My Turn: Personal stories by Health section readers
October 26, 2009
MY TURN
Diabetes may create a chasm between patient, doctor
Ask the average healthcare worker about the biggest problem in diabetes care today and he or she will probably tell you that it's getting patients to "control" their blood sugar levels.
October 19, 2009
MY TURN
Hearing loss is frustrating, but family and friends can help
As we have grown older, my husband and I have developed hearing problems: For me, hearing requires more effort, while he cannot hear sometimes in spite of any effort.
October 5, 2009
MY TURN
A Weighty Reality Check
One afternoon in 1978, when I was 24, I lay down in my apartment and decided to "face reality." It's a term I had just read in a Self magazine, and I decided to give it a shot.
June 1, 2009
MY TURN
What it's like to 'wear oxygen'
A year ago I was diagnosed with COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a catch-all label for many different breathing problems. My particular situation is that my lungs are compressed and cannot expand sufficiently to provide needed oxygen.
May 25, 2009
MY TURN
Dependent on, not addicted to, Oxycontin
Every morning I get out of bed slowly and shuffle off to the bathroom to take my pile of pills, including a pain medication that has been vilified to the extent that I shudder to speak its name (to borrow a little from Harry Potter).
May 4, 2009
MY TURN
Parent of child with Asperger's syndrome learns the power of compassion
On a trip to the art museum, my son, my husband and I stopped in the cafeteria for lunch.
May 4, 2009
MY TURN
Soft landing after double mastectomy, thanks to her husband
Our king-size bed used to be such a symbol of fun for me, and not just for the reason you might think.
May 4, 2009
MY TURN
Broken ankle, heal so I can wear heels
Whenever I heard the phrase "broken ankle," I assumed the subsequent events: cast, crutches, cast off, bit of limp, back to normal. I never considered the possibility that the ankle supports the full weight of the body. In short, the anklebone is not only connected, it had better be well-connected.
May 4, 2009
MY TURN
Living with Parkinson's disease
It is either denial or the ability to live in the moment, but my Parkinson's doesn't bother me too much psychologically.
April 13, 2009
MY TURN
The first doctor was wrong: It is rheumatoid arthritis
This isn't an easy subject for me, but it's one many will relate to. I have rheumatoid arthritis. Thanks to the wonders of medical science and a doctor who worked with me for five years to get my "Molotov cocktail" just right, I am, for the most part, in remission.
April 6, 2009
MY TURN
As mom faces renal cell cancer, a daughter learns patience
I'm impatient by nature. But I thought I had learned how to remain still in yoga classes, coaxing calm and patience from an overactive mind. I thought I learned patience when my daughter was born 2 1/2 weeks late. But I didn't really learn anything until my mom was diagnosed with renal cell cancer.
March 30, 2009
MY TURN
Meditation on my mind
Although meditation has been described as a reflective mode of thought, a more accurate definition might be a mode of "no thought," not unlike that of an employee at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Our daily worries and chattering minds recede into the background and the pure energy of our own being comes through, letting us experience complete delight in living.
March 9, 2009
MY TURN
The truth about colonoscopy prep
Colonoscopy: The very word sends shudders down the spine of anyone who has drunk "the drink" -- the concoction that cleanses the colon so the doctor can later examine it. I've enjoyed three different procedures with three different preps, and I've made it my mantra to minimize the misery:
March 2, 2009
MY TURN
Frank talk about cancer connects loved ones
When I learned recently that yet another friend had been diagnosed with cancer, I experienced my usual reaction: disbelief and sadness, followed by anger at Life In General. But for the first time, I also saw what these under-35 friends and family members have in common. They, or those they love, talk about their illness with a refreshing frankness.
February 16, 2009
MY TURN
Which is a stronger health indicator: genetics or lifestyle?
A good friend of mine was approaching her 49th birthday with trepidation. Why, I asked her, was she so afraid of 49?
November 10, 2008
MY TURN
Nurses: the good, the bad and the difference between them
Over the last two years, I have spent a significant amount of time in hospitals in L.A. and Chicago because of medical crises with various members of my extended family. And no matter how well- or little-known these hospitals are, one fact remains the same across the board: You know a good nurse the minute she/he walks into the room.
November 3, 2008
MY TURN
DVD-driven home workout gets the job done
People say it takes too much discipline to work out at home, but I think it takes more discipline to get myself to a gym.
October 13, 2008
MY TURN
Diving face first into 'safe cosmetics'
Our beauty regimens may be poison -- and I don't mean the expensive perfume of that name. Revelations of toxic ingredients in cosmetics, lotions, nail polishes, shampoos: They lead women to wonder about the safety of stunning.
