Gaining to Lose

***Warning! I'm really getting up on my "roost" this morning.***

This morning in my post-run-sweaty-get-up, I was in the kitchen packing Todd's lunch and fixing his breakfast while watching the Today Show. First off, it's kind of nice to have Brian Williams co-hosting with Ann the morning... but then, once I started to tune out the chit-chat, I heard an interesting story. They were talking about a lady named Steffany Sears (202 lbs) and her struggle to qualify for bariatric weight-loss surgery and that ultimately she ended up binge eating to GAIN weight to "qualify" through her insurance company for the surgery!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! 

I literally screamed. THIS IS JUST ABSURD!

Not that she got the surgery.... entirely. I know several individuals who've had this procedure done. Some were very successful, others... not so much.  You guys know by now, I'm not a hater of "fat people". I'm just a dedicated lover for a HEALTHY person. So, I have MANY issues with this story.

1.) Steffany had already LOST weight on her own. She had been trying. Working. Struggling to lose the weight on her own. Then - she just gave-up and gave in to her insurance company's stupid "rules" (All of which can be broken mind you! I negotiated with insurance companies in a past life, you just have to be overly diligent.).

I'm not even really sure if this process couldn't be considered insurance fraud if you think about it... hmm...

2.) Insurance companies need to change. Why aren't they offering programs and opportunities to reward their policy holders for HARD WORK and proper diet management!? Come on - THOUSANDS of people do it on their own every year.... Why aren't these insurance companies on the side of the policy holder?! (ugh - don't even mutter the fact that it's all about $$. I'll probably come hit you or something. ha!)
3.) I'm even more frustrated with Steffany that she didn't fight for herself more. She is her own best advocate and she let an insurance company dictate what she does with and for her body.

I'm so tired of lazy.

I'm tired of lazy people who don't want to get up, get out and get moving for their own good. I'm tired of hearing stories like this where it's "easier" to gain weight to have SURGERY! I'm tired of lazy doctors who won't help navigate their patients to resources that can help. I'm tired of lazy insurance companies who will do nothing to help the insured. I'm tired of our society being so lazy, so unmotivated and unwilling to change policies for health and health care. (no - I'm not talking "Obama-care")

Why are we so lazy!?

Why would anyone want to sit around and whine about their weight and do NOTHING to change it. Don't tell me it's because fruits and veggies and other "healthy foods" are so "expensive". That's crap. Yes, they can cost more than what you're used to spending on processed foods and simple sugar and carb loaded "goodies"... but you're certainly going to save a whole lot of money (and tax payer dollars) from decreased hospital visits and medical/pharmaceutical expenses.

I don't know about you - but I'd rather spend a little more each week at the grocery store, eat well and LIVE well instead of struggling for months and spending weeks in the hospital.

*** I will slowly descend from my roost now.... ***

This is apparently Steffany's Before & After shots. I stole this from her story online.

I'm proud of Steffany for her overall weight-loss... and I hope she keeps it off. I hope she doesn't resort to bad habits and laziness again and ruin all the hard work she and her medical team have done. I hope she has a wonderful support system to sustain her efforts. I hope she is exercising and eating well to keep what she's got working for her. I hope she isn't suffering psychologically with her new self (like MANY bari-patients do). I hope she LOVES herself. 

Most importantly, I hope my readers are inspired to work hard on themselves. Don't give in to lazy. Don't go the "easy way". Don't give-up.

You have much to gain as you lose.


Keep up the good work friends.
Love - a.

If Barbie Were a Model

I found this interesting article about Barbie. Take a few minutes and learn how this "role model" of my childhood (and many others) has probably shaped the perception of the female body image.

Interesting. The last quote almost makes me want to cry. Ladies (and gentlemen), we really need to start telling the young ladies in our lives how beautiful THEY ARE!!!

     
The plastic surgery a model needs to look like Barbie

by Piper Weiss, Shine Staff, on Fri Oct 14, 2011 11:54am (Matthew Rolston/O Magazine)
Here’s a breakdown of what she'd need done to be the kind of doll women aspire to: a brow lift, a jaw line shave, rhinoplasty, a cheek and neck reduction, a chin implant, scooped-out shoulders, a breast lift, liposuction on her arms, and tummy tuck, which would also have to be sculpted as if it were lined in whale-bone from the inside. And that’s just the half of her.
Halchishick doesn’t actually need or want any of these procedures. She’s proving a point: just because our distorted image of how a body should be is medically attainable, that doesn’t mean it should be attained.

