medicine

Did Armstrong Pharmaceutical not pay enough kickback to President Obama’s campaign?

Well, I had to wonder that, given that the federal government is BANNING Primatene Mist from being sold after this coming December 31st! If you’re an asthma sufferer, you’re gonna have to get a doctor’s prescription in order to purchase an inhaler that doesn’t use a CFC agent as its propellant.

Yeah you’re inferring correctly, Dear Reader: the Environmental Protection Agency, in collusion with the Food and Drug Administration, have decreed that those little asthma inhalers are dangerous to the ozone layer. I suppose that while you’re gasping for breath on the way to your physician, that you can take heart knowing that the Obama Administration is sacrificing your good health for sake of a polar bear or spotted owl.

But seriously: What. The. F-CK?!?

It was twenty years ago this summer that Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines ...

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For those wondering about this blog’s Being Bipolar series, I haven’t stopped it at all. Just been trying to figure out what to write about next: something that I’ve changed my mind about something around 18 or 19 times now. ‘Course, having bipolar disorder can sometimes be the worst impediment to writing about it, ironically. Hoping to write the next installment sometime this week or next.

In the meantime though, new research has been published about a possible cause of bipolar disorder, as well as schizophrenia…

Broad sweeps of the human genome have exposed genetic mutations that boost the risk of the devastating yet baffling diseases of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, according to two studies published Sunday.

The independent studies, each conducted by a consortium of about 200 scientists, also found significant genetic overlap between the debilitating mental disorders.

Schizophrenia patients typically hear voices that are not real,

...
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I’m looking at this one of two ways: that Pat Robertson sincerely believes what he is saying here. Either that, or as I have heard it said a number of times in my life: “Whom God would destroy, He first makes mad.”

During a broadcast of his 700 Club this week, Christian Broadcasting Network founder and “evangelist” Pat Robertson said that it was perfectly justifiable to divorce a spouse with Alzheimer’s disease, on the basis that the illness is “a kind of death”.

What. The. Hell. ?!?!?

In all honesty, I can’t see how Pat Robertson – if this is his genuine belief – is any different from those who support abortion and the “right to choose”. You know: the things that his Christian Coalition was alleged to be standing against for all those years?

(Well, as a follower of Christ, I always thought that the Christian Coalition was ...

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Just before this past Christmas, Bob Buckley from Fox 8 WGHP interviewed me for a segment of the Emmy-winning The Buckley Report, dealing with my coming out about having bipolar disorder on this blog. Here’s the link to that first story. A couple’o weeks ago he and Fox 8 photojournalist Chris Weaver (who also has an Emmy notched on his belt!) came back and filmed a follow-up story about the direction that I’ve taken since then: the Being Bipolar series, and the video supplements that I’ve used to chronicle and document what it’s like to have a bipolar episode.

Well, it just aired on this evening’s Fox 8 News 10:00 News and lo and behold it’s already on the Fox 8 website!

Here’s the direct link to the segment.

And look! Embeddable video thingy!

 

Good job Bob and Chris! Hope that this snags y’all another ...

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Why am I writing about having bipolar disorder? Well, for one thing: I have it. And since this blog is about me and my thoughts and comments and adventures, the honest and genuine thing to do is to chronicle when my thoughts go full-tilt whacko beyond my control.

And I’m a writer. I write about what I know. This year marks the twentieth anniversary of me writing for publication. It sure didn’t occur to me back then that someday I’d be running a fairly popular blog (I think the total number of websites on the Internet in 1991 were something like five or six) and that my most heartfelt topic was having a mental illness. But as a wiser person than I told me years ago: “Life is what God does to you when you’re busy making plans”.

And as I’ve said before: if what I’m doing now, can save ...

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And once more I understand why some people are driven to commit suicide because of bipolar disorder. Because, death does seem a much preferable thing to what can only be called “anti-life”.

I have been trying to compose the next installment of Being Bipolar. My mind has arrested me from doing that and from having interest in most of the other things that I enjoy in my life. My thoughts are on a seemingly non-stop cycle of nothingness, if that makes any sense.

So what am I doing to alleviate it? I’ve taken my medication and I’ve spent some time just trying to let my thoughts run their course (because eventually it does peter out enough to let me be productive again). Other than that, there’s not much else that can be done.

I’m leaving Wednesday afternoon, for a short trip. Gonna be at that same film festival in ...

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READER ADVISORY: This, the fifth installment of an ongoing series exploring what I have experienced and learned from living with bipolar disorder, contains an account of an extremely graphic nature. My writing about it here marks the first time that I have revealed in public an incident, the nature of which I pray would never happen to anyone. This advisory is not to “warn away” anyone from reading it at all. In fact, it is my desire that you would read it. I only ask for two things: that you, Dear Reader, will bear in mind that I am writing about this for the first time because it marks a very terrible period in my life that, I must give credit to God for bringing me through. And that the account itself is not the reason at all for this chapter of Being Bipolar. The real heartmeat of this installment
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