his eardrum. He lost many of his friends. He nearly lost his life.

But my reason for reading is both greater and lesser than a desire to know a little piece of my father's history: I am writing a novel set in that period.

And today, I came across something that encapsulates very nicely the malaise that the reading of the past several weeks has engendered in me. FTA:

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.

How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.

And what is this bill?

This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.

Maj. Gen. Smedley D. Butler, War Is A Racket

While Japanese farmers, office workers, and civilians were restricted to the grayest of lives by the sumptuary laws enforced before and during WW II, while Japanese intellectuals trembled under the heavy hand of the thought police and suffered torture by the Kempeitai, while Chinese peasants starved and their children were forcibly inducted into the military to fight against superior armies and lose their lives for a pittance, the wealthy crooks who engineered these wars became wealthier still. Come rain or shine, they continued to find ways to profit from the vast human suffering.

George W. Bush paid for the war in Iraq by borrowing billions of dollars from the Chinese. Now your grandchildren will have to repay that debt. I hear some people say Obama is creating a huge debt by borrowing additional monies to stimulate the economy. Unfortunately, the hole that Bush left has to be patched before everything else leaks out of it. And the only way to patch that hole is to stimulate the economy into spending.

People forget that the U.S. economy runs on consumer spending. Before George Dumbya left office, the Iraq war had already cost us three TRILLION dollars. We are bringing our troops back now, but that costs money too. Then there's the issue of reintegrating them into the smashed civilian economy. All the while, the war profiteers like Dick "Dick" Cheney sit back on their seats and bwa-ha-haaa themselves into something like an orgasm. I wish it were an organism. Something intestinal and painful and lengthy.

How many kids have lost their parents in this war? Iraqi kids? Somewhere between one and five million? American kids? Somewhere between three and ten thousand? Nobody really knows. In 2004, when the total casualty figures were around 2,000, Scripps stated that 900 American children had lost a parent to the war. However, the casualty toll has doubled since then, and most of the soldiers in this war have been professional military and reservists, which means they tend to be older, married, and have more children.

How many kids are getting back parents who are not the people they used to be? Broken in body or mind or both? How many kids have to grow up really fast, to become caretakers to their parents instead of being children any more? Smedley Butler was right. War IS a racket.

Blackwater mercenaries made two to three times the salaries of military men for the same work. No-bid government contracts made a lot of people very rich. The wholesale plunder of Iraqi oil made other people (or sometimes the same people) very rich. To us, the taxpayers, is left the broken mess, the debris, the tortured, the cripple, the lame, the halt, the blind, the miserable, people who are still fighting the war in their heads, crying themselves to sleep or drinking or drugging to forget. And they are living among us as are their suffering parents and spouses and children.

The dividends of peace are happy human lives. However, these do not represent adequate profits to those whose greed drives them to profit above all else. And to achieve those profits they will willingly sacrifice every last man, woman, and child of us upon an altar of blood.

Crossposted over at The Peace Tree.

La Casa de Los Gatos apologizes for the dearth of recent posts. A bout of illness laid us low, and having had our first meal today in nearly a week, we can safely say we now have energy to start blogging again. To think that a little food can make so much difference ...

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Ms. Manitoba and Her Knee Replacement Story

My tale is quite different from PolCat's. Come to think of it, my tail is too.

I had my operation at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Antioch, CA. I was extremely well-prepared and prepped beforehand ... I mean weeks of pre-op visits of various kinds -- not necessarily at Antioch. My doctor practices out of Walnut Creek so I went there for some of these pre-op meetings.

The Antioch hospital is beautiful and clean. The staff was wonderful. My needs were taken care of so well. It was a very good experience.

Maybe "top-notch" is not what we need? Is it a case of the tortoise and the hare? Maybe the flashy hospitals who are supposed to be top-notch don't get the basics down right.

Pain management was perfect for me. The only time my pain went above a point six (ten is the highest level of pain) is when I was home and dosing myself and fell asleep and waited too long to take my meds.

