Tuesday - November 25, 2008

MORE BIZARRENESS FROM PERSONAL LIFE. WHAT FUN.  LIVING WITH MUMMY.

This happened some few weeks ago, but only now sharing it.  You might find it to be an interesting read.  I hope so.
For those who do not already know, but wonder perhaps what a homesick yank is doing here, the answer is easy.
I was dropped on my head as a baby.  Never recovered.

Excuses, excuses.  Wife (English) and I sold off everything including a home we’ll never replace in Palm Desert,CA., and moved to England in April of 2004.  April 28th to be very exact.  When we left beautiful Palm Desert from the parking lot of The Elephant Bar, a truly GREAT eatery, and I do mean truly great, the outside temp. was over 112. 

We arrived in London at Heathrow in the rain and it was 54. It was probably the coldest 54 I’d encountered in my memory. A damp chill I couldn’t shake was what I remember most about that dismal day.

The reason for the desertion of my mother country was because my wife considered (correctly) that her mother was too ill and too frail to live alone any longer.  She was worried that alone, she wouldn’t last out the winter.  And no, there wasn’t any way to take the old dog back to the states.

So then, not being able to move England’s last living witch to America, we moved here to care FULL TIME for Her Wrinkled Wretchedness.
The burden/curse on my wife has been beyond what I am able to describe except to say frankly that I am watching my wife of almost 39 years, commit suicide by mother.  It is fair to assume I resent that.  I might not had the poo factory been a different person and not as manipulative when she was in better health.  Or more co-operative when she could be.  I suppose I could have overlooked some small things about her. The protruding teeth, the piggy blue eyes, the ugliness etc.  But in the end I just couldn’t overlook how stupid she is.

And now here we are, and here’s an installment from our latest life chapter. 
Living with mummy.

TROLLS AS CARE GIVERS

We were REPORTED TO SOCIAL SERVICES.

Yeah really. Wife and I must be real evil doers.  What a crock.

We aren’t taking the old dear’s ill health very seriously. Or not seriously enough. 

Over the last week the poop parade (that’s the MIL) got another urinary infection for which the doctor was immediately called and medication was provided.

Then .... she started wheezing and I never heard a wheezy chest before this.  Then, she started hallucinating BIG time. What a surprise that was.

She’d look at you and her speech was restored to almost perfect BUT ... it wasn’t you she was seeing or talking to. Creepy. Went on ALL night too. But she seemed happy enough with whoever’s company she was in.

She’s answering questions and asking them and laughing and said she’d just returned from London where she spent the day and would like some tea please. WHHHHAAAAA HA!  I never, ever saw anything like this before.  SHE’S LOOKIN STRAIGHT AT YA BUT SEEING SOMEONE ELSE!  And having a conversation with them.

So ... 2wice a day there are these ppl who work for an agency that supply people called “care givers” who are paid by Social Services.  They are called Care Givers and most times they do.  The wife’s mother paid for these services until her savings went below the required threshold.  It was at that point that the govt. got involved and now pays for the diaper and bath brigade.  However, these are NOT nurses in any way.

Most of the women and young ladies are very experienced doing this sort of thing. Changing diapers and sheets and bedding etc.  Some have worked in SS themselves or in hospitals.  Some are VERY OFFICIOUS TROLLS who somehow think they are also doctors. Two of these unfortunately are a mother and her homely skinny daughter.  The mom is normally in the office but has to fill in, and she is in charge of making the weekly schedules. Which she always copies from week to week. 

Wish there were a way to really paint the picture better.  The mother NEVER listens and furthermore doesn’t talk to you but barks AT YOU in rapid fire with a hard screechy like voice. The kind of voice and accent you’ll generally hear after the pubs close. Not at all that nice English accent you hear in many movies. 

So anyway, the daughter (Troll #1) is here one morning and hears the old woman’s breathing which as I said was wheezy. She had a chest infection.
These care givers are more or less rotated which is to say, although we may get the same ones, it might not always be at the same time every day. Troll #1 for example only works about 3 days. She’s a hairdresser and works in a beauty shop three days a week. But mommy got her trained and on the payroll.  Now Troll #1 thinks she’s a doctor. 

Well, two doctors in three days came to the house to look at PeggyPoop and she was given medications.  One doctor said that with regard to the delusions, that wasn’t a big worry at her age. 93. He sees it a lot. 

Enter Troll #1 next morning who arrived with an attitude. As soon as she “flounced” in here, she started to rant about how cold the patient’s room is, and she’s white as a sheet (she wasn’t) and was gonna die of either hypothermia or pneumonia. (she’ll live forever damn it) We needed to heat the room better.  Well duh ... the silly Moonbat came in wearing a tee shirt and a jacket. It was very cold that morning.

The patient is under two wool blankets and another lighter blanket topped by a down cover.  A flannel nightie plus a bed jacket and bed socks. But Troll #1 is cold. uh huh. She claimed the room was so cold her nose and hands felt frozen.  Too bad it wasn’t her tongue. 

