She lays here in the bed eroding into it, transformed from loud, energetic and insane to a mull of whines from time to time. Her eyes are puffy and droopy; the pupils look like a dooming endless tunnel of exhaustion. She seems never to be at ease covers on and off, on and off, leg up, leg down, arm bent, arm straight, 1 pillow, 3 pillows, 2 pillows, better with no pillows. Her throat is swollen at both sides her glands press through like someone punching out ward from inside her neck. Her breath stinks of rot and medicine. Her hair is a mess, she’s sweating constantly. The melody to her environment is the constant beep, beep, beep, beep, beeeep beeeep beeeeep of the thermometer. When she can sleep she seems the most content, but the parallel world it sends her to seems quite unappealing as well. It's as if all the energy that usually pours outward upon others is battling within her trying to kill the bacteria. She has a high fever for the 3rd day now, strep throat, and an odd genital infection. She has lost all control and has had to surrender, home chained to the bed yearning to feel the snowflakes melt rapidly upon her cheeks. She says she is a visual person and needs to imagine, understand, and see what is happening inside her. Her parents say they do not know what she would do if the mirror and the flashlight hadn’t been invented. She goes into the bathroom stumbling from the whirlwind of haze that happens when one has a fever, attempting to maintain her balance; she turns off the light, sticks out her tongue, opens her mouth, and turns on the flashlight. She stands there peering to the depths of her throat; the red inflamed tonsils are visible covered in white specks and fleshy bumps. She examines thoroughly I am not sure what she is looking at for so long. She does so regularly she says, and with her genital infection as well, though that I was not graced with the opportunity to witness (joking). Once satisfied she turns off the flashlight and on the light, and stumbles back to her room. This is a process she has always done, and a claim is essential to her healing. She needs to know what things look like inside her, what the results of her pain are. She says it helps her imagine the process of healing. She describes having a fever as if a gas valve might be shut off to her brain suffocating her thoughts causing her to feel as if she’s in different dimensions. Her tonsils push against her ears causing discomfort; she says she wishes she could just pop them with a nettle.
The remedies have been a many. Attempting to keep the fever quite high to kill the bacteria but not so that she is terribly un-comfortable. To reduce the fever there is Advil liquid gels and cold washcloths laid upon her forehead. Her mother in the middle of the night tried to relive her intense pain by rubbing outward on her temples, nose, and eyes. She has used a neti pot, an Indian invention which one places salt water in the pot and drains it into ones nostril, with the proper head tilt it comes out the other. There has been relaxation oil applied, antibiotics taken, Vicks vapor rub on the feet and neck, LOADS OF WATER, hot tea the list goes on.
She narrates one of her dreams, I see the hospital all white all the attendants so happy so content to serve me, it makes me happy taking the work off my parents, I beg for help. They hook me up to an IV tell me exactly what I have and I feel so much better. I feel the liquid running through my body cooling me down appeasing every tissue layer, every red blood cell. I wake up. I want to go. I am worried about the price. I am ashamed. I don’t want to tell my parents that I want to go, it will seem so dramatic I only have strep throat, I don’t want to be charge tons. I see them cramped in a plastic chairs, so I withdraw from the idea, ohhhh but wouldn’t it be great she says.
She becomes very needy, dependant and in the constant need for affection. She realizes once we are better how quick we are to forget the sufferance of being sick the desire to simply breath fresh air, hold ones head up, read a book. We become so involved and worried about everything else when sick its back to the core. She says she feels completely out of control and she does not like it, she feels as if all the walls around her are crashing in and she is struggling to climb through the rumble, reaching for serenity with her weak will.
Many times she becomes very dreary and negative, dying to be better and then she says she must focus. Focus on he current state and place her energy upon the workings of her body, support them with her soul and tell them to work harder. She says she continues to think of all the others who are sick like her, but with no home, no medicine, no family. She says she feels there pain but doesn’t urn for their intensity.
A few days later, she is feeling a lot better, slight pain still in her neck but she can go about, she’s washed up, and no more fever. We go to a Manhattan health clinic to try and get her to see a gynecologist. It is a fail, we go to 2 other places, consecutively fails. She is frustrated, at losses for an explanation, uncomfortable. The first place we visit there are hundreds of different doctors at the establishment, and there is a room with only office workers, with paperwork everywhere, boxes and boxes of it. All symbols of the people they see and the money being accepted and the absence of any doctor or medicinal objects is clear. It feels so absent of help. As she leaves full of the absence she continues to ponder.
Health is a reflection of how one is doing mentally and how the exterior is affecting the body. Sometimes the mind and ones thoughts blocks one from seeing what is directly in front of ones eyes, what one can feel. It is an unexpected chaotic break upon the physic forcing it to take a step back and premeditate. This usually does not happen until after the break has been released and a little gas has been added and the gears begin to turn and one cane reflect, ironic.
December 29, 2010
HW 26 - Looking back & forward in unit
Some knowledge acquired this unit:
• 200,000 people in the U.S.A are iatrogenic (Source: Class discussion, Andy & Lucas)
• 50 million Americans have no health insurance (Source: Sicko)
• An American hospital will treat a homeless person but will not give them a prescription (Source: Casey & Andy)
• In Haiti it cost $20,000 to treat a certain disease where in America it cost $6 million
The source that has been most helpful in this unit was the book “Mountains Beyond Mountains” this helped me the most because it was an inspirational story of someone who was fulfilling himself. It also showed medical practices in 3rd world countries versus the USA’s manner of approaching health. This helped me the most because it contrasted not having resources because of absolute destitute versus not having resources because of greed and unfair distribution. I believe comparing is a good manner to show what is absent or present in certain locations versus others. I also think this helped the most because I was interested because I know what the practices are like in our country and I am intrigued by how they work in other places.
I think an aspect that is crucial that we visit before the end of the unit is how our body physically reacts before death (because in many cases we do thing to ease the going) and what we think the definition of death is and how we determine that. There is a good movie by national geographic that is only 45 minutes called (Moment of Death), it is also available of netflixs. I also think some kind of class conversation would be nice I miss those!!
