medicine – Sillyfrog's Blog

The Morning Dawdle 2/19/23- For Better or Worse

Posted on 02/19/202302/19/2023 by Susan St.Pierre

Rory has some WILD questions today. Let’s play:

Who do you think you might be in an alternate universe?

This one blew my mind. My answer: You are you because you are here. For better or worse, this environment had a hand in shaping the YOU that you are. So, if you weren’t here, you wouldn’t be you. Same goes for the question, “Who would you be if you had never been born?”. LOL

What would be the most surreal situation you could imagine finding yourself in?

Comparing the America that I ‘grew up in’ to the America that is here now, I’m living it.

You won!!
You have five minutes for a Supermarket Dash in the FoodHall – what will you fill your trolley/shopping cart with?

Meats and medicines.

You have 60 minutes to hide 50 million in hard currency [Notes] in your house – where would you put the money/cash – to avoid detection?

Hiding ‘notes’ in your house is your first mistake (Fire could be devastating.). Keeping ‘notes’ is your second mistake. Exchanging the notes for gold or other precious metals would be the wisest thing to do. Paper currency isn’t going to be worth much in the near future, IMHO.

https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/124997601/posts/4561175402
https://earthlycomforts.uk/2023/02/19/a-wild-aloha-to-you-20/

6 Sentence Stories

Six Sentence Story- Just Pass the Potatoes

Posted on 11/02/202211/02/2022 by Susan St.Pierre

PROMPT WORD: ENERGY

Henry slid the door to the minivan closed realizing the day was just getting started and he already felt exhausted.

The struggle to get his six-year-old to put on something warm before he went off to school had somehow morphed into an argument over whether that layer was called a ‘coat’, ‘jacket’, ‘sweater’ or ‘sweatshirt’ ending in a shouting match.

Once behind the wheel, he relaxed and marveled over how easily an immature mind could manage the manipulation of the main topic of ‘staying warm’ into something so trivial with such skill.

When Henry got the text from his wife that their adult son, Josh, had surprised her and had come home from college for the weekend, he decided that the day that had had a rough beginning was going to end on a ‘high note’.

At dinner, all felt right until Josh leaned back in his chair and told his parents they had a duty to buy an EV and that all fossil fuel production worldwide should stop immediately or the planet-including mankind- was DOOMED!

Henry (once he picked his jaw up from the floor) calmly told Josh that he was being a little extreme with those conclusions and that current human beings could not, and should not, take that viewpoint seriously since not only transportation but most of all products and research, including our medicines, depend predominantly on hydrocarbons to which Josh covered his ears with his hands and screamed, “Killers!” then stormed out of the room as Henry just shook his head and said, “I just don’t have the energy for two immature arguments in one day… Please pass the potatoes, dear.”

https://girlieontheedge1.wordpress.com/2022/11/02/its-thursdays-six-sentence-story-link-up-10/

Selling Out Science / Buying Truth

Posted on 05/08/2021 by Susan St.Pierre

This story is one that I decided not to post awhile back. It dealt with an uncomfortable topic and I deemed it unpleasant. The problem is, we can’t just avoid unpleasant things. They’re going on whether we discuss them or not. Something made me keep this. I decided to share it today from my draft archive. 🙂

“Settled science” and “my truths” were phrases repeated ad nauseam during Dante’s first month in freshmen classes at the university-where he’d hoped to get an education in critical thinking and facts- but, noting those oft mentioned absurdisms, now had him suspecting that the whole thing was an ultra-expensive practical joke.

He’d planned for so long to become a doctor, actually a diagnostician, just like his hero played by Hugh Laurie in the TV series House whose mantra was “everybody lies” because House valued truth and fact as opposed to often scientifically flawed human opinion and the frailties of discerning facts through an emotional filter.

Dr. House knew medicine required information, critical analysis, and detective work, and answers had to be found by developing a theory for methodic testing, and ceaseless questioning, leading to the creation of puzzle pieces which almost never assembled into a completely perfect picture but approached the Truth.

So, when the topic of The Climate Change Crisis came up, Dante armed himself with silly little facts on computer modeling errors, numbers on booming communities of polar bears, and data on some of the positive affects of CO2 on our current climate hoping that seeking ‘climate truths’ wasn’t just a cleverly contrived public illusion but an ideal worthy of rational pursuit.

He undoubtedly caused an uproar, to say the least, and his professor (with several PHDs in assorted medical sciences) laughed him right out of the classroom never considering his extenuating arguments while painting him as a “Climate Change Denier” because he offhandedly observed Greta Thunberg wasn’t actually a scientific scholar.

