Hi now, Kai-lan, and Exploring with Dora

It's been a long time since I paid much attention to children's programming. Now that my granddaughter is watching it with attention, I'm paying more attention, too. (Because she's never watched anything in my care that I haven't also watched.)

Nick Jr is her channel. Not too much wrong with that, as this child also has a healthy interest in going outside and reading, writing, and 'darwing'. A lot of kids don't, but that's another story.

 Most of the shows are okay. A (very) few are brilliant. Some of it I don't get, but since I'm not its target audience, I'm not too worried about that. Should probably be more worried if I 'got' all of it.

Nick Jr tells parents (or whomever) what the show teaches. Interesting, but not as interesting as what the children -- or at least this child -- learns from it.

Dora the Explorer is supposed to teach all kinds of stuff: counting and Spanish and logic and colors and following instructions. Never mind the Spanish. What Dora teaches, apparently, is that there are different words for the same things. At 18 months, my little one watched Dora, and when Dora had to go across the river and through the forest, Hailey told her she had to boat the water and go in the trees. All English, but completely different words.

This week, Hailey applied the lessons from Ni Hao, Kai-lan, a show that also teaches bits of Chinese. When Mammaw got mad, she observed that Mammaw was mad, thought about what Mammaw was mad about, and decided Mammaw needed to CALM DOWN.

It was a little much, though, when she instructed me to sway back and forth, back and forth in order to do so.

The question I have is how will this work once she goes to school (months away if she can do preschool; only a year away for kindergarten) That swaying back and forth thing sounds like an invitation to mockery to me. Maybe not, if the children are all of an age and all watch the same programming -- or if they are programmed by teachers to do this. (Can't you just see a roomful of four-year-olds swaying back and forth, back and forth every time one of them has a tantrum. When would any teaching get done?)

But it troubles me, and I don't know how to address the problems. On the one hand, observation and application are good things. It's really great that a preschooler can understand you can be mad without it being their fault, or that a river is made of water and a forest is trees. On the other hand, the coping strategies should be private and somewhat internal, or they are invitations to misunderstanding and mockery.

The underlying message is the same as it has always been. The shows are a tool. The real learning comes from the family and from daily living. Know what your children are watching and let them talk to you about it. They are learning and they want you to tell them what's right for your family. And even that it's okay if it's different for others.
'
It's all good, as long as we're ALL involved.

bone crushing

My husband had to go to the doctor Monday. The office called him and made the appointment. You can bet that set off alarm bells. He has so many health concerns we didn't even know which one to worry about. They did say something about his spinal x-rays, but that really didn't narrow it down a whole lot. Because we have had things show up in x-rays that are not what he was being x-rayed for. An enlarged kidney showed up in chest x-rays.

We were referred to a urologist who saw Rex once, sent him for some kind of test at a hospital that had to have cash before doing anything, and we never heard from that specialist again. Don't know to this day what, if anything, the test determined, in spite of calling and both asking and leaving messages. When our family doctor bulldozed us into this appointment, she felt the matter was urgent. Then, she left the group practice she was with and has apparently fallen off the face of the earth. Could it be his kidneys?

He fractured his spine forty years ago, could it be something from that?

Did something in his lungs show up in the background?

He has osteoporosis. Well, he's had that for a while, but this is advancing, which means getting worse. We've been referred to another specialist, this one out of state. His spinal column is collapsing and disintegrating. The T1 through T4 vertabrae are crumbs, with 'significant wedging' on almost all the rest.

Our doctor, who is new to us, says he has never ever seen anyone with such an advanced case of osteoporosis.  Especially not so young. Especially not a male.

We discussed smoking, we discussed heredity, we discussed childhood malnutrition. All factors. But, to figure out what to do, he needs to be seen by an endocrinologist. My guess is that they are considering he'll need the IV type treatments. (He was on Fosamax but began having too much bone pain in his hips and thighs, and we dropped that stuff like it scalded.)

So, we're again hanging in Limbo, and I'm bouncing from wall-to-wall maybes.

I'm also looking for information on what to expect if the deterioration continues. What do I need to be especially watchful for? How can I help? What needs to be reported to the doctors? I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.

And I can't find out. There are a few  million definitions of osteoporosis available on the internet. There are a few million treatments being sold, or advised, or encouraged. So far, there has not been one site that answers my questions. Apparently everywhere on the Internet is the belief that calcium, vitamin D and the magic of medicine cures osteoporosis, or at least halts it in its tracks.

Therefore, no one needs to know what advanced severe osteoporosis will do to a middle-aged severely emphysemic man with one big kidney.

I really hate that all the different websites say the same things over and over and over. Sometimes in different languages, but still the same-old, same-old.

In this great Information Age, can no one answer my questions?

As I lay dying (or so I thought)

Yesterday I thought I was entering my final illness, persistent cramping diarrhea. The pain was worse than childbirth (except for the actual birthing). The effects of dehydration were debilitating, as you can imagine. My sister and my nephew had both commented on bellyaches, so I thought there's probably just something going around, and it was nothing major.

