Justin Germino Ramblings

This is a really hot button lately in the news, with Colleen Hauser a mom who has fled a court order with her thirteen year old son to avoid getting him chemotherapy to treat his Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. The family opted for a holistic approach citing religious and spiritual reasons and the mother is in direct defiance of a court order.

So here is the question and it is not so cut and dry, who should have the ultimate say in the medical care that a child needs?

On one hand you can’t have the state, or government dictating and mandating medical treatments for children, this could easily get out of hand and become an abuse of power as a result. But flip the coin and the country and government can’t let negligence happen to children, parents have no right to cause harm to their children.

In most cases I would say the parents have the absolute decision to choose what medical care their child receives, especially when the child is less than 16 years of age. I would not want any government to interfere with what medical treatment I seek for my own children should they be sick and need treatment. What if your child came down with a type of cancer and you wanted to try stem cell therapy, or gene therapy instead of chemotherapy or radiation?

On the other hand I don’t believe that medical treatment, especially in a medical condition like Hodgkin’s Lymphoma which has almost a 90% success with chemotherapy treatments should be ignored and no “realistic” alternative chosen. You can believe in religion, spirituality, and holistic therapies all you want, butlet’s face it, sweat therapies, purified water, minerals, vitamins and other natural herbs are not going to cure such illnesses. It is one thing to try these approaches for yourself; it is another thing to force them on your child when the facts show there is virtually no chance they will help.

It doesn’t matter your spiritual belief, you need to look at things from a scientific fact based perspective when it comes to disease and therapies, you do the research and you choose the therapies that are shown to be most effective. Even if painful and uncomfortable you choose them because there is a high risk you will survive and maybe even be cured. If this boy’s cancer was declared terminal and the doctor’s would have said there is only a 5% chance of success, I would have completely supported the mother’s decision to forgo treatment and at least let the child not suffer the side effects for the little time he had left.

But as long as medical doctors (which I am not saying are always competent, so you have to get second opinions) offer you a relatively high percentage a treatment will work, then you attempt whatever has the highest success rate. These are our children we are talking about, you cannot afford to let your own beliefs and values get in the way of treating and trying to heal your children. They will grow up to be adults and make their own decisions and choose their own values which may or may not follow your own.

Especially a thirteen year old should not have a say in their medical treatment as they are still minors and decisions fall on the parent, parents are responsible for making the tough decisions. Again, a child may be suffering from side effects, but if there is a high percent chance of success then it is worth the suffering.

These are my beliefs though should I ever be faced with this same situation, in the end I would choose science based facts and treatments versus holistic approaches unless science proved alternative therapies were close to equal in success rates.

With that being said I am not opposed to alternative therapies and natural healing, I myself don’t take antibiotics and use colloidal silver to treat throat infections, oil of oregano for lung problems and vitamin C and D as well as Salmon oil every day for overall health and wellness. I prefer natural therapies to drugs and I have not taken a prescription drug at all in over two years and that was only an antacid, I have never ever taken a prescription pain killer since I had surgery when I was a teenager more than fifteen years ago.

It is a very tough choice but in the end I think the government should get involved when the parent starts being irresponsible and jeopardizes the health and life of their child by choosing to avoid treatments that have high success rates.

-Justin Germino

I can tell you I am versed in many things, but when it comes to fashion and women’s shoes, I don’t have much knowledge on the subject.  So when my wife and I were at a shoe store and she picked up a shoe and questioned me “Do you know what type of shoe this is?” my one response was “a dress shoe” to which her expression clearly indicated how uneducated I am in the way’s of women’s fashion.

She then said it was called a “Peep Toe Pump” and I was like “you are just making that up”

So I posed the question on twitter and sure enough there is such a thing as a “Peep Toe Pump” shoe, and here is the picture of what a type of shoe looks like.  It is a shoe with a partial opening in the front to reveal just some of the toes (hence the Peep Toe) part.  Pump I guess is another term for a heeled show that adds height.

So yesterday I mentioned that we attended my son’s Kindergarten graduation in the middle of the day, this was supposed to be a joyful event and it partially was, we were so proud of him.  However, in bringing our two year old he was very obnoxious, screaming, yelling and annoying other parents.  He was just bored and even though he saw his brother on stage, he just didn’t want attention to be off of him and on his brother.  I have to admin I was very frustrated, we tried bribing with food, letting him play with my camera accessories, but finally I just had to take him away from the ceremony.

