I’d like to propose a word for last year: “Disingenuous.” It’s a word that’s stuck in my head, like a piece of music can get stuck in your ear.
Maybe it’s just aging – the way one word slips out of your mind every time you try to recall it, while another word decides to stay awhile. Does this happen to you? I can never remember the name of my favorite drug for instance, it’s an anti-inflammatory like Advil or Aleve but it doesn’t start with an “A.” I can’t won’t take opioids for pain, but this little pill does the trick. And as you know, 2024 has brought me a lot of pain. Its brand name is “Celebrex!”
“Celecoxib is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) used to treat mild to moderate pain and help relieve symptoms of arthritis (eg, osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, or juvenile rheumatoid arthritis), such as inflammation, swelling, stiffness, and joint pain.” https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/celecoxib-oral-route/description/drg-20068925
I call this my wonder drug, and yet its name still eludes me. Celebrex lasts for twenty-four hours and doesn’t upset the stomach as much as other NSAIDs, but you do need an Rx. OTOH, I just watched an ad on TV of a young guy falling down, injuring his back, and calling AMAZON to Facetime a doctor and have his prescription delivered right to his door – all while lying flat on his back on the kitchen floor. Doctor and pharmacy visit avoided.
I wondered if the MD or NP on the phone was an AI for a second.
Which leads me right to the next word – the one that is stuck in my head – Disingenuous. To be disingenuous is to be untrustworthy, dishonest, deceitful. You can tell I HATE AI. It’s enough to make me a Luddite. Last year’s election, and the time before that when another exceptional woman wasn’t elected President, has left me bereft. My physical ailments notwithstanding, I feel as if our country has lost its way. Maybe it started with “alternative truth.” Bob has a problem with putting a possessive pronoun in front of truth to begin with… so this is MY truth? Listen to ME! For me, a fact… is a fact… is a fact.
And aging is a part of this circle of life. I’m not injecting toxic chemicals in my body to “fight” aging, because aging always wins. As I enter the last quarter century of my time here on earth, I am determined to slow down and simplify my life. In a Buddhist sense, I want 2025 to be my “aimless” year – no more running after happiness, simply cherish the present moment. I – you – we are enough. In that mood, I don’t need another dog. After Ms Bean died, I started questioning that decision, thinking maybe a lap dog would be fun. But no, it would also create chaos.
And no more disingenuous people please. No more two-faced politicians, like that Republican Senator from Louisiana with an unlikely name, John Kennedy, who stood disdainfully near the podium at a news conference after the New Year’s NOLA terrorist attack. He ridiculed an NBC reporter, and suggested there was some conspiracy the federal government was hiding, and that pure “evil” exists in the world. Old fire and brimstone, just another old white guy giving us all a scolding in an affected voice like Foghorn Leghorn.
The word for the New Year in our family is Twins! Congratulations to Aunt Kiki and the Rocker, their double feature is due in the spring. I’ve got a few weeks left of hand therapy and another baby blanket to knit, but I cannot wait to meet them.
Congratulations to this year’s Nobel Prize winners in Medicine for their work on sensory awareness.
In a year dominated by a worldwide pandemic, where the one and only thing I wanted was to hug my grandchildren again, we now know how our neurotransmitters relay the touch of a loved one to our brains! Ironic, don’t you think.
“David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian, from the US, share the 2021 prize in Medicine or Physiology for their work on sensing touch and temperature…. (the latter’s) experiments led to the discovery of a different type of receptor that was activated in response to mechanical force or touch. When you walk along a beach and feel the sand under your feet – it is these receptors that are sending signals to the brain.”
While Patapoutian was discovering a touch receptor that factors into our body’s ability to sense it’s time to urinate among other things, Julius was working on sensing the burning heat of a chili pepper. The hot culprit is the chemical capsaicin.
Last week I tried out a new recipe for Mexican street corn. I happened to have a pablano chili pepper which is probably the most mild pepper around. I like to chop one into my turkey vegetable chili, but this time I roasted the pepper before adding it to the corn – and I didn’t take the skin off. Even without the seeds, this almost bland chili transformed itself, adding quite a lot of heat. Bob loved it.
I know, you’re probably thinking “Big Deal.” So science is again just telling us what we already know – it hurts to slip and fall on the deck and never order Nashville’s hot chicken. But we didn’t actually know what these touch and heat receptors were, connected to our brains, and now that they have been identified there are profound implications.
Like treating chronic pain, for example.
Every now and then my foster mother Nell would yell, “You’re a pain in the neck!” Of course, I was usually doing something she disapproved of, but today it seems like a prophesy. My doctor recently told me I have severe cervical arthritis. Not to brag, or become one of those seniors who harps on their infirmities, sometimes I would like to have someone shoot a large needle of novacaine in my trapezius.
But what if my neck didn’t send a shot of pain to my brain whenever I move it a certain way? What if, as we age, and as we shrink, and our spinal cartilage collapses, our brain still thinks we’re 35? Or maybe 50!
The broad implications of treating addiction in the future are exciting. Less suffering in the world is a good thing. I may even start cooking with jalapeno peppers! Depending on the outcome of the two bills hovering around Congress, and the start of a new SCOTUS season filled with challenges to Roe and guns, this scientific breakthrough – about touch and heat – should give us hope for a better future.
MountainMornings 