We had our clandestine doc's visit yesterday (me, doc, daughter) wife never knew. I prepared an outline of the desired discussion agenda (3 items) with a copy for each. Item 2) Communicating w/o upsetting wife, Item 3) What info is needed from me. I also prepared a list of what I thot might be meaningful observations of my wife's behaviors/attitudes (for example she is reading very very slowly; if she doesn't remember how to do something she still does or knows to consult a book or reference). The Doc dug this list. :-) I stayed completely away from anecdotal discussion - that gets noplace. The doc is well aware of this whole problem but so is our nurse daughter and she's the one that came up with what I think was the best suggestion: ignore wifes inaccurate/wrong statements if the subject is non-critical to health, interupt and make a correction if they are critical issues like meds or whatever. So today we (wife and I) had an appt and the Doc questioned wife closely and very tactfully and for sure very skillfully. She knows what she is doing. The questions were directed to my wife, not to me with one exception when she did seek confirmation, and she was able to ascertain what she needed. I did, however, interupt one time with the 'truth'. There didn't appear to be any reaction from my SW and you can bet I was watching. I did expand on one problem which resulted to my surprise in a thorough exam on the table by the doc (as opposed to just writing it down - the usuall SOP) with a definite conclusion. Got my attention. So to summarize: With a recptive Doc a concise written summary of behavioral observations gets the mssg thru. It would seem that one way to minimize possible emotional upset during verbal communication with the Doc is: ignore the non-critical wrong answers and interupt with the truth on critical issues.

I double your yipee!!! I am set to see my onc Thurs. All the good docs are booked out a month. Don't know why the surgeons don't get the referrals started day after surgery. I was going to ask but onc offices said they could get me in quickly depending on urgency. The one I am seeing managed to get me in quickly, kinda held the spot for me. You really do attract more bees with honey than lemon. My dh is going to ask the top doc where he works what he thinks about my case and my onc's recommendations. I will also get a second opinion too. I also know a head onc nurse who I will ask about my second opinion doc. All the docs I am looking at were awarded Top Docs by their peers in recent years. It really helps to ask around. Also, my dh has come up with some really great things to discuss with my docs. Because my dh is also a microbiologist he sees things from a biological prospective also, not just as a treater. He combed my pathology report way closer than my surgeon did. That could be because only certain parts applied to her and my onc will go over the rest, but it would have been important stuff to point out to a patient not fortunate enough to have a dh like mine. Once again, advice to others "go over everthing and ask what everthing means." Coordinating care is so hard. At work we use nurse case managers. When I had a guy who could not see his doc for a month, my nurse got him in the next day. But when I need to set my own appt it takes forever. My dh is my designated hitter when I have problems. It helps. I ran into issues with my insurance. They sent my referral to a facility which my doc does not even work at. My surgeon gave them mis information but they never bothered to make sure they were sending it to the right place. We immediately called ins (dh had to interceed) and explain to them how they did it wrong. That was Friday. This morning my doc still did not have my referral. Talk about a pain. I had to have my surgeon's scheduler (the problem person) redo the referral. Luckily she is on the ball this time so I should be set to go. I have been checking out some sites to see what I am really heading into. A chemo port, yuck but supposedly best way to go, will leave yet another scar on my chest. Guess I won't be going topless this year! lol! I don't like going into things blindly so I research and ask lots of questions. Surprises are no fun for me. My family is great so far. Well at least the ones I can always count on. My oldest sis lives 6miles away and even came to my son's scounting events recently. My mid sis is in So Cal but calls often and is planning to come up and help clean or just hang out cooking/freezing food for later. My bro is distant. I sent him a card telling him my diagnosis and he sent this really weird mushy letter. (For those who don't recall, he and I had an issue 3.5yrs ago and since then he has done several very cruel and hurtfull things to myself, my sisters and their kids. I have not tried to patch things us and my mom pretends like he is a god. She will not tell him he was mean because she actually likes conflict, sick I know. I planned on sending him a letter telling him it was time to get over it and make up, then this happened to me and I don't have the energy right now to fix all this). He mentioned wanting to see me, not because of my cancer, but because he loves me. I emailed him my info and surgery date. He has not replied nor contacted me. My dad is so sweet. I plan to go see him next chance I get as he goes to my oldest sis' house weekly. My mom, well, she is who she is. I told my oldest sis that if I were on my deathbed mom would expect me to call her and let her know. Mom would not call me. When I updated her on my surgery she was really happy about my being home but had to go because she was cooking a burger. I know she loves me but just does not know how to show it. I have another sis that we have been forbidden to speak to, mom and her have issues and mom demanded we ignore her for last 20 or so years. I have contacted her here and there. My mid sis defies mom and does have a relationship with her. I think I will start pen-paling her. She is really hard to deal with, very emotional and dependent. I think an email start would be good for her. We can chat without having to deal with her emotional issues. She really is sweet and was really touched that I reached out to her about my condition. DH is hanging in there but I can tell this is starting to take it's toll. He deals with dialysis patients all day long. To have him sit with me during my chemo is going to be so hard on him. He keeps saying he wishes he could take this all away from me but can't. I read a blog on a guy who would take his wife out for a lunch date after each treatment. I guess he felt pretty good right afterwards and took advantage of the moment. My coworker's husband had to go on prozac to manage his depression from his wife's treatment. Hopefully spring will be here soon and sunshine will make my dh feel better. I think before I start my treatment we will go get his new kayak. He loves being on the water, gives him time to be at peace and in such beautiful surroundings. I know I should not worry about him but I do. I know he feels guilty leaving me at home but I keep telling him that he has to do it FOR ME to know he is ok so I can be ok.

