{"id":8874,"date":"2009-10-07T11:23:47","date_gmt":"2009-10-07T18:23:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=8874"},"modified":"2009-10-07T11:23:47","modified_gmt":"2009-10-07T18:23:47","slug":"your-tv-is-lying-to-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=8874","title":{"rendered":"Your TV is Lying to You"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Therinth<\/a>, a burn ward RN.<\/p>\n

Having spent the past twelve hours hanging out with a bipolar person in their full blown manic state, i’d like to make a few comments. And i’m making this post public, unlike most of them here.<\/p>\n

(Perhaps them being manic wore off on me some, because i can’t get to sleep without saying some of these things.)<\/p>\n

I watched the first 30 mins of the first episode of House for this season. Let me list the ways this show is wrong: House attacks another pt, and is still bunked with that pt, and not moved to the violent psych ward with people who are manic with a side of stabby. They give House haldol. Haldol by mouth is like the unicorn. NO ONE HAS EVER SEEN IT. If someone’s fighting you, you think you’re going to stick your finger in their mouth to give them a pill where they can bite you, and\/or spit out the pills, or cheek them? No. Haldol is an IV\/IM drug. House’s manic buddy, who helps him out, is mildly plausible as a character, until he starts…helping House out. Rhyming, yes, too much energy, yes. Annoying? Hell yes. Responsible enough to help someone else follow through on a plot? Oh hell no.<\/p>\n

And also, the time he’s cuffed, no one is in the room with him, that’s UNLIKELY, given restraint laws these days, and when he’s in solitary…for reals? That room is *that* white? No fucking way. Not a single stain of shit, piss or blood? Unnnnnnnnnnlikely, my friends.<\/p>\n

House is usually enjoyable enough that i can suspend my disbelief. But if i’m going to keep watching, the next hour had better have him have his ass back in the hospital, where i can merely smirk at the thought of doctors hanging IV meds.<\/p>\n

So, while i’m babysitting this patient, stopping him from picking off all of his dressings with continual reorintation and redirection, what plays in the background? That new medical show, Three Rivers.<\/p>\n

Gah. I didn’t pay attention to the whole thing. I didn’t have to. What i heard was enough. The part where someone who doesn’t have insurance (and isn’t even an American?) needs a transplant. The doctor smugly tells some secondary character that, “You’ll find a way…” implying that somewhere there’s a loophole big enough to drive that truck through. I’m sure by the end of the episode it happened — someone reached up their rectum, and found a quarter of a million dollars that they didn’t know was there to fund the operation.<\/p>\n

I hazard a guess that this is what is wrong with America’s interpretation of their current healthcare system. Perhaps, not having recently been ill, or having always been well monied, you’ve never pondered what typical medical care is like, or how much it all might cost, were you without insurance. You think it’s all like it looks on TV. And even if the worst does come to pass, and you’ve blown through one liver and need a new one, well, surely someone will break some rules for you, too.<\/p>\n

No.<\/p>\n

You lose your job, find out you need coverage for cancer-car-wreck-diabetes-your baby-can’t-breathe the next day?<\/p>\n

You’re fucked. (Unless you pay into Cobra’s outrageous system. And when that runs out? Still fucked.)<\/p>\n

You never had a job with health insurance?<\/p>\n

Way fucked.<\/p>\n

While i’m so very damn proud of my profession, i believe we cannot continue to go honorably on. Not when the real deal is that people are denied care every day because of situations they cannot control. Even if they could control them — they shouldn’t be denied.<\/p>\n

There’s no Dr House or Grey’s Anatomy blowhard who is going to come down from on high to save you on your worst day, no matter how much TV you have viewed.<\/p>\n

You’re one job away from losing it all, or going bankrupt to pay for it. Not only you, but your children, your parents, your neighbors. (All you people who are getting by on Medicare, get off my fucking lawn unless you see the irony in the care that you receive.)<\/p>\n

We need a public option. We needed it yesterday. We sure as hell need it tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Please, if there’s anyone you can talk to about this, do so. Get the word out. We are all in this together, honest to fucking god, as humans on this planet, as Americans, as people who at the very least should have the wisdom and self preservation to hope their nannies and dishwashers won’t have untreated TB.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Therinth, a burn ward RN. Having spent the past twelve hours hanging out with a bipolar person in their full blown manic state, i’d like to make a few comments. And i’m making this post public, unlike most … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-whatever"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8874\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}