While Senator Clinton may have had no knowledge of the attacks on Obama’s offices and Web site it seems rather obvious that she has the most to gain from these crimes. Which crimes am I talking about? According to a Web site found here, Barack Obama’s Allentown office was reported to have been burglarized during the week prior to April 19, 2008.

During the invasion a police spokesman, Capt. James Stephens, confirmed that multiple laptops and cell phones were stolen. These computers held information regarding demographics that the campaign needed to target voters. Sadly, it has also been confirmed that his offices in California and Iowa have also been broken into. Then to top that off it appears that, according to CNN on April 22, 2008, Obama’s Web site has also been hacked into. This Web site is critical to the campaign and could be jeopardized since his supporters may hesitate to make further contributions that require personal information such as credit card numbers for fear of that information falling into the wrong hands.

Given that, I again ask who would most benefit by obtaining information from Obama’s campaign or from making it more difficult for supporters to donate funds? My basic instinct tells me that the one person who is determined to win at any cost is Hillary Clinton. So far it appears that she will do anything, say anything, (Remember the snipers) and allow anything all in the name of gaining the presidential seat. I am sorry but if she was too tired to remember this incident correctly she is definitely the last person I want answering the phone at 3:00 am.

While divorce and separation are usually the result of two parties being unable to continue to live under the same roof it is important to remember, when children are involved, you are not the only ones being affected by your decision. It would definitely be simpler if that wasn’t the case but when you chose to give birth and bring these young lives into the world you made a commitment knowingly or not to do what is best for them.

I acknowledge that in some situations removing them from a hostile environment may be the best thing for them but how much better to behave as adults and act in a mature matter that helps the children understand that they are not to blame. While this is probably the last thing you are thinking or feeling as you battle with your soon to be ex-spouse unless you act in a manner that is conductive to rational thought you might not be aware of the effect that your words and actions are having on your children.

Remember children are not sounding boards for your frustrations and feelings of disappointment. They need to feel loved by both parents, both set of families, and know that they are going to be taken care of and not abandoned by either. This is even more true of situations where there has been no legal tie of marriage. In these situations it is so easy for the father or the mother for that matter to simply take off and leave the children in the custody of the other parent. When this happens the remaining parent may find themselves in a financial situation that is ruinous.

Having gone through a nasty divorce many years ago, when my own children were teenagers, I know the long-term effects that not playing nice can have on them. While I tried to obey all the court edicts and attend the parenting classes for divorced parents and avoid saying anything negative about my children’s father that was not the case on his side. He blatantly refused to obey any court order rather it be paying the house payment (where he was actually residing as I had moved myself and the children away from there), attending classes, or abiding by the court’s restraining order.

At the time, living in a very small community, his barrage of lies and verbal attacks made life impossible for all of us. Yet, I believe it the children who suffered the most. Thankfully for us the girls had been raised with enough self-worth and love that they were able to survive but to this day they have next to nothing to do with their own father.

In other custody battles one can see how the children are affected when the father or mother fights paying child support. To them it is the same as saying I don’t care about you. The same is true when frivolous law suits and custody battles pursue. Unfortunately, it appears that it is common for the non-custodial parent to file claims for joint legal or physical custody in an attempt to delay court ordered child-support payments. Filing these requests, however, is not the real problem. It is the knowledge that the suit is just a tactic to harass and hurt the custodial parent. This is especially true of the parent who has never met the child or who has shown no interest the child from an early age. Thankfully, the court will take into consideration the fact of child support paid. If the non-custodial parent has not paid any child support or has sought to escape payment the court is likely to deny them any contact with the dependent child.

On the negative side, however, again this means that the child is denied the opportunity to know the non-custodial parent and may well feel that they are not important enough or worthy of that parent’s love.

With all this said my point is that when divorcing yourself, from a situation legal or otherwise, the parties need to take great care in what they say about the other partner in front of the children. They also need to do all that is within their power to insure that the child is allowed to spend time with both parents and is made to feel as secure as possible. This should entail a time each day for the child to spend with both parents if at all possible and this time should be spent keeping the child on a schedule that is similar to the one they shared when you were all living in the same house. That would mean that if the child is with the father over dinner time and home work time that this routine would still exist. If the mother has the child when the routine would involve their cleaning their room then that task is still done.

