gastric bipass articles

I’ve touched on suing for medical reasons before, so now I plan to talk about mesothelioma lawyers.

Mesothelioma is a very serious form cancer that seems to affect people who have inhaled asbestos particles. The cancer attacks the mesothelium, the protective sac around many internal organs.

Is this another case where companies knew they were exposing people to hazardous conditions but cared more about profit than the safety of their workers? In some cases, yes. That’s where the lawyers come in.

For example one court found auto companies responsible for $25 million in damages because a man who worked on asbestos filled brake lines got mesothelioma.

Before you say that’s too much consider the healthcare costs and the pain caused by treatment of mesothelioma:

Fake has mesothelioma, a disease in which cancer cells form in the lining of the chest or abdomen. It’s nearly always the result of asbestos exposure. Fake, who worked as a boilermaker for 35 years, learned he had the disease on April Fool’s Day 2005, and soon after came the removal of his right lung and its lining, as well as his diaphragm and pericardium, a tissue sac that surrounds the heart. He underwent 30-minute radiation treatments every weekday for two months, leaving him with fourth-degree burns at the radiation site and literally “cooking from the inside out” as the right side of his body blistered, Marilyn Fake said.

Are you going to sit there and say any maount of money is enough to compensate a guy for 4th degree radiation burns? No, if his employers didn’t do everything in their power to keep him safe, they should have to pay. According to the mesothelioma lawyers’ website I linked to above, finding the right attorney is everything in these cases - I hope Bill Fake finds an attorney that can help him.

If you have any big lumps that your doctor is telling you not to worry about, I recommend a second opinion.

About a year ago I had an infected sweat gland removed from my upper back, near my neck. It was a big, hard lump that I had had for years. In high school I was worried it was cancer but a doctor told me not to worry about it so I didn’t. I wish I had talked to a better doctor…

Eventually (many years later) my wife and I thought it just looked too weird and it had to go.

The surgery was fairly minor - they used local anesthetic, showed me what they took out (it looked like a fleshy ping pong ball), and sent me home.

I had one other infeected sweat gland that no one paid attention to (I knew it was there) because it was on my lower back just below the waist line. Somehow I managed to pop this one. It turned red and became painful.

The doctor who removed my first one saw it and said I’d better come in for surgery right away. 2 days later I had gotten my EKGs, bloodwork, urine tests, etc. done to make sure I could handle my first ever general anesthesia. Because this one was popped and deep and whatever they were going to knock me out.

I spent a couple days in the hospital recovering. They couldn’t stitch up the wound completely because of the infection so I have a little tube sticking out of the wound to drain all the bad stuff. It’s very hard to get comfortable (not surprising when there’s a hole in my back) and I have trouble sitting and sleeping. I can’t bend my back.

Anyway, if you have an infected sweat gland or two (or just a couple of round bumps that could be anything) see about getting them taken care of before they cause you extra trouble. Now that doesn’t mean go get surgery. My father in law has had one of these bumps for 50 years or so and if it never bothers hims than not getting surgery was obviously smart.

I’m just saying find a doctor who can tell you what it is and the advantages and disadvantages of getting it removed. Because if knew then what I know now I would have gotten both of mine removed last year - thus avoiding the second, more serious surgery with its longer (I can’t work out for 2 weeks) recovery time.

I don’t want to sacrifice too much protein to get a bar that tastes great, but I don’t want to be eating something that tastes like concrete mix. I don’t want too much sugar in my protein bar either. It’s the amount of sugar in the bar that you have to look out for.

1) Cliff’s Builders Bar has 19 Grams of protein. Not entirely healthful, there is a fair amount of saturated fat. The proteing source is mainly soy. Taste good, and come in four different types. An acquaintance of mine is going through chemotherepy for cancer treatment, and still trying to work out. Refered him to this Cliff’s Builders Bar and it’s about the only one that he finds palatable enough to keep down. It’s like 25% of RDA of saturated fat or some such. So if you only eat one or two you’re OK. If you ate like six or seven it’s probably not a good thing.

2) Detour Bars by Designer Whey are pretty good, and I always like a Balance Bar when I am in a pinch for a quick snack. Today I just tried one of those 42 Gram Protein Shots that are out now - Great boost of Protein to spike a meal if you’re trying to intake at least a gram per pound of bodyweight but the taste leaves alot to be desired. Anyway, Detour bars are pretty good and they make low sugar ones that taste ok. The peanut caramel tastes like a snickers. Detour bars were rated best protein bar like 5 years in a row, very high quality protein and very healthy. Instead of sugar they use sugar alcohol.. keeps it tasting good but healthy because ur body doesn’t digest sugar alcohol.

