Haiti Jobs

I got an email from one of the doctors who is part of the medical team a few days ago:

Hi Kim, 

I am a pediatrician and the medical director of our Haiti mission team.

I am so glad you are coming along. My last team only had one nurse and it was really tough. This time we have 4 maybe even 5, so much better.

Margie and Lynn have told me that they would like to work in the pharmacy. Margie said you like hands on jobs best. I would like to find out what you want to do as we are going to try to prepare a little to make things a little smoother. You can trade off later in the week but initally getting set up it's nice to have one person in charge of a station.

I will need a nurse to do the check in. It means taking a lot of weights and blood pressures, and other vitals as you see fit, like temps.  You would have 2 helpers.

The other station is the lab. We are going to have a little machine to check hgb/hcts and lytes/glucose with. Also lots of urine dips and preg tests. This person would also likely oversee the scabies treatments. Again 2 helpers along side.

Let me know what you think. I still need to ask Betty also what she wants to do.
Looking forward to a wonderful experience.

I wrote back with:

Actually, the lab station sounds the most interesting, but honestly I really want to be where ever I am most helpful!  I don't think that I would have any problem with either of these jobs, although I do not know French.

She answered with:

Thanks for getting back to me so quick. I talked with Bettie today and she is very happy to do the BP check in station, so you are set to be the lab RN. She lives up in Shelton so it would be hard to do the training on the i-stat machine anyways. I should be getting the machine in the mail on April 12th, and so sometime after that you and our pathologist, Julie Kingery will need to get together and figure out how to use it. I want to make sure we have all the right supplies and controls and all that. It's good to practice reading Urine dipstixs too before you go. No worries on the language. We will have Creole translators and they are very versed on telling people to pee in cups!! :) You can read about the i-stat on line at Abbot.com.

Item Donations for Haiti?

(This post is more for local people, although you non-locals are welcome to help out.)  I am in the process of gathering supplies to take to Haiti.  As I mentioned, my team leader is going to commandeer my checked luggage and most of my carry on for supplies that the Haitian people need.  All of my trip fees are for buying supplies, but it doesn't cover everything that is needed.  Therefore, if you are able to help out with supplies, let me know.

If you do want to donation, things can be either used or new.  If you have these lying around the house, great, if you want to pick up a generic bottle of acetaminophen (generic Tylenol) the next time you are at the store, even better!  All items will go directly to the Haitian people that we work with in the clinic, as well as an orphanage that is also associated with my group.

Here is a list of supplies that we still need:

nr Clinic:

washclothes (for hygiene packs)

bags of all sizes (large trash, small trash, baggie, snack, etc)

clorox wipes

non-latex gloves

peanut butter

batteries- all sizes

adult multi vitamins with and w/o iron (UNOPENED)

children's multi vitamins with and w/o iron (no gummy, they melt, also UNOPENED)

Tylenol (generic or regular, UNOPENED)

paper towels

For MTM orphanage:

combs & brushes for black hair

skin lotion

hair cream-with a tar or sulfur base if possible, these tend to repel scabbies

deodorant/antiperspirant

bath towels

kitchen towels/bar rags work best & are less expensive, can be bleached

underclothes & socks

pj type clothing

misc. clothing in good condition, modest (boys sizes 7-12, girls sizes 7-16)

accessories are always welcome-belts, purses, ties, hair foo foos, etc.

As I said, you can just give these things to me (either at work or at home) or if you are feeling really ambitious you could mail me the things if you live far away (although it would probably just be either to send me a check and a list of what you want me to buy.)

Three Things....

OK, the first thing is an earthquake update.  I was listening to this guy on the radio who was talking about earthquakes and tsunamis on the west coast.  His interviewer asked him about tsunami warning systems, and how people would know if there is a wave coming after an earthquake.

His answer: if the ground shakes, that IS your warning.  If an earthquake stikes the west coast, a tsunami WILL follow.  South coast has about 10 minutes until the wave hits, north coast has a little more time, about 20 minutes.  He suggested that you get about 80 feet up, more if possible.  If you don't know what 80 feet looks like, then right after a earthquake is not the time to find out.

The second is an update on my trip to Haiti.  This lady that I am going with is insanely organized.  She is bringing food.  She brings supplies.  Scrubs are already there.  There are books and a computer there.  She even has toothbrushes.  "What should I bring?" I asked her.  "Nothing, really", she admitted.  Of course, she is claiming my entire checked bag quota (and part of my carry-on bag) for medical supplies going there, and I will have to stuff my nothing into whatever is left.  I have my ticket and so this is looking like a go.

