bridgesburning

Thoughts- may be Profound, Mundane and perhaps laced with a bit of Wit

Tag Archives: health


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Rhythm

Rhythm, a sequence in time repeated, featured ...

Rhythm, a sequence in time repeated, featured in dance: an early moving picture demonstrates the waltz. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Rhythm

Ya Gotta Have Rhythm

I’ve been caught up in a few projects lately, setting goals which look good on paper or screen, and wondering why I am not getting all the things done I want to or need to accomplish.  It seems that with the arrival of the vernal equinox there came a need to reflect, to assess, to plan.  At the same time it seems the chain on my wheel of life slipped off the universal cog, and while I continue to function I am out of step.

I have come to the conclusion that reflection, for me at least, is not best in the long run.  At least not when said reflection takes up the entire day. Day. After. Day.  I pondered days of yore when I was organized, and enjoyed the thoughts so much that I returned to them again and again.  Aren’t memories wonderful?  One can be so selective in choosing them.

Then when I noticed I seemed to be out of sync I spent a great deal of time thinking about that.  Wondrous thoughts like ‘I’m dancing as fast as I can’ came to mind, but really I wasn’t dancing, I was stumbling.

Now how can something like that happen to someone like me?  Fleet of foot, well balanced, witty me?

It finally occurred to me that I was missing Rhythm.  The Rhythm of getting up and getting started getting done.  Of course then I had to ponder what Rhythm does for us.  Aside from musical Rhythm which is obvious in its expression I considered the successful people I knew.  What did they do differently?  Was there a secret to their success?  And the answer?  Rhythm.

There are all kinds of Rhythm; some may remember the old fashioned birth control method, which didn’t work as often as it did work, then there is the toe tapping finger snapping feeling good kind, and then there is the very intrinsic, silent to the world but loud to the soul type.

This Rhythm gives us momentum as we dance across the floor of life.  This Rhythm is life.  It is energy.

I am not sure why I lost my Rhythm.  Does it mean I am not doing something I should be doing?  Is it Writer’s Block?  Or is it Life’s Block?  It is more than the inability to write anything worthwhile.  I feel like it is a shadow I am chasing, just catching it in the corner of my eye and then disappearing.

I am not depressed or sad.  I am my own enigma.  A puzzle.  The feeling is intriguing, and certainly entertaining.

I expect it will depart soon.  One can only be entertained by such things for a while.  I also expect that the secret to finding that particular kind of Rhythm is just in the doing.

Have you ever felt the same way?

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Boy you check out of life for a bit and…

It’s been a few weeks since I have been able to look outside myself for any period of time due to health issues.  Nothing with deadly consequences mind you, but enough to make me wonder if it was time to get ready to pay the piper.  As horrible as it sounds it was a cold.  Just a cold.  Except it wouldn’t go away.  Dec 18, 2012 I finally went to the doctor rather embarrassed to walk in and say, “I have a cold.”

Doc says, “I hear chest sounds lower right quadrant (he knows I am a nurse) so let’s do an x-ray and depending on results I may have to order medication.”  I was impressed that in this day of madly writing prescription physicians who are overburdened by our health system and who just need to push on to the next patient, this man sat back and said what he did.  I thought this quality kind of health care was long gone.  AND he was a younger doctor!

Long story short I get a call I have right lower lobe pneumonia (something I have never had before) and can pick up a prescription at my pharmacy.  The ten day supply seemed to go on forever but by the end I was all ‘Yeahhhh I am healed’.

That is until two days later when I awoke coughing and sneezing.  I couldn’t, wouldn’t, believe I had a cold so spent another two weeks convincing myself it was a figment of my imagination before relenting and heading back to the clinic.  This time definitely bronchitis, also something I have never experienced.  More antibiotics.  Ten more days.  Yesterday I returned to the clinic on my last day of this round of meds.   Chest clear but my cough sounds, as someone said, like it comes from the soles of my feet.  Follow up x-ray to ensure all is clear and puffers to take for a few days.  Good grief.  These were meds I gave out for years to patients, mostly the elderly.  Was it possible I was now ‘elderly’?  Yikes!

But none of this is the point of my post.  Now that I am securely back in the land of the living, and I am not sure if that is something that is ever ‘secure’ I started looking around at the world around me.  What is going on?

The Pope resigns – unusual since it is the first time it has happened in 600 years, but later that night lightening is photographed striking the Vatican not once but twice.  To paraphrase one comedian who said, “It looks like his Boss is not happy with his resignation.”