3) DeFranco Energy Bar was created by DeFranco who trains NFL athletes.

4) Nitro Tech is my favorite.

5) Out of the 10+ brands I tried Universal Hi-Protein Fudge Brownie bars are the best, bar none. Taste delicious, they’re soft enough to where you won’t struggle to chew them, and they pack 33g of protein (300 cals) in one bar. They also have the best deal price-wise, as $22-26 dollars (depending on the site and how hard you want to Froogle) gets you 16 bars, as opposed to 12. The brownie is damn good for a protein bar, though. I would think the peanut butter is on the same level (never tried it), just comes down to if you like peanut butter and chocolate or straight up chocolate more.

Other bars off the top of my head that I tried (Protein Grams):
Universal Animal Snak (32g) - it’s a got a great peanut butter taste, and the bar is soft so its easy to eat, but the bars are absolutely loaded with sugar
Met-Rx Protein Plus Peanut Butter (32g) - decent taste but really hard to chew the damn things
Met-Rx Protein Plus Chocolate Chunk (32g) - see above; decent taste but hard as a rock, making it an annoyance to eat
Detour (30g) - these bars are dry as hell and require at least one full bottle of water to finish
Pure Protein Brownie, Smores (32g) - Brownie was dry, Smores was atrocious
Met-Rx Colossal 100 (35-40g) - Tried the cookie dough bar , tasted like unsweetened cookie dough. These things are meal replacements, however, and contain a ton of carbs, fats and calores

6) The U-Turn is also very good - sister product to the Detour bar is the U-Turn, which is more like a Three Musketeers bar. I preferred that to the Detour.

7) Pure Protein blueberry and strawberry shortcake bars are really good. I must be the only one who hates those Detour bars I really didn’t like them. They tried to be a Snickers, but something is really off to the point where I can’t eat them at all anymore. I know the general consensus seems to favor them though.

Concrete mix: I tried some protein bars but agree they taste like gunk. I just get some whey scoops in a drink easier, tastes better. But for energy, Oatmeal Raisin Power Bars (any supermaket) are awesome. Bout 40 Carbs, 10 g protein, loads of B vitamins.

I recently heard from a consultant to the pharmaceutical industry whose wife is a physician. This is what he has to say about healthcare in the US:

The healthcare system is broken. The people with good insurance think it’s just fine - who cares about the people who can’t afford it, the people out of work, those with a catastrophic illness that outstrips their insurance, etc. This is too big a topic to cover in a few paragraphs, but every citizen should have as much a right ti healthcare as they do to military defense, roads, education, a police force, etc. People shouldn’t die or become disable because they don’t belong to the privileged class. Nobody thinks the government will make it more efficient, that’s not the issue, the issue is the right to be able to continue with life and limb no matter what your income status.

The opposing point of view would go something like this:

A “right” to healthcare? Hospitals are already forbidden to deny lifesaving care to indigent patients. What you’re saying is that the people who made education and employment decisions that resulted in their getting healthcare are obligated to pay for quality care for those who did not.

There’s actually not much debate on that point but there is still plenty of debate on what the real point is:

You’re right about the “indigent” population, in fact I can testify that many of them actually abuse the system. What I am talking about are cases I personally know of involving college educated people, out of a job, and unable to get care or medication for chronic conditions such as lupus, because although an emergency room will take care of them when they reach an acute or critical stage, they will still get a bill for thousands of dollars and be in debt for so long that it doesn’t pay them to ever get a job. So they risk their health and well being until they have no choice and wind up in an ambulance. This is a bunch of garbage spouted by people who are well insured.

One thing I haven’t gotten into much is the legal side of healthcare. For example, where would you go if you suffered from Nephrogenic Systemic Fibrosis possibly caused by gadolinium dyes (used in MRI scans). Obviously you’d go get treatment, but you’d also want to explore your legal rights.

Many people say that America is becoming too litigious, and we shouldn’t try to sue someone every time something goes wrong but we need some way to punish corporations (and doctors and hospitals) for ignoring our health in their pursuit of profit.

Everyone quotes that famous McDonalds burn victim lawsuit as evidence that America is too lawsuit crazy but McDonalds needed to be punished. They kept their coffee close to boiling to keep it fresh longer. They had done studies examining the costs of paying for lawsuits because they knew their coffeee would injure people and generate lawsuits. They were evil and didn’t care - it was cheaper to pay for a few lawsuits then to brew fresh coffee more often.

So if someone screws up your health, don’t be afraid to sue. Talk to a lawyer and see if the case has merit.