Speak Your Truth: Flu Shots

Email conversation about me signing a declination regarding the flu shot:

To Sue Deacon, December 6:

Good morning,

I am one of the volunteer doulas and I normally sign a declination for the flu shot. I have lost/misplaced in cyberspace the email of the woman I contacted last year for this. Would you be so kind as to point me in the right direction?

Thanks,

Pam

From Sue to Abby Melendy, Samual Mooneyham, me, December 6:

Sure. I am assuming you know you will have to wear a mask and that
Lynn and Sam are aware. You will contact Abby Melendy
978-630_6545
Abby.Melendy@Heywood .org
I will cc her and Sam on this.
Thanks!! Appreciate all you do!

Sue

From Abby to Sue, me, Samual, December 6:

If a declination is signed then a mask will have to be worn when in three feet of a patient especially a baby. If you are found to not be wearing a mask you can be excluded from working on the floor.

Abby

From me to Abby, Sue, Samual, December 6:

Yep. This will be my third year of mask wearing. Thanks!

Pam

From Samual to me, Abby, Sue, December 7:

Pam,

Have you signed the declination yet?  

I want to remind you that you need a mask while you are now on the unit.  

Sam

From me to Sam, Abby, Sue, December 14:

Finally signed it and emailed it in this morning. Wearing the mask is within 3 feet of patients, is it not?

Pam

From Sue to me, December 14:

Hi Pam

I think you need to check with Sam on when you need to 

wear the mask. I believe it has to be worn the whole time you are on

the unit as it is a high risk area.  

Please check with him directly on this.

Thanks!

Sue

From me to Sue, December 14:

Thanks, Sue, I will check with him.

Pam

From me to Sam, December 14:

Hi Sam,

I just wanted to double check on wearing masks. In the past I was only required to wear them within three feet of patients so I thought I'd better make sure before I go in and find out it is otherwise because I'm not. 

Thanks,

Pam

From Sam to me, Abby, Sue, December 14:

Pam,

I would prefer that you wear a mask at all times while on the unit.  You are right about it requires to wear it within 3 feet of a patient.  Due to infant having an immature immune system, I would ask that you not go into the nursery please.  

Sam

From an English perspective, I probably could have worded that last one better. Still, me being me, I probably wouldn’t have. In fact, I did look at it somewhat objectively, decided it might not be as easily understood by someone who does not know me as it is by myself, and let it stand.

Also from an English perspective, it seems clear to me that just having a Master’s of Science in Nursing and being a registered nurse and neonatal nurse practitioner does not mean you are very good at English. If I were writing Sam’s last response, I would have written it like this: “I would prefer that you wear a mask at all times while on the unit. You are correct about hospital policy requiring masks to be worn within three feet of a patient. However, due to an infant having an immature immune system (or due to infants having immature immune systems), I would ask that you please not go into the nursery.”

In all fairness, I realize that Sam probably is quite busy and does not have time, or even the inclination, to check his emails for grammar, punctuation, etc. Especially when the email in question is being sent to a lowly volunteer.

Such things do matter to some of us lowly volunteers. Perhaps they matter too much. At the same time, I remember sitting at an awards banquet not long before graduating from MWCC. My only reason for being there was because I was in the honors program. I had a GPA of 3.91 at the time and while awards were being given out, the nursing students often had their GPAs announced. Quite frankly, if mine had been even 3.5, I would have been embarrassed. Most of these people had in the neighborhood of 3.0. I get that some of the classes are hard. I get that some of these people were not traditional students in that they had children and a life outside academia. However, I also get that I am not overly fond of the idea of being treated or seen by a doctor or nurse who slid by with a 3.0. That’s a B average, for goodness sake. Average. If he/she did not get solid Bs, it means that for every A, there was a C. Do you want to know why mine was a 3.91? Because I got a B and a B+ amid my mostly As. And the B was because my mentor didn’t like me much.

Also, what good is being fluent in medical terminology if you are not able to adequately communicate in English?

This is what my declination looks like:

Just in case it might be hard to make out my reason to decline, it reads, “I fail to see the benefit of subjecting myself to the possibility of being sick for potentially several weeks in order to avoid the inconvenience of having to wear a mask for a few hours.”

Seriously. I’m pretty sure I’ve had the flu twice in my life. I’ve had strep throat a few times, I used to get tonsillitis like clockwork in the winter, I very rarely have a cold. I do have allergies but I can tell the difference between allergies and an illness.

