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July 20 WHAT'S YOUR POINT?Mood: EXASPERATED Playing: SEVENDUST: FACE TO FACE* *DEFINTELY NOT the ‘clean’ version! Achairde All! Well, for all of those who feel that Americans are some sort of blood-thirsty barbarians who execute people at the drop of a hat allow me to offer the following story from AP: Serial killer sentenced to death in Ariz. “…Morris, 27, sat quietly as the verdicts were read. His defense attorney, James Logan, described him as naive and argued that there was no evidence of premeditation. The women - Barbara Codman, Shanteria Davis, Jade Velazquez, Sherri Noah and Julie Castillo - were in their 30s or 40s and had drug or alcohol problems. One was a friend of Morris; several were prostitutes. The women were killed in a camper behind a house owned by Morris' aunt, and their bodies were dumped in nearby alleys or on sidewalks. The women were allegedly killed for Morris' sexual gratification. Morris contended the deaths were accidental. Relatives had let Morris, a part-time karaoke disc jockey, sleep in the camper until he could get a stable job. A break in the case came when Morris' uncle went to check on a foul odor coming from the camper and discovered a body. Morris was a suspect in the death of a sixth woman, Janice Irvin, but he was never charged…” Trust me on this folks, I’m an American and I do NOT want this guy dead. (At least, not yet!) Basically because it would be far too easy on him. No, I want him in prison for the next decade or five. I want him in General Population and I want him to have a particularly “helpful” mentor with the name of ‘Bruiser’ or ‘Trasher’. I want him to get to know the Penal System from the inside out and I want his instructor to pay close attention to EVERY salient detail. In fact, I want him to get a PhD in the day to day operations of doing ‘hard time’. Let’s face it; a Death Sentence just isn’t enough for someone who justifies their crime by: • Gee, I’m kind of stupid. AND… • I didn’t mean to kill them. AND… • They were hookers or women with drug or alcohol problems. Well gosh, that makes it okey-dokey, doesn’t it! As I said in the title, “What’s your point?” I’ll buy the stupid part but since when did “Whoops Defense” work for five or six homicides? Also, since when did a homicide become acceptable if the victim has substance abuse problems? I am quite sure that to the survivors of the women murdered it is a simple matter of ‘dead is just dead’. Especially since the sick bastard was caught with the decomposing remains of one of his victims! He admits that he lured the deceased into the situation for his own ‘sexual gratification’ so the argument may be made that he is a lunatic but, then again, you would have to presuppose that there is anything such as a ‘sane’ serial-murderer. You’d also have to ignore the difference between insanity (no control over one’s actions) and crazy (control but no concern for anything but your own desires). Neither the Needle nor a Prison Cell are going to bring his victims back. However, showering with ‘friends’ for the next 18,250+ days just might bring a little justice into the equation. For the families of those murdered it will be very little justice… but it’s a start. Keep the Faith! Slan leat, Elaine AKA Cabin Fever CABIN FEVER ONLINE July 14 HELLO TO MSN
FORWARNED IS FOREARMEDMood: CONCERN & DISBELIEF Playing: STRATA: PIECE BY PIECE Achairde All! Before I continue on with a tour of that special Hell that is my world right now I’d like to take the time to give you some information I came across while I was Googling TBI for my family. I’ll continue on with the rest of my depressing tale in the next column but I felt that this is definitely News You Can Use! There is a very small study currently underway that deals with TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) and Domestic Violence. As my regular readers know, I am passionately devoted to the cause of the Disabled and Domestic Violence (please check the Blog Archive below for entries such as “No Room At The Inn” from my Domestic Violence series in January and February of 2004). The fact that there is only one state in the United States that even has limited facilities for the blind, deaf, wheelchair bound victims of Domestic Abuse only adds one crime on top of another. You’ve already been terrorized by a ‘loved one’ and then local Abuse Shelters tell you that they don’t take people ‘like you’. But as horrifying as that is it’s got to be much worse if you can’t even get the medical attention that you need in the ER. (Mr. Clooney and NBC aside those places are the ‘snake pits’ of our generation)! Apparently, it has taken until 2005 for advocates and doctors to realize that if you have been repeatedly punched in the head, had your head rammed into something like a stove or refrigerator or been dragged around in a headlock you just MIGHT have a CHI (Closed Head Injury). If you’re lucky you are screened for a Concussion but no attempt is made to find out if there are any Cognitive, Emotional or Physical issues connected to the event. Folks, there is a reason for the similarity between the words ‘hysteria’ and ‘hysterectomy’. Both are so-called ‘Women’s Problems’ and have roots in the Greek descriptions for women’s anatomical differences. In other words, women are inherently emotional and therefore any of their medical issues must be considered in light of their fragile emotional tendencies! (Note: Is there anyone out their besides me who wants to yell, “Millennium Check!”