Walk in the Glow of Each Other's Majestic Presence

From New Scientist, here's a short, interesting article by the authors of a new book, Against Health: How Health Became the New Morality.

For the third time in recent memory, I have talked to friends whose doctors were very insistent that they needed full hysterectomies, but who were able to find alternatives that were less invasive, less emotionally fraught, and equally successful in treating the problem.

If a hysterectomy is really the solution to the problem, then how wonderful that we have that option. I also know at least a couple of women for whom that was the right answer and I am very pleased for them. But it seems like many doctors have the "take off and nuke 'em from orbit; it's the only way to be sure" approach to many issues with women's bodies and I think the word should be spread that there may be other options and if you don't want a hysterectomy, you should be sure to know the options before you have one.

In the late 80's, my two male roommates and a couple of other male friends took part in a very cool drug study. Every week for six weeks they would go to a lab, take two pills, and hang out for four hours, filling out surveys and eating take-out. The pills were Valium, amphetamines, a low dose of nathazadone, a high dose of nathazadone, and a placebo. They got paid $800 bucks for this, at a time when that was a vast amount of money for all of us. I was totally psyched to go along, but they were not taking women subjects.

That led me to look into this issue a little and realize that the research into women's health was woefully inadequate and to pique a continuing interest in the subject.

This morning there is an article on Slate on this topic. One of the things that it points out is that the restrictions that were in place when I was young and poor were revised in 1993. But the culture of preferring male subjects--even in animal studies--is still going strong.

So when the friend mentioned in this post went to the ER last night, the doctors found no sign that he'd actually had a seizure. Apparently there are markers usually present in the blood post-seizure that were entirely absent. They checked him out very thoroughly and found nothing. Their hypothesis is that he simply became overheated and de-hydrated at the club and passed out. The doctor declared him "healthy as a horse," albeit a horse that falls down for no reason. He is strongly advised to see his own doctor this week, but they were pretty confident it was unlikely to repeat.

Thanks for all the good wishes. Despite the reasonably happy ending to this episode of When Friends Collapse, I'm really sick of the show.

We're having a lovely thunderstorm--it's been going on for about two hours now. When it first started, we were just finishing dinner, so we washed Alice's face off and went out on our screened-in porch. I sat in the chair there and Jason brought out a blanket--it's on the cool side and I'm only wearing a tank top--and wrapped Alice and me up in it. He went back inside and the two of us sat there in the dark for about half an hour, watching the flashes and listening to the rain and the booming thunder. It was very peaceful and cozy. Of course, the only reason she would sit still with me for that long is that she's got a fever, but it was still really sweet.

Coming into the weekend Alice and I were getting pretty tired of being on our own, but fortunately the reinforcements arrived on Thursday in the form of my cousin, Ashley, and her boyfriend, Alex. We had a fun dinner at Mifune and I got to hear about some of Alex' adventures as a set designer for movies and television. Unfortunately, something Alex and Alice ate (we suspect the beef) did not go down well and they both had rough nights. Avert your eyes now if bodily effluvia is a squick factor.

( Gag Line )

On Friday A&A went off for a day of wandering Harvard Square and Newbury Street and dinner with bex77 and audioboy. Alice and I had a hard day--even before the previous night's adventures she had been off her feed for a few days and mealtimes have become major exercises in patience. But we survived and A&A came back about the time that muffyjo was arriving for pizza and laundry and we ended up playing Trivial Pursuit. I shamelessly won and when Alex wanted to play again I suggested that I just dump my pieces and we keep going...and I won again.

When I woke up on Saturday, Jason was home and in bed with me and all was right with the world. He looked after Alice all day, while A&A went off to spend the rest of their visit with Anne & George. I puttered around and finally managed to get some traction on a task I've started three times previously and then we joined dpolicar and earthling177 for dinner at Alfresco, which everyone had been praising to the skies. The food was reasonably good, but they were overrun and the service suffered to the point of Jason not only being served the wrong entree, but never being brought the correct one. The waitress was fairly nonchalant about the whole thing until I asked her to take the wrong entree off the bill and then the owner came and made sufficiently effusive apologies that we came out thinking we probably will go back, but maybe on a Tuesday. From there we went to celebrate hotpoint's birthday at his lovely home and I gorged myself on cannoli. Most exciting of all, Alice took her first unsupported step before realizing what she'd done and sitting down. Now the trouble really starts!

Today I did a big run to Whole Foods and then came home and cleared enough stuff out of the fridge to make room for the groceries and made lunch before setting to work on dinner. I made a quadruple batch of Hungarian mushroom soup. I think that's the largest I've ever done and chopping seventy mushrooms reminded me why I don't do that more often. I did remember to use my snorkel mask for the onions this time, which is a major win. I got a nap and then the hordes (Anne, George, Ashley, Alex, Mom and Dad) descended upon us and we had a very pleasant evening, dining on soup and bread and the wonderful salamis that Jason had brought home from Salumi. Unfortunately, something hit Jason really hard a few minutes into dinner (possibly the clam chowder he'd had for lunch) and he's spent the rest of the evening Very Unhappy™. After dessert (ice cream and brownies--I tried wattleseed for the first time!) everyone else left and I spent some time with Alice before getting her to bed right at ten. muffyjo called on her way home from NJ to say that her car's problems had piled up to the point that she'd like me to meet her at our dealership, so she could leave the car there without stopping again. So I got to see her for a few minutes and hear about her weekend adventures.

And tomorrow I get to have rehearsal again!

( Musings on Weight )

On the feeding front, Alice continued to feed almost continuously--minus a break with Auntie B. and her amazing sleep-inducing superpowers--until about 1am last night. Jason took care of her through the dead of night, allowing me to get some sleep, and she got a fairly long stretch of sleep in this morning. We had our first daytime feeding about 11:30am, since when she has slept cozily, curled up in the boppy next to me. She's starting to make more noise and I'll probably wake her up soon, to try to keep on a 3-hour schedule. It has been a real relief to have a couple of hours of downtime--last night I was so exhausted that I got weepy again for the first time in over a week. Several of the online moms have said that their babies tended to sleep more the day after a clusterfeed, so I have vague hopes of a nap this afternoon, which should help to keep me on a more even keel.

Autism linked pretty definitively to immunization and subsequently covered up by the CDC et al.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/06/16/thimerosal/

I am appalled. I never believed the rumors about this. I want to cry.

Y'know the old saw about eating a live frog first thing in the morning...that way nothing worse will happen to either of you for the rest of the day?

Getting up after three hours of sleep to drive through rush-hour traffic to have blood drawn seems a reasonable equivalent.

And now I'm going back to bed.