I'm 72. Five years ago, I decided to move to a large city with several medical schools and teaching hospitals. I have CHF afib and mild Type 2 diabetes. Health care was not the only reason for that move but it was a major factor.
Ed-I’m passing this along as I feel it highlights your two recurring themes , grace and absurdity
Her courage and impact were breathtaking, yet overlooked and ignored for the constant triviality of our increasingly unserious and unspiritual world. How do we turn this around? Perhaps by one person at a time being inspired by the likes of her and not Miley Cyrus, Oprah Winfrey or Elon musk. As for the paradoxes of faux Christianity, I would argue there is an even greater duty than to be passively spiritual or oblivious to the evil around us. I don’t know exactly ‘what Jesus would do”, but this is one fallen Catholic and now committed secular humanist who would encourage Christians to step up and actively heal the world rather than being focused of doing well by doing good, a peculiarly self serving, reverend Ike, Babbitt like ah-murican distortion of what Christ really preached. Perhaps We need fewer ‘Christian’s’ with a capital C and more chritians with a lower case c …..fewer televangelists building mega churches and getting wealthy, fewer people attending church aNd more becoming missionaries etc. , less tithing to support established church bureaucracies -even if benign- and more donations for orphaned children in Ukraine.
The world hasn't just become wicked...it's always been wicked.
The prize doesn't always go to the most deserving.
Irene Sendler
She Died 12 May 2008 (aged 98) in Warsaw, Poland
During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw ghetto, as a plumbing/sewer specialist.
She had an 'ulterior motive'.
She KNEW what the Nazi's plans were for the Jews (being German).
Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried and she carried in the back of her truck a burlap sack, (for larger children).
She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto.
The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the infants' noises.
During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 children/infants.
She was caught, and the Nazi's broke both her legs, arms and beat her severely.
Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard.
After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it and reunited the family.
Most had been gassed. Those children she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted.
Last year Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize.
She was not selected.
President Obama won one year before becoming President for his work as a community organizer for ACORN
Al Gore won also --- for a slide show on Global Warming.
I admire Barack Obama and surely global warming is arguably the issue of our times.
But seriously? These men should be embarrassed to have been chosen over this woman.
In MEMORIAM - 63 YEARS LATER
We're doing our small part by posting this message.
I hope you'll consider doing the same...
It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended.
This posting stands as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated!
Now, more than ever, with Iran, and others, claiming the HOLOCAUST to be 'a myth'.
It's imperative to make sure the world never forgets, because there are others who would like to do it again.
Share this posting and be a link in the memorial chain and help us distribute it around the world.
It will only take you a minute to pass this along...
A substantial fraction of the workforce crisis facing healthcare is due to the simple fact that many practitioners in medicine AND the allied health professions have come to the conclusion that it just isn't worth the effort to attempt to provide care in the system as it currently exists. Those with the power to have created this current status are the ones with the power to change it. There is the regulatory class, who must justify their ongoing existence with ever increasing regulation, incentives and disincentives for the actual producers to behave in certain ways.. There is the corporate class, that adds layers of oversight/administration to care systems, grows it's numbers inexorably while asking the real producers to constantly due more with less. There's the "payor" class; those who control the money and the terms on which payment for services will be rendered. There's the "quality improvement" world, a subset of the corporate and regulatory classes, who will never ever say, "it's not perfect, but it's close enough". They are absolutely not intimidated by the law of diminishing returns. This leaves the producers, those who should be motivated to lay on hands and help care for and cure the ailments of society, bound up in chains as they attempt to do their jobs under conditions often distinguished by their INANITY rather than common sense ruling the conduct of care. I don't have much optimism for change, at least in my lifetime. I think the system is more likely to utterly collapse than to save itself. There are only two primary parties to the health care contract; the consumers and the caregivers. Everyone else is baggage, necessary to a degree but currently so bloated as to bring the system to it's knees. Maybe when it' prostrate on the ground, some kind of epiphany will occur with those who are saprophytes on the system. There won't be anymore juice to squeeze out of caregivers. I'm not afraid of an early exit from this life; I only hope that the healthcare system won't squeeze me absolutely dry in the process of getting to and past the out-door.