I firmly believe that the more ordinary that divorcing parents can keep the child’s routine and the more that the stress can be kept out of the picture the better for the children involved. Remember you are not divorcing the children, whether you are leaving the home or not, and that means that before God you are still responsible for their emotional, financial, and physical well-being.

Tags: custody, custody battles, children, physical custody, emotional well-being of children, legal custody, sole-custody, joint custody, child support, non-custodial parent, custodial parent, parenting classes

As a wife and mother I cannot but note how much harder it is to make ends meet as the price of gasoline, home energy and food prices continue to soar out of control. My question is why would Congress allow so many of our farmers to move their focus from feeding the hungry to making ethanol? It is a proven fact that it takes more oil to make a gallon of ethanol than to run an automobile.

It is also to be noted that this change in focus that has fueled these out-of-control prices has also began causing food riots in poorer nations. With that in the back of your mind think about what you are now seeing in the news. People here in Missouri are stealing copper from our public telephone lines and new home constructions. They are rustling cows to feed their families and local food pantries have been stretched to their limit. Even federal programs like WIC are showing signs of limiting the commodities they offer and setting higher qualifying standards.

Along with the difficulties in making enough money to purchase food we now faced with a major slowdown in the economy that has led to massive layoffs so people are being forced to do whatever they can to survive. This has been shown in a number of ways one of which is the increase in the number of burglaries and armed robberies that are being reported.

Perhaps the most frightening of these to the majority of us is the home invasion variety. A friend of mine sent me a note to tell me about another friend who had been a victim of one of these. The experience was not only terrifying but brutal. Could this have been avoided? Perhaps not, perhaps yes if the person perpetatrating the crime had not felt desperate to survive.

To protect yourselves you can spend $1000 or so on a home alarm system and then dole out monthly payments to the alarm service or you can move to an area where you feel that this type of crime would be less likely. However, wouldn’t it make more sense for the government to take the situation under control and put a moratorium on the construction of vehicles that are considered gas-guzzlers and invest some of the billions of dollars that they are spending on this fruitless war in Iraq to create a new type of vehicle that could run on anything other than Arab oil? Brazil took the situation seriously back in the 70s and now are totally independent of foreign oil. What is wrong with the American people that we do not insist that our government secure our future by investing in our infrastructure and planning for a future free of the need for dependence on foreign governments?

My feelings are that as money tightens so are the dangers that we as a country will be facing but if the next president will take control there may still be hope for our country’s survival.

Tags: danger, infrastructure, survival, president, america, economy, investing, home invasions, alarm systems, foreign oil, gas guzzlers, ethanol, armed robbery, burglary

To each of us loss means something different. To some loss is most thought of in connection with material things, the loss of a home or wealth. To others loss is closer to home and deals with the brokenness one feels when they lose someone they love.

For my niece the loss of her soul mate and true love after 20 years and 4 sons was devastating. She knew that he wouldn’t have left if God hadn’t deemed it his time but still there was a certain amount of anger that he had left her behind. Yet, she knew that she still had work to do on this earth and managed to pick herself up and move on. I give her enormous credit that she was able to put her grief aside and focus on all the good that she could do on this earth until it was her time to be reunited with her one true love.

For my ex-mother-in-law the loss of her husband of 50 years was equally devastating but she has been unable to get past it and daily lives her life missing him and wanting to die. What a waste of a life that could be so helpful to others.

For me? To date God has been good to me and my soul mate and children are still with me. That is not to say that I have not lost people that I cared about but never have I had to deal with the loss of someone that I had lived with day to day and loved beyond measure.

What surprised me then was how hard I took the loss of our pet, Frankie. True we never viewed him as just a dog. We got him when he was 2 weeks old, the runt of the litter and abandoned by his mother. He was only 8 oz and no one expected this feisty little guy to survive. However, we took him home, bottle fed him and loved him and he was the best friend any of us could have ever had for nearly fifteen years.