Asteroid2012 DA14 – buzzed earth then continued its cosmic cruise.  It came a little too close for comfort I think at 27,600 km away.  I consider our moon pretty close at 239,000 odd miles so this asteroid flew closer than some of our satellites.  This guy weighed 143,000 tons. How do they know that?  Are there interstellar weigh stations these objects but stop at, much like truckers on our highways?  That baby may be much smaller than the one that supposedly ended life for the dinosaurs but it could still have done considerable damage wiping out about 2,000 square km *Associated Press.  But while everyone was watching this spectacular show the cosmos had a bigger surprise for us.

Photobucket meteor

Photobucket meteor

Meteor Explodes – While all eyes were turned to our expected cosmic company a meteor speculated to be about the size of a bus but weighing 7,000 tons blazes across the Siberian sky exploding before hitting our little blue marble, but the resounding explosion which equals about 20 Hiroshima bombs caused incredible damage to buildings and people.  Had it not exploded prior to actually hitting the earth, the press (and we all know we can trust what they say) said that the result would have been similar to the destruction shown in some fiction movies.  I don’t doubt it.  We never knew this meteor was coming, and the only reason we had any warning on the asteroid is that it was discovered not too long ago by a dentist whose hobby is looking ‘out there’.

I am surprised that all the folk who forecast the end of life December 21, 2012 have not come forward saying, “This is the beginning of the end.”  Of course there is always someone out there making forecasts, and while some may not believe, you just never know.

There is nothing mankind can do to change the way the universe functions.  We don’t control space.  Heck, half the time we can’t control our own immediate inner space.  I figure that the best we can do is to live well remembering the Golden Rule, accept the miracle of our existence, whether Science or Creation based, and get on with it.

Except of course for those days when micro bugs take over and force us to have a ‘Benylin Day’ or two, or three.

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Daily Prompt: Helpless When? Always

Illustration of the Parkinson disease by Sir W...

Illustration of the Parkinson disease by Sir William Richard Gowers from A Manual of Diseases of the Nervous System in 1886 showing the characteristic posture of PD patients (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Rethink Mental Illness

Rethink Mental Illness (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Helplessness:  that dull, sick feeling of not being the one at the reins.  When did you last feel like that – and what did you do about it?

There is no last time to Helplessness.  It is a constant in many of our lives.  It doesn’t necessary pervade every aspect of our day but it exists.  I guess like the number one it is lonely.

What makes us helpless?  I think it is when we have a desire to change or alter something and have no apparent means of doing so.

We are helpless as we watch our children grow and make decisions that we don’t necessarily agree with and we have found out by experience there is a better way.  For some reason the wisdom learned from living does not always get passed along to the next generation.  Unfortunately this is more common than not.

We are helpless as we watch global violence unfold on our TV screens and it means little more than an action movie.

We are helpless as we watch the homeless trying to find shelter on a bitter cold night.

We are helpless as we watch loved ones struggle with and lose the battle against disease:  Cancer, Parkinson’s, Multi-system failure, and the most debilitating -depression, bipolar disease, and Personality Disorders.

And why are mental illnesses the most debilitating?

Unlike physical based illness, mental illness is often not comforted by touch and words.  We may not like it but can at least understand a physical failing or degeneration.  We can understand our bodies betraying us.  We are unable to reach inside someone’s head and remove offending thoughts that charge around causing confusion, fear and pain.  Strange thoughts, strange words.  Frightening.  And all we can do is stand outside the arena of horror as our loved ones fight and unseen but deadly battle.

We are helpless as these victims heap another pile of guilt on themselves knowing what it does to others.  To their loved ones.

We are helpless as we watch parents and children and partners dishing themselves an unhealthy serving of guilt believing that if they had been good, or done things differently the victim, their loved one would not have to endure hell on earth.

Sometimes the worst hells are not the ones we walk through ourselves but the ones others have to go through and we are helpless to change

Helpless.  That’s us.

And sometimes all we can do is pray and believe in prayer and pray some more.  Do you know I have had atheists tell me they have prayed in crisis.  Not to a defined diety but to something.

I have seen the miracle of prayer.  Sometimes prayer may must bring some comfort, some strength if not healing.

Gosh I hope some of you have been able to come up with a funny take on this WordPress prompt.  Otherwise – we – remain- helpless – in too many areas.

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Daily Prompt: In Loving Memory and The Last Word

An oil lamp, the symbol of nursing in many cou...

An oil lamp, the symbol of nursing in many countries (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (video game)

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (video game) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

‘Write Your Obituary‘

 

Christine loved words.  And her favorite were the last words.

She lived her life well enough to bring special meaning to the word, ‘Regrets, I’ve had a few”

But they certainly were too few to mention.

