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Posts Tagged ‘public health’

The Flip Side

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 7, 2013| 6 Comments »

Something psychedelic has been happening lately on Facebook. A friend from my high school’s Class of ’66 issued a challenge to her classmates to change our profile picture to our teenage self, preferably sporting that iconic hairstyle, the flip. Our generation bridged the gap between the long, straight hair type and the teased within an inch of your life Peggy Sue Got Married type. And nestled right there inbetween the greatest social changes imaginable, lots of us wore the flip with impunity.   CLR High School Web 20131107

Once your virtual self looks sixteen again, memories start floating back. I entered a public high school fresh out of Catholic school. My hair was the least of my worries. I had a severe case of poison ivy on my face Freshman year, and I only knew a few people. The bulk of Sacred Heart grads went on to a Catholic high school; I put my foot down. I was tired of memorizing Catechism. A girl named Margie introduced me to a boy named Bob and from that moment on my fate was sealed.

We sat together at the ‘nerd’ lunch table, which at that prehistoric, precomputer time meant the outliers. Those kids who didn’t play a sport, didn’t wear black leather, didn’t fit in. What we did like to do was drama club, so we would try out for all the plays and look dramatic over tuna fish sandwiches. Our town was salt of the earth blue collar, but most of this lunch table was headed for college. My counselor put me on track for secretarial school, so even though I wasn’t in many of their classes, they accepted me. We were brothers and sisters in Terpsichore.

Some of us became the Big Chill Thanksgiving troupe, gathering again year after year over turkey and cranberry sauce. Too bad my eyes are closed.12156_101119189911809_6561742_n

And it may be hard to believe, but we had a student at our school who suffered from polio. Before the ADA, this girl had to be home-schooled because she was in a wheelchair. I knew she lived in Victory Gardens, and that was all I knew about her. I remembered being lined up at Sacred Heart in the hallway, having to swallow some pink liquid. This was the first polio vaccine, and so I guess our generation bridged that gap as well.

Bob was just telling me how polio is making a comeback mostly because of war-torn Syria. How health officials can’t cross borders to get the vaccine to millions of children. He said it was nearly eradicated world-wide, a gem in the WHO world, and now this creeping viral outbreak.

Following reports of a cluster of 22 acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) cases on 17 October 2013 in the Syrian Arab Republic, wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) – See more at: http://www.polioeradication.org/Dataandmonitoring/Poliothisweek.aspx#sthash.FoP4dKlo.dpuf

Polio doesn’t need a mosquito as a vector, it is passed from person to person which makes it imminently treatable, and even more deadly. On this #ThrowbackThursday, let’s flip this disease around. Consider giving a charitable gift to Unicef this holiday season to help refugee children, to help contain this epidemic. http://www.unicef.org.au/charity-gifts/polio-preventers.aspx

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Fat, Sugar, or What?

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on October 24, 2013| 2 Comments »

Who can resist a Snickers shaped like a pumpkin masquerading as a Reese’s peanut butter cup?

It’s funny really, I’ve never had a sweet tooth. Never stored bars of candy in a drawer in the kitchen. Maybe that’s why Halloween was so sacred to my kids, and they milked it for as many years as they could. They knew which houses had the full-size candy bars and which gave out bags of raisins. 

The first time I said “No” to my baby Bride was in a check-out line at the grocery store. I was trying to be all “natural mom” back in the 80s. with real diapers and pureeing my own baby food in a Mouli grater. We even joined a food co-op from Vermont! I didn’t think I’d ever have to say the word “No” about anything, after all couldn’t distraction and/or avoidance solve most discipline problems? Turns out, there’s no avoiding that stack of candy within arm’s reach of a toddler determined to get her hands on some gummy bears.

Now put a bag of chips in front of me, and it’s a different story. I’m just a pushover for salt.

