“Particularly understanding this is the middle of a campaign, we get lots of complaints from folks who are adversaries who have a particular agenda,” Coakley said, referring to the request by Menino’s challengers for a criminal probe of potentially hundreds of public e-mails deleted by Menino policy chief Michael Kineavy.She behaved similarly with the scandals and charges around state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson, Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner and House Speaker Sal DiMasi. In those cases, it was the feds who took over and did her job.
§ 7. MarriageAmong the wee surprises at Nadler's announcement were that President Obama did not attend and that openly gay Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank is not among the 90 co-sponsors. The Blade reports:
(a) For the purposes of any Federal law in which
marital status is a factor, an individual shall be considered
married if that individual’s marriage is valid in the State
where the marriage was entered into or, in the case of
a marriage entered into outside any State, if the marriage
is valid in the place where entered into and the marriage
could have been entered into in a State.
(b) In this section, the term ‘State’ means a State,
the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto
Rico, or any other territory or possession of the United
States.
Frank said in an interview Friday with the Blade that he’s not a co-sponsor of the legislation because he has a “strategic difference” with those supporting the repeal legislation.
“It’s not anything that’s achievable in the near term,” he said. “I think getting [the Employment Non-Discrimination Act], a repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ and full domestic partner benefits for federal employees will take up all of what we can do and maybe more in this Congress.”
Frank also said that advocacy for the “certainty provision,” as described by Nadler, would create “political problems” in Congress.
From first glance, it appears more like a case of NIH, not invented here by Frank. To me, this is a further shame to DOMA that Congress would have to pass a law reminding states that comity is the norm in our nation. Bay Windows has more analysis on Frank's objections here.
Nadler said he expects scare tactics by those opposed to DOMA's repeal, including claims that this will force SSM on states with their own mini-DOMA laws or amendments or both.
Ice Water Splash: Examining the figures should always note that Mayor Menino has at least an order of magnitude greater cash in his campaign account, with more on the side to drop in if necessary. None of the guys can imagine they will outspend him in the primary or general. They have to capture the voters' aspirations and fears with more than advertising or paid campaigners. We think of Cassius' epithet for Caesar — Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus.
Of course men and women are sensitive and even paranoid about problems with their primary and secondary sex characteristics. For example, cancers of the breast, prostate, ovary or testicle have strong emotional and identity components.
Text Notice: This post is not sexual but does contain mentions of nether region body parts.
Series Links: Part 1 on hip replacement is here and Part 2 on shoulder surgery is here. Also, this is cross-posted at Harrumph!.
Thus, you can likely imagine my distress at severe pain in my right testicle during my first year of marriage. The agony was frequent and daily. It often immobilized me and doubled me over as well. I imported my new wife to my tiny bachelor apartment and moved to a larger one also in the West Village. This was not a good omen for our new lives.
In my 20s, I knew I was at prime age for testicular cancer. That has a much higher morality rate than breast cancer and most others. Such a diagnosis would have been particularly grim three decades ago.
Yet, being a typical member of my family, I did not hide, but staggered to the doctor to face the diagnosis of whatever it was. Instead of physical and emotional relief, I experienced months of continuing pain and uncertainty. Also, the process further diminished my dwindling respect for doctors in general.
I went from what we used to call a GP to an internist to a urologist to a proctologist. There were numerous x-rays, scans and other diagnostic tools, hard and soft-tissue. In particular, I remember two sessions of tears-to-the-eyes prostate milking for testable fluids.
The weeks passed in slow and too vivid spasms, literally and figuratively. Multiple doctors had no cures and no causes. My wife and I remained nervous. Plus the time and money costs mounted.
This ended up not being one of the chronicles of dogged diagnosis the Sunday New York Times Magazine or the TV series House feature though. In contrast, there was a specific problem and remedy, one that illustrates another reason to be skeptical about medical treatment.
Coincidental to the agony of the right testicle was a follow-up on my shoulder dislocations that had been under control since the introduction of the chest expander. The neurologist who was checking for internal damage up top found the problem below.
My tests for him were fine and he was a trifle bored after the quick session. Then he asked whether there was anything thing else. Suspecting he could do nothing the gang of other generalists and specialists had failed at, I said something about my painful right nut.