So, this overly officious 20 something is going on and on and I tried to tell her, in fact I did tell her, that there were 2 doctors here already and she was on meds. One of which was only started the day before.  How quickly did she expect them to work?

Next day we got a call from SS (Social Services), would we mind awfully if they came out to our house to see how the old lady was doing as they had a report from the care givers that not all was being done that could be done.  huh?  £”!!$%*^&^#

My wife killing herself doesn’t count of course.  Well, SS doesn’t bother us and of course they are welcome to check. But the idea that, according to that one little creep, that we weren’t taking her condition seriously enough had us seeing red.  What more can we do that the doctors aren’t doing?  So I gave the SS person on the phone a rundown of the conversation including the fact that docs HAD been here and she was on meds yadda,yadda.  I then said I knew exactly who called them and if she were a guy I’d seriously paste her to a wall.  (And oh by the way, in point of fact, the old poop factory was actually seen by not two, but three doctors over the course of 7 days for three different ailments.)

So ... the lady I spoke to said she would contact the agency and tell them not to send Troll #1 to this house anymore for which I thanked her.
But ... of course the mother is highly pissed off at us now. And she sets the schedules.

The next afternoon which was Thursday, the time for the next diaper change is 6pm and two carers come over and one is Troll #2, Mommy Dearest. 

Have you ever seen anyone who walked with an attitude?  That’s the mom, Troll #2. In she came wearing a face like thunder and a blinding lack of intelligence, doesn’t say a word but marches straight through to the room where the wife’s mother is.  No usual hallo or hi-ya. A face set in stone and not pretty to begin with. She’s angry. You can see it.
Understand it was her daughter who sicked SS on us. We defended ourselves successfully , and she’s upset with us.  Go figure.

Now then ... on the morning calls when they also body wash her and have more to do, they are scheduled for 45 minutes.  But the afternoon calls are scheduled for only 30 minutes.  Not all that time is needed and the care givers are in and out of here in 10 to 12 minutes. 15 TOPS.  One of them can do the afternoon change in 8 minutes. She’s that fast.

Ah but Thurs. was different.  Mommy Dearest care giver, Troll #2, and another carer were here for the full 30 minutes. FIRST TIME they have taken all the time scheduled.  After they left ... my wife took a look at their log book in which something is written every visit and what they did and found etc.

The wife looked at the logbook, and found that Troll #2 had written into the record that the pad under the patient was soiled and needed changing.  But that’s what they are here for.  They get paid to do that Why didn’t they do it? 

AT ALL OTHER TIMES if there is some sort of soiling of that pad (which usually lasts a week and DOES NOT generally come in contact with bad stuff) if that pad needs to be changed, the women always ask us for another pad. Always. It’s been that way for a couple years. All of a sudden, a spiteful and vindictive screechy voiced bow-wow tries to write something in the log thinking I guess that we don’t look at those. 
So I wrote something under her comment.

Finally ...  Friday at 10am we got a house visit from SS.  The rep. spent an hour and a half here and gave us a clean bill of health, not surprisingly.  By The Way …. we left the pad for SS to see.  It needed NO changing.
My bet is however, that we’re gonna have a scheduling problem soon.  Maybe not but these folks can get very difficult.  They do not like being questioned and complaints about scheduling or late visits are met with anger. 

STAY TUNED!  I think this is gonna get interesting.  But I hope not.

-30-

Medical services are free but the NHS contributions take a far higher sum out of a persons pay here then is done in say the USA with Soc.Security payments.  The mil started working full time when she was 14.  No SS then but it did begin in 1948 I believe.  There was a ten year period when she stayed at home raising her two kids as women did in those days.  But when her husband died she had to return to work and did so right to retirement age.
So she did pay her way during her working years.

Posted by peiper     on 11/25/2008 at 08:43 AM   
Filed Under: • Blog Stuff • Daily Life • Medical •  
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   Monday - November 24, 2008

THE MEDICAL EXAM …. THIS WON’T HURT AND YOU’RE DOING FINE.  YEAH? LIKE HELL I AM

Part One:  THE EXAM.

Colonoscopy:
Something recommended for everyone over age 50, especially if there’s a family history of colon cancer.
I just wouldn’t want it done here in the UK again, if I have any choice. And I might not.  Nothing humorous about this subject but before I get into my experience with the procedure done here, I must say the following.

The Brit nursing staff and support people are top notch and more caring then are my fellow Americans. Hey, I am in a position to compare based on personal experience with the two.  So no offense is intended toward American nursing, where my experience after back surgery was dismal.  Now to be fair, my experience was in Riverside, Ca.  That was in ’91 and perhaps things have improved since then although the odds are against that.  And maybe while I had a bad time in Ca. things were the opposite say in Tulsa ,Ok. or San Diego. My experience at Baptist Hosp. in Nashville wasn’t exactly too affectionate either come to think about it.  But I have to tell you the Brit nurses are gold star performers and in spite of the scare stories about doctors mistakes and hospital infections, I tend to doubt that any nurses anywhere can match the care and concern and the training of the nurses here.  But there is a problem and it’s this.

