Being Thankful

It is that time of year when I purposely count my lucky stars, assess my stress level, determine my "budget" (HAHAHAHAHAHAHA..... whewwwww that was a good word) for Christmas, change the batteries in my smoke alarms and clock radios, prepare for the return of darkness at 5 pm, and fight my inner desire for comfort food. It is also the time of year that energizes me the most because nature simply amazes me as it prepares to sleep.

I also pull out the winter togs and, generally pray that the pants will still fit and that the blouses will still button over my boobs. This year there was room for celebration in the fit department but woe is meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.... the colors aren't right. I stopped coloring my hair and where there was red there is now gray. Lots - o - gray.

Gone is my ability to wear redhead warm colors. I'm back to my cool blue tones and that means I have to have a yard sale. Oh boy :::: eyeroll :::::

The gray is actually kind of elegant. I really didn't know what color my hair would be since I installed the color wheel on my drivers license. People are giving me positive comments so I must not look like an old lady, though they may be fibbing. Regardless, 99 cent shampoo is awesome and now I can go swimming whenever I want to and not worry about my hair color.

As my thankfulness list grows longer, I've decided I'm the luckiest damn woman in the world. I have a car that runs, a cat with three legs that is totally cool, two kids that make me proud every day, a roof over my head, the best job and co-workers in the world, the best boss in the world, and in less than a week there will hopefully be an end to the eight years presidency of George Bush.

We will save all political statements until November 5th.

It is also the time of year where I reflect on my upcoming birthday. That is a post for the future, however, because it involves all sorts of ruminations that I don't have time for today.

I also have a partner that I'm thankful for. We fit together well, but not perfectly. I think as long as he lives in his house and I live in mine, things will be fine and our relationship will survive for years. If we were under the same roof, it would have to be an apartment building with two separate domociles. It simply works out better that way. We like our spaces and our privacy.

The older I get the more I like aloneness. I've become more comfortable with it and actually look forward to the quiet. I remember being antsy when there was nobody around me but that was in my youth and my socialibility scale was much grander and more of a priority. GAWD, am I on my way to becoming a recluse? hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I'm also thankful for my breasts which have retained their youthfulness and substance. This is indeed a blessing.

I'm thankful for the "tramp stamp" tattoo I got when I was 50. This will entertain the staff in the nursing home and eventually the people who cremate me. It reminds me that I don't fit the mold and that it's OK to be that way.

Square Pegs Unite!

Variety Day

Things are moving too fast today. My Crackberry has been ringing all day. By the time I got back to the office after circulating for 2 biopsies, I ended up making/receiving back to back calls for 2 hours.

It was like CHAIN SMOKING!!!

In the midst of it all my 17-year-old-soon-to-graduate daughter (who has waited until the last nanosecond to finish her college application that has to be IN THEIR HANDS by Friday at midnight) calls me to tell me her drama teacher is going to write her a recommendation for the application.

Total, complete, unadulterated knee jerk reaction by her mother: "WHAT? WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD YOU PICK YOUR DRAMA TEACHER?!?!?!?! WHAT HAPPENED TO CHOOSING YOUR ENGLISH TEACHER?!?!?!?!?!? THE BAND DIRECTOR HAS KNOWN YOU FOR 4 YEARS!!!!! WHY NOT HIM?!?!?!?!"

At this point a co-worker stuck her head in the door and signaled that I could be heard out in the hallway.

SO WHAT!!!!!! She has had 6 months notice - - - 6 months to fill in the blanks and to ask teachers to fill in the blanks and TODAY IS OCTOBER 28TH!!!

ommmmmmmmmmmm

breathe

concentrate

I retracted my reaction, apologized to my daughter, and told her to call her father and rely on his recommendations. He doesn't have knee jerk reactions.

My mother would react that way.... and then she would absolve herself of the situation and defer to my father.... "Just wait until your Father gets home!" I believe that this strategy can be used when she doesn't see my logic as opposed to punishment.

Besides, we're divorced and it is my responsibility to make sure he is involved with important events such as college application procrastination. I'll go with whatever - I am not thinking clearly enough to understand her reasoning. After yoga class tonight I'll sit down with her when I'm less like to PINCH HER LITTLE HEAD OFF!

