Take Your Hands Off MY Cadbury Chocolate Now !

Stand back. Really. I want my Cadbury chocolate imported from England, the original kind, with milk as the first ingredient not some knock off American kind where the first ingredient listed is sugar.

Maybe it was just a dream. A nightmare that I conjured up during a sweaty night’s sleep because that would be okay, in fact, I would prefer that.  Because I thought I heard people talking about Hershey’s chocolate company,  NOT ALLOWING CADBURY chocolate, from England to cross the waters and enter the United States as it has done for many years. Tell me you are kidding me, Please.

Why would you do that. That’s not very good for international relations and I believe we need all the help we can get now. Please consider this because Cadbury in my family and many other families I know, reigns supreme and Easter is approaching quickly. Do you not hear the urgency in my voice when I say “Cadbury Eggs?”

Or those little bite size crunchy kernels of sugar-coated little nuggets which I buy for my children (okay and for myself) every single year?

Hey Hershey’s, what’s up? Are you trying to alienate the world? I, personally will boycott Hershey’s Chocolate if i have to give up on Cadbury chocolate which, I’m sorry, is a superior brand. Face it, it is.

Luckily, my son has friends in the right places, so he will help me collect Cadbury bars and see if we can have at least a tiny supply to ward off our anxiety and sweeten our already disappointed dispositions.

Do NOT toy with our emotional feelings about CHOCOLATE, don’t even think about it.

View image | gettyimages.com

Let’s see, on one hand you see the colorful, lively representation of Cadbury chocolate, rich, smooth, appealing, milky sweetness. Next, compare it to the American version, whose first ingredient is sugar, not milk, wrapped in a dark, brown wrapper. You choose…

I dare say, President Obama, that during your last days as  Office of the President of the United States, please do something meaningful for our people. Do not deny them the wonderful, silky flavor of a chocolate made from a different country. We need all the help we can get. It’s called diplomacy.

“We the people…beg…to have Cadbury chocolate…without interruption… in our lives, mouths, stomachs….before this Easter. May God Bless.”

Thank you so much for listening. A letter, reassuring me, would be greatly appreciated. A few coupons would be delightful too. God Bless Our Nation, Their Nation too.

 

Looking For Dr. Lisa Sanders, Dr. House, The Mayo Clinic?

Dear Dr. Lisa Sanders, Dr. House, New York Times, The Mayo Clinic or any doctor, active or retired that wants to save a life and help a really nice, frustrated, sick woman.  If you are looking for just the money, trust me, you are not the doctor, if you are looking to make someone who is desperate, happier, even if there is no answer, you’re my person. My medical person.  (if you watch Gray’s Anatomy you would understand this, if not ask someone who does.)

I am desperately seeking a miracle, yes, a doctor or a team of doctors who will put all my different symptoms together (for the last eight years) and try, just try, to figure out the root cause. Believe, I have an idea but not the credentials. I don’t have the knowledge or the education, just an inner voice. That leaves me with nothing. If there is nothing that comes out of it, I UNDERSTAND but I will know, someone really tried.

I have an internist who gives me 7-8 minutes and two specialists who are absolutely amazing but they send me to different specialists and it is too much for me to handle and take in. You understand, right?

The Mayo Clinic in Rochester. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know the Mayo Clinic would take me! I have about six doctors who would gratefully write a letter to get me inside the Mayo Clinic and off their backs. Do they have the equivalent of financial aid?  I probably would be the most interesting and mystifying patient they have seen in a long time. Trust me, I’m not bragging. Living in my body and brain is pure hell.

#148606810 / gettyimages.com

 

I asked, okay, begged, two of my nicest specialists today, my cardiologist and my nephrologist if they could assign me to a medical student to take on my case, you know the way they charmingly do in Gray’s Anatomy. They both shook their head within a second and laughed. Sure, they would like to help but they can’t. Of course if I had A LOT of money (which I don’t at all) I could hire a private concierge doctor and maybe that would help me, yet break us financially and there’s no guarantee. Honestly, I never heard the word “concierge doctor” in my life. As for random medical students to assign them to my case alone, they laughed out loud. Gray’s Anatomy is truly a fictional fantasy. I want to be someone’s person. (Ask a friend.)

