Thursday, December 30, 2010

HW 26 - Looking back & forward in unit

While watching the different movies throughout the illness and dying unit i learned a lot of different information about the world around me. While watching the movie SICKO i realized that health care companies didn't care about people like i thought they did. I always thought that health care companies paid for all your needs and everything else, but then when i watched the movie i finally realized that what i was thinking about pretty much wrong. And while reading the book Tuesdays with Morrie for the first time i finally saw life in a different perspective, and also thought differently about a lot of things.

One question would be why do people care more about people when they are close to dying than when they aren't dying nor sick?

Another question would be why do people visit people when they are close to dying but when they aren't close to dying they don't give a hell about them?

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

HW 25 - Response to Sicko

Precis:
There are almost at least 50 million people in America who are uninsured. Michael Moore interviewed people who were insured but who were denied proper coverage by their health insurance. Michael Moore goes to the United Kingdom and talks to doctor about the health care, and the doctor gives him a whole speech on how the government pays for the health care and how people aren't charged for seeing the doctor. Michael Moore states the poorest people in the UK live longer than the wealthiest people in America.

Evidence:
Michael Moore mentions the poorest people in the UK live longer than the wealthiest people in America. Michael Moore also interviewed this mother whose daughter died because of her healthcare who didn't want to cover her because they didn't think her daughter needed the that the hospital was going to give her. Those pieces of evidence helped support his thesis because it shows one that healthcare doesn't care if somebody is dying and needs help and that all they care about is money. And the evidence also shows how the UK has one of the best health systems then America does, since Michael Moore implied that the poorest people in the UK live longer than the wealthiest people in America.

Response:
While watching this movie i was filled with pain because noticing how healthcare companies could care less if you live or die was pretty crazy to hear. I always thought that healthcare will always supply you with what ever you wanted if you were sick, but now by watching this movie i came to the realization that its not all cookies and cream when it comes to healthcare. Healthcare companies around the world are full of greed and they care all about the money that they don't have so they can't help people who are dying because of money issues. Considering that i have blue cross blue shield and i suffer from back pain it makes me think that if i ever needed surgery for my back, would my healthcare company pain for my medical expenses?

Monday, December 20, 2010

HW 24 - Illness & Dying Book, Part 3

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
publisher: doubleday 1997

Precis:
Mitch been giving Morrie food and Morrie kept accepting them until his home aid told him to stop bringing the food that he gives Morrie every week, Mitch asked why and she replied saying that Morrie takes them so he won't make Mitch feel bad. Morrie then talks about emotions to Mitch and explains to him how emotions are and how you can get a better understanding of them.

Responses:
"Say I was divorced, or living alone, or had no children. This disease - what I'm going through - would be so much harder. I'm not sure I could do it. Sure, people would come visit, friends, associates, but it's not the same as having someone who will not leave. It's not the same as having someone whom you know has an eye on you, is watching you the whole time." (pg.92)
-->People never want to die or experience illness by themselves. Being alone causes things like depression. As if being ill and close to death isn't already depressing enough. People will always need somebody near them in order to get some kind of comfort. Like at hospitals people who were close to dying was seen by a dog in order to make them happy and filled with rejoice. Talk about dogs being a man's best friend.

"But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is, You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then you can say, 'All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment."(pg.104)
--->A lot experience a lot of these emotions through out their life time. But some people don't really don't understanding of loving somebody and don't truely know what pain is. They only find out what these emotions truely mean when its to late. People usually really truely love somebody when their in there death bed because they know that person is going so they are going to try to comfort them with these emotions, to make them more "happier."

"I don't want to leave the world in a state of fright. I want to know what's happening, accept it, get to a peaceful place, and let go. Do you understand?"(pg.107)
--> People usually never want to die during a state of fright. You hear people around us saying i hope i don't die from a heart attack, or i hope i never die while drowning. The reason why is because people want to die in their sleep so they die peaceful and not know what happens.

My experiences and thoughts throughout reading this book has changed a lot. The book showed me how to treasure people more while they last. Morrie the teacher made me think a lot more than just loving somebody, he made me understand why i love that person and what makes that person worth the time of loving. I just thought emotions were a come and go thing but Morrie made me realize what an emotion really is. Morrie's talks with Mitch made me realize a lot more about things because while i read the book i always was questioning myself along the way.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

HW 23 - Illness & Dying Book, Part 2

Title, Author, publisher, and publishing date:

Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom. Published by DoubleDay in 1997.

Precis:
Mitch visits Morrie every tuesday.Throughout the visits Morrie talks to Mitch about life and how to live in life. Mitch brings a recorder to record their conversations so Mitch won't forget the conversations when Morrie dies. With all the insights that Morrie gives to Mitch; Mitch takes the advice and questions things that he sees. Mitch acts a personal mentor and parent in order to make Mitch notice things a lot more.

