Marathoning, murder, and masses

Who the hell would bomb a marathon? The shock and fury make my eyes hot and narrow.

Second thought: what a way to go – accomplishment, adrenaline, euphoria, and a quick blast.

Yesterday, ironically, I realized I was fully recovered from overdoing. That only took 11 days… I took careful walks around the park while recovering, so as not to lose much ground.

Leading myself along, and minding my posture.

Today I roughly doubled my walking distance and I'm back up to ~18 min. On a flat.

I'm grateful.

I grew up in Egypt, a Middle Eastern country. We were there in the relatively tranquil days of the late 1970s: Sadat was secure in power, a secularist who stood no nonsense and could be bought – excuse me, persuaded – into a peace treaty that ended several thousand years of war. (For the meantime.)

Islam was a thoughtful, neighborly religion. Guests were treated like the loveliest royalty. A blonde 13-year-old girl with a forward figure could (at least, did) walk the streets in daylight fearing nothing more than vile remarks and, in a crowd, a vile grope.

That was the key to life in a tourist country: avoid the crowds.

 

When terrorist attacks happened, and they were rare then, they happened in crowds. My family was constitutionally adventurous and put off by mob thinking, quite apart from the (really tiny) chance of bombs, so we just did what came naturally and took off on our own.

 

We saw crowds the way a sailor sees sandbars: a lot of work, and not much fun to get stuck with.

Moreover, I've always been an introvert in the Myers-Briggs sense, meaning that I recharge in solitude and that I find society in large doses simply exhausting.

Now, with CRPS, this distaste for crowds has become a deep aversion. The physical dynamic of being in crowds is unbearable: when people bump me unexpectedly, it's horrific; the noise overwhelms my sensory brain, which, let's face it, is overworked already; and, of course, my hotwired autonomic nervous system is ready with the fight or flight response... with nowhere to go that isn't in the crowd.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

I was reading Angela N. Hunt's book about living while training for a first marathon, and her description of the starting crowd was appalling. For me, it would be like being inside a tiny electric fence, cattle jostling around against the outside, bashing and zapping me mindlessly and endlessly.

Not do-able. Not even think-able.

But that's just a problem, and problems are meant to be solved.

There are several possible solutions: invoke the ADA and start in my own class behind the crowd; rustle up about five good buddies -- preferably large, sturdy types -- to run around me for the first half, and be a better fence until the crowd thins enough;

run a different marathon course over open country, with only a handful of others; or abandon the whole thing.

I can hear some strenuous votes for the last option. In the wake of the Boston marathon bombing, I'll ignore them. Completely.

I will go on. If distance is not an insuperable barrier, then neither is willful fear. I'm a woman, weakened, disabled, and rather poor; I have enough to be afraid of. I don't let it stop me. Why should this? I'll wear the names of the dead, if it helps. I won't let it stop me.

I will go on. I'll find a way to avoid the crowds, in some creative and tasteful fashion.

I will go on.

"Watch me go."

"Angel" in my mouth

I use endearments because I'm an affectionate person. "Sweetie" and "honey" and (my personal favorite) "sweet pea" are terms I use whenever the urge strikes.

One word I never used, because it was just too hokey, was "angel."

Yes, I used "sweet pea" with perfect ease, but couldn't bring myself to call anyone "angel" with a straight face.

What can I say? We all have our limits, however idiosyncratic.

I thought, What an overused, overfluffy, overly silly word to use about someone who is decidedly human -- as everyone I've met so far is.

Then I went through the Years from Hell, a period of about 3 years I try not to even think about because it was so bloody harrowing it's unbearable to remember, and there's nothing to be done now to change that.

One set of surprises were some of the people who I was sure would come through, but fell from view when their actions were supposed to match their words.

Many people who seem awfully nice are more socially adept than genuinely good. It's an important distinction.

Starting late 2011, I found myself using the word "angel" as an endearment for a very particular set of people. It came naturally to my mouth as a substitute for "sweetie" or "sweet pea" when speaking to those who showed up when the going became almost impossible,

who never gave up on me despite good reason to do so,

and who showed up for me through thick and thicker.

The handful of people who made the key difference between my living and dying, are the ones I call "angel" -- and find it easy to do so.