I do however see it from his point of view, toddlers get bored easily, and at that age they are very focused on their own exploration and entertainment and don’t really know how to empathize or consider other people being the spotlight.  The solution should have been to leave him with a sitter, or for one parent to attend the graduation and the other babysit the child if no sitter could be found.  At certain times toddlers really should not be brought to events if you know they are likely to act up and create a disturbance.

As a child growing up and an older brother I noted similar things when my younger brother was brought to my school functions and play’s, and I am sure many people and parents can related to these things.  While it is unacceptable for an older kid to behave poorly in public, a two year old has a really hard time being rationalized with so therefore it is better to not force them to endure such situations where parents are “hoping” they will behave the entire time and not act up.

I hope my youngest outgrows the terrible two’s pretty soon, he is really a strong, stubborn and manly child.  He is definately an alpha personality and will be one of those who is likely to bowl over anyone who gets in his way, this requires a very different parenting approach than my oldest who is much more laid back and much less aggressive personality wise.

So parents, when you need to attend an older kids function and you have a baby or a toddler around who just is a “wildcard” if they may make the event enjoyable or difficult, it is better to divide and conquer and send one parent to attend (alternating) if you can’t find a sitter than bring your very young one and potentially get yourself frustrated.

-Justin Germino

I can’t believe that I am attending my five year old boy’s kindergarten graduation ceremony today, I am taking an hour break from work to visit him at the school and take my JVC camcorder to record the whole event. I strongly believe that no matter how busy parents are working, you should take the breaks from work to be with your children as they achieve and celebrate their life milestones.

I vowed early on as a parent that I would be at every school play, parent teacher meeting, birthday party, and everything else I could attend, because these moments and memories only happen once and for each one you miss, you don’t have the ability to get them back. In the end the moments in your child’s life will comfort you more in your later years than any job you held or had to do.

So make sure you prioritize your family and your kids, take the moments of time needed to be a part of their lives even if it means escaping from the office a few hours early, or taking a sick day. Never let your kids think your work is more important than they are to you.

-Justin Germino

So here I stand…err, I mean sit stunned at what a fundamentally chaotic day I have had, which ended on several good notes.  First of all I want to thank all of my poetry fans, because they have grown so rapidly over the past few months since I started the random twitter poetry game back in October 2008.  I finished my 119th Random Twitter poem today and found that writing my random twitter poems is one of the most fun routines in my week day.  So everyone who plays is contributing to my enjoyment.

On the work front I am simultaneously supporting three dozen projects and my entire organization is swamped and busy, but busy is good in this downtrodden economy, so the fact that I can even carve out 30 – 45 minutes to write a poem on my lunch break is surprising and I hope I can keep doing it.  Today I saw tons of blog troubles with my primary site being down for 8 hours due to some runaway php plug-ins which I have not yet resolved, the site mysteriously started working and I still don’t know the cause or how to prevent it from happening again.  I did trim my plug-ins down further but some of the ones I am using are just too valuable to get rid of at this time.

So here come the highlights of my evening,

My wife makes me the most superb dinner with fresh chicken breast, rotini pasta, broccoli, garlic (my favorite), carrots, corn with a light olive oil sauce and grated Parmesan on top.  I am so lucky to have her in my life, following that we took the kids out to Cold Stone for some sorbet and Ice Cream (I can’t have ice cream due to lactose intolerance so I always have the sorbet).  Then to blockbuster where I rented a movie “Mall Cop” to watch tonight, I need a comedy after today.  Finally I come back to catch up on some blogging when I see I reached 1500 twitter followers, an amazing number.

Many of my followers are so interactive that we have daily conversations back and forth as part of the twitter poetry game, some of my followers enjoy my tech blog, others my poetry and others still my personal diary blog.  I enjoy reading other peoples blog posts and I am always responsive to people who ask me questions on twitter or are willing to share advice on anything I can share on.  Twitter is one of the most enjoyable communication tools I have used, and I have met some great people like @shemah,  @santasdevil,  @zorlone,  @anefallarme  among many many others.  These people are friendly and have made it a point to support my poetry, some followers like @evliving  have gone so far as to publicly proclaim themselves my #1 fan.

I am honored that anyone at all would find a mild mannered IT computer geek by day, husband and father of two kids who blogs part time at night interesting enough to follow nonetheless promote to their friends and followers.  I can’t thank my online fans and friends enough for all of their support.  Anything anyone needs from me as far as help blogging, a poem, a tip, a comment, feel free to hit me up.  I am happy to meet many of you, some of you are not so pleasant (you know who you are…Just kidding).

