Showing posts with label drugs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drugs. Show all posts
Monday, October 24, 2022
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World’s Most Notorious Diaries by Rick Emerson
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter...: Reviewed by Christy Most people of a certain age have probably heard of (and read) Go Ask Alice – an anonymous (but allegedly real!)...
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
Tuesday, September 06, 2016
HISTORY’S RICH WITH MYSTERIES: "ELVIS PRESLEY – TBI Killed the King, not Drugs" by Earl Staggs
Texas author Earl
Staggs is back this month with his latest “History’s Rich With Mysteries” guest
blog. This time he takes a look at the death of the legendary Elvis Presley.
HISTORY’S RICH WITH MYSTERIES
When I look at the past, I
find stories about people which fascinate me, particularly those in which there
is a curious mixture of fact, legend, and mysterious uncertainty. In this
series of articles, I want to explore some of those stories. I think of them as
mysteries swaddled in legend. While truth is always desired in most things,
truth easily becomes staid and boring. Legend, on the other hand, forever holds
a hint of romanticism and an aura of excitement borne of adventure, imagination
and, of course, mystery.
ELVIS PRESLEY – TBI Killed the King, not Drugs
Elvis Aaron Presley was
born on January 8, 1935 in Tupelo, Mississippi. His twin brother (Jesse Garon)
died at birth. As a youth, during his time in the Army, and all through his
early performing years, Elvis was active, healthy, and a bundle of energy.
On August 16, 1977, forty-two years old and known worldwide as the
King of Rock and Roll, he collapsed on the bathroom floor of Graceland, his
mansion in Memphis, Tennessee. He was pronounced dead at Baptist Memorial Hospital at 3:36 p.m.
At the time of his death,
Elvis weighed an estimated 350 pounds. He was practically bed-ridden and
required permanent nursing care. His heart was enlarged to twice its normal
size with evidence of cardiovascular disease. His lungs showed signs of
emphysema even though he'd never smoked, and his bowel was twice the length of
normal. In addition, he suffered from an immune disorder.
Three days later, the
coroner issued a death certificate stating the cause of death as“hypertensive
cardiovascular disease with atherosclerotic heart disease.” In plain English, a
heart attack. Officially, the King had died of natural causes.
Since 1967, Elvis had been
under the primary care of Dr. George Nichopoulos a well-known doctor to celebrities. Then, Elvis was 32 and
weighed 163 pounds. His only known medical ailment was slightly high blood
pressure, presumably due to his high-fat diet.
That same year, however, he began to experience progressive chronic pain
throughout his body, insomnia, hypertension, lethargy, irrational behavior, and
weight gain. Over the next few years, he was hospitalized several times and
began self-medicating with an assortment of drugs.
Doctor Nick, as Nichopoulos
was called, remained Elvis’s personal physician till the end and was present at
the death scene as well as during the autopsy. He concurred with the coroner’s
conclusion that the cause of death was a natural cardiac event.
When the toxicology report
was released, however, everything changed. The report
said:
“Diazepam, methaqualone, phenobarbital,
ethchlorvynol, and ethinamate are below or within their respective ranges.
Codeine was present at a level approximately 10 times those concentrations
found therapeutically. In view of the polypharmacy aspects, this case must be
looked at in terms of the cumulative pharmacological effect of the drugs
identified by the report.”
Because the tox report appeared to
contradict the autopsy report’s stated cardiac cause of death, a prominent
toxicologist was asked to review the findings. In his opinion:
“. . .all this information points to a
conclusion that, whatever tolerance the deceased may have acquired to the many
drugs found in his system, the strong probability is that these drugs were the
major contribution to his demise.”
As a result, the Tennessee Board of
Health began an investigation which resulted in Dr.
Nick being criminally charged with murder because he had been the main
physician prescribing medications to Elvis. Evidence showed that during the
seven and a half months preceding Elvis’s death, Doctor Nick wrote
prescriptions for him for more than 8,800 pills, tablets, vials, and
injectables. The drugs included uppers, downers, and powerful painkillers such
as Dilaudid, Quaalude, Percodan, Demerol, and Cocaine Hydrochloride in
quantities more appropriate for those terminally ill with cancer.
The
trial of Dr. Nick was not intended to settle the cause of death, but whether he
treated Elvis with "good faith."
Dr. Nick's defense was that
Elvis was addicted to pain killers, so he prescribed medications to keep him away
from dangerous street drugs, thereby controlling the addiction. If he found street drugs in Elvis's house or on tours, he
destroyed them. He tried to prescribe the least harmful drugs while keeping
Elvis functional and substituted placebos when he could. He tried to get Elvis
to enter a chemical dependency treatment unit, but he always refused.
