Life is Healthy

I fell in love the minute I met her, and 27 years later, I’m still gaga over my baby girl.

Carlene was here waiting when I got home from the hospital on Saturday, and except to run out for an oil change and car wash today, she has not NOT taken care of me ever since.

On Sunday night, she and Larry and I were watching “It’s Complicated” (highly recommend!) as my knee got redder and tighter. It had been a warm day – the high had been 87 – and it was still humid, so I thought maybe that was the reason. When it got worse, I scoured my discharge papers for instructions on what abnormalities I was supposed to let my doctor know about. “Excessive swelling and redness” were two of them, but how did they define “excessive”? I talked to an on-call nurse with my insurance company and she thought it would be a good idea to contact the resident on call at my doctor’s office in Pittsburgh. (For those of you new to my blog, I live about 70 miles north of Pittsburgh.)

The resident called me back and said she recommended I go to our local hospital to get checked out. Carlene drove me there me. It was 11:30. Four vials of blood, a shot of morphine and a chest x-ray later, I was strapped to a gurney and loaded in an ambulance. Carlene handed me my purse. I told her to go get some sleep and she said she’d be down in a few hours.

11 more vials of blood, two aspirations (to check for bacteria under my knee cap…oh yeah…THAT was fun), an ultrasound (to check for blood clots) and a shot of dilaudid later, Carlene arrived with a banana in her purse because she knew I wouldn’t have eaten for nearly 18 hours.

All my tests checked out and the docs guessed the swelling was in response to such a major debridement, so I was discharged. Carlene loaded me in the car, surrounded me with pillows, and drove us to Panera where she rolled down a window, locked me in the car, and got us some food.

Last night we watched “Connie and Carla” snuggled up on my twin bed.
I could list all the things Carlene’s done to help me, like getting me safely from point A to point B, and helping me eat right and stay clean, but I’d be typing all night. Besides, those things aren’t the most important components of my recovery. Carlene’s presence is better for my knee than any narcotic. She is soothing and loving, funny and kind. We’re on the same snark level, and we love to discuss books and history. She’s the kind of friend we all dream of, let alone child we hope to bear.

When I think of Carlene, I always get a sweet ache in my heart. I will miss her when she goes home Thursday, but I know with certainty that the next time I see her I will fall in love all over again.
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A quick note about my recent “theme” change to my blog. Those of you who use Firefox or a Mac computer have not been able to post comments or click through on links. I apologize for this. I tried to reset my theme to what it was before, but being the computer genius I’m not, I have been unsuccessful so far. So if you’re unable to leave a comments here and you’d like to contact me, feel free to send me an email at lynnbering@verizon.net.

I'm having a sad day despite my efforts to laugh and keep a smile on my face. I guess that's just how it goes sometimes. It's hard, too, because I've always been kind of a sad sack my whole life. And trying to change after more than a half a century is challenging to say the least. 


According to Psychology Today, optimism takes practice. And I can say without hesitation, that's true. I practice everyday trying to stay uplifted—in a good humor. And everyday I have remind myself over and again that being happy is something I want. So I'll fake it until I make it. 


The magazine goes on to say that optimism is more about being persistent and engaged with working toward meeting your goals than it is about being relentlessly happy or always thinking positive thoughts. So I guess a day where a little sadness creeps in isn't the end of my journey. It's the beginning of understanding myself and realizing that meeting a goal takes dedication and hard work. It also takes fortitude. 


Fortitude means mental and emotional strength in facing difficulty, adversity, danger, or temptation courageously. And I need courage when it comes to facing down temptation. 


I'm still fighting a weird internal battle over getting myself to go back to the gym. It's going to take more encouraging self talk to get myself moving again. And even more fortitude. But that's what I'm here for. Right? 


I'm still on my spiritual quest. I think some days that plays on my overall zest for life, too. I never thought that searching for my soul and my connection to God could take so much fortitude. Sorry for the constant use of that word. It just fits in so well with how I'm feeling today. 


