the healthcare/life dichotomy

To those people who say that healthcare is not a right, but a good or service to be bought...and that life is a right, as in "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," I would like to know what you see as the delineation between health and life.

If, as a nurse, I saw you on the street bleeding, and I walked away mumbling that "healthcare is not a right because you can't pay me," and then you died, would I not be guilty of taking away your right to life?

If you become incapacitated with a fatal form of cancer that has a good chance of remission with treatment, but you are unable to work due to the illness and lose your insurance, thereby being unable to cover the doctor's bills, have you lost your right to healthcare? Even if being denied healthcare also deprives you of your right to life?

What about in the case of a mother who considers aborting her fetus because she is single and can't afford to raise the child, who then decides to keep it...and then the baby is born with a congenital disease that requires surgery to survive? Why, according to the religious and governmentally-conservative person, did this baby have the right to life in the womb, but not once born?

The other night at work, I had a conversation with two Christian nurses. When I mentioned universal healthcare, the responses were "It's theft," and even worse: "People die, that's life." Would you feel the same way if you were put in the situation of having no insurance and no money to pay for a doctor? Would it be okay to let you die?

Charities will never be able to cover healthcare for all. And while I agree that government-funded insurance is a redistribution of wealth, there is a moral imperative that goes beyond what Old Testament Christians like to cite as the breaking of the 8th commandment. It's Jesus' call to care for your fellow humans--"Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." Surely this should come before the redistribution of wealth from the taxpayers to the military machine that costs us billions each year.

Healthcare and life are synonymous. You can't have one without the other. Even the person with a common cold could die if it progressed to a systemic infection. There are so many seemingly minor things in this world that would kill us if we didn't have medicine and surgery. Where exactly should the line be drawn on who gets treatment? Or should the line be drawn at all? And if the line is drawn, are we not essentially forming the "death panels" that were feared during the healthcare debate?

snafu haircut

It's not a good idea to give your child a "really quick, probably only about 5 minutes" Picture Day haircut after you've been up all night at work.

In my confused state, I buzzed the top short and left the back long, when I normally do just the opposite.

I have crafted the Pre-Mullet.

being a nurse

I think I'll just hang out here alone for a little while before I go visit my blogging friends, now that I've verified that they're all still alive.

I'm back in school, so I've been thinking a lot about the ins and outs of the nursing profession again. All the hollow shells of academic theories that I learned back in Chicago, I'm now finding the snails that live inside.

When people ask me "what's the most f%cked up situation you've ever been in?", I could probably name a lot of things outside of work, but I think they mean as a nurse.

It's really difficult to pick a single story that tops them all, because every patient encounter I've had has its own strange idiosyncrasies, and how can you rate them? (I guess it would go like this: on a 1-10 scale, with 10 at the top of the f%cked up factor, 1 would be getting a spot of blood on my uniform, 10 would be the patient puking up blood all over the floor and my shoes just before he codes)

I think the better question to ask a nurse is "What is the most rewarding situation you've been in?"

That gets us thinking past the exhaustion and frustration, and we remember how we picked up on a subtle clue that portended early sepsis, effectively saving a patient's life. Or the time a patient in the ER thanked us for treating them with the dignity and respect that they deserved.

We remember that the work we're doing is not in vain. Focusing on the positive might just be the solution we need to keeping more good nurses around.

breakfast thoughts

Hello,

I've been up all night at work looking at photos of babies born without brains and reminding myself that the words "autosomal dominant" are words that I should never forget.

I think I'll make some banana pancakes, on that note.

It's still randomly in the 90's here, yet my yard looks and smells like autumn. I'll know it's really fall when the spiders hide away. Charlotte's babies have come back to haunt all the corners of the house this summer.

Happy Sunday, happy Day After September 11th, happy respite from blogging, happy Bisquick in the freezer so I don't need to dig out the cookbook.