I was employed as a tour guide when the new headquarters of the Connecticut Bank and Trust Co. (now Bank of America) opened in Hartford, CT. in June, 1963. My boss, Mrs. Griggs, considered me to be "most conscientious". I took my job seriously, probably too seriously, but since it was the first job I had ever had, I was determined to be a crackerjack at it.
Sometimes the groups we guided were too large to fit into one elevator when we went from the mezzanine up to the sixth floor (the Trust department) so we were told to split up such groups and tell the other half to "join us on the sixth floor".
I split up a group about lunchtime one day, arrived at the sixth floor and found that the other half had not arrived. I waited around a bit, hoping they would appear but they didn't. I was a wreck for the rest of the tour and when it was over, I searched a couple of the other floors. I never again saw the second half of my group and no one reported seeing them.
Absolutely dejected, I reported back to the basement area where our lounge was situated and told Mrs. Griggs, "I'm sorry. I lost one half of my tour. I don't know where they are!"
She looked at me in disbelief and then started to laugh as I told her what happened. Then, giving me a big hug, she said, "Well, we'll just have to call them 'the ghost tour' and be on the watch for them." I finally began to relax. After that, every once in a while, after a long day, Mrs. Griggs would ask me, "So have you found that 'ghost tour' yet?" And everyone in the room would laugh.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Medicated Soldiers
It seems that the general population is not the only place where people are taking far too much medication to get through the day.
In the military, a situation has developed where recruitment officers are so hungry for breathing bodies that virtually no medication will disqualify one for deployment even after multiple tours of duty. Approximately 15% of those on active duty serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are now on anti-depressants, anti-anxiety medication and sleeping pills. Some soldiers take a combination of all of these as well as pain killers and alcohol. A combination of Klonopin for anxiety, Zoloft for depression and Ambien for sleep is not unusual. It has been reported that Seroquel is being used to help with nightmares although that is not an approved use for the drug. Seroquel is used to treat bi-polar disease and schizophrenia and some side effects include dizziness and paranoia.
Frankly, the idea of so many heavily armed soldiers with these amounts of medication in them scares the living hell out of me. I would suspect that all horrible incidents of murder and suicide have not been reported. An army which is drugged to this extent cannot be effective in the long run.
In the military, a situation has developed where recruitment officers are so hungry for breathing bodies that virtually no medication will disqualify one for deployment even after multiple tours of duty. Approximately 15% of those on active duty serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are now on anti-depressants, anti-anxiety medication and sleeping pills. Some soldiers take a combination of all of these as well as pain killers and alcohol. A combination of Klonopin for anxiety, Zoloft for depression and Ambien for sleep is not unusual. It has been reported that Seroquel is being used to help with nightmares although that is not an approved use for the drug. Seroquel is used to treat bi-polar disease and schizophrenia and some side effects include dizziness and paranoia.
Frankly, the idea of so many heavily armed soldiers with these amounts of medication in them scares the living hell out of me. I would suspect that all horrible incidents of murder and suicide have not been reported. An army which is drugged to this extent cannot be effective in the long run.
Friday, May 8, 2009
How Many Millions are Sick?
I find it appalling that the number of supposedly mentally ill children and cost for "needed care" in the US seems to climbing at an astronomical rate.
In 2006, 4.6 million children under the age of 18 were treated for some kind of mental illness at $193 a child, or $8.9 billion dollars for total treatment. Now in 2009, there are approximately 74 million children in the US and most "experts" will tell you that 20% of them need psychiatric treatment of one sort or another. So that would be 14.8 million children needing treatment. Using the 2006 rate of $193 a child for treatment, the cost will be $28.7 billion for total treatment in 2009.
President Obama has just suggested that the budget should be cut by $17 billion, or .o5% of the federal budget. It seems that psychiatric care for our children will be 52% of that budget cut as computed in 2006 dollars.
My financial sense tells me that the actual cost will be far higher as health care costs have escalated. Using a figure of $225 per child, the total cost might be closer to $33.3 billion or almost twice (1.96%) the amount of the President's proposed cut in the budget.
What a fabulous windfall for those in the psychiatric and pharmaceutical businesses! Do we really have that many sick kids? And if so, do we really need to spend that amount of money to get them well?