In fact, PolCat was writhing in pain the evening after her operation, while I had the best sleep in years ... being a middle-aged woman and all.

True, the staff paid less attention to me the two days I was there after my operation ... but by then I really didn't need all that attention.

I highly recommend Kaiser Permanante in Antioch. They have a lot of joint replacement surgeries there. They are set up to take care of all of us boomers who are having our joints replaced.

Maybe some of the problems were PolCat's spidery veins ... I don't have that. But these folks are professional ... they should be trained to take care of and monitor folks with spidery veins. I think PolCat is being too kind to the general staff there. There is *no reason* to have that kind of pain after an operation. Pain management is a very integral part of someone's care.

Post-op: I had great follow-up and physical thereapy afterwards. My doctor has been very helpful in counseling me through the battle of my dependence on pain medication. I am totally off the pain meds now and have been for a while. But addiction to pain medication is not an easy recovery. I don't think people talk about that enough. Or maybe I am more susceptible to addiction? I went through a week of hard times getting away from the drugs. I spent three very sleepless nights with what PolCat called the "junkie bugs." Do not minimize this! It's tough. My doctor's advice really worked.

Here's what he said. Take 1/2 Norco, then 6 hrs. later take 500 mg (or 600mg) of extra strength Tylenol, followed after 6 hrs. with 1/2 dose of Norco. Do this for a couple of days. Then start taking the Tylenol in place of one of the 1/2 Norcos for a couple of days. Then take only Tylenol. I started this protocol in my fifth week post op.

Yes, one day I actually paid attention after I took the full Norco ... I was tired so I was lying down ... after about 30 minutes, I could feel this delicious warmth and sense of well being just spread in my body ... see, that's why I was having the trouble!

The other part of post-op: DO YOUR EXERCISES. These exercises are for the rest of your life because you have to keep those muscles surrounding your knee strong and in shape! I stopped doing them regularly and I started having a cracking sound and pain when I got up from a sitting position. Plus, I was getting up wrong. When you get up from a sitting position, do not put pressure on that knee. Even if your knee feels great and you feel like you're on that road to recovery. (I'm four months post op.) It takes a full year to heal.

For those of you contemplating knee-replacement surgery -- prepare yourself well, make sure they take good care of your pain and other needs, have a friend or relative who will be your advocate throughout your stay at the hospital, get good physical therapy afterwards, and do your exercises.

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Diary of A Trapped House Cat

From La Casa de Los Gatos, a few fragments of a diary titled "Political Cat" have surfaced. They make for sad reading:

I am no longer mobile, unable to navigate the steep stairs leading up to my place of rest (or, let's face it, more meaningfully, down to the kitchen for food) without the aid of massive quantities of untrendy chemical accoutrements. A layer of cat hair on the already slippery hardwood of the floor and stairs, far from ensuring a soft landing, only contrives to add to my fear of slippage. Although food is brought up daily by my captors, I long to run, free and wild once again, over the carpet of slugs infesting what I once fondly thought of as MY garden. Life sucks. Six weeks left to surgery. I think I need better pain meds. Unfortunately they make it tough to function, and drooling meditatively has never been one of my favourite competitive sports. In the event, I must offer up this morsel for the amusement of all of us who really loved and admired Hillary Clinton before she went over to the Darth side and are so grateful she's back among the light. Notice, please, that the imprisoned myrmidons of one Bootsie Ferragamo, who last dominated the dungeons of the State Department, are celebrating their release with a fervor heretofore unseen in career diplomats.

To quote the late, great John Lennon, Labia and Genitalmen, I give you Secretary of State Hillary Clinton! Three cheers to the auld girl for pulling it off. Doesn't she look great? And sound great?