Which is fine, since it turns out that Americans ingest about 138 pounds of sugar a year, and that only serves to increase our risk of heart disease. Because a new study in the British Medical Journal suggests that sugar could be worse for us than fat – raising our cholesterol etc. It’s certainly always been good news for dentists,  Sorry Eric. Now we know something I’ve always known intuitively – grass-fed Irish cow butter is better for us than cookies! There, I said it. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/top-heart-doctor-unprocessed-fatty-foods-may-actually-be-good-for-you-8897707.html

Don’t get me wrong. I’d much rather put a little real sugar in my coffee than an artificial sweetener. Sticking with real food can never lead us down that scary grocery aisle with processed homogenized cheese spread. I recently modernized the Flapper’s version of Depression mac and cheese when my Bug was visiting.

Mac and cheese please

Mac and cheese please

Since butter was scarce in the 30s, my Mom used bacon to start her scrumptious recipe and inserted slices of Swiss cheese from the deli. I found some Gruyere and shredded it instead. I can still remember her saying that she made this mac and cheese for my brother Michael, because it was his favorite dish. It turned out he was her favorite child.

And no matter how many times I said it was my favorite dish too, it didn’t matter. So when you watch this video poetry slam by Lily Myers about “The Shrinking Woman,”  “I have been taught accommodation, I have been taught to grow in…to create space around myself.” Think about how we too are entitled to calories, about how we women are worthy of filling that space. And pass the bread and butter please. 

You may have to click over to the wordpress site to watch the video, but believe me, it’s worth it.

 

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An Arch of Sanity

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on October 15, 2013| 1 Comment »

This morning I devoured my first cup of coffee with the Love Bug on my iPhone. Oh Facetime, how wonderful you are! She kissed me and carried me around with her while she cruised the living room, demonstrating her superior walking technique. I wish they could return to the Blue Ridge this weekend for our next wedding, but the Groom is on call every other night in the MICU. Great Grandma Ada and Great Grandpa Hudson are coming South to see a Big Chill daughter tie the knot in Richmond. Her fiancee was is a Marine, “…once a Marine always a Marine. There are no former Marines”

Who doesn’t love men in white gloves and dress uniforms holding an arch of swords? Unfortunately, we’re not sure if that arch will be there due to the government shutdown. We also had planned to take Hudson, who is a woodcarver and an ex-Baptist minister who officiated in 2010 at the Bride’s wedding, J&M 0622to the National WWII Monument in DC after the wedding. Gpa Hudson is an 86 year old WWII vet and has wanted to see the memorial since it first opened. We may have to storm the barricades next week if the Park Police are still guarding the gate. Listen for my Tweets people, if I’m arrested with Ada and Hudson get us a wheelchair and a lawyer!

It’s bad enough that Ted Cruz and his ideologic idiots have been holding our government hostage over their ever-moving concerns about affordable health care and debt ceilings, but it becomes meteorically worse when they try to claim this memorial as their own and blame our President for its closure…it almost made me sick in fact. It’s not only sightseeing that has been curtailed for 14 days, this shutdown has left “…vital drug trials on hold, which is a matter of life and death for some patients.”

Yes, life and death, real people who cannot participate in life-saving treatments because the NIH has stopped accepting new patients. 75% of their staff are sitting at home while 15% of their patients who cannot start a treatment protocol are children. The GOP can make up fictional scenarios like “death panels,” but they are so much better at creating real tragedies for the 99% of us.

Under normal circumstances, 200 patients at NIH enroll in clinical trials each week, 30 of whom are children. While 12 exceptions have been made for the most critical cases, this still leaves hundreds of sick patients and families stuck waiting until Congress can settle its differences. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24525913

So that comes out to about 400 people so far, who may not have a month or two to wait…two weeks after giving birth a young mother diagnosed with stage 4 sarcoma had her application for a clinical trial delayed. Michelle Langbehn has started an online petition on Change.org in order to pressure Congress and has over 140,000 signatures:  “I speak for everyone battling cancer when I say we don’t have time to wait.”  http://www.change.org/petitions/help-me-fight-cancer-and-stop-the-shutdown

Crossed swords it seems are the least of our problems. We need to vote the old guard out, get money out of politics and organize policy makers who will speak to the wide breadth of our country, with common sense and dignity for all. I can’t wait to see the new documentary “Inequality for All.” http://inequalityforall.com I’m usually pretty optimistic about life, I like to think we can take our country back, from the fringe GOP. Fingers crossed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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What if…

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on April 21, 2013| Leave a Comment »

One of the most insightful questions we might ask ourselves, when confronted with a big decision, is how would one feel afterwards. A year from now, ten years from now, would we regret that decision or be happy we made it, no matter the outcome?

