I've been thinking about the disrespect I and a lot of my friends have been treated to by medical workers. Why are they doing this to us? It's not even a selective disrespect. It seems that ALL patients are equally treated like dirt. Unless you are in medical care you are unworthy. Even then, unless you are a crna, you are a lower life form. They even disrespect the doctors. Why is that?
Here's the deal. I've worked all my life. I'm a productive member of society. Just because I CHOSE not to go into the medical field doesn't mean I'm an inferior life form. It means that maybe I really don't like people (in general) much. Maybe it's about having to work inside all the time. Maybe it's because my hyperactivity doesn't allow for extended periods of relative inactivity? I HATE trying to stay busy. I like a job where the job itself is busy. There is nothing wrong with that. Part of it is the time spent in school, sitting in a classroom. Part of it is the expense of higher learning. I have never been comfortable with debt. I don't like begging people for student loans. I don't like filling out paperwork. Lots of reasons NOT to go into health care. That doesn't make me stupid or unworthy of care.
I WORK! I pay huge sums of money for my health insurance. How does it happen that even though I'm making these astronomical payments for health care, that when I want to use it I am treated like a deadbeat? Why am I taken to task for every little thing about me that isn't perfect? Yes I have packed on a few pounds, but I'm nowhere near obese. I can't be obese and do my job. Why is personal attack the main theme from health care workers? Can't they just fix the problem without the nastiness? It's like I don't deserve treatment no matter how much I pay. I pay and pay and pay with money *I* earn so that I can afford treatment. Treatment grudgingly given. So what exactly is the point of paying all that hard earned money if I can't use my insurance when I (finally) have a problem?
Most of my friends have experienced this lack of respect from medical workers as well, so I know it's not just me. Why can't the medical field just treat the damn problem without all the sermonizing? Do they think it's helpful for patients to be treated like juvenile malingerers by health care? All those pure and spotless people who will never grow old, never smoke, drink, speed, or do anything lest they "ruin" their health. Of course they have excuses for their unhealthy choices but for you patients? Not so much.
In my last encounter with health care I went for months complaining of chest pain. I went to work every day, exhausted, did my physically demanding job and then some. My gp was uninterested in the (serious) heat exhaustion I experienced one day, which symptoms continued for 2 weeks. He was uninterested in my chest pain. I was made to feel like I was some kind of scammer trying to get on disability! It was insulting. I guess I personally am not good enough to rate medical care. I had refused a colonoscopy (Versed issue) and the statins didn't agree with me so I adjusted my diet instead. I guess that makes me a persona non grata. Oh, they still took my money for appointments, but ignored my problem or blamed ME for it.
Even the cardiologist demanded to know why I was back in his office. The stress test showed nothing, but it did reactivate the previously controlled (by Verapamil) chest pain. Since I don't complain a lot about things, I guess that means that I'm not really ill. So at the end, because I found another doctor ( a horse person like me) that called the cardiologist personally I got the treatment I needed. My cardiologist had CONVINCED me that my chest pain was stress related. I told the new doctor I was there for non-cardiac chest pain. Those words passed my lips and I had to eat them later. Without him, it was just a matter of time before I collapsed of a heart attack.
So for all my class A personality types, don't let the medical machine disrespect you and make light of your complaint. THEY CAN BE WRONG! Don't let them tell you that it's your ________ (name the vice/condition) that is causing it. Don't buy into the "it's all your fault and you are faking it" that a lot of medical people try.
For prospective heart patients whose personalities are like mine...If you are going to work exhausted, and performing by sheer willpower, don't think it's just that you are growing old. If you are too tired to talk, don't think it's just that you are working hard. If you have chest pain that feels like a heart attack, regardless of the blood/stress tests get treated. Change doctors if you have to until you find one who doesn't treat you like uninteresting pond scum. Don't be ashamed to USE your insurance. That's why you pay for it isn't it? Don't let the medical people intimidate and shame you.
Friday, October 17, 2014
Sunday, October 5, 2014
Versed and Hysterectomy
This article is of particular interest to women... Men SHOULD be interested because your wife or girlfriend might be subjected to a hysterectomy herself with personality changes as a result. Robin, the author of the piece, got Versed first in order to force her into submission for her life altering surgery. She got the triple whammy, Versed and its brain damage and a hysterectomy with physical damage and psychological hormonal changes.
