Excerpt

My Story

Much of my teenage years were spent as the girl on the cheerleading squad who was a little heavier than the rest. I don’t know that I would have been described as fat (though you never know with teenagers), but I was definitely heavier than the other girls and I knew it. Sure, I was a cheerleader, but every time I donned the navy and white uniform I worried someone might laugh. It might also be crucial to mention that I happened to live in the Mecca of incredibly beautiful, insanely wealthy, and perfectly un-plump teens also known as Newport Beach, CA.

Despite my abhorrent eating habits, college was actually much kinder to me with my weight struggles. I’m not sure if it was the cafeteria’s fine cuisine, the distance from my “comforting” father, the penny pinching meals, the copious amounts of liquid courage, or just the fact that I frequented the school’s gym. It was probably a mix of everything (except for maybe the alcohol). I was down to a size 8 and feeling pretty good.

After college, I stepped up the workouts a notch (though I kept up the partying and fast food) and maintained a relatively fit size 8. After a long series of events, I eventually ended up living with my fiance, jobless and depressed. I turned to my longtime comfort: food and simultaneously stopped the workouts. I got a job working 70-80 hours a week on an incredibly measly salary, worked tirelessly to plan my own wedding, and I felt physically awful. I continued to gain weight.

A week after the wedding, my new husband and I moved several hours away to start his business as a chiropractor. Prior to the move, I decided to pursue my love of Pilates and got certified to teach. The previous chiropractor had a small rehab facility that I eventually turned into a small Pilates studio. Working 70-80 hours seemed like a breeze compared to owning our own business, but at least what we worked for was ours. Months went by and I continued to gain weight. Along with the weight gain, I was in a constant fog and chronically exhausted. Doctors told me I was just “depressed”, but I knew there was more to the story. I had historically been more of an optimist and this new depressed state felt more like a symptom of the other symptoms that plagued me rather than the catalyst.

As it turned out, the stress from my whirlwind year (and several years before that!) had wreaked havoc on my adrenal glands and thanks to a Naturopathic Doctor, I started taking an adrenal supplement. My fog lifted, I had the energy to work out again, and I eventually got back to my usual size 8.

About a year later, just after a Christmas party, I peed on a stick and it said “Pregnant.” What?! I had just gotten my body back to “normal” and I was starting to actually feel pretty good. Pregnancy was a whole new ballgame.

For those of you who have never been pregnant, I have to tell you that while some women feel the “glow” of their unborn child in their womb, I just felt like a constipated, beached whale with some massive hormones. My son decided to arrive on his own time, which happened to be very late. I clearly recall stepping on the scale at my last appointment when my midwife exclaimed, “Wow, you’re just shy of 200!”

Did I hear her right? Two-hundred what? My bowling score? Surely she didn’t mean 200 pounds!! I left the office in frustrated, pregnant lady tears.

After my son’s birth, I had secretly hoped he was at least 10 pounds and that at least another 40 was just water. Well, 7 pounds 14 ounces and about a week later, I stepped again on the dreaded scale and realized my worst fear. I was still 185 pounds. I went back to teaching a Mommy and Me class on my son’s 6-week birthday and I thought for sure I was going to die. I was short of breath, my arms and legs quivered, and I thought I might drop my son right in front of the class (all 10 pounds of him). I couldn’t believe how out of shape I felt. As I drove away, I cried again. This time they were frustrated, post-partum tears.

By the time my son was 18 months, after what seemed like an endless and extremely arduous process, I was back into my size 8s. But something felt different. As I began to fit into my old favorite clothes and buy new ones, I began to realize that 8 was definitely not enough.

I had enjoyed studying the personal development masters since I picked up Anthony Robbins Unlimited Power at the ripe old age of 21. I was familiar with the power of affirmations and positive self-talk. For the first time in my life, I looked at my size 8 body and began to see my “self” as a smaller size.

It was then that I was reminded of the story of Roger Bannister. In the 1950′s, there were several men who had attempted to run one mile in less than four minutes. After numerous unsuccessful attempts, it was thought to be impossible. Some runners came extremely close; however, it seemed that 4:02 was the best that was humanly possible.

On May 6, 1954, however, all that changed. That day, at a race in Oxford, Bannister ran the mile in 3:59.4. That day was historic for one main reason: it was now possible to run a mile in less than four minutes.

A mere 46 days later, the record was beaten. In fact, since that day, the record has been beaten several times. Bannister, though the first one to break the time barrier, actually held the record for the shortest amount of time. Once he proved it was humanly possible, it became easier for others to follow his lead.

Though my revelation was not world-record breaking, it was certainly a breakthrough. I was going to do what had never seemed humanly possible. I began to tell myself, “I am so happy and grateful now that I am a size 6″ each morning as I got dressed. I focused mainly on the feelings I would feel if that were, in fact true. As I had never been a size 6 in my adult life, there was a certain amount of detachment from the outcome that I had not felt previously. It was more of a “Wouldn’t it be nice to be a size 6-” rather than “I must, I must-”

A mere 6 weeks after I began this regimen, I headed to my favorite store for a few new summer clothes. As I sifted through the racks, I found myself pulling size 8s to take to the dressing room. When I asked for help with a few things, the sales woman said,

“OK, what are you? A 4 or a 6?” I laughed out loud. I grabbed the 8 and high tailed it for the dressing room. And then something magical happened.

I put on the first pair of adorable, size 8 capri pants. Too big. “They must run large,” I thought. I pulled on another pair, and another…all too big. Could it really be that simple? I walked out of that store a size 6.

Now, don’t get me wrong; I do not claim my transformation was solely the result of my affirmation. There was some nutrition, exercise, and portion control involved, but I now saw my goal as something that was actually possible. So possible, in fact, that I did it again and became a size 4!

I wrote this book so that you too might make a new realization about yourself, about your health, and about what is possible for you. With anything, there will be things that challenge you, but there will also be things that make you feel like you just won the lottery. I will tell you things that may be difficult for you to hear, but I promise that they come from a place of love. I will be your coach and your friend, but I will also give you a push when you are in need of one. You deserve success, you deserve to be healthy, but most of all, you deserve to be happy.

Read more about Mind Over Fatter: The Secret to Thinking Yourself Thin and Erin Tullius HERE.

Copyright 2010 Erin Tullius. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

Introduction

Gluten-free eating is a growing movement. More and more people are realizing they can get far better results improving their health by adopting a diet that’s free of gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye and barley, than by submitting to countless expensive medical tests and potentially harmful pharmaceutical drugs. That’s big news for the United States whose general population is loaded with health problems. Eating gluten free helps overcome a wide range of medical maladies that even the best of modern medicine can’t help.
An increasing number of consumers know this, even if their doctors don’t. The number of people diagnosed with celiac disease, an autoimmune reaction in the small intestine to gluten, has increased in the past several years. But so has the number of people who do not have celiac disease but find that they have health complaints, everything from abdominal pain and bloating, to chronic fatigue, to migraine headaches, that are remedied by going gluten free.
The growing number of new gluten-free eaters has created more demand for gluten-free foods, leading to the gluten-free market growing at an average annual rate of 28 percent since 2004. Sales of gluten-free foods went from $300 million in 2003 to $1.3 billion in 2008, and market research publisher Packaged Facts projects double-digit growth in the gluten-free market through at least 2012. That means more new gluten-free foods and more existing food products that will be reformulated to be gluten free.

The Need for a Better Gluten-Free Diet

More new gluten-free foods means more choices and decisions about the foods you buy and how you put them together to create a gluten-free diet that promotes health. What you may not realize is that for all the good that eating gluten free can do for people, it also can do plenty of harm if you eat gluten free the wrong way. And plenty of people are doing just that. One study found that 82 percent of people gain weight after two years of eating gluten free, including 81 percent of people who were originally overweight. Many gluten-free foods aren’t healthy, but many people who eat gluten free don’t realize that because they are focused on gluten free and nothing else. To maintain health over the long term, it’s important to be knowledgeable about other aspects of nutrition, too, and to know how to select healthy gluten-free foods and work them into your diet in all parts of your life, from eating in restaurants, to making a picnic, to what to eat and take when you have a cold or flu. This book will help you do that.
Through a diet guidelines chapter and a series of twenty-four short, easy-to-read articles, this book will teach you how to develop a more health-promoting gluten-free diet that you can maintain through all the months and seasons of the year. From my experience counseling clients, it takes time to learn all the do’s and don’ts of a healthy gluten-free diet and how to personalize the gluten-free diet for you. These lessons are best learned on the job, in little snippets, as you follow a gluten-free lifestyle in real life. So, I have set up this book as a collection of month-to-month articles that will address common issues and questions that come up when most people start to eat gluten free, everything from other food sensitivities to how to get enough fiber on a gluten-free diet. Each short article will offer a personal story or brief introduction to a nutrition issue or a happening or event in our lives, followed by tips on how to put the information into practice.

