Nu Ro

I forgot to represent properly in my “Trash to Treasure” post. I did not mention my college, The College of New Rochelle.
Nu Ro!!!
These are some of my friends: Lula, Roxy, & Maggie during our building wars.
I also didn’t talk about Youth Ministries, which I loved so much. This is the club that arranged all our “outings.”
New Rochelle boasts some alpha alumna, including the founder of UNIFEM. Most importantly, they boast strong powerful female graduates, and the campus is loaded with what I call “Alpha Nurses.”
Sometimes I hear that I’m “One of those” nurses.
I think I am, but I’m not completely sure who “those nurses” are.
I’m guessing “those nurses” are the over achievers, the type A personalities, the one that graduated with all the “Latin” awards, the one that could go to school and get those MD initials, but would rather be an RN with a PhD.
During college, I switched majors from Communication Arts to nursing. Before, I wanted to be a powerful Editor and was Editor of, Tatler, the College Paper, for a while. My mom replays the day I told her, “I could still be a journalist with a nursing degree, but I can’t be a nurse with a journalism degree.”
When I called one of my lifelong friends from college to tell him I was going to be a nurse, I heard a big groan on the other end and then I heard, “but you have such great grades Hill. I can’t believe you’re going to be a nurse (think of what your response would be if nurse was traded with “stripper, pimp, drug dealer). “
Then silence, and another sigh, “We can fix this..we can get you into . .. . insert my back up medical school here. . .for next semester.
“Fix what?” I want to be a nurse. End of Discussion. I know my grades. I believed in my potential.
I really like the way nurses maneuver. I like the way they practice. They’re pay is good, and they have less call responsibility. Call was the deal breaker.
I also like looking at a whole person. As a patient, I want to be seen as an entire entity. That’s why I’m okay with showing everyone more than most.
The College of New Rochelle, and its staff, helped make me. They gave me opportunity after opportunity.
Youth Ministries organized “midnight runs,” where missionary groups rotate bringing food and clothes to the homeless in Manhattan. The group gets the van and several cars, and they go to specific drop off points.
Battery Park is a different world at 12am than when it is 12pm. Mole people do exist, and so do card board neighborhoods.
Nobody ever gets that America, or that NYC, in the brochure.
Don’t get it twisted. I love NY. I love the spas and the culture and the food. I love the music and the nightlife options, but everything has a flaw.
I love talking to the homeless. They see EVERYTHING. They have a unique perspective.
My community nursing class worked with writing transitional programs for young homeless women at Hale House. I still write programs suggesting how we could restructure our public services to improve long term outcomes for these women. I’m saying I want life change, not now change.
“Feed a man, he’s full for the night. Teach a man to Fish and he can feed himself forever.” Remember this.
The best gifts I’ve gotten through life have been the knowledge that was shared with me. I think the best gifts in life are free.
I’m a blue angel. I’m a CNR girl. They get the credit (or blame?) for helping create me.