We know that Barbie’s body is anatomically impossible. So why are we still trying for it?

Every day a new plastic surgery promise emerges: scooped-out backs, rear-end lifts, sculpted kneecaps. If it’s possible, it’s suddenly necessary. But what exactly would you have to go through to get the 'perfect' Barbie body? In the latest issue of O Magazine, model Katie Halchishick becomes the human diagram.

Posing for photographer Matthew Rolston, her glamorous, Marilyn Monroe-type features are surgically outlined according to Barbie's proportions.


And if you doubt that anyone actually wants to look like Barbie, meet Cindy Jackson, a 55-year-old woman who’s had 52 cosmetic surgeries to look like her plastic idol."This is the way I should look,” Jackson told Good Morning America. "It's evolution. It's medical progress." There's also 10-in-one-day record-holder Heidi Montag, and a revolving door of on-screen personalities who look more like each other and less like human beings by the day. 

Not everyone would call that progress. “The number one wish for all teenage girls is to be thinner,” said Halchishick, a former Ford Model who now mentors high school students about body image issues. “They think what makes a girl beautiful is skinny with big boobs, perfect hair, perfect make-up.” 

Last year a total of 13.1 million body parts were surgically altered. Five percent of patients were under the age of 20.

Halchishick, who co-founded the website Healthy is the New Skinny, doesn’t place all the blame on surgery or a pint-sized rubber and plastic doll. She believes change has to start in schools, as well as in the fashion industry. “Girls want to know how to lose weight so badly, and the schools don’t want to talk about it, because they’re worried they’ll develop a complex,” she told The Gloss in March.

“There need to be models to show [girls] to wish for more.” She now heads up her own modeling agency for women with natural figures. She’s also campaigned to get plus-sized designers into New York Fashion Week. But her spread in O magazine, the first nude pictorial they’ve ever featured, has been the most buzz-worthy. Accompanied by an essay by writer Amy Bloom, the photograph is intended to make women rethink their body image ideals. But it hasn't had that effect on everyone. When one 15-year-old girl saw this photo of Halchishick, her first thought was of her own imperfection, according to a blogger for Healthy is the New Skinny. “I thought if a girl as pretty as that has to change so much to be perfect, it made me wonder how much more I’d have to change.”

E!'s Giuliana Rancic reveals she has breast cancer

Okay - So, in my obession with "junk tv" I have fallen in love with Giuliana and Bill Rancic. Well, that's a lie.

I first fell in love with Bill when he won the first Apprentice show *sigh*... He was just the total catch in my eyes.... then he got married and together Giuliana and Bill started their reality show. I think they are such a cute couple. Together they have shared their struggle to conceive through IVF with the world and it's many highs and lows.

Todd asked me last night if I had heard about Giuliana's diagnosis with breast cancer (of course I hadn't yet, since I had been at work all day) and I almost wanted to cry. Cancer was pretty much the undertone of my entire day yesterday from patients, their family members, friends, and my own loved ones. Then to hear that Giuliana also had this nasty disease?!

Ugh. It's just disgusting. I'm so over cancer.

Take a few minutes to watch Ann Curry's interview with G. Giuliana's very brave, but you can tell the news is still fresh and the wound hurts... yet she is so hopeful. I did cry. I won't lie. My thoughts and prayers are with G and her hottie Bill. I wish them both the best!

E!'s Giuliana Rancic reveals she has breast cancer

Motivational Monday

I thought this was AWESOME. I see the tears and the sweat every week with my GOTR team. But despite the tears, the sweat always pays off more. Wait 'til you look in the mirror after your first 5k/half marathon.... you'll never see yourself more beautiful than you are then! 

Sweat works miracles. Sweat is proof you've worked hard. Sweat is evidence you're making a change. 

-a. 

Just a "Little Heart Attack"

I'm on a women's health kick again. 

Especially when I think about my mom. Honestly, this video is how I see it happening to my mom (and many others). Okay, it's a touch dramatic.... but the point it made. Or it should be. 

I keep asking (now I'm more like TELLING) my mom to take a breath. Relax. Quit saying yes to EVERY damn person that asks you to "help" do something in exchange for a few bucks.... She's too worn out and face it, she's getting too old for that crap. Heart disease is terrible on either side of the spectrum for me. It's bad on her side, but toss in all the other risk factors that compound the matter and she's practically a ticking time bomb. 