He seemed to light up and asked for some of the information the other doctors had gotten. He was particularly interested to hear that we had recently moved. He asked if I carried heavy furniture and I noted that there was a huge oak and Masonite desktop that I protected my much smaller wife from handling because of its weight. I had discussed the marriage and move with the other docs, who dismissed such personal detail as meaningless.
He then asked me to turn around and lower my trousers. My testicle was in moderate to high pain at that moment, but he changed that. He placed his thumb firmly on a spot in the lower back and gave me instant relief.
He had properly and precisely figured that I had severely strained major nerves from the spine leading directly into the scrotum. What would now be called acupressure proved his hypothesis.
Moreover, he pulled down a chart and out an anatomy book. Those nerves run like two huge hands with very long fingers from sacral vertebrae 2, 3 and 4 directly into the external genitalia. The major pudendal nerve structure was the cause of the pain.
My immediate question to him was why didn't the large set of other doctors think of that. He allowed as that was a very good question, as the nerve plexus and geography are very basic anatomy they all had taken.
My solution was treating the damaged nerves with rest, massage, heat and cold. All the years later, I can still cause a flareup with macho behavior, but I know what to do for relief.
This instance at least did not lead to recommendations for unnecessary surgery and I did get relief. However, the months of fretting and pain were avoidable through what seems to be reasonable competence by the previous medical guys.
I am not a litigious sort and have never sued a doctor. However, given my experiences with bumbling diagnoses, I am not too sympathetic with plaints of the medical types over what they say are unfair suits and resulting high malpractice premiums.
No doubt, some people try to make big bucks off others for the smallest reason, or no reason. On the other hand, shunting patients into unneeded surgeries and other treatments because of incompetent or lazy diagnoses may be all too common.
Medical doctors in the main enjoy, expect and demand high status and income in this society. As G Love has sung, "You got to earn it to own it."
Tags: massmarier, New York, health care, doctors, neurology, pain
In a state rife with DINOs, high-profile RINOs can be a welcome counterbalance. Unfortunately, our vacuous ex-lieutenant governor Kerry Healey has neither courage nor party loyalty in her decision to announce and un-announce her decision to run for Ted Kennedy's vacant U.S. Senate seat.
With this nation now consumed with thoughts of health care, it is not always best to divorce the subject from the personal. This is the second of a multipart post relating my wee private experiences in the wonderful world of medicine, a field too often conflated with medical science. Part 1 on not having hip-replacement surgery is here. I’ll cross-post this at Harrumph!
Now, let’s consider my shoulder operation.
In my early 20s, I was used to full shoulder dislocations. While there is a cliché that swimming is an injury-free sport, ask a swimmer. I had been a breaststroker, which tends to bring with it damaged knees and shoulders, including dislocations. Both of us on the high school team ended up with full dislocations in which the shoulder would pop out of joint. Joel’s went up by his ear and mine down by my rib cage.
With the nerve, ligament, tendon and muscle damage, the pain of each dislocation is, how shall we put it, exquisite.
Moreover, I had very stupidly body surfed at the tail-end of a hurricane out in the Hamptons on Long Island. Catching a great wave, I jetted well over dry sand, only to find my fingers embedded like a spearhead while my body continued. That wrenched the shoulder into its components.
The catalyst for getting the dreadful modified Putti Platt procedure came less than two years later. I was helping a girlfriend move apartments. As it happened she was a Ph.D. in medicine and the woman with us was an M.D. They both saw me turn white from the pain as my shoulder popped down below the joint. I was wearing a tee shirt and they being medical sorts knew exactly what was up (or down).
The pain was blindingly intense. All I could think of was lessening the tearing of the body parts by getting the ball back in the socket. I grabbed my misplaced right upper arm with my left hand and pushed it away from my ribs. Sure enough, this caused the ball to be sucked back into the socket or rather yielded to the straining muscles to relocate it. In that moment, I went from agony to bearable severe pain.
My companion said it was time, past time, to stop avoiding the surgery just because I had never had any operations. Moreover, she did her research at NYU Medical and knew the best orthopedic people or professors who knew them. I had an inside track to the best evaluation and cutting.
