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:Random thoughts from a Renegade Mom:
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Friday, February 03, 2006Things I've learned from the poison control(disclaimer...if you suspect a poisoning or overdose please contact your local poison control) Kids are too curious, they will get into anything! I have had my share of scares. I have become very friendly with the poison control nurses over the last four years. Here are a few things I've learned: Ways to get capsaicin (the oil from hot peppers) of your skin: Wash hands with a grease cutting soap in HOT water and soak in lemon juice. you can also try: Germ-X, soaking in milk, or milk of magnesia, tomato paste I was cutting some peppers I grew in my garden, I had no idea how hot the peppers were. I went and nursed my son after washing my hand, a few minutes into nursing my hands started to burn, then the baby started to cry and my breast started to burn. I tried everything on that list. Medication Tylenol: A 30lb 3yr old can drink 3 bottles of infant tylenol before it becomes toxic Children's Liquid cold medication: A 1yr old can drink half a bottle of Children's cold med before you need to see the doctor. Sprays and Cleaners: Lysol: If you get Lysol in your eyes you need to flush eyes for 10 min. the area around the eyes that were sprayed will become red and irritated, looking like you were hit in they eye and make strangers look at your parents suspiciously! Concentrated Orange oil cleaner: If Orange oil get in the eye, you must flush for 15 min. This is not something I recommend doing with a 3 year old, it was almost 3 months before he would get in the shower again. Ipecac is no longer advised to induce vomiting for poising. The reason? ERs use Activated Charcoal, ipecac may result in your child being unable to tolerate activated charcoal or other poison treatments. Other: Comfrey, a plant we grow can cause liver damage, but a small amount is not harmful to eat. Keep the number of the Poison Control Center posted near the phone; the universal number in the U.S. is 1/800-222-1222 Gina froze in time on 11:09 PM [ | ]
Thursday, February 02, 2006death to tyranny!
Igot this from cmhl, and it really cracked me up. Gina froze in time on 8:08 AM [ | ]
Wednesday, February 01, 2006Happy Imbolc! Imbolc, also known as Imbolg, Oimelc, and Candlemas is one of our Greater Sabbats, and is one of the oldest on the Wiccan calendar. Gina froze in time on 11:12 PM [ | ]
Did Bush really Say Switchgrass? So I didn't listen to the SOU last night, but I did hear the hight lights. What was that I heard SwitchGrass? Did the president actually utter those words? Surely there is some mistake!! Yes, he was talking Ethanol. Ethanol, could it replace Gas? The answer may be no, but it can have a significant impact. Look at Brazil, 15 years ago they began using cellulose from sugar cane to create ethanol, and it now uses 50 percent less gasoline. The price of ethanol is 1/2 that of gas. They have gone so far as to claim themselves "energy independent". What about my 4 MPG SUV??? you might say. Well it can be as simple as $100/car. Some new hoses and a new gas cap, and thank you ma'am, you are on ethanol. So what's the issue? Well years past ethanol was mainly produced by corn, it actually took more energy to produce it then you got out of it. Very costly and not very environmentally friendly! But with technology and innovation there is big changes. The smart way to produce ethanol now if from cellulose. The output is higher, it cost less energy to grow, plants like switchgrass are a perennial crop that grows naturally everywhere east of the rocky mountains (and has be successfully planted all across the US). It has a productive stand life of 10 or more years, low disease instance and minimal insect problems. The real issues are production plant, there isn't a base in the US. The problem with Bush's proposal ( see you though I was going to be all praise....you know me better) he wants our focus to be on research. There needs to be more spent on infrastructure. There has been lots of research, lets get to production. Building plants to convert plant material to ethanol will not only decrease demand of oil, it will create jobs and save farms across the country. There is also a huge advantage to the developing world. Let our farmers grow cash crops that will produce ethanol and stop overproduction of cereal crops. overproduction in the richest countries that leads to dumping in the developing world. And think about the impact on our environment. Switchgrass is a prairie grass. Can you really imagine replanting our tallgrass prairies. The impact on grassland birds and game birds and mammals would be great. It doesn't need to be planted on flat areas, it can be planted on highly erodible sites and help improving water quality. It improves the soil that it's planted on. It is also easy to switch, switchgrass can easily be rotated with farmers regular crops and be grown and harvested with equipment that most farmers already use. Now to be honest, ethanol is not "clean" it does create smog, but hey it's a start. I'm ready to fill up my tank, let's hope the government doesn't drop the ball on this one!!! Gina froze in time on 11:05 PM [ | ]
Tuesday, January 31, 2006incase you were confused:
Gina froze in time on 9:31 PM [ | ]
Consumer driven health care A few words on Health care, before the state of the union address tonight. Bush will most likely talk about Health savings accounts. I support HSA, but not as the "solution" for health care. The main element of Bush's plan would be health savings accounts, which allow people to save money tax-free. The accounts are used for medical expenses up to a preset deductible amount, and once that threshold is met, insurance takes over. Any money not used can roll over from one year to the next, and the cost of the policies is usually lower than that of traditional health insurance plans. "Health savings accounts all aim at empowering people to make decisions for themselves, owning their own health care plan, and at the same time bringing some demand control into the cost of heath care," Bush said. "Our view is that if you're a consumer of health care and you're in the marketplace making health care decisions, it is more likely that there [would] be more cost control in health care than a system in which the consumer of health care