#470208589 / gettyimages.com

 

I’ve thought of the Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins and I need to do more research on that this week. At today’s nephrologist’s appointment he literally ( a 58-year-old) referred me to a pediatrician. Yes, it is not a typo. Supposedly, there a doctor who specializes in low blood pressure and syncope who sees children and on occasion, if begged, a woman of thirty, helps. My doctor is going to talk to him and plead with him to see me. P.S. he said no  but referred me to a pediatric neurologist,  (what?)

DO YOU SEE WHY I NEED HELP?

He also suggested a fat biopsy. A FAT BIOPSY? What on earth is that? I googled it and it really made no sense to me plus it’s always a bad idea when I research something, a very bad idea. He also recommended Hormone Replacement Therapy. My jaw dropped. He said what?

Yep, the dreaded  (my own personal view) of adding more medicine to my body?

I also have Eppiglottitis, and have had this three times already. Figure that one out. I have posted many articles about it, it’s deathly pain, its sword-like plunge  beneath your throat. Many readers have read this article and many ask me questions. I know there is a vaccine to prevent this for infants, I’ve asked several doctors about giving it to me. There answer is a confused look on their faces and they say “we can’t.” Why, I pursue, “because it’s for children.” Take a chance, do some research, you can’t even try?? Have you ever had that horrific pain? I also fall down from low blood pressure (we think) and randomly shake.

I have more symptoms but I don’t want to scare you away!

Does anyone have any connections? I’m realistic, not stupid. Please forward to anyone you may know at The New York Times or Dr. Lisa Sanders or The Mayo Clinic.

Please.

Thank you in advance.

 

 

 

 

One Ex-Hippie Trying To Say Good-Bye

Dear Fellow Aging Hippies,

It’s only my opinion and mostly it’s a lesson I need to learn myself but I think our time has come and gone, forever. It’s a tough thing to admit, believe me, I know. Maybe, it’s time for us aging Baby Boomers to finally accept it and let the new generation take over the world instead of us reminiscing about “The Beatles and Peace, Love, and Rock n’ Roll.” As special as it was for those of us in that generation it is time  all of us to move on, to look forward and not behind.

Painted Hippie Bus (Photo credit: terbeck)

You’re talking to someone who has fought this for a very long time. I confess. I was born in 1956 and while I missed the really good stuff like Woodstock I still claimed fame to being a Baby Boomer and all the power the name itself implied. Sure, my kids grew up on The Beatles, CSN and Y, Joni Mitchell, Cat Stevens and the Rolling Stones but I am still playing that very same music today. Somehow it seems wrong. We are way too old for that now.Will I change my music listening preferences? Hell, no.

That’s the hard part. Figuring out what to do now. Most of us can’t retire yet, a lot of us have been laid off but still need money coming into the house, to pay many bills. How are we going to do that? We have no idea and it’s not for lack of trying either. There are no jobs around, at least for us and we will move anywhere.

My children are in their twenties, it’s their time. I don’t care if they have a special name or a title ( Gen X, Y, Z? ) but their generation is having its time now. We need to start thinking not about where to retire but how to have enough money to get through the next ten years to be able to retire if we are lucky enough to do so.

I’m not going to lie, I don’t want to move twice. These cold, harsh winters are killing me, I have a list of maladies as long as the East Coast, so I’d prefer to live someplace warm but it’s not exactly easier to find work there. We’re trapped, right where we are, unemployed, and passed over, like yesterday’s mail tossed and disregarded in a pile of junk.

English: Photograph of The Beatles as they arrive in New York City in 1964 Français : Photographie de The Beatles, lors de leur arrivée à New York City en 1964 Italiano: Fotografia dei Beatles al loro arrivo a New York City nel 1964 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s time for our sons and daughters to take over the world, we are the leaders no longer. They haven’t yet set us to pasture, we have a little wiggle room, but we are closer to the end then we are to the beginning. Does that feel good? No, it certainly doesn’t. The days turned into years turned into decades, flashing before our eyes as if we stood still and the world moved at a rapid pace around us.

We didn’t realize it was happening until it was over.  When you are young and married you are so involved with your young children and family and play dates and school plays you don’t have time to really hold on to those special moments for too long. Because all the moments are special. Now they are memories, enjoy them.

It’s a rite of passage we all go through. It’s how you look at life that will give you a positive or negative outlook, the choice is totally up to us. I’m not saying it’s easy. Believe me, it isn’t, but realistically we have no choice, no choice at all. Acceptance is a good way to start.