Five years ago next month, I got a flu shot because I was completing a phlebotomy internship and I had to wear a mask otherwise. I think if I didn’t have to wear glasses, I might have just worn a mask but when you are sticking needles in people’s arms, you kind of need to see what you’re doing and when I have a mask on with my glasses, I often get foggy and can’t see as well as I’d like. I think if I had it to do over again, I’d ask to complete my internship after flu season. Still, the past is in the past and can’t at this point be changed.

Later that same year, I got a second flu shot because I was entering the flu season again as a volunteer doula at the hospital. I hate masks and just thought it would be easier to get the stupid shot. However, after that second shot, I didn’t feel well for about two weeks. For that entire year and the following, I felt like crap a lot. I didn’t have really full blown colds and I didn’t get the flu, but I just spent way too much time feeling unwell.

Since then, I’ve declined. Last year, I went in with Jonathan and Elizabeth when Rebecca was born and because they were personal friends, I went as a private doula rather than a volunteer because I thought it incredibly stupid to have to wear a mask around them when they hadn’t had flu shots either and I saw them on a minimum once a week at church and often during the week as well.

Let’s talk for a moment about how the flu spreads and how to avoid it. I’ve borrowed heavily from WebMD for this. It appears that the flu spreads from one person to another via the little droplets of goo that are produced when you cough or sneeze. This goo flies through the air and gets literally everywhere including other people and whatever surfaces are near by. If you breathe in the goo, or it lands on your mouth or nose, guess what? You’ve been infected. If you inadvertently touch the goo that landed somewhere and then touch your own gooey places on your face (think eyes, nose, and mouth) within 2 hours of the goo landing, guess what? You’ve been infected. Sounds like fun, eh?

What are the best ways to avoid catching or spreading the flu? Well, webMD has seven suggestions that they list before mentioning, as the CDC wants them to, that the best is a flu vaccine. We’ll get to that in a bit. Those seven suggestions are:

1. Keep your distance. Big duh on that one. I mean, seriously.

2. Stay home. Bigger duh on that one. One of my pet peeves is when people take their obviously sick offspring to church. Maybe they aren’t concerned about their own family, but I am about mine. Keep your sick self and family home, dude.

One of my favorite sick stories happened at the library in Bonners Ferry once. It doesn’t involve the flu, but it could easily have been that rather than what it was. I was at the check out desk and was very pregnant with Seth. I had Cedric, Amena, Daniel, Joanna, and Laura with me although Joanna and Laura weren’t right at the desk with me. This woman who can barely speak says, “I had to check out a few books to keep me occupied. The doctor just told me I have strep.” Are you freaking kidding me? You were just breathing and coughing and probably sneezing all over the library where I and my children were and you have strep throat? Stay the heck home. Seriously. Idiots abound.

3. Cover your mouth and nose when you sneeze or cough. Really. Do this. Don’t just cover with your hand which you can then go and touch things with and don’t just cough or sneeze into your elbow because it isn’t going to catch everything. Use a Kleenex or paper towel or napkin or bath towel or something. Cover your whole head. And then properly discard or wash whatever it is that you used.

4. Wash your hands—a lot. You think? Yeah. All the time. You need to wash your hands like I do. I wash them when I’m washing dishes or cleaning the kitchen or reading or cooking or watching Vikings (because, you know, they didn’t) or any other activity I happen to be doing. Wash your hands. Wash them so much you need to use lotion because they’re all red and chapped. Well, maybe not that much. Or maybe that much.

5. When you wash your hands in a public restroom: they have a whole list of what you should do in this instance. Basically, use warm water, hold a paper towel under an arm, use soap, sing Happy Birthday or the ABC song twice while you wash, and rinse. Dry, use the towel to turn off the water and then use a towel to open the door. Some people do this all the time. For me, it depends on how dangerously I feel like living at the moment. Generally, I prefer not to use public restrooms and I rarely sit on a public toilet seat, never mind touching the sink or soap dispenser or towel dispenser. I mean. Yuck.

6. Don’t touch your face. Within reason, here, you know? If you are in the shower and you need to wash your face, go ahead and touch it. If you haven’t washed your hands for an hour or two, maybe you should do that first.

7. Practice good health habits in general. You know, eat good food, get enough rest, relax, exercise. Basically, be healthy and don’t add to the stress of just living in this germ infested world.

Got it? Good. Just common sense. Which is another subject entirely.

Now, flu facts. Here is a poster that is on the door of the exam room in which Amena and I spent way too much time in October:

Let’s examine this. Up to 1 in 5 people get the flu. One in five. That’s 20% of the general population. If I am a woman of childbearing age and I am pregnant, I have approximately 1 in 3 chance of having a cesarean section. That’s 33%. So, if I’m a woman and I’m pregnant, I have a better chance of c-section than the flu. Based on that, I think I’d take my chances.