She wangled an appointment with a famous joint surgeon for the evaluation. He literally wrote the books.
That didn’t start well. The man was a serious artiste. He heard my tale and quickly and very firmly informed me that I was totally wrong, that I could never have relocated the shoulder solo. In fact, he pulled out a text on orthopedics what proved that in writing. I would have had to have gone to a hospital, had weights applied to the limb and let the doctors guide the joint into alignment.
I looked at the front of the book to discover that he was the author, the expert. Yes, indeed, his circular citation was to convince me that my experience had no validity. My laughing surprised him but did nothing to change his mind. However, when he learned that the two witnesses had an M.D. and Ph.D. in medicine between them, he allowed as how this might be the first such case he had ever heard of for self-relocation.
Regardless, he did agree that the big cut and shortening of muscles and tendons was the only way to go. However, he limited his surgeries to wrists and hands, so he wasn’t the guy.
My girlfriend though personally knew the head of ortho at NYU Medical. He agreed to supervise the operation, unofficially doing it though the residents nominally performed these.
I was resigned, sort of. I was quite the drama queen about this, even having to travel to St. Vincent’s emergency room nearly my West Village apartment with the shakes a couple of nights before entering the hospital. Another girlfriend was there and went with me, only to hear that it was sheer nerves.
There was the tableau like a Viking funeral in the small hospital ward. I thought little of it because I was being so self-centered, but in retrospect it was absurd and theatrical for a small parade of current and former girlfriends visiting before the surgery to wish me well and bring me treats. Several of the men in the other beds later commented on how nobody was visiting them and I had enough attention for everyone.
The night before the operation, a nurse shaved my chest and arm. Then in the morning, they painted me with iodine solution and drugged me (demerol maybe?). The drug was powerful and I recall being paralyzed as they wheeled me to the operating room. The ceiling needed scraping and painting all the way down the long corridors.
Then in my diminished capacity I had the realization that my surgeon, the head of the department, should have been in scrubs, but I saw him walking toward me in street clothes. Wearing his wonderful, full smile too, he slapped me on my good shoulder before talking. He said they had discovered an infection two beds down and could not risk opening up my pecs and shoulder. He was sending me home.
My medical girlfriend was at her apartment a few blocks south. When I could dress and walk, I went to tell her. It was a tiny Rashomon moment. I ranted at high volume and speed, displaying my anger at being finally emotionally and intellectually ready for the scalpel, only to be cast out. She recalls as clearly that because of my heavy sedative and painkiller, I spoke and moved in extreme slow motion. It was all she could do to keep from laughing at me.
One would suppose given the seriousness and randomness of the dislocations, I would head in as soon as I could. However, a wreck intervened. While visiting a high-school chum in New Jersey, I was a passenger in his car when a drunk hit us as we parked. My friend got a broken hip but I just had another dislocation.
Another high-school acquaintance was a lawyer who advised us, telling me to get my shoulder looked at. I didn’t think that was necessary, but he convinced me. He sent me to an unusual orthopedic surgeon, one who specialized in children and one who didn’t like to cut unless necessary.
Until those visits, I had heard only the three different operations to prevent recurrent shoulder dislocations. The wrinkles were things like whether they also put in effect a hook and eye in the ball and socket to keep them mechanically fixed. No doctor had said there was any non-surgical alternative.
This doctor, however, fixed me with a $25 chest expander — four large springs on two handle grips — like they advertised in the the back of comic books. Using it for long periods daily in effect did what Putti Platt’s operation went for. Tightening the pecs and tendons made it much, much less likely that the ball would disengage from the socket. I also learned to ease off if anything felt loose, as in opening my arms to spread a bedsheet or doing some acrobatic moves under those sheets. Stay still, tighten up and keep bones where they belong.
So, I have friends, mostly swimmers and including teammate Joel, who have had one or two of those operations. A lot of pain, permanently limited lateral motion and a long recovery (and some ugly scars) are included. The chest expander and hundreds of hours, maybe thousands of them, of exercise were a better deal.
So in this time of passionate concern of health care, are there any lessons from such anecdotes? I would think they might include:
There was a time when I trusted doctors implicitly. Of course that was the same period when I truly bought into the magic of transubstantiation. I was a kid.
