I've always thought we could take something viral if we put our minds to it.

Fuck yeah. Suit up. Keyboard at the ready.

Sean - once you know more regarding a date, and if you have decent physicians, I would suggest requesting lorazepam.

Thanks, Nicole. I'm trying to quit anyway, because a) I should, b) it's too damned expensive, and c) even without surgery, it exacerbates the problem, or so I'm told.

I was shooting for a New Years quit date. I haven't quite made it, but I've cut way back. I'm trying to do it without some alternate nicotine supplement, although now that I have an actual doctor, I should ask him for something to help quit. I will ask about lorazepam.

Let me know what to help make viral. I know many draft-dodging peace freaks that tweet.

It just feels so futile.

Hubby was a checklist in a meat grinder. Since they accelerated his treatment, so many things had to be done quickly, and never once in my hearing did anyone give him any sympathy. I can't go into everything he went through before the transplant because it makes me break down. But it was all standard procedure, done professionally, and was considered necessary. And they got him out the door and brought in the next subject who had to be prepped.

Efficient. Required. Medically necessary. And so soulless. I don't blame the Huntsman staff for not making a bigger effort to connect to their patients. God knows how many they lose. The coping methods they have to use must be horrific. But it makes me very angry.

I've also pinged Kathy A (whatever the reasons for her choice to separate from the board, it's part of her history and she's part of ours; I can't imagine she wouldn't even want to know).

Um, hi everyone. Thank you so much, JZ, for contacting me.

I am just so shocked and saddened by the news. ita was...just terrific, and I'm sitting here at my desk, getting caught up on the thread here (I'll be heading over to ita's thread to read that).

It's good to see everyone's pixels, but I'm sorry for the reason that I'm back, even though I am glad to be here.

Now that I'm back, I think I'll stick around!

KATHY! {{{{}}}} Have some brackets and a box of tissues, and come rage at the universe with us.

HAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!

Asshole surgery!

But, uh...if it works...that is, if it makes you less of an asshole...

...don't tell Aims. I'm scared of surgery, too.

My aunt's late estranged husband (they never divorced but she left him) had MS (not why she left him but that turned out to be a good thing because the state considered him an abandoned spouse and desititue), diabetes, bipolar disoder, anxiety disoder and something else.

He was in nursing homes for a long time. He was bedridden for a very long time and he would get bed sores. Medicaid or Medicare or the nursing home (this has been a few years I'm hazy on the details) would only authorise the use of a special air mattress when he had bed sores. Once they healed, he was back to the regular mattress.

The staff would leave the air mattress propped on the wall in his room where he could see it.

Let that sink in. My aunt had to yell at them numerous times to stop doing that.

His pain levels were intense and no one would give him pain medication for fear he would get addicted. Which at that point drug addiction was pretty much a fucking kindness. And then he lost his fine motor control but could still swallow so his medication was in pills and tablets. And even though the staff knew he couldn't move his hand to his mouth and put the pills in his mouth they would insist on doing that. At times even refusing to put the pills in his mouth for him.

At one point my aunt found a better nursing home, one that he was willing to move to and htey were making arrangments because the place hadn't opened yet. Until it got to his pain management. Once the nursing home realized the kind of pain meds he was dealing with they told my aunt they didn't have a contract with a doctor who could handle that and they wouldn't take him in.

So he stayed in the shithole place because the new nicer nursing home was too afraid to deal with him.

Hell, the psychiatrist I just dumped made ME feel like a drug seeker because I wanted 1) not go off lithium as soon as he wanted and 2) I wanted to get a prescription sleep medication.

I won't be seeing him anymore. But he is very anti medication. His stupid idea was I'd see a therapist weekly for 1-2 months and that would give me enough coping skills to start pulling me off meds. My therapist said that was not realistic. I've been seeing her since this summer and I'm just now feelign comfortable enough to really dig into therapy and healing.

I wasn't even askign for long term sleeping aid, I was asking for maybe a month's supply to get my sleep regulated but he told me to take Benadryl.

So doctors can suck and medical professionals can get burned out. Adn there's not enough of certaint types, and I wish there were so when someone starts getting callous and stops seeing patients as people there could be rules that say. Okay you get a compassionate time out. Go do something else away from patient care and come back in X amount of time adn we'll see if you still are fit to work with living beings.

Kathy!!!! We've really missed you.