September 22, 2008
MY TURN
Anxiety disorder leaves parts of life in limbo for author Samantha Schutz
In the last few years, whenever I tried to talk about my experiences with an anxiety disorder, I ran into the same problem. I couldn't describe myself as having an anxiety disorder because I'd gone months without having a panic attack. And I couldn't say I used to have an anxiety disorder because I still felt its effects.
September 15, 2008
MY TURN
Get out of my bike lane
Southern California should be a bicycling paradise. The weather is perfect, the roads wide and the terrain favorable. Given our natural advantages, we should have named one of our cities after the Madonna del Ghisallo, the patron saint of cyclists.
September 15, 2008
MY TURN
When animal dander attacks
I had zero interest when my fiancée approached me about boarding a friend's cat for six months while the friend was out of the country. I've always been a dog person, and it's easier to get someone to switch religions than their preference in dogs or cats. I relented when the owner couldn't find anyone else.
September 8, 2008
MY TURN
A diabetic turns to the tattoo as medical I.D.
THE TATTOO machine's loud buzzing would shock the hairs on my upper arm in different directions if they hadn't just been shaved off to create a smooth surface.
September 1, 2008
MY TURN
Walking the Avon Walk for her mom
IN 1997, the year Princess Diana died, the year Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio reigned at the box office with "Titanic," I lost my mother to breast cancer.
August 18, 2008
MY TURN
A young mother draws strength from her struggles with MS
AFRIEND recently asked me what it felt like to have multiple sclerosis. We were sitting at the park watching our kids play, and we would have looked like any other suburban moms except for my silver walker covered with Spider-man stickers stationed nearby.
July 21, 2008
MY TURN
Treatment policy seems to write off seniors
FOR THE last few years, I have been treated for a gastrointestinal problem that is monitored by periodic colonoscopies. I'm sure that those of you who are familiar with this test well know how difficult, uncomfortable and unpleasant it is, especially the preparation.
July 7, 2008
MY TURN
Smaller gyms help exercise social skills
WHEN IT comes to health clubs, do you prefer the enormous, multilevel variety where you can retain your anonymity even after years of blood, sweat and towels, or do you opt for the small mom-and-pop "Cheers"-type gym where everybody knows your name?
June 30, 2008
MY TURN
Waiting for a liver transplant, she tries to reclaim the rhythm of her life
WHEN you're lying in bed and can't keep food down, muscle metabolizes first.
June 23, 2008
MY TURN
'Any spotting?' the doctor asks -- and uterine cancer is diagnosed
ROUTINE best describes this year's visit to my gynecologist. I had no medical complaints; I was just working through my to-do list. After a physical exam and a brief conversation about life and the latest research, my doctor of 15 years said everything looked good. My Pap smear would later prove normal.
June 16, 2008
MY TURN
The sailor in twilight
The phone rang as I wrestled with the wood-framed window to close out the Santa Ana wind dusting the desk in my father's office. David, the hospice worker assigned to his case, wanted to know more about this 90-year-old man whose ability to speak has all but left him. Perhaps he could try to talk to him about his interests.
May 26, 2008
MY TURN
Long, full lives -- of pills and doctors
ARE WE really living that much longer than previous generations did? I don't think so. The insurance industry's actuarial tables may say we are, but I've never understood that industry's mathematical models of anything, especially billing. Take the case of my 81-year-old mother and 83-year-old father.
May 12, 2008
MY TURN
Riding a bike to work is more than a healthy commute: It's a sign of adulthood
THE SKY above Hyperion Bridge at 6:45 in the morning can be an aimless gray, a luminescent peach or an adolescent blue. I have cycled across this bridge for five years and in every season, yet it was only recently that I glanced west at just the right moment and spotted Griffith Observatory.
May 12, 2008
MY TURN
Comforted by 'Life in the Balance,' Thomas Graboys' memoir on Parkinson's and dementia
I gasped when I saw the subtitle of Thomas Graboys' new memoir, "Life in the Balance: A Physician's Memoir of Life, Love, and Loss with Parkinson's Disease and Dementia." My father, also a physician, carries these same diagnoses.
May 5, 2008
MY TURN
It's time for U.S. to revisit universal healthcare
HIKING along the Dove River in England, I fell hard on my left hip. It was clear that I had broken something and that the rest of my vacation would be spent in a hospital 6,000 miles from home.
April 7, 2008
MY TURN
In weight loss, an unexpected gain
MY vacation souvenir was 10 pounds. A sore knee had kept me from working out for three months, and my midlife metabolism just couldn't handle the butter-drenched lobster, shoofly pie, homemade pizzelles and campfire s'mores from three weeks on the road.
March 31, 2008
MY TURN
Living life by the numbers on her bathroom scale
MAYBE it's a pointless ritual, since I often predict to the half-pound the numbers that come up. Nonetheless, every morning I step onto my bathroom scale -- twice, in fact, to confirm a good number or, more futilely, to stamp out a high one.
