Saturday, January 24, 2009

JEREMY JACKSON SHINES FORTH

Had hand surgery 3 days ago; this hunt-and-peck thing sucks. Just wanted to put up a flare for my first grandson, Jeremy Jackson, who now is on "Confessions of a Teen Idol" seen on VH1 every Sunday and rerun on Monday. What a hunk. He looks so much like his deceased father that I cry when I see him. He's a beautiful boy/man inside and out. Good luck to you my love.

Check out his interview on CNN
http://snackfeed.com/videos/detail/0adefb86-3957-102c-a525-00304897c9c6/Confessions-of-a-teen-idol?_s=s


Grammy Dodie

Sunday, December 14, 2008

DBS SURGERY IN A MRSA-RIDDEN WORLD

Originally posted on 11/14/08

You might want to give some serious thought before you sign up for any surgery.

It's on the Internet. It’s on television and in the newspapers.

MRSA, pronounced Mersa, sounds innocuous, almost poetic. Don’t let the name fool you.

MRSA stands for Methicillin Resistant Staphalococcus Aureus, or: a staph infection that is resistant to most known antibiotics. As the title states, these little creeps are resistant to normal penicillin drugs that heretofore have been used to send them to the great beyond. Now they sit up on their haunches and laugh at the antibiotic as it courses through the body, thumbing their nose because they know they have a permanent home in the dark recesses of their host.

My husband, Ray, has Parkinson's Disease (PD). He's had it for almost ten years, but it has just recently turned ugly. The dyskinesia (involuntary movement), seen by thousands of viewers at they painfully watched Michael J. Fox in Washington, D.C. asking for help for this disease, is one of the ugly parts about PD.

When it got to the point that my husband couldn’t even sit without nearly jumping out of the chair, we knew it was time for some help.

Parkinson's is caused by the failure of a group of nerve cells in the brain to produce adequate amounts of a dopamine. Dopamine is necessary for smooth, coordinated movement and muscle relaxation. Some patients, therefore, have no control over arms, legs, neck and head, which seems to take on a life of their own as they jerk, lift, flail, and tremble.

We looked into a procedure called Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS). Holes are drilled into the top of the skull and then wires are forced down through the holes and into the brain to find a spot that irritates the cells, causing a disruption of the dyskinesia.

The surgery, if all goes well, stops the dyskinesia completely, and supposedly the patient is able to lead a fairly normal life. We promptly signed up for the procedure at Loma Linda University Medical Center in California, and on January of 2008, Ray underwent DBS. He has been relatively shake-free since then.

However, along with the installation of the wires into his brain to calm the dyskinesia (we were later to find out), a few nasty little bacteria known as Staphalococcus obviously took up squatting rights on the wires before his head wound was closed.

Being Snow-Birds, we left in June for Washington, six months after the surgery. At the end of the month I noticed a spot of blood in Ray's hair just above the ear (and right over a wire). We were referred to a UWMC neurosurgeon, who felt it was just a slight break in the skin with some inflammation, rather than an infection. He opened the wound, cleaned and closed it. Antibiotics were prescribed for four weeks.

Two months later the wound appeared to have a bulge under it, so off we went again to the doc, who basically did the same thing; opened it, cleaned it, closed it and put him on antibiotics again.

The third trip, a month later, caused the doctor to throw up his hands in exasperation and suspect something was amiss. He called in a prescription for a stronger antibiotic.

Two days later, after we'd flown back to California, the Washington surgeon called to say that the laboratory results showed Staph. Ray would now need to take a much stronger antibiotic, Zyvox, which he would call in to our pharmacy and Ray was to start immediately. He also strongly suggested we see the DBS surgeon in California as soon as possible.

Now, some infections can be licked pretty fast, but having a foreign object in the body is the ultimate to these little scum bags. With all the wires and plates that were inserted into my husband's head during the DBS procedure, it must have seemed like an "A" ride at Disneyland to these bugs. As the doc explained to me, the bugs like to latch onto those foreign objects.

It was now time for me to throw up my hands in exasperation. After spending over $200 on the antibiotics for those first two occurrences, I now had to toss them and get yet another.

Now the pharmacist was shocked. “You do know these are very expensive, don’t you?” he said as he typed in the prescription for insurance approval.

“Well, no, but what can we do? We have to have them.”

“Very well, but you must be in the “gap” with Medicare, right?”

“I have no idea. Why?”

“Because the prescription for six weeks is seven-thousand dollars!”

I chuckled as I dug through my purse for my husband’s Medicare card. Then I looked up as the words hit home. “Huh?”

The pharmacist was not smiling. “The bad news is you will owe three-thousand dollars. The good news is Medicare will pay four-thousand dollars.”

“You’re kidding me, right? How could an antibiotic cost that much.”

“I’m afraid I’m not kidding. That’s why I asked if you were in the 'gap' because I think Medicare would pay more if Ray had met his deductible.”

I struggled to come to grips with what he was telling me. “I can’t believe that. What do people do who have no insurance and need this drug?”

