Category: Health

Post-operative Ramblings

On December 14, 2009

I had oral surgery today and so I have been sleeping all day from painkillers. But I have to write something for today so I don’t miss, so I’m going to ramble about nothing. What do you mean all my posts are rambling about nothing? I have subjects and topics. Why would you insult me while I’m down? What is this world coming to?

For your information, I have been laying (or lying) on the couch all day suffering with a bag of frozen peas on my face. Do you think that’s fun? Well, do you????

Just because I’m a very positive person on occasion, and this is one of them because I want you to feel guilty, I will share that I’ve also been watching reruns of lots of very funny movies like The Blues Brothers and Hot Shots, Part Deux. I think Hot Shots is one of the best movies ever made because there’s some new dumb thing on the screen every twenty seconds. Like when Topper Harley says to Ranada (or Renada), “You must be joking,” she says back, “If I were joking I would say: ‘A horse walks into a bar and the bartender says, ‘Hey, why the long face?’’”

I had to put all those extra quotation marks because that’s a quote within a quote within a quote, just so you don’t start pointing fingers and saying I’m making typos, which I can do all on my own without your help, thank you very much.

The Blues Brothers is good because of all the music. Like the scene where Aretha Franklin tells her husband he can’t go off with the Blues Brothers and starts singing, “You better think (think) think what you’re trying to do to me (think!) Think (think think)” and so forth. Now these aren’t typos either. That’s pretty much the lyrics as best as I can remember them, and I hope I don’t have to get permission to use them because I feel like I’m going to throw up. Excuse me while I grab my barf bucket.

That’s better. So while Aretha is singing, some girls get off their bar stools and start dancing in being backup singers. Other people in the diner join in, and even the Blues Brothers. It’s one of my favorite scenes in a movie. And I think I misspelled scenes somewhere above but I again feel the need to barf. Must be the oxycodone, or the laying around or… I gotta run.

Fat Begone!

By Suzanne Olsen

On November 29, 2009

In Health, Holidays

Around the holidays I start having wardrobe malfunctions. My waistband moves up or down, trying to find a place to rest with all the new me it has to cope with. If it moves up high, the fat goes under the waistband, but I get a really serious case of camel toe. If it moves down, the fat squeezes up over the waistband to form an unattractive toadstool. It’s a universal problem with average sized women who overindulge on occasion, and I realize that I’ve touched on this subject before, which only goes to show that there are no easy solutions.

If I buy a size bigger pants, that would take care of the problem, but it would be the end of being average. Right now, with only a few extra pounds, I’m uncomfortable. If I lose the weight, which would mean cutting carbs and candy, I can be comfortable again. This is torture, since I live for buttered bread and Milky Ways, but it’s doable with a week of suffering as long as I don’t have too much fat to begin with.

However, if I buy a bigger size, in the short run I’ll be comfortable, but in the long run, it’s just a matter of time before the bigger sized waistband starts choking me, and this time I’d have to lose twice the weight if I wanted to get back to average.

What I really hate is that period of time when I become uncomfortable, which occurs after every social gathering where the host puts out spreads of sumptuous food (and this can be just potato chips and dip). Beiing kind-hearted, I try to save the host the unpleasant chore of storing all those leftovers by eating and drinking non-stop the whole time I’m there. In fact, I’ve looked up from the buffet table to find that I’m the only person left in the room, and snoring is coming from the host’s bedroom.

So today I set about to find an undergarment that will camouflage that inner tube of fat around my stomach until my weight loss resolve kicks in, which sometimes takes awhile. I know I’ve worked on this before, and I actually found a solution for under a dress, but I’m dealing with jeans, and that’s a whole new set of problems. I went to Fred Meyer’s undergarment section and was surprised to see all the different girdles, body suits, corsets, etc. available for people in my predicament.

I tried a couple of them on. A full body suit is flesh colored and looks like one of those old-timey swimsuits that is one piece with legs stopping just above the knees. I’m happy to say I lost at least two pounds struggling into the thing. It had “stays” all around the torso, which are hard pieces of “boning” that hold the suit up and keep the fat in. I think you could stand a body suit up on your front porch at Halloween and scare off goblins.

