Wednesday's Digressions

I found this golf ball outside the San Antonio Zoo. I playfully dropped it down FG's shorts. She took it out and dropped it in my pocket.  LaterI sneaked it into her purse. She put in in my backpack...

• I think I have Lana Del Ray figured out: she is like some old science fiction movies- so bad she is good.  Or, she is the friend who could normally sing really good but on karaoke night she got nervous and took a Valium- and washed it down with a beer.
• We're going to see How The EDGE Stole Christmas with great seating and Willie Nelson. So yes, sometime after late November I can die whole and complete. 
• In that last sentence spell check hi lighted November. At a  glance it looked as though there was an e missing so I added one. It still showed as misspelled so I took it out to start over and that cleared the underline and the spelling was obviously correct. That doesn't make any sense.
• At the clinic where I work we treat people for the prevention of a disease. Since it is prevention it is more incumbent upon us that we educate the person we're treating about the possible side effects and adverse reactions of the first line medication we use. To look at it another way and more bluntly- if they were actually sick we would have to treat them with the medicine regardless, as the disease would kill them but they are not sick so we have to be very vigilant that we don't make them that way. This has an odd effect: the more you hammer home these possible problems the more patients are guaranteed to return to the clinic with every symptom in the book. Not only that- I feel sure I could correctly pick out the people who will come back complaining of problems before they even start the treatment. The more nervous type person and those with multiple vague diagnoses will claim side effects at least 5 to 1 over the average person.  Also, there is a much higher rate of people claiming problems from other countries- and if they are foreign the more educated they are, the more likely they are to believe they are having problems with the medicine.
• What is the difference between a side effect and an adverse reaction? If I take Claritin I frequently have vivid nightmares. That is a side effect. If I am given dye as a contrast medium during a CT scan I will go into shock. That is an adverse reaction. People have trouble seeing the difference and deciding which should be self reported as which. There are many drugs you really don't want to be hung with an allergy label (penicillin comes first to mind)  if it isn't true. Again, if you yakked once after receiving penicillin you are not necessarily allergic- you were sick.
• I rode for a little while the other night and could still walk afterwards. I was a little more stiff the next morning and hurting just a bit more but wasn't ready to kill myself so I might get to ride again. The pool is already to cold for me- it makes me draw up so bad my back spasms and aches so bad the work out isn't worth it.
• Dave Coullier had some good plastic surgery. I say good since he doesn't look like a monster but man he doesn't even look like himself. And I guess it is good if he is happy with it.
• Ask me sometime about the panties FG found in the laundry and about the ensuing hilarity.