LegendaryLife Blog

A designer whom I worked with on the site WoodMarvels.com (he designed the great looking planes on my site), Jerry, just had a heart attack and here is what he wrote so that this doesn’t happen to you.

Buzvia: Jerry’s Msg

Before getting surgery done, make sure this guy isn't your surgeon!

With all that has happened in the past few months, a few articles I wanted to write about fell off the screen which I am now salvaging and writing about. Part of living a legendary life is having a body that is enables you to do as you wish.

Background Info

RNCentral.com has some really good advice, straight from front-line nurses who have very thoughtful and first hand experience to save you a lot of money by living healthily. Sickness can be avoided with a good lifestyle including plenty of exercise and a great whole food diet but sometimes, hospitals are a necessity, so here are some tips from Heather Johnson that ensure you leave as healthy as possible.

General Advice

1. Care about your Care

Nobody cares as much about your health as you do (or should). If there are some decisions to be made, make sure you are involved in the process.

2. Ask Questions

There is no such thing as a dumb question, only a dumb answer. If you don’t understand why a procedure, medicine or other things are happening to or around you. ASK!

3. Get YOUR care done by somebody you know!

Doctors, nurses and other front-line medical workers are there to HELP you but having somebody you know, such as your own doctor, will make a world of difference in easing your stress levels. Somebody you have a medical relationship with will also have knowledge about YOU that maybe another practitioner doesn’t which may affect outcomes. Always make sure your personal doctor knows you are in a hospital undergoing treatment and feel free to consult with them.

4. Become an open book

No detail is too small or insignificant to be told to a medical practitioner… tell them everything about your health and any conditions you may be suffering from. Knowledge goes a long way towards successful treatment.

5. Become your own expert

If you suffer from a medical condition, make sure YOU become an expert in it. Not only will this help to create informed decisions regarding your care but it also allows you to have an intelligent conversation with your doctor or nurse.

Medications

6. Know and tell your drug history

Every supplement, prescription and over the counter drug you take should be listed along with amounts (quantity / dose) and given to the person caring for you. Drug interactions are a very nasty thing that are avoidable.

7. Allergies

If you got them, be sure to tell!

8. Ask about prescriptions

Your health practitioner will know far more about drugs than you ever will but that doesn’t mean you don’t politely ask them to give you additional details about it which you can then research on your own to learn more about.

9. Don’t over/under dose!

Numbers are usually abstract things but when it comes to medicine, they can have serious consequences if they are wrong even by a decimal point. Be sure to double and triple check all dosing with different people before taking your medicine.

10. Double check your medicine

Don’t assume anything, once you get the medication, open it right away, make sure your name is on the bottle and the dosing is correct. If things look a little odd, point it out!

11. Can you read it?

If you can’t read your doctor’s handwriting, then how do you expect a pharmacist to? Make sure the drug name is clearly legible and be sure to ask him to tell you the name orally as well so the two match.

12. Side Effects are BAD

Every drug, even placebos, have side effects. Make sure you read and understand them before taking medication, prescription or otherwise. If you feel “not right” after taking a medicine, call your doctor right away!

13. One stop pharmaceutical shopping

Most pharmacies now track your prescription history in their computers which also double-check automatically for drug interactions and other possible hazards. Make sure you consolidate all your prescriptions at one pharmacy.

14. Measure

Pills may be easy to use but sometimes medication comes in other forms which aren’t as easy to measure. Ask your doctor or pharmacist if there is an easy way to get the right dosage if your drug is in powder or liquid form. If needed, ask them to show you how to properly administer the correct dosage in front of you.

Surgery

15. Know what is going on!

If you are going for surgery, after educating yourself as to what will be done to you, make sure that those responsible for your care ALSO have this knowledge. If there are complications, you want somebody who knows both YOU and the procedure to make an informed decision on your behalf.

16. Surgery is to be avoided

If you don’t need something done, don’t get it done. Packing-in multiple surgeries in one shot may also sound efficient and possibly save you some coin but it also exponentially increases the risk and damage being doen as well.

17. Deal with specialty hospitals

Some hospitals are well known for certain medical procedures, make sure you go THERE to get your surgery done. For instance, if you have a hernia, try to go to a hospital or clinic that specializes in hernias… the motto of “practice makes perfect” holds very true in the medical field.

18. Know your Surgeon

Is your surgeon specialized in the surgery he or she is about to perform on you? Do they have all the right and up-to-date credentials? These are things that are best known BEFORE surgery than in a recovery room.

19. Know what is going on!

This needs to be repeated, if you don’t know what is going on and your caregiver is in the same boat… you are asking for problems. Educate yourself and your caregiver BEFORE surgery.

20. Deal with specialists

Specific conditions require specific knowledge, if you are about to go under the knife, make sure you deal with specialists and even better, get a second opinion as well if you have any doubts.

