Potable water, Part II

The water at our temporary locale in South Padre Island is, shall we say, undrinkable. That’s not to say it’s contaminated because it certainly is safe to drink, but its eau de bleach is awful. My Beloved described it as “toxic waste you can taste.”

We had been guzzling bottled water by the gallon, but after watching “Tapped” earlier this week, we chose an alternative route. We were eagerly awaiting our new water filter ordered, of course, from Amazon and delivered, of course, by Brown.

I’m no expert on South Padre Island’s water source, but the Laguna Madre Water District is touting its Seawater Desalination Pilot Plant online. I suspect more unsavory sources than the deep blue sea, but that’s just rumor mongering.

In any case, this is what the inside of the former faucet aerator looked like:

That stuff that looks like sand? It’s sand.

Setting aside the statistic that one in five adults admits to peeing in the pool, have you seen what dogs do on the beach? Well, chlorine can make it safe, but I know what “microscopic” means and the holes in that filter are bigger than microscopic.

Yuck.

(Gawd no! Water spots in the sink!)

So for the low, low price of $18.18, we got a Culligan facet-mount water filter, installed with a minimum of hassle. The real test, though, was the taste test.

Result?

Our filtered water tastes like …

Nothing!

Which is exactly how one wants one’s water to taste!

And as an added bonus, I’m not putting money in to the pockets of executives at Coco-Cola or Pepsi, two of the country’s biggest bottled water makers. Is “maker” the word I want? You know what I mean. And I’m assuming they’re not invested in Culligan. Hey, back off on the accusation of hypocrisy; I can be an Amazon fan while belittling other behemoth companies if I want to. It’s my blog.

Bonus bonus: Our filtered water is not tainted with Bisphenol A, the chemical compound required to manufacture plastic water bottles and considered by some to be at least hazardous, at worst toxic! Tough choice between human waste and toxic substances.

Water, water everywhere, and now a drop to drink. From a glass.

Don’t drink the (bottled) water

One might assume water is the cheapest beverage one can drink.

But according to the documentary “Tapped,” one would be mistaken.

Bottled water may be cheap and low-calorie, but it carries high societal costs.

“Tapped” tackles how bottled water affects the communities where it’s gathered, the quality of the water itself, the safety of the plastic bottles and the effects of the aftermath of all those mostly unrecycled bottles.

If watching the film doesn’t stop you from cracking into another bottle of Aquafina or Dasani over lunch or after a workout, nothing will.

My Beloved ordered a faucet filter when we were only halfway through watching it. And the first half was the weaker part.

We use a reverse osmosis filter system at home, but we tend to guzzle an inordinate amount of bottled water when we’re on the road. Thus, the faucet filter.

We rented “Tapped” on the advice of my brother-in-law who also recommended a documentary about beer. One might think they’re not related, but one would be wrong again. Almost every civilization on the planet can attribute its success to the wide availability of beer, a safe thirst quencher.

Please pass the beer.

Oh, my aching feet

I can’t believe, of all the ways my body can fall apart as I age, it’s going to be my feet.

Regular readers may recall me complaining about an irksome case of plantar fasciitis that required me to cut back on my weekly mileage and, yawn, stretch regularly.

What a boring malady.

This week, my toes are numb.

If they got they way from excessive curling, you can bet I wouldn’t be complaining about it in a public forum, but no, they’re numb, I suspect, because I ran 5.4 miles on Tuesday.

Oh, it felt to so good to run so far. I tried it just to see if I could do it after witnessing that 10K last Saturday, and lo and behold, I still have long distances in me.

But two of my toes are numb. And they’ve been that way since Tuesday.

Google diagnoses Morton’s neuroma. The internet prognosis? “Nonsurgical treatment does not always improve symptoms. Surgery to remove the thickened tissue is successful in about 85% of cases.”

Ahem. Surgery.

I saw a little boy today (yes, brief change of subject, but it’s relevant — stay with me), and he was enthusiastically sweeping a garage. At first I thought he was a midget (what kid sweeps with enthusiasm?) but when he was done, he propped the broom in the corner and skipped — skipped — across the clean floor.

The skip gave him away as a child. Adults. Don’t. Skip.

Old people walk slow, shuffle, keen side-to-side, avoid walking altogether because it hurts — somewhere — to walk normally.

