sade082

A week before Christmas every year we walked across the street to the nursing home. This would have been in the 1970s. I would have been seven, eight, and nine. This would have been on Monday nights. That’s when we had Catechism classes at Manistee Catholic Central. So, here it was December 1976. We were all to bring in some gift. My mom bought me a handkerchief. So, that was my gift. It seemed like a stupid gift. But I wrapped it as awkwardly as a seven-year-old might do this. I walked my gift with my class across the street. My teacher opened the door to the nursing home. The redolent smell of bleach and urine. It was an old building, so there was also that old musty smell old buildings have. Back in 19th century, up until 1970, it was a hospital. It was Mercy Hospital. My grandma said it was one of the most beautiful hospitals. It had a huge Church cathedral in the middle. They tore the Church down left the rest to become this nursing home. Immediately we saw old people. There was a...

So, they wanted to talk to us about VPAP. Their goal was to sell VPAP units. They kept talking over each other so you could see their excitement. VPAP units work. Studies show they prevent readmissions for COPD, so they said. They said it's easy to qualify patients for VPAP. All they have to do is have one blood gas with a PaCO2 greater than 50. It doesn't matter when that ABG was done. It could have even been done in the ER when the patient was having a flare-up.  One of the reps said that it's easy setting patients up on VPAP. All we had to do was notify them that a patient qualifies. Then they take over from there. They said that they talk to the doctor. They said that they talk to the patient. And then they set the patient us.  One of the reps is the one who works with the patients. He said that he has been doing this for two years, and only had one patient reject the machine. He said they are tolerated that much.  They made VPAP sound so good. They made it sound way ...

“Am I going to die?” It’s a question I’ve heard many times over my 20 years as a respiratory therapist. Yeah! Like, how do I answer that? Here I was, fresh out of RT school, and I was posed with this question my very first day on the job. I said nothing. I just stood there at the edge of the bed feeling guilty that I did not know. I wanted so bad to give an answer. I wanted so bad just to get out of the room. I felt so guilty. I was posed with the same question a few weeks later. She was 62-years old. She was recently retired. She was looking forward to enjoying her retirement. She had worked so hard to enjoy this benefit of life. She was recently diagnosed with end-stage COPD. She was also diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis. It was a big double-whammy! We had become friends, of sorts. We spent lots of time together due to her disease. I was with her in the emergency room. I was there when she was first put on a BiPAP machine. I gave her numerous Duoneb treatments before she was adm...

Two friends were discussing dieting. Friend A said he wanted to lose weight and gain muscle. Friend B said, "You can't do both at the same time."  I intervened: "That's a myth because you can. Friend B said, "No you can't. It's impossible."  I said, "It is possible, and I have. That's the entire premise of work out programs like the Body-For-Life."  "Do you have proof?" he said.   "Yes. As a matter of fact, I have loads of proof. I have articles. I have myself." "What do you mean, you have yourself."  "I am proof. I have lost weight and gained muscle lots of times. I have lost up to 40 pounds while gaining muscle. I mean, I'm no Arnold, but I do have some muscle tone that didn't exist." See, that was the end of the discussion. But this highlights the difference between common sense and what they teach in colleges and universities. They teach conventional wisdom. They teach the same st...

I started eating healthy in 1998. The diet I did was the Body-For-Life Diet. I still stick to this diet, although with my own moderations. One of the moderations I made is that I now eat eggs every day. I eat lots of eggs. I eat two for breakfast and then I eat 2 more as a snack for brunch. Sometimes I eat more than that. I told this to my son the other day. He goes to the University of Michigan, so you know he's smart. But, a University education doesn't necessarily mean you are getting useful information. He said, "I bet your cholesterol is high." I said, "That's a myth." Actually, my cholesterol is normal. This is after eating 4 eggs nearly every day for over a year. So, if conventional wisdom were true, I'd be well on my way to having a heart attack. But, the truth is as it is, this is not the case. I mean, I don't even have heart attack genes. There is no evidence of heart disease in my family. So, I'm certainly not going to worry about ...