Love (Photo credit: aftab.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baby Boomers: What Are We Now, Chopped Liver?

English: The New York Times building in New York, NY across from the Port Authority. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)LickIt must, because apparently The New York Times no longer wants the Boomer section anymore. Yep, they are kicking us boomers straight to the curb. that’s the reason that The New York Times has kicked Baby Boomers to the curb. Why? They won’t say and believe me their fans have asked.

Like a swift unexpected kick in the ass, readers of The New York Times (loyal readers I might add) found out that they were removing the Booming column that delighted us all. Really? Yes, true fact. No explanation other than “blah blah blah.” It would be in here or there maybe on Tuesdays but without Michael Winerip who we have all grown to like and respect. I liked this dude, he was real and approachable.

What the hell are you thinking? I guess we are not important anymore, make way for Generation Whatever.  I was born in 1956 to the best of my knowledge I’m a Baby Boomer. Please remember this, we haven’t dropped dead just yet. You needed us back then (hint: Woodstock) and now you have cut out a large part of your readership. We are still consumers and you have let us down.

Eliminating or phasing out the Booming section is disappointing, I could relate to Michael Winerip’s essays and now we’re getting shoved aside, as if we don’t feel old enough. The New York Times, with whom we’ve been faithful to, is giving us the heave-ho. It feels like yet another slap in the face to those of us in The Sandwich Generation.

Everyone wonders what the reason was that they decided to take that section out. But, of course we don’t expect them to tell us the reason. That is way too old-fashioned. Manners? Nah, that was in the fifties. Back where if you didn’t get a job the boss called you on the telephone and told you why, when things were simpler, more honest, and we didn’t have a hundred choices of everything from paint chips to lipstick to television channels to drugs.

Let’s face it, it’s not the best of times for many of us. The economy stinks (I’m trying to be professional here) unemployment is really high, we’re caught between taking care of our aging parents, ourselves and our grown up children.We are still known as The Sandwich Generation, remember that? It’s been the Winter from hell and it isn’t over yet and while the Booming Section didn’t change our world it added a little fun.

Don’t flatter yourself New York Times. You’ve become replaceable as apparently we have too. We stayed with you through all your changes, now it’s our turn to say good-bye.

http://youtu.be/EGHRrEvpuk4

Boomers: 1946~1953 to 1964

This would make baby boomers, in the year 2010, somewhere in the ballpark of 46-64 years old.

Gen X: 1965 to 1976~1982

– See more at: http://theechoboom.com/2010/09/dateage-range-of-baby-boomers-generation-x-and-generation-y/#sthash.MrX7nqmo.dpuf

Boomers: 1946~1953 to 1964

This would make baby boomers, in the year 2010, somewhere in the ballpark of 46-64 years old.

Gen X: 1965 to 1976~1982

– See more at: http://theechoboom.com/2010/09/dateage-range-of-baby-boomers-generation-x-and-generation-y/#sthash.MrX7nqmo.dpuf

A Bright Star In The Dark Night

Dark Moon Tree on Night Sky / Magic Fantasy Space (Photo credit: epSos.de)

After hearing ‘Good Morning America’s’ Robin Roberts’ story about breast cancer and subsequently MDS and after reading the amazingly talented Suleika Jahoud’s journey as a young adult with cancer (“Acute Myeloid Leukemia) (I am in awe of this incredibly beautiful and amazingly talented young woman) in the Science Times (Tuesdays of The New York Times) I wanted to do more than write a check for cancer research. I wanted to give something of myself; I ordered the free bone marrow kit and received the four swabs that came in the mail. I thought I would get the swabs and swab my cheeks that night but I found myself not doing that. Was I procrastinating or just thinking? Actually, I was just taking it all in. I did the swabs last night, with my husband overseeing it, and the envelope now sits in our bright red mailbox, flag raised, waiting to be picked up.

I’ve always wanted to do this and for years thought it was expensive, painful and really didn’t know how to go about getting the information for the bone marrow donation kit. Because of the Robin Roberts’ story, it was advertised and thus readily available. Sure, I give money, when I can, to cancer research, but this was personal. If I could help someone live, my G-d, I would do it. Imagine the feeling of giving someone the opportunity to live out their life, so they can marry or live to see their children grow up or have a new life because you are helping them. I can’t imagine NOT doing it, can you?