The Death of Common Sense

It’s book recommendation time. Don’t have time to read? I’ll be your crib notes.
The title is “The Death of Common Sense: How Law is Suffocating America” by Philip Kay Howard (I'm specifically thinking you, JR, may like this).
I’d use his examples, but I have my own.
During Hurricane Katrina the evacuation of EVERYBODY was ordered.
Unfortunately, it’s just not that easy. Some hospitals had the capacity to remove their patients and get them to safety. Others, meaning most, did not.
Some doctors and nurses, due to their commitment to their patients, remained behind. They chose not to go home, grab their things, and run for their lives. My guess is they did this due to the understanding people they were caring for did not have the capacity to escape themselves. They wanted to save who they could in light of a tragedy and imminent danger to THEMSELVES.
These professionals have families too. They also have people who love them. However, they stayed behind to treat other people’s families.
When the lights went out, when the cooling system died, and the food ran out, they still had patients. Everybody was still waiting for help, an evacuation, medical supplies, that hadn’t come.
I’m sure they did what they had to do to save as many lives as they could.
After the waters had cleared, three of these healthcare professionals, an oncologist and two nurses, were charged with a wrongful death suit.
One patient’s family alleged they had administered a “lethal cocktail” to their elderly, decrepit family member. The family wanted to be compensated for THEIR loss.
Where was the family when this happened? Probably, safely somewhere else. Who was by the dying woman’s bedside. These professionals were there. Then they got sued and dragged through court.
The suit went to court, it tied up our judicial system, and our taxpayers money. That could have been spent elsewhere.
In the end, the two nurses said they would both share what they knew about the oncologist. Then they gave some details to the grand jury, but not enough to take the oncologist to trial. Charges were dropped.
Did anyone really think they would sell each other out here?
I’d call this The Death of Common Sense and How It Impedes Our Right to Life
Some rights can and have been exercised, ex. Civil Rights. I encourage individual’s or groups to reclaim our “right to life.”
Philip Howard states “ New rights aren’t rights at all: they are blunt powers masquerading under the name of rights.”
He states, “Handing out rights was supposed to provide justice in a fragmented society” then he proceeds to explain, “special interest groups can define the scope of its new power through the courts, not through elective representatives."
Maybe the right to universal health care should be proven through the courts. Insurance companies are legally protected from criminal litigation.
Our health care providers are not. Again, insurance companies get a pay with astronomical malpractice insurance costs; however, in seventeen states (New Hampshire included) they can be civilly sued for “delaying care.”
How much do you think a person’s life is worth? I’ve met plenty of people who have a case. None of them will sue. They won’t even allow me to mention their names.
They’ve all ready fought too many battles. They’ve fought for payment and lost. They’ve searched everywhere for funds. They think they’ve lost it all. What they wanted was to spare themselves from disease.
Maybe they wanted a prophylactic oophectomy (just in case ovarian removal) when genetic testing showed they have the gene after their mother died from ovarian cancer, but the insurance wouldn’t pay. When they started feeling bloated, uncomfortable, and tired the insurance didn’t think it was grounds for an ultrasound, forget about a CT or PET. So they waited, and waited, and waited, until the suffering was too much, only to be diagnosed with metastasized ovarian cancer and given months to live.
Maybe this happens.
They all ready have their death sentence. Now, they just want peace and quiet with their family. They have picked their battles. They won’t step up, they are all ready too beaten down.
I understand, I pick my battles all the time, but this should never happen to me or to anyone else.

