Tag Safety

Uncommon Sense

Michael 3 Comments

The past few weeks have sorely tested my patience I wish everybody would go out and invest in some self-help books that include how to recapture some common freaking sense. Let’s start.

It’s summertime in the good old U. S. of A. which means, even in the absence of global warming, it gets hot. Glass amplifies heat. An enclosed space holds heat. Things inside hot enclosed spaces cook. And that’s how Jordan Mott came up with the oven in 1490 (minus the glass – that’s a bonus). Because we know it doesn’t count unless it happened in America, we can fast forward to 1882 when Thomas Ahern worked out the details for an electric oven. Granted, he was Canadian but that’s as close as we’re going to get unless you want to count the first person who fried an egg on the hood of a car. That had to be a “real” American, and that gets us to cars, hot cars, hot car interiors on hot summer days. There have been such a spate of kids being cooked in the back seats of cars – again. The government is mandating that by 2025 all auto manufacturers to put in systems that display and sound warning messages to check the back seat for Junior and Fido when you shut off your car. If you aren’t lucky enough to have one of the cars that already have such a warning and/or until you do, they suggest you put “something of value” in the back seat so you don’t forget your kid. Duh! Is it just me or is there nothing anybody owns more valuable than their own child? That was an honest to gosh, news piece just within the last week on most major news outlets. Don’t forget your kid, put something of value in the back with them.”

While we’re on the subject of kids, in June in a small Pennsylvania airport, the TSA confiscated a loaded handgun – in a baby stroller! According to a report on TSA.gov, “The man said that when he and his girlfriend take their dogs and child for a walk that he keeps his loaded gun in the rear stroller pocket and forgot to remove it when they came to catch their flight.” I call bull-doodoo! If you’re taking a baby on a plane with a stroller you are using every cubic inch of that to add carryon volume. And where in H-E-Double Toothpicks is this guy walking that he needs to carry a loaded gun with him when he’s out with his pseudo-family? Let’s stay with guns in airports for a while, even though I ranted about this before. Also, from TSA.gov, “Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers detected twice as many firearms per million passengers screened at airport security checkpoints nationwide in 2020 compared to 2019, and at a significantly higher rate than any other year since the agency’s inception.” A total of 3,257 guns were confiscated from passengers carry them on their persons or in their carry-on bags, and about 83 percent of them were loaded. Those figures didn’t include the number of guns confiscated because they were improperly packed in checked baggage, or toy and BB guns. All while people on planes are beating each other up for taking too much of the shared armrest or [shudder] being compelled to wear a mask.

And now that the delta variant has bloomed in the US to where masking might become more routine again, I figure something in August I get to write this post all over again with a new set of “can you believe this” tales.

Patience. Please give me patience.

not-vaccinated-section-3

Discard Unwanted Medications Safely

Michael 3 Comments

I have a special post announcement for my fellow American bloggers. Saturday, April 24 is National Take Back Day when you can discard old medication safely, securely, and responsibly.

Having unused, expired, unwanted, and unneeded medication around is an open invitation for bad things to happen. Throwing medications in the trash is unsafe and unsecure, flushing them is unfriendly to the environment, and most states prohibit pharmacies from accepting returned medications. So what do you do with those pills and capsules hanging around medicine cabinets and cupboards.

Twice a year the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) sponsors National Take Back Days with local police departments to provide a safe, responsible means of discarding your unwanted medications. 

To find the location nearest you, go to takebackday.dea.gov. If you miss it, another opportunity will come around in October or you can search on that site for all year authorized medication discard locations. 

TakebackPSA

See, when I’m not waxing philosophic I actually do stuff. Although I left active practice shortly after my first surgery I still keep my hands in pharmacy with a support program for pharmacist and other pharmacy and medical professionals.

Really I should have put this out here earlier this week although sometimes I don’t think to put my two lives together yet this information is pertinent to everybody.