March 24, 2008
MY TURN
Medical crisis or trifle? Doing the denial dance
My husband phones me in my home office, one floor above his office. His speech is slurred. "You sound funny," I say. "What's wrong?"
March 17, 2008
MY TURN
'Biddy' comes of a good age
It was a summer evening of the kind Los Angeles is famous for -- hot and busy. On that night, as I approached the street-front restaurant door, I was struck by lightning, metaphorically speaking.
March 10, 2008
MY TURN
Generation Adderall
Finals week. The words conjure up a stream of crazed thoughts among the best of us. Hours spent staring at the library clock, Facebooking or reading that stupid paragraph over and over until it registers. College students are not supposed to have the will, desire or aptitude to actually sit down in the library and study continuously for hours on end.
March 3, 2008
MY TURN
For a Paxil-free life, she'll take the long route
Some people can't stand the word "irregardless." A close friend of mine cannot stand hearing the word "panty" used in the singular.
February 18, 2008
MY TURN
For a Nebraskan, going vegetarian means going against the grain
FIVE years ago I made the most difficult, painful decision of my life. I converted from a carnivore to a vegetarian.
February 4, 2008
MY TURN
Coaching point for parent coaches
JUDGING from recent studies of the college recruiting process, there are more than a few sports stage parents out there. I should know. I was one of them. Yet beyond being constantly told to back off by friends who were frenetically pushing their kids in school, I found scant little coaching for parent coaches.
January 28, 2008
MY TURN
The story of an illness from cover to cover
I'VE had my little blue book for almost a year now. It's a square book, covered in a light denim material -- like new jeans. The book has a brightly colored ribbon with six small loops running lengthwise across the cover. Inside the loops are six colored pencils. The pencils are small, like the pencils at golf courses. And they're always falling out of the loops if you try to put the book in your backpack or purse.
January 21, 2008
MY TURN
Cataracts bring vision's value into focus
IT was an affront to my baby boomer self's illusion of eternal youth to experience a growing inability to decipher freeway signs. I was forced to rely upon passengers, including my teenage son's sharp vision (and tongue) for navigating.
January 7, 2008
MY TURN
A mom, her (sort of) kids and a lighter spa experience
IT'S become our annual tradition. A fortysomething, fiftysomething, sixtysomething and seventysomething spend the weekend at a health spa in Ojai. My mom treats her sisters and me. To take advantage of the mother-daughter special, her sisters masquerade as her daughters.
December 31, 2007
MY TURN
Grateful to see addict in his rearview mirror
'Tis the season when we invariably find ourselves reflecting upon the closing year and at some point conducting a personal audit. This year-end self-evaluation generally includes recalling earlier resolutions resolutely made and quickly forgotten, a relationship "tally" and/or "assessment" and a scary full-length-mirror body scan.
December 24, 2007
MY TURN
A healing ritual steeped in comfort
The herbs, tightly enclosed in a plastic bag then folded inside a brown paper bag, still manage to permeate the house with their earthy, overwhelming aroma. I store them in the laundry room off the kitchen, and when I open the pantry door, the odor always makes my nose twitch, however much I anticipate it.
December 17, 2007
MY TURN
Sleep apnea sparks a great awakening
I recall with fondness the years prior to 1989 when I could take for granted my ability to fall asleep quickly and stay asleep for a full eight hours. After a car accident and subsequent surgeries, however, insomnia and its shiftless cousin, fatigue, settled in for an unwelcome stay -- that is, until recently.
December 10, 2007
MY TURN
'Too young to have a mother that old'
With all the medical technology that enables older and older women to have children, maybe it's time to consider the child's point of view.
December 3, 2007
MY TURN
Like doctors, seniors don't have time to waste
Time matters in medical treatment.
November 26, 2007
MY TURN
Hands off other people's pills
My pill case was raided twice, on two separate trips across the country -- once by my mother-in-law and once by my wife. Each time, the culprit paid a price but lived to tell about it.
November 19, 2007
MY TURN
Baking: The only worry-free workout
My usual walking routine is to trek briskly for at least an hour a day, up and down the neighborhood hills. I find this to be the perfect way to ward off osteoporosis and scare away extra pounds. It's also good for my mental health. As my feet pound the pavement, I think about everything and anything and, sometimes, nothing at all.
November 12, 2007
MY TURN
That's cancer veteran, conqueror or activist to you
"Since you are a cancer survivor, it would be wise to run a few tests," said the neurologist I recently visited. I cringed when I heard his words. The thought of a few tests didn't bother me: I like it when a doctor pays attention to my history. However, the word "survivor" did.
