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The Waking
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I cannot go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree, but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
--Theodore Roethke
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Joy's Updates - Straight from the Horse's Mouth.
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Sunday, May 18, 2008
Where Have I Been?
I just noticed that I haven't written since Wednesday and had been doing so well, too. There's probably no reason but many excuses. I have a rationalization for anything.
I worked at Feet & More Friday afternoon and all day yesterday. When Jim and Zela are out of town, they like for me to work there for some reason. Their regular workers haven't been trained to do everything yet. I don't work there unless they go out of town or really need me since I can make more money in less time doing homebound. I worked there regularly the first year after I retired but then recovered sufficiently enough to return to the schools.
Working there isn't taxing since mostly it involves waiting on customers, which is fine unless they ask me questions that involve my practicing medicine without a license. When they know what they want or ask about something I've taken or have learned about, I feel comfortable about it. There are times I ask them to come back when Jim is there, or I call him. His knowledge of supplements is encyclopedic and he's been trained. I don't get out of my comfort zone with any of this or pretend to know things I don't.
I have a healthy skepticism about most things, including pharmaceutical and herbal medications. Melody Petersen was on Bill Moyers Journal recently discussing her book Our Daily Meds. Here's a link to the transcript. It was scary learning about trials, research, lobbyists, and marketing. Here are a couple of excerpts:
MELODY PETERSEN: A few years back, I kept getting information from a group called the PTSD Alliance. PTSD is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. And one of the main messages of this group was that five percent of the American public suffered from PTSD. And this is estimate was millions and millions more than the government actually said suffered from this illness.
And later, I learned that this group wasn't actually what I thought it was. It was the creation of a public relations firm working for Pfizer to sell more Zoloft. In fact, it was staffed by the public relations firm. Its offices were the same address of the public relations firm.
You know, it's gone so far that some independent scientists are starting to view our medical literature as propaganda. I've learned that there are so many different ways for a study to be designed to get the data that will help you sell your drug. If you want to make it look more powerful than an older drug on the market, you give the volunteers in your trial the older drug at a dose that is too low to really help them so your drug looks better. If you want your drug to look safer than an older drug you boost the dose up of the older drug in the volunteers so they have more side effects. If you have one study that showed it worked, and one study showed it didn't, you publish the first study over and over again with the help of your advertising agency. And you don't publish the second one
That a 100,000 Americans die every year from their prescription drugs - that they took just as the doctor directed. This isn't when a doctor or a pharmacist made a mistake or the patient accidentally took too much. This is when everything supposedly went right. So, that just shows you how dangerous these products are. So, I try to avoid taking any meds I don't absolutely have to but am also careful about vitamins and supplements as well. I do know some of the ones I take don't have the side-effects that prescription drugs do so prefer them. I take meds prescribed by doctors but hope I don't have to get carried away with it.
Several big boxes of inventory came in that I had to unpack, check off the invoice, price, and shelve. I kind of enjoy doing that. Wednesday and Saturday are cleaning days at the store, so I vacuumed, dusted, mopped and straightened. Wish it were that easy at home.
I listened to an audio book and knitted Saturday morning. A simple scarf is at my level of expertise, so that's what I did and still dropped some stitches and had to redo a couple of rows. I also worked some crossword puzzles from the Tennessean. Tina stopped by to visit a little while, too, which I enjoyed. It was relaxing. Probably only about four people came in Saturday and a few more Friday afternoon.
What have you been doing?
12:07:00 PM
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