The third thing is that I MAY be playing flute at the Waypost on 4/6 at 7:30pm.  I will probably be playing as a part of Classical Revolution PDX.  I am hoping that I will be playing  Bach's Andante from Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G major with three other flutes, which will sound near but not quite like this:

(Yes, there is a lot of uncertainty in this announcement.  But if you get there and I don't play, then you are probably better off.)

Only [NOT] in the US

Could you imagine the president of a major company in America personally apologising to those that were affected by his company? 

 This picture is from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42144324.  The caption reads:

Norio Tsuzumi, vice president of Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco), left, apologizes to evacuees at an evacuation center in Tamura, Fukushima prefecture, March 22. Public sentiment is such that Fukushima's governor Yuhei Sato rejected a meeting offered by the president of Tepco, the utility that runs the Fukushima nuclear plant. "Considering the anxiety, anger and exasperation being felt by people in Fukushima, there is just no way for me to accept their apology," said Gov. Sato on national broadcaster NHK.

If this were America, not only would the mayor take the companies apology (and probably his campaign finance contributions), the company and the mayor would probably band together to place all the blame on the opposite political party.

Please consider Donating to Japan.  They are doing all they can to try to help themselves, but this disaster is too big for anyone to handle alone.

Earthquake readiness

So, my housemate found a video of some geologist that is claiming that due to a perfect storms of tides and full moons and equinoxes (equini?) the "big one" is going to hit this Saturday.  As the picture shows, I ran right out to the store, and I feel pretty prepared:



In all seriousness, if there is a big one, check here: Safe And Well.  I will put myself on the site, if anyone cares.

Here is the video.  Imminent earthquake?  Decide for yourself.  Before you panic, keep in mind that this is Fox News that we are talking about:

   

Music for All?

I attened a "Brown Bag" at the Old Church in Portland.  As the name implies, the Old Church is the oldest church building in Portland.  However, the name is misleading as it is actually no longer a church.  It is not a nonprofit that houses weddings, concerts, and other gatherings.  It is a beautiful place, and they will hold free noontime Wenesday concerts that I love to attend.  This week, we heard David Rothman, who presented us with many lovely Chopin pieces.  A list of their concerts can be found here.

They announced that the concert was going to be taped, and requested that we remain silent between movements, only clapping when the piece was completely finished.  I wondered why live concerts were taped like this, rather then just taping in a controlled environment.  I guessed that it probably had something to do with the energy of the player or something like that.

A few minutes into the concert, a few people came in.  The newcomers were obviously a group of people who were developmentally disabled, with two escorts.  They had to come in through the handicapped door due to the fact that one of them was in a wheelchair, and that door was at the front of the room, so everyone was staring at them.  I glanced at the microphones, and thought to myself that this wasn't going to go well.

About five minuets after they showed up, one of the members gave a long, loud moan.  Everyone's head spun around at the sound, mine included.  The person who had made the noise was smiling and clapping his hands siliently in joy at the music, and the room glowered at him.  I smiled, but I saw that a lot of people were troubled and a few were angry.

The pianist was one of them.  After the song, he asked if there was a noise.  One of the audience members pointed out the group and said that it was them.  There was an uncomfortable silence, then one of the escorts led the noisemaker away.

I felt so terrible for him.  Although I understood that the tape of the concert was probably ruined (at least for that song) I wondered if the audience and the pianist realized just how vital it was for the young man who was kicked out to attend a concert like this.  If it was so important to get a good tape, then they should have made this clear prior to the concert to make sure that people who were not able to listen silently would not show up.    Maybe the man who left didn't understood why he was leaving, or maybe he did and was sad, hurt, or even humiliated.  I wouldn't be surprised if the small part of the concert gave him just as much joy as the rest of the people listening, perhaps even more.  The disabled are marginalized, removed from societal, and rarely able to attend an event like that.  It was wrong for him to leave.

Anything helps

I was driving to work the other day when I saw a guy holding a sign asking for money standing by the road.

Now that isn't a strange thing in Portland.  At almost every busy corner, stoplight and stop sign, there are homeless people holding signs.

