What I can write here is constrained by ethical human-subject-research principles, at least in part because I am a licensed professional who seeks to remain properly licensed.
Well before "HIPAA" (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, {which is sometimes typographical-error-transformed into "HIPPA"?} or, as I tend to think of it, HIPAAcrazy {pronounced Hi-pah'-cra-sea?}), I worked for a medical research institution in a department which was closely allied with a major trauma unit in a major hospital in a major metropolitan area.
For benefit of those who are true believers in HIPPA, I found a site on the Internet:
http://gneil.blogspot.com/2008/03/frida ... hippa.html
Meanwhile, I learned things during my medical research institution stint, I learned about aspects of human conduct that lead to people being in major hospital trauma units and dying there some of the time and being discharged alive some of the time.
Came time for my orchiectomy, I had a really, REALLY PROFOUNDLY, profound aversion to ending up in an emergency room or trauma unit. While violating the rules of society/culture, I chose to not violate the rules of human biology.
A variation on Hobson's/Sophie's choice theme? I could, it seemed to me, violate the rules of society/culture or I could violate my life. Rules of society/culture being, to me mere make-believes that no one had made me believe, and finding my life real, I went for reality over make-believe.
Most of the time, what works most of the time is what works most of the time. What works most of the time may not work all of the time.
Destroying my life to save it has never made intelligible sense to me.
However, there is something that really got to me during my stint working in ways associated with a major hospital trauma unit. What got to me is an observation I have found no way to challenge or refute or rebut.
Every decision/choice/event that happens is the best possible decision/choice/event at the moment of the decision/choice/event. How did I learn this notion? Because all other supposedly possible decisions/choices/events did not happen, and so, in retrospect, were actually impossible because, and perhaps only because, they did not happen.
Thus, when someone makes a decision differently than I wold make it, I attribute the difference to differences in the circumstances/situation of that person and of me.
I regard it as abusive to as-though demand that two people have circumstances/situations such that differences in decisions do not happen.
I truly hope that cast1988 is doing okay.
Alas, not everyone who was in that trauma unit did okay unless doing okay includes dying.
I reckon that I am, as is everyone else, a first-class person who is entitled to first-class medical care.
Being unwilling to be a trauma unit patient, i patiently sought out the best doctor I could find for the orchiectomy. And I patiently sought out the best doctor I could find for my colectomy. And for the duodenal polypectomy. I am now being treated for familial adenomatous polyposis risks by a doctor who works at a major university a few states from Wisconsin, because that doctor is the best one I have been able to find who is not unreasonably far from where I live.
As I have never yet met a second-class person, I figure it is getting to be time for me to go to work doing my part so every first class person (by which I mean every person, regardless of circumstances or situation) may have access to appropriate first-class care.
Alas, people with limited medical care options and financial limitations may be without any practical alternative to using an Elastrator or Burdizzo, not because they are unworthy of first-class care, but because, as I observe, of prejudice and its ilk.
A quick meander through a few Internet sites informed me that less than $30 will apparently get an Elastrator with bands and shipping, or a Burdizzo and shipping, delivered within the U.S.
How many minutes of attention from a proper physician/surgeon will $30 buy? Not everyone can afford to pay the going rates for physicians and not everyone has health insurance that will cover "voluntary" castration.
What is a person to do who is met with a desperate situation?
Is not desperation a normal condition when a person is met with a desperate situation?
When I transitioned from hospital employee to hospital patient, I had double, and part of the time, triple, insurance. I was at least as well off, in terms of medical care access, as is any long-term member of Congress.
HIPAA and its ilk fixed that for me, and I now have much more limited access to medical care than I used to have, yet it is sufficient for my needs for now.
Sorry, but I find it a tragic outrage that the sort of access I had, and even the access I now have, to proper medical care was not, and is not, available to anyone and everyone.