Their guidelines regarding pain management, are as screwed up as a soup sandwich.  The very same people who write their asinine ONE SIZE FITS ALL MEDICAL REGS., also invented the famous submarine with a screen door.  This is the result of politicians getting into the micro-management of the health service.  Of course, this is all for your own good.  (Nanny knows best)

My exam was scheduled for 9am and by golly they don’t keep you waiting long.  In fact, unlike the hospitals and clinics back home, you don’t have to disrobe entirely and you can keep your shoes on.  In Ca. where last I had this procedure in ’04, they had me remove everything except socks.  I can tell you it was warmer doing it their way here.  A nurse even tied that silly hosp. gown that ties in back and is always too small or too open.  Mine wasn’t. They have you wrap a small sheet around your waist which makes you look like you’re wearing as dress.  Not that there was ever any doubt, but I would never have made a sexy looking female and my legs aren’t hot either.
So in I went to the torture dungeon.

I had a device stuck in my hand through which they administer the drugs for sedation and pain control.  Ouch.
You lay on your left side and they insert the camera and having had this done three times in the past, I had never experienced anything more then some discomfort.  Well, you’d expect at least that.  But I’d never had any pain.
Till this time.

I was told that the sedation wasn’t enough to put me to sleep (unlike USA), because the person doing the procedure might need to talk to me.  What? Was he gonna ask me for my opinion on the American election?  Oh, btw. The fellow doing the exam wasn’t the same doc who initially interviewed and examined me the month before this. But no matter.

For whatever reason, I sure felt the damn probe and I didn’t like it one bit let me tell ya.  Hmmmm.  I guess that proves I’m straight.  Whatever. The damn thing hurt like mad and I said so.  Unfortunately, their “guidelines” didn’t allow for any more pain killer or sedation.
Meanwhile he’s telling me stuff like, “you’re doing fine, you’re doing fine.”
Like bloody hell I replied.  Don’t you just hate it when you’re the one going through something and someone not feeling what you are tells you how well you’re doing.

So, I told him to stop the procedure, we were through, that’s it.
And he again told me that I was doing fine.

That’s when I lost it and said, “Get that fucking thing out of there. We’re done.”

I didn’t make any friends that day and the coffee and two dry and tasteless biscuits they give you after a long fast were pretty bad.  So much so that I didn’t drink the coffee or eat the biscuits. 

Some people just need more pain medication then others.  We are not all the same which the guidelines just do not allow for.

So then, how was your week?

Posted by peiper     on 11/24/2008 at 08:56 AM   
Filed Under: • Medical • Nanny State • UK •  
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SO HOW WAS YOUR WEEK? GLAD YOU ASKED.  IT WAS BAD BUT IT GOT WORSE

PART TWO

SO HOW WAS YOUR WEEK? GLAD YOU ASKED.  IT WAS BAD BUT IT GOT WORSE.

I’m not sure I know how to use words well enough to describe the past week, which saw me off line and feeling like a dog.
When the doctor asked me how long I’d been feeling like that, I couldn’t resist answering, “Ever since I’ve been a puppy.”

The rule is start at the beginning but that rule doesn’t apply here.
So I am starting this saga with PART TWO, first.
And to be honest, it really wasn’t funny although I suppose reading it might cause a giggle or two.  That’s because it didn’t happen to you.

On Thurs. Nov. 20th I had a Colonoscopy. No big deal really and millions of people over the age of 50 have had the experience.  Anyway, it’s the preparation for the exam that’s the pain in the butt really.  Or it’s supposed to be. But I’m way ahead of myself.  That’s part one.  Let me tell ya about Part two.

AFTER THE EXAM

My wife picked me up after an exam at the hospital and we were home by 11:am.  By noon or thereabouts, something very strange was taking place.
Sort of a Kafka like experience except it wasn’t all of me turning into something else.  It was an appendage attached to my face.
Guys will get a handle on this quicker then any lady reading same.

So picture this fellas.  Had to use the loo (bathroom) and there I am standing over the bowl and my aim true when, my nose disappeared and in it’s place was a faucet.  With one hand below the water line and the other furiously trying to wipe the water running down my face with my sleeve, this was becoming a circus.  My eyes were watery and my nose was just leaking water like a tap was stuck open on slow but steady leak.

When I managed somehow to finish there, I came downstairs thinking it was all over. I sat at the table with a magazine when suddenly there were droplets on the page.  It had started again only now in addition to watery eyes, my right eye was actually dripping water down my cheek while my faucet/nose was dripping over my lip.  Add a damn headache to all of the above.

Pretty soon I’m blowing the old nose as well and I went through three boxes of man sized Kleenex and a large roll of toilet paper.  It wasn’t too long before the area under the nose was raw from all the wiping and so after each act of trying to clear a stuffy nose, I was putting Vaseline there.  How the heck can one have a stuffy plugged up nose when it’s leaking water at the same time?

How would I know.  Am I a doctor?  So I thought I would wait out Thursday and if things didn’t get better, I’d call my doctor Friday morning. 

