Archive for January, 2010

• Petition against pelvic exams without consent

  Date: 2010.01.29 | Category: Canada, Health, Things I Don't Understand | Response: 1

  Catherine Connors, aka Her Bad Mother, has posted an open letter to protest the practice of pelvic exams without consent.

  Go read it. Sign it. Share it.

• NOT without my consent

  Date: 2010.01.28 | Category: Canada, Things I Don't Understand | Response: 3

  I was going peacefully about my day when a tweet crossed my path. It was a link to this Globe and Mail article (which will probably go behind a pay wall because that’s how the Globe rolls): Time To End Pelvic Exams Without Consent.

  Medical students routinely practice doing internal pelvic examinations while surgery patients are unconscious, and without getting specific consent, at least in Canada.

  Guidelines in the United States and Britain say specific consent is required but, by contrast, Canadian guidelines state that pelvic examination by trainees is “implicit.

  Implicit? IMPLICIT?

  No, I really don’t think it is. I think it’s called violating women while they are unconscious. And because it’s the way I roll I retwittered the link and asked women if they had undergone surgery in Canada. If they were unconscious. And if they weren’t sure they hadn’t gotten a bonus pelvis exam.

  The responses I got, from both women and men, were immediate. They were horrified.

  One woman had surgery two years ago at a teaching hospital.

  One just had surgery.

  Two women I know are scheduled for surgery later this year.

  One woman wrote the CMA, her MPP and her MP.

  The rest expressed their incredulity and outrage.

  Look, I know medial students need to practice procedures. I’m not against that and if I was asked if a student could perform the exam I’d let them. If fact, I have.

  I am, however,  against someone inserting a speculum into my body without my consent while I’m unconscious for practice.

  To be perfectly honest, I don’t understand how it’s not assault.

  It takes a lot to get me riled up to the point where I write letters to my MP or my MPP. Nothing has ever pushed me to that point before.

  This has. So as soon as I calm down enough to figure out what to say I’ll be writing them. And the CMA. And anyone else I can think of.

• I Married A Meatloaf Maniac

  Date: 2010.01.13 | Category: What's for Dinner? | Response: 11

  I’m pretty ambivalent about meatloaf. I can make it, I can eat it but it’s not really something I love or particularly go out of my way to eat or make, especially when I lived alone. When it’s just you eating it, a meatloaf seems to appear twice as large as it actually is. Lee on the other hand could probably eat meatloaf every day if you let him. He has yet to find a meatloaf that he does not like and I think meatloaf nights rate up there above pizza nights for him. He is a meatloaf maniac.

  I try to space out our time between meatloaf meals and I try very hard not to make the same one twice in a row. I keep hoping that I am going to find the Holy Grail of meatloafs  – the one that will put all other meatloafs (meatloafs?) to shame and make me declare that, “Yes! Yes, I do like meatloaf and I’m not afraid to say it.” I haven’t found it.

  Luckily there are a gazillion different meatloaf recipes. I’ve made the basic Better Homes and Gardens one that was the first one I ever made. I’ve made ones that used three different kinds of meat (italian sausage, ground pork and ground beef – it was massive). I’ve made ones that use barbeque sauce or some kind of ketchup on top (why is it that ketchup on top of a meatloaf seems so unketchupy and yummy?). I’ve tried ones that have bacon laid on top (mmm bacon) though I absolutely draw the line at the bacon explosion. I say every now and then that I’m going to make a chicken or a turkey meatloaf but then I forget to buy the ground chicken or turkey (it’s not really a shopping cart regular for us).

  The one on tap for tonight is from Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. It’s kind of an interesting one. You cook it in a dutch oven, then drain off the fat and and mix of tomatoes and chickpeas together for a sauce (well, and other stuff) and throw it back in the oven for awhile. You can put bacon on top of that one too (which will totally depend on if I remember to take the bacon out of the freezer when I get home).

  Then there’s always the discussion of what to serve with the meatloaf. Mashed potoatoes? Salad? Rice? Potatoes gratin? Nothing ever seems to fit quite right.

  So I want to know – what’s your go-to meatloaf recipe? And what the heck do you serve with it?

  Cross-posted at Loving Food and Sharing Recipes.

• Still Sick

  Date: 2010.01.06 | Category: Uncategorized | Response: 3

  Excuse me while I whine but I’m still sick and I’m really quite tired of being sick.

  Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy to be out of the fever/vomiting/joint pain phase but I’m really, really ready for this cough to leave. This cough that causes me to hyperventilate and get dizzy. This cough that is keeping me awake all night (I’ve kicked myself to the spare room so I don’t keep Lee up all night). This cough that keeps me from being able to have a conversation. This cough that the doctor didn’t not seem concerned about and yet he gave me an inhaler (that seems to do jack shit).

  I attempted to go to work yesterday and got sent home, which really is a good thing because until I can actually speak more than three words together without dissolving into a coughing fit I really shouldn’t be around people. Plus I sound hideous.

  I’m tired of being sick. And yes, I’m whining.

• I really hope they are wrong

  Date: 2010.01.02 | Category: Uncategorized | Response: 3

  You know the people that say that how you spend New Year’s Eve and how you usher in the new year sets up the whole next year of your life? They better be wrong.

  Because the stroke of midnight found me with my head in the toilet being violently ill. I’m not using the term “violently ill” idly either – two days later and my stomach still hurts. I have the flu. Or something flu-like. I had a sore throat, then I was sick and then joint pain like you wouldn’t believe. If I was 40 years older I would have been a good candidate for a hip replacement. Now my throat is just slightly sore and I’m coughing which makes me dizzy. This is such a fantastic way to end my Christmas vacation.

  So far 2010 is off to a rip-roaring start.