The
State retained the former coroner of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Joseph Davis,
MD, who had done thousands of autopsies. He rendered the opinion that Elvis
Presley died of a heart attack, which settled the public controversy. His
conclusion was:
"The position of Elvis Presley's body was such
that he was about to sit down on the commode when the seizure occurred. He
pitched forward onto the carpet, his rear in the air, and was dead by the time
he hit the floor. If it had been a drug overdose, he would have slipped into an
increasing state of slumber. He would have pulled up his pajama bottoms and
crawled to the door to seek help. It takes hours to die from drugs."
In addition, Dr. Davis noted that Elvis was grossly obese, more
than 50 lbs of which were gained in the last few months, which put an enormous
strain on his heart. There was no pulmonary edema, a sign of drug overdose. It
was established that Elvis obtained codeine pills from a dentist the day before
his death and Doctor Nick had no knowledge of it.
One of the defense witnesses was Dr. Forest Torrent, a prominent California physician
and a pioneer in the use of opiates in pain treatment, who presented a concept
few people had even heard of.
Dr. Torrent was intrigued
by the sudden change in Elvis since 1967. He discovered that during that year,
while filming the movie “Clambake,” Elvis tripped over an electrical cord,
fell, and cracked his head on the edge of a porcelain bathtub. He was knocked
unconscious and had to be hospitalized. Dr. Torrent found three other incidents
where Elvis suffered head blows and suspected he suffered from what’s now known
as Traumatic Brain Injury—TBI. That’s
what caused the progressive ailments which had to be treated with powerful
painkillers, which weakened his heart and other organs, and eventually led to
his death.
TBI may not only produce pain in the form of headaches but also
spine, joint, and muscular pain. TBI patients are often misdiagnosed as having
"fibromyalgia."
Dr. Torrent believed that
Elvis’s bathtub head injury in 1967 was so severe it caused brain tissue to be
jarred loose and leak into his general blood circulation. This is now known to
be a leading cause of autoimmune disorder which causes a breakdown of organs.
TBI causes bizarre behaviors such as reclusivity, obsessive-compulsive habits,
paranoia, hostility, peculiar sex habits, and poor hygiene, among others. Side
effects are chronic pain, irrational behavior, severe bodily changes such as
obesity, and enlarged organs like hearts and bowels. Elvis exhibited all these
symptoms and more. He also experienced progressive headaches and lumbar spine
pain between 1967 and his death in 1977. X-rays of his lumbar spine showed a
disc protrusion at L4.
TBI was unknown during
Elvis' lifetime. Today, it is a recognized health issue in professional contact
sports, particularly in boxing and football.
Doctor Nick was absolved of
negligence in directly causing Elvis Presley’s death. Shortly thereafter,
however, the district attorney general's office brought a criminal indictment
against him for willfully and feloniously prescribing controlled substances to
Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, and others. He was found guilty.
With a change in mental
state and suffering chronic pain and failure of body functions due to TBI,
Elvis Presley entered a ten-year spiral towards death. He became addicted to
pain killers to offset the pain raging through his body as well as other
ailments and practiced an unhealthy diet and lethargic lifestyle. This led to
early coronary vascular disease and, combined with his escalating weight and
pill consumption, Elvis was a heart attack ready to happen.
If Dr. Tennant is right
about Traumatic Brain Injury, and if it had been diagnosed and treated early
enough in his life, Elvis might not have been driven to the drug usage which
affected him so drastically both emotionally and physically. He might have continued performing for many
more years and treating us to his inimitable and dynamic form of
entertainment.
I, for one, wish that had
been the case.
Earl Staggs ©2016
Earl Staggs earned all Five Star
reviews for his novels MEMORY OF A MURDER and JUSTIFIED ACTION and has twice
received a Derringer Award for Best Short Story of the Year. He served as Managing Editor of Futures
Mystery Magazine, as President of the Short Mystery Fiction Society, and is a frequent speaker at conferences and seminars.
He also invites you to
visit his blog site at http://earlwstaggs.wordpress.com to learn more about his novels and stories.
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
Friday, April 24, 2015
FFB Review: "Lake Charles" by Ed Lynskey
This
week for Friday’s Forgotten Books I selected LAKE CHARLES by Ed Lynskey. This
mighty good book was also subject to one of our “Double
Take Book Reviews” a couple of years ago where Barry and I both reviewed
the same book. Patti has a lot going on these days, but I think she will have
the list later today. If she is
not doing it, she will have the information on the designated link gatherer
posted.
It is 1979 and Brendan Fishback
isn’t doing too well in the game called life. Waking up next to a dead woman
can cause huge problems. The fact that she, Ashleigh Sizemore, was the daughter
of the wealthy and powerfully connected, Ralph Sizemore is a huge problem. Word
is old Ralph is going to be a Senator. The fact that drugs were planted in the
room is a huge issue. The fact that Brendan keeps having strange dreams and
visions where the dead teenage girl talks to him about her murder is a huge
problem.