It’s going to be my feet that have me waddling into old age.

Alas.

The story of a wise man and a baby

No matter what else you think about it, a church service is a live performance. Like a lecture, it has a professional speaker. Like a concert, it has music and musicians. Like performance art in a museum, it has burning candles and architecture. Like sports, it has “us” and “them.” Like theater, it has a hero and a villain.

A Christian church service even has food, if you count a swallow of wine and a wafer as food.

If nothing else, these things supply reason for subsidizing the offering plate. Of course, I believe contributing to a church is more than paying for a ticket, but at the bare minimum, the players in the performance that is a worship service deserve some recompense.

Today, my church service had a bonus buy.

I witnessed a moment of humanity.

My pastor, who is battling cancer and has been absent from services for weeks, officiated at a baby’s baptism this morning. I have missed him, and I’m among many members praying furiously for his return to good health. It was so good to see him, pale and thin perhaps, but upright. A fellow pastor officiated at the rest of service, but Pastor was performing the baptism.

As he began the rite, he said, as he always says at a baptism and the beginning of any service, “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

Only his voice caught on the word, “Father.”

I don’t know what crossed his mind at that moment, but what crossed mine was, “Oh, joy! He is here. He is speaking. He is doing what he was ordained to do — welcoming another child into the Lutheran fold. And I am so grateful to be here to witness it.”

A moment later, another phrase I have heard him utter probably a thousand times had new meaning coming from his lips:

“Whoever believes in Him shall not perish.”

Those moments of being there, of being genuinely present, of witnessing the miracles of health and good work and faith were worth the price of admission.

The end of an age

March 5, 1981

Dear Diary,

I got my period today. I hate (!!!) it. It feels so yucky!! I wish I wouldn’t get it. Blahh.

Well, it took 31 years and 205 days, but it looks like I got my wish. I haven’t had my period for 66 days, the longest I’ve ever gone without menstruating (I’ve never been pregnant so no breaks for babies). Odds are, I’m in menopause.

“You’re going to write about that in your blog?” my Beloved asked, incredulously.

Yes. It’s natural. Like, “I had a cold last week.” And I feel a little like a scientist because I actually recorded both the beginning and ending dates. Like a good scientist, I’m sharing the data from my experiment.

Unlike my 13-year-old self, I find the human reproductive system to be miraculous, so a little part of me is sorry to leave my fertility behind me. But I never actually reproduced so I’m not mourning anything. Still, menopause is another coming-of-age milestone to be recognized and, perhaps, celebrated. I would burn the condoms if I were using that contraceptive method. Instead, how about a little cheer:

Ya-whoo! I didn’t get my period today!

Let’s drink to that.

Barking back

Getting older sucks sometimes. Even for doggies.

My adorable little 8-pound schnauzer somehow hurt her back this week. Chloe quit using the stairs and was acting generally listless, but the tip-off that she threw out her back was when she yelped as she was doing an up-dog in her typical morning doggy yoga routine.

At just more than 5 years old, she is equivalent in dog years to National League Cy Young award winner R.A. Dickey, who at 38 has mastered his knuckleball pitch for impressive results. And most days, Chloe has the energy to race me up the steps, demand visitors play fetch and chase squirrels in the back yard like she deserves some sort of accolades.

But this back pain is getting her down, and she’s spent the better part of the week lounging in her doggie bed and gulping down pain pills (yes, my Beloved broke down and brought her to the vet on Wednesday; for $120, the doctor shrugged her shoulders and agreed with our assessment that Chloe’s got a slipped disc or pinched nerve which is apparently common in small dogs).

The spine is an amazing creation that holds up the whole system, but one little thing out-of-place, and ouch! I can relate. Two weeks ago, after running 2.5 miles on the treadmill in the morning, I could hardly get in and out of the car in the afternoon; my back inexplicably tightened up in the space of a couple of hours.

Why?

Because I’m getting older. (That’ll teach me to skip my post-run stretch.)

Why is my normally frisky dog looking at me forlornly rather than spreading her dog toys from here to kingdom come?

Because she’s getting older.

Sucks sometimes.

Good friends make food good, too

Today’s news you can use: Dine in good company.

