A Girl Named Velcro, and Random Thoughts

I have puppy brain! We are announcing the arrival of the newest member of our family, Miss Velcro. She is a red tri and she was born 5 weeks ago. We will be bringing her home in another 3 weeks.

We are so excited! As soon as I saw her picture, I knew she was the one. It was love at first sight. I could not stop thinking about her, and as things unfolded with the litters at Sky Blue Aussies, she was available. We have our eye on another pup who is only 3 days old as of today, so I will fill you in as soon as we know everything is certain with our second puppy. Velcro will have a sister, and most likely she will be coming home a month after Velcro.

Running is minimal but more consistent. I'll talk about that below, after I get the shitstorm off my chest.

Recent Random Thoughts

I haven't been writing on my blog much, it's been hard with all the distractions, between puppy brain and it being Pinktober, the month where cancer and pink become intertwined and there are a lot of things going on. I spoke 3 times in one week, and I have more coming up before the month is through.

I had somewhat of an "aha" moment yesterday when I was thinking about my struggles with getting my program off the ground. It's a challenge to get people to want to do something. Everyone I talk to about it, including healthcare providers, sees the obvious and intense need for this type of education for patients and their caregivers. But there are a lot of barriers to people being able to use it in the way it is intended. I've been barking up the wrong tree trying to get it through the traditional healthcare channels.

One thing I am doing, that should help, is writing a book, which will not only have the program in it, but will also discuss why everyone needs to be in on this. Healthcare is so screwed up and it's only getting worse. Absolutely unsustainable. Yet cancer is about to overtake heart disease as the number one killer of Americans, and our healthcare costs are rising at an insane rate, and our health outcomes and general public health are getting worse. We have more obesity and diabetes, more lifestyle-related illness, and our administrative costs of running the healthcare system are exceeding our ability to put our resources into patient care and education.

Healthcare Heretic Again

I am being the healthcare heretic again, and working to make nurse groups aware of a documentary film project. Health 3.0 is a concept that goes beyond this transactional model, we call it 2.0, of healthcare where physicians or providers don't have relationships with patients, instead they are more of a factory, cranking patients through appointments in 15 minute intervals. Check this out for an example.

This short video is being mild about it. What I wish I had time to say is that all of these cancer centers and freestanding emergency rooms popping up everywhere are only being built because the current system incentivizes it. The hospitals get paid more. They can get reimbursed at a higher rate for emergency room visits and can charge a facility fee for setting foot in a cancer center, rather than an independent oncology practice. This disincentivizes patients from visiting their oncologists for follow-up visits. The hospitals can charge up to $400 for a facility fee alone (not including the doctor's bill) just for having an appointment in a room at the cancer center.

Had I realized just how slimy this whole process was, I would never have supported the local facility as I did half a decade ago. The Big Heist is right. It is a heist, to the tune of 20% of our GDP. Not acceptable. But people need to wake up and get off their obesified butts!

Remember how when we were talking about the need for the Affordable Care Act just a decade ago, lamenting the overuse of emergency rooms because people didn't have insurance for primary care and preventive medicine? Well, now we have high deductible plans again, with rates rising, driving people out of the market, but hospital executives can clean up on higher reimbursements and facility fees. And we're not doing a better job for patients. Dumb and dumber.

Here we are again. The vicious cycle of healthcare, now has consumed independent physician practices, has doctors all working as part of the giant healthcare factory, working at the whim of their employers, being told what to do by insurance companies, and nurses are understaffed and miserable again, physician suicide rates are rising, and nurses are leaving the profession because of burnout and injuries from overwork. There's no nursing shortage, just a shortage of nurses willing to put up with the abuse.

And the people who wrote the ACA: lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry, hospital executives, and insurance companies, have ensured they will rake in big bucks while starving the masses.

General Random Thoughts about Running

I've been running about 4 days a week on the average. About 6 or 7 miles each time.
I know!!!

It feels good to run when I feel like it and I feel refreshed afterward. My friend Emma is training for her first ultra, so doing long runs with her has gotten me out on the trails. I'm so enjoying this.