Despite the odds and the nice frame
job against him, Brendan Fishback gets out on bail. Besides avoiding the
shyster slime ball lawyer his mother, Mama Jo, hired for him Brendan plans to
go fishing with his brother in law and good friend, Cobb Kuzawa. A quiet couple
of days at Lake Charles, a local man-made lake created by the Tennessee Valley
Authority, will be as good a break as he can get these days.
Like Brandan, the best days seem to
have gone by the lake as it and the surrounding area is in bad shape. If trying
to detox from all the pot he has done isn’t enough, the area flat out reeks and
is depressing to look at. Back in the day, it used to be a happening place. Not
only is nobody apparently around, but there is the stench of rot and decay at
the marina area and large sections of the lake are fouled by algae scum. Not
only do they have to get the bass boats through that, Brendon has to listen to
his sister Edna and Cobb bicker.
Edna invited herself along and that
had not been the plan. What been initially planned as a guy trip has mutated
into a cranky family outing. Edna and Cobb fight constantly and both of them
are driving him nuts. Clearly, Edna should have never married Cobb and
certainly she should never have come on the trip. They are driving each other
nuts too and before long Edna rockets away on her jet ski towards the dam area
leaving the other two behind on the lake in their boats.
And she never comes back.
The search is soon on and leads
Brendan and Cobb into a violent confrontation. The first of many confrontations
proving that the lake area is not at all deserted like they thought. Brendan
wants his sister back, alive and in one piece, and knows too well they can’t
get help from the corrupt local police. The trail of the missing Edna leads
back and forth across the Lake Charles area and the Tennessee Mountains while
Brendan soldiers on getting the answers he seeks. Some of them won’t be pretty.
The front cover has a blurb quote
from author Ed Gorman, "Lake Charles is going to scorch your soul . . .
I loved it." That pretty much sums up things very well for this very
complicated book where everyone has a dark backstory that gradually comes out.
A dark and twisted noir tale that starts with a bang and goes in many different
ways by use of dreams and flashbacks and forward literary narrative before
bringing the whole thing to a surprising conclusion.
Simply put, Lake Charles
by Ed Lynskey is a mighty good book and one well worth your time.
Lake Charles
Ed Lynskey
Wildside Press LLC
June 2011
ISBN# 978-1-4344-3046-5
Paperback
192 Pages (includes one page of
reference sources)
$12.99
Material supplied by the author in
exchange for my objective review.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2011, 2013, 2015
Friday, May 02, 2014
Finally Back Home
Things ran very far behind today for a variety of reasons. One of which being they decided we have to pay a lot more upfront than we have been each month as insurance is taking longer and longer to process payments while attempting to cut back on what they will cover and and arguing bills. I don't think this is a coincidence. I have no doubt these problems have been caused by Wal-Mart termianting her unpaid medical leave and Atnea handling her COBRA coverage.
Sandi's blood work is not any worse than it was last week so the decision was made to go ahead and start with the first round of immunizations. Her immunizations are way late, but the delays have been caused because of the fragility of her immune system and everything that goes along with that. She received six injections for that. They also want to add another drug for her lung function deal and since it is very expensive that has to approved first by insurance.
Assuming nothing bad happens, we go back in two weeks for more blood work and a doctor visit.
Sandi's blood work is not any worse than it was last week so the decision was made to go ahead and start with the first round of immunizations. Her immunizations are way late, but the delays have been caused because of the fragility of her immune system and everything that goes along with that. She received six injections for that. They also want to add another drug for her lung function deal and since it is very expensive that has to approved first by insurance.
Assuming nothing bad happens, we go back in two weeks for more blood work and a doctor visit.
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Review: "The Contractors: A Thriller" by Harry Hunsicker
Anyone who has read the Lee Henry Oswald series by
Harry Hunsicker knows that the author does not write the Dallas Chamber of Commerce
ad copy type of books. The Dallas streets in his books are not of glitter and
not necessarily always mean. Instead, these streets are broken dreams, cracked
asphalt and the five dollar whore on the corner who might be turning tricks to
feed the child she will soon lose to the state. These are streets where nobody
cares because everybody has a sob story. Bad things happen to all on the
streets of Dallas in his books and The Contractors: A Thriller raises
that bar to all new levels.
The Contractors: A Thriller
While nearly everyone has heard of the private
contractors working in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere overseas, they also are
working her at home. Jon Cantrell and Piper are contractors for the DEA and a
lot more as well as being romantically involved. As the book opens they are on
the trail of Lisa, a missing 14 year old teenager. Hired by a retired crooked
cop named Sinclair they need to find the girl and get her back home. Not only
will that get them paid, it will allow them to focus on another job.
