Victims or Followers of Christ?

Suzannah said:

Interesting! I studied ju-jitsu for a long time.

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Sometimes it scares me how alike you and I are, or I and other members of this forum are for that matter. I studied Kajukempo Karate and Shotokan Karate for a number of years and then did a brief study of Judo in college.

Michael the Iconographer said:

Sometimes it scares me how alike you and I are, or I and other members of this forum are for that matter. I studied Kajukempo Karate and Shotokan Karate for a number of years and then did a brief study of Judo in college.

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No wonder we found Orthodoxy...we found validation in it, for our "prior training".... I wish we had a "knowing grin" smilie! Also, I find it somehow deeply wonderful that we seem to be friends in spite of not "knowing" each other...GROUP HUG!!! "I love ya, man..."

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Here are some video clips of some drills and slow sparring on Mikhail's website (in Russian).
http://www.systemaryabko.ru/video.aspx
And here are some clips from his top instructor in North America, Vladimir Vasiliev, who I had the pleasure to attend a seminar of this past weekend. http://www.russianmartialart.com/main.php?page=clips

Several of the people involved in Mikhail's clips I just met at this seminar, very friendly folks.

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Greetings Grand Duchess Elizaveta and all,

All of the comments are interesting. As far as lawsuits go, it depends on how much serious damage has been done by the doctor(s).

When I gave birth to my youngest daughter (by C-section), the doctor didn't realize that the spine had some leakage. When I was recovering, I noticed that my head felt like half of it was "gone". It hurt..... I mentioned this to the night nurse and she basically gave me a pain shot and that didn't help my head. In the morning, I told another nurse and she immediately knew what was wrong. They rushed me in to get a "blood patch". It turned out not to be a big deal. Sometimes, with C-sections the doctors will use a pain killer (it's been years and I can't remember the proper terminalogy of the medicine that was used) in the spine to numb out stuff.....Anyway, the headache had gone away and everything worked out fine.

When I had told this to other people, some of them said "you should sue"....of course, I said, "NOT". There was no real damage done. I do not get headaches, I can walk and run and do whatever that I have always been able to do.

Perhaps, if they had ignored me and sent me home and then I ended up with "permanent type damage", with having to take a lifetime of medications, perhaps, at that point - a law suit would of been in order to help pay for the lifetime medications....Of course, I really do not know what I would of done in that particular situation and thus I can not judge others who have been in that or other situations.

IMHO though, I do think that there are a lot of law suits that are not necessary and it would be nice if our court systems are not so busy with frivolous law suits. At the same time, I would not like to take the "right" away for people to file law suits either.

When a mistake is made, there should be some type of correction.

As far as spousal abuse, whether it is the husband abusing the wife or the wife abusing the husband.....Seek counciling to try and figure stuff out and work through it. If the abuse continues......get as far away as possible. Run Forest Run.

I agree with GDE about the bullies. Kids need to stand up for themselves, but in the right way. Teachers and parents need to be more involved too and not "look away".

God's Peace,

D'ann

Michael the Iconographer said:

Sometimes it scares me how alike you and I are, or I and other members of this forum are for that matter. I studied Kajukempo Karate and Shotokan Karate for a number of years and then did a brief study of Judo in college.

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I studied Shotokan as a teenager! I've adopted many of the grapples and joint locks to my own personal "style" as with many other systems. I'd like to learn more about the Russian system as well. I've studied some military HtH techniques and adopted them but I'd like to find a system that dealt more with subduing your opponent and less with injuring.

SCARS is my favorite but it is so brutal that I'd be scared to use it unless I knew my life were in immediate danger. Remember the final scene in Soldier where Jason Scott Lee grabs Kurt Russell by the throat and Russell just makes a quick scissor movement with his hands and folds Lee's arm back the wrong way? Ouch! I wish there was an Aikido dojo nearby.

Regarding the OP, I remember reading where St. Moses the Ethiopian subdued some guys who tried to rob him and carried them both to the Abbot to ask what should be done with them. But didn't he also later refuse to seek safety and let a band of robbers murder him in the monestary, stating that he had lived by the sword so it was fitting that he should die by the sword?

I'm kind of torn regarding lawsuits. Four years ago I went to the ER because I felt like I had something in my eye. The dr. said it was a scratch, put some ointment on it and covered it with a patch and a bandage that I was supposed to wear for three days. The next morning I woke up wih stuff oozing out of that eye, and the other eye had become extremely light sensitive. I went to an opthamologist who removed the patch to discover that it hadn't been a scratch; it was a bacterial infection and the patch had given it a warm, moist place to multiply like gangbusters all night. Anyway, the bacteria had eaten most of my cornea, and it was touch-and-go for weeks whether we could even save the (now non-functioning) eye.

My dad was a lawyer, so of course he tried to sue the hospital that had misdiagnosed it. He was told that a suit wasn't possible because the ER doctor was actually unlicensed and had fled the country (no really) once the hospital caught onto her, and also because there was a chance that in the future the technology might exist to repair my eye. What the? The coffee lady was probably back to normal six weeks after her incident, and I'm out in the cold because they might invent a cure for me in the future? So, that doesn't really answer anyone's questions, but I just thought I would chime in that the current malpractice suit system is completely wack.

Dear Debbie,

I am no longer practicing as a nurse, but your story is one reason I don't want to go back in. It is so scary to have your decisions affect people in life or death ways, or even cause permanent damage. Medical people are not perfect. There are some more gifted than others, and it sort of takes a 6th sense to properly diagnose, sometimes. Or at least a specialty in the right area.