• 200,000 people in the U.S.A are iatrogenic (Source: Class discussion, Andy & Lucas)
• 50 million Americans have no health insurance (Source: Sicko)
• An American hospital will treat a homeless person but will not give them a prescription (Source: Casey & Andy)
• In Haiti it cost $20,000 to treat a certain disease where in America it cost $6 million
The source that has been most helpful in this unit was the book “Mountains Beyond Mountains” this helped me the most because it was an inspirational story of someone who was fulfilling himself. It also showed medical practices in 3rd world countries versus the USA’s manner of approaching health. This helped me the most because it contrasted not having resources because of absolute destitute versus not having resources because of greed and unfair distribution. I believe comparing is a good manner to show what is absent or present in certain locations versus others. I also think this helped the most because I was interested because I know what the practices are like in our country and I am intrigued by how they work in other places.
I think an aspect that is crucial that we visit before the end of the unit is how our body physically reacts before death (because in many cases we do thing to ease the going) and what we think the definition of death is and how we determine that. There is a good movie by national geographic that is only 45 minutes called (Moment of Death), it is also available of netflixs. I also think some kind of class conversation would be nice I miss those!!
SiCKO By: Michael Moore
1.) PRECIS:
In this documentary I condemn American health insurance and pharmaceutical companies, as well as the politicians who have been paid millions to do their bidding. I then state that America is ignorant for not having learned from many other industrialized countries whom have great working free health care, so I expose them! Firstly I show the consequences of being ill in America with & without health insurance, which range from bankruptcy to un-necessary deaths. I then proceed to contrast this with the exploration of free health care systems in Canada, France, Britain, and Cuba, debunking all the fears (lower quality of care, poorer compensation for doctors, big-government bureaucracy) that have been used to dissuade Americans from establishing such a system here. The failure of such a system in America I have traced to President Richard Nixon's deceptive support of the then-emerging HMOs pursuing huge profits and insufficient pressures for Congress to sacrifice corporate profit for sound health care.
2.) EVIDENCE:
a. FACT #1 "$100 million spent to defeat Hillary's health care plan." FACT #2 "Like Canadians and Brits, the French live longer than we do"
b. FACT #1 is important for supporting Moore’s argument because it shows the masses of money that few elitist hold (republican politicians) are being wasted on preventing care for others. $100 million could have been used to treat people instead of preventing their treatment. It also shows the sole purpose of such an act is greed spending these sums so that later on the HMO's can rake it in. FACT #2 is crucial to supporting Moore’s argument because he places these countries on a pedestal for having free health insurance so he needs to exemplify what is good about such a quality. The leading causes of death are bad health (obviously) and health care is there to improve the people’s health, so if the health is so great it creates a longer life span, this is the essential goal!
d. According to United Nations Human development report (2006) FACT#2 was correct, stating, “the life expectancy in the United States is 77.5, the United Kingdom is 78.5, France is 79.6, and Canada is 80.2.” http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/pdfs/report/HDR06-complete.pdf
3.) RESPONSE:
I enjoyed SiCKO, the first time I saw it I was in 8th grade and was aware of occurrences in the United Sates but I was a lot dumber obviously. I was still able to understand the basics of the issue and what needed to be changed. I think that a certain simplicity and a desire to watch is important in such documentaries because it is an important issue that needs to be exposed to all Americans of all intelligence and age. I also think the way Moore portrays other countries free health care systems has a certain simplicity to it that I think is important to motivating our scared into submission citizens. If we want our people to fight back we need to illustrate HOW POSSIBLE dreams being accomplished are, if people act up.
In this documentary I condemn American health insurance and pharmaceutical companies, as well as the politicians who have been paid millions to do their bidding. I then state that America is ignorant for not having learned from many other industrialized countries whom have great working free health care, so I expose them! Firstly I show the consequences of being ill in America with & without health insurance, which range from bankruptcy to un-necessary deaths. I then proceed to contrast this with the exploration of free health care systems in Canada, France, Britain, and Cuba, debunking all the fears (lower quality of care, poorer compensation for doctors, big-government bureaucracy) that have been used to dissuade Americans from establishing such a system here. The failure of such a system in America I have traced to President Richard Nixon's deceptive support of the then-emerging HMOs pursuing huge profits and insufficient pressures for Congress to sacrifice corporate profit for sound health care.
2.) EVIDENCE:
a. FACT #1 "$100 million spent to defeat Hillary's health care plan." FACT #2 "Like Canadians and Brits, the French live longer than we do"
b. FACT #1 is important for supporting Moore’s argument because it shows the masses of money that few elitist hold (republican politicians) are being wasted on preventing care for others. $100 million could have been used to treat people instead of preventing their treatment. It also shows the sole purpose of such an act is greed spending these sums so that later on the HMO's can rake it in. FACT #2 is crucial to supporting Moore’s argument because he places these countries on a pedestal for having free health insurance so he needs to exemplify what is good about such a quality. The leading causes of death are bad health (obviously) and health care is there to improve the people’s health, so if the health is so great it creates a longer life span, this is the essential goal!
d. According to United Nations Human development report (2006) FACT#2 was correct, stating, “the life expectancy in the United States is 77.5, the United Kingdom is 78.5, France is 79.6, and Canada is 80.2.” http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/pdfs/report/HDR06-complete.pdf
3.) RESPONSE:
I enjoyed SiCKO, the first time I saw it I was in 8th grade and was aware of occurrences in the United Sates but I was a lot dumber obviously. I was still able to understand the basics of the issue and what needed to be changed. I think that a certain simplicity and a desire to watch is important in such documentaries because it is an important issue that needs to be exposed to all Americans of all intelligence and age. I also think the way Moore portrays other countries free health care systems has a certain simplicity to it that I think is important to motivating our scared into submission citizens. If we want our people to fight back we need to illustrate HOW POSSIBLE dreams being accomplished are, if people act up.
December 19, 2010
Kreyon pep la pa gen gonm.
*Only got too read up to page 265
Tracy Kidder. Mountains Beyond Mountains. United States: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2009.
