The Battle Rages Onward and Upward

The Battle Rages Onward and Upward

by Dr. Margaret Aranda

There are two major battles affecting women of every age. They affect women of every age, because they affect our daughters and our granddaughters. "Oh, I don't have a daughter," someone said to me. Well, you had a mother, and you are a daughter. So don't think this doesn't affect you.

"Your uterus is the key to the generations."

So she looked down at her toes really fast, and offered no appeal to that argument. Are we even in an argument? What is there to argue about except us vs. them? I expect women to be on the same page, and yes, I actually expect women to care, to count, to matter, to make a difference, to institute change, and to leave this world a better place.  To me, it is our duty as women, just as some are called to serve in the military, that is to serve.  Some are called to law enforcement. LAPD's logo is "To protect and to serve." What is your motto? Why are you here? What are you doing to make this world a better place?

 

Read on if you want to institute change. 

If you are ashamed and intend to do nothing, go to "Words for Friends"or "Candy Crush", or go the mall and pick out yet another pair of shoes. Just let the world spin by with you as an inert, breathing blob consuming donuts and soda to kill yourself with diabetes, blindness, leg amputations, and kidney failure. As you slide into dementia, you will simply roam the hallways, picking up what is not yours, and accusing everyone of stealing your things. 

 

150 million women in the USA and I think we are a giant snail. We are slow, passive, and excrutiatingly painful to observe. We have "let" them maim and kill us for money and corporate greed. And we are too busy making money to survive, so we see in the periphery 'something' about a female doctor and cancer after surgery, and we overhear 'something' about a contraceptive device that left metal shrapnel in a lady's uterus. "I'll never get one of those things put in me." If we are on an Ob/Gyn rotation, we may be lucky enough to actually discuss these issues out loud with other medical professionals. 

 

Well, how does that help the ones that already died? How does that help the future women that are going to die or be maimed, or bear unwanted children unnecessarily? If you give a damn and if you put your energy into it, it is hard to raise a child. We are trying to stop it and anything that does not help stop it is unhelpful and distracting. So get ready to get on the stick. Period.

 

IMPROVING WOMEN'S HEALTH FOR DUMMIES

(Keep in mind that there are 150 million women in the USA.)

 

1.                            MORCELLATION OF THE UTERUS FOR FIBROMAS: 

Dr. Hooman Noorchashm took his fight, with only 8,000 signatures (now past 9,000), to the Senate, the Congress, and the FDA. Did you sign? Are you part of this gigantic change, or you a useless bystander that walks by a dead body in NYC just because every one else does? Go take a look and you tell me that it doesn't make you cry: How One Man Fought for his Wife and All Women. Tell me one person doesn't make a difference. Tell me your signature doesn't make a differenct. Tell me one more person doesn't make a difference. I refuse to believe that, because it is not true. If one person challenges me on this, I will devote an entire blog to the subject of the Value of one Vote. 

On April 20, 2014, Dr. Hooman's Petition was before the FDA (head's up, women against Essure(R)): FDA Makes Major Change in Morcellation of the Uterus. While it is not a ban or a moratorium, the new FDA regulations restrict morcellation to "young" women who are less likely to be in the (now here's the known statistic) 1 in 350 incidence of a lipoma actually being a cancer. And, now the FDA requires that women be given proper Informed Consent, including the risk of cancer spread. It is a huge step in the right direction, sure to put a dent in the way hysterectomies are done. With 600,000 hysterectomies done/year, and 90% of them being for fibroids, ladies, this will save lives. Before Dr. Amy Reed got Stage IV uterine cancer and her husband blew the lid off this issue, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists (ACOG) took it upon themselves, I believe, to determine that since they thought the risk was only 1:6000, or 1:10,000, there was no NEED for Informed Consent because the 'n' was so small. As researchers and scientists, we all know that if someone has to be that 'n', we don't want it to be us, or anyone we love. So c'mon. It's time to care. It's time to act. Because your not doing anything screams louder to me than your platitudes of words or the nods of your heads. Sign the petitions! Do something!

WE HAVE TO KEEP THE FIRE LIT

2.                           ESSURE(R) FALLOPIAN COILS FOR CONTRACEPTION:

Erin Brockovich (yes, that Erin Brockovich) is on the front lines to expose the debauchery and deaths associated with this coil placed in both Fallopian tubes. The formal petition is on her site and to date, I think the number of signatures is pitifully small. I think that if she was selling shoes, more people would be signing. What's happened to our world? We let women die and get metal shrapnel splatted through their uteruses, only to end up with #1 above, a hysterectomy? It is a 'damned if you do, and damned if you don't' situation. My best solution ladies, is to have your husbands get a vasectomy. 

A vasectomy is external, not internal. He can even freeze the sperm if he wants to have babies again.

When my book comes out, Archives of the Vagina: A Journey through Time, you will read all that women have gone through since the time of Aristotle. You will follow a girl through multi-cultural puberty through menopause, and how to deal with today's long-term care, nursing homes, and Caregiving. Hat's off to you ladies who have baby after baby on Essure(R). You do not rise in rage against your babies. You accept them as beloved as they are, as beloved as they were meant to be, and you move on with one on your hip and one on your back. Hat's off to you. Don't think you are alone, because you are not. 

 

God sees everything and your reward will come in time. 

3. Essure(R) Ladies, sign the Morcellation Petition.

4. Morcellation Ladies, sign the Essure(R) Petition.

5. Together, we are One. We have to be One, and we can't be one Snail. 

WE NEED TO BE ONE VOICE, ONE FORCE, UNITED IN COMPASSION.

Now go. Do your duty to humanity and to future generations.

Make this world a better place.

Why else would you visit a virtual med school site, unless you had some altruistic innocence

that somehow, you could make the world a better place?

Well, you don't have to wait to get in to medical school.

You don't have to wait to graduate.

You have today, and you have now.

So go and sign both petitions. 

You will have accomplished something good.

You will have left your name down on a petition that leaves a legacy of change 

in Women's Medicine, Health, and Wellness.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist; just have some passion

and some compassion. And next? Pass it on to your friends, ladies.

Where are all the 150 million women in the USA?

 

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