June 18, 2008

Oh, the irony!

A couple of weeks ago, in one of my progress reports on de-cluttering my home, I showed you my re-organized hall closet. I included this phrase: “Next time I have a large burn or am bleeding profusely I’ll peek in there and know that I have enough wound dressings to last a week.” As it turns out, I couldn’t peek in there while I was bleeding profusely because I lacked the foresight to do it at home. I was inspecting a vacant house, with no supplies on hand at all. I keep a first aid kit in my car, but wouldn’t you know it - it was gone just when I needed it. I must have left it out of the car the last time I needed a bandaid or an antiseptic wipe, and that was so long ago that I can’t even remember where it was or what I needed the kit for. I scrounged around in the car and came up with a roll of scotch tape and some kleenex and improvised a bandage. The one you see here is the third one - the first two were soaked with blood pretty quickly. The third one stayed on long enough for me to get home, clean the wound properly and put a real bandage on it. I stopped at Walmart on the way home and they had first aid kits on sale, on a special display just inside the front door. Now I’m well equipped again for the next time I give a little too much of myself to the job.

The injury never should have happened. I was opening the hatch to go through the hall ceiling into the attic. I lifted it straight up, then got each hand cupped over an edge. As I moved it a little higher up something gouged a piece of flesh out of my hand. The guy who is selling the house had done some extensive remodeling. He needed to run some cables or wiring in the attic, right beside the entry hatch. He cut a channel for the cable in the framing around the hatch. That would have been fine, but he did a very rough job. It looks like a child hacked out the channel with a screwdriver and hammer. There are rough patches and splinters all along it. In one spot there’s a chunk of wood sticking out right against the hatch cover and that’s what got me. It took a piece of flesh out and there’s a piece that’s “hanging by a thread” and will probably not heal back in place. The guy had to know it was a hazard, but I can imagine his thoughts on that: “The wife and kids will never go up in the attic and I know it’s there and will make sure to avoid the rough spot whenever I need to go up there.” He didn’t think about repair people or termite inspectors or anyone else who might ever have reason to do something in the attic. Mahalo plenty, mister. I left a big old blood stain on your textured ceiling. Nothing I could do to get it out, so I hope it doesn’t screw up the closing for your home sale. And hey - next time? Try think!

I have a picture of my hand without the bandage. Make sure you thank me for not sharing.

Technorati Tags: accidents, bandages, on-the-job injuries, work

June 14, 2008

Eating fruit

I don’t eat fruit. I have a condition called short bowel (or short gut) syndrome. That means that I don’t have enough intestine to process food normally. My food goes through me very quickly and is not in my system long enough to break down so that I can absorb all of the nutritional goodness (or junk) that goes in my mouth. Rough textured and fibrous things are the worst. They don’t break down at all and cause me a lot of cramping and pain. I can handle vegetables that are cooked until soft (thus robbing them of nutrients,) but no raw fruit or vegetables, seeds, nuts, beans - all of those things cause me serious grief. Oh, I cheat sometimes, but only when I know I have at least a half a day I can lose to non-functionality due to pain and frequent bathroom visits. I susbsist mostly on defatted or low-fat meats, starches, soft vegetables and some dairy. I took nutritional supplements and vitamins for years, but apparently don’t absorb them, either, because they didn’t make a bit of difference. They’re expensive and their benefits were wasted on me, so I gave them up. The good news is that I seem to have lost the lactose intolerance that I had for a while after my gut surgery, so I gradually added more cheese other dairy products back into my diet. The bad news is that this has been going on for almost fourteen years and there’s no cure. I’ve lost a lot of teeth, my hair and skin are dry, my nails split and tear off easily and my bones and joints hurt - a lot. The overall state of my health is … well … crappy. Since the lactose intolerance faded, though, I’ve decided to try fruit again. Maybe I’ll be able to eat it and maybe I’ll absorb some of the good stuff. I started yesterday. I ate a half a banana on toast.

