Burn and Rave

As of January 1, 2008, the city of Chicago is taxing water bottles.  I just found out.  I am so outraged.  The obesity epidemic is plain in sight.  The “your momma’s so fat…” jokes aren’t even jokes anymore.  They are the truth and yet Chicago legislators think that it is socially responsible to tax water when most parents already prefer soda and juice over water because the sugar spiked drinks are much cheaper.  I think there is no faster way to change the trend of bulging wastelines by changing the price of soda and juice: make them more expensive than water.  Much of the lay public doesn’t know that pop is so bad for them, that pop has 13 teaspoons of sugar which means bad teeth, health problems, diabetes, and leg amputations.  However, much of the lay public does know that buying the cheaper drink is healthy for their wallet.  The government needs to cater to that if they had any moral ethics in helping people become healthier.  I am going to contact medical societies and my state legislators about this awful tax.  Change will be difficult, of course, because there’s also no faster way to lose campaign funding and resources than to hit the big pop and juice companies where it hurts, in the flashy greens.  I’m going to try anyway.  It’s a vicious cycle.  People stop drinking water and buy pop because the government decided to tax water bottles to fill it’s budget.  Then people get sicker and need more money for healthcare from public aid and once again the government will need to increase taxes to fill the gap in budgetting healthcare needs.  They tax cigarettes.  Why not pop?

Apparently designers are making pet accessories to match their human owners’ outfits.  Dog food companies are also making organic products for pets.  The consultant on the news show I was watching all this ridiculousness unravel said that pet trends mirror human trends.  I love my little pooch and spoil him, I admit that.  I even have a couple frumpy sweaters for him and feel tempted to buy galoshes for him (but I can’t find them small enough).  However, I would not spend any earnings I have on extravagant designer bags and most certainly would not consider putting my dog in a Gucci jogging suit. 

First, with designer bags: everyone knows where it’s from, so what’s the fun in carrying it around.  It’s neither mysterious nor exciting nor unique nor down to earth, all of which I like to be.  Then everyone suspects the bag is a fake from China or the back streets anyway, ownership of designer bags only attracts suspicion at best.  Why spend the big bucks on a bag when I could donate the money to a charity like children.org or my church?  Beats me.

Secondly, organic pet food is silly, but designer dog products are even more disgusting.  Children and adults in this world are starving, even in the lush United States of America.  People are struggling to have enough clothese to keep themselves warm this winter and yet these companies come out with these fancy clothes for animals.  What a shame.   Shame on the TV station for giving the supporting companies and consultants air time.  More attention should be paid towards environmental and charitable causes. 

I don’t want to know about where to get my dog holiday gifts.  He could care less.  He’s much happier with a simple chicken breast jerky which he doesn’t have to wait around for the holidays to get.  I want to know how I can recycle my trash in Chicago.  I want to know how I can help my friends quit smoking.  I want to know how open adoption works.  I want to know which food banks are welcoming volunteers.  I want to know where people without health insurance can go to get basic checkups and care.  I want to know this world is becoming a better place for people, not for privileged pets.

Maybe it’s my darker complexion that differs from the more typical pale Asian skin color.  But I look a lot like my mom…. and my dad, so there’s no baby switch scandal here.  I know my mom’s family came from China to Taiwan maybe ~150 years ago, so she’s supposedly all yellow, but she looks strikingly South American-ish in some of her childhood photos.  Could have been the angle of the ancient camera.  I’m not sure about my dad’s family.  I think they’ve been in Taiwan longer, so there might be some aborigine blood in me from him to explain my looks. 

The Taiwanese aborigines are featured in Wikipedia today.  Theories suggest that they come from the same origin as Filipinos, Indonesians, and Malaysians.   It’s an interesting culture and history.  I would like to find out more about my dad’s side of the family some day.

Nothing anyone says seems to be right. The school officials at Virginia Tech are accused of saying too little after the first shooting. The classmate of the shooter, Ian McFarland, is accused of using the tragedy for 15 minutes of fame because he put up a blog about the shooter and the shooter’s plays. And then everyone everywhere is commenting to respond to the tragedy.