has his or her health care bills paid by a third-party provider."That's a really nice talk, but lets really examine what that can mean: They are hoping that this will make it more like your traditional auto insurance, they don't pay for oil changes, tires and batteries, but they pay out when you smash into a light post. But there are serious problems here. I don't know what type of plan you can get for $3,300/yr but I couldn't get insurance for my self for under $140/month (1,680/yr) when I had a job that didn't offer it. Take a family of 4 making under 25,000/yr take home would be about 1,650/month (give or take a few dollars). the white house would then like you to spend that $275 of that on health insurance -- That will be REFUNDED at the end of the year. It doesn't sound like alot, but It's 1/6th of your income, and that's if you are at the top bracket of the proposal. Let's look at a Single mom, two kids, middle class $31,000/yr (making ends meet with a little extra, but not much). You have one of these account with $1800 in it and a self bought insurance that has a high deductible. If something happens you have the money to cover the deductible. You don't want to spend the money going to see the doctor every time you feel bad, you're saving money. But, by not seeing the doctor regularly and getting "routine maintenance" you miss out on cholesterol screening, mammograms, pap smears, and this low cost "maintenance" turns out to be a hundred thousand dollar case of cancer or bypass surgery. Or if one of the children get sick she could be forced to pay the $10,000 deductible spending a total of $11,800 or 1/3 or her salary! Persons with high-deductible health plans are significantly more likely to avoid, skip or delay health care because of cost than those in comprehensive health insurance. This problem is most commonly seen in individuals with health problems or incomes below $50,000. Thirty-one percent (31%) of individuals in high-deductible health plans reported delaying or avoiding care, compared to 17% in comprehensive health plans. 1Now let's look at the upper Class. As proposed, the lifetime savings account would allow any individual regardless of age or income to shelter an annual contribution of $7,500 that could be withdrawn for any reason. That means a family of four could sock away $30,000 every year and not pay a penny of taxes on the wealth that grows. 2 Let's also take a look at how traditional insurance works now. The reason why it's cheaper to get insurance from your employer than it is to get it all by your lonesome, is risk pools. In an office of 500 people, 25 people may be high risk (just an illustration), 150 may have moderate problems, and 325 may be healthy adults 25-35 with little risk of high health cost. By averaging the cost of care over this group you significantly lowers the cost for the high risk people and raises the cost slightly for the low risk group. By offering a haven for healthy individuals that is lower cost, you are hanging the sick out to dry. Most health spending is by those with multiple chronic conditions. These individuals will never be able to accumulate funds in a health savings account and will have to find the funds to cover all their care before meeting their high-deductible plan begins to cover them. Traditional insurance will become unaffordable. Now I like health savings accounts provided by employers. I participated in one. But I am not very ill or low income. I could afford to take the money out of my paycheck and knew I was saving money. This is not the answer to our health care issues. It is not the solution to the uninsured or the soaring health cost. This may even cause more problems then we have now. Gina froze in time on 5:45 PM [ | ]
Monday, January 30, 2006News: "Breastfeeding a plague" Despite a national push to give vitamin D to breastfed babies, some Boston-area children -mostly African-American - are still suffering from rickets, a virtually extinct disease that has roared back to plague physicians and patients alike. The boon in breastfeeding - mother's milk doesn't have sufficient vitamin D - is partly to blame. So is the widespread advice to stay out of the sun. Rickets, which can deform bones and stunt growth, is caused by a severe deficiency in vitamin D, the chief sources of which are dairy milk and sunlight. The sad thing is that the media is treating this as a plague!It's the fault of an uninformed population, not of "boon in breastfeeding". I know mothers who don't want to give a vitamin D drop, but being well informed on the subject, make sure their children are expose to a healthy amount of sun light. Sunshine is a significant source of vitamin D because UV rays from sunlight trigger vitamin D synthesis in the skin. Ten to fifteen minutes of sun exposure at least two times per week to the face, arms, hands, or back without sunscreen is usually sufficient to provide adequate vitamin D But being informed is important. For example: sunlight exposure from November through February in Boston is insufficient to produce significant vitamin D synthesis in the skin. Complete cloud cover halves the energy of UV rays, and shade reduces it by 60%. Industrial pollution, which increases shade, also decreases sun exposure and may contribute to the development of rickets in individuals with insufficient dietary intake of vitamin D. There are also disorders that may make you Vitamin D deficient: Pancreatic enzyme deficiency, Crohn's Disease, Cystic Fibrosis, Celiac Disease (Gluten intolerance), and Liver disease. Some of these disorders may not be diagnosed until later in life. There is a risk of an overdose of Vitamin D.
But you won't read these things in the newspaper, no the only thing you'll read is: While an increasing number of mothers breastfeed, breast milk doesn't have an adequate amount of vitamin D, which enables the body to absorb bone-fortifying calcium, doctors said. Gina froze in time on 9:40 AM [ | ]
Sunday, January 29, 2006Happy Chines New Year.Welcome to the Year of the Dog 1922, 1934, People born Gina froze in time on 11:05 PM [ | ]
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The chaotic life of a (exausted) mother of
2 little mosters, I mean children. These are my thoughts on life and the world around me, so I can talk about things other than diapers! Current news, health and women's issues.
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