The Blog of Wistar Watts Murray

Yesterday Salon published an article called “Race and the White Coat” by Dr. Rahul K. Parikh. The article discusses the proven disparities in medical care that occur in our country along racial lines. In general, white people receive better medical care than black people. That’s not to say that white doctors are kicking black cancer patients out of hospital beds to make room for white girls recovering from getting their ears pierced, but implicit biases can inform how much pain medication someone is prescribed, or who is going to be recommended for a renal transplant.

Parikh’s article mentions Harvard’s Implicit Association Test, which I took for the first time yesterday after staring at the Proceed and Cancel buttons for 15 minutes. I’m not positive, but I think the results of my test show that next time my local hospital staff pays more attention to the black gunshot victim in the ER than to the fact that the cafeteria salad bar is out of raisins and I require raisins on my salad, I will be lying if I say I’m not resentful. And that’s science, people. Get on board.

I respect Hollywood couple Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy for writing an intelligent article about autism, even if it does end with an unnecessary exclamation point. It seems that McCarthy’s five-year-old son Evan is one of the children who has “recovered” from autism through a strict food regiment. Yes, the connection between childhood vaccines and autism is still very controversial, but McCarthy has a point that something environmental is obviously triggering this condition. That unknown agent needs to be explored in full, no matter what the corporate consequences. So I never thought I’d say this, but kudos to Jenny McCarthy. “Where’s the cavalry?” she asks. “Where are all the doctors beating down our door to take a closer look at Evan?” Good question.

I’m sick. Sick, sick, sick. And I didn’t want to blog about it, but now I have no choice. Three days of sick.

Day 1 - Hey, I think I’m sick. What a novelty for a girl with a superior immune system. Am I sure I’m not faking it? Yes, I think so. I claim this couch for lounging.

Day 2 - I feel worse. I’m not going to blog about it. Sick-blogging is ranked down there with cat-blogging. I claim this bed for coughing on.

Day 3 - The sickness seizes my throat and the space behind my eyeballs. I drink orange seltzer water. I play with my sister’s new puppy. I finally cave and take medication. Nothing seems to help. I suddenly feel compelled to reach out to everyone on the internet and tell them how sick I am. I claim this blog for your sympathetic reactions.

But no sick-blog can beat Waldo’s epic sick-blog from 2006:

My throat is clogged. It’s as if I’ve swallowed a drain plug. Every gulp is conscious, difficult, near-desperate, the flailing of a decked fish. . .

When I cough, the plug reveals itself to be an oversize rusty bolt, tearing at a shredded windpipe. I fear I might blow it out. I half expect that when next I clutch at my burning throat I’ll come away with a handful of neck-flesh.

I realize now that sickness separates the true bloggers from the internet so-and-so’s, the wheat from the chaff. If you have not yet blogged about your runny nose and your aching internals, you are obviously a dilettante - you probably don’t even own your own domain name. It took me eight months and almost 300 posts to get here, but now you finally get to see me blow snot rockets.

Giving birth in hot tubs = not cool. I Stumbled upon a birthing stories website yesterday and was horrified to find pictures of a lady in a bathing suit delivering a child in her patio hot tub. Her husband and daughters looked on while she pulled her one-piece aside and pushed out a baby. Later she wrapped herself in a bathrobe and went to take a shower.

Hot tubs are for drinking beer out of cans and making out, NOT for soaking in afterbirth. I’d link you to the website but I don’t want to offend the mother. Plus she’d know immediately that I am less of a woman than she is. Babies are cute and they make me laugh and cause my uterus to flutter, but the second I start thinking about birthing one of them they all start looking like slippery little ogres.

I also saw a scary video yesterday of a puppy who thrashes to death metal music. That video and the hot tub birthing pictures combined to ruin my night. I was looking forward to relaxing under the spa jets with my puppy in one arm and my newborn baby in the other, and suddenly all I could see was blood and teeth.

“Ms. Murray,” says the dentist, “are you sure you don’t want to split these four fillings into two appointments?”

“Hell no,” I say. “Recline my chair. Shoot me up with Novacaine. I’ve cleared my morning. Let’s do this.”

Fifteen minutes and five long needles to the mandible later, I’m listening to the dentist’s iPod playlist through headphones and settling in for three hours of drilling and filling.

“You guys are doing awesome,” I say to the doctor and his Russian assistant. I close my eyes and feel the cool water of the technician’s hose mist my cheeks. The fresh water has mingled with my saliva and I am lightly showered with all the fluids in my mouth. I breath in the tooth decay being vaporized by the drill. I feel the corners of my mouth crack with the pressure of the suction hose. I tap my feet to the bad country music coming through the headphones.

“This is even better than getting my wisdom teeth taken out,” I think, “and that was pretty great.”