She never quite took life seriously enough feeling it was all so transient

And most of tragedy had a good maniacal comedy about it.

Life itself was not a joke to Chris, it was the seriousness that people persist in believing it to be that was funny.

Christine wanted to impart some good to the world so she became a nurse and thought, ‘Yes this is doing good.’

Then she became a teacher of nurses and thought, ‘If I can fill one person with the passion for nursing that I have then that is good.’

Then she became a manager and director thinking she could make the most impact there.

She sat in Queen’s Park on the Emergency Health Services Committee and though, ‘Yes here I can make a difference.’

By the time she retired Christine wondered if in fact she had made even a ripple in the great ocean of health care and then

It occurred to her that she had – not to the great cumbersome machine itself but to individuals which may seem small but in the larger picture is not.

Christine raised two sons who were her pride.  She loved each fiercely and respected them and their families in all the choices of their lives.

She had two great great loves in her life – her grandsons and the opportunity to be in the moment with them every day meant more to her than all the riches on earth.

She thought herself a poet and writer but the best stories stayed deep within.

She wanted her death – well her passing since death itself does not exist – to be a time of great joy and hilarity.

No tears – do not let the best part of her earthly being, the joy, insane laughter and stories be lost to sadness.

Get out and party and laugh.

Talk about the time she and B got lost in the golf club parking lot and could not find their way out.

Talk about the time she and J CSI’d the vacuum cleaner bag.

Talk about the time…the time…

Christine would want you to know that you should be smiling and laughing this very moment

And all of the ‘times’ she remembered are on CD for your viewing pleasure because after

All – She did want the last word!!

 

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Daily Prompt: Connect the Dots (To the Moon)

Gravity

Gravity (Photo credit: eat more toast)

Today’s Daily Prompt was just too enticing to pass it by. Open your nearest book to page 82. Take the third full sentence on the page, and work it into a post somehow.

Well the first book I grabbed was a notebook so with a little extra lean in the opposite direction I picked up my latest read.  Once I saw it I was tempted to go for another but figured that wasn’t fair.  After all what is the poiont of a game if you don’t follow the rules?

Many years ago I fell into the ‘buzz’ trap getting all caught up with my friends when Weight Watcherswas a relatively new program.  Oh my we counted our proteins, fats, and breads, adhered to three fish meals a week, and made sure we ticked off every wee box for water, milk and fluids.  Our social get togethers amongst the women folk were all about what and how we achieved and discussions ensued on the validity of the program (after all it was over seen by physicians) and how well we were doing.

Weight Watchers company logo

Weight Watchers company logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Now belonging to  an active weight loss club is a lot like being addicted to, say, gambling.  When the scales are not in sight the conversations can be all about your success – how much you lost (or gained when it comes to gambling),-  with little discussion about your set backs or losses.

‘Why you know I lost 25 but must confess I gained a bit back but then I lost it again and I feel wonderful!’

Meanwhile you think to yourself, Honey, I saw you when you joined months ago and the only difference I can see is your hairstyle.

*Actually the program works fine as does any weight loss program **if you follow the plan.

But this post is not about losing or gaining, about succeeding or failing.   It’s about perception and the why of things.  By the way I did all right on the program then and each of the ten times I joined in the following decades.  Matter of fact I will never again even see my initial joining weight (which I thought was soooo huge) but now lies 25 pounds ago quite happily.  This is because I choose to believe the medical data that says an elderly person (well as close to elderly as damn is to swearing) should not be stick thin.  It’s healthy to carry a little weight.  I would also like to say it is all behind me  now (get it? get it?) but that would be way too much of a stretch because in fact it is all in front. haha

But now I realize I can believe pretty much anything I choose..so my hypothesis is that food intake has nothing to do with a generous middle.  It all has to do  with Gravity and the moon, tides and oceans, and because we are 90% water – salt water that is- well we reflect mother earth which lends credence to “‘This is the main reason for the tidal bulge on the opposite side of the Earth to the Moon.” *Gravity by Brian Clegg page 82 third full sentence.

It is quite humorous decades later to laugh or chuckle at our youthful worries and thoughts.  It is also quite satisfying to find joy in the me of now and quite like how I am.  What a difference a little age and wisdom makes.

