Mushroom information was the topic of discussion between David Shadrick and Bill Cook when they met up at the Calamity Politics studio today. Mushrooms and more mushrooms was the consensus of our guys. Between these two men we are talking 50 years of eating enjoyment. You can also watch the video casts on the Calamity Politics YouTube channel or the David Shadrick YouTube channel.
On The Front Line
Writing for www.CalamityPolitics.com allows me a grass root platform to discuss health care, and every other area of our political spectrum, for that matter. It does not give me the right to say anything I want about the issues. With that said, I have ground level experience in health care. Because of that experience and exposure to trench warfare in hospital health care I have strong opinions. Client care and results need to be discussed and evaluated for effectiveness. I have a passionate interest in health care, and in this area, I believe my street level experience gives me the right to discuss the issues. Bringing common sense thinking to health care should always be welcomed. I am an RN, and have worked for 38 years in hospitals in Oregon, Washington, California and Nevada.
The Sickest
My two primary areas of specialty are Crisis Psychiatry and Cardiac Intensive Care. Whether the issues are mental, behavioral, or cardiac emergency, many of the issues facing the caregiver, and the client are the same. Despite the obvious differences in the front line needs of the clients, both of these populations are often the sickest in the hospital. One thing I know, is that the health of the American citizen should not be decided by a politician in Washington, D.C. Sadly, that’s where this battle always shows its ugly underbelly.
Suitcases Of Medications
For the first twenty-five years of my career, when I admitted a patient that came to the unit with a suitcase of medications, I believed it was because they were incredibly ill. Like physicians I had been trained to believe in pharmaceuticals. Once I was an old nurse, my thinking transformed into, the patient is sick because they are taking so many prescribed medications. I can hear the protests from the audience now. Don’t believe me, just read the labels. These are chemicals and they are toxic and poisonous.
Side Effects
Truthfully, every pill has the potential to cause side effects, some known and some unknown. When a person complains to his doctor that he is uncomfortable due to the side effects of the medication he is taking, his doctor writes him another prescription to help deal with the side effects. The patient has pain so his doctor writes him a prescription for an analgesic. When he complains that the pain medication makes him constipated, he is given a prescription. You can see where this is headed, right?
Advertising Medications
In America, television is the best friend of the pharmaceutical industry. Constant television marketing has convinced viewers that there is a pill that will fix anything and everything. Unfortunately, many Americans now believe that there is a pill that will make everything in their life better. Health care policy makers need to take this issue very seriously. I realize drug manufacturers want to make a profit, but I also believe constant repetition creates a need that previously did not exist.
Bill Cook stopped by the Calamity News and Politics studios to talk to Dave Shadrick about his experience growing commercial cannabis in Oregon. Its been an up and down ride for producers in Oregon. Take a few minutes and listen to what Bill had to say about the highs and lows of growing weed in Oregon.
A-fib can lead to blood clots in the upper chambers of the heart increasing the risk of having a stroke fivefold.
By D.S. Mitchell
Costco Connection
I am a Costco member and as such I get a copy of the Costco Connection magazine every month. The publication is full of useful information. In the February 2023 issue, I found a great article by Andrea Downing Peck, on the dangers of atrial fibrillation, a very dangerous heart rhythm disorder. I’m a retired RN and I’m always looking for information that will help people recognize symptoms of dangerous health conditions.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Recently, I have seen numerous public service announcements made by NBA basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar who tells us that he suffers from atrial fibrillation. Well Kareem is not alone; an estimated 2.7 million American live with atrial fibrillation (a-fib). A-fib is the most common sustained heart rhythm disorder seen by doctors.
What Is A-Fib?
A-fib is an irregular, disorganized heart rhythm where the heart’s upper chambers (the atria) no longer beat in coordination with the lower chambers (the ventricles). The rate is usually more rapid than would normally be expected for the level of activity being engaged in. A-fib is extremely dangerous because the rhythm commonly causes blood clots and blood clots cause strokes. Patients may experience a-fib without symptoms, but when symptoms do appear they may include chest discomfort, light-headedness, palpitations, shortness of breath, and fatigue. If left untreated it can be deadly.