Well, getting that out helped my mood. 

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The last time I was in the hospital overnight was when I gave birth to Cassie 25 years ago. In my room, I fed her, cleaned her up and took care of her. Wednesday night after surgery, Cassie stayed in my room and fed me, cleaned me up, and took care of me.

I think I have this surrendering thing down.

While there were a few rough spots in the hospital, mostly I was cared for by people who did their jobs as though I was a relative. Anesthesiologist Dr. “Mario” Montoya (“Just think of the video game,” he said) really tried to get my legs numb with a spinal block, but when they wouldn’t go to sleep fast enough he took my hand and looked me in the eyes, and explained he had to use general anesthesia. Even though my doctor was yelling, “Get her to sleep!” he made sure I understood what was happening. He even checked up on me three times in recovery.

Amanda the Amazing Nurse listened to me when I said I knew I had a higher fever than the 99 degrees the machine said I had. I knew because my eyes were watering (not from tears) and I had that overall “ugh” feeling, the one that tells me my temp is over 101. She retook it with a different thermometer and low and behold, it was 101.5! She gave me two Tylenol, two oxycodone, an Atavan and tucked me in for the night. I woke up the next morning cool and feeling good. When she came into my room to help me to the bathroom, I serenaded her with my rendition of “Dr. Feelgood.” I was afraid she’d drop my nerve block and hemo boxes from laughing so hard.

Coni the PCT held my hand as I bawled through the most intense pain of my life, worse than two rounds of 13 hours of natural labor. She distracted me with questions which led to a conversation about weight loss and how she recently lost 20 pounds, became a vegetarian, and is in the best shape of her life. And she’s close to my age!

Now I’m home and under the care of daughter Carlene and husband Larry. Carlene made me a fabulous veggie sauté and bean burger last night, which I could only eat ¼ of (the old appetite isn’t as back as I thought) and helped me take a shower with my legs sticking over the sides. An hour after she went to sleep, I needed another ice pack so I called her and she made no fuss about bringing me one.

Larry’s hyper vigilant about keeping the dogs away from me and didn’t mind a phone call at 3:30 when I needed another ice pack and some more drugs. Cassie, Carlene and Larry want me get better, just as I would if they were where I am. Old Lynn wouldn’t have felt worthy of that kind of love. I do now.

Remember how I was worried I’d wake up with an artificial knee instead of just a debridement and the bone growths removed? I found out why I woke up with my original parts. On rounds the day after surgery, my doctor told me my knee is shot. There is nothing else anyone can do to save it. However, he didn’t put a new knee in during surgery because he said, and I quote, “You had my full attention when I opened up your knee and saw what you were working with. You’re in such good shape that I thought if you can be as strong as you are given the condition of the knee as it was, you’ll do just fine for another five years or more with it cleaned out.”

But, he cautioned, the next surgery will be total knee replacement. I’m OK with that. He hoped to buy me a few years because I’m still pretty young for TKR and he has, so far as I can tell, done that.

BFF Chris (CrispyRice from the Weight Watchers 100+ discussion board – my lifeline as I was losing weight) – came to visit me in the hospital.

I came home to a dozen gerbera daisies from BFF Heather in Chicago. Shelley sent me this awesome magnet:
And the supportive posts and emails from my friends – both online and in “real” life – have helped make this recovery more than I ever expected. Thank you so very much for your kind thoughts, prayers, and concern.

Now it’s time to strap up and head to the bathroom. Never thought I’d be so happy to do that alone again.

(By the way, I took photos of the incision, but I thought I'd spare you. Looks like I'll have matching knees again! LOL)

Daily Mail, By DAILY MAIL REPORTER, 25th June 2010

Posted by Jiho Han, Software Engineer

Sharing is an important feature for bloggers. When your readers find an interesting post, they probably want to share it with other people; this in turn brings more traffic back to your blog.

