Bone Density Treadmill

     Today I had my bone density measured. That's the end of the story. The beginning of the story is a long time ago.

     The beginning of the story of bone density loss probably started in my mid twenties according to some study or other. Loss of bone density slowly went on in my body until a crisis occurred and then it was found that my bone density was almost in the osteoporosis category.

   Usually osteoporosis is considered a female condition. No doubt about it. Men have osteoporosis too. Males just have more bone density so more to lose. If osteoporosis affects men it's usually later on in life.

    There are a number of conditions that contribute to loss of bone density. One would be a poor diet. Another  is lack of weight bearing exercise. And a third common cause is smoking. There are more conditions that contribute to bone loss. 

    The crisis that brought my low bone density to light were two broken bones. I broke my right wrist in 1991. The bone was broken into 7 pieces. Magic and skill put the wrist together and I have full usage with no after effects. I 2002 I broke my right wrist again. This time it wasn't as serious a break. This time I said to my doc, "Should I have my bone density checked?"

    "Yes ," he said, "You should get it tested." His story was that women break hips and men break wrists???

    So my Doc put me on actonel and a bone density test every two years.  The first two tests showed some increase of bone density. Now there is little change. I have had some serious tumbles and have not broken anything. I had a nasty bike incident where I went head over heels and although I had injuries, I had no broken bones. I fell down stairs last year and lived to blog about it. 

   My point is that we get put on testing schedule and it goes on for years. My bone density has not changed. But, they keep saying they want to monitor it. I feel like telling them to go and find some wet paint to watch. 

    However, I will keep my mouth shut and keep getting tests when I'm told. I will go to the place where the hallway has little dressing rooms with littler curtains and change to get ready for my test. 

   I would suspect that many people are enjoying the same regime as I am. I hope that you are maintaining bone density.

How Much of the Story is Fact

    Our sense of reality is something that I've often thought about. On many occasions we hear people's versions of the same thing and they are quite different.

    As a child I loved listening to adults tell of their experiences. There are some people I loved to listen to even if they repeated the same story many times. A good story teller always told the same version.

    An exercise I did with my students, was to start a sentence at the front of the row and see what ended 5 seats later. All of this was oral and it was pretty wild what ended at the last of the row. Sometimes the exercise was sabotaged when they decided to deliberately twist things. Then they wanted another try to do the exercise correctly. 

   Many times we hear people giving an account of a common event and there are different versions. In fact there may be arguments about  the accuracy of the version .

   My brother and I have versions of the same event that are fairly similar. There are certain events he can not remember at all and certain things I do not recall.

   For my wife and I, quite often our version of events is quite different. Sometimes it seems that we are not even talking about the same event.

   So what makes for the differences of the perceptions we have of the same event?  Does space matter?  If I'm behind a certain event and you are ahead does that make for some difference in an account?  What influence does our life experience make in how we see an event.? What difference does experience after an event have on our account of an event? Does  being male or female make a difference in the version? Does age make a difference?

    Now I consider these issues, because like it or not, I have been labelled as a story teller on my blog. I appreciate comments which show appreciation for what I have written. 

   The stories I tell are of the experiences I've had. How close to reality are my accounts? I like to think my accounts are fairly accurate. My life has been adventurous and I've often experienced some interesting times. There are different ways to tell a good story.

   I think a combination of these things have to be in place to tell a story. The information and experience have to be present. Now the event can be fairly common place but if you have any idea of how to tell a story the event becomes interesting.

   So do you think the relation of events is always precise or is there variation.from the original?

More Smart Stuff.

      About a year ago I bought a new car and posted about all the smart stuff in it. There are many sensors which tell you many things. It tells me when tire pressures are low and much more.

     I was talking to a friend the other day and his car has more stuff. The lights turn on when needed. When backing up there's a beeper which increases speeds the closer you get and a continuous beep when you are a foot away. The friend rented a car at an airport. He soon came to a 10 km long tunnel. He wondered why he had no lights. It took a sec before he realized that in the car he rented, you had to turn on the lights yourself. Then he had fun finding a light switch.

    So if that wasn't enough I bought a new camera and discovered it can do almost everything but talk. I did my homework in choosing a camera. I wanted some zoom and pixels. I wanted a camera with a handle as I find the little guys hard to hang on to. So I chose a nikon l 830 for about $200.00. I give you this information so that you can get some idea of what cameras do. My old camera was a photo smart M447 put out by Hewlett Packard.

The silver oldie

My challenge

    Now one thing I didn't check was the camera manual. I downloaded all 204 pages. I wish I'd looked at the manual before buying. I might have had a more exact idea of what I was buying. The little manual that comes with the camera is 43 pages. For both of them the diagrams are far too small and sometimes interfere with understanding.

    Now as I got reading and finding out how the camera works , I found more and more that it does many things automatically. Here comes the smart stuff again. There are various modes for shooting. Point the camera at something and it automatically changes to that mode. Point to a person and portrait is seen. Point to a outdoor scene and landscape comes up. Now it took me a little while to discover this feature. All this information comes up on your screen. You can set this camera to do things manually. I'll probably use easy auto most of the time.

    It's amazing what technology has devised. It's certainly a lot smarter than I am.

    I've had fun playing with this camera even though I haven't saved one picture. I want to know a few things before I get many miles away from the 204 page manual when I run into a problem..

A Birthday Remembered

     Yesterday would have been my sister's 73 birthday. She left us all too soon 61 years ago at the age of eleven. Most January firsts I think of her birthday and that it is remembered but not celebrated. 

     Most people remember the birthday of family members they have lost. It's another time when we take one more tiny step in coming to terms with the loss.

