Working Out May Prevent Drug and Alcohol Addiction
A study found tweens and teens who reported exercising daily were half as likely to smoke as their sedentary counterparts, and 40 percent less likely to experiment with marijuana.
I don't think this is new news. Breastfeeding has become more mainstream since the 70's and the fact that people still don't pick it up as "the norm" is what I think is weird. I always noticed that minorities tend rarely, if ever to breastfeed. I don't know if this is something cultural, perhaps hospital propaganda as described in this article, or whatever (perhaps Alicia can shed some light).The reasons I have been given as to why breastfeeding is bad range from "oh, breastfeeding, gross" (but this was from a cousin that I would have loved to have told "having two kids from two different convicts and leaving them in the Bronx with you grandmother to raise while you live in Long Island with your boyfriend-gross!", but I didn't) to a nursing baby "never gets enough food", or "breastfeeding causes you to have all those kids so close together" (that gem came from my grandmother).
But breast-feeding can be frustrating for new mothers because of nipple pain or the misperception that they're not producing enough milk. It's crucial that moms get proper breast-feeding advice and encouragement those first few days after birth, said Dr. Sheela Geraghty, a lactation expert at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.
Two years ago, a girl I knew had a baby and was adamant she wanted to breastfeed. She came from a family where this was a novel idea. As soon as the baby was waking up in the middle of the night, her sisters-in-law and mother were there with a bottle telling her her baby is starving . I nicely and unobtrusively (which meant it went in one ear and out the other) attempted to offer the advice to one of the sister-in-law who was bending everyone's ear about what a dopey mother this was, that nursing babies metabolize food quickly, so they are always going to want to nurse. There doesn't seem to be an understanding with many people who are trying to cross that bridge from bottle feeding to breastfeeding, that bottle feeding is strictly about food, while nursing is about comfort, not just nutrition. There is also a lack of understanding that you cannot over breastfeed, while there must be a level of control with how much formula to give and how often.
But practices unfriendly to breast-feeding were common throughout the country, the survey found.About a quarter of hospitals reported giving formula or some other supplement to more than half of their healthy, full-term newborns. The practice was common even when mothers were able and willing to breast-feed, Dee said.
Of hospitals who gave supplements, 30 percent gave sugar water and 15 percent gave water.
Again, this reminds me of the control-freaky family members who will not give people the opportunity to even try it and fail, and find their way. It starts in the hospital. I think of that grandmotherly nurse, you know the one in the L & D room who tells you things like "now Honey, you have to lie still...", "now Honey you are making too much noise..." (I have been to three hospitals in two states, and the same nurse is always there.) Then afterwards you find that nurse's twin sister in the nursery sticking pacifiers in the baby's mouth despite your requests. In their defense, they do this day in and day out, sticking a pacifier in the babies' mouths makes things run smoother for them...I guess.
...
The other day when I was at Catholic Charities a couple I knew came in with their 10-month old girl for baby supplies. I knew the father, he used to be a neighbor and he has a cute little girl (by another lady I know) about 5-6 that used to play with my kids. In the summer I used to just leave the front door open and the kids would be in and out, in and out. The boys would play games and run out and the girls would come in and draw pictures. We always have an abundance of art supplies since we home school. Anyhoo, the father and I chit chatted about my husband, the weather and whatnot. I gave them diapers, but they were also there because they were out of baby formula, so they were requesting some from the food pantry. While they were waiting, the baby was tired and fussy. She wanted her bottle and wanted to take a nap. They gave the baby bottles of water, which she drank some, but then threw and complained. They were giving the baby, salchichas or Vienna Sausages (always a common snack among us Carribean folk, I often wonder if they eat them as much in Vienna as much as they do in Kingston and San Juan), she would eat one and fuss. it wasn't what she wanted. I sat there and wondered what knuckle head(s) thought that for people where income might be an issue, formula was a much better alternative to breastfeeding? Someone who makes money off of formula, no?
Via the Daily Eudemon: Wal-Mart to open 400 in-store clinics.
I am not crazy about Wal-Mart, but this could be a really good idea, particularly if the clinics are open extended hours. One of the factors driving up health care costs is the high number of patients going to emergency rooms for matters that are urgent but not life-threatening: ear infections, bladder infections, stuff like that. They do this because they can't afford to take off work to visit the doctor or because they can't get in to see the doctor at all.
