Healthcanc

Sorry, no pictures today. (1)  Breasts first, naturally I'm waiting outside for my ride one beautiful morning, and a woman dressed in black exits the building.  I catch a glimpse of her prominent chest as she passes by, and can't help but wonder if she wears black often to avoid attention to her more obvious features. Men, I'm told, fantasize about breasts, revere them, and women do, too. Some also stare, jeer, and comment unnecessarily. Some less-than-proud breast owners wish to reduce them, hot and inconvenient as they are, a source of back pain, the subject of much conversation, jest. Who can blame a woman for wanting to reduce? It isn't the type of thing that dominates my thoughts, and even as a pre-teen, as other girls began to "blossom" and I lagged behind, it didn't bother me. My body image wasn't wonderful (most of us haven't a wonderful body image at any age) but it wasn't bad, that young bod, and got me where I needed to go. People se...

There is a how-to. Genetics aren't everything. Book burning, Nazi Germany, 1933                I have to preface this by saying that I can only speak from then lens of my own culture, not teach (well) about anyone else’s. Although I would like to say that I could write from the perspective of someone who lived in Japan, or France, or Iraq, it would be warmed over, the experience of another.  So here’s what you get when you read from the perspective of a Jew.                When some of us mention Hitler we add the words, y’mach sh’mo (sounds-like, rhymes-with y’locked-sh’go ), meaning, His name should be obliterated from the face of the earth.  On Tuesday some of your Jewish friends or co-workers might have looked ashen and tired, fasting (yet going to work, which isn't encouraged but necessary sometimes) the fast of T’isha B’Av (sounds-l...

First a Story It doesn't help that between patients this morning, my mother tells me that she's still sick.  It started Saturday, a bug, nothing terribly serious. She looked gray yesterday with make-up. In anticipation that she might be unable to eat today, before pedaling off to the office at 8:00 a.m. I stopped by her apartment to check her pulse and drop off breakfast, lemonade and jello. That's all any of us get in our family when we have symptoms of gastroenteritis, ala FD's expertise.  It's worked for us forever. Mom is out cold when I get there early in the morning. After all, no place to go, except maybe the ER, and she doesn't appear to need that. Four various combinations of patient family members at the office later, it is time to check on her again. Chicago Bike Path June 2013 Spring How do we interpret the events so far? I'm stressed, although keeping my cool, not hurrying or riding recklessly to get to the patient.  In my town, although it is c...

Those of you who read this blog regularly know that I rarely use the "S" word. That John Lennon Song, Mind Games And yet, here we are, associating it with the "L" word, Love. Is that even politically correct? Sex in some relationships has been described as marital glue . It is what keeps many couples together when all else fails. Sometimes, it shouldn't, keep them together. Sometimes we're glad it did. It sells.  Boy, does sex sell. It would seem that without it, nothing sells. Twenty-five percent of divorced couples blame sex . People like me are called upon to treat it, to treat problems with it, problems about it (cheating, sexual assault).  You would think everybody wants it, sex, but that's certainly not true at all. Some merely want to express love in a physical way, and that it can be, an expression. We've discussed how to use code  to signal one's willingness for it, how that can be romantic. "Honey, come into the bedroom, I have som...

They don't seem to have a thing in common, at first glance. O'Doul's- the non-alcoholic beer But for an addict, they have everything in common. (1) The Hawks I feel pretty lame, and in some ways traitorous, but as a Chicagoan for over half a century, I should have been posting on Facebook like all of my young friends. Haaaawwwwwkkkkkkkssssss!!!!!! OMG!  ANOTHER WIN!!!! THEY DID IT AGAIN!! And I should have been to a game, and I should have been at the rally, a huge Mardi Gras that many are still talking about. The pictures in the paper make me feel that as a blogger I missed a tremendous photo op. Foiled again. The Hawks won the Stanley Cup in 2010, too, and the revelry in the city made the angels in Heaven look down and wonder if perhaps they should attend. Nothing could be better. And indeed, if you looked closely at the celebrations, you would have thought we found Osama bin Laden. No, really, the two don't compare. The only thing that compares with the feeling are o...