Tag Archives: health

Part 25. The Return of Cancer: What’s Old Is New Again: Serenity Now!

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Written Monday, 12/20/22 To be continued As many of you readers who have been following my blog series “Blogging for Breast Cancer,” know, I am a breast cancer survivor, I had a mastectomy in 2004; each year I tell my story, I raise money, I try my best to help others. So in 2021, years after 2004, things I have never heard of began to erupt: I had the removal of a papilloma (a benign growth that has the tendency to change) as well as the removal of a LCIS (lobular carcinoma in situ which “isn’t really carcinoma.”) I was … Continue reading →

On Nature, Loss, and Signs

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Butterfly art ©S.Kalish 9/22 On the day that my friend/colleague/school principal passed, I had a dream. In fact it was early in the day, a day dream. This has happened to me many times. I was, in my thoughts, in a meeting with my team and the principal. A typical meeting, our group would meet for the purpose of helping children. And in that daydream I wondered. I thought that the other members of this team have been gone for many years. Sylvia. Jerry. I thought about the principal and what a wonderful man he was. Later in the day … Continue reading →

236.→Husband Journey: Where Is home?

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  What is a home? It used to be where our family resided, together. Now it is broken and about to be reconfigured. At this time, Robert’s Medicare coverage in the rehab has expired. The statements arrive in the mail, endless papers with printed numbers that sometimes exceed my ability to imagine. Anyone who touches or talks to Robert puts in their dibs. So now what? Let me explain what is happening. Robert cannot come home. He needs equipment to lift him, he needs people to help him. With everything. None of his activities of daily living can be achieved … Continue reading →

234.→Husband Journey: Emotion Linked by Photographs

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  Dear Alan and Jerri, Today I woke to sun and birds and rolled over, in peace and quiet, a moment of serenity, and fell asleep again until about 10:00. I am peaceful until I am officially “up” and I drag myself out of bed to face another day. I opened the door to find today’s The Times and a mailer tube, which I assumed was for Evan and then was surprised to find it was from you. On one end, there was criss-crossed tape and adhered to it were 4 tiny insects that somewhere along the journey had hitched … Continue reading →

Day By Day: We Are Never Over the Events of The Past

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Starvation.   It is 7:00 PM on Thursday, October 1, 2020. I am standing in front of the deli counter at Marino’s Market. My son is waiting in the car for me to come out with a load of groceries. We have just come from my mother’s apartment where Candy has greeted me. I have come to get my mother’s wheel chair. For my husband. My mother is bedridden and in and out of reality. My husband has a double MRI appointment the following day and I fear that he will not be able to walk from the car to … Continue reading →

9/11/2020: A Day in the ER

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posted 9/12/20 on Facebook ~ The ☀︎H U S B A N D ✻ Update ~and a view of the ER A long look back at a long day … and of US healthcare ☞ First, thank you to all of my wonderful friends for their warm messages; I am still processing the day, the 9/11 overlay of the day, and trying to make sense of it. I’ll try to fill you in without boredom, drama or sadness. Here’s the short version: We are home, nothing conclusive was found (yet) things have wound back to the new normal, which, is … Continue reading →

9. Life is a Journey, But This is a Trip: Reflections on Oils and Meds

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The Aimovig monthly, self-injection   I just wanted to catch you up on the oil/migraine/Aimovig journey in hopes that it might help someone out there. I have been taking the Aimovig shot once/monthly since last July and have had NONE of those terrible migraine vertigo episodes since. For the most part, any “pain” headaches have been manageable and I have not had to take anything like Advil, or, the prescribed Imitrex until recently. I had played around with the CBD oil dosages in my effort to see what was controlling what: was the Aimovig working better than I thought or … Continue reading →

8. Life is a Journey, But This is a Trip: Less Oil, More Episodes?

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Just when I thought, or perhaps naively felt I was on the road to being “cured” of migraine episodes, an attack crept in through the back door and mugged me. Not so fast, you migraine-bully! I am taking the self-injection, newly released drug, Aimovig since July; I believe it has helped. Although my migraine pain previously was not debilitating—pain-wise, but more of an inconvenience that impacted on my functioning that I could manage via an Advil and/or migraine pill, I can report that I have had NO migraine vertigo attacks since using the shot. That’s great! The ocular migraine incidents … Continue reading →

7. Life is a Journey, But This is a Trip: The Magic Oil/Migraine Update

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Good morning to you, reader and a happy Saturday. Though the face of every newspaper and newscast is enough to make me cringe, I am learning to contain and reframe my anxiety about the state of the world. CBD oil(s) do help. What is even more miraculous is that the migraine issue, though deeply rooted over my lifetime is hanging on, I can happily report improvements. It’s time for an update!       My migraine issues are reflective of what I think are chemical/electric cycles in the brain, a kind of build-up that needs to be discharged. I have … Continue reading →

