Good food, good company, good advice from Grandma

Karen

Oral Cancer Revisited

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You know, when we have our children, we as parents always have dreams for them, that they would accomplish great things, that they would be successful, and that they would follow in our footsteps.  Today, I would give anything if my youngest daughter, Emily, was not following in mine.  You see, her husband, my Fab Son-in-law, was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma of the larynx last week.
Right now, they are trying to be very optimistic, hoping for the best, while preparing for the worst. The only thing is, we don’t know exactly what the worst can be. I do know that FabGrandpa and I will be able to guide them to some extent, to show them the road, to help them along the way. As I told her, “unfortunately” they have someone who has gone before them, to give them advice and to listen to their fears. While FabGrandpa and I had each other, and an online support group, Emily and her husband will have us, and I hope we will be able to help them in whatever way we can.
Fab S-I-L is a surgery scheduler at a hospital in Atlanta. Right before Christmas, he lost his voice, so he went to the doctor to have it checked out. That doctor said he had a polyp in his throat, and scheduled surgery to remove it. When he got in there, he discovered that the mass was not what he thought it was, and just did a biopsy instead.  He was referred to a specialist at Emory University Hospital, who did a thorough exam, including a CAT scan. He is going to do another biopsy next week. We are hoping for good news.

So, I am here to nudge you all, again, to get an exam for oral cancer at the very next opportunity–it is painless, doesn’t take much time, and can save your life. Please, just do it!

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My Vacation Kicked My Hiney

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FabGrandpa and I went on a little trip to Atlanta last week. Our daughter, Becky, gave us tickets to a concert, and two nights in a swanky hotel downtown. We had lots of fun, but I’m tellin  ya, that trip kicked my butt!

We stayed in our hometown of Douglasville for one night before heading to the Big A. While we were in town, we we stayed at Hotel Palomar. It was fun to be pampered for a couple of days.

I got to go to my favorite place in Atlanta, the Dekalb Farmer’s Market, and to Whole Foods, where I found the most divine chocolate bar ever, Mo’s Bacon Bar.
Yes, you are seeing correctly–it IS chocolate covered bacon–food for the gods!
The concert was fun, the whole reason for the trip, Dweezil Zappa Plays Zappa. Frank Zappa’s son playing his father’s music. It was a great concert.
But now that I am home,  I am having trouble gettting back into the swing of things. I don’t know if it is the blood pressure meds the doctor put me on, or the hectic pace of the trip, but I slept for 14 hours the last night of the trip, and have done nothing but veg out since we got home.

I am hoping this lethargy will leave me alone soon, because I have so much to do!
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Survivor!

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On January 10, 2001, my sweet husband, FabGrandpa, was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue. It was the worst day of our lives. We were stunned! We cried, we spent hours just looking at each other, holding on to each other, crying, trying to talk about the unspeakable. That is a day neither one of will ever forget. It was just the beginning. Today, I am so proud to say, “My husband is a 9 year survivor of cancer!” Let us all rejoice!
Oral cancer is something I had never heard of until that day. But look at this:
“More than 34,000 Americans will be diagnosed with oral or pharyngeal cancer this year. It will cause over 8,000 deaths, killing roughly 1 person per hour, 24 hours per day. Of those 34,000 newly diagnosed individuals, only half will be alive in 5 years. This is a number which has not significantly improved in decades. The death rate for oral cancer is higher than that of cancers which we hear about routinely such as cervical cancer, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, laryngeal cancer, cancer of the testes, endocrine system cancers such as thyroid, or skin cancer (malignant melanoma). If you expand the definition of oral cancers to include cancer of the larynx, for which the risk factors are the same, the numbers of diagnosed cases grow to 41,000 individuals, and 12,500 deaths per year in the US alone. Worldwide the problem is much greater, with over 400,000 new cases being found each year.
The death rate associated with this cancer is particularly high not because it is hard to discover or diagnose, but due to the cancer being routinely discovered late in its development. Often it is only discovered when the cancer has metastasized to another location, most likely the lymph nodes of the neck. Prognosis at this stage of discovery is significantly worse than when it is caught in a localized intra oral area. Besides the metastasis, at these later stages, the primary tumor has had time to invade deep into local structures. Oral cancer is particularly dangerous because in its early stages it may not be noticed by the patient, as it can frequently prosper without producing pain or symptoms they might readily recognize, and because it has a high risk of producing second, primary tumors. This means that patients who survive a first encounter with the disease, have up to a 20 times higher risk of developing a second cancer. This heightened risk factor can last for 5 to 10 years after the first occurrence. There are several types of oral cancers, but around 90% are squamous cell carcinomas.”    (from the website of the Oral Cancer Foundation)
FabGrandpa’s cancer was found early, because it was on his tongue and visible. He had gone to the dentist for a checkup. His dentist told him he needed to go to an oral surgeon without delay. The next day, he was in the oral surgeon’s office having a biopsy done. A week later we got the devasting news.  He was lucky that they found it so early, one factor that I am sure has contributed to his 9 year survival.
The exam for oral cancer is simple and painless. It can be done by a dentist, oral surgeon, ear-nose-throat doctor, or a general practitioner. All you have to do is ask your doctor to do it next time you go.
“Besides a visual examination of all the tissues in your mouth, your doctor will feel the floor of your mouth and portions of the back of your throat with his fingers, in the search for abnormalities. A thorough oral screening also includes indirect examination of the nasopharynx and larynx, and involves manually feeling the neck for swollen lymph nodes, and other abnormalities such as hardened masses. Your doctor will also check the mouth for white patches, red patches, ulcerations, lumps, loose teeth, and review your dental x-rays for abnormalities. Be sure to tell the doctor if you have been a tobacco user in any form. Tobacco use is implicated in more than 75% of all oral cancers. After the physical examination of your mouth, if your doctor finds any areas that are suspicious, he may recommend a biopsy. This is simply taking a small portion of the suspicious tissue for examination under a microscope.

