April 1982, my friend had an article about the birth of her twins in baby talk: THE FIRST BABY MAGAZINE where she described her experience and mentions me, her ”second childbirth coach, a close friend”… Her other coach was her husband. As her labor progressed, my friend tells the story about how the nurse put an I.V. in her arm ‘just in case’ and how her two coaches looked away, leading the nurse to remark, “If you can’t watch this, how do you expect to watch these babies get delivered?” But we did. And the babies were beautiful.
Now as we wait for the birth of Gabrielle, my husband and I keep asking our daughter about childbirth classes. We took such classes and feel that we benefited a great deal from them. Our daughter finally told us today that none of her friends took such classes. She and her husband plan to get a video or two and watch them instead. Apparently this is what more than half first time mothers opt for now.
I wrote about my own diagnosis with Lyme disease in this forum in the past. This is one of those conditions that is too often undiagnosed. It is one of the most commmon causes of peripheral neuropathy. Dad are you reading this?
It is a common cause of tiredness, exhaustion, and fatigue. It is a common cause of joint pain.
But don’t take my word for it. The Insitute of Medicine has recognized the frightening scope of this condition in the U.S. and held a workshop to get some conversation going. They are currently getting ready to conduct a fuller study. For now, you can read the workshop report for free online. Go here: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13134#toc
Health communication’s role is highlighted on p. 36: “One participant highlighted the current gap in communications, noting that how information is provided on the Internet can vary, with implications for how those to whom it is disseminated (e.g., schools, insurance companies) will respond to the disease. The same participant called for a centralized source of information on the latest research to facilitate patient/family efforts to obtain such information. Another participant called for better communication between patients and their physicians, noting the damaging effect of this disconnection between two groups who have worked together on other illnesses. By working together in creative ways, physicians and patients may help to advance the science and understanding of the disease processes and chronic manifestations to permit earlier diagnosis and better treatment outcomes.”
On p. 31, there is a summary about conditions that often occur together with Lyme disease and need to be considered by patients and doctors as well, “Completing this community of patients are the coinfected: those with babesiosis, anaplasmosis, ehrlichiosis, or some other tick-borne infection. Surveys around the country report that ticks can transmit these well-known human diseases, yet primary care physicians almost never consider or test for them, even if they seriously consider Lyme disease.”
So I have been trying low sodium soups. When I have time, I love to make soup from scratch. But I often don’t have time. So, enter the effort to find canned soups that taste good and are good for me. My favorite when I was growing up was tomato soup. It was the simple can of Campbells. I didn’t know there was any other kind. My mom made it with milk. Probably whole milk. I have no idea when all the low fat and skim varieties of milk became available. When they did, she started to use them.
And grilled cheese. Recently, I have started to put a slided fresh tomato on my grilled cheese sandwich before grilling it. Yummm. But I digress.
The amount of sodium in Campbell’s tomato soup sent me on a search for something healthier. 530 mg of sodium in a half cup. Sorry but I usually have a cup of soup and so — half the day’s salt for a cup of coup. Yikes. [http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-campbells-tomato-soup-i81752]
I tried a couple of different kinds of reduced sodium canned tomato soup. I didn’t like them. I tried tomato basil reduced sodium hoping that the basil would help. I didn’t like them. Until yesterday. Progresso vegetable classics tomato basil soup. 580 mg sodium in one cup compared to 1,60 in one cup of the Campbells. There was just one problem.
When I took the first bite, I knew there was sugar added. I could taste it. I got up and flipped the can over and sure enough — under the Ingredients list — sugar is the 3rd ingredient. Why? You have to be kidding me. So I went on a search of the other soups. You guessed it. Sugar. High fructose corn syrup. It’s there. You just have to look for it.
So back on the hunt I went for a homemade recipe. I found one I like. But it has V-8 juice in it. And v-8 juice, well, it has a lot of salt in it… Sigh. There is a low sodium version [http://www.v8juice.com/FAQ.aspx]
There is hardly anything more fun than getting together with family and friends. And celebrating life is the best reason to get together that I can think of.
We had a baby shower that proved the point.
Everyone got a preview of the nursery.