P.S. – If you’re like super interested in me and are looking for new ways to stalk me, please feel free to go see what I do at www.roamcare.org.

Hugging Hope

Michael 9 Comments

March 11, 2020: “WHO declares corona virus disease pandemic.” March 11, 2021: “Government says in person nursing home visits OK.” Who would have thought in a year we’d be turning this corner already? That’s who, little letters, not WHO. I don’t know that WHO is that optimistic. The CDC is not that optimistic either if you read beyond the headline. Not unlike another headline from this week, “Fully vaccinated people can have small gatherings indoors.”

It’s been a year. More than a year really as WHO probably should have declared the pandemic a pandemic 2 or 3 or maybe more weeks earlier than it did. People want to return to normal even though many can’t define normal. I will say that we are approaching a point in an exit to the pandemic that I figured we would not have reached until the end of this summer. That’s approaching(!) an exit. But there are many encouraging signs: Three approved vaccines in the US, four in Canada and the EU, twelve different vaccines throughout the world. Export and travel agreements and restrictions minimizing rampant spread. Voluntary mitigation efforts taking place in larger than anticipated numbers when official orders have expired – with some notable exceptions. All that and more is hastening a resolution to the pandemic, not an eradication of the virus and its disease, and a resolution is the best we can hope for against as cunning enemy an enemy as Orthocoronavirinae betacoronavirus-2.

But many people – and most Americans – aren’t good at reading beyond the headlines and that’s why the same papers also are running headlines, “Texas Rangers plan to allow full capacity of fans for 2021 MLB Opening Day,” “Gov. Wolf indicates Pa. restaurants and bars can celebrate St. Patrick’s Day,” and “Wyoming to lift statewide mask mandate next week.” (If you are wondering, Wyoming will join 16 other states without mask mandates.)

It is a great thing that the fully vaccinated and can re-socialize with other fully vaccinated and low risk individuals (fully vaccinated occurs 2 to 4 weeks after the final shot), and that nursing home residents can enjoy indoor visits with contact (hugs!), but there is more to the guidance beyond the headlines. In the nursing homes contact visits are allowed for residents who have completed their vaccination, precautions such as wearing masks and using hand sanitizer should continue, and outdoor visits are still preferred. When the CDC released new guidelines earlier this week that included, “Fully vaccinated people can visit with other fully vaccinated people indoors without wearing masks or physical distancing, visit with unvaccinated people from a single household who are at low risk for severe COVID-19 disease indoors without wearing masks or physical distancing, and refrain from quarantine and testing following a known exposure if asymptomatic,” the same guidance document recommends,“ it also noted that fully vaccinated people should continue to:

  • Take precautions in public like wearing a well-fitted mask and physical distancing
  • Wear masks, practice physical distancing, and adhere to other prevention measures when visiting with unvaccinated people who are at increased risk for severe COVID-19 disease or who have an unvaccinated household member who is at increased risk for severe COVID-19 disease
  • Wear masks, maintain physical distance, and practice other prevention measures when visiting with unvaccinated people from multiple households
  • Avoid medium- and large-sized in-person gatherings
  • Get tested if experiencing COVID-19 symptoms
  • Follow guidance issued by individual employers
  • Follow CDC and health department travel requirements and recommendations

20201004_185802We do well to celebrate the approach of near normalcy but approach the celebration cautiously. Otherwise these will be the more representative headlines in the next few weeks: “Brazil hospitals buckle in absence of national virus plan,” “Africa’s new variants are causing growing concern,” and “1 in 5 in US lost someone in pandemic.” You don’t want to be one of the 1s or you may find out “Why the ‘grief pandemic’ might outlast the worst of COVID-19.”

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Please Note: All headline quotes are actual headlines from Associated Press, Austin American Statesman, BBC, CBS Sports, CTV News, and the Pittsburgh Press from March 8 through March 11, 2021. CDC Guidance from “Interim Public Health Recommendations for Fully Vaccinated People,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, US Dept. of Health and Human Services, March 8, 2021. Links included in guidance direct to CDC web-site.

