The Last Official 'I Hate Being Sick' Blog Entry
'Timothy Leary's dead.
No, no, no, no, He's outside looking in.
Timothy Leary's dead.
No, no, no, no, He's outside looking in.
He'll fly his astral plane,
Takes you trips around the bay,
Brings you back the same day,
Timothy Leary. Timothy Leary.
He'll take you up, he'll bring you down,
He'll plant your feet back firmly on the ground.
He flies so high, he swoops so low,
He knows exactly which way he's gonna go.
Timothy Leary. Timothy Leary.'
No, no, no, no, He's outside looking in.
Timothy Leary's dead.
No, no, no, no, He's outside looking in.
He'll fly his astral plane,
Takes you trips around the bay,
Brings you back the same day,
Timothy Leary. Timothy Leary.
He'll take you up, he'll bring you down,
He'll plant your feet back firmly on the ground.
He flies so high, he swoops so low,
He knows exactly which way he's gonna go.
Timothy Leary. Timothy Leary.'
(Moody Blues, 1968)
Miss Murder here. First I want to thank Miss Mayhem for her excellent work in taking both of our notes on the movie Lord of Illusions and giving a kick-ass review. I knew she could do it, I just don't think she knew it yet. And yes, I still plan to keep up this blog to the best of my ability.
I have spoken more times about my a physical condition than any human being would want to hear about when they come here expecting to read about horror movies being made fun of, and other witticisms that I can think of for your reading pleasure. And since the number of readers far exceed anything I could have ever hoped for, I really don't want to start losing them by a what some might see as a constant whine about a physical condition that obviously I can do nothing about.
Therefore, I have decided to start a second blog. Now I know there are probably thousands upon thousands of blogs about certain illnesses and how people deal with them day by day. However, in order to keep this just for stupid horror movies that deserve to be made fun of, I've decided to go ahead and do it whether I have one reader, five readers, or, hopefully, a lot more than that.
Of course, I'm not starting this blog today. I haven't even been able to watch a movie, much less keep notes on a movie. Oh, I have a lot of movies that I have reviewed, but they sit on my recorder and even with this wonderful dictation software by Dragon that I cannot praise enough for saving my poor hands, I still can't seem to keep up and keep my blog going as I want to.
That is why I have Miss Mayhem. She is a young lady with very good ideas, she's just a bit afraid of the idea of those ideas being seen by others. I can understand that. I still am amazed that I have not been called on the carpet, so to speak, and ripped to pieces by somebody who has hated one of my reviews. I know I have the readership in which that could happen, but it has not. I am trying to reassure her that if she helps me with my reviews under her moniker, it is very unlikely that a personal attack will ever come directly to her.
So. This will be the last, 'Oh, I feel so bad. I hurt so bad, everything is so awful!' type of blog entry, that will be found elsewhere now. I'm sure many of you are probably relieved about that. I know if I was looking for a blog on horror movie reviews, and the reviewer complained about his or her aches, pains, whatever, I'd be running to find another reviewer.
I live in the United States, which means I should have at least decent insurance. We have a steady income, we live simply, and if we had any big expenses, it would be for the medication required just to keep both of us moving. Yes, we are middle aged (oh how I hate those words with a passion), so some type of medication will probably always be there for us. However, while my spouse's medication is thankfully reasonable, mine is in the stratosphere.
We live in the United States. Unfortunately, today that means that not only do we not have decent insurance, we do not have ANY insurance. Obamacare? We can't freaking afford that. Don't be deceived by what you read. This is expensive shit. Not only is it expensive, but it has many, many omissions of types of illnesses, which makes it nearly worthless to someone such as myself. At the present time, it is cheaper for us to accept the penalty that is to be levied on those who do not get with the program than to accept the program itself.
So. This will be the last, 'Oh, I feel so bad. I hurt so bad, everything is so awful!' type of blog entry, that will be found elsewhere now. I'm sure many of you are probably relieved about that. I know if I was looking for a blog on horror movie reviews, and the reviewer complained about his or her aches, pains, whatever, I'd be running to find another reviewer.
I live in the United States, which means I should have at least decent insurance. We have a steady income, we live simply, and if we had any big expenses, it would be for the medication required just to keep both of us moving. Yes, we are middle aged (oh how I hate those words with a passion), so some type of medication will probably always be there for us. However, while my spouse's medication is thankfully reasonable, mine is in the stratosphere.
