I live in a physician-centric world so my frame of reference will likely be different than yours. I agree with what you say about some public hospitals. VA hospitals are some of the worse. The Walter Reed embarassment is still fresh in my mind.
I know of shootings inside hospitals in DC (actually inside the OR) so I know what you say about the violence extant in some hospitals.
My biggest concern (the GAO as well) about private hospitals is not in the staff or necessarily the physicians, it is management and concomitant waste. Who do you think actually pays for it? A hospital should not make a profit, if at the end of the day all costs have been accounted for then that's fine. How many nurses or lab techs equal the salary of one CEO? I know the answer but then again, I've seen the exact figures. Who else has? If the argument is proffered that without a motive for profit there will be no more hospital construction, I would remind those who make such contentions that there will always be a need for the greater good and the tax breaks in medically underserved areas ameliorate any such concerns.

If that doesn't work, just build a Starbucks in the lobby.

Day 174

One is never enough.

Day 175!

We're with you in spirit.

Hellll yeah!!!

Not so sure, but I've had a few appointments lately, and compared to Quebec's Medical services (where they have no time to see you even if you waited 6 hours), I feel like sometimes they do a little more than necessary. Ok they want to cover their bases and avoid any lawsuit, and ok it's not a bad thing for the patient, but still...

On Sunday I got bit by a cat at work, and because his teeth cut through my skin, I had to go to the treatment center. Here's what they did:

- cleaned the wound
- flushed with 1000 mls of saline (It's a tiny hole, deep, but nonetheless small and the saline was just flowing on my fingers)
- 3 different views of X-rays of my hand (to make sure there is no pieces of tooth)
- Tetanus shot (even if I was current with a shot in 2002, they say the more the merrier)
- 10 days of Antibiotiques (which was the ONLY reason why i went to the treatment center....)

So do I believe that they are trying to make $$$$ ? Kinda

You're right Mephys. When bro' was doing residency first thing he learned was just do the tests, for legal reasons do the tests regardless if they are indicated or not. Animals have really dirty mouths, almost as bad as human mouth. Sad but true.

Well, I can say a couple of things about that...

1. I got a bad blister while in Canada the first time I was there, so I had no choice but to see a doctor at a clinic. He opened it up, cleaned it with silver, gave me a tetanus shot, and medication. Perhaps he didn't make me do any tests like x-rays, but they didn't have those available at the clinic either (from what I could tell, if they did, he would've done it). All of this was performed by the so-called "always wonderful, never bad, government-run Canadian healthcare system that doesn't perform unncessary tests" too. Go figure.

2. From the studies I've seen in recent years, it's a myth to say that the mouths of animals are cleaner than human mouths. That doesn't mean you'd want to get bitten by either, but let's look at this logically. Animals lick their genitals, their rears, and anything they tend to see. Humans, on the other hand, generally don't do this (at least quite as often) and most of hopefully brush our teeth, floss and use mouthwash. I'd have to say, just off-hand, that the average human mouth is probably a little cleaner than the average animal mouth.

Yeah, especially as we get older. We're just not as limber as we used to be.

ahhhhhhhhhhh

Okay, I am SICK TO DEATH of those little tiny flies!!!! I mean.... seriously. WTF?!!!!!

Yeah I don't know what's up with that, I found a bunch of little moth/flies looking thing since last week and hubby says not to worry it's normal.....and I am freaking out cause I don't want to have moth in my stuff cause it happened to my mom when I was a kid and I was finding cocoons and caterpillars everwhere...


YIKES!

You live in Florida, so it can be humid there... so those tiny little flies might be "drain flies." Those generally surface when there's leftover organic matter in drains (makes sense, considering the name, right?). Unfortunately, your options are limited if this is the case. Regular extermination techniques won't work.

I've dealt with these f#ckers before and as far as I know, only several things manage to have any effect:
1. Fly paper (lots and lots of it; fly paper towers are especially useful).

2. Pouring bleach down the drains. Not too much, usually about two cups worth. This is best done at night before bed, since you have to let it sit for a while and not use the water. When you wake up in the morning, run the hot water through the drains hard and fast for a bit. You may need to repeat this several days in a row if the situation is bad.

3. A special organic matter-eating gel that can be poured down the drain. It's thick, so it'll need to be used carefully and washed out with hot water (like the bleach), but it might work better too. The downside is it tends to cost a lot more for a lot less in terms of liquid container size.

