Posts
A picture from within a
very simple picture --
not that simplicity
is always the answer.
It is necessary that some things
grow complicated and various,
although the roots are simple.
Beginnings are within us.
There, they had best be simple
figures in quick sure strokes.
from: wood s lot
The Weather Within
Theodore Enslin
In Memory In Homage
George Oppen
1908-1984*
The Weather
John Newlove
1938 - 2003I'd like to live a slower life.
The weather gets in my words
and I want them dry. Line after line
writes itself on my face, not a grace
of age but wrinkled humour. I laugh
more than I should or more
than anyone should. This is good.But guess again. Everyone leans, each
on each other. This is a life
without an image. But only
because nothing does much more
than just resemble. Do the shamans
do what they say they do, dancing?
This is epistemology.This is guesswork, this is love,
this is giving up gorgeousness to please you,
you beautiful dead to be. God bless
the weather and the words. Any words. Any weather.
And where or whom. I'd never taken count before.
I wish I had. And then
I did. And here
the weather wrote again.
***
"There must be a time of day when the man who
makes plans forgets his plans,
and acts as if he had no plans at all.
There must be a time of day when the man who has
to speak falls very silent.
And his mind forms no more propositions,
and he asks himself:
Did they have a meaning?
There must be a time
When the man of prayer goes to pray
as if it were the first time in his life
he had ever prayed,
when the man of resolutions puts his
resolutions aside
as if they had all been broken,
and he learns a different wisdom:
distinguishing the sun from the moon,
the stars from the darkness,
the sea from the dry land,
and the night sky from the shoulder of a hill.
*
"Man is a thinking reed but his great works are done when he is not calculating and thinking. Childlikeness has to be restored with long years of training in the art of self-forgetfulness. When this is attained, man thinks yet he does not think. He thinks like the showers coming down from the sky; he thinks like the waves rolling on the ocean; he thinks like the stars illuminating the nightly heavens; he thinks like the green foliage shooting forth in the relaxing spring breeze. Indeed, he is the showers, the ocean, the stars, the foliage. When a man reaches this stage of spiritual development, he is a Zen artist of life."
- D. T. Suzuki
*****
"There is tremendous power in unearthing, in recognizing distracted, scattered mind, the mind which would rather be anywhere but here, and spending some time there, with that mind. Rather than being an anonymous voice from the dark bossing you around, scattered mind is someone you can sit down and hang out with."
- Jusan Ed Brown
*
Wheresoever you turn, there is the face of God."
~ Quran, II.115
*
"In youth we believe what the young believe, that life is all choice. We stand before a hundred doors, choose to enter one, where we're faced with a hundred more and then choose again. We choose not just what we'll do, but who we'll be. Perhaps the sound of all those doors swinging
shut behind us each time we select this one or that one should trouble us, but it doesn't. Nor does the fact that the doors often are identical and even lead in some cases to the exact same place. Occasionally a door is locked, but no matter, since so many others remain available. The distinct possibility that choice itself may be an illusion is something we disregard, because we're curious to know what's behind that next door, the one we hope will lead us to the very heart of the mystery. Even in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary we remain confident that when we emerge, with all our choosing done, we'll have found not just our true destination but also its meaning."
from Bridge of Sighs
by Richard Russo
*
"When Moses conversed with God, he asked, "Lord where shall I seek you?"
God answered, "Among the brokenhearted."
Moses continued, "But, Lord, no heart could be more despairing than mine."
And God replied, "Then I am where you are."
-Abu'l Fayd Al-Misri
*
The 'guinea-pigging' of vast swathes of the population has, up till now, solved two problems: the 'time' problem (namely, how to avoid addressing the underlying reasons for mental health problems), and how to create new markets amidst the flourishing of generic drug production, particularly outside of the US and Europe. Clearly the interiorisation of unhappiness is far more profitable than the outward realisation that perhaps misery has nothing to do with you personally and everything to do with the world in which you live.
- infinite thØught
***Coverage and commentary of the Iran 'revolution' via
Andrew Sullivan at the Atlantic
The President's Statement
The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.
Martin Luther King once said - "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.
