Standing in the confusion of the medical field

Ok, so yesterday I went to my beloved chiropractor and naturopathic physician. Dr. H has been straightenening my back and neck for almost 16 years since that first fall in the grocery store right after we moved to Washington State. Today I am a better adjusted grandma!!

Anyway, he has always been happy to give nutritional and exercise advise when I ask him for it, and he's been keeping an eye on my broken ankle too. Since he doesn't have an x-ray machine in his office, it was necessary for me to visit the other side of the fence. So, I told him about the second x-rays and the advise of the M.D. to stay off it, keep the cast on, and settle myself down. His reaction was as it usually is when faced with opposing views. He said you are likely not getting enough protein in your diet... which is the building block that the bone needs to heal from the inside out. Not much you can do from the outside is going to help really, except by taking off the cast and walking around bare-footed in the house you are sending attention signals to the brain that that broken bone is there and the body has to work on healing that area so its not so sore to walk on. Well dogonne!! I love hearing I'm nearly right!!

Of course its difficult to get enough protein because I don't eat beef or pork (not religious, just can't deal with the way farmers treat those animals and the indifference to the consumers health....but that's another rant). So, Dr. H. gives me a sheet outlining various forms of protein and the amounts he recommends I consume daily. The sheet says that eggs, cottage cheese, yogurt, wild fish, beans, meat and poultry are excellent sources. I have some other material from the Vegan Diet website too, and I'm re-reading that stuff. There are things on that list I don't like -- like tofu, pork, beef, cow's milk. But peanut butter and brown rice are on there, and I eat those often. So, I'm going to pump up my protein intake and add a slice of ginger root every day to help heal too. I'm going to take this cast off every day too just like I've been doing to help that bone heal.

Now, here comes the soap-box:
I've heard old-timers say "Use it or lose it"... well I agree, if I don't use this leg I'm going to lose use of it, or have problems my whole life with it because I didn't heal it properly. Medical doctors don't want a person to get well, if they got well, what would the doctors do with their time and all those drugs and expensive equipment they have in their offices? How many MD's do you know that tell you if you'd only exercise more and drink more water that you'd feel better, and you wouldn't have to keep coming to see me? Nearly every time they tell you take this pill or consult this other doctor - who will recommend some pill or surgery. And this pill causes some reaction that takes another pill to work on, and soon you have one of those pill boxes with daily slots... more pills than would choke a horse. One book I have--the introduction says "...the water taken with the medication does more good than the medication itself." I have a client with what I consider to be clear signs of dehydration - her feet are swollen, her joints hurt her all the time, she has serious stomach troubles. And what does her MD suggest? That she take a water pill and drink LESS water!!! I'm so mad that I'd love to go find that guy and kick him in his shin-bones. How DARE he tell her to drink less water!! He should tell her what I've been telling her! Drink more water, get off the pork and beef and use sea salt. Of course, I'm only a lowly housekeeper with no credentials, so what do I know?
Well, I'll tell you what I know... Jesus has put this knowledge in my hands to share with people that I come in contact with that need to know that Doctors are only out to sell pills and surgery. They get kickbacks from the drug companies and make commissions for referrals and everyone benefits from a person that needs long-term care, like cancer or diabetis, or heart troubles. They care even less about you than the useless boxboy carrying your groceries to the car or the kid behind the counter at McDonald's. You are only a boat payment or another day at Cabo-San-Lucas for their much needed months vacation.
Here's my suggestion, read something about dehydration, find out if you (or you, or you) really are dehydrated and mal-nourished, and if you'd just get more water into your body how much better you'd feel!! I haven't had a migraine in almost 2 years, my bones don't ache, and I don't have the stomach problems I did for so long!! Take care and God Bless!

Whatever happened to speedy recovery??