Précis:
Traveling with Dr. Paul Farmer while narrating his life work and the struggle of the impoverished. Farmer's mission is to serve the poor, gratis in countries like Haiti, Peru, and Russia. It runs from approximately 1982 to 2003. Farmer's crusade is to end infectious disease and bring lifesaving medicines to those that have no access to it and most need it. The great antagonist faced is poverty and the inherent epidemics that come with it. Caused by the people who turn their backs on poverty and the government policies that allow it to flourish. The climax stemming from the Haitian proverb “Dye mon, gen mon.”, it is about trying to reach the top of the mountain and when getting there deciding which mountain to climb next.
Farmer tries to eradicate the evil of poverty and illness among the poor and it’s his trying that makes him great. Resulting in Farmer reaching the top of many mountains, such as the adoption of new prescriptions for MDR-TB by the World Health Organization (WHO). However, the outcome is still uncertain, because there are still many more mountains for people like Paul Farmer to climb, as there always will. If the world continues to turn its back on the needs of the poor, then the outcome will once again be uncertain rather than hopeful.
Quotes:
• “Of all the worlds errors, he seemed to feel, the most fundamental was the “erasing” of people, the “hidings away” of suffering. “My big struggle is how people cannot care, erase, and not remember.”” (Pg.219) I feel the same, things happen in the past but I still find them pertinent, and find the greedy & rich’s only manner of staying sane is erasing everyone drastically beneath them.
• “It also freed him from the efforts that many people make to find refuge and distinction from their pasts, and from the mass of their fellow human beings” (pg. 219) This statement spoke clarity to my mentality and relived a weight off my shoulders for being able to understand the actions of myself. I believe my action divulges into the human nature to seek understanding. We want to be our own entity with our differences but we also want to attain that dependency on others.
• “Farmer got the same answers everywhere, and when he approached the drug companies, looking for donations or at least reduced prices, they suggested he go to the same agencies and foundations that had deemed his program non-sustainable because of high drug prices” (pg. 243) This is clear cut evidence for my reflection to follow. Also, where I derived my inspiration.
• “You’re a great guy,” I said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “But without your clinical practice –“ He interrupted. He said, “I wouldn’t be anything.” (Pg.237) I found this quote honest and disturbing. He would be nobody on a global scale of his impact upon others but he would still be a flourishing mind, so I agree with this statement but I also contradict myself by believing it is not true. I think this pertains to me because I want to change societal living in the world but need something to make me “something” like Farmer, to fight the “experts” or “idiots in power” and connect me with masses of my fellow brothers and sisters for rebellion and revolution.
Reflection:
The more I read the more thoughts of political radical actions to change the world arose in my sprit. All based on eliminating economic class systems! Ideas such as creating a cap price on ALL products sold. It would be determined based on the total cost of creating the product, taking a certain percentage of that adding it to the cost of production for sales price. To help reduce the differences in class scale. I cannot place this in words well. So for example:
A drug cost $5 to make (including all factors of production) so say the company could only sell the drugs for $10 to make 100% revenue! Fair, I say. SO ERRADICATING THE FREE MARKET. This would also reinstate the purpose of making an object of quality because that of quality will bring in more revenue. I also believe this would help instate the benefits of giving skill to all Americans, have them not import from the rape of the poverty in sweatshop locations such as China, but make things themselves. It also made me dream of a country with no borders, which are also materialistic objects that simply create separation from all our fellow brothers and sisters. Mountains are there to climb, so I am going to hike till it kills me.
A dominant social practice and belief I observed in this book is to act more urgently in the case of death or illness when it is a person’s own child or blood. I believe this is instinctual because they have an emotional connection to ones spirit or soul. I find this contrast to acting more urgently in the case of someone with wealth versus ignoring someone poor, placing more importance on the paper than the value of someone’s life. I also believe in America this is the dominant social practice established through the government.
Tracy Kidder. Mountains Beyond Mountains. United States: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2009.
Précis:
Traveling with Dr. Paul Farmer while narrating his life work and the struggle of the impoverished. Farmer's mission is to serve the poor, gratis in countries like Haiti, Peru, and Russia. It runs from approximately 1982 to 2003. Farmer's crusade is to end infectious disease and bring lifesaving medicines to those that have no access to it and most need it. The great antagonist faced is poverty and the inherent epidemics that come with it. Caused by the people who turn their backs on poverty and the government policies that allow it to flourish. The climax stemming from the Haitian proverb “Dye mon, gen mon.”, it is about trying to reach the top of the mountain and when getting there deciding which mountain to climb next.
Farmer tries to eradicate the evil of poverty and illness among the poor and it’s his trying that makes him great. Resulting in Farmer reaching the top of many mountains, such as the adoption of new prescriptions for MDR-TB by the World Health Organization (WHO). However, the outcome is still uncertain, because there are still many more mountains for people like Paul Farmer to climb, as there always will. If the world continues to turn its back on the needs of the poor, then the outcome will once again be uncertain rather than hopeful.
Quotes:
• “Of all the worlds errors, he seemed to feel, the most fundamental was the “erasing” of people, the “hidings away” of suffering. “My big struggle is how people cannot care, erase, and not remember.”” (Pg.219) I feel the same, things happen in the past but I still find them pertinent, and find the greedy & rich’s only manner of staying sane is erasing everyone drastically beneath them.
• “It also freed him from the efforts that many people make to find refuge and distinction from their pasts, and from the mass of their fellow human beings” (pg. 219) This statement spoke clarity to my mentality and relived a weight off my shoulders for being able to understand the actions of myself. I believe my action divulges into the human nature to seek understanding. We want to be our own entity with our differences but we also want to attain that dependency on others.
• “Farmer got the same answers everywhere, and when he approached the drug companies, looking for donations or at least reduced prices, they suggested he go to the same agencies and foundations that had deemed his program non-sustainable because of high drug prices” (pg. 243) This is clear cut evidence for my reflection to follow. Also, where I derived my inspiration.