What was odd about this guy is that he was standing at the end of a freeway on-ramp.  You know, the part where you have just accelerated to the speed of the expressway and you are getting ready to merge.  He was standing right where the expressway meets the ramp.

He was holding a sign that stated "VETERAN, ANYTHING HELPS, GOD BLESS".

And as I zoomed by him at 50 mph I couldn't help but think, "Well, that explains why we haven't left Iraq yet."

Micheal Bay Meets Japan

I can't believe the pictures that are coming out of Japan.  It's like the entire area was the set for some lame Micheal Bay movie.  The most dramatic pictures that I have found are here.

Please consider donating aid if you can.  I, of course, recommend the Red Cross, and you can donate directly to Japan here.

Going to Haiti!

I will be travelling to Haiti this April!

I will be in Haiti from April 25th through May 3rd.  I am very excited about this opportunity!  This will be the first medical trip that I will be making as a nurse, I am going to be using some of the money that my father left me to fund the trip.  I would like to think that he would be proud of what I am doing.

I will be travelling with a group of people to work in a clinic.  The clinic is run by Mountaintop Ministries.  I found out about this through another RN at the Red Cross who is also going.

I have added a personal goal of not getting arrested in this particular country.

Stay tuned!

Zombie Oregon Trail: Flee the Zombie Hordes!

Although it's a day late from Halloween, I wanted to repost this awsome re-hash of the classic game (on which this website is based) "The Oregon Trail".  Instead of battling natural forces, you are battling zombies to get to my new hometown of Portland, OR.  It's a blast.

You can play the game here.

There is really no better way to spend your All-Saints Day.

Let me get this straight, Fiver...

Last Friday I exposed my 11-year-old housemate to what is essentially the whole of my childhood- Watership Down. My sister and I had a game, we would name a line in the movie and the other would have to give the next line.  The loser either couldn't name the next line, or named the wrong line.  (The script, by the way, can be found here.)  That should give you an idea of how many times we watched that movie.  A lot.  And yes, on a few occasions we did manage to recite the entire movie from memory, a feat that I am sure I could repeat today.  Oh yes, and the lines also included the heavily-accented cockney spoken by the human characters at the start of the movie and during the farmhouse scene. 
I was glad to share this experience with my current foster family, as well as fill them in on any lines that they missed (and explain the Warren of the Shining Wire, which I don't think that the movie did a few good job of covering, we can't all be perfect.)  While watching this movie for an iteration that I am sure went into the triple digits, I was struck by how lovely the score was, one aspect of the movie that I had never really highlighted as one of it's charms.  Anyway, I got to thinking how nice it would be to be able to do a sort of medley on the flute.

Anyway, a quick search of "Watership Down Score" showed that no such was available.  No score is for sale.  The soundtrack is also out of print and very pricey.  I figured that I could pick it out myself, but I have a lousy ear and plus I wanted to have the option of piano accompaniment.  Anyway, just when I was about to give up, I found someone who shared the thing.  I got a copy, and I will start to work on a flute solo transposition straightaway, but first I thought that I would share it here:

Download a version of the Watership Down score.

It's not the actual score, I think that someone had my idea of putting together a medley, but they did it with a full orchestra.  Anyway, if you, like so many others, have been searching, enjoy!  And please leave a comment about the book, movie, or the score, as both are truly amazing.  (The TV show sucked however.)  If you haven't heard of this and would like to check it out, then use one of the links below as I get money from Amazon when people buy off my site.

And remember: "What is, is what must be."

Panyhose Haiku

Run in my stockings
I was chic dressed all in black
Now I just look cheap

Google Rocks

Sometimes I can't beleive how smart Google is.
I was applying for a job, and I wrote in the email cover letter "Please find my resume attached" but forgot to attach my resume, as I often do.

When I hitsend, Google threw up an error box that was like "Uh, do you want to attach something?"

I'm telling you, someone should write an app that can tell when you are romantic with someone by looking for keywords...

Then when you type too slowly or make too many mistakes, an error box will pop up and say "You appear drunk. Are you sure you want to send this?"

World watch it, it's Nurse Kim

Me celebrating NCLEX passage

 On Wednesday at approximately 11:45 AM, after taking the NCLEX, answering 75 questions in about 45 minutes, I officially became an RN.  This has been a long and difficult road, the nails in the pavement being people that told me that this was something that I could not do, the gaping manhole the middle of the sidewalk being the hours spent as a CNA doing you-don't-want-to-know to get the tuition money to pay for this, and the crap in the middle of my path that I had to jump over being a little pile of poo named Jodi K.  But here I am, Kimberley Anne Gray, RN.  Doesn't rhyme, but it does have a much nicer ring to it.