I don’t like foods that have a slimy texture. Cooked or canned fruit - bleh! The texture is so disagreeable it makes me gag. Yeah, like I’ve needed another dietary limitation all these years, hm? Seriously, I think it’s a genetic thing. My son has it worse than me - his avoidance extends to things that are creamy. He quit eating anything slimy, creamy or mushy as soon as he was off of strained baby food and rice cereal. He’s never eaten Jello or pudding. I eat those, and cooked cereals and yogurt and lots of other things that he won’t, but slime - no way! I just can’t do it. Bananas are slimy, but if you mix one with peanut butter it becomes creamy instead, with just a hint of slime. Today’s breakfast was much more agreeable than the half a banana I ate yesterday.

So okay, this wasn’t bad at all. I could see myself eating banana and peanut butter on toast every morning. I like it, but wouldn’t say it’s my favorite food. I don’t “love” the slice of dry whole wheat toast I eat right after I get out of bed every morning, but I “like” it okay and it’s part of my routine. It helps with the extreme nausea I have each day when I get up. It’s kinda like having morning sickness for fourteen years without having a baby to look forward to. Nausea is a background feature in my life all the time, but it’s really bad when I first wake up, thus the toast. (Yeah, those are my flabby thighs in the photos. I meant to edit before uploading, but I’m not gonna go back into my photo editor, crop each shot, delete the originals from Flickr and upload the cropped versions so I can switch them out on my post. I’ll live with the humiliation instead!)

Family tradition: Lance gets the last bite of pretty much everything I eat. This is the first time he’s had banana with his peanut butter. I think he likes it.

When I was in the hospital they made me eat papaya with every meal and they encouraged me to drink a lot of papaya juice. Papaya contains a digestive enzyme that is good for everyone and especially recommended for folks with screwed up guts like mine. The ancient Hawaiians knew that and the Western world discovered it with the invention of Adolph’s Meat Tenderizer. The main ingredient is papaya (or it was - Lawry’s owns it now and papaya is not listed on the label anymore.) I resisted the papaya a little at first, but by the time I’d been eating it several times a day for a week it had become a part of my routine - a part I didn’t like at all. I liked the taste okay, but had had enough to last a lifetime, or so I thought. Tomorrow, or maybe tonight with dinner, I’ll have papaya again for the first time in fourteen years. Wish me luck! I hope I love it because it needs to be a part of my life for a while, at least until I find out if I can eat it without (literal) gut-wrenching pain.

And now for a brief editorial statement: Are you opposed to stem cell research? I hope you will look at the issue from as many sources as you can, instead of just what you hear from the pulpit, which might be based on something other than scientific reality. I’m not asking you to abandon religious convictions, just to take a look and see if there is a valid conflict with your beliefs and what actually goes on in stem cell research. No one is getting pregnant just so they can abort and make some money on stem cells. It’s not happening and is not going to happen. The materials needed for stem cell research are readily available though abortions performed for all of the usual dreary reasons, so there is no market to lure anyone into planning pregnancy and abortion to satisfy supply and demand. The supply is already there, but most of it is being discarded as medical waste instead of being used to help people. Is that what you really want?

Why do I care about stem cell research and want to encourage you to take an educated look at your opposition? Because it will some day make all the difference for people like me. Notice I said will, not may. It is inevitable that scientific discovery will go forward, with or without opposition. Opposition just slows it down and makes already-expensive research cost more. Someday, probabaly not in my lifetime, but maybe while my son’s generation is still kicking, people will grow their own new guts from implanted stem cells engineered to grow guts. There will be new spleens for people like my vet, who lost his when he got kicked by a cow and who lives with his own medical nightmare. People on dialysis will get fresh-grown kidneys and no longer need to be tethered to machines and clinic schedules, greatly improving and extending their lives. Organ rejection will no longer be a problem because the new organ will be grown from the body of the person who needs it. I expect to be dead, probably as a result of something related to nutritional deprivation, long before that happens, so I have no vested interest in the state of research today. My support of stem cell research is based on a wish for future generations, that they might have healthier more funcitonal lives even after their bodies throw them a curve ball.

Technorati Tags: diet, food, food and nutrition, fruit, short bowel syndrome, short gut syndrome, stem cell research

May 18, 2008

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!

