It should be socially unacceptable to come to work with a cold or similarly contagious disease.
It should be socially unacceptable to make your workers come to work with a cold or similarly contagious disease.
It should be socially unacceptable to pay your employees so little that they have no choice but to come in with a cold or similarly contagious disease.
This is what Republicans try to demonize for political gain. Think about it.
“Death Panel” is an easy manipulation. Know why? Because death is FUCKING SCARY! For everyone involved – patient and family.
Know what else? Hospice care is FREE for Medicare and Medicaid patients. And it’s typically covered by private insurance at a high percentage (and realistically, if you qualify for hospice care, you’ve likely already met your deductible).
Here are some (American) hospice facts:
– hospice care is for anyone who receives a prognosis of six months of life or fewer.
– hospice care isn’t just for cancer or dementia patients. Any life-ending diagnosis qualifies for hospice care.
– hospice care isn’t just for elderly. Again, anyone who has a life expectancy of six months or fewer should quality for hospice care.
– every licensed hospice provider is required by federal law to use a team approach. The team includes the medical director (who is an MD), nurses (RNs and LPNs), CNAs, social workers (MSWs), chaplains, and volunteers. These people are death experts.
– the RN case managers see everything. EVERYTHING. Every imaginable living condition, every insane family dynamic, and every conceivable physical condition. They know wounds. They know symptoms. They know pain. Can’t poop? Ask a hospice nurse. I guarantee they’ll have a dozen recommendations, including their own secret recipe for a “brown bomb” or “crappuccino” or “loosey goosey”. They all taste like garbage, but YOU WILL POOP!
– hospice CNAs are maybe the most gentle people on the planet. They care for a patient like they’re caring for their own grandparent. They’ll wipe your butt and wash your armpits. They’ll hold your hand and cry with you. They’ll sing to you or paint your nails or trim your ear hair and they’ll do all of it without an ounce of judgement.
– hospice social workers know death. Lots of families hear social worker and think family drama. That’s not what hospice social workers do. (Though they do that too, when necessary.) They help with anything not directly medical. Moving the patient from the hospital to home? The social worker can help with logistics. Questions about money? The social worker probably knows, or knows where to send you for answers. Need help with a living will or DNR? Ask the social worker. Terrified about what the final moments might be like? The social worker can walk you through what to expect.
– a patient or family can choose hospice care at any point, whether immediately after receiving a diagnosis or within hours of death. Obviously, the longer the hospice team is involved, the better they can guide the patient and family along the journey.
– hospice care can be revoked at any time, should the patient or family choose to seek active treatment or discontinue the care. Hospice care can be reinstated as well – it’s typically just a matter of paperwork.
– here’s what Medicare and Medicaid cover for free
the team home visits (home is considered wherever the patient currently lives, whether it’s the hospital, a long-term care facility, or their actual family home)
the medications needed to treat the symptoms of the qualifying diagnosis, plus the pain management meds and anything else the medical director prescribes
supplies – bed pads, diapers, gloves, bandages, etc
equipment – hospital bed, oxygen, lifts, etc
room and board isn’t covered if a patient is in a facility – that cost falls to the family.
Choosing hospice care isn’t giving up. It isn’t a death panel. It isn’t euthanasia. Choosing hospice care is acknowledging the reality that time is limited and that the patient deserves expert, specialized end-of-life care.
Hospice care is a choice. It’s not that surprising that Republicans are anti-choice.
getting food poisoning is a sick irony. sandwich, you were supposed to nourish my fragile meat body, not conspire with one section of it to kill the rest. you edible brutus, you fredo, you fucking intestinal quisling
this post shows true literary prowess but i wish i hadn’t read it while finishing my sandwich
I know cats have a stigma of being evil little robots who care for nobody but themselves. I don’t deny that there are some out there like this. But in defense of the large majority of darling cats who have been given a bad name due to the wicked few, I would like to tell you a story…
I am asthmatic. I’m not as bad as some; my asthma is generally well-controlled, and I don’t have much trouble with it on a daily basis. However, as all asthmatics know, getting sick becomes a nightmare. Even a small cold can turn into a days-long asthma attack, one that is very painful, and very annoying for me and those around me. The asthma cough sounds like an ill seal at best, or an angry moose with a nasal condition at worst. Y’all with asthma, and y’all with asthmatic friends, know exactly what I’m talking about. The bark. The hack. The Cough Heard Round The World. It’s painful, it’s loud, and it doesn’t stop. Even the rescue inhaler can only do so much to calm it. It just has to run its course with the cold.
Well, this week I caught the crud, and in the past few days it deteriorated into The Cough. Last night, I took some NyQuil to try and stave it off for as long as I could, just to try and get some sleep. That meant that for a few hours, I was cough-free. After that, I was still doped up enough to sleep through some of it. However, by 2am the sleep aid had worn off and The Cough woke me up. Since lying down makes it worse, and I didn’t want to wake my sister, I sneaked out of my bedroom into the living room, where I sat on the recliner and proceeded to hack up a lung while I waited for my next dose of NyQuil to kick in. That is when I noticed Simon.
Simon is a Russian Blue with a masterful resting-witch-face and an attitude to match. She (yes, she’s a girl, that’s another story) is old, fat, proprietary, and attitudinal. She isn’t shy about telling you when she is displeased, and does so with a loud shriek and some teeth or claws thrown in. She is convinced she owns the place, and owns all of us in turn. She is particular about where you can pet her, like most cats; and, like most cats, she loves her sleep and hates to be woken up.
And of course, my hacking woke her up.
