I was at a wedding. Like many weddings, the marriage part was the shortest and quietest, the heart of the day, but only the beginning. Then came the photos, and then came the reception. The reception was appetizers and chit-chat; finding seats and wedding party intro; dinner and speeches; and dancing till two. What struck…
Category: Health
Writings on health and nutrition, the health care system, doctors and therapists, heck, anything to do with health.
Fatigue: Pain’s Stronger, Immortal Sibling
Fatigue is such an inadequate word to describe the unutterable weariness that comes on to a person with fibromyalgia or brain injury just because one got up in the morning. When someone who has a chronic illness or injury, particularly brain injury, fibromyalgia, or chronic fatigue syndrome, say they’re tired, they don’t mean what you…
Colds = Long Recovery for People With Traumatic Brain Injury
Allergies suck. Having a cold sucks. Laryngitis has not paid me a visit in years, and it sucked too. I always think people with chronic illnesses or injuries like traumatic brain injury ought to have a get-out-of-being-sick card. Having a stuffed nose, being sneezy, feeling the postnasal drip drip drip, coughing from the throat and…
The GI Diet: Could I Stick it in the Long Run?
A reader asked me recently about where I’m at with the GI Diet, if I’m still on it, and if it’s working for me. Back in 2009, my GP had recommended I go on it when I was diagnosed with diabetes. I had written a couple of followups, but my last one was over a…
My Health Care Article up on Canada.Com!
Postmedia News, the news service that supplies content for Postmedia newspapers and websites, as well as canada.com, has launched an online election project at canada.com called “The Real Agenda.” The idea is to publish a wide range of voices from across Canada on what Canadians think our politicians should be talking about on the campaign…
What A Holter Report Should Not Be
I mentioned earlier that I had a Holter monitor test because I had drop-kicked atenolol out of my life. Well, today I got the results. I have had five Holters done total in the last twenty years and have been given copies of three of them, two of them from the cardiologist at a leading…
The Holter Monitor Experience
I’ve always had a heart that behaves a bit oddly. I had a couple of Holter monitors to see why. But nada. They offered but did not recommend an invasive and yucky test; the results would get me nowhere as the test was still in the research realm. So we left things as they were.…
Side Effects
Note: Do not do what I describe in this post. I wrote this purely to share what happened to me and as a warning about side effects — not to advocate doing what I did. Talk to your doctor about any concerns you may have about your medications before doing anything. “Take this,” the doctor…
Bugs and Brain Injury
“Remember, when you have a brain injury, everthing takes longer to recover from,” she said to me. I didn’t want to hear it, though true. When I first became injured, I had a series of homemakers and a series of colds. In the beginning, when the homemakers came from VHA, they were professional. They came…