Tag Archives: Health

…the quickest way down is to….

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fall. We were leaving to watch my niece play state bball in Lincoln this am and were actually running on time (shocking in and of itself I know!) so I was NOT hurrying but I slipped from the top step of our staircase and fell down the entire flight of stairs. This has been a fear since we’ve moved here, especially since we decided to remove all carpets and return all of the floors back to their original historic wood.

Thankfully I didn’t go head first. Adam was already downstairs and as they ARE wood it was quite loud. He says he heard my shoes make it down first, then me. I hyperextended my left shoulder which was my first concern as I’d hate to have a rotator injury but after we kind of took better inventory of all my parts we realized we had an issue with that actual arm. Plus, a bunch of bruises, and as time is progressing grunts and growns where new aches are coming.

I have a fracture right below my elbow. Fortunately not a terrible type and I will NOT, I repeat..will NOT be casting it. I ran real quick to the clinic to have one of my partners xray it before we headed to Lincoln and have it in a sling for now until the pain is a little better and then we’ll go from there. But, really…I have no interest in a full arm cast, armpit casting just isn’t for me and it is really only a “buckle” type fracture so it is more of a “puttin'” up with the pain type of scenario which I am noticing even tonight is mainly with any rotation or lifting anything. I still am concerned about the darn shoulder, that may be the thing that gets me in the end…we’ll just have to wait and see.

The long and the short….you get to the bottom of the stairs way faster that way. And, as my brother-in-law ever so kindly pointed out to me, you are officially old once you fall and break something vs. falling and jumping right back up and saying “I’m okay, it’s all good!!!”. So, I’m old.

Eating better

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Part of getting myself ready for a little babe is losing some extra poundage/ie: trimming down. It seems so easy for me to get into a rut, stop exercising and eat all of those goodies the drug reps bring day in and day out (the FDA says they cannot bring us pens but they CAN make us fat…real nice!). BUT, I know I want my body in the best shape possible before pregnancy in order to have the best pregnancy and delivery possible (and lets face it, postpartum too as I am the poster girl/billboard exhibit for postpartum depression). I actually know what I want my BMI (body mass index) to be before we get pregnant. I know, I know…sounds crazy BUT after waiting for 14 YEARS  we might as well do it right ya’ think? Yes, people…we will have been married for well over 14 years before conceiving. Yes, we have consumated the marriage and are either infertile or are a great exhibit that if you practice “safe sex” you can prevent pregnancy. So, take that….all of my teenage patients! 

I am also not ignorant to the fact that twin pregnancy truly does peak at the age of 35 (aaaaccckkkk!!!!), which I will be and I need to be in good physical shape to endure the labor and to have a successful vaginal delivery, especially in the way that we are thinking of doing (more on that wayyyyy later). My sister had gestational diabetes (thanks a lot, sister) with her last pregnancy and as this may be genetic this predisposes me too.

And, folks can we just be honest…I am simply going to be old (I will be termed an “elderly obstetric patient” and will require more frequent and different testing so I need all the help I can get going into this. Whomever came up with this whole elderly term was a nutso male doctor with not nearly enough patients and was obviously trying to get back at someone for something!)

WARNING, however: I will not be prego next month or even the month after that. We are hoping that it will probably be this fall but as I am a planner with a side dish of OCD I surely will be writing about it a lot in the future. Plus, I really need to try my best to consider my medical practice as much as possible as there are many patients that count on me so I haven’t figured that one out just yet. Just the thought of “Adam and Shana having a baby?!?” has some people’s eyes dilating so I’m just a’ clarifying that it isn’t happenin’ right now as we’ve got some business to tend to first (other then the real business). For example, my wonderful Father-in-law just recently called me to jokingly ask how things were going with his twin grandsons?! Can you believe it?! Holy Schneikes! Yikes! My blood pressure went up at that moment, cheeks turned red, I probably started drooling and I think I stuttered something like “I gotta go, I’ve got a patient to see” and promptly hung up. Yeah, I know I’m gonna have to learn better coping skills.

