There are a lot of things I wanted to cover today, unfortunately I wasn’t able to finish this post prior to class this afternoon, so bear with me … there’s a lot here.

Those of you who are local I’m sure have been following the story of the busload of Marines that overturned Sunday. They were from E Co., Anti-Terrorism Battalion, 4th Marine Division, returning from a weekend training exercise. I read this morning about Lance Cpl. David Miles, the Marine that passed away Monday afternoon from his injuries. However, even in death he still served others.

“According to his mom, he was very adamant about (donating) his organs … so the mom is very adamant about carrying out his wishes of harvesting as many of his organs as possible.”

Courtesy of The Birmingham News.

No doubt about it in my mind, he’s a hero. Courtesy of Villainous Company, here’s another tale of heroism: America’s Female Warriors Show Bravery, Loyalty. Greta highlighted a brave soldier’s father that she has met through Soldiers’ Angels: Robert Stokely, a fellow SA member and father of Mike Stokely who proudly gave his all for his country in Iraq.

Honestly the grace and bravery that our finest men and women exhibit every day never cease to amaze me. Too bad the liberal media doesn’t show them more often!

On Cookie’s site earlier today, I read a story about a couple of vets experiencing problems with Verizon:

Verizon Cancels Returning Marines’ Cellphones, Gives Their Number Away, Charges Them $500

Two Marines, a husband and wife, found Verizon had an unpleasant welcome-home gift waiting for them when they got back from serving in Iraq: canceled cellphones, a $500bill, and their phone numbers were given to other people. Under the Service Members Civil Relief Act, when a soldier goes off to war, they’re able to send their deployment letters to their service companies and get their service put on hold. Apparently in the case of Haley Katz and her husband, that letter wasn’t good enough. When they complained and reached a manager, the manager told them ” it was their fault they owed the money”, and then hung up on them. Read their letter as published in Stars and Stripes, inside…

At 3:30 a.m (Iraq time), [recently], my husband and I called Verizon Wireless to reactivate our phones, as we are returning home [from Iraq] soon and wanted to catch the company during its business hours. Upon speaking with a customer service representative, it became apparent that Verizon not only suspended our contracts, it disconnected our phones and gave our numbers away to other customers.

What is truly amazing is that the company took the letters our commanding officers signed regarding our deployment dates, and deemed the letters not worthy of suspending our contracts. It continued to charge us for those months without notifying us and when we did not pay, it disconnected the lines.

Long story short, when we called to reactivate our phones they told us our numbers no longer existed and that we owed them nearly $500!

When we asked to speak to a manager, we were told nothing could be done. When we did actually speak to a manager we were told it was our fault that we owed the money. The manager then proceeded to say “We’re sorry but nothing can be done for you. Goodbye.”

We were hung up on … in Iraq … at 3:30 in the morning. Real professional.

We spoke to another manager who was courteous enough to recredit our accounts and cut all remaining ties with their service. We are no longer with Verizon Wireless.

For all of the soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen out there, make sure you are checking up on the status of your accounts. Apparently, a letter from your command stating you are deploying is not enough these days. And aside from seeing service members off at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point (N.C.), I am not sure what else they are looking for.

Marine 2nd Lt. Haley Katz
Camp Fallujah, Iraq

I’ve heard horror stories about Verizon and their crappy customer service for years, but this takes the cake!

And speaking of human depravity, there’s the Berkley protesters. We’ve all heard of this one, right? Today, Rachel Lucas gave plenty examples of and commented on the ‘fine minds’ (and I say that lightly!) objecting to our nation’s finest.

Somebody please put these morons out of our misery!

Moving on to cooler (and more intriguing) things … a Starbucks employee donates a kidney to her customer. In today’s Mental Floss blog postings, a UAB study is mentioned where researchers are studying the use of scorpion venom in cancer medication. (YAY us!) Also, one of my fave sci-fi blogs, IO9, tells me that there is a remake coming for one of my favorite ‘B’ movies, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! And last but not least, a funny bit courtesy of A Bama Blog: How to tell that you’ve ticked off an engineer.

I think that just about covers it.

Oh … before I forget … anyone going to OmegaCon this weekend?

Big of warning to you menfolk: there may be a bit more information here than you’d care to know about me and/or the subject of women’s bodies and their monthly ‘cycle’ in general. You’ve been warned.