Yeah, yeah, I'm an unabashed Clinton supporter, have always been, probably always will be. She put me off for a while with her underhanded tactics, but yaknow, she wanted to win and although I didn't agree with what she was doing, nobody can say Baby don't got no balls. Hers are bigger and brassier than anybody's, and yes, that includes Rahm Emanuel. I'm still really glad President Obama won. He has the breadth and depth of vision to benefit the whole country and his "no-drama" style is more reassuring to us wot been beat down by 12 years of the screamfest that started with the Clintons and ended with Drunky McStaggers.

So, enjoy this clip of Hill getting lauded publicly by hand-kissing celebrants. You'd be kissing her hands too if she'd saved you from that gap-toothed thigh-booted Dominatrix Bootsie Ferragamo.

The news is this coming couple of weeks is surgery prep. First week of March is surgery. After that, ten days of recovery, and I should be back home by the end of the third week of March. Then it's physical therapy, at home for 8 weeks and at the PT's office for 8 weeks. I'm told replacement knees are tough on old farts, but anything has to be better than sitting around semiconscious and unable to enjoy anything but food, cigarettes, and the occasional sip of booze. Fuck me, fellas, sitting around on the old situpon smoking, drinking, and stuffing one's face is NOT all it was made out to be. What would I like to be doing? Hiking! Goddammit. Hiking. The weather is springlike, sunny with a little nip in the air, and if there was justice in the world I'd be down the hill checking my plum tree for blossoms and rooting out the sorrel grass by hand. Pfaugh!

Blogging occasional till surgery; restricted to the kindness of Ms. Manitoba and FoTPC and Sirenita Lake for about 4 months post-surgery; resuming again in full and aggravated mode sometime in late April or May, I think.

Don't desert me, goddammit, y'awl. It's pretty damn uninspiring crushing one's coccyx in a bed however comfortable. And people keep getting me books to fucking read!

Your comments, however rude, welcomed. No threats, please, unless they involve some lively slap-and-tickle in a humorous manner.

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Meta: Gimpy Gams

Image copyright The Yorkshire Knee Clinic

Well, we're back from viewing MRIs of the troubled knee and off to court tomorrow to fight once more for the (naked-eye-obviously-needed) replacement. It will be a full replacement, titanium, both upper and lower. Looking at the MRIs was interesting. There is absolutely no, zero, zilch, cartilage left between the femoral head and the tibial head, and none behind the patella. So they'll have to take out all the gritty bits that are floating around in whatever's left by way of synovial fluid. Hopefully it'll stop looking like a cantaloupe afterwards.

A little anecdote about pain medications. Our dear Dad, a gentle if somewhat confused soul, was on the battlefield in WW II. For reasons I've never been able to fathom, he didn't care much for pain medicine and was always quite stoic about pain. For example, when he fell through the roof, landing on the car on his head, scalping himself quite significantly (he had 22 stitches holding his scalp to his face, afterwards) he insisted on driving himself to the hospital (not much choice there since Mother was screaming hysterically and having quite the pother, and we young'uns were much too young to drive). He insisted on having the stitches without any pain medication because he wanted to "drive the family home, you know." The doctor was simply scandalized but since Mother was still screaming, and quite loudly at that, he did the necessary and handed Dad a bottle of pain medication to be taken later. Dad threw it away the minute he got home. Didn't want to throw it away in the hospital, you know, might hurt the doctor's feelings.

He suffered many accidents over the 90 years of his life, being a dedicated gardener and also the kind of husband who believes that men are good for a few tasks, carrying heavy things being at the top of the list. Never took anything stronger than the occasional (very occasional) aspirin.

When he had a hernia in his 80s, he simply didn't complain until things were so bad he could no longer get up. Then he told Mother to call an ambulance. Mother, as is her wont, decided to cut his hair instead. (The woman's batshit raving insane, as everyone has always known.)

In the event, she was finally persuaded by some decidedly ungentle and ungenteel words from me to get the fucking ambulance already and quit mincing around worrying about cleaning the house before the ambulance guys got there. Like Emergency Med Techs haven't seen it all before from corpulent corpses to maggot-infested wounds, fer Chrisake.