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http://www.hormonesmatter.com/victimized-medicine/
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http://www.hormonesmatter.com/victimized-medicine/
VICTIMIZED BY MEDICINE
I don’t particularly like saying I’ve been “victimized” nor do I like thinking of myself as a “victim”. I never have. The truth is though, according to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, I have been victimized. Merriam defines victimized as follows: to treat (someone) cruelly or unfairly: to make a victim of; to subject to deception or fraud. Victim is defined as: a person who has been attacked, injured, robbed, or killed by someone else; a person who is cheated or fooled by someone else and someone or something that is harmed by an unpleasant event (such as an illness or accident).
In 2007, I was knocked out with Versed and surgically assaulted. I wrote about what happened to mehere. The reason I use the word “assaulted” is because I did not consent to surgery – more specifically I did not consent to castration. Indeed, I was treated cruelly. I was attacked, injured, and robbed.
When there is no consent for surgery, it’s absolutely considered assault and battery. With over half a million women undergoing hysterectomy each year, it’s hard to imagine that there is informed consent in all of those cases – really hard to imagine. It would be bad enough if women were only up against hysterectomy and castration abuse, but sadly, there are many more ways women are being abused and victimized by medicine. You can read more about that here.
So what’s a victim to do? How does a victim start over and find purpose in her life again? Where exactly does a victim turn for help? How does a victim heal from the trauma? I suspect the answers to these questions might differ from one victim to another. The answers would also likely depend largely on the circumstances. And, while I can’t answer for other victims, I can certainly explain how I’ve managed to go on and even find purpose again.
One of the most important steps I took was to reach out. I know from experience that it is never a good idea to isolate oneself – although it is often human nature to do just that during times of trauma. For me personally, I knew that I needed to contact lawyers to see how I might go about pursuing a medical malpractice suit, since I did not consent to surgery.
I also contacted the police to see if filing criminal charges was an option for me. I found out it wasn’t because, according to the police officers I spoke with, it’s considered a “civil” case when a person’s been harmed by a doctor inside a hospital. More regarding how I feel about that another day though.
I reached out to local lawmakers and testified in both Indiana and Kentucky regarding hysterectomy informed consent laws or rather the lack of them. And last but not least, I reached out to other women who’ve been abused by medicine. Sadly, there are many – too many.
And while contacting lawyers, police, lawmakers, and other women made make me feel less like a victim externally, I still felt like a victim internally. I have never allowed myself to assume the role of victim and I didn’t want to do that in this case either. I searched my heart and knew what I needed to do. I needed to write. So, I created a blog site here and then a website here and eventually a Facebook page here.And, I’ve written a variety of articles for Hormones Matter as well.
The way I process, heal and communicate is through my written words. Ultimately, as negative and painful as undergoing unconsented hysterectomy and castration has been for me, it forced me to connect with and understand who I am at the deepest level of my being. When my former doctor took the violent actions he did against me, something so precious –so incalculable- was taken from me in that instant: my value and my worth – as a human being and especially as a woman. I had to dig deep to find myself again. I’m still digging…
As the anniversary of my surgical assault draws near on September 27, I can’t help but think about that day that changed my life, health and sexuality forever. I’ve asked myself over and over again why was I targeted for unnecessary surgery and why was I knocked out against my will, sliced open, and castrated. This is what I have concluded. During the two hours I was in surgery, I was nothing more than an object that happened to possess the pieces or body parts necessary to make money for that doctor and that hospital. Behind those surgical doors, I was treated as property (though never purchased), that my former doctor felt he had the right to touch and use for his own purposes.
During those two hours, I had no voice, no thoughts, no feelings, no soul, no mind, no emotions, no power and no potential. I only had a vagina and the life-sustaining organs that lived inside of it. And he felt entitled to that – entitled to take away my life-sustaining organs and my womanhood without actually knowing or caring anything about me. He violated me in the worst possible way one human being can violate another human being. That doctor ruined my life, my sexuality, and my health without even the slightest regard for how profoundly my life would change. Every dream I carried inside of me was crushed beyond recognition because of what he did with his scalpel.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned through this nightmare experience, it’s that I have to speak out about what happened and call things the way they are – even if that’s not necessarily what others are comfortable hearing and knowing.
