No matter what, you can't protect them from themselves

Geez, what else do we need to do to protect these people from themselves?

In case you don't want to read the article:

Man smoking at filling station catches fire
The Arizona Republic
Sept. 13, 2005 02:00 PM

A 26-year-old man suffered burns on 75 percent of his body when he attempted to gas up his pickup truck while smoking a cigarettee Monday evening, authorities said.

Thomas Warren was smoking when he tried to pump gas into his 1976 Ford truck at a station in the 21600 block of North 30th Avenue, near Deer Valley Road, and became engulfed in flames, according to Phoenix police.

He was taken to a Valley hospital; his condition was not immediately known.

Let me guess, automatic sprinklers will need to be installed at all gas stations that can detect a lit cigarette.

long day of worries

If I could, part of me would trottle my mother for seriously downplaying her ablation. She's had problems with atrial fibrillation for years, and the medications stopped working for about six months now. They finally agreed that an ablation should be the next step in treating her.

She was supposed to be at the hospital at 5:00 this morning. I just got an update that they finally doing the actual ablation, after spending hours working with computer models and high-tech imaging to determine the most effective area. Yet, I was also told that she'll be in there for the next four hours!

I guess part of it was my fault. I went through three ablations for my damaged nerve. The neurosurgeons don't want to make huge lesions on my nerve because the risk of AD goes up. And I admit that with lots of Versed, I don't keep track of the time, but I don't think I've been in there for more than a half hour!

So the waiting game continues. I try not to dwell on the bad feelings that crop up. At least I have pages of data to work through to keep my mind occupied.

UPDATE #1: So far so good. About another two hours to go.....

UPDATE #2: Out of surgery. Will be discharged tomorrow AM if all continues to go well.

have you ever wondered why...(part 2)

Who decided that conservative Republicans are "right" and liberal Democrats are "left"?

Reflections

This is something that I started to think about yesterday, so I thought I'd put some thoughts down. My inspiration came up during a scene of "24" season 1 when one of the characters was having to deal with a broken arm, and was crying.

Last winter, I broke my left wrist after a motorcycle accident. After the accident, I managed to drive the motorcycle (and the left wrist operates the clutch to switch gears), I went home, and slept on it. The next morning, I finally threw in the towel and went to an urgent care center. But it was because I knew that the pain was not a sprain, and while it was not getting worse, it was not getting better. Never did the pain in my wrist never brought me to tears.

I was wondering if the years of the pain I suffered contributed in part to how I deal with pain. I'm not excited to experiment with this concept. By far, the most intense pain I've dealt with in recent memory was almost a year ago, when a botched spinal tap required the use of a blood patch. I left the spinal tap procedure okay (Friday), but by Saturday my head was so painful that I was confined to bed. Being confined to bed because of pain was nothing new, so I assumed it was a flare of my normal pain. By Sunday, I knew that this pain was a bit different, but still couldn't get up except to the couch. Monday, I called in sick, and by late morning, I tried to run a couple errands. I drove a few miles, but the pain was so vice like that I could barely hold my head up, so I turned back. Late Monday afternoon, my call was returned with instructions to get back to the clinic. I managed to drive the two miles to the clinic, and was told that I had a spinal leak and needed a blood patch. But by that point, I was quite sick, and it took a while to get a line in to even get my blood. Sure enough, I was able to situp after the patch, and walked out to carefully drive home.

But even though it was difficult to hold my head up, I only felt like I was going to throw up. In years past, by the time I'd been suffering with my pain, I'd actually be throwing up. I had been given IM Zofran since I'd throw up the pill version of the same medication.

I don't plan on having children, so I can toss out the idea if labor would be painful to me. But going on my sister's experience, my guess is that labor wouldn't be a problem for me. This is something that most people don't brag about - but I hope this helps explain things a bit better.