I ran into this the other day. My husband's out of town on business, so it's just me and Hambet this week. I'd had the flu last weekend and had thought I was on the mend, but then I woke up in the wee hours of the morning with severe pain in my left ear.
I called my doctor early the next morning. (By that time I was having difficulty hearing and my right ear was starting to fill up as well.) It was 7:10 and I had to leave soon to drop Hambet off at school and then go to work.
Well, the office told me I couldn't be seen until 2:30. "But all I need is someone to look in my ear...." "Sorry, can't see you until 2:30." Problem was, 2:30 was when I needed to be leaving to pick Hambet up at school. And even if I'd managed to find someone who could pick him up for me, that meant that I probably wouldn't be able to start antibiotics until 3:30 at the very earliest. With my eardrums feeling like they were about to pop, I really wanted to be seen sooner than that.
So I said no thanks and decided to go to an urgent care center -- a "doc in the box" type place. But after I dropped off Hambet, I reconsidered. "Doc in the box" wouldn't open for another hour -- and was half an hour's drive in the wrong direction. The emergency room was five minutes away. So I decided to try the E.R.
I was optimistic when I walked in -- the waiting room was empty -- but right after I signed in the paramedics brought in three vomiting old ladies. I ended up waiting almost three hours before I was seen, but I was still able to start the antibiotics that much earlier. As I was being discharged, I remarked to the nurse that I felt silly coming to the E.R. for a mere ear infection, but the urgent care center was so far away, and so on.... "Oh, don't worry about it," she said. "They would have sent you here anyway."
And for all my impatience, I had the luxury of taking half a day off work to try to get seen right away. I was also doing better than when I had an ear infection a couple of years ago. My doctor couldn't see me for two days, I didn't want to mess with the E.R., my ear was killing me, and I ended up doing the Bad Thing and mooching a leftover bottle of unexpired amoxicillin from a friend.
That was before I'd found out about Minute Clinics. When we were living in Maryland, a couple of pharmacies near us had opened "Minute Clinics" -- drop-in clinics with extended hours (and fixed prices) for treating limited conditions (ear infections, sore throats, etc.) We'd gone there for flu shots before and that would have been a good option in this situation. But alas, no Minute Clinics in Virginia as yet. I wonder if Wal-Mart clinics would be along the same line.
Interesting article on caffeine addiction.
I only drink one cup of coffee a day because more caffeine than that makes me a bit nuts. But if I skip a day, I am a very cranky Mommy!
Now that it's summer, I hate the idea of taking time to cook vegetables. I don't mind it, but when you think of summer, you think potato salad, and cole slaw, that sort of thing. I am worried about my children not getting enough veggies. We eat lots of green salad, but that can get boring after a while too.
How do you get vegetables into your kids during summer? They are pretty good as far as eating veggies, and during the day they snack on carrots, celery, apples and bananas. Dinner is the problem. I am not the type to just steam some broccoli and serve it either.But when it is grill time, no one really pays attention to the veggies.
One thing I do with green beans is I steam them, toss them with some garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil and balsamic vinegar, chill and serve (or serve warm). But like salad, you can only serve that so many times.
OK, not really. I think plastic surgery is cheating, it can be dangerous, it is expensive...But I am sooo depressed and have issues with this whole postpartum-body-image thing.It has been incredibly hard to get back into shape after Baby Fredegar. Then one sleepless night I was watching some plastci surgery show on the Discovery Health Channel (it's really bad what happens when you give someone who has been living off-grid for two years a remote control) and your skin stretches out after so many pregnancies, like those 800 lb people who lose weight-you need to have it either surgically removed or deal.They have show after show of women who have had children and are unhappy with their saggy guts and saggy boobs. Then they just dish out a few K and bam! Good as new!
That is so not fair! Well, I guess it's fair, I am just not happy about it.I want my body back! I want to be this gorgeous Mommmy person that people look at and say "Wow! You've had how many kids?" and not "Oh yeah, you've had 5 kids!" (Incidentally, is there an in between reaction?)