• “You’re a great guy,” I said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “But without your clinical practice –“ He interrupted. He said, “I wouldn’t be anything.” (Pg.237) I found this quote honest and disturbing. He would be nobody on a global scale of his impact upon others but he would still be a flourishing mind, so I agree with this statement but I also contradict myself by believing it is not true. I think this pertains to me because I want to change societal living in the world but need something to make me “something” like Farmer, to fight the “experts” or “idiots in power” and connect me with masses of my fellow brothers and sisters for rebellion and revolution.
Reflection:
The more I read the more thoughts of political radical actions to change the world arose in my sprit. All based on eliminating economic class systems! Ideas such as creating a cap price on ALL products sold. It would be determined based on the total cost of creating the product, taking a certain percentage of that adding it to the cost of production for sales price. To help reduce the differences in class scale. I cannot place this in words well. So for example:
A drug cost $5 to make (including all factors of production) so say the company could only sell the drugs for $10 to make 100% revenue! Fair, I say. SO ERRADICATING THE FREE MARKET. This would also reinstate the purpose of making an object of quality because that of quality will bring in more revenue. I also believe this would help instate the benefits of giving skill to all Americans, have them not import from the rape of the poverty in sweatshop locations such as China, but make things themselves. It also made me dream of a country with no borders, which are also materialistic objects that simply create separation from all our fellow brothers and sisters. Mountains are there to climb, so I am going to hike till it kills me.
A dominant social practice and belief I observed in this book is to act more urgently in the case of death or illness when it is a person’s own child or blood. I believe this is instinctual because they have an emotional connection to ones spirit or soul. I find this contrast to acting more urgently in the case of someone with wealth versus ignoring someone poor, placing more importance on the paper than the value of someone’s life. I also believe in America this is the dominant social practice established through the government.
December 18, 2010
Book Review part 2
Tracy Kidder. Mountains Beyond Mountains. United States: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2009.
Précis[Chapter 17]:
In 1996 at the beginning of a hectic project in Peru, Famer found the time to marry his Haitian fiancé Didi. 3,000 people attended the ceremony in Cange, including all of Cange. Peru was taxing PIH's resources tremendously, while the number of patients in Caraballyo kept growing. Ophelia and Howard Haiatt (previously Harvard Medical schools dean) were worried that the project Farmer and Jim Kim had taken on was un-manageable. What they were doing looked reckless because the finite resources, other doctors did not believe in movement and they did not have proper institutional resources. Jim would travel to Carabayllo once a month, and Farmer more often. Farmer currently had his Peru & Haiti project, while teaching at Harvard, while working at the Brigham. In February 1997 Farmer began feeling ill but he continued to ignore his symptoms and plow through his work. He finally diagnosed himself with Hepatitis A, and when he finally gave in to being treated he spent 2 weeks on the hospital bed. After his recovery Ophelia sent him and Didi on a vacation to the south of France, and 9 months later they had their daughter Catherine. The MDR Project was making progress with patients but the Peruvian government was still denying acknowledgement of the fact. One day when we went to the hospital in Peru Farmer was walking rapidly to diagnose a patient when he encountered his first proof of success a little boy of 3 years of age once weighing 20 pounds with MDR TB now chubby and running. Farmer created a regime of second-line drugs based on his knowledge of TB, and children. It worked miraculously. Then the joy was over, on to the next patient the daughter of a Peruvian daughter with MDR TB, already known by the father but unable to treat correctly because of Peru's "norma’s" for the tuberculosis regime. So Farmer was able to conduct an official charade to diagnose the young girl to start her treatment, after many thanks to Farmer and bows from Farmer to the other staff we were in the parking lot leaving, on to the next 'bwat' to check off.
Quotes:
• “People think we’re unrealistic. They don’t know we’re crazy.”
• This explains everything I say in relation to most un-believing people.
• “MDR treatment was cost-effective in a place like new York, but not in a place like Peru.” This exemplifies the clear-cut fact that medicine evolves “cost-effective” where they measure the value of treating someone. HOW DO YOU PUT A COST ON LIFE? Of course, the person in NYC with an easier life deserves the treatment.
• “A couple of children were playing nearby with a ball. It got away from them. I watched the ball bounce downhill until I lost sight of it, thinking of gravity, sewage and disease.” I thought this was an arresting quote and showed this authors beautiful craft. The symbolism of even a child losing his playful joy as it rolls down an endless mountain of destitute.
Reflection of Illness and dying:
People around the world are dying simultaneously and constantly. As a doctor you can save many lives and the key is to remember even saving ONE life makes a difference. Every human in every corner of the world has a soul and is precious and deserves the seconds of existence to smile and frown. The hardships of illness and dying in this world (in subject of masses) are no longer dependent on the intelligence and knowledge to cure the maladies those have been found. Rather implementing them in our social atmosphere where greed powers in towering amounts for the few, preventing the rest to have the availability to be cured. Most people in this world that save lives for the sake of caring for all souls (such as Farmer) do not work for the money. In our world the most anti acquisitive
Happening; life now depends on the material of class status. A belief I already held true has been enforced by Farmer, when embracing all aspects of life, pain, beauty, suffering, inequality, greed, intelligence, arrogance, destitute, death, faith, and so on one can be more aware of the short process of living and as to what we want to do with it in relation to all the other beings we share this planet with. Ignoring the reality is ignorant, when one opens one eyes to all is when one can live thoroughly. The expression happiness can be bought with money in our world IS REALITY. If one has money one can, have health, nutrition, transportation, education, safety, a home, pets control, sanitation, and medicine IN OUR WORLD this constitutes the quality of ones daily life. Now it is true in absolute poverty one can still feel joy, the warming beams of the sun, the joy of family, the relief of knowing someone is safe but it is hard to enjoy life when the majority of daily life constitutes of absence.