As the day wore on, I changed my mind about that. If there had been gas in our car I would have had my husband take me to the hospital, even though I have no insurance and every test, every procedure, every help would have to be paid for by us. At that point (about 3 in the afternoon) even the IV for dehydration would have been worth the cost. Because I was afraid to drink anything, even warm water.

Instead, I went to bed.
While in the bed, I reviewed my life. It's the first time I ever did that when I wasn't contemplating suicide, so it was a novel experience in its way. The results of the review were more satisfactory this way, I have to admit, but there were some things not so satisfactory.
Of course.

I wished I had played more with my girls when they were young. More walks, more pushing on swings, more silly talk, more books read together, more time. Just more time to enjoy them. But pushing swings is boring after the first couple of shoves to get them going, and neither of my daughters had any great interest in books when they were young. We did walk, from time to time, and the walks nearly always had that 'special' air. I suppose that's a good thing. The regret over not taking enough walks is partly because it indicates a lack of special times, so if the times it happened were special -- well, there's just a balance there, so that one is probably okay.
I hope.

I wish I'd had more patience at some times in some of my jobs, but I have no big regrets over any of those. I gave every job I ever did everything I could, everything I had. Sometimes I didn't have much, and sometimes I hated the work, but I gave it my all. Sometimes my all was more, often less, but it was what I had and I put it into the work.

My writing? I have four completed novel manuscripts on top of the bookcases. I have three of those novels on floppies, which do me  no earthly good these days, but maybe somewhere, someday... someone. I have various writings here and there. It would be nice for my family if I could become posthumously famous, so that I'm not leaving my family nothing but a hole in their hearts.
I hope.

The good-bye letters I wrote a few months ago worried me a bit. I thought about tearing them up before I died, but decided I'd just leave a note with them. Don't remember if I dated them or not. Probably not. I wanted them to be generic, any time. I have letters written to Tracy and to Rex and, I think, to Jean. I haven't been able to bring myself to pout anything in writing for Tammy-and-Hailey. No good excuses for saddling her with my responsibilities, which she would be the one carrying the brunt of the load after the dust settles. No good excuse, no reason.
Anyway, I decided to just write a note, or maybe I'd get a chance to tell Jean before I expire in the hospital. "Hey, never mind those. I wrote them for Christmas last year, or maybe the year before."

It was a different thing to look back at my life this way, from this new angle. I didn't have no instant conversion to wanting to continue living in spite of all its pain, which I have seen happen. I wanted the pain to stop. I wished that I had done some things differently, but feel that I did the best I could at the time.

That's what we should all be doing. The best we can, with what we have. The what we have can be time, or energy, or even interest. Money of the lack thereof is a partial excuse, not a good one.

Be the best you that you can be.

Do the best you can with what you have.

Watch and work and learn and live.

Then,  you can contemplate death with equanimity. Is there any better way to live?

Bad Medicine

How do you find out if a minor health problem is a possible health crisis? Where do you look up information on how to tell the difference? When and how do you reach the decision that it's time to stop waiting for people to get back to you and to take action on your own?

My husband has a nosebleed. Now, this is not a big deal -- one can hardly term it a health crisis when the blood is not pouring down his face, his shirt front, his lap. It's not that kind of nosebleed.

I've called his doctor's office. Yesterday they said someone would call me. Today they said someone would call me. The recording that answers their phone say "if this is an emergency, call 911" Please help me, people, I am trying to find out if it is an emergency. Just tell me that, okay?

 Someone advised me to keep calling the office -- she suggested every half hour. It takes twenty minutes to just get past the computerized answer center, and then you have to tell the answerer all the information they have already supposedly sorted you into the category where they should know.
And then they tell you that if this is an emergency, you should call 911 or go to the ER.

I just want to know, need to know, if the problem is serious enough to justify an ER visit, because this is not something that should be done lightly. EVER. By anyone.

Other people have these problems. Mothers with young children, for example. When does a fever, vomiting, headache warrant that trip? How can we know, how can we find out?

There are call centers for some insurance companies. Bethesda Hospitals used to have ask-a-nurse programs.
I used those once or twice. Do you know what they tell you? "Maybe you should go to the ER just in case." And then the insurance company will refuse to pay the bill, or their fair share of the bill, because no one was in actual danger of dying.
The excuse is that no one is qualified to give medical advice by phone. They won't/can't risk the liability.

Why have the program then? What good is it?

This whole situation is an example of the problems in our health care systems. We can't get advice. Doctors don't call. Insurance companies don't pay, even when the insured does what they were told. No one wants to waste anyone's time, working on a patient that doesn't need to be seen, just counselled. But no one wants to offer just counselling.

I just want some advice. Knowledgeable advice. It's up to me to act (or not) on that advice, but I'd still like to have it.

Isn't medicine supposed to be about making informed decisions?

Where's the information?