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FITFS Lois Roelofs Champion of Nurses into the 21st Century

LOIS ROELOFS

Blogging Heroes

Blogging Heroes (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am hesitant to write today’s FITFS (Following in the FootSteps) series for two reasons.  The first is that Kathleen Korthuis, Lois’s sister passed away October 5, 2012 and so her focus is on preparing Kay’s eulogy and dealing with the sorrow and loss experienced by her family, friends and herself.  You know that the purpose of FITFS is to honor my heroes.  Writers of the blogging world who inspire me to be better and to somehow emulate them.  Writers have allowed me in some way to be part of their life.  I decided to go ahead with this post to let Lois know that she is in our hearts at this very difficult time.

The second reason I hesitated is that Lois is exactly who I would like emulate but she has set the bar high.  She is the ideal for me and I am in awe of her life and what she has accomplished and continues to accomplish.

Like me, Lois Roelofs has her heroes and certainly the most important was her sister Kay who was her lifelong career mentor.  In fact both of them attended the Blodgett Memorial Hospital School of Nursing and Lois’s 50th reunion takes place this weekend prior to Kay’s service.  How bitter sweet that must be.  Kay graduated in 1955, Lois in 1962, – oh and me from South Waterloo Memorial Hospital in 1969.  That’s right.  There is a sisterhood bond here beyond writing, nursing and blogging.

You know how some people, like all of my heroes, do what so many do, but they do it with that extra touch of class?  It is that extra touch that I guess I want to emulate.

Lois, says in her ‘About’ page that she initially started the Blog to center around the publication of her career memoir, Caring Lessons: A Nursing Professor’s Journey of Faith and Self.  She is a Chicago girl, wife, Mom, and Grandma.

Blodgett Memorial Hospital

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Being a nurse from about the same era touches my heart and makes me get all mushy about old hospitals and old uniforms. (I still think the old fashioned hats signifying who the registered nurse is instead of non-nursing staff was wonderful.  We worked hard to get those black bands on crisply starched hats).  I took the photo below from the Blodgett web site and Lois also has the same one on her post of October 6th.  Kay helped open the first intensive care unit in the country in 1958 and she is the nurse poised over the desk.

Kathleen E. korthuis, PhD, RN

Lois I know this FITFS may seem more about Kay than you and someday soon I may do another honoring only yourself for your incredible achievements.  But I hope you will let me join you in dedicating this post to your sister,

KATHLEEN E. KORTHUIS, PhD, RN 1934-2012

Folks I hope you will stop by to visit Lois, read about her incredible life, say hi, and leave a comment or two.

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FITFS – Katherine Gordy Levine

FITFS

We all have heroes, or at least I hope we all do.  I use ‘hero’ generically like actor.  It holds no connotation of gender for me.  Some of my heroes, as you know, are the authors of blogs that I read regularly and this week Following In The FootSteps series highlights them one at a time to honor and thank them.

Today’s hero is Katherine Gordy Levine of Emotional Fitness fame.  Katherine’s published books are available on Amazon and include:  When Good Kids Do Bad Things: A Survival Guide for Parents of Teenagers, Tame the Test Anxiety, and Monster  (again – in case the linkly thing doesn’t work you will find her at Emotionalfitnesstraining.com

There are a lot of things I admire about Kat but I think my faves are her Cranky Old Lady rants.  With age  I have found a new freedom to say pretty much what I think (you know – no longer restrained by wanting to impress anyone and being comfortable in my own skin).  Kat does this exceptionally well and even has a page on her site called ‘From the Downhill Slope’.

Kat’s mission is to, “..care and share not just the good news and good times, but also to keep sharing the bumps, bruises, and yes – the pain of this glorious gift called life.”

This very accomplished lady thinks of herself as a WOO (Wise Old One) and I don’t know about the wise part for me, but as an Old one, it is nice to belong to her club.

Her page  Be With Beauty is one of the twelve daily Staying Strong Exercises.  Exercises she shares with us and she invites us to share our pictures of Beauty with her.

Kat’s site is very professionally done and information oozes from every word.  She has wonderful quotes such as ; There is a crack in everything; it is what lets the light in.   Leonard Cohen, American musician

Please do stop by and visit this wonderful WOO, say hi, and click a like or two.  She loves visitors.  You don’t even have to dress up, she will welcome you as you are.


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Give Me a Head with Hair, Long Beautiful Hair …or Au Naturel

When I was young I had long beautiful hair. Longer  and shinier than this pic.

My hair in my teens was a shining auburn, below my shoulders and straight as a board.  I ironed it like everyone else even though there was no need.  We rinsed our hair with vinegar and water for that extra shine.

