Time eludes me these days.

Several days at home doing what I feel like doing and what I enjoy, I forget the time. And now my clocks seem to have a mind of their own. One is an hour behind. Another has stopped at 9:00. 

I am beginning the weekend at home again because I don't want to go out in the rain. If the sun shines on Saturday, I will venture out to buy ink for my printer. 

As we age, time becomes more and more important and I hate to waste it.  

In order to better use my time, I am staying away from social media except for a few minutes each day when I check Facebook. Sitting at the computer is bad for my back, so I try to get up and move around every 20 - 30 minutes to loosen up my muscles. Sometimes I think I have to spend more time on keeping my body working properly than on anything else. Certain prescriptions, supplements, staying on a healthy diet, and deep breathing and meditation. Preparing good meals, cooking from scratch, and avoiding processed food is very time-consuming. 

I found that soup made with cabbage, fennel, and potatoes is good for the stomach, so I made a batch. It tastes good as well as being good for you. Fennel seeds are also good for digestion. I read that restaurants in France offer them after meals. I haven't had red meat in weeks because it is an inflammatory food. Prime rib is one of my favorite dishes. Changing my diet is a challenge, but I am up to it.

YouTube has become my classroom. Videos on every kind of health issue are there to see. I listen to Podcasts about functional health care and realize that even medical doctors are saying our western medicine has huge limitations. 

Now that I am in the senior age group, my primary care doctor and others think that my aches and pains, the health issues that I face, are to be expected "at my age." I recently had a procedure that required anesthesia. When I was in recovery, I asked a nurse, "How did I do?" She didn't look up from the paperwork she was doing. "You did well for someone your age." What does that mean? Did I almost die? Did something bad happen but they managed to save me?

When the hair grays, we are placed into a box that says "Old and unimportant." My brother is over 90 years old. My father and my sister lived to be almost 90. I plan to be around for at least that long.

I have found that the only way to stay well and keep strong is to learn as much as possible about the health care system, about my own health, and what my symptoms indicate. So, I now have a functional care doctor who is also an M.D. I also see a chiropractor who helps me with pain. 

If all the different types of health care were under one roof, worked together so they could combine their knowledge to treat the whole patient, it would be so much easier to maintain our quality of life as we get older. Recently I heard a doctor on a Podcast say that aging should be treated as a disease, and the medical profession should stop throwing prescription medicines at every symptom and begin to look for ways to help us heal, end our pain, and increase our bodies immune systems. 

My priorities now are healing and strengthening my body. This takes too much of my time, valuable time that I could use for things I enjoy, but it is necessary. Taking pills is not the answer.

I am grateful that I have the capability to research and learn about subjects that are important to me. I can talk intelligently to doctors about my health, and I am not patronized when I am assertive enough to make them listen. 

We have just so much time on this earth, and I want to use it in ways that make the world a bit better if I can. I must be healthy to do that, so I will continue to take care of my body, the mind that helps me take care of that body and helps me do what I can for others. 

Time in a Bottle

Song by Jim Croce

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Lyrics

If I could save time in a bottle

The first thing that I'd like to do

Is to save every day

'Til eternity passes away...

What the New Year Brings

January 1, 2015

This year has begun with a brighter day than most we’ve had in December. The sun is shining and that makes me smile.

The first day of a new year is like opening a new writing journal for me. I have a clean slate on which to begin. It is mine to do what I will every day, make it mundane or exciting. On my Gratitude List today, number one is: I am here in this lovely place which inspires me to write and to share with other writers. 

Last May, as I started up my stairs, I had a sudden muscle strain in my left hip, fell and for two months, as I visited one doctor and another, I worried that I might have to stop holding classes in my studio, Writers Circle around the Table. I could not walk up and down stairs for three months without extreme pain. Prescription drugs became a way of life for me. Depression set in as I visualized myself moving to be near family, leaving this place I love so much.

I am not a city girl. The first time I lived in town, I shared an apartment with two girls after college. The girls were great, but I missed my privacy and the open green space of my rural home.  When my husband and I married we lived in a furnished apartment for less than a year. Our poodle, Brandy, soon made it obvious that he was not a city dog. He chewed everything in the place and shredded the sofa cushions. We had to move to a place with a yard.

That was when we claimed our five acres of my father’s farm. My husband delighted in living in the woods and Brandy spent all day outside. 

For thirty years we lived there and when we moved to the mountains of North Carolina, we found a house surrounded by trees, very private but only five miles from our small town. After my husband died, I remodeled my downstairs for my studio. Already, I have excellent instructors lined up to teach classes in 2015. (see Schedule page)

Thankfully, the stairs hold no challenge for me now. With the help of my orthopedic massage therapist and an acupuncturist who introduced me to Pete Egoscue’s book, Pain Free, A Revolutionary Method for Stopping Chronic Pain, the pain in my hip is gone. I do one simple exercise every day. It is called Static Back. The book has many of these e-cises and I also do many of them, but Static Back is the one that fixed my hip problem. 

So on my Gratitude List today are two very wonderful young men, Jay Gibson and Chris Bassett, and a young woman massage therapist, April Stewart. With massage, acupuncture, and the dedication of these therapists, I feel better than I have in a long, long time. Seldom do I need any pain medicine, and when I do, it is over the counter, not prescription. 

We have to manage our own health, learn all we can about our problems, and follow our gut instincts. I was told I needed to see a back surgeon. I was told that all of us live with pain and I could expect to deal with it the rest of my life. I would not accept that. 

When Chris Bassett told me I didn't have to live in pain. I could work on my posture, aligning my body by lying on the floor twenty minutes a day with my legs on a chair, I wanted to cry with joy. He took time to show me how I walked, what I was doing that aggravated my muscular problems, and gave me the hope I needed to go to work on myself. Simple stretches every day will keep our muscles from atrophying. The acupuncture helped with the pain, as did the massage therapy, but I had to continue treatment on myself so that I was not re-injuring myself. 

Yes, this New Year has dawned bright and beautiful and full of prospects for challenges and successes.

I hope all of you, my readers, will have much to be thankful for in 2015, and I hope you will start your own gratitude journal today. Write five things each day for which you are thankful. This stimulates the positive in your life instead of the negative. 

I might write “I am thankful for the butterfly flitting around on my flowers.” I might also write, “I am grateful today for the good test result for my friend.”  This is your journal and no one needs to see it. 

Although we hear all the horrible things on the news that make us feel that our world is coming apart, our words, deeds, and ideas can help to make a better world. They really do matter.

The Poll Results

It seems that Hope, Health and Happiness is the most popular theme in our poll of what we want in life.
Second is Love, Something to do and Hope for tomorrow.
We all need Hope in our lives.
I lean more toward the second theme. I am one who feels that love is necessary in my life - Love of a good man made all the difference in my life, love of and from my good friends and my family support me today. I also need something to do. I think, as we get older, having meaningful work is important to our self-esteem and our health. From what I read about retired people, almost all of us continue to work in some capacity.

It could be the way I was raised, but the worst times of my life were when I felt I was not being useful. I volunteered at a hospital for awhile. Most of my time was spent doing absolutely nothing. I sat and waited for someone to come by or ask me a question which often never happened.
Some people enjoy those kinds of things, but I like to be involved, fully absorbed, in something that I think makes a difference.
Perhaps I do believe that happiness is one of the things we need in life because having hope for tomorrow, having something to do, and loving and being loved - well, that IS what makes me happy.