Frank Sinatra

I titled this entry "Frank Sinatra" because he was a pig headed old man who did not take good care of his health and ultimately died of a heart attack. He's buried in plot B-8 #151 at Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, CA.

My mom returned to her home last Thursday from having an additional 2 stents installed  next to her heart - this time one big and one small. This brings her grand total up to 6. I would probably have not known this if it wasn't for the efforts of her best friend Rose who called me at the last go with the same issue.

So this time, Wednesday before the procedure, she picked up the phone and called me to tell me what was going on. I went to Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa on Thursday thinking she would be in for another day, but they released her at about Noon on Thursday. I followed her home because she drove herself to the hospital. I took her to the pharmacy twice. Once to deliver the laundry list of drugs she now has to take and once for a pick up. She's up to 15 different medications, 14 of which she takes regularly. The 15th is nitroglycerin she only takes as needed. I made her lunch of tilapia fried in olive oil and a broccoli slaw salad.

She is a great example of what happens to women when they don't take great care of their health. She is the atypical American who only worries about health when something goes wrong, if even that. She is also one of those people who think if you ignore the problem, it will go away. Too bad that's not the case with being overweight and all it's associated diseases.

Obesity leads to diabetes, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure. Diabetes leads to heart disease and stroke. Heart disease and stroke leads to death. After having to deal with my mom and her issues, it lead me to think of what happened with my dad. A man who worked until his health got to the point where his potential employer said you're a liability until you get your health in order. At that point, he had a belly button hernia, hemorrhoids, high blood pressure from years of being overweight and diabetes. He claimed he had congestive heart failure, but I think it was just the diabetes showing it's ugly in the form of high cholesterol and heart disease he didn't want to face. He had a stroke when he was 70 at work when no one else was around and died three weeks later in the hospital of complications of his diabetes. He had cirrhosis of the liver from the cholesterol medication he was taking for years and his kidneys failed. At some point, he was just bleeding from everywhere, because his body gave out. That's when I decided on comfort care for him and watched as he had is final heart attack and died right before my eyes.

But back to my lecture on my mom. I called her last night to check up on her and she hates the fact that she's on a ton of medications and I told her it stems from her having diabetes. I think she's had ot for a long time but she told me that she has only been treated for it for the last four years. Thank you Medicare. Now she's complaining about tingling in her one foot. Yup, that's diabetes for ya. She may only has been treated for a few years, but that tingling sensation tells me she's had it for a good long while and she doesn't do enough diet modification to keep it under control.

The human body is a funny thing. It mostly craves what is bad for it. That would be the holy grail of human anti-health... sugar, salt, grease, caffeine and alcohol.

What do you need to eat for optimum health? Vegetables, fruit, fish, chicken, whole grain and beans. After picking up and reading a few Thai cookbooks, I know it can be done because a whole culture eats like that. But again, the industrial revolution has effected how we eat. Even though I like to hop into my car and drive to far flung places to buy things, the industrial revolution wasn't generally a good thing for humans. But that is an entirely different discussion.

All I know is the better I eat, the better I feel and if I feel good, I'm more motivated towards life...
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