The Daily Peeve / Rant

[Tybee]

My doctor, who is an idiot. She tried to tell me I was not allergic to penicillin and kept saying, well how bad was the rash the last time you took it. I said, you mean 45 years ago? They told me to never take penicillin again.
This same idiot, after filling out my handicapped placard for my knees, which I am told need two total knee replacements, have bone spurs and torn meniscuses and are in constant crippling pain, had her nurse advise me the following day to take up walking to lower my cholesterol.

[iris lilies]

My doctor, who is an idiot. She tried to tell me I was not allergic to penicillin and kept saying, well how bad was the rash the last time you took it. I said, you mean 45 years ago? They told me to never take penicillin again.
This same idiot, after filling out my handicapped placard for my knees, which I am told need two total knee replacements, have bone spurs and torn meniscuses and are in constant crippling pain, had her nurse advise me the following day to take up walking to lower my cholesterol.

yes that all seems pretty stupid. Sounds like a Doctor who got your blood work back, saw high a cholesterol number, didn’t remember who you were as a patient, and didn’t bother to check your patient record to see your knee problems.Sloppy.

[JaneV2.0]

Doctors have tried to talk me out of my peniciliin allergy, too. Another gift I got from my father. Thanks, Dad!

[Tybee]

I have to find a new doctor. I am so frustrated and dread seeing this woman.

[Tradd]

I have to find a new doctor. I am so frustrated and dread seeing this woman.

I’m astonished!

I just found out that the lovely GP I’ve been going to for about 10-12 years is leaving the practice. I pretty much only see the doc once a year for annual.

[iris lilies]

The first time I got penicillin, I went into anaphylactic shock when I was a child. My childhood doctor grilled me for the rest of my time with her every time I visited she would ask the question “what are you allergic to?” And I learned the word, penicillin and learned to say it.

The same small town doctor was our family physician, and I only vaguely remember her, but I do remember how kind she was to our cat. We moved from one house to another house about 10 blocks away. One of our cats was not too bright, and was an indoor/outdoor cat who was crippled with one leg that didn’t work. One day she drove him to our new house because he was regularly going back to our old house, and she saw him walking along the street, using the curb to aid his non-functioning leg.

[Tradd]

I am also very allergic to penicillin. I was given it when I was 3, so about 1972. I swelled up like a puffer fish. I’ve never been given it since.

[iris lilies]

The group home for 9 unrelated men in alcohol recovery is moving forward on my block with much neighbor unhappiness, but certainly much support as well.

Those of us expressing doubt and concern about it are of course accused of the usual “unkind/uncaring” feelings that these events always engender.

Me, having lived for 33 years in an urban environment where assaults on our neighborhood came every few years with this kind of crap, I am automatically hardened to it.

What I learned from decades of this stuff is that these organizations NEVER have the best interests of my neighborhood as their priority. I have heard so many bureaucrats and community leaders stand in front of neighbors and tell us how great the thing they are brining to us is, how much value it provides, what good neighbors they will be, etc.

over 30 years, my city neighborhood fought or at least worked to control the following:
1) open prison, where each day state prisoners would be turned out
2) homeless shelters (2-3 of them)
3) group home for …? Cannot remember the malady (prior to 1999 Federal ruling)
4) AIDS housing, separate units. We thought “nice gay men” but boy were we dumb, residents were needle addicts in active addiction
5) Catholic priests group home

These, in addition to fighting numerous developers who wished to put in undesirable housing too dense and poorly constructed, especially your federal government in its numerous plans to invade my neighborhood with cheap federal housing, not content to stay within their boundaries of the public housing complex a couple blocks away.

I am kinda primed to be on alert and assertive for developments I perceive to be a threat to my immediate area.

So it is interesting to me that our city Council is taking a completely hands off approach because they say there is no control they can exert on this home of nine people. It is a business that brings in $40,000 a month. You read that right, $40,000 a month. They won’t have to get a business license because it’s “not a business.” It’s a home. For this we can thank your federal government for declaring group homes to be allowed in R1 zoning.

in the end, these guys in recovery will probably be fine. It’s just that there’s going to be nine cars going in and out of this one residential property. And even if it’s an NOT OK, we have no recourse because the place is not licensed. There is no certification from any governing bodies at all. If it is a shit show, it will remain a shit show and there’s nothing we can do about it.

[catherine]

Asylums and sanitoriums were basically abolished because they were deemed to be cruel to the inhabitants who, effectively were warehoused. My own great-grandfather lived and died in Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane--but many of the people weren't insane at all--they were maybe too poor, or too addicted, or too disconnected from family. In my great-grandfather's case, he was unable to make a living, presumably because he was alcoholic. His wife, my great-grandmother, went to live with my grandfather until she died.

So eliminating these human warehouses was probably a good thing, but now we have the opposite problem--people who can't house themselves for whatever reason and no one wants them in their neighborhood. I understand the concerns.

I wonder what the solution is?

[iris lilies]

Asylums and sanitoriums were basically abolished because they were deemed to be cruel to the inhabitants who, effectively were warehoused. My own great-grandfather lived and died in Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane--but many of the people weren't insane at all--they were maybe too poor, or too addicted, or too disconnected from family. In my great-grandfather's case, he was unable to make a living, presumably because he was alcoholic. His wife, my great-grandmother, went to live with my grandfather until she died.

So eliminating these human warehouses was probably a good thing, but now we have the opposite problem--people who can't house themselves for whatever reason and no one wants them in their neighborhood. I understand the concerns.

I wonder what the solution is?

It’s not that simple. The facility on my street has no government oversight at all. No licensing, no certifications, no annual inspections, nada.

Now I will say that having lived very near public housing for decades where we interacted with the (idiotic, maddening) bureaucrats who ran Housing and Urban Development at the Federal and locals levels, I can’t say that having government in control actually gets us what we want but at least there is a theoretical process in place to control the activities. A sham maybe but at least SOME level of control.

My great great grandfather died in the county poor house, but you know poor houses were out in the country. They had big gardens and farms where the people who live there worked.

One answer is small group homes, and they do exist. They are very small, with three or four people. They are very expensive.

There’s a fight going on in the city of St. Louis right now. A Catholic Church is closing its homeless shelter for 60 men. It has government money of more than $1 million to set up a new one elsewhere, but there’s no neighborhood that will accept this home and because it is not covered under the ADA as a family that can move into R1 zoning, they cannot force themselves on neighborhoods.