My Left Foot

Last week I put up a post about my feet. I had found an old clipping about my orthopedic surgeon and decided to write a post about him and my feet. I put up a picture of my right foot.
I took the post down after I got a kind of nasty anonymous comment about my "Frankenstein" foot.
Honestly, this stupid comment from an unknown person should not have upset me. I must admit, though, it did send me back to my childhood when kids said hurtful things about them. It's funny, in a way, how things that were said and done so many years ago can still strike a cord within us. Can still make us feel badly about ourselves.
I put the post back up tonight. It took a lot for me to post it in the first place and I don't want to take a step backward (no pun intended). I took out the comment, but now I wish I had just left it there.I decided to post a picture of my left foot. The above is a photo of me (in 1961, I think) with a cast on the leg.

And, this is the foot in 2007.
Take that, Anonymous.

Happy Birthday

I don't exactly know how it happened. It's like it occurred almost overnight. But, my sister, Cheryl turned 50 last week.
I think I am taking it a lot harder than she is. It feels like yesterday we were at home, sharing a room and listening to Cowsill records.

The above are just a few pictures from birthdays past. Happy Birthday to my big sister!

My Right Foot

I was going through a box of old cards, letters and memorabilia my Mom had given me last year. I had not gotten around to looking through it until last weekend. I found this old clipping from the hometown newspaper. The man on the right, Dr. Iger, was my orthopedic surgeon. He was a hero in my life.
I was born with club feet and had a number of surgeries. My Mom was told I would probably never walk. Because of Dr. Iger, I do walk.
However, as a result of the operations, I have some rather unsightly scars. I rarely let anyone see my bare feet. I have made Briana promise me that, if I am incapacitated in any way, she will make sure I have a pair of socks on at all times.

Briana has made it a sort of mission to get me to take off my shoes and socks. She had Ryan take the above portrait of their feet in an effort to try to make me more comfortable showing mine.

So, in honor of Dr. Iger (and my friend, Briana), a picture of my right foot.

And, a picture of Godfrey's four paws.






Now, excuse me while I go put on a pair of slippers.

My feet are cold.

Los Angeles Justice

Los Angeles firefighter Tennie Pierce gets a million and a half dollars as a result of eating spaghetti laced with dog food in a firehouse prank. A man who has taken part in many "jokes" at the expense of other firemen. L.A city is giving him 1.5 million and his full pension to make him go away.

In addition, a deputy fire chief was forced to take a demotion and Fire Chief W. Bamattre resigned over the incident.

In contrast, the L.A Archdiocese settled 45 priest sex abuse cases. This amounted to about 1.3 million for each plaintiff in those cases.

In addition, no priest was put in jail. No priest was held responsible.
And, Cardinal Mahoney, who by all accounts knew children were being abused by priests, did not resign.
No, he did not lose his position within the Catholic Church.

However, he did apologize. After all, isn't the money and an apology enough?

Pierce gets 1.5 million and his pension for, literally, eating two bites of dog food.

Little boys and girls who were knowingly raped and molested by priests for years get 1.3 million.
And absolutely no justice.

The Rialto

I love movies. When I was little, I lived in a small town called Fellows. There wasn't much there. A small market, a post office, a tiny one room library, a diner and of course, a bar.
Since our parents wouldn't allow us to hang out at the bar (though Bonnie Nell and I did sneak in a few times to see what the fuss was about), we had to find other forms of entertainment.
Back in those days, we only had three t.v. channels. This was before direct TV and cable and TIVO. It was even before VCRs. And, it was rather limiting.

So, my Mom would take us over to the bigger town of Taft. There, we could go to the skating rink or bowl at the two lane bowling alley.

More often than not, we went to The Fox Theater to see movies.
One of my most vivid memories is not about any particular movie I saw. It is about the one I didn't get to see.

When "The Jungle Book" came to The Fox, I was really looking forward to it. I already had the record and knew all the lyrics to "Bare Necessities".
But when the day came to go into "town", I was sick. My Mom made me stay home. As you can see, over forty years later, I'm still bitter about it.

I have fond memories of that old theater. Of popcorn and milk duds. Of sticky floors and red velvet seats. Of a place I could escape to for a little while. Where you could "forget about your worries and your strife".

Sadly, many of the great old movie palaces are closing in favor of the huge multiplex cinemas.

In my new hometown, The Rialto Theater has just closed it's doors.

The Rialto opened on October 17, 1925.

Admission was 30 cents.

It survived two fires.

It was placed on the list of National Register of Historic Landmarks in 1978.

It was featured in many films and commercials including Robert Altman's "The Player".

It was not the nicest theater around.

The seats were uncomfortable. It had a sort of musty smell to it.
And, they could never seem to get the temperature right. It was either too hot or too cold. I remember a time when I called the box office to get a showtime, and the recording said the heat wasn't working. They recommended you bring a blanket with you to the theater.
Despite all of this, I still liked to see movies there.

I am going to miss it as much as I miss "The Fox".

Caffeine

My friend, Chris, sent me this link.
How many cans of diet Pepsi at one time would it take to kill me?

Apparently, 417.08 cans.

If I drank Diet Coke it would only take 333.67. I guess I will stick with the Pepsi.

I am feeling kind of good about this 417 (almost 418) can limit.
I have been doing some calculations. I've been adding up the number of cans I drink a day.
I figure I can safely drink another 50 cans a day before the caffeine kills me.
So, I am well within the safety limit.

Overheard in the Therapy Room

Therapist: "I'd like you to tell me what you do with these items. What do you do with money?"

Patient: "Spend it."

Therapist: "Okay, what do you do with a camera?"

Patient: "You take pictures with it."

Therapist: "You're doing great. What do you do with a knife?"

