CRPS, or Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (Type 1), is a change in the nervous system that's usually triggered by a very painful episode. The bad kinds affect the brain, nerves, muscles, skin, metabolism, circulation, and fight-or-flight response. Lucky me; that's what I've got. ... But life is still inherently good (or I don't know when to quit; either way) and, good or not, life still goes on.

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Expected vs. Actual: planning for WC settlement

The lawyers have finally agreed that it's time to put this turkey of a Worker's Comp case to bed.

My lawyer said that, for one thing, I get a mathematically-determined
"apportionment" for being 30% disabled (yes, the Governator thinks I can do 70% of the work I was trained for -- writing and patient care -- with no freakin' hands!) The amount would buy a midrange car, but not insurance or gas.

In addition to that, I can either continue fighting with them for every scrap of care my doctors are willing to go to bat for, or hold them up for cash on the barrelhead in return for letting them off the hook in future.

My lawyer figured they might be persuaded to give me the equivalent of another midrange car. This adds up to roughly the cost of a moderately tricked-out Tesla Roadster.

That's not chump change, but put this in the tailpipe and smoke it ...
I suggested plotting out future expenses and seeing how close that amount (the Tesla) would come to meeting the need. So I did.

Turns out that, after writing the check for the Roadster, they'd still
have to move the decimal one place to the right. And that's for basic lifetime care -- nothing fancy, no further disasters or complications. Just regular doctor visits, generic meds, some minor surgery (although
with CRPS there's really no such thing), and acupuncture at about the same rate they've allowed so far. Over a million dollars.

Think they'll move that decimal point?

Friday, August 27, 2010

Scientific method & infant studies

Further thoughts on this article which revealed, to every parent's astonishment I'm sure, that babies remember what upsets them and learn to hope for less in the future:
http://www.physorg.com/news201964561.html
My first, suppressed response was a huge internal "WTHF??? Who'd do
that deliberately??"
But I was a nurse for years -- I know what people will do deliberately and I won't go into it here, especially since I just had a tasty breakfast.
My second thought was the one reflecting my training, which tells me that if it isn't repeated in a number of controlled scientific experiments, it's not accepted medical knowledge (document, document, document!), and if it's not accepted scientifically, it won't be accepted as good parenting practice.
grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr... But I digress.
On the one hand, I'm glad that a few OBs might suggest that parents hang onto their infants instead of handling them like awkward, smelly little responsibilities to be managed with as little face-time as possible.
On the other, I find it profoundly, horribly wrong to tell young parents to walk away from their screaming baby and stay there while we stab or slash the kid to get a few blood samples, and then come back again later to do it all again.
Because heaven knows you can't just watch the painful reality of life unfold naturally. That would require the assumption, antithetical to scientific method's assumptions, that observation and empathy in a real-world setting (where sometimes kids get put down for real reasons) is a valid basis for drawing conclusions.
I could go on about psychogenic shock, neurological development, early bonding, the isolationist shift in child-rearing advice over 30 years, the current puzzlement among psychologists about the staggering proportion of young adults who are incapable of empathy, the weirdness of the fact that most of the world is toilet-trained by ~2 but here we're rarely trained by 4... And so on.
But that could take awhile and my iPhone is starting to make my fingertips sting.

Scientific method: a fragile prop

There's an unalterable gap between scientific method and basic decency. This is one of several profound deficiencies in the former, like its rigidly Newtonian frame of reference, the circular logic of many fundamental assumptions, and the _unacknowledged_ reflexive trope, "If we don't understand it, it isn't real; if we haven't tested for it, it doesn't exist."
How can scientific rigor possibly be equated with intellectual rigor,
when it cherishes this absence of basic intellectual integrity?
The combination of profound & pervasive logical fallacies, combined with a very weak attachment to the human context in which it'll ultimately be used, make scientific method far too limited to base most of biomedical research on. It would be excellent as one of several methods, since what it does accomplish, it does very well.
For better and worse, though, it's the "gold standard" of biomedical research. Astonishing. And very scary. It explains an awful lot.
... In related news, the US currency went off the gold standard under Nixon.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Standards

Driving requires licensure, even though you can only knock off a few people at a time & do maybe half a million dollars worth of damage.
Carrying a gun requires licensure, even though you can shoot only a handful of your work or school's population before getting taken down.
But what about things that allow you to screw things up for generations? I wonder about how recklessly we leap into things like abusive relationships and electing con artists. (Almost a tautology.)
Without changing existing syllabi (or syllabuses), and with only minor logistical adjustments, it seems promising to institute the following requirements:
* Before voting, passing a 9th-grade civics exam and a course in basic logic & critical thinking. Refreshers required every 4 years, increasing to 6 years after age 35.
* On entering your first sexual relationship, passing an 8th-grade course in effective communication... regardless of how old -- or young -- both partners are at the time. (Because of the strange nature of some pederasts, this should bring some child-abuse cases to light; a desirable side-effect.)
* Before moving in together, passing high-school level home economics (including hygeine) AND a basic financial management course. Everyone does both. Divide the tasks afterwards if you like.
* Before getting married, passing a course in negotiation & mediation. Also adult versions of safety, hygeine, and personal financial management.
* Before breeding, a 6-month intensive course in parenting (including models from Dr. Spock to Attachment Parenting) and developmental psychology. Also, screening for psychoses and serious personality disorders -- not to exclude them (there's no eliminating these from the gene pool) but to provide pertinent training and prepare appropriate backup and support for nutcase, partner, and child.
Wackos raise some very gifted & capable kids, so excluding them from the parenting pool doesn't make sense as a social strategy.
But don't worry, I'm not going to have kids.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Campaign cash: Who's spending where in 2010

Information is a beautiful thing.

--------------------

Campaign cash: Who's spending where in 2010
:08 AM EDT Tuesday, August 24, 2010
The Post offers an interactive table to track campaign spending by interest groups and political parties in the 2010 midterm elections.

http://link.email.washingtonpost.com/r/E5QODK/JIITMS/2V5ICZ/SALAPD/VAIOB/ID/t

--------------------
I hope the link works.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

SF night shot

Got an eyeful of SF at night from across the Bay, with fog tickling
the towers. The camera refused to resolve the image, so ... haiku below.

Messy jewelry box
Trailing gems in the water,
Snagging feathered veils.

Moving is still in my mind. I'll soak up the beauties here while I can.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Life, as explained by a typo

Caveat emptor: tasteless humor.

It just smacked me in the frontal lobe that "ruination" is one
transposition away from "urination."

My professional trajectory suddenly makes a lot more sense.