It's not over- anything. It barely does them justice. And, I have to say, some of them were a real surprise: people who aren't apparently nice can be genuinely decent and deeply good.

Like every ER nurse ever, I used to preen myself on how good a judge of character I was. This disease, and the many versions of Hell that it comes with, teaches us a thing or two about human nature.

It's fair to say that, even at my most brain-frozen, my judgement about people's core attributes is better than it used to be.

I know where to find the real angels on this earth.

Among my besties, that's where.

Optimism has its place, but...

I'm a bit tired of the message, "It'll be okay if you think happy thoughts" or "it can't be as bad as all that."

Tell you what, let's trade bodies and lives for 7 days, and if you're still alive at the end of it, we'll talk....

The Hot Cocoa of Peace

I'm thoroughly enjoying a cup of cocoa made by an excellent friend, warmly mulling another cocoa and another excellent friend.

C and I met at the American school in Cairo, Egypt, in the mid-1970's, and I share this story with her kind permission. I had just moved there and she had just come over from the German school, where she had spent her first five years of school. Her mother was English, a working artist, and her father was American -- although his English accent seemed slightly stronger than his wife's – teaching drama and English at the University.

C told me something which, in this era of rising intolerance and martial rage, gets more interesting all the time...

At the German school, they had cocoa with their morning break. At that time, at least, German children took their cocoa without sugar – more like coffee, really, but milkier and easier on the adrenals. But, every day at 10:30, one of the staff would bring out, on a little silver salver, a sugar bowl and a small spoon, just for the one child who was used to having her cocoa sweet.

It's a simple story with a lot behind it.

This was less than 30 years after Germany had succumbed to two bitter defeats -- an internal one, when they collectively gave in to a meme of hatred and intolerance; and an external one, where they were eventually crushed -- despite superior technology and better training -- in an epic war.

We lived in a country that had been one of the pivotal battle-grounds of that war. Think of Rommel, the Desert Fox, or google El Alamein.

This one child was the product of their two most bitter recent enemies.  And they were both nuns and teachers, second only to nurses in their capacity for passive-aggressiveness, suppressed rage and murder with a smile.

The way they handled it was this: they taught her the same, scolded her the same, cared for her the same, made accommodations as she learned the language but expected her to finish her homework -- and, every day, brought sugar on a little silver salver just for her, so she could mix exactly the right amount of sweetness into her cocoa.

It could have been seen as coddling, and there's no question that C enjoyed the little feeling of specialness. It could have been seen to spoil her. Instead, it was a demonstration of -- well -- not just tolerance, not just accommodation, but of real graciousness and decency, a touch of comfort in a foreign environment, and a tiny gift of autonomy inside the regimented life of a strict school.

As it turns out, it was a lesson well learned, because C has always been one of the most gracious and utterly decent people I've ever met, while being wholly individual.

She's also the most adept amateur historian I've ever even heard of, one who shows the real sensitivity and love in the word "amateur." Hard not to be, growing up in such a place, with parents grabbing at life with both hands, as hers did.

But it's hard for me not to think of an intelligent, middle-aged Teuton with an excellent memory, bringing a little Anglo girl sugar on a salver, without any fuss... and wonder what that added to the mix.

I sit here, wreathed in gentle steam, and wonder what it would take to share my cocoa with all this anguished world. It would be a better place indeed.

And I'd be happy to bring sugar on a salver to anyone who likes it.

Getting it right

H'mm... Struggling with the recurring message from the world around me that I can't do this, I can't cure this case of cold chronic CRPS. It's twinned with the message that, whatever I'm doing, it's wrong. I'm not interested in whining, because, as my CRPS cohorts know, this nonsense is par for the course... but every now and then, it's good to step back and do a reality check.

Let's take a good look at this thinking:

- On the conventional medicine side, I walked into a new doctor's office with my tabulated timeline of years of a complex case, pictures showing the evolution of the disease in this body, and documentation about what works and what doesn't. The response: "You spend way too much time thinking about this!"

Don't waste time trying to find any upside to that remark. It surprised me especially because most of my docs (the best in the biz) loved my documentation. Now I know that the really good doctors love it, and the ones who don't love it are either one-trick ponies or second-rate. This one was a one-trick pony, and once he'd done his job, I was gone.