You should always contact your doctor or dentist immediately if you notice the following symptoms in yourself or a loved one:

  • A sore or lesion in the mouth that does not heal within two weeks.
  • A lump or thickening in the cheek.
  • A white or red patch on the gums, tongue, tonsil, or lining of the mouth.
  • A sore throat or a feeling that something is caught in the throat.
  • Difficulty chewing or swallowing.
  • Difficulty moving the jaw or tongue.
  • Numbness of the tongue or other area of the mouth.
  • Swelling of the jaw that causes dentures to fit poorly or become uncomfortable.”

Want to help us celebrate FabGrandpa’s 9 years of survival? Make a $9 donation to the Oral Cancer Foundation today!  But even if you don’t make a donation, make yourself a reminder to get an oral cancer screening the next time you see your doctor or dentist. It could save your life.

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It’s A Girl!

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Remember back in the dark ages when we old grandma’s were having our babies,and we had to actually wait until we woke up after the delivery to find out if we had a boy or a girl? Sigh…
 
We found out yesterday that our newest FabGrandchild is going to be a girl. We are all so excited and can hardly wait until May for her to get here. The proud parents, my son and his wife, are still debating names for her.  I’m just calling her Baby Girl until she’s named. 
 
I was so happy to know there is going to be another FabGranddaughter, that I drove 35 miles to Tuscaloosa yesterday to go shopping.  OK, we also had to go get FabGrandpa some new pants, but seriously, I couldn’t wait another minute to look at girlie girl baby clothes.

 
Isn’t that just the most adorable outfit?

 
And ooooooooo

 
ahhhhhhhhh! cutie cute cute! You know Fabgrandma is going to be sewing for this girlie soon!
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FABrics I Love

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As you may have noticed, I love to sew. I mostly make quilts and crafts, but have been known to sew a little bit of clothing every now and then. One of the reasons I haven’t been sewing a lot since I started living the RV lifestyle, is that I am always in remote locations where there is not a decent fabric store within hundreds of miles.

The internet has come to my fabric rescue! Over the last year or so, I have found quite a few sewing, quilting, and fabric blogs, and I read them every day, and drool over all those fabulous fabrics the writers of them are using in their projects.  One of my favorite fabric blogs, True Up, is hosting a MEME where they want you to show your 10 favorite fabrics of 2009.

Since I didn’t get into internet fabrics until last summer, I missed out on some that debuted earlier, so some of the ones I am listing here may be older than 2009, but I still love them.