I miss my hair color. I now have a streak of reddish brown in the front of my scalp. It's a deep brown with a reddish tint, but it's my natural color. People pay a lot of money to get their hair tinted to that color. Now I have just a streak of it to contrast with my grayish white. What are you gonna do?

I refuse to dye my hair. I am getting too many thumbs up when I run, and I need that for the motivation. Plus it keeps the creepos quiet. Nobody catcalls their grandma. Much preferred this way.

Oh, and one more thing- one day I was actually able to reach my mouth with the toes on my left foot. I haven't been able to do it again, must have been a good flexibility day. I'll keep working on it until I can do it consistently. Then I will post pictures.

photo credit: Donna Rohde, Sky Blue Aussies

Obesification Again...

I saw this article today on Modern Healthcare and it pissed me off, and even more so in the context of what's been happening in the headlines recently.

It’s long past time for American politicians to grow up. What a bunch of immature privileged frat boys we have in Washington.

Defending the gun lobby and preservation of a hateful symbol endorsed by state governments. Refusing to tell the truth about what’s going on with the proliferation of mass shootings and racially motivated violence. Lining their pockets from the even wealthier sociopaths and narcissists writing them checks.

But immature, spoiled little boys need more than a slap on the wrist. They need responsible adults to hold them accountable and take away their toys until they clean up their act.

Here’s a laughable thought…what if we could make a scale that was super cheap, purchased at Walmart, where you plug in your height and it calculates your BMI, showing you where you fall in the green, yellow or red or danger zones, corresponding to healthy, overweight, obese, and morbidly obese, since people can’t “see” body mass index.

If only it were that simple.

We’re not educating people about health, physical activity, and the consequences of what they put into their mouths while not moving their bodies.

We’re not teaching kids habits of taking care of their health from an early age, we’re not funding PE and sensible health education in schools.

We’re not building safe communities that encourage parents to let their kids play outside and safe streets for people to walk and commute by bike, not promoting healthy lifestyle habits, reasonable work hours, a chance to get enough activity during the workday, short commutes, healthy foods instead of fast food garbage.

Not only should we curtail the marketing of junk food and unhealthy activities on TV, we should curtail sedentary TV watching. We’ve been irresponsible in allowing corporate lobbyists from junk food industry to influence education, entertainment, and communities. Not only have we failed to invest in our infrastructure, we’ve failed to see that our infrastructure consists of the health of our people.

We've given science a back seat while putting money in the driver's seat. Except money doesn't have brakes.

When are we going to wake up? We have a political problem, and it’s intimately related to our 75% overweight and obese population, our dwindling life expectancy, our number 37 rank in the world on health care, our growing numbers of those impoverished and struggling economically.

We hear about the lack of investment in infrastructure- the things used by the little people- roads, bridges, communities, or the basic things a civilized society needs- public education, a future with promise, not debt and enslavement by a culture expecting people to pledge allegiance to the corporate states holding a noose around their necks.

Killing us with insurance premiums that keep expanding in the name of healthcare, you look down at us from your luxury C-suite seating. While the insurance companies, hospital industries, and pharmaceutical giants keep growing their profit margins, people’s waistlines are expanding just as fast as quality and length of life are declining.

We are headed into another election cycle with a larger than usual assortment of boy clowns with even larger gonads to deny and defend as needed the policies that keep the few and rich safe and secure while ensuring the continued decline of the American quality of life.

These boys continue to lie as their lapel flags disappear into their ever-growing bulk.

Because they know they will get away with it until American adults wake up from our sugar-fueled coma and roll our supersized bodies off the couch…

Is Ebola the Cure?

Ebola is shouting at us, but is anyone listening?

This morning I read what perhaps makes the most sense of any of the volumes of material that have come out in the media over the past two weeks since Ebola hit our shores.

I'd like to elaborate on some of the points the author makes and add my own.

Ebola might actually be the cure, if we would just pay attention and listen to what it is telling us about how we run things in this country.

I see Ebola as an opportunity to get things back on track. Will we have the vision and leadership to do this?The way we’ve been operating for so long, my fear is, we do, but we’ve forgotten where to find it. We need to put our ears to the ground to listen.

First, we have gross misallocation of resources in this country. The huge portion of our GDP that we spend on health care is largely wasted, we’re not getting our money’s worth.