A substantial fraction of the workforce crisis facing healthcare is due to the simple fact that many practitioners in medicine AND the allied health professions have come to the conclusion that it just isn't worth the effort to attempt to provide care in the system as it currently exists. Those with the power to have created this current status are the ones with the power to change it. There is the regulatory class, who must justify their ongoing existence with ever increasing regulation, incentives and disincentives for the actual producers to behave in certain ways.. There is the corporate class, that adds layers of oversight/administration to care systems, grows it's numbers inexorably while asking the real producers to constantly due more with less. There's the "payor" class; those who control the money and the terms on which payment for services will be rendered. There's the "quality improvement" world, a subset of the corporate and regulatory classes, who will never ever say, "it's not perfect, but it's close enough". They are absolutely not intimidated by the law of diminishing returns. This leaves the producers, those who should be motivated to lay on hands and help care for and cure the ailments of society, bound up in chains as they attempt to do their jobs under conditions often distinguished by their INANITY rather than common sense ruling the conduct of care. I don't have much optimism for change, at least in my lifetime. I think the system is more likely to utterly collapse than to save itself. There are only two primary parties to the health care contract; the consumers and the caregivers. Everyone else is baggage, necessary to a degree but currently so bloated as to bring the system to it's knees. Maybe when it' prostrate on the ground, some kind of epiphany will occur with those who are saprophytes on the system. There won't be anymore juice to squeeze out of caregivers. I'm not afraid of an early exit from this life; I only hope that the healthcare system won't squeeze me absolutely dry in the process of getting to and past the out-door.
Back in 1978, I took a course in CPR at a local hospital. We worked on a dummy and they showed us how to work a baby's heart with only two fingers on the sternum instead of the double hand thing on an adult.
In December of 1980 my brother in law, a dentist, an excellent swimmer and scuba diver, decided late in the day at a beach outing, to go for a swim. I advised him against it as the tide was going out and I could see ripples in the shallow water indicating a possible rip current further out in the surf. I said, "It looks kinda rough out there, John." He said, "It's okay.". John had not been feeling well. For that reason he had not gone in and out of the water like my brother and John's two sons. My sister made the tragic mistake of nagging him ("Why don't you play with your children like my brothers do?"). I was sitting next to him watching my 6 and 8 year old children playing in shallow waters when she said that. I then voiced my concern to him, as I stated above. John was over six feet tall and quite strong. He was in is early forties, the picture of health. Well, I told my wife to get my young son and daughter our of the shallow water they were in and keep them out. It was about 3:45 P.M. and we had been at this lonely beach since around noon. I hoped we could leave soon. I began to pick up our stuff and take them to our car.
Within minutes, tragedy struck. I heard some shouting and ran towards the beach. The surf was getting quite large and John was floundering in it about 30 yards from shore. My brother was grabbing a big dead tree branch (I guess he was planning to use it as flotation device - bad idea in rough waters) and his wife ran up to me with some swim fins from her daughter for me to wear. She said, "Put these on. You aren't a good swimmer.". I told her I would be all right. The fins were small and I didn't want something so tight on my feet. I ran to my brother at the edge of the water and told him that tree branch would hit us in rough surf. He dropped it and we both looked to see if John's predicament had improved. He looked exhausted and was making no headway against the rip current from the tide going out. The breakers were about 8 feet above him, smashing down on him.