-Justin Germino

We woke up this morning to see a small family of quail running around our front yard for the third day in a row, it is funny seeing these little birds around the community.  There is also an extremely colorful bird that does not appear to be a native AZ bird that constantly visits our front yard as well, but I have been unable to get a picture of it thusfar.  I also don’t have a good telephoto lense on my camera, so this is the closest shot I could get and the bird was about 50 feet away.  So I cropped this little photo just showing the critter running by, his fellow troupe followed behind him.

-Justin Germino

With such a very busy weekend, I now go back to work at my day job on Monday feeling like I didn’t even get a chance to rest. I was out until almost 2am Friday night, then until 4am Saturday night and had to deal with replacing two toilet fixtures, laundry and mopping floors on Sunday around the house. I didn’t get as much time to play with my kids as I usually do, I always feel a little guilty when I don’t spend as much time with them as I want to.

I did see the movie Frost/Nixon last night and thought it was a good film, albeit a little slow and since the subject matter is before my time the topic was not as interesting to me as it probably would be to people in a slightly older generation. Ron Howard did to a good job with the film and all of the acting was top notch however.

Meanwhile, It is exactly 2 weeks from today that I will be spending a week in Cabo to enjoy the sun, beaches and deep sea fishing. I haven’t had a vacation in almost a year so my spirit is sorely needing a getaway for just me and the misses.

-Justin Germino

Some people believe that buying fancy things like huge diamond engagement rings, fancy cars, expensive clothes and other highly expensive tangible goods are a sign of affection. Those in of itself are just signs of some ways to express your commitment and love for someone, but they aren’t the only way to express affection and appreciation for someone.

Think of it this way, the act of giving a gift if bought not out of an obligation for a holiday or special occasion but for no occasion at all is selfless and is one way to show appreciation. Even more is the act of giving something that isn’t purchased that cost on only time perhaps. One such gift could be giving your partner the opportunity to go and get a manicure or pedicure once a month and take care of the kids. Others include just maybe getting a bottle of massage oil and giving your partner a simple 1/2 hour or hour long massage to some relaxing music (no ulterior motives, simply a rub with no expectations).

Make the time to show the one your with how special they are to you, and you don’t have to do it with an expensive display of affection, a simple gesture that is done for no occasion at all can become some of the best and most cherished memories in the future. Love is a special thing and cherish it when you have it and do your best to never take it for granted.

-Justin Germino

Some of you may remember me complaining how my toilet handle broke last week and I didn’t have the parts to dismantle and install a new toilet flushing system, so I hired a plumber. I spent $98 for the plumber’s labor, and $50 in parts to get the new toilet flushing system. As if my house is playing a cruel prank on me, my downstairs toilet handle broke the exact same way as the bedroom bathroom toilet just yesterday. This time instead of calling the plumber, I went to home depot and bought the tools I needed.

I then proceeded to dismantle and install new toiled flushing systems on both of my remaining toilets to avoid this issue in the near future. So I spent another $130 in parts, but didn’t have to pay for a plumber, because the knowledge I gained from watching the plumber last week was sufficient that I was able to do the work myself today.

I believe I gained a level in plumbing, and added to my “handy man” skill set, I now can replace everything in the back of a toilet tank without any assistance. But darn if I am not bummed I had to spend over two hundred dollars in tools, parts and labor for my lousy toilets over the past week. This is one of the bad things about being a home owner is the constant repairs and upkeep just to keep your home operational. As my home is now three years old, some stuff is starting to wear and needs to be replaced.

-Justin Germino

I can tell you from experience that one of the most common causes of migraines appears to be lack of sleep, at least in my case it does. Nearly every time I have less than 5 hours of sleep I am usually reduced to a haggard weakened individual where light causes me to cringe like a troglodyte and loud sounds echo in my ears and brain like atomic bombs.

Last night was a great show, seeing Vayden play was really cool, though I don’t think their new Bass guitarist is as good as Jason was, they still had a good sound and played an acoustic song “Zoe’s Song” from their album which I had never heard them play live before even though I saw them seven times already.

So time to entertain the children for a few hours and do some housework before going to help out with the Rock Along Productions show tonight, I just wish I can kick this darn migraine, but looks like I will carry it until Monday morning. It could be worse, at least I don’t have mesothelioma or something seriously terminal.

-Justin Germino