Can Food Help Us Cope With Grief?
This article on the BBC web site, asks the question, posed in the title of this post.
Cooking and food has certainly helped me, in that when my late wife died, it was either learn to cook, eat out every night or starve.
So as I already had the basic skills from my mother’s training, I chose the first and now find that I can cook pretty well. Or at least those who have eaten one of my meals, haven’t complained! Or gone to A & E!
The article also has some links to some nice meals, I might try, like this cottage pie.
Sequins On My Balcony
I went to see this entertainment at the Rosemary Branch last night.
To say it was uplifting would be an understatement, but to anybody who’s been affected by breast cancer either personally or through a family member or friend’s suffering, Yvette Cowles got it absolutely right in my view. I have never had any cancer, that I know of, but what Yvette said about fighting breast cancer, could have applied so much to C and her successful fight against her lump.
Nothing though, helped in C’s unsuccessful fight against the cancer that killed her.
Why Was This Idiot Allowed To Drive?
When I had my stroke, I was not allowed to drive until I’d proved I was safe. As my eyesight never returned to 20/20, I decided that it was probably best to give up trying to drive again. I suspect now, that I might be able to drive without any problems, but I couldn’t live with perhaps knocking someone over, even if it was impossible for it to have been my fault.
On the other hand, the idiot driver of the van shown in this report from the BBC, was a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, who went on to kill a young mother and injure thirteen others. In other words he was a worse killer than the two who are accused of murdering Lee Rigby.
What doctor allowed him to drive after the diagnosis? He should be struck off at the least.
Advice For Expectant Mothers
There is a widely trailed story today about what expectant mothers should avoid. It’s here on the BBC. This is the main advice.
- Use fresh organic food rather than processed
- Avoid food and drink in cans and plastic containers
- Minimise use of moisturisers, cosmetics, shower gel and fragrances
- Avoid buying new furniture, fabrics, non-stick frying pans and cars when pregnant or nursing
When C was pregnant with our first child, she was a student in her last year at Liverpool University. She actually did her exams at nearly seven months pregnant. She got a II-2, so she couldn’t have done badly.
She didn’t purposedly avoid any chemicals, but as the nice flat we lived in didn’t have a shower, she did at least avoid shower gel, which is on the list of products to avoid. As to the last point, we couldn’t afford new furniture or cars. our frying pan had been borrowed from her mother and was a well-used steel one, complete with a bit of added rust. Did it put iron into the food?
Neither of us smoked, although throughout her pregnancy, she had to endure the Capstan Full Strength cigarettes of her tutor; Robert Kilroy Silk.
But advice was different in those days. We went to stay with a family in Hingham in Norfolk, where C had been a mother’s help during University holidays. The mother, who incidentally was the daughter of a doctor, asked if she’d like a brandy before going to bed, as it would make the baby sleep better. She declined, but only because she was pretty abstemious with alcohol.
We also moved south just a week or so before the expected birth date and then in London, she didn’t have a hospital. I told that story in a post called Waiting for Apollo 11. Theses are the links to Part 2 and Part 3 of the story. We didn’t do boring, even in 1969.
We all survived and the only question, that sometimes comes to mind, is was the cancer that killed her caused by all of those smoky tutorials forty years before she died?
I do know that if she was here today, she’d be laughing like a drain!
The Sun And INR
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been testing my INR daily. These are the early results taken daily on my Coagucheck.
Tuesday, June 4th – 3.0
Monday, June 3rd – 2.9
Sunday, June 2nd – 2.8
Saturday, June 1st – 3.0
Friday, May 31st – 2.9
Thursday, May 30th – 2.3
Wednesday, May 29th – 2.7
Tuesday, May 28th – 2.5
Monday, May 27th – 2.4
Sunday, May 26th – 2.2
Saturday, May 25th – 2.2
Thursday, May 23rd – 2.4
Wednesday, May 22nd – 2.2
Tuesday, May 21st – 2.2
Monday, May 20th – 2.1
Sunday, May 19th – 2.5
Saturday, May 18th – 2.3
I’m not having any medical problems, but to a certain extent I’m scientifically curious, and feel that the INR swings up and down a bit. As I’m paying for the strips, no-one can say, I’m wasting NHS money. A cardiologist once said to me, that if I got my INR right, I wouldn’t have another stroke.
