Scent-sations

At one of my many appointments recently I noticed a sign that seems to be showing up more and more often in various forms...
"Please avoid the use of perfume and other scented products".

Now I don't know about you, but I love getting out of the shower and choosing a scented lotion to apply. I so enjoy it that I currently have over a dozen different scents on my bathroom shelves to choose from. They range from the clean, fresh, almost lemony scent of Olive Oil (by Perlier) to the smoky, seductive scent  of Code (by Armani, I think). Regardless of who makes it, I find some scents a perfect compliment to my mood and a wonderful indulgence in being feminine. Then I enter an office building where I see a sign requesting people not wear scent and it offends me. It also gets me thinking...where are people supposed to draw the line? Are we expected to avoid those yummy, fruity smelling shampoos that most everyone has in their showers? Are deodorants expected to not have any scent? And what about body lotions....should we be trying to find one that moisturizes but doesn't leave any fragrance behind...and where does one find such a thing....

Then there is the whole issue of scent and seduction. Whether purposeful or not, we use scent as part of the dance in the rituals of romance. Certain scents will draw us to one another, while others may have little impact. Some surveys have found that something as simple as the smell of vanilla can have some very surprising results in the game of attraction. Others find such heady combinations as cloves and cinnamon to attract others...

So back to that sign asking people to not wear perfume or other scented products... I don't know about you but I have no intention of avoiding scent simply because others may not appreciate it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about spraying on a cloud of perfume thick enough to cause the eyes of everyone around me to water. I'm just talking about my right to use sceted body products that allow me to feel clean, fresh, and a bit more feminine. While I'm truly sorry for those who have allergies, I have rights too. Beisdes, I'm deathly allergic to all nuts yet major airlines still serve them making every suface of that plane a death-trap for people with allergies as severe as mine...my point? Simply that while we can all be considerate of each other, we must still allow each their preferences too. Hopefully, somewhere in our actions we will find a level of tolerance and a happy medium we can all make peace with. As for me, I'll be the one who still indulges in a perfumed lotion after my shower, and perfume behind my ears for a night out. I hope you won't mind too much...and maybe some of you will even find it pleasant.

Medication Mix - Ups

Even though I have spent a lot of time this past year living in a hospital, they still make me uneasy. The place is a cesspool of opportunistic germs and infections always on the alert for a new host. Add to that the fact that it is increasingly common for errors to be made in the medications being given to patients, and it starts to look like the last person a sick person would want to venture into.

According to a report put out on Tuesday by the U.S. Pharmacopeia the rate of drug name mix-ups has more than doubled in the past four years. The report goes on to state that 1.4 percent of the errors resulted in patient harm, including death. When you add this report to the one released last year saying that lack of hand washing by doctors and nurses had led to anincrease in infection and illnesses amongst patients, and hospitals look worse and worse all the time when it comes tooffering a safe, clean environment for those requiring medical attention.

As I was writing this I was reminded of a mix-up that happened to me while I was in hospital last summer. I had been laid up flat on my back for months, as well as having torn most of the flesh off my backside when I was thrown from the motorbike. As a result, I had two deep lesions that had been extremely slow to heal. One evening one of my nurses was applying the medicated cream to the lesions, as was done a few times each day, but this time it was different. Within moments of the cream being applied, there was extreme burning....I was in agony! I asked what cream had been used on my sores, and the nurse showed me the jar of cream...it was my face cream! A cream filled with perfumes, and all kinds of other ingredients which may have tried to make it more youthful, but was never meant to be used on open wounds. Now I know this is a minor example of medication mix-ups, with the only side-effect being pain, but all the same it was avoidable, and should never have occurred. And if I had not brought it their attention it would have gone completely un-noticed. Thank goodness it wasn't more serious....

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Frustration

OK, so I am writing this same piece for the third time tonight. Once I moved on without saving what i wrote properly, and then I wrote again, went looking for an image, and lost everything I wrote again. Ironically, the subject I have been writing about was frustration. Of course it wasn't intended to be about the frustration of trying to put words here, but it fits now. So, let's try again...

A belated Happy New Year to one and all. I have not written much for a long time now. Part of that has been trying to decide what and how I want to write in this space. I have toyed with the idea of the original format where I take a bit of health info in the news and expanding upon it with my own opinions or maybe using this space as a place to share my journey of recovery from my accident. I suspect that I have struggled because no one concept has sat well with me, so I guess I will just take one day at a time and one subject at a time. That seems to go with everything else in my life right now.

I remember how I naively once thought that I would be up and running in my old life in a matter of a few months. I set a date of early September to return to work, and fully thought that was realistic. Now here I am in January of the following year and I am not even set up in my office yet. I don't work; I don't get out with my friends; I eat poorly because I barely have enough energy to prepare decent meals; my sleep patterns have no rhyme or reason and I no longer taste any foods the way I used to. I don't look the same thanks to a lot of facial damage, I walk with a cane most days, and the things that used to make up my day to day life are currently only memories. Frustration has become a part of everything i do. While I know I am making progress every day, it just seems to take too long. I miss having a 9 to 5, five days a week world where I have enough of me left over to make a meal at the end of the day that I can share with my son, and then on my time off be able to have the energy to visit friends or maintain my home. For now, reality dictates that I barely make it through afternoons of appointments with various specialists in a quest to make the best recovery possible...but it all takes so bloody long. I know the stories say that slow and steady wins the race, but that doesn't change the fact that I am frustrated physically, mentally, and emotionally on a daily basis because of all the things I can't do when I want to. Slow and steady may be my reality, but I can't help wishing I could move forward in leaps and bounds....for now I guess I still need to not allow things to frustrate me as much as I often do....too bad it is so much easier said than done...    