Anyway, I work out every morning, my diet has been so so. I hope to do better with the New Year. But in the past, with this much effort, I snapped back. It is a year later and I still feel like I have a figure like Augra from The Dark Crystal
Myeloma is the form of cancer my father has. My mother found this neat website with tons of info on this cancer,including this neat article about a priest who is a myeloma survivor.
"I am not sure what will come after this, but I have learned not to live too far into the future.
Instead I value each and every moment and experience and above all value the people."
Oral contraceptives and hormone replacement therapy drugs have been classified as carcinogenic by the World Health Organisation.WHO's cancer research group - the International Agency for Research on Cancer - announced yesterday that it had reclassified the pill and hormone replacement therapy from "possibly carcinogenic to humans" to "carcinogenic to humans".
...in the obesity "epidemic?" I've thought so for a while. Apparently there are more studies out indicating that HFCS really is not very good for us:
Now the U.S. Department of Agriculture has found more evidence of a link between a rapid rise in obesity and a corn product used to sweeten soft drinks and food since the 1970s, reports The Associated Press. Specifically, the data showed an increase in the use of high fructose corn sweeteners in the late 1970s and 1980s that was "coincidental with the epidemic of obesity," said one of the researchers, Dr. George A. Bray, a longtime obesity scientist with Louisiana State University System's Pennington Biomedical Research Center. The research was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
This stuff is everywhere -- I was shocked when I found it in canned tomato soup!
Alicia is sending out occasional updates from her trip to Omaha, where she is attending the NaPro Technology conference. In her last post, she remarks,
I have never thought IVF to be a good idea even without the moral implications, but I will admit that I have thought about it from the woman's POV. This tale of woe caused me to think about the man's experience, suffering shame and humiliation and performance pressure, for love of his wife and desire for a child of their genes. It is really sad that our culture has so adopted the mentality of 'bypass' rather than 'diagnose and cure' for infertility. Maybe we have adopted that erroneous mentality in other areas of life, as well.
There is so much to unpack in Alicia's paragraph I hardly know where to start. Most of us are familiar with the immoral, dehumanizing choices faced by women seeking treatment for infertility (I wrote a bit about my own experiences here.) As Alicia says, the emphasis is not on "diagnose and cure" but on "bypass." The objective is to make that baby. (A local IVF clinic is advertising on the radio, Successful delivery of a live baby or your money back!) So in addition to the evil of bypassing the unitive dimension of the marital act and turning the baby into a commodity instead of a creation, a woman being treated by the "bypass" model runs the risk of having the health problems that are causing her infertility go undiagnosed.
It would be interesting to view the presentation Alicia's referring to and hear more about infertility treatment from a man's point of view, for the options commonly offered to men are just as offensive and dehumanizing. If I were a man, I don't think I'd appreciate being treated like a faucet. (attention -- biology alert)
Whooping cough, a disease that killed as many as 10,000 people a year in the pre-vaccine era, is making a dangerous comeback, striking babies before they have had a chance to be fully vaccinated, researchers report today.
I will never forget the tiny little girl I saw in a pediatric ICU. She was maybe two or three months old, and had a very serious case of pertussis. She was on an oscillating ventilator, which shoots thousands of tiny puffs of air every minute in and out of the patient's lungs, the better to keep the lungs inflated. The oscillation jiggled her a little bit, so her head rested on a gel cushion to keep the friction from the sheets from chafing the back of her head.
Chocolate Compounds Boost Blood Vessel Function
We can always count on Alicia to bring us important health news.
The Paul Sorvino Asthma Foundation
He has also written a book, which is sadly out-of-print called How to Become a Former Asthmatic which describes breathing exercises to help strengthen an asthmatic's lungs. Thanks to Patty for the heads up.
I mentioned before my four year old is eating everything in site and it drives me nuts because I view it as gluttony. It is hard to get out of the house to get food with 5 feet tall snow drifts in the path of my front door, so I am very frustrated when I buy a hude bunch of bananas on Sunday, to see my four year old has eaten them all by Monday afternoon and no one else had a chance to have one. Especially when I purchased enough for everyone to have one a day for the week.
I try to cook healthy and yummy meals, and the rest of the family assures me I do.I am also frustrated that after I found Fastolph sitting in the corner of the pantry on a pile of banana peels, he will not eat his dinner.
