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Autobio Rambling

Crazy week. My back molar split on Wednesday, necessitating an extraction. I then had to cover a lengthy client meeting Wednesday evening that didn't let out until after 9:30. I had to get up early in order to be in Detroit for a conference that started Thursday morning at 8:30. Early Friday morning, I came down with severe dizzy spells: sudden sensations like I was going to fall over, although I was often lying down. It turns out, this is a possible side effect of my antibiotic, which can be exacerbated by drinking . . . something I did a lot of Thursday evening with my eldest kids in Ann Arbor. I stopped taking the antibiotic yesterday at 4:00, but as of this writing, the dizziness is still with me. One website says it could take a few days to stop. Great.

My paternal grandmother said, it's no good to grow old. I guess it beats the alternative.

One thing I discovered: Those drug websites are inconsistent with their information and aren't terribly informative. I consulted a half-dozen. I read that dizziness is a fairly common side effect of the antibiotic, that dizziness is a sign of an allergic reaction and I should call a doctor, that dizziness is a sign of a possible

severe reaction and I should seek medical attention right away, that dizziness is very rare with this antibiotic and dangerous. Of course, on most of the sites, dizziness was just listed with another, oh, 200 or so other side effects, all of which were lumped under a statement like, "Call your medical provider immediately if any of these things occur."

Those websites are a great illustration of why you can't trust anything anymore: Providers are more interested in not being liable/responsible for a problem than they are in being helpful. By saying, "Call your doctor if anything at all happens that is unusual," they punt away responsibility . . . even though they've also punted away helpfulness.

This happens with all providers, whether medical or other. I know lawyers who always adapt drafted-by-experts forms for their transactions. There's nothing wrong with these forms (I have, I'm guessing, over 100,000 of them in my legal database subscriptions and often use them or consult them for ideas) and the lawyers who use them normally alter them responsibly to fit the transaction, but for many transactions, they're simply inappropriate because they're overkill. The transactions are often family transactions, small transactions, or simple transactions. A glorified handshake is all that's really necessary, but by using the third-party form, the lawyer helps shield himself from malpractice claims . . . even though the burdens associated with a ten-page form far outweigh the benefits to the participants.

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