Thank G-d...and I truly hope you have complete healing, MG. From the heart.

Thank you.  It's in remission right now, but being stage four it pops up again every couple of years. But other than being tired all the time, I'm doing good!

Not to change the subject....

My step-son and I have a wondefrully charming past time of coming up with new technical terms that pertain to the passing of toxic gasses from ones nether regions. Something that has to do with what this thread began about. Thus far, my favorite is..

Glutious Pootious.

Unfortunately, the system here (largely as the result of bureaucratic red tape/bungling and government carackdowns) has fallen into such decay that doctors have been limited as to what they can do, and I suppose their way of dealing with it is do make excuses and do nothing... it beats prison time and/or being struck off.

The thing here is that the government has cracked down on both doctors and patients alike.  One of the reasons, to stop doctors over-prescribing and over-medicating, thus reducing costs to the NHS/Medicare.  The other reason is to stop/reduce/eliminate doctor 'shopping', whereby some NHS/Medicare patients would visit several doctors for prescriptions of the same drugs... and in many cases selling them at a profit to people ineligible for subsidised drugs via the NHS. 

So yeah, restictions have been put in place to combat fraud and abuse... what I don't understand is why the government took many standard medications for common and serious ailments off the PBS (Pharmecuetical Benifits Scheme), thus forcing pensioners and low income earners to suffice with less than adequate medication.  For example, a while back I was prescribed a pain relief med (didn't end up getting it so don't recall the name) that would have cost me $5.70 at the time of writing, but when I went to fill the script 3 days later it had been taken off the PBS list and I was asked for $97.95... for friggin' 24 pills. 

Yeah, sure, I could afford that once a week on a damned pension (at the time) of $270pw.  So I had a choice of being pain free but homeless and hungry, or eat with a roof over my head but in pain.  I ended up getting an inferior alternative, something with Paracetamol and 10mg of Codeine, but now I'm even having trouble getting that... blah, blah, blah, "it's not good for you"  I guess, then, chronic pain and associated limited mobility is?

Yup, take away the cultural differences/beliefs, and that would be a large part of it, given many of them are from countries with harsh governments, laws and prisons, etc.... and our governments (State and Federal) introduce measures to exploit this fear, thus compromising both the (immigrant) doctors and patient care alike.  Still, they are better off than from whence they came...just wish the benefits were mutual.  Sadly, the corrupt and greedy have ruined that for us all for all time.

Actually, the insurance companies are more corrupt... certainly more greedy.  True, our government collects taxes to fund our health system, but we can see where the money is going.  We have among some of the best hospitals in the World... sadly, however, we have a bureaucracy that stuffed it all up and doesn't adequately staff them, thus there are long waiting lists and people not receiving due care when needed.  On the other hand, however, insurance companies collect huge sums of money, in some cases far more than government does for health care, and it mostly seems to disappear into black holes and is unaccounted for. 

The truth is, large amounts of it go towards huge executive salaries and bonuses... fringe benefits ordinary people would never ever see in a lifetime... and patient care is an after-thought that comes out of what's left.  For example, my brother-in-law down in Tassie has paid into a health insurance fund ALL his life, yet has only recently called upon it due to illness, and they are telling him that some of the required treatments are NOT fully covered and he must pay the first 32% to access it.  Shit, he has more than doubly paid for that treatment in the 55 years he's been contributing, yet he still has to pay an excess of 32%, which he doesn't have (as a struggling, drought stricken farmer who has had his markets obliterated by the large supermarket chains greedily buying up everything to increase market shares), so inevitably the illness will prematurely kill him.

So the question here is, where the fuck did thousands upon thousands of his money go?  More to the point, how many millions of health insurance contributors are asking the same question when the health care they over-paid for isn't forthcoming or anywhere near adequate?  What happens to all the money of those who pay in for years but never or rarely seek/obtain medical treatment? It sure isn't being allocated to the appropriate places, that's for sure... and the fact that insurance companies can use their own discretion to give a clain the thums up or down (in too many cases down) really stinks. And like you say, Doc, the real money isn't going to ordinary rank and file doctors, just to the heirarchy of surgeons and specialists with rich clientele

We may have long waits in our public hospital system (usually with outpatient/specialist clinics) but we can present at a hospital in an emergency situation and GET treatment, without being asked if we are insured... being turned away if we aren't.  Sure our public hospitals can be lacking due to idiotic bureaucratic bungling, but private health insurance companies have turned the duty of primary patient care into a farce through greed. It is lacking because it's just business and the Hippocratic oath has been replaced by the bankers creed... profit at ANY cost.

