SuperSatellite

Philosophical Conundrum

// January 6th, 2009 // 8 Comments » // Buddhism, Health

Well, really, it isn’t a conundrum.  I’m just being bad, and I know it.  But I need some kind of guidance, or another sensible voice to chime in and help me along.  My problem is simple: drugs.  I’m not saying I’m a crack addict or anything, it’s nothing like that.  It’s a very basic, simple conflict of principle that I’m wrestling with.  Let me elaborate.

photo by sissyboystud

For the past several years, I’ve fought back pain.  The past couple years have been worse than normal.  Worse to the point that I’ve started having trouble managing it.  It’s slowing me down, limiting my activities, affecting my mood, and disrupting my sleep.  Late last year I flexed my job benefits and broke down enough to see a doctor.  I don’t see doctors.  I can only recollect one other time I’ve gone for a problem, when I got a throat infection about three years ago.  The doctor was fairly helpful, and among other things, prescribed a pain killer.  Hydrocodone.  It worked great.  While it obviously does nothing to fix the problem, it numbed the pain, helped me sleep, and generally allowed me to gather myself.  I am not addicted (so far), let me be clear about that.  That’s not the issue.

The issue is Buddhism.  When I decided this was clearly the right thing for me, I really tried to subscribe to it through and through.  This was about three or four years ago, and I’ve been more successful in some areas than others.  I never did drugs or anything before that, but I did drink.  I was young, and generally that’s what guys do when you’re young and get together.  Since then, I’ve not touched alcohol.  It was tough at first, now it’s not an issue, sort of.  I say sort of because the pain lately had me literally on the edge of saying screw it, getting drunk would be preferable to the pain.  That scared me.  The fact that I was nearly willing to throw away a principle that I have given myself to so thoroughly was part of what got me to the doctor.

So now here I am, taking hydrocodone.  The conflict arises from the principle that Buddhists abstain from mind altering substances.  Some people even argue that one should avoid things like caffiene.  The mind, above all, is to be cherished.  Cultivating good mindfulness is paramount to the religion, as that is the path to Truth and nirvana.  I know that ultimately I shouldn’t take these on that premise.  A prescription drug is no different from an illicit one just because it’s legal, they both have equal power to take control of your mind away from you.  But if I don’t, I’m in pain, and that on it’s own is “mind altering,” in my opinion.  When pain so totally affects your life, it’s hard to see through clearly, and I’m nowhere near having meditation techniques that can block it out.  I can offer a million rationalizations, and I know that none of them stand.  The fact is that I feel guilty about the whole situation.

I’m not sure what I need.  I want someone to tell me that I’m making the right choice, but that might not be what I actually need.  The fact is, I’m pretty sure I’m wrong, but I’m afraid of the alternative.  Suffering is a base principle of Buddhism, and I am dealing with it in a very basic fashion: physical suffering.  I feel like I need guidance for this issue, because the whole situation has left me unable to get my bearings and find the right path.  I’ve lost my mindfulness, and as a result feel exposed and unarmored, and it’s that kind of sign that tells me I’m making poor choices on this matter.  I know this might sound silly to a lot of people, you’ll just say “Take the pills if they make you feel better, and work on getting better.”  But for 96% of Americans, their religion doesn’t really get in the way of this kind of treatment.  So help me, guide me.

The Waiting Game

// September 9th, 2008 // No Comments » // Brain dumps, Health, Life and Times, Politics

After years of putting up with it, I finally went to see an honest to god real doctor about my back pain.  The past couple weeks have been pretty bad for me, and the places that the pain is affecting seems to be on the rise.  Anyway, I got in to him last week after yet another problem, and was looked over.  At first, I had to overcome the “is this person just trying to talk their way into some pain killers to feed a habit” suspicion.  When he hit my right knee with the little hammer, and the leg didn’t move, that seemed to put that to rest.  To me, that didn’t seem like a big deal, but apparently it was a concern to him.

The result was an MRI of my lumbar spine Friday, which I am awaiting the results on, and doses of Amrix and hydrocodone.  I love hydrocodone.  I love it because it works and it only costs me $1.97 a bottle.  I may not make what I’m worth dollar-wise working for the university, but the insurance is nice (though I’m still a little worried about the MRI bill).  In fact, I don’t even care so much if I get addicted to the damn pills, so long as they keep the pain away.  I’m expecting my results to probably direct me into physical therapy as a first step.  I’ll probably know today or tomorrow.