I know the poor boy is hungry, he waited until dinner last night and practically consummed a pork tenderloin on his own.
I also think he is bored. His siblings do schoolwork all day, and even though I do some with him, his attention span is not very long. Poor guy is sort of in the odd
man out stage.
Alicia offers some constructive advice:
I almost made a comment about the hungry 4 year old - if you are accurate in your discernment that it is gluttony and not hunger, then I don't have a problem. And if you truly are budgeting food that tightly, I think that it is important to meet the needs of all your children, not just one. But I think that I would offer a constantly 'hungry' 4 year old something nutritious but not necessarily tasty to eat - a hungry child will eat whatever is offered, where as a greedy or bored one will whine "I don't like that!". As a child, I was sometimes so hungy that I ate the pith from the inside of my orange peels, and cracked open the prune kernels and ate the 'almond' inside. My mom had a weight problem and had very warped ideas about how much a growing child needed - I now have a weight problem and my own issues with food - but only one of my 6 kids has weight or food issues, and I guess that is all I can ask for (all 4 girls in my family have issues).
While I am somewhat concerned about weight for me, I worry a great deal more about proper nutrition for all the children. Since Gorbulas is an asthmatic, I worry that proper nutrition is his best line of defense from illness. The same is true for all my children. For example I have never said "Fastolph, do not eat anymore of that because you will get fat." (To be honest, I really do not worry about my kids and weight. In a few years they will no longer be able to eat some of the few things that kids enjoy that adults cannot lie French Fries, let them enjoy them now.). I have said however, "Fastolph, you may not have anymore of that because your brother and sister have not had any." Or "Fastolph, how about a glass of milk instead because I would like to see you get some more calcium for your bones, and less sugar that are in those apples..." Or today "Fastolph, you did not finish your lunch, so you may not have snacks until dinner." He wanted to play instead of eat, so I warned him.
Even though they ate the high-fat, high-sugar diet typical of pre-World War II Americans -- meat, potatoes, gravy, eggs, garden vegetables, bread, pies, and cakes -- the Ontario Amish were remarkably fit. Only 4% were obese and only 26% were overweight.
How did they do it? Hard work -- and lots of foot power. Their weekly exercise was equivalent to that of long-distance runners. Men averaged 18,425 steps a day. Women averaged 14,196 daily steps.
This is actually something I have always wondered about. We seem to be becoming more and more obese, yet we have more low fat foods. We have more programs like Weight Watchers only let have you eat like 1,000 calories a day. So what it the deal? It makes no sense. I guess because our predecessors really did a lot more work than your standard 30 minutes of cardio a day.
I also think it has to do with simply being busy all day and not having time to snack. That and not having food at your convenience all the time.
Since there are no known cures for colds and flu, prevention must be your goal. A proactive approach to warding off colds and flu is apt to make your whole life healthier. The most effective way to prevent flu, frankly, is to get the flu shot. It may not be natural, but it works better than anything else. But there are other strategies you can employ as well. WebMD went to Charles B. Inlander, president of The People's Medical Society, for suggestions you may want to try:
#1 Wash Your Hands
Most cold and flu viruses are spread by direct contact. Someone who has the flu sneezes onto their hand, and then touches the telephone, the keyboard, a kitchen glass. The germs can live for hours -- in some cases weeks -- only to be picked up by the next person who touches the same object. So wash your hands often. If no sink is available, rub your hands together very hard for a minute or so. That also helps break up most of the cold germs.
#2 Don't Cover Your Sneezes and Coughs With Your Hands
Because germs and viruses cling to your bare hands, muffling coughs and sneezes with your hands results in passing along your germs to others. When you feel a sneeze or cough coming, use a tissue, then throw it away immediately. If you don't have a tissue, turn your head away from people near you and cough into the air.
#3 Don't Touch Your Face
Cold and flu viruses enter your body through the eyes, nose, or mouth. Touching their faces is the major way children catch colds, and a key way they pass colds on to their parents.
#4 Drink Plenty of Fluids
Water flushes your system, washing out the poisons as it rehydrates you. A typical, healthy adult needs eight 8-ounce glasses of fluids each day. How can you tell if you're getting enough liquid? If the color of your urine runs close to clear, you're getting enough. If it's deep yellow, you need more fluids.
