Ain't That America?

 



I heard the song "Little Pink Houses" by John Mellencamp a few days ago and it made me sad.  I may live in Central Pennsylvania, but I am not from there. I am from Ohio, and lived in Indiana for a few years. I really loved living in Indiana and felt very at home there. Driving in the country there always made me think of that song and hearing it recently made me feel a little homesick. When we lived here, my husband would complain about driving to work in a tunnel of corn to perpetuity, but the heartland will always be my home.

Fortunately, the mountains here are beautiful and places that are worth visiting are much more accessible than back in the heartland. The Midwest is landlocked and there are not that many interesting places to visit without a pretty lengthy pilgrimage.  I have always had a great love of travel. I am back at work and have very little time to write, so I put together some of my favorite pictures of some of the places I have visited in the United States.





 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

St Mary's Cathedral- San Francisco, CA. Absolutely beautiful, but an odd design that towers over the city and sometimes lends itself to the nicknames St Whirlpool and Our Lady of the Eternal Spin Cycle.

 

Nordstrom Shoe Department, San Francisco, CA- some of the most awesome shoe shopping available, and I am hard to please!

 

The Leapfrog Fountain at Epcot Center, Disneyworld. Kids still love to try to catch the stream of water on their chest and get soaked.

 

Sunset on Duck, OBX, NC. The ice cream shop owners had the right idea to set up shop on the boardwalk facing the sound. Every night, a huge crowd gathers for ice cream, photo ops and lots of oohs and ahhs. Always a great show.

The Big Bean in Chicago. I had no idea of the enormity of this thing until I saw it myself. I would have never thought that one person, let alone a couple dozen could fit under it.

 

Raystown Lake, Huntington County, PA. Man made lake from creation of a hydroelectric generating dam. Has now become a big local summer escape in central PA. It is a great place to watch the leaves turning in the Fall (but do not make me think about that little slice of Hell coming). Also a good bird watching site as there is a pair of bald eagles that nest nearby the dam. I got a great view of one last Fall.

Not the best shot of a double rainbow I have taken, but it is still a double rainbow, which is always a treat, so I included it. This one was taken at Seven Springs Ski Resort near Somerset, PA.

 

 

I love lighthouses and will visit

 them every chance I get. This on is the () Light along the Lake Michigan coast in Michigan.

 

The Chapel in the Hill is an amazing work of architecture build into hill in Sedona Arizona. The view is amazing. Quite an awe inspiring place to go to mass in.

 

I took this handsome young man to the Cherry Blossom Festival and learn about our nation's heritage for the first time when he was two. Washington DC is only about a 3 hour drive so is an easy drive for a long weekend and one of my favorite side trips. We were fortunate enough to be able to pose with the portrait of one of our heros- Stephen Colbert the "National Treasure".

 

The train in Strassburg, Pennsylvania is a restored steam engine from the 19th century. It is located in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country in Eastern, PA.

 

 

The Mohave dessert outside Las Vegas is far more beautiful to me than Las Vegas and was one of the highlights of one of my trips to Las Vegas.

 

 

Unlike the casinos, I also found Hoover Dam to be a quite interesting part of one of my trips to Las Vegas.  I actually thought that how the electrical wires were strung was fascinating.

 

Although the city was fast to clean up the tourist areas, years later, many parts of New Orleans remain abandoned. Areas the border along Lake Pontchartrain have sections where there is still an eerie silence when you drive through and although a few home have been rebuilt, every other property left is a total loss.

The Black Hole

In all my years I have heard my patients talk about the dark hole, the dark tunnel. Some permutation, used quite frequently, always similar in its base description but just slightly different when you ask them to give details. Not every patient will talk to you about that dark hole. Not every patient gets that depressed.  Some who come complaining about being suicidal have never put much thought into what they are truly saying. Perhaps attention seeking for some, but thoughts of suicide are a coping skill for many. “If life gets too overwhelming, I always have the realization that if I am dead, I cannot suffer anymore.”  