On the positive side, she unexpectedly had her top braces removed yesterday. Completely worth the quarter million dollars that the orthodontist has squeezed from my bank account. Her teeth are spectacular.

Then there is the down side: she doesn't look like a 17 year old with braces anymore. Her appearance is substantially less adolescent. This means that no longer will waiters assume she is in high school. She will smile at an unsuspecting college student who will become completely smitten with her. Her teeth glint in the sunlight to signal every testosterone laden youth within a 20 mile radius. It is now time to anticipate another thread of the apron strings being severed.

This on the heels of ordering senior portraits late last week. The school photographer - - I repeat, the school photographer took the portraits. Good old reliable Prestige/Lifetouch photographers who have been handing out little black combs to students everywhere for 60 years took the photos. And how much did we pay in the past for 47,000 photos every school year???? 30, maybe 35 bucks?

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh but this year was different. Over 12 years they lulled me into a trance and I gleefully anticipated a similar, possibly slightly greater fee this year.

MUUUUAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! They got me good.

For one 8x10, eight 5x7's, eight 4x5's and 24 wallets: cha CHING! $382.03

Its a plot. Gas prices plunge, I bank the bucks and Prestige rakes in the dough!!! I had no idea that a local yokel school photography studio had OPEC ties!!!

Time for yoga. I need oxygen and some really gooooooooooood sweaty pretzel positions to straighten me out.

First Obama and now Palin

Last week Barack Obama came to Roanoke and filled the colliseum. Today, Sarah Palin is pulling into Salem to gather her 20K people at the football stadium.

Is southwestern VA really a hotbed of indecision? We're in the national spotlight for something other than VT football and the April 16th VT massecre. This is fairly unsettling to a number of us because there are these bold divisional political lines being drawn within families both at home and at work. My work family is especially touchy - - we've had some amazing back-and-forths that caused some unnatural upheaval in our usually very cool department.

Through this I learned that my political beliefs are in the minority. I'm fine with that. There is going to be a struggle for either presidential candidate and a fair amount of finger pointing and Monday morning quarterbacking going on.

And me? I'll be in my office chanting or in Downward Facing Dog.

Politics...... menopause is now a non-issue!

Without admitting that I'm very close to a rant, I'll simply say that attendance for my Red Hot Mamas menopause education program is nearly zero..... ok, well there were 2 registered..... for the Thursday, October 23rd program.

There are a million reasons folks wouldn't attend. I'm wondering if possibly politics, or the World's Series has something to do with it. We used to have at least 20 dedicated attendees. Maybe it was the content of the program.... cardiac health. Maybe people are tired of hearing:::

Exercise
Pay attention to your eating habits
Manage Stress
Schedule FUN
Have Sex
Laugh
Dance
And so forth........

The "E" word is the worst I think because people resist it; equate it with pain or discomfort. I know as I got older, it was less enjoyable for me. Step aerobics was a set up for a bladder leak; walking, while easiest, could ALSO be avoided the easiest. Treadmill, stairstepper, eliptical, weight machines.... visions of thongs, the prevailing scent of testosterone laden men as they struggle to hold in their gut, and the mindlessness of watching television as you pedel your bike. All no fun.

I took up Yoga. My body loves it, my brain loves it, and I am sleeping better and certainly less crabby. Not everyone wants to twist their body into poses and chant. And, at our age, flatulence is stimulated by the body movements and sounds can't be muffled in a quiet room. Its cool though because the majority of people in my classes are over 40 and a fart here and there means someone is having successful internal massage via the asanas. Very cool.

Still I'm bummed. Menopausal transition is important. My viewpoint only - and as a health educator it is my job to give people the information they need to make informed decisions. Nothing else. It's their decision whether to accept or reject the information. I'm not allowed to beg PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE COME TO THE PROGRAM SO YOU WILL UNDERSTAND CARDIAC DISEASE MORE CLEARLY..... PLEEEEEEEEEEASE?!

My glass half full belief is that people are worn out by the politics they're bombarded with in these days leading up to the election and they can't take one more piece of information into their overloaded brains. Plus the Phillies really need to win the series and game 2 was Thursday evening.