The disadvantage of this item, including the inability to get out of it quickly enough if you’ve had a couple of beers, is that the fat has to go somewhere. Where the undergarment ends, fat lurches out and forms a rim that can easily be seen under the thickest sweater or pants. Also, the 60 little bra-type hooks needed to rein in the fat also showed under my t-shirt.

So I tried a high waisted girdle, but it had the same problem. You’d think your internal organs would have the decency to move over and give the fat a little space, but they won’t budge. It has nowhere to go so it balloons out the top and underneath. The fat isn’t high enough to enhance your bosom (what a funny word), instead it just makes you look like you’re sagging, and the fat pushing out the bottom makes your thighs look like they’re wearing twin tourniquets.

I tried combining a long shaping bra with a tall firming girdle, but the fat all went to the no-man’s land between them where the two didn’t overlap. I looked like I had an hourglass figure with a mini hula-hoop in the middle.

I decided to bag it and go on the diet right away. Except that there are leftover pieces of a super-yummy chocolate pecan pie that I’ll need to plow through. I can’t lose weight with temptations in the house. Plus I’ll need to finish off some really soft chocolate chip cookies my daughter made. But the second I get through those, and the rest of the bag of Oreos, I’m losing that fat, or my name isn’t Megan Fox.

When Did We Become Giants?

By Suzanne Olsen

On November 13, 2009

In Health, People

If we left our house for the day, and Jack (of Jack and the Beanstalk fame) crawled up a hypothetical vine and found a bowl of porridge on our kitchen table, would he think he was in the home of a giant?

Absolutely, because of the size of the bowl.

I made myself a can of soup today, and all my favorite, human-sized bowls were in the dishwasher, so I had to use a bowl from a set I’d gotten as a present that I don’t like to use because they are TOO BIG!

This so-called “soup” bowl could masquerade as a serving dish at a Thanksgiving dinner and no one would be the wiser. Usually I get two human-sized bowls of soup out of a can, which is satisfying because I like seconds, and if I divvy it up just right, even thirds. But I poured all the soup in this bowl and it didn’t even fill it – I think I could have gotten another whole can of soup in there, plus croutons, and a fly doing the backstroke (an old waitress joke – Customer: What’s this fly doing in my soup? Waitress: The backstroke).

I got stuffed on the one bowl of soup, and I didn’t even get seconds, which made me cranky. Food is so psychological – they don’t call it comfort food for nothin.’ You think if you’re having seconds you’re getting full, and you walk away from the table mildly miserable but contented.

With a bowl made for giants, you fill it up, and it fills you up, but you still want seconds so you put a little more in there of something, like cereal, and when you’re done, you are belly up on the couch moaning until sleep mercifully puts you out of your misery. This is not good for humans.

Giants, on the other hand, eat from giant-sized meal on a giant plate, then they have seconds, then they have a short nap before going out and roaming the countryside looking for gooses laying golden eggs. This is how it should be. The giant eats a hearty meal suitable to his size, and then walks it off.

In contrast, when humans are forced to eat using plates and bowls designed for giants, we fill the plates and plow through acres of food, stretching our stomachs every time we sit down to a meal like we’re in a hot dog eating contest, then we go back to work where we sit all day updating Facebook and Twittering, then go home and eat the same thing all over again and settle down for a few relaxing hours in front of the TV. We have consumed as many calories as the giant, through no fault of our own, but we don’t have that extra three or four feet of height. The extra calories have to go somewhere, and they decide the best place is our bellies, hips, thighs, ankles, under our arms and, yes, our jowls. What has made the giant a strapping specimen has made us hot air balloons.

If you want to know who is responsible for the obesity problem in America, you don’t need to look any further than plate and bowl manufacturers. And people who make Big Gulp cups and super-size containers for French fries. And the makers of boxes of candy in the movies that don’t even try to hide it – they say “GIANT SIZE!” right on the box. Same thing with popcorn and potato chips. Remember how a little bag of Lay’s chips would just hit the spot? Now the smallest bag you can get is, “GIANT SIZE.” Is it a conspiracy that these manufacturers, let’s call them “Communists” for want of a better word, are making us weak and ill from fat-related maladies so can they take over and rule the world? It certainly is food for thought.

