Keeping Up With My Medicine

Doctors only see in part. Just like the rest ofus. Why did I think it any different?


My experience with physicians has been broadening these past three years. In that time I've been to see
one general practice physician, two Physicians Assistants, four oncologists, one radiation oncologist, two orthopedic specialists
and three surgeons. That's not all the medical professionals I've encountered, but they are the people most likely to
prescribe drugs for me, and that's the point of this post.


At least in part.

I'm dealing with slight pain today - a little more than usual. When the Wee One trends on my right shoulder that slight pain
becomes a sharp pain.

Before I left the hospital the surgeon's nurse assured me that if I needed additional pain medication I should call his office.
Two weeks ago, when last I saw the orthopedic surgeon, he urged me to stop using Lortab as soon as possible. When I last saw
Kelsey Swisher she talked to me about the Insurance company's demand that we check on my Lortab use regularly - no refills without
calling the office. And then there's my oncologist who shrugs his shoulders and says of pain meds - not my job man.


This isn't an attempt to get more pain medication, or to justify my Lortab use. It is to say that I need to remember that
my doctors are each only seeing a part of the totality of my illnesses and treatments. So I have to keep on top of the total picture
including managing my pain. The one who doesn't understand that?

My insurance provider.

Epistemological Politics

The South Carolina AG announced, some time ago, that he absolutely, positively and without a shred of doubt KNEW that there were hundreds of people who voted dead in South Carolina. The Columbia Free Times reported:

S.C. GOP Attorney General Alan Wilson saying things like, “We know for a fact that there are deceased people whose identities are being used in elections in South Carolina.” - See more at: http://www.free-times.com/blogs/18-months-later-sc-law-enforcement-closes-case-on-zombie-voters-finds-no#sthash.z8MoGQJs.dpuf

The appropriate SC office - with the great name SLED - investigated. Did not find zombie voters.

My question is, in this case, what does it mean to "know" in a case like this. Can you "know" something that isn't the case? Is all knowledge subjective? If the objective "facts" turn out to not be the case that you asserted you "knew," did you not know what you said you knew? Does KNOWING require that you do something more than assert what you believe to be the case.

And if what you insisted you "knew" changes - i.e., you "knew" the mechanics of an evolutionary process and then someone else discovered that what you knew, what everyone knew, was not what was the case.

What does it mean to "know" something. And how do you come to know anything?

Follow up on the Magic Staircase

I was totally punked on this one. I shouldn't have been. I've been watching Brain Games enough that I should have smelt that something was up - but I took the video producers at their word. Mike Rodriquez had the goods and sent them along. Here's how the magic staircase works - actually it doesn't.

One of the things I should learn from this is to never let the skeptigard down. I won't, however. It's fun to be fooled every once in a while. Here the fooling came because the students sold the idea so well and I believed what I saw. I believed it because I wanted to believe that there was someone this clever at one of the institutes of technology dotting the U.S.

Bad on me. But good on Mike!

The Magic Stairwell

I do not know how this works. It is a total mystery to me - but this is the coolest stairway I've ever seen.

The Magic Stairwell