Common Victims
The risk for a-fib increases after age 65. Several medical conditions also increase the risk of developing a-fib whether you are young or old: High blood pressure, Sleep apnea, Obesity, Heart failure, Diabetes, Overactive thyroid, Pericarditis, and coronary artery disease.
Triggers
Lots of studies and research have been done over the last fifty years to discover how to prevent heart disease. Researchers have known that the risk of coronary disease increases with predictable lifestyle factors. Now much of that research is telling us that those same factors and prevention strategies are most likely relevant to heart rhythm disturbances such as a-fib.
Alcohol vs Caffeine
Caffeine has been suspected as a trigger in patients who experience intermittent a-fib. Intermittent a-fib is defined as a temporary episode of the disorder that starts suddenly but resolves quickly without medical interventions, usually within 24 hours. The studies clearly indicate that caffeine does not appear to increase episodes of a-fib, but alcohol did frequently act as a trigger. Drinking more than one alcoholic beverage per day is clearly a trigger for the disorder.
More Than One Trigger
Smoking, sleeplessness, dehydration, stress, obesity, high blood pressure, and sedentary lifestyle are factors that seem to trigger a-fib events. The caveat here, as with many things, it is often a combination of several factors that trigger the event. Over the next several decades the prevalence of a-fib is expected to increase significantly. It’s the combination of these co-morbidities that increase the risk of a-fib.
The Answer
There’s an epidemic of obesity, Type 2 diabetes, inactivity, and alcohol abuse, in the United States. According to experts, we need the population to move, lose weight, drink less alcohol, and as practitioners, doctors need to aggressively treat diabetes and high blood pressure.
Treatment
Treatments can vary. Medication or surgical intervention, in some cases, may be required. Medications are used to control heart rate and rhythm. Anti-coagulants are used to prevent clotting. A cardioversion is sometimes used as an emergency intervention. A catheter ablation is a procedure used to permanently restore the heart’s proper electrical currents. There is also for some patients an implant called the Watchman that offers an alternative to blood thinners.
Outcomes
It is important to educate the public about a-fib and other heart rhythm disorders. It is important that if an individual is experiencing symptoms, they should contact their physician as soon as possible to diagnose the problem and above all prevent stroke.
“It was either die or do this transplant. I want to live. I know it is a shot in the dark, but it is my last chance,” said the recipient of a genetically modified pig heart last week.
By MAHINROOP PM and D. S. Mitchell
A Major Breakthrough
American doctors have successfully transplanted a genetically modified pig heart into a desperately ill 57 year old patient. It is an unquestionable achievement, a breakthrough for medical science. The patient, David Bennet is doing well after the surgery. The organ transplant proved that a genetically modified animal heart can serve like a human heart without immediate rejection by the body. Bennet had been connected to Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation, a heart lung bypass machine, in order to remain alive. The patient was informed of the procedure’s risks and that the procedure was experimental with unknown risks before consenting to receive the heart transplant.
Emergency
Because Bennet faced certain death without the Food and Drug Administration granted an emergency authorization for the surgery last week. The doctors at University of Maryland Medicine performed the procedure called Xenotransplantation. Bennet had been on cardiac support for almost two months and couldn’t receive a mechanical heart pump because of an irregular heart beat. Neither could he receive a human transplant, because he had a history of treatment noncompliance.
Organ Shortage Crisis
“This was a breakthrough surgery and brings us one step closer to solving the organ shortage crisis. There are simply not enough human hearts available to meet the long list of potential recipients. We are proceeding cautiously, but we are also optimistic that this first in the world surgery will provide an important new option for patients in the future,” said Bartley P Griffith, Professor in transplant surgery at University of Maryland Medicine.
High Risk
Although the process can potentially save thousands of lives, it comes with many risks including the chance of triggering a dangerous immune response. Such responses can trigger an immediate rejection of the organ, leading to the immediate death of the patient. A new drug was combined with conventional anti-rejection drugs to suppress the immune system and hopefully will prevent Benet’s body from rejecting the foreign organ.