5. Life Is A Journey, But This Is A Trip: On Medical Marijuana and CBD Oil

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  I am convinced, that after having joined a group of almost 150,000 people on facebook for people who are using or want more info about using CBD oil, that there will be a new movement, that people are dissatisfied with Big Pharma, and that there ARE answers to medical issues. I am learning that people have regained hope and that many who have been taking CBD oil (no Rx needed, legal in the 50 states, does not make one high, there is no THC) have seen monumental results. One mentioned that her thyroid is now testing “normal” and that … Continue reading →

4. Life Is A Journey, But This Is A Trip: What Goes Around, Goes Around and Around: On Vertigo

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  You’ve read a lot about my health challenges and I am moving closer to answers. I have had this since I was a child: vertigo, the feeling of dizziness, allegedly due to “sinus” but now I am convinced it is part of migraine syndrome. The feeling of spinning is horrible and thankfully, the violent spins I have perceived, are not common, but when they happen they are extremely disconcerting, frightening. They are like nothing I have ever felt before. However, lately, on and off over years, I have been feeling unbalanced. Not quite right. I walk and feel like … Continue reading →

3. Life Is a Journey, But This Is a Trip: Better Oily Than Late

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The possibilities of health benefits and cures are propelling people to more natural products.  If people see results, Big Pharma will be on the run. And that’s OK with me. It’s time for change, it’s time to get away from mass produced pills; some of our meds are imported from India and China. Some have been recalled. The farther the source of medications, the more uneasy I get. We’ve seen what has happened in China with melamine in baby formula, for example. Or fish being farmed in fetid water in India. (I cringe when in the Fairway Market and see … Continue reading →

2. Life Is A Journey, But This Is A Trip: Medical Marijuana vs. CBD Oil

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  Where there’s hope vape there’s hope.   The trial process. Mouse-over the photos for the captions. I hope you watched the video I posted in my previous blog. I purchased the Charotte’s Web Plus oil from ThriveMarket.com. I tried a dropper-dose and found it was strong stuff. Mind you, there is no THC in it, this is hemp oil, but I felt it for about 10 hours. I purchased the Charlotte’s Web Vape (pre-loaded) from MedTechHealthCare.com. The vape is strong as well and kicked-in quickly. I am still experimenting with doses and applications, ways and means. I am happy to report that … Continue reading →

1. Life Is A Journey, But This Is A Trip: Medical Marijuana

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That is not me, folks. I wouldn’t smoke cigarettes. I am on another journey in hopes of dealing with and managing ocular migraine. There are a couple of things going on so I will fill you in and perhaps you will find some information meaningful and pertinent for you or someone you know. In my quest to obliterate my migraines I have learned a good deal: they are not just headaches. They are unjust headaches which can manifest as: head pain (which, luckily I don’t deal with often and my lifelong headaches, since childhood, have diminished over the years from … Continue reading →

An Interesting Article on Migraine and a First Hand Experience

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This is the latest issue of New York Magazine; I’ve been reading it for years. Sometimes I love it, sometimes I don’t know why I still subscribe, but I always enjoy doing the crossword puzzle. Yesterday, my day wasn’t great: I thought I felt well, but as I was doing some work, my eyes stopped converging and I felt a vertigo attack coming on. Some of the vertigo attacks have been beyond awful. Thankfully, I have only experienced horrendous seasickness attacks from that kind once. I have had severe vertigo at the dining room table, at my desk, away from … Continue reading →

Memorial Day Migraine

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  Out of the blue, vertigo began: this is vestibular migraine. Not my worst episode at all, thankfully , and it will eventually pass, and I will feel better, until the next time. The signal: my eyes can’t converge. Each one sees something else. Focusing on one point can help as long as this isn’t a major attack. What I call a “major” attack is the feeling that I am hurtling through space in a twirling, tossing space capsule on a full stomach, a high fever, and my eyes feel like they don’t belong to me. There will be a … Continue reading →

126. Mother-Daughter Journey: What, Me Worry?

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Back in post #123 I mentioned that my mother’s Medicaid re-certification papers were lost by the Managed Long Term Care. The “entitlement specialist” promised that she would “walk the papers through personally.” (It was her goof). I was relieved. I had a quiet two weeks without major technical issues and, in addition, my mother was very quiet, if not “normal” for her.  There were few issues to which she would have a manic reaction; not sure that manic is the correct word, maybe over-reaction would be a better word choice, but her behavior reminded me about how she was some … Continue reading →

88. Mother-Daughter Journey: The Fearless Girl Won…Picking Through The Rubble

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A month has passed since I began tackling issue after issue. I spent full days on the phone trying to sort out a never-ending pile of documents that made little sense. I made calls that were never returned…well, actually, one woman I had been calling got back to me more than two weeks later. In the previous post I listed what was happening. The underlying problem is that one can’t get through to people, and that the people one wants, if not needs to get though to conveniently makes themselves unavailable. I have observed this over and over again. PhotoArt: … Continue reading →