The population of the US is, according to quickly found information online, about 325,256,236 as of right now based on UN estimates. I don’t trust the UN but I’ll take that number. Out of that number, up to 65,051,247.2 people will get the flu. That means that possibly more than 260,204,988.8 people will not get the flu. Are we good so far? Okay.

More than 200,000 hospitalizations result from flu-related complications every year. So, out of the 65,051,247.2 who get the flu (even though that’s an “up to” number), 200,000 will end up in the hospital. That’s like 0.3% of all the people who get the flu. That’s .006% of the general population. Statistically, that is not a big deal.

20,000 children under the age of 5 are hospitalized every year because of influenza complications. I’m guessing that those are part of the 200,000 but I could be wrong. Let’s just go with the idea that they are. That’s 10%. Ten percent of those hospitalized are under the age of 5. I don’t mean to make light of a child being sick, but that’s 0.003% of those who get the flu and 0.006% of the general population. These are pretty small numbers.

And they get smaller.

Flu can be deadly for young children. In 2014-2015, 148 pediatric deaths were reported to the CDC. 148 out of over 65 million. I’m not even going to break that down.

90% of influenza deaths are in people age 65+. Same thing. I’m not breaking that down.

You can go to the CDC website and there you will find a lot of numbers and tables and what they will be telling you is that the flu vaccine helps prevent both deaths from the flu and people from even getting the flu. What they don’t really point out very well is that they really don’t know. They don’t really know how many people get the flu because not everyone who gets it goes to the doctor. Not everyone who gets a flu shot reports adverse affects and even those who do often are told that their symptoms are not related to the shot. You can visit them here and see what they have to say.

What would the numbers look like without flu vaccines? Who knows.

There are some things to remember, though. For one thing, each year the flu changes. The flu shot changes. Each year the flu shots have vaccines for those flu strains the experts think are most likely to be dominate. What on earth does that mean? It means that even if you get the flu shot, you could still get the flu. It could be that these experts are completely wrong or that you were just exposed to a different strain or whatever. For another thing, it’s all just a bunch of guess work. They, meaning the experts, don’t really know how many people get the flu each year. They don’t really know how many people have adverse reactions to the shot. Even when someone reports an adverse reaction, it is not often recognized as such.

Don’t be a sheep and blindly follow the masses. Be a goat and do a little research. To me, the numbers, my own personal experience, and my general mistrust of the government just do not justify subjecting myself and my family to this. However, if at the end of the day you still think the flu shot is the way to go, I’ll still be your friend. I might think you’re crazy, and you’ll probably think I am too, but that’s okay.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a Billy Idol video to finish watching. 

Speak Your Truth

Good morning. It is a cold one out. I realize that it is colder in some places but when the thermometer says 0°F, it is cold. That is what it said when I went out to milk at 7:25. Previous to that, it was even colder. It might be slightly warmer than that now, but even if it’s 1°F, it is still cold.

This is from earlier in the month. Joseph was reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle to Maddie. She ought to love books and reading.

I would like to thank Megan Hill this morning for something she posted on Facebook. This is it:

“I was going to die, sooner or later, whether or not I had even spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silences will not protect you.... What are the words you do not yet have? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? We have been socialized to respect fear more than our own need for language."

“I began to ask each time: "What's the worst that could happen to me if I tell this truth?" Unlike women in other countries, our breaking silence is unlikely to have us jailed, "disappeared" or run off the road at night. Our speaking out will irritate some people, get us called bitchy or hypersensitive and disrupt some dinner parties. And then our speaking out will permit other women to speak, until laws are changed and lives are saved and the world is altered forever.

“Next time, ask: What's the worst that will happen? Then push yourself a little further than you dare. Once you start to speak, people will yell at you. They will interrupt you, put you down and suggest it's personal. And the world won't end.

“And the speaking will get easier and easier. And you will find you have fallen in love with your own vision, which you may never have realized you had. And you will lose some friends and lovers, and realize you don't miss them. And new ones will find you and cherish you. And you will still flirt and paint your nails, dress up and party, because, as I think Emma Goldman said, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution." And at last you'll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking.”

--Audre Lorde

“Your silences will not protect you.”

“…only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking.”