He would disappear and bob up some seconds later. I knew in my heart there was no way I would survive trying to rescue him, but I figured I could not live with myself if I just sat on the beach and watched him drown. My mom had grabbed John's children so they would not attempt to save their father and drown along with him. All this happened in less than a minute. My brother Larry and I hyperventilated for about 30 seconds to get some extra oxygen to improve our chances somewhere above 0% of saving John, never mind ourselves, from drowning (we had no life savers or flotation devices of any sort.). We dove in and were next to John in deep water within less than a minute due to the current. I said, "We've got you, John", and grabbed one of his arms while my brother grabbed the other one. He looked at us with relief and bowed his head under water, closing his eyes. I saw this under water next to him. With great fear I saw bubbles start to come out of his mouth just after he bowed his head. I knew we had very little time. We struggled to kick and swim towards the shore as massive breakers smashed over us. I have often been at a beach with surf and have never felt such powerful pummeling by waves. After one massive breaker I actually felt the water try to bend the femurs on my legs! The life or death struggle got worse as it took longer for us to reach the surface after wave after wave broke over us. My throat began to burn as I inadvertently breathed salt water. Larry and I were running out of air and strength. After surfacing subsequent to wave pummeling, I said, "We are going to DIE out here!". Larry said, "A man has to think of himself!". Without another word we sadly released John to his drowning doom and began trying to reach the shore. I began to pray out loud, praising God and thanking Him for saving me, though rationally speaking, to those who lack Faith, that was an irrational statement. I got separated from Larry. I tried diving just before a wave would hit to avoid the pummeling, which seemed to help, but my strength was almost gone and I was having a lot of trouble making my arms and legs move. You can call it massive lactic acid buidup or whatever, but they were simply slowing down, not cramping. I no longer had the strength to voice any prayers. The next time a wave hit, I struggled to the white foam covered surface.
The shore still looked at least 20 yards away. It was then that my arms and legs would not move. I went under. I asked God right there to take care of my family when I was gone. The water was clear and light around me as I sank. I resolved to not breathe. I didn't want that searing pain from salt water going down my windpipe. A doctor told me later on that the decision to not breathe saved my life (I don't think that natural causes can explain it.). Not having the use of my arms or legs, I couldn't hold my nose so I did the best I could, as it got darker and deeper around me, to breathe in and out from my lungs to my mouth and back. I began to be sleepy, but kept up my resolve to not intake salt water. At that point I felt something scraping my right foot. I thought of a shark, but then realized it was my foot sliding across the bottom. I concentrated all my thoughts on my toe and was able to move it to get a toehold on the rough bottom, which cut and hurt, but woke me up from my increased torpor from lack of oxygen. I would let go of the bottom when the current moved me forward towards the beach, and get a toehold when I felt I was being moved backwards. I did this for about 4 or 5 minutes, while doing the breathing thing from lungs to mouth and back. Yeah, I know I should be dead, but I'm not, thanks, I firmly believe 100% to God. Try holding your breath for 4 minutes after swimming so hard your legs and arms refuse to move. I could never do that before and would certainly not try to do that again.
Near the end of my ordeal, the water became lighter and the bottom became sandy, instead of rocky. My toe had a small cut and stung, but I was so intent on grabbing the bottom with it that when it slipped on the sand and the water above me fell away from my head, I ducked under water to get a better hold instead of breathing! Of course I immediately corrected that foolishness and tried, and succeeded to wobble up out of the water. The first thing I saw was my sister, looking at me with a stricken look on her face. I guess I looked equally stricken because she said, "You tried.". I looked down and took the few faltering steps to the edge of the beach and fell on my knees throwing up, and then began to cry.
Within the next 15 minutes, I was forced back in the water, now in an irrational state of sheer terror of water, to help fish out my brother, who was fairly near but floundering and cussing up a storm with his last breaths. My sister-in-law and I got him to the beach and laid him down. He was exhausted but breathing okay. Then we saw the teenage son of John go in the water. My mom and sister were yelling at him to not go but he would not listen. The body of John, because it had floated and not sunk, was fairly close (about 10-15 yards) when Bruce went after his father. I, still in a state of irrational terror of water, went in. There was nobody else to help. We managed to get John's body in water that wasn't over my head (I doubt if I would have had the courage to go any deeper) and took him to shore and laid him on the sand near my brother Larry, who was basically okay, but out of it at that time.
My sister was studying to be a nurse at the time, so she immediately began mouth to mouth on John her husband. John was blue all over. I got into the CPR position and worked on him for about 20 minutes. A young lady saying she was a medical student joined us and said John had a pulse. My arms were on fire but I kept trying. Somebody yelled that an ambulance had pulled up nearby. The attendants came and I smacked John on the chest with the bottom of my fist in the pure agony of frustration from failure. My sister left in the ambulance with John's body. He was declared dead at a clinic where they took him. The many pictures taken earlier in the day of a happy beach outing, including smiling dentist John, were painful to see.
