Category Archives: Health

2024, Fitness, Health, Uncategorized

The Posterior Chain

16 Comments

I have been struggling on and off over the past couple of years with sciatica down both my legs. The whole situation is complicated by my lumbar scoliosis. I have been in physical therapy for the past several months, and it has kind of helped, but I still have a lot of pain, or at least did until now.

My physical therapist changed her strategy a couple of weeks ago and has focused on what she calls the posterior chain, the muscle system that runs from one ankle, up the leg and across the lower back and glutes, and then down the other leg. All the muscles work together, so that I can feel the stretches in my right ankle when she manipulates my left leg. I figured out the source of the whole problem last week on my own, and I am proud to say and the culprit is my bifocals.

I realized last week that I walk consistently with my head down so that I can see where I am going and I don’t trip. I lowered my head to get a clear view right in front of me because of my bifocals. My lowered head was messing up the weight distribution up and down my back. The minute I started making sure I kept my head up. 75% of my leg pain disappeared. Some of my other back muscles have protested with the change, but that is to be expected. I haven’t tripped yet. It is a hard habit to break, though.

How is your posterior chain? What are your recent exciting discoveries?

2024, Family, Health, Medicine, Uncategorized

Fainting Away

37 Comments

Every eight weeks we get a call from the Memorial Blood Center.  I assume it’s because her name is before mine in the alphabet; YA gets the first call and usually before I even get my call, she has come to me to pick out a good date for us. 

We went down to our local center as usual but unlike usual, YA got light-headed afterwards and instead of grabbing a snack, put her head down on the table where we were sitting.  This was like an alarm bell going off in the center.  Suddenly there were five folks around us, one bringing a cool cloth, one bringing a wheelchair, two helping to get YA into the wheelchair and one poor gal, who was just hovering but didn’t seem to have a specific job.  YA actually lost consciousness for a second in the wheelchair.

The phlebotomist (what a great word) who had done my draw was the one who appointed himself as YA’s guardian while she recovered.  He was very knowledgeable and answered all our questions.  OK, all of my questions.  He was very clear about what he was doing and how long before the next “check-in”.  It was very comforting for the anxious mother.  YA stayed reclined for about 45 minutes before we took off.  She wanted Taco Bell on the way home and then she spent the rest of the afternoon in bed, watching tv. 

I asked if this has soured her on giving blood.  She said she doesn’t think so.  Guess we’ll know in another six weeks or so!

Have you ever seen those fainting goats? 

2024, Family, Health, home, Kids, Uncategorized

Good Gadgets

49 Comments

Husband and I have noticed over the past year that we are no longer as strong or flexible as we used to be. That has made gardening and housework a lot harder. We just can’t so things as fast as we used to.

When I was in Brookings in early May, I discovered that my daughter in law had neck problems that made it really hard for her to vacuum or do heavy housework. She damaged her neck vertebra last summer. They are both busy enough with their jobs and their son, so I suggested we get them a Roomba or something equivalent to help with the housework. We got a Shark Roomba knockoff, and it works great. They named it Clean Elizabeth. She does a great job keeping their floors clean.

We live where it is really dusty. Husband has allergies to dust. The prospect of moving the mattresses to vacuum under the beds was daunting, so I suggested to Husband that we get our own Clean Elizabeth to clean under the beds and the living room furniture and the dining room buffet. We named her Good Clean Bess. The dog is surprisingly standoffish, allowing Bess to go back and forth and suck up the crud. I was appalled at the dust that came up from under our bed. My only question is when did I get old?

What are your newest or favorite gadgets? How old do you feel these days? What would you want a robot to help you with?

2024, Health, Mysteries, Nature, Science, Uncategorized

Gabbing From Ear to Ear

40 Comments

Today’s post comes to from Bill.

An article in National Geographic caught my attention recently. The headline read, “Do You Have an Inner Monologue?” It caught my attention because my response was, “Of course I have an inner monologue. Doesn’t everybody?” Turns out not everybody does.

I’m not on any of the social media platforms but I gather that the presence or lack of an inner monologue has been a topic of discussion there. Inner monologue has also been a recent focus of scientific study, one product of which is a name for the lack of one: anauralia. Those studies contend that fewer than half of all individuals—by some estimates only about 30%—possess an inner monologue.

If that is true, I am gobsmacked. My inner monologue never shuts up. It is so integral to who I am that I can’t imagine its absence. Persons who lack that relentless flow of words say they imagine having them would be overwhelming.

