The old apartment

This song showed up in dreams recently, out of the blue. No idea why. But it is good, so sharing with all of you.

Barenaked Ladies, The old apartment

Pantera - Walk

I don't think heavier music is popular here, but I will post anyway. Seems relevant with current events.

Pantera - Walk

Run your mouth
When I'm not around
It's easy to achieve
You cry to weak friends
That sympathize

Can you hear
The violins
Playing your song?
Those same friends
Tell me your every word

Paul's Boutique

I think this is one of the best Beastie Boys albums. It took me a while before I appreciated the album. After Licensed to Ill I was expecting something similar. We (friends) anxiously got together and listened to the latest release on casingle (remember those? Cassette singles?) and Hey Ladies was ... OK. Otherwise, well, kind of different. A few listens and shelved.

Thankfully I took another listen a few years later. And may more listens. It is truly an amazing album, and I could go on and list why, but others have done a far better job than I could ever do, so I will just post a link to the full album.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjIuADMrDKIbWEdXYa-fq_ZT7oZbnek3Y

Jug Handle Project Decision Notice Signed

Jug Handle Project Decision Notice Signed

https://www.exploreclarion.com/2022/12/03/jug-handle-project-decision-notice-signed/

Just curious what comments others have about this. I have no opinion and I don't know enough to have an opinion. Thoughts?

This one is for Joe Biden - Praise You

Fatboy Slim - Praise You

Long ago I had my doubts about Joe Biden. No Longer.

We've come a long, long way together
Through the hard times and the good
I have to celebrate you, baby
I have to praise you like I should

Social Distortion - Ball and Chain

Social Distortion - Ball and Chain

Vote Counting thoughts

Listening to Rachel Maddow discussing how long hand counting of votes would take had me reminiscing to my youth. I grew up in a household where my Father was a PolySci professor in our town, as well as leading the local dems, and running a few local campaigns (although he did decline to run the presidential campaign for one of our local luminaries - that is a short story on it's own). My mother was also active in local politics, with the League of Women Voter's.

They were both active as election night poll workers, along with friends from both sides of the isle. I remember going after school to the polls, and doing my homework until my older sister could take me home. Once the polls closed my mom would come home, but my dad stayed for the hand counting.

Often I would wake up for school before my dad came home from the hand counting. It was always a long process, and an interesting one. I don't remember all the details, but it was something like one person pulling each ballot out one at a time, reading the ballot out loud, with several (5 i think?) hand tallying, and then periodically stopping to make sure everyone's totals agreed. If not, they started over (or at least went back to the point where they agreed). Rinse and repeat until all ballots were counted. (This is a 40 year old memory, so don't bash me about what they were doing ... I don't remember the details).

This was in a small town in western PA, in the 70s. I'm not sure how many people were in the precinct, but the population of the town was around 6 thousand at the time. I'm sure the ballot count was in the less.

I considered adding what it was like growing up as the child of a politician (and a Professor!), but that is best left for another post. No point in soiling the good memories.

What is the point of this post? Nothing really, except to share some pleasant memories. I would love to hear anything similar from other DU members.

The cult of personality

I'm not sure where to post this, it could have been written today, but that makes sense given the inspiration for the lyrics.

While I have always liked this song, I mostly just enjoyed it for the music. I never really understood the lyrics, and the history behind them. Kind of like Eddy Grant's Electric Avenue, I loved the music, but it took me many years to appreciate and understand the meaning.

In any case, here is a song that rocks. I hope someone else enjoys it.

Bad Doctors experience

This happened quite a while ago to my partner. I thought I would share it with others, because it shows how the quality of doctors varies, and how a doctor simply listening to you makes a difference. A long read.

My wife and I had just moved in to a new rural property. Her coworker and friend said that he was getting ready to demolish an old wooden shed on his property (he was going to burn it down). Since we were in a new property with need of storage, we looked to see if we could salvage anything. Yes, we could! Actually, quite a bit. So we set about tearing down his old shed, which in some cases involved swinging a sledgehammer. With the last swing my wife made, she felt a pop and said 'I'm done'. She wasn't in pain or anything, she just knew that was enough. We finished up and went home.

