What would you do to manage a health condition?
Welcome to Wondercafe2!
A community where we discuss, share, and have some fun together. Join today and become a part of it!
The OP asks “what would you do to look after your health”? I was not aware that it has to stay about chemgal’s specific dilemma.
Obviously the question follows “what wouldn’t you do”, or even “what can’t you do because help’s not available for that”. If they are now calling assisted death a “health care option”, it seems fair to also bring it up. It needs to be seen in the context of its dangers. It needs to. If discussion about it is not allowed out of its own box...then how does it help people like a Roger Foley look after his health? Roger Foley, to look after his health, would obviously stay in hospital for 3 years in protest because he’s afraid of the other options they’ve given to him and has had a UN Rapporteur intervene in his case. UN Rapporteurs don’t really just come by and intervene all the time. It has to be a big deal. I’m proud of Roger Foley for fighting the good fight the way he did, in order that his health be looked after, and awareness be raised over disability rights as human rights so others health can be looked after too.
Obviously the question follows “what wouldn’t you do”, or even “what can’t you do because help’s not available for that”. If they are now calling assisted death a “health care option”, it seems fair to also bring it up. It needs to be seen in the context of its dangers. It needs to. If discussion about it is not allowed out of its own box...then how does it help people like a Roger Foley look after his health? Roger Foley, to look after his health, would obviously stay in hospital for 3 years in protest because he’s afraid of the other options they’ve given to him and has had a UN Rapporteur intervene in his case. UN Rapporteurs don’t really just come by and intervene all the time. It has to be a big deal. I’m proud of Roger Foley for fighting the good fight the way he did, in order that his health be looked after, and awareness be raised over disability rights as human rights so others health can be looked after too.
The hospital social worker was pretty useless when my (ex) husband was in hospital for weeks. His lung collapsed and he nearly died in late 2014 from aspiration pneumonia he didn’t know he had (he barely had a cough, we had both had lingering colds and his main complaint was back pain - a walk in GP had said he injured his back from his labouring job- until the night his lung collapsed). It was determined that his pneumonia was caused by aspiration of an unlikely bacteria which they had a hard time finding - which likely happened during his seizures..which he wasn’t well enough medicated for and didn’t want to realize after years and years how serious they were, and tended to exist on a loop with his mental health which he was resistant to addressing with his own doctor. All the SW did was give him the forms for EI - actually to me to help him fill out - and a list of employment services which used to be my field and he was already seeing one. She certainly could’ve done more. I could print off those forms. Anyone could. I told her about his earlier stay years before and his mental health not being addressed in the bigger picture. I wanted them to look at his files from a different visit because it’s all connected to his own awareness of his condition. If he had to be there for weeks anyway, waiting for surgery while his chest cavity was being drained there was time to look at the “whole” of him. Feeling determined to help put the pieces together, I actually went over to the department where he’d been years before...and I asked if there could be some kind of coordination. Whoever I talked to there said I need to talk to a SW. I did tell the SW the same thing but I felt like she thought I was just annoying. Fortunately, I think the teaching doctor who saw my husband with a couple of students picked up that there was a mental health issue and he was not being properly medicated for all of it. (The medication he took was an old, less effective medication that could actually exacerbate his mental health issues. So could seizures.) And he was going to try to get him switched over and stabilized on new meds while he was there if he could find a neurologist to come by. That didn’t happen. He wanted to go home, they wanted to expedite his surgery and get him out of there...both understandable. He was set up with a community health nurse for outpatient IVs. I think, somehow, word got around because she knew quite a bit about him. I guess he had a file already for his other issues or...I don’t know. He never bothered to switch medications, though. He was afraid to and his GP was useless too. After 12 years his doctor couldn’t recognize that having a grand mal every 3 weeks (at the shortest intervals, sometimes twice a week and not again for a couple of months... but normally every 4-8 weeks), should not be happening. The doc in the hospital said “There are better drugs. That should not be happening!” His GP didn’t read the memo apparently.
Oddly enough, he is in Europe and getting the newer more expensive drugs for free - they discontinued the ones he’d been taking about 10 or more years previously in that country - and they also help with his other condition...they are also used for that. So...his health care is better in a little Central European country, than it is here. Turns out he is better off there right now, because he may never have gotten better help here.