Why Gluten Free is Becoming More Popular

Before the diet guidelines and month-to-month articles start, let me first fill you in on how and why so many people are going gluten free today. Awareness of gluten sensitivity by the public has spread like wildfire, thanks in large part to the Internet helping us share information and personal experiences much more easily. People who at one time never considered that they were gluten sensitive have gradually started to realize that gluten is a problem for them, too. The gluten-free lifestyle is a grassroots movement fueled mostly by the Internet, the great equalizer of the people… and it’s spreading.
New research has also helped the growth of the gluten-free movement, showing what many people have long suspected: Non-celiac gluten sensitivity is a bona fide medical condition and the picture of celiac disease is much different than what was commonly thought ten years ago. People diagnosed with celiac disease today are more likely to have either no symptoms at all or symptoms formerly called “atypical” instead of the symptoms of diarrhea, weight loss, and malabsorption that most doctors look for. In adults, some of the more common presenting symptoms are constipation, acid-reflux-type conditions, bone disease, neurologic symptoms, and especially anemia and chronic fatigue. Children older than three who are diagnosed with celiac disease are more likely to have nongastrointestinal conditions, including type 1 diabetes, thyroid disease, Down syndrome, iron-deficiency anemia, short stature, or mood disorders. And it’s more common to be normal weight or overweight than underweight when diagnosed with celiac disease.
But for every person who has celiac disease, there are seven to ten people with gluten sensitivity. Some researchers say the number of people with gluten sensitivity may be as high as two-thirds of the population.  This is significant because people with gluten sensitivity experience uncomfortable symptoms just like people with celiac disease. In gluten sensitivity, the innate immune system, the most ancestral form of defense we have against “invaders,” reacts to gluten, just like it does in celiac disease. In celiac disease, the adaptive immune system also reacts, but the adaptive immune system does not react in gluten sensitivity, according to recent research. Consider that the nervous system likely reacts adversely to gluten as well. Based on thirty years of experience working with patients and studying the growing research on gluten and the nervous system, Dr. Rodney Ford, a pediatrician, gastroenterologist and allergist from New Zealand, has concluded that gluten detrimentally affects the brain and nervous system that connects every cell and organ in the body and the damage done to the nerves leads to many symptoms in different parts of the body. While the exact specifics of how gluten provokes adverse symptoms are still being researched and debated, we don’t have to wait to act on this information. Just know that gluten sensitivity is real, affects many more people than celiac disease does, and results in countless symptoms. The following, while not a complete list, is a list of some of the more common symptoms associated with gluten sensitivity.

Common Symptoms Associated with Gluten Sensitivity

Acid-reflux-type conditions
Anemia
Autoimmune diseases (including autoimmune thyroid
disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and type 1 diabetes)
Depression
Bone disease (including osteopenia and osteoporosis)
Constipation and/or diarrhea
Fatigue and tiredness
Gas and bloating
Neurological conditions  (including attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder, headaches/migraines, and ataxia)
Skin conditions (including dermatitis herpetiformis,
eczema and psoriasis)
Unexplained infertility

A rundown on diagnostic tests is covered in Appendix A, but the most important “test” you can do at this point is finding out whether your health improves when you eat gluten free. (Until more diagnostic tests become available, even Alessio Fasano, M.D., director of the Center for Celiac Research, agrees that this is an important way to determine gluten sensitivity.) If you have uncomfortable symptoms when you eat gluten, and they go away when you no longer eat gluten, you have discovered on your own (and inexpensively, I might add) that you are gluten sensitive and that the gluten-free diet is your best medicine.  A gluten-free diet trial is much easier on your wallet than the expense of numerous doctor visits and diagnostic tests, and the treatment for gluten sensitivity ‘to continue not to eat gluten’ is a lot less expensive than the pharmaceutical drugs people are prescribed for all of the above gluten-related symptoms and conditions. Therefore, if you have any
type of unexplained illness that isnâ’t getting better with medical treatment, it’s a good idea to try a gluten-free diet and see if it helps you. [One caveat: This experiment works for virtually everyone except those who have silent celiac disease, a condition in which there is the damage to the gut seen in celiac disease, but these people experience few or no noticeable symptoms.]

Eating Gluten Free and Healthfully

If you’re one of the growing number of people who find they experience better health by eating gluten free, then your only prescription is to go against the grain. When I say go against the grain, I mean of course to eat gluten free. But I also mean to buck the common mistake to eat gluten-free junk foods and too many sugars and gluten-free grains, and instead eat more vegetables, which are lower in carbohydrates and richer in nutrients than grains.
The next chapter outlines this and other diet guidelines to live by to improve your health and subsequent chapters show you practical ways to apply those guidelines in real life. Through school days, holidays, eating out in restaurants, traveling, and more, this book will guide you through how to eat smart with tips, recipes, and information you can use day in and day out to improve and maintain your health over the long term. Whether you read through this book quickly or just read one chapter every month, get started so you waste no time living gluten free healthfully throughout the year!

Read more about Gluten Free Throughout the Year and Melissa Diane Smith HERE.

Copyright 2010 Melissa Diane Smith. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