Quotes and Responses:

"Mitch," he said, " the culture doesn't encourage you to think about such things until your about to die."(pg.64)

Response: Morrie is stating that the world and people around us doesn't teach us how to deal with a lot of things that life throws at us until we reach our golden years and start to ponder about the end of our lives. That's when he go through depression(most of us) and think about what we should've done differently in order to live our lives happier.

"It's what everyone worries about, isn't it? What if today were my last day on earth?" He studied my face, and perhaps he saw an ambivalence about my own choices."(pg.64)

Response: When Morrie stated this to Mitch it made Mitch realize a lot more than usual. As Morrie told Mitch about it being his last day on earth, Mitch started thinking about his choices that he made throughout his life and just sat there and thought about it. Morrie is just making Mitch realize a lot more about life instead of him following the cultures social norm. Which is forget about the end of your time until you get close to dying.

" But there are days where I am depressed. Let me not decieve you. I see certain things going and I feel a sense of dread. What am I going to do without my hands? What happens when I can't speak? Swallowing, I don't care so much about - so they feed me through a tube, so what?" (pg.70)

Response: Morrie starts thinking about the end of his life a lot more during the interview with Koppel again. He starts thinking about the ultimate end of his hand movements and him becoming mute and not be able to speak. This is why he is teaching Mitch a lot about life now before it becomes to late, and then Mitch will start thinking like Morrie is during his current interview with Koppel.

At first I thought this book was going to be like a boring life story of some old guy, but as I continued to read the book more I began to realize that it was more than a life story but a story of a student and his professor and how we should treasure life a lot more before we die. Throughout the book Morrie states a lot of good views and points that I take into consideration, like when Morrie said that we don't realize a lot of things because culture doesn't encourage us until we die. When I came upon the quote I noticing how true Morrie was when he mentioned it to Mitch. People in the world don't take death serious until we grow old and hit our golden years and then we start to think about ourselves dying and what we are going to do before we die, and how our family is going to deal with us dying and will they miss us. There are a lot of different things that run through people's lives as they get ill or grow old. So we should live life more meaningful before it becomes to late.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

HW 22 - Illness & Dying Book Part 1

I'm currently reading the book Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom (published by DoubleDay in 1997). A couple of insights that i noticed throughout the book is that Mitch Albom is dealing with illness and dying throughout the book, because his professor from college is dying slowly and getting ill at the same time. I noticed that once the professor got ill that people started paying more attention to him and he was the center of attention to Mitch and the news cast also. Once you start dying or start to feel very ill that's when people start to pay more attention to you and then they start to cry once you die. The way i see it is why cry when im dead you should of been crying and missing me when i was alive, now you cry and miss me when im dead.

On the chapter Audiovisual Ted Koppel(ABC TV's Nightline host) came to visit Morrie because he wanted to interview him. As soon as Ted Koppel came to Morrie's house all of Morrie's friends came to his house because they all wanted to meet Ted Koppel the family and friends were all estatic except for Morrie. Throughout Morrie was talking about his life and how he's going to die and all the guy could ask was if Morrie watched his show. Towards the end of the interview Morrie asked the guy for permission if he can samething on tv and the Ted responded saying sure, so Morrie stated " Well, Ted, one day soon, someone's gonna have to wipe my ass." And the show was aired, Mitch was flicking through the channels and that's when he came to realized that he forgot all about his professor.

On pg. 19 when the book stated that all of Morrie's friends and family were filled with excitement to meet Ted Koppel and when he came in through the door the crowd of people were buzzed with excitement. This made me realize that they all didn't care about Morrie's situation they all just came to see Ted. As i realized while reading the chapter that the crowd was never mentioned again throughout the interview; which made me realize that the family and friends ignored Morrie like he was just some "oject" and nothing more.

On pg. 23 while Mitch was flipping through the channels he heard the news mention about Morrie and he went numb. This points out that Mitch the professors old student, apparently forgot all about Morrie until the news mentioned his name, and that's when Mitch came to realize that he forgotten all about him and that he should go visit him. Which means that of course Mitch lied and apparently forgot all aboout his professor, after he promised Morrie that he would always be there for him.

On pg. 27 while Mitch was driving his car he noticed Morrie in a nearby park on his wheelchair, Mitch then suddenly sank down on the car seat because he was scared to come face to face with Morrie. This shows that he was scared to come face to face with his old professor becasue Mitch realized he broke his promise and that he was never there for him until sixteen years later. Which shows that people forget about you once you alive and well but once you get sick and are close to dying that's when people remember you all over again.