Last edited:
We talk. He’s had two seizures in three years, now. Once because he was between meds when he first went back there. And once because he forgot to take them. The latest one a few months ago shocked and upset him because he thought he was “healed”. It happened in a cafe he frequents, with some male friends, some guy he knows or something, witnessing it - they called an ambulance - and he was embarrassed, and that’s when he decided it’s serious. It would normally happen between sleep cycles so rarely when he was out and about...and I was the one who witnessed most of them. (His GP in Vancouver had misled him into believing that his epilepsy could heal on its own which may have been seen as a possibility right after the first one but not after 15 years - he hung onto that belief and to the denial every time another seizure occurred.) He now sets an alarm and understands that’s really important to keep him stable and healthy. He’s doing better there than in Canada, which doesn’t say much for our system.
Last edited:
He had dozens of seizures he didn’t have to have, which further exacerbated other problems ...and several of those I watched over many years, and never got over my fear reaction to them completely (they are pretty indelible memories)...and when he came to he never took them seriously, and that that was partly a function of his mental health issues...and because he wasn’t looked at as a whole by the professionals in our system. That really makes me sad...how things could’ve turned out better for him and for us. I’m glad he’s safer from medical harm now and doing better.
Last edited:
BetteTheRed
Resident Heretic
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Her
I had sort of understood he was bipolar; he also had a seizure disorder? Wow; that could make meds/treatment pretty complex. The Canadian system doesn't do that well (I can tell horror stories of bipolar, kidney failure due to lithium: a perfect storm of old age drugs and mental illness).
Carolla
wondering & wandering
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Her
Mental health issues and physical issues - indeed complex Bette - and often social issues accompany that sort of situation also. That's what I spent most of my career dealing with - you are right that the system often doesn't manage well with those complexities.
Yep. The mental health issues came first - they didn’t have a name for it until later - then the virus that caused encephalitis that led to scarring that led to seizures. Both of these things hurt his pride and were hard for him to accept. Somehow I think if he’d been given proper medication all those years that might not have been the case.
But authorities can't be wrong ... that would be just too painful and destroy the upper rungs ...
Some digging may be helpful in finding details!
BetteTheRed
Resident Heretic
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Her
"Proper" medication for bipolar disorder is usually lithium plus other psychotropic drugs. None of them are much fun. Lithium destroys your kidneys, ultimately, and once you're off the lithium, things get really interesting. Or they just drug you to within an inch of consciousness, so you won't bite someone, or slit your own wrists.
His was not that severe. It manifested in high risk behaviour like gambling, impulsivity like walking off jobs and grandiosity ...and delusional thinking like he would decide he was going to go on Poker Stars and be a poker pro, or somebody famous. Pot was a big no no as it is for most with bipolar.
BetteTheRed
Resident Heretic
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Her
What 'pot' is bad for is those mental illnesses, like bipolar 'mania', schizophrenia, with a 'psychosis component', that is, a break from reality as others perceive it. In these cases, any potential hallucinogenic is just going to confuse any attempts to attain 'normal' perception.
Right - that component though, would come out with pot. Instead of winding down after an hour and nodding off he would go up and up and keep escalating until he may as well have been on acid talking to God.. Or conversations with himself.He could be "high" for days after a few puffs. He got disoriented, and just really intense but nonsensical thought gibberish - vocally - and it was not pleasant to be around. A bit hotheaded... Or he'd have a really immature freak out announcing how stoned he was to everyone around. He's 6' 3 And so it was just a big no. And I stayed away from it for years in his defence.
Last edited:
BetteTheRed
Resident Heretic
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Her
Agreed. The thought of my mother, when manic, on any sort of hallucinogenic drug, is very unpleasant. Potential alcoholics should also probably never have their first drink. Life comes with risk, especially for those of us born imperfect.
It was like weed took him from hypomania that wasn't easy to read...to full blown mania.
But he was a ton of fun, really smart, charming, hardworking, and a big puppy dog at his best.
But he was a ton of fun, really smart, charming, hardworking, and a big puppy dog at his best.