Yes, it freaks me out a bit. Yes, I don't want anything to happen to her or any of my parental figures for that matter... but Mom is the one who's worked like she's a "single mother" my entire life. Mind you, she's been remarried for ohh.. ummm 13 years now?! "Ain't NOTHING going to slow her down", apparently. 

Anyway, Ladies. Enjoy this reality check moment. We aren't as invincible as we think we are... so be prepared. Know the signs. Know the symptoms. Know what to do and DO IT. No waiting. No lollygagging. It's not going to get "better"... Get to the hospital (and please don't drive yourself!)!!!

Make it your mission to make sure the women you love know. I did. :) 

Rethink Breast Cancer

So, it's October. 


I should have had a post about breast health WAY before now but of course, like many, I'm also a slacker when it comes to checking my breasts for changes... regardless what month it is. 


In honor of promoting breast health, in a fun and entirely NEW way, I give all my ladies this:

Now, isn't that motivation to be a bit more responsible about our breast health!?!?! :) 


Thanks to Pam for finding this gem and thinking of ME! Enjoy my friends. Share the love and let me know if you actually download the app.... I'm interested to hear about it! 


-a. 

A Nurses Wishlist...

Now, I know this sounds ridiculous: a nurses' wishlist. Blame the Pollyanna optimist that I tend to be if you must, but I'm quite sure I speak to everyone for every nurse out there when I say this.... well almost:

1.) I wish for more hospital transportation assistance - day and night. It's damn near impossible to get help during the day moving a patient from the ICU to another room... imagine the night shift.
2.) While on transportation: I wish ICU transfer's trumped all other's in the hospital. We don't move 100 people in/out a day, but when we do move someone, it's likely an urgent matter for the person who needs to come in. OH, and if we can't get a "Resource Nurse" for the critical care department... maybe just a few to float around the hospital to help turn, transport, go to procedures etc...
3.) I wish for compliant Dialysis patients. I know it has to suck having dialysis. It's probably eternal torture waiting and waiting and waiting for a kidney transplant... BUT DO WHAT YOUR DOCTOR/NURSES SAY! There are just reasons for fluid restrictions, low sodium diets and regularly scheduled dialysis appointments. Not going to dialysis because you "don't feel like it" is pure stupidity... emergent dialysis isn't a picnic and practically drowning in your own body fluids has got to be freaking SCARY! Why do so many KEEP doing it?!
4.) Also - take care of your fistulas.
5.) Go to the bathroom when your nurse asks if you need to go. Likely, we have time to help you now.... not 15 minutes from now when you finally call out asking for help. Yes, it's kind of like when you make your kids "go" even when they say they "don't have to go".... something will always come out. Usually. 
6.) Keep a record of your medications. This includes dosage and frequency. Also, it's nice to include herbals too. You never know if we're going to need it. 
7.) While you're healthy and of sound mind, make a living will and designate a Power of Attorney (POA) and/or Healthcare Power of Attorney. Especially if you're not married to this person. Legally, your next of kin is your decision maker whether you want them to be or not if you don't have LEGAL documentation authorizing someone else. Just do it. I know you think this won't happen or you won't need it... but this lack of documentation creates a mess for everyone involved. 
7a.) If you're gay and living in a state that doesn't yet recognize gay marriage, DO THE PAPER WORK! 
8.) I wish for online scheduling.
9.) I wish for 6 week scheduling.... 6 weeks ahead.
10.) Smile. Say thank you. Be kind. This is for everyone. Patients. Doctors. Nurses. Transportation. Dietary. Pharmacy, etc .... we're all a team. We all work hard. 
11.) I wish for Computerized MARS.
12.) Keep your weight in check. Yes - the BMI calculation works too. Yes, I'm strong... but I'm certainly not strong enough to move 100kg of flaccid body weight up and around a bed alone. So if you would like to be moved regularly, watch your weight and keep it within HEALTHY levels please.
13.) I wish Starbucks delivered to the nearest hospital every afternoon between 1 and 4pm and for the night shift-ers, when they close the stores.
14.) Better yet, I wish family members would ask their nurses more often if we too would like a cup of joe to sip on when they go to get theirs. :)
15.) I wish for more nursing education assistance.... for higher ed and/or unit based. 
16.) Free water bolus' for each nurse every 2 hours. This chronic dehydration mess we're all in at work is making us grumpy and wreaking havoc on our skin. 


Love, Your Nurse

Okay... well, that's all I've got for now. Fellow nurses: Feel free to add on......