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Healthy Barbs

Barbara Brenner 1951-2013

Posted on May 11, 2013 by bbzinger

Barbara Brenner passed away peacefully at home on Friday evening.

Funeral services will be held in San Francisco, with burial in Fort Bragg. Arrangements are pending and will be posted Sunday on Barbara’s blog, Healthy Barbs (barbarabrenner.net), our Caring Bridge site (caringbridge.org, barbarabrenner community), and Barbara’s Facebook page.

Contributions in lieu of flowers may be made to the Barbara Brenner Rapid Response fund at Breast Cancer Action, 55 New Montgomery Street, Suite 323, San Francisco, CA 94105 (bcaction.org).

Thank you for all your love and support.

I Ramble … Barbara, I’ll miss you!

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“Behind Blue Eyes”

I Ramble … Piss on ALS! Who’s next

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This is ALS

Normal? – Content? – Thankful?

Last year, midway through ALS awareness month, I took those three letters and put them under a microscope for a close look. Normal popped up first because it has been fading daily from my world. While coping with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) normal begs to be redefined each morning and I’m not alone. As science continues to search for the ALS triggers, they continue to attack veterans, the young, the old, male and female. As we wait for a clue and a cure, all I can do is send out SOS’s when possible and raise my voice one keystroke at a time.

As muscles waste, ALS forces your body into a small box of Content. There are fingernails uncut and itches unscratched. Towards the end of this complacent journey we are left with the use of two objects, eyes and mind. Most ALS patients call this a blessing to examine the past and gaze the future. Without ALS awareness, people may think we’re normal but many will never understand involuntary daily content.

Thankful, of course I’m Thankful. With ALS you are going to require special care. My wife serves as my caregiver and forever thankful to her. I’m thankful she feeds me, brushes my teeth, baths me, shaves me, and combs my hair. When a spouse becomes a caregiver, true love is displayed most when they have no objections in their new role. I’m thankful for those simple one directional hugs, because I will always have that sense of feel.

So, I type onward with one finger, feeling sort of normal, somewhat content, but evermore thankful.

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Devoted to the End

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Tobii PCEye

The Tobii PCEye is the most advanced stand-alone eye control device on the market for operating a standard PC through eye gaze. Designed to dock under retail PC monitors, it operates with precision and effectively tracks nearly every user regardless of eye color, lighting conditions, environments or head movement.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 — In the near future, you’ll be able to navigate through Windows 8 using little more than your eyes. The new Rex is small enough to sit on your laptop between the monitor and keyboard. It can also comfortably attach to the bottom of most desktop monitors.

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Medical Marijuana Introduced

Patient – Advocate raided hours later;

On February 27, 2013, shortly after Sen. Jeff Clemens (D-Lake Worth) filed SB 1250, which would exempt seriously ill Floridians from criminal penalties for using marijuana with their doctors’ recommendations, the bill’s namesake – Cathy Jordan – was raided by the Manatee County Sheriff’s Department. Ms. Jordan cultivates and uses marijuana to treat Lou Gehrig’s disease. If you live in Florida, please email your legislators today and ask them reject this madness by supporting medical marijuana; they’d join 70% of Floridians who do so as well.

The Cathy Jordan Medical Cannabis Act, which has also been introduced in the House by Rep. Katie Edwards (D – District 98), would allow patients with certain qualifying medical conditions, or their officially designated caregivers, to possess up to four ounces of marijuana and grow up to eight marijuana plants. It would require the Department of Business and Professional Regulation to license and regulate medical marijuana dispensaries and cultivation facilities. Florida should stop treating the sick and suffering like criminals; ask your legislators to support SB 1250 and HB 1139.

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Bitter Pill

“The health care market is not a market at all. It’s a crapshoot. Everyone fares differently based on circumstances they can neither control nor predict. They may have no insurance. They may have insurance, but their employer chooses their insurance plan and it may have a payout limit or not cover a drug or treatment they need. They may or may not be old enough to be on Medicare or, given the different standards of the 50 states, be poor enough to be on Medicaid. If they’re not protected by Medicare or protected only partially by private insurance with high co-pays, they have little visibility into pricing, let alone control of it. They have little choice of hospitals or the services they are billed for, even if they somehow knew the prices before they got billed for the services. They have no idea what their bills mean, and those who maintain the chargemasters couldn’t explain them if they wanted to. How much of the bills they end up paying may depend on the generosity of the hospital or on whether they happen to get the help of a billing advocate. They have no choice of the drugs that they have to buy or the lab tests or CT scans that they have to get, and they would not know what to do if they did have a choice. They are powerless buyers in a sellers’ market where the only consistent fact is the profit of the sellers.”  Steven Brill

I Ramble … The difference between Hospitals and Shoplifters — Shoplifters will one day face arrest.

More – video – source: http://healthland.time.com/2013/02/20/bitter-pill-inside-times-cover-story-on-medical-bills/#ixzz2MmXOBig2

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