Health Archives - Page 2 of 11 - Fran Moreland Johns

February 11, 2023February 11, 2023

The Glory of Modern Dentistry

Or – How in the world am I going to pay for all this gadgetry?

Dentists, my oral surgeon told me almost as an aside — he’s sticking needles in my jaws, and I’m supposed to feel sympathy? — have the highest suicide rate of any profession. I reflected on this, having nothing better to do at the moment.

After Googling around when I got home I learned that MDs are at greatest risk, but the DDS folks are close behind. This is not research, it’s only Googling, but here we are.

Back to my oral surgeon. I am spending a lot of time with oral surgeons, and oral everything elses, having reached the advanced age at which all that expensive stuff — crowns, implants, you name it — done 25 years ago wants to be redone. Regardless of how loudly I argue that I don’t need another 25 years — could they patch me up for five or six, maybe? — I find myself captive to the stratospheric talents (and costs) of today’s dentistry.

Rather pricey view from (one of) my dentist’s offices (Author photo)

Please do not get me wrong. I am immensely grateful to the entire profession, and the way they have kept me smiling through the years without looking like a toothless goofball. Eating is nice, too. So dentists and I are longtime besties.

But now I’m worried about their depression levels.

I do not want to get into the suicide business, which is a sad and serious issue never to be written about lightly. So I am only worrying about what might make them so sad.

Money? How can that be? Admittedly all that fancy equipment must cost a fortune — and many of my dentists are in an historic, heavily gilded downtown building on which I feel I pay upkeep. But as they all have other patients besides yours truly, and what I’m spending on this averages out to the choice between two weeks in Paris or fix that tooth — well, nobody’s talking minimum wage here.

It must be staring down throats all day. Have you considered how repulsive the view into your throat really is? I thought not. Or it could be the fear that, at any moment, an enraged patient might chomp down and amputate your gloved finger? That would definitely increase workplace anxiety.

Self portrait with (happily only temporarily) purple jaws (Author photo)

In the end, however, I have decided to quit worrying about my dentists’ health and wellbeing. They, after all, are not the ones with purple jaws and occasionally absent teeth. Plus, I’m assuming they can afford therapy, given the bills I am paying.

Now, about that bank I’m planning to rob . . .

America Collection/General interest

November 23, 2022November 23, 2022

The Joy of Supplements

by Fran Johns

Today’s random health report

Photo by Myriam Zilles on Unsplash

Dietary doomsday may be upon us. For instance, how’s the eicosapentaenoic acid?

And should we be REALLY worried about it?

There’s food — as in breakfast, lunch, dinner, nosh — and there’s Supplement. I grew up on meat & potatoes plus a few vegetables, old-fashioned stuff you cook and eat. But the world seems to be geared to popping pills for daily needs, so I supplement with the best of them today.

One of my children told me to take turmeric with curcumin, so I started swallowing those yellowish pills a few years ago. I have no idea why; sometimes I think they give me desert-sand breath.

Then there’s fish oil. Does everybody take daily fish oil? I sort of think so. That’s where you get the eicosapentaenoic acid. It’s a “fatty acid,” which doesn’t sound particularly yummy when you think about it. Plus, I used to take pride in never having dropped acid.

I am more than a little suspicious of it all. Big Pharma, I think, did a mind control thing on my primary care doctor, the one who said I really should take extra iron, and calcium with vitamin D, and if I’m not mistaken she threw in the fish oil. There is no fish oil capsule smaller than a quail’s egg. After I while, I got a new doctor.

Mostly, I am fascinated with CoQ10. Seriously, now. Had you ever heard of CoQ10 before it began starring in every other commercial on MSNBC?

CoQ10 — I’ve been researching this, no easy task — is an enzyme. More specifically it is “Coenzyme Q, also known as ubiquinone . . .” Most healthy people have plenty of it, but maybe — maybe — scarfing a little more might help with one’s blood pressure or metabolism or headache. Apparently, nobody much knows. Just reading about it gives me a headache.

In the small print of the CoQ10 packages are warnings about diarrhea, nausea and heartburn, little things like that. As to whether taking this happy little supplement can actually do any good, phrases like “the evidence is conflicting,” or “it’s uncertain that adding CoQ10 will have any effect” proliferate.

Maybe we should go back to kale and blueberries.