I have a few fave terms of my own:

* trouser cough... or 'trouser trembler' when knees knock rapidly at the effort

* colon cough....' calamity' if I end up with skidmarks

* Curried cabbage (or whatever food) bark

* below-the-belt burp

* echoes of last night's dinner

* rectal ringtone (for much, much longer ones, rectal recital)

* a telegram from turd... the one warning the next might have lumps in it.

* trouser trombone... the note seems to slide' on forever,

* pantaloon puff... for those 'not quite' silent ones

* pirate's puff... for when it's delicate but smells like rum.

* colon concerto... for those melodious ones that go into second and third verses.

* biker burp... for those that sound like I just kickstarted a Harley

And for those practitioners of the noble art:

* bugle arse... for those who are hungover and it sounds like the "Last post"

* butt trumpeter... for those who think they're Harry James and perforn a colon concerto of "flight of the Bumblebee"

* rectal recitalist... for those who can almost make their rectum talk

* organ arse... for those who get those deep, deep bass notes akin to Bach on a cathedral organ

* Rip van-Anal... for those who snap one off so fast and loud it leaves a ringing in your ears

In Norwegian:

Fis (pronounced fees)

Promp (proomp)

These words sound like the act

Hehe, thinking about the fairytale, Rip van Anal could also apply to the curried cabbage barker who near renders you unconscious with his gas.

Actually, I shouldn't refer to 'barkers' as he!  That's prejudicial!  So to be fair and impartial, women are/can be proficient barkers and can peel off a true rip-snorter as good as any man can..

     All of which are end results. Lets start with the sometimes cavernous place where all those gastric juices come into play. I don't know if any of you have heard of or ever went to a burger joint called White Castle but these little gems could wreak havoc down there. They sold for, back in the day, for 0.15 a pop. With cheese .20. Anyway...we'd buy maybe fifteen or twenty and pop 'em down like they was candy. After awhile you'd get this really wierd feeling then either you let one go to wake the dead   or you ran hoping no one was in the bathroom because there was no holding it period.   We nicknamed them belly-bombers or tummy-rumblers   and if you got the onion rings with them...forget about it...instant devastation. Quite a few people left with skid-marks or without their bloomers intact.   It was sometimes hilarious.

 Most of ours were take-out.

Glutious Pootious...wasn't he a Roman Emperor?      or    Glutious Rippious      or      (enter your choice here)

I said that once in my head and it stuck. Sounds like a Harry Potter spell to release the constipation demons.

Hate those demons. They can be a real 'pain in the ass'.

we need an 'ouch' in the digicon home

Actually, Glutious Pootious was the Roman senator supposedly in charge of sanitation just prior to the fall of the Roman Empire.  Apparently he was an avid fan of curried cabbage, which he ate ravenously and eventually clogged up the sewers... or for want of a better term, he filled them with so much gas it reversed the effect of gravity and the downhill flow suddenly became uphill, thus causing the Tiber to rise 6 feet and flood the streets.

Yup, it was the beginning of the end for Rome... people were up to their ankles in turds, and there's Glutious Pootious peeling off thunderous tunic tremors faster than the turd laden water was receding.  The chariot maker couldn't work and the soldiers couldn't train or go out conquering... in other words, raping and pillaging, so they stayed at home where they raped and pillaged instead.

So yeah, Rome became a den of iniquity and a literal cesspool... with Romans now knee deep in turds because the sewers backed up another 3 feet as a result of Glutious Pootious's tumultuous tunic trumpets expelling the contents of the overburdened sewers into the streets.... and the rest is history.  Nero was fast fiddling and a spark from his bow ignited the gas, and thus Rome burned.

Yeah, I know... ordered one from getalife.com yesterday.

answer: $

answer: $

answer: You have a Gov't auditor? If so, ask for the figures of $ in vs. benefits paid over ...say... past 20 years. Also....see if the Pols tapped into it for some other "worthy cause" like new jet fighters and tanks not used for combat.

The one that knocks you out cold for 20 years.

answer:

So it should have been...

wait for it...

'Rome wasn't shat in a day'

or is it shitted...shited..shatted?

Going into a store and leaving traces of yourself whereever you go= crop dusting.

Archeological find!

Roman Captain Gluteus Tootius Maximus's Photo found In Gaulstonius Forum In Roman Dig!