My latest secret indulgence is listening to Oprah Radio in the car on SiriusXM satellite radio. A girl can take only so much hate news from Washington, D.C., Libya and Wall Street.

The other day, Oprah Radio rebroadcast a 1993 interview with Dr. Deepak Chopra who described how your mood affects how you digests food. Here’s a quote from the episode:

Your mental state will even influence the way your body metabolizes.  Dr. Chopra tells of a study done in Ohio State University where they were feeding rabbits diets extremely high in cholesterol.  To their amazement, there was one group of rabbits that never develop high cholesterol levels.  Afterwards they found out that the technician who was feeding this group of rabbits was not just feeding them.  The rabbits were actually being stroked and kissed and cuddled before they were fed.  And due to this pleasurable, happiness factor, the rabbits produced chemicals in their bodies that actually turned the cholesterol into a completely different metabolic pathway!

Chopra suggested you should never eat when you’re upset. When I think about my worst, ugly binges, I’m alone and lonely/angry/sad. Not a good time to actually enjoy the food that’s going in my mouth, and according to Chopra, my food is not having a good time in my body then either.

In the past four days, I’ve been blessed to dine with a couple of pairs of good friends from former places of employment.

Friday night, I sat outside on a sidewalk in downtown Chicago, laughing until my cheeks hurt with Lynn and Ang, with whom I traveled on many overseas business trips. Spending that much time together, eating many meals together, turns colleagues into friends, and reuniting with them, however briefly, was a gift.

Tonight, I dined al fresco again (at least until it rained) with Rebecca and Cheri, who worked with me in a company dedicated to bringing families around the dinner table to eat and talk. We shared lessons in love and life as we caught up, and it reminded us how important relationships are.

Besides the blessings of fellowship, my body was probably working like the well-oiled machine it’s designed to be. Cheese and alcohol were turning into energy and sinew — not a fat cell in sight! These were meals consumed with a side of laughter and a dessert of love.

May you eat well. And in good company!

The economics of breast lumps and peace of mind

I found a lump in my breast.

Now before this statement causes you to wail and gnash your teeth because you’re a faithful reader who would miss my blog if I no longer posted weird recipes and old diary entries, I’m OK. If you’re a mute lurker who’s gleefully rubbing his hands together ready to take in all the details of my imminent demise, you’re going to be disappointed.

This post is about breast lumps, health insurance and the price of peace of mind.

Two weeks ago during a shower, I noticed a bump on my breast. I wasn’t willing to call it a lump because a breast lump is WAYYYYYY too scary to ponder.

The bump appeared suddenly, my breast was sore, the area around the bump was red and the bump was not under my arm. For the record, I’m 45, and I don’t have a history of breast cancer in my family.

A thorough review of Google revealed this bump had almost no chance of being cancerous. But still, it was a bump. In my breast. And every woman who’s ever seen, worn or touted a pink ribbon knows that’s no laughing matter.

So I made an appointment for an annual exam, which was about 14 months overdue anyway (I’m generally pretty healthy and occasionally pretty lazy — I could use a haircut, too, but I haven’t scheduled that either). Since I was traveling last week, the appointment didn’t occur until Monday, 16 days after I found the bump.

Over the course of those two weeks, the bump got progressively smaller and painless. Another indication that whatever was in there, it wasn’t cancerous.

I arrived at my doctor’s appointment Monday morning, and as the nurse was assessing my health, the conversation took on a distinctly ominous tone when I mentioned I found a lump (yes, I said “lump”) in my breast.

I’ve never had such a fast pap smear in all my life. She was getting the unimportant stuff out of the way so she could concentrate on this Lump. The Lump had now taken on the sort of importance that brings capitalization along with it.

She felt around and announced she knew as much about my Lump as I did from my Google search: “Well, there’s a Lump there — it could be a cyst, but we both felt it — so you’ll need a mammogram and maybe an ultrasound before we can determine what it is. Then, if necessary, we’ll get a biopsy. Only a biopsy can determine if it’s something more serious than a cyst.”

Yikes.

She had all the information I did: That every indication pointed to something other than cancer. But she was talking about “biopsies” and “something serious.”

She sent me off with a prescription for a “diagnostic” mammogram (as opposed to a “screening”) and an ultrasound.

I called the hospital and as soon as I described to the scheduler what I needed, she announced she had an opening available the next morning.