As if all this wasn’t bad enough, I couldn’t sneeze.  I still can’t, but thankfully that tickle that says you are about to is gone for now.
Yeah, no kidding.  There was a constant tickle way up the nose and it was nerve wracking because it was telling me to sneeze.  I’m certain if I could have, I’d have felt better.  But I just couldn’t and the tickle kept coming back again and again.

I just couldn’t stay up and so went to bed with another box of Kleenex and took some Sinex for the stuffy nose thing.  That helped. But I also discovered something.

As long as I was laying prone or propped up reading in bed, the runny nose thing eased off quite a bit.  However, each and every time I got out of bed say to use the bathroom or come downstairs for a snack, it would start to run again.  In fact, it would start before I actually stood up.  Soon as feet hit the floor and I was in a sitting position, the water would run downhill.

SO.

Friday morning and with no change in the situation I called the doctors office, (referred to as a surgery here).  My doctor was in but he wasn’t making call backs that day (?) which is ok because first of all I don’t much care for the doctor I was assigned to, and anyway I haven’t seen him for 8 months.
I was told the duty doctor would call me back, and she did within a half hour of my call.

I told her everything I have written here (except that I didn’t care for my assigned doctor. I didn’t think she’d wanna hear that especially as he’s the senior saw bones there) and she said that there were some weird colds going around “at the moment” but she’s never encountered anything like what I was describing.  She also suggested that it was possible that I’d picked up a hospital born viral infection, and there wasn’t really anything she could do for me, even if I were seen by her.  She further suggested I might want to rub some Vicks on my chest.  Well I might not actually.
Finally, she said to “call back in a few hours if things didn’t improve.”
Huh?  What did she imagine they’d be able to do then?  An autopsy?

Stay Tuned:  THE EXAM, Part One coming shortly ...

Posted by peiper     on 11/24/2008 at 08:36 AM   
Filed Under: • Medical • Nanny State • UK •  
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   Monday - November 10, 2008

YOUR CALL IS IMPORTANT TO US, PLEASE STAY ON THE LINE.

YOUR CALL IS IMPORTANT TO US, PLEASE STAY ON THE LINE.
Heck, I didn’t even get that far.

Due to a family medical history, every four or five years I have to go through the
bother of a Colonoscopy.  Routine and thousands are done every year and I’ve had this done in the past.  But to be honest, I have a few concerns.

When my GP gave me the paperwork to call the hosp. unit , Gastroenterology,
I was given a password.  Huh?  I need a password to call and make an appointment?
Yup.  Seemed weird ta me but hey.  If that’s how it’s done.  Stupid sounding password though but okay.

So I called and the appointment was made to ‘consult’ with the doctor who would then schedule the procedure.  Well, it was almost nine weeks before I got to see the doctor for about 15 minutes.  I was then informed that I would get something in the mail in six weeks informing me of the time and date when they would do the exam.
Ok … whenever.

I have an appointment for a medical exam on the 20th of the month.
So here’s the routine and I’ll tell ya but just between us.  I’m not sure I have much faith in these folks.  I’m certain it’s only me but …..  so here you are.

You get a letter finally setting the date and time with a request to call and confirm your appointment.  If you don’t, the appointment will be given to someone else and there’s a time frame in which you should confirm the date. 
Hmmmm, you consider that option.  Maybe you can get away with doing nothing for another year.  You really don’t want to go to the bother of this, especially when you sign that god awful paper that tells you about the things that can go wrong. 
But with a family history of Colin Cancer, always better to be seen and checked because …. ya never do know.  Right? 

So then, you call this number they’ve given you to confirm.  The line is busy. Wait a few minutes and call back but the line is still busy.  This goes on for about five or so minutes and then suddenly when you call back for perhaps the third time, bingo.  It’s ringing.  Oh joy.  It’s still ringing.  Ring-Ring-Ring.  It goes on.  And on.  No automated pick up that tells you how important your call is to them (not that you’d believe it anyway) and no request to please stay on the line.  Ring-Ring $£!!#~!*

Say wait a minute.  Did you even dial the correct number?  A quick glance at the number showing on your phone screen confirms you have dialed correctly.
Ring-Ring-Ring and by now you say aw the hell with it.  Hang up and wait about fifteen minutes and making sure you’re dialing the right number with eyes on the screen …. Bzzzzzzzzzzy!  AhhhhhhGDit %$!!£”%*.  So you wait some more and call again.  Surely this time.  Ring,ring,ring,ring, but you have to hang up this time because you have a desperate need to use the loo (bathroom to us yanks) and you can only keep your legs crossed tightly for so long.

AH … THE PAUSE THAT REFRESHES!

Now back to the damn phone which by now you regard as a mortal enemy to be overcome by whatever means.
Ring,ring,ring,ring and another dozen of the same and still nobody answers.
You get to thinking, maybe your call to confirm your appointment is only important to you and this confirms that.  Ring,ring.