I was skimming through the headlines on the MyFoxAL blog feeds and ran across this one: “Study: The Pill Protects Against Cancer.” Thinking that sounded familiar, I looked through the archives over at That’s Fit to find this article, “Taking the Pill reduces cancer risk,” from back in September. They weren’t exactly the same in content, but both conveyed the same general idea: women who take the pill lower their risk of developing cancer later in life.

YAY! Good news for folks like me!

While there is some dispute over which cancers are prevented and which ones aren’t differ, it is good news overall. Given my family’s medical history (cancer on both sides), I’m willing to take this as a plus. That said, it helps to know what to expect when going on ANY kind of birth control. I know some girls who would read the above mentioned articles and go ask for the pill right out!

Ladies, you first need to really know what you are putting into your body. While this is sound advice for any medication, it is essential when we’re talking about birth control. Think about it, people: these are hormones! These products are made to intentionally interrupt and re-arrange your body’s natural timing. Some of these products may be dangerous! For instance, most commercials I’ve noticed on tv nowadays aren’t for “the ye olde pill,” it’s for the newest super-pill, or a patch, or a ring. Has anyone ever wondered how safe those products are? Remember the Nuvaring commercials? That product died a quiet death after studies had shown that its users were experiencing ’severe side effects’ — yeah, I’d say the deadly kind!

Hello, can we say: Pulmonary embolisms? Strokes? Anyone? Bueller?

What’s worse, many women are completely unaware at the side effects that may come with birth control. I personally ran into a whole stint of problems and my gyn at the time put me through several different drugs. For whatever reason my ‘plumbing’ stopped behaving as it should. I stopped getting periods. After 3 months, they ran a pregnancy test (of course they never believe you when you tell them you’re “not pregnant” ), and when it came up negative, they ran all sorts of tests and ultimately told me, “We have no idea why it’s doing that. Just wait another month and we’re sure your cycle will correct itself.”

Three months and a whole myriad of tests later, still no period. I went back to see the doctor and he put me on Seasonale. It was a little weird. I was told to expect to be on a pack for 3 months, then have a short period. Ok, no big deal, right? On the third month of the pack, I kept having really painful cramps and more headaches. I called the doctor, was told this was normal. I completed the pack, and was told by my doctor that I didn’t have to have a period and could start right away on the new pack, skipping the sugar pills. Two weeks later I started hemorrhaging. Alarmed, I called the doctor. He told me that break-through bleeding was “normal” and not to worry.

Me: This isn’t just a little spot or two. This is full on gushing blood here. How the hell is hemorrhaging normal??
Dr: Is there a possibility you’re pregnant?
Me: Not unless you’re expecting another Messiah.

So I’m told to come in for another exam. They find nothing wrong and I’m told that I’ve lost a lot of blood.

No shit, Sherlock!

After this point, I’d had enough and went to see my GP — who, honestly, I should have seen in the first place. I told her what was going on and told her about the various medications I had taken, and about the problems I’d recently had with Seasonale. She told me that she wasn’t surprised, and that Seasonale had just gotten their fannies smacked by the FDA (pdf), and she’d heard from several other women had experienced the same thing I had just gone through.

Note: I was told by several sources it’s been pulled from the market altogether, but can’t find anything in print right now.

Anyways, she switched me to a low hormone pill. When I asked about the other kind of rings, patches, etc. She told me she didn’t trust them, and they increase your risk factors for blood clots and certain types of cancers (among a whole horde of other things).

I’m on Loestrin now. What pisses me off most was that when I was put on all those other meds before by my gyn, I asked if there were any side effects I needed to be aware of. I was never told about the cramps, the bleeding, the headaches, or the extensive list of other side effects I could possibly encounter. All in all, I’ve learned that yes, having a period is a pain, but it also serves a necessary function, and having one every few months is better for my peace of mind.

Anyways, the whole point of this rant is: ladies, talk to your doctors! Whether you’re a user of a patch, a ring, or a pill. Find out if you need to get more calcium, if OTC medicines or one of your prescriptions could counter-act it (as well as various drug treatments), if you may gain weight (a biggie with EVERY woman I know, myself included!), … There are a lot of myths about the pill that have been around since our mothers and grandmothers were on it, and it amazes the hell out of me how many doctors DON’T talk about this sort of thing. (And too many women either don’t know, or are too scared, to ask.)