Healthcanc

Only weeks ago, maybe between my mom's lapse into coma and her last breath, not sure, I found a book in my mailbox:   Mothers Who Can't Love: A Healing Guide for Daughters , by  Susan Forward, PhD .  I tossed it into the Get To This One Day pile. Found it yesterday, buzzed right through. Thank you Harper Collins.    I'm talking to FD about someone we both know, and he asks, "Why is he this way." I suggest a particular parent-child dynamic, only confuse him more. "How do you know this?" "Because this is what we do in my profession, look backward to parents, how they treated now grown/adult children as children. We look for clues. In your profession history helps, but the lab results and the vitals tell more. For us, history is everything. It didn't hurt, I confessed, that the subject of scrutiny, at someone else's visitation, talked about his father. From this it isn't hard to extrapolate, suggest broad strokes about personality and beha...

In my defense, I was tired. I had been up since four on Labor Day, although I napped, and to prepare for an upcoming Jewish holiday threw together a few chalahs (those breads Jews make for the Sabbath and holy days, shiny and twisted), one carrot cake, two blueberry, and four sheets of chocolate chip cookies.  For a change, it all turned out well, not a burnt morsel, nobody fell. West Wing on Mourning FD and I colluded to tackle a closet and made considerable progress. You know what that means. You label what should go back in, and most importantly, throw a great deal away. At 8 pm, paralyzed, the TV beckoned, I succumbed, chose vegging and watching to reading the new DSM 5. Nothing appealed on the tube so I turned to The West Wing on Netflix . To me, it is new, although a well-respected patient had recommended it years ago when there was no time, no inclination, for television.  My luck, I pick a Christmas episode ( In Excelsis Deo ) in which Leo McGarry, White House Chief o...