I believe there are lots of different kinds of people who smell a pot of money that makes their noses wrinkle up and their mouths water. With that kind of money at stake, there's apt to be at least a few bad actors lurking around. $33 billion is a pretty sweet pot.
In 2006, 4.6 million children under the age of 18 were treated for some kind of mental illness at $193 a child, or $8.9 billion dollars for total treatment. Now in 2009, there are approximately 74 million children in the US and most "experts" will tell you that 20% of them need psychiatric treatment of one sort or another. So that would be 14.8 million children needing treatment. Using the 2006 rate of $193 a child for treatment, the cost will be $28.7 billion for total treatment in 2009.
President Obama has just suggested that the budget should be cut by $17 billion, or .o5% of the federal budget. It seems that psychiatric care for our children will be 52% of that budget cut as computed in 2006 dollars.
My financial sense tells me that the actual cost will be far higher as health care costs have escalated. Using a figure of $225 per child, the total cost might be closer to $33.3 billion or almost twice (1.96%) the amount of the President's proposed cut in the budget.
What a fabulous windfall for those in the psychiatric and pharmaceutical businesses! Do we really have that many sick kids? And if so, do we really need to spend that amount of money to get them well?
I believe there are lots of different kinds of people who smell a pot of money that makes their noses wrinkle up and their mouths water. With that kind of money at stake, there's apt to be at least a few bad actors lurking around. $33 billion is a pretty sweet pot.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
ECT
In the old days, ECT or electroshock therapy was used to lift depression. The idea was that the electric shock waves would joggle the brain a little and the patient would then begin to be able to think in different ways....hopefully, in more positive ways. Over the years, I was given 20 shock therapy sessions.
I was laid on a table with a pillow under my knees. After being given a light anesthetic, electric shock waves were administered to the sides of my head with small machines that resembled head phones. An attendant stood by to make sure that the small grand mal sizure that was sure to follow did not knock me off the table or cause me to jerk so badly that I broke any of my bones. I was told that my memory would be fuzzy for a day or so and that my walk would be a little uncertain and then things would return to normal. And that was what happened. I trusted the doctors, had no fear of the treatment, had little discomfort afterwards and the depression went away. I didn't know about the grand mal seizures until years later and then I realized that my brain had been intentionally (with my permission) damaged twenty times.
When I saw a ECT patient lose her ALL her short term and ALL her l0ng term memory FOREVER, I was horrified and frightened. What damage had been done to my brain that could never be repaired? How long would it be before the damage became manifest? At the age of 68, almost 35 years later, my increasing inability to hold onto names or to remember how to get to someone's house I have visited in the recent past may be the result of increasing age or may be a long term effect of the ECT. I don't believe I will ever know the answer to that question.
When I see in the papers that a form of ECT (deep-brain stimulation) is now being proposed for a type of illness called OCD, I fear for the ramifications and extension of such treatments. How many kinds of patients will be electrified without knowledge of long term effects? Is this kind of treatment getting out of control?
I was laid on a table with a pillow under my knees. After being given a light anesthetic, electric shock waves were administered to the sides of my head with small machines that resembled head phones. An attendant stood by to make sure that the small grand mal sizure that was sure to follow did not knock me off the table or cause me to jerk so badly that I broke any of my bones. I was told that my memory would be fuzzy for a day or so and that my walk would be a little uncertain and then things would return to normal. And that was what happened. I trusted the doctors, had no fear of the treatment, had little discomfort afterwards and the depression went away. I didn't know about the grand mal seizures until years later and then I realized that my brain had been intentionally (with my permission) damaged twenty times.
When I saw a ECT patient lose her ALL her short term and ALL her l0ng term memory FOREVER, I was horrified and frightened. What damage had been done to my brain that could never be repaired? How long would it be before the damage became manifest? At the age of 68, almost 35 years later, my increasing inability to hold onto names or to remember how to get to someone's house I have visited in the recent past may be the result of increasing age or may be a long term effect of the ECT. I don't believe I will ever know the answer to that question.
When I see in the papers that a form of ECT (deep-brain stimulation) is now being proposed for a type of illness called OCD, I fear for the ramifications and extension of such treatments. How many kinds of patients will be electrified without knowledge of long term effects? Is this kind of treatment getting out of control?
