I was looking at my SIL's new neighborhood on Google Maps. They have a grocery store within 0.2 miles of their house.
There is no sidewalk on their side of the road and no crosswalk ANYWHERE on the road that would let you get to the store. You can jaywalk, but the mere idea that there isn't a way to get there safely irritates me a lot.
0.2 miles. That's nothing. That's a ten minute walk and you could get groceries. Their child could do it when she gets older. But probably won't.
My best friend's house is within a mile of her brother's. There's a delicious restaurant down the street. Her child will never walk to either because there's no sidewalk on the bridge to get to the restaurant, and there's no safe way to cross a 55mph road.
I'd like to rant for a minute about some well-worn, dead-horse topics, if you'd indulge me. The American medical system and female-bodied healthcare. Rant below the break if you want to keep scrolling.
Medical advice, while certainly well-intentioned, is not welcome.
My spouse and I are trying to have kids. I went into this knowing I have a diagnosis of PCOS (from when I was a teenager) and that fertility could be challenging. I went to my GP and my OBGYN prepared to take this on headfirst and get advice on what to do to 1) manage the disease without HBCP since those were the only options ever presented to me and 2) maximize the chance of conception.
Yeah, it's been a year and the only test they've run is for genetic disease and I've been given some progesterone to help trigger withdrawal bleeding because I haven't had a normal menstrual cycle in ten months.
I'm sitting here thinking about how I have to "do my own research". I have - I'm on inositol supplementation thanks to my own reading (which no doctor has discussed with me even when I bring it up and cite it on every "what meds are you taking" form). I had to broach the idea of spiro with my GP. I had to do the reading to realize that the high cholesterol I've fought my whole life was probably a side effect of PCOS, and that the mild (now moderate) anxiety that I've had my whole life is also likely related. I'm the one who had to ask whether a hormonal IUD would be a viable substitute for HBCP and discover that the hormone levels decline below the level of HBCP before the IUD is up, and that's why my disease changed slowly when I got one. I've had to do the digging in intermittent fasting and why it's likely not a useful treatment unless you use it like "skip a meal" calorie restriction. I've "done my own research".
Except it's not "doing my own research".
If I was doing my own research, I'd have a laboratory environment, a grant, and an extensive background in reproductive endocrinology and biochemistry. I'd have peers who are specialists in their own right that I could discuss and critique my work with. I'd have adequate sample sizes and the ability to choose a study population to maximize the effectiveness of the intervention.
I am doing a halfassed lit review in a field that I only know enough from gross anatomy to understand, with a background in human evolution and natural selection instead of biochem. Then I have to sit through going through the Financial Counseling, where they literally explained to me that I have this thing called a "deductible" and that I had health insurance. *Before* they'll let me talk to anyone in reproductive medicine about anything beyond my OB's scope. The OB who gave me progesterone (which may decrease conception chance in the cycle after) and told me to take a prenatal vitamin. That's it.
So I'm taking all my background information, which most of my medical providers haven't bothered to discuss with me in any capacity, and performing wild experimentation on a sample population of one. And I'm in a better position than most because at least I have a fucking doctorate in a semirelated field and can parse the medical literature!
I *can't* do my own research. And that is making me SO DAMN ANGRY.