Accident Statistics

Ever since my accident, one of the things I hear most often is, "I bet you'll never get on a motorbike again!". That surprises me because if I had been in a car, or on a horse, or even in a plane, people would be encouraging me to get over the fear and get back onto, or into, whatever it was that I was riding. I have also heard quite a bit about how my injuries were as severe as they were because I was on a motorcycle, which meant there were no seatbelts, airbags, or other built-in protective measures. While I was in rehab I met a woman who had a very similiar accident to mine regarding location and speed. She was on the Malahat, when she was hit by a driver who fell asleep at the wheel. The big difference was that she was in her car and was wearing her seatbelt. Ironically, her injuries were equal to, or perhaps even worse, than mine were. The similiarities went as far as whatever injuries I had on the right side of my body, she incurred on her left. We even ended up with the same orthopedic surgeon, and I believe the same plastic surgeon. So where am I going with all this? Well, I think it simply boils down to the fact that the severity of one's injuries in an accident is as individual as they are. The vehicle involved may have some impact, but at the end of the day, each accident is as individual as the people involved. Some people die from the very same injuries that others survive.

I did recently investigate the numbers surrounding motor vehicle fatalities. There were some surprises, and some numbers were pretty much what I expected, so I though I would share them:

By the end of 2005, 43,443 people died in Motor Vehicle crashes. This number was a 1.4% increase from 2004, and the most deaths in a year since 1990. The good news is that the total number of persons injured, as opposed to dead, fell in 2005 by 3.2% to 2,699,000 and has been declining steadily since 1988. The bad news is that by the end of 2005, 43,443 people were killed as a direct result of Motor Vehicle crashes. This was a 1.4% increase from the year before.

Although the rise in traffic deaths is significant, the breakdown of types of vehicles involved in these traffic fatalities overall tells an interesting story.

Passenger vehicle occupant deaths decrease: Deaths of occupants in passenger vehicles actually decreased by 451 people to 31,415 in 2005. Although this is a significant improvement, every other measured category increased, which caused the overall increase in deaths.

Motorcycle deaths: The most significant increase in deaths involved motorcycles. In 2005, 4,553 motorcycle riders died. This statistic represents an increase of 525 deaths since 2004. The increased percentage of motorcycle deaths alone cancelled out the improvements in the death rates in passenger vehicles.

Cyclists: The number of cyclists killed was 57 higher than in 2004 at 727 cyclists fatalities. This is a pretty large increase, considering the overall small number.

Time of year: For the most part, the time of year when fatalities occur is pretty evenly distributed with between 3,000 and 4200 deaths in any month. In 2005, the deadliest month was July, with 4,214 deaths. February had the least deaths, with only 2,925.

Unrestrained occupants: Wearing a seat belt has always been believed to reduce the risk of dying in a crash and the numbers seem to agree with that. More than half, 55%, of the deaths of passengers were occupants who weren't wearing seat belts. This number has increased dramatically since 2004, when the figure was only 45%.

Alcohol:  There was an encouraging reduction in alcohol related fatalities — the lowest level since 1999. In fact, after a high of more than 20,000 deaths in 1988, alcohol related deaths are all the way down to 16,885.

Gender: Female drivers appear to fare better than males when it comes to motor vehicle related deaths. There were an incredible 30,224 men killed in 2005, as compared to 13,089 females. 

Daytime vs. nighttime: Even the time of day proved to be significant. Although the number of deaths during the daytime of 21,264 was an increase of 77 since 2004, the deaths occurring at night increased even more to 21,846, which was an increase of 571 deaths. 

Well, Stay Posted

Well, it's called the daily web log, but I haven't been even close to daily for quite a while now... for those of you who have read this log on a regular basis, I am back again on a part-time basis..... so the question is, where do I begin again? I haven't even picked up a newspaper for months....yikes! Well, stay posted, and let's see where things go...

Back in The Saddle

Well, here it is three and a half months since the last time I wrote....I want to say, my where has the time gone, but that seems like such a silly phrase....it went where time does; into the past. While the minutes, hours, days, and weeks have ticked by I have been busy working on recovering from motorcycle accident.

On May 29th, I was involved in a motorcycle accident on the Malahat. In that accident, the driver, a friend of mine, died at the scene and I was left with a whole lot of broken bones and other injuries. I incurred 19 broken bones that ranged from 3 in my neck, most of the right side of my face and body, all the way down to a shattered left ankle. I wasn't expected to survive, but thanks to the caring and knowledge of a lot of people I did.

I am hoping to return to work on a part-time basis in the near future; as part of that I am also looking forward to once again dropping a few lines here on a regular basis. The format will probably be a combo of my journey as I work myself through the medical aspects of my recovery, as well as the usual up-to-date medical information that used to be here. I look forward to being back...

Sincerely,

Krisaundra