Camo is the new black

You city-dwellers have no idea what it's like to wake up to the sound of gunshots echoing across the hills. Perhaps you've heard the sound of handguns pinging back and forth in a back alley, something we don't get much of here in the Middle of Nowhere.

There's no comparison.

If I heard a volley of shots, I'd take that as a sure sign to Get Out Of The Way. What we hear from the mountains are booms of thunder, distant and ominous. We wear bright colors when we walk, and we keep a close eye on the dogs when they are out. One neighbor dresses her dogs' collars in bright orange ribbons. Not a bad idea.

Buck hunting season began Monday morning, bright and early. I heard the first shot just prior to 7 a.m. I've been in town both days this week – Monday was personal maintenance, yesterday was car maintenance – and the number of folks I've seen dressed in camouflage is astonishing. I felt rather out of place at the service station dressed in solid black slacks and a beige tunic.

I've seen more eight-point bucks loaded on the beds of pickup trucks in the past two days than I've seen all year roaming the woods near our house. Where do they hang out when it's not hunting season?

I understand the necessity of culling the herd, really I do. Both my husband and I have had the unfortunate experience of meeting a deer up close and personal on a highway. Peoples' gardens are at risk all summer. And deer can do incredible damage to expensive and beautiful landscape plants.

I'd just as soon not see it, though. Maybe next year we should plan a vacation around hunting season. Instead of bringing our money into West Virginia (hunters contribute a huge amount of income to our state), we would be taking it into, Las Vegas, maybe. I can't think of any city more unlike rural West Virginia!

I'm taking a few days off. We're hosting dinner tomorrow, so I'll be cooking up a storm today and tomorrow, and getting creative with leftovers Friday and throughout the weekend. Lots of football on tap – it's rivalry weekend for college games. And I could use a little electronic break. Have a wonderful Turkey Day, if you celebrate it, and I'll "see" you next week.

Dr. Google was wrong!

No big surprise there. Unless, of course, Dr. C. is wrong. But I doubt that. Nothing is more valuable in medicine than being able to have a face-to-face – or, in my case, face-to-ankle – consultation in order to make a diagnosis.

I have a superficial vein thrombosis, which causes almost exactly the symptoms I have. I'm on a prescription anti-inflammatory and I'm to rest as much as possible, but I can still take a daily walk. Just don't push it, he said. And don't run for a while. The Merck Manual also says hot compresses are beneficial.

The symptom that can't really be accounted for is the numbness, but he told me that the vein might be pressing on a nerve, and that can cause my foot to tingle and then go numb. I feel certain it will go away with time; after all, the other one did.

Our hospital cuts their fees in half (I had to have a blood test) if you pay cash on the spot, which I did. I figured I'm not going to make it to my $3000 deductible before January 1, 2010, and if I let them turn it in to Aetna, I'd end up paying twice as much out of pocket. Isn't it lovely to send the insurance company an obscene amount of money every month and then still pay for your own office visit and lab work?

We had a little excitement when the phone rang in the early afternoon. Dr. C. himself was calling to report the result of the blood test. This test (a D-Dimer) would, if the number were normal, rule out a deep vein thrombosis (DVT). Normal is 550. Mine was 657. If I had a DVT, the number would have been 3000 or more. Dr. C. wanted me to have an ultrasound just to be sure; I declined. Eventually he said if it were his wife, he would take the wait-and-see approach as well.

I understand that he was covering his ass in urging me to come back for another test. He's being prudent and practicing good medicine. If I do end up with a DVT, I can't sue him for negligence, nor would I. I made the decision.

So there you have it. A couple weeks (I hope it's not longer!) of lying around the shanty and I should be good to go again.

My weight is like the stock market

Up. Down. Up. Down.

Today? Up, of course.

We had company Friday and Saturday, which means four days of eating too much and exercising too little. I can hear you saying, "That does not compute. Two days of company does not equal four days of no exercise." Ah, but it does, because the day before they arrive is a day of major floor-cleaning (almost my entire house is a laminate canvas for dog footprints), and the day after they leave is a day of major resting. And we all know that cleaning floors is not the same as a five-mile walk. Nor is resting. Heh.

There's another problem, though. Something I alluded to a couple of months ago has returned to throw a wrench in my plans. I had a doctor's appointment in September to check out an odd growth on my right ankle. The growth disappeared, so I canceled the appointment. In the last couple of weeks, though, I've experienced numbness on the top of my foot most of the time, accompanied by searing, burning pain in the middle of the night.

The pain is present whenever I'm sitting or lying down. If I'm walking or otherwise upright, I notice the numbness, but it doesn't hurt. So I'm not sure if I should be resting it more, or never resting at all.

Dr. Google says it's either a stress fracture or, more likely, a pinched nerve. And I really can't put off going to the doctor about this. I'm not sleeping well, I'm not exercising and I'm not making any progress with My Plan. And, frankly, I don't like not being able to feel one of my extremities. I suppose I would eventually get used to it, but do I really want to? I don't think so. This is what Health Savings Accounts were meant to pay for, I suppose. (My insurance policy doesn't cover office visits.)

Benjamin Franklin said,

You may delay, but time will not.

To me, that means that I can postpone something I know I need to take care of – losing weight, training for a race or going to the doctor – but time marches on, oblivious of my schedule, motivation or injury. I'd better get to gettin'.

Puh-lease

From the New York Times today, regarding the Senate health insurance reform bill, announced last night:

"Many provisions of Mr. Reid’s bill, including the creation of insurance markets, or exchanges, would take effect in 2014, a year later than similar provisions of the House bill. The delay is intended primarily to reduce the cost of the legislation."

Five years. Um, I mean, FIVE YEARS!