We live in the United States. Unfortunately, today that means that not only do we not have decent insurance, we do not have ANY insurance. Obamacare? We can't freaking afford that. Don't be deceived by what you read. This is expensive shit. Not only is it expensive, but it has many, many omissions of types of illnesses, which makes it nearly worthless to someone such as myself. At the present time, it is cheaper for us to accept the penalty that is to be levied on those who do not get with the program than to accept the program itself.
So. As I said, we have income, we live simply, we have few outstanding bills. Our major expense? Medication. Mostly for me. I don't mind saying what ails me, I'm not ashamed of it in the least. It is a combination of things that are genetic, has a lot to do with the way I was raised, and the rest is just plain being an imperfect human on the planet Earth.
Among other things, of which there are many, I suffer from anxiety disorder, bipolar type II, ankylosing spondylitis (I can't freaking believe that Dragon knew what that was and spelled it perfectly) which is a degenerative bone disorder, fibromyalgia, and an assortment of other goodies guaranteed to keep me miserable from the time I wake up 'til the time I finally fall asleep.
This means a lots of medication is necessary just for me to exist, never mind function as a human being. Without insurance, the amounts of medication I need is an impossibility. Since those amounts are not available to me, neither is fully functioning the way I would like. I am not normal. I'm not even freaking close to normal. I'm like an invalid in a normal looking body. Which causes me no end of trouble.
This means a lots of medication is necessary just for me to exist, never mind function as a human being. Without insurance, the amounts of medication I need is an impossibility. Since those amounts are not available to me, neither is fully functioning the way I would like. I am not normal. I'm not even freaking close to normal. I'm like an invalid in a normal looking body. Which causes me no end of trouble.
People look at me (I'm rarely out of the house, but once in a while I have to go to perform some task) and tell me helpful things like, 'you look better' (better than what exactly?), 'you look happy' (who are they freaking looking at when they say that anyway?), or, the ever popular 'you don't look sick'. I will spare you the four letter words that go through my mind and almost escape my lips when I hear that one.
No insurance means a minimum amount of medication available through programs that are called different things, but basically it means you get a very small amount of generic medications and the limits are nowhere near what I was prescribed when I had insurance. No medication, no normal life, lots and lots of grief from those who don't understand. It's a wonderful, wonderful world.
So when this different blog gets set up and running I'll let you know the title here and hopefully you won't see anymore complaining (at least not here) and more movies - God knows I have a ton to do and a ton more to watch... The following is just some info on alternative type medicines that are being tried. I'm all for trying to find something that works - except that when they DO find something and it USED to be cheap (like marijuana for instance), if it's used for MEDICAL purposes, all of a sudden it's pricier than gold. Okay, slight exaggeration - but not much.
From The Atlantic: New research in psychedelics such as psilocybin, the main ingredient in 'magic mushrooms,' aims for therapeutic uses, such as treatments for anxiety, headaches or quitting smoking.
(Since this is a mile long, I'll paraphrase): One young man (21) who was diagnosed, fought and has won against Hodgkin's Lymphoma did well because he had a lot of good doctors and positive thinking (which does help). But once the cancer was gone, he started having major problems - the fear of becoming sick again was overwhelming to him. Ironic that he was able to fight against a life-ending adversary, but the idea of that adversary re-appearing was ruining his life.
“When I first met him, he had calluses all over his neck,” explained research manager Gabrielle Agin-Liebes. “He would constantly feel his lymph nodes as a habit, to see if they had grown. Even as he was talking to you, his hand would be up there feeling his neck. Ironically, that would make the lymph nodes swell up even more.”
“He had one of the highest ratings on the anxiety scale that we had seen: 21 out of 30,” Gabrielle continued. “To qualify for the study you only need an eight. The day after his first dosing session, he dropped to zero, and for seven months he’s stayed there. Zero anxiety.”
Psilocybin, found naturally in more than 200 species of mushrooms, has a long history of use by humans. Called “flesh of the gods” by the Aztecs, the mushrooms were widely consumed in religious ceremonies by pre-contact indigenous cultures throughout the Americas. Cave paintings in Spain and Algeria suggest ritualized ingestion dating back as far as 9,000 years. Brutally suppressed by Christian authorities on both sides of the Atlantic, indigenous psilocybin use was nearly eradicated until the late 1950’s when Western psychiatry rediscovered it.