Before the surgery, he asked the doctor if he could please have "some aspirin for the pain." The doctor, a geriatric surgeon in a hospital that caters only to geriatric patients, was nonplussed, but only for a minute. Then he said, in Dad's good ear (the other has a perforated eardrum from shrapnel during the war), "Mr. X, the war is over, you know. These days we use anesthesia." Poor Dad.

This is by way of letting y'all know that I am decidedly NOT stoic. However, like Dad, I prefer not to take medication, especially pain medication. Like Dad, in all my life before I injured my knee, I took only aspirin for pain. 80 mg enteric coated, one pill every 8 hours, two at the most. So when I injured my knee, initially I tried to keep going with the aspirin. Over the years, the pain has become so goddamned fucking awful that I have been forced to take stronger medication.

I'm currently taking an opioid that serves for post-surgical and "mild to moderate" pain. It's starting to lose its effectiveness, and I might need something stronger soon. Of course, this medication (which I try to limit to one pill a day when I can no longer stand the pain) makes me feel like somebody rammed through my skull with a potato masher. I can't talk, and when I do, I make no sense. I can't remember words. I repeat things, over and over. It's quite tiresome. It's hard to read because I can't concentrate.

Seeing the MRI kinda absolved me of my guilt about the pain meds, though. It's obvious that I do need them. I have given myself permission to take them every 4-6 hours, as recommended, instead of waiting until I'm ready to saw my leg off myself.

Dad would probably think I was being a godawful wuss, and he's probably right. Sorry Dad. I can't live up to your high standards. The first surgery was painful enough. I'm determined that this time around will be better. I'll take my pain meds. I really need them. The bone's grinding on bone and splintering little bits off. And that fucking hurts.

So it's off to court tomorrow (at eight fucking am, these people are clearly both insane and uncivilized), and hopefully a new knee in March! (That's not as far away as y'all might think - barely two months now.)


All those years of watching The Bionic Man decades ago. Did we ever think we'd end up being part-metal?

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Health - Snoring Is Hard Work

OK, I know I'm not gonna win friends and influence people with this one. At least not anyone who lives with snorers. But I'm dedicating this to the two wonderful people in my life who snore like they were cutting a goddamn forest down. You know who you are. Consider getting me sound-killing ear protection for Xmas. Or, whatthehell, maybe not. I'll still love y'all anyway.

The good news: Snorers burn more calories, says Auntie Beeb.

The extra calories consumed are the same as a vigorous 30-minute workout in the gym.

Well, isn't that special, y'all.

There is a downside, however. Heavy snoring is usually associated with sleep apnea:

Sleep apnoea, in which the airways are partially or completely obstructed during sleep, stops the person getting a good night's rest, making them very sleepy during the day.

It has also been linked to a greater risk of high blood pressure and cardiovascular problems.

Well, that's not good.

A new year is almost upon us, toots. What are y'all doing to ensure you get over this sleep apnea business? For one thing we could all stand to lose a little of the old avoirdupois, yes? This means you'll have to make up for that 30-minute gym workout you've been getting in your sleep with a real honest-to-doodah 30-minute gym workout while you're awake.

Also, teh diet. I'm getting my MRI sometime this week, hopefully, which means we can meet with the ME and the surgeon in a week at most, and schedule the surgery, probably for March. After that, we can all limp to the gym together (well, gimme a little time to get the staples out of the old gam and be pronounced fit for human company). Is it a deal? Am I hearing agreement heah?

Looking forward to regular weekend hikes again by damn!

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Meta: Announcement

Ms. Manitoba just called to say her surgery went fine, and although she won't be blogging for a while (just like Milagrito's spokesfeline Sirenita Lake), she'll be back as soon as she's able.

So that's the second blogger from this fine establishment who's been under the knife. (Sirenita Lake had a hip replaced about a month and a half ago.) Ms. Manitoba now has a new knee.

