December 6th, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in Humor
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You know those people who still have their Christmas lights up in April? Yeah, that’s always annoyed me… But I’m afraid that I’ve recently been reminded of the old Muslim proverb: “Don’t point fingers because three will be pointing back at you.”
My exasperation level has reached a creschendo and I think I’m going to have to take matters into my own hands. My husband has been keeping rotting organic material on our balcony, and it is a source of growing embarrassment.
Exhibit A
Exhibit A: Rosemary bush from Christmas ’07. This little bush was purchased by my husband in an effort to bring the “holiday spirit” to our household last year. I had previously argued that killing trees was not part of the true meaning of Christmas and that I didn’t relish the idea of sweeping up pine needles for months. Besides, we don’t have kids, so why get a tree at all? So he got me a rosemary bush and decorated it with items from my jewelry box. It was amusing at the time. But the bush is still alive (albeit barely) and on our balcony in time for Christmas ’08.
Exhibit B
Exhibit B: A pumpkin that was carved by my husband in late October, 2008. He found the vegetable at our local farmer’s market and asked me to participate in creating a Jack-O-Lantern. He insisted that my “considerable artistic talent” could be applied to the pumpkin with great effect. I responded that since our balcony faces a series of rooftop fume hoods, I doubted that the proud display of such an effort would be appreciated by more than the local rodent population. So hubby carved the pumpkin himself (using a simple stencil) and placed his work directly in front of my office window. It made me chuckle, but little did I know that he planned to allow the pumpkin to “degrade naturally to fertilize the bamboo” after it had served its holiday purpose.
I suppose that these two balcony dwellers serve as a reminder of my own “Grinchly” ways. Nonetheless, I’m coming to the end of my rope and am poised with garbage bag in hand to start the 2008 holidays with a clean slate. Would you agree that it’s time to remove the exhibits? With whom do you relate more: the organic-matter-hording husband, or the curmudgeonly wife?
October 31st, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in Humor, True Stories
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Doug and Heather
True story: three years ago in New York City I decided to attend a Halloween costume party dressed as Jackie O. My husband dutifully accompanied me as a secret service agent. I wore a mauve, tweed suit with a three-strand pearl necklace, large sunglasses, a pill box hat, white gloves, and a brown wig. We entered the party with much fanfare. I was quite pleased until someone approached and said,
“Great costume. You look JUST like Monica Lewinsky!”
I started a new diet the next day.
This year I decided to be something that no one would mistake – a vampire from the Underworld movie series. My husband was supposed to join me as a co-vampire, but this year he dug in his heels and decided to do his own thing. What could be better than a vampire escort?
Steve chose to be “Lad Armstrong,” Lance’s older brother. He wore bicycle shorts and a helmet and wrist guards, with an ankle bracelet. He claimed to have taught Lance everything he knows about cycling, but is still sore about him stealing his anklet idea and developing it into a livestrong bracelet cult.
Anyway, I thought you’d enjoy some photos from the party. Someone’s dad dressed up as a flasher. I thought it was pretty clever. Unfortunately my camera was not fast enough to capture the goods during a flash. So I’ll leave that up to your imagination.
I did have a friend help me with my vampire look. Hope you all had a safe and entertaining Halloween! What did you dress up as?
Vampire Val & Lad Armstrong
October 29th, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in Health Tips, Medblogger Shout Outs
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My friend and fellow blogger Kerri Morrone Sparling (at the Six Until Me blog) was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when she was in second grade. The diagnosis came a few short weeks before Halloween, and back then she didn’t realize the risks of sneaking candy bars behind her mom’s back.
Now that Kerri’s grown up, she has some excellent tips for parents of children with type 1 diabetes (or frankly, for anyone who wants to enjoy Halloween and manage their diabetes). You should check out her video blog on the subject here.
Some tips include:
1. Focus on the costume part of the holiday, not the candy part.
2. Make some “candy” corn with Splenda, Equal or a sugar substitute. Enjoy the salty-sweet treat instead of a Snicker’s bar (for example).
3. Work in a small amount of candy into your diet plan. Eat a half a candy bar during a period of high activity, for example, and the sugar spike will not be so bad.
Please check out Kerri’s post for more tips!
***
And for a good laugh about candy, check out The Onion’s headline here.
October 31st, 2007 by Dr. Val Jones in Health Tips
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Gruesome costumes abound at Revolution Health today. Characters from popular horror movies seem to be a favorite, some employees even toted plastic chainsaws and spouted red ink/blood. As I was chased down a hallway by a ghoulish colleague who pretended to amputate one of my arms, I began to think – maybe this could be the subject of an interesting blog post? [Enter awkward segue here.]
Did you know that one in every 200 people in the United States has had a limb amputation of some kind? While the majority of amputations occur due to poor circulation (usually related to diabetes), some are caused by trauma, cancer, or birth defects. Limb loss is not a fictional issue, but a real concern for more people than you think. The good news is that most folks do very well with prostheses and rehabilitation programs. But since this is Halloween, I couldn’t resist discussing a potential complication of limb loss: phantom pain.
“Phantom pain” is the term used to describe pain sensations in a missing limb. Although this may sound impossible at first (how can a person feel pain in his foot when that same leg was amputated already?) the reality is that the brain takes some time to adjust to limb loss. The human brain has entire sections devoted to sensing input from and delivering movement messages to our arms and legs. When an arm or leg is lost, that part of the brain continues to function for several months or more. And so as the local brain cells lack the usual input from the nerves in the absent limb, they fire in a spontaneous manner that is perceived as cramping, aching, or burning.
How on earth can you treat this kind of pain? As you can imagine, it’s quite tricky. Some of the more successful approaches involve helping the brain to adjust to the loss of sensory input by touching or massaging the stump and walking on a limb prosthesis. These new sensations help the brain to adjust to the body’s changes. In fact, imagining moving the lost arm or leg can result in some relief of the perceived pain. This is the one case I can think of where imaginary exercise can be of real benefit to your body!Some folks do require special pain medicines (tricyclic antidepressants, seizure meds, and beta blockers can help modestly) to cope while their brain adjusts to the new input. However, most amputees experience the sensation that their limb is still there, but without any pain or unpleasantness. Phantom sensations and phantom pain almost always resolve with time – which is a testament to the amazing flexibility (or “plasticity“) of the human brain.
That being said, I hope you each have a safe Halloween – and that your only potential injury comes from a ghoul with a plastic chain saw.This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
