Secret to getting to age 101 and beyond — keep moving…

So Mom turns 101 today.

And it almost seems as if her four children are catching up with her. I mean I’m the youngest and I’m 62, but her oldest is pushing 82 — and by all appearances is in fine shape; I just saw him last night.

Mom lives in an assisted living home but can get around, primarily by wheelchair these days, but she also rides an adult-sized tricycle around the outside of the place — she used to ride inside too, but the powers that be put a stop to that — it made some of the old people nervous, I guess.

Okay, so most people usually want to know what is the secret to longevity. All I can say is that in her case she has always kept active, but she was not the kind to do gymnastics or long-distance bike riding (shorter distance yes), or a lot of mountain climbing, or even stand-in-front-of-the-TV aerobics or whatever (I think she has attended some exercise sessions where she lives).

But mom was the old-fashioned housewife and I think that kept her moving enough to suffice. When I was real small we still lived in San Francisco and apparently were not aware that having two cars so mom can zip down to the grocery store was a requirement for modern living. I recall walking (or maybe I rode my tricycle) with her many long blocks to a supermarket, and she would return with grocery bags under both arms. Later, still having only one car in the family and dad having it at work, we lived in a small town in California’s Central Valley and mom would often walk the several blocks downtown. In later years we did wind up with a second vehicle.

But if anyone is interested in non-stressful healthy exercise, using her as a guide, I would suggest that you just keep moving.

I have personally always abhorred what I call artificial exercise, that is calisthenics. I do think that as a man I could have benefited from some weight lifting, although even in that, if you just do some physical work your muscles will tone up – expand a little too.

Mom did smoke for, well since I don’t know when she began precisely, I am estimating nearly 40 years. She quit sometime after I left high school and was away in the Army. I don’t know if she was ever what one might call a heavy smoker. I just recall that as a kid I would see her sit down and have a smoke or she would smoke in a car too. But finally she just up and quit and stayed quit.

We were meat eaters, but mom always cooked vegetables, and when I was a kid we ate meals primarily made from scratch, prepared from the raw ingredients, very little instant stuff and no takeout. People are so busy today out trying to make more money and figure they don’t have time to cook. What they fail to realize or sometimes seem to flat out reject is that preparing balanced meals from scratch is tons more economical and tons more healthy.

But Mom also has benefited from being naturally healthy, something over which none of us have complete control — often luck of the draw in life.

I’ve been informed by the medical profession that my Waldenstrom’s cancer is not likely going to allow me to match my mother’s longevity — but I’m still working and I’m still moving.

Goona move right down later today to celebrate Mom’s 101^st with my siblings and others.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Premature categorical statements by health officials can be devastating…

It seems like a tragedy to me that German health officials mistakenly blamed the world’s worst E. coli outbreak on cucumbers from Spain and now have found out the likely culprit is bean and other sprouts from one farm in Germany. Meanwhile one report I heard on NPR radio indicated Spain’s produce industry or at least one distributor ( interviewed in the report) has been put out of business for the time being with all of its workers left idle.

So far, 22 deaths have been reported and 2,200 cases of people becoming ill in the latest E. coli outbreak that one report I read termed the worst ever reported.

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UPDATE:

And even before I can finish this post I read now that German officials are still not sure where the contamination has come from and are still warning the public to be wary of vegetables, imported and domestic, I guess. And apparently it was not just cucumbers, but lettuce and other vegetables that had been or are suspected.

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With foods being imported and exported all over the world it is a difficult situation health officials face when a contamination incident surfaces. They of course feel obligated to warn the public for that is their whole mission. And the public would be rightly outraged if they withheld vital information and people suffered or died as the result.

Unfortunately, food contamination turns out to be difficult to pinpoint many times, what with all the distances and stops it makes along the way and the possibilities of cross contamination and the fact that food stuffs may become just ingredients mixed in with other items in processed foods.

But this current incident has shades of Alar in Apples, eventually found to not be much of a threat or no threat at all but quite devastating to the Washington State apple industry many years ago after negative reports about it (no Alar, a chemical growth regulator, is produced or used anymore, as I understand it — and you know? That is probably a good thing).

More recently, a couple of years or more ago, tomatoes sold in the U.S. (some imported from Mexico and elsewhere) were suspected to be a source of contamination. Much of the year’s crop was put to waste over the scare, as I recall. Finally it turned out that the contamination was linked to one farm growing peppers in Mexico, as I recall.

All this kind of hits home with me. I’m not a farmer but I make my living largely from the produce business. I haul it over the road.