This morning I got an email that was looking for money in order to protest Trump’s election. This group wants to begin now and continue twenty-four hours a day, three hundred sixty-five days a year, to discredit Trump and everything he says and does to the point of impeachment. I just had to laugh at that. For one thing, I’m not giving anyone money for anything. For another thing, wasn’t Bill Clinton impeached? And what good did that do? Did he leave office? Please, people, if you want to be taken seriously, be serious. Don’t assume that everyone out there is going to be swayed by your sensationalistic words.

This is our pillar of used wax just out of the mold. You can see the mold to the left as well as another candle to the right (part of it is at the top of the new one).

I don’t know why that led to other thoughts, but it did. Probably because there was a picture of Obama in my newsfeed. I didn’t even look at the headline but I got to thinking about that whole birth certificate debacle. You know, go ahead and tell whatever stories you want to about how terrible he is. It just doesn’t matter. He was elected and that’s the way it is. And his mother, for the record, was a US citizen. Honestly, this whole thing should have been laid to rest years ago and yet it still pops up every now and again.

This is in action. I wanted to save it for some unspecified day but Cedric really wanted to burn it so we lit it. I'm not sorry we did.

It is 9:01 and we’ve got a fire going. It’s too darn cold not to. I’ve also got hot chocolate getting hot on the stove. I made some non-spicy earlier so Amena could take some with her to school and Cedric could have some if he wanted. I wasn’t going to make any for me but it’s so not warm in here that I think I might take a bath in it.

The other day, Saturday I think, I decided to melt the wax from old candles and make a new one. I hate wasting all that wax and we all love candles and Daniel isn’t here to make firestarters for us. Since I have the molds and the wick, I thought, why not? I also have a now-empty jar that I think I’ll fit with a wick and anchor and begin pouring the wax in it. Paul burns more candles in his office than we do in the rest of the house so that’s a good source for more wax, as well. Saturday’s candle is eleven or twelve inches high and about three inches square.

We are burning a bit of oak right now so I thought I’d check out information about different types of wood and how hot they burn. Turns out I didn’t know much about them. All wood produces about 7,000 BTUs per pound so what really matters isn’t the type of wood but how much it weighs. Five cords of oak is going to produce more heat than five cords of pine because it weighs more. Huh. Interesting.

I think I should have called this Wart Soap instead of Crunchy Granola.

I’m not entirely convinced. It seems to me that cedar produces a pretty hot fire and that oak produces a pretty not-as-hot fire. And I seem to remember that madrone, which is really dense, produces a pretty hot fire. I might have to do a bit more research. If I feel like it. In my spare time.

I can tell you that the wood this morning had to warm up before it would burn. I can also tell you that when we move to western Montana, we need to have wood storage in the basement along with an indoor winter barn for the goats. I can also tell you that my hot chocolate is hot now, I need to get some reading done today, I need to pick up some oil, I need to do something for the Court of Honor this evening, I need to take some pictures, and I’m sure there are other things that need doing that I’ve not managed to remember at the moment.

Have a wonderful day and don’t forget to speak.

This one does not get a title. Oops!

Good morning. We’ve had a very interesting past few days. Really, it has been a very interesting past few months about which I’ve written almost nothing. I have been very busy with life in general and school for Seth and Joseph, midwifery stuff for me, Thanksgiving, etc., etc., etc., but even when I’ve been busy in the past, I’ve still managed to write more often so it’s not just being busy.

Just a cool picture I accidentally took at church when I was planting a letterbox.

I don’t believe that speaking of specifics will help the situation so I won’t but I can and will say that I’ve been learning more and more about people and while sometimes this is good, it isn’t always favorable. More and more the desire to move west grows stronger. There are some things about New England that I really like and there are some people here that I really love. But while moving would mean leaving Joanna, Lincoln, and Maddie behind, I would be closer to more of my family and we can always visit and perhaps they would end up moving west as well. The future is certainly not certain, is it?

The view south from the French King Bridge.

Adam and Kim Olson moved from Massachusetts to Washington and they had one of Kitty’s kittens. Her name is Molly and she is the one kitten who looked the most like Kitty. She is a black and white tuxedo with less white on her face and more on her paws. Very pretty cat and very sweet. Amena told Kim that we would be happy to take her because they couldn’t. I agreed that I would be very happy to have her but I also knew that Paul would not want another cat. He didn’t want one and it has taken him four years to get to the point where he tolerates her in the house at all.

One of the ends of the French King Bridge. Specifically, the north west end.