The next morning started out OK, but after her shower while sitting on the bed, she tried to put on a sock. That's it. Instant agony, couldn't bend down. I helped, but it was obvious we weren't going to work that day. So, queue up the visit to the docs. We gave the whole story, including the suggestion that my wife knew exactly what happened and when (the swing of the sledge). Referred to the local hospital for an urgent sonogram thinking it was kidney stones (with less resistance from the radiology folks than when her appendix burst, by the way, but that's a different story). So they told her it was kidney stones, gave a painkiller, and told her to wait it out. Results read by the doc the next day said they saw no evidence of kidney stone. After another agonzing day, rinse and repeat. Bottom line for a few days, my wife was in agony, it was getting worse, and everyone said kidney stones.

So we did some calling around, got a referral/recommendation to another doctor, who specialized in sport and spinal injuries. You would think this is a good fit, considering what we said the source of the injury was, right? The referring docs thought so. After a cursory exam, he declared there was no injury, my wife didn't know what happened to her, and referred her to another specialist: A gastroenterologist oncologist. I literally almost fainted in the waiting room when I heard them tell her that. Yes, literally. One of the worst moments of our married life.

After recovering a few minutes, sitting in our car in the parking garage crying, and not really trusting the docs we had seen so far, I thought about one of our most trusted docs over the years - my wifes OBGYN. I called them, and as usual, their first appointment was 3 months away. I said this was extremely urgent, could we talk to Dr. X. The response wasn't hopeful, but we got a call back from him personally in less than an hour. He would see us immediately. We headed over and waited to see him.

He asked my wife to give a basic explanation of what was going on, and listened intently. Next step was an exam, really just basic exam, like what you would get in a physical. Palpitating, asking questions, nothing invasive. And then he asked us to go to the waiting room for a bit.

He called us in to his office, pulled out his medical books, and explained why he believed my wife had ruptured a particular disc, and even the side of the disc, based solely on listening to her and the basic exam. He had also arranged for a specialist to see her the next day (yes, he called him and asked for him to see my wife ASAP). Long story short, after several expensive tests, the specialist confirmed what my wifes OBGYN figured out just by listening to her.

He also followed up by sending a strongly worded letter to the spine injury specialist who told my wife she had cancer. We followed up with docs who assured us it was kidney stones.

Good news, my wife is doing well. A bit of PT and some meds, and she was back to work in a physically demanding job a few weeks later. We finished rebuilding the shed on our property, and it is still in use today over a decade later! (bad news: it is in dire need of reorganization and cleanup).

I'm not sure exactly why I am sharing this with you guys, except to say that be careful with doctors, make sure you trust them, and don't be afraid to stand up for yourself or your loved ones if something doesn't seem right. Don't be a Karen (I hate that term, I have some much loved actual Karens in my life), but do be willing to question those who literally hold your future in their hands. And sometimes you end up with a true genius, a true Hercule Poirot, like we did!

Why do you avoid healthcare?

I started to respond to a link on DU, and then realized that my response didn't matter, and canceled it. But it got me to thinking that maybe there was a better group, and that perhaps I should ask questions, instead of just complain.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016334372

Over many years I have avoided going to doctors for a number of reasons. First of all, avoidance. If you ignore a problem it will just go away, right?

Second, I really hate the whole process of calling providers, setting up appointments, all of that stuff. Anxiety is a huge problem exacerbated by some really mean and condescending people over the years (doctors and their supporting staff).

This is on top of all of the insurance bullshit. I spent the first 10 years of my career in Medical Billing as a software person doing claims (both electronic and paper, anyone remember those?) in an effort to maximize provider income (exploiting contracts, finding better ICD9 codes to use to maximize profit, etc). I've been out of that business for 20 years now, but it's clear that the situation hasn't improved.

So, here is a recent experience I had. Every couple of years my Primary Care doc schedules me for an echocardiogram. It's been done by a cardiologist in his practice. This year it was denied by insurance, so the appointment was cancelled. Why? Some vague insurance bullshit about the type of practice the cardiologist was billing from was no longer acceptable to them.

My first reaction was to just say, oh well, and go another year (I've already let it slide 6 months), that's easier, right? I have done this in the past when a refill for Diabetes medication suddenly went up by thousands (yes, you read that right). But I found out that I will be covered if I go to a specialist practice, so that is what I am doing. Instead of just an echo, I will get whole damn thing - stress test, various scans, lots of other really expensive tests, all because the insurance bureaucrat determined that a test recommended by my doctor wasn't necessary. And I am doing the same for my spouse, doubling their cost. I have had enough and will stand up for myself, no more avoidance.

Who knows, maybe it will be good in the end, especially if something is found.

But, this kind of bullshit is exactly why I avoid dealing with medical stuff unless I have no other choice.

Enough about me, why do you avoid healthcare?