#5 Take a Sauna
Researchers aren't clear about the exact role saunas play in prevention, but one 1989 German study found that people who steamed twice a week got half as many colds as those who didn't. One theory: When you take a sauna you inhale air hotter than 80 degrees, a temperature too hot for cold and flu viruses to survive.
#6 Get Fresh Air
A regular dose of fresh air is important, especially in cold weather when central heating dries you out and makes your body more vulnerable to cold and flu viruses. Also, during cold weather more people stay indoors, which means more germs are circulating in crowded, dry rooms.
#7 Do Aerobic Exercise Regularly
Aerobic exercise speeds up the heart to pump larger quantities of blood; makes you breathe faster to help transfer oxygen from your lungs to your blood; and makes you sweat once your body heats up. These exercises help increase the body's natural virus-killing cells.
#8 Eat Foods Containing Phytochemicals
"Phyto" means plants, and the natural chemicals in plants give the vitamins in food a supercharged boost. So put away the vitamin pill, and eat dark green, red, and yellow vegetables and fruits.
#9 Eat Yogurt
Some studies have shown that eating a daily cup of low-fat yogurt can reduce your susceptibility to colds by 25 percent. Researchers think the beneficial bacteria in yogurt may stimulate production of immune system substances that fight disease.
#10 Don't Smoke
Statistics show that heavy smokers get more severe colds and more frequent ones.
Even being around smoke profoundly zaps the immune system. Smoke dries out your nasal passages and paralyzes cilia. These are the delicate hairs that line the mucous membranes in your nose and lungs, and with their wavy movements, sweep cold and flu viruses out of the nasal passages. Experts contend that one cigarette can paralyze cilia for as long as 30 to 40 minutes.
#11 Cut Alcohol Consumption
Heavy alcohol use destroys the liver, the body's primary filtering system, which means that germs of all kinds won't leave your body as fast. The result is, heavier drinkers are more prone to initial infections as well as secondary complications. Alcohol also dehydrates the body -- it actually takes more fluids from your system than it puts in.
#12 Relax
If you can teach yourself to relax, you can activate your immune system on demand. There's evidence that when you put your relaxation skills into action, your interleukins -- leaders in the immune system response against cold and flu viruses -- increase in the bloodstream. Train yourself to picture an image you find pleasant or calming. Do this 30 minutes a day for several months. Keep in mind, relaxation is a learnable skill, but it is not doing nothing. People who try to relax, but are in fact bored, show no changes in blood chemicals.
The People's Medical Society is a nonprofit consumer health advocacy organization. Charles B. Inlander is president, and co-author of 77 Ways to Beat Cold and Flu.
Reviewed by Charlotte E. Grayson, MD, September 2003.
Originally published October 2001.
SOURCE: Charles B. Inlander, president of The People's Medical Society, a nonprofit consumer health advocacy organization, and author of 77 Ways to Beat Cold and Flu.
© 2003 WebMD Inc. All rights reserved.
I am a little frustrated with Weight Watchers because I am really not sure how many points I should eat. I can eat 30 points a day and lose. I can actually eat a little bit more than 30 and lose more , but I am not sure how much more before it is too much more. I am also not sure how much under 30 points I can eat and still lose. The 20 points my Weight Watchers leader-person insists I am supposed to eat because my nursling does not nurse exclusively is unrealistic unless I pass out. For example, if I do not lumberack it up at breakfast, by 10:30 AM, I am shakey, sweaty and seeing stars. An example of my "lumberjack" breakfast is one bowl of oatmeal made with half a cup of oats, 1 tablespoon of blackstrap molasses (iron) and two tablespoons of flax (omega fatty acids and fiber). That is four points, One orange, another point. Maybe a piece of light bread toast and margarine and a cup of coffee simply for pleasure, another 3 points. That would leave me with 12 points for the rest of the day, which I think is too low for a nursing Mom.
I asked my WW person again about this, and she really thinks I am trying to sneak a few extra points in there. She is very nice, but is oblivious to the concept of a nursing two year old who really takes calories from you. Anyway, I would like to have some extra points for Thanksgiving, but not sure how low is too low to bank or how high I can go on Thursday. My normal pre-nursing course of action is to starve all day on Thanksgiving until dinner, but again, I would be passed out if I attempted that now.