Under their real job of working for the DEA, they
are going to raid a local warehouse and seize the drugs. Unlike their sideline business with Sinclair
where they get paid a small amount, this sanctioned job will pay big and be
fully legal as they operate as private contractors for the DEA. That is their plan for how to handle work,
but they have no plan for how to handle their relationship going forward.
They aren’t the only private contractors working for
the DEA and other parties in the Dallas Fort Worth area. They are not the only ones that have a plan
for the warehouse or the contents inside.
While others know about the secret cartel witness being held captive in
the warehouse, Jon and Piper have no idea nor do they have any idea what they
are in for when they find her. As the already fragile relationship between
Piper and Jon disintegrates, they will have to battle in a flight across Texas trying
to stay ahead of the many people who want them dead for various and often competing
reasons.
It is going to be a brutally long week in August and
not just because of the Texas sun.
Those who expect a serious mystery in the style of
the excellent Lee Henry Oswald series will be disappointed in The Contractors:
A Thriller. Instead, think of this more like a summer movie such as The
Expendables for example. There will be carnage and mayhem, the body
count will climb, lots of weapons will be used mixed in with plenty of explosions,
and the heroes will escape certain death again and again. In short, a fun read that
one should not take seriously. That is not a disparagement. It is a fact and one
that clearly a number of reviewers elsewhere failed to understand as they didn’t
get it.
This is a fast paced action orientated novel where nearly
everyone has very few redeeming qualities. A thriller in every sense of the
word where character development is limited and told in occasional bursts of backstory
to give readers a break from the frenetic forward pace. Written in a movie type
style of very short chapters and very few reflective moments for the characters,
the book nearly constantly is focused on moving the characters forward at a
hard pace. Constant explosions, gunfire, and mayhem, drive the book forward where
everyone has an agenda and will use anybody and any means necessary to get
their way. The Contractors: A Thriller by
Harry Hunsicker takes readers on a violent and bloody rampage from one end of Texas
to the other in a read that constantly twists and turns on ways that should
keep readers hooked to the very end.
The Contractors: A Thriller
Harry
Hunsicker
Thomas
& Mercer (Amazon)
February 2014
ISBN-13: 978-1477808726
E-Book
(available in paperback and audio)
514
Pages
$4.99
E-Book ARC was provided by the publisher in exchange
for my objective review.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2014
Monday, March 25, 2013
Double Take Book Review: Lake Charles by Ed Lynskey
Every now and then
things line up right and Barry and I have read and reviewed the same book. Such
is the case here with LAKE CHARLES
that I did back in August 2011 and Barry is doing now. When things line up that
way readers get the “double take” review. Barry leads off and I follow with
mine……
LAKE CHARLES (2011) by Ed Lynskey
Reviewed by Barry Ergang
The year is 1979. Charged with the murder of Ashleigh
Sizemore, with whom he spent a drug- and sex-driven night in a motel, awakening
in a haze to find her dead in bed beside him, and at present out on bail and
awaiting trial, Brendan Fishback wants nothing more than a relaxing Saturday of
fishing on Lake Charles near his hometown of Umpire in Tennessee's Smoky Mountains.
With him are his best friend and brother-in-law, Cobb Kuzawa, and his sister
Edna, Cobb's wife. The couple has been separated for a while, and whether their
marriage will survive is debatable. Brendan hopes that having them together on
this outing might move them to reconcile.
The two young men take their bass boats out into the water,
and Edna rides her jet ski. She and Cobb continue wrangling until she angrily takes
off on the jet ski and roars out of sight. When she doesn't return, Brendan and
Cobb begin to search for her. The search results in sudden death and more
difficulties and complications for Brendan as he, with the added help of Cobb's
Korean War-veteran father Jerry Kuzawa, a man whose attitude is ever shoot
first and damn the consequences, tangles with or tries to dodge a variety of
individuals. These include a pair of corrupt sheriff's deputies; the operators,
enforcers and mules of a grand-scale marijuana-growing operation; DEA agents; a
lawyer of dubious character; and Ralph Sizemore, the wealthy, vicious and
vengeful father of Ashleigh who is both politically connected and a potential
candidate for office. In dreams and reveries, Brendan converses with Ashleigh
and gradually pieces together what happened in the motel room that led to her
demise.
Central to the story's action is the man-made Lake Charles, symbol of
man-made corruption, violence, evil, darkness and death.
Before I start picking nits, I want to emphasize that I
greatly enjoyed and can recommend this tense, hard-charging coming -of-age thriller
to readers who aren't easily offended by occasional raw language.