I don’t sugarcoat what happened to me. I can’t. What was done to me was violent, shameful, wrong, immoral, unacceptable and downright evil. It was painful, hurtful, disrespectful, discriminatory, barbaric and criminal. I try to soften the trauma of what happened by reaching out to other women who’ve been victimized to let them know they are not alone in their devastation.
And, of course, my hope is to help women who’ve not yet been victimized know the truth about hysterectomy and castration that their doctors simply will not tell them. In other words, in helping other women, I’m taking the horror of what happened to me and I’m turning it into something of worth. I’m turning my pain into something I can at least live with and not lose my sanity completely.
I feel. I connect. I cry. I learn. I speak. I fight. I write.
The devastation I’ve endured in this situation is matchless to anything I have ever experienced before other than the loss of my two youngest children. There’s no way I can say it isn’t. At my weakest moments, I remember my strength. I remember that I have a voice. I speak and I speak loudly. I speak not only for my own sake, but for the sake of millions of other women. When I tell my story, I’m telling the story of all women who’ve been abused and victimized by medicine. Knowing I am helping someone else, helps me survive.
Speak Up! Speak Out!
I would love for more women to take a stand with me against the medical abuse of women. Please consider sharing your own story on the Hormones Matter site. Let’s connect and see what we can do together as one large voice!
Sunday, September 14, 2014
A Problem With Denial and Red Herrings
In my previous post I linked to an article about Jeffrey McCallister, a nurse who sexually assaulted "sedated" patients. I did some more research about it and came across the following from the NYDaily. When I looked through the comments I found a comment which is so strange I had to comment on it. Apparently the commenter is in denial about what medical care entails these days and instead focuses on something else...
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So now we have a person who has changed the sexual assaults into a race comment. Come on people. The problem isn't that Jeffrey McCallister is white. This male nurse, ominously a former police officer, is a criminal if proven guilty. He will be sentenced according to the law. The real problem is the use of a drug which actually ENCOURAGES lawless acts. How many patients are tortured using this drug? Just how many patients are sexually assaulted under sedation? Who would know due to the nature of Versed? The real problem is that the medical field covers up this kind of abuse. I guess they figure that as long as the patient can''t remember being violated, then there is no harm. Is this the mindset YOU want from medical people? Versed not only fries your brain, it also facilitates rape, sodomy, and oral sex along with the routine torture patients are subjected to because of Versed/Midazolam.
This commenter, FMD Medina completely disregards the issues and focuses on the shade of the (alleged) perps epidermis, and uses completely fabricated scenarios. I find it so strange that EVERYTHING is about skin tone these days. Sure, ignore the problem with what the guy did and the hospital administration who allegedly facilitated, ignored and otherwise allowed Jeffrey to do what he did, and instead whine about the color of his skin. So many things these days, real problems, are swept under the rug in favor of discussing color. It's maddening. It doesn't matter what Jeffrey McCallister did, it only matters that his skin color will get him off the hook? Will it? I seem to remember a cute little white guy, with the same first name as this nurse, getting shanked in prison by a black guy... Jeffrey Dahmer didn't get any special treatment because he was a small relatively attractive white guy, now did he? Who cares what color Jeffrey McCallister is? What he did and the people who allowed the abuse to continue should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I don't care what color they are.
PS I believe there is a law that criminals can't profit from their crimes by writing books and keeping the proceeds. So even that argument is specious. Plus, if it's legal to make crime pay by writing memoirs, then that avenue would also be available to black criminals.
PPS Just in; McCallister has pleaded guilty and received a negotiated 15 year, un-appealable prison sentence. He also has a 5 year post prison security sentence bringing the total to 20 years. He will register as a sex offender. So when he gets out of prison at age 54, his life will be effectively over. Does that sound like 6 months? So much for the "white privilege" the commenter above alludes to. Personally *I* think it should have been a longer sentence, but at least it's not only 7 years like murderers sometimes get.
