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Politics and hospitals
Apr. 20th, 2024 04:15 pmLast Sunday I attended the DFL District 62 Convention at Washburn High. It was the usual mixture of fascinating and intensely boring. The best part is probably meeting the candidates, or at least seeing them speak in person. And It's kind of interesting to see how government works from the ground up, even the boring parts. One thing about government at this level is that you have a lot of down time in which to get to know your neighbors (much of the time you are sitting in a tight group with the other delegates from your precinct, which in Minneapolis means that they are all people that live within about 6 blocks of you). TIP: try to change seats within the precinct seating every now and then so you don't have to make conversation with the same stranger for 6 hours.
At one point I took a break and went out in the hallway, met some enthusiastic young Samuels volunteers, and the next thing I knew I was creating a sub-caucus for them. (They couldn't do it because they were staff, not delegates). That turned out to be more fun than I expected. We merged with the other Samuels sub-caucus, sent out scouts to Uncommitted/Issues caucuses on the other side of the auditorium, and managed to grow our sub-caucus from 16 to 28. This gave us enough for TWO delegates! And then we had to figure out how to pick our delegates and alternates, which is not as intuitively obvious as you might think. Nobody in our group was very experienced at this, and a couple of the natural leaders that emerged had radically different ideas on how it should be done, but it was worked out peacefully in a surprisingly short time. Kind of like an escape room, with all the emergent group problem-solving. Really, there's nothing in caucus-based politics more fun than a walking sub-caucus.
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On Monday I had a cardioversion procedure at Methodist Hospital to get me out of persistent AFIB (Atrial Fibrillation). It's the 3rd time in 3 years that I have had to do this, which I can live with. If it gets closer together I might consider drug therapy, but the last time I tried that the treatment was worse than the problem, so I'd rather not. Two days before the procedure I impulsively ordered a Kardia Personal EKG monitor so that I would be able to see if the cardioversion worked or not without having to wear a Zio monitor. I'm glad I got it, because (like last year) it took a few hours for my heart to settle down into a normal sinus rhythm. Once it finally managed that, it's been fine, and I feel considerably less anxious about it.
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It is now a month since Richard's pneumonia and he's doing fine. The antibiotic they chose briskly dispensed with the unidentified pathogen, and the lingering cough has finally cleared up. Curiously, a nurse has called 4 or 5 times since he was discharged just to see how he's doing. It's nice to know that they care, but... why haven't they ever called about anything else? Nobody called me to see how my heart was doing after the cardioversions. I don't remember anybody calling him after his hip replacements, or even the heart bypass. How about you? Has any medical establishment ever called to see how you were doing after a medical procedure?
At one point I took a break and went out in the hallway, met some enthusiastic young Samuels volunteers, and the next thing I knew I was creating a sub-caucus for them. (They couldn't do it because they were staff, not delegates). That turned out to be more fun than I expected. We merged with the other Samuels sub-caucus, sent out scouts to Uncommitted/Issues caucuses on the other side of the auditorium, and managed to grow our sub-caucus from 16 to 28. This gave us enough for TWO delegates! And then we had to figure out how to pick our delegates and alternates, which is not as intuitively obvious as you might think. Nobody in our group was very experienced at this, and a couple of the natural leaders that emerged had radically different ideas on how it should be done, but it was worked out peacefully in a surprisingly short time. Kind of like an escape room, with all the emergent group problem-solving. Really, there's nothing in caucus-based politics more fun than a walking sub-caucus.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On Monday I had a cardioversion procedure at Methodist Hospital to get me out of persistent AFIB (Atrial Fibrillation). It's the 3rd time in 3 years that I have had to do this, which I can live with. If it gets closer together I might consider drug therapy, but the last time I tried that the treatment was worse than the problem, so I'd rather not. Two days before the procedure I impulsively ordered a Kardia Personal EKG monitor so that I would be able to see if the cardioversion worked or not without having to wear a Zio monitor. I'm glad I got it, because (like last year) it took a few hours for my heart to settle down into a normal sinus rhythm. Once it finally managed that, it's been fine, and I feel considerably less anxious about it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It is now a month since Richard's pneumonia and he's doing fine. The antibiotic they chose briskly dispensed with the unidentified pathogen, and the lingering cough has finally cleared up. Curiously, a nurse has called 4 or 5 times since he was discharged just to see how he's doing. It's nice to know that they care, but... why haven't they ever called about anything else? Nobody called me to see how my heart was doing after the cardioversions. I don't remember anybody calling him after his hip replacements, or even the heart bypass. How about you? Has any medical establishment ever called to see how you were doing after a medical procedure?
