Category: Health
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Taking Advantage of Some Hospitality
Amy started running a fever this afternoon, and it was close enough to the end of regular office hours that we went to the emergency room to have her examined. Her fever reached a level of 103.5 (F) before it started coming down (Tylenol to the rescue). A blood test revealed that she was suffering…
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The Darkest Hour
There are a set of songs that always provoke a visceral reaction in me, with symptoms including tingling, goosebumps, teary eyes and, on some occasions, even sobs. One such song is Long Time Gone, by Crosby, Stills and Nash, which I just played, and which had the intended cathartic effect. Amy has been in more…
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Major Combat Operations have Ended … Not (Week 5 update)
Last week, I thought — and wrote — that Amy would be done with chemotherapy and radiotherapy yesterday (Friday). I was half right, in that the chemotherapy is over; however, her radiation oncologist wants her to undergo three more radiation sessions — with a narrower field — to help ensure that the anal cancer is…
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Howard Schultz on Human Needs: Community and Health Care
I keep coming across inspiring references to Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks. Last week, I discovered a recent interview in KNOW Magazine entitled The Art of Creating Passionate Consumers, which included the following quotes: … consumers are demanding more. They want products or services that create a powerful and enduring emotional connection. The fracturing…
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Blogging as Therapy
A recently published Blog Trends Survey, sponsored by AOL / Time Warner, provides some evidence that people often seek therapeutic effects from blogging. The press release reports that Nearly 50% of respondents say they write a blog because it serves as a form of self-therapy. One-third of bloggers write about self-help and self-esteem topics. Fifty-four…
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The Health of our Nation: CodeBlueNow
The Seattle Times printed an opinion piece today from two former governors on "Re-creating our health care system". Arne H. Carlson, a Republican and former governor of Minnesota, and Booth Gardner, a Democrat and former governor of Washington, highlight the instability in our current health care system in the US and the risks such instability…
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Reinforcements Arrive before the Final Battle (Week 4 update)
It occurs to me that we’re actually at the end of week 5 since the start of Amy’s cancer treatment, but given that she had a week-and-a-day hiatus from radiotherapy, this can still be considered the end of week 4 based on the number of treatments (20) … and that way the headers on my…
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The Battle is Rejoined (Week 3 update)
After an 8-day radiotherapy cease-fire, Amy’s platelet (PLT) and white blood cell (WBC) counts increased above the threshold required for the resumption of daily radiation treatments this past Tuesday, so she has completed another [nearly full] week of treatment … and we are hopeful that she can continue on with the remaining two weeks of…
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Health Care Systems: Satisfaction and Risk
In a conversation with a neighborhood friend last night, I shared my impression that the health care systems in other industrialized countries are superior in many respect to the system in this country. This topic arose in the context of a series of discussions over the course of the evening that included a comparison of…
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A Radiotherapy Cease Fire
The week in Amy’s cancer counterinsurgency started out "normally" (in sharp contrast to events unfolding in the southeast US in the wake of Hurricane Katrina), with Amy heading in for her daily dose of radiotherapy on Monday. On Tuesday, however, her complete blood count (CBC) test revealed a platelet (PLT) count of 39 (thousand per…