In the years after World War II, hallucinogen-aided therapy was a rapidly growing field. Conditions as diverse as alcoholism, drug addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder, and anxiety were treated. In the quarter century that followed, 40,000 patients were given psilocybin and other hallucinogens such as DMT, LSD, and mescaline. More than 1000 research papers were produced. The results were very promising, though as the NYU study’s principal investigator Dr. Stephen Ross explained, much of the research lacked proper oversight.
No insurance means a minimum amount of medication available through programs that are called different things, but basically it means you get a very small amount of generic medications and the limits are nowhere near what I was prescribed when I had insurance. No medication, no normal life, lots and lots of grief from those who don't understand. It's a wonderful, wonderful world.
So when this different blog gets set up and running I'll let you know the title here and hopefully you won't see anymore complaining (at least not here) and more movies - God knows I have a ton to do and a ton more to watch... The following is just some info on alternative type medicines that are being tried. I'm all for trying to find something that works - except that when they DO find something and it USED to be cheap (like marijuana for instance), if it's used for MEDICAL purposes, all of a sudden it's pricier than gold. Okay, slight exaggeration - but not much.
From The Atlantic: New research in psychedelics such as psilocybin, the main ingredient in 'magic mushrooms,' aims for therapeutic uses, such as treatments for anxiety, headaches or quitting smoking.
(Since this is a mile long, I'll paraphrase): One young man (21) who was diagnosed, fought and has won against Hodgkin's Lymphoma did well because he had a lot of good doctors and positive thinking (which does help). But once the cancer was gone, he started having major problems - the fear of becoming sick again was overwhelming to him. Ironic that he was able to fight against a life-ending adversary, but the idea of that adversary re-appearing was ruining his life.
“When I first met him, he had calluses all over his neck,” explained research manager Gabrielle Agin-Liebes. “He would constantly feel his lymph nodes as a habit, to see if they had grown. Even as he was talking to you, his hand would be up there feeling his neck. Ironically, that would make the lymph nodes swell up even more.”
“He had one of the highest ratings on the anxiety scale that we had seen: 21 out of 30,” Gabrielle continued. “To qualify for the study you only need an eight. The day after his first dosing session, he dropped to zero, and for seven months he’s stayed there. Zero anxiety.”
Psilocybin, found naturally in more than 200 species of mushrooms, has a long history of use by humans. Called “flesh of the gods” by the Aztecs, the mushrooms were widely consumed in religious ceremonies by pre-contact indigenous cultures throughout the Americas. Cave paintings in Spain and Algeria suggest ritualized ingestion dating back as far as 9,000 years. Brutally suppressed by Christian authorities on both sides of the Atlantic, indigenous psilocybin use was nearly eradicated until the late 1950’s when Western psychiatry rediscovered it.
In the years after World War II, hallucinogen-aided therapy was a rapidly growing field. Conditions as diverse as alcoholism, drug addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder, and anxiety were treated. In the quarter century that followed, 40,000 patients were given psilocybin and other hallucinogens such as DMT, LSD, and mescaline. More than 1000 research papers were produced. The results were very promising, though as the NYU study’s principal investigator Dr. Stephen Ross explained, much of the research lacked proper oversight.
“They didn’t understand set and setting in the beginning. Patients would be injected with LSD, put in restraints, and somebody would come back hours later. They were put in very drab clinical environments. Then you had people like Timothy Leary and his group over at Harvard who were using the drugs themselves, using them with famous people, and recklessly promoting psychedelics within American culture.”
The research made a slow comeback starting in the mid-90’s, but the stigma remains. “The only thing I learned about psychedelics in psychiatry training is that they were toxic,” Dr. Ross explained. “We were told that they cause psychosis. I’d also heard the old urban legends: that they cause chromosomal damage, and that if you take seven hits of LSD you go insane. But, I knew nothing about their history in psychology and in mental health, which had been considerable.”
