sade082

Are we that polarized as a nation that we can't even discuss politics at work. Heck, I hear a political discussion and I salivate, and I don't care what point of view people have. And that's what happened as I pushed my cow to the nurse's station. As I stood there, innocently and cooly surfing through the computer system, I hear the following conversation at the nurse's station. The first someone said, "I don't see how they can let it be legal to poison your brain with alcohol." Now, to be fair, I had no idea what initiated this conversation. I'm just all ears. The second someone said, "The same with cigarettes. People are damaging their lungs. I don't see how we can allow that to happen." The first someone said, "I think alcohol is worse because cigarettes don't change how people think. I just think alcohol is nasty that way." The fourth someone said, "I think it's a free country, and if people want to put stuf...

I'm sorry if I offend people who don't believe, but it is my belief, based on my observations as a respiratory therapist who gets to know many people near the ends of their lives, that Faith makes it easier to die. Faith makes the transition from life to death easier. When I first started out as a respiratory therapist, I remember seeing people in the end stages of their diseases reading books. I see them watching the news. I'd see them worrying about paying bills or fixing a computer at home. I just couldn't fathom why they would be trying to educate themselves, or why they'd spend time worrying about trivial things when they knew they were going to die. How could they do that? Why would they do that? There was one lady I remember in particular. She was told she had basically no heart left. She had an ejection fraction of 20% or something like that. She was essentially told she was going to die, and might not even make it out of the hospital. And she didn't. Bu...

How is it that respiratory medicines work? If your a respiratory therapist like me, a quick review is always helpful. If you're a patient, it might be neat to learn how the medicines you have in your medicine cabinet work. So, here is a quick review. Today's focus will be on beta-adrenergic medicine like albuterol and anticholinergic medicine like Spiriva. For starters, these types of medicines have some impact on the autonomic nervous system. What is the autonomic nervous (ANS) system? It's the system that contains all the nerves, neurons, and neurotransmitters that control all your inner organs, including your heart, blood vessels, and lungs. It also controls other organs, but for our purposes, we'll limit our discussion to these three. The ANS responds to your internal and external environment by releasing certain chemicals (we'll get to these in a moment) that bind to receptor sites (we'll get to these in a moment too) on specific organs to tell them what to...