Get a calculator and figure out what your insurance premium is going to cost if you increase it, oh, 15% each year for five years. (And if you have employer-based insurance, you're not out of this mix, because your employer is going to raise your contribution and reduce your benefits as time goes by. And keep in mind that my insurer raised their premiums twice this year, for an effective increase of 33%.)

Then figure out how you're going to pay for it.

I don't know anyone who has gotten a 15% increase in salary lately. In fact, of the people I'm closest to, two lost their jobs within the past year. One has returned to work part-time, the other is still looking. One who hadn't worked in 12 years is now working full-time in order to provide insurance benefits. One has taken two pay cuts in order to keep a job.

And I'm sorry, but that bullshit about the delay being a way to "reduce the cost of legislation?" Sounds like a way for insurance companies to stick it to their customers for half a decade more.

Disappointed? Who, me? You betcha. Bitterly. I hope there's something in the more than 2000 pages that puts the brakes on rising premiums beginning on Day One. So far I haven't found it.

Bag it

Okay, back to normal. Thanks for putting up with my little rant yesterday. The problem is not solved, not by any means, but I'm taking steps.

I promised two knitted bags to put in a gift shop for a holiday open house and I'm on the handle of the second one. Yeah! Once I start the handle I'm in the home stretch. I then need to felt them, create and attach some kind of tag to them and they are outta here!

Lots going on the next couple of weeks. Company coming this weekend, then Thanksgiving, followed by a short trip to Ohio to visit the triplet grandsons (and their parents!). I should probably make a list of Things I Need To Do, but somehow, whether there's a list or not, everything eventually gets done.

Food wasn't so great yesterday. Stress and anger do that to me. Some women clean when they get emotional. I bake. But I also walked, both Monday and yesterday, and plan to get out there again today before it rains. One good thing about rain in West Virginia – we rarely have all-day soakers. A motivated outdoor walker can almost always find a break in the clouds to get out and get 'er done.

Rant. Rave. Repeat.

This post has nothing to do with my personal health, running, knitting, losing weight or fitness. It has everything to do with the health of our country and our economy.

I don't care what political stripe you wear, we can certainly agree that the U.S. economy, while showing signs of a comeback, is in dire straits. One of the major reasons companies are struggling is trying to keep up with increasing health insurance rates.

The simplest solution for everyone except Big Insurance and Big Pharma is to enact Medicare for All legislation.

I've been a single-payer advocate for years, but kind of backed off when healthcare reform seemed like it was really going to happen. Something is better than nothing, I thought. I'm rethinking that stance, particularly in light of the letter I received yesterday from Aetna, who provides my private health insurance.

My premium (and yours, too, if you're an Aetna member) will be increased in January 2010. Since I became a member 18 months ago, my premium will have risen 33 percent. This is the second rate increase within a year. They have provided exactly one benefit service to me, an annual visit to my OB-GYN.

Is it just me, or is it a coincidence that less than two weeks after major legislation is passed in Congress, Aetna needs to raise their rates across the board to all "current and new customers"?

I've written to my state insurance commissioner and to Aetna, and I've sent faxes to my legislators and to the President.

I've scanned the somewhat local classifieds and written to one company about a job opportunity, which might pay enough to cover my monthly premium and travel expenses to and from the job but, being part-time, most certainly won't offer benefits.

I've cried. I've ranted. I've raved.

I'm sick about this, I truly am. Unfortunately, my policy doesn't cover office visits.

Week Four: Stats and Results

Setting goals is helpful, but it depends – of course – on the goal.

A pie-in-the-sky goal of losing X pounds in a week is (for me, anyway) doomed to fail. If I have a goal like that in the back of my mind, I almost always will do something to sabotage my bad self and then blame my lack of progress on overserving.

Heh.

But setting a goal of not using artificially sweetened coffee creamer? Now that one worked. I also didn't buy any sugar-free ice cream. Here are this week's stats:

Stats for Week Four:
Average daily calories burned: 346
Average daily calories consumed: 1082

The result? I lost two pounds. Which means after a month of tracking calories in/out, I've gained half a pound.

That should be discouraging, but for some reason it isn't. I feel like I've been back on track for two consecutive weeks, and clearly I can never do Halloween again. Ever!

Last Friday I did something I never thought I'd do. Lately I'm all about eating not only less food, but also better food. Very little of the food I buy has an attached label. Michael Pollan isn't the first to suggest shopping the perimeter of the grocery store and, truly, most of the perimeter products have labels these days. But if you buy more produce than packages, you generally will be eating more healthful meals.

So what did I do Friday? I learned to make butter, mozzarella and cottage cheese. And Saturday I made yogurt. The food processor did most of the work on the butter, but I was surprised that it was actually pale yellow when it was finished. For some reason I thought home-churned butter ended up being the color of the cream from which it was made.

The cottage cheese and mozzarella were amazing. I was astonished at the mozzarella, especially. And it tasted great on our Friday night pizzas.

My yogurt turned out a little thin and not quite tangy enough for my taste. I strained some of it and it's definitely thick enough now, but I think I'll let the next batch incubate longer. I followed this recipe and one of the last things they tell you is to follow it exactly the first time, and then make adjustments for your taste after that. I used Oikos Plain Greek Yogurt for my starter, but the recipe called for Dannon. In another recipe I read yesterday, which also called for Dannon plain as a starter, it was suggested that organic yogurts (such as Oikos) might be less fresh, which could account for my thin results.

My daughter and mother-in-law are less than impressed. Each of them said, "Isn't it easier just to go to Kroger?" Well, yes, it probably is easier, if you don't have to get in the car and drive 12 miles (to Tiny Kroger) and hand them some cashmoneybucks and drive home and open a package in order to get to the product. Which they don't. Me? I'm fine with spending the day at home, watching milk turn into cheese.