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Tick Tock, Motherfuckers
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Quote For The Day
PermalinkThe Jpost also got an e-mail from Iran:
Girls are extremely active in all these rallies (a little less in night riots where patches of young men are more visible). They courageously charge anti-riot police, chant slogans in front of them, lead the crowd, etc., but they are equally beaten too. The police seem to have no limit in the use of force. They are disproportionately violent. They don't use fire weapons, but they don't go easy on you with their clubs. They literally beat up protesters to death if they don't get rescued by fellow protesters or somehow break away and run. The level of brutality is exceptional, but it is amazing to see how people stand up to them. I heard from many witnesses that thugs were brought by bus from smaller cities to assist police in the crackdown...
This photographic slideshow, with many pictures I haven't yet seen, is well worth your time.
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*
Confirming The Basij Murder Of Neda
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Poem For The Day II
A day of ominous decision has now dawned on this free nation. Save us
then from our obsessions! Open our eyes, dissipate our confusions,
teach us to understand ourselves and our adversary.
Let us never forget that sins against the law of love
are punishable by loss of faith, and those without faith
stop at no crime to achieve their ends!Help us to be masters of the weapons that threaten to master us.
Help us to use our science for peace and plenty, not for war and destruction.
Save us from the compulsion to follow our adversaries in all that we most hate,
confirming them in their hatred and suspicion of us.Resolve our inner contradictions,
which now grow beyond belief and beyond bearing.
They are at once a torment and a blessing:
for if you had not left us the light of conscience,
we would not have to endure them.Teach us to wait and trust.
Grant light, grant strength and patience to all who work for peace.
But grant us above all to see that our ways are not necessarily your ways,
that we cannot fully penetrate the mystery of your designs
and that the very storm of power now raging on this earth
reveals your hidden will and your inscrutable decision.Grant us to see your face in the lightning of this cosmic storm
- Thomas Merton, Prayer For Peace.
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The Women
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The Most Staggering Footage Yet
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[cross posted to Alive on All Channels]
A Charley Horse in Bed
Q. Why does one get muscle cramps while sleeping or resting?
A. In most cases, there is no apparent cause for hard knots in the muscles, usually in the calves, that are not associated with vigorous exercise, medical authorities say. Nighttime attacks of leg cramps are quite common, especially in older people, and can be very painful though usually not dangerous.
Most night cramps are not associated with serious underlying diseases, but diabetes and circulatory problems are among the conditions that should be ruled out by a doctor, especially if the cramps are frequent and severe. Cramping can also be a side effect of some prescription drugs.
One popular suggested explanation for the involuntary contractions involves overactive nerve networks in the large leg muscles, but there is no conclusive evidence as to whether this is true or what the cause may be.
Other researchers suggest that cramps are an effect of dehydration, which is known to be involved in spasms after exercise. Common sense suggests drinking enough water through the day and before going to bed, as well as avoiding heavy bed covers that keep the toes from pointing up. Gentle stretching exercises may help.
If you develop a cramp, you can help relax the knotted muscle with gentle stretching and massage; walking or standing if you can manage it; and perhaps a warm bath or shower.
C. CLAIBORNE RAY
Readers may submit questions by mail to Question, Science Times, The New York Times, 620 Eighth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10018, or by e-mail to question@nytimes.com.Talking Frankly at the End of Life
I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few years thinking, writing and speaking about end-of-life care, but this issue recently became quite personal for me. My mother-in-law died two weeks ago.
A ringer in her youth for Donna Reed, with Rita Hayworth legs, my mother-in-law possessed a dazzling memory and a designer’s flair, and she loved to surround herself with family and friends (“where the action is,” she used to say). She spent most of her 86 years following her husband across the country, teaching art in the schools where he taught. But wherever they landed, she managed always to make new friends. Lots of friends. When one of her sons passed away, she and my father-in-law received more than six hundred letters of condolence.
But by the time my mother-in-law died 14 days ago, her social circle had shrunk considerably. She had been battling rheumatoid arthritis for almost 50 years, a series of debilitating strokes for 10, and the ulcers on her legs that would not heal would, in the final year of her life, necessitate an above-the-knee amputation. Over the last few months, unable to hold a pen to write and too weak to speak into a phone, my mother-in-law saw her social life whither away. Her once expansive world was reduced to the square footage accessible by wheelchair and amenable to the trappings of all the medical equipment she needed.
In the days since her death, I have often thought about the many conversations my mother-in-law and the family had with the doctors and nurses about the dying process. There was the initial discussion over two months ago that she was likely to die soon and would benefit from hospice, and then there were also the many daily conversations about her comfort, about what she wanted and what she did not.