Okay, so onto the whole eating better, taking care of myself bit….Last month Adam and I read an awesome book. In fact it has been on the top 10 best seller list since the first of the year. It is a very plain, simple book. Diet really is that anyway…simple. It is like I tell my patients each and every day. We all know how to eat, we just need to do it. Food Rules by Michael Pollan is a really fun book to read. It has common sense “reminders” per se such as:

  • don’t eat cereal if it changes the color of the milk
  • try to shop only the periphery of the grocery store
  • do not buy fuel for your body where you buy fuel for your car
  • do not eat anything with more than five ingredients on the label
  • do not eat anything that has ingredients that a 3rd grader could not read
  • do not eat it if it will not rot
  • do not eat it if it has high fructose corn syrup

….and tons more for a total of 64 tid-bit brief one pager rules. All common sense reminders.

Enough ramblings for now. We are still open to suggestions on roofing the other half of the house….wouldn’t want that babe to get rained on ya know.

Open mouth…put foot in

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So…on Saturday night we went out to supper after State Volleyball with my family. This included Grandpa Jake. He isn’t really a grandpa but he IS a part of our family. He has ALWAYS been there for ALL of us. He attends every important event in all of our lives. A wonderful and reliable man. He has three kids of his own and 7, soon to be 8 grandchildren. His oldest, the one that is currently pregnant is my age.

We are sitting at the restaurant and visiting about his kids and grandchildren and about how Kendra (his eldest daughter) will be having her fourth child. He then says, well you know…she is getting kind of up there to be having a baby. The entire table got quiet. I AM NOT KIDDING YOU. Even my nieces and nephews. My mother, sister, husband…all of them turned and looked at me. He just kept on’a eatin’. Poor guy didn’t realize what he said.

Then, it kicked in….and the back peddlin’ started….rapidly might I say. But, I still feel old. My eggs and uterus feels old.

I AM TICKED OFF!!!!

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For a little background: save your ta tas

Sorry for the upcoming rant and abuse of exclamation points but here goes! I CANNOT, absolutely cannot believe what the US Preventive Services Task Force released in their updated guideline for breast cancer screening last night. I absolutely just loooovvvee how they say it can be at the woman’s discretion if she wants to get a mammogram in her 40s. Puhlease, people!!! Do you know what this means? Do you?! What it means is that this will give these stupid insurance companies (and the government) even more reason to perhaps not cover screening mammograms until you are 50! Spare me. As this is a government task force is this a way for them to begin to “save some moula” for their health care reform????

And what about those women in their 40s (and we all know someone…at least one person) with breast cancer? Well, I guess they’d be dead and long gone or have metastases to their bones by the time they get their mammogram when they are 50! And let me tell you…it is REAL fun watching someone you care about die of bone mets from cancer!!!!

Heck, I’ve always been frustrated about how to find breast cancer in women my own age. It is near impossible to detect in women in their 30s. Our tissue is so dense. Here I thought that maybe~just maybe, someday a recommendation would come out about periodic ultrasounds for breast cancer screening in women in their 30s. But….noooo, instead we are going to cut back on our screening attempts????

AND, they have the nerve to say there is NO value to women doing their own breast exams. Again, I tell you…spare me!!! Sure, a woman isn’t going to find EVERY cancer but I can’t tell you how proud I am when a younger woman comes in and is concerned about a “lump” because I know this means she was listening to me when I did her exam. And, they are even questioning whether there is any value in us doing exams on our patients. Gag!!!

The only small hope to hang on to is that the American Cancer Society is going against this as of now…I’ll be interested to see what happens in the days to come. For now, I’ll continue to examine my patient’s ta tas and encourage them to do the same.

A leetle bity update

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Adam saw the specialist again today. He has been done with all of his medicine for over 24 hours now. They see no more “issues” inside the eye. All is healed, they say. They sound fairly sure that he is recovered to his max at this point. We hope he is WRONG. We are still going to pray for more recovery.

Before the accident his vision was beyond perfect at 20/15. His vision is now 20/50 and they recommended he get glasses. We are going to hold onto the prescription for the glasses for a couple-three weeks and then decide what to do. I can tell Adam is disappointed. I am, too but…we have to remember that he still does have sight at least…it could have been a heck of a lot worse.