The brokenness that all of us felt was unbelievable when we knew that we could no longer let him suffer when he couldn’t stand on his own to go to the bathroom and his big brown eyes begged us to help him. I never knew such heartbreak as when we stood there saying good bye to him as the vet administered the medicine that would end his life. It was so hard to be there but there was no way we would let him leave this earth without being surrounded by those who loved him.

It has been nearly a week and thinking of him still brings on the streams of tears but now we can remember the joy he brought to our lives as well. We will get through this but I know that if this was so hard for me to deal with I will be a total basket case if God calls my mate home before me or decides to take one of children or grandchildren. I pray that if that happens He gives me the strength to be as my niece has been a positive and strong person so that those around me can handle the pain they are also forced to deal with.

So why did I write this? I guess so that people out there know that they aren’t alone in experiencing the pain of loss and that there are different ways to handle that pain. I hope that all of us can look to a stronger source than ourselves, in my case it is my God, and come out better people for the pain we experience.

Tags: loss, pain, god, brokenness, heartbreak, surviving loss, death, pet death

It seems as if not a day is going by when the American consumer is not faced with yet another cry of doom and gloom from the economic factors that control our economy. How much of this is due to the poor leadership in Washington and how much to the natural ebb of flow of economics still appears to be uncertain. It cannot be denied, however, that in the last seven years of the Bush Administration’s war on Iraq, or as they choose to call it Terror, the trillions of dollars that have been spent has not benefited the average American consumer.

In the last several months we as Americans have been subjected to fear from all economic angles from job layoffs, high gas prices, mortgage failures, and a falling stock market. This fear is being ingrained in the consumer and could easily lead to a great depression, worse even than the 1930s if consumers continue to hoard what little they have. Our economy is dependent on consumer spending so when we don’t spend more jobs are cut and the cycle of desperation begins.

In the 1930’s 25 percent of the population was without jobs. Currently our unemployment rate, while the highest in many years, is still under 6 percent. That means that we are not in a depression at this time even though there is little doubt that we are suffering an inflationary recession. Of course, if you listen to the current president he will tell you inflation isn’t too bad. Did you know, however, that the consumer index does not figure in fuel and food costs stating that they are to volatile to be included?

To show you what is now happening consider the following:

• By the end of 2007, 36 percent of consumer’s disposable income went to food, energy and medical care. This is the largest amount since record keeping began back in the 1960s.
• Economists are telling us that people are treating themselves much less often showing up in restaurant forecasts that state that 54 percent of all restaurants are reporting declining business and the government states that eating at home has increased in the last year for the first time since 2001.
• The economy has also forced grown children to return to their childhood homes after losing a job and/or being unable to make it on what they are earning. This has forced Mom and Dad to try and figure out how to make it on less as well.
• With the surging mortgage foreclosure rates waste management, thrift stores, and salvage companies are seeing less reusable items such as furniture and/or appliances as consumers are holding onto what they have.

This is just the tip of the iceberg though as one saw when Bear Stearns came down causing investors to fear a run on the bank. The problems are  multi-faceted, however, and include the housing crash, the credit crunch, and a loss of confidence among investors and consumers alike.

For those in the job market the fear of losing your job is causing you to squeeze your wallet a little tighter but for investors it means the credit crunch is keeping corporations from borrowing as easily they could a year ago. That is forcing them to delay big projects, which cuts into the job market putting more people out of work.

On a positive note, however, the economy has always had its ups and downs. However, this is the first time since 2001 that our future jiggled on the end of recession. That year though investors bore the brunt of the downturn as the stock market adjusted to balance the excessiveness of the 90s technology boom. In this instance, all survived because consumers were fortified with tax rebates and encouragement from their government instead of the doom and gloom that is being broadcast on all news stories today.