While I have become over the last few years a voice in the movement to improve end-of-life care in this country, these kinds of conversations with patients and their families still hit hard. As a close friend of mine once said, “One of the scariest things in the world is to look someone in the eye and tell them they are dying.” But in my practice I do try to tell patients they are dying because I believe in my heart that it is worse when clinicians don’t.
Nonetheless, every doctor comes to these conversations with some anxiety. It is hard not to feel as if you have failed your patients and their families, to wonder if taking out an inch more of bowel when removing the colon cancer, starting with a different antibiotic, or ordering a different diagnostic test might have somehow changed the course of events.
And then there is the conversation itself. “Death” and “dying” are words that can echo in a room long after they are said. Hopes can be shattered in an instant. Patients and families may feel abandoned.
It is hard as a doctor not to wonder: Am I doing more harm than good?
One particular study came back to me during these last few weeks, a study that attempted to answer just this question. Published last fall in The Journal of the American Medical Association, the study examined how end-of-life care discussions with terminal patients affected their quality of life and that of their caregivers.
Over the course of almost six years, Dr. Alexi White, a medical oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, and her colleagues interviewed more than 300 terminal patients, asking them if their doctors had ever discussed care at the end of life. After these patients died, the investigators analyzed the type of medical care received prior to death, then interviewed the patients’ caregivers six months later to assess how they were adjusting to their loss.
What Dr. White and her co-investigators found was that those patients who had had discussions with their physicians were more likely to have better quality of life at the end of their lives. These patients were not more depressed or more worried as a result of these discussions, and they tended to receive less aggressive medical care and earlier hospice referrals. Moreover, their caregivers fared better and suffered from significantly less depression six months after the patient’s death than caregivers whose loved ones had received more aggressive care.
I called Dr. Wright to ask her about her study.
“There is almost an assumption a priori that these end-of-life discussions will cause harm, so doctors are afraid to have them,” Dr. Wright said. “Patients then fail to realize that their time is limited, and they don’t make the kind of choices they would if they did know.”
I asked Dr. Wright if telling patients that they were dying might take away hope. “In trying to emphasize only the positive, we can end up with a misguided sense of hope,” Dr. Wright responded. “I think it’s really important to define hope more broadly. Hope is in the life we live, in our families. When I meet patients with incurable cancer, I hope they live as long as they can and with the best quality of life they can have. But I know from the outset that they will die from their disease, so hope is helping them to live as long as and the best that they can.”
Dr. Wright also emphasized the need to have several discussions about end-of-life care choices. “These conversations are not a one shot deal, but often need to happen repeatedly, as patient preferences about end-of-life care change and their disease states can change,” she explained. “It’s possible, too, that a patient might be in denial or may not be ready to hear such news and wouldn’t remember a discussion. But at the end of the day what’s important is what the patient remembers ”
Individuals can differ markedly in the amount of information they want to know, and conversations should be tailored accordingly. “About 20 percent of patients don’t want to know prognostic information,” Dr. Wright said. “But if patients have feelings about the kind of care they want, they should bring it up with their physicians. You want to be treated by a physician who you feel really understands and respects your values.”
That sense of understanding can have a cascading benefit for survivors. “As doctors we tend to focus on the patient, the person sitting before us. We need to think about the legacy of our treatments and the potential to help families cope with inevitable loss.”
The loss of my mother-in-law hangs heavy in our house. There are moments when my husband is silent and I know that he, like me, is thinking about her life and her last days.
Those last days were not always perfect. There was the clinician whose well-meaning but overly enthusiastic pronouncements that my mother-in-law was “actively dying” left all of us more exasperated than comforted. And she suffered for a few days from a side effect of morphine. But in the end, the ongoing discussion and interactions with the doctors and nurses about her desires and her dislikes gave my mother-in-law not only comfort but also a sense of still being part of the conversation, part of “the action,” part of life.
And those discussions also gave my husband and his sister opportunities. They sat with their mother and read to her. They fed her when she was hungry and put cool towels to her face when she was hot. My sister-in-law even organized one last social event, a “Spring Fling,” for her mother. The children, grandchildren and two great-grandchildren from across the country filled the room with the kind of lively conversation and laughter my mother-in-law had always loved.