The RN exam is truly a great exam.  They use something called "Computer Adaptive Testing" (CAT) that allows you to basically as as few of the questions as possible.  Back in the day, you would have to travel to a test site, book a hotel room, and then sit in a room with about a hundred others and take a long, written, paper-and-pencil exam.  You would turn it in, wait several months, and then finally get your result.  Totally lame.

Today, what happens is that the questions are scored in terms of difficulty.  There is a midline that indicates the lowest level of competency for a new RN.  Your first question is slightly below the midline.  If you get that right, you get a harder question.  If you get it wrong, you get an easier question.  The computer will try to pick a question that it feels you have a 50% chance of getting right.

You have a minimum of 75 questions, and a max of 265.  If, at the end of the 75 questions, you are above the minimum competency line, then you are granted a pass and the test cuts of.  Or, if you are well below the minimum competency rate at 75 questions, then the computer shuts off and you are granted a fail.  If you are around the line, then the computer keeps firing questions at you until it is either out of questions or your are well above or below the line for 60 questions.

So, while you are taking this test, your are constantly asking yourself "Am I getting easy questions or hard questions?"  Because, if the questions are easy, that means that you are bombing the test.  Of course, the questions might also be easy because you are incredibly smart and you think that they might be easy.  Or they might be easy because the person who grades the test deemed them hard when they are actually pretty easy.

In other words, trying to gauge your progress by the difficulty level of the question is kind of pointless.  You just have to wait for the results.

The results are available after 48 hours of starting the test.  The NCLEX testing crew really has us here, because they can really charge whatever they want by asking for a "Quick Results Fee" ($7.95 by Internet, $9.95 by phone) and they know that they will get that fee.  They didn't get mine, however!!  Nope, because after checking to see if my results were available, I finally just checked the OR BON (board of nursing) online registry the next morning to find that I had already been added.  OR BON rocks!!

If you don't believe me, then click here.

Now I just need to find a job.

MRSA the Superbug and the VERY BAD IDEA

So the other day I am chatting with an RN on a case.  She told me that a patient was put on a course of Vancomycin.  I asked her if the patient had MRSA, which is a condition that can only be treated by "Vanco" (as the drug is affectionately called).  She told me that no, the patient doesn't have MRSA, but rather that the hospital tends to put people on Vanco on admit as part of thier protocol, and then take them off if the cultures come back negative.

For reasons discussed below, this is a VERY BAD IDEA.

This is an interesting link that describes the problem from a different aspect:
Superbug’ patient treated at MGH


I wrote the following letter to my friend Cherelle Jackson, who is a Samoan Journalist:

Hey sweetie! How ya doing?



Listen, I came across this article and I thought about Samoa. You see, Samoa, along with many other counties in the developing world tend to offer antibiotics over the counter to anyone that asks. People will self-diagnose and take the antibiotics when they are not needed, or worse yet, they will take just a few pills and stop taking them when they feel better.

This causes the bacteria that the antibiotics are trying to kill become "resistant". (Please forgive me if you know this already.) Basically, you are killing all the bacteria that are weak and are left with just a few strong bacteria. (This is why you start to feel better a few days after taking an antibiotic.) However, if people stop taking their antibiotics at this point, then the "strong" bacteria will multiply and reinfect the person. After a few generations, the bacteria becomes resistant to the antibiotic and the antibiotic stops working.

The real scary thing is that some "bugs", like MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, methicillin is an antibiotic and staphylococcus aureus is the name of a bacteria,) are already resistant to all but a few antibiotics. If they become resistant to the few antibiotics that are left, then we will truly have a pandemic on our hands!!!

The reason that I think that you should write about this is that your audience includes a lot of the people in the Pacific Islands that are part of the groups that tend to misuse antibiotics. If people were to only take antibiotics that are prescribed by a doctor, and take ALL the antibiotics, then this would help to slow the problem-- hopefully until newer, stronger antibiotics are developed.


Anyway, I really think that there is a story in this and I think that this is information that is vital to know. Tell me what you think.