Ethical and Technical Hurdles
Doctors will monitor Bennet for the rest of his life to determine whether the transplant provides the hoped for lifesaving benefits vs complications. The ultimate focus of xenotransplantation research is on genetically modified pigs because of the physiologic similarities between pigs, human and non-human primates. Revivicor, a biotechnology company located in Virginia provided the pig heart for the transplantation.
What The Future Offers
Transplant surgeons are hoping that recent advances will enable them to give more people animal organs. Physicians believe that the surgery will kickstart clinical xenotransplantation. As with everything, there are numerous ethical, as well as regulatory issues confronting the wholesale use of animal harvested hearts, and other organs, to sustain human life. Only time will tell.
Editor: Cannabis and its usage by humans dates back at least 8,000 years. For millennia, the plant has been valued as fiber and rope, as food and medicine, and also for its psychoactive properties for religious and recreational use. Some have gone so far to declare it a ‘miracle’ plant.
The Controlled Substance Act
In 1969, Richard Nixon, announced that Attorney General, John Mitchell was preparing a comprehensive new measure to more effectively meet the narcotic and dangerous drug problems challenging the country. At the federal level, Mitchell devised the Controlled Substance Act. The Act combined all existing federal laws and expanded their scope into a single new statute. More importantly, the CSA changed the nature of federal drug law policies and expanded federal law enforcement authority over controlled substances.
Fear Of Success
The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, established the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse. Raymond Shafer, one of the bill’s sponsor’s fearing it’s restrictive nature, made this statement to Congress, “The criminal law is too harsh a tool to apply to personal possession even in the effort to discourage use. It implies an overwhelming indictment of the behavior which we believe is not appropriate. The actual and potential harm of use of the drug is not great enough to justify intrusion by the criminal law into private behavior.”
The Build Back Better legislation stuck in the Senate would provide relief for many American family members struggling to keep a family member living at home vs being placed in a nursing home.
Caregiver Risks
Most of the people called on to help an ill or disabled family member have no training in being a caregiver. Not only that, but many spouses, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters have their own health problems and physical limitations. The risks of being a family caregiver is premature aging, sickness, death, depression, anger, resentment and potential financial loss. Aside from that, it can be rewarding and more worthwhile than anything you will ever do.
Financial Resources Make the Difference
Receiving affordable or free home care may be what makes the difference between a family member being able to stay in their home or being moved into an assisted living or nursing home. One in five Americans provide unpaid care to family members so they can continue to live in their home, according to a recent AARP report.
Read the Dates
I was getting packed for my third move in two years. I know, too many, too often, but it was a strange set of circumstances and not worth talking about here. Usually I just go into the bathroom and dump the drawers into a box and then sweep the contents of the cabinet shelves into another box, and voila, the bathroom is packed. But, I picked up the first bottle, a bottle of Aspirin and glanced at the expiration date. Holy Moly, it had expired three years ago. That knowledge shook me up a bit. I’m a retired R.N. for Pete’s sake. The next bottle, a prescription for Flexeril, was outdated by 10 months. I was two for two. Not good. Next, was a bottle of cough syrup, expired the previous year. I was batting 100%.
I Have Information
If your medicine chest is full of outdated medications or medications you no longer need and you are wondering how to dispose of them I have some information for you. The best option is to use community-based drug disposal programs. Go to the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) website, dea.gov and use their search tool to find an authorized drug disposal collector in your area.
Local Police Departments
If you don’t find a program in your area don’t give up, call your local police department or county sheriff. Often these law enforcement centers have disposal programs. As a last resort you may be forced to dispose of them yourself. Please do not flush medications down the toilet, or the sink. These toxins are dangerous to animals, fish and water systems. Throwing them in the trash, makes them available to folks who may try to use them, no matter what they are.
"If puppies and kittens don't make you smile, you might consider therapy." D. S. Mitchell 2015.
Self-isolating has forced us to turn even more to telecommunication and social media.
The Major Cause Of Sex Trafficking Is Poverty
Many great charities, here are a couple that I support: Sierra Club, World Wildlife Fund, ACLU, and Planned Parenthood.