Shortly after that curfuffle, Dante ‘dropped out’ happy to save himself a TON of debt, becoming a modestly paid free lance writer/producer of fact-based scientific videos geared to informing children, meanwhile, that ‘scientific methodology impaired’ professor became an ( insanely well paid) consultant for the Department of Health and Human Services in charge of monitoring vaccine research, development, and promotion on behalf of the U.S. government.

Book Reviews, In my humble opinion...

Defining Sanity and Humanity

Posted on 03/31/201403/31/2014 by Susan St.Pierre

I’ve been away from my blog for some time. Knowing it exists, and that I would return, was always a comforting thought. I am pages from completing a fascinating, enlightening, true story and could wait, no longer, to share it.
I am grappling with the term “forever changed” by this book. Instead, I think it is more accurate, in my own case, to say “finally aware” or “forever defined”.
This is a firsthand story of a brain scientist’s stroke. There is a wealth of science about symptoms and perceptions, from the victim’s view. It is an essential part of the story and, really, not hard to learn and appreciate but the overall message and “insight” into the human psyche will “blow you away”!
We are a single being which operates, through our world, by using two separate, yet connected, brain hemispheres. The story exposes the purpose and function of those hemispheres in enlightening detail. The author’s conclusions about the necessity for both to function in unison in order to offer a life “rich” in a common conscientiousness are extraordinary, possibly, life changing.
As I read this book, I was thankful for my years with children for my primarily hopeful perspective about living “in the moment”. Jill Bolte Taylor hits the “nail on the head”, in my opinion, about how much of our own happiness is a matter of how we CHOSE to perceive the world. Embracing how ordinary events make us “feel” (emotionally and physiologically) just may be the biggest tool in the counteracting of everyday depression and sadness.
The author does not disregard the fact that our mental health is subject to chemical reactions beyond our control. The awareness that we CAN control much of it, though, (beyond brain damage and illness) offers a primer in a more fulfilling, happy, existence.
Incidentally, the carefree, forgiving, nature of man’s best friend seems to further explain why our Left Brains (containing speech and ego) can be our worst enemy if left to control too much of our time. On the other hand, who wants children, or dogs, making critical decisions?
As with everything we learn about life, balance is the best medicine.
I’ve barely scratched the surface of the wisdom between the covers of this book!

How to recognize a stroke.
How to treat stroke victims.
The recuperative power of sleep.
How our brains interpret the world.
The importance of patience and kindness.

I give this book 11 stars out of 10.

Sideshows

My Unpopular Opinion

Posted on 10/16/201010/16/2010 by Susan St.Pierre

Proposition 19 in California.

The legalization of marijuana for recreational use.

I am not a marijuana user.

I DO know many people who do use it.

It is not good for your body. Neither is, tobacco, fatty foods,alcohol, smog,sugars, caffeine, too much exercise,too little exercise etc.

It is currently an illegal substance.

It is used by millions of people for many reasons.

Does Prohibition ring a bell? How did that work out?

Why hasn’t the federal government outlawed cigarettes? ( They seem to enjoy the revenue and lawsuits.)

Now my argument:

Since the discovery of the existence of ADD and like disorders, we are finding that quite a number of folks have issues. (There are some who still believe those ailments do not exist.) I for one, DO believe that they exist. There are many people who are exceptionally shy and have social issues too.

The ability of physicians to diagnose and treat these conditions is sketchy at best. It can take years to find,and treat with the correct personal “cocktail” of drugs. Many people do not ever find relief because it takes a personal committment to multiple office visits and so on… These sufferers lack the “medical stamina” to find their own cure. Once they become adults, no one can take over for them.

In my own personal experience, I have witnessed marijuana providing relief to these people. Although, it is not the best for the body, it sure beats isolation, unemployment due to social problems, self-medicating with alcohol (which has much worse consequences, in my opinion.), anger related crimes and suicide.

NEVER would I have dreamed that I would agree with anything Californians came up with! I really don’t see a down side to this proposition. I also do not believe it carries a greater risk of harder drugs. Actually, the only reason people have come to this conclusion is that marijuana has been in the “hands” of the illegal drug dealers who then have an opportunity to offer harder drugs to those clients who really were not seeking them.

new businesses and revenue
those who self-medicate with alcohol will have a better option (never saw someone who was “high” beat their kids or start a fight.)
it would still be held to the same standards as alcohol. Driving impaired or possession by minors NOT TOLERATED.
separating it from the drugs we all know are most harmful will keep the DEA on the trail of the REAL criminals. (Even Massachusetts believes that marijuana wastes their precious anti-drug efforts. They decriminalized it.)

Just wanted to add my two cents. I welcome your opinion.