Conscious Mom

This time, our fist ambulance ride. (Before you read this, we're all fine now.) After a relatively normal morning yesterday Maia went down for her nap early and slept a long, long time. She woke up crying and vomiting, with a high fever, then immediately fell back to sleep. Fast onset fever, vomiting, lethargy and sleepiness. Not good. Not good at all. In fact, red flagged every baby book as 'CALL DOCTOR IMMEDIATELY'. I tried the doctor... busy... tried again... busy. After about ten tries, the operator informed me that phone lines were down throughout the area and there was no possible way to get in touch with the doctor. I hesitated.... was I over reacting, kids do get sick... am I ...

Arrgghh!!!!!

The October issue of Discover magazine has an excellent article about air quality in lower Manhattan following 9/11, the health problems suffered by rescue workers and residents as a result. I am ashamed to say I hadn't given this issue much thought until reading this article. I knew some workers had respiratory illnesses but the magnitude of the problem escaped me. That may have been the EPA's very intention as Discover details the the agency's years of cover-up of air quality problems. Some statistics: 70% of 9/11 first responders have illnesses resulting from their work at Ground Zero; 130 people are known to have died of illnesses caused by air quality contamination; 70,000 New Yorkers have registered on a database that ...

I did have Maia get the second in the series of HIB, Prevnar, and Pediarix. I decided that since I will be working in a school all fall and winter, I'll be a big walking, talking germ bag, and Maia will need as much protection as she can get. All went as well as can be expected. She screamed during them, but was OK afterwards. No redness or swelling this time either, but her legs are obviously sore. She's moving less and occasionally cries and rubs her thigh.

It is almost time for Maia's second round of immunizations. Already she has had Pediarix (Hep B, Polio, Diptheria, Pertussis, and Tetanus), Prevnar (Pneumococcal pneumonia), and HIB (the most common cause of meninigitis in infants). Despite the tone of the rest of this post, I am actually pro-vaccine. They are a wonderful public health measure and I am forever grateful that we no longer have outbreaks of smallpox and polio. I'm up to date on all my immunizations. No, it is not vaccines in general I am concerned about, certainly not vaccines for adults and older children. It's the 20+ vaccines for infants that I'm uncomfortable with. Why? 1. Preservatives and other chemicals injected into tiny bodies with still-developing organs: After ...

Several weeks ago I wrote about my lack of success enrolling Maia in NH Healthy Kids, the program designed to make sure low income children have medical coverage. In order to enroll Maia I would have had to leave her without insurance for three months, then buy into the system at a higher rate for another three months, before finally qualifying for the rate designed for our income level. I finally figured out why this wacky system is in place: it's part of our government's love of private free enterprise. They need to make sure that the new government insurance program didn't undermine private insurance companies. This was probably obvious to everyone, but I can be a little slow ...

About ten minutes into Sicko I began to wonder why I had been looking forward to seeing it. Sure, I know all about the downfalls of our insurance-based medical care system and can rattle off the statistics: 50,000,000 uninsured, 18,000 annual deaths due to lack of insurance, million dollar salaries and bonuses for the insurance industry CEOs. But knowing the statistics and seeing people tell stories of losing their homes, spouses, and children due to denial of coverage are very different things. I felt sick, depressed, angry, helpless. And that was in the first ten minutes. I am glad I stayed until the end, though. Sicko tells stories that need to be told. After a while my depression was replaced by ...

Because I've been a teacher I have always had great insurance. Now that I am cutting back to part time work we have entered into the bizarre and frustrating endeavor of negotiating reasonably priced health care. This is either a Herculean or a Sisyphean task; I am hoping for the former. At least Herculean tasks are possible to accomplish. Originally I thought it would be easy to get health insurance for Maia. New Hampshire has a Healthy Kids program that allows low and middle income families to insure their children at low cost. Unfortunately, when I looked at the fine print, I read that children have to be uninsured for six months before they qualify. "SIX MONTHS!!!!" I said to the ...