All that said, I am glad I took the CPR training and recommend everyone out there to do so as well. And another thing: ALWAYS take a nice long rope and life vests when you go to the beach, a river or a lake to swim. You will never know when you need them and a loved one drowns because you did not have them
All good advice, Doctor Leap. I would only add that what we need, even more than getting more caring people into medicine, is to convince, with righteous confrontational vigor, all those friends and family who work for "Health" Insurance corporations to STOP BEING GREEDY! It is precisely because of the embrace of the corporate Social Darwinist (SEE: "Nice guys finish last.") based ideology that we have the severe problems in healthcare that you have faithfully documented in this Blog.
Here are a few links for you and all the other caring people here to read, copy and vociferously quote to all those you know who support the pervasive socially destructive Corporate "Health" Insurance Modus operandi:
VTDigger July 30, 2023 This commentary is by Lee Russ of Bennington, a retired legal editor who was the lead editor/author of both the third edition of “Couch on Insurance” and the Attorneys Medical Advisor.
Lee Russ: In health care, it’s 10 to 1 against us
SNIPPET:
... that’s the reality in American health care. There are now 10 health care administrators for every doctor: “The ratio of doctors to other healthcare workers is now 1:16, up from 1:14 two decades ago. Of those 16 workers for every doctor, only six are involved in caring for patients — nurses and home health aides, for example. The other 10 are in purely administrative roles.”
VTDigger January 13, 2023 This commentary is by Dr. Deborah Richter, M.D., a practicing family physician in Cambridge, Vt. She lives in Montpelier.
Dr. Deborah Richter: Yes, we can do something about Vermont’s health care crisis
SNIPPET:
Universal primary care is a small but important piece of the answer. It comes with a small price tag for taxpayers — less than 6% of total spending — and that is offset by lower premiums. But it would make a big difference. Everyone needs primary care, even healthy people.
Oct 12, 2022 Health Insurance Whistleblower: Medicare Advantage Is "Heist" by Private Firms to Defraud the Public
SNIPPET:
The beginning of the end for Medicare Advantage programs was in 2006, with the passage of the "Medicare Modernization Act," which opened the field to for-profit insurers like Cigna, Humana, Aetna and United Healthcare. The Part D drug program was a massive giveaway to for-profit Insurance companies and the Pharmaceutical and Pharmacy industries. These companies have become fully integrated, owning not only the insurance plans but also pharmacy benefits management, pharmacies and even hospital ownership. It's pure collusion and it does nothing but harm to Medicare-eligible enrollees who are restricted by burdensome rules such as the referral system to see acspecialist, denial of expensive diagnostic imaging services, denial of care necessitated by one's own doctor's orders. In some cases, the benefit is worse even than what one would have if one had Medicare only.
US health insurers get more and more federal funding, deliver less and less care
SNIPPET:
People are angry at their insurers, and justifiably so. Cigna isn’t just raising prices and co-pays, it’s committing mass-scale fraud: “exaggerat[ing] the illnesses of its Medicare members to obtain higher payments from the federal government.” Also credibly accused of Medicare fraud: Unitedhealth and Elevance.
Well it wasn't intentional. I shoot and had carried a revolver in that bag previously. While I took the sidearm out, I missed the five rounds that dropped to the bottom of the bag. Lesson learned. Cops were super nice about it.
I'm 72. Five years ago, I decided to move to a large city with several medical schools and teaching hospitals. I have CHF afib and mild Type 2 diabetes. Health care was not the only reason for that move but it was a major factor.