A HEART TOO GOOD TO DIE – A shocking story of Sudden Cardiac Arrest

Chapter 1
IN GOOD COMPANY

Great crises produce great men, and great deeds of courage. -John F. Kennedy

It was the most frightening time of my life. Nothing had prepared me for the responsibility or the dread. That precious heart had to be stilled. An electric shock would do the job. Only a small shock, but delivered at just the right time and in exactly the right place. She would be dead; there would be no pulse, and thus no life giving oxygen for her brain and organs. Her blood pressure and heart rhythm had to be monitored to ensure the precise conditions were achieved. But first she must be sedated so she would not feel any pain, or suffer in any way.
Naturally, I was apprehensive and worried. Their reasoning was unequivocal. It was vitally important”her life depended on it! How could this be possible? What justification could there be for terminating my beautiful wife’s heartbeat? She was young, fit and healthy”normal in every respect. Why should she succumb to this hideous proposition? And how could a spouse be asked to sanction such a grave act? To find out we should start at the beginning; to the first time she dies. Carolyn and I were newly married and had left Australia to begin a wonderful new life together in America. We had grand plans, and I felt lucky to be accepted into this land of opportunity. Our home was now Boston, Massachusetts, and I was still adjusting to my new surroundings when Carolyn had to leave for Texas. She had no indication that this routine business trip would have such a dire outcome. Neither did I, so the phone call from Dallas was both alarming and confusing–it left me terrified.
I had expected our wedding day to be the highlight of my New England experience. Thursday October 10th, 2002 has now been permanently imprinted in my mind. It was mid morning when the call came on the home phone”the one the telemarketers had already found. It wouldn”t have been Carolyn, as she preferred to ring my cell phone, which had all those free minutes we paid for every month! The caller was no stranger, although we had never spoken before. Unquestionably, he had shocking news.
“Is that Jeremy Whitehead?”
“Yes, speaking.” A chill passed down my spine. Nobody ever starts a telephone call that way unless”.
“This is Jim Hardee, Carolyn’s boss. Your wife’s had a bit of a turn, and we”ve taken her to the hospital. I think you should get down here.” “Get down where?” I wondered, although I should have known. Carolyn had left the previous day for the conference in Dallas and we had spoken just a few hours earlier to say good morning; a small ritual of love we used to help bridge the physical distance.
Jim had been Carolyn’s boss just a few months. He had taken a bold step in hiring her as a Business Unit Executive, just before the summer. We were both in the IT industry, successfully climbing the corporate ladder in Australia. I was in sales and marketing, and she was a regional manager. But Carolyn had found an opportunity to advance to “the next level”, leading a sales team with revenue targets in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and US dollars at that! She matched the job requirements perfectly, although there had been an underlying sentiment of, “how could someone all the way from Australia be successful in this role?” Unperturbed, Carolyn had proven herself within a few short weeks to be an inspirational leader, motivating her team to overachieve, as well as boosting morale to an all time high. But now, Jim was calling to say there was some problem with her health, and he seemed worried. Maybe Carolyn had overreacted to a minor ailment like an upset stomach, cramp or a bad headache. I was always teasing her about her low tolerance to physical pain, so I was embarrassed to hear Jim say they had sent her to the hospital. He and I had not met, but Carolyn had talked about him enough for me to feel that I knew him. Alas, he did not feel the same way. “Oh I don”t think that will be necessary,” I blurted out, while trying to work out where on earth Dallas was. I knew it was in Texas, but how far is that from Boston” Do I drive” Maybe a plane is better. Oh, how will I get a ticket” Who do I call” I was very used to sudden travel demands back home. The Qantas Club membership had made those types of dramas so easy to handle. Alone, in our rental apartment in Boston, I had my morning planned out and was busy getting my tasks done. Until that moment.
“Maybe you should talk to the doctor,” Jim replied. I felt a bag of icy water land in the pit of my stomach. Doctor” What doctor” “This is Dr. Diamond from Baylor Grapevine emergency ward, your wife has been admitted to intensive care in critical condition.” He paused, letting those words sink in before continuing, “We are not sure what happened to her, but she has had a cardiac arrest, maybe due to an aneurism. She is stable right now, and we should know more in twelve hours or so.” My legs were suddenly weak; they buckled. The bag of icy water had broken and, now sitting on the floor, I wondered what could have happened to my bride. Did he really say those terrifying words “critical condition?” I wanted to be sick, I wasn”t breathing, and my stomach somehow knew what my brain was attempting to deny.
Carolyn and the three managers who reported to her, Pam Battistone, Bruce Senecal and Karen Davey, were part of a group of over two hundred attending a high performance management conference, as part of their IBM leadership development program. Carolyn had little chance to notice how well the Hilton Dallas Fort Worth Lakes Executive Conference Center specialized in such conferences. That morning they had numerous rooms allocated to handle the large influx of IBMers. The rooms were configured to accommodate groups of thirty people, each with four tables set for the morning’s activity. A table captain had been assigned in advance; a little surprise for four of the best. This was going to be their office for the next two days. Karen did not think there was anything amiss with Carolyn that Thursday morning. The four of them had met in the lobby to go down for breakfast together. “When we travel, we travel in packs” was her maxim. Carolyn seemed quiet, but they hadn”t spent much time that early in the morning before, and Karen was still getting to know her new leader, so she accepted that Carolyn was not her usual self.
They found their way down to the auditorium; the basement level of the hotel was like a maze but the corridors were full of people headed for the same location. Karen had learned that her boss liked to sit up front and on the aisle, so they filed into one of the front rows. After hearing about the day’s agenda, they were organized into groups and dispersed to the conference rooms. Another flight of stairs and winding passages brought them into a room with round tables; eight places each set with nametags, pitchers of water and bowls of candy. Karen noticed that Carolyn had been pre-selected as table captain, and that Bruce was assigned the seat next to her. Karen was bound for a different table, however, and was thus among strangers. Everything went according to plan, until they were in the middle of the normal “show and tell” get-to-know-you session. Karen’s table had been first to do the introductions, and she was watching Bruce as he stood up to begin his story.
Bruce felt well rested, as they had had an early evening the night before. The previous day had been long, the flight in from Boston providing an extra hour with the change in time zone, but having dinner with the three girls was fun; they had had a few drinks, and lots of laughs. He liked this opportunity to be with them outside the office. But he was surprised to see Carolyn so quiet at breakfast. Nevertheless, they stuck together through the opening session, “as the team we are” he thought to himself. Then the huge group was split into teams for the real business to begin.
It was Tom O’Brien’s first time as co-facilitator and, wanting to make a stimulating and fresh start, he decided to add a twist to the standard course opening. Hoping to make the introductions interesting, he asked each person to describe something no one else would know about them. Tom was pleased with the early results, as the attendees were a little challenged by the request and thus paying attention. It was going to be a memorable session.
As a Certified Professional Coach and Sales Transformation Manager, and based in Fort Worth, Texas, Sara Smith was technically in charge of the training session. She enjoyed having the chance to watch the group from the back of the room; normally she was out front doing the talking, but this time she could listen and observe. She felt comfortable with Tom leading, although neither of them realized how they would be tested by the forthcoming events. Bruce was not especially thrilled to have to stand up and reveal something about himself to these “strangers”. And having to wait for his turn was an unbearable torture. With eight per table there was plenty of time for the stress to build up, and he couldn”t stop the mantra in his head, “What is it that I”m going to say?”
Each time someone got up and told their story he changed his mind, and had to search for something new. Karen had surprised everyone with her story about being expert at throwing the javelin. How could he beat that” There was one thing he could reveal, but that would probably be too revealing. He was sitting next to Carolyn, and realized that he had better decide quickly. Once she was finished with her introduction it would be his turn. Jim knew them all, and as a Vice President he had been able to arrange for his entire management team to be in the one room. Introductions were a normal part of these types of business meetings; he was listening, but not really paying attention. He had other things on his mind, thinking about how this course would help his team to uncover and resolve problems on the front lines. Mark Johnson was sitting in the back of the room observing the introductions. It was rare to have all of the team in one place and he saw this as an opportunity to build rapport with them. He saw Carolyn stand up to speak and was enthralled in her unique story. As the Human Resources manager for Jim’s team, Mark had been involved in Carolyn’s recruitment. She was no stranger, but not yet well known to him. That was about to change forever. Randy Fitch was sitting seven or eight feet away from Carolyn; her table was in front of his and over to one side. As each group introduced themselves, Randy moved his chair to face their table. He was particularly interested to learn that Carolyn was able to communicate via sign language, and yet she was not deaf and neither were any of her family. She stood up straight and moved her hands and fingers as she spoke, demonstrating her skill. It was a surprising trait and certainly memorable. The girls seemed to have the edge with the revelations, first a javelin thrower and then a hearing person that signs. As Jim’s executive assistant, Randy had both an envious and challenging role. He’s a cool-customer, very direct and forthright; not so much a hard taskmaster, but determined and disciplined”a man of actions rather than words. Watching Carolyn as she sat down, Randy was glad his table already had their turn. Surprisingly, he was feeling a little clammy. “Probably just nerves. There is an element of risk here. This is an embarrassing thing to do,” he told himself, and then sought to rationalize it: “Having to stand up and speak to a large group of people and reveal something new about yourself can be stressful.” He could not have predicted just how stressful that morning was going to be. Bruce had just stood up and opened his mouth to speak, when Carolyn collapsed at his feet. She just slid off her chair and fell to the floor like a bag of potatoes, not quite graceful, almost gentle; a crumpling as opposed to a thud. Randy sensed it happening in slow motion and thought, “I should be trying to catch her.” He knew she was going down”somehow before she fell”possibly from instinct. Time had slowed down, but his mind was running at a million miles per hour. He was not quick enough, however, and she was already on the floor before he was even out of his chair.
Standing at the front of the room, Tom could easily see everyone and was surprised when Carolyn slid off her chair. “She couldn”t have fallen asleep,” he thought, “maybe she slipped.”
Jim was shocked to see her fall, and thought, “Oh, I hope she’s just fainted.” Not sure what was going on, he wanted to know if it was serious or not. “I can”t believe it is anything more than that, I have to go to her.” But it was much more than that.
Although Sara was at the back of the room, she had a clear view of Carolyn. She saw the energy drain out of Carolyn’s body, leaving a face devoid of expression”just blank. All of Carolyn’s muscles suddenly went slack, like cutting the strings to a puppet, and she dropped to the floor. Randy’s first thought was that Carolyn had fainted, maybe due to a chemical imbalance in her blood; being hypoglycemic, Randy knew the feeling. Once before, he had been in a meeting where someone had fainted, but this time he was uncertain, for there had been no warning, no gasps or moans, just silence until the thump.
Sitting at the adjacent table, Karen also guessed that Carolyn had fainted and feared that she may have hurt herself in the fall, as she herself had experienced a few years back. Even though Carolyn had been sitting down, she could have hit her head or banged her nose. Knowing that she was not going to be of any use medically, Karen rushed outside to alert someone. Looking back into the room she saw several people were already attending to Carolyn on the floor. She decided to approach everyone she met on her way to find the conference command center, and ask whether they had any medical training. When Carolyn hit the floor, Mark stood up. He could see Tom and Randy rush over to her. All the panicked faces at the front of the room told him something serious had occurred, and his first instinct was to get help. He raced over to the back door of the room, and out into the corridor. Randy reached Carolyn first; she was curled up in a fetal position facing away from him. He put his hand on her shoulder, called out her name and then rolled her over. She looked asleep or heavily intoxicated, but there was something else, something not quite right. He could see she was “not there?”completely lifeless and not breathing.
“She’s having some kind of episode, and is not waking up,” he said to himself as much as to anyone else. Having spent a number of years as a policeman in a county North West of Atlanta, Randy had some experience with emergency situations. He remembered all those car accidents, heart attacks, and stabbings from long ago.
“Carolyn, wake up!” Randy bellowed. His training had kicked in instinctively, and he remembered that yelling into a victim’s face was the best way to clearly establish consciousness. As he shouted, he carefully watched her face, hoping to spot just a fluttering of her eyes, or a flinch. There was no response, no reaction. There was no life.
Tom had trained as a medic in the Army Reserves, and although he had not seen any action in Vietnam, he had felt prepared for it. He did not, however, feel prepared for this encounter. Tom saw Carolyn’s face turn blue, and realized this was an emergency. “She’s not getting any air,” he exclaimed. Putting his ear to Carolyn’s chest, Randy could hear strange, unnatural sounds that were neither breaths, nor a proper heartbeat. But he could hear something, so he tried shaking her and calling her name again. It had no effect. Less than a minute had passed by the time Jim reached her. He was alarmed by Carolyn’s unresponsiveness and the color of her skin. He desperately wanted to see some sign of life. He looked towards Tom, hoping he knew what to do. Whether it was the right thing or the wrong thing to do, Tom knew they had to do something. It would be better than doing nothing; she could die. “I can hear something but it doesn’t sound right,” Randy cried out. Carolyn then gasped a strangled breath and went limp. Jim knelt down and held her head and, not knowing what else to do, he mimicked Randy’s approach, “Carolyn are you there. Wake up, Carolyn!” His shouts achieved nothing. “I must be able to do something more than this!” he thought. “Okay, I”m not a trained professional in medical matters, but what can I do?” The Boy Scout in him reacted; he put his hand under her neck and tilted her head back, recalling that this would prevent Carolyn from swallowing her tongue. Then the realization hit him, “That’s all I know to do.” Randy and Tom couldn”t determine what was wrong with Carolyn, as there had been no warning, and nothing obviously untoward, apart from her sudden collapse. Had she had a seizure” Was she epileptic” None of them knew anything about her medical history; most had only just met her that day. Jim could feel the panic taking over, and searched his mind for an antidote. “What should we do now” What does she need?” he asked himself. Several people had gotten out of their chairs and moved towards the scene, drawn inexorably closer like iron filings to a magnet. Bruce was still standing at his chair, stunned at the suddenness of Carolyn’s fall, and startled by her convulsion at his feet. “Oh my God what is happening to her” What can we do to help?” He remembered seeing her take a candy from the bowl on the table, and called out, “I think she might be choking! I saw her take a candy!” He moved back to let the others get closer as he had never been in an emergency before. Bruce felt useless; a room full of high performance managers, and he had no clue what to do.
Tom immediately checked Carolyn’s mouth for obstructions, and found that it was clear, so he tilted her head back a little further, pinched her nose closed and put two big breaths into her mouth. There was a lot of resistance to his breath, “just like the first few puffs when blowing up a balloon,” he thought. “Got to get the air in, and get the air out,” he recalled from that training in the Army so long ago. He felt for Carolyn’s sternum, and pushed down firmly on her ribs several times.
Once before, Tom had performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation in an emergency, (although he had learned to say CPR), and he was willing to do it again. It had been the mid 1980s, also at a training conference, when a colleague had collapsed on the volleyball court. All the IBM managers at that time undertook CPR training, so he was called to assist until the first responders could get there. Unfortunately, it had taken him several minutes to get courtside and his efforts were unsuccessful.
Unsure exactly how many times to pump and how many breaths to blow into her mouth, Tom was more worried about the likelihood that it was not going to do Carolyn any good. He thought his actions might make things worse than they already were; after all, that training so long ago had been perfunctory. Bruce couldn”t stand still any longer; he had do something more to help. “But what?” he wondered. He thought Carolyn may have been on some medication and seeing a purse on the floor he picked it up to check the contents. There were no pills or prescriptions that could give them a clue. He wasn”t even sure it was her pocketbook! When he looked down at Carolyn again he couldn”t stop the frightening thoughts, “Oh my god I”m witnessing her death! This just isn”t fair. Someone like her, she was making such a difference.” Bruce couldn”t have this happen right before his eyes, and believing that no one in the room had any medical background, he decided to go and get expert help. He, too, ran out into the hall, and rushed down the corridor. He frantically opened all the doors to the other rooms, hoping to find someone who knew what to do.
“Oh my, her heart must”ve stopped,” Sara whispered to herself. She could hardly speak, having seen the pallor of Carolyn’s face and the way she had dropped like a rag doll. Sara had seen the events unfold in slow motion, and yet she was reassured by the speed of Randy’s response. “He’s responding in ways that his hands know what he’s doing,” she muttered. Sara had also been trained in CPR, but seeing how quickly Randy and Tom were tending to Carolyn, she sensed she was not needed. Momentarily stunned by the sudden calamity, Sara was astonished to remember a workshop she and Randy had held in Atlanta, on September 11th, 2001. She realized that all eight participants from that day were together again at this conference! Recognizing the seriousness of Carolyn’s collapse, Sara seized the conference room phone at the back of the room, and immediately called the coordination point for their conference.
“We have a medical emergency! It is a life or death situation, and we need someone who knows CPR now!”
She turned back to the room and saw that Tom and Randy were busy taking care of Carolyn, but everyone else had a “deer in the headlights” look about them. She stepped forward and suggested everyone help move the tables back. She knew they needed something to do; actions to break the mental paralysis, to help them move through the phases of shock.
Seeing Tom begin the CPR, Randy asked if he could help out. He was willing and able to assist, and he knew they had to get Carolyn breathing again. Tom suggested that Randy do the chest compressions while he continued with the breaths. He presumed someone had called for help; feeling confident that, just as he was playing his part, others would be doing theirs. Another minute had slipped by with no discernable effect. Jim was still holding Carolyn’s head and staring into her eyes, almost pleading for her to wake up. He saw that her eyes remained glassy and vacant. As Randy and Tom continued the compressions and rescue breathing, Jim noticed that Carolyn’s chest only moved up and down when Tom breathed into her.
Jim’s thoughts collided as he watched in horror, his world closed in and he couldn”t hear the noises around him. He couldn”t stop the feeling of helplessness. “This is really bad, she is not breathing by herself,” Jim thought as he looked up at Tom, and then down into Carolyn’s eyes again. “She’s leaving us. This can”t happen. This is really serious. She’s dying.” Jim did not want to acknowledge these thoughts; they had no place in his experience. This youthful executive, with a vibrant personality that belies his many years in that Fortune 100 company, is smart and very deliberate in actions and words. He is a true southern gentleman, with clear blue eyes and a muscular physique that perfectly matches his zeal for sporting activities. Usually very capable and determined, Jim was not used to feeling powerless. But he just didn’t know what else they could do.