Well, heck... I went to the clinic yesterday, spent an hour in the waiting room among the sneezing and coughing Monday morning group, got my right ankle re-x-rayed to check on my progress -- gosh it's been 6 weeks, and I thought, well, OK, it's still sore and kinda swollen, but after this much time, it really should be nearly healed enough I can drop-kick this cast out the window, right? Huh doctor? Right?
Ummmm... NOPE! The 6-week x-rays don't show much healing compared to the ones right after the break. So, I get 3 more weeks in this removable cast, and the doctor really wants me to go to Orthopedics and get a visit with bone-doctors. I told her I would set an appointment for 3 weeks, and I will.
The reasons are many why this is not healing. First I can't stay off it and let it heal. My clients aren't going to wait and my bills won't wait either. Next, I have thought that by taking off this cast and walking around the house that I was doing some good by keeping the muscles strong. Apparently it's only aggravating the injury and not helping the situation at all. Ok, so I never said I was a good patient !! Doctor blondie says I need to leave the cast on when I'm walking around the house--period. Ok, I'm going to do my best, but I'm not going to stop and put it on when I'm on the way to the bathrooom, or to get a refill on my water glass! If Orthopedics talks me into a plaster cast, I'll be unable to shower, shave my legs, or sleep comfortably, so that is the very very very last resort.
Meanwhile, I'm waiting to hear from MooBear, I hope she's feeling ok, in my prayers and in my thoughts. Hopefully her husband is reading blogs to her and she'll know I'm thinking of her and hope she'll send a hello so I know she's still breathing and sitting on her thinking stool.
And of course Ingrid chided me for not writing anything for a few days. Well, Fay-Baby was here Saturday night, and I took her home Sunday afternoon, came home and fell on the bed in exhaustion! What a little tornado that kid is - just 15 months and on the run all the time! I'm too old to chase a baby, especially on one wing!!! Her mom is working lots of hours at a local book store, and useless man is working too- under the table in construction work, and still drawing unemployment benefits. I hated when they were so far away in Everett, but now they're here and I can see for myself things in this relationship that make me want to feed that man to the nearest chipper-shredder. He's not a good person, he's very selfish and self-centered. Not normal traits for a 33 year old man who isn't an only child. Now Amanda is an only child and is also selfish and self-centered, but she's only 24 years old, and is a new mother too. I give her some room for improvement... him... someone should shoot.
Ok, off to dinner, take care all, and talk to you soon!

Thanking God for Small Favors

Well, the little baby girl that was stollen from her mother was found today. The woman that stole her has been arrested. While I can feel such wonderful relief for the mother, I still feel some sorrow for the woman that took the baby. Obviously she is in some serious mental dilemma to justify trying to kill the mother in order to steal a newborn baby. Having lived through the kidnapping of my own child, I can really feel for the mother that went through it.

Amanda was 6 weeks old when her father decided to take off with her. We were living in Reno, Nevada at the time. I was 19, he was 29. We married 4 month after we met, and we weren't doing too well as a married couple, all things considered. He told people that he worked with that I was screwing around with other men in the neighborhood and that I was a terrible mother, using drugs and leaving our child with strangers. Now, NONE of this was true. I had just given birth, I was staying home with Amanda and not leaving her with anyone, and I certainly wasn't using drugs... well I was smoking cigarettes, but I was stupid.. and I've apologized a hundred times to Amanda for smoking while I was pregnant with her. (Yes, Morgan, I've been in bad relationships before.. =-) )

While I was tearing up Reno looking for my child, I hired an attorney and got a custody order written, and filed for divorce, awaiting the time when he would get in touch with me. His family didn't know where he was, he'd left his job with no word, and nobody knew a thing. My parents and I filed a report in the paper regarding the kidnapping of my daughter and offered a reward for information or her return.

Anyway... 3 weeks after he took our baby, he called me from Oklahoma City, told me pack a bag, get on a plane and tell my family goodbye. I did in fact get on a plane and flew to OKC, he was supposed to bring the baby and meet me at the airport, my plan was to hand him the papers, get my daughter and go home. He fooled me and didn't show up with her, but drove me to the house he was staying at; the mother of a woman he worked with, people who helped him get a job and took care of the baby while he worked. Thanks to Jesus she was fine and fat and healthy. The woman from Reno called while I was there, and her mother told her I was there, we talked on the phone, the mother helped me get back to the airport and I went home with my daughter.

I'll always be grateful to the family in OKC that took care of my daughter and helped my ex-husband find a job. If not for them, only Jesus knows what might have become of her. He might have left her on the front steps of a church somewhere and I'd never seen her again, or God forbid something worse indeed.

That 3 week gap really threw a wrench into our lives as mother and daughter. That bonding period was disrupted for both of us, and our relationship has always suffered. We're more like step-sisters, I guess, or maybe step-mother and step-daughter. Though I will always be eternally grateful to Jesus for finding a way to send her home to me, and even more thankful that she's a healthy normal person, whose become a fine adult and a good mother, I'll always have a sadness in my heart because of what was taken from us, and wish that the mother and her newly found child won't have the same problem in their life.

