It's a New Direction

Now that my prescription pain medication vacation is over I have been re-evaluating where I have been going in my life. Prior to all the recent drama I have to admit I was spinning my wheels. The people I was pursuing did not lead the lifestyle I wanted and some were a down right detriment to it.  Some were down right horrid people, but most were just not going the direction I was wanting to. I had asked myself in a prior post "What do I want to do?" Now I can say I know what I want my life to look like.

First thing is first once cleared for full weight bearing on my leg: Work or some form of income needs to happen. Hopefully my prior employer will not shaft me for this, but I am anticipating it. Only getting released for work will answer that. If my prior employer doesn't take me back or shafts me by reducing my pay it may be time to make use of all the resources I have put into my personal trainer certification. It is a job that will support the over all vision I have for my lifestyle.

What's this over all vision? Well I want my life to be centered on healthy. Healthy body composition, food, fitness, and relationships. The first three I pretty much know how to accomplish. That last one ... clueless ...

So what is this life going to look like? Well to start off picking up kayaking again sounds like an excellent idea. Continuing with going to the gym will definately happen, ironicly I got into the gym because of kayaking. Some re-imaging of my diet needs to happen ... again.

I have also entertained the idea of getting into something competitive sports. There have been too many horror stories about injuries from cross fit for me to fill comfortable going there after such a major injury. Giving Tough Mudder a hard look because while the courses are a challenge none of it seems to have the dangers I have seen in the competitive displays of cross fit. The biggest hurdle will be having time to train with the team if that is a requirement. If I go back to my old job; I never knew when I would be required to work over time. If I don't get my old job I might have to work two to make ends meet.

In the end until it all boils down to what happens after I get cleared to return to work, but at least I know what direction I want to go in now.

Living Differently-abled

While being home bound is hard on the mind, getting out is hard too. It becomes a choice of which hell do you want to endure. It is not until one goes from being a standard issue human being to a differently-abled one that understands the difference. There are many things that a standard issue human being takes for granted. Things like being seen, opening doors, and shopping.

Probably the most infuriating is the feeling of being invisible, because if people saw you then most of the other difficulties experienced would not be so hard. After all if a person sees you while you are riding in a motorized cart you don't have to worry about them moving in a manner that will put them in danger of being hit. Motorized/electric carts can hurt someone badly. My other favorite is they don't see you and are blocking the path; this was irritating when I was not disabled, but now when I am reliant on a cart that has a limited charge? Down right infuriating and not a thing can be done for the most part they just continue to ignore you.

The most limiting obstacle I have encountered is oddly enough doors. To get anywhere you have to open a door at the very least and are expected to close it as well. After all we can't let them bugs in or the A/C out. You would think that doors would be simple to handle, but in reality if you have to manage a walker and a bum leg it is like riding a unicycle with both arms full of fragile items. Some doors are easier than others they only need to have their knob turned and they open. Then you have those with assisted closing mechanisms; those are the worst and almost impossible to open by yourself. Hilariously most bathrooms are armed with assisted closing doors.

I challenge any of you to go to the store and use one of the electric carts; you will learn a lot.

Affordable Care Act (Obama Care)

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The Affordable Care Act from 2010 had/has three primary goals according to Healthcare.gov

• Make affordable health insurance available to more people. The law provides consumers with subsidies (“premium tax credits”) that lower costs for households with incomes between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level.
• Expand the Medicaid program to cover all adults with income below 138% of the federal poverty level. (Not all states have expanded their Medicaid programs.)
• Support innovative medical care delivery methods designed to lower the costs of health care generally.

The cost of anything is dependent on a few things; demand, supply, and cost of doing business. There will always be a demand for health care and the supply of doctors will always be limited. Therefore we cannot solve the cost of health care based on a supply and demand model. Unfortunately that is what the Affordable Care Act tried to do for the most part. 

The only thing that can be used to help lower the cost of health care is the cost of doing business. The cost of doing business includes such things as the cost of school, malpractice insurance, building to work out of, equipment, and lets not forget all those times they don't get paid. 

It is a dirty little secret of the insurance industry; often the only money the doctors receive is what you pay as a co pay. Some times the doctors will receive more than the co pay after your deductible and out of pocket expense limits are met, but this is a fraction of what the billed cost is. As a result they have to raise their prices to ensure that the minimum amount needed to keep their doors open is met or they have to take on more cases than ideal. Because the doctors are raising their rates, the insurance companies require higher and higher premiums for the same level of coverage.

It is a trap that we are all stuck in, this raising of rates, but it is really the people who are sick who suffer. 

Opioids in Life

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The War on Drugs was officially started in 1971 and its latest headliner is the Opioid epidemic. Before this was the Prohibition which gave rise to speak easy's, moon shiners, and in some parts of the USA is still in effect.

When I heard the President's announcement of making opioid pain killers more difficult to obtain (3 days supply for regular use/7 day supply for acute pain) it felt like a gut punch. At the time the only pain killers that were touching the pain I was in were Opioids. I can only imagine what it was like to hear that and be someone who still is dependent on them for daily pain management (at least my pain will fade as I heal). At the same time I understand why the President would push such a change in laws; it would force the drug companies to come up with better pain management drugs.