About the Author
In 2002, Jeremy Whitehead came to America, fulfilling a life-long dream. That dream changed, however, when his wife suffered a cardiac arrest within six weeks of their wedding day. After researching the causes and consequences of Sudden Cardiac Arrest, Jeremy realized that many others want to understand what it is, why it happens and what to do about it. He interviewed the saviors and witnesses to Carolyn’s collapse to capture their thoughts and feelings at the time”and found they, too, were profoundly affected by the event. It is for those yet to be touched by this well understood but incurable leading cause of death, that he decided to share their story.     http://www.heart2good.com Jeremy has been a public advocate volunteer for the American Heart Association and the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation. In 2004, he was instrumental in convincing Congress to approve further funding of defibrillators. He has been published in the Journal of Emergency Medical Services (JEMS March,
2005). Jeremy graduated as an electronics engineer in the telecommunications industry, and excelled at marketing the Internet. He then moved to IBM Software Group. He has a reputation for mastering complex subjects, and making them simple to understand.
Now a freelance writer, and a graduate of the Australian College of Journalism, Jeremy is focused on narrative nonfiction and the self-help genre. Born in Australia, Jeremy now lives with his wife in Westchester County, New York.

Read more about A HEART TOO GOOD TO DIE: A shocking story of Sudden Cardiac Arrest and Jeremy Whitehead HERE.

Copyright 2008 Jeremy Whitehead. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt
The Boy Who Saved Thousands of Lives
The Author’s Own Story

On the night my seven-year-old son, Nicholas, was shot we were playing a game in the car as we drove on vacation along the main road in Southern Italy between Naples and Sicily. As usual, he was hard to beat. I went over again the answers he’d given: the man I was looking for was a hero, a real person and we’d been to places where he’d lived. He wasn’t American or British, not French or Roman or Greek.  In the end I had no choice. “I give up,” I told him.
“Bonnie Prince Charlie,” said Nicholas happily. “You said he wasn’t British,” I protested. “No, I said he wasn’t English,” he answered. It was true. That’s what he had said. This last win was typical of the way he did everything: he chose well, never cheated and had a lot of fun doing it. His teacher said he was the most giving child she had ever known and she always knew he was her teacher.
Soon he was asleep, propped up on the back seat next to his sister, four-year-old Eleanor, and I, driving beside my wife, Maggie, probably thought as I often did: “How can anyone be this happy?”
An hour or so later I had the first faint tremor of anxiety. A car, headlights on but dark inside, came up close behind us and stayed there for a few moments, unusual in Italy where cars generally pull out a long way behind and streak by. “There’s something wrong,” I said, half to myself. Maggie, who was dozing, sat up quickly.
Just then the other car moved out and began to overtake. I relaxed, nothing wrong after all. But, instead of overtaking, the car ran alongside us for a few seconds and through the night we heard loud, angry, savage cries, the words indistinguishable but clearly telling us to stop.
It seemed to me that if we did stop we would be completely at their mercy. So instead I accelerated. They accelerated too. I floored the car, they floored theirs and the two cars raced alongside each other at top speed through the night.
A few seconds later, any illusions that this was just a reckless prank vanished, as a bullet shattered the window where the two children were sleeping.  Maggie turned around to make sure they were safe.  Both appeared to be sleeping peacefully. It seemed like a blessing at the time.  A second or two later, the driver’s window was blown in and how that bullet missed both Maggie and me in the front seat we’ll never know.
But by now, we were beginning to pull away and, from seeing them alongside, I watched them through the side mirror and then, falling further behind, the driving mirror, finally disappearing into the night. It turned out later that they had mistaken our rental car, with its Rome license plates, for another that was delivering jewelry to stores. We raced on, looking for somewhere with lights and people.
As it happened, there had been an accident on the road and an ambulance and police were already there. I stopped the car and got out. The interior light came on but Nicholas didn’t move.  I looked closer and saw his tongue was sticking out slightly and there was a trace of vomit on his chin.  For the first time we realized something terrible had happened.
He was whisked away in the ambulance and, after answering questions from the police, we followed, with that feeling of gnawing emptiness that for months afterward never went away. In time we reached a small hospital, in the car park of which was an ambulance and, standing around it in total silence, what looked like the entire medical staff.
I hoped against hope that it was there for a different purpose but, when I looked inside, I saw Nicholas’ pale face, peaceful and freshly washed, looking as though he had just been put to bed.  The chief surgeon explained that he was too badly injured for them to operate and he would be taken to a larger hospital in Messina, Sicily, to see what they could do. I have never known such bleakness.
Two hours later, at the new hospital, the signs were ominous from the beginning. We were directed to a department called ‘rianimazione’  — literally reanimation, and shown into a room, where again it seemed as though the whole medical staff was gathered and all again totally silent. After a moment, the chief neurologist said quietly, “The situation is very dramatic” and all the small shoots of hope that had grown in those two hours withered away. The bullet had lodged at the base of the brain, they told us, the seat of all brain functions, and he was too weak for them to operate.  The only hope was that he might regain enough strength for them to try something later.
But, instead, his life quietly drained away.  In death, as in life, he was no trouble to anyone. After two days all brain activity ceased and all the brightly-colored dreams of a young idealist, who had planned to do such deeds as the world has never known, died too.
For a while, Maggie and I sat silently, holding hands, and trying to absorb the finality of it all. I remember thinking, “How am I going to get through the rest of my life without him?” Never to run my fingers through his hair again, never to hear him say, “Goodnight, Daddy.”
Then one of us, we don’t remember who but, knowing her, I feel sure it was Maggie, said, “Now that he’s gone, shouldn’t we donate the organs?” The other one said “yes,” and that’s all there was to it. It was just so obvious: he didn’t need that body anymore.
As it turned out, there were seven recipients, four of them teenagers and two others the parents of young children.  One, Andrea, was a boy of 15 who had had five operations on his heart, all of which had failed. By now, he could scarcely walk to the door of his apartment.  Domenica had never seen her baby’s face clearly.  Francesco, a keen sportsman, could no longer see his children play games. Two of the teenagers, Anna-Maria and Tino, had been hooked up to dialysis machines for years to ward off kidney failure, four hours a day, three days a week, losing their entire childhood, never being able to go far from home and already aware that they might never become adults. Silvia was a diabetic who was going blind, had been in multiple comas and couldn’t walk without help. Finally, there was a vivacious 19-year old girl, Maria Pia, who on that very day was in her final coma from liver failure. Her brother had died of a liver disease, her mother was dead, too, and the family w
as preparing to take another devastating blow.
In that hushed hospital room in Messina these people were just statistics to us. But now, having met them and seen the agony they had gone through and knowing what would have happened to them, I don’t think that Maggie and I could ever have looked back without a deep sense of shame, if we had shrugged off their problems as none of our concern,
Our decision, however, electrified Italy.  The prime minister and president asked to see us, we were flown home in the president’s own aircraft and, in the dead of night at a deserted airfield near San Francisco, the honor guard who brought Nicholas’ body home, with no one there to watch, insisted on performing the full ceremonial due to a national hero. Now streets, schools and squares from the Alps to Sicily, and the largest hospital in Italy, are named for him.
With the worldwide media coverage that followed, people who had scarcely given the subject a thought became aware that thousands of unnecessary deaths result every year from the shortage of donated organs. On his grave one day I found an anonymous note, typical in its intensity. It said simply, “Dear little Nicholas, we love you. God bless you to eternity, sweet child.”
In Italy alone, organ donation rates have tripled since he was killed, so that thousands of people are alive who otherwise would have died. Obviously, an increase of that magnitude, not even remotely approached in other developed countries, must have a variety of causes, but it seems clear that Nicholas’ story was a catalyst that changed the attitude of an entire nation.
Since then, all seven of his recipients have had new lives. To think of just one of them: Maria Pia, who bounced back to health, married in the full bloom of womanhood and has had two children, a boy and a girl – two whole lives that would never have been. As far as anyone knows, the livers of all three, in a family with a history of liver disease, are working perfectly. And, yes, she named her boy Nicholas.
Organ donation goes beyond even life-saving surgery, however, to another level of understanding. A young woman from Rome wrote this to us: “Since when your son has died, my heart is beating faster.  I think that people, common persons, can change the world.  When you go to the little graveyard place please say this to him, ‘They closed your eyes, but you opened mine.’ ”

Copyright 2008 Reg Green. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

We all have been touched by cancer. This witty inspirational book gives life
lessons on how to get through the cancer experience from the perspective of a
cancer survivor. Lessons included are for the patient and the friend offering
assistance.