So, even while we are not in a declared recession, this time around (mainly because it takes two consecutive quarters of shrinking economic activity to be declared) the pain is no less real. Richard Sylia, of Stern School of Business, believes that this current financial crisis looks like the worst one since the great depression. However, he adds that this doesn’t mean that this current crisis will be anywhere as bad “since Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is a student of the Depression and appears to be steering the Fed toward avoiding the mistakes of back then.” Additionally, being part of a global economy should help to insulate us to a certain extent. This is something that was not the case in the 1930s when the depression was America’s problem alone.

On the other hand, Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan stated in the Financial Times that “the financial crisis would be the most wrenching since World War II and would only end when housing prices stabilized.”

To help the economy to this point the Fed’s have slashed interest rates. A good thing for people needing to borrow money but not so good for those who are relying on the interest they earn on their savings. Then too we can look forward to the upcoming tax rebates and tax breaks for businesses, even though this money must be  borrowed since our national debt is in the trillions of dollars already. Overall, though economists believe that something has to be done soon to slow down the number of foreclosures which are the cornerstone of the economy’s woes.

Basically, it comes down to the fact that if we wish to avoid a recession and its effects financial institutions are going to have to provide the needed credit to keep the economy moving forward. If they don’t we all lose.

Tags: great depression, economic downturn, credit crisis, foreclosure, recession, national debt, economic cycle, alan greenspan, federal reserve, tax rebates, interest rates, ben bernanke, richard sylia, stern school of business, stock market, bear stearns, mortgage crisis, unemployment 

When interviewing for that position that you so desperately want, careerbuilder.com  says that there are fifteen mistakes that you must avoid.

1. Don’t shotgun out resumes to jobs you are not qualified to accept.  Instead aim for those positions that fulfill your career goals and for which you are trained. 
2. Don’t automatically send out a video resume. These are often of no interest to hiring managers who have no desire to see you act. However, if the position is one in which you will be acting then a video resume would be called for. 
3. Never assume that you are on a first-name basis with the interviewer even if they are younger than you. It is considered appropriate to wait until the interviewer provides you with their first name and gives you permission to use it. 
4. If you really want a position it is best to keep your private life private. Make sure that you have nothing embarrassing to be found on MySpace or Facebook. 
5. Make sure that you are prepared for the interview, don’t wing it. Every hiring manager will appreciate the effort you made to find out about the company that you are hoping will hire you. You should know what the company’s product or service is, who the company president is and where the company hopes to be in 10 years. This along with an idea of how you can fit your skills into their corporate structure will help you appear more practiced and passionate than candidates who are not prepared. 
6. Definitely dress for the part that you hope to acquire. That means you should not dress too sexy, too casual, or too outrageous. In addition, be aware that cheap and the overuse of perfume can often be a turnoff to the interviewer. 
7. Don’t just apply for any job. When you do find the one you want though go after it like an athlete in training. 
8. Don’t just answer the interviewer’s questions with a yes or no. They want to hear a direct response from you to the questions that they ask. In answering it is permissible to support your point with specific examples. Remember, that talking too much portrays nervousness and/or the inability to deliver a direct response. 
9. Do not appear unprofessional by suggesting that the interviewer contact you at an inappropriate email address such as letsparty@aol,.com . 
10. It is important that you keep your resume short. A ten page list of all your accomplishments is a huge mistake so try to abridge your efforts into a more manageable version or the interviewer is likely to put it to the side as too much trouble to review. 
11. Make sure that you don’t forget to network with those people who can help you. Jobs are often awarded on the basis of who recommends you or on who you know. 
12. Don’t be afraid to ask for assistance in finding the perfect job for you. In actuality, asking is one of the best things you can do and shows you as a person of courage who really wants to get the job that you are applying for.  
13. Don’t forget to thank the interviewer for their time regardless of the outcome. This should be done in the form of an email to the hiring manager. You can use it as an opportunity to make another impression on him that may move you up on the list of possible hires. In some cases you can ace a job interview and even get a job offer only to have it revoked by a carelessly worded or inappropriate thank you not. 
14. Also important is that you do not bad mouth your last employer. No matter how bad he was remember that the person interviewing you must look out for the best interest of the company that you want to hire you. If you bad mouth one employer they may well wonder what will keep you from bad mouthing them if everything doesn’t work out the way you want it to. 
15. Lastly, be prepared with a list of good questions. Not asking open-ended questions is a sure-fire way to show that you don’t care about the company. Questions like “Where do you see this position going?” or “What is going to make the person who takes this position successful?” are good possibilities that will make it look like you have given the position a lot of thought.

