Divemedic

Improvement

My grandson’s name is Ryan. At about 1100 this morning, he decided that it was a good time to open his eyes. He even smiled when his mother made a fart joke to try and get him to laugh. His mother, his nurse, and myself were moved to tears.

His smile is crooked, indicating a possibility of some sort of neurological deficit. (If you will remember, the virus he was hit with frequently results in paralysis) He still hasn’t spoken a word in 8 days, but for the first time in 5 days his eyes are open and he is interacting with those around him.

Neuro will be evaluating him for function and deficits. The fact that he is again awake is a major improvement. We continue to wait and watch for any signs of what is to come.

I want to thank each and every one of you who has taken the time to comment, email, and wish or pray for his recovery. You are all too numerous to thank on an individual basis, but your support and care is of immeasurable benefit.

By Divemedic, ago

Worst Since 1969

This is the worst year in the US stock market since 1969. The S&P 500 is down 24% year-to-date, and the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index has surrendered about 16%.

The job market is actually much worse than the Government has let on, because they have been using larger than normal “seasonal adjustments” to hide the fact that the job market is worse than it actually is. Through the first nine months of the year, seasonal adjustment has boosted private payrolls by 851,000. That’s a half-million extra jobs compared to the average seasonal adjustment from 2013 to 2021. The gap is even higher over the past seven months, with this year’s seasonal adjustment providing an average boost of 539,000 more jobs than the average seasonal adjustment over the prior nine years. This is causing the numbers to appear far better than they are. For example, this year private-sector employment fell by 2.4 million jobs, but the Labor Department reported a gain of 492,000 private jobs after “seasonal adjustment.” A swing of nearly 3 million jobs.

The average price of gasoline in the US was $2.33 per gallon in January 2021. It hit a peak of $4.93 in June, but then Biden began artificially manipulating the price by releasing oil from the SPR. The price now stands at $3.70 per gallon, and more than half of our petroleum reserves are gone.

Inflation is running wild. That’s causing the IRS to have to increase the standard deduction and adjust ta brackets by far more than the previous few years. Social Security is increasing its payments by large amounts. The Biden administration is playing this as a good thing, but that has caused the Fed to massively increase interest rates.

In the past three weeks, our national debt has increased by a quarter of a trillion dollars.

Crime is up. For 2021, the number of murders reported in the U.S. rose by 4.3% since 2020, according to the FBI. 2020 itself was a record, with the murder rate rising by 29.4% from 2019 to 2020. 

But leading officials do not believe this is an accurate picture, since only 11,794 of 18,806 law enforcement agencies chose to submit expanded homicide data. With 52% of law enforcement agencies nationwide reporting, this means roughly 48% of law enforcement agencies across the country did not submit any data in 2021, leaving significant gaps in coverage. The FBI has concluded that participation for 2021 remained “below a statistically acceptable level to be nationally representative,” meaning that crime is likely even higher.

The CDC thinks that it is even worse. They think that US firearm homicide and suicide rates each increased by more than 8% from 2020 to 2021. CDC researchers estimated that there were over 20,000 firearm homicides and over 26,000 firearm suicides in the United States in 2021. This means that the US had more homicides than in any year in over 25 years.

Our border is not so much a sieve as it is simply wide open.

Name one thing that has improved in this country in the past 36 months.

By Divemedic, ago

Watching and Waiting

With regards to my grandson: I spent most of last night at the hospital. I got the opportunity to look over his labs, and they all looked as normal as any child’s. The doctors were performing every test imaginable. He now has a feeding tube, and has been having seizures off and on all day.

They believe that they have finally identified the culprit, and the news is not promising for full recovery. It looks like he has acute flaccid myelitis caused by his being infected with a strain of enterovirus called EV-D68. From what doctors can tell from examining him during the short periods of time that his eyes are open, it looks like his left arm is not working.

It appears like the virus has been hitting children in the US pretty hard for the past few weeks. There is no vaccine, and there is no real treatment. In my grandson’s case, permanent paralysis and even death are possible. If it is in fact determined that this is what he has, the best we can hope for is permanent paralysis of at least one of his limbs. What a tough thing for a six year old child. My heart breaks for my daughter.