Let's see, I boiled about 12 ounces of lasagna noodless (I use whole wheat spinach lasagna I get form my co-op). When it is done, I lie it out on either a piece of plastic wrap sprayed with cooking spray or a piece of wax paper. I sauté about 2-3 cloves of chopped garlic and about a tablespoon of basil (not fresh) in a little bit of olive oil. When the garlic browns a bit I add like one 28 ounce can of Muir Glen Chunky Tomato Sauce and let it simmer for at least 10-20 minutes. Quick and easy gravy for lasagna. I make the filling out of 1 16 ounce container of fat free ricotta cheese, one 10 ounce package of frozen chopped spinach thawed and drained and like 4 egg whites. I also use one cup of fat free shredded mozarella.
I assemble by spreading enough of the gravy on the bottom of 9" by 13" baking pan to cover the bottom. I put down a layer of pasta, then the filling, then some mozzarella and gravy. I repeat the process until the last layer is pasta and gravy. I sprinkle about half a cup of grated parmegiano reggiano cheese and cover with aluminum foil and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, remove the foil, bake for another 15 minutes. After you take it out of the oven, let it set for 5-10 minutes.
Healthy Home Air Stuff
In my continuing quest to help my son's asthma, I found some interesting info. One page I found from the American Lung Association offered healthy cleaning alternatives.
Alternative Recipes
Fortunately, many common products offer safe and effective cleaning solutions to the following problems:Grease cutter - 1 cup of lemon juice + 1 cup of water
Scouring powder - 1 cup of baking soda + enough water to form a paste
Laundry stain remover - 1 tsp. of white vinegar or baking soda per machine load
Toilet bowl cleaner - cup vinegar (leave overnight and brush the next day)
Floor and furniture polish - 2 parts vegetable oil + 1 part lemon juice (for leather furniture: 1 cup vinegar + 1 cup linseed oil)
Metal cleaners (brass and copper) - lemon juice + salt to form a paste OR a lemon wedge dipped in baking soda OR hot white vinegar + salt OR hot ketchup applied with a rag
Glass cleaner - 1 part vinegar + 1 part water
Rug and carpet cleaner - baking soda
Flies - well-watered bowl of basil
Moth Repellant - Cedar chips in cotton sachets
Roach Repellent - Chopped bay leaves and cucumber skins
Another interesting tidbit I found is certain plants hel clean the air.
Growing plants in your office can be a relaxing and enjoyable escape from the "daily-grind". Besides offering an aesthetic value which many can appreciate, they also improve air quality. They do an excellent job of cleaning up the moisture within your office space in addition to filtering dangerous toxins.
Tip: Place aquarium gravel (found at your local pet shop) in your planting pot to reduce the growth of molds and mildew.
According to the Health eOffice website, the top 12 air-cleaning plants are:
- Areca Palms (chrysalidocarpus lutescens)
- Lady Palm (Rhapis excelsa)
- Bamboo Palm (Chamedorea Seigrizii)
- Rubber Plant (Ficus Robusta)
- Dracaena Janet Craig (Dracaens deremensis "Janet Craig")
- English Ivy (Hedera Helix)
- Dwarf Date Palm (Phoenix Roebelenii)
- Ficus Alii (Ficus Macleilandii "Alii")
- Boston Fern (Nephrolepis Exalta "Bostoniensis")
- Peace Lily (Spathiphyllum sp.)
- Corn Plant (Dracaeba Fragrans "Massangeana")
- Golden Pothos (Epiremnum Aureum)
New Routine
Now that my 18 month old has "severe" asthma, I have to keep him on a variety of medications which makes me nervous. Do not get me wrong, I am very grateful for the fact that there are medications to give him the ability to breathe. I fully understand that due to original sin, there is illness in the world, and I am so blessed to have food, shelter and two hospitals within walking distance. The medications upset me though.
Before we had to give Gorbulas albuterol in the nebuliser, and perhaps Pulmicort on an "as needed" basis. Now he has to have albuterol treatments around the clock every four hours, he has to be on Prelone syrup two times a day for four more days. which is a steroid and has a ton of nasty side effects, including candidiasis and all the nasty side effects associated with the disease so my poor baby will probably be fighting this for the rest of his life and never be able to eat a carb again. After four days, I have to teach an 18 month old to use an inhaler because the dosage of Pulmicort (another steroid) for the nebuliser is not strong enough. This is until, well, until hopefully he outgrows asthma, or I can figure out a way to cure him with some type of diet and filling my home with a bazillion ionic air filters.