November 5, 2007
MY TURN
When cancer's the houseguest, few rooms are truly safe
The house is quiet today; I am alone. There is so much I should do here, so many things that go undone -- a full wastebasket here, a stack of mail there. Yet instead, I look and see what cancer has wrought.
October 29, 2007
MY TURN
Shh. She's plugged in - to silence
A couple of months ago, I woke up early for my usual workout. I pulled on running clothes and shoes, fastened my hair back and reached for my iPod. Instantly, my stomach clenched as I looked down at the angry red color indicating the battery was dead. How was I supposed to go for a 5-mile run without Fergie, Gwen and Justin urging me on? Heading out into the hot Southern California summer sans music, I braced myself for a horrible workout.
October 15, 2007
MY TURN
My life with a big black boot
There I was, a relatively healthy old guy in a stall shower, preparing to celebrate a 34th wedding anniversary with my ever-loving spouse, Elsie. While reaching to turn off the spray, I slipped, lost my balance and fell forward, hitting my noggin on the shower seat, then bounced onto the tile with a thwack to my ankle -- an obvious detriment to a soccer tryout with the Galaxy.
October 8, 2007
MY TURN
A mother assesses risk to life and limb
"I can't save the leg," the surgeon states plainly. My 15-year-old son Brooks' head drops as fast as his dream to surf.
October 1, 2007
MY TURN
This just in: Eat chocolate
Lately I've tried to make sense of the dizzying news from the world of nutritional science. Believe me, it hasn't been easy.
September 17, 2007
MY TURN
10,000-step program can be addictive in a good way
It's time to come clean about my addiction. People have been staring at the slight bulge under my shirt.
September 10, 2007
MY TURN
Doctor's orders divert a girl from 'frenetic' to fine
Before I had my daughter I thought everything I did mattered. The tone of voice I used, how much I held her, the way she was disciplined, or not.
September 3, 2007
MY TURN
Happy from the feet up
The slap, slap, slapping resounded through the air, punctuated by screams of pain and slightly hysterical giggling. It sounded like dozens of hands thwacking dozens of bare buttocks.
August 27, 2007
MY TURN
Finding the right words for someone who's ill
Many of us have been through illnesses that require operations, risky procedures or recurring downtime that can change our lives, even if we fully recover. Any of this makes us face our death.
August 20, 2007
MY TURN
No, it's not contagious
I feel a fluttering inside me. Well, sometimes it's more like an elbow to the gut. She's my third child, a happy surprise. But the real surprise will come once she is born. We have a rogue gene in our family that gives her a 50% chance of having a rare skin disease called epidermolysis bullosa -- EB for short -- characterized by extremely fragile skin that becomes blistered with even minor friction.
July 30, 2007
MY TURN
Ahh, Paris -- where the people are lean and leisurely
We were standing in the perpetually long line at Versailles waiting to purchase our tickets, after which we would stand in another long line to get into the famous palace, when I turned to my 17-year-old grandson and asked if he noticed anything odd about the throng of people around us.
July 16, 2007
My TURN
Lessons my daughter taught me
In my 45th year, I learned about life -- through my 12-year-old daughter's pain.
July 9, 2007
MY TURN
Does everyone need a pill?
I thought I was healthy, but I have discovered health problems I didn't know I had. Menopause, for example. In my mother's day this was normal for women my age, but, apparently, medical science can now cure it.
June 25, 2007
MY TURN
Walking in L.A. is far from pedestrian
Many people, while conceding that recreational walking is a convenient, low-tech and effective exercise, complain that it is much too boring to be worthy of their efforts.
June 18, 2007
MY TURN
Just because my son's shy doesn't mean he's autistic
Years ago HIV/AIDS was the "it" health news item. As consumers of media, we have moved on to the next epidemic: autism.
June 11, 2007
My TURN
Doctor used the power of friendship to heal
It was March 1997 and I was leaving the USC psychiatric ward.
June 4, 2007
MY TURN
Proud to join the 'geezerjocks'
As a newly minted senior citizen, I have sometimes wondered if the perks of advanced age come anywhere close to compensating for the deficits.
May 14, 2007
MY TURN
A motion for less motion for babies
The time has come for someone to conduct the definitive research study on baby bouncing. Not the kind where the baby does its own bouncing, but mothers bouncing babies to settle crying "events."
May 7, 2007
MY TURN
When forgetting is a gift
The caregiver is pictured on the news broadcast during a "feature" segment. He opts to care for his mother who suffers from Alzheimer's rather than put her "in a home." She is in her 70s and is functioning -- on her feet, bustling about the kitchen, albeit forgetting who is coming to dinner that night. He proudly announces to the television audience that "nothing is too good for my mother." I shudder at the implication that I have just placed my father in an Alzheimer's care facility -- after living with him for 12 years in our home -- because I didn't try hard enough to keep him here with me.
Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times
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