Précis[Chapter 17]:
In 1996 at the beginning of a hectic project in Peru, Famer found the time to marry his Haitian fiancé Didi. 3,000 people attended the ceremony in Cange, including all of Cange. Peru was taxing PIH's resources tremendously, while the number of patients in Caraballyo kept growing. Ophelia and Howard Haiatt (previously Harvard Medical schools dean) were worried that the project Farmer and Jim Kim had taken on was un-manageable. What they were doing looked reckless because the finite resources, other doctors did not believe in movement and they did not have proper institutional resources. Jim would travel to Carabayllo once a month, and Farmer more often. Farmer currently had his Peru & Haiti project, while teaching at Harvard, while working at the Brigham. In February 1997 Farmer began feeling ill but he continued to ignore his symptoms and plow through his work. He finally diagnosed himself with Hepatitis A, and when he finally gave in to being treated he spent 2 weeks on the hospital bed. After his recovery Ophelia sent him and Didi on a vacation to the south of France, and 9 months later they had their daughter Catherine. The MDR Project was making progress with patients but the Peruvian government was still denying acknowledgement of the fact. One day when we went to the hospital in Peru Farmer was walking rapidly to diagnose a patient when he encountered his first proof of success a little boy of 3 years of age once weighing 20 pounds with MDR TB now chubby and running. Farmer created a regime of second-line drugs based on his knowledge of TB, and children. It worked miraculously. Then the joy was over, on to the next patient the daughter of a Peruvian daughter with MDR TB, already known by the father but unable to treat correctly because of Peru's "norma’s" for the tuberculosis regime. So Farmer was able to conduct an official charade to diagnose the young girl to start her treatment, after many thanks to Farmer and bows from Farmer to the other staff we were in the parking lot leaving, on to the next 'bwat' to check off.
Quotes:
• “People think we’re unrealistic. They don’t know we’re crazy.”
• This explains everything I say in relation to most un-believing people.
• “MDR treatment was cost-effective in a place like new York, but not in a place like Peru.” This exemplifies the clear-cut fact that medicine evolves “cost-effective” where they measure the value of treating someone. HOW DO YOU PUT A COST ON LIFE? Of course, the person in NYC with an easier life deserves the treatment.
• “A couple of children were playing nearby with a ball. It got away from them. I watched the ball bounce downhill until I lost sight of it, thinking of gravity, sewage and disease.” I thought this was an arresting quote and showed this authors beautiful craft. The symbolism of even a child losing his playful joy as it rolls down an endless mountain of destitute.
Reflection of Illness and dying:
People around the world are dying simultaneously and constantly. As a doctor you can save many lives and the key is to remember even saving ONE life makes a difference. Every human in every corner of the world has a soul and is precious and deserves the seconds of existence to smile and frown. The hardships of illness and dying in this world (in subject of masses) are no longer dependent on the intelligence and knowledge to cure the maladies those have been found. Rather implementing them in our social atmosphere where greed powers in towering amounts for the few, preventing the rest to have the availability to be cured. Most people in this world that save lives for the sake of caring for all souls (such as Farmer) do not work for the money. In our world the most anti acquisitive
Happening; life now depends on the material of class status. A belief I already held true has been enforced by Farmer, when embracing all aspects of life, pain, beauty, suffering, inequality, greed, intelligence, arrogance, destitute, death, faith, and so on one can be more aware of the short process of living and as to what we want to do with it in relation to all the other beings we share this planet with. Ignoring the reality is ignorant, when one opens one eyes to all is when one can live thoroughly. The expression happiness can be bought with money in our world IS REALITY. If one has money one can, have health, nutrition, transportation, education, safety, a home, pets control, sanitation, and medicine IN OUR WORLD this constitutes the quality of ones daily life. Now it is true in absolute poverty one can still feel joy, the warming beams of the sun, the joy of family, the relief of knowing someone is safe but it is hard to enjoy life when the majority of daily life constitutes of absence.
December 14, 2010
GOOGALLY BOOOGALLLY
COMMENT TO EVAN: I AM SO UPSET I MISSED THIS !!! HONESTLY THIS IS THE ONLY CLASS I WISH I COULD GOT TO SCHOOL FOR !!! GRRRRRR !!! you stated "search the deepest, most painful realms of my thoughts" I have been doing this alone recentley and I feel it has been helping me but it is hard, what were some of the questions asked?
COMMENT TO CASEY: "She grieved, but accepted that he died. I think that there is something almost sweet about pain, because even though pain is an effect of loss, something was there before it was lost. We cannot grieve the loss of something that never was, unless we experienced that something in the first place, or have some inkling of what is missing."
I think this is so beautifully written, and so true. Their is a certain bliss in pain, but only when embraced and excepted not when fought. I also think if we don't feel these losses we can never value having.
The only suggestion I could provide is tying this back to the dominant social practice and thinking of what in all of this normality is weird ?
I also would like to commened you on the fact that I now have a good sense of what Beth's visit was like even though I was absent!
*** I did not do this blog, because I was home sick !
COMMENT TO CASEY: "She grieved, but accepted that he died. I think that there is something almost sweet about pain, because even though pain is an effect of loss, something was there before it was lost. We cannot grieve the loss of something that never was, unless we experienced that something in the first place, or have some inkling of what is missing."
I think this is so beautifully written, and so true. Their is a certain bliss in pain, but only when embraced and excepted not when fought. I also think if we don't feel these losses we can never value having.
The only suggestion I could provide is tying this back to the dominant social practice and thinking of what in all of this normality is weird ?
I also would like to commened you on the fact that I now have a good sense of what Beth's visit was like even though I was absent!
*** I did not do this blog, because I was home sick !
December 11, 2010
Book Review part 1
Tracy Kidder. Mountains Beyond Mountains. United States: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2009.