Ed-I’m passing this along as I feel it highlights your two recurring themes , grace and absurdity
Her courage and impact were breathtaking, yet overlooked and ignored for the constant triviality of our increasingly unserious and unspiritual world. How do we turn this around? Perhaps by one person at a time being inspired by the likes of her and not Miley Cyrus, Oprah Winfrey or Elon musk. As for the paradoxes of faux Christianity, I would argue there is an even greater duty than to be passively spiritual or oblivious to the evil around us. I don’t know exactly ‘what Jesus would do”, but this is one fallen Catholic and now committed secular humanist who would encourage Christians to step up and actively heal the world rather than being focused of doing well by doing good, a peculiarly self serving, reverend Ike, Babbitt like ah-murican distortion of what Christ really preached. Perhaps We need fewer ‘Christian’s’ with a capital C and more chritians with a lower case c …..fewer televangelists building mega churches and getting wealthy, fewer people attending church aNd more becoming missionaries etc. , less tithing to support established church bureaucracies -even if benign- and more donations for orphaned children in Ukraine.
The world hasn't just become wicked...it's always been wicked.
The prize doesn't always go to the most deserving.
Irene Sendler
She Died 12 May 2008 (aged 98) in Warsaw, Poland
During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw ghetto, as a plumbing/sewer specialist.
She had an 'ulterior motive'.
She KNEW what the Nazi's plans were for the Jews (being German).
Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried and she carried in the back of her truck a burlap sack, (for larger children).
She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto.
The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the infants' noises.
During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 children/infants.
She was caught, and the Nazi's broke both her legs, arms and beat her severely.
Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard.
After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it and reunited the family.
Most had been gassed. Those children she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted.
Last year Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize.
She was not selected.
President Obama won one year before becoming President for his work as a community organizer for ACORN
Al Gore won also --- for a slide show on Global Warming.
I admire Barack Obama and surely global warming is arguably the issue of our times.
But seriously? These men should be embarrassed to have been chosen over this woman.
In MEMORIAM - 63 YEARS LATER
We're doing our small part by posting this message.
I hope you'll consider doing the same...
It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended.
This posting stands as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated!
Now, more than ever, with Iran, and others, claiming the HOLOCAUST to be 'a myth'.
It's imperative to make sure the world never forgets, because there are others who would like to do it again.
Share this posting and be a link in the memorial chain and help us distribute it around the world.
It will only take you a minute to pass this along...
A substantial fraction of the workforce crisis facing healthcare is due to the simple fact that many practitioners in medicine AND the allied health professions have come to the conclusion that it just isn't worth the effort to attempt to provide care in the system as it currently exists. Those with the power to have created this current status are the ones with the power to change it. There is the regulatory class, who must justify their ongoing existence with ever increasing regulation, incentives and disincentives for the actual producers to behave in certain ways.. There is the corporate class, that adds layers of oversight/administration to care systems, grows it's numbers inexorably while asking the real producers to constantly due more with less. There's the "payor" class; those who control the money and the terms on which payment for services will be rendered. There's the "quality improvement" world, a subset of the corporate and regulatory classes, who will never ever say, "it's not perfect, but it's close enough". They are absolutely not intimidated by the law of diminishing returns. This leaves the producers, those who should be motivated to lay on hands and help care for and cure the ailments of society, bound up in chains as they attempt to do their jobs under conditions often distinguished by their INANITY rather than common sense ruling the conduct of care. I don't have much optimism for change, at least in my lifetime. I think the system is more likely to utterly collapse than to save itself. There are only two primary parties to the health care contract; the consumers and the caregivers. Everyone else is baggage, necessary to a degree but currently so bloated as to bring the system to it's knees. Maybe when it' prostrate on the ground, some kind of epiphany will occur with those who are saprophytes on the system. There won't be anymore juice to squeeze out of caregivers. I'm not afraid of an early exit from this life; I only hope that the healthcare system won't squeeze me absolutely dry in the process of getting to and past the out-door.