I’ve always been an organ donor, especially since my father-in-law had a liver transplant before I even dated my husband. If it wasn’t for his liver transplant he would never have seen us date and get married, meet his grandchildren and watch them graduate from high school and go off to college. This November we will all be here together celebrating Thanksgiving; how could I not be an organ donor?

My goal in life was to be a good mother and I think I achieved that. My two children are grown now, at 18 and almost 20. I am so proud of them, of the people they have become. But, this is one more chance to help a person in the world. If we are a match, dear stranger, I will step up and do you proud. I will put aside all my fear of pain and discomfort and I will try to make your dreams come true. I will donate my bone marrow. If it doesn’t work, yes, I will be sad, but at least I will know that I tried to help.

I watched the shiny red mailbox on and off all day and only when the flag of the mailbox was lowered, when the mail had been picked-up, did I sigh with relief and smile, knowing, at least, I had followed through and given someone, somewhere, like a bright star in a dark night, a tiny speck of hope.

DEDICATED TO ROBIN ROBERTS AND SULEIKA JAHOUD

*I Was An Airline Brat

Image via Wikipedia

There was a very good article in “The New York Times”

Whatever Happened to First Class?

By JESSE McKINLEY

Published: February 10, 2012

that I really liked and I wanted to share my own memories since I started flying when I was nine months old and stopped abruptly when my free airline tickets, from my dad, who worked for TWA, stopped at my ripe, young age of twenty-one. Or at least not yet twenty-two.

Flying was my dad’s dream, and no, he was not a pilot even though in his heart he thought he was. He worked in offices and volunteered extra shifts if there was an accident and flew to St. Louis to buy fresh milk for my older sister when there was a milk strike in NY. He loved everything about flying and traveling with our mother and when we were children we came along, almost always. A visit to Grandma’s house for us was to fly to Vienna, Austria or Tel-Aviv, Israel. I thought nothing of it as a child, it’s what we did; my older sister and I did have to get dressed up in a matching sweater and skirt sets, identical (except for color and size.) We were not allowed to wear pants, God forbid jeans. We had to dress up formally before each flight, our dad’s rule because we were flying “subject to space” which meant we would try for a flight but since we were “non-revs” (non-revenue passengers) we never knew when we would be able to get  on a particular flight, looking good wasn’t optional in our house. We had no choice. In fact, back then, everyone dressed up for a flight, there were no jeans or sweat pants….they didn’t exist.

If the flight was fully booked our dad would make the shape of a hanger with his hands and shake his head dejectedly. We knew that meant “a cliff-hanger” fully booked, not a great chance of getting on but we would go anyway. There were times we were already seated and buckled in and the door closed when in dreadful embarrassment they called our names over the intercom and we had to unbuckle, get up, gather our bags and belongings and march or rather limp off the plane if paying passengers had arrived. Mortifying.

We may have complained about getting up at four in the morning to go to Phoenix, AZ. but once we were on the flight, our vacation had started. Flying was part of the vacation not like now where it is something to live through with great dread and anticipation. Was there a difference in first-class and economy? Sure, but either was fine. We always went economy (and we could stretch across 3-4 seats back then) until one day I think we begged our dad to try first class, it was a matter of twelve or eight dollars per person. It was hard to go back to economy after that.

First class had luscious, huge seats, especially for young adults, a printed menu with delicacies to choose from. I’m drooling just remembering them. Beef Wellington?Steak? Salmon? Really, really good, gourmet food. I remember one of the desserts, it was the ice-cream sundae cart approaching me. I saw mountains of vanilla ice cream come headed towards me. Near it was a huge silver bowl filled with whipped cream, hot fudge sauce, sprinkles and many other condiments. “Make your own sundae” in the best of times was good, but while flying through clouds? Heavenly.

I’d like to add to Mr. McKinley’s post that my ideal flight was boarding the TWA 747 that had a winding staircase to the lounge upstairs with comfortable soft and wide chairs and private window seats. I remember reading a book up there and feeling like hot, um, bananas!  That same trip, before landing, they served a snack before landing; it was the biggest, hero sandwich, I had ever seen, filled with possibly every kind of meat and cheese that existed. The enormity still bogs my mind. There were drinks or soda, snacks. How could flying NOT be part of the vacation, it was the greatest in relaxation; no one could reach you and why would anyone want to stay in touch on vacation? If you had told people back then that it would be a posdibilityin the future,they would have called security at the very least.