Well finally you’ve had enough and so call the hospital’s main switchboard and ask if there’s perhaps another number for the Gastroenterology dept., as the number you are calling doesn’t answer.  By this time about a half hour has passed.  You ask if maybe you’re calling after hours in error.  You have to ask that because of all the stuff they sent in the mail, the instructions, the powder you’re to mix with water and drink before the exam, the paperwork and the map and the warning about mistakes etc., there are NO hours of operation listed therein.

No, I haven’t called after hours the switchboard tell me, and they do have another number for that department and will call it for me and wait on the line.
Whatever … (they never did give the other number though. Hmm, maybe it’s a secret.  Maybe they’d give it out if you send in a cereal boxtop. ) RING! Ah, success!
Someone has actually picked up the phone.  But ,,, they don’t say anything. After a slight pause they finally say …. “Yes?” In other words, they don’t answer with a dept. name.  You know.  Like for instance, “Hello, Morgue Dept.  How may we be of service?” You drop em we cart em. haha.

Well here’s how the conversation goes from there.
You:  Is this Gastroenterology?
Them:  pause …
You:  Hello?
Them:  Yes?
You:  Ah .. Enterology – Colonoscopy dept.? 
Them:  Yes.  (sounding very much put out and a bit annoyed. probably because they had to pick the phone up.  I don’t blame them at all honestly.  Who knows what I may have interrupted. Maybe something … you know … lets not go there.

Fine. It’s done. Your appointment is officially confirmed but you’re left wondering again if you really want to go through with this on the 20th.  It’s a real pain but in the end (lol) you know you must.

It’s taken over two months to get this far in the process.

Stay Tuned.  See the extended text because ..... 

Posted by peiper     on 11/10/2008 at 12:12 PM   
Filed Under: • Medical • UK •  
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   Thursday - August 28, 2008

Paging Doctor McStupid

Here it is Peiper. I couldn’t find it at the papers you mentioned, but it was over at the Strabane Chronicle.

Naturally the larger part of the news article is about the planned lawsuit.  Gosh, I hope the kid is Ok. That’s what matters, isn’t it? Isn’t it?

An Artigarvan mother is seeking legal advice over a blunder which saw her four-year-old daughter sent home from hospital with the wrong leg in plaster.  The shocking blunder happened on Friday evening, after four-year-old Megan Jack was knocked off her scooter as she played outside her Liscurry Gardens home in the village.  Realising the ankle was broke, Megan’s mother Rose immediately rushed her daughter to Altnagelvin’s Accident and Emergency department.

wrong leg

Speaking on Tuesday, Rose explained: “They did an x-ray on her right leg, where the bone was sticking through the ankle. But then they plastered the left leg. I was so tired that I didn’t even notice. But when we got home, Megan was still in a while (wild?) state and I tried to get her settled and gave her Nurofen. But then I noticed that the plaster was on the wrong leg and I said to my son about it.”

“I phoned Altnagelvin to check and they laughed at me. I couldn’t believe it,” she said.

The mother-of-four has been so outraged at her treatment by Altnagelvin staff that she intends to consult her solicitor on the matter.

“I had to go back to the hospital to have the plaster changed the same night and they just laughed at me again. I’m glad they find it funny because I didn’t and I will be speaking to my solicitor about this. The attitude of Altnagelvin when I phoned them was ridiculous and if I could have taken Megan to another hospital, be it Coleraine or Belfast, I would have. What has angered me the most is that they made a joke out this. You never think something like this could happen and you trust these people with your life. I took my daughter to hospital for help and I got laughed at.”

“They let me and Megan so badly down and at this point legal action is the only course of action open to me,’ Rose said.

When contacted the Western Health and Social Care Trust yesterday refused to be drawn on the possibility of legal action being taken against them. A Trust spokesman told the Strabane Chronicle that the matter had been investigated and was being treated very seriously.

I wonder who set the kid’s ankle in the first place? I bet it was one of them foreign doctors. Probably this guy:

Sorry, It Was the Wrong Foot

JIZAN, Saudi Arabia, 2 December 2007 — A careless doctor put a cast on the wrong foot of a child suffering from a broken leg, Okaz reported. The doctor insisted on putting the cast on the right foot of the child claiming that he knew best because he was the doctor. He decided the child’s right foot was broken just by feeling it and not X-raying it. The father returned home with his child thinking that the doctor had done his job, but was shocked when he later discovered that the wrong foot had been treated. The father then angrily returned to the hospital where the errant doctor corrected his mistake.

Just how hard is it to ask a kid which leg hurts? Or to do some simple diagnosis, like touching it? Or seeing which leg goes sideways, or is all swollen? The Saudi story is bad enough, but the English one, a compound fracture, that takes the cake. What they both should take is the medical licenses. Forgive the pun, but bone heads like these two docs the world doesn’t need!

Strabane is in the north end of Ireland, between Donegal and Londonderry, well west of Belfast

Posted by Drew458     on 08/28/2008 at 08:55 PM   
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   Thursday - August 14, 2008

Rat’s ‘brain’ used to power robot .  Not a joke. It’s for real.

I THOUGHT AT FIRST HEY! WHAT AN OPPORTUNITY TO BUILD THE FIRST EVER ROBOT POLITICIAN.  BUT THEN I REMEMBERED, THERE ARE SOME THINGS EVEN

A RAT WILL NOT AGREE TO.