Last edited:
@BetteTheRed
www.webmd.com
Anticonvulsant Medication for Bipolar Disorder
Anticonvulsant drugs, typically taken for epilepsy, are increasingly being used as mood stabilizers in people with bipolar disorder. Learn more from WebMD about breakthroughs in understanding how this medication works.
www.webmd.com
So he just really got hit with an unfortunate double whammy that was never looked after properly here. Partly because he didn't advocate for himself to his doctor (I tried once or twice but felt like I was meddling - a couple of times I gave him a list of questions which he wrote on the back of that all my ex needs to do is go to bed at regular times, no alcohol or coffee, balanced diet and his (outdated) meds. Well, try telling a thirty to young minded 40 something spirited guy that he shouldn't have a couple of beers with his friends - when that's what friends from his culture do right into their senior years, they are quite social - or say he should go to bed early or not drink coffee or never smoke pot when every single person he knew in Vancouver smokes pot occassionally...to take coffee away would be depriving him of one of his very favourite things. Also his friends stigmatized mental illness. They didn't really believe in it. That was an uphill battle for me to have moral support to support him. I was the bad guy - too nagging. They never said it but I think they thought it.
So, though he depended on me to look out for him - I can't be "parenting" an adult (and shouldn't have tried to). It would just end in argument.
What he needed were the good drugs to keep a lid on the brain activity to a normal "baseline" (useful word) so he could enjoy life and not worry that the occasion couple or three drinks or his beloved coffee - or staying up too late once in awhile - would not trigger seizures or manic bipolar episodes (and occasional depression). I certainly couldn't babysit him and he'd end up resenting it anyway. He's an intelligent adult man. But it was also very difficult to live with always anticipating problems while he was in denial...some of them very distressing for me.
Anyway he seems to be doing much better now - health is stable, he's employed, he made some new friends. I still love him. But c'est la vie.
So, though he depended on me to look out for him - I can't be "parenting" an adult (and shouldn't have tried to). It would just end in argument.
What he needed were the good drugs to keep a lid on the brain activity to a normal "baseline" (useful word) so he could enjoy life and not worry that the occasion couple or three drinks or his beloved coffee - or staying up too late once in awhile - would not trigger seizures or manic bipolar episodes (and occasional depression). I certainly couldn't babysit him and he'd end up resenting it anyway. He's an intelligent adult man. But it was also very difficult to live with always anticipating problems while he was in denial...some of them very distressing for me.
Anyway he seems to be doing much better now - health is stable, he's employed, he made some new friends. I still love him. But c'est la vie.
Last edited:
When suffering illness it is best to provide comfort ... even to avoid further injury. Ontological concerns are something to question profoundly!
I have some condition that medical science doesn't know about and perhaps deny. It includes avoidance of a lot of pharmaceuticals ... a difficult cognizance to those that believe they have a pill for anything that ails Yah!
Some of these drugs are endogenous ... of the endocrine system. Many drugs are of cortisone nature ... and then depending on the particular structure in an individual can turn up as agonist, antagonist of inverse antagonist nature ... as words these conditions are poorly understood! Sometimes in the fabrication as protagonist!
The medical world seems baffled that I cannot tolerate many pharmaceuticals ... and have pushed me over the boundaries several times. These include simple things like natural eprine and other phenols like the turps! It is pure alchemi in the sense of psyche intoxication ... think: Fisherman's Friends and Tea tree Oil and the spread of knowledge that can be abusive! Think Suda*ed and Chlorotrips ... for some people to use these words is to bring on libel! It suggest responsibility for what is done ... if self regulating society ... are your free to deny it? What can be gathered from that?
Do vegetables affect the mental/emotional enigma?
I attended a bioethics course as auditing, at the request of the presenter who was an old acquaintance. I met a forestry graduate form the 60 -70's era that spent his whole career studying vegetation for a pharmaceutical business. We were considered oddities in the course due to our practical experience that reached beyond accademia. The Prof. wanted us in the course ... but didn't like us to contribute practical experiences ... his regular candidates didn't receive what we commented on ... shall we say in a friendly way as the complexity overwhelmed them.