A substantial fraction of the workforce crisis facing healthcare is due to the simple fact that many practitioners in medicine AND the allied health professions have come to the conclusion that it just isn't worth the effort to attempt to provide care in the system as it currently exists. Those with the power to have created this current status are the ones with the power to change it. There is the regulatory class, who must justify their ongoing existence with ever increasing regulation, incentives and disincentives for the actual producers to behave in certain ways.. There is the corporate class, that adds layers of oversight/administration to care systems, grows it's numbers inexorably while asking the real producers to constantly due more with less. There's the "payor" class; those who control the money and the terms on which payment for services will be rendered. There's the "quality improvement" world, a subset of the corporate and regulatory classes, who will never ever say, "it's not perfect, but it's close enough". They are absolutely not intimidated by the law of diminishing returns. This leaves the producers, those who should be motivated to lay on hands and help care for and cure the ailments of society, bound up in chains as they attempt to do their jobs under conditions often distinguished by their INANITY rather than common sense ruling the conduct of care. I don't have much optimism for change, at least in my lifetime. I think the system is more likely to utterly collapse than to save itself. There are only two primary parties to the health care contract; the consumers and the caregivers. Everyone else is baggage, necessary to a degree but currently so bloated as to bring the system to it's knees. Maybe when it' prostrate on the ground, some kind of epiphany will occur with those who are saprophytes on the system. There won't be anymore juice to squeeze out of caregivers. I'm not afraid of an early exit from this life; I only hope that the healthcare system won't squeeze me absolutely dry in the process of getting to and past the out-door.
Back in 1978, I took a course in CPR at a local hospital. We worked on a dummy and they showed us how to work a baby's heart with only two fingers on the sternum instead of the double hand thing on an adult.
In December of 1980 my brother in law, a dentist, an excellent swimmer and scuba diver, decided late in the day at a beach outing, to go for a swim. I advised him against it as the tide was going out and I could see ripples in the shallow water indicating a possible rip current further out in the surf. I said, "It looks kinda rough out there, John." He said, "It's okay.". John had not been feeling well. For that reason he had not gone in and out of the water like my brother and John's two sons. My sister made the tragic mistake of nagging him ("Why don't you play with your children like my brothers do?"). I was sitting next to him watching my 6 and 8 year old children playing in shallow waters when she said that. I then voiced my concern to him, as I stated above. John was over six feet tall and quite strong. He was in is early forties, the picture of health. Well, I told my wife to get my young son and daughter our of the shallow water they were in and keep them out. It was about 3:45 P.M. and we had been at this lonely beach since around noon. I hoped we could leave soon. I began to pick up our stuff and take them to our car.
Within minutes, tragedy struck. I heard some shouting and ran towards the beach. The surf was getting quite large and John was floundering in it about 30 yards from shore. My brother was grabbing a big dead tree branch (I guess he was planning to use it as flotation device - bad idea in rough waters) and his wife ran up to me with some swim fins from her daughter for me to wear. She said, "Put these on. You aren't a good swimmer.". I told her I would be all right. The fins were small and I didn't want something so tight on my feet. I ran to my brother at the edge of the water and told him that tree branch would hit us in rough surf. He dropped it and we both looked to see if John's predicament had improved. He looked exhausted and was making no headway against the rip current from the tide going out. The breakers were about 8 feet above him, smashing down on him.
Coninued in reply:
He would disappear and bob up some seconds later. I knew in my heart there was no way I would survive trying to rescue him, but I figured I could not live with myself if I just sat on the beach and watched him drown. My mom had grabbed John's children so they would not attempt to save their father and drown along with him. All this happened in less than a minute. My brother Larry and I hyperventilated for about 30 seconds to get some extra oxygen to improve our chances somewhere above 0% of saving John, never mind ourselves, from drowning (we had no life savers or flotation devices of any sort.). We dove in and were next to John in deep water within less than a minute due to the current. I said, "We've got you, John", and grabbed one of his arms while my brother grabbed the other one. He looked at us with relief and bowed his head under water, closing his eyes. I saw this under water next to him. With great fear I saw bubbles start to come out of his mouth just after he bowed his head. I knew we had very little time. We struggled to kick and swim towards the shore as massive breakers smashed over us. I have often been at a beach with surf and have never felt such powerful pummeling by waves. After one massive breaker I actually felt the water try to bend the femurs on my legs! The life or death struggle got worse as it took longer for us to reach the surface after wave after wave broke over us. My throat began to burn as I inadvertently breathed salt water. Larry and I were running out of air and strength. After surfacing subsequent to wave pummeling, I said, "We are going to DIE out here!". Larry said, "A man has to think of himself!". Without another word we sadly released John to his drowning doom and began trying to reach the shore. I began to pray out loud, praising God and thanking Him for saving me, though rationally speaking, to those who lack Faith, that was an irrational statement. I got separated from Larry. I tried diving just before a wave would hit to avoid the pummeling, which seemed to help, but my strength was almost gone and I was having a lot of trouble making my arms and legs move. You can call it massive lactic acid buidup or whatever, but they were simply slowing down, not cramping. I no longer had the strength to voice any prayers. The next time a wave hit, I struggled to the white foam covered surface.