Besides having written several other novels as well as short
stories and non-fiction articles, Ed Lynskey's background includes poetry published
in prestigious journals and mainstream literary magazines like The Atlantic Monthly. His sense of
language shows in Lake Charles which, in an era when a
minimalist approach to narrative seems to be the norm, has its own vivid,
distinctive style. Lynskey long ago learned that well-chosen action verbs
replace the need for too many adjectives and adverbs: "I staggered into
the bathroom where its vent fan clanked away. My tingling fingers lay a lit
match to a Marlboro. I inhaled, bagged the soothing nicotine, and exhaled
smoke. I lived in a nightmare, branded as a killer, but now I was free on bail.
The sheriff's deputies could jug me again at any time. My second, deeper puff
calmed my jangled nerves. I knew organic causes explained why the dead girl
ransacked my dreams."
Sometimes, however, he gets carried away and certain word
choices (taking poetic license?) might, as they did with me, yank the reader
out of the story to consider them. Bagged
in the preceding example, for instance. Another example is the smoker who
doesn't merely light a cigarette, he Zippos it, the lighter's brand-name
becoming a verb. Speaking of a former girlfriend named Salem, Brendan says: "But hell, I
reasoned, I'd meet a galore of other Salems." Galore is an adjective, not a noun.
Reminiscent of some of the lesser pulp magazine fiction from
the Thirties and Forties are overwrought passages like this: "Resentful
blood heated by the new rage blasted into my face as I nodded." Others are unintentionally silly: "As we
crested the last knoll, the mansion's glittery windows vaulted into our
eyes." The bizarre (and physically impossible) image this conjures up is
not the risible effect the author wants, even though the reader understands
what he's trying to convey. Then there are the clumsy sentences—e.g., "My
walk headed to the spot where he stood."
Nevertheless, I applaud Lynskey's lexical enthusiasm and his
willingness to err on the side of overzealousness over blandness.
He
has a couple of verbal quirks I can't help remarking on because they show up
frequently throughout the novel and because they once again pulled me out of the
story for a beat or two while I thought about them. The first is the use of a
construction common enough in narrative and exposition but—at least in my
experience—utterly uncommon in dialogue. I can't recall ever having seen it
used in fictional dialogue, and I'm sure I've never heard it in real-life
conversations. Yet throughout the novel a number of Lynskey's characters employ
it frequently when speaking to others. Examples include the lawyer Herzog:
"More of a hunting enthusiast, I shun the violence but savor the
excitement of the chase"; Brendan: "Actually a little under the
weather, Cobb is taking it easy"; Alicia: "Stacking on the pounds,
I'll burst apart like a whacked piñata" and "Strict Catholics, they
don't hold with abortion and help girls like me." Unless this usage is a
regionalism I'm simply unfamiliar with, I'd call (to alter one of the examples)
"Cobb is actually under the weather and taking it easy" a more normal
conversational construction.
The
other quirk is the use of to in
sentences where of is more common:
"The hypnotic thrum to the truck tires eating up the hardtop enticed me
into the realm of dreams, an all too familiar terrain." "The
mustiness to old books and lemon furniture polish hosed over us."
I was
32 in 1979 so my memory may be faulty, but I can't help thinking some of the
expressions Lynskey uses here and there throughout the novel are anachronisms.
At the very end of Chapter 21, Herzog says, "That's a no brainer." In
one of Brendan's dream moments with Ashleigh, she asks if someone's van isn't
"da bomb." In another, Brendan wonders if her mention of a motel is a
"booty call." Jerry Kuzawa advises Brendan to "keep it
real." Did any or all of these expressions enter the language in or prior
to 1979?
In
exchange for my objective review, I received a copy of the electronic edition
of the novel from the author. I can't speak to the physical edition, but better
proofreading is definitely in order for the e-book. There are a multitude of
sentences throughout that lack necessary or contain unnecessary commas. There are also a couple
of lines of dialogue that are ungrammatical but shouldn't be because the
speakers are not semi-literate individuals: "'How many jurors have
Sizemore bought off like he did you?'" and "'I've never took one
dime.'" Ungrammatical narrative
passages: "The screen of silver maples hid us rather than our parking at
his gate protected by a guardhouse." "Flanked only by the canyons of
unread books diverted us on to the kitchen."
There
are several places where word choices are wrong or, at the very least, highly
suspect—italics mine: "Room 7 at the Chewink Motel in Yellow Snake, Tennessee, sat primed to
accommodate cheap rendezvouses and
cheaper murders." ("Rendezvous" is both singular and plural.)
"Anxiety over Edna's strife
diverted me as my sore gaze traveled out to the state road." (What is a
"sore" gaze?) "Kuzawa chuckled as an escapee sprung from the lobotomy ward." "Armpit
sweat eked a slime trail down my
ribcage." "The middle-aged clerk, still slender with prim breasts, seated at a walnut desk
was dabbing a piece of sticky Scotch tape to pick the lint off her uniform
blazer." (How exactly are breasts "prim"? There should be a
comma after "desk," and "sticky" is needless when
describing Scotch tape.) "Chatting with Alicia on the drought causing the brush-and-timber fires, Mr. Kuzawa pointed
a finger at the cut-off swerving into a deserted, shady wayside."