Death, Safety, Money

Michael 2 Comments
O. M. G. I  am  soooooooo  ashamed  of  being  an  American!  
There really can’t be places in the world so bad that people actually want to come here. This has nothing to do with racism, statues, flags, guns, veganism, atheism, or people taking 15 items through the 12 item or less checkout lane. It’s that all of a sudden we are deciding the fate of the populace based on the twenty-first century version of Rock, Paper, Scissors. I call it Death, Safety, Money. 
 
You all know about Rock, Paper, Scissors? It is the ultimate decision maker for matters of extreme importance like when best friends can’t decide between Jimmie getting the neat, new catchers mitt or Johnny buying a hot fudge sundae with the quarter they found on the walk home from school. Under those circumstances it is marginally appropriate and usually works out pretty well. Most often by the time children reach the age required to drive in South Dakota (go on, look it up, I’ll wait) they have replaced RPS with more reasonable decision making processes. Although … there was that time when Takashi Hashiyama couldn’t decide between Christie’s or Sotheby’s to handle an multi-million dollar art auction and had reps from each auction house compete against each other thusly for the right. But I digress.
 
In general, when it comes to major life and death decision, Rock, Paper, Scissors is not the way to go. And yet, we’ve turned what was a pretty decent plan with a mostly adequate execution for survival in the COVID years over to the pre-teens and their flying fingers to decide our next step against the virus with a game of Death, Safety, Money. To review, in RPS Scissors cut Paper, Paper covers Rock, Rock crushes Scissors. In Death, Safety, Money (DSM) Money covers Safety, Safety beats Death, Death crushes Money. 
 
Here’s how DSM has replaced GOFCoM (Good Old Fashion Common Sense) and not for the better. Not at the very beginning of the Corona Crises (Death) but early enough to make a difference, the US finally followed the lead of other civilized nations and imposed quarantine like limitations on activity (Safety). This protected many millions of people but a few resisted with complaints, threats, and mockery claiming the cure is worse than the disease and we’ll all soon regret it. Safety prevailed and in what was becoming a nominal norm the curve appeared to be flattening. Perhaps it was time to provide a little freedom to the people, Death was seemingly being beaten down well by Safety and as a reward restrictions were loosened. Pouncing on the opportunity that here was a chance to live life again as Fat Cat Americans rather than in hermit like seclusion, business and sports and recreation areas threw open their doors to re-welcome the hoards with their pockets bulging from all the cash saved during their time of pseudo-isolation (Money).  
 
But was it too much too soon in too many places too often? A new curve is rising. Not to worry though. We’ve been through this before, we know that Safety beats Death, we can implement distancing and semi-isolation again and live to spend another day. But having had a taste of the good life the livers want to continue living their outside lives and the providers of the distractions aren’t going gently into another good night. Money is covering Safety across the land.
 
Throw and throw, seemingly ending in virtual ties after weeks of playing DSM Money and Safety are thrown with equal vigor, but is equal enough or is it just one hand away from Death being thrown crushing Money leaving only a few people trying to keep it contained under the shrinking cover of Safety.
 
I don’t like this game. Can’t we please go back to GOFCoM instead?
 
psr

One more time, with feeling

Michael 2 Comments
I’ve been missing. Ever since the middle of last week I haven’t been all there. Or all here. Depends on your point of view I suppose. By Friday I ended up in the emergency room. Nothing horrible but with my history and the ever present compromised immune system, things that aren’t horrible for many others usually get a “go to the ER” response when I call the doctor to see if there are any open times in the day’s schedule that I might get squeezed into. So off to the ER I went and from there off to an inpatient unit were I relished in playing with all the buttons on the bed making it go up and down at the push of … well, a button. 
 
