The Old Broad Sheet

On turning 69

2011-12-22T16:26:00.005-07:00

All Big-Un wants for Xmas is a belly rub.
(click for larger view)

Have I told you the story about Daddy and his roosters?

Lots of men are hard to buy gifts for and he was surely one of the hardest. One year, Mom used up about 85 books of Green Stamps and got him a big table lamp with a gigantic rooster as the base. Daddy laughed and said it was a great gift. Because of this pleasing reception, Mom started buying him roosters for every occasion. He got ceramic ones, glass ones, rooster salt and pepper shakers, vases, curtains and paintings. The rest of the family was thrilled as well. At long last the challenge of finding a gift for Daddy was solved. More roosters poured in. Over the years, he amassed a pretty impressive collection.

When he was in his final days of terminal lung cancer and mostly confined to his bed, Mom brought in the rooster lamp and set it up on his dresser to make the place look less like a sick room. Daddy stared at it while then said, “I always hated those damn roosters.”

I try not to collect things, with the exception of aphorisms and quotes. They don’t take up a lot of room, they make me laugh, or give me pause or reinforce a bias (good ones do all three). And like windfall fruit, they are everywhere, so it’s a cheap hobby to maintain.

Here’s a quote that set me off this morning as I considered my impending 69^th birthday: “How we approach life is going to determine how we all manage aging, whether we have debilitating conditions or not.”*

Chipper, cheery people will tweet through their golden years thinking they actually are “golden years.” Complainers will complain (and get worse and more vocal as the going gets tougher). Tough minded folks will never admit, not even to themselves, the mental and physical deterioration that accompanies advancing years (80-year old marathoners). Control freaks will suffer a lot -- there being so many things about aging that cannot be controlled. I suspect there are hundreds, if not thousands, of other approaches: lusts of every sort, the careless, the caring, type A and B personalities, folks who trust in the hand of God and those who tilt against the tide.

What major personal characteristic of yours is taking you through life?

I’ve long identified with Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh fame. Here’s a passage from The House at Pooh Corner that, I think, rather captures the essence of Eeyore.

(Background: Eeyore is spotted eddying about in the river that runs on the edge of the Forest where Pooh, et al, live. Seems Eeyore was “surprised” by the ever-effervescent Tigger who managed to accidentally “bounce” him into the water…

“That’s what I call bouncing,” said Eeyore. “Taking people by surprise. Very unpleasant habit. I don’t mind Tigger being in the Forest… because it’s a large Forest, and there’s plenty of room to bounce in it. But I don’t see why he should come into my little corner, and bounce there. It isn’t as if there was anything very wonderful about my little corner. Of course for people who like cold, wet, ugly bits it is rather special, but otherwise it’s just a corner, and if anybody feels bouncy-------“

“I didn’t bounce, I coughed,” said Tigger crossly.

“Bouncy or coffy, it’s all at the same at the bottom of the river.”

E-you in ‘12.

Love,

Aunt Rose

PS--Most of you know I am not a Xmas person (being born two days after and all) but to show you I do have some holiday spirit, here’s a gift – a sweet and amazing YouTube video that will change the way you think about …..Well, I’m not going to tell you what it is about or you might not look. (Special thanks to Jamie for sending it along.)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/10/lil-drac-orphaned-bat_n_1141191.html

*The quote is by Katie Doucette from an article about former Today cohost Meredith Vieira and her husband, Richard Cohen, who suffers from MS. AARP Magazine, 12/11-01/12 issue.

Happy Anniversary, Rosie

2011-10-16T16:11:00.006-07:00

Sorry about the photo (looks like sight-impaired grandma and her seeing eye dog), but I dropped my camera and this was about the last family pic I had.

Today, October 16, marks my one year anniversary as a breast cancer survivor. One year ago, my adult nurse practitioner reluctantly told me I had invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) of the right breast.

Marking survivorship from the day of diagnosis is a relatively new point of view. Not that it gives you better bragging rights, but because this philosophy emphasizes the importance of every decision you make after you hear that chilling news.

Have I made good decisions? Well, therein lies the problem… I won’t know until I die (of whatever cause!). Certainly there are things I would do differently. (Want to know what they are? Just send $19.95 and I’ll mail you Rosie’s Four Simple Rules for Making the Most Important Decisions of Your Life.) Here's a sample:

Rule one -- Don’t look for simple answers, especially from non-experts. In fact, don’t look for simple answers from anyone, even “experts.” Cancer is so complicated it’s just not possible. Educate yourself by learning about your particular variety of the disease, ask questions and always get a second opinion. Oops. Never mind the $19.95. I just gave you the rules.

So, how am I doing one year later? I feel good. I don’t have the same stamina or strength of 18 months ago, but I exercise every day. I don’t take any medications (much to my oncologist’s dismay) because they make me feel lousy and I figure after messing with my hormones (birth control + HRT) for half my life, it was time to stop mucking about with my precious bodily fluids.

As for my mental outlook; a few months back, a friend asked if I were a kinder person after having gone through this episode in my life. As I recall, I brushed her question aside and denied having gone through any major personality breakthroughs. But I’ve come to reconsider that answer. It’s not so much that I’ve become kinder, it’s that I’m learning things about myself that I am finding humbling to discover. Do I have to tell you what they are? Not yet! Humility is a new trait for me; let me get used to it for a while!

I found a helpful discussion about knowing oneself on my favorite blog site: Happiness in this World. (Philosophical stuff written by a young physician who was formerly Jewish, but is now a Nichiren Buddhist. His topics cover life, death and everything in-between in weekly Monday morning posts he promises take only five-minutes to read. His views are always worth pondering and the comments from his readers are often every bit as profound as what he writes.) http://www.happinessinthisworld.com/.

The bandana is to keep the grit out of my mouth while the wind blows about 30 mph. Spring is not one of our better seasons here in beyootiful NE Arizona

So what have I been doing for these past summer months since I’ve managed to post to my blog? My garden was the major challenge… I mean gardening in a desert. Get real. However, this year I was able to produce dozens of zucchini and a fair amount of Roma tomatoes. And as we were experiencing a miserable cold spring I thought a tomato plant from Siberia would be just the ticket so I bought an heirloom plant at the grocery store called (I think) a Black Russian. I got one lemon-sized, reddish-black lumpy thing that turned out to be the most divine tasting tomato I ever bit into. However, a late summer hailstorm and what I suspect is a #%&*@ gopher ended my gourmet gardening experiment rather prematurely.

And to think I grew about $7 worth of zucchini. Certainly makes all that effort worth while.

But summer is now long gone and I’ve moved on to other gourmet delights. Here’s one of my favorites: Wash a somewhat unripe pear. Place in a bowl in the microwave. Cook on high for 2-4 minutes (depending on how unripe, how big, etc.). Eat. (Microwave Gourmet author Barbara Kafka says to peel and core first and then wrap in plastic and then microwave. And I say “humbug.” Take the skin off and scoop out the core while you’re eating it.) Hey, life is short.

I do spend a lot of time watching Netflix pix. Here’s my recommendation for sleeper movie of the year: City Island. Despite the non-starter of a title this is a dysfunctional-family movie (but funny) about keeping secrets from those you love.

Also I am feeling perkier enough to do housework again. (Actually, I finally admitted that pulling the cancer card every time I didn’t feel like cleaning the house was really just postponing a horrible day of reckoning.) So now I put on some of Mom’s big band CDs -- the music of her youth and the music I listened to in utero -- and happily fox trot around the living room dusting and straightening while channeling Mom's happiest time.

We all deal with loss in our own special ways.

Love you all,

Rose

“Early stage cancer is like crossing the Mafia and getting away with it. You live, but must forever glance over your shoulder.”

--“Athena” (user name/quote at the “No Surrender” cancer website)

A Lump in the Throat

2011-05-18T20:28:00.001-07:00

I apologize for not having posted an update for over a month. My cancer doc wanted me to have a gynecological exam before starting my medication. I went to a new doctor, and his wife, a nurse practitioner, did the exam. She pronounced my uterus fit and healthy, but while examining my left breast (the good one) said. “There’s a lump here.”

Did your heart skip a beat? Did you say bad words? Mine did and me too.

I was already scheduled for a routine mammogram for my tater tot breast, so I had the doc order a test for the left breast, too. I got the results Wednesday: No lump. To make certain, I left mammography, walked down the hall and had an ultrasound. No lump.

Again…part of the “new normal” – living with fear of recurrence. It factors into your life and you begin to question just about everything you used to think and do. But as old “whozitz” said, “The unexamined life ain’t worth living.”

One thing I have been examining for six months was my surprise at getting cancer. The doctors have all (and I have four of them now) told me that the hormone replacement that I took for all those years wasn’t the cause. “HRT doesn’t cause cancer; if a hormone receptive breast tumor does develop though, it will feed it and cause it to grow.”

“But,” I say to myself, “Mom lived to be almost 93; both grandmas lived to their mid-nineties, all without any major health issues. I come from good cancer-free stock.”

Then it dawns on me. I’m also related to men! Daddy died of lung cancer at 69, my brother died of lung cancer at 64. Self-inflicted? Both were smokers since their youths. But as I’m finding out more about cancer, much as we fret and fuss about carcinogens, the majority of cancers are genetic in origin. Now I’m thinking that, in my case, the estrogen that I took for far longer than I should have fed the tumor that arose from a glitch in my DNA. But whence did it cometh?

And from way back in my memory banks, I recall Mama Sugar, my paternal grandma (who, by the way, smoked up until the week she died at 95 years of age) once telling me about her sister, Lillian, who died from a large tumor in her chest that everyone said was a result of her being kicked by a horse when she was a young woman.

Your Tax Dollar at Work

The hospital billed Medicare $40,328 for my use of their radiation equipment. Medicare paid them $38,116. Bob and I paid the balance of $2200. No wonder this country is going broke.

But one of the many blessings I count these days is having my cancer now, before 30 million new folks get dropped into the system!

And remember: Life is filled with lumps. “….And a lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat, and a lump in the breast are not the same lump. One should learn the difference.”

-- M. Dix, Letter to the Editor, Haxtun-Fleming Herald 10-10-01

Love to all,

Rose

Done! (to a turn)

2011-03-30T20:56:00.002-07:00

Just a short post to let you know: Six weeks and two days, 1650 miles, thirty-three blasts of radiation are all behind me now.
Read more »

That special glow

2011-02-27T16:40:00.007-07:00

I am nearing the half-way point in my radiation treatments. So far the side effects are mild: I crave sweet things (rare for me; I’m a salty type); I am tired, tired lots of the time; and there’s some mental confusion, mostly forgetting stuff like appointments and words and dates.

But dates have always been hard for me to remember. That’s the reason, when Bob asked me to marry him, I choose Leap Year Day. I thought it would be a nice easy day to deal with since it only happened every four years. As it turned out, it was better than planned since in the three off years we get to celebrate on February 28 and on March 1 as well! And one year was totally crazy: I was cooking an ordinary evening meal and wondering where Bob was when he walked into the house carrying a single rose in a vase.

“What’s the flower for?” I asked.

Sheepishly he replied, “I’m sorry; I forgot.”

“Forgot what?”

“It’s our silver anniversary, Rose”

Oh, oops.

The upshot was that we drove to Flagstaff that following weekend and bought a new car--a lovely shiny gray 2001 Subaru Forester that we christened and still own and still call, “Silver Annie.”

Anyway, February 28/March 1 mark our 35^th wedding anniversary. We dare not miss celebrating this one; we can’t afford a new car!

Last Friday I went to a cancer support group meeting. Just me and three other women that day – all of us with breast cancer, but it was upbeat with lots of laughter and boob jokes. It’s not always that way suggested one of them; “Some days we cry together.” Two of the women, one just 36 years old, the other 51, had mastectomies and are now enduring breast reconstruction and exchanged information on how their new breasts are getting pumped up a bit at a time. Apparently, unlike a balloon, you can’t just go and inflate the breast all at once.

The other woman, a bit older than me, was more subdued. She has other health issues that compete for her stamina in dealing with her cancer. Still she has a steely resolve and outlook that is enviable.

Since I am a maniac for information (once a librarian, always a librarian) I continually search for studies and articles about the disease and the attempts to cure it…if there is a cure. Some think the best that can be hoped for is to prolong life. But these ladies as well as a colleague at work who has survived stage four breast cancer (including a double mastectomy), and my beautiful niece-in-law, who is beating a far more serious cancer than mine, provide something that doesn’t exist online or on the page – the reality of living with cancer, the “new normal.” To a woman, all are positive in their outlooks. Despite pain, discomfort, hair loss, disfigurement and ruined plans, they understand life is a gift.

Count your blessings now. Why wait?

Love to you all,
Rose

P.S. -- I am pictured above with my surgeon, Dr. W. He looks kind of like Bob, huh?

Side Effects

2011-01-30T13:43:00.005-07:00

For those of you who read my previous lengthy and educational (or boring, as the case may be) post about radiation treatment (written not so much for you, but more for me to build a case to take to the cancer docs), you can dismiss it. Radiation is back on my plate. Long story short, I lost out to the breast cancer standard treatment juggernaut. The hype, “individualized, personalized treatment” apparently does not include the patient.

Now the latest decision I face (but wonder if I’ll have any say over) is what kind of drug I get to take for the next five years or, possibly, the rest of my life. One is Tamoxifen and the other Femara. Both eliminate any bit of estrogen this poor old body still can eke out. However they differ wildly in their side effects. (Here are the choices: http://www.breastcancer.org/Image/side_effects_chart_tcm8-331822.pdf.)

So, what’ll it be? Osteoporosis, increased cholesterol and weight gain (etc.) with Femara vs. blood clots, endometrial cancer and hair thinning (etc.) with Tamoxifen.

Sigh.

Back in about 6^th grade, the entire class at Louisa May Alcott School took the Kuder Preference test. You used a pin to punch out your answers to a long series of survey questions indicating a career bent in one of 9 different categories: mechanical, clerical, computational, scientific, literary, social service, persuasive, artistic and musical. (*As a footnote, “outdoors” was added later as a category.) The questions were sort of like, (The following reconstruction is done from a distance of close to sixty years and is entirely fictional, but you’ll get the idea): “If you had a sick friend, would you rather (a) take care of him, (b) read to him, (c) make him chicken soup or (d) send a get well card.

I don’t even know what my best score was (I’d like to think “literary”), but, by far and away, my lowest scoring category was “social service.” Out were career options in a number of occupations, particularly those in health care. It was eerily prescient. I cannot imagine being in a job surrounded all the time by sick and diseased people! They are boring; all they are concerned about are themselves and their illness.

But, guess what? Here I am.

It bothers me how my disease has taken over my life, making me a one-dimensional person centered on one thing: the damn cancer.

So, I’m trying to get back to previous pleasures and get that chattering self-obsessed monkey to shut up for a while. To wit:

The movie Black Swan. I tried to find a good adjective to describe it in a message to my friend Jamie but the closest I could come was that I didn’t mind a bit paying big bucks at the box office to see it. Not for everyone though (madness, obsession, and even though there’s sexual naughtiness, definitely not a guy’s movie!)

The book Bonk by Mary Roach (free with Interlibrary Loan). Mary Roach is the funniest non-fiction writer on the planet. Bonk makes light of scientific inquiries into sex (from an especially female point of view). Here’s a gentle sample and, remember, she is writing about real stuff.

These days, the only animal testicles being implanted into men are silicone prosthetics called Neuticles – intended for neutered pets….You may well be wondering why a neutered dog would need prosthetic testicles. A vet quoted on the Neuticles Web site says the product, ‘helps the pet’s self-esteem.'

(Not for everyone though (madness, obsession, and even though there’s sexual nuttiness, definitely not a guy’s book!)

Love to all,
Rose

P.S. For those of you who didn’t manage to wade all the way through my last blog (don’t bother now since it is moot), visit my friend Jean’s blog with recipes for singles (or sometimes two): http://solefoodfunk.com.

P.P.S. The picture is me and Big-Un in older times. It's my screen saver.

Tough decision

2011-01-23T12:42:00.010-07:00

On January 12, I had an appointment with Dr. T. (the general oncologist) to discuss the results of the P.E.T. scan.

The test revealed no evidence of cancer in my body and except for some arteriosclerosis in my abdominal aorta, every thing looked fine. My blood work was okay as well, and he pronounced me “a very healthy 68."

I found this highly gratifying as I have spent the past dozen or more years working hard to overcome the sins of my youth by eating right and exercising regularly. So I asked, “If my tumor was so small (just three mm), and I had clear margins (no signs of cancer surrounding the site where the tumor was removed), a negative sentinel node biopsy and a good P.E.T. scan, why do I have to have radiation?”

He was taken aback: “Well! It’s part of the standard treatment . Statistics show radiation can help you live another 20 or more years.”

But I pressed the point until he finally dragged me next door and stood there while I made an appointment to see the radiation oncologist, Dr. H., the following week to discuss my questioning of standard treatment.

Fair enough. I needed a second opinion. But would I get an unbiased answer from someone whose job is to administer radiation therapy to cancer patients? I went home and started doing research and composing my questions to ask Dr. H.

Here are some points/questions I considered for my visit:

Online I found three fairly recent studies (No pooh-poohing. I was a university reference librarian after all) indicating a low rate of local recurrence of breast cancer in older women (70+) who had small, stage one tumors even when they did not have radiation treatments. All participants, with or without radiation, still had to take the hormonal adjustment therapy, Tamoxifen. (I’ve kind of mashed the study results together but essentially here are some key results.) The statistics showed that after five years with radiation and Tamoxifen there was a tiny chance (less than one percent) of local recurrence of the breast cancers. Women who only took Tamoxifen and no radiation had a local recurrence rate between 3 and 4 percent.

Women who underwent radiation but still had local recurrences of their cancers had to then have mastectomies. Women who didn’t have radiation and took Tamoxifen only and had a local recurrence had the option of having another partial mastectomy (followed by radiation – no escape this time).

And this interesting statistic: The five year survival rate of the radiation + hormonal therapy group was identical to the survival rate of the radiation only group. (Increased anxiety is a consideration for someone with a genetic propensity for worrywartism (moi). But Bob notes that I would worry in either case.)

Question: What kind of vitamins should I take during radiation to help counter the fatigue and other side effects of the treatments? Dr. H.: “No vitamins. There’s research to suggest that vitamins keep the cancer cells healthy.” (My note: Radiation therapy is radiation poisoning after all-- controlled, yes, but death to all cells without regard to healthy or cancerous is its mission.)

Weight: I’ve already lost 10 pounds since this cancer episode began. (I weigh less now than I did in 8^th grade, but not a diet strategy I can recommend!) Radiation tends to make everything taste metallic; loss of appetite is pretty standard. While I love being slender, I just don’t think it’s all that healthy to not have any reserve adipose tissue!

Expense (minor consideration although the office manager for Dr. H. said she would bill Medicare a jaw-dropping $65,000 for the treatments. Medicare, in turn, would offer the hospital a payment between 15K and 20K that the hospital would accept. This means Medicare picks up 80 percent of the hospital payment figure; we pick up the tab for the remaining 20 percent.)

Inconvenience: 6-7 weeks driving daily to the hospital (60 mile round trip) for a 1-2 minute blast, rising gas prices, time missed from work for the treatments and/or the resulting fatigue.

Pain/discomfort: Here’s a quote from one of the studies: (http://caonline.amcancersoc.org/cgi/content/full/55/1/4): “…women who had radiation in addition to Tamoxifen reported worse breast pain, swelling and cosmetic outcomes in the first few years of follow-up compared with women who took only Tamoxifen. After about 4 years though, these effects were similar in both groups.”

Dr. H. said a portion of the lung cannot be screened from the radiation. (If there’s a cancer I fear, it is lung cancer. It took out both my daddy and my brother and I smoked for 35 years.) New studies are showing that long term side effects of full breast radiation indicate not only small chances of lung cancers, but also melanoma, heart and circulatory problems since blood vessels in that part of my chest are also damaged.

Because I am older, it is generally assumed that my cancer is less aggressive than the cancers in younger women. On the other hand, maybe the healthy status I have worked so hard all these years to achieve has made the cancer cells healthy too.

My final big question for the doctor: "What I want to know is if not undergoing radiation for my cancer is a reasonable option for me?

He said that it was. So I have decided I will proceed with my life without radiation.

Of course, there were other considerations I haven't discussed, ones more personal and emotional. And while my friend Betsy has cautioned me that someone suffering from multiple losses often doesn't think as clearly as under normal circumstances, I think this decision is a reasonable one. And, too, I want you to see how tough a simple 'go' or 'no' can be in case you might someday face a similar situation.

On a fun note, for those who cook mostly for themselves, my friend Jean (she who helped me settle my Mom’s apartment) is writing a book with wonderful recipes geared for one (or, sometimes, two). She has also begun a charming blog that includes some of her tasty recipes. She had an apple omelet sort of thing the other day that I made for lunch. It was so simple, yet so nummy I have definitely added it to my frequent cooker file. There's an RSS feed as well that if you click, you get automatic messages in your e-mail when she posts a new recipe. Here’s the link: http://solefoodfunk.com/.

The pictured flower is an amaryllis. Everett, a friend and colleague from work, and his wife Debbie gave me the bulb in memory of Mom. It’s a traditional gift their church offers to those grieving a death. While the plant has lots of Christian symbolism attached to it, I have been fascinated just watching it grow. It started out as a little white stubby thing that turned into this gorgeous two and a half-foot tall flower with four huge deep reddish-orange blossoms (the petals total 6 inches across!) I call it Amazing Grace.

Love to all,
Rose

You are a lucky woman

2011-01-09T20:38:00.006-07:00

Tuesday was the big day – 1:30 and 2:00 appointments with the oncologist and then the radiation oncologist. They work closely together and have adjoining suites in a building about a block from the main hospital.

The amount of information you get from just one cancer doctor can cause you to wilt with overload. After the two docs, I was dragging. Bob (who accompanies me these days for plunges into the health care jungle) practically had to carry me to the hospital for a blood draw after the appointments. (But here’s a tip I learned during the draw: If you have lymph node removal done, never after have blood pressure taken from that arm, nor have a blood draw, nor receive injections, nor....Well, there’s a whole litany of other things not to do: http://www.imaginis.com/breast-health/lymphedema. (Women with double mastectomies have blood pressure readings done on either their feet or legs.)

Anyway, I was so boggled that it wasn’t until I was in the car on the way home when I remembered the words of the oncologist. “You are a lucky woman. Your breast cancer is classified T-1A, the one that is the most survivable.” Now that perked me right up!

I still don’t know much more about the upcoming radiation treatments. Apparently I go through a planned simulation of the treatment before I actually start the genuine therapies. For now, all I know is that sessions will start within the month and be Mondays through Fridays for six weeks at the hospital in Show Low, about 30 miles from home.

Part of the wait to begin radiation also involves getting results of a P.E.T. (positron emission tomography) scan (http://www.petscaninfo.com/zportal/portals/pat/) that I had two days after consulting the docs. In the test, the patient is injected with a radioactive glucose solution and the machine probes down to the body’s very cellular level to determine the presence of cancer or other conditions or diseases. I thought it seemed redundant as everyone is already aware of my cancer, but I think the oncologists want to see if I’m otherwise okay.

The hospital doesn’t have a scanner; it is trucked in once a week by a national medical supply company. In order to schedule the test, I was interviewed on the phone by a woman on the East Coast. At one point she asked, “Are you claustrophobic?”

I dunno. I can ride an elevator without giving it much thought, so I said, “No.” But afterward I started thinking about spending 45 minutes trapped in a tube about the size of a coffin and whether or not I’d freak out. And, of course, the more I dwelt on it, the more panicky I made myself. Finally, I called the oncologist’s office and asked to have a prescription for a sedative or something for the test. He prescribed Ativan – one pill only. And I can see why it was just one…it is wonderfully potent. Taking it about a half hour beforehand turned the scan into a visit to some kind of weird spa: I was completely without cares, covered by a warm blanket, with Bobby just outside of the machine reading to me in his soothing, mellifluous voice. I was in a silver rocket to Nirvana.

Down to earth now – the picture is of the new paint job on the house. (Bob took it yesterday and you can still see snow from our storm of 10 days ago. It’s been so cold so long it hasn’t melted yet.) Anyway, the paint colors don’t show up as vividly as in real life, but are a sandy rose and a sort of brick red…While aesthetically pleasing, they were selected for a more practical reason -- they are the colors of the soil and mud in this part of Arizona. That is to say; they don’t show the dirt. I painted the porch and some of the window trim; Bob did the rest with a small hand sprayer. It took us most of October and November. We didn’t quite get it all done because after a lovely, long Indian summer, the temps plunged to single digits in mid-November!

But at least it was above zero. Ten days ago the temperature here at the house dropped to minus 17 degrees. Yes. This is Arizona and don't mention a word about global warming.

Love to all,

Rose

A bump in the road of progress

2010-12-30T19:51:00.004-07:00

While the initial results of my surgery were good, I managed to overdo shortly afterward. (Hey, you're alive, you feel pretty good so you start trying to catch up with all the tasks you’ve neglected.) The result was half a dozen small hematomas (lumps under the top layers of skin where clotted blood collects in hard, painful lumps.) They are the reason you don’t want to take aspirin before surgery or even very soon afterward as aspirin stops up blood vessels, forcing more blood to pool in the injured area causing the hematoma to grow and grow and grow. (A fine example is at :http://postsurgicalhematoma.com/) Most of mine were small, but there was one walnut-sized lump in my armpit. It underlay the incision for the sentinel node biopsy and every kind of bra sat right on top of the incision and every movement of my arm chafed and irritated the lump even more. Can you say %$&@$#?

Nonetheless, on December 13, I flew to Colorado. With the wonderfully generous help and support of my (and Mom’s friend) Jean Gray, who left her home in Haxtun to come to Fort Morgan and help me sort and box belongings, we got through the sad activities of closing Mom’s life.

As I was getting ready for bed the evening after Jean had returned home, I took off my shirt and saw a hematoma the size of a lemon that had turned a mottled streaky red. I freaked. I got in the rental car and raced to the emergency room at the Ft. Morgan Medical Center. There, three lovely women (two nurses and the night shift doctor) calmed me down, wrapped my breasts and my hematoma in 12 feet of Ace bandages, and assured me I would live.

And I did.

As of this writing, the hematoma is the size of a marble.

Yesterday was the one month anniversary of my surgery and I had an appointment with my surgeon who had performed the partial mastectomy. He examined me for about 30 seconds, nodded positively and OK'd my moving on to the oncology doctors.

Soon will be decisions on radiation, drugs and possible chemotherapy. But that’s then -- for now, I am grateful for feeling as well as I do.

Thank you for your cards and messages and loving support and encouragement. The kindness of so many this past month has kept me afloat.

Love,
Rose

P.S. More good news: My eye is healing from the retinal tear repair. The white is still a rabbity tint and I get peripheral flashing lights in darkness, but I have lost only a modest amount of visual acuity.

Bad things happen in threes

2010-12-06T19:27:00.005-07:00

Since my breast cancer has been the most eventful thing that has happened to me in years (I live a blissfully routine life), I wanted to give a blow by blow account of every step of the journey. And maybe I will later, but for now I will skip many of the painful details so I can let you know the outcome of my surgeries and what comes next.

I had a partial mastectomy and sentinel node biopsy a week ago, Monday, November 29. (Eight hours in the hospital, two in surgery, general anesthetic). I had moderate pain in the wound sites and a difficult intense burning sensation in the nerve that runs the length of the armpit on the body side (akin to a blow torch running up and down the skin). The doc weaseled when he talked about that pain. “Well, it may resolve itself in time.” Ouch. It hasn’t yet!

Anyway, I made good progress. I was up and about and off pain pills by Thursday when it was such a beautiful day here, almost 70 degrees (unheard of considering it had been 9 degrees just 5 days earlier!) I spent several hours out-of-doors soaking in some Vitamin D, but noticed something odd; I had lots of new cobwebby floaters in my left eye. I attributed it to being in bright sun light for the first time in days. But that night, as I was getting ready for bed, all kinds of bright, almost fluorescent flashes of light kept blinking on and off in the corner of my left eye.

Since I have glaucoma in that one eye, I knew something was amiss. Early the next morning I called my ophthalmologist in the Valley (he only visits up here once a week). His office got me into another eye doc’s office in Show Low that morning. As a result of that exam, I was diagnosed with a retinal tear. The upshot: Bob and I were scheduled to make the 3 ½ hour drive to Phoenix the next day, Saturday, where I would have emergency laser eye surgery (a procedure done to head off the far more serious and incredibly painful detached retina.) We would have to head directly back afterward because Bob had to deliver newspapers that morning.

Well, have you ever seen a copy of the Edvard Munch painting The Scream? http://www.theartwolf.com/masterworks/munch.htm) I confess that when we got back in the car from the diagnostic exam I lost my composure. All I could do was sit there and open my mouth without any coherent sound coming out, just squeaks and blubbers. I was so overcome with all that was happening to us.

Bob calmed me down. He took me to lunch at my favorite Mexican place (La Casita) where I had the world’s best green chile and refried beans. Fortified, we headed off to Dr. Waldo’s office where I was to get the results of the partial mastectomy and node biopsy. This was what it was all about. Did they get the cancer it time?

On the way, I remembered the old cliché, “They say ‘bad things happen in threes.’ This eye situation is number three. That’s just got to mean I’ll get a good report from the surgeon.”

And I did.

The sentinel node biopsy showed no cancer. That rules out the spread of this cancer to other places in my body. And while Dr. Waldo, my breast surgeon, said there were cancer cells present at the site of the earlier lumpectomy (done way last month), he removed them and excised another 3 mm of tissue from one side of where it had been and 1.5 mm from the other side. Neither of those samples showed a presence of cancer. It’s what’s known as a clear or clean margin. Dr. Waldo summarized by saying, “In my mind, your breast is negative for cancer.”

I trust Dr. Waldo. He is not a guy that sugar coats anything. When I asked him if he cured my cancer he said, “Probably not. You’ll have to remain vigilant the rest of your life.”

In a month or so, when I am fully healed from these operations, I will start a five-week course of daily radiation treatments. There’s also the chance that the next doctors I consult after that (the oncology guys) will recommend some kind of drug treatments or chemotherapy. That will be a tough decision.

But for now I am confident I have bought a normal healthy life for another solid decade or maybe even two.

My eye looks scary, but the doctor said that procedure went perfectly. Life is good.

I so appreciate the love and concern you have showered me with.

Love to all,
Rose

Mom's obituary (it's pretty cool)

2010-12-02T12:10:00.004-07:00

For a brief account of my mom's death, see my previous post.

For those of you who knew Mom, here is her obituary as it appeared in the Haxtun, Colorado newspaper. I think you'll agree, my friend (and Mom's), Jean Gray, editor and publisher of The Haxtun-Fleming Herald did a wonderful write-up. And Mom got a whole page outside of the church directory. It pays to have friends in high places!
http://eedition.hfherald.com/issue/2010-12-01/12.pdf

Love,
Rose

Rachel Brown, 1918 -- 2010

2010-11-26T15:10:00.009-07:00

After I had written a number of blog posts, I printed them out and sent them to Mom. I phoned her for her reaction.

"They seem like a lonely person trying to have a conversation with someone."

Mom may not have known squat about social networking, but she was damn perceptive.

I decided to reactivate this blog after an absence of two years to let you know about my breast cancer. Maybe start a conversation or two, but more to keep you posted about my situation. As much as I'd like to send individual messages, I simply don't have the psychic energy to keep informing each of you of what is happening to me.

I am scheduled to have surgery this coming Monday and was planning to make my first blog afterward to update you on the results. However, on Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, I received word that Mom had died.

Her death likely occurred sometime Wednesday evening, November 24. When I tried to call her on Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, I didn't get an answer to my call about 11 a.m. her time. She had been talking about going out for a turkey day invitation, and I assumed that's where she was. But she didn't return my voice message request to call back. I phoned several more times until, finally, about 8 that evening, Bob called the Fort Morgan police and had them do a check on her apartment. No one called. I phoned again at 10:30 and the dispatcher said she would have the officer on patrol return my call. He never did. But, by then, I felt certain that she had died.

Early the following morning, I contacted John H., the senior housing authority director where she lived. He confirmed he had been called in by the police Wednesday evening about 9 to open her apartment, and they found her body. This is what he told me, "The TV was on and she had the remote in one hand and her other hand was resting on the chair arm. She had taken off her shoes and tucked her socks in them -- she was such a neat little thing. Her head lay back against the chair cushion and it just looked like she was sleeping."

As deaths go, it was the kind most of us would wish for.

I had debated long and hard about telling Mom about my cancer, and had finally decided I needed her to know because, once more in my life, I needed her strength to help me through a bad patch. I didn't want to spoil her Thanksgiving by telling her then, so had planned to do it on Sunday when we had our weekly phone visits. She never knew, and I am eternally grateful she did not die with that worry on her mind.

Please do not send flowers or plants. Your support and kind thoughts and prayers, however, are most heartily needed and appreciated.

Love to all.
Rose

A Visit with the Old Broad

2008-08-16T15:45:00.007-07:00

Here’s a snapshot of me and Mom from my visit with her last month. We did little except hang out together, which was exactly what each of us wanted to do. We did make a visit to the local mortuary/crematorium to talk with the experts about what to do when…. Oddly reassuring for both of us (in a chilling sort of way).

The visit was instructive in another sense as well. Mom lives in a federally-subsidized housing complex occupied mostly by old women. There’s the expected bickering and gossip common to any closed community, but more pervasive was a sense of the residents living in the moment, taking contentment from the small pleasures their limited lifestyles afforded. They seemed satisfied with what they had because, I think, they were simply happy to be alive.

Mom showed me off to her friends by having me join a Nintendo Wii bowling tournament. (Wii is that virtual bowling game.) While my arm didn’t ache the next day as it would have if I’d actually been lofting an 11-pound ball, my sciatica killed me for days afterward!

How to Be Happier

Mom raised me on a rewinding loop of incantations taken from her own childhood, the same charms she knew -- Pennsylvania Dutch wards calculated to avert bad luck: meandering black cats, walking under ladders, open umbrellas, hats on beds.

Perhaps that’s why I’m attracted to simple rules that help govern life. If that's so, I have found a treasure trove of such resources in a web log called “The Happiness Project.” Written by a former high-powered lawyer named Gretchen Rubin, the blog is a memoir of the year she spent “test-driving every principle, tip, theory, and scientific study” she could find on rules for improving one’s life and increasing happiness.

The strategies range from the practical (e.g., the one minute rule: If it takes one minute or less to do something that needs to be done, DO IT) to well-reasoned arguments encouraging wholesale changes in lifestyles, habits and attitudes. (I confess, one of the tips from The Happiness Project, is helping me defeat a lifetime habit of cynicism.)

Making fruits and veggies safe to eat

More than twenty years ago, one of the publications I maintained in my small town library was a wonderfully readable little science and technology magazine called Science News. One of the articles I read from a mid-1990s issue detailed the discovery of a simple, cheap and effective way to disinfect fruits and vegetables at home. A food scientist named Susan Sumner found that squirting produce with three percent hydrogen peroxide (what’s sold at the drugstore) and then squirting it with vinegar (or doing it the other way around – it doesn’t matter) killed the organisms that give you gastroenteritis: E. coli, Shigella and Salmonella. Furthermore, added Sumner, the resultant spray sterilizes the sink, the cutting board (even wooden ones), and all the surfaces that come in contact with the mists. (n.b., this spray is protective against surface bacteria; nothing will protect you from systemic or absorbed contaminants.)

You can’t mix the two solutions together in a single bottle but must keep them separate. What I do is use a nozzle from another spray bottle and plug it into the hydrogen peroxide and keep the vinegar in a cute little sprayer I found at the dollar store. I keep the peroxide under the sink as it is light sensitive and will loose its efficacy when exposed.

My question, however, is this: The spray works, so why isn’t it widely known and hugely popular? Is it because you have to spray twice and Americans want something even more convenient? Or, and this is what I believe, Sumner simply let the public know about her discovery without any patent or copyright compensation for herself. As a result, no big corporations and their attendant high-dollar marketing agencies could come along and make big bucks from the formula.

Yes, I know, I know…I’m supposed to be getting over my cynicism. But surely I’m right.

E-you later, darlings.

Aunt Rose

Links of interest from this posting:

A typical article on Wii bowling: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-070216nintendo,0,2755896.story

The Happiness Project: http://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/

Science News is still in print and has a fun and informative web site as well: http://www.sciencenews.org/.

The story behind the nifty disinfectant spray discovery: http://www.1hope.org/foodwash.htm.

Duped again?

2008-05-31T11:21:00.014-07:00

I get annoyed with a stock phrase in all the health and nutrition newsletters I subscribe to: “Talk with your healthcare professional.”

When I first moved to Snowflake I got an appointment with a woman gynecologist thinking she would be more in tune with my female concerns. I had been on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) at that time for about 15 years and was thinking of ending treatment. This was a year or two before the Women’s Health Initiative study blew the lid off the idea that HRT was the miraculous “cure” for menopause as well as a preventive for major ailments including cancer and heart disease.

When I told the doctor I was thinking of ending the hormone replacement therapy, her eyes opened with alarm. “What!” she blurted, “And ruin your bottom?”

Don’t you just hate it when doctors use medical jargon?

My current doctor is a pleasant, middle-aged man who wears a big turquoise bolo tie and matching watch band, and talks fondly of his 70-year-old-mother. (I look for clues that gynecologists like older women; it’s tough competing for attention against fecund young women about to engage in the miracle of birth.) He’s been my doctor for five years now, but that means I’ve only seen him five times. Despite the basically intimate nature of our relationship, it’s not a particularly warm or familiar one.

When booking my last annual check-up, I asked for a consultation with the doctor to talk about my bones. Four years previously he’d prescribed weekly doses of the bone-building drug Fosamax, after a baseline test registered a T-score (the standard measurement of bone density) of -1.3. This meant, he said, that I had osteopenia (thinning of the bones).

Ever eager to avoid bone loss, I took the meds, knocked back 1200 milligrams of calcium every day. And, at his urging, stayed with hormone replacement therapy as well. (It’s still reputed to be effective against bone loss.)

Despite these efforts, my last two scans were even worse (-1.8). And I wanted some answers.

So at the end of the physical, still in the examining room, me clutching closed the skimpy, open-fronted exam gown, Doctor T. flipped through my charts. “You wanted to talk about something?”

I repeated my litany of how I was doing everything possible for my bones. What more could I do? And why hadn’t my scores improved?

"Well," he replied, “they haven’t gotten any worse.”

End of consultation.

That did set me off. I began researching articles and buying and reading books about osteoporosis. While I’m probably guilty of confirmation bias (you know, only paying attention to information supporting your own point of view), I have become convinced that American women are being duped again. Just as with hormone replacement therapy, we are being hyped and herded into taking drugs, supplements, potions, and notions for osteopenia, a naturally occurring condition of age that is not a disease. And that actual, diagnosed cases of genuine osteoporosis, a disease marked by fracture, pain and disability are extremely rare.

I have stopped taking the Fosamax. Like most everyone, I want a magic bullet; it's so much easier to take pills than make lifestyle changes. But the causes of bone loss and the processes of rebuilding it are so complicated that researchers do not yet know enough to make any kind of accurate predictions or prescribe sure-fire "cures." At this point bone loss treatments are simply in the hypothesis stage. But there is one certainty: pharmaceutical companies are making big bucks.

So I address my bone health the hard way: exercise (the most protective thing you can do) plus a diet so healthy that I frighten people (less animal protein and lots and lots of fruits, veges and legumes). I take modest amounts (600 mg) of calcium but have added Vitamin D to my daily regime (400 IUs on the days when I don't go outside without sunblock). And I have given up Coke (sigh).

And now, the one exercise you need to do daily for the rest of your life:

Starting right this minute begin practicing Kegels, the exercise to strengthen your pelvic floor muscles. Maintaining these muscles will keep you from pee-peeing your pants (I like using medical jargon!) whenever you sneeze, cough, laugh or get a big hug.

I thought because I’d never had children this would not happen to me. Wrong. Embarrassingly wrong.

And things can get far worse than pink cheeks and dewy underpants. In extreme cases, beyond having to wear adult diapers, one or more of your body parts (bladder, small bowel, urethra, uterus, etc.) can drop into (or, even worse, out of) your vagina.

I asked at a woman’s seminar if anyone had recommendations of how many Kegels a woman should do every day. One of the attendees said that in Ayurvedic tradition it's recommended to do one each time you pass through a doorway. Whew.

I'm too clueless for that approach so I’ve ended up doing sets of ten here and there throughout the day (while driving or brushing my teeth, or sitting at the computer) until I’ve worked my way up to about forty. The results have been significant.

Here’s the little mantra I use: “Tight, tighter, tightest." (With a slow release of the muscle.)

Other news you can use:

Both Best Foods and Kraft have come out with low-fat olive oil mayonnaise. I’ve only tried the Kraft (on sale; I prefer Best Foods). And as you would imagine it’s a more vigorous taste than the ordinary low-fat, but not so much olive-oily as vinegary.

I guess I'm just finally used to regular low-fat mayo, and I prefer it to this new version. But the olive oil kind might be good with potato salad or other dishes where you’re looking for a bolder taste.

Whichever kind you use, here’s a tasty quick fix: Bean & veggie salad. Drain & rinse one can of red beans. Add a tablespoon or two each of finely chopped red onion, celery, carrot, peppers, or whatever veggies you’ve got hanging around the kitchen. Plop in a dollop or two of low-fat mayo mixed with a squirt or more of fresh lemon or lime juice, or a couple dashes of chipotle hot sauce, or herbs of choice, or just plain old salt & pepper. Mix well. Eat. Makes two one-cup servings, about two hundred calories each (or one 400 calorie lunch!)

Bye for now.

Aunt Rose

P.S. Part of my frightening move to eat more healthfully is a shift toward vegetarian dishes. I've mentioned this blog before, but for fun, and generally accessible, vegetarian recipes ("Black bean brownies" anyone?) visit: http://www.101cookbooks.com/

Another birthday? You're not old...

2008-03-02T15:53:00.005-07:00

February, my favorite month, exceeded all expectations this year. I got my first ever Social Security payment, turned in my resignation at work, and, on the 29^th, celebrated my 8^th wedding anniversary (that’s 32 in regular years). (The accompanying picture is the wonderful flower arrangement given me and Bob by our friends, the Kennedys. I didn’t have any flowers at my wedding and this gesture just thrilled me.)

I also participated in a day-long workshop entitled, “The Divine P.I.T.A.: Essential Elements for Aging Well,” with a promised focus on “Practical Tools for Infusing the Daily with the Spiritual: Purging the Aging Myths.” My take on the subtext was that aging brings the freedom to be your authentic self, but, the reality of it still looms large. P.I.T.A. stood for “pain in the ass.” As a pre-boomer I was the oldest woman there and think I have learned to accept at least the greeting card wisdom about aging: The card front cover says, “Another birthday? You’re not old.” (Open card): “Hell, you were old last year.”

Coincidentally, the same week as the workshop I had been listening to an audio book called, No, I Don’t Want to Join a Book Club! It is the diary of the 60^th year of a British matron, Marie Sharp, who is embracing this time of her life as the occasion to throw off the “shackles of youth.” (See above – becoming one’s authentic self by unlayering the masks we no longer need in age.) She vows never to join a book club where members seem to feel, “…they’ve forever got to poke their brain with a pointed stick to keep it working.” To her a book is either “brilliant” or “total crap; don’t touch it with a bargepole.” I found “No, I Don’t Want to Join a Book Club” if not brilliant, certainly one of the most engaging novels I’ve read in years.

I went online and bought some Evert-Green reusable plastic bags--the ones purported to keep your fruits and veggies from going bad. Do they really work? Actually, yes, if you don’t expect miracles. They keep things near to purchase-state for about two to three times the amount of time you might normally store produce. I ate a vine-ripened tomato the other day (be sure to remove any leaves or vine; they get weird) that I had bought and kept at room temperature for about 10 days. It was a touch more acidic than normal, but certainly better than any tomato that had been refrigerated even a night or two. Also, a basket of out of season strawberries, (I’m weak; I couldn’t resist) notable for turning to mush about 20 minutes after you unload the groceries, stayed viable in my fridge in one of the bags for about 36 hours. I’d say you’ll see a return on the cost of the bags (about a buck each) within a few months as they are reusable up to half a dozen times. The medium-sized easily accommodate a large head of red or green leaf lettuce or romaine.

And now that were on to food, if you are looking for a healthy, fab snack, try a “fusion” avocado. Cut a perfectly ripe avocado in half; fill the pit depression with 1 teaspoon low-sodium soy sauce. Eat. Nummy. Try not to eat the other half too, because then you are treading in deeper caloric waters. One half of a small avocado will run you about 150k, a nice nutritious, afternoon snack that will easily tide you over until dinner.

In the continuing dry skin department…Mom, the original old broad, recommends generic no-tears baby body wash/shampoo. I use it now rather than Dove or Aveeno. At less than two bucks at any grocery store it’s a find.

E-you later, darlings.

Aunt Rose

P.S. Here’re today’s citations:

Evert-Green plastic produce bags:

http://www.reusablebags.com/store/shopping-bags-produce-bags-c-2_10.html

No, I don’t want to Join a Book Club by Virginia Ironside from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Want-Join-Book-Club/dp/B000VPP9D2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204498065&sr=1-1

Fusion Avocado recipe: http://www.recipezaar.com/128746

Lousy Birthdays

2008-01-05T13:02:00.001-07:00

Ask anyone with a birthday near Xmas how they feel about it, especially those born a day or two afterward, and the whining begins: “I never got a party at school; I got Xmas cards instead of birthday cards, I only got half as many presents….”

I suspect, like me, the celebrant came to feel insignificant in the face of the attentions paid to a somewhat greater preeminence.

I was born December 27, and, in a perpetual snit of jealousy, I haven’t “done” Xmas for years.

After a nice break, I returned to work this past Wednesday, January 2, only to hear this from a colleague, “Wanna’ know an even worse birthday than yours? Try today (It happened to be his.). Everyone is worn out and/or hungover from celebrating for two weeks, they’re broke and can’t afford more presents, they’re fat and grumpy, and on top of all that, they had to come back to work.

I felt better right away!

This was a milestone birthday for me; I turned 65. And while I may grump about my birthday, one benefit is that during the seasonal madness I can usually sneak under the wire of scrutiny of, “How old are you anyway?” But this year, urged on by some inner compulsion (advancing senility perhaps) I blabbed my age to everyone. I think I wanted to hear what I had in many previous years when asked my age,“No! Rose, you don’t look it a bit.”

Funny, I didn’t hear much of that this year. (As you can tell from the accompanying pic, I look like a little old lady, cute, yes, but definitely on the downhill run; digital photo editing can’t do everything!)

Speaking of cute little old ladies, I have a great role model: Mom, the original old broad, turns 90 on January 14. She’s perky and healthy and bright. She’s occasionally cynical and favors single-malt Scotch. (Hey, at 90, you’re entitled to both.)

If you think of it, send her a card or note of congratulations: Rachel Brown, 1100 Linda St., Apt 315 A; Fort Morgan, CO 80701.

She’d get a kick out of it.

Notions, Lotions, Potions

According to the experts, Arizona is in year 11 or 12 of a 20-year drought. Along about year five, I started experimenting with remedies to help relieve dry winter skin on my belly and butt and legs and arms. I was literally itching myself raw/scratching myself raw? Whatever. I was a mess.

If you google “dry skin remedies” you can take a peek at much of what I tried (except slathering myself in mashed avocadoes; those I eat.) but one single activity seems to have had the most benefit – I gave up applying lotions in favor of creams. And after trying several brands have settled on Cetaphil Moisturizing Cream.

Now, when I get out of my every-other-day (every 3^rd day if I think I don’t stink too much) lukewarm, not hot, shower, instead of lotion, I dip into the one pound jar (I’d buy it by the barrel if I could) for globs of the fragrance-free, non comedogenic (doesn’t clog pores) cream and paint generous amounts on my still damp bod. (Face creams are different; my dermatologist says retinol ones are a good choice.)

What remedies work best for your dry skin (besides moving to Florida)?

One other thing in recommending Cetaphil; it’s not made in China! (But, and I find this disconcerting, did you know that most of the vitamin supplements sold in America are manufactured in China, and you have no way of knowing point of origin because it’s not on the label.)

May 2008 be kind to you and yours.

Bye for now.

Aunt Rose

Gruel and unusual punishments

2007-11-05T20:28:00.000-07:00

I have osteopenia – not osteoporosis. Osteopenia means “less bone,” a thinning of the bones. I consider myself lucky my bones haven’t turned totally to Swiss cheese from years of constant dieting, heavy smoking since my teens (no, not for some years now), and simply from being a Caucasian female with a small frame. Then there is the bad luck of having a grandma who, in her early nineties, stood up one day and her fragile hip broke under the weight of her 98 pounds...

You are likely to have osteopenia, too, to some degree, if you are female and done with menopause, have ever engaged in some of the same dumb behaviors cited above, taken medication for a thyroid condition, or, at some point in your life, taken corticosteroids for three or more months.

In an effort to thwart the onset of osteoporosis, my gynecologist has had me on the highest dosage (70mg.) of the bone building drug, Fosamax, for several years. But a while back, articles and advertisements started popping up in newspapers and popular publications about a possible side affect to Fosamax -- a condition known as Osteonecrosis of the Jaw (ONJ), commonly referred to in the popular press as “Jaw Death.”

It would seem that cases were being noted in the medical literature of women taking bisphosphonate bone building drugs (Foxamax, Actonel, Boniva, et al) who, following dental surgery, became victims of the condition in which bone tissue in the jaw does not heal after minor traumas. Dental extractions and implants led to fractures and infections requiring long-term antibiotic therapy that did not always work and, often, to surgery for removal of dead and dying jaw bone tissue.

Throngs of tort attorneys began sniffing the air, scavenging for wounded bisphosphonate users in hopes of large Jaw Death civil action settlements. (Google “Fosamax” and one of the first links will take you to a consent form you can fill out and send to a concerned attorney.)

Which brings me to my obsession about false teeth….

I have one. I do not want anything to do with having false teeth. I apologize if I offend; it’s a blind, stupid prejudice that has lodged in my mind, and despite all logic, evidence, fact, and warm family stories about grandpa’s false teeth, I view having them with horror.

Sadly, however, coupled with my osteopenia is the fact I also suffer from periodontal disease. Eleven teeth gone missing in as many years. (No wonder I’m beginning to explore vegetarian foods.) Dim prospects for the future twenty-one.

I dream of clacking sets of startling white teeth.

Recently, however, due to improved technology and techniques, my periodontist, Steve, has offered me the option of dental implants. I can have two “teeth” planted in a fertile compost of cow bone and collagen surgically plugged into appropriate sinus cavities. While they wouldn’t "grow," they would become permanent parts of me. Maybe. The procedure is not guaranteed.

Two implants would cost $4,000, not payable by insurance. And then there is that nasty little risk of osteonecrosis of the jaw.

I’ll keep you posted.

Here's the Gruel portion

I love looking at food photography on the Internet. The most arresting photos seem to be attached to blogs* rather than commercially-sponsored sites. These photos truly seem a new art form. If you don’t think of it that way, give it a try. The photo of the bowl of oatmeal for this blog, after about a half dozen shots and 50 different edits, does nothing so much as evoke meager gruel on a dark, cold winter morning.

And it’s too bad. I enjoy oatmeal and wanted something attractive to entice some of you to explore its benefits. Oh, well…Anyway, the secret is to put stuff in oatmeal that makes it taste good. Sort of like what one does with tofu.

For instance:

I slice up overripe bananas and put them in snack bags and then in a big freezer bag to use for smoothies. But with cold weather coming on, I plop a baggie of bananas in my “quick” oats (not instant) and microwave for 2 and a half minutes. Then I stir in a big dollop of peanut butter.

Then there’s a more traditional variation:

Peanut butter and strawberry jam

Apple butter (a really good, spicy kind)

Toasted walnuts and raisins

And probably best tasting of all is walnuts and toasted coconut. But since there is not a single redeeming nutritional quality to coconut I don’t have that version too often.

My one cocoa attempt wasn’t all that great, but I’ll try it again with some vanilla maybe.

Any suggestions from your end?

E-ya

Aunt Rose

* One of the best photo and food (unusual, extraordinarily tasty, international vegetarian) blogs that I’ve found is Heidi Swanson’s 101 Cookbooks. Follow this link to her world of beautiful and delicious foodstuffs http://www.101cookbooks.com.

Why God created zucchini

2007-09-09T10:52:00.001-07:00

The photo is me and my sis-in-law, Gloria, during her recent visit. We are the same age and both grew up in Denver, but never knew each other in those days. And due to distance and other demands, we are only getting acquainted now. The relationship makes me feel bereft for never having had a sister.

Gloria retired from a 20-year career with the Post Office, but she is such a dynamo that she simply hasn’t slowed down all that much since. Despite both heart and knee surgeries she has completed a number of charity walking marathons; she’s learning to bead, taught herself soap making (a supply of which she mercifully provides, enabling me to survive Arizona’s parched winters). She works diligently at maintaining a network of friends, church congregants, and Red Hat acquaintances.

If I retired, I suspect I would be likely to adopt a more slothful approach to life: Reading, coupon clipping, napping….And after more than 50 years in the workplace, I don’t know if I could even set a personal agenda for the day that wasn’t dependent on the demands of other people. Horrible thought, eh?

While Gloria was here she said a friend was urging her to enter her Chocolate Zucchini Bread in the Oregon State Fair. Last week I received an email from her hubby, Tom, who hijacked Gloria’s email address book. Not only did she enter, she won the blue ribbon!

With her permission, here it is:

Gloria’s Blue Ribbon Chocolate Zucchini Bread

(1st place winner, Oregon State Fair, August 2007)

2 cups flour

2 cups sugar

½ teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon each, baking soda, baking powder & cinnamon

¼ cup cocoa

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ cup oil (this is correct, says Gloria)

½ cup buttermilk

3 eggs

2 cups grated zucchini

1 cup chopped nuts

Grease and flour 1 loaf pan (not a bread pan)

Bake @ 350 deg F for 50-60 minutes after mixing as follows:

(1) Mix dry ingredients together (flour, soda, baking powder, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, cocoa and salt) and set aside.

(2) In large bowl or mixer beat eggs, oil, and buttermilk. Add zucchini. Add dry ingredients gradually and stir until well blended. Add nuts and stir in evenly. Scoop into pan and bake.

(*Special note: make high altitude adjustments as necessary. Gloria lives at sea level.)

For people like me who are calorie obsessed, this is a rather reasonable treat due to the small amount of oil. But, if you want to cut calories even more, Consumer Reports just did a review of sugar substitutes and reported that Splenda for Baking (not regular Splenda) worked decently in their test cake (not as good as sugar, of course, but it reduced the calories by more than half). Just remember though, if you try, the result will be just a pale substitute for the genuine Oregon State Fair 2007 Blue Ribbon winner!

I talked to Mom this morning and she said with all the end of summer festivities and the kickoff of fall party season at her rockin' senior citizen hi-rise that she has gained three pounds. (You may remember I bragged on her for losing 35 pounds and keeping it off for the past couple of years.)

I asked her when she was going to start on a little diet.

“Oh, to heck with it. I’m 89; who cares?"
To which I had no good reply.

E-you later, darlings
Aunt Rose

Why is this woman smiling?

2007-08-07T19:22:00.000-07:00

Actually, what else can you do? If you look closely you might see a couple of little round bandages on my decollete. Earlier in the day I’d been to the skin doc who plucked and/or snipped (ouch, ouch, ouch) dozens of tag warts from my neck, then cryogenized a pre-cancerous lesion on my upper lip, followed by a blast to the huge, lumpy mole that had grown wildly out of control on my collarbone since its humble birth as a simple freckle. (This after a one-hour, close-range sunlamp tanning session brilliantly conceived and executed by yours truly at age twelve.)

And about the pre-cancerous lesion on my upper lip: I might also give a nod to my maternal grandma who showed me how to French-inhale.

Ah, too soon old; too late smart.

Sorry that I haven’t been keeping up with the Old Broadsheet of late; I had wanted my computerless mom to see it, particularly the last posting where she looked so fine. And I thought she would enjoy being privy to some of her only living child’s thoughts and writings. After a long series of misadventures, she finally got a look. “Seems like a lonely person who just wants someone to talk to,” she said.

Thank you, Mom. You really know how to cut right to the heart of a thing.

I do not lack for fellow lonelyhearts. Technorati, the blog tracking search engine, reports more than 71.5 million blog sites in existence today. I, apparently, am not the only one who longs for connection. One must give credit to the Internet for its ability to foster intimacy, if only virtual.

Birds & Bees

On the home front, we have had a paucity of hummingbirds this year. Due to the cumulative effect of eight years of drought typified by last fall and winter being virtually moistureless, there simply were no wildflowers for their nourishment.

Because we had so few hummers I couldn’t understand why the hum-juice was disappearing at such a rapid rate. One of the wasp-waisted feeders that holds about three cups was entirely drained in one day while I was at work. Given the few black-chin hummers that had been hitting it, it should have lasted a week. So that weekend I did a short, one-cup refill, and then watched from my kitchen window to see if it was Orioles or finches or who were pirating the jug.

It was bees. They had no flowers either. As I watched, a small swarm of about 20 covered one hole and simply drained that feeder in about 2 hours with their relentless sipping. While I can’t be sure, since bees are hard hard to tell apart, it seemed like they were rotating their places at the hole; one would get her fill, squeeze out and lumber off, then a new bee would take her place in the pile.

I thought maybe this behavior had something to do with Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), the latest disaster to befall our beleaguered Apis mellifera population, but several beekeeping blogs assured me that CCD was impacting only the big ag industry hives. Hobby and smalltime apiarists were saying that the commercial farmworker bees were being exploited and not getting enough love and attention.

The monsoon rains finally arrived here -- with a vengeance. Whether or not the current abundance of moisture will be sufficient to break the almost decade-long drought is problematic. But, as is usual in a land of little rain, dealing with too much water is a hassle: Muddy dogs, flooding creeks and roads, little critters on the move to drier ground (yourhome being that place).

One morning, I discovered ants had found their way into a space between the worn out grouting on the counter next to my kitchen sink and dozens of little pismires were on a reconnaissance mission to report back to the main force. I didn’t want to use Raid that close to foodstuffs and dishes, so I got out one of those handy-dandy “How to Do Anything” manuals that I occasionally fall for on the shelves at the grocery check-out stand. After a brief digital assault took out the scouting party, a generous application of cinnamon worked like a charm. No ants appeared again. I guess the smell discouraged or confused them.

I’ll let you know how cinnamon works out as grout.

Take a break

My niece April encouraged me to read Dean Koontz’s Life Expectancy, but I didn’t need any arm twisting. When it comes to escapist lit, I am a long time and huge fan of Dean Koontz. His books range from the terrifying to the odd with great doses of comedy and romance thrown in for good measure. Life Expectancy readers should prepare to be transported by the epic struggles of mild-mannered pastry chef, Jimmy Tock, versus psychopathic clown, Punchinello Beezo, fighting for the very soul of Jimmy’s youngest child. Wildly entertaining with outloud laughs and, strangely, a genuinely inspirational message.

For a quickie immediate getaway visit this link my friend Jan sent with a wonderful series of pictures of a nesting hummingbird and the hatching of two eggs. http://community.webtv.net/Velpics/HUM

Bye for now.

Aunt Rose

A Cautionary Tale or A Stock Market Tip

2007-06-19T20:09:00.000-07:00

That’s my ma, Rachel, and a canine pal, taken during my Colorado visit in May.

Mom is 89 and in good, almost remarkable, health. She has two chronic conditions: glaucoma and osteoporosis, both diagnosed when she was in her early 80s. She’s been faithfully taking meds and is holding her own against both.

This last winter was a wicked one marked by lots of nasty Colorado weather. One day while clearing the snow off her car (she’s still driving), she slipped and fell on the ice. She landed on the point of her right elbow. Perhaps because of the Fosamax, she broke no bones, but her arm swelled like a football and turned black. She lost the use of it for about a month -- couldn’t brush her teeth or cut up her food or do any of the things you normally do with your right hand and arm when you are right handed.

During our May visit she confided the worst part of the fall was psychological; she realized someday it might be possible she would need to have assistance with daily living. This was an amazing admission, never before uttered by my tough, independent mom.

She took me to visit a pleasant assisted-care living center near her apartment and said she wouldn’t mind living there in the event “something happened.”

Okay. I’ll acknowledge that Mom is getting old, but I can’t envision that life in her future. I just see her living a long, healthy life (which she has already done) and then a fast-moving “something” takes her life in a matter of weeks. No long term suffering for months or years. No expensive assistive care, massive amounts of drugs and continual application of lifesaving procedures. My (hopeful) thinking is based on a concept called the Compression of Morbidity, a term describing a long, healthy life followed by a compression of the incidence of disease and illness into as short a time period as possible.

I doubt I’ll enjoy a Compression of Morbidity since I didn’t start worrying about my health until after developing three chronic conditions by my early 60s.

Still, as a war baby (born in 1942), my odds are far better for a longer, healthier old age than the Baby Boom Generation that started to roar through American society just four years later.

My views were reinforced by an online report, “When I’m 64: How Boomers Will Change Healthcare,” issued in May by the American Hospital Association. Eek. By 2030, more than six out of ten Boomers will have at least one of these major chronic conditions: hypertension, high cholesterol, arthritis, diabetes, heart disease and/or cancer. One in three will be considered obese. There will be eight times more knee replacements than today. The rest of the report is equally dire.

My advice? Well, the obvious would be to start getting healthier. Next best advice? Consider investing in medical care stocks. At least you’ll be able to defray some of your doctor and hospital bills with the dividends.

Read the full report at: http://www.aha.org/aha/content/2007/pdf/070508-boomerreport.pdf.

Alli: Friend or Foe?

The new OTC diet drug Alli (pronounced ally) is being snatched off pharmacy shelves at a phenomenal rate even considering its cost of about $2 per day. The pill isn’t an appetite suppressant but works by blocking the absorption of fat in the intestine.

But, as we all know, nature abhors a vacuum, and that fat has to go somewhere. Detractors have suggested users not take Alli on a first date or while wearing white pants.

Still, control groups demonstrate the drug can help dieters lose up to 50 percent more weight than they would while undergoing the typical reduced calorie/increased exercise regimes. In other words you could lose 15 pounds instead of 10 but you still have to limit calories (particularly those troublesome fat calories) and increase the amount of exercise you do.

In other words, the more things change, the more things stay the same.

Now for something even better: Lipodissolve

Rich Scottsdale matrons are undergoing a hot new cosmetic procedure call Lipodissolve. A recent article in the Arizona Republic reports the treatment involves a series of injections of “synthetically produced but biologically natural entities” into areas of unwanted fat. The fat cells become inflamed, break apart, are metabolized and exit the body with normal waste within a few weeks. The fat doesn’t come back either.

Additional details? Well, it’s not illegal, nor is it for use over large areas of the body. And there aren’t yet any long term studies of its successes or failures.

I can’t help but think back to the early days of liposuction. A woman in our small town underwent the surgery. She looked great; got rid of her chicken wing upper arms and saddlebag thighs. Her belly disappeared. But either she didn’t get much counseling or chose to ignore any medical advice, and continued her eating patterns of old. Within six months she had gained back much that she had lost to the suctioning, but it was now lodged in odd new locales: no belly, but a massive midriff; her upper arms were still slender, but her forearms bulged like Popeye the Sailorman.

E-ya’ later, darlings.

Aunt Rose

Blink. Life happens.

2007-05-21T17:03:00.000-07:00

I’ve been remiss. I had to prepare and give a speech and write a final paper for my Oral Communications class and, probably more enervating, at the community college where I work, the president was fired and my boss was selected to take his place.

[How does that commercial go? “Life comes at you fast.”]

Anyway, she’ll move on without me. The secretaries stay with the job, not the boss. This is not altogether a bad thing; I’d have to buy a wardrobe of highfalutin duds. And as Thoreau put it, “Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.”

Have you read Blink? It’s a fascinating and delightful exploration of making snap judgments (and why, more often than not, folks are on the money when they do). The author puts forth some jaw-dropping contentions on topics as diverse as war gaming (his war gaming anecdote may forever change -- or reinforce -- your views on US Army strategies in the Mid-East) or why upper-middle class blacks usually pay more than whites when buying a new car, or how we might retrain our police in dealing with intense life and death situations and vastly increase the odds of everyone coming out alive.

The author is Malcolm Gladwell, a staff writer for The New Yorker. He also had a monster big seller a couple of years back called The Tipping Point where he analyzes what three incidental details or people, will cause a book or television show or product or even historical action to gain epidemic or even legendary prominence. Paul Revere’s ride is his first example. Did you know there was another rider heading the opposite direction from Revere that same night, giving out the same warning? Have you ever heard of him? Me neither.

When I was at the eye doc’s I picked up a pamphlet in the waiting area on “floaters,” those annoying bits of flotsam that wander across your vision and tend to hover right where you are trying to look. The pamphlet didn’t give any clue as to what happens to floaters so I asked the medical assistant, “How do you get rid of floaters?”

“You don’t want to know,” she answered.

Well, actually, I did. I’d had lots of floaters as a kid, but they seemed to have gone away or, as suggested in the pamphlet, I’d simply gotten used to them. But about six months previously, I was driving to work when this Lincoln Log suddenly lumbered out of nowhere and lodged directly across the center of my right eye. Whoa. I blinked and rubbed and tilted and shook my head, but the tree limb was there to stay.

It’s been a very long year, but it has disintegrated to one smallish spot, but one that still manages to lodge right where I’m looking.

One of the resources I consulted suggested naming the floaters to keep track of them and see if there are any major changes in the number or frequency of their appearance. This guy is Elvis.

Apparently the older we get, the greater the incidence of floaters as a result of degenerative changes in the vitreous humor. (Youthful floaters are caused by embryonic cell debris that eventually settles out of sight.) And other than naming them there have been few genuine options for floaters developed over time.

Until now.

The Arizona Republic recently ran a long article about Dr. John Karickoff of Falls Church, Virginia. Apparently Dr. Karickoff is the sole (legitimate) practitioner in the United States of a treatment that gets rid of floaters. He uses lasers to demolish them during an in-office procedure that takes from 5 to 30 minutes. According to his web site, there are no side affects, no lingering consequences, and insurance often will pay associated costs although Medicare reimbursements fall far short of the approximately $1500 bucks per eye the good doctor charges. Blink.

Today’s pic is one of ten that the Hubble Spacecraft team chose as their favorites from all the thousands of photos of the universe sent back to earth from the esteemed spacecraft. These are astounding photos, really, but still don’t do the universe justice!

I’m off to visit Mom this week. I’ll let you know how that old broad is doing. She’s my inspiration.

E-ya later!

Link to Dr. Karickoff (http://www.eyefloaters.com/)

Link to Hubble photos

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/galleries/index.html?in_gallery_id=9139&in_page_id=1055

And now for the hard part...

2007-04-15T15:49:00.000-07:00

I achieved my weight goal (as well as a bonus extra one pound) on the 30th. Now comes the hard part -- maintaining. Here's where aerobic exercise fits into my picture. (I've told you all about my brief morning commitments to grunting, groaning and listening to my body go snap, crackle and pop.) That’s toning and stretching; walking is my choice of aerobic workout -- It's handy, easy-to-learn and, outside of a good pair of shoes, requires no large investment.

Walking has to do with feeling fit and being healthy. I don't like to connect it to weight, but I do use it as an incentive. I get out my pedometer at the start of the walk. When I get home, the number of calories I have burned (my little Omron peddie does the math for me) are freebies. I can choose to deduct them from the day's total calorie count (if I'm trying to make up for being naughty bad during the week). Or, if I've been eating the appropriate number of daily maintenance calories, I can use them to reward myself with a small treat.

I know. I know. I am rewarding myself with food which is an absolute no-no when it comes to weight management strategies. But, and perhaps I’m fooling myself, I like to think that I am making a distinction between considered food choices versus emotional eating or mindless munching. In a world of so many diversions (television, reading, video games, napping, movies, Internet surfing, chatting on the phone, depressed pouting, and just generic zoning) we are not ordinarily inclined to heave ourselves up off the sofa and take a walk. When we do, I think we need a reward so we’ll be inclined to do it again!

After my mile and a quarter today, struggling much of the time against a very strong head wind, I had a small piece of homemade (not made by me, but by a friend who is a gifted baker) angel food cake. Calorie outgo, 77; calorie intake, 70. I feel righteous on so many levels....

Sleepless in Snowflake:

I haven’t been sleeping well lately, and resorted to my compulsion to research the topic to death. Here are a couple of my findings:

The standard remedy for sleeplessness is staying awake.

No napping allowed
No lying awake in your bed grinding your teeth because you aren’t dropping off. (You have to get up from bed and go somewhere else and do a quiet activity for 15 or 20 minutes)
And (the one I’m finding the hardest of all) not going to bed early when you didn’t sleep well the night before. In fact, you have to stay up later than you did the night before and get up at the same time. It’s a killer.

If I try to stay awake at night by reading I tend to nod off. So I am staying awake by watching videos. And as we don’t have a movie theater within 30 miles of home, I have lots of catching up to do. But what I am finding about most movies as I try to stay awake is that three out of every four of them is a bomb, and that the fourth one often is only marginally worthwhile.

On the other hand, once in a while you find a remarkable film. One of these is, Everything is Illuminated. My niece April recommended the movie sometime ago, but I am not a fan of Holocaust-themed anything so I put it off. But last week was Passover, and April’s birthday, and it had been a stressful week at work without much sleep for several nights so I thought I would check it out. (Also, the video had moved from first run to cheap checkout price.)

I’m grateful for the experience, and would recommend it without reservation to anyone who wants a movie to ponder rather than her or his own navel. Since it’s a holocaust movie you know it’s not going to be fun. On the other hand, the first third of the movie is almost rollicking comedy. The character of Alex, the Ukrainian youth filled with huge admiration for anything Western (particularly bling, clothes, music, dance and Michael Jackson) is wonderfully realized by a genuine Russian fellow named Eugene Hutz. The American Jew searching for family ties in the old country is portrayed by Elijah Woods (Lord of the Rings) in a set piece performance of an oddball kid who collects family memorabilia such as his dying grandmother’s false teeth.

I make it sound weird. It’s not. Need a diversion from food, from stress, from life? Spend a buck ninety-nine. It’s a swell investment.

Fruit futures…. The photo accompanying this posting is me with a crown of plum blossoms. My two plum trees were smart enough to bloom in early March. My peach and apple trees, unfortunately, choose April and suffered a week of hard freeze. No peaches this year, no Rose’s special Xtreme Apple Butter. Life can be hard.

E-you later, darlings.

Aunt Rose

Those dogged last pounds...

2007-03-24T10:29:00.000-07:00

Last fall, after a summer of schlepping several miles a day in cute sandals, I developed a case of Plantar’s Fasciitis, more commonly known as Heel Spurs. I won’t go into the actual damage I wreaked upon my usually reliable feet, but I’ll tell you it’s a painful, burning in your heel that makes you want to get off your feet right now! And the podiatrist concurred that I should have listened to Dr. Mother Nature as that’s exactly what I needed to do. (That and wear ugly old lady shoes with orthotic inserts.)

As a consequence I did very little walking through the winter. That lack of activity, far more than a modest amount of overindulgence during eating season (October 31 – January 2), resulted in a five pound weight gain.

As detailed in earlier postings, I went on my not-so-world-famous Ground Hog diet.

And, as some of you may also recall, I don’t like to exercise while I am dieting because I think that’s just asking too much of a human being.

However I did rely on some old standby tricks to boost my calorie expenditures.

I got out my pedometer to establish a baseline measure of my daily steps.
I parked further from the door at work.
(And if we’d had any buildings in the whole of Navajo County with an elevator, I would have opted to walk up instead of taking it!)
I took to drinking bottled water to increase the frequency of my visits to the ladies room.
Also, I relied on an increased number of senior moments. You know what I mean: You rush into a room to do something or… was it to get something? Anyway, you’ve forgotten, so you retrace your steps back to whence you came to see if you can recreate the thought. And maybe yes, maybe no. But at least you got in 40 to 50 extra steps!
Additionally, I assumed major responsibility of door duty for our dog, Big-Un (that’s Biggie in the pic). I picked up probably anywhere from 50 to 100 calories a day by getting up to let the dog out and then let the dog in, let the dog out, let the dog in, let the dog out, let the dog in…

Nonetheless, I am “plateaued.” That last pesky pound standing between me and achieving my weight loss goal is just not going to come off without my adding real exercise to the picture. For me, that’s walking.

Thanks to my ugly shoes, my foot is better. And the weather’s warmer, and, if the truth were told, I actually love to walk once I’m out there. In town, I enjoy peeking in people’s yards and getting their dogs all excited (I carry a large walking stick). Or when we walk in the country sometimes we see other animals beside rabbits (antelope and coyotes most commonly), and I am always dragging home dried up animal bones or unusual rocks. (Someone will have to explain to me sometime the human urge to collect souvenirs).

So I am going to start walking again today. And if you wish to join me, please do. Just remember: wear decent walking shoes.

Too soon old; too late smart.

E-you later, darlings!

Aunt Rose

Keep movin'

2007-03-08T21:05:00.000-07:00

Old age is the body slowing down; death is the ultimate lack of motion.

I was athletic as a kid, but, as an adult, developed an antipathy to exercise. Working for a living sucked my energy supply nearly dry. And who wanted additional activity as the work week blurred into weekends of more enervating stuff: cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping?

About five years ago, though, I bought a book that literally changed my life: 8 Minutes in the Morning by Jorge Cruise. It’s still popular and still in print.

Cruise was a minor fitness celeb until 8 Minutes elevated him to major guru status. The book itself is nothing out-of-the-ordinary – it’s solid and sensible with good organization, simple, do-able exercises, a fairly reasonable diet plan for losing two pounds a week, but, WOW, that brilliant premise.

I wonder how long he and co-author Tony Robbins (Yes, that Tony Robbins -- the master motivator) juggled numbers to come up with 8? Positively perfect! Not too long, not too little, but just right! And the idea of the morning routine works beautifully as well. Get your brief little exercise program out of the way and you are done for the day! None of this weaseling business that happens when you come home from work at night: “too busy,” “too tired,” “tomorrow,” “tomorrow,” “tomorrow….”

Five years later I still get up before breakfast, five mornings a week, and do my brief, little fitness workouts. These exercises have nothing to do, in my mind, with weight. I do them because (1) if I don’t, I don’t feel as good or vigorous during the rest of the day (Maybe it’s psychological? I don’t know. But perception is reality.) And (2) they are a habit.

It took me less than a month (about 3 weeks) to ingrain these exercises into my daily life. Five years later I'm still faithfully doing them.

The routines have changed over the years. Now I do three days of yoga, one day of “trunk work” (crunches, back extensions, wall squats, leg lifts – no lunges though; my knees are going). And one day a week I lift free weights. I started with two pound weights and, now, am up to ten pounds. But I’ve dropped lifting from two days a week to one because it takes my tired, old muscles that long to recover. Still, I have the buffest shoulders of any 65-year-old that I know!

On Saturdays, I clean house; on Sunday, weather or not, I and the old man and the dog head out to the weeds and chase rabbits. (The rabbits always win. We like to say everybody has a good time, and nobody gets hurt.)

And then, there’s the joy of walking….more about that next time…

My first issue of Weight Watchers Magazine arrived last week. What struck me was the endless number of full-page ads featuring sumptuous spreads of gooey treats and desserts (all allegedly non-fattening). But, excuse me. People are trying to lose weight here. And if I don't happen to have a quart of imitation, artificially inseminated, lo-fat, zero carb, Rocky Road ice milk in my freezer, I do have a half-gallon of genuine, full-octane Blue Bunny Burgundy Cherry Chocolate. Oh, woe!

My sis-in-law, Gloria, sent me a subscription to Eating Well Magazine at Xmas. It is by far the superior periodical: Great recipes, readable and interesting articles, and a focus on adjusting your lifestyle to become a healthier person, not just a thinner one. Highly recommended.

I was one pound short of my weight loss goal at the end of February, so I've stayed on the Ground Hog diet another week. My failure to lose was directly due to several days of pouty inattention to what I was eating, topped by a fine Tex-Mex dinner with friends where I overindulged a bit…well, actually, a lot. But I’m back on the wagon now.

E-ya later, darlings

Aunt Rose

Do or Diet?

2007-02-22T19:15:00.000-07:00

I’ve been on diets since I was in high school when a tough, little firecracker body gave way to a pudgy, squarely-built teen with bulging saddle bag thighs.

In the intervening years I may not have tried every diet that slithered out of the closet of poor self-esteem, but surely most of them: Dr. Atkins, Pritkin, Cabbage, Hollywood, Grapefruit, South Beach, Sugar Busters, Blood Types and that stand-by classic Reach for Your Mate and Not for Your Plate. They all worked. For a while. Then it was time to try out a new one.

As a fatty, you really have only two choices in life when it comes to your weight. On the one hand, you can eat the way you always have for four or six months out of the year, until your body swells up like Mylar balloon, and you become wracked with remorse and guilt, endlessly boring your friends and family with whiney, empty promises of: “starting next week I’ve just got to go back on my diet.”

And maybe, a month later, you actually pull out your copy of the The South Beach Diet and start back on phase one, 10 pounds later moving into phase II, and on until you’ve lost a goodly totally of maybe 15 pounds. But by then you know on the one hand you still haven’t reached your goal, and you also know that you simply cannot face another single day of pretending pureed cauliflower tastes as good as mashed potatoes. And you fudge (often with fudge) and crash and burn…again…and…resume eating the way you always have.

On the other hand, if you choose the path I have taken, you don’t even get to eat naughty stuff ever, let alone for four or six months out of the year. You undergo a lifestyle transformation called, “eating right.” I liken it to a religious conversion.

As a convert, you get to endlessly bore your family and friends with holier-than-thou, cautionary advice like, “You shouldn’t be eating that; it’s not good for you.”

Unlike saints, however, I usually gain a few pounds either through holiday overindulgence or not walking when it’s cold weather (or both). I try to get rid of them before going beyond five pounds, because after that it becomes a major production that takes over my life. And I don’t want losing weight to be a major project. I just want it to be an ordinary task that I may have to do on occasion like Spring Cleaning, or going through the closets, or taking the dog to the vet. Just something that needs to be done.

I don’t do much aerobic exercise when I go on a diet (I don’t change my morning routine – I still do yoga and lift weights) but I don’t join a gym or visit the swimming pool. I don’t deny that it’s possible to lose weight faster when you both diet and exercise, but it’s also possible not to.

Exercise makes me hungry. If I go out and walk at a nice brisk clip for about a half hour I usually come home feeling a little peckish. Good person that I am, I eat an apple and small handful of walnuts. Guess what? I burned 150 calories walking and then consummed 220 from the snack.

Exercise is a whole exciting topic. Stay tuned.

Want logical, practical, step-by-step motivational diet advice? Check out John Walker's, "Hacker's Diet," http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/www/subsection1_1_1_0_2.html. It's an excellent, no nonsense blueprint with great advice.

Many thanks to Jamell O'Toole whose charming painting "Rose in Crystal Vase "(inspired by my Capricornian heritage) graces this post.

The Duchess of Pork

2007-02-11T19:25:00.000-07:00

I was going to reveal my enormously helpful theory on diet and exercise in this blog (Next time; I promise), but I got sidetracked after receiving “A personal message from Sarah, The Duchess of York.” (That’s her pictured, not me, in case you might be confused.) Her note was included in a solicitation to subscribe to Weight Watchers Magazine.

My initial reaction was, fee, fie, fo fum, Fergie. Even though not an official royal anymore, you still have money and personal trainers and professional chefs to help you achieve a fine figure.

But after giving the matter additional consideration and doing a bit of research on the Internet, I came to a grudging admiration for this woman, not just for losing weight but for literally remaking her entire life. When her marriage to His Royal Highness Prince Andrew of England began to crumble, Fergie did what most of us do when we’re unhappy; she shopped and she ate.

By the late 1980s, early 1990s, she had accumulated millions of pounds of debt as well as quite a few around her hips. In cruel headlines, the British tabloid press labeled her, “the Duchess of Pork.”

Redemption occurred when Sarah, no longer known as Fergie, came to America, got thin, and cleaned up her reputation (A wicked streak of Schadenfreude causes me to illustrate one memorable occasion of her naughtiness: a 1992 topless, toe-sucking frolic on the French Riviera with a Texas businessman.) Nonetheless, she soldiered on to author several children’s books, champion many charities, and join the ranks of “Rent-a-Royal,” becoming the spokesperson for numerous publicity campaigns in this country, including Weight Watchers. She eventually made enough money to to reimburse Queen Elizabeth, who had paid Fergie's debt to the British treasury, and become wealthy in her own right.

The moral here, if there is one: When someone has turned her life around, you can’t simply ascribe it to position or luck or money; she has also made a tough decision and stuck with it.

Oh, by the way, I signed up for the magazine. Not because the Duchess asked, but because of their offer of scores of winning recipes, like..."Chocolate cheesecake. Fudgy Frosted Brownies. Rum Truffles. Carrot Cake....Recipes that SATISFY -- and help you lose weight."

I was hungry.

E-you, darlings

Aunt Rose

Link of interest: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Ferguson

Kaizen for you and me

2007-01-28T13:58:00.000-07:00

You're likely acquainted with the quote, "A journey of a thousand miles must begin with the first step." The phrase tidily embodies Kaizen, a Japanese term for the philosophy of making small steps toward continual improvement. While Kaizen is more often found in business literature as a way to improve production, it's also a way of losing weight --ounce by ounce, inch by inch.

But many people seem put off by this small step approach, and I fear that here is where some of you may disengage. You want that weight off NOW, this minute. No matter that it took months and years to gain your 20 or 30 or more pounds.

Still, in your heart of hearts you know that, outside of surgical intervention (even that has no guarantees) there is no innovative, overnight way to drop pounds! Losing weight happens when we burn more calories than we consume. This takes time, this takes effort, this takes facing the fact that we must change our behaviors.

And do me a favor, stop blaming your weight problems on “stress.” Stress doesn’t make you gain weight, depression doesn’t make you gain weight, anxiety doesn’t make you gain weight. What makes you gain weight is your behavior. "I am unhappy (stressed, depressed, anxious, guilt-ridden, blue, grumpy, unloved, and old). Therefore, I will be "nice" to myself and eat a chocolate eclair. Now, of course, you are unhappy, stressed, depressed, anxious, guilt-ridden, blue, grumpy, unloved, old AND fat.

I know that many of you will not be moved to begin changing your eating patterns by my puny efforts at logic, lecture or double dares. Perhaps, however, you might be better persuaded by considering the case of the raw chicken.

There, in front of you, on the kitchen counter is the pale, naked, goose-bumply, 6-pound roasting hen you've brought home from the market. As you gaze at it, it begins morphing before your very eyes into 6 pounds of chicken fat, yellow, thick, gooey, sticky, globular gook, oozing across more than a square foot of your counter to depths of over six inches.

Now, you cannot tell me that if you remove six pounds of a similar fatty substance from your own body that, no matter who you are, how old you may be, and how much you currently weigh, that you are not going to look and feel better for having gotten rid of it.

So go pick a diet, any diet you find reasonable (most of them are) and stay on it for the month of February. Sweet, fun-filled, tidy little four-week February. The time will fly by.

This is the Ground Hog Diet because you start it on Ground Hog Day. Weigh in that morning, naked and after you pee. Then set a goal to lose no more than 7 pounds by the end of the month. Then do it.

There is a rule I'd like you to follow -- but just one, and this is it: Once you weigh on Friday, you may weigh yourself only once a week thereafter -- same day, same time, same outfit, same empty bladder. Deal?

E-you later, darlings. I've got to go cook a chicken.

Special note: I would suggest there are literally hundreds of thousands of web sites devoted to diets and recipes and tips to succeed. Some of it's legit; some of it's nutty. But try to avail yourself of some of the more reliable information. Find some of the truly clever hints to get you through rough spots during the day or that tell you the best kind of food journal to keep (one that notes not only what you are eating, but WHEN you are eating).

Here's a page from an intriguing web site called the Open Directory Project to get you started: http://dmoz.org/Health/Weight_Loss/

Ground Hog Diet

2007-01-22T12:55:00.000-07:00

Like many Americans, every year my list of New Year’s resolutions always has, “lose weight.”

While I don’t jump right into dieting; I do stop indulging, and will resume my normal eating habits. And I don’t weigh myself until about the third week of January. By then I figure my body has registered the extra calories from the holidays but might have dropped a half pound or so from my eating normally again. This is what I call my“Eeeek” revelation, or baseline weight.

From there it’s simple to set a goal of how much weight I want to lose – generally an amount equivalent to one step lower on the standard Body Mass Index (BMI) chart. Nowadays this generally amounts to a modest 4-5 pounds. But don’t pooh-pooh me by assuming I’m just a lucky, small person. Over the years I’ve probably lost close to 300 pounds, but that’s not such a big deal. What’s significant is that for the past ten years I’ve managed to keep 12 of them from coming back!

According to actuarial charts from the dark ages of my youth (“If you are 5’ tall you should weigh 100 pounds, then add 5 pounds per inch to see your ideal weight.”), I was always hopelessly overweight. I carried a residual poor body image forward far into my adult years. Then, about a decade ago, the Body Mass Index became trendy. The BMI chart is far kinder, with its broader (so to speak) categories. (There’s a link at the end of the blog in case you aren’t familiar with it.) It made me feel better about myself because I wasn’t as overweight as those other charts had dictated. (It was the same delight I felt when the clothing industry revised women’s pant sizes, and I started wearing a size 10 for the first time ever!)

Anyway, I have my goal, so I outline my diet strategy. Since I have always been a calorie counter, I’ll calculate how many total calories are contained in the pounds I want to lose, then divide by the number of days I plan to stick to the diet (28). The resulting, astoundingly small figure is the number of calories I may consume daily for one month. (There’s a calorie calculator link at the end too.)

Sometimes I like to quick start the diet with a few low-carbohydrate tactics borrowed from South Beach and Atkins, etc. But I can’t stick with those for long; I’m too much of a carb lover. Mostly I aim for a diet eliminating the usual ‘naughty white stuff’ (sugar, butter, cream cheese, white flour, etc.), while allowing modest amounts of meats, whole grains, nuts and beans and lots of fruit and lots and lots of veggies. And, I’m sorry, but I don't ask me to give up potatoes. I mean, for heaven’s sake, the Irish lived off nothing but spuds for a century. I’ll give up butter and I’ll give up sour cream, but not the potato itself.

Then I start read about dieting. I buy books. I look up dieting tips and hints on the Internet. I think about dieting. I start eliminating or reducing a few of my major dietary weaknesses (wine with dinner every night becomes wine on weekend nights only), soups and salads replace sandwiches; portions shrink; I measure oil when I cook instead of eyeballing it.

Then, on February 2, Ground Hog Day, I start my diet. It’ll be a bit harder than usual this year because Ground Hog Day falls on a Friday and weekends are hard times to start dieting. But I will gird my burgeoning loins and set to the task.

Join me? I’ll give you lots of tips and support during that month. And there is only one simple rule that you have to abide by.

I’ll tell you about it next time…

Now, if you’re interested, here’s some fun/interesting/useful information to get those juices flowing (unfortunate imagery).

Here’s my favorite Body Mass Index (BMI) site: http://www.halls.md/ideal-weight/body.htm. The whole site offers an entirely pink and pleasant visit.

You can find the official BMI chart and what its ranges indicate on this reliable, non-commercial site: http://www.consumer.gov/weightloss/bmi.htm.

Want to figure how many calories you burn a day at your current weight and how many you have to cut back to if you want to lose a certain amount? Check out this professional nutritionist website with a Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) calculator: http://wvda.org/calcs/fcals.htm

And for low-techies, here’s the gold standard, handy, dandy portable reference book to figure calories, The Calorie King Calorie, Fat & Carbohydrate Counter, 2007 by Allan Borushek. It’s a jam-packed compenium of diet facts, tips and recommendations, with calorie lists for fast food, canned, frozen and brand name foods as well as generic foods like apples, salmon, etc. The 2007 edition has updates for net carbs and fiber for folks opting for low-carb regimes. It’s available at Amazon.com for $7.99 + S&H.

Introducing The Old Broad Sheet

2007-01-15T11:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my Mom’s birthday; she turned 89. I called her (she lives in Colorado and I live in Arizona) to congratulate her on her “achievement.”

She says she doesn’t know how she managed to live so long; it wasn’t any thing she consciously did. Whatever it was, it worked. She looks maybe 75. (Hell, on a bad morning, I look 75.) Two years ago she joined TOPS and lost 35 pounds and has kept it off. (A considerable achievement since she lives in a senior housing complex where the two major activities are playing cards and eating.) She takes just three medications – two for her eyes (she has controlled glaucoma) and Fosamax for her bones. Her blood pressure averages 110 over 70. She says she feels “remarkably well...for an old broad.”

Hello. I'm Rose. I turned 64 at Xmas, and I don't buy the hype about your sixties being the new fifties (I think that’s Madison Avenue sucking up to aging baby boomers). I am simply not the person I was at 54. Lots of deterioration has taken place in those ten years.

Now I have tasked myself with the goal of fighting a good fight against getting old. And as I am not a person given to extremes, my approach is to do so in a sensible and moderate way. (No eating weird stuff or taking massive amounts of vitamins or running marathons…yet.)

I’m lucky to have that lovely genetic inheritance (not just Mom, but both grandmas, made it to their late eighties, early nineties). Still, science says genetics account for only a third of the picture. You can control the other two-thirds.

And on the flip side, life holds no guarantees. My daddy died at 70, my brother at 62 (both of lung cancer; I smoked for nearly 40 years). So my personal goal is to see that however many years I have left to live are ones where I am healthy, active, feel good (and look good, too, since I think people treat you nicer when you are attractive, even old ladies!)

Why am I sharing this personal goal? It probably stems from my having been a librarian for twenty-five years. As a group, librarians suffer from what I call “enlightenment compulsion.” I mean, did you ever meet a librarian that didn’t just inundate you with stuff when you had a question about anything?

Plus, I’ve been interested in wellness and nutrition topics for years and consider myself a bit of a maven. And I suspect many of you have thoughts and ideas and suggestions you’d be willing to share about aging and wellness and your own ways of “keeping it together.”

If life and time permits, I’ll try to show up weekly with a new posting to the Broad Sheet. And next time the topic will be weight management featuring Aunt Rose's "Ground Hog diet."

E-you later, darlings.
Aunt Rose