“I guess they do without,” he said. "But it doesn't always work. I have an elderly lady customer who has used this same drug and it didn’t work the first two times. She’s on her third go-round. So you have no guarantee with this.”

“OHMYGAWD! I don’t have three-thousand dollars to hand you right now.”

“Then my advice to you would be to have your doctor admit your husband to a hospital for the intravenous injections of this antibiotic. It would be much safer and cheaper because Medicare would pay.”

I digested this for a few minutes. “Well, we do have an appointment with the surgeon who did the DBS in five days. Could I just buy enough pills to get him by until we see the doctor and ask him to admit my husband?”

“That would be smart,” he said, turning back to his computer. He put nine pills in a little brown bottle, handed it off to the clerk, who smiled at me, and said, “Seven-hundred and eighty-three dollars please. Just run your credit card through the slot.”

“What? No! Please tell me you’ve made a mistake. Seven-hundred and eighty-three dollars for nine pills?”

“Yes Ma’am,” she said, repeating the amount as if I were deaf.”

“I heard you, dear. I just can’t believe it!“

Medicare’s rules for payment state that you must first be hospitalized for three days before you’re admitted to a nursing home.

The surgeon admitted my husband immediately and after three days Ray was admitted to a nursing home where he got his IV antibiotic therapy compliments of Medicare.

So, here we are, three weeks down and three weeks to go, of a very strong intravenous antibiotic, Vancomycin. We return to the surgeon on November 20th for the verdict.

But the jury still isn’t in on the MRSA. After all this, if those dirtballs are still hanging on, the whole works (hardware and wires) will have to be removed…otherwise their next stop is…the brain.

So, as I said, give it some serious thought before you undergo any elective surgery in a hospital. And, if you must have surgery, get discharged as fast as you can.

MRSA IS WAITING FOR YOU!

WATCH FOR THE NEXT EPISODE!

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

HERE TODAY, GONE TOMORROW!

It’s so quiet here on our lake. The trilling and twittering from the gold finches and wrens and swallows that we hear all summer has suddenly stopped. The warbling and chirping that heralds the morning dawn, has also come to a stop. The dive-bombing of the birds to catch insects has also ended, and the lake is still. Geese fly low, just above our dock, honking and telling the world: Look out sun, here we come!

The water beyond our dock, once speckled with mallards, grebes and merganzers has suddenly become flat and empty.

They were here one day and the next they were gone. How do they up and leave so fast? It takes me a month to get ready for the winter and follow the sun south. What type of computer chip is embedded in their DNA that says: “Okay, folks, let’s roll.” What a carefree life they have.

The quail, though, stick around; I think they’re pretty glad the other pesky birds have flown the coop. Now the hills and lake are theirs to enjoy.

When it becomes still on our lake, I know it’s time to start packing. We, like the birds, will head south to a warmer climate, and leave the lake and mountains to the quails.

Monday, October 6, 2008

AN IRANIAN WAKE-UP CALL

As I get more involved in writing my memoir of Iran, I begin to remember things that caused me great consternation as a new expat, but which now seems amazing that I was not more prepared, hence the wake-up call.

Before I moved to Iran, I never considered where my drinking water came from, other than my kitchen faucet. I never considered where my electricity came from, other than the switches on lamps, walls, various and sundry plugs located at convenient intervals throughout my home. I never considered where the heat and air conditioning came from, other than the cutesy little louvered registers at ceiling level all over the house that blew out the required heated or chilled air.

I never considered what made them all work; how the gas went into the furnace, was then heated by a flame that warmed the heat exchanger, which in turn warmed the air, which then circulated through the vents and then was forced from the register to warm our house, our bodies, and made life in the winter worth living.

But as a new expat to Iran, I now found myself worrying about everything that I had taken for granted. The heating pump in the basement; how to keep it full of oil (Naft) that kept us from freezing in 20 degrees, that kept the old radiators in each room putting out warm air, or worrying about the cooling when it reached 120 degrees outside, and which worked arbitrarily. It all depended on when the “AC” or “Naft” man came to town to make it work. Some days he was busier than others and just couldn’t get to our house. Busy also meant taking his four hours of Siesta time, prayer time and various obligations that he must attend to before showing up, if indeed he came at all.

I also had to fret about the water that came through our rusty pipes. Well, either the pipes made it rusty, or it came to us just plain rusty. Where did it originate? A brief walk through town revealed water troughs (jubes), running down both sides of the street, which were used for many conveniences; for rinsing the vegetables that merchants sold from their carts, for tossing rotted bits of produce into, for urinating into by the merchants, or any male passing by if the urge to purge came along, and a quick lap for the scabrous dogs who prowled the streets.

Which brings me back to my original thought: Some of us forget how lucky we are to live in the U.S.A.

Monday, September 29, 2008

FAT-CATS AND FIRE-ANTS

Does anyone out there want to give Wall Street to the Terrorists?

I think I have a plan for fixing this whole mess. We take all the fat-cat CEOs out to the desert. We cover them in molasses and then set a case of fire-ants free.