I remember that she glowed that day. Her cheeks, once pale, were flushed pink, and her voice, usually barely audible, rang clear. She smiled, she laughed and she kissed all of us as we leaned over her bed.
After all the festivities had come to an end, my husband and sister-in-law left the room to escort everyone out. I saw my mother-in-law look up toward the sky after they left, opening her mouth as if to speak. I walked closer and heard her say softly to herself, “I am so happy.”**
AND
from the NYTimes:
Letter to the Editor
•
To the Editor:
I am a dual citizen, born and raised in Canada. After attending graduate school in the United States, I returned to Canada, first of all because of its much better health system. During my time in the United States, I heard many astonishing lies about Canadian health care.
Someone said that Canadians can’t choose their own doctors. Sorry, wrong. It’s Americans whose choice is constrained, by health maintenance organizations.
Another person said Canadian-style care is more expensive. In fact, Canadians pay far less and still get a high standard of care and are healthier and live longer than Americans.
Someone else said that Canadian health insurance involves tons of paperwork. Wrong again. Canadian medical insurance and billing is a miracle of simplicity and economy. Anyone who has ever been to an American hospital knows how much paperwork — mostly financial — is involved, and how many different bills they get from how many different parties.
Americans deserve far better than their current system, because most of them can’t simply move to a country with a rational, humane vision of health care.
James Harbeck
Toronto, May 22, 2009
I have been posting at Alive on All Channels and at Life Goes On ?! the two other blogs I seem to be addicted to.
My flickr sets are here: Flickr
This photo is Watkins Glen , NY.
My great-grandfather was an avid amateur photographer , as was my grandfather, his son. They used to convert the kitchen into a darkroom, so most of their photos were developed by them .
Their albums have told me a lot about both men and their families. I never knew them when they were alive,
but because of their creative work and their letters, I can know them now.
I'll be back posting. I want to put up more on healing on this blog. I've been intensively studying acupressure, Qigong and several other healing modalities. Time is short today, but hello again.
To those of you who are 'twittering' -- that's a bridge too far for me, and I fear it would throw me over the edge into OCD.
Or something.
New Public Database Reveals First-Hand Accounts of How Toxic Burn Pits Are Making U.S. Troops Sick
By Nora Eisenberg, AlterNet.Cancer, pulmonary disease, multiple sclerosis, sleep apnea, heart disease: Iraq and Afghanistan combat veterans have suffered all these and more from toxic fumes spewing from burn pits on American bases. The Disabled American Veterans now has information on 182 sick veterans in a database developed by Assistant National Legislative director, Kerry Baker. Forty-eight have developed lymphoma, leukemia or other cancers; and 16 veterans in the database have died. And on March 30th, a group of seven lawmakers asked Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to attend to these findings as well the findings from an independent scientific consultant, which found a serious danger that veterans may become ill from burn pit fumes.
As early as 2006, the DoD had been informed by Air Force Bioenvironmental Engineering Flight Commander Darrin Curtis that the pit was an acute health hazard. Though the Department of Defense has admitted that samples at the large burn pit at Balad contain Acetaldehyde, Acrolien, Arsenic, Benzene, Carbon Monoxide, Ethylbenzene, Formaldehyde, Hydrogen Cyanide, Hydrogen Fluoride, Phosgene, Sulfur Dioxide, Sulfuric Acid, Toluene, Trichloroethane, Xylene, and other chemicals, to date, it has insisted the pit presents no known dangers. The letter to Gates -- signed by Senators Russ Feingold, D-Wis.; Evan Bayh, D-Ind; and Ron Wyden, D-Ore.; and Representatives Tim Bishop, D-N.Y.; Steve Cohen, D-Tenn.; John Hall, D-N.Y.; Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y.; and Carol Shea-Porter, D-N.H. -- urged vigilance, citing the protracted and painful lessons from Agent Orange.Rep. Bishop's office has developed a website in which veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan can tell their stories. In just a few days, many stories of negligence and suffering have emerged, adding to a tragic saga.
Dave
Dave was stationed at Balad, less than half a mile downwind from a double burn pit.
