242) Snoozeville

April 29, 2008
Tuesday

El Milagro: I am almost 30 minutes late today. I walk in and find the stack of newly printed newsletters ready for me to hand out, so I walk around the place giving people a salutation and a newsletter. All but one person wants one and most people immediately set about reading it, making me feel like it is a useful service I provide. This month it is late again, mostly because I have had these incredibly busy weekends so I hadn’t had time to get it finished. However, late is better than never.

Rosie the Tech comes over to stick me and we discuss Susanne the Administrator’s article in the paper, and plans for making the meetings in the daytime so more folks can attend. Both of us are worried that after a year of PAC meetings, more than half the initial members have dropped out and there doesn’t seem to be any interest amongst people to re-inject the group with new blood (Ha Ha)

I get situated, stuck up, settled in and watch the news: consumer confidence is the lowest since 1992. ABC News reports on a bereaved husband testifying to congress on tainted Heparin killing 81 dialysis patients and that the FDA doesn’t have the control to catch these things. The Heparin came in from China through Baxter* and it is believed that the contamination was done purposefully to save money. I look over and see my Heparin shot sitting there and sigh. Do I tell the Nurse “STOP… don’t shoot me with that tainted Heparin!” or do I just “take my medicine” and trust in the good old USA? Do I trust my luck of the draw? Do I give it up to God? Do I refuse my meds and make El Milagro staff prove to me that my Heparin is Clean? "ARGGGGGGGGG!"

I fall asleep to escape these serious thoughts, thinking that at least I’ll ask them later what they are doing to protect us from tainted Heparin. Mostly I sleep and sleep and sleep, only waking to catch part of NOVA’s show on the Yamato and part of Carrier, life aboard the Nimitz.

Here is my Editorial in the new issue of the El Milagro News:
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Editorial ~ We are a community here at El Milagro: perhaps a society of compulsory and even reluctant members, but a community none-the-less. As a community we are all responsible for keeping this place the safest and most agreeable place it can be. It is administration’s job to deliver a well-organized medical service to us, the customers. It is our job as customers to receive this service as any service given by professionals and to respect the administration’s service in our interest. They need us as much as we need them… making it a true collaboration between a delivery system and the customers. Since it is not easy for any of us to shop elsewhere, I believe it is in all our interest to participate in making this collaboration work as smoothly as possible.

The PAC is a committee of patients who have taken the responsibility for representing all of us in meeting with the El Milagro administration and in serving the other patients. We’ve been doing this for a year now and four of the original six of our volunteers have made it clear that they are ready to pass the torch along. Some of us here are in more severe medical conditions than others and we must respect folks when they say they must move on. We need new blood (pun) in our PAC.

Think about your own medical condition. It is true that the more active patients get in their care, the better they do with their treatment. So, if you volunteer some time for your PAC, you should do better with your dialysis, statistically. Also, you will feel better, knowing you are contributing to your community. We need four or more people. Join with us.
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Notes: In at 78.5 and out at 75 Kgs.
* Tainted Heparin appears Deliberate retrieved online from http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5ikP1hN91jmfr4buDa4Bw_5JpeYPA
New Readers: For an INDEX, click January 2008 on the Sidebar and page down to post # 207.