I think it’s great that people are responding. We should be. We’re people. We should hurt when innocent people die (I didn’t put in the exact number because I can’t decide if the shooter is innocent or not since he could have been mentally incapacitated and in a pathologic state). We should feel compassion. We shoud feel the need to express the emotions that this traumatic and horrifying event elicits.

However, we should not be blaming. We should not blame the classmates who knew about the shooter’s twisted writings. We should not blame the school officials. We should not blame the police. We should not blame God.

Afterall, isn’t that how it all starts, when blame wins over forgiveness?

We are people, and we are capable of compassion. Let’s make use of that untapped brain power to heighten our ability to love and to show mercy. It’s too late to help those killed in the Virginia Tech tragedy, but it’s not too late to call our parents and grandparents. It’s not too late to tell our friends how much they mean to us over a cup of coffee no matter how busy the schedule is. It’s not too late to hug our children. It’s not too late to smile to the stranger sitting across from you on the bus.

It’s too late to reach out to 33. It’s not too late to reach out to millions more. Let’s do what we can. We can’t resurrect the dead. Let’s make peace with the living.

I read this article about a kid, diagnosed at 2 1/2 with bipolar, who died because her parents were overmedicating her to quiet her down.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/03/23/drugged.todeath.ap/index.html

I think this is just so ridiculous. Clearly her parents were not adequate for raising children, and while I don’t think her psychiatrist violated any laws, I think she was not moral in her judgment. I think she was prescribing the drugs so the sessions would be shorter and so she could see more patients, instead of taking the time to listen. Does this happen a lot?

Why can’t kids just be kids anymore? She was two! Why are psychiatrists labeling childhood with all sorts of disorders? Obviously, if the parents don’t take the time to teach children how to behave properly, they’ll be disruptive. What does society and the psychiatrist see? Disruptive behavior. And suddenly the kid’s got “bipolar”.

On what grounds are there to diagnose a 2 year old kid with a psychiatric disorder?

Well, I will get to the bottom of this. After my big big test, I will do a literature search and some interviews to write an article about diagnosing kids so young with behavioral disorders.

The editor of Pulse, the health section of UIC’s The Flame student newspaper, sent out a list of potential topics to write about for this week.  I called the cervix one, Cervix Awareness Month.  Cool.  I’m going to talk about the cervix and make everyone who’s unfortunate eyes chance upon my article to know the function of a cervix and why one needs to take care of her cervix.

On the train today in between errands, I started scripting out my opening lines of the article, the cervix monologues:

Hey you, yeah, YOU!  No, you’re not there yet, I’m farther in.  Past the vagina.  Keep going.  Yeah.  That’s me right there, the smooth lookin’, smooth talkin’ pink donut.  When are screaming in labor pains, you can thank me because I’m the one who dives into the man soup in your vagina to soak up some swimmers so they can race for your egg.  But in the meantime, if you don’t take care of me, I could rot you inside out.  

So at around 7pm, after eating dinner with my family, I started to do some research on Google to see what major health and support group websites had to say about Cervix Awareness Month.

And oh the disappointment.  There is no Cervix Awareness Month.  But there is a Cervical Cancer Awareness Month.   Just as well, cervical cancer awareness month it is then.  Let’s see…. I’ll have to find out some statistics on how many are diagnosed with it in the U.S. each year, how many people die of it each year in the U.S., what the treatments are…. hmmm… what else…

….what else…  …. what else….

Oh yeah, and how to prevent it.  Let’s see… um, go to your doctor’s office, and request for an HPV vaccine.  That’ll keep you from getting cervical cancer.  Be proactive, not reactive.  Prevent, prevent, prevent.  

So yeah, you girl at least eleven years old.  Go get the shot.  Don’t let me turn into a rabid monster, I don’t want to hurt you.  Take care of me so I stay pink and smooth.   

Well, the Bears won the game against New Orleans Saints.  I don’t see why that’s a surprise to anyone.  It was snowing.  Saints freeze like deer in headlights when they see snow.  I don’t really care about sports and the Bears’ win doesn’t really affect my mood much.  But, I care about Chicago, and I care when other people are happy, so because the Bears’ win is making all my Chicago friends happier than hell is hot, I guess I do care about the Bears’ win after all.  I am happy they won because their win made all the people around me happy.  Happy happy happy.  And now they’ll all keep talking about the game and waste time by reminiscing more about the game until the next game.  And in the mean time, I’ll just twiddle my thumb and surface into the conversation once in a while long enough to see that everyone is still happy, and then drop back down into my oblivion of football.