Alternative name for this post–”Unfaithful doctor, I advise you to stop having an affair. Your wife is onto you.” Saw this ad on Charlottesville Craigslist this morning with the subject:

“Need info on female drug reps cavorting with local surgeons”

“I am a private investigator in Richmond and have been hired to identify the female drug representative who is having/had an affair with a married physician in the Charlottesville area between 2005 to present. This person may cover the Charlottesville, Lynchburg, Staunton, Harrisonburg and Waynesboro areas. The only information I have is that she has been a drug representative for many years with one of the larger drug companies.

Information I need: which companies work this area and which are the largest. Phone numbers of regional offices and names of managers. Names of physicians who have had improper relationships with pharmaceutical sales persons The names of any of the female reps who may provide me with information.”

Good luck, P.I. Since when do the good people of Charlottesville rat out their doctors? And since when does the Craigslist “Community” section conduct your investigations for you?

In 2006 New York photographer Alice Proujansky went to the Dominican Republic to document the lives born and the lives lost in a dismally-funded maternity ward. Here are some of the affecting images she captured on film.

I always knew there was a reason why I choose to look so frumpy. It turns out I am a scientist. National news outlets like CNN have been picking up this story today about the presence of unsafe doses of lead in popular lipsticks made by L’Oreal, Dior, and Cover Girl.

More than half of 33 brand-name lipsticks tested (61 percent) contained detectable levels of lead, with levels ranging from 0.03 to 0.65 parts per million (ppm). None of these lipsticks listed lead as an ingredient.

One-third of the tested lipsticks exceeded the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s 0.1 ppm limit for lead in candy – a standard established to protect children from directly ingesting lead. Lipstick products, like candy, are directly ingested into the body. Nevertheless, the FDA has not set a limit for lead in lipstick, which fits with the disturbing absence of FDA regulatory oversight and enforcement capacity for the $50 billion personal care products industry.

Research money is finally going to the study of harsh chemicals in cosmetics, and I couldn’t be happier about it, even though the published findings will continue to be scary. Women (and the men and babies that are kissed and snuggled regularly by women) need to demand that the FDA regulates the chemical content of cosmetics. When harsh cosmetics aren’t swallowed or absorbed directly into the skin, they are washed into our water supply where they cause untold environmental damage.

Here is a great local website - environmentalhealthnews.org - that chronicles the problems in more depth.

Here is a website that will tell you which beauty products are safe and which are not: Skin Deep

Two medical posts today.

1. Young Brooklyn doctor opens medical practice for uninsured artists. Makes housecalls on motor scooter and answers questions about your rashes on the instant messenger. I wonder how many of these conversations turn into cyber sex. “Now tell me where it’s swollen. Tell me what it feels like.” You know all those artsy types are going to be video chatting with the good doctor, showing him their engorged nipples.

PS Is the above post too graphic? I don’t even know anymore.

2. Doctors aren’t trying to torture you (or my grandmother); they actually do not perceive your pain. To save them from daily trauma brought on by over-empathizing with their patients, doctors’ brains experience detachment from their pain receptors when someone is suffering. I wonder if this works for parents who are doctors, and if this explains why my dad was always trying to staple our leg wounds together in the backyard.

They say that the sweetest sound in the English language is one’s own name. I heard a lot of it today. “Wistar, you have no blood vessels in your left leg.” “Wistar, can you eat some fruit cocktail, or do you think you might throw it up?” “Wistar, we’re just going to stick this needle in your vein for a hot second.” I am my grandmother’s namesake. I was there with Wistar, sitting beside the orthopedic hospital bed, editing an erotica novel on my laptop while Big Wis watched the first few episodes of Desperate Housewives, and we both started to get confused. “Hey Wis,” said my other, visiting grandparents, “Would you like to come to dinner with us?” “No,” said Big Wis, thinking they were inviting her, demobilized with infection on her fluffy pillows. “I don’t have anything to wear. I think I will just dine here tonight. I ordered mashed potatoes.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her that it was me who had been invited [that seems like bad grammar - me versus I - someone help me], that no one was dreaming of taking her out to dinner, that she was obviously bedridden while I was mobile and restaurant-able. The other Wistar. The young, healthy Wistar, who can hoist the 90-pound grandma onto the commode, who can eat a cheeseburger in 30 seconds, who can tune out the TV during Law & Order. As opposed to the elderly, southernly Wistar, who can catch a fever and be suspicious of Mexicans. Who can refuse to be hungry for dinner. Who can reject the circulation in her leg. One nurse came into the room and said, “My father-in-law is named Wistar. I’ve never in my life met another Wistar and here are two in one room.” “Terrific,” I said, “Make the other one get better.”