"They burned plastic, chemicals, tires, metal and who knows what else in that pit. Two months in everyone was coughing up black stuff. Three months in my black stuff started to include blood. I went to the clinic and the front desk turned me away. They said that I didn't need to see a doctor because it was just the burn pit crud. They said, 'A doctor cannot help you if you are not ill from a disease.' Later in the deployment, the smoke was so bad that we all were puking from it. Found out later that it was probably arsenic in the smoke. An air force memo outlined Dioxin, the chemical that made everyone sick from agent orange, comes from burning the same materials that were in the burn pit. The DoD tries to say that the dioxin was of no threat to human life. … I might not be the smartest guy in the world but dioxin is dioxin and it's harmful to humans no matter what the source. Be it agent orange or standing in the plume of the burn pit … But whatever, I came back home and was still coughing and having breathing problems. The doc gave me Sudafed."Dave's Physical Training run time went from 10:12 to 13:59 in 6 months. His squad leader told him it was his fault. He should run even more, to run faster.
"So I took his advice … and then boom. Emergency room. Couldn't breathe. Had to be put on a machine … And the salt in the wound: The DoD says that burning tires, plastics, chemicals, medical waste, metal, oil, etc. isn't harmful. Which makes you wonder why it's illegal to burn that stuff back at home. "
Terry, deployed with the 101st Division, was stationed in Balad.
"Two weeks after arriving in country on my most recent deployment to Balad, I started developing symptoms that were eventually diagnosed as Still's Disease (Adult Onset Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis). The experts say that the disease is triggered by something to which you're exposed."
Terry
is an Army Reserve Major and civilian airline pilot, and the illness
has put both his military and civilian careers in jeopardy.
Kathy
Kathy was a staff sergeant with the National Guard in Balad.
She became sick while there, and once home was diagnosed with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease -- hearing loss and tinnitus.
"My health began to slowly decline. Widespread muscle aches and pains w/stiffness gradually settled in, as did neuralgia and sleep apnea."
She
now sleeps with a breathing machine. Kathy has done extensive research
and has found dozens of studies that have linked high concentration of
particulate matter to cardiovascular problems, as well as to premature
death.
Michael
Michael was stationed in Balad Iraq from Oct 2005 until June 2006.
"During this time I would always complain about the smoke. We were told it was safe. Well I started choking in my sleep waking up not breathing. At the time I was also being treated for PTSD so that's what I was told it was from. I got medavaced from Balad in June. I seen another doctor; he told me that it did not sound like PTSD. I did a sleep study and I found out that I had sleep apnea really bad. since then I have had three surgeries on my face and now I have chronic pain in my face because the first surgery did not go well. I have breathing problems during the day, a problem with the lower part of my lungs so now I'm on inhalers. I never had any of these problems until I got to Balad. It has pretty much ruined my army career. It's time someone is held responsible for negligence to me and my fellow soldiers going through the same thing."
Robert was deployed to Balad, Iraq from February to June 2006.
"Virtually every night my tent was hazy and full of smoke and at times you could even see bits of ash floating in the air. The smell was so acrid that even holding your head on the sheet/blankets would not help you get that "clean" breathe of fresh air. I never got a good nights sleep there."
Things he saw in the burn pit included 55-gallon drums
of unknown fluids, tent parts, cabinets … anything from paper to the
kitchen sink. He now has problems doing "normal tasks like moving
boxes, putting on my boots, playing with my children … It feels like
someone is grabbing me in the center of my chest and squeezing to
prevent me getting a good breath … I find myself gasping for air and
hyperventilating to catch my breath. For Robert, a 42-year-old father
of six, "The most troubling of this isn't my health as it is is the
health and welfare of the thousands of other service men and women who
have come and gone through Balad. My oldest two children also joined
the Air Force … and ironically enough my oldest daughter is heading to
Balad this summer on her third deployment to the same base. My son is
also heading to Balad this summer on his first deployment. What is in
their future … one can only hope …"
Derrol
Derrol was stationed at Bagram, Afghanistan and later Balad, Iraq as an Air Force reservist on active orders for over six years.
From the steady burning pits, he suffered both coughing and diarrhea. "An x-ray for a back problem showed that one half of my right lung was missing … they found 2 large nodules/masses in my lower right lung. A CT scan "showed a total of 7 nodules/masses in my right lung and scarring in my left. A Line of Duty was initiated and pushed through rather quickly to confirm the injury as active duty, deploy related. I contacted the VA and started a claim in November of 2007. I again deployed to Qatar for 4.5 months last summer and the claim was held until I was released from active duty in Sept 2008. It is now March 24, 2009 and I still have not heard from VA as to my medical board rating for compensation and disability. I also have problems with my stomach now and shortness of breath, I am still waiting on VA."