The soft-spoken psychiatrist first came to NYU under a fellowship to do research on drug addiction. In his search for novel treatments for intractable conditions, Ross stumbled upon a decades-old study in which LSD had been used to successfully cure alcoholism. “I was shocked,” he admitted. “As a Schedule I drug, I assumed that LSD must be very addictive. But that simply wasn’t true. It does not behave like an addictive drug by any measure. I was even more shocked to find out that Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, got sober from a psychedelics-induced mystical experience. He was so impressed that he actually wanted to introduce it into the bylaws of AA.”
As for the toxicity Dr. Ross had been warned about in medical school, “There are simply no known long-term toxic effects from taking serotonergic hallucinogens,” he explained. “From a medical perspective, psilocybin is a remarkably safe compound.”
The Drug Enforcement Agency takes a different view. As a condition of Dr. Ross’s Schedule I license, the compound is stored in a restricted area inside a two ton safe. “It’s the only drug in the safe,” Dr. Ross elaborated, “and Monday through Friday, we take the drug out once a day and weigh it. Three people have to sign off on it.” That security is a stark reminder that distribution of psilocybin without a DEA license is a federal crime carrying penalties of up to 20 years in prison for a first offense.
The intense scrutiny has produced a rigorous methodology. The NYU team screens every applicant for personal and family mental illness, health conditions, and substance abuse history. “We’ve had to be perfect,” Dr. Ross concluded. Additionally, each patient participates in months of intensive psychotherapy before and after treatment. “They undergo an extensive review of their life,” Dr. Ross explained. “The goal is to try to construct a new narrative around cancer.”
Crucially, each participant is shown the two medications they will have access to on demand throughout their trip. One is Valium, used to reduce anxiety, and the other is Zyprexa, an almost instantaneous antidote to the psychedelic. In a testament to the thorough mental preparation the study provides, the medications have never been requested by any of the patients. The psilocybin itself is presented in pill-form inside a ceramic chalice.
Says the patient mentioned at the beginning of the article, "At the hospital they gave me Xanax for anxiety,” he said. “Xanax doesn’t get rid of your anxiety. Xanax tells you not to feel it for awhile until it stops working and you take the next pill. The beauty of psilocybin is: it’s not medication. You’re not taking it and it solves your problem. You take it and you solve your problem yourself.”
Miss Murder can see the price of the 'non-medication' rising exponentially, don't you?
And speaking about the 'cost' of 'non-medication':
UP: Denver - Two months after the U.S. government tried to smooth the way for sellers of legalized marijuana to get banking services, many pot entrepreneurs still can't open a basic checking account. The Treasury Department and Justice Department in February issued guidance that was meant to reassure banks that they wouldn't run afoul of federal law—under which marijuana remains illegal—by working with pot businesses in states that have legalized the drug. But lenders have taken little comfort in the guidelines, saying they don't go far enough to guarantee that banks won't face legal repercussions, and add burdensome new requirements that they screen customers for marijuana ties.
Pot stores increasingly find themselves in situations other businesses couldn't fathom, such as hiring armed escorts to help deliver sales taxes to government offices in wads of cash. "What I find most frustrating is that I pay an enormous amount of taxes and licensing and other fees," said Morgan Carr, co-owner of the Wellspring Collective pot shop in Denver. Mr. Carr said he recently lost his bank account for the seventh time because the bank he was using became uncomfortable with his cash deposits. This month, Mr. Carr hired a private security firm to haul his cash to a vault in a discreet location because he still can't get a bank to take his business. "The money I am using to pay those taxes is the exact same money that I can't even deposit into my own account," he added.
With most banking options still closed, Colorado store owners are scrambling for new ways to secure their cash. One Denver-area company operated by military and law-enforcement veterans, Blue Line Protection Group, now specializes in shipping cash from pot stores to several vaults around Colorado by armored trucks. The company also transports marijuana.
Miss Murder sees that THIS natural medication's cost is going to skyrocket just because of these 'extra' costs to provide what was supposed to be an alternative to expensive medications.
And that's all Miss Murder will be saying about health problems and the non-solutions offered by this Country. Thanks for hanging in there. The new blog will be announced if and when I get it off the ground...
The research made a slow comeback starting in the mid-90’s, but the stigma remains. “The only thing I learned about psychedelics in psychiatry training is that they were toxic,” Dr. Ross explained. “We were told that they cause psychosis. I’d also heard the old urban legends: that they cause chromosomal damage, and that if you take seven hits of LSD you go insane. But, I knew nothing about their history in psychology and in mental health, which had been considerable.”