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About two months ago, I did an interview with Jimmy Moore of the Livin' la Vida Low Carb internet empire. I hardly remember what we talked about, but I think it went well. I enjoyed Jimmy's pleasant and open-minded attitude. Head over to Jimmy's website and listen to the interview here.

I do recall making at least one mistake. When discussing heart attacks,I said "atrial fibrillation" when I meant "ventricular fibrillation".

The week has been interesting to say the least. I went to the arthritis doctor. I found out my arthritis is no where near as bad as I thought it was. And I left the doctor's office amazed at how I made the situation worse than what it really was. I imagined that my knees were bone-on-bone and should've been replaced  a long time ago. But the doctor said on a scale of one to 10, with 10 being the worst, my knees are a three. (And he has x-rays to prove it.)

I'm glad he did the x-rays. I needed to see that my knees aren't ready to collapse under me.  Now, exercise is an option. The doctor gave me an arthritis medication, and it's helping. He said I would probably have to take it for a couple of weeks to see the real benefit. But it already feels better.

So where am I in terms of weight loss? I'm getting back to where I once was. But I do need to add the exercise back into the equation so I can really get back to where I was.

Spiritually I've had a moment or two where I really understood the universe and how it works. I understand why I always end up in the same situations over and over. Now I'm trying to figure out how to change that once and for all. Meditation helps. Talking helps. And thinking about things in very different terms helps, too.

But it's going to take time. I finally, once and for all, want to get beyond believing that I'm a failure. I want to believe in my own personal power. Life is journey. I want to enjoy mine.

Antara News, Wednesday, June 23, 2010 21:51 WIB

You might have already noticed that in addition to the Blogger Template Designer, we added some other new features in our recent release.

First, the accurate post preview, a feature that’s been available on Blogger in Draft, is now available to everyone. Before you publish a post, you may want to preview your post to see how it will actually look to your readers, in the same format and style of your current Blogger theme. To try it, click the Preview button on the New Post page. You will see a new window open with the accurate preview of the post.

We also introduced a new video player that’s based on the YouTube player. The new Blogger video player allows full-screen viewing -- now visitors can watch videos that you published on your blog in full-screen mode. The new player also features a better user interface, such as animated seekbar (the red bar along the bottom of the video) and bigger buttons. You can also right-click on the player to see more information about the video, such as playback performance (“Show Video Info”) or network speed (“Take Speed Test”). Note that despite the new video player, the videos you upload to Blogger are still only visible on your blog, not on YouTube.



As always, please send your suggestions and feedback through the Blogger User Forum. Thanks for using Blogger!

It's been difficult for me to find good information on Asian diets prior to modernization. Traditional Chinese, Taiwanese and Japanese diets are sometimes portrayed as consisting mostly of white rice, with vegetables and a bit of meat and soy, but I find that implausible. Rice doesn't grow everywhere, in part because it requires a tremendous amount of water. Removing all the bran was prohibitively labor-intensive before the introduction of modern machine milling. One hundred years ago, bran was partially removed by beating or grinding in a mortar and pestle, as it still is in parts of rural Asia today. Only the wealthy could afford true white rice.

Given the difficulty of growing rice in most places, and hand milling it, the modern widespread consumption of white rice in Asia must be a 20th century phenomenon, originating in the last 20-100 years depending on location. Therefore, white rice consumption does not predate the emergence of the "diseases of civilization" in Asia.

In the book Western Diseases: Their Emergence and Prevention, there are several accounts of traditional Asian diets I find interesting.

Taiwan in 1980

The staple constituent of the diet is polished white rice. Formerly in the poorer areas along the sea coast the staple diet was sweet potato, with small amounts of white rice added. Formerly in the mountains sweet potato, millet and taro were the staple foods. During the last 15 years, with the general economic development of the whole island, white polished rice has largely replaced other foods. There is almost universal disinclination to eat brown (unpolished) rice, because white rice is more palatable, it bears kudos, cooking is easier and quicker, and it can be stored for a much longer period.

Traditionally, coronary heart disease and high blood pressure were rare, but the prevalence is now increasing rapidly. Stroke is common. Diabetes was rare but is increasing gradually.