Coincidentally, I suffered food poisoning that might or might not have been linked to those contaminated peppers I mentioned. I was not driving at the time — I was recovering from a cancer treatment and was on my way to a hospital in San Francisco for tests when I ate an omelet at a restaurant along the way. I think that is where I got the food poisoning.

I think health officials are in a bind. On the one hand they have a duty to warn the public as soon as possible and on the other hand they can do grave damage to whole industries, not to mention individual producers or even employees whose livelihoods depend upon working in the industry when their reports are erroneous.

I would say their best bet would be to always qualify their warnings and not make categorical statements unless they are really sure.

Why does anyone still buy cigarettes?

Went back to the grocery store this evening to exchange a light bulb that was the wrong size, but they did not have the right size so I got my money back. But in so doing I was in the customer service line. The young man ahead of me was buying a pack of cigarettes, just as the older man ahead of him had done. I had not noticed this before, but apparently these days you can only buy cigarettes and tobacco products at that counter.

I don’t know how much cigarettes cost these days, many, many dollars per pack, and don’t even think about a whole carton — far more than the 25 cents to 30 cents per pack they cost when I was a teenager, which was relatively cheap even then.

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Had a hard time getting a simple answer on the web, but apparently cigarettes these days cost as much or more than $50 per carton (10 packs), and in New York state because of new higher taxes they are upwards of $15 per pack.

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It’s hard for me to believe that in this day and age people actually still buy and smoke cigarettes. Ever since the 60s , or even 50s, at least, we have known that they lead to lung cancer and we know that they cause other lung disease, usually in the form of what these days is referred to as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), a form of which can be Emphysema.

But people get hooked on them and then they go into denial, saying things like, “I know an old woman who has been smoking ever since she was a teenager and she’s a hundred years old, or, “if I quit something else will get me” (yeah, so go out and run in front of a train, something else is going to get you anyway).

Just as bad is what one of my late brother in-laws used to tell me: “heck I could quit anytime.” That begs the question, why didn’t he? Well he finally did after a doctor told him it was either that or imminent death. But he died a slow and painful and agonizing death from the effects of COPD. His death was not only hard on him, but those who loved him — most notably a son who was close to him and my wife. They both took care of him. But even then he was in denial, saying or implying that it was not really or not just the cigarettes that gave him lung disease. He had worked with all kinds of toxic chemicals in the construction business back before they had safety breathing equipment that was at all effective. And he may have been correct that other things damaged his lungs, but certainly the cigarettes played a, or the major role and probably hastened his demise.

If these smokers do not care about themselves or their loved ones, do they realize that it is society that almost always ends up paying a major portion of the medical bills due to their smoking-related or caused diseases?

And what about the smokers who litter the countryside with cigarette butts and emptied ashtrays that they just dump on the ground or pavement or what about the ones who carelessly throw burning cigarettes out their car windows and start raging wild land fires that kill people and wildlife and destroy property and burn forests and pollute the environment? And they are so indignant when they are told they cannot smoke in a public place.

They think it is their right even though it has been found by researchers that second-hand smoke non-smokers, often children of smokers, are forced to breathe is deadly. But of course they are in denial about this too.

It almost seems to me that anyone who now smokes should not be able to get health insurance, even private insurance, because protecting them makes everyone’s premiums cost more. And they should have to sign a waiver saying they will not be eligible for public health care of any kind related to their smoking.

For that older man buying those cigarettes it‘s probably too late.

Sadly, for the younger guy, it‘s also probably too late.

Some people never really do get the message.

P.s.

I even find it hard to believe that among people who are heavily addicted to cigarettes, that the realization of that slow and agonizing death and/or a shorter life span, added to the tremendous monetary cost of the habit is not enough to make them quit. But if those factors are not, then someone needs to talk them into reconsidering their smoking lifestyle, then we could all breathe easier.

P.s. P.s.

I was young and foolish once myself. I tried to get the habit, but it just wouldn’t take.

P.s. P.s. P.s.

And I know, once you start telling people they cannot do dangerous things to their bodies such as smoking, others will say then what is to stop the government from telling them not to drink alcohol (the U.S. has been there and done that back in Prohibition days).

But there really is a difference. There is just nothing safe or redeeming about smoking and the cost to society is too high.

Eating for fun leads to child obesity, and might society go back to the future?????

The mission by Michelle Obama to fight child obesity got me to thinking where the problem comes from.