4. Your last option would be to set off "bug bombs" but in order to do this, you would either have to temporarily move most, if not all, of the furniture and important items out of the house/apartment or at least, cover them extremely well with thick plastic and tape. These "bug bombs" tend to plaster the entire area with a powder that's toxic to insects that gets over everything. It can be a real mess and a very tedious clean-up job, but if you have a serious infestation, it might be that or move.

One last thing I've noticed is that this problem only seems to surface when it starts getting warm outside (which usually happens around April here in Texas, and Florida has similar weather) and goes away as it starts getting colder. Unfortunately, that doesn't occur until about November or sometimes even December.

EDIT: My wife did find a "natural" way of killing the flies once (it involves making some sort of mixtures with household cooking items), but I can't remember the recipe. I'll have to find it again.

My non-humble opinion, which I tried to conceal for a couple of days since it is quite poignant and I tried to let my anger cool to no avail.
The health care "system" in the US is at best, a bad joke. We have had nothing but grief from the "professionals" who would look over Bren. Financial gain is the name of the game here; and I find that disgusting - screw the patient and show me the money. We have an excellent benefits package; but nonetheless the common attitude of 'docs' around this area is so arrogant and impersonal I want to cry. But at least we have insurance. I cannot but feel for all those who cannot possibly afford insurance, and hence have to get sicker and sicker and sicker, until yes, they're about to freaking die and THEN someone will 'kindly' see them. Inhumane. Freaking dogs are treated better at shelters than the working class and the poor at a "health care" facility.
end of vent... for now.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!!!!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!!!!

Jesus Mary and Joseph!!! I was just outside watering my potted plants. When I opened the sliding door to come back in, A FREAKING LIZARD RAN INSIDE!!!!!

I just stood there and went Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!!!!

Ran around after him for a bit. More Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhs!!!! (The neighbours were probably thinking I was crazy at this point.)

When I couldn't herd him out the door, I ran and got a container and chased him around with that for a while. Little ba$tard ran and hid under the furniture so I was pulling that stuff out into the middle of the living room with super-human strength. Thankfully I was finally able to corral him into a corner and scoop him into the container.

Jaysus.



Ohhhhhhhh. Okay, that makes sense. ( DRAIN flies?! Now I've heard everything. ) Thanks DeadPool. I'm going to try the bleach thing first. Sheesh. What a pain. Well, at least we don't have centipedes. Those things are NASTY.

and

Last night there was another one on the patio, Mike just picks them up and helps them escape out of the little opening in the screen (which we now have 'screen repair' for). I'm just sitting there thinking, i'm so glad he doesn't mind those lizardssssssssss.

This was the little lizard thing and not like a leg biting one right??

Oh and I was reading that as of March something people in Lake Mary have to drive to Orlando to apply for their SSN. Rats.

You mean there are LEG-biting lizards too?!!!!!!!!


OrLANDo?? Yeesh. That's a pain. There's got to be one in Sanford at least. I know the one here in my area is familiar with them. lol

I am seriously laughing so hard that I'm crying right now.

That little event reminded me of my wife when we were in Mexico and a lizard was by our hotel room door. She started getting all panicky about it coming inside the room. Having lived in Texas my whole life, lizards didn't bother me at all. The conversation went something like this:

[Me] "What's wrong?"

[Her] "That!"

[Me] "It's a lizard, so?" *goes to unlock the door*

[Her] "Wait! Don't do that! It might come in!"

[Me] I thought you weren't afraid of things like this...

[Her] Well... I'm not. So long as they stay outside. When they invade my living space, it's an entirely different matter."

[Me] "I see."

[Her] "Yeah."

[Me] "So what do you want me to do with it?"

[Her] "Get rid of it!"

[Me] "Okay." *shrugs and attempts to smash it*

[Her] *grabs DPX's arm*

[Me] "What?"

[Her] "Don't kill it."

[Me] "..."

And so on...

The one thing my wife really, really hates -- and is actually terrified of -- are centipedes. When she was briefly living in Ottawa with a few female roomates, the house she stayed in apparently had an infestation of "house centipedes." I've never seen these things in real life, but according to my wife, they are the "worst of a spider and a garden centipede combined" plus it moves extremely fast and climbs everywhere. The part that really freaked her out was that one night, one of those house centipedes decided to run across her face while she was in bed, drifting off to sleep (but not quite out cold).

Ever since then, she can't look at a centipede without practically getting sick. In addition, one of her requirements in choosing a place to live is "no house centipedes." She doesn't care if they're outside, but just so long as they don't come inside, she's fine. For the record, we don't get house centipedes in Houston, because they seem to like basements and you can't have basements in Houston. The ground is too soft (almost like New Orleans, but not quite as bad) and if there were basements, they would flood.

