The Soapbox Archives:
While I landed in the F Terminal, there was an hour until the connecting flight in the B Terminal took off. The US Airways flight took a few minutes longer to leave the gate because they were dealing with the last-minute luggage. However, I wasn't all that surprised that everyone left the US Airways baggage claim area in Boston and I was still waiting for my luggage.
Two months and the fourth funeral I've been to. At least it wasn't February in Toronto like the one 8 years ago.
My cousin's mother passed away and they had a Buddhist priest performing the last rites ceremony. Kinda interesting. Most of the younger generation (meaning mine) don't believe in the ceremony but we go through it because it means a lot of the older generation; I'm guessing that they're hoping we'll go through it anyway when it's their time to go. Some people (particularly Christians) might view the activity as paganism, but I see it as offering a prayer for the soul that's left us; not much difference there.
The next day, I went to what I would consider a "2-Star" nursing home. It looked like a hospital and there were very old people lined up in the corridors in their wheelchairs in various states of health. We were visiting an old friend of the family who was 104 years old (and moving faster than me). She introduced us to her 103-year-old uncle (yes, her uncle is younger than she is and in a room down the hall).
The thing that bugged me out was when two people in black suits came out of the elevator and rolled a stretcher down the hallway to the other nurse's station (I recognized one of them from the funeral home from the day before). They went right past all the people in the wheelchairs in the hallway. The residents must have been wondering when the Men in Black would be coming for them next.
I've seen what I might consider a "4- or 5-Star" nursing home in Newton; my mother says that my cousin's mother was in a "5-Star" nursing home with a private room for the past year, more like a hotel, really. People should take a look at these places now rather than later so they can try to figure out how to get into a better one later in life.
Note to a certain dance organizer:
At no time am I obligated to post information for *any* dance event. I do this because I still enjoy it and the events listed are appropriate to something I like to do. If the dance event does not promote holding hands with a member of the appropriate gender for dancing, then I'm going to be asking "why bother?".
I recently built a new desktop computer at home because Windows XP was no longer supported. One of the security features of Facebook is that it takes note of which computer is normally used to access Facebook. If someone gets your Facebook password, it's nice to know that Facebook will take note that your account is being accessed from somewhere else.
The thing that's weird is that they're using a new verification system: you have to identify five of your "friends" based on their pictures. As I've already said, I know only about 1% of the people with whom I am friends on that account. This means that I'll never pass the security test and I can't get back into my account. This must have been a recent change to the security process because I got into my personal Facebook account on that same computer around the first weekend of April when Microsoft discontinued their support for XP.
Facebook's solution to unlock my account is for me to send a copy of a photo ID (redacted, of course) so they could verify my identity. I can't believe they never figured out that having to verify your identity by having identifying a bunch of Facebook friends by their picture isn't going to work well. My personal Facebook account has tons of "friends" whom I've never met and never meet just because I needed them to play some of the Facebook games.` I've heard of people with thousands of Facebook friends just because it makes them feel popular.
Hello from the skies of....hmm....can't tell by looking out the window. I know we left JFK an hour ago and I wasn't paying attention outside the window. In any case, I'm taking the opportunity to update the webpages from the information I get from email.
In some cases, these updates include event listings that have live music. From the calendars, you can tell I appreciate live music and will add band pictures and links when appropriate to encourage dancers to check them out. However, while on the plane I'm not going to have access to the Internet so I won't be able to find pictures of the bands and their websites so I might not include them. Note that even if I went doing this from home, it takes a while to look up a band's website and even longer to find a good picture of the band. I try to keep a list of standard band pictures (see the source code for the calendar page) but I'm less inclined to look up the information when the dance promoter fails to provide it.
If a doctor denies or ignores information that is found on the FDA website or even on the drug manufacturer's website, they should be told (and paraphrasing the astrophyicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson), "the cool thing about facts is that they're true, even if you don't believe them."
It's said that when you (i.e., any medical staff) treat a patient, you're also treating their family too. I hope that the profession teaches its staff that even their facial expression affects the patients' families and even the patient. A neutral facade or especially a gloomy look tells the relatives that the outlook is not good, regardless of the actual prognosis. They should be looking at it like they do in a ballroom competition...use a sincere #2 smile and look like things are going to be okay.
I think hospitals should make mental health an important part of a patient's recovery. Some patients will be in a bed and be thinking about the quality of life in their future They might be depressed and wanting (and trying) to die. Hospitals need to build up the patient's patient's will to live as well as their physical health.
Addendum: Sometimes it takes a move to a different unit, even to a different ICU unit within the same hospital, that makes a difference in how a patient and their family is treated.
He said that back in the old days, people would show up at work and change into clean "scrubs" at the hospital. It was harder for dirt to hide on scrubs. These days some medical personnel put on their scrubs before leaving the house for work and they travel in their cars or on the buses and subways; it saves them the time and trouble of changing at work twice a day. They also track a lot of dust, dirt, pollen, and *germs* into their workplace. It's just my opinion, but if the protocol is for everyone wear rubber gloves before doing anything for the patient and to rub anti-bacterial lotion on their hands after working with a patient, then it should be protocol that the staff not use their scrubs as street clothes. Think about germs that could be spread to the people they encounter while going home for the day.
Addendum: MERS was first discovered in America in a hospital in Indiana. SARS killed a lot of doctors and nurses in a hospital in China before they figured out what it was and how to contain it. These were new diseases that no one had known about before. Think about that the next time you see someone in scrubs on the subway.
When a new feeding tube was necessary, we insisted that the same doctor insert the new tube. The doctor was quite flattered that we didn't want anyone else to do it but he was slightly annoyed that some residents didn't consider that skill to be "sexy" and didn't make it a point to be very good at it.
Has anyone guessed which hospital I've been at all week?