21. Mark your body!

It seems the media is full of stories of surgeons amputating the wrong limb, doing the wrong procedure on the wrong patient and even leaving tools of the trade behind. If you are going in for surgery, MARK YOUR BODY with the name of the surgery and if you have two of them, make sure your doctor, with pen, marks the incision area with a EXTRACT / CUT / TIE (etc.) LEFT or RIGHT as well. The last thing you need in surgery is having to do it again because the wrong side was fixed

Hospital Stays

22. Keep yourself up to date!

If you haven’t heard back regarding a test of any kind that was performed on you, make sure you ask and find-out the results. Don’t assume no news is good news… especially in a hospital with overworked and underpaid staff.

23. General Hygene

Wash YOUR hands before you touch any wounds and make sure your health care provider does the same. The last thing you need in a hospital recovering from a condition is to get another one!

24. Freedom! Almost…

You got out of the hospital… GREAT!  But do you know what you have to do to make sure you don’t return? If no, make sure you do. Some conditions require specific treatments to be performed.

25. Assign a caregiver

Sometimes you are unable or unwilling, due to the nature of your condition, to tell a medical practitioner what is going on. Make sure that at least one person in this world knows both you and your condition so they can make decisions on your behalf.

BONUS

Getting sick sucks, going to a hospital sucks even more… avoid both by living a healthy lifestyle, don’t smoke, drink or do too many crazy things in a row.

The Bottom Line

Become your own health advocate!

Source:
25 Tips to Help Protect Yourself from Medical Errors By Heather Johnson

There are two types of lies in this world, those you tell yourself and those you tell others… smokers seem to be experts in both! Caring about their health while smoking is one of the biggest.

Drug addicts are all the same

So far, I have talked to smokers from Canada, United States, Australia, Malaysia, Japan and Korea over an extended period of time and the excuses are all the same. They seem to relish describing how “addicted” or “hardcore” they are. I was talking to one addict yesterday and they where quite proud to say their breath smelled like that of an ash tray… interesting, another from Australia told me exactly the same thing while I was in that country! Here are some fantastically delusional lies you can expect to hear from a smoker (feel free to add more):

I can quit anytime

If this where true, they could quit right now but just try to get enough guts and throw their pack away in front of them… they will run like a squirrel right into the bin to get them. I know… I have done this several times with the same results.

I don’t smoke that much

Sadly, the effects of smoking both primary and second (onto non-smokers) is cumulative. You won’t die right away from emphysema or COD but I wouldn’t want to be a lung in a smokers body after a few decades of continual self-poisoning.

I feel fine

Next time a drug addict tells you that they feel fine, ask them to join you for a hike up a sizable hill… their tune will change guaranteed. The reason they feel fine is because they are use to living in a marginalized body, not because they are actually “fine”.

It helps me keep my shape (slim)

There are two ways to keep your body in shape, one is to exercise and the other is to under-feed it. Sure, smoking is keeping you slim, but guess what, you can accomplish far more by working out and quitting smoking then otherwise. What you are doing is actually starving your body, making it waste resources trying to clean the crap out of the air you take in instead of improving or optimizing it.

My father/mother/uncle smoked till they where 90 years old!

George Burns also smoked a cigar until he hit 100 years old, sure, there are some people out there with wonder genetics but odds are, you don’t have them. Imagine if George Burns never smoked, he might still be alive today! Regardless of how you cut it, smoking WILL reduce not only your lifespan but the quality of the live you live dramatically with time.

Smokers Facing Death

I had a grandfather who I wish everyday never smoked because he died a painful death over several years, his body was fine but his lungs where shot from a live addicted to cigarettes. Now, this week, I got news that one of my uncles, one who saw what my grandfather went through his final years, has been diagnosed with lunch cancer caused by smoking. My grandfather openly admitted that if he ever got a lung transplant that the first thing he would to is smoke and oddly, my uncle, even while at hospital surrounded by smokers slowly fading away, still had the conscience to go… you guessed it right… smoke in hiding! Each and every smokers has to face up to the fact that one day, guaranteed, they will face their maker far sooner then anticipated due to a slow, selfish, purposeful self-poisoning of the very body they inhabit.

Unfunny Joke

Here is an unfunny joke I seem to repeat to myself just about every time I see somebody smoking. What is the difference between a smoker and a junkie? One uses a legal substance. Sad isn’t it… mentally, a junkie is in the same place as a smoker.

How do I treat smokers?

I take my health very seriously, to the point that if I find out a friend smokes, they are no longer somebody I associate myself with. I would honestly prefer to be alone the rest of my life then to spend it with somebody hell bent on destroying their health. There is no sugar coating things, smokers have a death wish but are too much of a coward to get it over with, instead, they drag the emotions of those around them into the hole they inhabit. My only exception to this “banish them from my sight” rule is family but then I try to spend my time outdoors with them as much as possible, limiting exposure to second-hand smoke. Would I ever hire somebody who smoked? Nope, politically correct or not, why the hell would I want to invest my time and resources into somebody who doesn’t give a damn about themselves?