The National Geographic article portrayed the inner monologue as self-critical and self-evaluating, a voice that regulates and replays social interactions and situations. As such, the article suggests, it can be inhibiting and destructive to one’s confidence, a source of negative thoughts. That’s not my experience. My inner monologue is not, for the most part, focused on how I appear in social contexts. Rather it’s a source of enrichment and entertainment, whether it’s replaying a conversation I had with someone years ago (those just pop up unbidden), preliminarily composing a commentary like this one, working through matters of personal philosophy, or pondering questions that just pop up out of nowhere, like, “what is the commonality between taxicabs and taxidermy?” (It all goes back to the Greek “taxis”, which means “an arrangement” or “to put things in a certain order”) or “if you describe something as the color of mercurochrome, does it mean anything to anyone under about 40?” All of this mental conversation happens while I’m busy doing other unrelated things.

Another article addressing the inner monologue: https://metro.co.uk/2024/05/16/like-live-no-internal-monologue-20853880/

It provides a simpler and easier to parse way to test for an inner monologue. It asks, “When you read, do you hear the words read, (presumably in your own voice)?” Apparently, those with anauralia do not. That for me is incomprehensible.

Do you have an inner monologue? What does it tell you?

2024, Gatherings, Health, Music, Uncategorized

In Poor Taste

37 Comments

Last weekend our local Opera group held a gala evening of a lovely meal and selections from various operas.

We have a surprisingly active opera group here, and they host a summer youth musical camp, as well as operas and recitals during the rest of the year. Our church choir director and her husband are very active in the group.

We didn’t attend the Gala, but heard plenty of comments about it the next day. An acquaintance of ours and her husband attended the Gala. She is a former piano instructor at the college. She and her husband also attend our church. Just before the end of the evening, our acquaintance’s husband collapsed and had to be resuscitated with CPR. He was taken to the hospital. There were several medical professionals in the audience who saved his life.

The final selection to be performed at the Gala was from one of the last acts of Carmen, in which Carmen is stabbed to death by Jose’. Our church choir director was to sing the part of Carmen. They decided that Carmen being stabbed to death just after Larry, the piano teacher’s husband, was hauled out on a stretcher would be in pretty poor taste, so they quickly ended the show.

I am happy to report that Larry survived and the Carmen selection will be performed at the next recital in the fall. This is just too much drama for our small community!

What are your favorite and least favorite endings to operas and musicals

2024, animals, Family, Health, Medicine, pets, Uncategorized

As Sick As A Dog

19 Comments

Husband and I are pretty anxious right now to find out how our dog is doing at the vet. We had to take him there Thursday after three days of constant hurling after meals. The vet did x-rays and found him to be constipated and dehydrated. There is the possibility that he has an upper intestinal blockage of some sort, perhaps from the shards of an Icelandic lamb horn, or the Kong Wubba he chewed and destroyed over the weekend, or a mixture of both. He hasn’t had anything different to eat for the past couple of weeks. He has been drinking water like crazy, though. He typically doesn’t swallow what he destroys, so we can’t think what would have plugged him up.

It is hard to tell when a terrier is under the weather, as they typically don’t let you know they aren’t feeling well until they are half dead. Even before we took him to the vet he wanted to tug, steal things, and go for walks. They are giving him special IV’s to hydrate him and get his digestive system flowing, as it were. They will do surgery if that doesn’t work. I refuse to take as on omen that the flock of vultures on the local butte were circling our home as I wrote this.

What health issues have your pets had? How can you tell your pets or human companions aren’t feeling well?

2024, Health, home, Medicine, Uncategorized

Rolling Pin Redux

27 Comments

Husband and I have four rolling pins. Two are French-style ones I use for pie crusts, one is a knobby one for hardtack, and the biggest one with narrow grooves is for lefse. I use the French ones pretty regularly. The lefse rolling pin only comes out in November, that is, until now, thanks to my physical therapist.

My physical therapist really likes to attack knots in my sore muscles by vigorously rubbing them. This is not gentle massage. It hurts, but helps loosen the muscles. The other day at my PT appointment after the heating pad and dry needling there were very sore knots on the muscles on the outside of my right leg above my knee. My therapist got out a large and heavy styrofoam roller and rolled it up and down those muscle knots for about 10 minutes. After she was finished it felt wonderful. I told her I thought I could do the same thing at home with a rolling pin. She agreed, but cautioned that the narrower circumference of the rolling pin might hurt more than her roller did.