We don’t value preventative care or good health.

We have media looking to make a buck off mass hysteria. They stir the pot to the point where it bubbles over to one side or the other, parroting stupidity and spewing hate. Each side is convinced the other side has a conspiracy to destroy those with whom they disagree. Look at the trolls who follow any online article.

We have greedy, profit-centered institutions guide our health care system, looking only to make a buck off our sickness, with lip service to something called wellness.

Companies manufacture more new products every day to make us sicker, from foods to chemicals to sedentary entertainment gadgets.

Specialty-trained health care providers looking to make a buck off the few patients they hang onto when avoiding joining the big guns give advice to patients they don’t really have the expertise to provide, and the patients themselves are not health literate or able to critically think enough to know the difference.

Health care itself is dysfunctional in that there is no communication between the levels of hierarchy that have been created. Nurses, who spend the most time with patients, know the most about the patient. Physicians know how to treat the patient, but do they listen the nurses? Administrators are concerned only with protecting the bottom line of their own little turf, don’t listen to the physicians, and friction develops between the layers.

Meanwhile, the money gets funneled to duplication of efforts and waste. No one at the top of the heap listens to the muffled cries of those at the bottom, those who see reality on the ground.

We have a political system that has completely failed us through inaction and servitude only to the wealthiest entities who feed it. Only self-interest and greed guide our career politicians. There is no coordinated effort in our government to look out for the best interest of the people. Those who seek election think it’s optional to take facts and scientific evidence seriously. If it interferes with profit, who needs it?

Not only have we failed to fund public health, we’ve been failing to fund education, transportation, and other public resources. Look for more crises in these sectors in the near future.

We’ve forgotten how to communicate with respect, how to listen, how to think critically. All of the issues that Ebola has brought into sharp focus should be seen, but we don’t have any leaders who are seeing.

We’re going to face more crises of this magnitude the longer we allow our country to operate in this dysfunction. We need true leadership, an end to the greedy, profit-obsessed way of operating, and a re-focus on the needs of our greatest assets: people.

Work Hangover Wednesday: The Sky is Falling!

Omigod!

I went out to do a couple of errands late this morning, and at the intersection of Horsetooth and College, traffic was jammed up in every direction. What the hell is going on, on a Wednesday summer morning in Fort Collins at 11 am?

I saw a huge line of cars backed up into the shopping center on the southwest corner of the intersection by Albertsons, and then it occurred to me, they are all going to Chick Fil A. I heard some vague reference to this on Facebook this morning but didn't really pay attention. So I whipped out my iPhone, since I was stuck in traffic that wasn't going anywhere, and shot a few pictures.

I got home and started reading about it. Wow. Does Mike Huckabee own stock in Chick Fil A?

Well, the President of Chick Fil A is entitled to his personal opinion and beliefs. As far as the company goes, as long as they adhere to antidiscrimination laws regarding employment and operating a business, the HMFIC is entitled to say whatever he wants.

He must be aware that whatever he says could influence his business. And I feel the same way about any other corporate leader who speaks out on their own opinion. And if Chick Fil A wants to support organizations that promote hate and bigotry, that's their choice. People do vote with their dollars.

When I saw the car with the "Obama is a Marxist" sign in the back window, that was what prompted me to whip out the camera. Go right ahead, be my guest, whatever blows your skirt up, dude, bare your hemorrhoids to the world, a little fried chicken will just make 'em bigger. This is Amurrica. Stuff yer face for freedom!

I saw a lot of American Flag decals and other red white and blue God Bless America stickers and ribbons in the parking lot and the line to the drive-thru. What irritates me is when the flagwavers come out around these little tiffs that center around religious beliefs. Just don't get your panties in a wad if a Muslim CEO wants to speak their mind in the same way.

I would like to see the reaction of many of these Chick Fil A-ers if that happened,"Chick Fil A-ism is under attack!"

Don't confuse your religion with your nationality, bucko. It's my flag too, as much as it is yours, and I'm not a Christian, or any religion, in fact. You can be as religious in any way as you want to be, but don't expect me or anybody else to march in lockstep with you.