I’ve Got a Cure for That

By Suzanne Olsen

On November 6, 2009

In Health, People

My daughter and I were watching a movie. Well, we were attempting to watch a movie, but it kept being broken up by little mini-series about drugs.

The first string of eight or nine drug episodes had miserable, worried actors with heartburn, high cholesterol, twitching legs, insomnia, heartburn, insomnia, and heartburn. A couple of minutes later, another mini-series with more miserable actors came on with insomnia, diabetes, depression, heartburn, high cholesterol, heartburn, insomnia, and insomnia. All of these ended the same, with smiling actors running through fields waving scarves in the breeze, tossing small children in the air, petting dogs with wagging tails, and all because they had taken drugs.

It was very educational. There are literally thousands and thousands of maladies just waiting to ensnare the human body, and, thank goodness, at least a gazillion drugs to snatch us away from the brink.

My favorite part is the disclaimers, “Do not take…” and “See your doctor if…” The ones that win my personal Academy Awards are for erectile dysfunction. I love when they say, “See your doctor if you have had an erection lasting more than 36 hours…” I bust a gut every time I hear this.

My mirth is bittersweet; however, because I went to Europe last summer and watched French and Italian TV. They have all our same shows, but in their languages, so I know everyone else in the world is watching our commercials, and I know they must be thinking, “Is every man in America a limp d___?” The answer is an emphatic NO.

According to a reliable source who works in the film industry, ED drugs are only used by older Hollywood men who are trying to make young actresses happy. I can say this about that. If I were attempting to secure employment, and my only option was spending “quality time” with a wrinkly old (30+) geezer, and he’s taken a pill to make the “quality time” last longer, I would not be happy. I’d have to be a pretty skilled actress. Some drug company should come out with a pill for this situation and call it something like “CouchOhNo.” I can’t wait to see those commercials.

I want to tell the world that America is not a bunch of sissies. We’re not! We simply prefer our ethnic foods, like potato chips and dip, and our big screen TV’s over yucky vegetables and running around like a bunch of stupid Olympic athletes. And you can bet your bootie we could rise to any occasion if we wanted to, we’re just rich enough to pay a drug company to do it for us. So there.

Now I’m in a cranky mood. I’m going to ask my doctor for a pill for that, and if he won’t prescribe it for me, I’ll get a free sample straight from the drug company by calling 1-800-CRANKYNOMO, (that’s 1-800-CRANKYNOMO).

To see Cuba Gooding, Jr.’s classic ED commercial on MySpace, go to: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=32622947

He should definitely get best actor, and best stunt man.

Here’s to Health

By Suzanne Olsen

On November 5, 2009

In Health

I’m happy to say I’m back in the saddle again after fighting the good fight with that flu virus.

And I tell you, it’s good to be back. While I was battling the sickness, I entertained myself with a detective novel that was a fast, exhilarating read. The only thing that bothered me about it was that it had little errors in it — not a ton of them, just enough to be aggravating.

In this blog I might have a misspelled word or misplaced comma here and there. It’s easy enough to miss your own mistakes. Look at those two “mis” words above. They both started out with the same “mis” but one has one “s” and one has two. Luckily my computer had my back and fixed both of them as I typed.

This book had a problem with commas. They’d show up in the oddest places, where you’d never even think to put a comma. A kid in middle school writing a paper and just sprinkling commas in at random like he was putting pepper on scrambled eggs would not have put commas where these commas were. Here’s an, example. See what I mean?

Since the author is a best seller and it came from a good publisher, I would think the editors would have caught these unworthy commas and sent them packing.

He made a mistake that had me scratching my head, mostly because I hadn’t washed my hair in a couple of days for fear my virus would turn into pneumonia. One place he said the police found a dead woman in one park, and about 200 pages later she had moved to another park across town. “Huh?” I said. I went back and looked it up to make sure, and sure enough, the book said she’d been found in a totally different park.