I don’t know when it started but slowly the airline industry disintegrated. There was no more food (gasp) you had to pay separately for everything, even bags and suitcases. People didn’t treat you like royalty anymore. After 9/11 the whole world changed and it will never be the same again. Some people refused to fly after that forever. I wasn’t thrilled with the aspect of flying but I flew many times. It became a horribly, long, painful process. I am personally grateful for the TSA agents that check and recheck but it is hard work for them. Nobody seems to appreciate what they are doing all day long or at night. Not fun for us either but still…

I will probably fly again at some point but it isn’t something that I look forward to doing. The point of relaxation does not begin at the airport but probably a day after you have reached your destination. Is it worth it? I’ve always thought it was but as time goes on I think more about it. I was so very lucky to see so many countries when I was a kid, I know I didn’t appreciate it then. It will never be the same and that is one dreadful loss. I’m glad my dad is no longer on this earth to witness travel the way it is now, he would be horrified, as those of us who remember “the good old days” are.

* a few sentences were used in the comment section for the NYT on Mr. McKinley’s wonderful article.

The News That Interests Me Most

1, 2, 3.

The New York Times en español

First: The Book Review. Second: Arts and Leisure. Third: Metro Section.

Recycle Immediately: Sports, Automobiles and EVERYTHING THAT IS DEPRESSING.

The Map To Nowhere Fast

Image via Wikipedia

I have a weird feeling of unrest and stress, slimy blue- green and flourescent orange winding its way around my brain is how I picture it, how I feel it. No soothing colors of white and yellow and beige. Fake colors, unnatural.  I frown more than I smile and as hard as I am trying to focus on the positive it’s not easy. There is so much going on in my life that it’s hard to focus. I don’t think it’s just me though, I think it’s a lot of people.  It’s a feeling, not a good one, somewhere between the roads of anxious and depressed, stopping at weary.

There are natural disasters all over the world and I am sure we all feel, not only heartbroken for other people, but scared. There is too much sinewy stuff whirling around and no happy place to settle. What happened to my “happy place” images? Why am I only seeing the rain battering the purple flowers instead of the blooming of the flowers alone.

There is tension inside my house, we are in “the sandwich generation” that I used to read about. It isn’t fun, it’s scary. The “baby boomers” who have restless teenagers and aging parents who are alone or ill or depressed. I am that “baby boomer” now except I have the added affliction of my own “chronic pain.” Fibromyalgia and Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis do not do me any favors, I walk along slowly, painfully, I stumble through different medications and expectations. Very low expectations.

I also have narrow-angled glaucoma which is a dangerous disease or as one unfriendly opthalmologist put it “you could go blind in an instant.” Quite a bedside manner, don’t you think? Needless to say, I stopped going to him. It’s funny that I barely write about this condition, maybe it’s pure, frigid fear. Maybe there is only so much pain I can handle. My brain and eyes get hammered, with laser shocks, every few months by a doctor that I once believed was very good. I don’t think so anymore. “In twenty years of practicing, I’ve never had a patient whose eyes kept closing up like yours do.”  Every time I go to the city he lasers my eyes again, because the hole he drilled into me has closed. He does this procedure either in his office or in the hospital with no pain relief; imagine barbed wire going through your eyes and brain, quickly, twenty or thirty times in a row. The eye drop he casually puts in gives me incredibly painful headaches (migraines?) I do know that the pain I feel is barbaric, no pain medications, no anesthesia, no break. Over and over again; fast and furious.

The gray, dreary day does not help me since I feel overwrought and unfocused. I am dealing with both chronic pain, (Fibromyalgia, Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis) and new back pain that feels like my back bent and broke itself during sleep like a twisted pretzel you find in any mall. I am trying to accept my life for what it is, both bad and good, often simultaneously. Change is in the air like a dog-sniffing a new scent, it’s just hard to predict when and where things will happen.

I read an article in the NY Times today about a young couple with a young daughter. Each parent has cancer. That, is a problem I say to myself, not the dreary workings of an often too-emotional, anxious and pain- filled mind. I am so sorry Nathan and Elisa. You and your baby have my prayers because perspective is the greatest gift of all. I will speak no more.