In my life I have noticed a phenomenon I call “recreational eating”. I have not had a weight problem since I was a young boy and went through a fairly long pudgy period. Well, maybe I also had one in midlife when I was a reporter and did not get much exercise and after dinner I continued to graze all evening. But on my own, I changed my lifestyle and it did not require dieting or costly diet programs and medical procedures. I just got more active and ate less — not necessarily better, but a little less.

I was in the first generation (born in1949) to grow up with television. Some of my first memories are lying prone on the floor watching the tube. I recall watching cartoons on television all Saturday morning, as well as watching programs each week night. Even so, I was an active child and played a lot — a lot — outside, something many children no longer do, both because they are inside playing on the computer and watching television, and texting, and because in many cases it is thought too dangerous to be out and about.

But back to this recreational eating thing: When I was a child, we did not have McDonalds or Burger King, but we did have drive-ins close by. I think their food was better than the modern ones because they still cooked it as you ordered and cooked it in a more traditional way, but it was fast food nonetheless.

For some strange reason, even though three good meals were served up by my mother each day at home, a little friend and I would go to one of the several drive-ins and eat hamburgers and fries and drink milkshakes. Those good meals were served at his home too. But we just enjoyed eating drive-in food. Maybe it’s like cigarettes. Maybe the makers of that fast food inject some type of addictive material into the stuff as the tobacco industry did (still does?) its cigarettes in order to get customers hooked on their product.

As we as a society moved toward the latter half of the 20^th Century and into the 21^st, life sped up and both mom and dad working outside the home became the norm. With mom at work, it became more convenient to pick up fast food (in my case, my mom did some seasonal work outside the home when I was a teenager, but she still fixed the traditional home-cooked meals).

And now I’ll wander around a bit, but it has to do with this subject — we’ve come to the point where the poorest of the poor eat and feed their kids fast food, which is more expensive and less nutritional and is fatty. Kind of reminds me of the news clip I saw years ago during another recession in which a poor woman complained: “we don’t even have pampers for our babies…” Pampers? While I realize it’s passé, there was a time when people used and reused, after washing, cloth diapers (no, I don‘t miss those days either). But we have a new kind of poor.

Also, if ever there was an example of recreational eating, it is an absurd place called Chuck E. Cheese. This is a version of what we used to call a pizza parlor. It caters to families with children. There are video games galore. Moms and dads take the little ones there, where they play the games and consume pizza.

Now enjoying good food, for more than just its nutritional content, has long been in our culture, as well as all cultures. But there’s a difference between traditional quality food and fast food. For the most part, I would think, even expensive dinners at quality restaurants are more nutritious than fast food, even if they may not be considered the best diet. For another, the tradition of going out to dinner is different than making a life out of consuming fast food which for some reason is devoid of nutrition and loaded with heart valve-clogging fat.

(I’m wandering here, I know. But if you were well off and could and did enjoy fine dining each day, you might well be no better off health wise than if you were poor and lived on fast food.)

So, I think some of the explanation, or all of the explanation, for child obesity is a change in lifestyle.

And that could lead to a whole other discussion. In the name of progress we have all but destroyed our society. Too many families no longer sit around the table and enjoy each other’s company and eat nutritional and economical home-cooked food.

(Okay not everyone enjoys each other’s company each day, but if you nit pick me on the details here I can never make a point.)

Also, too many children are left locked in their homes with mom and dad away at work.

And, maybe the idea of rewarding children by taking them out to places such as Chuck E. Cheese is not such a great idea.

It’s not all lost. In the neighborhood where I lived until recently there were children playing outside, and even in the street — a nuisance for motorists, but it did my heart good to see them — and I think I smelled home-cooked food sometimes as I walked by.

And I’ll wander again, but something occurred to me the other day when I read a story that suggested that with the dearth of jobs, many have given up looking for work. Well, if you can actually give up looking for a job then it implies that you may not really have to have one. This might be the case in a family where there are two breadwinners. I could see a strange back-to-the-future evolution of society in which there became more stay-at-home moms (or dads) and where there were more home-cooked meals and where children were safe and secure and were not afraid to play outside and were so busy playing they would not even think of going out to consume fast food.

I’m not naïve enough to think that we are going back to that mythical 1950s Leave it to Beaver life (or was it mythical? I think I lived it, but not everyone did), nor do I think that all moms should stay at home or that all women have to be the servant of a man (or all men servant of a woman?). But I do think societies naturally evolve to whatever seems practical at the time.

I should also add that just because people eat at home does not mean they are getting good food. Not everyone can cook and not everyone has a good idea of what balanced meals are. Not everyone can afford sufficient food, but fresh fruit and vegetables, and beans and potatoes are cheaper than fast food, and there is the food stamp program (which by the way I read is becoming more acceptable in this Great Recession economy).

