Thursday, April 14, 2011

Good Health and Diversity, Education and Legislation

I awoke today thinking of a few things that I needed to jot down. Medical Care my own and others, parent support for their children, and housing for the homeless families.
Medical Care to the South of Seattle
Because I live in Seattle, I believe that all that is good and wonderful resides within the city limits of the Emerald City. Seattle is not much different than the story "The Wizard of Oz" tells. It is not the answer to all problems, and the Mayor of Seattle is not in fact the ruler of all the Puget Sound, and there is medical care beyond Swedish and Harborview, for me these were the only two hospitals that needed to exist. And then Vally Medical Center and the City of Renton entered my life. So my attention has shifted South. Life and humanity is like that you know we stay focused on what we know until we know something else. So the Mason family has discovered Valley Medical. Anisa is an RN there, our visitor from Kenya who was very ill during her visit was healed there last summer and just recently my son, was kept there in the hospital for 8 days until they came up with diagnosis and cure and he is now well on his way to good health again.  Walking around VMC is much like the community it serves the diversity is everywhere, not just in food service and cleaning. This is not so at Swedish, where it remains pretty white. I am not sure if UW Hospital has improved but a few years ago, I asked if they had any African American nurses at all in that hospital. I was told yes.

While speaking of good health, today I was reminded from an article read, that cleaning the nasal passage daily is a key to good hygiene and good health.  I clean my nasal passage daily with salt water. I was a candidate for a second sinus surgery and then I found the salt water cure and 10 years later, I have not even had to visit the ENT physician.

My spinal fusion is healing well and I am pretty much pain free. The pretty much means that my age brings about some natural aches on cold and dreary days, and here in the Emerald City and its surrounding areas we get enough of those. After years of suffering horrible back pain, I went to a neurosurgeon, Dr. Srinivasan an incredible physician, and she fixed me up. The cost was prohibitive without insurance, and I feel so privileged to have had good insurance through the City of Seattle. The kind everyone should have. I  now am on Medicare and so far I am pleased with my coverage. I think that if a person has several pills and drugs they take it could cut into your income. I am not in that category and hope that cleaning my nasal passage with salt water daily will keep me from prescription and drug induced poverty.

Education and Parents
What are we going to do about getting children educated and ready for life as they will experience it. There are somethings that have changed the world, such as social networking and computers, and video games. They are here and they are good things to have.  There are somethings that will never change. People will always have to know how to read, I believe that the written word is precious, I love words and language to communicate.  I am volunteering at South Shore School and see the differences between children who are receiving supplemental learning and enrichment beyond the school and those who are totally school dependent for their learning.  Today, I am doing a workshop for parents, as parents we will have a good discussion on why parents make the difference.  I do not assume a parent knows what to do, so we will have several hands on activities for reading and math. Norman Alston will do his magic of transferring Fear No Number.  He is a jewel among us and with him living in the Puget Sound region, there is no reason for any child to not know and love math.

HB2048
Everyone needs to know the value of making a call to their State Legislators.  Too many who are so very  government dependent, do not make these calls. They are easy calls to make or notes to send. www.leg.wa.gov will guide you through the process of finding and contacting  your Senator and House Representative.  I am a former WA State Representative and know the difference the calls make in how we vote and how things get amended.  I will call my delegation and tell them to vote for HB 2048, within it there is the funding for programs and housing for the poor and in housing kids are helped through the traumas of homelessness.

What is that insurance they tack onto your credit card account?  When a person dies does anyone in the family know to collect on it? It seems like such a small thing about $2.00 but they have millions of customers.

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