Daydreaming

I listened to a very interesting interview on Spark, a CBC One program this week. Nora Young interviewed Kevin Kelly about the importance of play and the pleasures of wasting time. She also reviewed a short excerpt from an interview with Linda Stone, a writer and speaker who coined the terms, "continuous partial attention" and "email apnea". (Here is a link to the podcast. The last 15 minutes were the most interesting in my estimation)


Here is a paraphrase of some the ideas presented. We don't let our minds wander much anymore. Looking out a window or taking a walk puts our minds in a receptive mode, taking us to creative areas of our brain. Continuous partial attention is not the same as multi-tasking, but is an effort not to miss anything. This "on" switch creates a state of constant alertness and an artificial sense of impending crisis. We neglect to use the "off" switch which allows the body and mind to relax.


There is no doubt that technology changes the way we think and act. The interview pointed out that literacy rewired the brain and diminished our ability for total recall and memorization which was essential in oral traditions. We can hardly believe that ancient people could pass down accurate histories from generation to generation because we rely on print for storing information. And in this internet age, some people now have difficulty finishing a book as it requires a different type of attention than online browsing.


My work place is extra busy due to summer staff shortages and it is easy to think I am wasting time by letting my mind wander to a peaceful place. The vacation images taken this summer are my view out the window today and a reminder that my mind needs time to disengage and do nothing at all to be healthy and creative.

Getting Back on Track: Part Four

The trail I walked after work yesterday

It has been almost a year and a half since my knee locked and I had surgery to try and get some more mileage out of the joint before a knee replacement would be required. Arthritic joints do not let a day go by without reminding the owner that they are there. I have been able to work steadily for the past 12 months at my job which is active and requires heavy lifting at times. This spring I have enjoyed being out on trails and have worked in the garden again. I use my walking poles for longer walks but they look pretty sporty, not therapeutic. I have learned that if I do my knee exercises faithfully, I have less pain. I know that professionally, but exercises are not easier to do yourself just because you are a physiotherapist. I rarely take any anti-inflammatory medication.

I heard about Celedrin, a natural remedy for joint inflammation on a radio talk show. I wrote the name down but did not look for it at the store. A while ago, Costco had Celedrin capsules and cream packaged together at a special price so I picked some up. I started using the Celedrin cream on my knee twice a day and noted significant improvement in the chronic swelling and pain in the joint after a few days. I have tried a number of OTC anti-inflammatories as well as two different prescriptions and none worked as well as this cream. The Journal of Rheumatology published The effects of a cetylated fatty acid topical cream on functional mobility and quality of life of patients with osteoarthritis in 2004. The study concluded that "use of a CFA topical cream is an effective treatment for improving knee ROM, ability to ascend/descend stairs, ability to rise from sitting, walk and sit down, and unilateral balance."

I know better than to call this a cure, but anything that is safe to use and gives more mileage to my damaged joint is worth the price in my opinion. (It is no more expensive than over the counter medications). I ordered more cream from Well.ca (free, fast shipping in Canada) and received a sample of Memory FX in my package. Talk about targeting a demographic group! :-)

The Becka had some fun with this product on her blog today. Here is the link to her post.

Please note: I am receiving no compensation for mentioning Celadrin, Costco or Well.ca in this post. I will always promote my daughters though!

Appearances

Think not I am what I appear.
Lord Byron

She is in her tenth decade of life, closer to 100 than to 90. Her body has aged more than her mind and she fights to overcome the illness that landed her in the hospital. She heard that two friends from the Polish Legion were on another unit and asked if I will take her over for a visit. I pushed her wheelchair and she whispered, "Do I look OK?" I saw an old lady with a lined face and shrinking body but there was nothing amiss so I told her she looked just fine.

I pushed her into the ward where two old men, also in their nineties sat in wheelchairs by the window. She patted her hair, smoothed her top, and I saw the same thing in her eyes as I see in the eyes of a teenager who is trying to impress someone of the opposite sex. I looked at these three friends as they were half a century or more ago and observed the remnants of youthful beauty. I could not understand their mother tongue but watched them reminisce, interact and even flirt with each other just like men and women who were half their age.


