Portals, Websites, and Apps

We really need a single nationwide system of storing health care data. Every doctor I’ve been to in the past three months has a different way of entering and storing data. I have to enter my whole medical history, including medications and allergies, on another form or in another portal. 

It’s a mistake waiting to happen. Especially with brain fog.

And then there’s a different way for each doctor that I have to remember in order to reach the doctor to make or change appointments or to access the results of tests. They still have phone numbers, but many of them are unreachable in practice: I tried for two hours to get through to an office the other day before I gave up.

I mean yeah, what we REALLY need is single payer insurance, where the medical system is organized around health care, and not around profit.

And I’m not going to say that I’m “lucky” I have health insurance, because in the rest of the developed world, that’s a given, the costs are significantly lower, and the list of things that aren’t covered is a lot shorter.

Brain fog

I was already frazzled when I was trying to drive to the occupational therapy appointment the other day, and I did not know that Kessler Rehab has something like a dozen locations in Monmouth County, and I plugged the address into the phone and started driving. 

I drove right past the cardiology office I’d been to the day before, so the route was familiar. It didn’t seem quite right, but covid brain fog, so I figured I was remembering wrong. But I arrived at the address and realized I was in the wrong place: it did not look at all familiar.

I called them, and then told me I was in the wrong location. I was already running late, so I entered Kessler in google maps again and started driving again and then realized the map was taking me to a different wrong Kessler location.

I pulled into a gas station, slowed down, tried to breathe like the occupational therapist is always telling me, found the RIGHT location, pulled a uey, and drove some more. I was half an hour late when I finally arrived.

“Give yourself some grace,” Allizey said, ever so gently. 

COVID Brain Fog

 I have a helluva time with words. I used to get to “amazing” or “genius” in The NY Times Spelling Bee first thing in the morning. Now I look at it and I can’t see words and I just string plausible sequences of letters together. 

I worked my way through several hours of Pimsleur’s Greek lessons some years ago. I am repeating them, because it’s not reading, but I routinely fall asleep. Is the effort or the boredom? 

But I am fine with numbers. I can remember a two-factor authentication code with no problem. I fly through the Times “digits” game and I can do a 9x9 expert Kenken without hints about half the time. 

Writing? Even just a email, or a blog post like this: Very, very hard. Reading with sustained attention, impossible. I am hoping the fancy new glasses change that.

Covid Diary

I have been wanting to write about what it’s like with long COVID, but I don’t have much energy to be on the computer. I don’t really know where to start so I guess I’ll start at the beginning.

In January, I was in great shape. I was living in Germany without a car, so grocery shopping, weekend sightseeing, and all my day-to-day activities were done by bike, by train, and/or on foot. 

In February, after returning from Germany, I went to an academic conference that I traveled to by bike, train, and bike, with luggage. I was one of few people at the conference who masked, and the day after I got home, the symptoms began. I was sicker than I’ve ever been, despite numerous bouts of walking pneumonia and bronchitis that exacerbated my underlying asthma.

I recovered from the acute infection after about three weeks, and the weird symptoms began. My vision is wonky, I get short of breath on climbing a flight of stairs or unloading the dishwasher, my feet often feel like they are on fire. My brain is deeply foggy. Working at the computer wears me out, whether it’s writing email, watching videos, or trying to have a zoom call. Reading? Sewing? My vision goes even wonkier.

The GP said take this new medication. The insurance company said “no.” 

The pulmonologist said “rest.” For six months to a year. 

The occupational therapist sent me to a fancy eye doctor who prescribed fancy expensive glasses that I am hoping to pick up soon. Maybe they will help with the fatigue, with writing and reading.

The physical therapist sent me to a cardiologist who prescribed a bunch of tests and said, get some exercise. The insurance company said, in a recorded message, “no” to I think one of the tests. Maybe more. Like I said, brain fog. I didn’t know the message was going to be recorded and I didn’t write anything down and it was not repeated and I hung up and wondered what just hit me.