America Collection/General interest

September 11, 2022September 11, 2022

Should You Still Be Driving?

by Fran Johns

A CLOSE LOOK AT THE UNIVERSAL QUESTION

I am slowly talking myself into giving up my car.

Though still, I honestly believe, a very good driver, I cannot escape a tiny, nagging question: Could I live with myself if I were involved in an accident in which someone is injured or killed? Even if it were clearly not my fault, could I avoid suspecting some failure of eyesight or reflexive response or yet unknown factor had played a part in an accident that might not have happened if I weren’t driving?

So I have begun this conversation with myself.

It starts with the memory of former conversations, one in particular. For years my three sisters and I discussed who would get our widowed father from behind the wheel of his car (none of us wanted to volunteer.) “Never had an accident in fifty years!” our father would declare. None of us wanted to point out the chaos in his wake. We were saved by a family friend who undertook to explain to our father how much money he could save on gas, insurance, repairs, etc.; he threw in a list of small town neighbors happy to be on-call chauffeurs. My father died 12 years later, at 90, never having injured a fellow creature.

This background conversation relates to the personal relationship I have with my 2001 Volvo S40 The Bud. Less intimate than my relationship with its predecessor LilyPad, a forest green 2000 Volvo S40 that was demolished by a 14-wheeler in 2020. The LilyPad and I were turning right from the right-turn lane; the 14-wheeler was turning right from the center lane blithely unaware of the legal maneuvers of that little car below. I consider it a testament to good reflexes that I was able to get out of his way after he demolished the front of the LilyPad and before he demolished the rear; the driver’s side and I survived unscathed.

But two more years have ensued. The conversation continues:

How certain are you that your reflexes are really as good as safety requires? Suppose someone’s beloved dog darts into the street and you don’t hit the brakes quickly enough. Could you live with that loss — knowing that a better driver might have avoided it?

And how about eyesight? I have, like much of the over-70 population, macular degeneration. Cataract surgery several years ago greatly helped my vision, but still. I have AMD and my eyesight is only going to get worse. At what point do I decide it’s worsened enough?

I think there is no magic moment when one can say, Today I should quit driving. Occasionally a driver receives a signal. My sister Helen, for example, was in her early 70s when she went to get the family car from its parking space in a Boston street lot. Instead of backing up a few feet as she had done countless times before she went forward, rolling to a stop against a sidewalk sign.

Everyone said, “Oh, that’s a common error. Your foot slipped.” “Nope,” said Helen, as she handed the keys to an attendant. “Someone could’ve been on that sidewalk. I put my foot on the wrong pedal. I am never driving again.” She never did.

There are, of course, good drivers in their 80s — I continue to consider myself among them — or perhaps older. There are plenty of bad drivers in their 20s or 30s. But those of us in the older category should be peculiarly attuned to the questions about when we turn from good to bad. It’s unlikely to be one lightbulb moment.

So we might all do well to have the conversation. What are the pluses? All that money I’ll save on no more insurance, gas, repairs (you might figure from the age of my vehicles that car payments are not an issue.) Parking meters. Garage fees. Fastrak fees and miscellaneous tolls. And even as little as I drive it, The Bud is not helping the environment; its namesake worked hard for the planet.

The minus? It comes in handy. There’s the convenience of being able to zip off to the park or the grocery — almost the only places to which I frequently drive. Freedom? A lot of drivers cite their car as a symbol of freedom; actually, I feel most free when walking a few miles, carrying stuff in my backpack.

I live in a city where public transportation is quite good for the most part; taxis and ride shares are everywhere. For what I’d save on the costs outlined above I could take an awful lot of cabs. My father’s small town had no public transportation — but neighbors beat light rail any day.

You can see the direction this conversation is going. Before my next birthday — still nine months off — when it’ll be time for driver’s license renewal and close to time for new smog check, registration etc, I think I will have taken the leap, gotten the airport-effective Real ID, sold The Bud and adjusted to a new life of being chauffeured when necessary.

I believe the car-free life will be just fine.