It was simply serendipitous that I signed up for twitter this past week. And I had to stop looking at one point, because the things people say in the aftermath of a tragedy like the Boston bombings left me numb. And I wanted to feel for myself, think for myself, not be bombarded with everyone else’s thoughts, in real time. Plus, instead of spurting out the first thing that comes to mind, I’ve discovered, with age, that I need some time to reflect, to analyze my thoughts before putting pen to paper, or tongue to teeth…or fingers to keyboard for that matter. I realize that once dementia sets in, all bets will be off.

Only one tweet rang true to me. It had to do with our failure in the Senate to pass a meaningful background check bill that would help stem the tide of gun violence in our country, compared to locking down a city like Boston to look for a nineteen year old terrorist. Bob tells me that approximately 80 people a day die on our streets and in our homes because they could easily pick up a gun; about 2/3 of these people are suicides. On Monday 3 people died in Boston. I know, it was a cynical calculation, a malevolent ratio 80:3 – with a whiff of truth. I wondered how Americans would feel ten years from now. Sometimes it takes someone outside of our culture, to articulate a different point of view.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/21/boston-marathon-bombs-us-gun-law?CMP=twt_gu

“After all, it’s not as if this is the first time that homicidal killers have been on the loose in a major American city. In 2002, Washington DC was terrorised by two roving snipers, who randomly shot and killed 10 people. In February, a disgruntled police officer, Christopher Dorner, murdered four people over several days in Los Angeles. In neither case was LA or DC put on lockdown mode, perhaps because neither of these sprees was branded with that magically evocative and seemingly terrifying word for Americans, terrorism.”

This week the lilacs bloomed in memory of my foster mother, Nell. There were lilacs outside my bedroom window in Victory Gardens. I always had to kiss her goodbye whenever I left the house, because she said we never knew if we’d ever return. Certainly I knew accidents could happen, I was living proof, because a drunk driver had hit the Flapper’s car a few months after my father died. At the age of 10 months, about the Love Bug’s age, I left my PA home and became a Jersey girl.

But I never thought terror could happen here, until I heard about my Jersey neighbor’s husband. He left one morning to go to his office at Cantor Fitzgerald. She didn’t wake up before dawn to say goodbye to him on that beautiful morning in September for some ridiculous reason. At another wake without a body, I saw “what ifs” playing out again and again. Someone had dropped their child at school first and was running late, another friend was on a ferry that docked at Wall Street and picked up its fill of ash-covered commuters before returning to Highlands. And I knew that asking “what if” was a futile exercise in blame.
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Fear and Loathing

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 9, 2013| 1 Comment »

It’s not often I find myself agreeing with John McCain. But thanks to twitter, I just read his response to this filibuster certain GOP/hardright/teapartiers have got going against background checks for gun owners:

“Sen. John McCain is flabbergasted, telling CBS’s Bob Schieffer: ‘I don’t understand it. The purpose of the United States Senate is to debate and to vote and to let the people know where we stand (so you’d encourage Republicans not to filibuster?) I would not only encourage it. I don’t understand it. What are we afraid of?'”

Good question Sen McCain. What are Republicans afraid of? This is really a bipartisan issue, a public health issue and not a 2nd Amendment issue IMHO! In states where background checks are required before purchasing a gun, gun trafficking has decreased 48% – nearly been cut in half. And women killed in domestic violence by a gun? Those numbers have decreased 38%. Bob always points out that the vast majority of gun deaths in this country are the result of suicide. I would imagine that waiting for a background check to clear may give a depressed individual time to rethink his decision.