The food was fantastic. Chocolate-dipped strawberries. Crab cakes. Mini quiche and more…
It was fabulous! And will keep me smiling to remember it in the days and weeks to come…
In case you missed the comment on yesterday’s post, here is a link to a shared video:
In India, all women must confront the cultural pressure to bear a son. The consequences of this preference is a disregard for the lives of women and girls. From birth until death they face a constant threat of violence. See the project at http://mediastorm.com/publication/undesired
Here is an image shared on my daughter, Joy’s, Christmas card of my beautiful little granddaughter, Gabrielle, who’s expected to make her entrance into the world in another couple of months.
I was talking with one of my former graduate students yesterday, catching him up on Joy’s pregnancy and the excitement we all feel as we look ahead to Gabrielle’s birth. He in turn shared with me that his sister is pregnant.
I asked if they knew whether it would be a boy or a girl, and he told me that in India, there is a law that forbids doctors from telling the mother the sex of the baby. It was passed in an effort to help prevent the killing of an unborn female fetus. Apparently, boys are preferred over girls. I was shocked to learn that a country would have to adopt a law to try to prevent such acts. Are there other countries with such laws?
Yes, I have been traveling. And you may remember my story in my book, ‘Talking about health…’ where I was on spring break at the beach and got such a pain in my neck that I thought I would die. Well, this is what I know. First, physical therapy and exercises brought me back from that episode and keep me in shape for the most part. But I need a good pillow as well. For me, that turns out to be a memory foam pillow. No, I am not being paid to advertise this pillow. But it is worth telling you about it anyway. Just based on my personal experience. During my travels this past week, I started to feel that familiar neck twinge. I quickly decided to purchase a memory foam pillow to sleep on and — wallah! — no more neck pain. Here is a bit of info about how these pillows work:
I have been meaning to look up the research linked to ads about high fructose corn syrup for awhile. You know the ones. They says that the two are the same and that your body doesn’t know the difference. What they don’t every explicitly say in any of the ads I have seen is: they are both high calorie carbohydrates that should be eaten in moderation, err on the side of less rather than more.
Turns out that the Corn Refiners Association started the ad campaign to clear up misconceptions about corn syrup versus cane sugar. You can see the original ad here:
I cannot embed it because the Corn Refiners have disabled embedding. After a bit of surfing, I did find one of the ads from the campaign because someone else is using it along with their personal conclusions about why corn syrup is bad. I thought it would be worth checking to see if I could find any research.
A review of the science [found here: http://ajl.sagepub.com/content/4/6/515.full.pdf+html] supports several conclusions. Of course, the broadest conclusion is that more research is needed. But that being said, here goes. On p. 519, the authors conclude,
“From a compositional standpoint, high-fructose corn syrup, sucrose, invert sugar, honey, and concentrated fruit juices are all virtually interchangeable. All of these nutritive sweeteners are composed of approximately 50% glucose and 50% fructose. All are absorbed similarly, have similar sweetness, and have the same number of calories per gram.”
Here is my daughter pictured in a skull at the Head of the Charles rowing competition. Looking at it, I am thinking about how our discussion about conscience clauses ignores the other side of the story.
I was reminded of our right to refuse treatment based on our values and morals when I once more searched to find published research about how doctors, especially pharmacists, talk about these issues with patients when it means that a doctor/pharmacist is not going to provide medication or treatment.
Orr and Jensen conclude in the Journal of Medical Ethics,
“How should the clinician respond when a patient or family requests “inappropriate” treatment based on religious beliefs? As in all situations where there is disagreement about treatment options, good communication is the most important step towards resolution. The patient or family must clearly understand the medical situation. This may require repeated discussion, conversations with consultants,viewing of x-rays or other clinical data, or other efforts familiar to most clinicians. A management conference, which includes the patient/family, primary physician, consultants, bedside nurses and others from the care-team, is often the best way to ensure that such communication happens.” (1993, p. 145; http://jme.bmj.com/content/23/3/142.full.pdf+html)
The article’s title? ”Requests for “inappropriate” treatment based on religious beliefs.”
I think the suggested course of communication in the decision-making scenario is a great model for how to talk about decisions when the shoe is on the other foot, so to speak…and the focus is conscience clauses and the provider’s religious beliefs.