And that leads me to say that while I think what Mrs. Obama is doing is a good thing, I don’t think it requires a lot of study, new government panels, and an outlay of educational programs requiring more tax dollars. All the info is already available through the U.S. Department of Agriculture and elsewhere. It’s really up to society itself to move to the more practical or not.

The First lady’s inspiration could help, though.

Health care reform under protest — I give up

I don’t know whether to be proud of all those citizens showing up at the town hall meetings, many to voice their protest over proposed health care laws, or whether to be disgusted with all the demagoguery going on, such as that from those Republican lawmakers who voted for a provision in 2003 they now claim to be against and further claim is a measure promoting euthanasia.

I know there is legitimate concern over proposed revisions to our health care laws but there is so much lying on all sides concerned that it is depressing.

Facing my own health care insurance problems, I feel nearly helpless and hopeless – although not quite.

But I know I am not in a unique position, and that only further confuses me. Surely so many others must be facing the bewildering position of being between insurances and knowing that if you let one lapse a new plan may not accept pre-existing conditions. I might be going on Medicare if due to my medical condition (cancer) I cannot work, but that would put me into poverty,that is not being able to work,  but without help I can’t possibly pay private insurance on my own. And reading over all of the terms and restrictions of private insurance is bewildering. One would have to be the proverbial Philadelphia lawyer to understand it all, and even that would not help, unless one specialized in health care law.

While I fully appreciate anyone taking part in the protests if they know what they are talking about or at least have legitimate concerns based on some semblance of fact, I have nothing but contempt for the know-nothings who simply spout off FOX News or right-wing Republican talking (propaganda) points.

And I am not afraid to say something else about all of this: there is a lot of greed among the health care providers, to include doctors, and insurance companies.

It’s hard for me to criticize doctors because I have needed them so much and I know that taken as a group they do so much good for society and I know that to be a good doctor is a rare enough skill and talent that it has to be or should be well rewarded. But it also seems to me that doctors are the ones who could do more than most to help straighten out the health care crisis. But the doctors whom I have spoken with seem to feel they are too busy and someone else needs to handle reform and that in so doing whatever way it comes out they have to be compensated at the level to which they are accustomed. I have not had long and detailed discussions with doctors, but I have mentioned my concerns. And although they indicate concern and sympathy they also convey the attitude that they must be rather well compensated otherwise it is just not doable or worth the bother.

As to the issue of abuse in malpractice litigation adding to high medical costs, while I am sure there needs to be reform there, I imagine it is more of a red herring used by opponets of health care reform who prefer the status quo.

But at some point on an individual basis one has to face reality and go along with the program, such as it is.

And one more thing: I think a vast majority of the public wants FREE health care or at least health care that seems free, such as employer-provided. They do not want to think that they have to pay for it and they for sure do not want to be taxed for it. A big concern among many – and perhaps somewhat legitimate – is that their tax dollars will go to health care for others and not themselves.

It is true, I believe, that there is a class of people in our society who take public assistance for granted. They along with greedy drug companies and others in the health care industry are adding to the poison in the atmosphere against health care reform. Many are concerned that too much government involvement will throw us all into the government free clinic zoo. Many working people work simply to not have to live in that nether world of the “sick”, “lame” and lazy. They fear that Obamacare (and actually there is no identifiable program) would throw them into the community clinic.

And there most likely would have to be some type of health care rationing under a government program — how else to control the costs? There already is rationing in the private system anyway — it’s called cost, availability, exclusions and so on.

While President Obama may believe what he says, that he does not want to take away anyone’s insurance, I have to admit it does seem that a so-called government option would overpower what the marketplace could offer and would offer employers a way out of providing for their employees. And actually employer provided insurance is probably where we went wrong in the first place. When it really was free (to the patient) the medical community had a bonanza, they could and did, and heck, still do, charge anything they want. And they want a lot.

I give up already – I’ll go along with the program to the extent I can.

How do we in good conscience deny health care to millions???

It seems that lawmakers and perhaps large numbers of voters who chose Barack Obama are getting cold feet about the cost of health care reform (a trillion dollars, yikes! But then again, doesn’t the government just print money? Yes, I’m being sarcastic).

Maybe some are rethinking the issue, wondering if we should just not leave well enough alone.

Well to anyone who thinks the present health care system works just fine, I offer this localized version of what is going on (or part of what is going on).

