Who performs mammograms?

Posted on February 2, 2012 by S.

Here is a fact for you:

Planned Parenthood does not perform mammograms.

So don’t go there expecting them to find your breast cancer.

What Planned Parenthood will do for you is refer you to a radiology center and pick up the tab for your mammogram.

Here’s another fact for you:

Federal funding (from my tax dollars and yours) for Planned Parenthood is earmarked for prevention. It is illegal for those funds to be used for abortion.

How do I know that the funds don’t bleed over into abortion? I don’t. I don’t know it any more than I know that lady in charge of the pharmacy at the VA isn’t swiping Oxycontin for her personal use or that the man who runs the bill cutter at the Fed isn’t swiping a row of twenties off every hundredth sheet.

All I know is what the regulations are.

I don’t like a lot of what my tax dollars pay for. I suspect you feel the same. Unfortunately, it’s not a buffet, it’s a prix fixe meal – you get what you get and you don’t pitch a fit.

I don’t like the assumption that because I support Planned Parenthood that I am a proponent of abortion or that I am a godless heathen or that I am heartless when it comes to babies or that I am a foaming liberal who believes everyone should be living on the government dime.

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Today’s truth

Posted on February 2, 2012 by S.

Always remember to slow down in life;
live, breathe, and learn;
take a look around you whenever
you have time and never forget
everything and every person that
has the least place within your heart.

You know who you are.

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It’s not all about abortions.

Posted on February 2, 2012 by S.

Here, for your edification, are the other services Planned Parenthood provides:

General health care services vary by location. They may include

anemia testing
cholesterol screening
diabetes screening
physical exams, including for employment and sports
flu vaccines
help with quitting smoking
high blood pressure screening
tetanus vaccines
thyroid screening

Planned Parenthood health centers also offer sexual and reproductive health services.

I am saddened and disappointed that the Susan G. Komen Foundation has elected to pull their funding for breast cancer screening from Planned Parenthood.

And here’s the thing: I’ve never (fortunately) been in the position to have to make the choice to have or not have an abortion. But I don’t want to be told I can’t make up my own mind. I’ve also always been fortunate enough (thus far) to have health insurance, and a lot of it. Plenty of my friends have not, however, and they have relied on Planned Parenthood for healthcare that they otherwise would not have been able to have.

Breast cancer knows no demographics, and it will not wait until a woman (or man) can afford to have a mammogram ($143 at the Doris Shaheen Breast Center) or an ultrasound ($520 for both breasts, also at the Doris).

I do appreciate the strides made in saving the lives of those with breast cancer. I also appreciate heroes at Planned Parenthood who help people every single day in ordinary ways.

Henceforth, my money will be going directly to Planned Parenthood.

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I have a condition.

Posted on January 31, 2012 by S.

No, really, I do. I have a rare condition in which my body produces excess cerebro-spinal fluid (CSF) and then can’t throw it off fast enough.

It used to be called Pseudotumor Cerebri because it makes your body act like you have a brain tumor – horrific headaches, occasional blurry vision, tinnitus, that sort of thing – but you don’t really have one. The preferred term for it is Intracranial Hypertension.

Anyway. The reason it causes a headache that can last for (in my case) 56 days is because your CSF bathes and cushions your spinal cord and your brain. Your skull, you might know, is a hard-shell suitcase and there’s nowhere for that extra fluid to escape, so it squeezes down on your brain, like a gigantic fist.

There are a couple of ways to get rid of it in pretty good hurry: one is you could have a shunt surgically implanted that would run from near your brain stem to your gut, where it would just be evacuated. I do not have one of those.

You could have regular spinal taps. I have had two, one of which was to determine if I do, in fact, have IH and to drain off the excess, and one to drain off the excess I just knew was there. The actual spinal taps, to my great surprise, were a walk in the park. What gets you is the spinal tap headache afterwards, which feels like your throat is sucking your brain down your neck. People who get regular spinal taps get them at the rate of, oh, monthly.

The other thing you could do is take Diamox. Which is a drug given to people with altitude sickness. It has the side effect of getting rid of pressure headaches. A lot of people who have IH don’t like to take it because it makes your extremities tingle (and the tingling is not inconsiderable) and it makes soft drinks taste like sheet metal. Still, it’s better than the headache and it’s better than the sensation that you’re dying because your brain is separating from your forehead.

I haven’t been on Diamox for a number of years, but the last time I took a long flight (London), I had a pressure headache by the time I got off the plane, so I’m going to see my neurophthalmologist next week to get an emergency prescription, just in case I need it when I get to Rome.

So, having scheduled that appointment and bought a pair of ugly shoes to try out around the house, I’m two steps closer to being ready to go.

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This came up in conversation

Posted on January 29, 2012 by S.