    Since my sister's birthday was January first, I do not remember any birthday celebrations as you would have for kids. I don't remember birthday cakes. Our New Years Day was marked with a major dinner and was like a second Christmas day. I wonder what happened to her birthday celebrations?

    My sister's death brought about major changes in the family. She was the only daughter so in her own right she was a favored child. For my parents this was a loss that was extremely hard to come to terms with. I think my Mom came to a place where she could carry on with her life. It was much more difficult for my Dad to come to terms with the loss. 

    Many things occurred as a result of this loss and I sometimes wonder what would have happened without the loss. Parenting certainly would have been different or parenting would have taken place. My brother and I were in our sixties before we ever talked to each other about the loss. Kids were not considered to grieve in those days so they were left on their own. 

   So now when there are fewer and fewer who actually knew my sister, I wonder how long her memory will be kept? For this day and others she will be remembered. 

1964: A New Year's Eve to Remember

    Now I'm sure that everybody can look back to some memorable New Year's Eve. Any variety of things can happen to make a memorable New Year's Eve compared to all the others.

    The New Year's Eve of 1964 is the most memorable for me. I'd been in the Arctic for a year and a half. There were many community social activities and lots of visiting to houses and individual families. In the 1960's New Years Eve was a big celebration. Fancy dinners and dances were very popular.

    Now it wasn't fun to go to an New Year's Eve party alone. I'd done that once. I wanted to go to the party and I wanted to take someone with me. I had met a girl a couple of times as she had just come in. I liked her and tried to contact her and see if she wanted to go to the New Year's Eve party with me. I phoned the nurses residence an number of times and couldn't contact her. My  friend was in the same boat and we both sort of gave up. 

   An older nurse was a good friend of ours. We visited her one day. Merle was a very with it gal. She soon found out that we had both tried to arrange dates. She said, "I'll look after it." She did look after it. In no time we were given instructions to phone these two girls and they would be waiting for our calls. The fix was in. All arrangements were made. We were going with a large group of friends.

   So 50 years ago last night was the first date I had with my wife. We always joke that we met on a blind date but that's not exactly true.

   We partied until about 2:00 AM and then walked about a mile back to the nurses residence. Many other couples were there and so visiting continued until about 4:00 AM. Some people had to work the next day! So things shut down.

   Anybody else out there with a special New Year's Eve?

What in the World is Google Plus?

    Some time ago I received a message that I had been included in somebody's circle.

    This was a complete surprise to me. What kind of circle? Big! Blue! Sewing circle! Circle of life! It was a mystifying situation.

    I received more notices that I had been included in circles. I started looking up Google plus. I couldn't find much other than they wanted me to set up and account.

    Do I need another account of some kind ? No. So I didn't set up an account.

    I kept running into the Google plus thing. So I thought I'll set up an account. Well the setting up  an account was about as confounding as the circles. I went through the procedures of setting up an account but when I was finished I couldn't find my account. Set up face book and there it is. Simple. Set up twitter. Two or three steps and I'm on twitter. Google plus is a mystery. 

    I discovered my Google plus account when I was looking at somebody else's Google plus account. I discovered that there were no circles!  All this talk about circles and it turns out to be just a list. Can you believe that? Do I have a pass word for Google plus? I can't remember. What was Google thinking of when they set up Google plus?

    Now I still can't find my account. I've added some names to my "circles." I don't know if anybody knows that they are in one or two of my circles. Nobody has told me they found out they wee in one of my circles. 
  
   Now after all this Google plus looks like something that combines face book, twitter, blogs and a whole lot of other things that I want to keep separate so that I don't get confused. Google has in their wisdom taken lots of information about me to make up my Google plus account. Imagine? I must be an idiot and not know what is good for me. I think Google just took away some of my decision making power.

   Has anybody else has this relationship with Google Plus?

   So I end up 2015 with a rant! 

   I've had a very good year at Hiawatha House. You've made my year in so many ways. I look forward to being around Hiawatha House in 2015 and having you along for the ride.

   Have a great 2015 everybody!
    

I've Been Rejuvenated!

     Well, rejuvenated  could be applied to many topics but I want to relate it to my health.

     I turned 75 this year and a year ago at this time I wasn't doing very well. I was having problems with my right leg. The symptoms were general and non specific , but I was definitely in pain and the leg had become weak. I had trouble getting out of  chair. I thought this is it. I'm facing a disaster. At the best, a cane might help. I even looked at canes in the store. I also had problems getting up off the floor. It was an effort.

    Now in March last year I finally booked in for some physiotherapy. The diagnosis they gave me made sense. The prescription of stretching and exercise made sense. They sent me on my way and I was to do what I was told. So do you think I did what I was told? No! I was to do 12 reps 4 times a day. I didn't do it. Once a day but not 4 times. Guess what? I didn't have much improvement. It finally occurred to me that when she said 12 reps 4 times a day, she meant it.

   I started to do more stretches and exercise. I started  to see improvement. I worked harder. You guessed it . I improved but I was still not back to normal.

   Now I was 75 so I thought some of the problems were due to aging and they could be. But does aging have to be an excuse? I had to push myself up out of a chair. Getting up off the floor was a huge problem.

    I found some more exercises to do. Now I am proud to say I get out of any chair without using arms. I just pop up out of the chair. I also get up off the floor just using legs. No hands Ma!

   So I proved to myself that old age was not my problem. I was probably slowly sliding into this condition over a number of years. I can't remember when I started needing assistance with arms to get up or out of a chair. Yes, I know other things could come along but I am very happy I put in effort to get back into shape. Shoveling snow is much easier this winter. Skating goes better. Last year I quit walking altogether. This winter I do lots of walking and at a very brisk pace.

   I am going to keep working at this because I feel much better when I'm stronger.