Throughout my expierences i can say that i myself see that people forget about one another once they alive and well, but once they die they remembered them. Once when my cousin was alive people were never asking about him that much maybe like once in a blue, but once he was diagonosed with cancer people started to always ask for him and always be there for him, and always smiling and making him laugh. Once he died though people were all sad and crying for him, which made no sense because they should of cried and missed him when he was alive not once he's dead. As you can see with Mitch and Morrie's case, that Mitch forgot all about Morrie until he heard his name on the news and how sick he was, and then that's when Mitch started visiting Morrie a lot more than before.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

HW 21 - Expert #1

The three most important sights that i've listed from the guest speaker yesterday was:

1)Eventhough he was a stay home dad he still became a neighborhood dad. Which is pretty cool because being a somewhat neighborhood dad or you can call it father figure in a way would make him feel happy and more powerful. And what i mean by powerful is like he has a lot of attention and is well known and aware by the people surrounding him.

2)It took him years before he saw a doctor which was a bad thing because of him not seeing the doctor while he knew he was sick, he got worse and the cancer got to advance. Which a lot of people do now and days they think that they're okay and they ignore modern medicine and when they get to sick that's when they start to realize what's going to happen next.
3)My last important insight that i have listed down is that his attitude was never bad Erik never had a bad attitude eventhough he knew about his condition. Which helped him as a person and helped his family and people around him the most, and his emotions were pretty good since he was a fighter it made him not give up on cancer and try to defeat it anyway that was possible, which made him a little less worried about death.

Her insights about erik wood and my insights were of course different in many ways. Eventhough him not seeing a doctor because he probably thought he was okay and that he would heal by himself was eventually a bad idea for him, because if he would of found out sooner about the cancer in his body he would of most likely been cured faster and became better. But since the doctor's caught the cancer most likely late it was bad for them and for him. Him being a fighter though i think was a good attitude to have around people regardlessly if he had cancer or not. Being a fighter helped him as a person and like i mentioned before a less worried person about his cancer, because he had an instinct in him that knew that he could fight off this cancer by himself, which is a good attitude to have eventhough he was scared and nervous.

Beth's presentation made me think a lot, because my cousin recently died of cancer it he found out about it when it was to late to make any cures, and erik also had cancer and he decided not to go to the doctor on time which made it worse for him. But Beth's presentation made me think of this particular question which is why do people decide to wait eventhough they know they feel sick? And i thought of that particular question because i know a lot of people who were sick and they thought they would get better overtime but they got worse in the end instead of getting better, and then they finally went to the doctor and by that time there is very little that the doctor can do.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

HW 19 - Family Perspectives on Illness & Dying

When i asked my mom about how she was brought up and how she was raised around illness and dying she told me the normal stuff people will usually say. My mom stated that when she was growing up her parents were strict and took disrespectfulness serious. So when ever she went to a funeral she would sit there quietely and listen to the priest talk about good and stay there for a hour or so and constantly walked over to the casket, but not to much since she didn't want to feel weird or in other terms out of place. She also felt the mood the everybody else was feeling since at a funeral its almost a sad environment she fit in within the environment so people won't look at her strange. Like she stated "I wouldn't be there smiling while everybody was there sad and crying it would be to akward." People would just be like what the hell...

Now her intake on illness wasn't as serious as the dying part since when your dying its like a final farewell to one person. But she did say that illness was very bad because her mom had diabetes and started losing her eye sight and was then later put on dialysis machine until later on she died of a heart attack. And she was 19 years old when her mom passed away. And i personally asked my mom if she misses her mother a lot and she tells me a whole story for an hour and how she was that she misses her a lot. And now my mom has type two diabetes which isn't that bad as she so call says but i know it can personally get worse, and i wouldn't want to lose my mother at an early age. She drinks soda and eats junk food aparently not caring on what she eats and i warn her and she just states "its my body not yours" so im just like whatever from now on. And when i asked her a question about why she does it and she just states " type two diabetes isn't that bad. If i had type one diabetes it would be way worse." And i beg to differ. http://diet.lovetoknow.com/wiki/Foods_to_Eat_with_Type_2_Diabetes

I asked my dad now about health and visiting the doctor if your sick and what not. And since my dad is more strict and has a marine attitude, he always tells me if your not dying then there is no need to go to the doctor. He tells me about how he got into around 16 car accidents with his bike since he used to race on his bike since he was a big lance armstrong fan. And how he just got back up and rode away except for a really bad accident he had back in 2000 when he went through a car windshield and had to go to the hospital for stitches and for his broken leg. And i asked him if he was sick would he miss a day of work and he said no, he states that if he isn't throwing up blood then there is no need to miss a day of work or a day of school in my case. But his overall intake on in health ain't that big of a deal to him. Since he has that marine like attitude he really doesn't care about a lot of things that my mom would care about.