http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ouch/2008/05/disabled_shocker.html

I sometimes forget exactly why I stopped buying newspapers. Then stories like this remind me.

Since when has it been shameful to be disabled? The Sun's take on the careless misplacing of medical records in the latest courier farce seems to suggest as much. 'Intimate details' about drinking habits, sexually transmitted diseases and (gasp!) disabilities are included in the lost files that somehow never made it from London to the Isle of Wight. Records of more than 38,000 patients were sent to a firm that checks software. The software, transported by City Link, never made it back.

Oh no! Fraud! Scandal! Blackmail! Now somebody out there is going to know that Mr N.E. One has Multiple Sclerosis. Oooh how about that, eh? Or perhaps the 'wrong hands' will be more interested in a Ms A. Binger, who spilled her guts during a recent casualty trip where doctors recorded her consumption of "a few ales" before pumping her stomach. And as for Mr N.E Thing, well, would you be that surprised that he caught something nasty with a history like that? But do we actually care? Loss of data is unfortunate and has implications for those paranoid about ID theft. Loss of medical records is particularly unfortunate, especially when your health centre doesn't notice for two months - as The Telegraph reports. But back at The Sun, what really got me was how the 'personal detail' of disability was somehow on a par with alcohol consumption and STDs. Something to definitely keep quiet about, oh yes. Ssssh.

Perhaps more disturbing is the surprise with which the same newspaper (I was in a café, the sort where The Sun lies around and gathers egg butty stains throughout the day) reported an incident of burglary.

No ordinary burglary, mind. A burglary committed, wait for it, by a man in a WHEELCHAIR! Their capitals, not mine.

Are all people who use wheelchairs saintly innocents? No. So what's the big deal here? That a man in a wheelchair could steal from his neighbour? Or that the sheer feat of stealing is now achievable from a wheelchair? Will wonders never cease?

It turns out the person in question was hard up and desperate because his benefits had been reduced. Oh, well if he was a poor disabled person that's okay then. Not!

It is not okay to steal, but it is equally not okay to brand someone a Wheeler Stealer like they are some sort of side show to the main news of the day. Which consisted largely of Jude Law snogging Rod Stewart's daughter in an Essex nightclub. Oh, and a postman who has been posted on YouTube drunk on duty. 'Your Round!' was the headline they were looking for I think.

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http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2008/05/its-a-good-day.html

1. ( Background of a penitent financial sinner )
   
   
2. ( What the SOD is supposed to do and why )
   
   
3. ( Why Little SOD now? )
   
   
4. So, Little SOD is ready to roll. I need volunteers to test it for at least a month. If you do agree to test it, I'd like you to do so seriously, because this is meant to be a tool that people can use for future reference.
   
   
5. To that end: a poll (which is confidential - only I get to see who's said what):
   
   Poll #1191394 Spreadsheet O'Doom™ (aka SOD)
   Open to: All, results viewable to: None

   I would like to Beta Test the Spreadsheet O'Doom:

   Yes
   6 (75.0%)

   No
   2 (25.0%)

   LJ Entries about SOD

   I'd like them to be filtered - so I don't have to read them plskthx
   0 (0.0%)

   I'd like to be in on a filter to keep up with the news but not to test
   1 (12.5%)

   I'd like to be in on a filter for discussing the SOD and the testing process
   2 (25.0%)

   I don't really care
   5 (62.5%)

   I'd like the currency format of my SOD to be:

   £ (British Pounds)
   6 (85.7%)

   € (Euros)
   0 (0.0%)

   $ (US Dollars)
   1 (14.3%)

   $ (Canadian Dollars)
   0 (0.0%)

   $ (New Zealand Dollars)
   0 (0.0%)

   $ (Australian Dollars)
   0 (0.0%)

   Alternative currency (if none of the above)

   I'd like to test the SOD because (tick all applicable):

   I want to learn to manage my finances better and this tool might help
   5 (62.5%)

   I'm a bit of an Excel geek/ just fascinated by the potential mechanics of the SOD
   4 (50.0%)

   I'm nosy
   2 (25.0%)

   I like helping
   5 (62.5%)

   Not applicable
   2 (25.0%)

   I'd prefer to get hold of the SOD by:

   Receiving it in an email
   6 (100.0%)

   Downloading it from the internet
   0 (0.0%)

   Getting a disk in the post
   0 (0.0%)

   ?