("On" or "about"? Moreover, I don't think the hypens in
"brush and timber" are necessary.)
Redundancies:
"Soon after, we soon crested the treed mountains and,
with my ears popping, swooped down into the next leafy draw." "Out
Mr. Kuzawa's window, the cerise red
streaks painted Wednesday's breathtaking sunrise on the indigo horizon."
(Italics mine.)
I must
now reiterate that despite the preceding cavils, I highly recommend Lake
Charles as an exciting, absorbing, and compelling
read. Fans of noir thrillers who
aren't repelled by the occasional use of
street language will find it somewhat different from the run-of-the-mill, and
worth their time.
Barry
Ergang ©2013
Barry Ergang has a lot of books for sale from his personal
collection at http://www.barryergangbooksforsale.yolasite.com/.
He'll contribute 20% of the purchase price of the
books to our monthly fund, so please have a look at his lists, which have
recently been added to in several categories. For links to material he's written that's
available online, and fiction that's available for e-readers, see Barry’s webpages.
 |
| Ed Lynskey |
It is
1979 and Brendan Fishback isn't doing too well in the game called life. Waking
up next to a dead woman can cause huge problems. The fact that she, Ashleigh
Sizemore, was the daughter of the wealthy and powerfully connected, Ralph
Sizemore is a huge problem. Word is old Ralph is going to be a Senator. The
fact that drugs were planted in the room is a huge issue. The fact that Brendan
keeps having strange dreams and visions where the dead teenage girl talks to
him about her murder is a huge problem.
Despite the odds and the nice frame job against him, Brendan Fishback gets out on bail. Besides avoiding the shyster slime ball lawyer his mother, Mama Jo, hired for him Brendan plans to go fishing with his brother in law and good friend, Cobb Kuzawa. A quiet couple of days at Lake Charles, a local man-made lake created by the Tennessee Valley Authority, will be as good a break as he can get these days.
Like Brandan, the best days seem to have gone by the lake as it and the surrounding area is in bad shape. If trying to detox from all the pot he has done isn't enough, the area flat out reeks and is depressing to look at. Back in the day, it used to be a happening place. Not only is nobody apparently around, but there is the stench of rot and decay at the marina area and large sections of the lake are fouled by algae scum. Not only do they have to get the bass boats through that, Brendon has to listen to his sister Edna and Cobb bicker.
Edna invited herself along and that had not been the plan. What been initially planned as a guy trip has mutated into a cranky family outing. Edna and Cobb fight constantly and both of them are driving him nuts. Clearly, Edna should have never married Cobb and certainly she should never have come on the trip. They are driving each other nuts too and before long Edna rockets away on her jet ski towards the dam area leaving the other two behind on the lake in their boats.
And she never comes back.
The search is soon on and leads Brendan and Cobb into a violent confrontation. The first of many confrontations proving that the lake area is not at all deserted like they thought. Brendan wants his sister back, alive and in one piece, and knows too well they can't get help from the corrupt local police. The trail of the missing Edna leads back and forth across the Lake Charles area and the Tennessee Mountains while Brendan soldiers on getting the answers he seeks. Some of them won't be pretty.
The front cover has a blurb quote from author Ed Gorman, "Lake Charles is going to scorch your soul . . . I loved it." That pretty much sums up things very well for this very complicated book where everyone has a dark backstory that gradually comes out. A dark and twisted noir tale that starts with a bang and goes in many different ways by use of dreams and flashbacks and forward literary narrative before bringing the whole thing to a surprising conclusion.
Simply put, Lake Charles by Ed Lynskey is a mighty good book and one well worth your time.
Lake Charles
Ed Lynskey
Wildside Press LLC
June 2011
ISBN# 978-1-4344-3046-5
Paperback (also available as e-book)
192 Pages (includes one page of reference sources)
Material supplied by the author in exchange for my objective review.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2011, 2013
Despite the odds and the nice frame job against him, Brendan Fishback gets out on bail. Besides avoiding the shyster slime ball lawyer his mother, Mama Jo, hired for him Brendan plans to go fishing with his brother in law and good friend, Cobb Kuzawa. A quiet couple of days at Lake Charles, a local man-made lake created by the Tennessee Valley Authority, will be as good a break as he can get these days.
Like Brandan, the best days seem to have gone by the lake as it and the surrounding area is in bad shape. If trying to detox from all the pot he has done isn't enough, the area flat out reeks and is depressing to look at. Back in the day, it used to be a happening place. Not only is nobody apparently around, but there is the stench of rot and decay at the marina area and large sections of the lake are fouled by algae scum. Not only do they have to get the bass boats through that, Brendon has to listen to his sister Edna and Cobb bicker.