? Honestly, it’s 2005 and there are still people who think that way! Don’t you just wish they’d go the way of the rest of the dinosaurs?) However, let me add something from my own ‘vast store of knowledge’, DV Victims aren’t always women and these aren’t always so-called straight relationships. If Domestic Violence is under-reported by men and women in these relationships it is virtually non-existent in other types. Please remember, violence is a crime no matter the gender of the person committing it and the victims deserve the full protection of the Law and Social Services! Let’s consider what the lazy clinicians won’t. Anxiety, memory lapses or loss, irritability, the inability to reason, and black outs can be caused by legitimate Psychological problems; no one is saying that they can’t. No one is saying that the victims of Domestic Violence aren’t left with such problems. No one is saying that there is anything shameful about it, either. However, ALL of those are also signs of Head Trauma. Is it so unreasonable to expect that physicians and social worker’s consider the possibility that if the victim has also suffered such violence there might be another cause for those problems? Since they are very often pumped full of chemicals, which interact with the chemistry of the brain and which can acerbate and not relieve problems, you would think that this would be a legitimate concern. Let’s look at this logically. Joe Smith get’s into a fight and is punched repeatedly in the face and head. He barely looks human after the event. After the beating people notice that Joe has periods where he stares into space, can’t remember doing it or what was happening before it happened, things that he used to shrug off now make him unreasonably angry or reduce him to tears, he can’t remember things that happened yesterday but can remember what happened ten years ago. His family mentions this and the beating to his doctor who then send him off to a Head Injury Specialist. Jane Doe is in a similar situation. However, she is a DV Victim. She is a woman and she ends up with a script for Zoloft and a psychologist who may or may not be qualified to treat Head Injuries. No matter how much you share your emotions it’s not going to work if you aren’t addressing the Cognitive Issues. After years of inappropriate therapy and drugs you now have two problems instead of one, or, as one victim in the study said, “It wasn’t the beating that me crazy ~ it was the treatment!” If you or someone you know has been the victim of Domestic Violence and there were injuries to your head (even mild ones) and you have experienced such problems please get in touch with one of the groups that help with Brain Injuries. I have provided some links below. Please remember, we want you to heal and we want you to do it properly. Don’t let someone else’s preconceptions, be they a physician or social worker, keep you from making the most complete recovery possible. Slan leat, Elaine AKA Cabin Fever CABIN FEVER ONLINE Brain Injury Association of America* http://www.biausa.org/Pages/home.html TBI.org http://tbihome.org/ Centers for Disease Control ~ TBI Information http://www.cdc.gov/doc.do?id=0900f3ec8006c289 A Pilot Project to Identifying Women with TBI Due to Domestic Violence http://www.tbindc.org/registry/project.php?projid=102 Brain Net http://www.brainnet.org/ *There is also a guide you can download in either English or Spanish entitled, “A Guide to Selecting and Monitoring Brain Injury Rehabilitation Services” presented by the Brain Injury Association of America and The Defense & Veterans Head Injury Program. Slan, cf *NEWS*FLASH*UPDATE*Mood: GEE, MR. CUSTER... Playing: NICKLEBACK: ANOTHER WHOLE IN MY HEAD …you all know the rest! Achairde All! Ok folks, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea MAXIMA culpa! I take it by the Comments, Emails and Visitor Count (250,000 plus) that you all are not amused by my protracted absence and I sincerely (mea culpa not withstanding) apologize. The only defense I can offer is: *Mom died. *My health has taken a down turn. *The State and the County are still dueling so I do not have Prescription coverage and I am without my meds. *I am being evicted because my housing renewal is has never been settled between my landlord and HUD. *Various folks want me to relive the past fifteen years of my disability so that they can understand what’s ‘wrong’ with me. *I have to go into the Hospital for about three weeks and I am waiting for a call from Admissions. Also, we have another Hurricane wandering around out there and my broadband connection has been fried for the past two weeks. I will try and break everything down (the first article is below so please read it) and my broadband is supposed to be fixed on the 13th. I hate dial-up, I only get a few hours a month of it and I can check in, download your Comments, reply and then Post them until then. Please forgive me for worrying you. Please believe that it was NOT intentional. I miss you guys and I will try to do better from now on. HONEST! Keep the Faith! Slan leat, Elaine AKA Cabin Fever CABIN FEVER ONLINE PS *NEWS*FLASH*UPDATE* is from the original Saturday Night Live and I’ve always wanted to use it as a title. PPS The Custer Poster is in the Gallery. I created it so feel free to loot it! Slan, CF