The Script

Inappropriate Drug Company Giveaways

Let's look at some dumb stuff drug companies were giving away last year.

Nexium is a drug for heartburns...hmmm let's give away a cooler that fits a 6-pack perfectly.  You'll remember the drug when your stomach hurts from all that drinking.  Wait, aren't you supposed to avoid alcohol if you have GERD?

Nexium bag

This is a great one - Lovenox is a blood thinner, patients are not even supposed to participate in contact sports due to bleeding risks.  Let's give away some sharp scissors.  Which marketing genius came up with that idea?

Lovenox scissors

Levitra is an erectile dysfunction, or impotence in everyday terms, treatment.
Here's the pen closed in its neat, tiny package.

Levitra closed.0

Here's the pen extended, ready for use

Levitra open

I am going to take the high road and leave it at that.

So I've Been Thinking A Lot About Life Lately

Yes, as unbelievable as it sounds, I've been thinking..  Over this past week, I've been thinking a lot about life lately. 

Maybe it's the fact that there's been a lot of bad stuff happening to the people around me.  Surgeries, car accidents, loss of family members, loss of pet...these all happened to my coworkers and friends in the past week. One of our best techs, an immigrant from Ethiopia with no family stateside at all, just had a liver mass removed (and it's sounding like a tumor). 

Maybe I've been spending quite a bit of time running in the park thinking in solitude.

Maybe it's sharing of my life story to a new friend.

Maybe it's the same homeless man I've been seeing on West End.

Regardless, I've been up at night thinking a lot. I've been worrying quite a bit about life's what if's....what if I get into a car accident?  What if it's me with the liver mass?  What if I need surgery (and it's not unlikely with the troubles I've been having with my knees)? 

I've been thinking if these things happen to me, what would happen?  It's sometimes so easy to find your family annoying or irritating, but it's always there for better or for worse. One of my favorite quotes from Tolstoy is the first sentence in Anna Karenina:

All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way

But nevertheless a family is family, it's a safety net in some ways.  Not having a family, I am having so many insecurities with these what-if's.  Sure, I've got short-term and long-term disability insurance and other resources saved up.  But if I need surgery or some sort of rehab, who really would be there for me?  Will I become that headache that the social worker has so much trouble with regards to discharge planning at the hospital?  I can very well become that homeless man on West End.  What if I just drop dead?  Will I be buried in the city's unmarked cemetery with nobody to claim my body? (of course, I would probably care less since I would be dead anyway)  I know, some of these worries are silly, but some are very real.

I am very grateful for all of my friends and I know many will be happy to help out in case of these what if's, but they are not family. I can't rely on them long term nor would it be fair to them, after all they got families of their own to take care of. I don't think it's that easy to convey the source of my worries and anxieties, but trust me it's been bothering me quite a bit and keeps me up at night quite a bit.

It's especially hard spiritually for me to be this anxious because the Sermon on the Mount keeps coming up in my mind (Matt 6: 25-34):
 

I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?....And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?...But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and ^{all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.}

Man, it sounds like a relatively benign teaching of Jesus but who knew it would be so hard to follow?  I haven't quite been able to rid myself of these worries and anxieties. It's not just something I can will away by my own power.  Friends, please keep me in your prayers during this tumultuous season of life.  Of course, please also keep my friend, B, in your prayers that all the malignant mass had been successfully removed from his liver and that there's no spread to other parts of his body.

The Devil Wrote It!

We've recently had a computer upgrade at work and I am pretty sure Satan himself wrote the programming code.  What is supposed to be a 3 hour upgrade turned into a 7 hour ordeal.  I am not saying it because I am bitter about having to spend the Saturday night/Sunday morning to babysit the upgrade, trying to catch a nap on the floor of my office in my sleeping bag.  Of course that was virtually impossible when you have a pneumatic tube switch directly underneath the floor of your office.  Every time someone sends the tube into the system, the floor vibrates and my spine rattles along with it.  I was planning to get home at 6 or 7 Sun morning but it was not to be, the evil system did not come back up until 10:30.

Now the part where I am convinced that Satan is involved is the flawed programming.  We can't discontinue any drugs on patient profiles, even if the doctors decide the patients don't need it.  We have to hack into the system to get rid of those drugs.  How can this be an upgrade?   Not to mention the allergy screen, any computer "upgrade" that hides the allergy information can't be good for anybody.  I don't know much about patient care, but is it bad if the nurse or doctor can't see the dose of drugs on the computer?

And the really evil part is after the upgrade, when we call in the issues, they are well-aware because they happened somewhere else before.  Who, other than the devil, would push this upgrade out if they knew it's buggy?

So of course, everyone at work is complaining to me like I am the person who ordered the upgrade.  People need to realize we work for the man.  And when the man wants to stick it to you with this "upgrade", you just assume the work position and take it.  I've been praying the serenity prayer a lot lately and I think I am going to post the first part of it at work, next to these evil computers:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Maybe we can perform an exorcism on these computers or better yet, dunk them into some "holy water" to fix the problems.

Travel Tips

It's August 1, half of summer is already gone! I have no doubts many of you are taking vacations and traveling quite a bit.  I don't claim to be a world traveler but I've been to a few places and I thought I would share some tips with you.

1.  Don't fly Uzbekistan Airways...I don't want my safe arrival a matter of luck or chance.

Stupid ad

2.  When flying Southwest or any airline with open seating policy, pretending to be a schizophrenic and talking to yourself during boarding almost always guarantee an empty seat next to you.  Reading the airline magazine upside down works too if you are too shy to talk to yourself, though not as effective.

3.  Your seatmate won't shut up?  "Me no speak English" works wonders for me. 

4.  Ambien is your best friend, esp crossing multiple time zones.  On that note, adjust your watch to the new time zone as soon as you get on the plane and act like you're already there.  If it's already bedtime when you board, go to sleep.  I promise, you are not missing anything, that airplane meal is not worth staying up for.

5.  Bored on the plane or being force fed a chick flick (or dude action thriller for you ladies)?  Observe around you and make up lives and identities for your fellow passengers, better yet, create a new identity for yourself.  I've been a PhD student in art history, a recently released white collar crime felon, and an encyclopedia salesman.

6.  Holes in your socks or underwear?  Don't throw them away yet, wear it one last time on your trip and dispose of them as you go.  Don't have to bring them back with you and leave you some room to bring me some awesome souvenirs.

7.  Feeling gassy on the plane, it's natural.  The atmospheric pressure is much lower in the cabin than that in your colon so avoiding cabbage or beans ain't gonna help.  It's the law of physics - don't fight it - just let it rip!