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Medical Care USA By Delinda McCann

8/22/2018

I’m a little late getting fresh material up on my blog this week. I haven’t felt well. I knew something was off, but didn’t develop symptoms until yesterday when it became obvious I needed to see a doctor and get started on antibiotics immediately.

I called the clinic where I’ve been a patient for thirty-five years. This clinic is under new corporate management. The last corporation that operated the clinic came in more like a hostile takeover than with any intent to provide medical services. They left abruptly taking everything in the building, except the dust-foodles, with them. The doctors reorganized and set up a partnership with the current corporation. I was aware the clinic was having financial troubles and asking for donations from the community. I’m also aware that they received several hundred thousand dollars in donations.
The clinic has been featured in the local paper where the director alleges their problems are due to lack of support from the community, and will we please donate more money. They assure us they can continue to serve us if they can get enough patients.
So, I called the clinic. The appointment clerk is someone in an off-site office who doesn’t know where Vashon is or that it is an island served by ferry boats. The off-site clerk assured me that I could not see a doctor today, but if I call at eight AM tomorrow, I might get an appointment tomorrow.
“Can I make an appointment today to see the doctor tomorrow?”
“No.”
I finally got the clerk to confess that if I wanted to see a doctor anytime in the next four days, I needed to call at eight AM to see if they have an opening that day. This was unacceptable.
Not being able to see my regular doctor and really feeling too sick to take the ferry off island, I did what any modern woman does. I posted my problems on the local Facebook page and asked if anybody knew what I should do.
The best suggestion from the rest of the community was to walk into the clinic and ask to see the nurse. Okay, I walked in and waited almost an hour to see the nurse. She didn’t want to look at my symptoms. She let me sit before she explained in no uncertain terms that I couldn’t see a doctor, and if I wanted to see one, I could participate in the eight AM call-in system that works more like a lottery than a business protocol.
I decided to get concrete and specific. “Okay, I understand I can’t see a doctor here. Do you know of a doctor on the island I can see.”
“No.”
“Okay, so I need to leave the island. Can you call the ER at Swedish and tell them I’m coming in?"
“No. I can’t do that. I don’t recommend going there because this isn’t life threatening.”
I hung in there. “Okay, what I need from you is some sort of workable game plan. Can you tell me where I can go to get a prescription for antibiotics.”
Finally, she suggested I try a urgent care clinic off island.
I took the ferry and got in to see a nurse practitioner, who glanced fearfully at my infection and called in a prescription for an antibiotic.
My next challenge was to get on a ferry-boat that would get me home before the pharmacy on the island closed. I managed to catch my ferry and get the anti-biotic. It took me a total of ten hours from the time I started looking for help until I was able to get the medication I needed. By this time, the infection was much worse, and I’d wasted a whole day. I took my pill went to bed and slept for twelve hours.
I still need to see a doctor to find out what is going on that I got so sick so fast. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, I have a relationship with Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. They can get me in tomorrow to see a doctor and assess what is going on.
My experience is the state of medical care in this country. The problem really is based on profits. The local clinic tries to save money by not staffing for same-day patients. Well-patient checks are just more profitable than dealing with sick people. I suppose well people are more pleasant to deal with. The clinic staff may have thought I was being cranky, asking them if they had a list of referrals for patients they couldn’t work in to their schedule. I insisted the nurse answer my questions about where I could get appropriate care. They will certainly bill my insurance for more than my brief chat with the nurse was worth.
For years, I’ve watched the progress of the policy of having for-profit corporations provide human services. The practice seems to work for the corporation. They’ll get paid for my visit to the clinic yesterday, but they didn’t provide a service other than the two minutes the nurse spent trying to get out of talking to me.
We need to make changes. Clinics do need enough income to pay their employees, but they also need to provide appropriate medical services. The type of profiteering I see locally is totally unacceptable.

