Another Miracle

I have written about an hispanic man who is my ward (or, I am his court appointed guardian), who made miraculous progress after 3 years in a coma, and who was discovered to be able to point to letters on a large page, and so communicate his real name, his birthplace in a middle american county, and through that, with the help of the consul from his country, locate his local family here in the US.

Today, we leapt over Mt. Everest.

Since that last story, I have battled with hospital doctors to try to get them to put him on an antidepressant and some antipsychotics. They made it to the antidepressants, but never the antipsychotics. After over 2 years in the hospital, some overseeing angel found a way to get him paid for in a nursing home and he was moved.

The nursing home doctors were a lot more understanding and cooperative and immediately did the psych eval to determine whether he needed medication. Answer, yes. This addressed the psychological underpinnings to ease him into a more cooperative mood, so we could work on his physical issues.

He had been on a trache and ventilator as well as a feeding tube ("PEG") for over three years. He kept pulling out the PEG, being sent back to the hospital for reinsertion and then returned to the nursing home. His family, meanwhile, were telling me that he wanted to eat and that they brought him food and that he could eat and swallow, despite the tube down his throat.

When I visited the last time, he had progressed so much that when the doctor was told he had pulled out the second trache, he said leave it out and see what happens. He was able to talk, and greeted me with a very clear "son of a bitch" pointing with squinty eyes at me. He was getting better! One can't take these sorts of things personally, on the contrary, he was communicating. So, I asked him whether he wanted to eat. He nodded yes. I asked whether he wanted chocolate milk, YES. Steak, YES. So, I went to the care team and asked whether they could get him some chocolate milk. They had to call the doctor. Doctor said clear liquids only. Took them half an hour to get two little containers of frozen apple juice. I took it to him, but he turned away.

I persuaded the care team that since he wasn't cooperating with the nursing home staff on passing a "swallow test" that we could have the family come in, bring food, and staff could watch him eat and confirm that we could advance his diet. The doctor agreed and the nursing home director thought it was a great idea.

So next day (today) I meet his mother and brother. They had brought superb smelling soup filled with chuncks of celery, carrots and tortillas. I called the "speech therapist" who had agreed to come to witness. By then he was chowing down the tortillas like a champ. The speech therapist was troubled because the nursing home protocols weren't being followed and she herself couldn't certify that he could eat or recommend that he be moved from being tube fed to removing the tube and eating. But, she would note that she had seen him eating. And that the next steps would be to remove the feeding tube and order regular meals.

Here was a man for whom I had four times recommended we put him on hospice and let him not be fed by tube if that was what he wanted. Now, I am looking for the day that he is sitting in an electric wheelchair, can go home to his family and I can terminate the guardianship.

Hard work over three years. But what a result. !! I am flipped over the moon.

My work is fun and gratifying!

Beauties from my Garden

Taking pictures of the amazing profusion of beauty in my garden has become a minor passion. These are just a few of the more spectacular ones.

Crepe myrtle


Water shrub on Eastern Shore


Water lily blossoms


Water Lilies in my pond


A bee visits a cone flower (echinacea purpurea)


A visiting butterfly


Stuart


Cranesbill blossom -- it's a rampageous plant!


Second Lotus blossom (note first Lotus seed pod)


First Lotus Blossom


Epiphytic Bromeliad, El Yunque National Forest, Puerto Rico

Recent pictures

A Fern, El Yunque, Puerto Rico


View from climb of El Yunque, Puerto Rico


Dove, the hunted


Poonsy, the Hunter

Some Summer Pictures

My new camera has found some wonderful images:

California Supreme Court did the Right Thing and Took the Right Road

Today's Washington Post featured a column by E.J.Dionne, Jr. entitled Two Roads to Gay Marriage, wondering whether the right thing was done the wrong way.

Here was my answer: As with the dissents in California and the majority in New York, EJ Dionne is taking the road more traveled in his "Two Roads to Gay Marriage". First, constitutional law is above all about protecting minorities from dominant majorities. Which means to weigh the harm to the minority against the possible injury to the majority.

Second, judicial leadership is just as important as "democratic" leadership, and because operating more often in the realm of facts, logic and law, has a better chance of being more farsighted than voter leadership, be it from electors or elected representatives.

Third, as has become a popular phrase, the arc of history tends toward justice: we will eventually get there; the question is not whether, but when. This case presented a prefect moment in history for the largest state in the union with a conservative bench, to see through the obfuscations and prevarications of the majority, intent as it is to cling to its privileges.

Fourth, the heterosexual majority suffers no harm. As the Court majority in California pointed out, allowing gay men and lesbians to marry takes nothing away from heterosexual marriage. It simply adds the dignity of marriage to those for whom that fundamentally social status has been denied. And that is what the California court focused on as its central premise. Under California domestic partnership laws, same sex couples already enjoy virtually all of the state level rights of marriage of opposite sex couples, but they lacked the basic equality of having their relationships honored in the same way, to the same degree, as opposite sex couples do. And, importantly, their children will not be second class children of a "domestic partnership" or "civil union."

Nattering on about whether the practical effect will speed or slow social progress misses the importance of leadership. The road more traveled is by definition more congested and slower.

Nature, Gardens, Logic and the Future of Earth

In March I wrote about Douglas Tallamy's book, Brining Nature Home, on the basis of a book review and a pod cast. Having read about 1/3rd, I feel an urgent need to expand on the basic point.

ONLY NATIVE PLANTS SHOULD BE PLANTED. PERIOD.

The reason is amazingly simple: non-"native" plants have not co-evolved with the insects and birds and animals in a given area. They are immune (good selling point in the bad old days) from "pests." They are like plastic flowers to local insects.

Birds need massive amounts of protein, particularly when they are raising they hatchlings. Insects, particularly those that eat leaves, like caterpillars (that turn into butterflies) and the like, are a higher source of protein than beef.

So, when the insects go, can't survive on the plastic diet of non-native plants, the birds vanish. Slowly, perhaps, but vanish.

At the same time, non-native plants, that don't have "pest" insects to keep their numbers in balance by eating their leaves, (and trunks, and sap, etc.), proliferate in their new environment. No enemies. Wheeeee. Plus, the birds that eat the fruit of the non-native plants fly away and poop elsewhere, fabulously spreading the seeds of the non-natives, who begin to flourish in a new area, clear of "pests."

Finally, he makes the point that the importation of non-natives, beautiful exotics, has inevitably brought plant diseases with them. No amount of protective agricultural laws can keep out microscopic infestations. The imported plants co-existed and co-evolved with the imported exotic. But, domestic plants didn't. They had zero evolved protection from predation by the new plant diseases.

And, voila, the death of the American Chestnut, majestic trees that populated the whole east coast, the death of the elms, the approaching death of conifers native exclusively to the Smokies, and so on.

So, we have kudzu, pansies, giant irisis, Japanese Maples, peonies, roses, any plant from any where else but where it co-evolved in the web of local natural life. All of which contribute to the death of nature around us.

Kill all the English Ivy you can find!