AlphaMale

The disgrace of IV nursing

Most Alphas get augmentation therapy once a week.

Like this:

A nurse inserts a needle into one of the Alpha's veins. Then the nurse attaches IV tubing to the needle and lets Alpha-1 Antitrypsin solution flow down from a hanging IV bag till it's empty.

Nurses often botch this job. Skill levels vary from superb to amateurish. Superb is rare, unacceptably poor is common.

The Infusion Nurses Society Standards of Practice say a nurse who fails twice to get an IV needle inserted should call a backup nurse or supervisor. This standard is routinely ignored all over the country.

Nurses often don't get adequate training, supervision or support for doing an IV procedure. They take two, three or more sticks for a single IV. They add unnecessary pain, fear and stress to the lives of their patients, and surely to their own.

It's a national disgrace.

PS: I'm grateful for the skilled IV nurses. One of them infused me for years, then taught me to do it for myself.

Heather's story

Heather's dad was a big man at General Motors.

He regularly beat up Heather and her brothers.

One day when she was nine, she passed out in school. When she woke, she was looking at a policeman. He identified himself as Officer Greene. Then he said, "Tell me who did this and I'll make sure you never have to go back home again."

Strangely enough, Heather believed him. She told Officer Greene her older brother had to be taken away, too. Her brother Rudy was deaf-mute, a result of repeated brutal beatings. The cop agreed, and Heather told her story. After plea bargaining, Heather's father agreed to pay for private boarding schools for Heather and Rudy; the deal kept Dad out of jail.

Heather didn't see her father for many years. She lived with Rudy till she graduated from college and married. She had three children. One day she went to kindergarten and day care to pick up her kids. She was told the children had already been picked up by their grandparents.

Heather drove to her parents' house. She saw her kindergarten-age daughter peeking out from a window. She rang the bell repeatedly; no answer. Finally her mother said from behind closed doors, "Go away or I'll call the police."

Heather got back into her car and drove straight through the big double front doors. She got out and yelled for her kids. Her father grabbed her and began beating her head against a wall. Heather, who was about a foot shorter than her father and probably a hundred pounds lighter, was so angry she managed to knock him down. She jumped on top of him and beat him senseless.

The cops came. They took Heather's father to the hospital. They took Heather to jail. (Her father was a big man in their small town, too.) Heather was being questioned in a holding room when she saw a familiar face go by. She called out to her old friend the cop -- who was now Chief of Detectives Greene. He vouched for her. A magistrate released her.

She went directly to the hospital. Without anyone's permission, she walked into the Intensive Care Unit. She walked over to her father, who was hooked up to various drips and monitors, but fully conscious.

She leaned close to his face. She threatened him with grave bodily harm if he didn't drop the charges against her, or if he ever tried to see her children again.

The charges were dropped. She never saw her father alive again.

Rudy, the brother Heather lived with after leaving home, had Alpha-1 and developed severe lung disease. He died in her arms in 2002.

Because of the childhood beatings, Heather has scar tissue on her brain and a shoulder that recently had to be reconstructed. She also has Alpha-1. But she's getting augmentation therapy.  She's swimming regularly and just began an exercise program. She's losing excess weight.

Heather is OK.

Like Mark McGwire on steroids

Let's say you have chronic lung disease. You don't "qualify" for supplemental oxygen, though. You're too healthy.

If you use oxygen anyway, you can exercise a lot harder. You'll very likely improve your fitness level better and faster. These guys proved it.

You'll have to pay for it yourself. Good oxygen equipment costs several thousand dollars. (The cost of a good treadmill.)

But the oxygen could be your favorite piece of exercise equipment.

Oxygen is sexy

Imagine this:

You're looking at a photo of an attractive, youngish woman wearing a red babydoll nightgown.

She's sitting with her legs tucked under her atop an elegant fully-made bed. She's sitting sideways to you, looking at you with a slight, Mona Lisa smile.

You notice she's a cutie; you notice she's wearing a fetching little nightgown. Then you notice she has tubes in her nostrils. There's a little white thermos-bottle-sized container beside her.

The headline below the photo:

BILLY-JO WON'T GO ANYWHERE WITHOUT HER HELIOS.

Then a brief explanation tells you that Billy-Jo Dokes has Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency, that it made her susceptible to chronic lung disease, and that Billy-Jo's doing just fine these days, with the help of her convenient, portable oxygen.

Think that might change your feelings about wearing oxygen?

Ah, but where in real life would you find a Billy-Jo? Young, attractive and with COPD? Among the Alphas, silly. I've met hundreds of Alphas; several of them would look great in that photo.

PS: My online dictionaries never heard of babydoll nightgowns. Fortunately, somebody has. I link to this site strictly for educational purposes.

What's cool

I know lots of people who need oxygen and don't use it; or don't use it enough. This is risky to their health. It's stupid.

But they aren't stupid people. Some of them are brilliant.

The problem is emotional. What you wear makes a statement. For example, the shorts you're wearing might say: Long, baggy shorts mean this guy is just too cool for words.

Your oxygen tubing says:

This guy's sick. Or...

This guy's old. Or...

This guy's feeble. Or...

This guy smoked too much. Or...

This guy's looking for sympathy. Or...

This guy has no pride about how he looks in public. Or...

This guy will attract a woman the day after hell freezes over.

Or... you finish your own sentence.

But people can change their mind about what's cool.

I believe supplemental oxygen can be very cool.

Next posting, I'll explain.

 

Why you wear silly pants

Is anything sillier than a pair of extremely baggy shorts, so long they droop halfway between your knees and your ankles?

If you wore them 20 years ago, everybody would have snickered. Today, they're a uniform you must wear if you're young and not-a-geek.

Blame it on Michael Jordan. The greatest athlete of his generation liked his shorts long and baggy. Pretty soon, this was standard apparel in professional basketball. "We all want to look like Michael," said another player.

Pretty soon, every teen in the western world thought droopy drawers were cool.

Oxygen is not cool. It presents all the wrong images; not young, not healthy, not fashionable, not attractive. Oxygen needs a Michael Jordan to make it cool. Since Michael isn't volunteering, we need another plan.