I sincerely hope that this recap of Careerbuilder’s information will help you to achieve your employment goals in an economy where jobs are becoming harder to find.

Tags: employment mistakes, careerbuilder, employment goals, economy, interview questions, networking, resume

Given an over 150 point drop in the Dow Jones last week one can only be amazed that the government is looking at spending more than $11 billion to perform the first high-tech census in 2010. However, that is not the worst of it since due to technology problems an additional $2 billion may be needed to train and use this new technology and there is still no guarantee of accuracy. One first indication that there was cause to worry was seen when door-to-door headcounters couldn’t figure out their fancy new handheld computers.

So what did these gadgets promise to do? Well, initially, the computer system was to have had several functions:

1. Workers would use the handheld computers to verify every residential address in the nation, a process that is crucial to ensuring an accurate count.
2. They would use the computers to collect and transmit information from residents who failed to return the census forms mailed out by the government.
3. The computer system would track and manage workflow for all field operations.
4. Harris Corp. would provide technical support for the computer system.

It must be acknowledged, however, that the census has been mandated by the Constitution to take place every 10 years and its success or failure could have widespread repercussions.

Why is it so important? Well, these figures are used to apportion the 435 seats in the House of Representatives among the states and states and many cities use census data to draw legislative districts.

Additionally population numbers are used to calculate billions in state and federal grants for transportation, education and other programs. For more information regarding the Census, you can go here.

Thankfully, the uncertainty surrounding the new census has caused a congressional agency to hold hearings about the issue and Census officials are considering a return to using paper and pencil to count every man, woman, and child in the nation.

The main problem with the use of these high-tech devices is that the Census Bureau needs to hire and train nearly 600,000 temporary workers but interviews and government reports describe the agency as totally unprepared to do this. First the Census Bureau has never had to deal with the kind of $600 million contract involved with the handheld computers and secondly, it has already been discovered that the computers were too complex for some temporary workers who tried to use them in a test last year.

Given the complications with the proposed high-tech devices it appears that the current administrators of the census and the ones to make the above contract are seriously trying to scale back the use of computers in an attempt to keep finances in check.

If you are eloquent and powerful you may be able to match Barack Obama’s inspirational oratory unless you are a thorough redneck. If you are then I am sure you are going to side with Hillary Clinton as she continues to pound away at what Obama’s ill advised pastor had to say.

On the other hand, while you are free to choose where you worship and who shepherds your flock I for one am the first to admit that there are things said from the pulpit that I disagree with. However, that does not mean that I have any intention of leaving my church. I agree with the vast majority that is preached, especially the parts directly from the Bible and I love the fellowship of the other people who attend. I believe that same to be true Obama. He is a man who is neither black nor white and he was born at a time when race, ethnicity, or national origin should have nothing to do with his qualifications to be president.

You may ask why Obama stayed in the church, or why didn’t he speak up, when he heard the anger in the Pastor’s voice. The answer, I think, is that he did. He is speaking up in running for president. Offering a different approach than his pastor to the injuries of race and class is what his campaign is all about. So, while it is obvious that this church and this pastor has played an important role in Barack Obama’s life as a black American one cannot forget that he is the son of a white mother who was raised by white grandparents. I believe that Barack seeks an understanding of his black roots through this church and wants to understand the injuries that others of those roots have suffered.