Here where I live at the Northern end of California’s Sacramento Valley we have two major hospitals in town. The biggest is a non-profit (and that has nothing to do with how much patients are charged – it’s still an arm and a leg and more) and a for-profit that changes ownership somewhat frequently, one that was in the national news some time back because two heart surgeons, with the blessing of the management at the time, made quite a business out of performing unneeded surgery. But that does not mean it is not a good hospital, necessarily. Both my wife and I have spent time there and had excellent care, even though there is really no way to make it enjoyable to be in a hospital.

Anyway, that for-profit hospital recently changed hands and is now run by a controversial doctor from Southern California. He began by firing virtually all of the nurses and other staff and allowing them to reapply for jobs. One of the nurses’ unions has been voted out. It couldn’t get anywhere with the new management, so apparently the nurses decided they would be better off fighting their own battles or at least keeping their jobs.

He also cancelled an insurance contract with Blue Cross. As I understand it (and I may not), the hospital says it will still honor Blue Cross and will in fact waive your deductible. I think the catch is that unlike when you have contracted insurance the hospital retains the right to go after you for the part insurance does not pay (beyond the expected deductible). Kind of a double-edged sword there. Blue Cross has advised its customers not to deal with that hospital.

As a result, apparently, the non-profit (Catholic, did I mention?) hospital has been inundated, especially in its emergency room.

Now in my local newspaper I read that the non-profit hospital is being investigated by the feds for what is called “patient dumping”, that is to say they may be releasing patients too soon or denying proper treatment because they lack insurance.

So it occurs to me that not only is the non-profit getting patients steered their way by the insurance company, but could be getting ones without insurance that the for-profit one does not want to handle (although that is not included in the current investigation by the feds as far as I know).

The story indicates that the non-profit was flooded with emergency room patients because of doubts created about the other hospital over the insurance hassle and the fact that Blue Cross sent letters to its customers telling them not to go there.

There is actually a question as to what specifically the non-profit hospital is under suspicion of doing since neither the authorities nor the hospital will say precisely, except for the feds indicating it has something to do with patient dumping.

What I am trying to point out is that private health insurance is not a panacea. The reason the for-profit hospital had a beef with the private insurance is that it does not pay them what they think they should get – and isn’t that the same beef the medical community has with public insurance – too low of payments? (And why do we patients not feel the hospitals are not getting enough money? They demand you buy everything from your pillow to the toothbrush you didn’t ask for at high retail – not even Walmart prices.)

And what is this I hear about public insurance will mean health care rationing? Probably it will, but that is already in place, both through private insurance and public insurance. Private insurance is quite picky over what it will pay for. A doctor may use his or her own best medical judgment with the concern for the patient uppermost in mind, but in the end it all has to be paid for and the insurance bureaucracy is who decides.

Doctors and hospitals have to hire whole staffs of people just to work with the private (and public) insurance bureaucracy – billions of dollars are spent each year not for patient care but instead in an effort to maximize profits for private insurance and for the medical providers to get as much out of the government programs as they can.

Some of the ways private insurance maximizes profits besides denying certain types of procedures include delaying payments by bureaucratically denying them only to later pay, but in the meantime getting more interest on they money they temporarily withhold from you. Also, you might give up and not get your entitled full claim due to the bureaucracy (and I am not making this up; I have personal experience with this routine). I’m sure there are many tricks, such as bureaucratically demanding certain codes be used and requiring forms in triplicate and so on.

I hear and read about public opinion both ways. The public is demanding health care reform and in fact supports a public option. I also hear that there is a strong resistance now in the congress to the cost of a public plan, and one has to assume that they (the congress) are at least in part reflecting the concern of their constituents.

I am holding to the opinion of my most recent blog on the subject, people who have private insurance are reluctant to put it into possible jeopardy by monkeying with the system (and I understand this).

It is often noted that every other industrialized nation in the world has universal, government-sponsored health care.

Okay, forget the rest of the world if we must. But I think that it is only right and it is only practical that all U.S. citizens should have basically equal access to health care. As for illegal aliens, it would seem we only owe them initial emergency care.

Since there does not seem to be overwhelming support, to say the least, for government universal care, then I think that the only thing we can do is say if you can afford (and who decides that, I don’t know) health insurance, you must buy it (because otherwise the taxpayer gets stuck with the bill in the emergency room where it all starts out, and caring for the uninsured also adds to the cost of private insurance). If you can’t afford it, you should have a publicly-supported option. And that public option could be one that is 100 percent taxpayer funded or one that is simply backed by the government but run by a non-profit co-op or even a quasi-private entity.