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he's white. he'll get 18 months in a minimum security
facility. he will be released in 6 months and wear an ankle bracelet. he'll
write a book which becomes a bestseller and retire to a country where abusing
women is not only legal but encouraged.
if
he were black, he would be beaten every day to and from his trial, sentenced to
life with no hope of parole and shanked to death while in prison.
the
life of a black man.
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So now we have a person who has changed the sexual assaults into a race comment. Come on people. The problem isn't that Jeffrey McCallister is white. This male nurse, ominously a former police officer, is a criminal if proven guilty. He will be sentenced according to the law. The real problem is the use of a drug which actually ENCOURAGES lawless acts. How many patients are tortured using this drug? Just how many patients are sexually assaulted under sedation? Who would know due to the nature of Versed? The real problem is that the medical field covers up this kind of abuse. I guess they figure that as long as the patient can''t remember being violated, then there is no harm. Is this the mindset YOU want from medical people? Versed not only fries your brain, it also facilitates rape, sodomy, and oral sex along with the routine torture patients are subjected to because of Versed/Midazolam.
This commenter, FMD Medina completely disregards the issues and focuses on the shade of the (alleged) perps epidermis, and uses completely fabricated scenarios. I find it so strange that EVERYTHING is about skin tone these days. Sure, ignore the problem with what the guy did and the hospital administration who allegedly facilitated, ignored and otherwise allowed Jeffrey to do what he did, and instead whine about the color of his skin. So many things these days, real problems, are swept under the rug in favor of discussing color. It's maddening. It doesn't matter what Jeffrey McCallister did, it only matters that his skin color will get him off the hook? Will it? I seem to remember a cute little white guy, with the same first name as this nurse, getting shanked in prison by a black guy... Jeffrey Dahmer didn't get any special treatment because he was a small relatively attractive white guy, now did he? Who cares what color Jeffrey McCallister is? What he did and the people who allowed the abuse to continue should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I don't care what color they are.
PS I believe there is a law that criminals can't profit from their crimes by writing books and keeping the proceeds. So even that argument is specious. Plus, if it's legal to make crime pay by writing memoirs, then that avenue would also be available to black criminals.
PPS Just in; McCallister has pleaded guilty and received a negotiated 15 year, un-appealable prison sentence. He also has a 5 year post prison security sentence bringing the total to 20 years. He will register as a sex offender. So when he gets out of prison at age 54, his life will be effectively over. Does that sound like 6 months? So much for the "white privilege" the commenter above alludes to. Personally *I* think it should have been a longer sentence, but at least it's not only 7 years like murderers sometimes get.
Another Nurse Does It!
Here's a new story, this one out of Oregon. It features yet another male nurse found sexually assaulting "sedated" patients. The horrors of Versed/Midazolam just keep going. No matter how many stories there are about abuse of patients with this drug, physical torture AND sexual assault, the medical community ignores the problems. So not only do we get our brains absolutely fried with this wonder drug, we also get other types of abuse heaped upon us. Simply for the need of medical attention.
How many more patients are out there, feeling OK after their medical treatment, unaware that they have been brutally violated? I guess for medical practitioners, as long as the patients don't remember they were violated, then it's just fine. Is this really what you want from medical care? A nice "sedative" to give you complete amnesia while leaving you awake and very, very "cooperative"?
Monday, September 1, 2014
A Conversation About Joan River's Debacle On Studentdoctor.net
This article was just sent to my inbox. Very interesting conversation.
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/joan-rivers-cardiac-arrest-outpatient.endo.1095633/
I had to copy the link, I hope it works.
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/joan-rivers-cardiac-arrest-outpatient.endo.1095633/
I had to copy the link, I hope it works.
Another Article On Joan Rivers/Sedation
We are still trying to get to the bottom of the debacle with Joan Rivers. Here is another article on what may have happened, featuring my favorite drug. Click
here: Joan Rivers Crisis Highlights Sedation Risks Sadly each time somebody is cruelly harmed by medical care vis a vis Versed there is a brief flurry of activity and people other than me writing about the dangers. Soon enough it is swept under the rug. The medical field in general doesn't want us to refuse their amnesia and patient control drug. No matter how dangerous it is for us, the attractions for medical people in general and crna's in particular are such that it's nearly impossible to get any real action on telling the public how bad this drug can be. Medical people don't care, the law doesn't protect us and any criticism of Versed at all is met with resistance. Just look in the comments section of the above link to see some of that.