Could someone please tell me what I’m allergic to this time? This started about a half an hour after I ate my dinner of pork ribs and potatoes. Both dishes were heavily seasoned with garlic, onion, paprika, red pepper and black pepper. The ribs were marinated in balsamic vinegar before seasoning. I am not aware of being allergic to anything I ate. There are three dogs in the house right now, but I treated for fleas about two weeks ago and I don’t think that’s the problem. I’ve had mal-absorption problems for over fourteen years and I’m pretty sure I’ve developed an immune deficiency (along with a whole constellation of other problems) due to nutritional deprivation. New allergies to formerly user-friendly foods and substances have sprung up in the last few years, but I can usually figure out what caused the problem. I’m clueless this time. That’s my left side - I’m holding my muumuu just under the bodice - and the welts and itch extend all the way down to my hip on that side, and all the way to the middle of my back. I tolerated the itch for half an hour or so, then went crazy scratching like a kid with chicken pox. How the heck am I supposed to figure out what did this so I can avoid it in the future? I can’t go for allergy tests: they’re incrediby expensive and I have no medical coverage. The only alternative I can see is to eliminate each of the seasonings from my diet for a while, then bring them back in one at a time to see if something happens again. I’m going to hate it if I have to give up anything on the list.

I’ve taken benadryl and smeared myself with an itch cream. It’s only slightly better about forty-five minutes later. I hope the benadryl will put me to sleep soon. The itch is much too distracting to let me write the new hidden object game review I wanted to post, so I might as well go to bed, but I won’t be able to sleep until this lets up. Arrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!

Well, screaming didn’t help!

Technorati Tags: allergic reactions, allergies, hives, insanity, itch, welts

April 24, 2008

I could really use some good stuff!

Yep, still sick. What is it now? Three weeks? Four? I can’t remember. I guess my immune system was battered and forlorn after the palgue. Now it’s allergies plus a sore throat and a really nasty cough from the vog. I’m better today than yesterday, though, so I’m seeing a little light at the end of the tunnel. I haven’t been watching the news or seeing anyone, so it’s a little difficult for me to find some good stuff to focus on. Maybe you guys could lend a hand? Tell me something good going on in your life, or something you heard on the news or found online that made you smile. You’ll be doing me a world of good, and I’ll write a post tomorrow linking you all up and telling you how much better you’ve made me feel. Just post your news below, with a link to your post if you’ve blogged it. You can do that for me, right? Yeah, I though so! I’ll try to find my own sunshine between now and then, too, because I’m sure there’s some somewhere, hiding behind a cloud just waiting for me to find it.

Technorati Tags: good news

April 4, 2008

Sudden Cardiac Arrest - do you know enough?

One of our local papers has one of those society columns that reports on big social events and talks about who’s been seen where, with whom and doing what. I’m not a daily reader, but I check it every now and then to see if any of my clients has been mentioned. A few weeks ago there was a report about a man who had suffered cardiac arrest while playing golf. His companions knew what to do and were able to save his life. Do you know the signs of Sudden Cardiac Arrest? Would you know what to do if you or someone else started exhibiting symptoms? Do you even know what the symptoms are? They can include sudden collapse, Irregular Heartbeat and loss of consciousness. Sudden Cardiac Arrest must be treated immediately for the person to survive. It’s a good idea for all of us to know the symptoms and to understand what should be done when Sudden Cardiac Arrest occurs. Check out the Sudden Cardiac Arrest website from St. Jude Medical Center to learn all about what it is, who’s at risk and what can be done to prevent or treat Sudden Cardiac Arrest. We all hope we never need such information, but if we ever do we’ll be grateful that we spent some time educating ourselves, don’t you think?

Technorati Tags: health, sudden cardiac arrest

March 26, 2008

Elder inspiration

Alice Withers came in near the back of the crowd at the Straub Women’s 10K in Honolulu, but she’s not unhappy about that. She’s participated in the Straub event for twenty years, though she slowed from jogging to walking five years ago. Alice Withers is 91 years old. She started running when she was sixty-five and has completed 150 races since then. She walks about three miles a day, lifts weights twice a week and is devoted to good nutrition. She recently took up painting to “broaden my horizons,” but faces another challenge. She wants to learn to master her computer. I suspect she’ll do just that. You can’t help but admire her optimism.

The next time you hear me moaning about my aging body, do me a favor, would you? Remind me about Alice Wither’s story. She’s a living testament that you can age without getting old. What an inspiration!