My most favorite fabric I found this year (but probably came out earlier than that) is the Fairy Tip Toes collection by Tina Givens for Free Spirit Fabrics. When I saw it, I fell in love with it, and searched for three weeks before I found it online to buy. I haven’t cut it yet, don’t know that I ever will, but I HAVE it and that is what matters most to a fabric-aholic like me!
My next favorite is called Large Whimsy from Pillow and Maxfield for Michael Miller Fabrics. I am making myself a quilt using the brown/green/turquoise colorway. I already have the pieces cut and ready to sew.


There are just so many beautiful FABrics out there these days, it makes me wish I had more storage room for it. I have only a wicker trunk to keep it in, though, so I have to be very selective on what I buy.


And I used two fabrics from the Meadowsweet Collection by Sandi Henderson for Michael Miller to make a dress for my FabGranddaughter, Sarah, for Christmas:

Here are some things that are in my list to get in the coming year, that is, if something new doesn’t come along that I love more!


Echino Fall: for Kokka Fabrics

Far And Away by Heather Ross for Kokka Fabrics

Hushabye:  by Tula Pink for Moda Fabrics

And for reasons I don’t have to explain, I love these two cute fabrics:
I don’t know how many of these gorgeous FABrics I will actually get this year, but oh, isn’t it wonderful to dream about them?? Oh, and I see I have gone fabric crazy again, since they only asked for my favorite 10. Hello. My name is FabGrandma and I am a fabric-aholic.

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Had My Decade-ly Physical Exam Today

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FabGrandpa and I have not had health insurance since 2001 when I was laid off from a job in the telecommunications industry (the second time).  At that job, my health insurance went into effect on January 1 so we both had scheduled appointments on the same day. Our last insurance benefits had expired in 1996, so we figured it was about time to get a check up.  On January 10, 2001, he was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue, and I was diagnosed with type II diabetes. It was a memoral day.

My job lasted until April 30th, and my health insurance benefits that went along with it expired on May 31st, one day after his last radiation treatment. That coverage kept us out of the poor house and bankruptcy court, and I was so thankful that we had it.

In 2007, FabGrandpa signed up for his health care benefits through the Veterans Administration, one of his benefits from having served in the Navy back in the early 70’s. But that still left me with no health care insurance. I dealt with this lack of coverage by getting my prescription drugs from Mexico, where you don’t need a prescription, and only going to the doctor when absolutely necessary.  Like when I had that palpable mass and pain in my arm, and that kidney stone last summer.  All of that was paid for out of pocket, but there have been times during those years when I had to make a decision not to go to the doctor because I simply couldn’t afford it. 

Among my many goals for 2010 was to establish a relationship with a doctor, and to get my health care taken care of on a more regular basis. I asked people around here who they would go to, and Dr. Lee was the name that came up most often. Today was the day for my appointment with Dr. Lee. He is a general practioner in a small town in Alabama. He is one of those guys who does all the labs, x-rays, and EKG’s right there in his office. He was knowledgeable about Celiac disease, and that made me happy. And he didn’t holler at me too much about my lackadasiycal attitude about my health care over the past decade. 

The exam went quite well.  I peed in the cup, they took blood for an hbA1c, kidney function, and blood chemistry; did a chest X-ray; and EKG; and took my blood pressure. We talked for a while about Celiac disease: He asked me why I thought I had it, how long I have not been eating wheat, did I feel better not eating gluten, did I want to be tested?  He said he wished more people would listen to their bodies and believe that the foods they eat could be more of a factor in their diseases. He told me that there were tests he could to determine if I have Celiac, but they are expensive, and I would have to eat gluten again for a while for them to be accurate, and if I was feeling better not eating gluten then I probably do have Celiac and he wouldn’t recommend the testing. 

We are waiting for the blood test results before he writes any prescriptions for me, but he said he would probably continue me on metformin 500 mg per day, as my blood sugar this morning was 110.  He will probably add a low dosage blood pressure medication because my blood pressure was 143/91, and he was afraid that combined with my type II diabetes could cause some kidney damage. They are scheduling me for the dreaded mammogram, and will wait the results of the stool sample to decide if I really need a colonoscopy. All the things Dr. Lee did today came to a total of $186 plus whatever the lab charges for the blood tests he sent to them.  If this had been in the Atlanta area, it would have cost about $350.  But believe me when I tell you there have been lots of times in the last ten years when I didn’t have that much money in my pocket.