A robot has been created which is powered by a rat’s “brain”.

By Kate Devlin
Last Updated: 1:14PM BST 14 Aug 2008

Electrical signals from rat cells have been harnessed to drive the robot, which is on wheels, around a laboratory.
By stimulating certain responses within the cells scientists have even been able to make the robot, or “animat”, move.
The “brain” is actually rat brain tissue which has been artificially grown in a lab.

The scientists at Reading University hope that they can use the machine to understand more about how our brains work, and even to develop treatments for diseases such as epilepsy, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s Disease.

To create the machine scientists first grew rat nerve cells in a laboratory.
These cells connect with each other, sending signals within around 24 hours.

After a week the scientists can detect activity similar to brain activity. Within two or three weeks the cells can be hooked up to the robot.
The team uses bluetooth technology, which allows them to send communication without the use of wires.

Scientists can also use sonar signals to cause the robot to swerve to avoid a wall, by triggering different signals in the “brain”, reports New Scientist magazine.
The robots currently turn eight out of 10 times, but Professor Kevin Warwick, head of cybernetics at Reading University, who led the study, said that figure could increase substantially.

He said: “[The animal] is actively learning.
“The signals and the pathways are strengthening as each action gets repeated.”

Prof Warwick said he believed that eventually the robot would turn 100 per cent of the time.
He also hopes to use the animat to try to understand more about how the brain works, for example how it remembers things, by capturing the signals.

However, these “brains” have a limited lifespan and currently live for only around three months, as long as they are regularly fed in temperature controlled incubators.
Prof Steve Potter, from the Georgia Institute of Technology, who has been involved in similar technology involving animals and robots, said that it was clear that brain cells have “evolved to reconnect under almost any circumstance that doesn’t kill them.”

http://tinyurl.com/5w3nkj

Posted by Drew458     on 08/14/2008 at 09:56 AM   
Filed Under: • Medical • Science-Technology • UK •  
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   Monday - May 26, 2008

On retiring breasts

I’m reading Feminist Mormon Housewives (Yes, Grasshopper, that’s a real blog) and stumble upon a discussion On Retiring the Breasts. Admittedly, I’ve never considered the possibility of women retiring their breasts. Intrigued, I read on…

If you were a window washer outside my gynecologist’s office earlier this week, you might have heard the following conversation:

Dr. D: Have you noticed any pain or tenderness in your breasts lately?

Me: no

Dr. D: Any lumps or unusual swelling?

Me: no

Dr. D: Any changes in them since I saw you last year?

Me: They’re half the size they were when you saw them last year.

Dr. D: Well, they’ve worked hard, give them a break.

Egads! They’ve worked hard? They’re half the size? What did this?

I weaned Maren about three months ago.

Okay, she’s just retiring from breastfeeding.

So now that I’ve weaned what will be, in all likelihood, our last baby (although I haven’t given up hope that he’ll give in, the whole Boston Marathon thing has put the relentless begging on hold for a few months), I keep wondering what the purpose of these old breasts of mine is for the next, well, potentially sixty years of my life. When they were young and new, they looked good, and maybe even helped me in the pursuit of a partner. Then, on and off for the last eight years, they’ve sustained four lives. But now what?

What indeed. 

Articles like this make me realize how easy I have it being a man. Men don’t have to worry about when to retire various body parts.

When (if?) you read the article, don’t neglect the Comments section. The comments are a hoot. For example:

A friend told me an awesome story about how she was holding her baby boy in her arms right out of the shower and suddenly he reached over, said “ping!” and flicked her nipple. That was when she decided it was time to “retire” her breasts!

Or

I have fantastic breasts. I’m just sayin’. (Not as fantastic as Janet’s, however…which nearly goes _without_ saying…)

However, mine are surgically altered. I had reduction surgery when I was a teenager, and I have honestly never done anything to my body that has continued to be so personally worthwhile. I was miserable about them before then, as well as seriously hampered by them. Nothing worse for an on-the-go, seriously athletic tomboy than ginormous boobs. Seriously.

My surgery, however, has made it unlikely that, should I ever have children, I will be able to breastfeed them. I’m honestly not sure how I feel about that. Maybe it means I will someday wish I’d chosen otherwise, but I doubt it. It almost certainly means that I’ll never feel that a physical part of me has been “retired.” Which I can’t help but feel is a good thing.

Besides, Shelah, don’t you plan to go on enticing your mate with them far into the future?

I think I’ll go see if my wife wants to ‘entice’ me. 

Posted by Christopher     on 05/26/2008 at 07:47 AM   
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff • Medical •  
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   Saturday - May 03, 2008

More Wordless Blogging (with picture links)

Posted by Drew458     on 05/03/2008 at 03:05 PM   
Filed Under: • Amazing Science and Discoveries • Medical •  
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   Thursday - February 28, 2008

Really odd news

WTF??