Technorati Tags: aging, Alice Withers, elder athlete, health, seniors

March 15, 2008

Stretching myself

I’m a sloth. When I work, I work hard. My job is physical and gives me a workout. When I’m not working, I sit on my duff. That routine worked fine for years, but work has been slow for a while, so I’m getting soft. I need to start swimming again and maybe get into a regular routine of walking for exercise. I haven’t started doing those yet, but this week I did fulfill one commitment I’ve made to myself. I got a yoga dvd and have started doing the exercises.

I’ve started out slow. I’m in my fifties and the only exercise I’ve done in the last decade is water aerobics. My body doesn’t stretch and bend the way it did when I was younger, so I’ve had to move gradually into the yoga routines. I do my exercises at home, alone, but I’m pretty sure if anyone was watching they’d think I don’t look as relaxed and natural as the young woman on the dvd. The important thing, though, is that I feel natural and relaxed after doing it only a few times. I was concerned about straining my back or aggrevating the bursitis in my shoulders. That hasn’t happened. The exercises are very gentle. I can’t bend or extend fully to achieve some of the positions, but that’s improved already after only a few sessions because I’m stretching myself gradually each time.

The problem with using a yoga dvd is that you can’t postition yourself properly if you’re constantly turning your head and twisting your body to see the demo, so I’ll keep doing the first routine until I can anticipate the positions without seeing them. Once I reach that level and have been doing the first series of exercises for a while I’ll feel more ready to move on to the next level. I’ve watched the entire dvd and am looking forward to progressing, but yoga is as much about breathing and relaxing as it is about exercise, so slow and easy works for me. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to actually bring my head all the way down to my knees, but I’m more supple today than I was a week ago, so I suppose anything is possible. I’ve been using a quilt to pad my tile floor when I work out, but I’ve decided to stick with it, so I’ll be getting a yoga mat next time I go shopping. That’s the only equipment I’ll need, and buying a mat will strengthen my commitment to stick with this. This old body has served me pretty well, so it’s time I started giving it a little TLC in return, don’t you think?

Technorati Tags: exercise, health, relaxation, yoga

January 21, 2008

Pure Water 2Go

Do you grab a bottle of water every time you go out jogging or toss one in the diaper bag each time you take the baby out? How much money do you think you’ve spent for the convenience of bottled water? I work from my car and a lot of the homes I inspect are vacant and have the utilities turned off. I always keep at least two bottles of water in my car for just that reason. It’s been expensive to do that, but pure drinking water is a necessity so I’ve spent a bundle on always having some handy.

Pure Water 2Go is a portable water filtering system that will allow me to keep fresh water in my car and to refill with filtered water whenever I need to. Their water bottle filter will purify up to eighty gallons of water and last for about three months. My 16-ounce Sport Bottle is made of durable PET plastic and will last for years, so I can buy replacement filters and continue to get good use from it. I’m thinking it would be a good idea to buy a couple of extra Pure Water 2Go bottles and a few spare filers to tuck away inside my evacuation kit. The Level 2 filter removes chlorine, bad taste and odor and significantly reduces heavy metals like lead, mercury and copper. Water travels through the carbon filter as it leaves the bottle through the pop-up top and comes out clean and purified. The Pure Water 2Go 16-ounce Sport Bottle is sized just right to fit standard bike racks and the drink holders in most cars. The filtering system is light-weight, so it’s super-convenient to take with you wherever you go.

Pure Water 2Go offers an entire line of water-filtering products including shower heads, canteen filters, disinfecting tablets and even biological filters that will remove bacteria and protozoan parasites. You don’t have to go to a third-world nation to find yourself without potable water. All it takes is a power failure that shuts down your municipal water-treatment plant. Most of us have been there at one time or another and heard the warnings that we needed to boil our water before using it. If you’ve ever found yourself in that situation you know just how important clean water can be. Pure Water 2Go can help you be prepared and save you the expense of bottled water. Makes sense to me. Check them out!