So on Tuesday, I arrived bright and early at Sherman Hospital and handed my paperwork to the receptionist.

I don’t know if it was because my prescription said “breast lump, left” or because they’re nice to all their patients, but every single person I encountered at the hospital was friendly, kind and helpful. They showed me where to wait and how long I might have to wait. The mammogram technician told me they would make a determination about my lump that day so I would know whether or not I would need a biopsy before I left.

If I really had breast cancer, I certainly couldn’t have complained about the service.

I’ve had two mammograms in the past, so I knew what to expect. Except in addition to the stickers to mark my nipples (just in case it isn’t clear?), they added a sticker to mark the spot of the Lump, which by now, 16 days after its first appearance, I could hardly feel anymore.

Price: Roughly $277. Or, at least, that’s what a screening mammogram costs. Plus the price of reading it. And a “diagnostic” mammogram might cost more. That’s what I was told, but costs came up only because I brought them up. Why a diagnostic mammogram is coded different is beyond me (do they let the interns read the “screening” mammograms?), but it’s bad news for me because I have high-deductible health insurance that covers annual exams and screenings for free, but I’ve got to pay for everything else up to $3,000.

Now $3,000 would be pretty cheap if this Lump turned out to be breast cancer, but it’s a pretty big hurdle to clear when you’ve a struggling author who’s got to pay for it yourself.

Afterwards, the technician brought me back into the mammography room and told me firstly, to remove the stickers from my breasts. Then she said the mammogram wasn’t showing anything and in any case, it didn’t appear to be a solid mass (read: “solid mass,” as opposed to a fluid-filled cyst, is very bad news). The radiologist who read the mammogram suggested we go ahead with the ultrasound “just to be sure.”

At that point, sitting there without a bra in a cotton wrap being handled so delicately by every medical health professional within ear shot of my “breast lump, left” prescription, I just wanted to be sure, too.

Logically, I knew this bump was not a Lump. It was getting smaller and the mammography revealed nothing ominous. And I knew I would have to pay for the ultrasound because it wasn’t a screening procedure so I was on the hook for it, only to have it applied to my deductible. An ultrasound cost $517.60 plus the price of reading it (presumably by someone other than an intern).

But emotionally, all I could think about was my nephew, who was brought into a hospital 10 years ago with a suspicious sore on his arm. Looks like nothing. Probably is nothing. Little boys get hurt sometimes. The odds of it being something serious are slim and none.

But he was diagnosed with leukemia that day and ended up undergoing six months of intense chemotherapy and hospitalization.

He lived (lives!) but nearly every other child I saw on that hospital floor during my nephew’s hospitalization didn’t make it.

So I followed along dutifully as the mammogram technician handed me off to the ultrasound specialist.

After a huge smear of warm jelly (even the jelly was warm! but on the other hand, for $517.60, it better be!) and less than three minutes of undergoing the ultrasound wand, it was over.

Five minutes later, the ultrasound tech returned to tell me it was nothing. Not a solid mass and not even a fluid-filled cyst.

The Lump that now was barely even a bump was nothing.

Ah. Peace of mind.

End of story, right?

Emotionally, sure. She lived happily ever after. The end.

But logically, it’s not the end.

Despite three procedures (manual exam, mammography, ultrasound), no one knows what the bump is (or was) and why it happened.

Could be hormones. Could be trauma. Could be too much caffeine. Could be a cyst that exists in my breast all the time that decided to be unruly and get inflamed.

My health insurance company (which will presumably cover the doctor’s exam) and I spent $1,000 or more to learn exactly as much as I knew after 30 minutes with Google.

So the Big Question (yes, important enough to be capitalized) is: Is peace of mind worth $1,000?

If I had standard health insurance, I would be paying 20% and the health insurance company paying 80%. For $200, I positively would have undergone the ultrasound. Which is a terrible thing to admit because it costs $1,000 either way.

With my deductible, I’m paying for at least $517 of it. If peace of mind is worth $200 to me, is it worth $517+?

Well, the answer is yes. I knew how much it was going to cost, and I went ahead with the procedure. In retrospect, I should have waited a week before determining to go ahead with the ultrasound. My gut was telling me it was nothing, and I wasn’t losing sleep over it. In a week, the bump would have been gone altogether.