I had to submit to a background check in order to teach in a public school. I had a young policeman, a friend of the Bride’s from high school, walk me through inking my fingerprints on pads of paper. My mug shot was taken. Maybe today they do a retinal scan? Sure, I was afraid a few parking tickets from the 60s might show up, but lucky for me I had no bench warrants for illegal parking. I passed. The Bride had to gain security clearance before her first government job out of college – FBI agents were talking with our neighbors. She passed. If you have nothing to be afraid of, if you tell the truth, and you want to carry a gun, HELL I want you to pass a background check…and so does 90 of the American public!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/04/03/90-percent-of-americans-want-expanded-background-checks-on-guns-why-isnt-this-a-political-slam-dunk/

In a UC Davis study this much was clear: : “…among those purchasing handguns legally, those with criminal records were more likely than others to purchase assault-type handguns,” (and) “among those purchasing handguns legally who had criminal records, those purchasing assault-type handguns were much more likely than those purchasing other types of handguns to be arrested for violent crimes later.”
http://www.salon.com/2012/12/26/banning_assault_weapons_works/ Which only makes me wonder why you can buy a handgun in California with a criminal record? It feels to me, the more I read, that we as a nation are going down a rabbit hole.

Senators, if we can’t reinstate an assault weapons ban after Newtown, then will calmer heads please prevail and agree with the lowly background check. It’s simple, we are already set up to do them in every state, we will most likely run into a backlog and wait for several weeks if not months for our pretty fingertips to check out, thereby preventing many suicides. The only thing you have to fear, is yourselves.

Proud of another senator, our own VA Sen Tim Kaine for tweeting this morning “I’m ready to vote yes on limits on combat weapons & universal background checks. Read my op-ed in the @PilotNews http://hamptonroads.com” Oh yeah, I’m jumping on this twitter wagon!
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An Easter Miracle

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on March 31, 2013| 5 Comments »

Don’t worry, I’m not going to get all biblical on you. I have my fond memories of Sacred Heart Church shrouded in purple, singing in the choir, fake green grass in a basket, biting off the head of a chocolate Easter bunny. And later, hiding colored eggs and candy around my friend’s yard so all our friends’ children could come in their little Wellies and hunt for treasure. Spring is in the air, robins are bobbing their heads.

And hospital and health and safety workers are on the job year round, 24 hours a day. For them, pausing for a big family dinner, let alone searching for jelly beans, doesn’t really happen. What happens is saltines and peanut butter at the nurse’s station. The Bride is working, and so is Bob. And here’s what happened at my daughter’s ER.

A man in his 30s walked into the waiting room and promptly collapsed in a chair. He lost consciousness, nobody even heard a chief complaint. When they hooked him up to an EKG it was obvious he was having a major heart attack; I think they call it Vfib? My doctor daughter had the biggest guy in the room, a tech, pound on his chest while she got the paddles ready. The pounding didn’t help, so she shocked him with the paddles, and he converted but unfortunately he got belligerent and pulled everything out, then passed out. She shocked him again.

And he came back to life. He was discharged from the hospital yesterday.

He has a wife and 3 children and probably will never meet my daughter. And it made me think of the husband of a friend of mine in Pittsfield, MA. In his 30s too, he woke up one July 4th morning sweating, and instead of going to the ER, he took a shower. That is where he died, while his wife tried calling his doctor and finally called an ambulance, before 911. She had a new baby and a toddler so I made baked ziti for the shiva. And I helped her collect pictures of her husband for her children, because i know what it’s like to lose a father so young.

On this Easter morning, Christianity teaches that rebirth can happen to all those who seek God, who walk humbly. As my dear friend Eve quotes:

“I cannot help but think, on this Easter morning, of how many times I have been resurrected. Like so many others, I have known moments when I thought my life had entered a tomb. I saw that great stone rolling between me and the hope of any future I could imagine. But then, through God’s grace and healing, I emerged into a garden to find people who cared for me waiting, waiting for me to return to life. I pray, therefore, for all of those who have been resurrected like me. I celebrate this new life with all of you who have stepped out of the grave into the light of Easter.” S. Charleston

Many thanks to all those emergency personnel who are working today, and just a little note to the Easter bunny – really, you need a break?
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