For now, they are starting him on a course of corticosteroids, continuing the IV immunoglobulins, and they will be transferring him to UF Shands in Gainesville for more care. Transferring him to Shands is both a blessing and a curse. It’s a great hospital, but the fact that he needs to go there is not good news. It’s serious enough that the CEO of the hospital where he currently is has personally gotten involved with the case.

I can’t visit tonight, as the ICU only allows for three people to visit at a time, and one of them is of course my daughter, so the family is setting up visitation schedules.

For now, we await the results of the testing.

By Divemedic, ago

Little News

Blogging continues to be on the back burner. My grandson’s condition has changed little, or perhaps a bit worse. He began having seizures last night. I appreciate all of the thoughts, well wishes, and prayers you have sent my way.

By Divemedic, ago

My Grandson

I have hesitated to post this until now. My daughter has two children, a daughter aged 7, and a son aged 6. Her man has two children of his own from a previous marriage. So I have a total of four grandkids. This post is about my daughter’s six year old son.

Last Wednesday, he came home from school complaining that he was tired. It had been a long few days, as all of them play sports, and the weekend had been filled with tons of activity. He went to bed early. He wouldn’t wake up fully on Thursday morning. He was running a slight fever, and was refusing to eat or take any fluids. He will occasionally open his eyes, but he hasn’t spoken a word since he complained of being tired on Wednesday.

By Friday, my daughter called me in a panic because she couldn’t understand why he was getting sicker. I told her to try and get him to take fluids. She tried, but every time he would drink, he would vomit them back up. So Friday evening, she took him to the Pediatric ED. This next part is for the medical people: His ABG showed pH of 7.28, a CO2 of 47, and an HCO3 of 11. He is on contact and droplet precautions because he tested positive for Rhino and Enterovirus.

So he got fluids. I thought for sure that the fluids would bring him around. No go. When he is sleeping, he writhes in pain, but that is the only reaction. He is rousable, and could walk with assistance to the restroom, but if not woken up, and coerced into going, he will simply wet himself while unconscious. Light hurts his eyes, and he will wince in pain when the lights are turned on. His fever on Friday night spiked to 103. So as soon as I got back from Miami on Saturday, I went to see him and my daughter.

When I saw him, I attempted to check his Brudzinski, so I placed him supine, placed one hand on his chest, and raised his chin to his chest, which caused his hips and knees to flex. I reported this to his nurse. My daughter reports that they went in later and woke up my grandson. They had him put his own hand on his chest and use his other hand to raise his own head. There was no response. I have never heard of a Brudzinsky being done that way, but I may be wrong.

While I was there, he opened his eyes, and I got him to smile because I was being a big goofball. My daughter reports as soon as I left, he went back to sleep and is even more difficult to rouse.

Anyhow, he has had numerous blood draws, head CT, EEG, and Lumbar puncture, all normal. The only abnormal finding on any testing is a small cyst on his spinal cord, but the neurologist thinks it may have been there since birth and says it wouldn’t be the cause of all of this.

Then this morning, he deteriorated again. Now he can’t even walk with assistance. So now he has been moved to the Pediatric ICU. He is on pain meds, so he is sleeping better, but there are still no answers. If they can’t get him to take anything by mouth by tomorrow, they are going to insert an NG tube and begin feeding through it.

As you can imagine, my daughter is a wreck. She hasn’t left his side in a week. When they take him off for more testing, she spends her time crying. My little girl’s heart is breaking, and I don’t know what else I can do. As soon as I am done typing this, I will be headed off to the hospital to see them again. The hospital is over an hour from here, so I will be home late.

Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans.

By Divemedic, ago

Just Give Them What They Want

That’s always been the mantra of the left. There is no need to use force to stop a criminal- this is a simple transaction whereby poor people attempt to feed their families, give them what they want, and there will be no problems. That has always been the left’s philosophy.

But what if what the criminal wants is to kill you? The left’s assumption is caused by projection- the left is assuming that a criminal’s motivation is a rational one, brought about by the desperation of poverty. It is a simple idea that ignores the complexities of actual life. Sometimes, people don’t share your values for whatever reason. They aren’t stealing to feed their families, they are just crazy, evil, or simply animals bereft of any shred of simple morality. The obvious and simple notion that some people are simply evil has so-called “experts” in NYC at a loss.

