Safety with injectables

If you are considering having some kind of injectable procedure, this is an excellent website for doing your background research.  The website was put together by doctors considered “objective” enough to evaluate each, with the proper credentials to do so.  Anytime you are evaluating processing something “foreign” into your body (and believe me, I’ve done my share), please do your homework and do not expect the doctor (who only gets paid on your elective procedure) to tell you all the inherent risks and possibilities.  Your surgeon could be the safest on the planet, and still you could be more informed than she is just by reading.  If you do the research, and are satisfied with the risks, go for it.  But your health is YOUR responsibility.  Your health is YOUR responsibility.  Never give those reigns away willingly.

http://injectablesafety.org/

Over-50 Entrepreneurs just as successful

Think you must be young to start a business and make it successful?  Think again.  This study shows that the over 50’s are even more likely to get over the hump – including the technological industries.

Take a look.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/sep/26/starting-business-over-50s

Compassion Fatigue

Here’s a new one for me.  Compassion fatigue.  I didn’t think up the label, but when I read the blog entry, I immediately understood.  How do we deal with compassion fatigue?  For healthcare workers, it likely is an issue for their own health.  For mothers and caregivers, same.  For caring women who do too much for everyone else but themselves, absolutely. 

My problem is that I tend to get angry when I’ve given and given, and little is given in return.  I’m not talking about taking care of sick people who don’t jump up immediately and take care of you.  I of course do not expect nor want that.  However, if down the road, I need some help because someone at my house is ill, I do expect that.  And if I reach out to you in depression, I do expect some modicum of response on your good days.  I am not Mother Theresa.  I don’t wish to be.  I’m not that good of a person.  But I am a mother and close friend of many, and will be the first to show up for my friends who need help. 

I want to improve here.  I want to give, and not expect anything back.  I want to offer everything as a grant and not a loan.  But neither do I want to be a rug.  It is such a fine balance for me.  I am attempting to begin a daily meditating exercise in support of my own center.  I’ll be glad to report later on how that is working. 

If any of you have suggestions for how you do it, I’d love to hear it.

Know your heart facts

Several months ago, I was writing at my PC.  It was a Sunday, late morning, and suddenly I felt a squeezing in the middle of my chest.  It came and went a few times, and I began to feel slightly nauseated.  My left arm eventually began tingling, and I decided it was time to get to the hospital.  I’m 54 years old, fit, but with hypertension and a father who died at 46 of a heart attack.  I got my husband, and we went to the closest emergency room, which happens to be one that is generally not full to bursting.  Once there, I was taken back, given the full questionnaire.  The doctor decided to keep me there for 6 hours to get hourly enzyme tests.  It was not a fun or interesting 6 hours, I didn’t feel bad, nor did the doctor believe I had experienced an attack, but we were going to be safe rather than sorry.  I did not, in fact, have a heart attack.  I did go to a cardiovascular doctor several weeks later for a follow-up to check for calcium damage, and very little was found. 

I do experience rare anxiety attacks which express themselves through a squeezing sensation in different parts of my body.  This may have been just that, but I know I made the right (although expensive) choice, and I would do it again in a heartbeat (ahem).  The way I convinced myself to go to the hospital was through a conversation with myself.  “What would you do if your best friend called you with these symptoms?  You would yell, ‘GET TO THE HOSPITAL!’ ”  That is how I took my own best friend advice. 

Read the article and memorize it.  Just like you would want your best friend to do so.

http://www.womenhealthline.com/decoding-warning-signs-of-female-heart-attacks-part-i/

Ongoing Healthcare Facts

With all the absurd words flying out there, I keep trying to find real information on what is in the proposal, what may be in the proposal, and what is simply bullshit.  This seems quite reputable – again hailing originally from AARP.

 http://www.diversityinc.com/public/6210.cfm

If you are interested in starting a business…

Here are some interesting facts that may enlighten you as to who are our true entrepreneurs.  And they’re not the kids busting out of college.  Take a look.

http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/10561/12-Facts-About-Entrepreneurs-That-Will-Likely-Surprise-You.aspx

The dangers of indifference

As a Holocaust scholar, I am deeply disturbed by indifference.  I have a lecture that is based solely on the dangers inherent in not caring or choosing not to see what happens to people who become invisible to dominant groups.  It can happen slowly and insidiously in which we turn our backs and close our eyes to people in our own community who need help. Our community can be the whole world.  Or our nextdoor neighbor.  

It is the test of the character of any society as to how they treat the downtrodden and the “others” among us.  The fact that we even have an us/them mentality creates the possibility as well as the likelihood that “they” will be treated at best unfairly, and at worst…well, I think we know what worst can lead to.  I am consciously attempting to focus regularly on areas in which I can lend a voice, a hand, a dollar to assist those people who need a voice in their own support.

Many historians believe that there are no lessons in the Holocaust.  That to know a man can throw a baby in the air and use her for target practice, or bury a young mother alive, or starve an elderly couple offers us no redeeming lessons in life.  I believe that the lesson must be that we cannot allow indifference.  We have voices, and we live in the United States.  We can offer that voice to our political representatives, our clergy, our family, or our friends in support of anyone who is discriminated against because of race, creed, color, religion, cultural background, nationality – anyone.  I will continue for the rest of my life challenging myself not to be quiet in the throes of hatred and indifference.  I hope that you will join me.

Lecture over.

Blogs for 50 somethings

I love finding positive blog info for people “of a certain age”.  Isn’t that a curious way to describe someone’s age.  Take a look at this one for some pertinent and fun info. 

http://www.50somethinginfo.com/

Biological Clock Info that has nothing to do with having babies

I was reading about Circadian Rhythms in my Writer’s Digest magazine.  I have long said – with a touch of humor – that my best time is 10 – 3.  Once I read the article, I sat down to write about it (in my personal blog) and discovered that I’m right.  Which gives me no thrill.  I want to choose my rhythms in accordance with what would work best for general society.  But my rhythms don’t really care about general society, only about working efficiently.  So, in researching more, I came across this very interesting article about CR’s.  I am quite choosey concerning webpages, and usually choose .edu or .org ones, but I think this one has validity.  What are your best hours during the day?  When are you most creative, most alive to your surroundings, and happiest?  Read and consider.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/The-Biological-Clock-44241.shtml

Dog Fight

Really.  This time I learned a  valuable and once-only lesson.  Don’t stick your hand in between two dogs fighting.  My grand-dog is a jack russell.  I have a young German Shepherd, feisty and nutty.  Verone decided he didn’t want her to bother him (or something happened) and they went at each other.  Sitting between me and a close gf.  I jumped up and stupidly tried to grab my dog’s collar.  Oops.  Her teeth grabbed me, and my wrist opened like a fountain.  Sorry for the graphics.  I am healing today, and my arm hurts like crazy from the proverbial tetanus shot.  Everyone’s rabies vaccinations were up to date so I have no worries there.  But this is a lesson I will NOT forget.