General interest/Health/Lifestyle/Medicine/Optimism Collection

January 6, 2019October 20, 2021

Paying New Year’s Blessings Forward

by Fran Johns

In a new year with meanness and cruelty on the news every day, there are counter forces at work. Here is my favorite Pay-It-Forward story so far for 2019. It involves my lovely friend Eva Zimmerman, who agreed to let me to share it. Eva and her husband, Noah Schreck, welcomed their first child, daughter Zahra, into the world last spring. But the exuberant joy they were having was interrupted by Noah’s diagnosis of colon cancer, requiring surgery in December.

On January 2, Eva posted this story (lightly edited here) on Facebook.

“Noah is home! He has a lot more healing and resting (and eating) to do to get back to his old self and Zahra is being super helpful by screaming and screeching at a newly-discovered ear piercing volume, constantly. We’ll readjust and recalibrate and make this work. We’re thankful to be together.

“We are so fortunate to have so much support. Meals waiting on the porch, welcome signs and ice cream delivered, childcare, and just the love and prayer that we’ve felt this entire time… Thank you, all.

“As I was leaving the hospital with all of Noah’s belongings, taking everything to the car to load it and go pick him up in the patient loading zone, I stood watching a beautiful young black couple comforting each other as they were waiting for the parking lot elevator. The elevator opened, she entered, he motioned for me to go ahead of him, he held the door open for me. As we stood there, heading to the same parking lot floor, he wished me a Happy New Year. I told him that it truly was a Happy New Year, that I was taking my husband home today after almost two weeks in the hospital.

“The woman said, ‘Our son will be here for the next two weeks.’ I told her I hoped he’d be home soon, healthy. She said, ‘Hoping for soon and cancer-free.’ I told her, ‘My husband is leaving today, cancer-free.’ She said, ‘This is why he’s here, they are doing surgery to remove his cancer.’ I told her that this is exactly why my husband has been here, they got it, they got the cancer, and he’s leaving today cancer-free. She and I held hands and I said, ‘I’m sending the blessing to you all now. It’s with you now.’ As we walked to our cars, she told her husband of the chills that went through her and simultaneously, they went through me. Though incredibly hard, we’ve been protected through this, because of you all. I gave that protection and blessing back to another family just as we left. It was a moment I’ll never forget. I don’t know their name. But as I write this, I’m watching Noah sleep next to me, and I’m thinking of them, envisioning their son home safe, soon and cancer-free.”

Take that, meanness.

caregiving/Family and Friends/General interest/Health/Lifestyle

January 30, 2018January 30, 2018

In Sickness, Health & Clutter

by Fran Johns

Some weeks ago – I have lost all track of time – I embarked upon an adventure with this year’s Not-the-Flu. Whatever it is. A bug you don’t want to mess with, that much I can tell you. One marker I do have: exactly two weeks and four days ago my good doctor – who assured me it was Not The Flu – estimated I was over the worst of it. Oh, well. Cold

The Not-the-Flu means you skip the chills and aches and fevers of the Real Flu (count your blessings) and you probably won’t die. But you still have the existential horrids and wearies, a little cough, snuffles, sore throat, and mostly you want to pull the covers up over your head and feel very sorry for yourself. This is not easy to do if you’re a fulltime caregiver, as I am, which in my opinion entitles me to feel REALLY sorry for myself. The caregivee, for his part, has spent the past weeks saying – every time I saw a potential opportunity to go back to bed and pull the covers over my head – “Why don’t you do that?”

In between, since the Not-the-Flu saps your energy but leaves your brain functional, you are left with the question of what to do with yourself. Leaving the house is not an option except for utter necessities, because staying away from humankind is #1 on the recovery-plan list. That leaves you to read the newspapers – which can definitely make you sicker – and drink liquids and take vitamins. Boring. OR! You can dig out past, present and future writing projects and finish them all. Then what? Clutter-desk

For me, the obvious answer is to de-clutter. A cleaned-out drawer is far more curative to this writer than a super-size bottle of mega-vitamins. So in an effort to keep myself from going totally stir crazy, I have now plowed through three formerly messy drawers, the box of Christmas cards – – – and my desk. This is not to say that orderliness, a virtue!, is an ongoing trait I can claim. Put stuff in drawers, close the drawer, most of the time I’m fine. But actually going through messes, throwing stuff away and neatening up – as we used to say in the old country – this is balm for my soul. And therefore, cure for whatever ails. Clutter-piles

Not so the caregivee. My excellent spouse thrives on piles. Piles of clippings, notes, magazines, letters, papers, God only knows what is at the bottom of some of his piles. They are everywhere he regularly inhabits, a comfort and balm to his soul. So ever since I undertook to clear out a few piles (and okay, filing cabinets too) in the small formerly-office room into which we plan to install a day bed, it has been acutely painful for him.