Précis: Chapters 1- 3
• In 19994 I was working as a reporter for the US army base. One evening Farmer came to speak to head commander and announce the peoples plans to revolt with some Haitian friends. The man intrigued me and as a coincidence we met on the plane, we then meet up in Boston and had lunch his personality and determination scared me, until 1999 we met once again. I wanted to learn more about Farmer so I shadowed him at the hospital in Brigham Boston. That day he discussed with his team of students about a certain patient, Joe. He was thought of having tuberculosis so Farmer with his team went up to visit him. He deemed it a case of phenomena. While there farmer nested a deep connection with his patient. Getting to know and later meet his personal desires and necessities to nurse him to health. Farmer then returned to Haiti and I wanted to learn more, so he told me to go see him, and to Haiti I went. When arrived at the airport a pickup truck Farmer sent brought me on a 35 mile journey up a mountain that took 3 and a half hours, seen on the way was the up mounting poverty and the growing of absence. Cangre, Haiti is the poorest part of poor. The next day we went to Zanmi Lasante medical complex, Farmer took me on rounds. The first case we saw was gangrene forming from a minor cut happening 15 days previous; Farmer said minor incidents became huge health problems. The rules of the medical complex are no one can be turned away. The price 80 cents for everyone except women, children and the desperate, basically everyone. A million peasant farmers rely on the complex; a hundred thousand live in the catchment area. The staff is entirely Haitian besides Farmer and has 7 doctors not all fully competent. The complex has reduced H.I.V transmition from mother to babies to 4 percent. No one has died from tuberculosis since 1988. It has a 1.5 million year budget versus a Boston hospital serving the same amount of people with a budget of 60 million. Farmer is a poor man but rich in achievements. He lives in a little 1-room house with a tin roof and concrete floor in Haiti most of the year, but 4 months a year he lives in Boston in his fundraising organizations basement. Farmer takes care of all patient personally and to the best of his ability aids there personal needs in however possible, from getting them sunglasses to getting there children an education. One elderly woman who is dying comes in everyday for money and food; Farmer greets her as “my mother”. People respect him and see him as the sorcery of healing. All day long he is diagnosing patients from ulcers caused by starvation to pregnant women with aids & tuberculosis. He keeps a 2 do list by his desk and checks off a “bwat” every time he has completed a task. Voodoo is the Haitian religion and in Farmers eyes a way of explain suffering. Farmer is rich with knowledge on Haitian culture and helps breach holistic & allopathic methods for the people. He tends to narrate Haiti explaining their suffering and daily struggles. At 3 in the morning Farmer is called in to the complex because a Girl arrives by donkey and needs a spinal tap, while she is screaming from excruciating pain she is also complaining of hunger.
QOUTES
• “She poured out her family’s story, her sadness, her present worries, and Paul listened intently, never sating she shouldn’t feel as she did, but only now and then suggesting ways she might accommodate her feelings.” Pg.69
This quote really hit me deeply because I recently lost a friend because of multiple issues, one of them being her bad position and my inability to facilitate them. I think Farmer has the magical quality to not tell the person not to feel the way the do (as I would) but how to help cope with the feelings. That in its self is HARD to do, that made me realize what I did wrong and the desire to improve, and not put my self down for my inability.
• ‘“bondye konn bay, me li pa konn separe” in literal translation “god gives but doesn’t share”’ pg.79
I thought this was beautiful and saddening, A great representation of finding explanation for tragic suffering. I think it is so true of our whole world and I wish greed could be abolished!!! I also don’t understand how people can be so greedy when they themselves come from the same horrible position as the people they grow to oppress.
• “Some people said that medicine addresses only symptoms of poverty. This, they agreed, was true, and they’d make “common cause” with anyone sincerely trying to change the “political economies” of countries like Haiti” pg.100
This passage (like many others) ignites the thought within me of, what do I want to do with my life. I know it is to help aid this world in some manner like Farmer has amazingly done. I have known this since I was young but now I want to now HOW? I feel I will lean towards the politics because as amazing as all the work Farmer is doing I still see it as a band-aid in a sense because it is only one part of Haiti and all of his issues stem from poverty, which stems from the governments unjust ruling. WHICH seems to be the actions of all government, the favor of the rich. It sucks that money is the easy power to attain that simply overrides other powers with simplicity.
• “He came down with dysentery, probably because his budget obliged him to eat food sold on the streets if the cities and towns. He remembered lying in a grubby hospital in Port-au-Prince, on a floor that lacked a toilet, and a middle-aged American woman, a public health expert whom he’d gotten to know, visiting him there. She was saying that, if he got any sicker, she was going to take him back to the states, and he was telling her, no, no, he was all right, while thinking, please take me home.” Pg. 78
This part of the book seemed to really pin point that Farmer he to is a human susceptible to the harms of poverty. It really drove home the point of the horrible disposition that his patients were in whereas Farmer could just get up and go. This was a true demonstration in the differences between being “blan” or Haitian.
Flesh’s Insight
I think this book shows that health has a cost, like everything else in this world. We have come to a point in this world where material has a higher value than our life. As a result if one has money one can be healthy, if not one becomes ill. With a huge scale the richer, the healthier, the poorer the sicker.
Précis: Chapters 1- 3
• In 19994 I was working as a reporter for the US army base. One evening Farmer came to speak to head commander and announce the peoples plans to revolt with some Haitian friends. The man intrigued me and as a coincidence we met on the plane, we then meet up in Boston and had lunch his personality and determination scared me, until 1999 we met once again. I wanted to learn more about Farmer so I shadowed him at the hospital in Brigham Boston. That day he discussed with his team of students about a certain patient, Joe. He was thought of having tuberculosis so Farmer with his team went up to visit him. He deemed it a case of phenomena. While there farmer nested a deep connection with his patient. Getting to know and later meet his personal desires and necessities to nurse him to health. Farmer then returned to Haiti and I wanted to learn more, so he told me to go see him, and to Haiti I went. When arrived at the airport a pickup truck Farmer sent brought me on a 35 mile journey up a mountain that took 3 and a half hours, seen on the way was the up mounting poverty and the growing of absence. Cangre, Haiti is the poorest part of poor. The next day we went to Zanmi Lasante medical complex, Farmer took me on rounds. The first case we saw was gangrene forming from a minor cut happening 15 days previous; Farmer said minor incidents became huge health problems. The rules of the medical complex are no one can be turned away. The price 80 cents for everyone except women, children and the desperate, basically everyone. A million peasant farmers rely on the complex; a hundred thousand live in the catchment area. The staff is entirely Haitian besides Farmer and has 7 doctors not all fully competent. The complex has reduced H.I.V transmition from mother to babies to 4 percent. No one has died from tuberculosis since 1988. It has a 1.5 million year budget versus a Boston hospital serving the same amount of people with a budget of 60 million. Farmer is a poor man but rich in achievements. He lives in a little 1-room house with a tin roof and concrete floor in Haiti most of the year, but 4 months a year he lives in Boston in his fundraising organizations basement. Farmer takes care of all patient personally and to the best of his ability aids there personal needs in however possible, from getting them sunglasses to getting there children an education. One elderly woman who is dying comes in everyday for money and food; Farmer greets her as “my mother”. People respect him and see him as the sorcery of healing. All day long he is diagnosing patients from ulcers caused by starvation to pregnant women with aids & tuberculosis. He keeps a 2 do list by his desk and checks off a “bwat” every time he has completed a task. Voodoo is the Haitian religion and in Farmers eyes a way of explain suffering. Farmer is rich with knowledge on Haitian culture and helps breach holistic & allopathic methods for the people. He tends to narrate Haiti explaining their suffering and daily struggles. At 3 in the morning Farmer is called in to the complex because a Girl arrives by donkey and needs a spinal tap, while she is screaming from excruciating pain she is also complaining of hunger.
