Despite my best efforts the past couple of weeks, Kaley caught the chest cold that I’ve been fighting. She’s ran a low fever (low 100.0’s) at various times each of the past 3 days. I don’t think there’s really anything we can do about it except treat the symptoms and hope for the best. I’ve been fighting this for the past 2 weeks and I theoretically have a good immune system. I don’t want to think how long it will take Kaley to recover.
Kaley and I, along with our friends Dave and Heidi, went to the Blenders concert yesterday afternoon. Despite only being able to stay for the first half, we had a wonderful time. I really enjoyed seeing Kaley’s face light up when The Blenders started singing their first song. When they got into their traditional Christmas carol section and invited us to sing along if we like, Kaley and I both took them up on their offer and sung along with them.
I don’t know if I’ve explicitly blogged about this here or not, but I know I’ve ranted about this in personal conversations with people quite a bit over the past 4 and half years. Especially since I’ve gotten so much firsthand experience with heath care providers. A story came out over the weekend that shows a perfect example of what I’m talking about.
First, some background: I’ve found it hilarious and have increased my cynicism concerning health care providers, which they require ethics boards to dictate what they can and cannot due. I understand that some decisions really come down to core values and health care providers can do some pretty horrific things. At the same time, how is this different than any other corporation? Can lives not be destroyed by decisions of greedy executives to not properly fund pensions for their employees just as much as a doctor who makes a questionable decision? Where is the ethics board for this executive? I find it hard to trust an industry that has ethics committees and panels built into their system to help dictate what their industry can and cannot do. What this tells me is that we should not trust health care providers to make ethical decisions on their own accord. Why should we, when they don’t trust themselves.
The story I heard about this weekend was about New York Giant’s wide receiver Plaxico Burress. A brief synopses: Burress decides to go out to a night club (read strip club) on Friday (Nov 28th). Being a celebrity, he decides he needs to protect himself so he brings with him a concealed (in his waistband) hand gun with him. Apparently the gun accidentally goes off and he is shot in the leg. He goes to the hospital for treatment. There are several things that don’t jump out at you from this. First, carrying an unregistered handgun in New York is a felony and is punishable by 3.5 years in prison. Second, night clubs aren’t allowed to let hand guns into their establishments, yet the bounce how allegedly knew about the gun let him in anyways. Then when he went to the hospital with the wound, the hospital did not report the gunshot wound, as they are required by law to do so. I can only assume that strip club bouncer and the hospital did not properly do their jobs because the person they were dealing with was Plaxico Burress (star wide receiver for their beloved football team, the Giants). Luckily New York City Mayor Bloomberg does not share the same ethical value system as the hospital and the strip club and wishes to prosecute Burress to the fullest extent of the law, because of the example it would send to the children who look up to celebrities like Burress.
In case you haven’t figured out why I’m blogging about this, I’ll be very explicit: the hospital who tried to cover up for Burress shared the same ethical value system as the strip club who tried to cover up for Burress. Are these really the kind of people we want to trust our health care decisions with? Thank god the medical profession realized this and set up ethical boards since they don’t even trust themselves.