It makes you lose a little bit of trust, you know? You want to believe his cockamamie story (WOW, my computer just fixed that word – who would have thought cockamamie was in it’s vocabulary?), but then he makes a big error and you realize that all the killing and conspiracy and corruption are just make believe.

Since it’s set in my town, I recognized a lot of the places in the book and I was totally convinced that these were real events, you know, but the names had been changed and facts rearranged to protect the guilty. Which wasn’t really necessary because he killed off all the bad guys or had them put on death row by the end of the book, and all the characters I liked ended up coming out fine, even the one who was shot in the head and the one who shot her, who then got shot himself in the temple at point blank range but ended up escaping with only a scratch.

It was a seriously complex story until the end when everything came to a screeching halt and got wrapped up as if the author was tired of writing and wanted to be done with it. I know how he feels. If I let any more time elapse, I’m liable to suffer a relapse.

Revenge of the Virus

By Suzanne Olsen

On November 4, 2009

In Health

Well, I beat the bacteria, but the virus threw a knockout punch to the head so I’ve had the joy of lying in bed all day with a throbbing headache and trying to keep from coughing as much as possible. What a swine the swine flu is, if that’s what I’ve got but it’s hard to know for sure since they say that it has about the same symptoms as regular flu except that you might, or might not, get a fever. One thermometer said I had a fever of 100.2, the other said I’m at a steady 98.6. At any rate, I set a goal to comment on this blog every day for 365 days, and no stinking virus is going to stand in my way, even though I’ve got the chills and can’t stand to be on this computer anymore. Stay well, my friend, and beware Halloween parties, which is surely where I got this bug. Next year I’ll deck myself in a clever costume to avoid contact – I’ll go as a surgeon and wear a white mask and latex gloves, and stuff myself before I leave home to avoid the inevitable double dippers, which would make a fine topic if I were feeling better, but since I’m not, too-da-loo!

Spare Tire Blues

By Suzanne Olsen

On October 30, 2009

In Health

I’m going to a costume party tonight and my costume makes me look fat, which isn’t surprising since everything else does too.

I’m not so fat that I have to sit on two stools at a café counter (one for each cheek), or my breasts would slap me in the face if I run, or that I can’t get through a turnstile. I’m just muffin top, mushroom belly, spare tire fat.

In other words, I have a lot of lumps and ridges where there should be slopes and curves.

I’m going to be a Spider Woman or Black Widow – whichever sounds best at the time. I’ve got a lacy, spider web looking dress that slips over top another black, spaghetti strap dress that looked okay until I put on the spider web tights. The elastic at the top cuts into me like a rubber band around a wad of pizza dough. Stuff is squishing out the top and bottom, and I tried everything to flatten it out.

I have this Wonder Woman strapless bra thing that I hoped would work, but the fat oozed out the bottom. So I put on a girdle, and that took care of the fat around my torso, but it all came out the base of the girdle like someone had stepped on half a balloon. I looked like I had massive goiters growing on the tops of my thighs.

So I tried pulling the tights all the way up under my bra. That worked pretty well, but they wouldn’t stay there. They migrated back toward my waistline, pushing fat in front of them like a steamroller. I thought about sewing them to the bottom of my bra, which would have worked perfectly but could I use the restroom? I’d have to take off the dress, take off the under dress, unhook the bra, and let the whole apparatus fall down around my ankles. This wouldn’t be out of the question except I go to the bathroom a lot, and I worried I wouldn’t have the stamina to keep it up through a long evening. I’d have to crawl into the host’s bathtub and taking a nap after the 13^th trip.

By a sheer stroke of genius and after hours of trying everything else, I figured out that I could l cut little notches in the elastic to make it not so tight. I’m happy to report that it works just great, except that the elastic has lost a lot of its holding power and I’ll probably have to fidget with it all night and pull the tights back up as they creep down my legs. I wonder what spider webs look like when they bag around your ankles? I have a feeling I’ll find out tonight.