Let's back up and pretend this guy asked, "Wow, that's a boatload of well-crafted, thoughtful documentation. Why did you go to so much apparent effort?"

I'd say, "I was a nurse so the concepts are easy, and I was a tech writer so the structure is even easier. This is a cakewalk for me. If I CAN'T document what's going on, check for a pulse!

"Moreover," I'd go on, assuming the doctor cared about my well-being, "tracking this stuff frees up my attention by letting me plonk it down in black & white and then put it out of my head. That leaves the rest of my time free for meditating, friends, bathing, housework, and so on.

"Besides," I'd add, if the doctor looked like one who could take a joke, "most docs find this case hopelessly confusing, and I don't need you wasting my time by asking the same questions 3 times and still getting it all wrong in the end, just like the one other doc who refused to look at this!" Ha ha.

Seriously, physicians, that's how to handle an expert patient: Ask, then listen. Saves time.

- The alt-health folks are liable to tell me, first, that I'm sick because I think the wrong thoughts; then, if they ask about my mental habits, it's obviously because I eat toxic foods; if they want to get straightened out about that, it's clear, dear, that you're too attached to this disease and there's nothing anyone can do to help.

My fellow CRPSers are thinking exactly the same things as me right now.

Besides the sheer cruelty of that response, the fact is that spontaneous remission from CC-CRPS (cold chronic CRPS) after the first 3 years is even rarer than spontaneous remission in cancer or AIDS. I've heard of it happening once as late as 7 years; I've had it for roughly 10; average survival is 30 years after onset. If any of you has more optimistic data, I'd love to see it!

Here are some things I've learned about how what you think and what you do REALLY affect the course of your CRPS:

- Those who stick exclusively with the conventional model and submit to their doctors without question, especially when they have noxious drug reactions (as I do), tend to suffer much and die young.
That's what happens when you're a passive patient with a disease that few doctors understand.

- Those who become well-informed and educate their doctors, have better results and do considerably better for much longer.
That's what happens when you open your eyes and take initiative regarding a very rare and complex disease.

- Those who research and implement changes to diet and lifestyle most vigorously, have the best results from their care and use a lot less medication with much better results, higher function, and lower disability.
That's what happens when you shoulder real responsibility for what you do and how it affects your life.

- Those who are active in the online communities, seeking support and providing support to others and sharing information, tend to beat the odds.
That's what happens when you constructively engage with your community.

(One day I'll have an open-source database that lets me pull up all the articles I've read over the years to support those statements.)

I'm looking for something I'm not doing yet. I will figure it out, hunt it down and I will do it.

CRPS is an incredibly hard disease, in every conceivable way. Where there is any spontaneous remission at all, there is something to work with. I just haven't figured out what yet.

I can't help thinking that Norman Cousins was an amateur! If he was looking for miracles ...

Since I still have CRPS, I find those recurring messages a little intimidating. I  don't yet have hard data to throw back against the key message. I can see that, when others say I'm doing things wrong, the statements tend to be presumptuous and ill-informed, but the fact is, I still haven't cured my own case of CRPS ...

Yet.

Pertinent pain data

Here's a little gem I found while cleaning up my hard drive. It's from early last year...

===========

Each year, 80,000,000 (that's eighty million) Americans seek professional care for pain.

Combine the numbers of Americans who seek care for diabetes, heart disease, or cancer -- three much sexier issues -- and they still aren't as many as those who seek care for pain.

• Pain is the cause of 25% of all sick days.
• 50% of those with nonmalignant pain have considered suicide.  (That puts a real crimp in a family's earning power.)

The consequent costs of lost productivity and reduced contribution to the tax base & economic flow, the social impact with concomitant loss of productivity, etc., has never been quantified (that I know of), although it certainly exists. With that large a base, and that wide a ripple-effect, it has to run into billions of dollars per year.


Each year, we spend $100,000,000,000 (that's one hundred billion) on the direct costs of dealing -- badly, expensively, and inconclusively -- with pain.

That same amount could buy:

• More than one-fifth of Medicare’s entire 2010 budget.
• 60% of 2010 Federal spending on long-term unemployment (to which disability is the single biggest contributing factor, and pain is the single most common factor in disability.)
• 5 weeks of current military spending, with two wars to prosecute and unprecedented numbers of walking wounded to care for.