Eventually I am proved right. Sedation...Increases Risks
I got this one from a friend of mine. I can't believe it! FINALLY I am vindicated. If you haven't read any of my other posts, I was a victim of a crna with a syringe of Versed/Midazolam. He poisoned me with it, against my will, immediately prior to giving me an axillary nerve block. So here we have a recent article from Johns Hopkins and surprise surprise, they say the same thing I have been saying. I have found other articles, but this one is the most succinct in regards to sedation and nerve blocks. The article also addresses the COST of sedation. Something I recently had a crna try to argue with me over. She told me how "cheap" Versed/Midazolam is, in the vial. She didn't want to talk about the excess additional charges associated with Versed use. This article talks about it.
Here's the whole article linked above. I have highlighted and italicized those passages which I particularly like.
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Sedation Before Nerve Block Increases Risks, Not Pain Relief
Release Date: February 13, 2014
New research suggests that sedating patients before a nerve block needed to diagnose or treat chronic pain increases costs, risks and unnecessary surgeries, and sedation does nothing to increase patient satisfaction or long-term pain control.
“Sedation doesn’t help, but it does add expense and risk,” says study leader Steven P. Cohen, M.D., a professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “In some places, every patient is being sedated. Our research shows it should be used very sparingly.”
Nerve blocks, performed by injecting anesthetics and/or steroids into any number of areas of the body, from the spinal column to the hip joint, are often performed ahead of surgery and in addition to other invasive procedures, such as the ablation of nerves to treat arthritis in the back, to more accurately pin down the source of pain. If the nerve block fails to numb pain, surgery or the nerve ablation may not help. Increasingly, physicians have used light or even deep sedation in a bid to ease anxiety and pain while the injection is given.
However, results of the new study, reported online Feb. 13 in the journal Pain Medicine, show that sedation before a nerve block significantly increases false-positive results, which means patients are more likely to be sent in for surgeries and other procedures that won’t cure the underlying pain. Another worry, Cohen says, is the health risk when someone is sedated.
Cohen and researchers from several other medical centers in the United States recruited 73 patients with back or limb pain who were scheduled to receive multiple nerve blocks. Roughly half of the group received the first injection with sedation and the second without. The remaining patients received their injections in the opposite order. Patients were given six-hour pain diaries, a routine step that helps patients determine whether the injections bring relief, and were asked to rate their satisfaction with the treatment. They were also seen a month later and asked to rate their pain and function after the treatment.
Although the sedated patients reported less pain immediately after the nerve block injection, on every other measure — from 30-day pain assessments to overall patient satisfaction — the results were the same whether or not they were sedated.
“A lot of cost for very little benefit,” Cohen says.
The increase in false-positive results — the belief that the pain has been relieved when it has not been — can result from many factors, Cohen says. The medication used for the sedation itself can have pain-relieving properties. The sedative can relax muscles. Patients may need to take extra time away from daily activities after being under anesthesia, and that rest alone could make the patient feel better.
But if patients believe that the nerve block eased their underlying pain, the physician will often conclude he or she has found the source and will move ahead with the appropriate treatment, which may include spinal fusion or radiofrequency ablation of nerves for arthritis, Cohen says. In the end, he says, many patients end up back at square one — still in pain, but having suffered through a potentially unnecessary operation.
Cohen says that while many physicians may use sedation in a sincere effort to make the procedure less traumatic for patients, there is also a perverse financial incentive to use it.
“Unfortunately, medicine in many places has become a business. The fact is, you get paid more money to do the procedure with sedation,” he says. “The costs of anesthesia can be more than the fee for the procedure itself. And patients are getting harmed.”
The research was funded by the Center for Rehabilitation Sciences Research, part of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md.
Haroon Hameed, M.D., and Michael E. Erdek, M.D., both of Johns Hopkins, contributed to this study, as well as researchers from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda; the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences; the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz.; the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio; and the University of Florida in Gainesville.
For more information from Johns Hopkins Medicine about pain management, click here.
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