Houde- Watch out for DrX

Healthy Hill Update- By Dad

***This is from a man who told me as a child I had brown eyes because I had "shit-for-brains."*****
Hi to all
Where has the month of November gone. I hope everyone had a greatThanksgiving. It's my favorite Holiday and I finally found out why. I was born on a Tuesday and came home on Thanksgiving. It took me 52 years to learn that piece of Trivia. As always I will start with the good news.
I didn't gain any weight this Holiday. The bad news is neither did Hillary. The good news is how many people do you know that have survived 2 bone marrow transplants. I only know of a couple that have survived 1. Hillary is doing it! As sick as she is right now she is always looking ahead to better days. As after the first transplant we had a healthy Hillary party. She is starting to plan the next one, It beats planning the alternative. Her 100 days are up on Jan 18th. It just happens to be the same date as her 1st bone marrow transplant!! How much of a coincidence is that! She has decided that her party should be on Broom Hockey weekend at the Charlestown Winter Carnival. The first weekend in February. We always have a lot of people around and have a good time.
But here is the coincidence. I was on the charlestown Recreation Committee 26 years ago when we decided to re start the winter carnival.
A friend, Tim and I had watched the movie Hot Dog and thought it would be great to have a broom Ball tournament to get all the people out of the warm homes and enjoy the winter. Heather and Hillary were just 6 months old. We decided that our kids should have more to do in the winter than just play basketball. We want to be sure that we had enough things to do to keep the community involved in cold weather sports. This Year is the 26th annual Charlestown Winter Carnival.
We have had Magicians, Story tellers, Sleigh rides, sliding contests, dances, etc but the biggest draw has been Broom Hockey. Hillary wants to play again in 2009!! She told me that yesterday and i bet she does that!
I hope everyone is reading Hillary's Blog. I honestly believe her will to live is being helped by the fact that she has a story to tell. You can see the many emotions she is going through each day. It's a good thing she is writing because she has amnesia from the adavan. She has been very sick for the last 3 weeks.She is painting a much more rosy picture. She has gone in to the hospital for fluids because she gets dehydrated because she is throwing up so often. She still has a fever and they can't find what is causing it. They think it is in the sinus.
Can you imagine having a sinus headache for weeks straight and not have any relief except sleep She says her bones ache. I wouldn't want to remember either. Some how she is finding the strength to continue.I watched her on Thanksgiving. She was starving, ate well but couldn't hold it down. It very hard for me to see her like this. The next minute it seems all is well and she is back typing on her blog.
Thanksgiving was tough around here. We had everyone home as we had
hoped. Pierce had a bad cold and his fever spiked at 11:00pm Heather and Allen took him to the ER where they noticed his chest was swollen so they took an X-ray. It showed an enlarged heart. OH shit here we go. They rushed him up to Dartmouth where the cardiac specialist told them that it is normal for someone that has had open heart surgery to have an enlarged heart. They followed up with their doctor today. All seems ok.
It was just a bad cold. When I was told that at 2 in the morning I thought my heart would stop.
It's never a dull moment anyway. I think my updates help me get it off my chest so I can deal with the next things. At least I have work ahead, things to do to keep my mind busy. I don't need to think how bad the economy is. I have enough to worry about so I'm not going to sweet the small stuff. I was supposed to take Hillary to Boston for her weekly check up today but I got sick. I can't be near Hillary. Nancy took another day of work. The trip and test takes about 10 hours and exhausts
everyone.
Well Hillary is more than half done the 100 day isolation. I think it's day 53 now. Thank you all for caring. Hillary says she does not want to look at how many hits she is getting per day on her blog but I will tell you it's a lot. Her writing is giving her relief. Thanks to everyones great input. She loves to get comments back. Thanks for helping all of us. Your prayers and support have been sent from heaven. We are being carried right now by our friends and by god. We just have to keep
looking for good times to come back.
Thanks: Vic, Nancy, Grace and Patrick, Allen Heather and Pierce, Jon Xander and
Hillary