And, while he DID reprimand me somewhat for my long wait between physical exams, he commended me for taking control of my healthcare issues. I have taken my medications, even if obtaining them from Mexico was somewhat risky. I did get an hbA1c every 3-4 months, even if I did buy them over the counter from Wal-Mart most of the time. I found out I could be gluten intolerant and deleted gluten from my life. So, even though I haven’t been faithful to the medical professionals, I have been getting healthcare in ways I could afford. 


UPDATE: the doctor’s office called this morning. My hbA1c was 6.1, where they want it be less than 7. Kidney function was fine, all blood chemistry was normal, not even high cholesterol! The NP who called said she was very impressed with the numbers, and again commended me for taking good care of myself, and AGAIN said she was sure that not eating gluten was helping to keep my numbers normal.  I will be taking blood pressure meds, but I expected that.
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So The New Year Is Upon Us

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Now that 2010 is here, I am spending my day making a list of goals for myself.  I don’t make resolutions. A “resoulution” is an “act of resolving or determining upon an action or course of action, method, procedure..”, and what I am doing is by no means a determined course of action. I find that in my life, setting out on a course of action usually leads to something other than what I started out to do. So, if I set goals instead, no matter what course of action leads me to the desired result is ok.

Some of my goals are simple, direct things that accomplish a specific task:

I want to clean up my computer, and by that, I DO NOT mean dusting off the screen. I want to get rid of files no longer needed; bookmarks that lead to pages that make me wonder why I bookmarked them to start with; organize folders in some kind of order that make sense, and put the ones I use the most at the top of the list. If I accomplish that, it will make my days infinitely better and help me save time.

I want to get organized in my life. I do so many different things that I sometimes just get overwhelmed with the list. I want to make myself a schedule, so that I have an hour a day to write; an hour a day to sew, an hour a day to play, and an hour a day to exercise. (Not that putting the hour a day on my calendar will actually make me do those things…)
I want to get a tripod and learn to take better photos. If I had done that last year, this photo of the gorgeous blue moon rising over Payne Lake on New Years Eve would have been better than this:

Other goals may prove to be a little harder for me to do, but not starting to work in that direction will assure me that they won’t get done:

I want to move my blog to a hosted website with my own URL. I have some very specific and some other vague goals for myself for this blog, and have already started working towards them. I want it to be the most Fab blog, ever. (Now how is THAT for a goal???)

I want to get my Etsy store up to date, and get all the purty things I sew listed on there for sale. I want procrastination to be a thing of the past.
I have a goal to get all my gluten free recipes sorted out, typed up, and presented in some type of cookbook, whether it is an e-book or a printed one. There are other gluten free cookbooks out there, but I am a southern girl who cooks in a “southern” way. I want other gluten free cooks from the south to feel comfortable in the kitchen, making all those mahvelous southern comfort foods we grew  up on, minus the gluten.
I want to make myself a quilt with these fabrics. I have already started it, by cutting all the pieces. All I have to do now is the sewing (HA! that’s easy to say!)  I have a baby quilt to make, and a couple of other big sewing projects that I want to finish by spring, but of all my goals, this one will probably be the easiest for me to accomplish.
So, there it is, out there for public consumption, and public scrutiny. Making these goals public will put me at greater risk of completing them. What are YOUR goals for the year 2010?
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Fried Cabbage

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Think you don’t like cabbage? I didn’t like it much when I was growing up, and I don’t like it now in most restaurants. It always seems to be soggy and tasteless if I order it when I eat out somewhere. But, I like cabbage when I cook it at home.  This dish is flavorful, inexpensive, and gluten free (though not calorie free).

Fried Cabbage

3-4 slices of bacon OR 3-4 tablespoons bacon grease OR 3-4 tablespoons butter or margarine
1 medium head of cabbage, chopped
salt to taste
4 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 medium onion, peeled and chopped.
2 cups water

Fry the bacon until crisp, set aside. Pour the bacon grease out of the pan, then measure 3-4 tablespoons of it back into it.  Add the chopped cabbage, potatoes and onion.  Toss them all around in the pan several times until they are coated with the bacon grease. Add the water, bring to a boil, then cover the pan with a lid. Turn the heat down to medium low and simmer until all the water has evaporated, about 30 minutes.
 
I watch it closely near the end of cooking to make sure it doesn’t stick and burn. If you have fried some bacon, crumble it on top before serving.

This may not be the most healthy cabbage you have ever eaten, but it sure will be good!
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