Spiders on Drugs

To some, alright, many out there, this may seem kinda harsh but I live my life by many simple rules, at the top of my list is that if you don’t care about yourself, then I don’t care about you. I do have a very well developed sense of humor so here is something to lighten up the mood on a serious topic. The effect of drugs on spiders! If you can’t laugh at even the worst of things, then the thoughts that follow them have no way out of your head.

The Bottom Line

Reversing a denial is the first step towards a successful life.

If you are unlucky enough to require the use of an artificial limb, I hope this gives you hope that the functionality desire may not be that far away.

Dr. Goldfarbs Background

Dr. Goldfarbs is a professor of mechanical engineering at Vanderbilt University who has been fascinated by prosthetic limbs since childhood, and did his masters degree into designing a robotic artificial leg. He later did his doctorate in developing a computer controlled brace that would allow paraplegics to walk with the use of electrical stimulation on their muscles! He’s currently doing research into dramatically improving the usability and functionality of artificial limbs.

Power requirements are the next hurdle

Dr. Goldfarbs realized while doing robotic research that the achiles heel of any powered prosthetics is the inability to function for extended periods of time without having to have the power supplies refreshed (plugged in). As a result, he exchanged motors for special materials that expand and contract based on varying voltage, functioning very much like normal muscle tissue. In 2000, while doing research for DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Project Agency), he developed a fuel source that simply used hydrogen peroxide instead of conventional motors and batteries.

Military needs artificial limbs!

With impressive advances in body armor, the number of casualties that the military suffers from was sharply down but as limbs are still exposed, a record number of limbs where being amputated. Having impressed other researchers, he then set his sights in 2005 towards developing an advanced prosthetic arm ever with 30 million dollar in funds from DARPA.

DARPA Results

The artificial arm developed by Dr. Goldfarbs was radically different then anything currently in the marketplace and has almost the same functionality of a real one! The artificial arm has more dexterity, freedom of movement and power then what is currently available with the added benefit of using a liquid fuel power system which can be refreshed when ever the user desires. Other researchers are also studying implantation of electrodes directly within the central nervous system to control artificial limb movement instead of using current methods.

The Future of Artificial Limbs

Dr. Goldfarbs is now researching the development of an artificial leg using the same technology he developed with DARPA funds for the next generation artificial arm.

Video

I found a video by Dean Karmen, I don’t know if the arm is the same as the one developed by Dr. Goldfarbs but the end of the video is interesting regardless.

The Bottom Line

Follow your strengths and success will surely follow.

Buzzvia

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Creating_The_Ultimate_Artificial_Arm_999.html

People suffering from mental health issues use to be housed in psychiatric institutions but now, in the United States, they are increasingly being held in jail. If fact, one out of every 10 patients are now housed behind bars with the general inmate population, which now represents over half a million of those held in detention facilities around the country.

Summary

I urge you to view the video yourself but if you don’t have time, here is a summary:

• prisons have become the new state mental health facilities as they where systematically shutdown due to budget cuts and policy changes
• 50 000 mentally ill stay in state hospitals but 500 000 stay in prison
• 16% of prison inmates in Ohio are mentally ill requiring special services (medication, follow-up… ) that most facilities aren’t built to provide
• 30% of those 16% mentally ill will always require hospitalization and professional services to keep their condition manageable
• patients requiring acute care or constant watch are sent into the prison infirmary
• patients become suicidal, depressed and delusional due to being housed in a prison facility
• prisons are built to provide safety and security for the local population, not mental health services
• most mental health patients are in prison due to minor offenses and not following orders by lower level detention facilities
• Ohio prison system tries to triage those who are mentally ill verses criminal intent regarding disciplinary action
• mentally ill patients require more force then the general prison population because they quickly become out of control
• mentally ill inmates are often cycled between maximum security prison to mental health facilities for stabilization then back again into prison
• once mentally ill inmates return to prison, their conditions quickly degrade
• prison mental health services are often better then those in community based settings as close monitoring and force can be applied
• some inmates believe prison makes their condition better while others say it makes it worse
• isolation makes those who are already mentally ill worse and they fall apart due to lack of intellectual stimulation
• parole is a difficult goal to achieve due to their mental illness which often leads to an extensive rap sheet being produced in addition to their own bias towards wanting to guarantee mental health services in prison for the inmates own good
• some mentally ill inmates fear leaving prison because they fear the complexity of everyday life, they believe they are better off in the confines of a controlled environment
• mentally ill inmates have a high rate of return after parole as they often stop taking their medication, believing they don’t need it anymore and are cured
• two million people are behind bars in the United States, of which 25% have mental problems

The Bottom Line

Mental illness requires close attention by medically educated professionals, not people involved with law enforcement.

Buzzvia

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/asylums/