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The Deadly Divide: Basic Philosophy By: Delinda McCann

8/11/2018

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My mother-in-law valued competition. She bought her boys competitive games. She encouraged them to do more than their brothers and rewarded the one who picked the most berries or pulled the most weeds. Winning was valued. This worked pretty good for the oldest. The middle child couldn’t do better than his older brother, so he beat up on his younger brother, and that was winning, so it was okay. You know, the youngest of those boys never won. He was four years younger than the oldest. He was smaller. He never got the reward, but he grew up to be a good person despite never winning.

I was raised by two parents who liked to parade their children in front of others, then go do their own thing, leaving us to take care of ourselves. To make matters worse, mother always told us she was a great cook. This was a case where we never would have figured that out on our own. In self-defense, we took up cooking as soon as we could reach the food. Survival in my family meant that my brothers and I had to stick together. We learned to cooperate and look out for each other. Whomever was home at five PM started dinner. I often started dinner, then my brothers would come and finish cooking it while I did my homework.

Hubby and I arrived in adulthood with two very different approaches to life. He claims one reason he married me was that he liked the way my brothers and I helped each other out. The cooperation just felt better.

Over the years, I’ve noticed that when my brothers and I see something that needs to be done, we do it. Hubby’s brothers will have to stop and think about whether they should do a job. Will they win? What will the reward be? Is it the right thing to do? They will do something just because it’s right, but it takes a while for them to figure that out. Meanwhile, I’m standing with my mouth hanging open, wondering why they didn’t do their chores.

My mother-in-law’s goal was to teach her boys to work so they could be successful and they managed to be successful at a time when it was easy for white males to achieve success. Since they like to make comparisons, we’ll look at how they’ve done with their competition-winning philosophy compared to those who grew up cooperating. Money, education and status wise, both families are about the same. However, those who cooperate, have had less stressful lives and, I think, more fun despite the tragedies that come with life. I’ve certainly never seen anything in scientific literature on life success being related to having a high need to compete. A work ethic is beneficial but whether you choose to compete with others or cooperate doesn’t seem to be a factor in life success.

As Hubby figured out by the time he was six, the problem with competing is that someone loses. The system is constructed to produce those who lose. Those who lose may not be the one who doesn’t work as hard or has less innate ability, but someone who may be younger or female or have some other status that places them at a disadvantage. Hubby eventually became as experienced as his brothers and equally strong, but that sense of having continually been the loser in family activities has sent him in a different direction from his brothers, and he isn’t really friends with them.

Now, there is nothing unique about either my upbringing or Hubby’s. Some families emphasize competition and some emphasize cooperation. These are just different values. We see these values played out in society. Some people cooperate and some compete. These are simply values people have.

The important part comes with making judgements or allowing your own perspective to color how you see someone else. I have no idea how many times someone has been really angry with me, thinking that I’m competing with them when my goal has been to cooperate. I understand why they are upset, sort of. If I am successful at something, in their mind, I must be attempting to make them lose. However, I never ever think someone will see my actions as attempting to put others down, so when I look up from my successful task and say, “look it’s working” I’m always taken by surprise at others’ anger. I thought we were working toward the same goal and forgot that those who compete must look like they were the one who reached the goal first.

I think the misunderstanding between competition and cooperation, is at the root of much of our social conflict. Those who are focussed on competition are afraid that someone is going to make them lose. They absolutely cannot see the person who jumps into a task beside them and starts hauling dirt as someone who is going to help.

Part of attempting to save our communities, and ultimately, our country is going to be recognizing that people have a different approach to life. Nobody has to have a meltdown over people who are cooperating. Each of us needs to be aware that others are different and recognize that our enthusiastic attempts to be helpful are not always appreciated. It’s hard, but some of us need to take our cooperative efforts to a group where we will not be a threat to those who are trying to win, even when we all may have the same goal. We can reach our common goal by allowing each other to work in the way we each value.

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Victoria BC & S. Vancouver Island Vacation By Delinda McCann

8/3/2018

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Last week we took a four day vacation to Victoria BC. There is more to see on the south edge of Vancouver Island than just Victoria with its architecture and shops. We did visit the shops and admired the buildings.