Forty seven to fifty million seems to be the oft-quoted figures for the number without health insurance. But as has been pointed out, especially by foes of universal care, that figure may be both inaccurate and misleading. A certain percentage of the total uninsured, as much as 10 percent I think I’ve heard, are illegal aliens, and a certain percentage are young people and others who simply can’t be bothered but run to the emergency room when something happens and demand their right to care on the taxpayer dime. And a certain percentage may actually be entitled to some form of public care and don’t realize it.

What we do know is that there are a sizable number of people, and a large percentage of them are children, who for whatever reason are denied health care.

How anyone in good conscience could be comfortable with that continuing is beyond me.

The reason we don’t have universal care (even the kind that has extreme flexibility, allowing the continuance of private insurance) is the lack of guts on the part of so many politicians. Politicians are often people who have apparently convinced themselves that they could not make their living any other way and therefore are scared to death that if they vote against vested interests in the status quo they will lose their job. They fear the money powers who can spread propaganda and deny them campaign funds if they don’t do their bidding.

I say to all the senators and representatives:

“Try voting your conscience for once.”

 

P.s.

The line now is that any type of public option on health care will run private insurance out of business. Yes, if everyone, to include employers, was offered essentially a free plan versus a paid one, it would. So any public option has to be tightly restricted by actual need, perhaps. And once we get there, I don’t see why we didn’t just expand Medicare.

A serious question over religion vs. medicine…

Sleepy Eye, Minnesota I think was mentioned in Little House on The Prairie as being a trading post some distance from Walnut Grove, but whatever, this is not about a family that had a problem, consulted a higher authority, and they all lived happily ever after, and there’s no Laura Ingalls, as in the book or TV story.

The mother of a 13-year-old boy, one Daniel Hauser, has fled with her son from their hometown in Sleepy Eye, Minnesota to avoid a court order that he be given chemotherapy treatments. He has been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a type of cancer.

The boy’s parents supposedly belong to a faith called Nemanhah (never heard of it) and do not believe in conventional medical practices. Their faith, reportedly based on American Indian beliefs, calls for using natural herbal remedies, as I understand it. Freedom of Religion is guaranteed by our First Amendment.

Reportedly, they may be on their way to Mexico, of all places, to get some type of alternative treatment. That seems like a strange place to go to me if the mother is truly concerned for her son. I mean Mexico right now is not a safe place to go in my estimation. Not only is there a swine flu epidemic still going on there (it has of course spread from there worldwide), but more importantly there is major drug cartel violence there that has threatened the safety of that whole nation.

But I do sympathize and empathize with anyone who fears chemo, whether it be for themselves or for their loved ones. A couple of years ago I was in an oncologist’s office and was told I needed to begin chemo immediately, preferably that day, as soon as I left the examining room. I did. I did not know what else to do. In my case it most probably was the right decision. But to be honest I was ignorant of what chemo was all about. Even though I was probably warned, only later did it really sink in that I had let them inject extremely toxic poisons into my system. Those poisons went after my cancer, but, as is unavoidable in virtually all cases, they also did damage to my body, specifically in my case to my immune system. At one point I was led to believe they may have done irreversible damage. I’m not so sure about that now, but the point is, chemo is a bit terrifying and it is a bit of a risk, to say the least.

But as I understand it, in general, current law (as settled by various cases over the years) holds that the religious beliefs of parents cannot stand in the way of giving medical treatment to their minor children in situations deemed life and death and where the treatment is deemed a medically-accepted procedure, not just some experiment. I know that is not an uptown interpretation of the law, but I think it’s close (and I would suppose there may be exceptions in various jurisdictions, and as is always the case, laws are subject to change with new court decisions).

There is a serious conflict here. On the one hand we go to great lengths in the USA to protect the right of individuals to hold and practice their religious beliefs. And I hate to bring abortion into this discussion, but the Roe vs. Wade decision, which makes abortion legal in this country, I also think says a lot about the law’s attitude that where possible people ought to have control over their own bodies.

In this case there is an argument over whether Daniel, who reportedly does not want chemo himself, is capable of making that decision. Strictly under the law, apparently he is not.

The father has reportedly had second thoughts about the whole thing (actually I don’t know for sure what his original thoughts were) and is begging his wife and son to come back from wherever they are and saying it can all be rethought and worked out. At last word, the Sheriff of Minnesota’s Brown County, the jurisdiction of this incident, has said that if Mrs. Hauser brings her son back now and cooperates he will not seek charges, which include child endangerment.

It’s quite a compelling story. The photos I have seen depict a family living on what appears to be a dairy farm in rural Minnesota. They appear simple folks with their faith. They have a German surname, but they are not Pennsylvania Dutch or Amish or Mennonites, or even Christian Scientists, as far as I know.