Mainland China

China is a diverse country, and the food culture varies by region.

Snapper (1965)… quoted an analysis by Guy and Yeh of Peiping (Peking) diets in 1938. There was a whole cereal/legume/vegetable diet for poorer people and a milled-cereal/meat/vegetable diet for the richer people.

Symptoms of vitamin A, C and D deficiency were common in the poor, although coronary heart disease and high blood pressure were rare. Diabetes occurred at a higher rate than in most traditionally-living populations.

Japan

On the Japanese island of Okinawa, the traditional staple is the sweet potato, with a smaller amount of rice eaten as well. Seafood, vegetables, pork and soy are also on the menu. In Akira Kurosawa’s movie Seven Samurai, set in 16th century mainland Japan, peasants ate home-processed millet and barley, while the wealthy ate white rice. Although a movie may not be the best source of information, I assume it has some basis in fact.

White Rice: a Traditional Asian Staple?

It depends on your perspective. How far back do you have to go before you can call a food traditional? Many peoples' grandparents ate white rice, but I doubt their great great grandparents ate it frequently. White rice may have been a staple for the wealthy for hundreds of years in some places. But for most of Asia, in the last few thousand years, it was probably a rare treat. The diet most likely resembled that of many non-industrial Africans: an assortment of traditionally prepared grains, root vegetables, legumes, vegetables and a little meat.

Please add any additional information you may have about traditional Asian diets to the comments section.

This is to tell you all the very exciting news that JonnyB, of the famous Private Secret Diary, has a book out called Sex & Bowls & Rock and Roll: How I Swapped My Rock Dreams for Village Greens. You probably knew that already, as my readers are pretty much an ever-dwindling subset of his, but in case there is anyone reading this that doesn't know that then you should go to his blog straight away and start reading (after you have finished here).

And while a lot of people would just copy one idea straight from their blog and pad it out to make a book, perhaps also flogging it to death on T-shirts and Christmas cards, JonnyB has taken the essence of his blog and pretty much written a whole new book, with a beginning and a middle and an end and everything. If you like the blog, you will love the book, and also not constantly be saying, "I have already read this bit" (unless you are re-reading the book). Plus it has chapter titles which reference things like Cardiacs songs.

I feel a bit like a midwife with this book. It wasn't my idea, I didn't carry it as it grew inside me, and I haven't gone through any kind of labour to produce it. All I did was say a few encouraging things along the way, then right at the end I stuck my hand up its foofoo and had a rummage. For which I am mentioned in the acknowledgements - woohoo!

There is nothing more to say except that it is very very very very funny, and that you should buy it here.

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Friday was the last day I felt oblivious about surgery. I dressed up and went to a university function with my husband.

Here we are in front of his new lab.

No one there knew how knobby my knees were or how the left one can’t bend more than 90 degrees. Nope. I was just Lynn in a dress and a great bra, and wearing a smile. I had a lot of fun forgetting.

But, it will happen, and it’s a good thing. It’s time to take care of this knee. So in light of surgery on Wednesday, I bought a few things to help make the everyday things we take for granted a little easier, and I did a few things to help me feel better all around.

First up, I bought myself the Cadillac of toilet seats. I mean this thing is large and in charge and has its own zip code. I’m a queen on a throne. My toes barely touch the floor and there’s very little bending of the knees required. I’m set.

Larry will install a hand-held shower head so I’m not wedded to sponge baths for six weeks, and his secretary’s mother had similar surgery 10 years ago and has a shower chair I can borrow. Yay!

Yesterday I made and froze several black bean burgers and a batch of red lentil tomato soup. I won’t be able to reach my toes for awhile, so today I had a pedicure, and since I’m carrying most of my worry in my neck and upper back, I had a massage. I also took another long walk – something I will do tomorrow, too. I’ll never take walking for granted again.

T minus 1.5 days.