Well, Molly was delivered last Monday and she spent the first two and a half days in the bathroom. After the first day of keeping the door shut, we left the door open but she remained in the bathroom. She had food, water, and her potty box so it was okay. The third day she began venturing out and didn’t hiss at anyone who went in the bathroom. I kept feeding her and talking to her and late on the third day she let me touch her. After that, it was a piece of cake. More or less. She would sit on my lap or on my shoulder and she was playing and just having a good kitty time. Except when it came to Kitty or Misty. Still, that’s to be expected because she was an only cat.

Joseph being Joseph in the Nativity at church Saturday.

Saturday, Kitty was on the brown couch and Molly was on a stool in the dining area when Paul came in and did not notice Kitty. He looked at Molly and said, “Hey, cat. What are you doing in here? You should be out catching things and eating them.” I suppose to someone who doesn’t like cats, the fact that they are both tuxedos might cause them to look very alike. I know Joseph called Molly Kitty a few times. Still, I thought it was pretty funny.

Later that day, as in after Amena and the boys were in bed, Paul finally noticed that Molly was not Kitty. I said, “This is Molly!” and went on to explain how it came to be that she was here. If it hadn’t been so late, he would have begun making phone calls right then and there to find her another home.

This is what a perfect night looks like. I was watching Billy Idol do "Postcards From the Past" while drinking hot chocolate with a candle burning.

Sunday Paul said that Devon would take her but kept calling people in case Devon backed out. I thought that Devon would be a perfect solution because he loves cats and his had gotten old and gone the way of all the earth so she would be an only cat in a quiet house. Paul said there was another family willing to take her but as soon as I found out they already have two cats, I said, no, that won’t work. They have an autistic son as well and I think that combined with two cats wouldn’t be so great. If there weren’t the other two cats, it would probably be fine. I’m not sure who else was on the list but anyone already with a cat would not have received my stamp of approval.

Devon came yesterday after work and took her home with him. He hadn’t been home long when he sent me a text saying, “The new owner just took over.” Twelve minutes later, “She’s a cuddle cat.” I think she’ll be fine. A part of me wishes that we could have kept her but that obviously was not meant to be.

Now I’m late for milking so I’d better get a move on in that direction.

Now Zoey is milked, the goats are fed and watered, most of the dishes are washed, and I’ve discovered that if you don’t want to fold clothes, you can put them in the washing machine and wash them again. Actually, I wouldn’t really do that just to avoid folding. I would, however, do it because they smell bad. Which is the case.

And, while today is one of those days I keep thinking of more I could expound on, I really must get on with other aspects of life.

Have a good day.

Thank You

Good morning! The chocolate is hot, the goats are milked and fed and watered, there is snow on the ground, there is a two-hour delay, I am almost done making a hat for Maddie for Christmas (I don’t have to worry about spoiling anything for her by mentioning that here, yet). Everything is pretty good in spite of the fact that the dishes are not done, the laundry is not folded, there is school today, and at the rate I am getting things written here it’s going to be a long time until I get to page 100 (this is on page 4, FYI).

Some pictures from Thanksgiving week.

I might not have bothered to spend any time here today if it weren’t for the fact that I find I have something I want to say that was just too long for a Facebook post (and, really, life should not be lived on Facebook).

She's an official bubble-blower even if you can't really see them in the picture.

I want to say “Thank you!” Thank you to all the people who supposedly liked the cookies that Paul took to the fireside and Christmas devotional last night. They were out of a bloody box, people. That’s the kind of stuff that people eat who don’t know how to cook. Thank you for encouraging Paul to buy more of that crap. Thank you. So freaking much. From the bottom of my heart.

This was so stinking cute! Elias was already asleep and Joanna put Maddie beside him and then covered them up with her blanket. Best buds!

If he hadn’t been in the kitchen making those things when I got home from Salem where I went to a prenatal appointment with Katie, I would have made gingersnaps. You know, the real deal. You know, with real ingredients like flour, eggs, butter, molasses, ginger; good stuff.

I just love this picture of Elias and his Auntie Joanna! He's such a cuddle bug! His Grandma Sorenson is going to really have fun with him at Christmas.

And here’s the difference: you know the three boys who live at my house? Well, together they didn’t eat a whole cookie. Cedric took a bite and didn’t take a second. Joseph took a bite and didn’t take a second. Seth took a bite and didn’t take a second. If I’d’ve made gingersnaps, half of them would have been gone before we left the house.

Part of our Thanksgiving spread. The real deal, people. Well except for the canned cranberry sauce. But notice the red bowl? That's the real deal. And, just to be fair, the pie crusts turned out pretty crappy. The fillings were all good, though.

That’s a big difference.

One you poor people who like boxed crap will never get to find out about.

Poor people. I feel sorry for you.