Lessons From A Bald Chick

Buy The Complete Version of This Book at
Booklocker.com:

http://www.booklocker.com/p/books/3889.html?s=pdf

LESSONS FROM A BALD
CHICK

Mary Beth Hall

Copyright © 2009 Mary Beth Hall

ISBN 978-1-60145-726-4

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
recording or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the author.

Printed in the United States of America.

BookLocker.com, Inc.
2009

Table of Contents

Normalcy Is Overrated ………………………………………………1
Stubborn Ox …………………………………………………………….7
Thursdays Cannot Be Trusted …………………………………..11
When In Doubt, Party………………………………………………15
Maturity Doesn’t Work ……………………………………………25
Dress Rehearsal ………………………………………………………29
Friends Come In All Sizes. Forgive Them If They Are

A Size 2. …………………………………………………………..33
Panic Attacks Do Not Help ………………………………………45
God Did Not Create The Scale. Another Male Did. ……55
A T-Shirt For A Cause …………………………………………….73
Hurry Up And Wait…………………………………………………79
Insurance, Anyone?…………………………………………………87
Breakfast Of Champions ………………………………………….91
Work, A Four-Letter Word ………………………………………95
Life Coach ……………………………………………………………..99
A Call To Action …………………………………………………..105

v

Normalcy is Overrated

I am a 46-year-old wife, mom, guidance counselor,
and Christian; not necessarily in that order. So far, I
have been in education 22 years as an elementary
teacher, middle school teacher, writing teacher, special
education teacher, reading specialist, university instructor,
and counselor. I have an undergraduate degree in special
education and regular education, a master’s degree in
administration, a master’s degree in counseling, and
certification for school principal. All of these degrees
mean one thing only; I am flat broke.

I am not normal.

When my kids burp at the dinner table I rate them
on a scale of one to ten and loudly chastise them if they
score anything below five. I’ve threatened them on
occasion for anything below a three. I try to keep other
bodily noises to a minimum (at least at the dinner table),
so I think I get points for that. I’ve taught my sons since
they were old enough to kick a ball that it doesn’t matter
if you win or lose, what matters is how your hair looks
while you are playing. I tell them every winter in all
sincerity not to eat yellow snow. I am convinced when
their friends come over they come to play with me and
seeing my boys is just an added benefit. I like to serve
meals as if I am the waitress and when I put the plate in
front of each person I love to say with life or death
severity, “Now, this plate is very hot. Be veeeerrrrrry

1

MARY BETH HALL

careful”. Sometimes I serve meals of only one color. I
love pajama parties. I believe pumpkin pie is a breakfast
food. Tipping the whipped cream canister completely
upside down and squirting as much as possible into each
other’s mouths and dousing the floor, cabinets,
refrigerator, and sometimes ceiling is huge fun in my
world. My boys get in big trouble when their father walks
in the kitchen and sees the mess. They innocently point
their fingers at me because yes, I started it. I am not right.
I admit that.

I am married to a prince. When he reprimands the
boys for slurping loudly from their cereal bowls and they
protest I taught them cereal tastes better this way, he
doesn’t chastise me (in front of them). When the boys and
I have pajama parties and the son in the top bunk sits up
in his sleep and gets whacked in the head by the ceiling
fan, resulting in a blood bath and an emergency room visit
at 4:00 a.m. and double-digit stitches, my prince just
shakes his head, mumbles to himself about not
understanding why we can’t sleep in our own beds like
normal people, and starts spending excessive amounts of
time by himself in the garage sitting in his boat. At these
times I try scaling back on my behaviors to get him out of
his boat, but so far I’m not having much luck. I saw him
moving his shaving gear and pillow in there the other day.

My husband treats me like a queen. On the next
April Fool’s Day we will be married 20 years. I am
acutely aware I do not deserve this man. He is a gift
straight from the hands of God. Why God was mad at him

2

LESSONS FROM A BALD CHICK

and sacked him with me I will never know. All I can do is
keep thanking God for him and pray this man never learns
what I am really like.

Curtis and I are complete opposites but we are
both in love with the same person; me. Oh yeah, and God.
We started our marriage on our wedding night praying
together in our hotel room. I told him once if either of us
ever stopped reading our Bibles we were doomed. He
responded with a look that summed it up in one word:
“Duh!” Our focus on God is what keeps us on track and
steady through the years. This involves knowing God
through having a relationship with Him. I’ve known God
since I was 25 years old, and I have learned He is a God
who keeps His promises. I’ve learned He has many facets
to His personality, and I plan to spend the rest of my life
learning about them. One of my favorites is His great
sense of humor.

I met my husband by teaching next door to him. I
thought Curtis was the nicest guy I had ever met. As we
got to know one another and share about our daily lives it
became apparent I did not approve of the girls he dated. In
my opinion, these ditzy girls didn’t deserve such a man of
deep quality. Although he didn’t ask for it, I told Curtis
my opinion often. I’m surprised the guy ever spoke to me
at all during that school year.

Since I had such strong opinions about this nice
guy, I began praying for him. In my deluded mind I
believed a nice and kind man deserved a sweet and gentle
woman. I asked God to send Curtis the sweetest, most

3

MARY BETH HALL

gentle, quiet, and meek woman He ever created. I kept
telling God Curtis deserved this type of person in his life.
I begged God on Curtis’ behalf during my morning
commutes to work. I specifically asked for this woman to
be madly in love with Curtis and treat him the special way
he deserved. This went on for many months.

When Curtis and I dated and later married, I
laughed at what God had done. Yes, He gave Curtis a
woman who loved him, but sweet, kind, meek, and gentle
have never been adjectives attached to me. Curtis got a
mouthy, opinionated, strong-willed, determined,
immature, impulsive bride. Poor guy! All those mornings
praying for Curtis’s wife probably had God laughing
because He knew who He had in mind for Curtis, and it
sure wasn’t the Southern belle I was asking for. Yes, God
has a sense of humor. A bit warped, in my opinion, but
still a good one.

Our courtship lasted one year. I became a
Christian three years before I met Curtis and after
spending seven years in a relationship that was a big fat
waste of time I asked God to pick out my husband for me.
I gave God my standard list of qualifications and asked
Him to get back to me when He was ready to fill my
prescription. I asked Him if it wasn’t too big of an
inconvenience could he sort of hurry up because I didn’t
feel like waiting long. I completely trusted God to take
care of this for me.

Curtis and I started dating completely without my
knowledge. We had a spaghetti dinner fundraiser at

4

LESSONS FROM A BALD CHICK

school and Curtis and I were delegated to purchase the
paper products one Saturday. He picked me up at my
apartment and we went shopping and then to lunch. I
didn’t know until much later that Curtis considered that
our first date. I don’t know what he considered the date I
had with someone else later that night.

I have spent the last 19 years realizing anew what
a gift from God this man is. God not only filled my order
completely, but He went above and beyond what I had
asked for and gave me a man with qualities that I didn’t
even know I needed or wanted in a mate. That is so like
God; to not only fill the cup, but make it run over. I am so
glad I had the good sense to ask God to pick out my
husband and then even better sense to wait until He did.

5

Stubborn Ox

T his husband I got from God is a frustrating,
irritating, and stubborn ox. When the yearly form
letter came reminding me to have my
mammogram Curtis immediately demanded to know
when I was going to have it done. I told him I would call
for the appointment soon. He proceeded to harass, annoy,
and badger me until I knew the only way to shut the guy
up was to make the appointment.

Like a good girl I had my yearly mammogram on
spring break. As an educator, I usually have my
mammograms during the summer when I have more
leisure time and my days are full of huge decisions such
as which side to turn onto while on the hammock, but I
was mad at God last summer because I was not getting
the job I wanted. Being the spiritually mature person that
I am I was too busy trying to force God’s hand (a
COMPLETE waste of time, do not try it) that I put off my
mammogram until I had another stretch of free time,
which was spring break.

Before spring break I noticed I was unusually tired
and not rested after naps. I have a black belt in napping,
so for my naps to backfire on me and leave me drained
caused me to think two things. One, that I was pregnant,
which would result in big fat YIPPEES from me and a not
so big fat yippee from Curtis who informed me years
before when I thought I wanted to have another baby that

7

MARY BETH HALL

I was too old. This resulted in my extremely quick-witted
(so quick it was almost genius. Sometimes I amaze
myself) comment that my boyfriend didn’t think so.
Hilarious, if you ask me. Immature, if you ask Curtis.

The other scenario I envisioned for my fatigue was
that I was dying from a terrible disease. This is exactly
what I told Curtis and others who were getting suspicious
and asking questions about my lethargy. My co-worker
started getting suspicious one day when I was at my
computer for an awfully long time without typing or
clicking the mouse. My back was to her and she thought I
was reading an extremely long message. It turned out I
was sound asleep in the middle of the day sitting upright
at my computer. I think I started getting suspicious then,
too. Usually when I sleep at work I curl up under my desk
where nobody can find me. Sleeping out in the open like
that was crossing even my boundary lines and was, well,
embarrassing.

Anyway, those were my two scenarios. I was
hoping for the former because I adore every single thing
about babies and motherhood (except potty training,
which really should have been taken care of by God
before He sent me the smelly little angels) and the latter,
which although I was saying I was dying from a terrible
disease I didn’t really believe it. That happened to other
people. This left me with just being tired.