John and Wallace both worked for KBR at Balad. They both now have colon cancer.
***
More first-hand reports from veterans can be found on the online Military Times.
Veterans who are suffering health problems they believe are connected to burn pit fumes should report their condition to Kerry Baker at 202-314-5229, to add to the database.
Nora Eisenberg is the director of the City University of New York's Faculty Fellowship Publication Program. Her short stories, essays and reviews have appeared in such places as the Partisan Review, the Village Voice, the Los Angeles Times, Tikkun, and the Guardian UK. Her third novel, When You Come Home, which explores the 1991 Gulf War and Gulf War illness, was recently published by Curbstone Press.
© 2009 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/134913/
Hospitals have never needed God more
A&E departments are a war zone. There could not be a worse time to get rid of their chaplains
[from Times Online]There is no way of telling how many prospective doctors and medical students watched The Hospital on Tuesday night, but we should, for all our sakes, pray it was a low number.
The first part of Channel 4's fly-on-the-wall series, which runs for another two weeks, looked into the modern world of emergency medicine. This wasn't ER or Scrubs, this was ugly reality - wave upon wave of young people, drunk, regardless, violent and rude, brought in with various terrible injuries as a result of intoxication.
It was some of the most powerful documentary television I've seen: the young people were both victims and propagators of alcoholic mayhem; the doctors were dead-eyed, high-pay-grade streetsweepers.
We would be sensible to regard it as a modern morality play, especially in a
week when the National Secular Society called for the NHS to stop funding
hospital chaplains. The society estimates that £40 million a year is spent
on giving religious groups a presence in hospitals. In many areas secularism
has much to recommend it. In this instance they are wrong and mean-spirited.
There has never been a greater need for a spiritual presence in hospitals.
What was so interesting about The Hospital, apart from its shock appeal, was the moral landscape it painted of our society. Here was a stage, you realised, where everyone had become brutalised. The patients showed a total lack of responsibility for their actions. They swore at staff, they smirked, they were abusive, complaining, obstructive, hysterical and completely unapologetic. As for gratitude, why, it's a free service, isn't it? What's to be grateful for? There was an almost total lack of the embarrassment or thanks that former generations would have displayed.
Even when approached, sober, for their reflections they were not given to remorse. Rather they were insouciant. Danielle, a 19-year-old mother of two, who had arrived at A&E after being trapped under a taxi, her shattered legs bent up over her shoulder, was oblivious of any moral subtext. After she had spent a month in hospital she was asked if she had paid a high price for her drinking. Nah, she joked, I only spent £20 and got a free taxi.
Equally you could see the impact on the battle-fatigued staff. Like military mercenaries, their moral values had either ceased to exist or they had been buttoned away for fear of revealing disgust.
I've encountered exactly the same dead eyes in big city A&E departments. Once, at one of these hospitals, notorious for dealing with relentless violence and knife crime, I attended my child who had been rushed there with a suspected neck injury. Fortunately it turned out just to be a torn muscle, but I found it an unnerving experience, and not for the obvious reason.
The doctor, a young man with empty eyes and a hard-drinking face, did not engage with us. He spoke as if we were five miles away. For all he was utterly professional and faultless, I felt as if something had died inside him. He was almost like an addict: I wondered if he was so hooked on the adrenalin of coping with stab wounds and fights that nothing less than that stirred him.
You see the same look in abbatoir workers' eyes. They shut down all feeling, all judgment. The patients, deserving or not, have become lumps of meat to them. Monica Garnsey, the maker of the documentaries, believes that what patients want most is the sense that their doctor is sympathetic. But their patience has been stretched too far.
So maybe a little moral panic would be a good thing; maybe we need more chaplains, if only to check the growth in this new amoral, compassion-neutral transaction, where the drunk and feckless not only waste billions of pounds but leave hospital as ignorant and unreformed as they went in. Maybe we need to be a bit more judgmental, for all our sakes.
In a world sometimes scarily lacking in values, chaplains have a vital symbolic role as well as a practical one. Chaplains, in my experience, do not proselytise; they simply afford patients the kind of time, care and compassion that medical staff can no longer give them. No, they cannot cure binge drinking, but they do stand for something resolutely good and wise.
