HW 18

Thanksgiving this year was the same as it was every year. We got together at my grandmother's house and had a big dinner and a lot of deserts. Then we watched the football game and talked to each other about what was going on in our lives. My thanksgiving was very traditional in the sense that it was the typical anti-body holliday experience. However, this is not to say it wasn't enjoyable. Although I enjoyed it very much, I could feel the affects on my body from stuffing my self so much and then just sitting around. The issues of illness and dying were not really present at all during my thanksgiving. However, when my family was giving thanks for what they are proud of a very common answer was our good health. Maybe this relates to the way we handle illness and death in our society.

It is a bit ironic that at this holliday in which we spoil ourselves with large amount of food and desert we speak of how we are thankful of our good health. I would describe thanksgiving dinner as healthy. Although it is not really the case with my family it is very common that family issues arise during thanksgiving and I think this is somewhat related to uncomfortablness of seeing a family memeber in the hospital. People do not communicate very well and I think the uncomfortable feeling that we all fell when we see family or friends sick is due to a lack of communication. We are confused on how to act because we don't know how the other person will feel. We are all unsure about eachother and that causes for the uncomfort that is so common in our culture, whether it be in a hospital room or a family get together.

hw 17

Dying and illness is something that our society has become very accustomed to however we still are unsure how to act when around the ill and we many times feel uncomfortable. I have had personal experience with being sick and having to be in the hospital a few days. I got MRSA and had to stay overnight in the hospital a few nights. The doctors had caught the MRSA at an early stage so it wasnt yet dangerous enough to threaten my life, which is the case when the bacteria enters your bloodstream, so it was not to bad. However, they were constantly pumping anti-biotics into me using an I.V and it caused me to be drowsy as well as soreness in my arm. A cyst had formed on my leg and the infection had spread to the majority of my thigh although the cyst was relatively small. The cyst was very painful and I was very tired however, throughout my entire stay I could hardly sleep as they had specialist, students, and other doctors come look and evaluate me constantly. It felt as if I was some sort of science project and hardly did they ever explain to me what was going. Now that I am in perfect health and not in the hospital I would like to think I would want family and friends to come visit. However when I was in the hospital for the few days I was there my mom was with me almost the entire time and that was the person who made me feel the most comfortable and took care of me. It seems that we are all very accustomed to sickness and dying however when we are sick or go to see the sick we many times feel uncomfortable and sometimes ashamed or awkward.

I think we have become very used to illness an dying and alot of the problems in the way we treat the sick that it just seems normal to us. There are many problems with the way our hospitals run, the way healthcare works. The hospital is there to help people but its main incentive is money and that exposes itself often when people do not recieve the care they need due to lack of money. Our society has turn the ill and dying in to a way to profit. Due to the fact that the main incentive for hospitals is to make money, helping people can not be the most important thing to them and therefore the care they provide does not match the care needed. The way we deal with the ill and dying is inhumane and many times uncomfortable.