Regardless of your religion, don't tell me your religious beliefs are legal grounds for discrimination.

I didn't eat Chick Fil A before, and I'm not about to start now. Just doesn't sound very appealing. As far as I'm concerned, it's just another fast food restaurant contributing to the Obesification of America. And I think we can solve the problems of this country in a lot more productive and healthy way than by eating fried chicken.

You might want to buy stock in Pfizer, the company that makes Preparation H. But, just like Chicken Little, the moral of the story is, don't believe everything you're told, check it out for yourself.

For now, it appears that the only outcome of this fiasco is that the status quo of freedom to promote homophobia and discriminate against gay people is alive and well in Amurrica, and it's mascot is a fried chicken sandwich.

Work Hangover Wednesday: Towanda! vs. the Zombie Apocalypse

What a week. The Zombie Apocalypse is making news headlines. It's an election year and we're more interested in reading about people eating each others' faces than we are about the issues facing the nation and how to solve them intelligently. The Merikins continue to drink the zombie kool-aid (pictured here).

I'm feeling pretty snarky today. In fact, I feel extremely, dangerously, over the top snarky, and really bitchy too. I'm starting to wonder if these face-eating zombies might be perimenopausal women.

Just this morning in the grocery store parking lot, I was having a Towanda! moment. It was all I could do to keep myself from verbalizing the thoughts going through my head. "The world is being taken over by f***ing idiots!" People are completely OBLIVIOUS to what's going on around them.

I wanted to back up and smash into the driving school car that stopped behind me, basically, parked, just as I was trying to pull out of my parking space. It looked like the teacher and the kid were planning to park right there, at a 90 degree angle to me, just having a conversation, OBLIVIOUS to my reverse lights.

I'm older and I have more insurance. And furthermore, don't teach the kid to do stupid things in the parking lot. I was really tempted to Towanda! them. Instead I got out and walked toward the instructor's side of the car, finally she realized what they were doing and looked apologetic and made the kid move. Hel-lo?

By the time I got to back out of my parking space, then I had to deal with the clueless mom jabbering on her cell phone, walking with her two kids down the middle between the parking spaces, OBLIVIOUS to the cars that were trying to get in and out.

The past week or so I've been in a funk and it's most likely hormones, but I feel like I'm about to become someone else. Like somebody who walks the street downtown ranting and raving about whatever the voices are saying to them at the moment.

By the time I get home Tuesday nights, after two busy days at work and listening to a lot of people who need more than just IV therapy, there are times when I start to feel like I need therapy myself. I'm not even being sarcastic about that, there are some sad stories out there. Sometimes I can barely get away before the tears start rolling down my face.

What brings out the snark in me are the people who create their own problems and refuse to own their own crap, and try to blame everyone else for their victim attitude.

In the midst of the national paranoia about government taking action on something that might actually help us, someone is finally stepping up to take action. I'm glad to see it. Long overdue.

Our zombies who continue to eat recreationally with their own faces stuffed full of bad food, and allow the manufacture, advertising, and sales of bad food, in the face of an epidemic of fat kids who are growing into even fatter adults and soon will be getting IV antibiotics for their non-healing diabetic foot ulcers and having amputations at age 30, continue to lead sedentary lives hypnotized in front of the TV where they can be sold the next sugary excuse for food.

Someone is doing something about childhood obesity, and who ever would think it would be a huge entertainment corporation, but Disney is taking action. Soon there will be "Mickey Checks"- meaning if the product is mouse-approved, then it gets the thumbs up for advertising on Disney.

Recently I had an opportunity to try GoGurt. It's sold as a healthy snack for kids, but it's full of sugar. It's enough to gag anybody. That's why they call it Gogurt- because the kid goes on sugar until he crashes.

We'll see if this anti-obesity effort catches on, but good for Disney for being willing to make the first corporate move.

Time to stop bitching and talk about what I'm excited about. Number one, I just made all my reservations for my trip to Death Valley in July to be on the Badwater medical team again. I can't wait!

And next week we start the Double Mick.

Time to get busy packing, and maybe later I'll actually get my butt out the door and go running...

Fat Tax

Happiness is priceless, and so is good health.