 

Black holes may not be universal but certainly a common theme. Many patients speak about it.  Why it is so frequent that one has the subjective feeling of being surrounded by darkness, distanced from one’s world when feeling depressed could be debated.  Is it due to a brain starved of serotonergic input? Perhaps the ever so slight lack of oxygen caused by psychomotor retardation affecting one’s vision along with ability to move? It is real enough to one who dwells within.

 

 I have no proof of this, but I wonder if “The Pit” by Edgar Allen Poe was inspired by a depressive episode. Purely speculative, I do not know enough about the author’s personal life to say. I do know that his writings spoke quite frequently of similar themes, being trapped in enclosed spaces, unable to escape. Of course the ever constant ruminations of death and misery are highly suggestive of a depressed mind.

 

One thing I know is no one can fully understand what it feels like at the bottom of that hole unless he or she has been there. Everyone’s hole is their own. Varying in depth, breadth, and feel, they are all unique but somehow have a similar thread. They all come with the same sense of terror looking up at the top, desperately hoping someone will send a rope down, but no one does. You try to call for help, but your lungs will not expand enough to let you draw in the air to scream. Like those nightmares where you can see the shadowy figure in the window outside the door of your house, but you cannot run, cannot call for help, you feel desperate and trapped.  Scared but not sure of what and feeling alone, very, very alone.

 

Part of what keeps me going when I get overwhelmed by difficult patients, conflicts with the system or being overworked in general, it is knowing that I have a role in helping people out of that black hole. Yes, many of them will fall back in at a later date, depression is a frequently chronic illness but so is heart disease and diabetes, but you still treat it with the goal to get your patient  better.  It is possible to escape from the black hole, unlike most Edgar Allen Poe stories.

Antisocial Networking

I am still on medical leave and have always enjoyed my techno gadgets. Through the past few years I have wired everything with a computer chip in the house to our computer network and nurtured my little family of networked devices like it was a family. Once a new member was added to the family would then proudly announce to my husband and son about how they could now access one file on the new device rather than having to walk ALL THE WAY across the house to get it from the device it is actually stored on. Isn't that great? Huh? Huh? Then they would look at me that halfhearted "yeah, I guess" like Kip said to Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite and go back to what they were doing.

Of course the real reason I like that feature is because I love the response when I send a file to print from my laptop unannounced to the desktop printer and someone is already on the desktop. The first time I did that, my son was at the desktop and his panicked response was hysterical. "The printer is printing!" He looked like he has seen a ghost. I think he thought a ghost was in the printer. Sadly, that still did not cure him of a bad addiction to Angry Birds, but it was worth a shot.

You can't teach an old dog new trick, though and old routers do not fare much better and our old router is rather antiquated. We usually end up needing to reset it about every 1/2 hour to keep our Internet connection. Now was a great time to update. So I ordered a new high speed router with better coverage, faster speed, and better security. It even was supposed to detect its own settings rather than being done manually upon set up. Just plug'n'chug. Like they used to tell us in Algebra II in high school. Wasn't that a load of crap?

After about three hours of plugging, unplugging, starting, restarting, and doing LOTS of bending and stooping, the old router is back on the computer. I am not supposed to be stooping or bending for four weeks post op. Now I see why. Which means we are having to cross the house and reset the router about every 1/2 hour again. The old router's green light mockingly blinks as if it were winking at the new router. "See, I told you she'd never be rid of me. Ha, ha, ha!" The old one sits in it's packaging lifelessly.

I must heal, but I will win this battle sooner or later. If I can conquer medical school, I can conquer a stupid router.

Happy Vernal Equinox

Well, technically it is Spring. The temperature has risen to above freezing, enough to melt the snow so it does not look so dismal but it still feels cold, especially with the wind in the mountains being so relentless this time of year. The upcoming week is not predicted to bring much relief.