I am still waiting to see the neurologist. I was “lucky” to get an appointment in the middle of June, after my GP referred me in March.

And that’s it for today. I am worn out. Maybe more another day.

Climate Action Resources: A List

Environmental action and Jews

The Big Bold Jewish Climate Fest 
Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism
The Ten Plagues of Climate Change 
Zavit, Science and Environment in Israel 
Adamah: People, Planet, Purpose 
Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action
Yale Climate Connections: Judaism and Climate Change

Carbon footprint 

Quick and easy carbon footprint calculator

More complicated carbon footprint calculator

Center for Sustainable Systems Carbon footprint factsheet, University of Michigan
Climate Feedback

General Environmental News

Green America

Mother Earth News

Earth Talk

Treehugger: Sustainability for All

Environmental Health News

Political Action

Climate Action Center 
Union of Concerned Scientists 
Citizens Climate Lobby 
Extinction Rebellion 
Climate Action Network 
Environmental Defense Fund
Climate Action
Pay Up Climate Polluters
Climate Action Tracker 

Environmental Justice

Climate Justice Alliance

EarthJustice

Environmental Health News

 

Science and Solutions

Project Drawdown

Project Regeneration

Introduction to Climate Science, University of Oregon
Science Daily Environment News 

Our World in Data 

Global Carbon Atlas 

Surging Seas 

Productive Conversations

Katharine Hayhoe, TED Talk, “The Most Important Thing We Can Do About Climate Change” 

Katharine Hayhoe, Frequently Asked Questions 

Yale Climate Communication project 

United Nations Climate Action

United Nations Communicating on Climate Change

George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication

Christianity Today: Changing the Conversation on Climate Change

Native plants

National Wildlife Foundation Native Plant Finder

New Jersey Fish & Wildlife, Backyard Habitats 

New Jersey Native Plants and Pollinators 

Sickles Market, Little Silver

Brock Farms, Freehold

Rare Find Nursery, Jackson

Izel Native Plants 

Go Native Trees 

New Jersey Yards: Landscaping for a Healthy Environment

Better Banking

Banking on Chaos: banks that fund fossil fuels 

And some that don't 

Climate Action 100+ 

War Wounds the Grandchildren

I read the headline and scrolled past the photo in the news this morning, of a Ukrainian family killed by a Russian mortar, because I knew it would hit me too hard, but then I started reading the article and started sobbing anyway.

The traumas of war last for generations. The Syrians, the Palestinians, the Iraqis, the Ukrainians, and the Russian soldiers will live with this for the rest of their lives, and pass it on to children and grandchildren. 

I know this because my mother was born in East Prussia in 1939. Her father was a soldier who served throughout World War II (yes, on the German side) and was killed in March 1945. She and her family fled East Prussian for what became West Germany in late 1944, spending time in a refugee camp, traveling by horse-drawn carriage (because the army had appropriated all the motor vehicles), at night, when they were less likely to be bombed or shot. 

The stories have been spilling out of the various siblings and cousins recently. One lives in Australia now, two in the US, others in Frankfurt and Munich, but in their minds they are back in early childhood, recalling the bombings and gunfire and fear. 

Children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors know this story well. 

So much fear. 

Fear passed to me as a child by my mother's stories. Fear passed another generation to my son, who as a first-year college student is worried for his friends doing ROTC, and even that he might get called to fight. Fear passed through my mother's stories, and also undoubtedly from me directly, though I couldn't tell you exactly how. 

And the wounds of the war going on in Ukraine right now will be carried into the future by the children. 

A million children are among those who have fled the country. They may return, they may have to make lives elsewhere. 

Either way, they will be scarred, and so will their children, and their children's children.

Improve NJ Transit, Practically for Free

I sent a letter to NJ Governor Phil Murphy. Go here if you want to send one too.