On some miscellaneous notes: production meetings have started for The Uninvited.  Show dates are October 30h-November 1st at Memorial Auditorium.  Mark it down.

I made some changes over at Penpedia yesterday.  On posts that come in from RSS feeds, I’m now only bringing in a summary, and the disclaimer is being tucked away with jQuery so that once you know it’s there, it doesn’t have to be in the way of your reading.  I didn’t want to look like a spammer, or get accused of stealing other people’s content and/or traffic by syndicating whole posts, I felt it to be a little impolite.

Anyone else tired of all the bullshit political banter yet?  Left, right, I don’t care. If you’re a politician, I just automatically assume you’re lying, so stop trying to convince me of crap in the past.  Just tell me straight up how you’re going to handle things now.

I bought donuts the other morning for breakfast, because I was feeling saucy.  Three glazed donuts now cost over two bucks!  I remember when you could get three plain ol’ donuts for under a dollar.  This economy makes me sad.  And you know as well as I do that we’ll NEVER see those kinds of prices again.  Oil costs have dropped nearly $40 from their peak, yet gas costs are only down 10%.  How stupid are people to not get up in arms over this?

Energy Drink Deathification

// August 18th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Health, Life and Times, Reviews

I made a mistake this weekend.  I volunteered to join Steve on his journey to find the worst energy drinks on the market.  I thought it’d be funny, especially when we found a NASCAR inspired yellow can called Turn Left at Big Lots for seventy cents.  As it turns out, it isn’t funny.  It’s painful and tragic.  Steve seems to think Steven Segal’s Lightning Bolt is still worse.  If there’s a drink worse than Turn Left, then there is clearly no god.  Here’s test number one:

Yes, I threw up in the sink.  It was like drinking a 9 volt battery.  It tingled and burned and was completely incompatible with human digestive processes.  In an attempt to wash away the pain, I continued on to Red Thunder.  Red Thunder is not red.  It is not red-toned.  It is not red in even the most remotest sense of the word.  It’s fluorescent yellow.  If we’d turned out the lights it probably would have glowed.

Ultimately, I couldn’t finish either can.  There is no process of logic that leads me to understand how someone can make these drinks and decide that they are fit to market and sell.  I’d use them to strip carbuerators before I’d let people drink them.  This stuff left me feeling like crap the rest of the night, like organs in my body were trying to flee in protest.

How far can I go?

// January 25th, 2008 // No Comments » // Health, Travel

Well, I think I might be crazy. And not that good kind of crazy anymore. The bad kind that results in additional badness for me. Luckily it’s localized crazy, so I don’t think it would really affect any of you. I’ve been eyeballing the local summer bike tours (BAK, OKFreewheel). Again. I have done both, but haven’t done one since…2004? That sounds about right. I’ve been both too injured and too out of shape (more the former) to manage getting back into one of them since then.  But I’ve really been iching to get back on the road, and every year I kick back and wait for them to announce routes and think about making the trip.  I almost managed it last year, but other travel ended up taking precedent.

So what’s different about this year? Absolutely nothing. In fact, my back is probably worse now than it’s been for a while. But I have a need to prove to myself I can fight through it. In fact, I know I can. That’s not what worries me. What worries me is what I’ll be like after the fight. Ideally, if I train for the next 6 months, I should be great. Hell, the first time I did it, I had no training besides one 30 mile ride under my belt (and that hurt like a mother). But I’m not even really sure I can get through training without coming away worse off than I am now. And the longer I wait, the harder it will be.  But I hate giving up something I enjoy so much. Besides, the rides are just plain fun. Get out for a week, ride in the open air. Be out away from the cities. Relax in the evenings.

OKFreewheel is both the shorter and cheaper of the two rides. BAK is a little better supported in my opinion, but I don’t like where it’s ending this year (about as far north and east as you can possibly get in this state). They’re both at the same time too, so it can’t be both anyway, I’d have to choose one or the other. I think I need someone to talk me out of it though. Either that, or convince me I absolutely should do it. Otherwise it’ll probably just pass me by, and I’ll be frustrated with my inability to commit to it, one way or another.  Odds are it would end up being really good for me. I’ve just lost the confidence that I need, and part of me thinks I’m better off for it, that I should just stick to shorter, low impact stuff.  I haven’t done more than 15 miles in one ride in about two years, which is pretty terrible.  I did try the Gorilla Century about 3 years ago, but had to drop out about 60 miles in after the pain got too bad to fight through.

