Sickos

[Mark]

Death in the family, hospitalization, flus and colds, and plain old aging are just a few of our afflictions. Cal suggested that we might need a separate "hospital" fred and it seemed like a good idea to me, so I'm starting this one. It is not for nothing that the disability community refers to others as the "temporarily abled." Almost anything can happen to anyone at any time.

There are a few things that should tie in besides individual ailments, such as the recent study that found placebos to be getting more effective (more likely big pharma pills are getting less effective) and pandemic conspiracy theories, etc., but seeing as I live in the U.S., this is probably the closest to socialized medicine I'm ever going to get, so share the pain.

[pan]

Eeeeeww!

[Mouse]

There's a six year old swine flu refugee asleep upstairs with a high temperature, no appetite and a pain in her tum. Meanwhile at her house the young grownups (20s) are very much the worse for wear,
so ill it makes you laugh to look at them.
The baby wouldn't leave and is in fair form. We have topnotch English apple juice to drink, very good for you.
I wonder if I gave it to them, have been ill in a restrained and moderate way for a couple of weeks, eating again now. Back still sore after holding baby for ages, hard to put down, so squishy and scrumptious.

[Mark]

Apple juice sounds just the thing. Glad you're feeling well enough to eat, Mouse, and that you can help the young 'uns. The 6-year-old must be very frightened.....

[BO]

Dunno, Mouse. This is my second week with the crud. Temperature is now gone after topping out at 103.7. Now, I'm coughing up a buncho crap--cracking a rib in the process. At least I'm thinking this is the healing phase.

My wife and son got a much milder version. Thank dog.

Doc stuck a swab up my nose to test if I had the flu. Came back negative via a 'rapid test.' Other doc friend said the testing methods they are using are bogus. Oh well, the CDC says to treat all flu as though it was swine flu anyway.

Whatever it was, it was nasty. Haven't had anything like it for over 30 years.

And yeah, it's nice to be able to enjoy food again.

[Mark]

You guys have me scared, as I haven't had it yet. I had a regular flu shot last year and they say that people who had the shot last year have a higher chance of getting the swine flu. I'm not getting a shot this year, so they'll probably quarantine me. Good to know I won't need food, and I hope I've got enough juices. Got plenty of tea, if tea is okay. My next door neighbor was sick, but only for a week. Damn big pharma anyway--anything to make a few billion bucks.

Oh yeah, here's an interesting quote from Rushkoff's book, Life Inc.:

Bill Gates stunned the world when, afteer a few decades of low-profile donations, he launched the Gates Foundation and endowed it with 35 billion of his own dollars. As the ultimate software entrepreneur and sometime-richest man in the world, he restored the nonprofit sector's faith in an entire generation of newly rich dot-com executives. The foundation's work fighting disease in Africa almost makes our suffering through the Windows operating system seem worth it.

Still, the problem with setting aside $35 billion in cash is that it has to be invested to retain its value. The 95 percent of Gates Foundation holdings that aren't spent on charities each year often work against the very causes the foundation tries to champion. A study by the Los Angeles Times revealed that 41 percent of Gates Foundation investments have been in companies that counter the foundation's charitable goals or socially concerned philosophy. These include investments in companies such as Dow Chemical, ConocoPhillips, and Tyco, which are excluded from mutual funds that screen for irresponsible behavior or poor environmental stewardship. As Paul Hawken explains, "Foundations donate to groups trying to heal the future, but with their investments, they steal from the future." The Gates Foundation invests significantly more money in the darkest regions of the corporate sphere than it donates to all its charities combined. It holds $1.5 billion of stock in the very drug companies whose pricing policies are restricting the flow to Africa of medicines that the foundation is supposedly trying to get there.

I do understand that my government and the corporations that run it are just trying to help me. But in order to help me, first they have to make me sick. And they're succeeding. Even if I don't have the flu yet, just thinking about corporations and government makes me sick.

[BO]

If you do get something, don't be afraid to take Tamiflu. The shit works. Of course you'll be making Donald Rumsfeld's portfolio fatter, but I wouldn't put my own life at risk for it.

As long as we're stuck in this country, we are going to be victims of the medical mafia. It sucks, but ya can't blow shit up if you're not feeling well.

It's that Maslow thing. If ya can't breath, you aren't good for much else.

[Mark]

Uh, BO, I'm really sorry about this, bro, but I haven't got the slightest inclination to blow shit up. And if Tamiflu works, why were you awfully sick for about as long as somebody would be if they were going to recover without being treated at all? Now if I wasn't in a HUD building and I was really, really sick, I might consider going to one of those doctors that gives you a prescription for medical marijuana, but I've never been able to even smoke tobacco when I had the flu, so that wouldn't help. Besides, San Diego keeps busting the clinics, so with my luck I'd get popped and pass the flu along to a few hundred other people before I could get bailed out of jail.

Dr. Mercola doesn't think much of Tamiflu, so I see no reason to further enrich Rumsfeld.

I think I'll stick to fluids, bedrest, and aspirin if needed, and if it is my turn to check out, that'll get rid of the guilt feelings.

Besides, the primary doctor my HMO assigned me, whom I've never met and hope not to meet any time soon, is Dr. Huy T. Ho. I figure it would be bad enough being sick without going to a doc named hi-de-ho. I might just call the HMO and see if they can switch me to a doc with a good old American name like Morales or Sanchez or something. No offense to hos intended--maybe I'd better learn to conquer my prejudices before I get sick. But I just know that the minute I say his name I'm going to think of Cab Callaway. Ever see where Michael Jackson got his moves?


Glad you're feeling better, BO.