I myself, met a young black woman this last week, which is unusual in southwest Missouri. She was from Florida and taking part in a Urban Solutions. I found her courage and determination to make something of her life a real inspiration. This woman was not looking to blame others for her past errors but wanted to be able to return to the inner city to mentor confused and misguided youths from making the same mistakes that she did. If only white America could get past their own fears of diversity I believe that life would improve dramatically for all of us. This is just one thing, that as a white American, I think Obama has to offer us.

That, to me, is clearly why the church was so important to Obama that even now he views his pastor as the uncle with whom he might disagree but never disown.

But if the church taught him about the pain and injuries of race, made clear what it was like to grow up on the wrong side of every line dividing privilege and access from poverty and denial, what it, and its minister, did not teach him was how to deal with those injuries. His minister’s response has been as all the awful excerpts reveal, tinged with bitterness, anger and resentment. His minister has embraced the very victimization and demonization that Barack Obama, in his speech and in his campaign at its best, has denounced.

The case for Obama, and ultimately he has to be the one to make it, is that there is a different answer to the injuries of race than the one his pastor offered to their congregation The answer is not to denounce America, but to embrace it, not to embrace victimization, but to denounce it.

Obama doesn’t want to denounce his pastor, his uncle, but in a way, he already has, both by running for president and by the way he has run. He just needs to say that loud and clear, and not because whites want him too, but because his failure to do so obscures a strength of his campaign for which he deserves credit.

Tags: obama, race, presidential campaign, barack obamal, hillary clinton, obama’s speech, urban solutions

Fear can be an overwhelming feeling of dread or a consistent uneasiness that keeps you on edge. Fear and/or phobias exist under several names including such familiar ones as claustrophobia which is the fear of enclosed spaces and acrophobia which is the fear of heights. However, just because you can put a name to a fear doesn’t make it any easier for the person experiencing it to deal with.

Fear has become not just an individual problem these days but is also being used by economists and the government to control the populace. You see it every day when you listen to the radio and are bombarded with the rising price of gas and find yourself worried about how you are going to continue to keep your car running so that you can get to work. You feel it creep up on you in the dark after listening to the news of home invasions and burglaries or after hearing reports of a rise in the terror alert warning system. The problem with these fears is that you have no power to avert the outcome of these situations and it is this very powerlessness that gives flight to fear.

In my life I see my daughter affected by panic/anxiety attacks when she finds herself in a crowded environment. I see my granddaughter, who is only nine, dealing with selective mutism due to her inability to cope with her intense shyness and fear of being judged by what she has to say. I myself really never felt particularly fearful until I was put in a hospital situation where others made the rules and decided to perform procedures and administer drugs without my having the ability or time to decide if I wanted those things to happen to me. As a result, I now find myself leery if not downright frightened of future hospital visits but at least for the most part I do realize that what was done to and for me had scientific reasoning behind it.

To deal with fear Marks, a behaviorist, in 1987 wrote that simple or specific phobias can be effectively treated with behavior therapy. (Marks, I. M. (1987). Fears, phobias, and rituals: Panic, anxiety, and their disorders. New York: Oxford University Press.) He suggests that phobic fear is a reflex and that conditioning techniques can help reduce the incidence of fearful episodes. He believed that a healthy fear such as of being bitten by a vicious dog is carried over to include a fear of all dogs. His remedy then became to expose the person afraid of all dogs to non-dangerous ones thus showing them that there is no danger and eliminating their phobic response. Of course, over the period of treatment it is mandatory that the person is not exposed to a vicious animal.

In some instances, however, patients are so fearful that a study by Watson in 1924 called for an alternative to classical conditioning called counter-conditioning. (Watson, J. B. (1924). Behaviorism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press). In his treatment Watson called for a relaxation response. This method requires the patient to substitute relaxation for the fear response when in the presence of the phobic stimulus. He believed that since relaxation is incompatible with anxiety that the person would eventually learn not to be afraid.

According to Joseph Wolpe (1958) counter-conditioning can also be used in a systematic way to very gradually introduce the feared stimulus in a step-by-step fashion known as systematic desensitization. This method not only trains the patient to physically relax but also to establish an anxiety control level to analyze the danger of the stimulus. This method is often what one sees with biofeedback where the patient is ensured of being truly well-relaxed before being subjected to the fear stimulus.