Screw it, I’m just gonna make the call.  Unless the registration fees are outrageous, or I can’t get transportation arranged, I’m just gonna do it.  Training starts tomorrow.  That will settle that.  How’s that for sudden decision making?

MedFICO: The Doctor Can Screw You Now

// January 19th, 2008 // 3 Comments » // Health, Life and Times

I woke up this morning from a good night’s sleep, and promptly saw a nightmare. MSNBC is reporting on a new project of the credit industry called “MedFICO.” Go read the article, I’ll wait for you.

Okay. So, I saw this over on Slashdot this morning. If you ever read stuff over there, I am sure you can imagine the discussion that is taking place over the whole thing. I am going to chose to ignore the part of the article that says the scores would be designed to be used only after a patient is given treatment. I do this for these reasons: there are followups, as mentioned, which could be negatively impacted, people will always screw stuff up, and there is no precedent to believe that such a score couldn’t and wouldn’t be abused. Just look at normal credit scores. Hell, landlords these days will do credit checks on people. Why? If they don’t pay, you kick them out. It’s worked for decades. Their credit has nothing to even do with it. It is inevitable that such a score would be used for unscrupulous and unintended reasons reasons. That is what happens with a system desiged to mine private people’s information and sell it to the highest bidder.

Imagine, someone goes to the ER, and gets treated. Hospital bills them and then checks the person’s MedFICO score, and finds out that they are a high risk. The person comes in for a followup, and they are gently “referred” to a non-network health group. If you don’t think that wouldn’t happen, you are clueless as to how the country works. Worse yet, they come in for a follow up, and are quietly assigned a lower priority, and end up sitting for hours waiting while the good scored people go ahead of them. A 15 minute appointment now takes three hours.

The fact that healthcare is in any way tied to a profit margin is the scariest damn thing in the world. Need an MRI? Go ask what it costs. They won’t tell you. Why? Because different people get different prices based on if they have insurance or not. So they will inflate prices by hundreds of percent to cover insurance “processing” fees. It’s gross. People are a consumable commodity for the industry, something to be milked. It’s not about actually helping them (at least, maybe it is to some doctors), because the administrators and support services have one goal: make investors happy. That’s who’s important.

“But Michael, socialized healthcare isn’t any good!” Really? That’s news to me, and Canadians, and most of Europe, and Australians. “B-b-but Michael, the taxes!” Yeah, sucks huh? Tough. You’ll appreciate it that month you’re between jobs without health insurance and are diagnosed with cancer. And that’s not to say that there isn’t a happy medium between socialized and free market health care. But look, we have socialized fire protection, law enforcement, why draw the line there? Why the push back on health? Why are the former two okay, and the latter some crazy taboo? If you screw around, cost those departments unacceptable amounts, there are ways that you can be found culpable for the bill. I’m sure the same could be done in health care. Frankly, I can’t figure out how what they want to do isn’t a violation of HIPAA. My medical billing records are as private as any charts in my opinion.

And so many people think that because doctors come out with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt from school, that somehow gives them a pass on charging high amounts. Pardon the language, but that’s bullshit. The fact that schools charge so much is not the patients’ fault. It’s a problem with the system. The fact that insurance companies and HMOs are there to make money, forcing inflated costs, and not care for people isn’t my fault. The system is dangerous, and it will chew you up, and spit you out, make no mistake about it. That isn’t the burden of the patient though, and so many people accept that it apparently is! We are caught in a cross fire, and unfortunately neither side of the system sees the other, they just see us. This is true in so many other places as well. This is how capitalism fails. Money cannot and should not ever be put ahead of the moral fabric of society. When it is what we have now is the result, and there’s a lot of room for it to get worse.
Don’t worry, the first time someone is denied, or receives second rate health care because of this, it will come under serious fire. And it will happen, have no doubt. The more that you dehumanize a field like health care, the worse that speaks to us as a society.

What would House say?