Wild story

I was just speaking to my mother who was entertained this morning bya man who was interviewed on one of the morning shows. His story is that he shot a nail through his head with a nail gun and didn't know it. For a week. Crazy huh?

Nail gun injury more than a 'headache'
By Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News
January 18, 2005

When a nail gun recoiled and crashed against his upper lip, it felt like a baseball bat slammed against his skull and brain, Patrick Lawler said Tuesday.

Actually, it was much worse than that.
Unbeknownst to Lawler, a 3 1/2-inch nail had entered his lip, driven through bone and flesh and lodged in his brain, missing his eye by millimeters.

"I had a bad headache," said Lawler, 23, of Breckenridge, at Littleton Adventist Hospital, as he described the six days he walked around unaware he had a nail in his head.

"He's a miracle baby," Lawler's wife, Katerina, 27, said of her husband.

It was Katerina who finally insisted that Patrick get an X-ray of his teeth at the dentist office where she works.

"We could see the top of the nail but we didn't know where it ended," Katerina said.

Lawler went to an oral surgeon, then to Littleton Adventist, where a CT scan and X-rays showed the entire nail in striking clarity, ramrod straight inside his head.

Dr. Sean Markey, a neurosurgeon, and Dr. Seth Reiner, an ear, nose and throat surgeon, led a large team of specialists and nurses in surgery to extract the nail on Thursday.

Lawler now sports an incision scar across the top of his head from ear to ear, necessary so doctors could peel back the flesh, drill a hole and gain access to the nail.

The nail slipped out easily after a bit of loosening, said Dr. Reiner.

The fear, said Dr. Markey, was that blood would gush once the nail was removed. But the blood flow from the from the frontal lobe of the brain was minimal and easily controlled.

The fact that the nail lodged mostly into "dead" pockets of the brain was luck, Markey said. Lawler's tolerance of the pain was his own toughness.

He's not so tough, though, that he's going back to construction work, Lawler said.

"I'm going to make pizzas," Lawler said.

That will be fine in a couple weeks, Markey said. But Lawler can't snowboard the rest of the season — his wound needs time to heal without a lot of shaking.

Lawler was installing interior walls at a new home in the Valley of the Sun subdivision in Breckenridge, when his nail gun recoiled, struck him in the mouth and launched the nail straight toward the top of his head.

"It felt like being hit by a bat or a hard piece of steel smashing your head," Lawler said. He thought it was just the force of the recoil that caused the contusion and the cut lip, because there was no sign of a nail.

He suffered blurry, double vision.

The procedure, including a stay in intensive-care probably generated a bill between $50,000 and $100,000, Markey said.

Lawler has no insurance, and he wasn't covered by worker's compensation, because he was a self-employed contractor.

"I didn't have the money for insurance, and I didn't really think I'd shoot myself with a nail."

He and his wife are seeking donations through the Patrick Lawler Fund.

"It's a problem that plagues our country," Markey said of the millions of people without health insurance. "People with high-risk jobs can't afford the cost of health care."

Lawler should recover completely and his dry sense of humor should return in a couple weeks, Markey said.

Lawler said the experience changed him. "It makes you slow down," he said. "Construction is a good job, but pretty scary."

This is the fourth nail gun accident Markey has dealt with in his career as a neurosurgeon. He said Lawler might have gotten lucky with his choice of a 16-penny nail. The big head on the nail might have stopped it from penetrating deeper into his brain.

"If you're going to be shot by a nail gun, I guess it should be 16-penny," Markey said.

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Not a good day

Today is a sad day. Not a good day for parents who are deciding whether or not to send their "at risk" kids off to Israel. First the drug overdose at Neve now the 4 boys arrested for dealing. I just hope some good comes out of it. I hope and pray that the girls and guys here that treat drugs and dealing so lightly will take it more seriously and be careful. You are too precious! Be careful. :(

Ziploc bags in Israel!

Wow. One more thing that we now have that I thought we never would. Maybe they've been around for awhile, I don't know. But I just saw them in the supermarket in our small town. An Israeli brand, and they are called petach sagur or something like that. YAY! One less thing that has to be brought from the states. Now I can stop hoarding the last box I have in my cabinet. I remember back when we had no potato chips. And now we have potato chips in a choice of flavors. I love those jalapeno ones! On the topic of snack foods those new cheetos falafel flavor are rather.... interesting. The thought is repulsive, the first time they were addictive. Now they are on the same level as Bamba for me- I'll eat it if I'm hungry and occasionally I get an unexplainable craving for it, but not my favorite snack. Cheese cheetos on the other hand, mmmmmm. Still waiting for those or any cheese type snack to be mehadrin. I remember when I was in the states for awhile and came back to discover that Solero (vanilla ice cream bar on a stick covered in tropical fruit (mango, etc) sorbet- the closest thing I've had to an orange creamsicle, but better.) was mehadrin.
Well, that was a lot of blabbering about snack food.
I guess I have nothing much else to say right now.
Its cold and raining. And its Tuesday, again.
Kol Tuv

Small Town Saturday Night

For all of the country music fans out there, you know the song by Hal Ketchum. Well, that's my life. Well, not really mine, because, well I'm old and married. But for the teenagers that live here its like that and when people hear where I live, especially those that live in Jerusalem or other larger cities the first thing they say is "What do you DO there?". Well, we have lots of guests, take care of our kids. And I get Chinese medicine treatment. I have something in common with Gwyneth Paltrow. I got cupped! Cupping is known as bahnkes in Yiddish. I am not sure how it is supposed to work, but I do know it is supposed to pull bad stuff out through your skin with the suction. I don't know what's weirder, that or moxibustion. But I think the burning plants on your toes. Because usually burning one's self is considered to show some amount of mental instability.
Its Sunday again, start the week all over again. I have to boil my herbs. And make dinner (must not mix up the two pots).
Shavua Tov

Should have taken the flu shot?