Okay, maybe that's a bit of a stretch, but actually that's kind of what's happening to us poor slobs. They are the fire-ants, and we're the bodies covered with molasses. They misappropriated funds, lied, cheated their way to fat wallets, and when the shoe finally dropped, they want us to bail them out while running for the comfort of their off-shore bank accounts and faraway-island estates There is something wrong with this picture!

Please Wall-Street-Gods, don't let them get away with it.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

SOCIAL NETWORKING

Besides working on my Iran book, I’m also getting ready for my “Social Networking Tour.” Hopefully it will take place in the next week.

How does it work? Not really sure, but according to Penny Sansevieri at Author Marketing Experts, Inc., I should end up with a bazillion people hitting my website and blog.

How much is a bazillion? Not sure, but I like the sound of it. Okay, maybe not a bazillion, but hopefully many more than I have now. People who’ve never heard of my book: A Broad Abroad in Thailand will now see it on the internet, along with my work in progress, A Broad Abroad in Iran.

Getting your name out there is the biggie. Sitting in your office and hoping that Oprah is dialing 411 at this very minute and asking for your phone number is a great dream, but you have to do more.

It’s tough out there. I keep reading about all those wonderful writers who’ve made it to the big-time publishers, and wonder if it will ever happen. I sent out a wonderful query the other day and just knew the agent would be so eager to represent me that she’d call me the second she read it. Well, there must be a reason. She’s probably on a short vacation, or maybe ill in a hospital somewhere and no one is reading her e-mails. That’s it. So, I'll just wait until she returns from her vacation or recovers from the flu, or whatever. But I will not think negative thoughts. Nosiree! She’ll call. How could she not? The book’s a hoot, even one of her clients agreed.

Here’s one of the problems: it’s self-published. Why agents don’t want to go after these books is beyond me. If you have a good selling record I’d think they’d say, Hey, let me see the book, maybe we have a best-seller here! Then again, I guess they think if you self-published that you’ve been turned down by other agents. Well, maybe they need to realize that we all can’t wait the four years it takes to get the book out. I don’t have that long. I don’t even buy green bananas anymore. So, come on, agents. Lighten up!

But just in case your phone does ring, make sure you answer with your most professional voice. You never know, it could be Oprah! Whoops, have to go. The phone’s ringing.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

WRITING MY IRAN MEMOIR


IRAN IN RETROSPECT
A Broad Abroad in Iran:
One Strappy-Sandaled Foot Ahead of the Mullahs
(during the revolution)


Hooray! Since my last post, A Broad Abroad in Thailand has received some great awards: “First Place" in the National Indie Book Awards 2008 for Memoir, and also placed as a “Finalist” in the Humor category. Abroad also won “Silver” in Foreword Magazine's Book of the Year Awards in the Humor category, presented to me at the BookExpo America in L.A. That's pretty exciting for a first time book.

It’s been some time since I’ve had a chance to get back here. The only changes I see in my marketing strategy are a few more grey hairs and wrinkles.

I now struggle to write my second memoir about living in Iran during the 70s. It won’t be as easy as my first memoir, A Broad Abroad in Thailand. The Thai people were gracious, happy, smiling and welcoming. In the70s, with the revolution already in motion (of course we expats had no clue), the Iranian people seemed unhappy, cross, maybe even pissed that westerners had invaded their land.

In retrospect, it’s easy to look back now and try to understand why they hated us, but at the time we just thought they weren’t happy campers and let it go at that. In our ignorance, we thought the Shah was just trying to bring his country up to the 20th Century, and not leave it lagging in the Old Testament era. Hiring expatriates from all over the world to help bring his country to a new global respect seemed like a generous undertaking. But, retrospection is a wondrous tool. We seem to want to look at casualties “after the fact” and then sort out the problems. But, at the time, we didn’t know there were problems.

What I did notice was the incongruity of it all!

The well-dressed driver of a Mercedes-Benz lays on his horn as he is surrounded by a herd of sheep. They slowly meander across the potholed dirt road, brushing against the front, sides and back of his gleaming car with their filthy, wet coats, while he screams obscenities at the sheep, the herder and at his illiterate countrymen that would allow this to happen.

A chador-clad woman stands in the street. As she waves her arm and tries to hail a taxi, her chador rides up revealing a bare arm dripping with a fortune in pure gold bangles, while an ancient, blind woman squats at her feet, begging for money or scraps of food.

A towering mosque, laden with gold and jade, stands in tribute to the incredible architecture of centuries past, while beggars with limbs missing seek shelter in the shade provided by its magnificent minarets.

In the capital city of Tehran, a theater marquee stands twelve feet high and pictures a female strapped to a pillar; she is wearing black fishnet stockings, garter belt, stiletto heels, and black bra with cleavage pouring forth. Lined up on the sidewalks and spilling over into the dirty streets are throngs of men, salivating and waiting to enter. Walking by the theater and on both sides of the street are other figures; covered from head to toe in the traditional black chador, eyes, nose and mouth the only indication that they are women, yet having to hide every strand of hair and femininity to insure they do not cause a man to have “unholy thoughts.” Hellllooooooooooooo!

Okay, now I have to get busy and turn it into a 300-page book and sell it.

Agents, feel free to contact me!