I was taught that most suits against a hospital are settled out of court, because the hospital does want to make restitution if things go bad. And the threat of lawsuits, I'm sure, has made them more careful. There can be corruption on both sides. A bogus doctor deceiving her way in like in Ufonium's case, and people trying to get rich off the big, bad hospital or doctor.

But doctors and nurses are practicing defensive medicine nowadays, and we will all suffer for it. The right answer is somewhere in the middle.

Andrea Elizabeth said:

But doctors and nurses are practicing defensive medicine nowadays, and we will all suffer for it.

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So true. Three years ago I herniated 3 discs in my back. The pain was excrutiating, and I was never really treated for it, several surgeons were consulted but all showed a reluctance to operate. It was obvious that the motivation was self preservation do to the complexity of my case, but to make things worse, most doctors were reluctant to prescribe any narcotics do to the big oxycotin controversy at the time. So, basically I went through a year of hell, in constant pain, sleeping maybe 3 hours a day in 30 minute bouts, and pretty much standing for 7 months. I don't know which was worse, the pain or the fatigue and exhaustion plus the overall toll it took on my family.

Theophorus said:

So true. Three years ago I herniated 3 discs in my back. The pain was excrutiating, and I was never really treated for it, several surgeons were consulted but all showed a reluctance to operate. It was obvious that the motivation was self preservation do to the complexity of my case, but to make things worse, most doctors were reluctant to prescribe any narcotics do to the big oxycotin controversy at the time. So, basically I went through a year of hell, in constant pain, sleeping maybe 3 hours a day in 30 minute bouts, and pretty much standing for 7 months. I don't know which was worse, the pain or the fatigue and exhaustion plus the overall toll it took on my family.

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Sorry you went through that, Theophorus. I hope you're feeling better now.
Not to minimize your pain, but sometimes being laid up for a while can bring us closer to God. I believe He is ultimately in control of the outcome, and can use difficulties to mold and shape us into His likeness. Jesus was a Man of sorrows after all.
I think people need to understand that most doctors and nurses got into their profession because they wanted to help, not hurt. It is a very stressful job, and people get burned out, have bad days, get tired, and make mistakes. At the same time, there does need to be checks and balances. Using the courts as this balance is counter productive, except in obvious devastating cases of abuse or neglect. Maybe there could be a less hostile peer review before it gets to the courts. And in both D'Ann's and Ufonium's case, at least the second opinion was right the next day!

Michael the Iconographer said:

Sometimes it scares me how alike you and I are, or I and other members of this forum are for that matter. I studied Kajukempo Karate and Shotokan Karate for a number of years and then did a brief study of Judo in college.

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For what it's worth, Father Vladimir, the priest who baptised me, was at one time a martial arts instructor, as well as a student of eastern religions, although he strongly disavows this now.

I will have to ask Father Vladimir about "Systema" next time I am in Ukraine.

Grand_Duchess-Elizaveta said:

If I would've developed a serious infection or something, I would've taken legal action for the purpose of making the hospital see that they have an incompentent Dr. on their staff.

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I absolutely agree that in situations like that it is perfectly acceptable or even the right thing to do to use the legal system to potentially protect others from future suffering at the hands of an incompetent Dr.

I can't seem to get this computer to log out as grov and in as Andrea, so sue me! Sorry.

Anyway. How about contacting the hospital administration when you have a complaint about the service. Do we sue the restaurant right off the bat when we have a bad waiter? No, we ask to see the manager and complain. And I know someone who will complain about the food just to get a free meal, too. Keep asking the nurses, the clerks, whoever you can find before you leave to look at your finger and don't leave until the splinter's out. Or tell them you're not going to pay for it because you had to dig it out yourself.

I think my tone in the above was too harsh. My husband has been sued frivolously 4 times by his ex in the past 5 years. We have spent 10's of thousands of dollars defending ourselves in court, so I'm a bit sensitive about this subject. Sorry if you were offended, GDE. I have a lot of respect for you from what I've read so far. Please forgive me.

If a hospital messes with you by all means contact an attorney and see what happens. I see no reason why to not sue a hospital, at all as they are a major player in mal practice. It is a somewhat of a crime to let them get away with it as it is.
Reader Nilus

grov said:

I can't seem to get this computer to log out as grov and in as Andrea, so sue me! Sorry.

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If you clear the cookies in your browser, you can log in, or just use a different browser with the cookies stored for your account. So if your main browser is IE, download firefox or mozzila, and sign on after launching it. Your settings wil be saved independent of others using a different browser.

you can get firefox here

http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

Theophorus said:

If you clear the cookies in your browser, you can log in, or just use a different browser with the cookies stored for your account. So if your main browser is IE, download firefox or mozzila, and sign on after launching it. Your settings wil be saved independent of others using a different browser.

you can get firefox here

http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

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We use Mozilla Firefox already. So I guess I could have switched to IE. That's nice to know in case George uses "my" computer (we can only email from this one) again to a write very long explanation to his siblings about our conversion to Orthodoxy!

Grand_Duchess-Elizaveta said:

No problem! I didn't see it as harsh at all. Most people have developed fairly thick skin around here, anyway. If you don't, you may get hurt a lot.

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Yay, GDE,

I developed a tough skin on another forum. But I guess I'm still recuperating from that before I try General Heresies. Notice I didn't "react" to Reader Nilus' post! I'm learning. My old sign off used to be, "Please be patient, God is not finished with me yet."