The biggest change I made was moving a bed downstairs to my office. My office doubles as my workout room. It’s sacred space. A lot of things get thought in there. A lot of muscles get challenged in there. Years of myths I’ve believed about myself have been debunked in there. My office/workout room will prove to be a good space to rehab. It’s a room of energy and light. It is a refuge. Yes, I will be well there.

I woke up once last night wondering where I was, like when I stay in a hotel. Unlike a hotel, though, the bed is familiar, and like my new potty chair, it’s pimped out and comfy with a memory foam mattress topper, my favorite blanket and lots of pillows, my favorite being my water pillow. Best. Pillow. Ever.

Sleeping downstairs, while the sounds are familiar, they’re a lot closer. The neighbor’s dog was out for her last evening potty break, and her bark cut through the darkness like a warning – (Is there a bear out there? A skunk? A raccoon?) – unlike in the daylight when everything feels safe.

There were fireflies near my window, glowing and fading, glowing and fading. The half-moon lit up the pseudo nightstand where my computer table used to be. The moon doesn’t shine and fireflies don’t glow in my window upstairs. What a treat they were to observe.

In a week or so this differently-utilized space will feel normal, but like any change, it just takes some getting used to. Like this surgery, it’s an adventure.

This will be my last blog for a few days. I’ll be in touch when I can from the hospital on my Lynn’s Weigh Facebook page if you’d like to join us over there. In the meantime, I wish you all a good, on-plan week, and I thank you so very, very much for all of your kind support.

I know I'm behind on my 52, dont worry I will catch up, I'm almost at the half way point and it would be foolish to fail now, but my mojo is lacking big time!

I took a trip to Shrewsbury, which cost far more than I recall, nearly £10 for a return ticket to somewhere which is 10 miles away.  I was amazed it costs so much, hardly surprising more people wont give up their cars when the rail networks charge such ridiculous prices.  More of the same can be seen when I came to check tickets to pick up Sandra and Pitu from the airport, if you book way in advance you pay £28 but close to or on the day you could end up paying from £58 to £150!!!  Really it would be cheaper to hire a car and have less of the hassle of charging trains, missing connections and struggling up and down stairs with suitcases.

Anyhoo, Pitu and Sandra have arrived and I will no doubt be busy with them for a while as they are visiting for 10 days before they return to Spain.  The weather so far has been good, lets hope it remains that way.

Hussian and I shot a wedding recently, I was there as backup and Hussian did the work, I simply helped out and caught some candid shots; great practise for me.  As far as the business goes, its a slow uphill struggle, but headway is being made.  Looks like a while before we will have a studio though. 

I have managed to speak with China on Facebook and sadly it's all I can manage at this point, I hope to have this resolved soon too; lots of work to be done!   

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Sun, 06/20/2010 5:30 PM

The Indonesian government has said that Iranian nationals are the most common smugglers of class-A drugs into the country as of January this year.

Malaysians were the next-highest group, with eight suspects arrested so far this year, followed by India with six suspects, tempointeraktif.com reported.

The Customs and Excise Office at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Banten, has arrested 15 Iranian nationals this year linked to 22 cases. It has also seized a total 115 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine, locally known as shabu-shabu), ketamine, heroin, cocaine and marijuana.

"All of the evidence together is worth Rp 278 billion (US$30.5 million) at market value," the office's head Baduri Wijayanta said Sunday.

All of the arrested Iranian smugglers were believed to be part of an Iran-based international drug syndicate, he added.

The office's head of prosecutions Gatot Sugeng Wibowo said the Iran-based drug mafia might not have been aware that Indonesia enforced the death penalty for drug smuggling.

The 2009 Narcotics Law carries the death penalty and a Rp 10 billion fine for anyone in possession of more than 5 grams of drugs.