Should we accept complexity, or just cut it out to standardise ... accademia?
There is that old adage: "do no harm!" Try as we will ... does what we "don't know" interfere with what we'd like to cure with a pill?
Baseline is ... "do what you will with great care and caution!" Does authority handle such old aphorism well? I plainly express uncertainty flat out while others follow stringent lines.
I went into depression due to some of the prescriptions that were in truth contradictory to my unassumed condition (conditions they were unaware of). Now I question all things and things of insubstantial nature of import to authority ... it appears to be biblical. But those that accept the accademia of theological texts would limit that! "Don;t go there!" Such is the nature of insubstantial manna of items about us ... like Sophi-ah! It may be wise to continue on ... neigh misses! Almost got it!
Some friction occurred in courses where the teacher informed the students that they were experts and should behave as one ... where the academic side was quite devoid in what more was out there ... beyond limits of certainty! Still we teach authority ... and thus humiliating failures ... nemesis? It is almost like we have a death wish ... when some of us just sense a whiff of being about to get beyond religious fixation.
Imagine being out there as a stretch of absolutes ... thus deteriorating stones ... stoic downfall as ... fallacy of logic? One must read into it with some depth beyond the point of nothing ... an opposite charge to Electa (photon) as opposing protozoa ... the zoa'n of disruption in theory? Forty Shades ... then a decade Moor ...
Consider vegetation as stopping to look the anima over from inside ... genetic affliction ... or djinns? Dark angels ... dealing with them may have the prerequisite of knowing you are dealing with great unknowns ... something to expand upon without end!
On recent news (nu's hated by abrupt authority) there is a presentation of Black Holes that do not behave relatively ... thus that aphorism of: "there are stranger things under the Midnight Sun than men who moil!" These things caused some intoxication for Samson and folks like David ... who chased the unknown surroundings ... a bleak environment given what we return to wit!
Thank Zot for the questions that arise (dissonance, Eris) from hard institutions that were initiated by men that stated the vernacular (common folk) shouldn't know. Thus stoic stunned conditions prevail ... leading to the next step in the abstract about green things that grow best in the dark ... vert Egos? Upstanding as ET cycling about the moon ...
Face it ... life on earth is a mire thing as dirt in the temporal state of infatuation with slick squirming items ... hagfish? Like psyche ... a thought that is hard to grip ... once the word escapes ... it evolves! Hoo Dahth Unque it until it was law^ST. In some folk both intelligence and emotions are devoid ... thus the evolution of nothing! ID appears to grow exponentially ... until you're free from Eire/Ayre ... soc't ...
In ankle losing dis ease ... one kicks free ... working one's way towards ends of momentary presentiments ... being treated by those presumably authoritarian by tyrannical means ... very humbling ... and we all end as corruption of matter ... in a Black Hole as fete noir? Resolves the Blackfoot enigma ... the crunch of the Shadow ... "dear Lord above ... bring down that cloud with the silver lining" ... amongst the emotional authority I d like to escape into ... the great unknown to do poly etudes!
That student should be observed ... but few can see high enough to get the understood ... mister ... cognate for "zot" and items that can blind yah ... crack in the systematics?
My theory is denied by many ... they do not believe anything is beyond eM ... thus the Lord forgave them for what they didn't know ... enlightenment is degraded to a fabric ...
Some substantial weaving and wobble may be required ... so D' antes ... especially under the unknown overcoming powers ... bi gods!
I have some condition that medical science doesn't know about and perhaps deny. It includes avoidance of a lot of pharmaceuticals ... a difficult cognizance to those that believe they have a pill for anything that ails Yah!
Some of these drugs are endogenous ... of the endocrine system. Many drugs are of cortisone nature ... and then depending on the particular structure in an individual can turn up as agonist, antagonist of inverse antagonist nature ... as words these conditions are poorly understood! Sometimes in the fabrication as protagonist!
The medical world seems baffled that I cannot tolerate many pharmaceuticals ... and have pushed me over the boundaries several times. These include simple things like natural eprine and other phenols like the turps! It is pure alchemi in the sense of psyche intoxication ... think: Fisherman's Friends and Tea tree Oil and the spread of knowledge that can be abusive! Think Suda*ed and Chlorotrips ... for some people to use these words is to bring on libel! It suggest responsibility for what is done ... if self regulating society ... are your free to deny it? What can be gathered from that?