===========

I had forgotten those facts.  I was geekishly delighted to find them. But it is definitely an answer in search of a question, and in this case the question is this: why the hell are we wasting so much money, time, life and energy on handling pain so badly??

There are profound cultural and economic reasons why the present, appalling system is still in place.  I'm not rich enough to face those reasons down so I'll leave that as an exercise in logic for the reader: follow the money.  Who profits by this system?  Who funds it?  Who benefits, and of those who benefit, exactly how do they benefit? What do they give up or pay, in order to reap those benefits? What are the benefit/drawback profiles for the many different stakeholders in this system?

Pain patients are the least important stakeholders in this system, and that doesn't seem right to me. I realize I may be biased.

Sorting out the answers could keep you busy for awhile, but once you figure out a couple of common denominators, it starts to fall into place very easily. It's a bit disconcerting at first, though.

The point, as far as pain control is concerned, is this: we're studying the wrong things about it, and we're treating it the wrong way around.  There is no conclusive success path on the present trajectory, just increasingly expensive ways of mitigating these largely failed clinical (and economic) strategies.

And that's today's ray of sunshine! :)

References:
“Chronic Pain Fact Sheet”, http://www.cssa-inc.org/Articles/Chronic_Pain.htm (journalistic summary)
“AAPM Facts and Figures on Pain” , http://www.painmed.org/patient/facts.html (cited sources include the AMA, ADA, AHA, NIH)
THOMAS (Library of Congress online)
Office of ppp, http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2011

Quantum physics and the divine plan

Post on one of my CRPS groups: "Everything that happens to me is part of the plan for my good."

The responses to this seemed to come through a blissed-out narcotic haze. I'm afraid I administered the verbal Narcan. Surprised? :-)

I've counseled too many rape victims and abuse survivors, and treated far too many accident victims, to hold the belief that bad things happen to us as part of a greater plan -- let alone that it's for our own good.

Bad things happen, full stop. As living humans, we take our chances in the world; sometimes it works out for us, sometimes it doesn't.

If we grow and learn and become stronger, then it's because of how we chose to deal with it and what we could bring to bear -- not because some faceless force thought it would be interesting and valuable to cause us so much agony, because -- of all counter-logical reasons -- it loves us.

I aim to find a way to become free of CRPS. Nevertheless, I perceive that the skills, the inward peace, the strength, the poise I've developed in coping with these unimaginable challenges over so many years, have certainly made me something I never would've reached without it.

I thoroughly honor the brilliance, creativity and strength that my comrades with CRPS bring to their lives. It's breathtaking to belong to such a select group -- although the cost of membership is a little high.

It's a special disease: agonizing, rare, destructive, poorly researched, underfunded, extremely long-lasting, and -- most special of all -- widely believed to be hysterical in nature. The challenges it poses are distinctive and seemingly endless.

After eight years with it, I'm proud of myself and I even care about myself, even though I can accomplish so much less than before. 8 1/2 years ago, I felt that I had to earn my right to even breathe.

The credit for all that growth goes to innate qualities, my excellent friends (some of whom I'm related to), and a handful of gifted clinicians.

The causal lines are very clear: hard work, relentless study, determination, safe places to stay, loving words, wise ideas, needed gifts, perfect loans, valid diagnoses, key treatments -- these are what gave me strength and let me grow and learn.

It's been painstakingly pointed out to me that I have the friends I've earned. I'm not sure any mortal deserves such friends as mine, but I'm glad of them all the same.

Cold chronic CRPS and all that goes with it... Part of a plan? What plan? Whose bloody plan? I want the bastard's address! And so does my army.

Plan is a four letter word.

I will never forget the days and nights and years of desperate prayer, with nothing but silence coming back. The goodness, the help, the peace, these all came from other people and my own work. The natural results of many extraordinary efforts.

Inflicting this kind of agony and loss "for your own good" would be absolutely unthinkable for a conscious, caring being of any kind. Moreover, to have the power of withholding destruction and pain, and to fail to do so, is quintessentially evil.

I'm a theist, but I don't see deity as a psychopathic abuser -- as something that would clobber me for the fun of it, or be persuaded to stop the beating if I figured out the right things to say.

Moreover, I can really see why people would be atheists. Without quantum physics to make sense of things, deity is an indefensible concept. With quantum physics, I'm certain of three things:

We ARE a permanent part of something greater. It IS aware, omniscient, and ubiquitous.