Next under the knife is Yours Truly, who will also have a new knee to boast of. Meanwhile, we take our disgusting medications and loll about in a state of witlessness. At least there's no pain. Court hearing in a couple of weeks (fighting with the insurance provider) and possibly surgery in January.

FoTPC, that leaves you and me to hold the fort till then, kid. Although Milagrito will probably be back soon.

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A Good Sex Life

Sex is a very important part of an adult's life, don't you think? Intimacy, closeness, love, affection, warmth, appreciation, those things are all important too. But there's something about fucking someone else, preferably someone you love but in a pinch, anyone who wants to make like a bunny with you, that really gets the old happy juices (and other juices) flowing.

And if you've had the pleasure of getting it on with someone, maybe a partner, maybe a spouse, maybe just a Friend With Benefits, it's hard to accept that that part of your life may not exist any more. Or may be changed forever.

What about injured veterans? Raw Story carries an interesting article today about badly-injured veterans and their sex lives.

You (hell, all of us, except the vets) probably never thought about what injuries might do to a body's sex life. Because, let's face it, most of us go through life not expecting to get so severely injured that we can no longer get it on with our sweet patootie. Right? Who walks around thinking, "Hell, wonder what I'll do if I lose my leg/arm/half my face?" Nobody, that's who. Nobody in their right mind, anyway.

Of all the grievous harms that have come to the people who signed up thinking they would be defending their country, thanks to the lies of a small group of wealthy, powerful, manipulative motherfuckers, this has to be the worst. And you don't even have to lose an arm or a leg to be affected. You could be one of the 600,000 or so vets suffering from TBI (traumatic brain injury) or PTSD, and still find that your sex life might be fucked (so to speak) for a long time.

Psychological and neurological disorders can interfere with behaviors necessary for successful intimacy, such as experiencing and expressing emotion and understanding someone else's needs, the study noted. And anger and aggression, including domestic violence, have been associated with mental disorders.

According to the Veterans Affairs Department's National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, sexual dysfunction tends to be higher in combat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder than in those without.

How do we evaluate that kind of stress and pain and suffering and loss? All we can say is, if our sex life got put on hold for reasons not within our control, we'd be one crabby motherfucker, and wherever we lived, they'd better have some damn good gun control laws.


Meanwhile, in other news, that miserable draft-dodging "I had other priorities" POS chickenshit chickenhawk Dick "They call me Dick for a reason" Cheney had the gall to tell Coast Guard graduates today, about the war into which he and his millionaire buddies dragged us:

"The war on terror is a lengthy enterprise, but it does not have to go on forever [,..]".

[...]

"More than that, quitting would be an act of betrayal and dishonor. And it's not going to happen on our watch."

Do these fuckwits have even the first notion of shame?

Crossposted over at Out of Iraq Bloggers Caucus

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Blogtopia Today: Alien Trucker

Alien Trucker has some sweet video clips up today - Les Paul with Waylon, and Violent Femmes.

Plus a very very nice little recipe for, ahem, medicinal cookies. You know, the kind that make the pain go away.

Damn, we here at Casa de Los Gatos are getting really tired of a bunch of self-righteous bureaucratic pricks trying to tell us how to deal with our ongoing, and growing, pain.

Shoulda titled this post: I can haz cookiez?

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Racism: What It Means For You

Hey! WHOA, there, pardner. When someone starts messing with our meds, we get ... concerned is putting it mildly.

Raw Story is telling us that minorities who go to the ER are less likely to get strong painkillers. WTF is that about?

Is pain less painful if you have a little pigmentation with it? Or what?

We remember gratefully the ER doctor who gave us a shot of demerol for a nasty abscessed tooth. When we showed up a day or two before, some flunky gave us antibiotics and told us to take ibuprofen. We can tell you exactly where to put that ibuprofen, ER junior assistant dishwasher. It ain't in our face, either.