I spent a good amount of time Saturday doing my PT exercises and rolling the lefse rolling pin up and down the knots in my leg. I had the most pain-free day I have had in a couple of months.

What is your preferred rolling pin? What are some alternative uses you have found for objects? Any odd home remedies you have tried or heard of?

2024, Health, Technology

Therapy Routine

34 Comments

Went for my first physical therapy appointment yesterday.  It went fairly smoothly; she poked and prodded and measured.  Made me stand on one foot and then the other.  Walked up and down the hallway.

She showed me four exercises to start with – one with a strap and one with a stretchy thing.  Two on steps.  All fairly straightforward but when I got home I realized that a couple only get done once a day, one gets done twice and day and the last one gets done three times a day.  I sat with the paper in my hands for about a minute before I knew what I had to do.  A spreadsheet!  It’s pretty simple, just a chart with each exercise listed the prerequisite number of times for each day of the next week.  I imagine, since I’m a morning person, I’ll do the four together in the morning and then slot in the rest as the day goes on.  

Spreadsheet isn’t pretty, but enough to keep track of what I’m doing on a daily basis… a rustic spreadsheet as it were.  What in heaven’s name did I do before Excel?

Do you have a daily routine (with or without a spreadsheet!)?

2024, education, Health, Medicine, Mysteries

At Least I’m Upright….

20 Comments

I think I know why it takes so long to become a doctor. You have to learn a completely different language:

This accessory muscle is located posteromedially, originating from the fascia of the deep posterior compartment at a level posterior to the tibiotalar joint and talus and then extends inferiorly, deep to the flexor retinaculum, posterior and superficial to the traversing tibial nerve and posterior tibial artery within the tarsal tunnel, inserting distally upon the quadratus plantae muscle (axial series 2, Images 6-22, sagittal series 4, images 15-11 and coronal series 7, images 7-10.)

Even after Dr. Moser showed me the MRI images and “explained” it to me, I’m still not sure exactly what the issue is except that it seems to be related to my initial ankle sprain (20 years ago – a bad sprain that took several months to feel better). No pinched anything, no compressed anything, no torn anything and in what was clearly a surprise to the doctor, no arthritis. He did point out what he called some edema – that’s about it. Two co-pays and an MRI to get told my ankle hurts.

Sent home with a brace and a couple of physical therapy appointments. In the meantime, I suppose the fact that there isn’t any arthritis is the good news I’ll try to keep in mind.

Do you have a favorite tongue-twister from childhood?

2024, Family, Health, home, Mysteries, TV

Verily’s Pity Party

16 Comments

The last time I said “I think I’m the only person left in America who hasn’t had covid” I should have knocked on wood.

Went to a party on a Saturday night 10 days ago and had a great time, met up with some current and former neighbors for a 70th birthday celebration for a friend.  Good food, drink, company.  Had a wonderful time.

On Tuesday morning as I was starting to get ready to go to the art museum, one of my Saturday night friends texted a group of us saying that she had covid and was pretty sick.  Even though I felt fine I thought it would be the responsible thing to do to test before I went on a tour at the museum.  And there it was… a big pink “T” line.  I’ve taken a lot of tests since the beginning of pandemic and I’ve never gotten the “T” line before.  Shocking.  The good news is that I am still asymptomatic so all those jabs did pay off.

The bad news is that I’m feeling sorry for myself – although I’m not sure why.  Except for cancelling my museum tour with my friend at the last minute, I haven’t really done anything differently the last week.  Thank goodness for the Target pick-up, the Aldis pick-up, the post office drive through and the library drop box.  I did send YA to the library to pick up a book for me on Friday so I wouldn’t have to go in.  YA is avoiding me like… dare I say “the plague” and seems fine so far.  I’ve done stuff around the house, read a lot, worked in my studio, labored on a 1000-piece jigsaw of a dragon in a “dragon forge cave” (it’s a doozy) and binge-watched the Colombo marathon on Sunday.  I’m not sure why I’m feeling weird about this… but it does feel like the first couple of weeks of pandemic when I remember feeling trapped in the house.

As of yesterday, still positive but the “T” line was very faint so I expect in the next 48 hours I’ll be clear and free to break out and roam the neighborhood again.  I’ll have to shut the pity party down.

Ridiculous, right?