Love,

Kim

The Woeful Tale of Couple, Mousy, Bimbo, Frat, and me

So I am leaving my house the other day, and my housemate asks where I am going. I told her that I was going to the Lucky Lab to play games. "Cool," she said, "who are you going with?"

"I am going with my Depressed and Anxious people meet-up group!" I told her brightly. "Want to come?"

She burst out into laughter. "Sounds like a good time," she said, "but I'll pass."

Yes, there is a depressed and anxious person meet-up here in Portland. I have decided to stop fighting my depression and try to hang out with people that are more sympathetic to it. This was after many rather disappointing meetup experiments with the local social crowd. You see, whenever I go to one of these things, I am sandwiched between two people that have awesome chemistry and spend the evening flirting over me. It's quite annoying.

The worst was a meet-up at some pub. It started out great. At the table was me, a couple, and another really nice mousy girl. The female half of the couple was a nurse and we talked about that for quite a while. I had a few beers and got pretty tipsy and was having a good time until this blonde little prima donna bimbo showed up.

You see, the problem with me, is that I tend to fade in the light. When I am in a group with those self-absorbed people that seem to want to talk about nothing but themselves, I find it pretty hard to engage. Part of me is bored still as this stupid blonde idiot described the last meetup that she went into in terms of how many people hit on her, and the other part is kind of resentful that she took what was a perfectly enjoyable and balanced conversation and tipped it towards her annoyingly scantily clad breasts.

At one point, Bimbo was gracious enough to shut up long enough for us to talk about the different meetups we went to. Couple went to a couple's meetup. Mousy had gone to some art meetup. And I told the group about my Scientology Adventure. This led to a conversation about Scientology which went on for a little bit.  This was due to the fact that Bimbo, upset that the focus was no longer on her, leaned back to tell the other table all about herself. At this point a young man who looked like he got lost on the way to a frat party joined our table and announced that he too was part of the group.

At this point we had moved on to the subjects of age. When it came to me, I said that I was 35 and Frat turned to me and said in a rather loud voice "You're 45?" I like to think that his shock due to the fact that I do not look like I am 45, however, when I corrected him, he just nodded approvingly, making me think rather that he was more shocked of my being at a meetup that was geared towards young adults aged 20-39.

"She's also a Scientologist!", Bimbo said, managing to rejoin the conversation right when Frat sat down, surprisingly. I protested this while Frat oogled Bimbo they began their sickening flirtation, which basically consisted of her describing what a ball-breaking bitch she tended to be, and him grinning like a moron and pretending to be shocked at the fact that she would send her one-night-stands out for coffee the next morning. (She never did mention if they bothered to come back.)

From then on out, whenever a new person came to the table, Frat and Bimbo thought that it was hilarious to go around the table and introduce everyone with a one word sentence, ending on "And this is Kim, she's a 45 year-old Scientologist." What was worse was that the newcomer would generally come back with a shocked "You're a scientologist?" rather then "You're 45?"

The first time that this was done, I smiled obligingly, the second time I slightly curtly corrected Frat, and the third time I finally told him that he needed to stop introducing me in such a way. He and Bimbo found this entire thing very amusing and stopped introducing me altogether, making me wonder if this was due to the fact that they didn't have another adjective to use in their little two-man introductions comedy routine.

I think that Mousy was getting sick of this as well (Couple had long ago stopped talking to the table entirely and was chatting among themselves) and she excused her self and took off. A few polite minutes later, I stood up and went to get my bill. It was a bit of a wait, so I went back to reclaim my seat just to see that it was taken by a twenty-something in a baseball cap that was hoping for a shot at Bimbo himself.

Needless to say, that was the last meetup I attended. They say that depressed people should make an effort to get out and meet new people. I say that those people have never meet to this particular Portland meetup.

Next week: Hello depressed and anxious folks…

Blog Update

This summer I am trying to make my life more blogworthy.  This means that I am trying to do things that other people may just want to read about.  In other words, I am trying to spend less time on the couch watching Seth MacFarlene cartoon reruns and drinking PBR.

So, I have updated this blog with a few new features.  You've probably already noticed the new title.  I am quite proud of that.  You can follow me on Twitter, RSS, or you can just subscribe via email.  I fixed the slideshow so that it actually works and doesn't show the same damn pictures.  (Well, it does show the same damn pictures, but it shows them in a different order.)

And, well, that's about it.  For the all the work it took me, I thought that I would have more to offer.