The secularists have missed the point completely. They contacted 233 acute and mental health trusts, which spent £26.72 million on chaplains. This money, they say, could be used to employ 1,300 nurses or 2,645 cleaners, which is as facile as saying that we could save £3 billion plus in A&E budgets by banning booze. Terry Sanderson, the president of the society, even claimed that people in hospital should seek visits from their own vicar, priest, rabbi or imam if they needed religious support.
What an arrogant man he sounds. It is non-religious people, lost in a crisis, who need chaplains the most. Look at Jade Goody, married and blessed as she was dying. Look at the tragic, chaotic lives of some of the young people lying in A&E with no family to phone. It is the injured, the dying and the bereaved, who seek, not necessarily God, but a little kindness and succour at their time of greatest need.
Regimens: Tai Chi Shows Promise as a Stroke Therapy
Stroke patients who practice tai chi may improve their balance — reducing the risk of falls, researchers say.
Writing in the journal Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair, the researchers reported improvement in volunteers after as little as six weeks of training. The lead author was Stephanie S. Y. Au-Yeung of Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
In earlier research, one of the article’s co-authors, Christina W. Y. Hui-Chan, found that tai chi improved balance among healthy elderly people. For this study, the researchers wanted to see if the same effect would occur among stroke patients.
They took 136 people who had a stroke six months or more earlier and divided them into two groups. Over 12 weeks, one group did general exercise, the other a modified version of tai chi.
The tai chi group met once a week for an hour, and were asked to practice at home about three hours a week.
While the exercise group showed little improvement in balance, the tai chi group made significant gains when they were tested on weight-shifting, reaching and how well they could maintain their stability on a platform that moved like a bus.
The benefit of tai chi, the researchers said, is that once the forms are mastered, they can be done without supervision.
Still, they said, some patients lapsed in their practice after the training was over. They might be more likely to continue, the study said, if tai chi were available at places like community centers.Recession Anxiety Seeps Into Everyday Lives
Anne Hubbard has not lost her job, house or savings, and she and her husband have always been conservative with money.
But a few months ago, Ms. Hubbard, a graphic designer in Cambridge, Mass., began having panic attacks over the economy, struggling to breathe and seeing vivid visions of “losing everything,” she said.
She “could not stop reading every single economic report,” was so “sick to my stomach I lost 12 pounds” and “was unable to function,” said Ms. Hubbard, 52, who began, for the first time, taking psychiatric medication and getting therapy.
In Miami, Victoria Villalba, 44, routinely slept eight hours a night until stories of desperate clients flooding the employment service she runs began jolting her awake at 2 a.m. No longer sleepy, she first began to respond to e-mail, but that caused sleeping colleagues’ BlackBerrys to wake them, so now she studies business books and meticulously organizes her closets.
“I’m embarrassed,” she said. “Normal people aren’t doing this.”
With economic damage expected to last months or years, such reactions are becoming common, experts say. Anxiety, depression and stress are troubling people everywhere, many not suffering significant economic losses, but worrying they will or simply reacting to pervasive uncertainty.
Some are seeking counseling or medication for the first time. Others are resuming or increasing treatment, or redirecting therapy for other issues onto economic anxiety.
“The economy and fear of what’s going to happen is having a huge effect,” said Sarah Bullard Steck, a Washington therapist who also directs the employee assistance program at the Commerce Department. “People are coming in more” with “severe anxiety” or “more marital strife, some domestic violence, some substance abuse.”
Alan A. Axelson, a Pittsburgh psychiatrist, said he was seeing first-time patients and infrequent ones experiencing “relapse and needing more therapy and medication” even though, he said, “Pittsburgh’s actually doing pretty good economically.”
It is early to measure the recession’s consequences, but surveys suggest a growing impact. In an American Psychological Association poll in September, 80 percent reported the economy’s causing significant stress, up from 66 percent last April. The National Sleep Foundation said 27 percent of people surveyed last fall had sleeplessness because of economic anxiety.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline calls jumped to 50,158 in January 2009 from 39,465 a month in January 2008, and economic stress more frequently “played a central role,” said Richard McKeon, the group’s federal project officer.
The Treasury, Labor and other departments started a Web site for people experiencing stress. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration is training counselors who usually assist people devastated by tornadoes and floods to now help people with what they “are going through with the economy,” said Dr. McKeon, an agency adviser.