QOUTES
• “She poured out her family’s story, her sadness, her present worries, and Paul listened intently, never sating she shouldn’t feel as she did, but only now and then suggesting ways she might accommodate her feelings.” Pg.69
This quote really hit me deeply because I recently lost a friend because of multiple issues, one of them being her bad position and my inability to facilitate them. I think Farmer has the magical quality to not tell the person not to feel the way the do (as I would) but how to help cope with the feelings. That in its self is HARD to do, that made me realize what I did wrong and the desire to improve, and not put my self down for my inability.
• ‘“bondye konn bay, me li pa konn separe” in literal translation “god gives but doesn’t share”’ pg.79
I thought this was beautiful and saddening, A great representation of finding explanation for tragic suffering. I think it is so true of our whole world and I wish greed could be abolished!!! I also don’t understand how people can be so greedy when they themselves come from the same horrible position as the people they grow to oppress.
• “Some people said that medicine addresses only symptoms of poverty. This, they agreed, was true, and they’d make “common cause” with anyone sincerely trying to change the “political economies” of countries like Haiti” pg.100
This passage (like many others) ignites the thought within me of, what do I want to do with my life. I know it is to help aid this world in some manner like Farmer has amazingly done. I have known this since I was young but now I want to now HOW? I feel I will lean towards the politics because as amazing as all the work Farmer is doing I still see it as a band-aid in a sense because it is only one part of Haiti and all of his issues stem from poverty, which stems from the governments unjust ruling. WHICH seems to be the actions of all government, the favor of the rich. It sucks that money is the easy power to attain that simply overrides other powers with simplicity.
• “He came down with dysentery, probably because his budget obliged him to eat food sold on the streets if the cities and towns. He remembered lying in a grubby hospital in Port-au-Prince, on a floor that lacked a toilet, and a middle-aged American woman, a public health expert whom he’d gotten to know, visiting him there. She was saying that, if he got any sicker, she was going to take him back to the states, and he was telling her, no, no, he was all right, while thinking, please take me home.” Pg. 78
This part of the book seemed to really pin point that Farmer he to is a human susceptible to the harms of poverty. It really drove home the point of the horrible disposition that his patients were in whereas Farmer could just get up and go. This was a true demonstration in the differences between being “blan” or Haitian.
Flesh’s Insight
I think this book shows that health has a cost, like everything else in this world. We have come to a point in this world where material has a higher value than our life. As a result if one has money one can be healthy, if not one becomes ill. With a huge scale the richer, the healthier, the poorer the sicker.
December 01, 2010
life
Interviewing my parents, which was sort of hysterical because I knew the answers to most of the questions I asked or at least the building blocks. Which then lead to deeper responses, I have not necessarily herd before (from my father in particular). In my family we talk about EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING, I have the most liberal up bring one can have, or relatively speaking to others I know. I am so thankful for the not only liberal but also OPEN family I come from because as a result I am not afraid of death. This openness is most intense with my immediate family (manman & pops) but its pretty open with the rest of my family as well. THIS IS WHY I DON’T HOLD MY TOUNGE & TALK SO FUCKING MUCH (TOO MUCH).
After interviewing I had this odd sense of not being an independent thinker. All my beliefs on death and illness are the same as my parents; If I were raised Republican and Capitalist and fit the "NORMAL"/dominant belief of Americans would I whole heartily agree with what my parents believed? I feel I question a lot of things and am intuitive, intelligent, confident, outspoken, because OF MY PARENTS. So if it weren’t for them, would I be the same deep down inside and still find a liberal way of life?
The first question asked was by my Pops, because my first one was knowingly too general for a response. He asked "Should people who are terminally ill, be allowed to end there own life?" His answer was YES ABSOLUTLEY, and they should be supported by the government, family and with the medical assistance needed. (I agree, which I am not going to state further because it will be redundant.) This clearly exemplifies our chained society, which seems to be different groups of herds that follow one ignoranous ideas and deem them as normal. This in its self is WEIRD, relative to normal. (Even though I no longer like the term weird because it is stating that something is not right because it differentiates from the norm.) HOW IS SOMEONE NOT FIT OF DETERMINING WHEN THERE LIFE SHOULD END, IT IS THEIR'Sdea AND NO ONE ELSES! We come into this world alone (even though aided by a woman), and shall leave it alone (possibly aided by other energy). Capitalist constantly set normal’s to there advantage so the herds try to conform to the labels and in doing so facilitate their goals, such as health insurance, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies.
In my family we would love to go to a holistic doctor, but the harsh reality is WE CANNOT AFFORD IT. So we go to dominantly considered normal (health insurance covered) doctors to do general "les analyses"(in the words of my mother because when the interview was conducted in English she would respond with "quoi?"). In order to make sure there are no tumors in our chest or mercury in our blood, and from there we do what we can with home-remedies (holistic methods). I have never been vaccinated and my mother treats me for the most part with homeopathic. Why? She says because she feared to many chemicals in body, whether it was the right choice she doesn’t know. We will see, but I think she did.