DUBLIN (AFP) - An Irishman blinded by an explosion two years ago has had his sight restored after doctors inserted his son’s tooth in his eye, he said on Wednesday.
Bob McNichol, 57, from County Mayo in the west of the country, lost his sight in a freak accident when red-hot liquid aluminium exploded at a re-cycling business in November 2005.

“I thought that I was going to be blind for the rest of my life,” McNichol told RTE state radio.

After doctors in Ireland said there was nothing more they could do, McNichol heard about a miracle operation called Osteo-Odonto-Keratoprosthesis (OOKP) being performed by Dr Christopher Liu at the Sussex Eye Hospital in Brighton in England.

The technique, pioneered in Italy in the 1960s, involves creating a support for an artificial cornea from the patient’s own tooth and the surrounding bone.

The procedure used on McNichol involved his son Robert, 23, donating a tooth, its root and part of the jaw.

McNichol’s right eye socket was rebuilt, part of the tooth inserted and a lens inserted in a hole drilled in the tooth.

The first operation lasted ten hours and the second five hours.

“It is pretty heavy going,” McNichol said. “There was a 65 percent chance of me getting any sight.

“Now I have enough sight for me to get around and I can watch television. I have come out from complete darkness to be able to do simple things,” McNichol said.

Put the coffee cup down ... you know I’m gonna say it ...

I guess this must have been one of his eye teeth?

Sorry, I can’t resist the really easy ones sometimes.

source

Posted by Drew458     on 02/28/2008 at 10:58 PM   
Filed Under: • Medical • Odd-Strange •  
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   Monday - December 17, 2007

Perspectives

Too busy of a Monday to post anything substantial, but I see that LawDog, Ambulance Driver and Babs have teamed up again to write a terrific small town story.

Start at LawDog’s place, then continue with AD and finish it with Babs

Well worth the time.

Posted by Drew458     on 12/17/2007 at 04:40 PM   
Filed Under: • Medical •  
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   Wednesday - September 26, 2007

On Quitting

I’ve never been a smoker, never even had the desire to try one.  Both of my parents smoked like chimneys and they both died from the habit at a young age (57 & 61).  I have always thought about it as a vile, horribly smelling vice that served no purpose.  It angers me to see kids smoking, thinking they are being cool, but knowing they’re being stupid.  I’ve never understood the appeal, but know, intellectually, that there must be one or millions of people would not be addicted.  I’ve known people to quit, only to start up again after a time.  Most of the time, they can’t even tell you why.

Geek was able to quit.

Go and read his story and how he seperates the physical, chemical addiction from the phychological and habitual factors.  If you feel smoking has taken away some of your free will, you will want to read this.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/26/2007 at 06:34 AM   
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   Sunday - May 27, 2007

Partners

If Ambulance Driver is not on your daily read list, it should be.

Today, he writes about one of his partners.

“How long has he been down?” Pardner wants to know as he strips off his uniform. He sits on the bumper of the rig and hurriedly takes off his duty boots. Not bothering with buttons, he yanks his uniform shirt over his head, tee-shirt with it. He drops his duty belt, pager and radio still attached, on the grass behind the truck, almost an afterthought. It wouldn’t be the first pager he has taken into the water with him.

“¿Cuán largo ha estado él bajo el agua?” the game warden asks the kid. The little boy, wet and shivering under a rough woolen blanket, sniffles a response.

“Maybe fifteen minutes,” the game warden translates, defeat in his eyes. It’s understood that the game warden isn’t going in. He wants to, but he’s too old. If he obeyed his instincts, did what his manhood screamed for him to do, he’d have gone in.

And then we’d have two bodies to recover instead of one, and the game warden knows it. I know it, too. That’s why I’m not going in, either.

Posted by Drew458     on 05/27/2007 at 06:39 AM   
Filed Under: • Medical • Philosophy •  
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   Monday - May 14, 2007

Cure For Cancer

Okla. Professors Develop Cancer Protein
NORMAN, Okla. - May 14, 2007, 5:04 PM EDT

Two professors at the University of Oklahoma say they’ve developed a protein that can stop the spread of certain cancer cells without damaging normal cells. Thomas Pento and Roger Harrison helped develop a fusion protein that keeps some types of cancer cells from ingesting a vital protein called methionine. The fusion protein doesn’t affect normal cells because, unlike cancer cells, they can be healthy without that protein.

Chemotherapy and radiation therapies kill normal cells along with cancer cells, which often cause sickness and hair loss. “Roger has created a mechanism that delivers these compounds specifically to the surface of cancer cells so normal cells won’t be affected but only the cancer cells will be damaged,” Pento said.

“So you can see it would cause a lot less toxicity and it should really be a lot more effective.” Pento is a Noble Foundation presidential professor of pharmacy at the OU Health Sciences Center; Harrison is an associate professor of chemical, biological and materials engineering on the Norman campus. They worked with other OU scientists, including Xiao-Ping Zang, Naveen Palwai, Megan Lerner and Dan Brackett, research director at the Health Sciences Center’s surgery department.