Happy New Year, Everyone! I think that Meghane is giving us an outstanding example on how we could educate the public more effectively. Maghane, as our resident vet, I'm curious about the percentage of animals you see coming from a 'mill' source vs. the BYB. Overall, do you see any difference in health between the two? I would like to take your commercial and show the puppy coming from a nice couple's home to it's vet appointment. Until I started reading the threads on here, I never realized there were so many purebreds in the shelters. The public doesn't have such a positive opinion about shelter animals, either. If I owned a shelter, I would advertise it just like a petting zoo advertises. Come out and meet all the different kinds of animals, see the lovely animals donated to the facility, free admission, 'family day' on Saturday's... It's much more enticing than the depressing, homeless, unwanted, discarded animals route. You girls were talking about educating children so I looked into what kind of education they are getting. The Humane Society has some literature for teachers and parents. They put out a newsletter which they say reaches 200 million children nationwide. I'd be interested to know how much time is really devoted in the classrooms to the material. Ultimately, it's the parents that need to educate the children in their own pet selections. I looked a little more in-depth into what the Humane Society is doing for our education. Their 2008 Financial Report is on-line. They spent $6,746,114. in both education and research (it's a combined total for both). But to put this into some sort of perspective their revenue was $131,281,161.00 of which over 100 million dollars was unrestricted. Due to their total lack of response on a personal issue, I'm pretty down on their organizational structure. This isn't to slight the worker bees (often volunteer, no less) out on the front-lines. That's an incredible undertaking and full credit is due. However, I shared the public opinion that when a problem arose, they were there immediately taking action. That was not my experience. We actually hang up on them when they call for funds now so I don't get their fund-raising literature. In 2008 they spent over 27 million in fund-raising. On the surface, it seems that they are adept on raising money :). Clubbing seals in the head certainly gets people to reach into their pockets. So do starving dog photos. They've made great strides for the seals in a relatively short span of time. Why do we still have starving dogs after so many years? If they can run fund-raising campaigns so effectively, why can they not run educational programs more effectively? The financial report doesn't show how much revenue was received from people making donations with the intention of stopping the mills. It leaves the lingering question in my mind as to what their revenues would be to help the chickens if the mills were gone. There appears to be confusion about breeders. I've actually communicated with a small group of ethical cat breeders. There is not an easy way for us to distinguish between a reputable breeder and a byb breeder. Hence, if we started using the term "pet peddler" people would become a little more alert. Better yet, if the reputable breeders with start calling themselves something different than 'breeder' we could begin to segregate. One of things I have found is that we really don't understand what a reputable breeder does as far as costs. We tend to use the monetary cost of the pet to determine the quality of the animal. A $200 puppy sounds like a quality pup and a $50 pup is the same puppy from someone not trying to make a profit from us! Neither is factual. The group I spoke with seemed open to the thought of actually putting up on their web pages the true costs that go into the animals. I truly think if this information was easily obtained, the educational value would be immeasurable. I'm sure it varies from breed to breed but it is very expensive to produce a healthy animal. The continuous health screenings on their animals costs a lot. There is a lot of care and concern about each animal in their program. I've reached a small group within TICA for cats. They were receptive to start helping to educate the cat community in different way. There is equal frustration on their side that we are not making educated purchases. Does anyone in here know of a way to reach some groups of ethical dog breeders? Maybe if we could open up communication between us and the ethical breeders, some of the confusion would subside. Do you have any more suggestions on how they could help us? I'm willing to put them out there. People seem to have the same views about the AKC. (lol - saintpfla - registering your couch)! I went to the CFA, Cat Fancier's Association, to see what kind of education they are putting out for cat consumers. OMG! They say that a purebred cat price starts at about $300. I don't know the cost of all purebred cats, they must vary. I know the Bengals from reputable sources are in the neighborhood of $1,000 and I found the Abyssinian are the same. So, if you are just surfacing around without educating yourself, you're thinking you are getting bilked by a reputable breeder. It's somewhat misleading. They've given cat consumers 3 avenues to buy our purebred kitten. The Want-Ads (which means internet to most now), pet stores and reputable