And while a New York Times/CBS News poll found fewer people saying the economy had worsened, most did not think it was improving. People overwhelmingly thought the recession would last another year or more, and 70 percent were concerned that a household member would be jobless.
Anxiety is not just troubling those with much to lose, like older people and homeowners. Elizabeth Dewey-Vogt, 25, a paralegal whose bills and shrinking overtime made her move in with her parents in Alexandria, Va., said she began “constantly worrying about finances,” and having panic attacks, “rapid heart beat, choking sensation, chills or sweating, numbness and tingling in my fingers,” and feeling “almost removed from my body.”
Ms. Dewey-Vogt said that she now took anxiety medication, and that a therapist advised her to pull over or “concentrate on the license plate ahead” if she began panicking while driving and to grip on the handles of her chair when panicking at work.
Even children show signs.
Daniel A. Cohen, a Manhattan psychiatrist, said he saw “more families in crisis,” with children experiencing “increased signs of anxiety and depression” and more nightmares and acting out.
Joshua Batista, 16, of Queens, who was treated for depression and post-traumatic stress after a taxi accident, said he had “gotten more depressed and stressed” since “the recession and that stuff started.” In school, he said he experienced “a nervous breakdown where I was pulling out my hair, hitting my head.” Joshua, a singer-guitarist, said the economy limited his music purchases and earnings. Therapy and medication have increased. Asked to leave school, he will be taught at home. “He noticed it was happening at the same time as the economy,” said his mother, Elissa Levine.
Even for insured people, the economy both causes anxiety and makes help less affordable.
Susan Bandrowsky, 30, a photographer in Wilmington, Del., with bipolar disorder, said she felt strain because her husband, having lost a long-term consulting contract, worked short-term jobs requiring travel, unsettling their 4-year-old autistic son. Fearing the loss of insurance, Ms. Bandrowsky would like more therapy, but to save co-payments she spaces appointments, which, she said, “ups the anxiety.”
Many seeking help are fearful, not actually incurring economic difficulty, said Joseph Ojile, founder of Clayton Sleep Institute in St. Louis, where patients increased 25 percent since October.
Steven Craig, a psychologist in Birmingham, Mich., said “people of less means” were handling some of this better because “their identity is not as caught up in how much money they have.”
Many ask primary physicians for medication, not therapy referrals, because they fear that employers will consider them unstable or resent counseling during work hours, said Allen J. Dietrich, a family doctor in Lebanon, N.H. He said he broached the subject of emotional stress gently because many had come in with physical complaints like arthritis or headaches.
Still, a survey of employee assistance programs found a jump in stress-related requests. “The stress level has increased a lot,” said Suzanne Greenlee, human resources benefits director at Sodexo Inc., a food services company.
Even for Ms. Greenlee, who said she “realized how tense I was” after trying Sodexo’s stress-management coach. She e-mailed the coach, “Today I’m feeling totally overwhelmed.”
During therapy recently, Marcy Krust, 39, told Dr. Craig, “People say it’s going to be better, but I don’t feel that way yet.” A divorced mother and on-and-off patient, Ms. Krust said she had not needed therapy for months until, with layoffs affecting her technology firm’s clients and fellow hockey moms, she felt “out of control” and “started to forget things.” Now twice-monthly sessions focus on the economy. Dr. Craig advises writing down worries, and making decisions about controllable things, like vacations.
Scott Schuck, 43, a Minneapolis business owner who had consulted Dr. Craig only for career coaching, began twice-weekly phone sessions after stress started waking him and creating “a lot of anxiety” in his relationship with his girlfriend.
Ms. Villalba, wary of medication, started meditation classes, even meditating in her car outside her office.
Ms. Hubbard, knowing “financially we were fine,” said she believed “I shouldn’t feel like this, I’m lucky.” She cried visiting her primary doctor, who recommended therapy and medication, hard to accept, she said, because her Depression-era parents believed “you pull yourself up.”
“I felt like a neurotic middle-class, middle-aged woman too weak to deal with life on my own,” she said. “I should be stronger, it was simply money, and why do I have to take pills to not worry about money.”
But treatment and further organizing family finances helped. She said the weakening economy made her “fear that even if you do everything right, something bad can happen to you.”My Groups
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