MICU?

I was just working with a medical record of someone who was on the MICU, and that got me wondering about what exactly a MICU is.  Turns out that it's a medical intensive care unit.

Excuse me?  Isn't that a tad redundant?  I mean, is there a non-medical intensive care unit where they just stand around and hope that you get better?

Jon Stewart was Right: they are Appholes

Let me please take a minute to do what blogs were really designed for -- angry rants towards large corporations to minuscule and insignificant audiences who don't really care, all simply for the purpose of making me feel better.

So, recently, John Stewart recently went off on Apple. A brilliant monologue -- that was no surprise -- but I thought that Mr. Stewart had gone a little bit too far in saying that "…It wasn’t supposed to be this way – Microsoft was supposed to be the evil one! But you guys are busting down doors in Palo Alto while Commandant Gates is ridding the world of mosquitoes! What the fuck is going on???!!!"  I thought that this was a bit over the top until I actually had the pleasure of visiting a Apple Store.  You see, my iPod has suddenly decided that I really don't need to hear music in both the left and right ears.  One should do fine, thank you.

Let me take another second here to say that this is the third iPod I have owned and the third one that has broken down in less then a year.  The first was actually a present, so when that one decided that it didn't want to do anything except show the damned Apple logo on it's useless little screen I sort of cut my losses.  The second one was used and after it decided to become a $200 paperweight I decided that I would never own an iPod again.  Then a friend came around and sold me an iPod Touch after getting an Android, and well, I couldn't resist.  I mean, I figured that it was a totally different bit of machinery and I was willing to give iPod another chance.  Big mistake.  I don't see my Microsoft is so intent on building an "iPod killer"-- the damn things are committing suicide just fine on their own.

Anyway, I went to the Apple Store knowing that I was most likely going to be very disappointed.  My used iPod does not have AppleCare© associated with it, so I was pretty sure that the Apple Store was going to tell me to either fork over more money then my iPod was worth or get the hell out.  As it turns out, I didn't even get that far.

No, I got to the store and as I attempted to walk in, I was stopped by not one, but two mall security guards.  There were three at the door, and the third was chatting up the Apple guy who was lounging outside the store.  As the guard asked me what I needed, I looked over his shoudler assuming that someone was going bonkers with an uzi inside-- the only reason that I could think of that a store would need to have four men manning it's gates.  Turns out that this was not the case, this is just stardard operating procedures for an Apple Store nowadays.

I told the guard that I needed to have someone look at my iPod, and the guard indicated-- no, bowed, actually, at the Apple worker and told me that I would need to "talk to him first."  The guard told me that this god-like man "may or may not choose to let me in."  Excuse me?  Did I hear that right?  Let me in?  Is this studio fucking 54 now?  Would it help if I were a blonde bimbo?  I waited a good thirty seconds while the Apple guy talked to the guard about some restaurant that he'd gone to before Mr. Apple God finally agnowleged me.  When I told him what I wanted, he pulled out an iPhone and asked me in a snooty maitre'd sort of a way if I had an appointment.  No, I told him, I don't have a damn appointment, all I need is for some AppleCare moron to tell me that they can't fix my iPod.  The Apple Maitre'd offered to make an appointment for me.  When I asked if I could get in that day he just laughed at me.  (I am being totally serious.)  I turned around an walked away and Mr. Maitre'd Apphole remembered something he read about customer service and called after me to have a good day.

Like Mr. Stewart, I am also feeling a bit put off.  Aside from the fact that I haven't owned an Apple Computer since 2001 (when I went to work for MS), I did support those losers when their stock was worth less then a candy bar.  I spent my hard-earned money from working at my college cafeteria on a damn PowerMac 7100, for god sakes.  And now they won't even let me in the store to fix my broken iPod.

Screw them.  My next mp3 player is going to be... oh, who am I kidding.

Scientology is Complete Crap

So, one of my meet-up groups has been doing a tour of different religions.  I am new to the group, and I am pretty sorry that I missed pretty much every one of these talks.  They have had nights centered around all sorts of different faiths, including Baha'i, Muslim, Hindu, and even Mormon.  This week they were sort of scraping the bottom of the barrel and we went to explore the Church of Scientology.