Trash to Treasure

I rob construction sites for their garbage.
I shouldn’t say rob, since I am a builder and have worked in excavation, so I do, legitimately belong on the building site.
Usually, when I step on a construction site, people assume I’m “the bank.”
That’s the kind of economy we live in folks. Everybody thinks I represent the bank that bought the foreclosed property, and sometimes, along with my father, I do.
It is a rough market out there.
But no, I like construction. It’s in the blood.
I’m not a super recycler hippie fanatic, but one man’s trash is another’s treasure.
I’ve been building play areas out of discarded materials or portions of demolished buildings for as long as I can remember.
Some people see left over culvert, I see a tunnel to crawl through. Tires make great swings and obstacles for a course. PVC pipes could be make-believe telescopes or tunnels to shoot golf balls through. The stands holding the electrical wires placed in a newly constructed home makes a great table. Old concrete can be used just like pavers. It’s all in the eyes of the beholder.
The ideas are endless. I could go on and on and on. I know it’s a little unorthodox, but if you’re broke you have to work with what you have. I also don’t think I could think in the box if I tried.
Remember, “behaved” women rarely make history.
In 2002, I joined the “Bronx River Project” through Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice in the Bronx. The goal was to rehab an old, abandoned concrete facility into a park. This particular area was severely lacking in the amount of “green space” required under building code.
Here is what YMPJ’s Website says: One of the sites included in the Bronx River Greenway is the Concrete Plant Park. When the City was going to sell the abandoned concrete plan to a private developer, YMPJ worked with other local groups to prepare a community supported alternative and fought vigorously to get the city to turn the site into a public park. The city broke ground for the construction of the park in fall of 2006. YMPJ continues to monitor the remediation of the land and the construction of the park. CDAP is also investigating the possibilities of turning the abandoned Cass Gilbert designed railway station at Westchester Avenue into an entrance for the park, and conducted a community visioning workshop to gather proposals from residents in the December of 2005.
This area also is close to the former home of Amadou Diallo.
Is anyone familiar with the name of the twenty-two year old immigrant from Guinea?
No, maybe you’ll recall the incident where a young black man raised his wallet on his door steps to show ID to a group of white, plain clothed cops and ended up being shot 41 times.
Yes, even the police are scared in this “hot spot,” and a black wallet is automatically assumed a weapon.
From the local’s side, people were outraged at the stereotype and the injustice of law enforcements’ actions, and the police are NOT WELCOME back in the neighborhood.
The consensus is, they can be governed by themselves if the cops are even misbehaving.
My friends used to joke that if there was ever a problem, I’d be calling 911. They said maybe someone would show up for a white girl.
Some of them have “white voices” just in case this situation ever arises and they need help.
Malcolm Gladwell covers this in “Blink.” This book discusses “rapid cognition” or “Thinking and decisions that happen in a blink of an eye.” He talks about how the shooting events happened in “Seven Seconds in the Bronx.” He’s my favorite author.
Did being in this area scare me? No. I was there to help. I was openly accepted. What’s misunderstood about the hood is that the people who get shot “deserve it.”
Let’s go with Darwin, the weak, the bad, are weeding themselves out.
Anyway, I volunteered with some friends. My duty was to help clean what the kids could not. Over 10,000 tires were dragged out of a ½ mile of the Bronx River. I couldn’t take two steps without finding a needle or condom.
I also tutored, inner city kids I felt were smarter than me. The slogan for the group “Free minds. Free People.”
I think anybody living in this area deserves some respect and definitely, a break.
Since my time there They’ve expanded.See more at http://www.ympj.org/
Moral of the story, good can be done anywhere, with anybody, and with nothing but some creativity and compassion. There is proof everywhere if you focus on the positive. Flip the script and get your visual a little twisted, and you’ll see opportunity exists everywhere, even in our waste and even in our ghettos.

It's all in my head

DF PATIENTS: Valet is only $10+tip with your patient card. That’s the blue card, learn it, love it, and carry it everywhere.
If you’re going to be there over 2 hours, you might as well use valet.
If you are an in-patient, have your social worker “validate” your card and parking is FREE.
Also, DF gives a $200 grant for being a patient in their facility. You can get this in gas cards. Again, discuss this with your social worker. As an alternative, you could also ask your clinical coordinator.
Feel free to ask me questions in you want answers. My personal email is hill.stpierre@gmail.com
Now back to me.
My sickness is all in my head.
Probably in my sinuses in fact.
I had a CT at DF yesterday.
I haven’t gotten the results yet.
I think it may scientifically confirm what has been said about me. . . .I am snotty.
What I’m coughing up is “normal flora.”
If the sinus idea pans out, I’ll be seeing an ENT at the Farber.
I have a favorite ENT. He works in Claremont. I’d like to pick him up and take him with me to every hospital I go to, but no, I need to meet a new one.
I was also told to get good, old fashioned rest.
I’d rather have a pill. That would be much easier.
However, I am posted up in bed today.
Even as sick as I felt, comparatively, I didn’t feel THAT bad. Christmas is coming.
X and I “Christmatized” the house on Saturday. I baked cookies for him on Sunday. Decorations and cookies are requirements for Christmas with a 5 year old. He NEEDS these traditions no matter what.
It also could be viral, which sounds terrible to me. It will last longer and can’t be treated easily.
Either way, everybody else has caught it, and now they’re all laid out.
Multiply that feeling times roughly two consecutive years and then, possibly, you’ll understand what I feel like day in and day out. Sometimes I’m better and sometimes I’m worse.
I’ve found my new comfort food. Good bye honey buns. Those are gross and coat my teeth with sugar. I discovered sweet potatoes with marshmellows.
How did I miss this for so long? Where did this come from? What culture had it and didn’t share with me?
Anyway, that’s basically what I’ve eaten since Thursday.
Good news, I am feeling better. I feel like socializing. Please email or call. My friend Jill is coming to spend the night to help out. YAYAYAYAYA.