But I didn’t wait.

This is a huge issue with why health insurance costs so much. Not a single one of the health insurance professionals I encountered recommended a “wait and see” approach. Even if it had occurred to them, they probably would not have said it because the last thing they’d want is to be sued by the estate of the struggling author who had breast cancer but was told to “wait and see” and ended up dying an untimely death.

So here we are: Paying high prices — either directly or indirectly — for well-trained professionals with very expensive machines (and stickers and warm jelly) to perform procedures “just to be sure” that, frankly, still leave a lot of unanswered questions both about breast bumps and about the cost of peace of mind.

‘Dosed’ is a disturbing eye-opener on the state of our crazy world

The book “Dosed” by Kaitlin Bell Barnett convinces me more than ever that medical care for mental illness is more like voodoo than science.

With the subtitle, “The Medication Generation Grows Up,” Barnett attempts to address the effect of prescription psychotropic medication on young people by talking to the young people themselves. The result is enlightening and scary.

Psychotropic medications are any drug capable of affecting the mind, emotions and behavior including Ritalin for ADHD, Prozac (and a hundred other popular variations) for depression and lithium for bipolar disorder.

One in five Americans takes such drugs nowadays, but scientific data on the effect on children and teenagers is harder to get since many doctors prescribe such medications to children “off-label”; rarely are children the ones testing such drugs in trials.

So we simply experiment with giving these drugs to our children. Particularly with psychiatric issues in children, it is difficult to distinguish real illness from normal development.

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve never taken psychotropic drugs, prescription or otherwise,  but without revealing the health histories of my loved ones, I suggested and even begged people to take them, I’ve marveled at the rash of problems these drugs have caused while supposedly healing other issues, I’ve helped at least one person get off them and I’ve fretted about the efficacy of another person’s medication regime.

Barnett’s book is eye-opening.

The author addresses what makes a difficult kid, the role of medicated kids, school interventions, how typical teenage rebellion (including drug and alcohol abuse) affects medicated children, the complicating factors of long-term medication (especially on young women when they finally decide they want to be pregnant), how young adult reassess their psychiatric experiences and more.

Particularly disturbing are the side effects and long-term effects of psychotropic medications on children. For a small example, Barnett shows evidence that kids with ADHD are prone to developing depression and anxiety, and people with mood and anxiety disorders are two to three times more likely to migraine headaches. How often is the cure worse than the disease?

Interestingly, Barnett explores all the different factors that play a role in diagnosis and ongoing medication decisions: parental involvement, physical and hormonal changes of adolescence, familial experience, health insurance requirements and societal trends. In the end, the questions of medicating children for mental disorders remains open.

“The psychological impact of the experience [of being medicated] varies vastly from person to person, depending on his or her upbringing, personality, present circumstances, and inherited predisposition to illness … When these phenomena converge with all the rapid changes inherent in growing up, the process of understanding one’s disorder, one’s medication and oneself — both separately and also in concert — becomes far more difficult.”

It’s not a beach read by any stretch of the imagination, but if you or someone you love has taken or is taking psychotropic medications, especially before the age of 20, this book should be on your must-read list, if not to find answers, to at least get you asking the right questions.

If living longer is the prize, turtles win

Everything in moderation, it’s said. Even running.

Researchers at the University of South Carolina Arnold School of Public Health and other institutions, I read in today’s Star Tribune, combed through the records of more than 50,000 U.S. adults and determined joggers who ran fewer than 20 miles a week live longer than:

• Non-runners (aka couch potatoes — no news here).
• Runners who go farther than 20 miles a week (those crazy lunatics).
• Runners who run faster than 7 miles per hour (hares, do you hear this?).

Nah-nah-naboo-boo.

OK, you can find (or manufacture) research to justify just about anything (including drinking more than six cups of coffee a day, fathering children late in life and eating Subway sandwiches twice a day), but this is the kind of research I love. Because I run really ridiculously slow.

The researchers defined joggers as those who ran 10 or 11 minutes per mile. Lately, 11-minute miles on my morning jog have been impressive.

Holy cowloney, it’s been hot. That’s my excuse. Age has nothing to do with it.

In any case, slow going will keep me alive longer.

Good thing. Moving so slowly means my runs are longer. So I’ll take all the time I can get.