“It makes no sense,” said Chris Herrmann, an assistant professor at John Jay, who once served as a crime statistics expert at the NYPD. “The victim wasn’t threatening, the victim was leaving, it doesn’t make sense when it comes to the victim-offender relationship,” Herrmann said, referencing Moore’s Oct. 6 murder at the 176th Street station in The Bronx, which happened right after the Citi Field worker had exited the train.

So-called crime expert Chris Herrmann, Professor at CUNY/John Jay

That simple ignorance of human nature has resulted in a 42% increase in violent crime in NYC. That’s why you have homeless vagrants stabbing people and committing random murders on the subway. Then there is also the elephant in the room:

My favorite quote is when the reporter on the video found at this link asked the woman “Do you feel safe in New York?” and the woman replies: “Yes, I do. Of course, you have to be aware of your surroundings any place that you work or commute at all times.”

I am sitting in my living room with the windows open and enjoying the fall air. I don’t have to worry about getting stabbed on my way to work. I am hundreds of times safer in my community than the average NYC resident. Why? The citizens in my area are mostly armed and don’t put up with that shit, and neither do the police, nor does my governor.

The experts are claiming that the reduction in people taking the subway is responsible for the increase in violent crime. Dr. Dorothy Schulz, a professor of law and police studies from John Jay College, said the low ridership numbers could be why so much violence is happening underground. 

“Less subway activity by commuters or tourists has contributed to the fact that the percentage of people who are on the subway or streets with mental-health issues is higher,” Schulz told The Post. 

That is demonstrably false. The ridership in 2020 was 53 million per month, in 2021 was 63 million per month, and is now 81 million per month. If the theory that more riders=safety in numbers, the violent crime numbers would be decreasing from a high in 2020, but that isn’t what is happening. Instead, what is happening is 2020 saw a record high in violent crime, with that record being beaten in each of the following years.

My theory? The George Floyd riots has caused many cops to do what has lately been referred to as “quiet quitting.” Combine that with catch and release “no bail” laws and disarmed citizens, and what you get is criminals running the place.

New Yorkers keep voting for the same slick, lefty politicians in election after election. The last Republican Mayor of NYC was that lefty RINO Bloomberg. He was mayor of NYC as a republican 2002-2013, but in 2016, delivered a speech at the Democratic National Convention and called Hillary Clinton “the right choice,” then donated $80 million to democratic candidates in 2018 with the stated goal of flipping control of the House to Democrats. Then he ran for President as a Democrat in 2020.

The same is true for the NY Governor. The only Republican Governor that NY has had since 1974 is George Pataki, and remains the last Republican to be elected to a statewide office in New York.

You have crime because you keep electing socialists. New York is getting the government that it has voted for. It turns out that the entire state is just giving the criminals what they want while hoping they will just take your stuff and leave you with your life. How’s that working for you, New York? Just remember not to vote for the same failed policies when you relocate.

Where are Snake Plissken or Bernard Goetz when you need them?

By Divemedic, ago

Force, Violence, and Coercion

A very long time ago, back in the stone ages of blogging, author Marko Kloos wrote a blog post entitled “Why the gun is civilization.” It was a great piece, and while there were others who later took credit for it, it was and is brilliant. The part of that post that is relevant to our discussion today is the beginning:

Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that’s it.

Marko Kloos, Why the gun is civilization

The reason that it’s relevant today is this new trend being practiced by the left: denial. By that term, I mean the occupation by force of some venue, location, or service which by its nature deprives others of that item being occupied. The location could be gluing themselves to the floor of a basketball game, to a busy highway, to government office buildings, or even to a Picasso in Australia, a Van Gough and other pieces in the UK, and even to commuter trains. These protesters block highways, they even block ambulances and others from accessing emergency care at hospitals.

What these people are doing is using force, not persuasion, to deny others access to things like art, cultural events, travel, and even necessary medical care. They are stealing it and refusing to return it. The only response to someone taking something by force, is respond with the same level of force.

Stop letting the minority force their temper tantrums upon all of us by allowing them to steal things from us all because they cannot persuade others to do what they want us to do.

By Divemedic, ago