My glass half empty belief is that I'm loosing my edge and need to reinvent the program. Damn, the advertising department will LOVE that....... not.

Monday Musings

Mondays get a bad rap. For that matter so do dentists.... and pap smears.... I guess a really bad Monday would be possible if you scheduled a dentist appointment or a pap smear for that day, eh? But if a holiday falls on a Monday, then it's a good thing. Poor Mondays - you either love 'em or you dread 'em.

Monday is when I map out the week ahead of me so I can prevent any upheaval. My title should be "Upheaval Management Coordinator" and not "Women's Health Navigator." On Mondays I try to make sure that we know where all of the x-ray films and ultrasound studies are for the women who are scheduled for breast biopsies. They are usually here..... or somewhere else.

Here is good. Somewhere else might not be - - especially if somewhere else is not here OR there! Missing films aren't fun to track down because everybody says they've "already sent them." This absolves them of all responsibility. Also it doesn't answer the question:

"Well, if we don't have them and you don't have them, can you help me determine where they are?" That answer is always no.

NOW I know where they got the title of the song "Things That Make You Go HMMMMMMMMM!"

At any rate, there is always one other possibility and that is the patient herself may have the films. About 50% of the time that is the case and the other 50% are out there somewhere floating in limbo. Kind of like the place where socks disappear when you put them in the dryer. Somewhere there are lost x-rays and socks suspended in limbo.

Monday is also when I make phone calls to all of the women that I wasn't able to make contact with last week. It's nice to talk with them on the Thursday or Friday before their biopsy so that I can make sure they understand the procedure, that they get answers to their questions, and so I can once again, head off any upheaval. Upheaval in this case is anything that would have a negative impact on the woman's experience OR would set the MD/techs into a tailspin - - - upheaval galore.

Today the buggaboo is baby aspirin. You would be amazed what an impact that 81 mg of aspirin will have on the blood clotting mechanisms..... anything from frank bleeding to oozing that lasts for hours. My luck - neither scheduled tomorrow were told by their MD to stop the aspirin.

Which leaves me with the conundrum. If I can't make contact with the lady and she doesn't return my call, how many times should I attempt to call her????? How late in the evening is too late????? I could have headed off this mess if they had called me back after leaving multiple messages. HMMMMMMMMMMMMM sounds like a rant. I digress......

So far the x-ray upheaval for tomorrow was solved - the patient has her films. woo HOO! The aspirin upheaval remains out there floating around ominously, threatening to make everyone's day tense. Personally, I'd like to have the power to reschedule biopsies when people haven't stopped taking aspirin for at least 5 days or more. Good for us, bad for the patient because they're already stressed enough and want the biopsy over so they can get the pathology results. Bad for me if the biopsy is done and either/both bleed...... and bleed..... and bleed...... and ooze..... or end up with a big honking hemotoma that will be sore for weeks. I hate heme that has no intention of clotting appropriately regardless of the amount of time that pressure is applied to the site. This is a 1/4 inch incision we're talking here that can spill some scary red.

Monday is also when I get the list of patients scheduled for bladder studies at The Urinary and Sexual Health Center. Upheaval is much easier to control with those calls. They tend to be lengthy, however, and older women tend to want to talk because they're lonely and there's nobody there to listen to them. Bless their hearts..... one day that may be me. Sighhhhhhhh.

On the happy side, Monday is when I can get excited about my yoga classes on Tues/Thurs evenings. My time. Me time. ON-LY FO MOI. :~*:*~:~*:~* happy dance :~*:~*:~*:~*

With that in mind, my Monday is nearly behind me and it is time to go home.

Namaste ya'll !!!

Why navigation?

"Journey" has been used too often. Whether planned or unplanned, you must navigate every moment of the journey. You either consciously navigate or navigation is done for you. Mapquest doesn't count as navigation, although somehow we continue to print out the directions, all the time hoping that they will take you where you want to go. Sometimes you leave navigation to the converging currents.... some call it "flying by the seat of your pants." I prefer to view it as being in a big black innertube drifting down the river. I guess it is then that it ceases becoming a journey and therefore morphs into an adventure.

Anyway-thats the way this blog will start. Everything is worth trying once.... well, almost everything.