So, I was tired. I would get over it. It was my
blood thinning out for the upcoming summer. In winter I
always used the excuse for a nap on the completely

8

LESSONS FROM A BALD CHICK

scientific fact made up by me that my blood was
thickening for the cold months ahead. Never mind that
during this time every show I watched seemed to have a
cancer victim, every book I picked up had a cancer topic,
and every conversation somehow included cancer. I could
not get away from cancer. I started having that “Uh Oh
Feeling” inside that God was trying to get my attention on
something that I was not interested in having my attention
gotten on, so like the mature and deeply spiritual person
that I am, I ignored it all as best I could.

When the woman who performed my
mammogram, whom I like to secretly call the Very-Evil-
Person-Who-Squashed-Me-Flatter-Than-God-Never-
Intended (okay, maybe I don’t secretly call her that,
maybe I actually screamed that at her while cradling my
limp flattened self) came back in the mammogram room
and said in her very evil voice,

“Ha ha ha, now we’ve got you, don’t think you
can run from us, Sucker!”

Or maybe she said,

“We need to take a few more pictures, you
weren’t quite on there all the way,” the “Uh Oh Feeling”
returned in full force, accompanied by its good friend, the
“Oh No Feeling”. I told myself to stop being silly. Tons
of women have to stay and have more fun having another
mammogram. It happens all the time. It means absolutely
nothing. The fact that God kept reminding me He was
there and would never leave me meant nothing”¦..really. I

9

MARY BETH HALL

happily went home to reinflate myself and play very hard
on spring break, which consisted of painting a different
room every day in our house (I know, I’m a party animal)
and ignore the fact that I am a horrible painter and create
bigger messes that take more time to clean up than to
actually paint the entire room.

LESSON: Denial works”¦”¦.”¦”¦ sort of.

10

Thursdays Cannot Be Trusted

M y mammogram was on Thursday. I painted my
son’s bedroom the following Monday. I’m a
really quick painter so it took me only nine
hours. I took a lunch break and watched ten minutes of
television during which the movie I landed on had a
breast cancer victim and the two commercials I saw in my
haste to change the channel were about cancer
medications. Enough TV, time to get back to destroying
my son’s room.

Sweetie came home from work, (he is a big
important superintendant of a school system) and
promptly declared that I made the usual big fat mess of
the room, and why didn’t I at least take off the light
switch covers instead of trying to paint around them? I
followed him around the house, pouting, sighing loudly,
and dragging my knuckles on the ground in defeat until he
finally assured me that the room was fine and he was glad
he does not go in there often. My feelings pacified, I then
went about welcoming home from school my two reasons
for existing; Alex, age 15 and Benjamin, age 13, and then
happily proceeded to burn dinner.

The next day I could not hold my head up and
spent the day on the couch reading. I was worn out from
all of that painting and really, thinking I would paint a
whole room a day was probably biting off more than I
could chew and I should change my goal to painting a
room, which I already did, which meant I could spend the

11

MARY BETH HALL

rest of the week on the couch reading because my blood
was still scientifically thinning, which is precisely what I
did.

The phone rang and I saw on caller ID it was the
hospital. I somehow knew before they even said it that I
was being cordially invited back for more fun and games
with the mammogram machine. This time they were
going to add an ultrasound to the party and to come in
three days. When the phone rang again and it was my
doctor’s office making sure I got the call from the
hospital, I assured myself this was efficient medicine at its
best and thanked them for calling.

When the phone rang a third time and it was the
mammogram center making sure I got the call to come
back I started thinking of filing harassment charges. What
was the big deal? Tons of women get called back daily,
the lady on the phone said so and even added that
statistically eight out of ten call backs (where am I
Hollywood? Not as much fun as I envisioned) were
perfectly fine. So there! I was going to be the eight out of
ten. God whispering to me, “I will never leave you nor
forsake you” was just His way of saying hi.

Being the good girl that I am, plus my stubborn
husband threatening me, I went back to the very nice and
homey and warm and comforting mammogram center at
the hospital. I was actually on time to show everyone that
I was not frightened; I was eight out of ten. I even
entertained the idea of doing a bit of shopping afterward
since I was a woman of leisure on spring break. It didn’t

12

LESSONS FROM A BALD CHICK

matter that I entertain the idea of shopping on a daily
basis. The crucial part was I knew I would have the
appropriate mind set and attitude for shopping after the
mammogram party.

It turned out I did not have the appropriate mind
set for shopping. I had the mind set of needing someone
to get me off the cliff I was mentally hurtling myself off
of. I realized too late that I needed Husband, whom I
ignorantly previously assured did not need to go with me.

The important medical people performed the
mammogram and the ultrasound, and the nice doctor lady
came in and told me they found something that needed a
biopsy (YIKES!) and blah, blah, blah”¦”¦ I heard nothing
the nice doctor lady was saying after that.

Lesson: Do not go to your second mammogram alone,
ever.

I suppose this is the time to share my mom died of
breast cancer at the age of 67 when I was too young to be
without a mother, which, in my opinion is any age. I
happened to be 36 years old at the time. I remembered her
biopsy experience as very traumatic for her, and so I
immediately retreated to my Happy Place in my mind
which consisted of considering what to burn for dinner
and wondering what time my Darlings would be home
from school.

I then thanked everyone for the lovely party and
insisted I really must go and proceeded to drive to my
husband’s school where I hoped he could put it all into

13

MARY BETH HALL

perfect perspective for me, or at the bare minimum take
over some of the hysteria for me. Somewhere amidst all
of the fun they gave me an appointment card with the
biopsy date.

This time I invited Hubby to the festivities. The
nurses, doctors, and radiologist who performed the
procedure were calm and orderly. I was an emotional
wreck. I knew. I knew the radiologist knew. I was sure the
doctor knew. The only thing the nurse knew was if they
didn’t hurry up and finish she would qualify for disability
because I was crushing her hand. When it was over I
crashed blindly through the hallways crying and
blubbering and heaving myself at Hubby who I hoped
would get me the heck out of there. As I threw myself out
the main door I heard the receptionist call out, “Have a
nice day!” Absolutely nothing made sense in this world
anymore.

My sweetie and I sat in the car until I was finished
secreting nasal mucous all over his suit and tie and then
he promptly did the one thing on earth that makes
everything better. He offered to take me out for breakfast.

LESSON: Do not go to these things alone. Someone is
sure to buy you a meal.

14

We all have been touched by cancer. This witty inspirational book gives life
lessons on how to get through the cancer experience from the perspective of a
cancer survivor. Lessons included are for the patient and the friend offering
assistance.

Lessons From A Bald Chick

Buy The Complete Version of This Book at
Booklocker.com:

http://www.booklocker.com/p/books/3889.html?s=pdf

Read more about LESSONS FROM A BALD CHICK and Mary Beth Hall HERE.

Copyright 2008 Mary Beth Hall. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

Introduction

The overall mortality rate from cancer hasn’t changed in 60 years despite the billions invested to find a cure. Combining their experience in family medicine and epidemiology with their passion for disease prevention, the authors provide the most up to date and effective advice for preventing cancer from developing in ourselves and our loved ones. Many “how to” examples for preventing cancer by being environmentally aware, avoiding infections, living the proper lifestyle and getting the proper nutrition are provided.

Chapter by chapter summaries and listings of the latest cancer prevention web sites are great references. Highlights of Chapter 8 include ways to get 5-9 servings of fruit & vegetables per day, when to purchase organically grown food and a carefully researched list of super-foods that have been shown to reduce the risk of cancer. Worksheets assist readers in implementing the advice in very tangible ways, and the recipe collection of cancer avoiding meals is a winner!

This book is designed to provide practical, and in many cases simple, ideas to decrease your risk of developing cancer.  Most of the recommendations are based on review of solid studies published in credible journals, presented in an empowering, easy-to-read and sometimes humorous fashion.

What Are We Doing To Prevent Cancer

Why, despite the billions of dollars spent on research to find a cure, have we failed to make a dent in the overall mortality from cancer for over sixty years? Although the age-adjusted death rate from 1950 until now has halved for heart disease and pneumonia and nearly quartered for strokes, it has not budged for cancer. The reason is not because we are living longer. This is what “age adjusted” means in this statement. It would be easy to cast the evil eye at tobacco, but smoking during this time in the U.S. decreased from nearly 50 percent of adults to less than 25 percent. The incidence of cancer has risen steadily; however, in 2006 in the United States, it appears the incidence may be declining slightly. Unfortunately, the same experts who celebrate this exceptionally modest decline are not hopeful it will continue as the baby boom generation hits peak cancer time. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), global cancer rates could increase by 50 percent to 1
5 million by 2020.

Despite this, the five year survival rate for cancers overall has not changed significantly since 1950. Only about 50 percent of people diagnosed with cancer live longer than five years.

So what are we doing wrong? Why has the mortality from heart disease dropped dramatically, while that from cancer has remained essentially unchanged?

We believe a significant factor is that our society is driven by money, and that far more money is allocated to treating rather than preventing cancer. There is great potential for financial gain in developing and marketing an effective chemotherapy agent. There is little financial incentive in preventing the tumor the drug would treat. There is clear financial incentive in treating animals and crops with hormones, pesticides and antibiotics in order to raise production and increase crop yield. There is little financial reward in evaluating what these substances do to our bodies once we ingest them.

What Causes Cancer

Tobacco – 25-40 percent – one third of all cancer deaths, almost 90 percent of deaths from lung cancer are due to smoking.

Diet And Obesity – 25-30 percent – obesity, or being overweight, alone accounts for 14 percent of cancer deaths in men and 20 percent of cancer deaths in women in the United States. According to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), as many as 375,000 cases of cancer could be prevented each year in the U.S. through healthy dietary choices. In a person of normal weight, dietary changes can also play a significant role in decreasing the risk of cancer and are discussed in detail in chapters Six and Eight.