Its job is not to screw things up, but to notice, communicate, and keep flowing. That's it.

Nothing else agrees with the evidence.

It's not intrusive, manipulative or evil. It can't be, because it doesn't possess the mechanisms.

Not to kill the buzz or anything :-)

Whatever belief system works for you, use it!  Just remember, there's more than one path to personal salvation -- or whatever your metaphor is -- but very few of them get discussed, because of the ancient hegemony that a few groups have held over religious and spiritual expression. Let's open the world up a bit.

All too often, the power of human connection is mentioned only as an afterthought. In practice, I've found nothing more important when the chips are down.

I no longer pray for help. I ask.

Because beliefs vary, it's important to give a voice to those who find the traditional idea of our helpless subjection to a greater will to be the opposite of comforting. We don't get much airtime, but we still find peace, strength and grace.

Just not in that particular idea. Thank God.

Freedom, friends, and owning responsibility

I found this in the archives, and thought it worth resurrecting. It's from my more active days, about 5 years ago. It addresses the meme of personal responsibility, and I'm still a huge fan of that.

...

I was an ER nurse and, regarding seatbelts -- not to mention motorcycle helmets -- I can say that those of us on the front lines know that sometimes the seatbelts cause a death. It's in roughly these proportions, if you like to gamble with money, too:

You place a bet that can go only two ways, so it's a pretty straightforward bet. You can bet between 50% and 100% of your lifespan's worth, including house, car, future houses and cars, your, your spouse's, and your children's potential lifetime earnings, everything. Lots of money on the line. When these magic 2-sided dice roll, here's the breakout:

Betting against seatbelt/helmet, odds of winning are maybe 1 in 3,000. Losing, which 2,999 times out of 3,000 is what'll happen, means you lose 50-100% of your and your family's lifetime worth. Gone.

Now, personally, I'm a huge fan of personal responsibility -- a HUGE fan. Pre-injury, I used to ride a motorcycle, and I longed to take my helmet off.

My pretty ride overlooking the Monterey Bay. This picture doesn't show the full-faced helmet and full leather I rode in.

The only reason I didn't do so on public roads is because I really couldn't provide for all that protection. I was a stellar rider, but I had no reason to suppose I'd be immune to the bad driving of others! And I honestly thought I had no right to expose my family, neighbors, and colleagues at the hospital to the huge potential for supporting the direct and indirect costs of my possible accident.

I never did well with the assumption that what I did occurred in a vacuum. I'm very connected to others and they to me, and as far as I can tell, most humans are.

So I had this great idea about 20 years ago, which has never come to pass: Special license plates!

If you have

• full catastrophic coverage,
  
• comprehensive long-term-care coverage,
  
• adequate liability insurance,
  
• complete prescription coverage,
  
• a completed will, and
  
• a life insurance policy that would make sure your children, pets, crippled aunt, and other dependents would not become wards of the state ...
  

... THEN you get the special plate, and everyone knows you can leave off any protective devices the law would otherwise require.

It's only fair: it alleviates the cost to the state, which would pay for the program right there; it affords that liberty to those who are mature enough to fulfill their responsibilities to the rest of their world; and it lets the other drivers on the road know that you're more vulnerable than they are (mostly) so they might cut you a break. Or not. But that's their call -- their responsibility.

Similar thing for smokers. The bans started after the passive-smoking reports were published, not before. I have no problem with grownups buying and using their own drugs, but it's important to take responsibility for the whole shmear, not just the part you like.

In short, smoke all you want, but keep the poison to yourself. Ride or drive as naked as you want, but don't make the rest of us pay.

I'm not a scientist or a policy wonk, I'm a frontliner with the scars to show for it. I passionately believe in rights -- but not without responsibilities.

Just a thought.

A gift to share

I had the pleasure and privilege of speaking with Dr. Adams, who (among other things) teaches clinical at UCSF Medical School. He provided me with a brilliant overview of the recent history of public health.

"Remember [the federally mandated public health targets called] Healthy People 2000 and Healthy People 2010? We missed those goals by miles. We don't even _have_ a target program now. The next one could just be: Breathe. And I'm not too sure we could even hit that!"