Another lady sits in a wheelchair crippled by arthritis and missing a limb. She has beaten back her latest physical demon and is regaining her independence. Her costume jewelery is on a stand beside her bed and she selects a piece to wear each day with her carefully chosen outfit. She worries that the hair on the back of her head may be flattened by resting in bed and I fluff up the section she cannot reach. She is only in her 80's and appearances are still very important.

I remember a lecture given by a professor/ physician when I was a student. When he noticed a woman put on lipstick after surgery, he thought she was well on her way to recovery.

One of my stroke patients appeared in the common area with lipstick smeared unevenly on the affected side of her mouth. She did not notice the uneven application due to neglect and decreased sensation on her stroke side. One of our male staff members asked me to help her fix her face without embarrassing her. I remembered the words of the professor and saw my patient's attempt to enhance her appearance as a sign that she was getting better.

We all judge by appearance and know we are judged by others according to our looks. I would say this never changes. Some will philosophize and dismiss this attititude as superficial and wrong, but we will cannot alter our social human behaviour.

Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearance only.
Samuel Butler

Health Care Musings

I have worked in the Canadian health care system since 1975 and even longer if you count my unpaid hours while training to be a physiotherapist. I presently work in chronic continuing care with patients who are generally the elderly with multiple chronic medical conditions. Most of them have worked, raised families and lived productive and independent lives. I try to remember this when they are confused or unable to help themselves perform the most basic human functions. I like to listen to their stories and laugh at their jokes. I once walked into the room of a lady in her mid-nineties who was struggling to roll over in bed. Her bare legs were waving in the air above her diapered bottom. She told me,

"I feel like a hooker who is not getting paid."

I laughed and she laughed as I helped her get up. I asked her if she wanted to get into her chair and she responded,

"As long as it is not electric!"

The queen of one liners even when confused, she was likely the life of the party in her younger years.

A wheelchair covered with a sheet is stored in an alcove by the stairs. Some creative person with a sense of humour added the facial features seen in the picture above. Perhaps they were trying to intimidate Francine, our favourite in-house ghost.

Very few people leave this unit to go home. Some are too ill to move to a nursing home and will die here. But they receive compassionate and ethical medical care at the end of their lives. Which brings me to my point...

The Canadian health care system is not perfect, nor does it cover everything. Primary health care (family doctors) and hospitalization costs are covered but we pay for dental care, optometry, prescriptions (except for people over 65 years old), medical equipment and other extended health benefits. We have wait lists for non-urgent procedures such as joint replacements and other elective surgery. We do not euthanize the sick and elderly. Some areas of the country are under-serviced, especially more remote and sparsely populated communities. But we do not have to worry about receiving hospital bills which would bankrupt a family. And people can opt out of the system as it is not compulsory to have a health card.

I do not understand the strong resistance to universal health care in America. I have read outrageous claims on forwarded emails and some blogs which have made me angry, particularly those which spread exaggerations and lies about Canada's health care system. Many evangelical religious organizations in particular are zealous in resisting both Obama and his reforms. I wonder how many churches pay insurance and hospital bills for members (or non-members) who are in need? The Old Order Mennonites in Canada opt out of our health care system but their community covers costs when they are hospitalized.

Change is not easy and paradigm shifts can be very stressful. Health care reform is a big undertaking for any government. It will take a creative and unified effort to make a new system work well. And I don't want to receive hate-filled email forwards or see caricatures of Obama looking like Hitler or a monkey, especially from people who call themselves christians.

First of all, I ask you to pray for everyone. Ask God to help and bless them all,
and tell God how thankful you are for each of them. Pray for kings and others in power, so that we may live quiet and peaceful lives as we worship and honor God.
This kind of prayer is good, and it pleases God our Savior.
1 Timothy 2:1-3

More Adventures with Food

Greens at the Chinese Market

I find my exploration of vegetarian meal options very interesting and have discovered that many ethnic cuisines feature vegetables, grains and legumes served in tasty combinations. One of our larger local supermarkets has two rows of international foods including ingredients for Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Central American, and South Asian dishes. I like the bags of rice and chick pea flour, the many varieties of rice, beans and lentils as well as the pouches of unfamiliar herbs and spices.