Continued in reply:
The shore still looked at least 20 yards away. It was then that my arms and legs would not move. I went under. I asked God right there to take care of my family when I was gone. The water was clear and light around me as I sank. I resolved to not breathe. I didn't want that searing pain from salt water going down my windpipe. A doctor told me later on that the decision to not breathe saved my life (I don't think that natural causes can explain it.). Not having the use of my arms or legs, I couldn't hold my nose so I did the best I could, as it got darker and deeper around me, to breathe in and out from my lungs to my mouth and back. I began to be sleepy, but kept up my resolve to not intake salt water. At that point I felt something scraping my right foot. I thought of a shark, but then realized it was my foot sliding across the bottom. I concentrated all my thoughts on my toe and was able to move it to get a toehold on the rough bottom, which cut and hurt, but woke me up from my increased torpor from lack of oxygen. I would let go of the bottom when the current moved me forward towards the beach, and get a toehold when I felt I was being moved backwards. I did this for about 4 or 5 minutes, while doing the breathing thing from lungs to mouth and back. Yeah, I know I should be dead, but I'm not, thanks, I firmly believe 100% to God. Try holding your breath for 4 minutes after swimming so hard your legs and arms refuse to move. I could never do that before and would certainly not try to do that again.
Continued in reply:
Near the end of my ordeal, the water became lighter and the bottom became sandy, instead of rocky. My toe had a small cut and stung, but I was so intent on grabbing the bottom with it that when it slipped on the sand and the water above me fell away from my head, I ducked under water to get a better hold instead of breathing! Of course I immediately corrected that foolishness and tried, and succeeded to wobble up out of the water. The first thing I saw was my sister, looking at me with a stricken look on her face. I guess I looked equally stricken because she said, "You tried.". I looked down and took the few faltering steps to the edge of the beach and fell on my knees throwing up, and then began to cry.
Within the next 15 minutes, I was forced back in the water, now in an irrational state of sheer terror of water, to help fish out my brother, who was fairly near but floundering and cussing up a storm with his last breaths. My sister-in-law and I got him to the beach and laid him down. He was exhausted but breathing okay. Then we saw the teenage son of John go in the water. My mom and sister were yelling at him to not go but he would not listen. The body of John, because it had floated and not sunk, was fairly close (about 10-15 yards) when Bruce went after his father. I, still in a state of irrational terror of water, went in. There was nobody else to help. We managed to get John's body in water that wasn't over my head (I doubt if I would have had the courage to go any deeper) and took him to shore and laid him on the sand near my brother Larry, who was basically okay, but out of it at that time.
Final post in reply:
My sister was studying to be a nurse at the time, so she immediately began mouth to mouth on John her husband. John was blue all over. I got into the CPR position and worked on him for about 20 minutes. A young lady saying she was a medical student joined us and said John had a pulse. My arms were on fire but I kept trying. Somebody yelled that an ambulance had pulled up nearby. The attendants came and I smacked John on the chest with the bottom of my fist in the pure agony of frustration from failure. My sister left in the ambulance with John's body. He was declared dead at a clinic where they took him. The many pictures taken earlier in the day of a happy beach outing, including smiling dentist John, were painful to see.