For all the complaints health care takes in general, the system we’ve put together is pretty remarkable. I might be biased having worked in the system for longer than some lifetimes but I’m still impressed when I have to put on my patient hat. Or more appropriately, my patient gown. And yes, there is still nothing appropriate about those! Even an unbiased user will see more good done by American health providers than what the lawyers advertising on daytime television would have you think. I’ll put on my jade colored glasses and wager that as you are reading this there is a personal injury law firm somewhere in America readying suits claiming injury because some organization had a better test, a treatment, a vaccine, or all the above to combat covid-19 but put profits ahead of patients.
 
I can’t help with any of that. I do not have reassuring words for those concerned about the pandemic and have only prayers to offer for anyone who lost a love or has a family member or even him or herself suffering from a corona virus induced illness.
 
What I can offer is the personal observations of someone who has been chemically immunosuppressed for twenty years and for whom handwashing and social distancing is a way of life. 
 
The chance of infection from any virus spread by touch will be minimized by minimizing touching where the virus may reside. Since you cannot see a virus assume anything you touch is contaminated. You have heard it ad infinitum but one more time won’t hurt. Wash your hands. Sure go ahead and sing happy birthday if you want but if you scrub them well and get between each finger and up to your wrist, you will take at least 20 seconds doing that. If you think you’ve washed them enough today, you haven’t. Do it again. If you can’t wash your hands, use a hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol. Then as soon as you can, wash them again with soap and water. Before you touch your face pretend you just ate a rack of barbecued ribs and have to take our your contacts. 
 
When possible, stay out of crowds, wipe down surfaces like supermarket shopping carts with available cleaning wipes. Rooms you typically clean weekly, clean daily, things you typically clean seasonally clean weekly, anything you haven’t cleaned yet this year, clean!  Opt to order from the menu rather than choosing the buffet, and there is no “five second rule.” If it’s not on a plate, don’t eat it! 
 
Do not buy up all the masks at the store if any are even left. They will not help you not get the virus because it isn’t terribly active while airborne. By taking all the masks out of circulation for people who need them like recent organ transplant recipients or severely immunosuppressed individuals who need them as a matter of everyday precautions, scary novel viruses notwithstanding.
..
The best thing you can do if you aren’t feeling well is to stay home. This is not to say that everybody who doesn’t feel well is infected with the corona virus. Any illness is going to make you more susceptible to any other virus and you become a greater threat to anybody who is immunocompromised.
 
You have heard the symptoms are similar to flu symptoms. Flu symptoms are similar to bronchitis which is similar to pneumonia and so and so on. To help you determine that you don’t have covid-19 but may be looking at an oncoming cold I’ve put together a quickie comparison of the most common upper respiratory conditions. 
 

20200311_142434

Always consult your physician for diagnosis and appropriate treatment

Please remember this is not a diagnostic tool. If you are experiencing any of these symptoms call you doctor. If you’re lucky, you’ll get to see him or her in the office. If you aren’t, I’m in room 428.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Unpriortizing

Michael Leave a comment

I wrote today’s post in a state of righteous indignation. I would proof it but if I did I’d probably start to feel bad and change this phrase or that word so I don’t offend anybody. It’s not much of a gift but it certainly is a curse. So I’m not going to proof it and hope all the words are spelled correctly, the grammar is recognizable, I keep my comma usage appropriate, and most of the tense agrees. If I screwed up anywhere, sorry about that. If I do happen to offend you in my state of righteous indignation, sorry about that. This was about pleasing me this time. I know. Unconventional at best. Sorry about that, too.

Unprioritizing

Three things happened that I read about in the paper last week. And one thing happened that I did. They all have something in common. The three things I read about were that the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that a preschool is eligible to apply for and receive a state grant for playground resurfacing, announcers for Great Britain mass transit stations have to begin announcements with “Good afternoon” or “Good evening,” and my state’s legislature recessed but passed a budget on time. The one thing I did was I locked my car in the Walmart parking lot. What do they have in common? None of them made any sense.