News maker: Journalists take pictures of Soekarno-Hatta airport customs office head Bahaduri Wijayanta following a press conference on the arrest of three Iranians for a drug smuggling attempt. The Iranian nationals were presented during the conference on Wednesday.-- JP/Multa Fidrus

Related Article:

Iranian trio arrested for drug smuggling attempt

I was feeling kind of down and needed something to lift my spirits this morning—so I started leafing through a copy of Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul. Best idea I've had in a while. I ran across a cartoon of Dennis the Menace holding a puppy in the air and looking at it's bottom side. He was saying: "That's funny. My dad can tell if it's a boy or a girl just by looking at the bottom if it's feet." Bye-bye bad mood.

The Jakarta Post, Kupang | Fri, 06/18/2010 10:22 AM

KUPANG: The UN is committed to assisting East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) address poverty problems, UN Resident Coordinator for Indonesia El Mostafa Ben Lamlih has said in Kupang.

Mostafa said Tuesday the UN had a special agenda and would continue coordinating with local administrations to deal with those problems.

He was speaking at the unveiling the five-year cooperation scheme involving eight UN organizations, including the UNDP, Unicef and the UNHCR.

Apart from poverty, he added, the UN was also ready to partner with local administrations to address problems in the fields of health, education, economy, infrastructure, judicial systems and the environment.

NTT Governor Frans Leburaya hoped UN aid would ease the province’s poverty, which affects almost half of the province’s population of 4.6 million. — JP

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Fri, 06/18/2010 10:16 AM

The government has announced it plans to meet an international standard currently being developed that would outlaw the use and production of mercury, which is a highly toxic metal.

Head of the government’s team tasked with meeting the regulation, Rasio Ridho Sani, said Indonesians and the local environment were vulnerable to mercury poisoning.

“We plan to join the planned legally binding treaty on mercury issues,” Rasio told reporters Wednesday.

Indonesia imported 9 tons of mercury in 2009, primarily for use in dental clinics and small mining operations.

The first round talks for the anti-mercury convention was held in Stockholm last week, grouping

delegates from 121 countries and 61 NGOs.

During the meeting, Japan declared it would being implementing the regulation in 2013. Japan proposed the agreement be named the Minamata treaty, after the Japanese town in which more than 900 people died after consuming fish contaminated with methylmercury dumped into the bay in the 1950s. Acute mercury poisoning is referred to as Minamata disease.

“The talks on the mercury convention got huge responses as all countries look to prevent another incident like Minamata,” Rasio said.

He said Indonesia would look to implement the treaty within a select few industrial sectors at first, and would seek financial and technological support from rich nations to meet the demands of the agreement.

“We hope that implementation [of the treaty] will affect selected sectors, such as dental clinics, but the rich nations should still take the lead in combating mercury emissions,” he said.

Many Indonesian dentists still use mercury-based amalgam to fill cavities.

Data from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) showed that 1,200-2,900 tons of mercury was emitted into the atmosphere world wide every year due to human actions.

It said huge amounts of mercury were released into rivers, lakes, seas and on land.

The UNEP said most people and animals absorbed small amounts of mercury into their bodies through breathing in mercury emitted by industrial processes and coal-fired power stations, and ingesting mercury in food.

“There is increasing concern about the consequences of low-level exposure,” it said.

Experts claim fossil-fuel burning is the main contributor of mercury pollution.

Rasio said negotiations during the convention discussed how to reduce supply and demand as well as technical and financial assistance to combat mercury emissions.

Indonesia is currently a party to the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm conventions on hazardous chemical substances.

Jakarta Globe, June 18, 2010

A retired Japanese teacher and his wife were stabbed to death in their home in Indonesia by a disgruntled former domestic worker, police said Friday.

Yasuwo Hara, 69, was stabbed in the chest and his wife, Mizue, 67, in the neck and stomach around 9:00 pm (1400 GMT) Thursday at their home in Ciputat, southern Jakarta, police said.

Police arrested the couple’s recently sacked gardener, 22-year-old Asep, a spokesman said. Another suspect was also believed to have been arrested but this has not been confirmed.

The killer reportedly snuck into the couple’s house through the garage and attacked them as they were eating dinner.

Agence France-Presse