Vegetables Bahjis with lime and hummus

The Becka has perfected vegetable bahjis which are made with chick pea flour or besan. This week, I bought a colourful bag of mixed lentils and used them in a vegetarian version of my mother's ground beef goulash recipe. The experiment turned out well and the recipe is posted on Come Home for Supper. There is a Chinese supermarket downtown which has the largest selection of reasonably priced fresh green vegetables I have ever seen. Last week I bought a large bunch of mustard greens, a vegetable I have never found in our regular stores. It has a peppery flavour and is tasty in soups and stir fries.

Rice and Lentils with mustard greens

My daughter and I spent two weeks last fall in Nevada, Arizona and California. I managed to find healthy vegetarian food most of the time. Las Vegas was the most difficult place to find a good restaurant so I drank a lot of Odwalla smoothies and ate fresh fruit from a nearby Walmart. California is a very vegetarian friendly state and even the ferry we took across to Alcatraz sold vegan lunches at their snack bar.

Roasted Vegetable Fajitas, El Torito, Monterey, CA

We ate at a Mexican restaurant near Cannery Row in Monterey and enjoyed a well presented vegetarian fajita sizzler. Served with rice, beans and tortillas, it was so big that we enjoyed another meal of leftovers the next day.

My main complaint with restaurant meals is the high sodium content of almost every dish. I really notice salty foods because we use few processed foods or canned soups at home. So I prefer to spend money on good ingredients and experiment with herbs and spices instead of relying on salt for flavour. I am enjoying this food adventure very much!

Food as Medicine

"Let food be thy medicine, and let thy medicine be food."

Hippocrates

I have read numerous books and articles on nutrition and have generally followed the advice of the Canada Food Guide in choosing foods for myself and our family. Our daughters were all sensitive to cow's milk, yet I continued to give them dairy products after they were weaned thinking they would not be healthy without them. From my mid twenties on, I had frequent migraine headaches which would last three days at a time. No medication would relieve them. I had several episodes of back pain as well as inflammatory joint pain on a regular basis.

Just over a year ago I had surgery for a locked knee. The surgeon noted inflammatory damage beyond what he expected for my age. I was off work for weeks and gradually worked back to my normal hours in the following three months. In early April I developed acute plantar fasciitis in my right foot. My knee pain was nothing compared to the searing pain experienced when I walked. Custom orthotics helped somewhat, but I needed anti-inflammatory medication daily along with Zantac to protect my stomach. I then noticed my blood pressure readings were going up alarmingly from their low-normal averages. By mid-summer I was barely getting through a day of work and was unable to walk much outside after work. I did some research and found my anti-inflammatory medication could cause a rise in blood pressure. I decided to try an anti-inflammatory diet to see if I could get some pain relief.

In August I started by eliminating all sugar and refined foods from my diet. Within three days my foot pain was noticeably better. I then stopped eating meat and after a couple days of withdrawal, felt even better. Dairy was last and hardest to give up as I love plain yogurt. Eating a vegan diet with no refined foods allowed me to completely stop all medication and my blood pressure quickly dropped to normal. The night pain which interfered with my sleep cleared up. I went on a trip to the States for two weeks and walked a lot without having a flareup. (I managed to stick to my diet 90% of the time we were gone). I had a set back when I developed septic arthritis in my elbow after a big dental procedure in December. Once that was treated with antibiotics, my pain and inflammation has been diet controlled again. If I cheat, I have more pain. As a bonus, I have had no headaches at all and other hormonally related problems have cleared up completely.