The soft-spoken psychiatrist first came to NYU under a fellowship to do research on drug addiction. In his search for novel treatments for intractable conditions, Ross stumbled upon a decades-old study in which LSD had been used to successfully cure alcoholism. “I was shocked,” he admitted. “As a Schedule I drug, I assumed that LSD must be very addictive. But that simply wasn’t true. It does not behave like an addictive drug by any measure. I was even more shocked to find out that Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, got sober from a psychedelics-induced mystical experience. He was so impressed that he actually wanted to introduce it into the bylaws of AA.”
As for the toxicity Dr. Ross had been warned about in medical school, “There are simply no known long-term toxic effects from taking serotonergic hallucinogens,” he explained. “From a medical perspective, psilocybin is a remarkably safe compound.”
The Drug Enforcement Agency takes a different view. As a condition of Dr. Ross’s Schedule I license, the compound is stored in a restricted area inside a two ton safe. “It’s the only drug in the safe,” Dr. Ross elaborated, “and Monday through Friday, we take the drug out once a day and weigh it. Three people have to sign off on it.” That security is a stark reminder that distribution of psilocybin without a DEA license is a federal crime carrying penalties of up to 20 years in prison for a first offense.
The intense scrutiny has produced a rigorous methodology. The NYU team screens every applicant for personal and family mental illness, health conditions, and substance abuse history. “We’ve had to be perfect,” Dr. Ross concluded. Additionally, each patient participates in months of intensive psychotherapy before and after treatment. “They undergo an extensive review of their life,” Dr. Ross explained. “The goal is to try to construct a new narrative around cancer.”
Crucially, each participant is shown the two medications they will have access to on demand throughout their trip. One is Valium, used to reduce anxiety, and the other is Zyprexa, an almost instantaneous antidote to the psychedelic. In a testament to the thorough mental preparation the study provides, the medications have never been requested by any of the patients. The psilocybin itself is presented in pill-form inside a ceramic chalice.
Says the patient mentioned at the beginning of the article, "At the hospital they gave me Xanax for anxiety,” he said. “Xanax doesn’t get rid of your anxiety. Xanax tells you not to feel it for awhile until it stops working and you take the next pill. The beauty of psilocybin is: it’s not medication. You’re not taking it and it solves your problem. You take it and you solve your problem yourself.”
Miss Murder can see the price of the 'non-medication' rising exponentially, don't you?
And speaking about the 'cost' of 'non-medication':
UP: Denver - Two months after the U.S. government tried to smooth the way for sellers of legalized marijuana to get banking services, many pot entrepreneurs still can't open a basic checking account. The Treasury Department and Justice Department in February issued guidance that was meant to reassure banks that they wouldn't run afoul of federal law—under which marijuana remains illegal—by working with pot businesses in states that have legalized the drug. But lenders have taken little comfort in the guidelines, saying they don't go far enough to guarantee that banks won't face legal repercussions, and add burdensome new requirements that they screen customers for marijuana ties.
Pot stores increasingly find themselves in situations other businesses couldn't fathom, such as hiring armed escorts to help deliver sales taxes to government offices in wads of cash. "What I find most frustrating is that I pay an enormous amount of taxes and licensing and other fees," said Morgan Carr, co-owner of the Wellspring Collective pot shop in Denver. Mr. Carr said he recently lost his bank account for the seventh time because the bank he was using became uncomfortable with his cash deposits. This month, Mr. Carr hired a private security firm to haul his cash to a vault in a discreet location because he still can't get a bank to take his business. "The money I am using to pay those taxes is the exact same money that I can't even deposit into my own account," he added.
With most banking options still closed, Colorado store owners are scrambling for new ways to secure their cash. One Denver-area company operated by military and law-enforcement veterans, Blue Line Protection Group, now specializes in shipping cash from pot stores to several vaults around Colorado by armored trucks. The company also transports marijuana.
Miss Murder sees that THIS natural medication's cost is going to skyrocket just because of these 'extra' costs to provide what was supposed to be an alternative to expensive medications.
And that's all Miss Murder will be saying about health problems and the non-solutions offered by this Country. Thanks for hanging in there. The new blog will be announced if and when I get it off the ground...
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