My father is thankful for the advances in Medicine in his lifetime and over the past few hundred years, because a while ago he would be considered very old, and near death (age51). Also because he has the medical condition of Arthritis (he’s got it bad too!) and without the Medical advances they have made he would be constant pain. He would be shunned from society because in our industrial world (he only has a high school education) he would have no place. This and penicillin (and I am guessing his anti-depressants, even though I think we should look into alternatives besides alcohol) are why he likes the allopathic system. I wonder if inventions such as penicillin have made us weaker as a race (people who use them) because it is a way to escape pain and if you have to deal with this pain it builds a callous. What he doesn’t like about the system is that it is distant from human nurturing. It shuns others approaches, it is embraced and supported by the capitalist system making it about profit and control and appeasing of the people, besides the scientist truly seeking to cure the maladies. I think this exemplifies the INSANITY and abnormality of our society that the healing of the mind and human body IS predominantly INDUSTRIAL?
Discussing death with my parents as the questions went deeper became hard (because of our recent lost) and emotional. The first things both my parents stated was that death is inevitable. This (&witnessing it) has helped me accept many aspects of life that we cannot avoid, and they are part of our animal experience. There is no point fighting something you cannot avoid. These thoughts have also help me deviate from sick thoughts such as the world’s current obsession with eternal youth externally. There intense desire to avoid what is inevitable. . . . . AGING, LEADING TO DEATH. Our people are so afraid and in denial of the one thing we have known for sure since the beginning of time, TIME ENDS. So they so seemingly try to fight the effects of time, but the ultimate effect is unavoidable (I hope forever, what will this world come to if people can live forever).
Something I did not touch upon in my interviews and we don’t seem to in class, is metal illness. I feel like metal illness is also something taboo in our culture because A. I am sure people would deny the claim B. our brains are very sacred. In our society people tend to talk about mental illness with uncertainty, AND WE SHUNN the mentally ill. We either make fun of them, send them to institutes, and we consider them unfit for commonplace in our society. I mean mental illness such as schizophrenia to one to many chromosomes.
After interviewing I had this odd sense of not being an independent thinker. All my beliefs on death and illness are the same as my parents; If I were raised Republican and Capitalist and fit the "NORMAL"/dominant belief of Americans would I whole heartily agree with what my parents believed? I feel I question a lot of things and am intuitive, intelligent, confident, outspoken, because OF MY PARENTS. So if it weren’t for them, would I be the same deep down inside and still find a liberal way of life?
The first question asked was by my Pops, because my first one was knowingly too general for a response. He asked "Should people who are terminally ill, be allowed to end there own life?" His answer was YES ABSOLUTLEY, and they should be supported by the government, family and with the medical assistance needed. (I agree, which I am not going to state further because it will be redundant.) This clearly exemplifies our chained society, which seems to be different groups of herds that follow one ignoranous ideas and deem them as normal. This in its self is WEIRD, relative to normal. (Even though I no longer like the term weird because it is stating that something is not right because it differentiates from the norm.) HOW IS SOMEONE NOT FIT OF DETERMINING WHEN THERE LIFE SHOULD END, IT IS THEIR'Sdea AND NO ONE ELSES! We come into this world alone (even though aided by a woman), and shall leave it alone (possibly aided by other energy). Capitalist constantly set normal’s to there advantage so the herds try to conform to the labels and in doing so facilitate their goals, such as health insurance, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies.
In my family we would love to go to a holistic doctor, but the harsh reality is WE CANNOT AFFORD IT. So we go to dominantly considered normal (health insurance covered) doctors to do general "les analyses"(in the words of my mother because when the interview was conducted in English she would respond with "quoi?"). In order to make sure there are no tumors in our chest or mercury in our blood, and from there we do what we can with home-remedies (holistic methods). I have never been vaccinated and my mother treats me for the most part with homeopathic. Why? She says because she feared to many chemicals in body, whether it was the right choice she doesn’t know. We will see, but I think she did.
My father is thankful for the advances in Medicine in his lifetime and over the past few hundred years, because a while ago he would be considered very old, and near death (age51). Also because he has the medical condition of Arthritis (he’s got it bad too!) and without the Medical advances they have made he would be constant pain. He would be shunned from society because in our industrial world (he only has a high school education) he would have no place. This and penicillin (and I am guessing his anti-depressants, even though I think we should look into alternatives besides alcohol) are why he likes the allopathic system. I wonder if inventions such as penicillin have made us weaker as a race (people who use them) because it is a way to escape pain and if you have to deal with this pain it builds a callous. What he doesn’t like about the system is that it is distant from human nurturing. It shuns others approaches, it is embraced and supported by the capitalist system making it about profit and control and appeasing of the people, besides the scientist truly seeking to cure the maladies. I think this exemplifies the INSANITY and abnormality of our society that the healing of the mind and human body IS predominantly INDUSTRIAL?
Discussing death with my parents as the questions went deeper became hard (because of our recent lost) and emotional. The first things both my parents stated was that death is inevitable. This (&witnessing it) has helped me accept many aspects of life that we cannot avoid, and they are part of our animal experience. There is no point fighting something you cannot avoid. These thoughts have also help me deviate from sick thoughts such as the world’s current obsession with eternal youth externally. There intense desire to avoid what is inevitable. . . . . AGING, LEADING TO DEATH. Our people are so afraid and in denial of the one thing we have known for sure since the beginning of time, TIME ENDS. So they so seemingly try to fight the effects of time, but the ultimate effect is unavoidable (I hope forever, what will this world come to if people can live forever).
Something I did not touch upon in my interviews and we don’t seem to in class, is metal illness. I feel like metal illness is also something taboo in our culture because A. I am sure people would deny the claim B. our brains are very sacred. In our society people tend to talk about mental illness with uncertainty, AND WE SHUNN the mentally ill. We either make fun of them, send them to institutes, and we consider them unfit for commonplace in our society. I mean mental illness such as schizophrenia to one to many chromosomes.
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