Then something happened – call the 30′s – No not the 1930′s, MY 30′s and suddenly that little bottle of colour became part of my life.  And my hair got shorter and shorter.  So for 30 (seems to be the magical number doesn’t it?) odd years I have helped support the beauty industry by buying product.  Now it is more like this:

So as you may know I seem to be going through a catharsis in my 65th year.  Something, well everything is changing.  I no longer hang ten over the surf board of life but now look for meaning and am living more on purpose rather than by whatever winds buffet me along the road of life.  Well okay I don’t look like that anymore as menopause brought me a short few months of naturally curly hair.  Alas it did not last.

Now it is more like this:

And I have stayed pretty consistent in my color ‘Golden Blonde‘.  Now see what I did there?  That ‘cool’ look or so I thought covers up a lot including the old double or triple chin.

Why the ‘confession’?

Well I took a good look around and noticed that women my age who color their hair, in my opinion look like they have colored their hair.

See I am not sure it makes me look younger anymore.  I think it just makes me look like a woman my age trying to look younger.  I may be off base in this but I am going to try..try..to go back to the 60′s ideas of natural flow no show.  So even though I have been growing that faux girlish look out, when my roots are long enough I am getting all the color cut out.  I mean my hair will grow again and if I look too awful in my natural state I can take up the bottle again but it is such a nice adventurous idea I am going to make it so.

When I do I shall if I am very very brave post a pic.  No promises on that since part of my cathartic change is to be truthful.  And realistic.  And kind at the same time.

What other changes of purpose have I done?  I will have to let you know another time.  Y’all have a great weekend!

 

 

 


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Five Minute Friday; The Gypsy Mama; Good-Bye

Around here we write for five minutes flat on Fridays.

We set a timer, throw caution to the winds and try to remember what it was like to just write without worrying if it’s just right or not.

Want to play Five Minute Friday? It’s easy peasy!

1. Write for 5 minutes flat on the prompt- no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking

2. Link back here and invite others to join in.

3. Meet & encourage someone who linked up before you.

OK, are you ready? Give us your best five minutes on:  GOOD-BYE

There are so many ways to talk about good-bye since there are so many good-byes in life;  people, situations, pets, sanity (at times) and sadly youth.  Since I prefer to look at that which is different my first thought this morning was youth/change or the lack thereof.

People talk about aging gracefully, about vibrancy, about forty being the new thirty and sixty being the new forty.  Yesterday I kept a four year old busy for the day.  Outside.  In a park.  I raced, fought with light sabers (he was Anakin and I was Luke Skywalker).  You are my son he intoned throughout the day.  And occassionally he would warn me that while he was currently Annakin he would soon be going over to the dark side and become Darth Vader.  We slid on slides and swung on swings.  Did I mention we raced? This morning my body feels like it has been hit by a truck of large proportions.

There are many things we say good-bye to as we age.  I worked for many years in Long Term Care so I knew….goodbye to independence in many things.  Good-bye to night driving vision.  Good-bye to leaping like a gazelle (I am sure I did at one time), good-bye to standing up from a seated position and being able to move immediately.  Good-bye gentle thoughts on aging gracefully.  Good-bye to firm young skin and strong limbs.

But mostly, good-bye to changeability or the ability to change with little muss or fuss.

Oops times up!


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Measuring Success

Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom. – General George Patton.

I’ve been thinking about challenges lately, overcoming challenges, and what success is. What is a successful person? What is success? That got me wondering about how to measure success. There are a multitude of companies out there who make their success by talking about the measurement of success, and really that is all you can do – talk about it. They purport to motivate, help you define your own meaning of success, and as the presentations are paid for by the company you work for, usually to meet the company’s definition of success.

There are all kinds of tools out there to help you measure, to help you know that yes you are or are not successful. I’m thinking that the only way true way is not by measurement of any sort but by feeling. I’m thinking that success is immeasurable.

We, I, look at someone else and say, “That person is successful.” But when you speak to that person, he or she may not perceive being successful. Is success being satisfied with what you have rather than striving for something you do not have? Are we being deceived for the purpose of gain to believe that we must want, that we should strive?

I have always thought of Demi Moore as successful, someone whose work I admire (although I do acknowledge it is easy to confuse the actor with the character). She would say, I think, she is unsuccessful because her want is unsatisfied. How do we know that? She said, “What scares me is that I’m going to ultimately find out at the end of my life that I’m really not loveable.”

Even if you concede that success is something defined by each person the measurement of success is still feeling and not really measurable at all. Suppose your definition is money. Suppose you have eighty percent of the world’s money but are still not satisfied. It is not the acquisition of money, it is the feeling that it is enough.

Yup I’m thinking success is a feeling and no number of charts, written goals or affirmations can define success.
Feel it. Be it. Don’t measure it by someone else’s yard stick.

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