After three days of excruciating pain which no amount of painkillers did squat about - and we don't like painkillers and don't like to take them, but were taking them about every two hours thanks to the agonizing pain - that shot of demerol was like instant heaven. The pain just disappeared.

Now why would anyone want to deny a suffering person relief? Eh?

Study co-author Mark Fletcher of UCSF had this to say:

... 23 percent of blacks, 24 percent of Hispanics, [and 28 percent of Asians and other groups] received [...] narcotic pain medications [...] for moderate to severe pain, compared with 31 percent of whites.

Pain management in the ER is "particularly important," said Fletcher. "Patients ... often have an acute issue with severe or new pain which really requires attention."

[...] The use of [strong pain meds] increased overall between 1993 and 2005, but the disparity between the treatment of whites vs. that of blacks and other minorities has remained stagnant.

ER physicians are often vigilant when administering opioids like morphine and codeine because of patients who are addicted to prescribed painkillers. [...]

"I'm sure this is part of the reason that patients don't always get the pain control they need," said Fletcher. "The ironic fact, however, is whites are actually more likely to abuse prescription medications than other patients are."

Dr. Fletcher says minority patients who don't get the pain relief they need should ask for it and keep asking till they get it. Great advice, doc, but let us know how that works for you when you're in the ER. We were lucky to have someone else with us at the time (the oft-mentioned spousal unit). We were too busy groaning and rolling about in pain to ask for any damn thing.

Details here.

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Politics - Countering The Lies And Spin

If you have any outrage left, please direct it constructively in a (reasonably polite) letter to this idiot, Stu Bykovsky. Conveniently ignoring the fact that a largely Republican congress rubberstamped Commander Codpiece's warmongering policies for six years, bringing us to where we are today; spinning the complicity of the media in beating the drums for war; blaming Iraq for the mess that America is today, while conveniently ignoring the men behind the curtain; and finally, calling for an attack on the U.S., regardless of the cost in innocent lives. The mendacity and hypocrisy of this man is not to be believed. So send him a letter, please, telling him what you think of his ludicrous spew. And secretly wish and pray that if an attack occurs on American soil, it somehow miraculously targets him alone and spares everyone else. What a fuckwit.

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Health - The Right To End One's Life

Image from here.

It's time for the interfering idiots of the world to step back and butt out of women's uteri and peoples' births, deaths, marriages, and sexual preferences. Really. I would really like to see the Bill Frists of this world publicly shamed and euthanasia become fully legal and accepted. What's the use of criminalizing the taking of one's own life? I can understand the state having an interest in preventing people from taking the lives of others - a privilege which most states prefer to arrogate unto themselves. But death is just as much a part of the continuum we call life as birth, sickness, reproduction, breathing. For the state or any body to impose their ideas upon a vastly overcrowded, growing, and threatened human population is simply ridiculous.

Bugger off and let me die with a smile on my lips as I drink my favorite tasty concoction of cyanide almond chocolate. And while you're about it, read this. I'd like to die in the comfort of my own home, thanks, and barring that, at least in a familiar place where I can feel comfortable. I don't much care what happens to the earthly remains afterwards. Wild animals, compost heap, crematorium, it's all the same to me.

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Health - Managing Pain

Gee, what a surprise. Chronic pain can affect (shrink) the areas of your brain that relate to social interaction and decision-making. Who'd'a thunk?

Yoga can reduce and help manage chronic back pain. Well, we all knew that. Besides, most of my pain right now is in my lungs and knees. Argh. But I will I swear to deity start with the yoga again. As soon as I can breathe.

New drugs for chronic pain? I got gabapentin for mine right after surgery, but it didn't help much. Must find out more about this drug(s).

Using a gel to treat chronic back pain? Sounds interesting. Better than the spinal fusion approach. I wonder if the gel would be an effective replacement for hyaline cartilage? Or some gel, in the future, might.

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