Healthy Me

A 14-year-old child has died from the Cervarix vaccine (for HPV) across the pond, in Coventry. According to one mother of a child who also attends that school and received round one (of three) of this vaccine:

'It's all very, very worrying. We feel like our children are being treated like guinea pigs.

'I wasn't keen on my daughter having it in the first place but the school seemed insistent.'

There's no way in hell a school, or any official, would force me to give my child a vaccine I wasn't confident in.


I've written a lot about the risks of the Gardasil vaccine (go to my search box in the right border and put in "gardasil" or go to my categories/labels and click on "gardasil") and why I refuse to give it to my children. They are risking side effects, and death, for something that can be prevented with the use of a condom. I'm not willing to take that risk or trust that the government and the pharmaceutical companies only have my children's best interests at heart. I think they have their bank accounts as their primary interest!



Here's a picture of Natalie. She could be your child's best friend, your niece, your own child. Parents need to do the research and if they have any doubts, no matter what pressure they are getting, don't do it!

If you like contests, Medelita (leader in nursing scrubs, lab coat, and clinician scrubs) has an opportunity for you! You can win a $50 AMEX gift card by entering their contest. So check out their web site and enter for a chance to win. The contest ends September 30, 2009 by 9:30 p.m. PST.

We can all use the extra money right now. I know I could!

I've heard that magnetic jewelry is supposed to be healthy for you but I don't know why. Me being the nerd that I am looked it up after my four-year-old picked out a magnetic bracelet at our county fair last weekend (it's stuck to my refrigerator right now with all the other magnets).

I looked it up at Herbal Remedies and here is what I found:

"Magnetic energy increases the blood flow to the area, increasing circulation, thus speeding healing and reducing pain and inflammation. Magnets come in various forms for applications to different parts of the body."

I wonder if a bracelet would help my husband's pain through his forearm and hand from work. I don't think he'd wear one though. He'd wear a mens ring but that wouldn't be where he has pain and inflammation so a magnetic ring wouldn't work...he'd likely prefer titanium! Heck, so would I! My preference would be one that has diamonds in it. I wouldn't care about using it for pain and inflammation. I'm just a diamond girl!

My husband and I completed our testing for glaucoma the way our eye doctor wanted us to. We have to go back in six months for a pressure test and then in another year to repeat all of the testing to see if anything has changed from the tests they just finished up with. That would be indicative of glaucoma but the chances are very small and the doctor didn't seem that concerned. We feel, and the doctor seems to think it is likely, that the way our optic nerve looks (similar to the start of glaucoma) is just the way we were made. Our son also has the same look to his optic nerve. Even though both mom and dad have it, which seems to indicate it is hereditary and not glaucoma, he will still be tested just to be sure.

The testing wasn't exactly pleasant. I tend to be a baby and do not like having my eyes dilated but all the touching of instruments to my eye, even though they used anesthetic, was creepy and I didn't like it. It also left my eye a little sore once their eye drops wore off. It was only for that day though so it was manageable. I guess I can put up with lab coats making my eyes feel creepy in a year if it means I won't have to do it again for a few years after that.

I am trying to reduce the amount of stress in my life. Over the past couple of years, I've made some great strides by removing toxic relationships from my life. It's helped reduce the stress a lot. When I find myself being sucked back into somebody else's emotional vampirism, I find I can quickly disengage myself easier than I used to. I need all the energy I have to raise my four kids. I don't have a whole lot extra to spend on problems people continuously create for themselves.

Being a parent comes with its own set of stresses.

• There are the activities. When you have four children, if they all pick one extra-curricular activity, it's 1-2 nights (at least) a week for each of them...times four! They definitely keep my busy.
• There are behavioral expectations (manners, respect, etc.). We all know how well kids follow those on their own!
• There are the food struggles (my kids are not big on vegetables) and homework time.
• There are medical appointments and an occasional trip to the Emergency Room.
• Then there is just finding some time for me to decompress.

How do you keep it all together? I know there are days when I don't think I'm doing a very good job of it and those are the days when my husband reminds me that we have good kids (who occasionally give us a hard time over minor things). We have certainly seen a lot worse out in public, children doing things that our children would never think of doing to us like tantrums in children who are way too old to be throwing tantrums in public.

We don't have a written family constitution for our children, though we do have condensed rules posted. I think we're doing OK but none of our kids are teenagers yet. Our oldest is almost there and we are seeing glimmers of what is to come. It's not going to be pretty. I feel like we're on the verge of a whole new set of rules that nobody has told us about yet on how to handle teenagers full-time.