Painkiller

 There's another TV series out about the Sackler family and how they started the opiod epidemic through Purdue Pharma and prescribing oxycontin to millions of Americans, getting them addicted to the drug and making billions off the profits of people purchasing the drug. Obviously a horrific thing that millions of people are suffering from, but apparently (according to the showrunner of the new series on Netflix called "Painkiller" (starring Matthew Broderick, so it's not a documentary, more like a docuseries) the Sacklers doubled down on their moral turpitude by telling the relatives of those who died from oxycontin overdoses that they died because their were drug addicts, and that it wasn't their drug's fault. Another exhibit in the ever-increasing exhibits on why never to do drugs, ladies and gentlemen. I get repulsed sometimes just watching people eat or feel greedy about anything, so watching the negative effects of addiction and needing a pill more than anything else in the world is really horrifying to see, especially if it's a parent watching a child fall prey to addiction. It also raises a question, though: how do I feel about art exhibitions, museum wings, and otherwise innocent places that were funded by the Sacklers? The Sacklers reportedly made a lot of money off opiods but wanted to preserve their legacy (kind of like Alfred Nobel not wanting to be known as the guy who created dynamite that killed a lot of people, so he created the Nobel Prize with his money), so they tried to preserve their legacy by funding art like getting the Sackler Wing of the Metropolitan Museum, and parts of the Guggenheim, etc. (places I've been to quite a few times with MJ). Do I have to protest going to those places just because they're associated with the Sacklers? Do I not eat at Chick Filet due to their stance against the LGBTQ community, or do I boycott Nike products because their use of child labor and questionable labor standards in Asia? Hard to say because on the one hand if I'm paying any amount of money to them I feel like I'm feeding the machine where as I could vote with my wallet not to endorse those establishments, but then again am I just being naive to think anything I do would make any impact at all on those corporations, and if I boycott Chick Filet and Nike do I have to research every single company I pay money to, like my Xfinity internet, my IKEA furniture, my Costco food (seems like they pay their employees pretty well and the staff seem happy, but who knows what goes on outside of the news?), my Delta Air flights, my Fidelity IRA savings account? So much to keep track of, is it worth it to even distinguish and seems like a lot of opportunity to be a hippocrite. 

The other day at my plasma donation, I learned some important information; 1.) I should change up the blood flow between my arms; where I've only been drawing blood from my left arm to my right arm, the phlebotomist suggested next time to draw blood from my right arm and send it back in through my left arm. The reason is something to do with how my veins are formed in my right arm that's causing some infiltration issues, and the last 3 times I've donated plasma literally every time I've had an infiltration problem, and this time I could sense something off a little bit off similar to knowing I'd get a static shock from MJ touching me without grounding herself, so I was ready for the weird feeling in my arm from the infiltration, but I still yelped in the donation room, enough to get the attention of all the other donors and nurses in there. Luckily the guy handling the plasma donation was right there monitoring the blood flow, so he cut off the flow less than a second after it started hurting from the infiltration (literally a painkiller!), but it was still a little embarrassing though. This is the first I've heard a nurse suggest a solution to the problem, though, so I appreciated the input, and that's why it's sometimes nice to get a second opinion, even when it's not a doctor. Somebody else has been through other experiences and might see something that the first healthcare provider doesn't. It was such a simple solution too, I guess I was just so happy to be done with plasma donation (sitting there for 3 hours) that I just got out of there and blocked everything out. I wonder sometimes if that's what we need for our fertility clinic.......just a new voice or new person to go in with "fresh eyes" and see if there's a solution to the problem other than just "we're one of the 10-15% of couples that they don't know why we're having fertility issues." That's not very helpful.