REINVENTING THE WHEELMood: LIONS THREE... Playing: SEETHER: SOLD ME …CHRISTIANS ZERO AT THE HALF! Achairde All! I don’t want to have to reinvent the wheel again. I don’t know if I have the strength to go through it again. The only thing worse than having to live with TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) is what I went through to get it diagnosed properly. When I was hurt Closed Head Injuries (CHI) were just beginning to be understood. Before that it was thought that if nothing was leaking out your ears you had dodged a bullet, so to speak. Even though Neurologists were realizing that wasn’t true I had two strikes against me. Most Head Injury Patients are men and women receive different Medical care then men. Whether you choose to accept that last premise is up to you but I would suggest that you read the books “Outrageous Practices: How Gender Bias Threatens Women's Health” by Leslie Laurence and Beth Weinhouse and “ Preventing Misdiagnosis of Women: A Guide to Physical Disorders That Have Psychiatric Symptoms” by Elizabeth A. Klonoff and Hope Landrine before you make up your mind. The number of women leaving ERs with a Valium and a Psych Referral instead of Cardiologists or other specialists is horrifying enough but when you are someone who ends up in their good graces on a regular basis it’s terrifying. (Note: It’s bad when you’re hurt and you still take the time to think, “I want to stop bleeding on the one hand but on the other hand I have to go to the ER! Nooo… Where’d I put the Band-Aids?”) I was extremely fortunate that I was injured in a car accident and that I live in a state that has a Head & Spinal Cord Injury Program. (A portion of every traffic ticket is given to the fund for treatment of these types of injury.) So, I only had about a year of idiots prating about Fugue States (as opposed to the Complex-Partial Seizures the Head Injury Neurologist and Psychiatrists/Psycho logists diagnosed) and Depression Disorders to explain what turned out to be Emotional Lability, Cognitive Deficits, Short Term Memory loss and Visual/Spatial Disabilities. It took about a year of intense Therapy (3 times a week in the beginning) for me to get a bit of grip on what was wrong with me and the fact that I was going to have to live with it for the rest of my life. Not being Superwoman I still grieve over the last from time to time. At least after I learned to read again and I was assured that Brain Damage and Stupidity were two different things I thought that I could have a future that included some of my goals, such as writing. Since my mother attended all the family conferences and sessions she was aware of what was ‘wrong’ with me. Now that she’s gone I find myself back to the drawing board with some of my family. It’s hard not to be upset about it but I’m getting better at coping with it. For example, one family member feels that my problems would ‘go away’ if I just got REAL psychiatric help. Apparently I have managed to get all the previous Psychiatrists and Psychologists to diagnose me as not having something ‘legitimate’ because (direct quote here), “You’re so intelligent that you know all the right answers to give so that they’ll diagnose what you want them to!” Folks, I’m smart but I’m NOT that smart! These doctors weren’t morons and there have been too many of them! Not to mention that back in the early days of my disability I damn near drooled! I had problems enough with losing consciousness and not being able to remember what I’d said five minutes earlier. The chances of me fooling anyone with my ‘blinding intellect’ were slim to none! Then you’ve got the one’s who weren’t there for the years of tests/therapy/rehab who want their own ‘proof’ as though anything that took place before the were in the picture isn’t acceptable. I’ve yet to figure out why they feel that because a diagnosis was made five or ten years ago isn’t valid. I mean I was diagnosed with Leukocytosis and Mitral Valve Prolapse years ago and they’re not questioning that! It reminds me of the comment made by my first Cognitive Therapist that if she’d had here way all of her Closed Head Injury patients would wear big turbans made of surgical gauze to save them from people who made assumptions based on “But he LOOKS normal!” LOL Part of the problem is that I am physically, mentally and emotionally at the lowest ebb that I’ve been since I became disabled. I am also fifteen years older. To be honest, I don’t have the patience and the stamina to ‘reinvent the wheel’ for them. If they don’t want to take my word for it (and unfortunately for them I haven’t felt the need to PROOVE anything to anyone for the past twenty years) I’ve given them permission to trundle through my medical records and they’ve all got Google. It’s been hard not to yell, “For God’s sake, save us both some time and tension and look it up. Try a search of T-B-I!” (A bit undiplomatic at best, ya think!) So, I have a few questions for all of you. How would you handle the situation if one of your relatives was disabled? What would you want to know? How would you go about finding out? If you’re disabled as well, have you ever been in the same situation and what did you do about it? I’m drowning here folks and I would really appreciate it if someone could throw me a life preserver! Keep the Faith! Slan leat, Elaine AKA Cabin Fever CABIN FEVER ONLINE |
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