breeders. It didn't come across to me that using a reputable breeder is for health. And a pet store? They write that the kittens sometimes come from kitten mills. Why wouldn't they completely discourage using the pet store since it would be hard to determine if it is a mill kitten or not? Just because a kitten doesn't have a runny nose or eyes does not mean it's healthy! If you take a look at the pricing schedule, you're led to believe the cost is based on looks. Yes, you pay more of a premium for a perfect look, however, if you aren't showing your pet, you still need to pay a premium for health - not $300. The cat breeders seem to follow this same pricing structure so the health concerns are not immediately apparent. Is this the same for dog breeders? It costs between $20 - $60 to register your cat (depending on the number of generations requested). I don't anticipate buying another purebred any time soon. However, since I don't show, I will refuse to register an animal again until I see some changes within the information they are providing. I micro-chip so have a solid identification on my pet with both my contact info and my reputable breeder's contact info on my new kitten. I don't find any value in the registration paper. I had registered her with TICA but the paper sits in my file drawer. Here is a link that might be useful: Cat Fanciers' Association

I have a very alternative view to public VS. private school. I am currently 18 and have attended both forms of schooling, and am currently in Home/Online Schooling. For me, Public School was not an option. I found that bullies were slapped on the wrist and pushed back out on the playing field where they could do it again and again, and the cycle was never broken...many a times there were "anti-bully" movements at our school, but very few were actually effective in treating the issue...if they stopped in school, it'd pick back up out of school... Many children in class were unwilling to pay attention and participate, and a long time was spent listening to them get lectured, instead of focusing on the curriculum. Not a lot was accomplished in class so we were expected to use a great amount of out-of-school time to focus on school projects and get them completed... I just wasn't happy. I also started hanging out with "the wrong crowd" and doing drugs and drinking under age, etc. Not every kid will do this, and if you stay on top of things and maintain good lines of communication and a FRIENDSHIP as well as a parent-child relationship with your children, you probably won't have an issue with this. My mom refused to see on an eye-to-eye level with me, and we had a very poor time getting along at home...my dad was always away at work so our relationship didn't account for much during my high school years. The upside, however, was that I was able to socialize and engage in extracurricular activities such as volley ball and track and field. Since joining online school, I have noticed that my grades are much higher...they make the courses so that anyone and everyone can understand them (so that they don't get a flood of questions every 10 minutes about different topics that are difficult to comprehend.) They provide online real-time tutoring, free of charge. There are still field trips for many of the distance education schools that help everyone get together and develop/enhance their social skills. You work at your own pace (I finished a single grade in half the time it takes public school to finish...this is excellent since I am a 2x drop out it means I have the ability to catch up with my peers more quickly.) you set your own schedule...as long as you are doing 4hrs of work per day you will be on par with the public system. I do 6+ hours which means I am surpassing them...since I should've graduated last year I will not graduate before my peers at this point, but I will definitely not be too far behind...a year at most. It really depends on the situation. I would say online schooling takes a lot of dedication, and if you are unable to supervise and ensure that work is getting done, public school would probably be a better bet. It is super easy for a student to say they are completing the work, when they in fact aren't. (Hence my second "drop out"....got kicked out of online school for not completing work in a timely manner...did nothing to re-enroll until recently.) I think if you are home daily and have enough time to contribute and make sure that the work is being completed and they are grasping concepts, online/home schooling is excellent. I like that I can decide who I interact with and who I don't, I have time to manage a work life as well as my school life...I get the social skills I need out of my work life, as many of us know we often interact with people we both like and dislike throughout our work days. Sorry this is so all over the place LOL, I'd edit through it but I am off to apply for a new job and need to get going . . . Hopefully I got my point across about the pros & cons of both! Both are extremely beneficial It just hugely depends on your situation at hand. OH another key point - if the kids are younger I think public school is definitely a good idea - it gives them a chance to establish a circle of friends and to learn how to interact in various positive and negative social situations, if they are too young to extract those experiences from a work life. :)