Technorati Tags: bottled water, filtered water, Pure Water 2Go, water filtering systems

December 27, 2007

Your Time to Care

It took me several days to watch the entire presentation of Your Time to Care, a DVD from the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America eStore. The presentation is 142 minutes long, no longer than many movies, so I certainly could have watched in in one sitting. It was emotionally-charged for me, though, and I found that I needed breaks in between viewing sessions. The DVD is intended to provide an understanding of how to provide in-home care for individuals with Alzheimer's and other types of dementia. I think it does an exemplary job of accomplishing its stated task, but I also think it’s applicable to a much wider audience. My long-time readers know that I was my father’s primary caregiver in his last year. He did not have Alzheimer’s. He had had multiple strokes. His brain still functioned much as it had throughout his adult life, but his body had become a damaged vessel. The DVD helps caregivers learn how to deal with the memory loss, confusion and acting out that many Alzheimer’s patients exhibit, but it also addresses the physical needs of anyone who is unable to take care of themselves. I found myself spiraling out of control emotionally as I watched lessons in encouraging someone to eat when their body no longer sends hunger signals, and in finding dignified ways to help tend to previously very private acts of toileting and cleanliness. I’ve been there and done that, and I could not help but think that it would have been easier for me and for my father if I’d had this DVD at my disposal back then. I had instructions from doctors and nurses and nutritionists, but the step-by-step, day-to-day care issues were never addressed. I had to learn as I went along what worked and what didn’t. I’m reminded of the terrible day that I had to call 911. I had left my father alone on the toilet. He slipped and became wedged between the toilet and the tub and I could not get him up. It was horrifying for both of us, and a blow to his dignity to have strangers see him in such circumstances. Having had lessons in daily care would have spared us both that experience because I would have learned a simple lesson: don’t leave him alone in situations where he could fall. I could cite numerous examples of how the DVD presentation could have made our lives better, but I think the one suffices. I heartily recommend Your Time to Care to anyone caring for someone with Alzheimer’s, of course, but also for caregivers taking care of adults with other diseases or limitations. I would not give up the time my father and I had together for any amount of money, but I wish I had had more knowledge about his needs during that time. I truely think this DVD could have made it a much easier time for both of us.

You can help support the mission of the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America by shopping at their eStore. If you’re a procrastinator like me and still have a holiday gift or two to buy, please consider giving their lovely jewelry or something from their AFA quilt logo product line. Take a look at the DVD while you’re there, too. If you’re not a caregiver, you probably know someone else who is. I can think of no more meaningful gift than one that provides a caregiver with the basic tools they need as they tend to a loved one. My copy will be going soon to a friend who is caring for her mother, who has Alzheimer’s. I can’t change my own past experience, but I’m happy to be able to provide them with a practical guide that will make their lives safer and more pleasant.

Technorati Tags: Alzheimer’s, Alzheimer’s Foundation of America, caregiving, home care

December 26, 2007

The day after

I was proud of my holiday table. A basket of cuttings from my rosemary bush simulated fir and surrounded some candles. Bundles of cinnamon sticks and a couple of cheery votive candles framed the basket. My oversized Christmas snowglobe completed the arrangement. I thought it lookied rather festive on the red tablecloth, and I used rectangles of the red and green plaid wrapping paper you can see in the background for no-fuss placemats. Too Martha Stewart? Well, I liked it anyway.

I noticed shortly after I finished arranging it that my left eye was itchy. By time we sat down to eat I could tell it was getting puffy. This has happened with increasing frequency over the last few years and I’ve learned to pretty much ignore it, or take benedryl if it gets out of hand. The puffiness increased greatly overnight. I knew the moment I awoke this morning what I would see in the mirror. It feels like a bag of water had been inserted under the skin of my lid, weighing it down. Still itches like the devil, of course. I don’t know if rosemary now needs to added to my list of allergies or if I got bitten by one of the mosquitos that swarmed out of the bush when I was getting my cuttings. I hope it was a mosquito. I could live without them, but I’d rather not give up my rosemary.

I’ve taken the benedryl I should have taken last night before bedtime. It will kick in in a little while. I’ll spend the rest of the day listless and groggy, with a long nap being inevitable. My list of chores for today won’t be reduced by much. I wanted to put away some of the holiday clutter, do some laundry and give the kitchen a post-cooking-frenzy scrub. I need to clean the gecko poop off of the car and should really shop for car covers so the geckos can play without causing me so much work. I thought I’d get all of that done and still have time to watch one of the movie DVDs that my Santa/friends brought. Ah, well - maybe tomorrow!

Technorati Tags: allergies, chores, eyes, gecko poop, holiday centerpiece