Today, by the way, is my brother Rick's 50th birthday. He's not here to celebrate with me, he passed away 12 years ago. Rick was really a neat guy. He was loving and caring and a hell of an artist. Rick taught me to crochet. My mom couldn't figure out how to teach a left-handed child, but Rick was so patient and he just sat in front of me and I followed his hands, and every time I work on an afghan, I think of him. He spent a few years living in San Francisco, and was caught in an elevator during an earthquake there. Not very long later, he want to Arizona. He drew beautiful artwork, and spent better than half his life living in Tucson and Scottsdale, Arizona. He loved the desert and loved the warm weather. After his diagnosis of AIDS, he moved up to Washington to be with family, but there is no decent medical care here for AIDS people, and he decided to go back to Arizona. A year after he left, he died, surrounded by his dearest friends, who he considered family. The Tucson hospice at the veterans hospital was his final home. Our older brother Brian and his family and I went down to Tucson and gathered Ricks things and brought a good portion of it all home to Washington State. His clothes were donated to the hospice as well as most of his music and afghans. He was loving and caring, and though the disease centered in his brain and caused him to become a stranger to those of us that knew him best, he touched a lot of people and no one who ever met him would forget him.
I'm a bit sad today, but happy that Rick is out of pain, and with Jesus, who answers all our questions and gives a restful place to spend eternity safe and warm.

A bit about Fay

Tonight before I go to bed I want to share a bit about my new granddaughter Fay. She just turned 14 months, is walking, and beginning to do some talking.
I am happy to say that her parents (my daughter and that useless man of hers) are living back here after living across the mountains near Seattle. Right around Fay's birthday that man got a job offer over here, so they packed up and moved right on back home. Both his mother and I live here, and we've suffered terribly being separated from the kids. Mostly me of course, as my daughter and I have had some hard-headedness between us and wasted a lot of precious time. So, now they are here, useless man lost that job because according to the boss - he just can't afford to pay 'him' what he promised he could. So this useless bag of bones is sitting on his butt drawing unemployement benefits because he'd rather do THAT than take some crap-job. My opinion of course is rather WORK than draw unemployment.
Ok, enough on "useless man", this was about Fay.
Every day or so I go over after I finish working and visit with Fay, have some play time, give her dinner, and give 'useless man' a break since 'daughter' is working mostly evenings at her part-time job. Tonight Fay picked up my keys, tossed her little Dora purse over her shoulder, kissed gramma and hollered bye-bye as she was heading for the door. Now HOW FREAKING cute is that?? So smart at 14 months, she knows what to get and what it's for, and where to go!! Of course, she's a bit short of the doorknob (thank GOD!!), but by golly she knows what to do. Mostly her language is something akin to Ewok, and I'll be eternally unhappy that her parents refused to teach her sign lanuage, anyway...
Another thing she's smart about is food. She knows food is MMMMMMMM and water is AHHHHHHH. I'm grinning and chortling even as I write this. Amazed that this little critter is so quick. She does say "mommy", "daddy", "bye-bye", "puppy", and of course "oh shit" but food, poop, and water are just a bit beyond her so far.
I know it won't be but about a minute and she'll be calling me and asking if I'll share the cost of her first car with the other grandma. You Betcha Fay-baby, whatever Gramma can do for you!!

Crummy movies out there people!

Today we rented and watched Giovanni Ribisi's newest release to video: "I Love Your Work"... well, I hated this movie. From the beginning it's bouncing back and forth between his acting jobs, his wife's acting jobs, his photography, a stalker, a woman he's stalking, a man stalking his wife... geez what a yawner. Are they drug addicts or are they screwing around with everyone that appears to be someone they are screwing around with? Elvis Costello is after his wife. Ok, there are a few good stars in the movie making cameo's, but I was upset to have spent money on this one. My husband is in there watching the remainder of it and will no doubt tell me all I missed by leaving the room in a huff of disgust.
I really liked Giovanni Ribisi in the Postman, in The Other Sister (he played her retarded boyfriend), he's had bit parts in tons of movies, and I always enjoy seeing him. After "I Like Your Work" I might have to bypass his face on the CD box... booo!

Last week we watched November with that dark-haired star of Friends fame, who'se married to some other actor... gosh what's her name? Anyway, the pretense is that her boyfriend is shot and she spends the rest of the movie trying to reconcile the situation with herself. In the last 5 minutes of the movie you find out she was also shot during the robbery, is dying for 2 hours, and is re-living her life. I didn't get it... I still don't get it.

What ever happened to GOOD movies with GOOD plots, Good actors, and an actual point to the movie? My favorite old movie is Spencer's Mountain. Now Henry Fonda is daddy and Maurene O'Hara is mom and they have a gob of kids living in poverty in a mountain town. Their oldest kid (of Hawaii 5-0 fame, Danno) is smart enough and ambitious enough to go to college, only they have no money due to poor times and too many mouths to feed. In the end of course, daddy sells off the property that he was going to build they're dream house on, and Jr. goes to college. No boobs, no guns, no f-words!!! (God I'm old)...