I have to keep my INR between 2 and 3, with a target value of 2.5. As I’m a trained Control Engineer, I’m using a simple algorithm to make sure I’m in range and to try and nudge the INR to 2.5.
What is interesting, is that when this sunny spell of weather started on the 31st May, the INR has increased and despite reducing the dose to a sensible minimum of 3 mg., it remains at the high end of the target range.
Obviously, a few days don’t prove it conclusively, but there are other reports on the Internet of the sun affecting the INR. There a thread here.
Note that I now keep the results in a single post here and also with other data like the weather and how I feel in an Excel spreadsheet.
Angelina Jolie’s Example
I’ve never had breast cancer, but my late wife, C did, in her late fifties. She caught the cancer early and luckily only had a lump and lymph nodes removed, followed by a course of radiotherapy. She made a complete recovery and the cancer never returned. Sadly she died of a totally unrelated cancer a few years later.
I think Angelina Jolie’s upfront approach to her double mastectomy is to be praised. It’s reported here on the BBC. I know that Angelina has a lot more money than all of us and probably had the best surgeon, that money could buy, and C had a surgeon, who works extensively in the NHS, although she went privately. But her outcome was good and provided she was careful about what she wore, no-one knew that she’d had an operation. She was still able to wear a bikini, as I reported here. She also had to be reasonably careful about the bra she wore.
One thing that worried her, was that from professional experience, breast cancer operations, were quite a large cause of divorce, and I think she worried about my attitude to her body, after the operation. So I would also praise Brad Pitt for his support of his wife. Too often, in C’s experience, men often went looking for a perfect model.
I think my advice to anybody going through cancer or any other serious medical treatment, is to make sure you get a doctor, who you can trust and get yourself as fit as you can both before and after the treatment. And don’t rush things! Even with my stroke, the best advice I had was from a man, I bumped into on a train. He turned out to be a retired professor of medicine, who’d worked a lot with stroke patients. He said that time will be the biggest healer. I think now, three years later that has been very true.
I also wonder if those going through serious operations, in a stable relationship have a better chance of recovery.
A Day Not To Be Alone
I’m not moaning, but I don’t think today, is going to be a good day.
I quite like my own company, but on a day like this when it’s only 16°C, overcast and the sun is on strike, there isn’t much to do. You can only go round your favourite museums and galleries so many times and it’s not the day to explore parts of London, I don’t know well at all.
My son and his partner are both working and where my three grandchildren I never see are, I know not. Two I’ve never seen and I’ve not really seen the only granddaughter since the death of my son.
There isn’t even any decent football or cricket on the television. Although after cricket yesterday, I would probably give that a miss if it were on. I won’t be watching the Derby on the television, as it’s on Channel 4 and I don’t do adverts. I’ll probably go down the betting shop at the corner to watch the race, if I’m at home.
I’ve even done all my household chores, washed my smalls, tested my INR and had my weekly bath. The last is actually a lie, as I do bath more frequently than that!
We’ve also had a run of distinctly poor films over the last few weeks, so going to the cinema is probably not an option.
I’ve a choice of things to do for the rest of the day.
I can go and have lunch in Carluccio’s at the Angel and do a bit of food shopping for tomorrow. But I was there last night with a friend.
I will have to go and get a few things at the shops anyway. The most pressing is probably two boxes of man-sized tissues for my permanently running nose. At least, I’m probably down to a box a week now!
At least this evening, I can watch a program on BBC3 called England’s Worst Football Team. Now there’s a program for the lonely and miserable if ever there was one.
I could really put the cap on the weather, by giving up on one of my principles. I’ve never had a raincoat since I was about twenty or so. As I can afford it, I should perhaps go and buy one that I could wear over my favourite jacket. I can at least afford the best!
