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A Drink a Day Brings Breast Cancer your Way


Judith Timson at the Globe and Mail penned an opinion piece about the latest breast cancer worry for women. A study has found that women who drink daily are more likely to suffer from breast cancer. Add this to the other risk elevators, some proven like taking HRT’s and others speculated like high fat diets, lack of exercise, not breast-feeding your babies or having those infants late in life or not at all. One of the things I found interesting is the tendency to downplay the cancer risks that are more out of our control than our heredity and that is the effect of pollution. I started thinking about this recently while reading the Devra Davis books, When Smoke Ran like Water and The Secret History of the War on Cancer. Both books are fascinating in that they detail studies and events dating back to the early part of the last century that clearly show that many of the chemicals and pollutant by-products that we absorb, drink, eat and breathe in daily have been known to cause cancer by the companies that make and use them and by the United States government. In the first book there are two chapters, one detailing Bella Azbug’s call to the war on breast cancer and the other discussing known risks to the male reproductive system that should lay to rest the idea that men and women can do much to prevent themselves from becoming cancer victims. 

Bisphenol A, in the news lately due to Canada’s possible ban, is one of those supposedly benign modern wonders that has infiltrated daily existence at what we have come to discover is our own core levels. We should exercise, eat healthy and lean and just say no to alcohol, but how do we avoid plastics? How do we keep ourselves and our children safe from genetic damage that we inherited from our own parents?

If you have the time and inclination, I recommend checking out Ms. Davis’s books. Readable, fascinating and horrifying, they are eye-opening to facts about the effects of modern life on our bodies at levels not detectable until it’s too late and about how companies and the government have known all along yet chose to ignore the evidence in the name of profit and for the good of the economy. The economy, after all, is why the United States exists, right?

Death at a Funeral


Frank Oz directed a British movie called Death at a Funeral which Rob and I actually watched on purpose last Saturday night. The basic plot revolves around the death of an older man and the funeral service his wife and sons hold for him at their home out in the country. The movie is a comedy, and it is the first death movie that we have viewed, on purpose, since we watched Catch and Release back in the fall. Watching funny movies about the passing of a spouse and father is definitely on the order of gallows humor and oddly I find this type of story even a bit funnier now that I have a first hand perspective of some of the situations at which fun was being poked. For instance there is a scene where a close friend of one of the sons is sitting with the newly widowed mother in the garden – clearly uncomfortable – and trying to cover it with small talk that, as many widowed people can attest to. leads to questions about whether or not the widow/er has thought about remarrying again. As the friend puts it, “You’re young – relatively. Do you think you might marry again?” Withering look of disbelief. “Oh, right. Too soon to talk about that.” I know for myself I was being asked about dating/remarriage prior to my late husband’s death even and at four months my younger sister was inquiring as to the state of status, “So, dating anyone?” Rob’s late mother-in-law let him know at his late wife’s funeral service that she was okay with the fact that he would find someone new someday. Tactless takes on a new meaning from this point of view. It also further illustrates to me just how poorly equipped we are when it comes to dealing with death and the grieving on both sides.

Throughout the course of the family, tense family dynamics are revealed including a secret about the late husband. While it is over the top in that understated English way, it rings true. Family members have roles and almost set in stone ways of reacting and interacting and when something out of the ordinary occurs (although what can be more ordinary than death?) everyone is shaken loose from their moorings and things are done and said that can be more honest than the family business as usual even as they change things for everyone involved.

It was a good film, though, providing laughs and insight.

An Allergy Alert – Woman in Plastic Bubble Ahead


I have been sidelined today by a nasty hayfever attack that started at the gym yesterday morning. I discovered last fall that I am really allergic to something in the cleaning products they use. So I visited the doctor who put me on a heavy duty dose of a much better anti-histamine and I gave up showering at the gym because my symptoms usually started there.

All was well, relatively, until yesterday when I began sneezing in the locker room right after my work-out and continued to sneeze and drip the rest of the day. Fortunately my eyes didn’t swell nearly shut as they did the last time though they hurt. Today I skipped the gym workout to give myself additional time to shut down the histamine reaction which is much improved but I can tell I am not quite 100% yet. Since I have yoga this afternoon, I will still get a bit of a workout (make that a lot – yoga is a bitch and I discover new and lazier muscles all the time). Tomorrow I will get back to the gym and running – I am covering four miles now of which I run half or more.

I hate having allergies. It really bites and doesn’t seem the least bit fair. What makes it so exasperating is the attitude most people take towards my difficulties. I am not the only one to have complained about the cleaning solution the gym uses. Other people have reported allergic reactions as well but the gym’s attitude, well sympathetic, has been one of “you’ll have to learn to cope”. Not very helpful but typical of society in general as I often am told that my asthma difficulties in smoky environments, or even just dodging the smokers who gather outside doors of public places, could be dealt with by me simply never leaving my house. 

Rob wondered what we were going to do about my allergies and I replied that he will just have to disinfect himself well when he comes for conjugal visits in my plastic bubble. Not very funny I guess, but what can a person do but keep their sense of humor?