Eating Green

Every now and then it's time to head to Uwajimaya and get lost in the produce section. Amazing. Fun. Inspiring.

And, these were just some of the green things. Orange, purple, rust, red, and yellow; all for another time.

Of Mammography Suites and Anxiety

The Breast Center (aka mammography suite) at the clinic where I work is a lovely, modern and thoughtfully designed facility. Just inside the door is a small waiting room for those accompanying their  wives, girlfriends, mothers or friends to the procedure. Next is the registration desk, offset from the waiting room to preserve privacy. From there, the woman is escorted back to the dressing room area, given friendly, well rehearsed instructions on how to don the gown after undressing from the waist up and where to put the valuables. There are doors with locks on the well designed adjacent wall. The key attaches to a flexible pink plastic wrist-let which is worn into the inner sanctum, as I like to call it. This tastefully adorned room just for women-in-waiting invites. Lovely, comfortable chairs, soft lighting, and lots of magazines welcome the weary if not the slightly anxious. There's barely a sound to be heard.

And then, the summons. My turn and I'm led back into one of the exam rooms. Today I read the name on the machine: "Mammo-mat"; the vice that flattens that breast into a pancake. Nice. I've never seen the same technician twice in all these years of repeated mammograms. This one was prompt and efficient, going about her work with intention and care but little humor. Of course, she may have been reacting to my vibe which was serious and stoic.

Four views, two on each side. The images populated the screen within seconds and the technician showed me the pictures. I haven't a clue what's OK and what's not OK. I don't ask what she thinks much as I'd like to. She'd say she couldn't comment, I'm sure. I'll have to wait for the formal reading.

And then, it's over. Reverse order: past the inner sanctuary with other women quietly reading magazines to the re-dressing area and around the corner to the reception desk and out the door. I'm done. Slowly the anxiety creeps in. I feel it in my upper arms and shoulders, a tightening refusing to relax. Try as I might to divert my attention, the physical sensation will persist and my mind will periodically be pulled from the present moment to the future, the what if? question.

Two points:

The mammography suite has become an art form over the years; moving from a meager extension of the existing department of radiology to a distinct entity. Privacy is respected. No longer do women sit out in an exposed waiting room where the world walks by and the sign above reads "Mammography Department". The inner sanctum resembles a spa. If I weren't so edgy, I'd want to stay there all day and read magazines and ponder life, maybe with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc at my side.

Secondly, I can't escape the escalating anxiety over the results. The waiting time is short, way shorter than most women wait to learn of their results but I'm a gal that wants most things NOW. Once I get the good news, all that tension is history and the mammography suite evaporates; until next year around the same time..

A Little Vitreous Humor (not)

What is happening here?

     A late birthday gift, perhaps?

     Another reminder that the passage of time brings the unpredictable?

     An  experience to tuck away in the archives of "bad stuff that can happen" when you're just trying to age gracefully?

Suddenly there were painless flashes of black darts in my left eye, lasting milliseconds, recurrent with every step. Step; flash; step; flash; step; flash. Off and on for hours, then gone for awhile, then back again.

What in the world?

I was kind of freaked out but since the vision was still OK and there was no pain, I let it go, hoping all the while that the symptoms would take a hike. Not so. This was Tuesday.

Wednesday I squeezed into my eye doc's overly burdened schedule at the end of his day. Turns out I have a predictable condition of ocular aging; emphasis on aging. Vitreous detachment. Not to be confused with the more serious phenomenon of retinal detachment, this separation of the gel-like substance of the inner eye (vitreous) from the retina is exceedingly common and almost always benign. The incidence increases after age 50 and may affect one or both eyes. By age 80, almost all eyes are affected. Many never notice any symptoms; others experience what I had.


All this was news to me. Nephrologists apparently know little about the aging eye beyond the development of cataracts and far sightedness. Sigh. What else should we be expecting????

After 48 hours, the flashes are over and I'm left with some annoying floaters in my eye. If this is the worst of what I'll experience, I'm relieved.  One more appointment with a retinal specialist armed with powerful dilating drops to check out the peripheral aspects of the retina for any tears or holes and I should be finished.

Seems the major complication of the typically benign vitreous detachment is a vigorous tug on the retina which then decides to pull loose. Not good. That Mom had a detached retina at exactly this time in her life back in the early 1970's puts me at a slightly higher risk. She had impaired vision in the affected eye for the rest of her life; maybe hers all started with a detached vitreous. We'll never know.

So, although benign for the most part, the darker side lurks and I'll be sure to get this checked out.
Aging eyes. This business is getting close to the brain and in my estimation, too close for comfort.  LOL.

Bye Bye Sauv Blanc

I haven't had a migraine for 5 days. I also haven't had a drop of alcohol in 5 days. A connection?  I'd say so.

I do enjoy my glass (or two) of Sauvignon Blanc, especially on these wonderful summer evenings. Predictably, I will pay for the pleasure. I thank my lucky stars for imitrex which I take way too often to combat the headache that follows. I get 12 tablets a month and I buzz through them. When I hear about people who use them one or two times a year, I stand in awe. Ingesting so many of these vasoconstrictors can't be good. But. They. Work.

I feel better for not imbibing and love being headache free (5 days is a long time without a migrain; if I make it more than a week, a record will be broken) so will plan to stick with the no-alcohol-tonight plan for the meantime.

Cheers!  My Red Bull tastes so good instead.

Sensible Advice About Food

This is a great little book. 140 easy pages with lots of white space is perfect for a sit-down-and-read-in one sitting experience. Micheal Pollan is the author of several other books about food and how or why we chose what we do to put in our mouths, "heavier works" like The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food, and The Botany of Desire. I've not read any of them but they look interesting. His web site is informative; examining as he points out, "the places where nature and culture intersect: on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in the built environment".

His latest book, this little gem, is basically common sense, things we already know about eating well. I suppose it's all in the delivery, the spin, the power of saying more with less that makes this morsel a great bite.

Pollan says that all of his words in these 140 pages can be summed up by three sentences:

"Eat food.  Mostly plants. Not too much."

Clever, clever.

1. What should we eat? Real food of course; not the processed mess we think is real food.

"If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don't." (page 41)

"It's not food if it arrived through the window of your car." (page 43)

2. What kind of food should we eat? "Mostly plants", says Pollan but....that's a mostly, thankfully.

"Eat animals that have themselves eaten well." (page 61)

"Don't eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk." (page 79)

"Eat your colors." (page 57)

3. How should we eat? "Not too much."

"Stop eating before you are full." (page 103)

"Eat slowly." (page 109)

"The banquet is in the first bite." (page 111)

I especially like that last quote. So true except for ice cream. I swear to God, that last bite tastes the best.