The Not-the-Flu presented a tipping point. A few hours sleep, say, between 3 and 7 AM when the caregivee is not always quiet and still as a churchmouse, made the day bed (it’s on order) ever more attractive; confinement to the house increased my neatening-up urges about 300%. Clutter-corner Today emerged a pristine corner, utterly cabinet/clutter free.

In retaliation, the caregivee did what probably any respectable partner so threatened would do: he came down with the Not-the-Flu. Oh, me.

General interest

August 23, 2013

Can we talk? Can we afford not to?

by Fran Johns

Family Planning changes lives (Photo credit: The White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood)

A thoughtful reader named Lydia left a comment in response to my blog (just below) giving thanks for Mark Ruffalo and his support for reproductive rights. If you’re not into reading comments, here is Lydia’s in full:

So, are you saying that killing your unborn child was a better option than allowing the child to live-maybe to be welcomed into another family’s life, and your secrecy was better than taking action to hold the rapist accountable for what he did? I have had an unwanted pregnancy, too, and as horrified and hopeless as I felt, I allowed my child to live and I have no regrets. Abortion is never the right choice, but I know it sometimes feels like the only choice. That is why women need to pick up the phone and call a crisis pregnancy counselor. Abortion is like suicide. It is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

If we’re going to talk, we have to listen. In trying to listen to Lydia I hear a couple of points of similarity and/or agreement. She and I each struggled with how to deal with an unwanted pregnancy (hers I suspect much later than mine in 1956.) We both appreciate strong & welcoming families. We both believe women need access to a pregnancy center which might offer help. Maybe we can build on these points. And try to work through some disagreements.

We need to set aside the business of holding the rapist accountable, at least in my case. In 1956, workplace rape was without recourse. I would have been laughed out of town — after destroying the fabric of several families, probably not including his. Today, women often fail to prosecute acquaintances who don’t hear No. Should they be required to prosecute, to relive painful experiences in the name of public justice? I’m not sure. Perhaps they deserve the right to make that decision for themselves, with legal advice if they choose and with the support of loved ones. Should they be required to carry the fetus that results from a painful experience for nine months in hopes that it might — might — be welcomed into another family? I don’t think so. I think they should have the right to choose otherwise, with the support of physicians and loved ones. I think no two such experiences are identical, so blanket dictates seem unwise.

Neither Lydia nor I have regrets about the course of action we chose. We differ on definitions. Lydia equates fetus with child, presumably because she believes life begins at conception. I respect the religions that teach this doctrine. I strongly support their right to protect the life of any fetus they happen to have, wanted or not. I just do not share the same belief about life’s beginnings. My own deeply held Christian beliefs see the beginning of life somewhat later on. But I think neither my religion nor Lydia’s has the right to tell other women — Jews, Muslims, Buddhists or nonbelievers — what they may or may not do with their bodies.

Lydia sees abortion as never the right choice. I see it as complex and personal, but sometimes the right choice. Mother Nature often sees it as the right choice when miscarriage happens. No one but the woman herself can know about her fetus, her body, her circumstances, her life, so I think it’s improper for me to presume to tell her what she must do. Often, counseling can help.

Which brings us to the crisis pregnancy center. Despite the fact that women have reported hearing untruths and accusations at crisis pregnancy centers, I believe many of them offer compassionate counseling and useful information. My greatly beloved daughter-in-law works at a pregnancy crisis center, and I know my daughter-in-law to be honest, kind-hearted and truthful. I support the right of pregnancy crisis centers to thrive and prosper although I do not support their promotion of unscientific theories. If we can talk, can we consider the possibility that pregnancy crisis centers might coexist with regular reproductive health centers? The latter, after all, offer many, many services unavailable elsewhere: information and testing about STDs; contraception and family planning services; pregnancy testing and counseling — even, in some of them, abortion. In that latter case, abortion is nearly always a tiny percentage of total services. Where they are being driven out of business, all of those services disappear and the results are tragic for countless men, women, boys and girls.