I have not restricted my portions of allowed foods and am deprived at all. When I plan a meal for myself, I imagine a large garden with an orchard and can have anything from it I want. My meals are colourful and satisfying. It is sometimes socially awkward to refuse food and I do not like to bring attention to my preferences. I have eaten fish a few of times since the summer. I had clam chowder in a sourdough bowl on the wharf in San Francisco because I felt it was part of experiencing that city's culture. The food pyramid from Dr. Joel Fuhrman's books is a good model for the kind of eating I need to stick to. It allows some flexibility but is primarily vegetable and fruit based. I stick to the bottom three sections most of the time.

This way of eating is right for me but each person needs to figure out which foods are best for them. We would never think of filling the tank of our car with anything but the proper fuel. Our dog is on a restricted diet due to liver disease and we are careful to adhere to it. Why is it so hard to treat our bodies with the same respect? I have been inspired and encouraged by some bloggers who are long time vegetarians. Melissa (Empress of Dirt) lives in my community and has been very kind and helpful.

Many health conditions can be treated effectively with dietary modifications, yet most people have difficulty following recommendations. Taking medication and vitamins is no substitute for healthy food. David H. Murdock, the 86 year old chairman and owner of Dole foods is a good example of someone who adheres to this philosophy. He says,"No pills, not even aspirin, and certainly no supplements ever enter my mouth -- everything I need comes from my fish-vegetarian diet, which incorporates 30-40 different kinds of fruit and vegetables every week." (source) I think it would be impossible to feel deprived eating a diet with that amount of variety.

We ate at a new Central American restaurant last weekend and ordered a few of their vegetarian dishes. From the bean soup to the green salad with grilled fruit, each course was delicious and satisfying. There were eight different fruits and vegetables in the salad on the right alone. (The Becka has written a post about this restaurant on our blog An Insider's Guide to Waterloo Region)

Here are some other resources I have found helpful while changing the way I eat.

The China Study
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
Disease Proof

Food, Glorious Food, Don't care what the cook's like...

Published by Carnation, 1955

This is my first cookbook which I received at the age of six or seven. The Becka scanned the cover for me last week and labeled the file

sexist_turning_little_girls_into_housewives_beginners_manual.jpg

She was appalled at the tone and content of the book which suggested that only Mother and Older Sister could work in the kitchen and little girls, not little boys had to learn culinary basics. Father and Boyfriend were the recipients of the fine meals prepared by the women in the family.

I never thought there was anything wrong with this model. Men earned the money and women kept the home. I was 18 years old when I saw a friend's brother-in-law drying dishes in the kitchen. This was so novel (in 1972) that I remember the moment vividly. Since that time, the men in my life, my father, brothers and husband, have proved themselves to be capable with kitchen duties. I took Home Economics classes in middle school and learned to sew, set a table and cook simple meals. Our daughters took Family Studies and Shop in mixed classes where the boys learned kitchen skills and the girls learned woodworking together.

My husband and I preparing Thanksgiving dinner

As women, including myself, entered the working world, roles and relationships with food changed. Busy living requires more convenience and with more disposable income, fast foods and processed foods are eaten more often. Children prefer birthday parties at the golden arches to having a picnic in the park. Treats are useful for pacifying children when we are busy. And food is a stress-reliever, a "drug" of choice.

I was taught that we were to respect our bodies and that alcohol and cigarettes would defile our God-given temple. But no one objected to gorging on food at a buffet or eating foods which were unhealthy. Every day I see the result of a lifetime of poor food choices in patients I work with. Fatty foods in excess cause liver disease in the same way excessive alcohol consumption does. High sodium intake damages tissues of the circulatory system and organs. And excessive weight leads to many chronic illness which are as debilitating as diseases caused by cigarette smoking.

To top it off, we are inundated with confusing and conflicting information on what we should and shouldn't eat. I took vitamin E supplements for years until a recent study showed that the mortality rate of those who took the supplement was higher than for those who didn't take it. Diet fads have swung from one extreme to another. Prescription medications are marketed widely by pharmaceutical companies while the market for vitamins and other supplements has also grown exponentially.

Food, glorious food!
Eat right through the menu.
Just loosen your belt
Two inches and then you
Work up a new appetite...

Where is common sense, intuition, and listening to our bodies in all of this?

More to follow....