I rediscovered television after seven long years sans. I have already mentioned a slight obsession with "Grey's Anatomy," and I am afraid I followed a good friend's advice and took a liking to "Prison Break" over the past few days. What is it about that Scofield character that I love so much? Anyway, I'm only on Season 1 episode 4 but I can tell I am in this for the long haul.
Sometimes I have a slight problem with the (totally illegal, I'm sure) Chinese web site that has uploaded all of these episodes. I'm not downloading a thing, but I watch on their little player. It's like YouTube, if you will, but with Chinese subtitles.
Occasionally, the site just can't handle its own traffic, I think, and I have to pause the show and walk away for a half hour, twenty minutes, and see if the show is ready to be watched or not. This can be a painful experience after a particularly dramatic moment, and "Prison Break" is full of 'em.
This happened recently in the middle of episode 4. To ease the tension, I thought, "Why not watch a goofy show in the meantime?" See? I am helping my TV troubles with further TV. It's genius.
So I watched an episode of "Scrubs" to kill time. Any "Scrubs" fans would know that J.D. passes out whenever he poops, but I was thrilled to the bones to find out that all of this is due to repeated vasovagal syncope. I got sort of freakishly excited when he was given his diagnosis, because that was actually a medical condition I knew a little something about. I myself was diagnosed with it in 2002, after a year in which I fainted five times for seemingly unrelated reasons. And no, it was not while on the toilet. Turns out, my heart occasionally thinks I'm dying so it starts pumping like crazy, and it sends too much blood to the brain. It's pretty neat, actually, because I get about three minutes' warning before going down for the count. Apparently, I just need to drink more water, which I have been doing for five years and haven't fainted since.
BUT! I got a little aggravated at the "Scrubs" team beause J.D. was diagnosed after Dr. Cox took a blood sample. According to Wikipedia, you can't be diagnosed with vasovagal syncope by blood. You've got five options: a tilt table, a loop recorder (?), a Holter moniter, an EKG, or an electrophysiology study. I know that I had the good fortune of doing a tilt table test, in which the nurses tried out a variety of things that *might* make me faint while strapped to a table. They kept trying and trying until they found something. And that was pretty awesome, especially when I had to interrupt their conversation about paint colors to let them know that I was pretty much destined to go down. The creepy thing about the tilt table is that they don't actually give you the satisfaction of fainting, they just spin the table to a horizontal position so that you never actually fall. I guess that's the safer bet, but it made things worse to feel like fainting and then get spun around 90�.
So anyway. Can you believe it? A little inaccuracy by the "Scrubs" writers, and I caught it. Hard to think such a credible, medical show would be so sloppy.
yes, someone else who watches their TV online like i do. it is a lifesaver for me. well perhaps not a lifesaver, but more like a boredom saver. ok, not boredom per se. i just watch shows while i breastfeed. as much as i like connecting to my daughter in that way, i go a little nuts if i have nothing to read or watch. i find it very difficult to hold a book due to the way i hold her while i feed her, so watching something on the computer is just the best thing. wow, i suppose that is just entirely too much info. oh well. which website do you use? i use youtube some and peekvid.com mostly.
yes, someone else who watches their TV online like i do. it is a lifesaver for me. well perhaps not a lifesaver, but more like a boredom saver. ok, not boredom per se. i just watch shows while i breastfeed. as much as i like connecting to my daughter in that way, i go a little nuts if i have nothing to read or watch. i find it very difficult to hold a book due to the way i hold her while i feed her, so watching something on the computer is just the best thing. wow, i suppose that is just entirely too much info. oh well. which website do you use? i use youtube some and peekvid.com mostly.
You and I are a lot allike! I was diagnosed with Vagovasel Syncope in 2000 after I kept fainting at work all the time. They did the tilt test and gave me some mild beta blocker thingy to take to calm my heart down. The medication made me sluggish, I stopped taking that and like you just drank a ton of water and it went away. But I know what youmean about 3 minute warning you'd get. I'd see stars. I knew that meant sit your ass down or you were going to fall down. Every once in a while I will have a vago moment, as I call it and I sit down where I am.
I hated the tilt table test, it made me nervous and sick but it proved that I had Vagovasal Syncope. Not some blood test!! :)
I love it that you started to watch Prison Break. I watched Grey's last night and I was crying. I was watching the episode where George's dad was in the hospital.
You should write to the people of Scrubs to just give them an FYI. That is awesome that you totally knew what was going on and how they were wrong.
Oh wow, my husband has the same thing only he had to have a pacemaker put in 'cause when he faints his heart stops for a good 30 seconds. Boy did he hate that tilt table.
also try alluc.org or tv-links.co.uk for tv links to free streaming
Those were the two sites I was going to recommend.
You guys need the tvu player. www.viidoo.com has links to the download, a user forum and a tv guide. Right now Fox, Cbs, Comedy Central, Spike TV, Fox News are streamed live from the Bay area. Unfortunately Nbc and Abc were taken down a while ago due to legal threats, but some dude ups them from time to time. Quality is good enough to play on a sub-40" TV.
I don't suppose you'd like to share the url of that Chinese web site?