I don’t particularly like to discuss politics, because people don’t really discuss politics any more so much as they try to convince you their opinion is the only right opinion.

Friday night my cousin Lynn and I were guests at Cavalia and there was a 30-minute intermission. We were sitting there, minding our own business, screwing around with our phones, when the gentleman behind us leaned forward and said, “You two aren’t texting each other, are you?”

We were having a pretty pleasant conversation, the three of us, and he was telling us all about horses, and of course he didn’t realize that Lynn knows horses, so I sort of slid that in there before he could make a total ass of himself.

And then he got a phone call and told the caller he was just sitting there talking to the two ladies in front of him.

Then that person came back and she was…quite a bit younger than the three of us and badly in need of foundation garments.

The conversation turned to politics and how President Obama didn’t show up in court on Friday and how he wasn’t even legal to be POTUS, and I said, “We need to stop talking about this right now because I don’t want to end up pissed off.”

But he didn’t want to stop, so I asked if he was a birther and he said that no, he was a constitutionalist, and went on to explain to me how Obama was born in Hawaii, yeah, yeah, but that didn’t matter because his father was never a citizen, so every piece of legislation he has ever signed is ILLEGAL.

I just said, “They’re not going to toss all those laws, you know.”

And then mercifully Lynn looked up from her phone and said, “HA! I knew I had a picture of my horse in here!” and that was the end of that.

I really, truly don’t care who anyone votes for as long as they do vote, but I feel the need to set this citizenship issue straight, even though I don’t know weird Kevin’s last name and have no way of telling him the facts of the matter:

To be qualified to be the POTUS, a person must be a natural born citizen, which is to say he (or she) must be born on American soil, or born of two American citizens. If born of two American citizens on foreign soil, he or she must live on American soil for 14 years; the Constitution does not specify whether the 14 years must be consecutive.

I learned that in Katisue Harrington’s civics class in 1980. It was true then, and it’s true now.

There. I feel better already.

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Today’s Truth is for Jennifer H.

Posted on January 29, 2012 by S.

When you know that you’re capable of dealing with whatever comes, you have the only security the world has to offer. – Harry Browne

My five bucks is on you, kid. Keep swinging.

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With enough courage, you don’t need a reputation.

Posted on January 28, 2012 by S.

That’s something Rhett Butler said to Scarlett O’Hara.

I hold that with enough reputation, you don’t need courage.

On the second or third day I’d been at college, I was sitting on a bench outside my dorm with my two new (only) friends when a bunch of girls came up and demanded to know which of us was Susan Scarbrough.

I had yet to break five feet, and I’ve never been known for my imposing physical presence, but I answered nonetheless, “I am. Who needs to know?”

Their leader, Helen somebody-or-other, stepped forward and leaned into my face and said, “We heard you said you could whip Jenny Cash’s ass. Jenny Cash said to tell you she’s going to whip your ass.”

I had no idea who Jenny Cash was and had never threatened to whip anybody’s ass (in my life), and had certainly never been threatened.

Not knowing what else to say, I looked Helen right in the eye and said, “Tell Jenny Cash I said okay.”

And that is how I got my reputation.

I never did get my ass whipped by Jenny Cash or anybody else. I never even met her.

(editor’s note: I have no idea if Jenny Cash ever said such a thing.)

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These boots were made for walking…

Posted on January 27, 2012 by S.

And just like that, I have booked an apartment in Rome.

It’s less than 60 days until we leave so it’s too late to cancel.

We’re really going.

I don’t know what a dongle is, but we have one in our room for use of the internet.

I suspect we might have one of those backwards faucets that we can’t figure out too, but you know what they say: when in Rome…

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The oldest and the best-looking

Posted on January 26, 2012 by S.

My daddy’s birthday is today.

He is 69 years old, and he is the oldest and best-looking of the six brothers and sisters.

I’m not just saying that because he’s my own personal daddy.

I’m saying it because it’s a matter of fact.

He told me so. He’ll tell you so if you call him up and ask him.

Daddy is smart and funny and has more integrity than anybody I know, and if I need to know the answer to something, I call him up and he’ll tell me.

You can always count on him to have a pen and some fingernail clippers.

If truly decent men ever ending up being president, they’d pick Daddy, because he’d whip it all into shape in a hurry and then get in his truck and go on about his business, dogs and children trailing behind him like they always have, always do, and always will.

He’s a champ. I’m glad he’s having another birthday. And I hope he has many, many more.

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Today’s truth

Posted on January 25, 2012 by S.

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak. – Hans Hofmann

Simplify = edit.

Life is about editing: editing what you say before it leaves your mouth, editing what’s around you to get rid of what mungs up your surroundings, editing your personal baggage so you can get on with your life, editing your thoughts so you can be clear about what you want.

Never use a sentence when a word will do.

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