The state assembly recessing with a passed budget is both true and false. It’s true in that they did pass a “budget” before the July 1 deadline, unlike roughly half of the states’ legislatures held to a similar requirement. And they were more than happy to include that little tidbit in the press releases announcing the passed “budget.” The problem is that the “budget” is only the spending part of the plan. It should be called a spending plan but then they would have to stick around until they came up with a way of paying for everything they plan on spending. So they changed the name, or the rules, so they along have to pass the spending part by the budget deadline. I haven’t worked for a couple of years but when I did I had to submit my planned revenue, and how I was going to achieve that revenue before I was even allowed to start thinking about how I was going to spend that money. Even doing a home budget, I have make the money I want to have next month before I can spend it. Isn’t it time that we hold our governments to the same standards we hold ourselves? Oh, in case you’re wondering, no, they didn’t pass the revenue bill before adjourning.
Source: Any newspaper in Pennsylvania

The mass transit operator Transport for London has instructed its staff, and rerecorded their automated announcements, to use gender neutral terms and phrases like “Good morning everybody” rather than “Ladies and gentlemen “ so everyone will feel welcome. I’ve never been on a London subway train but if it’s like any of the ones I have been on in New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, or Washington DC, or any of the surface transports in hundreds of different cities in several different countries, hearing “Good morning everybody” isn’t going to make me feel all that welcome. Making certain I get off the train with the same amount of money in my pocket as I got on with (which didn’t happen in Washington), making certain I get off with the wallet that I had when I got on (which didn’t happen in Philadelphia), making sure I actually know where to get off by having station announcements that match the station names (which doesn’t happen in Pittsburgh), or making station announcements at a volume that is audible and understandable, or at all (which never happens in New York) would make me much happier. If you do want to call me something, I don’t want to be just a part of “everybody,” I sort of like being called a gentleman. Shouldn’t I get to feel welcome also?
Source:  The Independent, ESI Media, July 13, 2017.

So what’s wrong with an organization that cares for children receiving grant money? Because it’s Lutheran. Opponents said if they received state money it would violate the separation of church and state. The Court ruled that not giving them the opportunity to apply for such grants is a violation of their right to freedom of religion. What doesn’t make sense about that? Nothing doesn’t make sense about the decision. What doesn’t make sense is that the Supreme Court has to listen to arguments about that. What are the opponents afraid of? That the children while riding a swing will decide they believe in God, or that nature is a cool place to play, or that the teacher is a fun person, or “look, a bird!”? The First Amendment has only 45 words. Isn’t time we stopped second guessing what they meant when they wrote them?
Source: Catholic News Service, June 30, 2017.

I know, I’m getting old and turning into a cantankerous old coot. It’s one of the benefits of having been able to hang around for enough years that I actually have cantankerous in my vocabulary. It  makes me scratch my head and ask,” What’s wrong with the picture? These pictures, even? What are the priorities here? Making sure we don’t influence children in their lifetime journeys toward if, how, or when they may want to worship some supreme being? Or not? Or making sure children don’t get hurt when they trip on a pothole in the playground? Being certain that we don’t offend some group of people who aren’t certain if they are being offended until some other group might think they are being offended so we pick our words so carefully we barely recognize that there are actually people in the group? Or being certain we get our passengers to their destinations quickly and safely? That we follow the letter of the law and adhere to all deadlines and instructions or that we keep our power to change the definition of deadline or that which is deadline dependent? Or that we do what’s right and honorable and don’t spend money we don’t have, especially when it’s not our money anyway? I have the answers. But nobody is asking me the questions.

Oh, what does locking my car in Walmart’s parking lot have to do with misplaced priorities? It was the convertible. With the top down. And the alarm off. I know. I’m getting old and….. ok, I’m just getting old.
Source: Me.