Recently I was running with someone who told me about his family history of cancer. Because of his high risk status, he had his first colonoscopy at age 40. Everything was okay so he ignored the doctor's advice to repeat it in 5 years. After one of his friends died from colon cancer as a result of it being detected too late, he went for another colonoscopy. That time, the gastroenterologist found several pre-cancerous polyps and removed them. He gets regular colonscopies now and is aware of just how risky it would be to miss one.

No matter how healthy we try to be, no one is immune to cancer. Or if anyone is, we don't know about it and haven't figured out what genetic mechanism gives them immunity. There are a lot of things we can do to prevent cancer, or detect it before it becomes invasive.

All around us there are bad influences on our behavior. Advertising is a huge influence. Back in the days when cigarette smoking was glamorized, and there were no warning labels or high taxes on tobacco products, a higher proportion of people smoked.

I'm going to preface the remainder of this post with this warning: The Surgeon General has determined that reading this post will make people with a certain political philosophy apoplectic. Not a political party, but specifically, the anti-tax, anti-government mindset. Not naming names here, because it's not fair to generalize. But you individuals know who you are. You speak Palinese. (Sorry, let that slip out, I must have eaten too many beans last night)

You hear the word "tax" or "government", and you poop your pants. So if you're that much of a "Red" blooded American, take your Xanax now, put your diaper on, pop that mask on and crank up the oxygen, and strap yourself into the autopulse, 'cause you're gonna need it if you keep reading. I can think of a certain politician running a losing campaign for the Republican nomination who would have ear steam launching his big fat head up into space by the end of this post.

I get mad when I see people do stupid things that affect large numbers of people in a bad way. I've tried to stay away from politics but I also want to eradicate apathy. Running, any type of exercise, as well as health promotion, is political in our current state of obeseification. People need fresh air and aerobic activity, pumping blood with oxygen through your body helps your brain, heart, lungs, muscles, and every cell in your body.

If we don't start controlling advertising and marketing of all this bad stuff, young people are going to start out their adult lives with chronic diseases that will reduce their quality of life and years of healthy living. Not to mention making health care costs unmanageable.

I think we need more warning labels and fat taxes. I think we should tax television and bad food, to start. Electronic gadgets and TVs should come with a warning label: Too many hours of sitting on your butt watching this object can lead to obesity and premature death. Cell phones should come with a warning label: Use of this object can lead to sore neck muscles, obesity, motor vehicle accidents, traumatic injuries and premature death. Soda and snack foods: Too much intake of this product can lead to obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and premature death. Schools without physical education: The Surgeon General has determined that attendance at this school may cause obesity, diabetes, and early cardiovascular disease.

I don't watch television, but I catch snippets of it while I'm working, usually as I'm flushing someone's PICC line at work, they have the little TVs on while they sit and get their infusions. The advertisements for cars, especially big 4 wheel drive pickups, always show people driving a little too aggressively, just a bit too fast. So people think that is how they are supposed to drive on the streets, and through neighborhoods where the speed limit is 25 mph and there are young kids who play outside. Add a cell phone to that and you have a disaster waiting to happen.

I happen to love the idea of taxes to discourage people from spending money on things that are bad for them and drive health care costs upward. Cigarette taxes are great. But we should tax bad food at the same rate. You know the CEO of Nabisco or Kraft Foods doesn't have to lay out nearly as high a percentage of his or her income on health care as the average working person does. They are raking in the bucks from unregulated gluttony.

Every time you take a bite of those chocolate covered Oreo cookies or Ritz crackers, you are not only buying someone's next vacation home, you're also reserving yourself a future place in the dialysis unit, cardiac cath lab, or chemotherapy chair. And when health care costs and insurance premiums rise because of higher rates of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer, the average working person feels it a lot more. Fat is metabolically active tissue, it produces hormones like estrogen that can promote cancer growth. Insulin and insulin-like growth factor-1 are cancer promoters. Sugar causes us to release insulin. Obesity and metabolic syndrome can lead to insulin resistance, resulting in high levels of insulin in the blood.