All that said, I am glad I took the CPR training and recommend everyone out there to do so as well. And another thing: ALWAYS take a nice long rope and life vests when you go to the beach, a river or a lake to swim. You will never know when you need them and a loved one drowns because you did not have them
All good advice, Doctor Leap. I would only add that what we need, even more than getting more caring people into medicine, is to convince, with righteous confrontational vigor, all those friends and family who work for "Health" Insurance corporations to STOP BEING GREEDY! It is precisely because of the embrace of the corporate Social Darwinist (SEE: "Nice guys finish last.") based ideology that we have the severe problems in healthcare that you have faithfully documented in this Blog.
Here are a few links for you and all the other caring people here to read, copy and vociferously quote to all those you know who support the pervasive socially destructive Corporate "Health" Insurance Modus operandi:
VTDigger July 30, 2023 This commentary is by Lee Russ of Bennington, a retired legal editor who was the lead editor/author of both the third edition of “Couch on Insurance” and the Attorneys Medical Advisor.
Lee Russ: In health care, it’s 10 to 1 against us
SNIPPET:
... that’s the reality in American health care. There are now 10 health care administrators for every doctor: “The ratio of doctors to other healthcare workers is now 1:16, up from 1:14 two decades ago. Of those 16 workers for every doctor, only six are involved in caring for patients — nurses and home health aides, for example. The other 10 are in purely administrative roles.”
How does this insanity come to pass?
Full article:
https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/who-can-you-trust/profits-over-patients-in-the-'health'-care-field/msg1208/#msg1208
VTDigger January 13, 2023 This commentary is by Dr. Deborah Richter, M.D., a practicing family physician in Cambridge, Vt. She lives in Montpelier.
Dr. Deborah Richter: Yes, we can do something about Vermont’s health care crisis
SNIPPET:
Universal primary care is a small but important piece of the answer. It comes with a small price tag for taxpayers — less than 6% of total spending — and that is offset by lower premiums. But it would make a big difference. Everyone needs primary care, even healthy people.
Full article:
https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/advances-in-health-care/universal-primary-care-small-price-tag-less-than-6-of-total-spending-is-offset-b/msg777/#msg777
Oct 12, 2022 Health Insurance Whistleblower: Medicare Advantage Is "Heist" by Private Firms to Defraud the Public
SNIPPET:
The beginning of the end for Medicare Advantage programs was in 2006, with the passage of the "Medicare Modernization Act," which opened the field to for-profit insurers like Cigna, Humana, Aetna and United Healthcare. The Part D drug program was a massive giveaway to for-profit Insurance companies and the Pharmaceutical and Pharmacy industries. These companies have become fully integrated, owning not only the insurance plans but also pharmacy benefits management, pharmacies and even hospital ownership. It's pure collusion and it does nothing but harm to Medicare-eligible enrollees who are restricted by burdensome rules such as the referral system to see acspecialist, denial of expensive diagnostic imaging services, denial of care necessitated by one's own doctor's orders. In some cases, the benefit is worse even than what one would have if one had Medicare only.
Full article with video:
https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/advances-in-health-care/medicare-advantage-is-capitalist-corruption-of-medicare-for-greedball-'health'-i/msg590/#msg590
October 13, 2022 BY Cory Doctorow
US health insurers get more and more federal funding, deliver less and less care
SNIPPET:
People are angry at their insurers, and justifiably so. Cigna isn’t just raising prices and co-pays, it’s committing mass-scale fraud: “exaggerat[ing] the illnesses of its Medicare members to obtain higher payments from the federal government.” Also credibly accused of Medicare fraud: Unitedhealth and Elevance.
Full article:
https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/advances-in-health-care/medicare-advantage-is-capitalist-corruption-of-medicare-for-greedball-'health'-i/msg653/#msg653
You carry guns in your luggage when you travel??
Nope. Well, when I went hunting in Alaska I put them in checked, locked luggage, separate from ammunition and disassembled. But that's quite legal.
/Umm, why In The world did you have ammunition in your luggage? You planned to hunt deer during the flight??
Well it wasn't intentional. I shoot and had carried a revolver in that bag previously. While I took the sidearm out, I missed the five rounds that dropped to the bottom of the bag. Lesson learned. Cops were super nice about it.