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Copper pipes
A number of homeowners across the US have been awakened to a situation which requires prompt attention and has an expensive solution. From about 1980-2000, houses that were built on a slab usually had copper water pipes installed underneath the slab of the house. American copper had became too expensive and so Brazilian copper was substituted for the purer American copper.
Now, slab houses built with Brazilian copper water pipes have a problem. The copper pipes are developing little green spots on the inside of the pipes which gradually totally rot out into holes. The pipes silently begin to leak water. Homeowners don't often notice it until they hear strange sounds in the house or the water bill becomes astrononically high due to the ongoing water loss from underground.
Fixing one leak is like chasing cockroaches....there are always more leaks. And homeowners's insurance won't help because that insurance only covers "damage from leaks not damage to the pipes themselves". The only permanent solution is to "repipe" your house for water. In other words, you create another system to get water to the water sources in your house. This expensive solution involves stringing a PVC line into your house from the water meter through your attic and then connecting new water lines downward to all water sources.
It means carving holes into ceilings, laundry room walls, bedroom walls, bathroom walls and into tiled showers which then later must be re-paired. It means emptying everything out of kitchen cabinets, bathroom cabinets and linen closets when the plumber arrives. If you decide to shut off water to the house so as to minimize the leaking (a good idea), it means filling bottles for drinking water and buckets to flush toilets when you take a shower. It means trying not to fill up the dishwasher by microwaving meals and eating on paper plates. Every time the water is turned on and off, someone must go to the main shutoff valve where a hole has been dug in the ground next to the water meter. "Re-piping" means having plumbers in your house for four days running and having the cat hide under the bed in the far bedroom so the noise doesn't hurt her ears so much.
Living with restricted water reminds me, as hurricanes do, how precious that clear liquid we call "water" is. There are millions upon millions of people in the world who would be delighted to live with the irritations I have just described. We sometimes forget how fortunate we are.[adsense:]
Now, slab houses built with Brazilian copper water pipes have a problem. The copper pipes are developing little green spots on the inside of the pipes which gradually totally rot out into holes. The pipes silently begin to leak water. Homeowners don't often notice it until they hear strange sounds in the house or the water bill becomes astrononically high due to the ongoing water loss from underground.
Fixing one leak is like chasing cockroaches....there are always more leaks. And homeowners's insurance won't help because that insurance only covers "damage from leaks not damage to the pipes themselves". The only permanent solution is to "repipe" your house for water. In other words, you create another system to get water to the water sources in your house. This expensive solution involves stringing a PVC line into your house from the water meter through your attic and then connecting new water lines downward to all water sources.
It means carving holes into ceilings, laundry room walls, bedroom walls, bathroom walls and into tiled showers which then later must be re-paired. It means emptying everything out of kitchen cabinets, bathroom cabinets and linen closets when the plumber arrives. If you decide to shut off water to the house so as to minimize the leaking (a good idea), it means filling bottles for drinking water and buckets to flush toilets when you take a shower. It means trying not to fill up the dishwasher by microwaving meals and eating on paper plates. Every time the water is turned on and off, someone must go to the main shutoff valve where a hole has been dug in the ground next to the water meter. "Re-piping" means having plumbers in your house for four days running and having the cat hide under the bed in the far bedroom so the noise doesn't hurt her ears so much.
Living with restricted water reminds me, as hurricanes do, how precious that clear liquid we call "water" is. There are millions upon millions of people in the world who would be delighted to live with the irritations I have just described. We sometimes forget how fortunate we are.[adsense:]
Thursday, February 12, 2009
On the name "Marvin"
The first time I was allowed to go out to do a volunteer job during the time when I was hospitalized, I elected to do hospital work. Since the only hospital that would accept volunteers from a mental hospital was the local Jewish hospital, I went there and volunteered, both as a patient and after hospitalization for almost a year.
I enjoyed it tremendously and the ladies there were most kind to me, some of them almost treating me as a daughter. They gave me all sorts of pep talks and particularly admired my skills at being able to get the cranky mimeograph machine to work any day of the week. I never got the feeling that the fact that I had been in "hospital" and was Christian to boot made any difference to any of them. One lady always made a fuss over my blond wavy hair. How she wished her daughter could have that......naturally, though, of course!