And guess what? The CEOs of drug companies will be all too happy to take your money on the far end, too. And if they don't make enough profit off the drug you need, they might just stop making it (e.g. the current methotrexate shortage for treating leukemia in children, who didn't even have enough time to develop bad habits that contribute to cancer development over a lifetime). You don't think that's important? Go see Gab. I wonder what would happen if the drug company executives' children had cancer.

I don't know if my readers are aware, but there are quite a few serious drug shortages going on right now, for various reasons (e.g. "manufacturing and quality concerns") but mostly they seem to be coming down to greed. If the drug companies would invest instead of cutting back in these areas, there wouldn't be an issue.

Government regulation does help to prevent bad behavors from being promoted. People need real food and real exercise. People don't know about the benefits unless they are taught. Government is great at health promotion and education efforts. Efforts to prevent taxes and warning labels, and actions that strangle government across the board end up promoting greed. Greed is just another cancer, but it grows on our way of life. Look at the mess we're in, tell me that has nothing to do with greed.

Sounds like a job for a new government agency? The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Greed. Might want to get the U.N. involved, too.

Greed is a crime against humanity.

Feed all the Kangaroos...and Run!

Who remembers the Steely Dan song "Black Friday"? There's some reference to "nothing to do but feed all the kangaroos"... and "catch the gray men as they dive from the fourteenth floor".

I saw something about it on Facebook, and it reminded me of this cool picture of my niece Jenny on a trip to Australia. Jenny is now 14 going on 35, and look out world, she is Towanda! She's going to take over the world, which, believe me, would be a good thing. She really ought to be running for President. She does have some political experience in student government already- probably makes her more qualified than quite a few of those candidates!

I worked on Black Friday. I like the feeling of doing the opposite- making money and keeping it in my own pocket instead of spending it on that day like everybody else.

Look out, here comes another rant.

For me, Black Friday is buy nothing day. Actually it's buy as little as possible season, as far as I'm concerned. It's my personal boycott of the whole Christmas shopping season. There's something nauseating about going into any retail store, even to buy groceries, and hearing Christmas music, first of all. And it lasts for over a month, sometimes the onslaught starts after Halloween! After I've heard my first Christmas tune, I'm over it. Change it back to something, anything, please! I wish we could limit the Christmas music to one week- just the week leading up the the actual holiday.

This weekend's papers were HUGE, thick, heavy things- our actual local paper is only a few pages long with four short sections, but the ads made it look like something out of Chicago or LA. How many trees died to make all those ugly full color ads for diabetogenic foods? Do we really need to see pictures of bags of Cheetos on sale? Or digital cameras and megasized TV screens?

I prefer to work on Christmas. I think of it as my gift to the Christian world. Each year I tell my co-workers, anyone who wants Christmas off can talk to me. I'm happy to hide out from the mobs by working.

I'm just so tired of the commercialization and money grabbing, the shameless and mindless consumption of all this plasticized crap. To me, it might as well be porn. It is sleazy.

I cannot understand what is worth pepper spraying or shooting other people over it, or even waking up to stand in line at 4 am to buy some thing that you or anyone else certainly can live without. Personally, I'd rather sleep in, and walk to anywhere I need to go instead of buying another tank of gas. If I can't carry it home in my two hands, it isn't worth buying.

We have an election year coming up, and I'm really tempted to make up my own bumper sticker this time: Kick 'em all out. No incumbents in 2012. Actually, I will vote for Obama, because I don't see alternative candidates who would improve things, but I'm thoroughly disgusted with the state of our government and the way things work against most of the citizens of this country. I can't stand to pay attention, but I can't afford not to. It's gotten so bad that no one can afford to ignore the state of things. We need a control-alt-delete button for our political, legal, and economic systems. Reset, reboot, and start over.

So my goal for this coming year? Eradicate apathy. People have got to quit being apathetic. They have to stop burying themselves in THINGS and THINGS and THINGS they see on TV, and their cell phones, and their text messages, and all the little distractions that make it so convenient to spend money and keep the corporate world ripping all the ordinary citizens off during their willful somnolence.

I wrapped up my buy nothing weekend this morning with a blazing fast-for me- ten mile run on the hills at Horsetooth Reservoir. The wind finally died down and it was a perfectly clear, late fall morning. There's no ice on the water yet. I felt strong the whole way, especially running the uphills and pushing through over the tops, like I never missed any training at all. Awesome.