He kept me spellbound for half an hour. I don't think I got a word in edgeways, but he must have liked the quality of my listening, because he gave me this book off his shelf as a gift:

He said, "Be calm when you read it. Sit down, breathe, and take it easy." Caveat emptor.

This doctor uses the (numerous!) expensive letters after his name for something besides paying the mortgage ... He and his posse sent a copy of this book to President Obama, with a cover letter explaining the devastating consequences of a profit-driven health care system. 

They heard back from a medical advisor: the President put the book in his Presidential Library, but the advisor had to state that the for-profit industries had their influence so well laid in that, if the President breathed a word about single-payor care, it had been made clear to the White House that he would be abandoned by both sides of the aisle.

Abandoned. Completely. For standing up for the American people. The same American people who let those pikers into Capitol Hill in the first place.

You've been bought & sold. We all have.  Weren't you looking? I'm not sure I was. 

The industries speak for us because we haven't spoken up enough for ourselves. Politicians are nervous, ego-driven creatures desperate for a good image, and we've let the moonshiners polish their images -- and their apples -- while we bitch about the rent. 

The rent matters. Lots. Sadly, signing Internet petitions does not. 

Is it too late?

Well, you're still breathing, aren't you? So am I. Emigrated yet? Me neither. Guess it's not too late, then. 

Be heard, unfiltered. Call. Fax. Write. Put a stamp on it. Letters matter. Phone calls matter. These represent a big hurdle in people's minds, and politicians know it. They weight them accordingly. 
(http://www.usa.gov/usa/Contact/Elected)

Paper, three sentences, stamp and envelope are not really that hard to do ... just slightly strange to think about. Try it & you'll see what I mean. 
(http://www.usa.gov/usa/Contact/Elected)

If you have expensive letters after your name, this is an excellent way to get more mileage out of them. Your words are weighted more heavily still. 
(http://www.usa.gov/usa/Contact/Elected)

Let your politicians feel insecure about their policies, where they don't serve you or those you care about. Let them feel watched.  Let them get nervous and worry about their hair; it means they're procrastinating about changing their minds, even as their minds are changing. 
(http://www.usa.gov/usa/Contact/Elected)

Call. Write. Use stamps. Fax. Be seen. Be heard. Vote. And monitor voting. 

It's surprisingly little trouble after all. 
... http://www.usa.gov/usa/Contact/Elected

To find your reps and congress-critters, choose the category and plug in your zip code here: 
http://www.usa.gov/usa/Contact/Elected

On weighing the evidence

My friend J's husband called her from work today with the immortal words, "I've met someone else." If he had been able to pick a worse time in life to tell her -- say, when she was hooked up to chemotherapy or had just been knocked over and broken her spine -- I suspect he would have. (I'd like to think I'm joking.)

I recently had another opportunity of my own to mull over the impact of emotional deceit and betrayal, but after the initial surprise I found those reflections boring.

Instead, I turned to thinking about getting so attached to my hopes and errors that it becomes almost impossible to look at the evidence and admit I was wrong. I _was_ misled, but also, for a year, I remained more attached to my erroneous assumptions than to the weight of the evidence.

So I'm reminded of the importance of being ready to notice, and own up, when I'm likely to be wrong. What someone tells you isn't evidence, but what they do -- or fail to do -- certainly is. Sooner or later, you have to go with the evidence.

J and her husband had years of shared struggles, victories, and all the usual pushme-pullyou dramas and traumas that go with two different people sharing their lives.

There were times when, on the basis of the evidence, I told her she should leave. Maybe she should have, for the sake of her own soul. But she didn't, and her husband would almost always call when we were talking, because whether they were getting along or not, he'd still call her every hour throughout the day and then ring off with a real, "I love you."

So what do you do when the evidence itself is so confused?

Very few people wind up in solid marriages. Both my brothers did, so I sometimes think that I should, too. But I'm beginning to believe, down to my soul, that nobody will have my back that devotedly -- and maybe they shouldn't. Maybe I shouldn't come first to anyone, nor put anyone first, myself. Becoming that attached to something that's so very rare in reality does seem to hinder one's ability to see the evidence, and destroys the ability to admit that one is wrong.

I have congenital trouble with admitting that my perceptions are wrong in the first place. Perhaps I should just work on that.

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.