   Sunshine kittens
   3 (37.5%)

   Rainbow bunnies
   3 (37.5%)

   Wot no tickybox?!
   0 (0.0%)

   Banana-flavoured dormice
   2 (25.0%)

   WTF?!
   0 (0.0%)

   
   
   
   
6. If you get involved in the testing process, no-one else needs to know if, for some reason, you're feeling a bit shy about it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ouch/2008/05/why_i_havent_been_writing_for.html

I was about to write a post for ouch! after being told at a 10K by a/the race organizer that people in wheelchairs didn't HAVE a gender (and thus prizes were given out to the first three "wheelchairs"). But I didn't. Because on May 3rd I had a series of seizures, continuing at the hospital where I was given Ativan to limit the brain damage and frequency of whatever was happening (no one really knows, not even the neurologist who was standing there when one happened). This was followed by a TIA (mini stroke) a few days later. Since then, I haven't tried writing for ouch! because I was scared and ashamed. I knew that I wasn't the same writer I used to be and I didn't want people to notice. I didn't want pity or disinterest either and I didn't know what to do. So now I am doing what I think the Elizabeth McClung of May 2nd would have done: attack the issue directly.

After the first seizure, I had lost about seven years of memory, while language use and other cognitive effects also later displayed (plus I started reading backwards and speaking in Spanish to the Medical Personal; after the TIA I spoke Japanese). It has been explained to me that my filing system has been ransacked, scattered all over the floor and that it will take the time of good and bad days before I can file it properly again. Basically I have the hell intern job of being a legal clerk temp in a huge library that hasn't been sorted in years.

Stroke alone is THE leading cause of adult disability in the US with just under 800,000 cases in 1996. I imagine that statistic is reflected across the UK and EU as well. That doesn't count TIA, seizures, head injury and/or trauma much less brain tumors or operations. As I was to find out from people who emailed me, from head injury to those still dealing with a stroke in their 20's: what I had experienced, and am still experiencing is not isolated, it is just not talked about. Or maybe it IS talked about on Ouch! and I don't remember, that's something I say a lot now; "I don't remember."

My writing isn't as eloquent or as cheeky as before, but thankfully the writing has started coming back faster than speech, memory and heard comprehension. In my first day of being left alone, when I could understand my surroundings, I went in my wheelchair down to the local video store. While I did not recognize them, they recognized me and we started talking. After a minute or two of listening to my responses ("Everything is....illuminated!"), one of them asked me if I was on drugs. I told them about the seizures. One looked at the other and then walked away, while the one who stayed used 'the voice.' That voice people use on children and others considered too stupid to understand people are talking down to them. I hear 'the voice' a lot, even from my partner when she slips up.

As far as I can tell my IQ, which is my ability to process new information, is unchanged, merely the accumulation of topics and vocabulary which society uses to judge adults as to their intelligence is gone. I am fortunate in being an honest person because long before the memory of a person returns to me the 'emotional memory' of them does. So while I might not recognize someone I will say, "I like you." Or to one night care worker, "You make me feel safe." While to at least one other, "I'm not sure you do what you say."

It is hard hearing about this 'other' Elizabeth McClung; the things she did and said and not only have no memory of it but also feel that I have to 'live up' to her, like a better, more interesting older sister. Some days I "Fake" it, where with some memory and seeing facial expressions I can make someone believe that I remember them, or our relationship. But I have also been hurt and shocked when a friend used a "trash talk" phrase that 'used' to be an inside joke between us (I did not remember). And other times I try to fit in by "continuing" conversations, only to find out that the conversation and events I am "continuing" occurred a year or more ago.