The inside didn't really look much like a church, it looked more like the room of a top-rate nonprofit, with a main meeting room and classrooms and offices at the side.  The meeting room walls were advertising various books and workshops with "L. Ron Hubbard" spattered in every available niche.  (For someone that is so philanthropic, as we learned later, the guy sure seemed to like his name spread around.)

Anyway, the first part was a viewing of thier new DVD (based on the book "The Problems of Work").  This was basically a poorly acted but generally well-produced "dramatization" (so we were told, no I have not read the book) of the different chapters.  They are geared to help improve communication at work as well as one's own being.  One of the things that they talked about were "Tones".  Someone at the bottom of the stack feels "sub-apathy", and the idea is to move them upward through the various tones to Serenity.  Now although tones are really just a rip-off of Kübler-Ross's grief model (Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) I do have to admit that for me, a chronic depressive, there is a bit appeal and dare I say logic to this model.  We were told that people get stuck at various tones and need help to pull them out.  When the video talked about how people who were stuck in apathy saw the world as (I am paraphrasing here) "like looking at shades of gray through water" I have to admit then had it not been freakin' Scientology, I might have considered actually picking up a few pamphlets and maybe checking out their books in the library.   I mean, after dealing with despression for more then half my life, that stuff spoke to me and I am long past the point where I will try just about anything.

Anyway, after the video we had a guy who looked remarkably like Kyle MacLachlan with a beard  (Cooper from Twin Peaks or Orson from Desperate Housewives) jumped up with a smile and ask if we had any questions.  He quickly established that he was one of us (sane) by saying that he is an engineer and Catholic (probably figuring that would cover pretty much everyone in the group in some way.)  Kyle took our questions, and being that we were a pretty nice and respectful group, we started out with some easy ones.  Is there a service in the Church?  How does the church see god?  Are other faiths accepted?    As Kyle took our questions with his smile, the other Scientologsts that were standing around holding thier free DVD and other stuff slowly inched in as the questions started to get more difficult.  When one gentleman asked about Scientology and it's believes towards physics and other established sciences, Kyle's little posse started to edge in protectively, smiling at us with suspicious eyes.

Finally, someone got around to asking about money.  After assuring as that "no one has ever gotten rich over Scientology" he said that this would be the last question, as he knew that "we" had to go.  I looked around and didn't see that anyone in my group looked particularly interested in leaving.  The Scientology posse was getting nearing and started making "alright" gestures- nodding and looking like they were ready to give us our DVDs and get us the hell out.   Before this happened, however, one girl did manage to ask about Tom Cruise and his views twoards Psychiatry.

Now here things got interesting.  Kyle gave a sort of fake laugh and then went all Jekyll and Hyde on us.  I inched towards the edge of my sheet, thinking that Kyle was going to go off on Tom Cruise and what a lousy representative of Scientology he was.  Instead, Kyle started to rail on psychiatry in general, stating that people are spirits and can not be controlled chemically.  Although he did come out in favor of Phycology and it's "talking cure" (every psychologist I ever had referred me to a psychiatrist for a prescription) he stated that pushing pills and chemistry was simply a way to control the natural spirit.  There was no pill, Kyle insisted, that would help the spirit.  Pills were a way of pushing buttons to control people, and Kyle said with a snear, do you know who started these vile experiments?  It was the NAZIs!!!!!


There was a definite change in the room at this point.  The Scientologist bouncers looked ready to jump and the audience was just getting started.  One woman in the back quickly jumped in and identified herself as a clinical psychologist.  She pointed out that although the "talking cure" was well and good, there were many of her patients that suffered from visual and audio hallucinations that talking really could not cure.  Kyle seemed to see that he had gone a bit too far and then back-peddled, saying that there were people who were "insane" that Scientology didn't really claim to help.  Apparently the door was closed to the "insane", non-insane people who didn't hear voices were welcome to join their own brand of "medicine"-- provided they were willing to toss their antidepressants and anti anxiety medications.  Obviously, that was the end of our little talk.

Anyway, my opinion of Scientology has gone from mocking it to realizing that this is a pretty scary concept that should be stopped.  They target people who are depressed, lonely, and scared and lure them in with promises of a cure.  They encourage them to abandon their established methods of treatment and throw their mental health (along with their wallets) into the hands of what is essentially a group of quacks.  This is wrong, and this is unethical.  It is no different then those people who claim that they can cure cancer with no more then clean living and a special concoction of vitamins and snake oil.

Scientology isn't just a cult, they are evil.