Ativan Induced Amnesia

Ativan, or lorazepam, apparently has a rare side effect I wasn’t completely aware of.
It causes amnesia.
Yes, amnesia.
I think some of my providers have assumed this is a good excuse for my attitude (I call it my “bronxitis”).
It is for real.
I’ll tell you how it feels.
It is eerily similar to the “Samantha Who?” trailer.
All the sudden, you’re back and aware, and people are telling YOU about YOUR LIFE.
What was specifically the most scary were the stories of me outwardly ranting and lining people out.
I always thought I was a happy little patient.
I thought I was safe from my misbehavior while drugged.
Apparently not. Black-out Drinkers, imagine your black-outs extending for 6 weeks or more.
It’s scary enough to wake up and wonder, “Oops, how did I get home and what did I do before I got there?”
Then, you talk about it with your friends, they remind you of events, and everybody has a good laugh.
Not everybody was having a good laugh about me.
I stole my bro-in-laws contacts, but couldn’t talk straight to answer his questions. He was some kind of pissed. I returned them when H1 (Heather) retold me the story. I was wondering why my eyes had suddenly gotten so bad.
I also dragged her to Sears and The Container Store to design for the house I was working on when I started my treatment. Don’t remember that at all.
My husband and my mother informed me I lined out my specialist, Alyea, at Dana Farber. He said one of my trigger phrases, “Just trust me.”
No, sorry. You’ve got the wrong girl. TRUST is not really in my vocab.
I told him absolutely not. I don’t remember what we were talking about. I assume my trial drugs, because I remember running the AIDs Vaccine trials over in my head.
There is a reason you don’t hear about the AIDs Vaccine anymore. It’s because all the trial recipients got a new, genetically mutated and resistant strand of HIV.
Then they died.
This happened in Africa. In the US there is an oversight board called the “IRB.” This has so much red tape most innovative ideas don’t get off the ground.
The IRB rejected a research request to question imprisoned “would be” suicide bombers because it may retraumatize them.
Are you serious? I may have approved lobotomies, ECT, or open heart surgeries to see if they have them.
Anyway, trials in America are SAFE. In the future, I may just TRUST my doctor.
Anyway, whatever I did, it scared him.
I requested to see him to “say hi” and get a good look at who this man was when I got my mind right. I wanted to apologize.
He came, and was it my imagination or did he hide behind his nurse?
I wouldn’t be surprised if I scared him. Watch out for hurricane hill when I get mad. It’s not often, so I must have a lot of aggression pent up.
I have been wanting to ask my specialists if patients do yell at them all day.
On more than one occasion, I’ve had doctors look downright scared to give me information. The defensive body language does not help.
I really need to ask someone about this. I have another example. Maybe I’ll tell it later.
Alyea is a rockstar doctor. Don’t get what I’m saying twisted. He’s smart, he’s charming, and he’s got me taken care of.
Lucky me, I know how to deal with strangers running up and thinking they know me.
Usually, they think I’m Heather or they think Heather is me.
I think it’s hysterical to watch people run up to my sister and start talking only to realize that the woman who looks like me, talks like me, and dresses like me is not me.
This has startled even the most stone face doctors.
Anyway, amnesia during treatment is real, and during this period, it is best to leave EVERYTHING up to someone, anyone, else.

Hi Everybody

I'm doing fine. I'm just tired from a long, exhausting day. I'll update you all tomorrow.

Ladies, thank you for the comments, but you didn't really think any women could go through what I have with out some body image issues?

It's just not one of those things I announce, but just so everybody knows, I think this is a huge issue with patients. It's expecially damaging, because comfort with yourself and your body is so important during therapies, who a person looks should be the last thing on their mind. I should be worried about what's causing my hack.

To me, and a lot of others, the outside and inside are equal parts of the whole.
Much love all
ME