Edna invited herself along and that had not been the plan. What been initially planned as a guy trip has mutated into a cranky family outing. Edna and Cobb fight constantly and both of them are driving him nuts. Clearly, Edna should have never married Cobb and certainly she should never have come on the trip. They are driving each other nuts too and before long Edna rockets away on her jet ski towards the dam area leaving the other two behind on the lake in their boats.
And she never comes back.
The search is soon on and leads Brendan and Cobb into a violent confrontation. The first of many confrontations proving that the lake area is not at all deserted like they thought. Brendan wants his sister back, alive and in one piece, and knows too well they can't get help from the corrupt local police. The trail of the missing Edna leads back and forth across the Lake Charles area and the Tennessee Mountains while Brendan soldiers on getting the answers he seeks. Some of them won't be pretty.
The front cover has a blurb quote from author Ed Gorman, "Lake Charles is going to scorch your soul . . . I loved it." That pretty much sums up things very well for this very complicated book where everyone has a dark backstory that gradually comes out. A dark and twisted noir tale that starts with a bang and goes in many different ways by use of dreams and flashbacks and forward literary narrative before bringing the whole thing to a surprising conclusion.
Simply put, Lake Charles by Ed Lynskey is a mighty good book and one well worth your time.
Lake Charles
Ed Lynskey
Wildside Press LLC
June 2011
ISBN# 978-1-4344-3046-5
Paperback (also available as e-book)
192 Pages (includes one page of reference sources)
Material supplied by the author in exchange for my objective review.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2011, 2013
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Sandi in the Hospital
As some know, Sandi was admitted to a local hospital yesterday because she was having severe breathing problems. At first there was massive concern that she had at least one blood clot, if not more, in her right lung as there were no breath sounds there.
According to x-rays and the CT Scan the real problem was that her right lung was completely full of fluid. If that was not enough, urine analysis indicates her kidneys seem to be having serious issues. So, they hospitalized her, drained two liters of fluid out of the right lung and gave her some heavy duty meds to work on the kidneys. They could have easily taken at least one more liter out of her right lung but if they take too much too soon the lung would collapse. So, they took what they could safely get late yesterday afternoon and will reevaluate what to do later today.
I was finally able to talk to her a few minutes ago and the news is a little better this morning. She has had breakfast, a shower, and been down to x-ray where they took another set of pictures of her chest. She is off the oxygen this morning. She says she feels a little better and can breathe a bit better with not as much pain as she had yesterday after they did the draining deal. She says that the x-ray tech would not tell her anything this morning (unlike the one yesterday) but she thinks that the fluid is probably at the same level it was after they drained things by the way she feels.
She expects to be coming home today. The doctor has not made his rounds yet so when or if that will happen is still unknown.
She expects to be coming home today. The doctor has not made his rounds yet so when or if that will happen is still unknown.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Reviewing: "2011 Delmar Nurse’s Drug Handbook: 20th Anniversary Edition"
The 2011 Delmar Nurse's Drug Handbook, as the title implies, primarily intended for nursing students. However, it is an excellent resource for the lay person to consult. Especially at two in the morning when the only other real option is an expensive ER trip.
Chapter One titled “A-Z Listing of Drugs” is the main focus of the book and is over 180 pages in length. As explained in the quick reference section preceding the chapter, each drug is listed by its generic name, phonetic pronunciation, classification, its pregnancy category (risks, etc.), the trade names of the drug, whether or not it is classified as a controlled substance by the FDA, and how it acts on the body. Also covered is important information regarding when the drug is not to be used (something I found out the hard way last winter and spring about a certain anti-cholesterol drug despite my asking lots of questions), drug interactions, side effects, and other helpful information.
“Therapeutic Drug Classification” is the topic of the second chapter that begins on page 1859. Here the drugs are arranged by class such as ACE Inhibitors (pages 1869-1872), estrogen (pages 1963-1968), penicillin (pages 2021 – 2024) and others. This section leads off with a warning, stressed frequently throughout the book, that the information is subject to change and to consult the FDA website for current info. After the chapter ends on page 2063 with a very informative section on vitamins that includes food sources and what the symptoms of various vitamin deficiencies are, the book moves into the appendices.
The appendices are primarily going to be of use to the intended audience of nursing students and nursing professionals as they cover common abbreviations, the issue of medication errors and how important it is to report them (something stunningly obvious to this reader who found it appalling folks had to be told), controlled substance lists for the USA and Canada, how to calculate body mass and body surface, the elements of a prescription label, and other helpful information.