Again, I am amazed at medical science. (I am just venting because I am scared for my little guy. That is why I have this blog right, to vent?) I am also amazed at the way God created our bodies. When Gorbulas' lung collapsed, it caused his chest cavity to fill with air, where it would normally be filled with lung. The air is not supposed to be there because God created our bodies to have a negative air space (vacuum) in our bodies which is what keeps the lung inflated. Maybe I am too emotional, but I always in awe of our God when I learn a little bit more about how he constructed our bodies.
Speaking of which I took the little guy's dressing off this morning when I gave him his bath. God bless him, I never saw a kid who puts up with people ripping Band-Aids and surgical tape off of him. He just looked at me an smiled. The area of his cheek bones are all scabbed over from the surgical tape used to adhere the oxygen tubes to his face. I made a horrible blunder trying to wash some of the adhesive off with a wash cloth because it is getting all black and nasty. I made his face bleed when I wiped over the area with the wash cloth. I did not realise how delicate the scabs were. But the little wound in his side where they inserted the chest tube looks good and I hope God will take good care of it.
Women and Heart Disease
This month's issue of Shape Magazine had an imformative article about heart disease and women. Heart disease is the number 1 killer of women in this country, yet I think many people (well at least I do) tend to associate it more as a male disease. It was a good reality check for me because my both my parents suffer from heart disease, which automatically puts me at a higher risk.
I wanted to link the article, but could not find it online.
I did find an interesting site, National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease.
Here are some of their facts:
Prevalence:
* 8,000,000 American women are currently living with heart disease - 10% of women ages 45 - 64 and 25% age 65 and over.
* 6,000,000 of women today have a history of heart attack and/or angina or both. Nearly
* 13% of women age 45 and over have had a heart attack.
* 435,000 American women have heart attacks each year; 83,000 are under age 65 and 9,000 are under age 45. Their average age is 70.4.
* 4,000,000 women suffer from angina, and 47,000 of them were hospitalized in 1999.
Mortality:
* Heart disease is the leading cause of death of American women and kills 32% of them.
* 43% of American women, or nearly 500,000, die each year of cardiovascular disease (heart disease and stroke).
* 267,000 women die each year from heart attacks, which kill six times as many women as breast cancer.
* 31, 837 women die each year of congestive heart failure, or 62.6% of all heart failure deaths.
more...
To highlight some of the tips on heart disease prevention from the Shape magazine:
-Eat good quality fats
-Exercise as much as possible
-Keep weight down
-Reduce stress
allergy stuff
I have to rethink the way I feed my family. My boys seem to suffer from allergies, but I am at a loss. Last June, I went on this major crusade to cut out all foods that could cause allergic reactions, which meant basically an Ezekial bread wrap with some veggies. No, that will not do.
My 7 year old has nasty eczema in the winter. My one year old has asthma. I am not feeling like a good Mommy because there must be something triggering it, but I am not sure what, and the fact it, if there is a trigger in this house, then I am doing something to cause there reactions.
In the meantime I will do what I can on the physical front. I was flipping through a catalog my insurance sent me on Allergy Control Products. The catalog explained that dust mites are the leading cause of allergies, hence asthma attacks, and you can be fastidious about your housecleaning, but only their special and quite expensive, pillow, mattress and bedding encasings will control dust mites-and their line of household cleansers.
Back to the food stuff, I think wheat is one of our families biggest offenders, but I have very unsuccesfully tried many times to cut wheat out of our diet. It is hard because I have found that in order to feed my family economically (I spend about $75 a week on groceries-give or take), I make a great deal from scratch. Like most children, mine are hungry often and I find keeping fresh baked goods, fresh fruit and veggies around helps fill their snacking needs while being nutritious and economical. I have yet to meet someone who has cut wheat out, and has done it practically...
Lastly, we have a cat, Chun Li. She is old-older that Posco. She may have to go, my husband said "no" but it may come to that...