Hubby commented on the regulations it must take to preserve the original architecture and keep the buildings clean. I picked up a brochure on the topic. Tourism more than pays for the costs of preserving the downtown area.

If one wants to see strip malls and modern buildings in Victoria they can travel out Douglas street for ten minutes and see all the modern you might want. I do recommend traveling outside the downtown area. Of course, everybody wants to see the Butchart Gardens, but we stayed at a B&B down the coast where we could walk on the beach and watch the Straights of Juan de Fuca.

Shopping! Moccasins make the best slippers in the world. They are made with natural materials and they're warm. The main motivation for this trip was to buy moccasins.

Beacon Hill Park is a short walk from downtown Victoria although we drove. This is from the bluff over looking the Straights of Jaun De Fuca. The Olympic Mountains in Washington State are in the background.

This picture was taken from about the same spot as the one above. I love this row of houses by the park. Wouldn't you love one?

I love all forms of native art. The totem poles have always captured my imagination. This one is in Beacon Hill park.

This totem pole reaching for the sky is near the bluff in Beacon Hill park. This picture was taken from close to the same spot as the houses.

The flower beds at Beacon Hill are something ordinary people could do. This is a water wise border, with an interesting color combination between the gold and magenta. The blues and greens in the bed makes the combo work.

Here is another water wise combo in the park. I was more interested in the Gerry Oak that grow here. They are an pre-ice age species and are relatively rare.

I was impressed with the use of the fuchsia as an understory plant in the park. The perennial fuchsia is inexpensive and prolific. It isn't fussy. this border is a mix of perennials and annuals.

I'm still in Beacon Hill Park. This peacock walked right past me. He didn't care that I was taking pictures of him. A loose peacock in a city park is a rare find.

Now, I've moved on to visit Butchart Gardens. It's really cool to have these world class gardens so close to my own home. This is the sunken garden. The beds here are very different from the ones in Beacon Hill Park. These are planted with mostly annuals with a few trees and shrubs for accent--much more labor intensive that the perennial borders at Beacon Hill. They also require more water.

This knot garden is at the top of the hill before going into the sunken gardens pictured above. Butchart Gardens were built over a rock quarry. Most of the dirt was imported when the gardens were built.

I love water lilies. These are in the sunken garden.

And here is the main fountain at Butchart Gardens. I need a better fountain in my garden at home.

When you get tired of looking at flowers at Butchart Gardens, you can take a 45 minute boat ride. The boat tour was $17 US. The boats leave every 15 minutes and there is never a line up. It was hot the day we were there so this nice cool boat trip allowed us to rest before visiting more of the gardens. We saw bald eagles and harbor seals from the boat, and there were lots of jellyfish in the bay. I found the trip educational as well as refreshing.

Okay, we've left the gardens behind and traveled down the coast to our B&B. The geology of Vancouver Island is different from my island. We saw lots of these outcroppings of basalt with very little top soil. I took this picture to show the lack of topsoil. This is what is under those gardens pictured above. This is why people on Vancouver Island don't get excited when earthquakes in the 4-5 range hit off their coast. The shock waves from an earthquake don't travel well through basalt so they actually shake less that areas with a deeper soil structure.

The view from the Lodge at Weir's Beach where we stayed. It was so quiet and peaceful away from the bustle of the city.

We took a walk on the sandy beach in the morning. Sandy beaches along this bit of coastline occur only in coves. Most of the shoreline is rock right down to the water's edge as seen in the distance.

Okay, who takes a picture of a manure pile? A writer. This manure pile is featured in one of my books. Also, remember what I said about little top soil. Composting is important in this farm area west of Victoria. The picture of the rock outcroppings was taken near here.

Small farms are common outside the city. This area grows mostly produce. I saw some animals. This road is where my heroine in Power and Circumstance lives. I took the photo from in front of Celia's house.

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Medical Care USA By Delinda McCann

The Deadly Divide: Basic Philosophy By: Delinda McCann

Victoria BC & S. Vancouver Island Vacation By Delinda McCann

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