After a year, I approached the Christian hospital where I had been a patient suffering from pneumonia and ear infections when I was a child of five. I got my boss at the Jewish hospital to write a recommendation which evidently was glowing.
The director of volunteers at the Christian hospital asked me with a slight frown, "Why do you want to come here?"
I looked at her for a moment and a thought began to form in my mind. "I wanted to be among my own people". She stared at me for a long moment and the long moment began to be uncomfortable. Finally, I said, "My last name is "Marvin" but I'm not Jewish. My mother served on the Women's Auxilliary Board here for many years."
A tremendous look of relief appeared on her face as well as a huge smile. "How wonderful! When would you like to start work?"
I enjoyed it tremendously and the ladies there were most kind to me, some of them almost treating me as a daughter. They gave me all sorts of pep talks and particularly admired my skills at being able to get the cranky mimeograph machine to work any day of the week. I never got the feeling that the fact that I had been in "hospital" and was Christian to boot made any difference to any of them. One lady always made a fuss over my blond wavy hair. How she wished her daughter could have that......naturally, though, of course!
After a year, I approached the Christian hospital where I had been a patient suffering from pneumonia and ear infections when I was a child of five. I got my boss at the Jewish hospital to write a recommendation which evidently was glowing.
The director of volunteers at the Christian hospital asked me with a slight frown, "Why do you want to come here?"
I looked at her for a moment and a thought began to form in my mind. "I wanted to be among my own people". She stared at me for a long moment and the long moment began to be uncomfortable. Finally, I said, "My last name is "Marvin" but I'm not Jewish. My mother served on the Women's Auxilliary Board here for many years."
A tremendous look of relief appeared on her face as well as a huge smile. "How wonderful! When would you like to start work?"
Friday, February 6, 2009
To Anonymous Comment on Mayflower descent
There are probably hundreds of thousands of people who are descended from the Mayflower and would like to "claim that descent" as my anonymous commentator said.
Although I was adopted in the era when any knowledge of my background was jealously guarded (even my original birth certificate was falsified with a wrong name for my mother), there is one way which can unlock many of the secrets of adoption. It is the way I found my natural family.
In many states, if an adoptee can present to the probate judge in the district where they were born, a certificate signed by a doctor saying that said adoptee has an inheritable medical condition which could be passed on to any children, most likely the probate judge will order that the original family should be found so that medical information about the family as a whole can be passed on to the adopted person.
In my case, a probate judge in Chicago ordered that my family should be found based on a doctor's signed note that I had bi-polar disease. My genetic family was found in a matter of weeks. The cost to me was in the $600 range. I found a brother (and his wife and two children), an uncle and four first cousins and their children in 2001. I am still in touch with many of them, particularly my brother and his wife. One of my cousins is into genealogy and took my maiden (adopted) name and showed me how I was related by blood, through my natural maternal grandmother to my adoptive father who had a Mayflower heritage reaching back to William Brewster
The irony for me was the fact that the doctor who sent the letter to the judge and other doctors before him had lied. I am not bi-polar. But because of their lies, I found my roots.
Although I was adopted in the era when any knowledge of my background was jealously guarded (even my original birth certificate was falsified with a wrong name for my mother), there is one way which can unlock many of the secrets of adoption. It is the way I found my natural family.
In many states, if an adoptee can present to the probate judge in the district where they were born, a certificate signed by a doctor saying that said adoptee has an inheritable medical condition which could be passed on to any children, most likely the probate judge will order that the original family should be found so that medical information about the family as a whole can be passed on to the adopted person.
In my case, a probate judge in Chicago ordered that my family should be found based on a doctor's signed note that I had bi-polar disease. My genetic family was found in a matter of weeks. The cost to me was in the $600 range. I found a brother (and his wife and two children), an uncle and four first cousins and their children in 2001. I am still in touch with many of them, particularly my brother and his wife. One of my cousins is into genealogy and took my maiden (adopted) name and showed me how I was related by blood, through my natural maternal grandmother to my adoptive father who had a Mayflower heritage reaching back to William Brewster
The irony for me was the fact that the doctor who sent the letter to the judge and other doctors before him had lied. I am not bi-polar. But because of their lies, I found my roots.
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