Do vegetables affect the mental/emotional enigma?
I attended a bioethics course as auditing, at the request of the presenter who was an old acquaintance. I met a forestry graduate form the 60 -70's era that spent his whole career studying vegetation for a pharmaceutical business. We were considered oddities in the course due to our practical experience that reached beyond accademia. The Prof. wanted us in the course ... but didn't like us to contribute practical experiences ... his regular candidates didn't receive what we commented on ... shall we say in a friendly way as the complexity overwhelmed them.
Should we accept complexity, or just cut it out to standardise ... accademia?
There is that old adage: "do no harm!" Try as we will ... does what we "don't know" interfere with what we'd like to cure with a pill?
Baseline is ... "do what you will with great care and caution!" Does authority handle such old aphorism well? I plainly express uncertainty flat out while others follow stringent lines.
I went into depression due to some of the prescriptions that were in truth contradictory to my unassumed condition (conditions they were unaware of). Now I question all things and things of insubstantial nature of import to authority ... it appears to be biblical. But those that accept the accademia of theological texts would limit that! "Don;t go there!" Such is the nature of insubstantial manna of items about us ... like Sophi-ah! It may be wise to continue on ... neigh misses! Almost got it!
Some friction occurred in courses where the teacher informed the students that they were experts and should behave as one ... where the academic side was quite devoid in what more was out there ... beyond limits of certainty! Still we teach authority ... and thus humiliating failures ... nemesis? It is almost like we have a death wish ... when some of us just sense a whiff of being about to get beyond religious fixation.
Imagine being out there as a stretch of absolutes ... thus deteriorating stones ... stoic downfall as ... fallacy of logic? One must read into it with some depth beyond the point of nothing ... an opposite charge to Electa (photon) as opposing protozoa ... the zoa'n of disruption in theory? Forty Shades ... then a decade Moor ...
Consider vegetation as stopping to look the anima over from inside ... genetic affliction ... or djinns? Dark angels ... dealing with them may have the prerequisite of knowing you are dealing with great unknowns ... something to expand upon without end!
On recent news (nu's hated by abrupt authority) there is a presentation of Black Holes that do not behave relatively ... thus that aphorism of: "there are stranger things under the Midnight Sun than men who moil!" These things caused some intoxication for Samson and folks like David ... who chased the unknown surroundings ... a bleak environment given what we return to wit!
Thank Zot for the questions that arise (dissonance, Eris) from hard institutions that were initiated by men that stated the vernacular (common folk) shouldn't know. Thus stoic stunned conditions prevail ... leading to the next step in the abstract about green things that grow best in the dark ... vert Egos? Upstanding as ET cycling about the moon ...
Face it ... life on earth is a mire thing as dirt in the temporal state of infatuation with slick squirming items ... hagfish? Like psyche ... a thought that is hard to grip ... once the word escapes ... it evolves! Hoo Dahth Unque it until it was law^ST. In some folk both intelligence and emotions are devoid ... thus the evolution of nothing! ID appears to grow exponentially ... until you're free from Eire/Ayre ... soc't ...
In ankle losing dis ease ... one kicks free ... working one's way towards ends of momentary presentiments ... being treated by those presumably authoritarian by tyrannical means ... very humbling ... and we all end as corruption of matter ... in a Black Hole as fete noir? Resolves the Blackfoot enigma ... the crunch of the Shadow ... "dear Lord above ... bring down that cloud with the silver lining" ... amongst the emotional authority I d like to escape into ... the great unknown to do poly etudes!
That student should be observed ... but few can see high enough to get the understood ... mister ... cognate for "zot" and items that can blind yah ... crack in the systematics?
My theory is denied by many ... they do not believe anything is beyond eM ... thus the Lord forgave them for what they didn't know ... enlightenment is degraded to a fabric ...
Some substantial weaving and wobble may be required ... so D' antes ... especially under the unknown overcoming powers ... bi gods!
Last edited: