Menopause

Image by betsyjean79 via Flickr

I’ve heard that women going through menopause experience changes in their hormone levels that cause mood swings. Since I’m a recent inductee to this club I can say from my own personal experience that this is rubbish. It isn’t the hormone levels that cause us to be crabby, we’re just pissed off because  we dressed and undressed all night long…on the hour, every hour and we don’t have any new clothes to show for it.

***I’ve nixed the automatic link that appeared below my post… skip going to the doctor, skip the prescription for hormones instead try increasing your soy intake. Asian women don’t experience hot-flashes and the reason is thought to be dietary. For other natural cures visit my favorite online resource at http://www.earthclinic.com

 

The Last Day of School

Yesterday was Alexa’s last day of school. It was a bittersweet day that Alexa both looked forward to and dreaded.

When Alexa’s Dad died 2 years ago she wrote and read a tribute at his funeral, a good-bye letter if you will. In her letter she said that she feared the big days ahead, like graduation and someday getting married. She said that the milestones in her life would be marked by his absence.

Alexa made it clear to me that she would not walk in a graduation ceremony afraid she’d be reduced to tears and throughout her last year of high school I wondered if she’d graduate at all. She struggled with chronic illness related immune deficiency and she grieved over lost health and a lost father. Her grades fell.

Her greif counselor told me not to push her and sometimes I didn’t, and sometimes I did. I knew if Alexa didn’t graduate that she was still an able, capable girl, even more important Alexa knows she’s an able capable girl. But I was afraid if she gave up on graduation that it would give her more of a reason to give up on life. Alexa and I discussed our terms, she agreed to follow through with earning the credit needed to graduate and only said, “just stay with me,” and so I did.

Finishing class yesterday reminded her that she couldn’t call her Dad to say, ” I did it Dad,” but she imagined what he might  have said and how proud of her he would have been.

After her online classes ended at noon we loaded into the car and left for the suburbs of Minneapolis. Nick had a new car to pick up and Alexa and I made plans to visit Cookie Strange at Great Clips in Champlin.

Cookie is one of my closest friends, daughter. I’ve known Cookie ever since she was born and her Mother named her Emily…which she later changed to Cookie. Cookie works magic on hair and I will follow her to the end of the earth because she makes my hair fabulous.

The last time I got my haircut I had it done locally, it is viewable in all of my online photos. The cut was alright but it wasn’t the kind of cut that you could blow dry and go and it didn’t fare well on windy days in the garden. I need hair that you can seriously mess up and I prefer an modern edge because age appropriate just sucks,  as always Cookie delivered.

When Alexa and I finished getting our hair cut we went to Totally Tan. As Alexa’s health has worsened her skin color has become very light but her hair is dark. During the summer she frequently hides in jeans feeling like her legs glow white. She also burns easily so I agreed to take her to a place that offers a full body spray tan.

After I paid for Alexa’s tan, Alexa looked at me and said…”Aren’t you going to go?” I hesitated, I have  to attend a birthday party and a wedding today…but thought I could use some color. After asking a pile of questions I decided to try it. The experience was absolutely dreadful, it so cold it almost took my breath away and I forgot to use the shower cap so I stepped out once again feeling like Bridget Jones.

On the drive home Alexa and I talked about her Dad, upcoming graduation parties, what to wear to the wedding and we started to turn a warm brown …maybe not so bad. By this morning I staggered to the kitchen for coffee on gingerbread colored legs and thought; definitely not bad.

Wisecracks

I went shopping yesterday and decided it was too early for me to have taken on such an activity. I got half way through shopping and everything felt surreal,  fuzzy and I felt bit feverish.

Throughout the day I kept attempting tasks unsuccessfully then I slept about 16 hours, lost about 3 lbs over 3 days and today I have a headache. It’s like getting off a plane at Heathrow…

During one of my naps the phone rang, it was friends who got no answer knocking on my door…so they called from my driveway. I woke up, invited them in at their own risk and made tea. They teased me because I was wearing flannel sleep pants and they read my previous blog post where I was caught on my patio in racier sleepwear just days before and they felt ripped off.

Wisecracks.

I always forget that friends and family keep track of whats happening in my life by reading my blog.  This is a stupid post…

The Flu?

I woke up this morning and staggered into my amoire, I think that’s what you call it but not how you spell it, anyway I was so unbalanced I had to stop on the stairs. I was much better lying down and I got somewhat better as the day progressed.

I’ve spent so much time worrying about Alexa’s missing immune system that I completely forgot that I have a very serious underlying lung condition. Better take my temp…

Bill Moyers and Dr. Sidney Wolfe on Health Care Reform

Washington’s abuzz about health care, but why isn’t a single-payer plan an option on the table? Public Citizen’s Dr. Sidney Wolfe and Physicians for a National Health Program’s Dr. David Himmelstein on the political and logistical feasibility of health care reform.

Bill Moyers Journal

British Court Rules on Potato Chips

Image via Wikipedia

Today a Britsh court ruled that Pringles are potato chips. I’m curious to know what Proctor & Gamble was trying to present them as.

I once attended an agriculture round table meeting hosted by the University of Minnesota, the professor was trying to promote food irradiation to a group of public school officials. In the lead up to discussing treating food with radiation he did an overview of some landmark cases in the food history. The most noteworthy was a case brought by an unnamed tomato sauce company in the 70’s or 80’s who argued that maggots didn’t constitute filth in food because they were not visible. The unnamed company of course lost but its not much different than Pringles arguing whether or not a potato chip is a potato chip…key ingredient?  I wonder how much the tomato sauce suit cost taxpayers?

Did you hear about the 150 Amish Paste tomatoes I planted? Well now you know the rest of the story.

The FDA’s 3 second rule

The Cat’s Sleepwear

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My fingers are blue,  my feet are cold and so is my nose. It’s May and the area forecast says temperatures will dip below freezing tonight. Depsite the high winds and the cold air I’ve already managed to spend enough time outdoors to induce the reappearance of freckles on my nose and cheeks, wasn’t I supposed to out grow them, I don’t know, when I was 7!!!

Last weekend I participated in the city-wide garage sale, the weather turned cold and I’ve been fighting fatigue and a sore throat ever since.  I have so many things to do and I seem to require more than my share of naps lately, I’m begining to feel like the cat…actually I’m begining to behave like the cat, except his sleepwear looks warmer than mine:)

Vaccine Makers Enjoy Immunity

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I haven’t read this in its entirety, I don’t always agree with the Wall Street Journal but it was one of the few publications that recently covered the issue of vaccine injury and the liability limits of the pharmaceutical industry. There are also limits established by government when an “epidemic” is formally announced, I’ll have to do some additional digging to find that information.

Wall Street Journal,  Feb. 23, 2009

By AVERY JOHNSON

One of the little-noticed reasons that Wyeth was attractive enough to command a $68 billion price for rival Pfizer Inc.’s planned takeover sits in a building catty-corner from the White House across Pennsylvania Avenue. That is where a special “vaccines court” hears cases brought by parents who claim their children have been harmed by routine vaccinations.

The court — and the law that established it more than two decades ago — buffers Wyeth and other makers of childhood-disease vaccines from much of the litigation risk that dogs traditional pill manufacturers and is an important reason why the vaccine business has been transformed from a risky, low-profit venture in the 1970s to one of the pharmaceutical industry’s most attractive product lines today.

The legal shield, known as the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, was put into place in 1986 to encourage the development of vaccines, a mainstay of the nation’s public-health policy. A spate of lawsuits against vaccine makers in the 1970s and 1980s had caused dozens of companies to get out of the low-profit business, creating a public-health scare.

Read More…

How to Recognize GM Produce in the Supermarket

Image via Wikipedia

Often the fruits and vegetables sold in the supermarket carry a sticker with a PLU code, that code doesn’t just tell the cashier how to ring up your produce it tells you how the food was grown and whether or not it was genetically modified.

Produce that has been conventionally grown consists of 4 numbers and organically grown produce has 5 numbers prefaced with the number 9.  The PLU code on produce that has been genetically modified also has five numbers but the number is prefaced with the number 8.

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More People Died From the Swine Flu Vaccine than Swine Flu

Image by johnmuk via Flickr

I’ve followed the opinions of Dr. Mercola for over a decade,  he does a good job of separating industry driven hype from consumer-centric need-to-know facts. Since I found the information helpful I’m passing the link on to you.

Critical Alert: The Swine Flu Pandemic – Fact or Fiction?

American health officials declared a public health emergency as cases of swine flu were confirmed in the U.S. Health officials across the world fear this could be the leading edge of a global pandemic emerging from Mexico, where seven people are confirmed dead as a result of the new virus.

On Wednesday April 29th, the World Health Organization (WHO) raised its pandemic alert level to five on its six-level threat scale,¹ which means they’ve determined that the virus is capable of human-to-human transmission. The initial outbreaks across North America reveal an infection already traveling at higher velocity than did the last official pandemic strain, the 1968 Hong Kong flu.

Phase 5 had never been declared since the warning system was introduced in 2005 in response to the avian influenza crisis. Phase 6 means a pandemic is under way.

Several nations have imposed travel bans, or made plans to quarantine air travelers² that present symptoms of the swine flu despite the fact that WHO now openly states it is not possible to contain the spread of this infection and recommends mitigation measures, not restricting travel or closing borders.

Read the full story

***update 10.22.2009 There is no compensation for individuals injured by the current swine flu vaccine and you can’t sue your doctor even in instances of gross negligence.