My son is seven and still tends to believe those fables we tell our kids despite our admonitions that they are only stories. I would never tell him the truth about Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny (although I almost blew it with the Tooth Fairy, but that is another story), but he really does not need to believe in the predictive ability of Punxsutawney Phil if you ask me. Punxsy is only about 1 1/2 hours from here and on February 2nd he actually wanted us to drive him early on Saturday morning to go see them torment some poor rodent just for that ritual that he believes in. He should have just asked Momma and Daddy if we saw our shadows at 6AM on a Saturday morning when we were awoken so rudely.

Of course, Punxsy Phil did not see his shadow, and an early Spring was predicted. And my son was in tears because he wanted more time to go sledding. As before, my husband and I both could not convince him that regardless of the groundhog's keepers view of whether he saw his shadow or not (face it, the groundhog really does not give a shit) it does not appear that Spring was anywhere near arrival.

And so we took my son to a ski resort where he could go tubing. He got some sledding in too. Built a snowman. Ran around in the snow until his fingers were frozen and his lips were blue and still said he was not cold.


For me, I actually hoped the groundhog was right. I hate winter. I hate the cold weather, the long dark nights, driving to work in snow and slush and digging my car out of the same before going home. I get depressed to some degree every winter. Sometimes worse, sometimes less, but winter always affects me. I will stomp around the house every time we get another storm warning  shouting "Why do we live here? Why does anybody live here? Why would anyone have chosen to settle here 200 years ago. Why didn't they settle in warm places? Now we're stuck here. I hate it. I hate it. I HATE it!" Something like that. I wonder if snorting Wellbutrin would be more effective, or if it would just make my nose go numb and taste really foul. I have never tried it in case you are wondering. Yet.



But winter has persisted. Even my son complained that it was still cold today. "If it is Spring, why is it cold out? I am so tired of Winter!" Mr. Love the Four Seasons is growing weary of the weather, too.

But it is sunny today. Cold, but sunny. Maybe if I wear enough layers, I could tolerate it well enough to wallow in it and give my hypothalamus a jolt of energy. In terms of sunlight we are going to get more day than night for the next six months and cold or not, that is a start. Let the Sun shine in!

The World Comes Back to Life

It was been a long time since I have visited this blog. Time simply has not allowed for it and between writing this blog, spending time with my family and devoting time to my career, something had to go, and this was it.

Not that I do not enjoy writing. Thoughts come to my head that I truly feel are worthy of putting to paper but they are fleeting, and once the time comes when I can write them, the thought is lost. Perhaps that I why I like photography so much. It is easy to carry a camera and snap a picture while the image is still there. It annoys my husband at times. He ends up waiting for me frequently while I stop and "capture the moment" but even he admits that I can get some pretty good shots.

As it stands right now, I just had surgery and am off work for the next few weeks. With all the activity restriction I am on, I have a lot of time on my hands so I thought now was good time to reincarnate my blog. It was either that or eat. Considering I have a longstanding obsession about my weight, being told I cannot exercise is a bad thing. Eating out of boredom is, too.

The fact that tomorrow is the day that the world, at least from an astronomical standpoint, comes back life is only a coincidence with my reintroduction of this blog. Not that it feels like Spring. When I look out the window, it certainly does not look like it. The schools let out two hours early again yesterday due to snow, just to prove it is not quite Spring. There goes my son's education. I know somewhere in this world it is warm and sunny right now. Sadly I am not there. They probably have lots or Tequila and Rum, too. Sadly, I do not have any of that, either. I have a lot of snow and my rampant fantasies that I am in one of those sunny places. This is the Gulfo de Papaguyo in Costa Rico. It comes highly recommended.

But sooner or later it will get warmer. Sooner or later I will go back to work. Sooner or later that surgeon will let me do normal things like pick things up and go to Zumba class. Or drive. Or drink Rum and diet Coke. But for now, I am not allowed to drive a car or even take a leisurely walk. Hopefully I will not get fat.