So while many people are fearful one proven known is from a German proverb which says: “Courage is not the lack of fear but the ability to face it.”

Tags: fear, coping with fear, economy, government, terror alert, systematic desensitization, joseph wolpe, biofeedback, j.b. watson, classical conditioning, i.m. marks, selective mutism, anxiety disorder, panic attacks, acrophobia, claustrophobia, phobias

Due to an auto immune disease that I am forced to deal with along with my dependence on Prednisone I was once again hospitalized this last week. During this visit to my least favorite place in the world I was appalled at the number of visitors who entered my room  who were carrying obvious diseases. These individuals were there to visit my roommate who had just undergone a very serious operation.

Having already been forced to endure the pain of my condition and the horrific treatments in the ER which consisted of inexperienced personnel trying to insert an IV, that they had no idea how to insert, in a person with Cushing disease and the accompanying fragile veins to the pain and indignity of having a nasal-gastric tube inserted, as well as, a catheter. Neither is an experience that anyone would opt for unless they thought they were going to die.

Once these horrific procedures were completed, it was necessary to wait another two hours before being taken to my room where more tests were scheduled. Blood technicians came in and drew blood, radiologists required horrible things to be swallowed so that Xrays could be taken and then nursing assistants seemed to enter every few minutes to check for vital signs. At this point, I wasn’t dead but I was thoroughly exhausted after almost 24 hours of pain. The continual jostling and pain continued to defeat any opportunity my body had to fight this attack on its own.

When all of the trauma had begun to subside and I was finally left alone long enough to sleep for an hour or two a lady was brought in who had just undergone a serious, complex operation. Being in the bed next to  her I once again was kept awake while they attended to her needs. This I understood and bore in silence knowing that they needed to care for her. With that in mind I also tried to ignore her steady stream of visitors who talked among themselves never leaving her bedside.

However, my frustration knew no end when her family chose to stay while being obviously ill themselves. If the illness had not been so obvious to me I could have dealt with their continual chatting but it took no mental giant to see how sick these people were. They were flushed, displayed a raucous cough, were sneezing continually and told their mother that they didn’t want to get too close since they were afraid of exposing her to their disease. During their visits it did not require a .mental giant to realize they while it was nice that they loved this woman so much but that what they were doing was dangerous. Common sense alone told me that if they really loved and cared about her that they would have called and kept track of her that way. Instead, they chose to spend hours on end sitting in our room coughing like there was no tomorrow. . As a result, I ended up fighting a bout of pneumonia which only made my recovery that much more difficult. 

In retrospect, I still can’t believe that despite the multitude of flyers placed throughout the hospital that discouraged flu carriers from visiting that these individuals had been allowed into our room. Where were the nurses? Where were the enforcers of protection for patients of the hospital? While this was occurring nursing personnel continually entered the room and never once suggested that these fragrant germ sharers leave the facility until they were well.

While I suffered in silence I know that many others experience the same situation when they are forced to use the hospitals in their areas.I would suggest that patients be more vocal about these visitors than I was. Perhaps, then and only then will change take place and the patients actually be safe.

Overall, the care I received was good yet there was a lot that needed improvement. Never have I seen such inexperienced care in an ER. My situation was not a trauma event like a care accident nor was it a situation where my heart had stopped pumping but it was considered a life threatening situation. I also noted that weekends were a deadly time to be stuck in the hospital as no one changed beds or provided for washing needs. You only saw them when the IV machine beeped and you paged them or at meal time. No one seemd to know what Peter or Paul doing or saying. Doctor’s instructions were not done quickly and necessary medications were held up by hospital protocol.

My advice, hospital admission should be your last option since good personnel are overworked and others just want to collect a paycheck for the minimal amount of work.

Tags: hospital, pneumonia, visitors, hospital admission, er staff, nurses, nursing assistants, medication, cushings disease, iv machines, iv insertion, nasal-gastric tubes, catheters, protect yourself