Attempting to whisper an apology in between bouts of coughing, I noticed she was getting off her perch atop the chair nearby. She stretched, made a little squeaking sound, and trotted over to me.
I expected her to demand petting as payment for having woken her precious sleep, but she did not. Instead, this traditionally cranky dragon of a cat did something that amazed me.
She began to purr loudly, and sat herself directly on my aching chest. She kneaded my sternum softly, and nosed my chin as if to say, “I’ve got this, you sleep.” Even though I was still coughing, and bouncing her horridly in the process, she remained settled on my chest right above my diaphragm, purring loudly so that it vibrated through my ribs. I don’t know what magic spell she was chanting between her boat-like purrs, but within minutes my cough had subsided and I was able to sleep.
I didn’t wake up until about 4:30. When I did, it was to discover that my lap and chest were devoid of Simon’s presence, and I was coughing again. As I started coughing once more, I heard her familiar “I’m here” squeak from the area of the water dish. I heard some hurried lapping, and then her heavy gallop across the floor. She flumped onto my lap again, and resumed her purring and kneading. She had evidently been doing that for the past 2 hours, and had only left to get some water. Hydrated, she had returned to take care of me.
So yes, she has her share of evil, jerk-cat moments, but I can no longer pretend that Simon is entirely heartless. For that matter, I now refuse to believe that about any cat. Just because they act like a jerk doesn’t mean that they don’t love you.
There’s some research that the frequency of a cat purr (generally they purr in the range of 20 to 140 Hertz (Hz) can increase bone density, help relieve pain, and aid the healing of muscles/tendons. I’d link but I’m on mobile (google cat purr frequency healing" if you’re interested!) so it’s possible that the relief you felt was actually her!
Working as a veterinarian means you end up doing a lot of work with people. This gives you a lot of opportunity for people watching, and you notice patterns of behaviour. This is useful because it helps you realise what these clients need, but don’t want to ask you.
I’ve noticed that when people start to tell you about their pet’s life story, particularly their origin story, they’re already grappling with the idea that they’re about to lose their pet, even if they don’t know it yet. It’s like they know they’re about to be devastated, it’s a fast attempt to make me, the veterinarian, understand why their pet in particular is so very special to them. It’s a cry for validation that the grief that is about to wash over them is valid and justified.
I already know their grief is real and justified, even if it’s the first time I’ve met the animal and family. You can see it. It might be the family pet, but most of the time that pet has one special human that is their favourite, one human that loves them just a little bit more than the others, and I can see it on their faces.
The origin stories are all the same, and all unique.
“He was the runt of the litter and had to be put on a table so the other pups would stop bullying him while I was there. I went back and had to have him.”
“She was my daughter’s dog, but we started dog sitting when she had her first baby and then she just never left.”
“I’ve had him since he was three weeks old, a tiny scrap of fluff we found under the tomato bush and bottle fed.”
“The cat just walked into our new house like she owned the place, terrorised the dog and never wanted to leave.”
“She had kittens under the chair on my veranda, so I took her inside to make her comfortable.”
They’re all heartfelt stories of beautiful, ordinary moments that make life special, but they’re always told around the time of euthanasia. Some tell them before they’ve accepted the fact that they need to say goodbye, some say it afterwards as they’re composing themselves.
I was working emergency yesterday, a gruelling twelve hour shift on a public holiday. I had several palliative care and complex medical cases on the go from the previous weeks, and because I hate to leave my clients and patients without a plan I had told them which emergency clinic I would be working at so they could contact me if they were unsure about anything. It’s better for your long term sanity than handing out your mobile number to clients, which I can’t answer in work hours anyway.
When I arrive at my emergency shift at midday I find one of my patients waiting for me in a cage, hooked up to pain relief and looking miserable. The hospital vet hands over responsibility for her to me, and I go through her blood results. Pancreatitis and massive inflammation, in addition to everything else she has going on.
The day goes on, crazy busy, and ten hours later she’s starting to look worse. Puffing, ventral oedema and a subtle bruise colour developing on her shaved abdomen.
At shift handover I explain the dog’s story to the night vet at the start of her shift.
“Her owner died a few months ago, and the day of his funeral the patient had her first seizure. Subsequently also diagnosed with heart disease. At 1 month recheck noted weight loss and identified abdominal mass. Wife wasn’t going to put her through surgery, then got an attack of the guilts because her husband would have done anything for this dog. Mass is single lobe of liver, hugely distended, while rest of liver appears normal. Results are most likely liver tumour at base of lobe, undefined. Patient nearly died under anaesthetic but has been recovering well these last ten days until presentation. She’s anxious in hospital and wont eat without her humans around, her favourite is chicken.”
I told her origin story. I really knew, but didn’t want to accept, that my patient wouldn’t be leaving ICU and I put her to sleep a few hours later. Since her owner’s death it seems like she’d been trying very hard to join him, between the seizures, heart disease, liver tumour, pancreatitis and DIC.
I don’t cry over many patients, but I did for her.
And I told her origin story.
Very few things will make me tear up, but this did.
A couple years ago, I ran across this quote in a book called The Thirteenth Tale that has always stuck with me: “All children mythologise their birth. It is a universal trait. You want to know someone? Heart, mind and soul? Ask him to tell you about when he was born.”
We all write our the histories of our lives in the stories we tell. We frame our experiences, our important moments, our lessons, in the ways we communicate them, until those words become our reality. And for our pets, who can’t tell their own stories, we do it for them.
When people tell your the origin stories of their pets, they’re telling you who the animal is, and who it is to them. They’re telling you about the birth of a family.
Steel Phoenix Studios 