But folks should be able to live and believe as they please. And Chemo is a risky thing. But so is alternative medicine. And probably society should have a duty to look out for minors, especially on life and death matters where there is no guarantee that their guardians are following a societal-accepted practice for their care and safety. It is not a matter to be taken lightly, no matter whether you say it is society’s call or a family’s or a mother’s.

National Geographic gives me links to stories that help in understanding flu outbreak implications…

Since first posting this blog I have received a comment that will give the readers two direct links to National Geographic articles on the subject at hand. The comment and links are at the end of this blog.

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Sometimes when I have a lot of time on my hands, which is quite often these days, I actually read articles in National Geographic as opposed to just thumbing through the photographs.

Quite by accident I ran across an article in the October 2005 issue of National Geographic that questioned when the next flu pandemic would arrive. What with the current swine flu, or Influenza A, H1N1, I thought that was certainly prescient. At the time, the big concern was the avian flu in Asia. I recall that there was great worry that migratory birds might spread it across the ocean to here in the good old USA. I guess the avian flu is still a concern, but I found what the article said about flu in general and its references to the great pandemic in 1918 and the outbreaks in 1957, and ‘68 enormously interesting.

One item that caught my eye was that pigs can catch avian flu from birds and can catch flu from humans and that a new strain could result. Could that be what has happened this time around? I also heard the rumor that the current swine flu might have been the result of a flu strain escaping from a laboratory. I heard that on the Dr. Dean Ewell radio program yesterday (that was probably a taped repeat from last week) . He seemed to doubt it, but did not totally discredit it.

There has been some accusations that health officials and the news media overreacted in this current outbreak that first came into the news in April, which so far, although it has spread throughout the world and is blamed for many deaths, does not seem to be as bad as might have been feared. But after reading the National Geographic article I referred to, I can see why there is concern. The truth is scientists and doctors don’t know the potential of this flu or future flu outbreaks and can only go by what they have learned so far. And if a new strain was to get away from containment efforts in the early stages there might be no stopping it. This current strain I think did get away, but so far is not as virulent or as survivable itself, as might have been feared (it seems so far).

I did read about the 55-year-old assistant principal dying over the weekend in New York. The flu is going through the school system there. His death was attributed at least partly to the swine flu. It was also reported he may have had another underlying condition.

I suffered from an upset stomach last night and some other intestinal problems, shall we say. I think it may be due to eating too many oranges on Sunday or even a restaurant meal I ate going out to lunch with my mother. But the thoughts of swine flu were on my mind. But I don’t seem to have flu symptoms at this time (headache and extreme body ache or fever).

———–Update:

Feeling much better today, May 19. I think it was the oranges. I swallowed a couple of seeds. They were Valencias.

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A few days ago I blogged that the swine flu had come to the city and the county where I live (at the top of California’s Sacramento Valley). The count of flu cases here, as I said, so far is 1 and the victim has recovered. A day or two ago I read that there was a case in the next county south of here, same result.

And I sure hope that was the oranges that made my stomach ache.

Swine flu statistics still hard to follow, but my local count is 1 case, 0 deaths…

It seems difficult to get accurate swine flu statistics off the web. The numbers don’t always add up and each story or each site seems to list things differently. But I think I have a handle so far on the statistics in the town and county in which I live, at the north end of California’s Sacramento Valley: Cases, 1 reported and one confirmed (the same case, so the number is 1); Deaths, 0. (This local case was just officially confirmed today.)

Worldwide, I’ll just go with the current Wikipedia count of 6,042 cases and 63 deaths, with 58 of them reported out of Mexico, 3 in the U.S. and 1 in Canada and 1 in Costa Rica (and as I have previously noted, statistics get jumbled between suspected, reported – by whom? – and confirmed).

There was also a somewhat bizarre report out of Canada that pigs caught swine flu from a human who had just returned from Canada, but at last report, none died (pigs that is). But I guess in Egypt they overreacted and slaughtered thousands of swine for no apparent reason, except for the name “swine flu”. Meanwhile, the last I heard it had not been determined whether the so-called swine flu in Mexico, thought to be the nation of origin in the current epidemic, had actually originated from pigs. And the official name for the current brand of swine flu is Influenza A (H1N1). The swine industry, and maybe others, I suppose, had pushed for a name change.

The local case to which I referred involved a resident who had just returned from a trip to Mexico. The local TV news just said he is now completely recovered. The first report of him going to a local hospital emergency room was only a few days ago.