I can absolutely guarantee that when abortion is unavailable women suffer and die. I don’t think those on either side want women to suffer and die. Those on both sides want healthy women, few-as-possible abortions, healthy families.

What do you think, Lydia, is there any hope for conversation?

Gun control/Health/Healthcare/Lifestyle/seniors/Women

August 16, 2010August 16, 2010

The curious world of cyberspace

by Fran Johns

Disappearing from cyberspace is a little like being a tree that falls in the forest. A very small tree. Having disappeared from cyberspace myself for a couple of weeks, I am comforted by the fact that the forest is very large.

It’s not that this space disappeared, just that Boomers and Beyond disappeared. Boomers and Beyond is a blog primarily about issues critical to over-50 generations, and it came to pass on True/Slant.com a couple of years ago. It dealt with health care and fitness and housing choices and brain exercises and driving safety, and often diverted into rants about gay rights and abortion rights and gun control and other miscellany — because the True/Slant folks were a free-wheeling bunch and why should anybody quit worrying about rights and justice when they turn 50? All those profound words are archived in this nifty blog (this WordPress one right here) created by incredible friend-of-B&B-&-this space Mary Trigiani, so that if anyone stumbles into the forest and wants to study a small bush those twigs — OK, enough with the metaphor — are there to be read.

True/Slant didn’t actually disappear; it got bought by Forbes, and is gradually reappearing (as a New And Improved Forbes blogsite) there. Boomers & Beyond is reportedly going to reappear thereon, as soon as a contract appears. In the interim, it is just sitting there inert, and after several watchful readers noticed its inertia (posting anything new isn’t an option at True/Slant any more) I decided to venture once more into cyberspace.

It’s pleasant to meet you here. I hope we’ll meet again soon.

California/Health/Lifestyle/Medicine/New York/seniors/USA/Women

July 20, 2010

Early cancer tests, surgeries questioned

by Fran Johns

Was this mastectomy necessary? It’s a question few breast cancer survivors want to ask, and one that few are likely to answer absolutely. But after years of aggressive emphasis on early diagnosis and treatment, some previous imperatives are being called into question. Noting that breast biopsy has long been considered the “gold standard,” a report in today’s New York Times addresses the new rethinking:

As it turns out, diagnosing the earliest stage of breast cancer can be surprisingly difficult, prone to both outright error and case-by-case disagreement over whether a cluster of cells is benign or malignant, according to an examination of breast cancer cases by The New York Times.

Advances in mammography and other imaging technology over the past 30 years have meant that pathologists must render opinions on ever smaller breast lesions, some the size of a few grains of salt. Discerning the difference between some benign lesions and early stage breast cancer is a particularly challenging area of pathology, according to medical records and interviews with doctors and patients.

Diagnosing D.C.I.S. “is a 30-year history of confusion, differences of opinion and under- and overtreatment,” said Dr. Shahla Masood, the head of pathology at the University of Florida College of Medicine in Jacksonville. “There are studies that show that diagnosing these borderline breast lesions occasionally comes down to the flip of a coin.”

Much of the current finger-pointing is toward pathologists, where their money comes from, whether they are ‘certified’ or not and in general, how good a job they do.

In 2006, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, an influential breast cancer survivors’ organization, released a startling study. It estimated that in 90,000 cases, women who receive a diagnosis of D.C.I.S. or invasive breast cancer either did not have the disease or their pathologist made another error that resulted in incorrect treatment.

After the Komen report, the College of American Pathologists announced several steps to improve breast cancer diagnosis, including the certification program for pathologists.

For the medical community, the Komen findings were not surprising, since the risk of misdiagnosis had been widely written about in medical literature. One study in 2002, by doctors at Northwestern University Medical Center, reviewed the pathology in 340 breast cancer cases and found that 7.8 percent of them had errors serious enough to change plans for surgery.

This space has argued occasionally for reconsideration of yearly mammograms and for longer, stronger consideration of other options before a mastectomy is performed. Especially in the case of older women.

Would I insist on further studies or opt for less radical treatment if I were diagnosed with breast cancer today? Probably. Can I undo the mastectomy I had at 72? Not exactly. Second-guessing is beside the point for someone who is healthy and fit, but asking questions won’t ever hurt.

Earliest Steps to Find Breast Cancer Are Prone to Error – NYTimes.com.