However I think we are going about this the wrong way. We are setting ourselves into an binary answer system for a system (the body) that is not binary. I hated the opioids I was prescribed while I was on them, yet took them because they did the job. However some people have a different outcome, some got addicted. Part of the surge in the opioid epidemic comes from the 1990s and lets be honest I don't think any one really understood the drugs impact until this epidemic came about. So we have learned that while an opioid is great at relieving pain (who wants to watch a person suffer?), there are a great many who get addicted to them while using them under medical supervision.

Why?

One of the reasons I hated the opioid was that I had no sense of time; days passed without my fully knowing they had. Keeping a calendar of things to do, list of physical therapy to do, listing the date and time of the therapy done was needed; if I didn't do these things I would forget what needed to be done and if I had completed the task. Only the things that had a dramatic impact on my emotions got stored in memory. This was a rather nice thing as those days slipped past rather quickly for me; I slept a lot too.

And it drove me batty. My memory was not retaining information and (bless my mom) it wasn't until chinese checkers became a part of my daily routine that I started to see how much the opioid was effecting my ability to think. While on one particular opioid I also had a little voice trying to convenience me that I was more capable that I was. It took a very good friend with a very strong will and logic to get me to realize I could not go back to work; I was unaware of my actual condition and how much I was sleeping.

Because of the way the drug works on the mind I can understand why some people would become dependent on it. Let me see if I can put this into words...

No longer do we respect those who do jobs that are considered lessor. Working safety and security for the last 15 years has taught me a lot about this. If you don't believe me ask your self this; What is my opinion of the Security Officers at the Airport? or What is my opinion of the people who pick up my trash every week? When you are hated by the society at large, don't know or can't change your position to one that is not hated many will fall for an escape.

Then there is the ever present depression that tries to take over while you are healing from a major set back like I am. This depression tries to get you to not do your physical therapy, because the pain won't end; in-fact it gets worse for a bit. This depression tries to get you to focus on what you can't do, instead of how much progress you have already made. This depression tries to get to you through what you can no longer do and have a good chance of not being able to do for a long while. If you think about it; how many have become addicted because they were prescribed opioids after a major set back? How many of those were young adults with promising futures that are no longer possible or made significantly more difficult to obtain because of their set back?

As always your comments are welcome! Please let me know what you would like to hear about.

Gun Control

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A topic that has been hot in a lot of places and I have been meaning to write about; Gun Control.

With the school campus shootings that started my senior year in high school with Columbine, CO. to the every day shootings on the streets that are never mentioned in mass media, death by gun is an ever present thought these days. I can definitely understand the visceral level fear of a gun and having to face that. After the motorcycle accident there is that same type of fear just riding in a car. I have an idea of why. But I have to ask ...

Is more restrictive laws going to have the desired affect?

I am for laws, like them, love them, they ensure a certain level of predictable behavior. Yet I am not sold on the more laws concept. More laws means greater need for lawyers so that me as an average person can understand my rights and more importantly protect myself.

The following is the current gun laws as my understanding of them stands.

1. You cannot have committed a certain level of crime and it is up to the proper agencies to notify each other. I do not know what level of crime as I am not one to willfully commit crimes and do my best to stay far on the side of legal as I can.
2. To own a full automatic weapon you have to have a certain license that is relatively difficult to get and demands a very high level of personal accountability to include searches of the location you have the weapon/license registered to.
3. If you have certain types of mental disorders you cannot own a fire arm. It is up to the doctors to make sure the proper agencies are notified.
4. If you purchase a fire arm from a dealer you have to pass a back ground check that looks for criminal and mental health history.

It is a rather simple system and definitely easy to get around. As all it takes is one person selling their weapon privately to another person without a back ground check and you have a possible gun the in the wrong hands situation. Then you have the problem of non-communication between agencies setting up for a fire arm to get in the hands of someone who should not have it.

Where there is a will there is a way and fire arms represent a false sense of power and control. Which is what I think their draw is; power over another human being living or not. It scares us that our loved ones can be so easily taken from us, but yet we don't ban cars and texting even though vehicles take quite a few lives every year. Cars/automobiles/vehicles are not a symbol of power any more; they are a convenience and seen as needed for transportation. 

With the vast majority of people not needing guns for survival (food gathering) and at the same time not needing them for defense it is easy to forget why the 2nd Amendment is needed. The 2nd Amendment is "supporting the natural rights of self-defense and resistance to oppression, and the civic duty to act in concert in defense of the state (Wikipedia)" Basically it is there for the right to protect ones self from the state. 

What I find interesting is our recent slide of wanting the State to have more and more say in what is right and wrong (legal/Illegal). More and more people seem ok with their lives being dictated by a set of laws. Which I get this mind set as it allows for more predictable behavior patterns out of our neighbors. Yet this gun control controversy and the opioid controversy (next topic to write about) coupled with my recent accident has got me thinking about how many laws should we really have. 

What type of laws should we have?

What the solution to the Fire Arm/Gun Control laws should be is very elusive to me. While I understand wanting your loved one to survive a gun shot; I ask myself also if we should save everyone, because what makes life precious is that it is short. While I understand being afraid of an object, it is really the unpredictability of the person wielding it that scares us and we really need to own up to that before writing more laws. That need to control others and our fear of unpredictability is what probably should be addressed first.