Infection – 10-25 percent – it is estimated that around 10 percent of cancer deaths are related to infection, whereas infections cause 25 percent of cases worldwide. The leading culprits in the U.S. include human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), giving rise to multiple cancers, human papillomavirus (HPV); which causes cervical, anal, vaginal, penile, and oral cancers, hepatitis B; associated with liver cancer, hepatitis C; associated with liver cancer and lymphomas, and H. pylori; associated with stomach cancer.

Ionizing/UV Radiation – 2-7 percent. UV radiation causes 90 percent of skin cancers. Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer.

Occupational – 2-8 percent are due to exposure to occupational hazards, accounting for around 5 percent (6-10 percent in men and 1 percent in women) of cancer deaths, especially those involving cancers of the lung, bladder, and bone marrow.

Alcohol – 3 percent. Alcohol has been shown to have a causal link with the development of cancers of the breast, liver, mouth, esophagus, pharynx, larynx, colon, and rectum. Alcohol is currently felt to be responsible for 3.6 percent of all cancers; 5.2 percent of cancers in men, and 1.7 percent of cancers in women.

Pollution And Environmental Chemicals – less than 1 to 5 percent in the United States, chemicals and pollutants account for roughly 1 to 5 percent of cancers. In other regions of the world, for example Chernobyl, Ukraine, pollution accounts for a much higher percentage of cancer.

Copyright 2008 Lynne Eldridge and David Borgeson. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt:
Maintaining Your Health and Vitality: A Health Guide for Seniors and Their Families

Chapter 14

THE PRESSURE COOKER: HOW TO HANDLE STRESS

Information in this chapter includes:

• The difference between short-term and long-term (chronic) stress
• Health problems associated with chronic stress
• Signs of stress
• Appropriate and inappropriate ways of coping with stress
• Positive ways of handling stress
• Glossary of selected terms
• Additional sources of information about stress and how to handle it

Stress is often thought of in negative terms. That is, most people think that stress in one’s life is bad and that it causes or is related to all kinds of health problems, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer, stomach ulcers, Alzheimer’s disease, skin disorders, hormone disorders, and arthritis related diseases. These problems can certainly occur when stress becomes overbearing and uncontrolled, but not all stress is “bad.” Some stress is actually beneficial and can help us to handle tough situations. It can help us focus on a task. It makes us more alert and gives us strength and stamina that helps us to carry out a number of tasks.

DIFFERENT KINDS OF STRESS

There are all kinds of circumstances or situations that can be stressful. Some, like a physical threat, giving a presentation, participating in a competitive activity or taking a driver’s license examination, are temporary and don’t go on and on. Others, such as worries about money, continuing health problems, going through a divorce, losing a loved one, losing your job or possibly losing your home, will have more long-lasting effects.

When we are under any kind of stress, short-term or long-term, we go through a stress syndrome. Adrenalin is secreted into our bodies and causes a number of physiological changes. Our breathing and heart rate increases; the blood vessels in the digestive system constrict (get narrower), reducing the amount of blood to the digestive organs and sometimes causing the feeling of “butterflies” in the stomach; blood vessels in our large muscle groups dilate (get wider) increasing the flow of blood to these muscles; our eyes dilate so that we can see better; some of the glucose that is stored in the liver is released to increase the body’s energy; and sweat is produced to cool the body, sometimes causing the palms to become moist and clammy. These changes are often referred to as the “fight or flight syndrome.” They enable us to function better during stressful situations.

Stress can lead to serious health problems, however, when we do not know how to minimize or manage continuing or chronic stress situations. Long-term stress situations can produce a continuing low-level stress syndrome that can cause our bodies to continue to pump out stress hormones, such as cortisol and adrenalin, over a longer period of time. When this happens, the physiological effects continue and may very well lead to conditions such as high blood pressure, heart disease, and stomach ulcers (Wein, 2000). See also (How does stress affect us? 2004).

SIGNS OF STRESS

Recognizing the signs of stress is an important first step in finding positive ways of keeping stress from becoming a problem.

Initially, a person under stress might feel anxious or nervous and excessively worry. It is not uncommon for a person at this level to be easily distracted and tense with a feeling of pressure building up inside.

As stress continues, these emotional feelings might intensify, with the person turning being more concerned or preoccupied with one’s self and does not want to be around others.

If the stress level lasts over a longer period of time, or intensifies, more serious emotional or physical effects can result. Symptoms can include: (Stress, 2007, May). See also (The Different kinds of stress, 2004) and (Families taking charge: Controlling stress, 2007).

Extreme fatigueFeeling depressed and having prolonged feelings of sadness or worthlessnessChest pain or pressure in the chest

Rapid or irregular pulse (heart rate)

Hyperventilation causing dizziness or light-headedness and flushing

Insomnia (difficulty sleeping)

Loss of appetite

Panic attacks

Muscle tenseness and soreness

Frequent headaches

Gastrointestinal problems, including stomach pains, discomfort, nausea and vomiting, and continuing bouts of diarrhea

While the above symptoms are signs of increased stress, they can also be signs of other serious disorders. If you experience any of these symptoms or they continue, or if they come and go, you should check with your doctor to try to identify the actual cause.

APPROPRIATE AND INAPPROPRIATE WAYS OF HANDLING STRESS

Some people try to cope with continuing stress in inappropriate ways. They may turn to drugs as an escape or alcohol to “calm their nerves.” Some may over eat or start smoking. Using these kinds of coping mechanisms often leads to additional problems rather than taking care of the stress. Using drugs or alcohol as an escape can lead to drug or alcohol dependency and a host of associated health problems that can even cause more stress. And overeating, if it continues, will eventually cause a person to be overweight, which in itself can lead to additional stress and additional health problems associated with obesity, such as heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes (Handling stress without smoking, 2004). See also (Alcohol and stress, 1996).

Positive Ways of Handling Stress

There are, however, some very positive ways of dealing with stress so that it does not become a chronic condition.

Various institutions have suggested ways that one can control or reduce tensions that are brought about by stressful situations. The National Institutes of Health has suggested the following individual stress management guidelines (Stress management, 2006). See also (Stress: How to cope better with life’s challenges, December, 2006).

Starting Points:

Positive thinkingMake an effort to stop negative thoughtsPlan some fun. Take a break

Physical activity:

Start an individualized program of physical activityMost experts recommend doing twenty minutes of aerobic activity three times per week (see also Chapter 4 for physical exercise guidelines)Dedicate a specific time, type, frequency, and level of physical activity as a part of your daily routine

Find someone with whom you can exercise – this can help make exercise more enjoyable and encourage you to stick with your exercise routine

Your exercise routine does not necessarily have to be in a gym – it can be done in your home or in your community

Even a twenty-minute brisk walk three times a week will be helpful

Nutrition

Plan to eat a well balanced diet to improve your general health and well-being (See Chapter 2 for nutrition guidelines)Not eating the proper nutrients or not eating enough can result in physical stress, making it more difficult to deal with emotional stressUse the U. S. Food and Drug Administration’s Food Guide Pyramid to help make health food choices (Information about the Food Guide is located in Chapter 2)

Eat meals at regular times

A snack between meals is also OK, but don’t get into the habit of eating something whenever you feel stressed – this will not eliminate stressful situations

Social support

Reach out to individuals and make an effort to interact socially with people when you feel stressed – meeting with friends can help you get your mind off of thingsTalk with friends or members of your family about things that bother you – this can help to reduce your stress and make stressful situations easier to deal withNurture yourself and others – being helpful and caring for others can help reduce feelings of stress

Relaxation

Learn about and try using one or more of the many relaxation techniques, such as guided imagery, listening to music, or practicing yoga or meditationTake time for personal interests and hobbies, which can be great outlets for stress and relaxing your mindListen to your body when things start to get hectic – it will give you warning signs and will tell you to slow down

Take a mini retreat – just getting away from your daily routine can be very helpful

If these stress management techniques do not work for you, don’t give up. You may want to seek help from professionals, such as licensed social workers, psychologist, or psychiatrists who can help you with these or other stress management strategies or relaxation techniques. The important thing to remember is that you can manage stress.

Glossary of Selected Terms

Adrenalin/epinephrine): A hormone produced by the adrenal gland that causes a number of body function changes such as increasing the heart, dilating pupils, constricting some blood vessels and dilating others, and opening the bronchioles in the lungs.

Anxiety: A feeling of fear or apprehension that is characterized by physical symptoms such as increased heartbeat, sweating, and feelings of stress.

Chronic stress: Continuing or long-term stress resulting in continued physiological changes that can lead to serious health problems, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, and stomach ulcers.

Cortisol: A hormone produced in the adrenal gland that is involved in the response to stress by increasing blood pressure and blood sugar levels.

Guided imagery: A relaxation technique used to easing stress by promoting a sense of peace and tranquility during a stressful time in a person’s life.

Meditation: A state of concentrated attention on some object of thought or awareness. It usually involves turning the attention inward to the mind, away from the external environment.

Psychiatrist: A physician (M.D.) who specializes in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of mental illness.

Psychologist: A professional who specializes in the diagnoses and treatment of diseases of the brain, emotional disturbance, and behavior problems. Psychologists can only use talk therapy as treatment.

Relaxation techniques: Techniques often used to help cope with stress. They generally involve refocusing one’s attention to something calming and increasing awareness of the body.

Short-term stress: Stress caused by temporary situations such as taking an examination, giving a presentation, or participating in a competitive activity.

Stress hormones: Hormones, such as adrenaline and cortisol, that bring about physiological changes during stress, such as heart rate increases, constriction of the blood vessels in the digestive system and dilation of blood vessels in our large muscle groups, pupil dilation, and release of some glucose that is stored in the liver.

References

Alcohol and stress. (1996). National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Retrieved from: http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/aa32.htm.

Davis, M., et al. (2000). The relaxation & stress reduction workbook. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications.

The Different kinds of stress. (2004). American Psychological Association. Retrieved from: http://www.apahelpcenter.org/articles/article.php?id=21.

