Gimpy Mumpy

Leave No Pet or Service Animal Behind

Great news for the disabled community and pet owners!  The House and Senate have both taken recent steps to ensure that no pet or service animal is left behind in a time of emergency.  The House passed a bill in May and the Senate has just approved a substitute to the Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards (PETS) act before breaking for their August recess.  In the future people will not have to make the choice between leaving their pet or service animal behind and evacuating a dangerous area.  Hurray!

**Photo is of Austin an adorable survivor of Hurrican Katrina who is still waiting for someone to adopt him.  Mr. M and I went to visit him in a shelter in Maine where he has ended up after being shipped from shelter to crowded shelter over the past year.  He was a very sweet dog but a bit too muscular for Mumpy to handle.  If you know of someone who would like to adopt him please click here.**

Liposuction at Home?

PSA:  Don't try liposuction at home folks.
O.k., another "I can't believe people are doing this at home" medical treatment (remember the Lasik@Home Do-It-Yourself Eye Surgery post?).  This time a young woman has died from an at home botched attempt at liposuction.  So the next time some shady character offers a great discount on liposuction in his basement just say "NO".

Caughtya

As I posted earlier I receive many links to new crip websites and blogs each day and occasionally find one that's fun or unique.  Caughtya.org is a new site featuring photos of non-disableds parking in disabled parking spaces.  As the creators put it Caughtya is "A "hall of shame" to expose people parking illegally in disability or mobility parking spaces." 

Email Avalanche

As webmaster of a highly trafficked blog I get hundreds of requests to feature links to other websites and blogs.  When a site is one I frequent and it falls into my side-bar categories I include a link there and if it is really great or fun but doesn't fit into my categories I pop up a post and include the link there.   But please don't spam my email in the hopes that your site will magically appear.  Posting links and featuring other blogs takes both time and effort so give me a reason to include a link.  If you have a personal blog and want me to check it out, then include a bit about your site in your message otherwise money always is a good incentive.  hehehe
**If you are running a business then it is advertising and as such I will charge a low monthly rate for ad space (again only if I've checked out the site and it's legit and cool.)**

No Profit, No Cure

...and here I was thinking I was just being cynical.
This NYT article about the fight for a life saving vaccine illustrates the problem with Big Pharma being motivated soley by profits.  Black fever, a life threatening disease that kills half a million mostly poor people each year, has had a known cure since the 60's but has never been available to save lives because it was not considered profitable by the pharmaceutical companies.  Grrrrr..... 
The silver lining here of course is that a small charity is now fighting to make this vaccine available so there may be hope for these people in the future. 

Breakthrough in Chronic Pain Research

"Wax on, wax off..."
Scientists claim that they have found a nerve cell protein that acts as the "on/off switch" for chronic pain.  If their research is accurate this could be an incredibly significant breakthrough for chronic pain sufferers.  The cynic in me cannot help but wonder who will buy out the rights to this information; Big Pharma who will sit on this threat to their billion dollar earning pain medications or the government who may wish to use the "on" feature for terrorist interrogations.  Hmmmm.....I wonder what odds Vegas would put on this? 
In all seriousness though I hope that this will lead to effective pain relief in the future.

Mothball Sniffing??

According to this BBC article, doctors are warning against the dangers of mothball sniffing after a recent case of poisoning.  Teenage girls were sickened after sniffing mothballs.  The girl who became the most ill and had to be hospitalized for treatment had also been chewing mothballs daily.  Sniffing mothballs?  Chewing mothballs?  What are these kids thinking?!  Gross!  Just the thought of mothballs makes me gag.  N-A-S-T-Y.

The Geek is Strong in This One

I was just browsing the recent posts over at Chronic Pain Lifestyle and while reading "The Pain Scale...Before and After Science" I was struck with a brilliant epiphany.   
If we could break down our descriptions of pain into D&D style dice rolls wouldn't this be more accurate than the standard, highly lacking '1-10' style pain scale?  I mean with chronic pain especially there are so many fluxuations in pain.  For example if I could say to my doc, "my back pain is 2 die-20 (a roll of two twenty-sided dice added together)" this is much more like my real life pain experience than selecting one number on a 1-10 scale.  O.k, O.k, call out the Geek Police but just think about it.
Wouldn't it be great if pain medications came with their own THACO?
I mean come on, we all know that taking a pill is like rolling the dice.  Will my pain decrease?  How much?  Will it make me nauseas, dizzy, fall over? 
Wow, I think I need to lay off the caffeine.  My brain is is overdrive today, but does this make sense to others?  Or is it just me?

New Member of the Mumpy Family

Meet Maya! 

Maya is a Pembroke Welsh Corgi pup and our new little bundle of cuteness.  She is keeping her Mumpy mom busy and giving us lots to smile and laugh about. 

Mumpy's Back!