Pento said the research started with breast cancer and expanded to include other types of solid tumors. They found the fusion protein to be just as helpful in fighting lung, prostate and pancreatic cancers. “It could be applicable to many types of cancer,” Pento said, “but we’ve found that it’s effective for those four types of cancer for sure.”

Despite successful testing to this point, Harrison said the fusion protein will need another round of animal tests before moving on to years of human clinical testing. Three phases of clinical tests could take two years each. “So it could be in the order of 10 years,” he said. “It sounds so far away, but realistically, given the FDA and all the phases of testing, it could be done rapidly.”

The two professors have applied for patents on their technology and plan to conduct animal testing themselves before launching their own company or licensing with a large pharmaceutical company to do it. “If you don’t patent it and get that protection, then no pharmaceutical company is going to spend the half to three-quarter billion dollars that it takes to do the clinical testing and to get this drug on the market,” Pento said.

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/14/2007 at 05:25 PM   
Filed Under: • Medical • Science-Technology •  
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   Saturday - May 12, 2007

Mom

Tomorrow is Mothers Day. You didn’t forget, did you? OK, I am giving you fair warning this year. You now have twenty-four hours to get your slacker butt off the couch and plan something for your Mom tomorrow. Failure to do so will result in severe punishment. I kid you not.

You can go buy her flowers or sweets. You can take her out to dinner. There are a thousand things you can do to show your love and respect for the woman who raised you. For what it’s worth, I suggest just wait until she is not looking and sneak up on her, give her a big hug and say “I love you, mom.”

My mother passed away in 1991. I sure wish I had another chance to do that very thing for her one more time. In the meantime, here is a story of one mother’s love and devotion you need to read. Make note of the address to send contributions to.

For Mother’s Day - A Mother’s Determination
-- By Tom Purcell

It was 1994. She thought she’d heard a faint wheezing in her baby’s lungs. She took her baby to the doctor right away, who sent her to a specialist. The doctor said it was nothing – probably a touch of acid reflux. He said it was common for new mothers to overreact. He said he’d run some tests to be safe.

Later that night, she was preparing for bed. The phone rang. It was the doctor. Her daughter tested positive for Cystic Fibrosis. The doctor warned her not to panic. The tests could be wrong – he’d run them again the following day. He warned her to avoid reading about the illness until it was confirmed.

But she couldn’t wait. She threw a rain coat over her pajamas, grabbed her sleeping baby out of her crib, then rushed out to a late-night book store. As she cradled her baby in her arms, she read everything she could about CF.

It is an hereditary disease that causes a child’s lungs, intestines and pancreas to become clogged with thick mucus. It is fatal. She’d be lucky if her daughter survived into her 20’s.

She broke down in the book store. She slid to the floor, crying uncontrollably as she held her baby tightly. She cried as though her baby had already been taken away. The doctor confirmed the lab results. The pain was unbearable. She and her husband did not know what to do.

She reached out to a friend. Luckily, her friend knew plenty about CF. She knew former NFL star Boomer Esiason and his wife Cheryl. They have a son with CF. They’ve done extensive fundraising for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and now head their own foundation.

The Esiasons contacted her right away. They understood her pain well and consoled her. They shared everything they knew about the illness. She was instantly transformed. She began channeling her pain into mastering CF. She learned how to apply medications and treatments to give her daughter the best hope.

She learned of CF’s other challenges, too. Though there are 30,000 Americans who suffer from the illness, the number is too small to spur drug companies to do research. The CF market cannot generate enough revenue to recoup the millions needed to develop new drugs.

So she took the bull by the horns. She quit her job and jumped into the CF fundraising business full time. She joined boards and chairs events. She gives speeches wherever she can.

The money she raises goes to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. It hires its own scientists to advance its own medical breakthroughs (90 percent of the funds raised go directly to research). Thanks to so many just like her, the average lifespan of a child born with CF has jumped to 36.5 years.

But that isn’t good enough for her. In 1998, her second daughter was born with CF. There was only a 25 percent chance that she and her husband, both CF carriers, would have another CF child, but fate struck again. They felt unbearable pain again.

Every day is a battle for her now. Every day, her girls must take a collective 34 pills and an array of oral medicines. They must complete 10 breathing treatments and six 30-minute therapy sessions. The treatments and medicines are designed to extend their lives.

Every day, she works tirelessly to raise money to advance any technique or medicine that might extend a CF child’s life a little longer – that might, if promising new research goes as hoped, cure this dreaded disease. Hers is the story of a mother’s love – a mother’s powerful determination to breathe life into thousands of children.

Her name is Angela Kinney and she could use a little help. She’ll be participating in the Great Strides walk in Pittsburgh on May 20th (an event that is held throughout May in cities across America). To contribute to her efforts go to http://www.cff.org/great_strides/angiekinney or contact her directly at angiekinney@comcast.net.

You might want to wish her a Happy Mother’s Day while you’re at it. She’s certainly earned it.

---

_{Tom Purcell is a humor columnist nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons. For comments to Tom, please email him at Purcell@caglecartoons.com.}

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/12/2007 at 06:44 AM   
Filed Under: • Editorials • Medical •  
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