Patient: "Cut your throat."

Therapist: "Uh, maybe we'd better stop for now. "

My Boy Godfrey

Ryan took these pictures a few month back. I decided to post a few of my boy as I am his "mama".
I especially liked the Godfrey in motion picture. As I was looking at it, I looked a bit closer at what was on the T.V screen. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you can see a clearer image.
What the hell were we watching?? And should their toddler have been exposed to it??
Good grief!

Lake Crabtree

This is a picture Jen took of me while we were on vacation in the South last April. This is Lake Crabtree County Park which is just outside of Cary, North Carolina.
While on vacation, Mrs. D asked if I would take pictures of the Raleigh-Durham-Cary area. I thought this park was beautiful, so we took a few pictures under this arch.
Mr. and Mrs. D continue to break my heart with the idea that they want to move across the country. NC has some research triangle or some such thing that would supposedly be a great opportunity for them, blah, blah, blah.
They ended up taking a vacation to NC a few months later in August.

They found Lake Crabtree and took a few pictures under the arch as well.

I can understand why they would want to move there. It is a beautiful place. His "tagi" will miss that little boy though.

Overheard in the Therapy Room

I was working with a delightful elderly woman. Sometime during the evening, they had moved her into another room to be closer to the nurses station. The doctor wanted her to be watched closely as she gets confused and tries to get up by herself.

The rooms on our unit are private rooms, but many of them have shared bathrooms. In other words, the adjacent rooms have only one bathroom. We do have some rooms with private baths, in case we have patients who are on isolation precautions.

This patient had been told that, with the change of room, she would get a private bath.

But, there was a problem. There were only three rooms available near the nurses station. There were two female patients. and one male patient.

So, they had to move the male patient into the room that had the private bathroom so the two female patients could share a bathroom.

The patient I was working with was asking (again!) if she was going to get her own bathroom. I explained the situation to her.

Trying to make light of it I said, "We had to move Mr. X out of the room next door so you wouldn't have to share a bathroom with a man."

She replied rather sarcastically, "You sure know how to spoil all the fun!"

The Surge

General Patraeus is going to give America a report this week on how the surge is going in Iraq. I'm sure the General is going to give us an unbiased account of how good a job he is doing.

I, like a lot of left wing nut jobs, find the timing of the release of the Osama Bin Laden tape just a bit too convenient.

How does the Administration get the American people to buy into the idea that the Iraq War is going well? How do they try to get us to just quiet down and give time for the surge to work?

Why...they trot out a video of Osama. Time to pull the fear card again, so the people will be less inclined to question the motives of their own government. If we take the troops out now, Osama will have won! We can't let that happen! The Iraqi people want us there! They want democracy! If we leave now, the enemy will come get us here on our own soil!

This website gives a very interesting argument that the Bin Laden tape is a fake.
And, this video on YouTube gives you an idea on how they "audition" for the roll of Osama.

Women in Art

Thought this was a lovely video. I thought I'd just share. I scour the internet for interesting things.
So you don't have to.

Overheard in the Therapy Room

Therapist: "I'd like you to tell me how you would handle these situations."

Elderly Female Patient: "OK."

Therapist: "What would you do if you got separated from your friend in a shopping mall?"

Elderly Female Patient: "I'd get on the loudspeaker and yell, 'Hey! Where the hell are you?'"

Pause.

Elderly Female Patient: "I guess as a nun, I shouldn't use that kind of language."

I Feel the Earth Move

We recently had a traveling OT working at the hospital. Brad is from Chicago and works in the school system there. Since he has summers off, he and his family decided to have a "working" vacation. He signed up with a company and came on out to Pasadena for the summer. He ended up working on our rehab unit.

Brad told me a story one day about how disasters seem to follow him around.

For example, he was at the top of the World Trade Center the week before September 11th, 2001.

He was in New Orleans a few weeks before Katrina hit.

And, he was in Minneapolis just days before that bridge collapsed last month.

He had me convinced I had better be prepared for something terrible once he left for Illinois.

He left last week.

I was sitting at my computer this morning and guess what? I felt an earthquake. OK, it was just a little one. And, it was about 50 miles away.

Even still, I hope it is not a prelude to something bigger. I have my water and earthquake supplies ready.

Just in case Brad really is a walking disaster.

Go Ask Briana, When She's Ten Feet Tall

The title reference for this post is from Jefferson Airplane's song "White Rabbit". Grace Slick wrote the song after noticing possible drug references in the book "Alice in Wonderland".

You may ask, what does this have to do with anything?

My friend, Briana, ended up in the ER a few weeks ago. You can read her account of the story here.
Her headache was quite painful. However, this silly girl took a lot of coaxing to take the morphine injection the PA offered her. Sometimes I can't even believe we're friends because we are so different. Who doesn't take painkillers when presented by legitimate medical staff?


Once she took the narcotics, she felt much, much better (go figure).

She also had a CT of her brain done. We found out that by going to Radiology, we could get a disk of the CT scan.
Her husband, Ryan, was quite eager to look at the brain scan images. He caught a glimpse of her brain while she was in the scanner. He was certain her brain was lopsided. Ryan posted about the scan and you can look at his take on the whole thing. He has a PhD in molecular cell biology and works in the field of neurobiology. He gives you a tour of the inner workings that is his wife's brain. Click here.

Meanwhile, I got to thinking, "When am I ever going to have the opportunity to take a picture of Briana on drugs again?"

So here she is on a dose of morphine.


Yep. She felt good all right.

Larry Craig meets Avenue Q

The Republican Senator from Idaho, Larry Craig, is NOT gay (not that there's anything wrong with that).

And, he's not a Senator anymore either (certainly nothing wrong with that).