Wildflower Writes

He asked to talk to me on the phone. I’m not sure why. He’s a former nursing home resident, known for his sexual innuendos, talking to himself, and refusing treatment for his schizophrenia for fear of impotence. He left against medical advice almost a year ago, and is back at the psychiatric hospital, needing a long term situation. As an employee at a nursing home, we often have to consider the issue of “competence.” At what point does a person lose his or her right to make decisions because they are no longer mentally capable of making them? Who makes the determination? How can nursing home residents lose their rights to choose treatment due to incompetence when they are lots of “incompetent” people living in our community who do not make decisions that serve their own best interests. Ray Sandford of St. Paul, Minnesota, is fighting for his right to forego his monthly electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) treatments. A lot of people don’t know that some mental health professionals still use...

You have a high fever, cough, fatigue, and body aches. Is it the flu? Is it swine flu? What do you do? The idea of a potentially deadly virus spreading from person to person throughout the world is a scary idea. What do we do with all the information available about this disease? We could lock ourselves and families in our homes, bathe in sanitizer, cover every known surface with Lysol and bleach, throw away all the pork products, and wait out this potential pandemic. Or we could live our lives as before, taking precautions we should be taking anyway to prevent the spread of disease, such as washing hands and staying home when sick. About 36,000 people die from the flu every year in the United States. This compares to about 936,000 per year who die from cardiovascular disease, 553,000 who die from cancer, 69,000 who die from diabetes, and 43,000 who die from car accidents. You are more likely to die in a car crash than die from exposure to the flu. Fear is not a way to live life. Fear ...