Seriously. Those things can SCOOT, man. Well, they have more legs than me, so I guess it's only natural.


OMG, a centipede across the face would FINISH me. Seriously. I'd be batting at imaginary stuff for years to come. They are horrid things. And did she tell you about killing them? Sometimes when you smash them you only get part of them. So the flat end will be stuck to the wall and the other end will still be running away. OMG. *shudder*

Animals tend to have more bacteriostatic factors in their saliva, except for the Komodo dragon and a few others that are mucho toxic. I'd like to think that most people who are likely to bite you believe in a modicum of oral hygiene especially after licking their genitals.

Speak for yourself.

Sorry, I realize it was a terrifying experience but when I read this I was laughing so hard, I nearly choked.

Lots of those "healers" here in Toronto too unfortunately. We at least have a safety net, unlike most places in the US. Oregon and Hawaii have rudimentary social nets in place but I'm not too familiar with the shortcomings. Been in a few animated discussions with conservative types about the front-end loading of healthcare resource allocation versus palliative, chronic and acute care model that is currently extant in the US. Let me assuage your fears by reassuring you that no furniture was upset during the discourse.

Sometimes your SO pisses you off so much you just want to scream!

*end vent*

What the heck kind of a vent is that?!! Where's all the gory details? Hmmph. Darned nice Canalien.... living up to expectations. sheesh

Did it have anything to do with the toilet seat, inquiring minds want to know.

nothing specific
just pushing my buttons and wanting to leave the house by myself and not see his face

so instead I decided to take a nice hot bath despite it being 72F or 22C by candlelight and brood by myself

Just as long as you didn't decide to Bobbittize Ollie.

nope
he gets nothing!

not even the gift of hearing my voice

Good move, if it's one thing men understand it's silence from their SO.

AAAAWWWW my baby girl is learning how to be a b1tch, just like me
I am so proud of you Liz I could

That's assuming the animal has been given a chance to let those bacteriostatic factors work and take effect. Let's just assume, for a moment, that Rex, the neighborhood pit bull, has decided one sunny afternoon that he absolutely must spend the next 20 minutes licking his genitals and then sniff another dog's anus. Rex is having a great day; in fact, he's having such a wonderful day, that when he happens to see a jogger pass by, he immediately leaves the dog whose rear-end he's been harassing and chases after the runner, catching up to him and chomping him on the leg.

Conventional wisdom would claim that Rex's mouth is cleaner than a human's (had a person decided to bite the jogger), but looking back at what had just transpired before the aforementioned bite, it might make sense to believe that the dog's mouth in this case is not that clean. Maybe a dog's mouth can clean itself faster than a human's mouth in the same given time frame (that much, I'd believe), but if a dog has been sticking his nose who-knows-where and licking-who-knows-what, it's highly unlikely anything you receive from that mouth and tongue will be very cleanly.


How do you know he's not enjoying the silence?

Just went and bought a vacuum at K-Mart, after 10 minutes the little wheel thing broke. darn.

Let's take a look at your scenario. Dog licks itself and sniffs a fellow dog's anus and then it bites you. The speed of propagation of bacteriostatic factors is faster in the dog since he has been licking himself for 20 minutes and, unless he suffers from xerostoma, there is plenty of saliva there. Dogs germs are bad for...dogs, not people. Dogs live in crap and so the enzymes in their mouth are much more attuned to the garbage they live in. Thus Rex doesn't get sick since his body kills off what could make it sick. Men don't live in such conditions and their mouths aren't attuned to oral flora of other men. Now if you have a clean man who gargles like Jerry Seinfeld, then I'd let him bite me. I'm still going to get a few anit-viral shots but if you have Henry Kissinger bite me then I'm going with broad spectrum prophylaxes. Human bites tend to be deeper and cat bites are the worst because of the bacterial cocktail (Pasteurella, etc.) and the penetrating power of the feline dentition. Humans tend to have Staph and Strep organisms. Staph Aureus in the bloodstream can cause inflammatory response in the heart, joints, etc., leading to all manner of difficulty. MRSA is new problem we have to deal with.

Having all this in mind, you should seek medical advice if the skin is broken (dog, cat human, camel?) and try to avoid people who bite.


That really sucks. WHich brand and model so we can avoid it.

Buy a Dyson! (Wow. Suddenly I feel like Flames. )

If you own a Dyson and you are boycotting cornbread AND you make sexist comments about female drivers.....you might be a flames.

I completely understand!!! Let's scream together now!!!