This current swine flu epidemic (or pandemic?) was not officially confirmed as such until about mid April. I can see that from what we know now about this fairly steady but slow-moving and so far not terribly deadly virus, sealing off the Mexico-U.S. Border probably would have been an overreaction (I had blogged that it should at least be seriously considered). But the contention by officials that it would not do any good seems to be belied by the fact that had not this local individual been allowed to cross in and out of Mexico we would not have had this particular local swine flu case.

But this is all way out of my league. I don’t mind so much opinionating on politics and such, but how to handle health emergencies I’ll leave up to the professionals (for the most part).

Harry and Louise and Joe Six Pack would sign up for government health care if it came to that, but of course they deserve it…

Was it Thelma and Louise? No I guess Harry and Louise, the concerned upper middle class couple who feared while sipping morning coffee and reading the Wall Street Journal that providing health care to all would eat into their 401K retirement investments.

Well their 401K went down the tube and their house, cash cow that it was, is not worth nearly as much as it used to be.

But the health insurance lobby is back. They’re warning everyone that government bureaucrats will be making life and death decisions and we’ll all be standing in line to get operations.

Well this is it folks: If you have money, lots of money, I mean whole bunches of money, you probably don’t need to worry (well actually medical bills can eat that up quickly). If you have a good insurance plan and can make the payments, or maybe if you are retired military, you probably are okay (until the government goes broke).

If you lost your job and your job-related health insurance along with it – oh oh. I know you used to gripe that so much of your tax money went to pay for health care for those undeserving slobs who don’t work for a living. But now you no longer work – although you’d like to. And you no longer have insurance – probably just when you needed it. Or maybe you did go back to work, but your company no longer offers that insurance, maybe because you were taken back on part-time.

Or maybe your company plan, whose premium goes up every year, has finally priced you out of the market.

Certainly now you feel you deserve some government health care. After all you paid taxes all those years. You’re not only needy, but you’re deserving. You’ll be the first in line for government health care. You better ask some of the more experienced at the game to learn the ropes.

I lost my job, not due to a layoff, but due to cancer. My company insurance ran out and then I had to start buying COBRA. I didn’t get in on the new Obama lower COBRA payments because I started too early (COBRA does not last forever, anyway). If you think you can get on Medicare, guess what, there’s a two-year waiting period. What you are supposed to do in the meantime is anyone’s guess.

Some people don’t worry. I sat next to a woman at a cancer support group meeting and she said her husband was self-employed and carried no insurance. He got cancer and needed an operation. The hospital “found” some program and performed it at no cost to him. No one’s offered me that. I wish him the best, though (it seems the polite attitude).

Health care and health insurance is a giant industry. The health insurance lobby probably has a point about government bureaucracy (but have you ever dealt with private health insurance and health care provider bureaucracy?).  And the lobbyists (they are the one’s running those commercials on TV against universal health care) are probably right that Canada and Western Europe and all the other modern industrialized nations that offer some form of what people like to call socialized medicine don’t necessarily offer the panacea that some might think, but when you have no insurance and run out of money, you’d probably take it (you might even like it).

Actually I think maybe the majority of the voters in those nations have felt that yes national health insurance does cost lost of money, but they also know that good health care costs no matter what. The important thing is that you get it. It may have seemed more practical to them to share the costs, kind of like businesses do when they form a consortium to purchase fuel or something like that.

Me, I just think everyone benefits from not only having good health care themselves but from everyone else having it. We can sit around and worry about who is paying their fare share and price everyone, including ourselves, out of the market or we can come to some kind of agreement on how to provide health care for all.

Filling up our emergency rooms with people who simply are looking for routine health care just makes everyone’s health care coast more. Maybe through some form of a universal system (that can still include private insurance) we could not only be able to have health care providers see everyone in a more orderly fashion but we could actually provide preventative health care to bring ultimate costs down.

And having large numbers of people unproductive in society does not help anyone.

Another problem we have had is that it seems that the so-called working poor (and that’s just a term) have been the most neglected class in health care. Those above have insurance and/or otherwise can afford it, and those out of the workforce are often on government programs that provide them with some regular form of health care (not necessarily top notch).

I think this current economic crisis has shown many that health care tied to jobs is not the way to go.

But Harry and Louise and the Joe Six Packs who still may have jobs with health insurance are probably still reluctant to support any form of universal health care, that is until theirs runs out.

But of course they deserve it.

P.s.

It would seem the simplest way to provide healthcare for all would be to expand the current Medicare program. We as a nation have accepted Social Security since the 1930s (just recall what resistance there has been to tampering with it), why is this different?