The average reader should also take a look at Appendix Nine titled “Drug/Food Interactions” as it helpfully explains what drugs should be taken on an empty stomach as well as what drugs should be taken with food. It also includes info on what foods to avoid with various drugs. This leads into Appendix Ten covering “Drugs Whose Effects Are Modified by Grapefruit Juice.” The list is quite extensive and covers four pages showing both positive and negative effects.
Several more appendices follow on common Spanish phrases in health care, drugs that should not be crushed, etc., before the 2011 Delmar Nurse’s Handbook concludes with a forty-eight page index. There are also directions for those who purchase the book on how to obtain free additional benefits by logging into the community section of the publisher website. As noted below, this material was obtained through my local library system and therefore, I was unable to explore this possibility. One of the benefits listed is a free iPhone/iPod application which would clearly be very helpful.
At 2190 pages there is a lot of very helpful information contained in the 2011 20th Anniversary Edition. Designed to be a resource guide for nursing students, it is best not to make any decision based solely on the information found here. Be sure to consult medical professionals, as well as the FDA website for current information as stressed throughout the 2011 Delmar Nurse’s Drug Handbook. This excellent resource will allow you to either rest easy knowing it agrees with what you have been told, or help you raise questions and discuss treatment options.
2011 Delmar Nurse’s Drug Handbook: 20th Anniversary Edition
George R. Spratto and Adrienne L. Woods
Delmar Cengage Learning
http://www.cengage.com/delmar
June 2010
ISBN# 978-1-111-131487
2190 Pages
$34.95
Material supplied by the good folks of the Plano, Texas Public Library System. Online they can be found at http://www.plano.gov/Departments/Libraries/Pages/default.aspx which features links to information in a wide range of venues for locals and others.
Kevin R. Tipple © 2010
Chapter One titled “A-Z Listing of Drugs” is the main focus of the book and is over 180 pages in length. As explained in the quick reference section preceding the chapter, each drug is listed by its generic name, phonetic pronunciation, classification, its pregnancy category (risks, etc.), the trade names of the drug, whether or not it is classified as a controlled substance by the FDA, and how it acts on the body. Also covered is important information regarding when the drug is not to be used (something I found out the hard way last winter and spring about a certain anti-cholesterol drug despite my asking lots of questions), drug interactions, side effects, and other helpful information.
“Therapeutic Drug Classification” is the topic of the second chapter that begins on page 1859. Here the drugs are arranged by class such as ACE Inhibitors (pages 1869-1872), estrogen (pages 1963-1968), penicillin (pages 2021 – 2024) and others. This section leads off with a warning, stressed frequently throughout the book, that the information is subject to change and to consult the FDA website for current info. After the chapter ends on page 2063 with a very informative section on vitamins that includes food sources and what the symptoms of various vitamin deficiencies are, the book moves into the appendices.
The appendices are primarily going to be of use to the intended audience of nursing students and nursing professionals as they cover common abbreviations, the issue of medication errors and how important it is to report them (something stunningly obvious to this reader who found it appalling folks had to be told), controlled substance lists for the USA and Canada, how to calculate body mass and body surface, the elements of a prescription label, and other helpful information.
The average reader should also take a look at Appendix Nine titled “Drug/Food Interactions” as it helpfully explains what drugs should be taken on an empty stomach as well as what drugs should be taken with food. It also includes info on what foods to avoid with various drugs. This leads into Appendix Ten covering “Drugs Whose Effects Are Modified by Grapefruit Juice.” The list is quite extensive and covers four pages showing both positive and negative effects.
Several more appendices follow on common Spanish phrases in health care, drugs that should not be crushed, etc., before the 2011 Delmar Nurse’s Handbook concludes with a forty-eight page index. There are also directions for those who purchase the book on how to obtain free additional benefits by logging into the community section of the publisher website. As noted below, this material was obtained through my local library system and therefore, I was unable to explore this possibility. One of the benefits listed is a free iPhone/iPod application which would clearly be very helpful.
At 2190 pages there is a lot of very helpful information contained in the 2011 20th Anniversary Edition. Designed to be a resource guide for nursing students, it is best not to make any decision based solely on the information found here. Be sure to consult medical professionals, as well as the FDA website for current information as stressed throughout the 2011 Delmar Nurse’s Drug Handbook. This excellent resource will allow you to either rest easy knowing it agrees with what you have been told, or help you raise questions and discuss treatment options.
2011 Delmar Nurse’s Drug Handbook: 20th Anniversary Edition
George R. Spratto and Adrienne L. Woods
Delmar Cengage Learning
http://www.cengage.com/delmar
June 2010
ISBN# 978-1-111-131487
2190 Pages
$34.95
Material supplied by the good folks of the Plano, Texas Public Library System. Online they can be found at http://www.plano.gov/Departments/Libraries/Pages/default.aspx which features links to information in a wide range of venues for locals and others.
Kevin R. Tipple © 2010
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