My hubby is generally a wonderful guy (see mushy anniversary post) ... but on Sunday, I wanted to kill him. His housekeeping standards and mine do not match. Not usually a problem, he cleans as best he can and then I finish up. However, I went to put groceries away on Sunday and realized how disgustingly dirty our fridge was. And I moved the condiments to make room for salad dressing and realized that the kind of mustard HE uses apparently spilled a really long time ago and was caked on to the shelf. So I decided to give the fridge a nice cleaning. I am killing myself to scrub everything, pretty uncomfortable at times since my 8 months pregnant body does NOT like to be on my hands and knees scrubbing. So, the hubby wanders in, sees what I am doing and comments, honey don't hurt yourself, it can wait, it doesn't need to be done now. So I ask him, okay would YOU like to do it? NOPE! He just wants me to not be in pain. ARGH! I think my body wants to be nesting and because our future bedroom is a construction zone, all of the furniture is piled into the nursery, which I have not been able to do a thing in. So all I have now is cleaning, can't fix up either room. And hubby will be a dead man if he does not finish at least our bedroom before the baby comes. Of course, no pressure ... I am only due in 5 weeks!!!!!

Well I hope the person that was familiar with them moved to the office in Orlando because as of last month that is the only place in the area that is handling them. (popped in to the local office today and the guy gave us the application and a map to the place in Orlando - btw he looked jumpy like the woman at the bank yesterday, these people need to cut down on their coffee consumption) darn. !!!!

Oh and I don't think they have leg biting lizards, but i've only been here 2 days so I wouldn't bet any money on that

Unfortunately enlightened Hubby's testosterone kicked in. My best piece of advice is to leave the cleaning of the fridge, not to hurt yourself because it can wait. Hubby will probably finish the nursery two minutes before your water breaks.

never mind.

Apparently people bought monitors (large carnivorous lizards, smaller ones can break your leg with a tail whip, the largest one, the Komodo Dragon, can eat you ) and released them into the Floridian ecosystem. Don't worry too much though they mostly eat piranhas (also in the waterways of the Sunshine State) and the odd alligator (small ones) as well anything else they find. Have a pleasant evening.

made me laugh OUT LOUD

Too funny!!
I do love my Dysons!! bed bath & Beyone always has those 20% off coupons! I used that when I bought my Dyson!! And I have done a test with my dyson!! My brother in law lives inthe same condo complex. So when he was gone I vacuumed his place with his hoover vacuum. Took my time and made sure it had picked up what it could. THEN i brought over my Dyson, and WOW it picked up soo much more dirt/debris!! The only crappy thing about the Dyson and any other cannister typer vacuum is when u goto dump out the collected debris!! But on the other hand, ur not paying for bags! had ours for over a year now and still does a great job. Well worth the $$$$ BUT if ur a chick, please do th epublic a favor, and allow ur husband to drive to the store to purchase the vacuum! lol

Oh ya,----I'm in the wrong business!! My AC wasnt working---more specifically my heat pump!! So I called a company--Mr.Heat Pump,lol very professional, nice guy, answered all my questions, so that part was great, can't complain and give the guy a 10/10, BUT he only did like 5 minutes of work, and was charged $140 for labor,lol Its $95 just for them to show up, and thats only for 30 minutes, think its $45 for every 30 minutes after that!! As soon as he took off the cover plate on the heat pump unit, he saw the problem, the Ocapacitator was fried!! But he didnt have 1 with him, so he had to drive a mile to the office and pick another up! Then simply plug in the new one! that part was $125!! It actually took him longer to write up the bill than the actual work,lol THEN he tries to sell ya one a service agreement. For $300 a year, one gets two visits to check out ur heat pump and furnace and 10% off parts!! And off course that would be on top of the $260 I just forked out,, hmmm don't think so! My units fairly new and dont plan on being here much longer. Not sure what other companies would have charged, but the few I did phone said it was in the $100 range just to show up!! Guess I shouldn't complain to much, the fellow was very nice. Would I use them again, probably yes. So is this really a vent? sort of,lol

OHMYGOD, Autumn! WE HAVE THE SAME HUSBAND!!!!! Oooooooooooooooo, I'm getting angry just thinking about it!








Or you could have been like my husband and think you can fix it yourself, cause a major disaster, and end up forking out bigger bucks than if you'd just let the guy who knows what he's doing fix it.

Wait a second... so that's a bad response? I'll have to remember that if and when my wife is ever in a situation like that. Because the way Autumnchik's husband handled that seemed okay to me.

Didn't you know, all machines are female and now the Gods of Feminism are making you pay for your sexist comments.