I don't know how other people deal with this; with the bad days when so many things are confusing that within an hour I have an "overload" headache. Doctors say they don't know when the memories will return. There is no question this is a disability. Anytime I can't leave the house for a week or two without accompaniment because of a seizure that's a disability/impairment. Ironically, my loss of memory meant that while I was IN a wheelchair, my memories and feelings were of a time when I was doing marathons. So I was itching to get out the door and do my 10 km run of the day and had to be reminded (frequently) that I don't run anymore.

The point of this post? Perhaps just to say that I am still here. Even if I still don't understand time, particularly how the days of the week relate to each other. So surround the walls of my desk with notes to help me understand that the word "Thursday" means a caregiver named J. is coming to give me a shower, and another note to tell me, "Today is Thursday." That is not going to stop me writing for Ouch! And yes, I say several times a day "I don't know what that means." But I believe several million potential readers of Ouch! can relate to some aspect of what I am experiencing. I am not dead, even though I am still reclaiming from the darkness the memory of my own life, so I go on. I just wouldn't recommend telling me you're meeting me at the pub on Wednesday; not unless my partner is there or you plan on calling me up to say, "Elizabeth, THIS is Wednesday."

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A survey examining sexual practices of U.S. teens has undercut the notion that many engage in oral sex rather than intercourse to stay "technically" virgins, researchers said on Tuesday.

The findings, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, were based on answers by 2,271 females and males age 15 to 19 in 2002 in response to a government survey.

The researchers found about 55 percent of the teens said they had engaged in oral sex but that this practice was far more common among those who also had engaged in vaginal sex.

Teens said they began vaginal and oral sex at roughly the same time -- by six months after first vaginal intercourse, 82 percent had also engaged in oral sex, according to the study.

"There is a widespread belief that teens engage in nonvaginal forms of sex, especially oral sex, as a way to be sexually active while still claiming that, technically, they are virgins," Laura Lindberg of the Guttmacher Institute in New York, who led the study, said in a statement.

"However, our research shows that this supposed substitution of oral sex for vaginal sex is largely a myth. There is no good evidence that teens who have not had intercourse engage in oral sex with a series of partners."

The Guttmacher Institute studies sexual and reproductive health issues.

About one in 10 of the teens said they had engaged in anal sex. These teens were far more likely to have also engaged in vaginal sex.

"Teens of white ethnicity and higher socioeconomic status were more likely than their peers to have ever had oral or anal sex," the researchers wrote.

http://www.janeespenson.com/archives/00000563.php

I don't usually do this. I like to limit this blog to writing advice. But I cannot resist this. So please, enjoy this personal tale of hilarity that (I'm hoping) will somehow reduce itself to a writing lesson at the end.

Get this. Remember how I was just in Vancouver? Well, instead of checking luggage, I had a box of clothes FedExed up there and then back down here when I left. It avoids the hassles of baggage claim and I totally recommend this plan. When you're ready to head home, you just scoop your unlaundered clothes into a box and ship it off, neat as you please.

Except that they do some sort of operation at the border in which the shipping labels are removed and sometimes switched. Fun!

This means that when a box arrived at my home yesterday, it didn't contain my clothes. It contained someone else's clothes. Luckily, this person was savvier than I about the hazards of international shipping labels, and had included a piece of paper with his name and (business) address. I have the property of a "Mr. R. Starkey." Those of you who know stuff about stuff are now freaking out. A little checking re: the address and the business name has verified: I have Ringo Starr's clothes. Okay, now everyone can freak out. Please notice that according to any system of logic, this makes me the fifth Beatle.

Steps are being taken to fix the problem. Don't worry, I'm not going to keep the clothes. I'm not even going to look at them, in fact, and I'm hoping Ringo is exercising similar restraint when it comes to my (if you recall, unlaundered) items.

So, how is this a writing lesson? Well, doesn't it make you feel a little better about the inciting incident in a lot of comedies?

Lunch: cup 'o noodles, chex mix, fig newtons