Families taking charge: Controlling stress. (2007, March). National Agriculture Safety Database. Retrieved from: http://www.cdc.gov/nasd/docs/d001201-d001300/d001265/d001265.html.

Handling stress without smoking. (2004, November). National Cancer Institute. Retrieved from: http://www.cancer.gov/templates/doc.aspx?viewid=A4C99D4E-FB79-49C2-967B-636B88E0ED7C.

How does stress affect your body? (2004). American Psychological Association. Retrieved from: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/tools/contactus.cfm.

Stress. (2007, May). Medline Plus. Retrieved from: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/stress.html.

Stress: How to cope better with life’s challenges. (2006, December). FamilyDoctor.Org. Retrieved from: http://familydoctor.org/167.xml.

Stress management. (2006, May). MedlinePlus, National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health. Retrieved from: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001942.htm.

Tips for coping with stress. (2006, June). Mayo Clinic. Retrieved from: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/coping-with-stress/SR00030.

Wein, H. (ed). (2000, October). Stress and disease: New perspectives. National Institutes of Health. Retrieved from: http://www.nih.gov/news/WordonHealth/oct2000/story01.htm.

Sources of Additional Information

Consumer Health Protection Association
900 19th St. NW, Suite 700
Washington, D.C. 20006
Phone: 202-429-9260
Website: http://199.73.36.150/ChpaPortal/council_on_family_health.htm

American Psychological Association
750 First Street, NE,
Washington, DC 20002-4242
Phone: 800 374-2721 or (202) 336-5500
Website: http://www.apahelpcenter.org/articles/article.php?id=21

National Institutes of Health
9000 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, Maryland 20892
Phone: 301-496-4000
Website: http://www.nih.gov/

National Institute of Mental Health
Public Information Branch
6001 Executive Blvd, Rm. 8184, MSC 9663
Bethesda, Maryland 20892-9663
Phone: 866-615-6464
Website: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/tools/contactus.cfm

National Institute on Aging
Office of Communication and Public Liaison
Bethesda, Maryland 20892-2292
Phone: 800-222-2225
Website: http://www.niapublications.org

National Library of Medicine
8600 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, MD 20894
Phone: 888-346-3656
Website: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/

Copyright 2008 John Fodor. All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt
CHAPTER 12: REGIMEN THAT MAKES THE WHEELS GO AROUND

I started the irrigation at 4:30 a.m. every third morning, 72 hours apart. I have learned that the body and the colon can be trained. The body to wake up at a certain time without a clock, and the colon only to function when water is inserted on a regular interval on the body’s request, (I actually wanted to be up by that time regardless), then the irrigation is a part of my life that makes the wheels go around and not something I have to get up and do on a different schedule.
Now I have a quality life. I enjoy going to bed early and rising early. I have a desire to do the irrigation every third morning starting at 4:30 a.m. During the first year of this regimen, I started downsizing for comfort and discovered that a one-inch napkin pad held on with a 2”X2” long strip of microspore paper tape fit the comfort zone perfectly. I have a system based on time and as long as I don’t deviate I can control my colon.
To prove a point, I have a method I use to be on a four day, 96 hour regimen. I use this method for vacation and holiday planning. I use this system a lot. I have a method I use to be on a five day, 120 hour regimen. I use this method for vacations only. This one takes a one-month training cycle and will work for two irrigation periods, and then I revert back to the three or four day cycle.
Over the years, I developed a plan for myself that enabled me to start with a one-day irrigation and to progress, through practice and determination, to a five-day irrigation plan.
MY APPROACH TO LIFE WITH A COLOSTOMY
For approximately four years I have not purchased any ostomy supplies for daily use, only for stand-by use. I purchase a 2-inch wide large roll of microspore paper tape once every four months and use paper towels to make the patch. By using this method I spend less than one dollar a month for supplies. I feel sure that there are many people who could take this approach and live as I do.
I am pouch free. I wear a small patch every day. Though the actual colostomy never leaves my mind, I hardly know the patch is on my side. I have no discomfort at all. I can eat anything I want but I am very selective at certain times in the irrigation cycle.
I would like to give you a breakdown for the months of June, July, August, September and eight days into October, 1998. What I am writing about now has happened in the last few months. I hope this short overview of my life with a colostomy will be meaningful to the public and maybe to the whole world.

Read more about THE COLOSTOMY: A LIFESAVER and Donald Biggers HERE.

Copyright 2008 Donald Biggers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

INTRODUCTION

“It’s not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years.” -Abraham Lincoln
As we reach our senior years, all of us want to lead a life that is as productive and enjoyable as possible. This book provides you with health information and practices that will help you to do just that. Each chapter provides you with suggested guidelines for maintaining your health and vitality and improving the quality of your life. These guidelines have been gleaned from a variety of reliable health resources, such as the National Institutes of Health, The Center for Disease Control and Prevention, The Department of Agriculture, The Food and Drug Administration, The World Health Association, The Library of Congress, and National and State Departments of Public Health, with supportive references from selected schools of medicine, medical journals and other learned publications, and voluntary health organizations. At the end of each chapter is a glossary of selected terms along with references and sources of additional information.

The book contains a wide range of topics that have been selected on the bases of responses to a health interest inventory (see Appendix B) distributed to over 100 people 50 years of age and older, personal interviews with selected health professionals as well as with seniors and their families, and national statistics on causes of death (mortality rates) and incidence of diseases and disorders (morbidity rates) among adults 50 years of age and older. Pertinent health information and practices in the book include:

Facts and fallacies about substances that are claimed to be able to extend life

Essentials of well-balanced, cooking techniques to preserve nutrients, and how to prepare food safely

Why maintaining a healthy weight is important and how to prevent overweight and obesity

Developing and implementing a complete exercise program for seniors

What you can do to protect your eyes and what can be done for common eye problems and more serious eye diseases and disorders.

Taking care of your skin and avoiding disorders associated with overexposure to the sun

Why getting a good night’s sleep is important and how to prevent or control sleep disorders

What you can do to reduce the threat of high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke

How you can prevent, control and help reduce the effects of arthritis

Reducing the threat of Osteoporosis and other bone diseases

How you can reduce the threat of diabetes and diabetes warning signs.

The difference between simple memory loss and Alzheimer’s disease, warning signs of Alzheimer’s disease, and what can be done for those with Alzheimer’s disease

What you can do to prevent or control the Flu bug and other communicable diseases

Differentiating between “good stress” and “bad stress,” signs of stress and positive ways of handling stress

How to use and store medicines wisely, and things you can do to make medicines safer and more effective

Health resources available for seniors and their families – resources available on the Internet, at clinic and hospital health resource centers, and at national organizations.

Each chapter in this book contains specific guidelines, or specific steps you can take, for developing and maintaining your health and vitality. For quick reference, the guidelines for each chapter are summarized in Appendix A.

It is important to note that the information provided in this book is not intended as a substitute for consultation with a health care professional. Nor is any part of this book intended to be a specific prescription, diagnosis or treatment for specific health problems. Indeed, to help maintain your health and vitality, you should establish a relationship with health care providers and consult with them before making any diagnostic treatment or other health care decisions. Become a participating partner of your health care team.

Read more about Maintaining Your Health and Vitality and John T. Fodor HERE.

Copyright 2008 John T. Fodor. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Rich in resources for healing. Cutting-edge information and great prose.

Excerpt

Introduction

t was 5765/2005, a week before the Passover holiday I was busy installing a new kitchen. While I attended the mundane my dear friend Yocheved Golani, whom I would actually meet a year later, developed a sudden case of blindness.

Alone in Hadassah Ein Kerem’s emergency room, Yocheved discovered a terrible reality that would dictate the course of the next few years of her life. She had a brain tumor growing on top of the section in the brain that controls breathing and heartbeat. What’s more the tumor nestled in a bed of nerves that control movement to the right side of the body, facial sensation, hearing, neck movement and vision.

Yocheved was at risk for permanent deafness, blindness, paralysis, and dying a slow painful death of asphyxiation that could not be stopped by medical professionals. She had little time left for successful rescue efforts.

It was not the worst news that Yocheved learned that day.

The part that nearly devastated her was finding out that the tumor had been identified eighteen months earlier, but never revealed to her. She had lost a critical window of opportunity to remove the tumor safely and completely with user-friendly Gamma Knife Radiation when the tumor had been quite small and relatively harmless. It would have involved one doctor appointment as an outpatient in the hospital. It would have cured her in an hour. At this point in time, it was too late to use Gamma Knife successfully. Yocheved needed surgical removal of the tumor.

Two prominent neurosurgeons refused to operate on Yocheved at this late date for fear that they would kill her by merely trying to remove the now enlarged growth. A miraculous event led Yocheved to the surgeon who agreed to try to save both her life and its quality. But, he cautioned, substantial risks would present themselves throughout the effort to save her. The doctor offered no guarantees, only his world-famous surgical skill and his experienced hands. Yocheved decided to take the chance. “GOD commands us to choose life. I refused to turn away the one opportunity I had for saving my life. I gave the doctor and myself the possibility to succeed. I agreed to let him operate on me.”

Yocheved resolved to live past this crisis, and she did. Beating the odds for survival over the tumor that was slowly killing her, and the odds regarding devastating potential consequences from the dangerous surgery awaiting her, Yocheved clung to core beliefs.

She also developed some new emotional and spiritual muscles in order to remain alive and to recover from the effects of her medical condition. “I also needed to put everyone around me at ease so that we could work as a team to make me well,” Yocheved explains.

This workbook is designed to help you to cope with a medical challenge, perhaps a medical crisis. It is based on actions that Yocheved took, ideas she embraced, and emotions that saved her life. They were her coping mechanisms and perhaps they will help you, too.

You can adapt Yocheved’s coping mechanisms to your life so that you too can face a medical crisis with dignity, skills that can improve your mental and physical health, and as much healing as HaShem (GOD) will bring to you.

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sincerely,

Andrea Kornfeld
Certified CranioSacral Therapist

Read more about It’s MY Crisis! and Yocheved Golani HERE.

Copyright 2008 Yocheved Golani. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

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