As an adult moving to different cities and seeking physicians for preventative and curative reasons, I learned differently. I have also learned a hard lesson for a fairly introverted person. It’s tough, but you have to be your own advocate if you expect reasonable medical care.
Tags: massmarrier, NYC, health care, doctors, surgery
Note to WBZ: Unfortunately, you are still too 20th Century.You should make the whole debate, plus clips of each question available on demand on your site. Uncool. And now a follow-up, BZ has posted vids on their 38 site. They make you look and work for it, but its there. In addition to hiding the important, they don't allow embedding.
| Excelsior | J'accuse! | I Know Better | Systemic |
 |  |  |  |
| Tom Menino | Kevin McCrea | Michael Flaherty | Sam Yoon |
There is a time and place for political analysis and criticism. Not now.
Yes, there will be a nauseating excess of MSM hagiographies and lionizations — and crass calls to pass the health care takeover to memorialize his death.
That’s no excuse to demonstrate the same lack of restraint in the other direction. Not now.
She is as tasteless and dishonest and dishonorable as any. So, she'll likely wait a day or two, but certainly not until he's buried before piling on the lies and contorted extrapolations.
We know it will come from the many wingers. So, let's plan on dismissing those puerile attacks like so many flies at the picnic.
Instead, let's keep in the fore that Ted could have taken many easy ways out. He was born wealthy and connected. He could have gone corporate or foundation and cruised in comfort. Having been elected U.S. Senator, he might have been one of the many who ferried the bacon from D.C. to MA, earning adoration and re-election for cash.
We at Left Ahead! have a special and extra show this week on Thursday, August 20th, at 10 a.m. The new executive director of the Boston TenPoint Coalition joins us.
Rev. Jeffrey Brown has the ambitious goal of leading the effort to minimize urban violence in Boston, mostly the youth-on-youth variety. It was over a decade ago that the Coalition led the successful effort that became the Boston Miracle.
He'll tell us what's changed on the streets and in the larger communities and how his group will address the challenge.
You can listen live here Thursday at 10 a.m. You can check that URL later or go to Left Ahead to listen to or download the show.
Today, the Department of Justice has filed a response to a legal challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act, as it traditionally does when acts of Congress are challenged. This brief makes clear, however, that my Administration believes that the Act is discriminatory and should be repealed by Congress. I have long held that DOMA prevents LGBT couples from being granted equal rights and benefits. While we work with Congress to repeal DOMA, my Administration will continue to examine and implement measures that will help extend rights and benefits to LGBT couples under existing law.It's about time, past time really. May this toll the first death knoll on Bill Clinton's biggest legislative blunder.
Just as Boston's mayor and bicycle czarina are working at reducing cars with their pollution, street clogging, noise and mayhem, bike hate seems never to have been stronger. Moreover, after almost being hit a couple of times by clueless cops by BPD HQ, I sent a letter about it to the commissioner. It's more business as usual all around.I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your recent letter expressing your concerns over driving habits by Boston Police Officers.In other words (nicely), buzz off.
I regret that you have had any unpleasant encounters, relative to traffic laws, with members of the Boston Police Department while travelling in the city. Certainly, all officers should obey the traffic laws, unless they have activated themselves for a public safety reason. This should be the case across the board. They all receive yearly mandatory training at the Boston Police Academy, in which motor vehicle issues are clearly addressed. In addition, we have increased our focus on accidents involving a department vehicle and have a review board in place to monitor driving.
Again, I regret your experience and hope that the actions of a few do not reflect so poorly on the entire agency and its members; most doing a great job and serving the city and its residents well.
Thanks very much for bringing your concerns to my attention.
Commissioner Edward F. DavisI'm sure he'd love to know the date and time, the car number or license plate, the location and the infraction. If you deliver it by hand to the HQ, be very careful. The cops going in and out of the BPD lot are Boston drivers.
Boston Police Department
1 Schroeder Plaza
Boston, MA 02120-2014
Hello, Unfortunately, the RMV no longer holds improper operation hearings unless they are specifically requested by law enforcement. Thank you for using mass.gov/ WillSo, it is all the more important that the head BPD guy get a better picture of the example his men and women set. He thinks that all but a few are model drivers. Is that so?