My thoughts on Bin Laden's death

There has been a lot of talk flying on the media about the death of Osama Bin Laden from should they show his picture to was it fair to shoot an unarmed man to blah, blah, blah. I posted one comment on Facebook and it set off a nationwide (literally) debate between people that have never met and lasted for days. Not that I like to set off that much conflict, but I was kind of proud that my single thought could spark that much interest.

Obviously much of how our society has functioned over the past ten years has been strongly influenced by this man and I know I had given up hope that he was ever going to get caught so this event has certainly taken my by surprise. Some that I have spoken to are of the opinion that we are safer with him gone. I am not so easily convinced. I am certain that Al Quaida will continue on. Any organization of such power has built in backup systems in case its leader is lost. The US Government is the most obvious example that comes to mind. Bin Laden was not a nice person, but he was not dumb enough to assume that he was invincible and I am sure he had some kind of "in case I go on to my 67 (0r whatever the number is) virgins in the sky" plan in place for a replacement to take over.

The newest opinion I read was that the death of Bin Laden should have been kept secret for a certain period of time to allow the military longer time to evaluate the material in his compound. The writer of this editorial felt that the rapid announcement was only a way for Obama to gain popularity points. Now he is withholding the photographs of Bin Laden for his own gain as well. My guess is that the writer is not an Obama fan and needed to find something to criticize him on. Tell the public now or tell them later, they will get the news, and this is the kind of news that they have waited for a long time.

Personally I think that it is a silly thing to worry about. There are too many other things going on in the world to worry about minutia. I still maintain we are not safer as I mentioned above. Al Quaida has strong holds in Yemen and Somalia and do not need orders from Bin Laden anymore. The world is not a better place. There are something like 6 billion people on the planet. Killing one bad person is not going to make that much of a difference. Maybe I feel better that he is gone, and I know that a lot of people certainly do but if we let one bad person have too much influence on our life, we will let him win.g

Continued Bath Salt Rants

The number of admissions to the psychiatric unit here continues to be a fairly steady rate of 2-4 a week caused by psychosis secondary to MDPV, or bath salts (as they are commonly called) abuse. In some cases the patients have nothing else wrong with them and if it were not for this, would not come in contact with the mental health system. Some of them have other comorbid conditions. For a patient who has bipolar disorder, adding a hefty dose of "Blizzard" can set off a psychotic manic episode in no time. Not that one has to have a history of psychosis to get psychotic on MDPV. Most of the patients admitted do not have any psychiatric history. The common factor with all of these patients is that they are grossly psychotic.

And addicted. Many have turned to stealing to find the money to pay for their addiction. This stuff runs at about $35-40 a packet and the version sold around here, Blizzard, runs around $50-70 for a small jar. Break ins have been reported in areas that never had to deal with them before because of the presence of a "head shop" that sells MDPV. This is all to pay for a legal substance, not a so called "street drug". At these costs, the price is simply too high for most people to sustain their habit without resorting to illegal means to pay for it.

I am not sure about the weight or volume that is in a jar of Blizzard, but I know this is about enough to keep one person doped up on an out of control speed binge for about a weekend. It goes further than crack certainly, but still not cheap. In other words, enough to keep someone awake for three days straight and end up so flagrantly psychotic that one is either going to end in the hospital or dead. Much longer would cause the heart to give out from tachycardia (racing heart). That or the delusional patient ends up running into the street fleeing an imagined assailant and gets hit by a car. That or the person just dies of an overdose.

Although the user will come off such a long binge swearing he or she will never go through that experience again, they inevitably do. By now the user is addicted. The withdrawal symptoms make the user miserable and the actual experience of a binge is not always pleasant, but the drug's effects are stronger than the intellect. I have talked to people who have been fighting this battle for years.

And there are still people who think that legalizing drugs will solve the country's problems. I just hope that if a store decides to sell this product, that this store is in their neighborhood and not mine. If they want legal drugs, they can have them. I do not want them in my, or my family's (especially my child's) neighborhood.