Quit buying, and keep running.

photo credit: Nathan Nitzky

Thinking

I've been busy with more "stuff" I chose to do. Some is busy work, some is for fun. I've been working on projects around the house, trying to organize and clean out junk before winter.

Only a few days left of this gorgeous fall weather we've been having until the seasonal reality kicks in. Next week we might see our first snow this year. That's okay, I'm ready for it.

I have backed off on the bike, and running is steady but I'm not up to an hour yet. That could happen this weekend if all goes well.

I have things on my mind, other than running.

Last night I spoke at a cancer support group about the role of the nurse in care of the oncology patient. It was odd to be speaking about something other than running. It takes me out of my comfort zone. I spoke about what nurses do, how we are trained, and how oncology patients can get the most out of their time spent with the nurse. We have access to so much information and so many resources, but many patients don't know to ask about those things.

I think it went fairly well, though I felt somewhat nervous up there, talking about something I've only been doing for 5 years, and especially oncology nursing, which I've only been doing for 15 months.

The discussion at the end of the talk was lively. There is so much frustration among patients with certain aspects of healthcare in general. They are not frustrated with the nurses themselves, but with the flow of information and communication among providers, and not just physicians. There are so many gaps to fill, and nurses can do our part by being thorough in each interaction with a patient, but there are so many other interactions between patients and health care providers that we can't control.



As a result, nurses often end up picking up the pieces and filling in the cracks where we can. Our job is to make sure no one drops the ball when it comes to a patient's care, but we can only do that when we know something is missing- we have to discover it ourselves or hear it from the patient, and often we hear it from the patient too late. The health care system in this country has failed patients who have access to it in so many instances by providing inadequate and inconsistent information, that patients don't know where to turn.

What I didn't talk about last night was that the complaint I hear so often from nurses that the nursing profession itself is failing nurses. So many nurses are physically and emotionally unhealthy because of their working conditions and powerlessness to change them. They get frustrated and give up. How many obese nurses have you seen? I see a lot. Every day. Ever wonder why that is? Then look at the general public.

Nurses don't have a powerful organization lobbying for them. Physicians have the AMA. Nurses have the ANA, which is barely a whisper in comparison. It really isn't doing any justice to nurses who actually work in direct patient care. In nursing, to begin at the bottom, nurse education and nursing employment paradigms, need as much of an overhaul as health care in general does, along with our political system. What does that have to do with obese nurses?

Our country is failing- our leaders and our political system have failed us. They allow the powerful wealthy interests to dictate how things are run, not in the best interest of the people they are failing to serve. We have an oligarchy. And we are seeing the obesity that results from oligarchy. What do I mean by that?

Obesity is just one symptom of all of this. Keep the people in a fat and sedentary food and electronic gadget coma, keep them tired and busy and commuting and help them to be slaves to their objects so they won't have energy to stay sharp and fit, or to fight or even care. This helps to minimize their leisure time, and minimize their sleep. Minimize their energy and time to prepare, cook, and eat healthy food. A hamburger with french fries is much quicker to eat than a salad if you only have a 30 minute break in a 13+ hour day.



I wish nurses could be examples of healthy living for their patients. I wish people would change their lifestyles before they become patients in the healthcare system. I wish I wish I wish...and I feel powerless, even though I try on a daily basis to exemplify these things.

I've been watching the Occupy Wall Street movement from a skeptical distance but I can't help thinking that people are getting closer to the point where they are finally realizing that their apathy is costing them more than the risks of taking action do, and I believe that is precisely where we need to be going if we are ever going to save ourselves from destruction. Look at the puppets we supposedly send to Washington to represent us. Have they done anything for you lately? Keeping people divided and spreading misinformation is exactly how the powers-that-be, the oligarchs, want things to be in order to keep things going in their favor so they can retain power and wealth.

This isn't a blog about nursing or politics so I won't go any further here. I have so many thoughts on how nursing needs to change as a profession. And how health care needs to change. But it's just part of the bigger picture that has been eroding for a long time. Real people, every day, need to take responsibility for changing it. That's what I'm thinking about today.