I think, it’s probably a good idea to do some cooking. I need to make a pie on the one to eat and one for the freezer basis. My only problem is to decide on the flavour to make. Should it be fish, fish, shepherd’s or sausage? Or perhaps a new variety!
Don’t Have Your Operation On A Friday
This report on the BBC, about research by Paul Aylin at Imperial College, says that you are more likely to die, if you have your operation towards the end of the week.
Some years ago, my software Daisy, was used to examine the outcomes of surgery in a Regional Health Authority. They found, that the longer a patient was in hospital, the more likely there would be complications.
This data needs a lot more analysis.
Closing A Hospital Is A Hanging Offence
We have an awful lot of bad NHS hospitals in this country. My son was in one in Manchester that was terrible and should have been closed years ago. I also grew up in Southgate, where there was a ring of bad hospitals and from reports recently, one is not much better, fifty years later. But protestors still fight to keep it open.
Now we have the story of Julie Bailey and the backlash against her campaign against malpractice at Stafford Hospital. It looks like her cafe business is now going bust and I suspect lots of people will be pleased, when she leaves town.
For many years, I lived in the Suffolk countryside, miles from any hospital. But on the whole healthcare was good, as we were always taken to Addenbrookes at Cambridge, which is a large well-equipped hospital supported by a very good ambulance service.
There was a tremendous fuss, when Newmarket Hospital was downgraded, but a few years later, no-one felt the system was worse, than when it was a General Hospital.
Healthcare is moving on and more and more things are being done in the community, by GPs and even like in my INR testing, by patients themselves.
but those evil people in Stafford don’t seem to have seen this reality, hence the title of this post.
Interestingly, at Stafford in an unrelated piece in the Sunday Times, it is stated that recent data shows that those choosing Stafford Hospital has dropped by two-thirds.
A Three Hour Eye Test
Yesterday, I went to Moorfields Eye Hospital for an eye test.
Not your average eye test, but one that was part of a study to test new diagnosis methods, rather more than my eyes. The eyes incidentally, seemed to be much the same as ever.
What I found interesting was how far the new equipment is moving down a patient-friendly route and the more things they could tell you.
As an example, with my eyes, I hate the standard ‘puff of air’ test, that checks the fluid pressure inside your eye. If you want to read more on what is called ocular tonometry, it’s here on Wikipedia. I had a test from a new instrument, that was much kinder to my sensitive eyes. So that one instrument, seems a big improvement.
I also had a visual field test on the state of the art perimeter. There’s more on perimetry here. This was to compare with the results found on some of the new methods they tried in another test.
I had the same test in Cambridge in 2010, soon after I had the stroke. Unfortunately, they didn’t send me the results. Surely, it’s about time, that we all had an NHS account, where we could access all of our notes, X-rays and tests. I shall be trying to get those field vision results from Addenbrooke’s, as it would be nice to know, if my eyes have got worse.
Even a chain of opticians like Vision Express can’t access results of tests performed in one shop from another. That is apparently down to the Data protection Act. How stupid is that?
This is the second University research project, in which I’ve collaborated. The other was respect to widowhood at Liverpool University.
I would like to get involved in more, as research is something, I feel will be the saviour of this world.
Perhaps we need a web site, where people could register, to say they would be prepared to take part in research, that universities could tap into for volunteers.
Both the research projects I’ve been involved in, have been non-invasive and the worst danger I’ve faced is probably crossing the road to get to Moorfields. I suspect too, that much of the medical research in the next few years, will be of this non-invasive nature. I recently had a request from Liverpool University, looking for gay men, who had suffered bereavement, for a study. This is the sort of project for which a national database of possible participants would be a great help.
It was interesting to see how yesterday, one instrument was virtually a laptop in a frame. The boundaries between specialist professions like doctors, vets and dentists, and those like engineers and computer scientists, are getting very porous.
The Anonymous Widower 