Not that I've been to the doctor recently as it is, not that anyone offered it to me.
My head is killing! It's all fuzzy. My throat hurts, my body aches. I just want to sleep, and tomorrow I have to take care of shabbos. It is shabbos chanukah so it is always busy around here. My head is not even working well enough to count how many guests we are having.
Baruch Hashem, what can I do?
Tomorrow I will have to make a menu stagger to the store, shop , cook. I so wanted to bake challah but that might be out as well.
Oh, plus I have A big blister on my toe from the fiery herb fuzz that was set aflame there the other day (yes, we did it again). I think now I will make myself some tea and curl up with the latest Reader's digest I bought myself for chanukah.

Ushpizin

I went to see the Ushpizin movie tonight. It is an Israeli film produced by a secular film company. It was written and directed (I believe) by chozrei b'teshuva who were actors in their "previous life". A lot of the actors are from the breslov kehilla of various places. It is the story of a chozer b'teshuva couple who have a sukkos packed with nisyonos and tikkunim. It was a much better film than I imagined it was going to be. The acting was good. The plot was intriguing and included drama and comedy. It was like a classic old chassidishe story but with a modern twist- and on the big screen! To be honest I cried through much of the film. Much of the story just hit really close to home.
I hear in Jerusalem there are showings with English subtitles.

Shavua tov!

Yunnan Paiyao does NOT taste good

I just got home from my accupuncturist. He told me to dissolve this foul smelling powder in warm water and drink it 8 times in the next 48 hours. And guess what? It tastes just as foul as it smells. I wonder if there are people out there who like the taste? Chinese medicine has some pretty strange remedies. Part of my treatment this evening was burning mugwort which I just learned, from that link is also called moxibustion. The doctor put little rolls of mugwort on my toes and set in on fire. I was told to tell him when it started to become painful so he could knock it off. That was after he stuck needles in me. What fun!
Seriously, it wasn't so bad. Do I believe in it? Well, it's worked before so I hope it works now. We will see. I just hope we see soon, because this kind of treatment is pretty dang expensive especially when contrasted with almost free kupat cholim treatment.

Lactivism Revisited

I had the same thought as Cookie while the remedia scandal was in the news. Israel is sorely lacking in the area of nursing support. Bottles of formula are way too common a sight around here. Tipat chalav (well baby clinic, where shots are given pregnant women go for checkups, etc) nurses are way behind the times in terms of the importance of breastmilk and breastfeeding. Their advice on solids is also off the mark- early introduction of solids is pushed and a mother who says she is waiting on principle is belittled. A friend who was recently in the local tipat chalav office heard the new nurse- this one younger than average, the old one is retiring (I thought younger would mean more modern training, guess not) tell a new mother to add corn starch to the baby's bottle to help her sleep longer stretches. The age of the baby? 2 months! So, yes we have a problem here in Israel in this area.
I agree with Cookie that both the reality of life on the kibbutz at the beginning of the state as well as the askenazi elitist mentality are things that led to today's situation. I think, that to counteract this we need to make it normal to breastfeed, older children- both boys and girls should know that that is the way it should be done. When in the torah it talks about Sarah and the miracle of her being able to nurse her baby, we should make sure they hear that part. This could be a matter of life and death.
Cookie also says that in the states breastfeeding is supported. I do not live in the states now but I have lived there. I also read American websites and magazines. I think in the states, in an effort to be "PC" the message that breastfeeding is superior to formula feeding and that the decision to formula feed is not as simple as the convenience or choice of the mother is routinely quieted. Saying that makes FFing mothers feel bad. Formula is a wonderful invention like dialysis and antibiotics - for the right situation, not for whenever someone feels like it.
The experience of women outside of the frum community and in more rural places of the U.S. contradicts Cookie's informal study. I have heard stories of women in the states similar to those expect to hear about Israel. That the nurses in the hospital pushed bottles and pacifiers, that they were told health problems they were having were because of their nursing. Lactivism is definitely needed in the states. In the frum community nursing is common and since each woman has more kids and there are generally more kids around the message is out there that babies breastfeed. When you are talking about secular society where it is common to have one or two kids and some women reach adulthood without ever caring for a baby (extremely rare in frum circles) the icon of a baby bottle for babies may be so ingrained and nursing such a foreign concept that when they finally do have a baby at thirty something it never occurs to them to breastfeed. Again back to the PC idea and the silenced message, I have read too many "breast vs. bottle" articles in mainstream parenting magazines. The very idea that they put the two possibilities on equal footing in the title undermines the message of the importance of breastfeeding. Simply put, in my communication with women and reading of women's experiences in America who tried to breastfeed but did not have the information and support they needed to continue or did not even think of breastfeeding I feel that there is a need in the U.S. for more information and support. That is Lactivism and I think it is important. :)

Added stuff

So I added a link to the Renegade Rebbetzin blog in my side bar. I like her. Being in a similar position to her I can relate to her, so, there she is. I added some more jewish links, I hope to add even more, I just have to rember what they are when I find the time to add them. I also want to add some other links (yes, non Jewish) sometime soon.
My job is going well. Tomorrow the boys are going on a trip but I committed to cook for a family of seven that the mother is getting over pneumonia, so I will be busy cooking anyway. I don't get why I know so many people recently who have had or presently have pneumonia. When I was growing up I never knew anyone who had it, it was like a fairy tale disease that our mothers threatened us with if we didn't wear our scarves. Is it our abuse of antibiotics or what?