Cheers and many bear hugs.  :-D 

If you are a woman over 18 years old or a transgender female, feel yourself up. Once a month, one week after your period, in the shower, make a date with your breasts. Press on them with the pads of your fingertips and make small circles. Go over the entire breast including the armpit. If you feel some lumps and bumps in both breasts, then make note of it. That might just be normal tissue. If you note any new lumps or bumps, then make an appointment with your doctor immediately. Get into the habit of examining yourself. Don’t be afraid of what you’ll find, because if the culprit is caught early, just like warts in your cervix, it is often curable. And start getting yearly mammograms from the age of 40, unless you have a family history of a sister, mother, or grandmother with pre-menapausal breast cancer, in which case your doctor might recommend them earlier.

If you are a man over the age of 18, touch your balls. Squeeze them, roll them. The most common cancer in men age 35 is testicular cancer, or was it that testicular cancer is most common in men age 35? Can’t remember, but it doesn’t change anything. Examine if there is any change in tenderness, pain, or lumps and bumps. See your doctor immediately if you notice any changes. It also wouldn’t hurt to examine your breasts too since men can also get breast cancer.

Now you know, so don’t be an idiot and die from a preventable end stage cancer. Examine yourself and enjoy a longer life.

I’m short in so many ways. I’m five-two which is shorter than average height for an adult female (that’s just a fact, but let me be clear that I’m grateful to God for every sixty-two inches of me). My patience and temper can be a little short sometimes when I’m PMS-ing. I’m short on money (but again, grateful for every little bit I am able to spend, and budget it wisely). But let me keep this tirade short and get to the point about being short.

Per request of a faithful friend, I am going to start some blogging with short updates instead of the usual long narratives. The good thing is that there is less pressure to have a lot of content, and therefore less hesitancy to post, and therefore more frequent posting. Sooo….. check back more often (I know it’s supposed to be pronounced of-Fen, but I still like to say of-Ten).

Another tidbit: I’m always a little short on sleep (but I guess that’s normal, so I won’t lose any sleep worrying about it… can’t afford to anyway).

One of the things that irks me as a potential future healthcare provider is taking care of people who won’t take care of themselves. If people made healthier choices… I may have already written a similar tirade, so I’ll end that thought here. However, here’s a list of my top ten actions that are most effective at preventing disease, in Mt. Sinai style, for people developed areas of the United States.  Ergo, I’m assuming that most people in that category would already have been vaccinated as required by schools, universities, and many work places, so vaccines and boosters were not included in this list.

1. Thou shall not smoke. (Eww! Plus, drinking alcohol at the same time increases cancer by 100x.)

2. Thou shall stay away from the sun, or at least put on sunblock. (The only anti-aging that works is anti-sun. Everything else is just a waste of your money.)

3. Thou shall stay Abstinent, Be faithful, or wear a Condom. (It’s not just you and your partner… it’s also the hundreds of bugs you could be romancing.)

4. Thou shall not be gluttonous. (Unless you are on a race to see how quickly you can force your body into diabetes mode.)

5. Thou shall eat fruits and vegetables daily. (Big time cancer prevention right here.)

6. Thou shall exercise. (Big time everything prevention, including stress and stroke, and a good activity that has been recommended by former smokers for nicotine addicts to take up when they try to quit.)

7. Thou shall stay away from pop… or soda, for my cronies from the east.  (Drink water, not sugar, and if you want caffeine, up to two cups of coffee is okay unless that too has been laced with a ton of sugar.) 

8. Thou shall… okay,who am I kidding.  “By the works of the law, no flesh shall be justified,” ie let’s be realistic… we’re human, we’re weak, we have a hard enough time keeping 2 rules, so I’m just going to stop at seven.  

Be healthier.

Extend the time you can be a productive citizen in society.

Participate in decreasing health care costs for preventable diseases.