I just got off the phone with my sister (working out our Christmas visit). She's the one whose infant son had an aneurysm last year. He survived, though with complications, most notably seizures. They've been trying to treat them with anti-epilepsy medication, but lately it's stopped having much effect. This I knew; what I didn't know was that he's having something like 40 seizures each day. Almost twice an hour, including when he's asleep. I just don't know how she and her husband can cope with it.

Oh, billytea. That just sucks. Kid's too little for the vagal nerve stimulator, I'm sure. Poor kid. Poor family.

Kristin, like Seska I was thinking virus? Frisco was exhausted with no other symptoms for about 5 days before he got the flu.

billytea, best wishes for your sister's child, and their whole family. That sounds really difficult.

(Edit because I had missed something.)

Oh, BT, how difficult and for them. So hard to see a little one uncomfortable and not be able to help or explain.

I'm not WindSparrow, but the stuff that I've been warned against the most is stranger rape. Don't go into dark alleys, poorly lit parking garages, unpeopled parks, because the Bad Man may be waiting there to rape you. The fact that the rapist probably has a key to my office or my home hasn't been brought up by those who've expressed concern. My family wanted to know why I wasn't dating the nice fellas in the community (school, church, family friends) so one of them could marry me and make me safe. But they're as likely to be the danger.

Crazy? Well, at least a message that's discordant with reality.

Can I ask -- why is that crazier to you?

It's crazy because all the overt caution messages we get, or at least that I got, involved stranger danger. It's crazy because making connections with people is supposed to afford some protection. But even if we never go out with men we don't know, how likely is it that we can actually get to know all of the men around us well enough to have a clue if they are the kind of men who turn out to be rapists, before we let ourselves be alone in a room with them?

ETA: It's also crazy because our good Buffista guys would never dream of doing that sort of thing, but to a certain extent, it is logical for the women around them (who don't know them as well as we do) to put them in the Schoedinger's Rapist category. Sexual assault happens so often, and it's not just a handful of horrible guys raping their way across the landscape. Chances are, some of the men each and every one of us knows, has done, or will commit sexual assault. Rapists don't look like strangers. Rapists look like men we know, men we speak to every day. That's what's crazy to me.

I can see how you could feel this way. Maybe it doesn't seem crazy to me because I've been hearing for so long that stranger rape is not the issue we've been led to believe it is, but instead the danger is from men we know.

ION, I had to listen to the most disheartening, privilege-based conversation last night about the "travesty" of "Obamacare" and, in fact, the existence of ANY health insurance, period, when in fact health care should be governed by the free market and people should have to pay more for their "bad choices."

The conversation was between 2 men I've known for most of my life, one an ER physician and one the owner of a ridiculously successful biotech company.

I'm just gobsmacked and really depressed this morning, because while I'm used to hearing the "fuck the poor people; it's their fault for being poor; *I* worked HARD for my precious money and *I* can afford a preventive doctor visit; *I'm* not paying for poor people who deliberately neglect their health to then go fleece the system because they know it's free" attitude from right-wing shitbags, they've never been right-wing shitbags who I *know* personally.

To hear my friends -- one of whom took a goddamn Hippocratic oath to HEAL PEOPLE -- talk about how if *they* can afford to pay out of pocket for healthcare, then *everyone* can afford to pay out of pocket, and fuck the poor people who are trying to scam the system, just made me heartsick.

Our worldviews are so vastly, vastly different that I honestly don't think I want to spend time with them anymore. I don't want to "debate the issue in good faith," I don't want to try to change their mind, I just want them to take their white, male, highly-educated privilege and fuck themselves insensate with it.

I am so fucking depressed today I can't even tell you.

How lucky for them that their health is a result of their decisions. Be a real shame if that should change.

::trying very hard not to wish tumors on people however educational it would be::

::trying not to add onto that "accidental" missed payments that gives them no coverage::

How lucky for them that their health is a result of their decisions. Be a real shame if that should change.

Right? I was appalled. And sickened.

The non-doctor, successful business owner regaled us with a story about how, since he paid his doctor cash for a preventive visit (versus using insurance), the doctor knocked the fee down from $100 to $50.

Why, how had I been so blind? OF COURSE his way is better! I mean, can't EVERYONE afford $50 doctor visits??? Even people who support a family on minimum goddamned wage can afford that! Fuck them if they can't make rent or feed their children or get the utilities turned off in the winter -- EVERYONE can find $50 in their budget to see a doctor, instead of showing up at the ER and "scamming the system" like the deadbeats they are!

I don't think I can talk to these people any more, and it makes me really sad, because of how long I've known them, and how big a part of my life they used to be.

The ER doctor -- like I said, I've known them since high school -- is a very intelligent man, and from all accounts, a very, very good doctor.

And yet? If I showed up at his ER, I think I would pray to NOT get him for my doctor, because I wouldn't want to be treated by someone who thought that I was trying to scam the system.

Shitbags.

They are indeed shitbags. I don't know if it helps any, but I deal with lots of doctors every day. I was at a company picnic with a bunch of them yesterday. The overwhelming majority of physicians that I have met honestly care about their patients and really do want the system to be fixed. They don't necessarily know how to fix it, but they are also extremely frustrated with the system that requires them to waste time playing bureaucratic games with the insurance companies rather than caring for patients.

The system is seriously broken, and the blame lies squarely on asshats like your acquaintances above, and greedy soulless insurance companies.