ALS Treatments Part 3
Beginning last year on the anniversary of her death, I decided to honour my mom in tangible ways. She died from a despicable disease called ALS. Her backstory (through my eyes) can be found here. My thoughts regarding ALS one year ago, can be found here, here and here. She died on March 31st, 1999.
In honouring her, I have included these 5 tangible ways:
- keeping up to date regarding ALS information
- contemplating a hypothetical treatment protocol
- donations
- learning about inspirational PALS (people with ALS)
- expressing my gratitude
- Read more…
The Non-Bogosity of IgG4 Food Intolerance
Recently, I received an email which was a generic mass mail-out Christmas card from a former childhood friend whom I have not kept in contact with for about a decade now. She and her husband run a beautiful and successful B&B.
This is what she wrote:
“Though our guests were wonderful, we did face some challenges in the food department. “Trending now” are guests with food “allergies” based on whatever foods the media popularizes as those we should avoid. Since these “allergies” are trends and not real “issues” we find that despite having many opportunities to let us know about their food issues, guests “forget” to let us know until they arrive. Arggghhh. Read more…
Exploring the Wheat Belly
This past weekend, I attended a naturopathic medical conference where William Davis M.D., author of ‘Wheat Belly‘, gave an entertaining lecture regarding the adverse effects of wheat on health and why it is such a villainous food today. In short, the reasons are threefold: gliadins, amylopectin A, and lectins. Read the book if you would like to expand your knowledge on this information. These three troublemakers have hit the modern day scene in massive amounts due to the hybridization and chemical mutagenicity of this grain.
Whether wheat is bad or good for people, is a relative judgment.
Back in the ’50s, Nobel Peace prize winner, Norman Borlaug, developed a bo-hunk grain that in the decades to follow, was responsible for saving over a billion lives worldwide from starvation. Back then, little did people know that this new holy grail of the grain world would turn out to be a monster problem for future gluttonous cultures like our own present North American one. Read more…
Wrinkle-Free Fans, Kiss My Butt
This past January on my birthday, I wrote a blog entitled ‘I Love Wrinkles‘. I was a tad annoyed that an advertisement had found its way onto my blog, which prompted me to write the article. The ad was about a woman my age with saran wrap draped on the top part of her face, who had some bogus magic cure for wrinkles that came from her kitchen cupboard. I was annoyed because no one had asked my permission to place the ad on my personal website; an ad whose concept I completely disagreed with.
Can you guess which blog of mine has had the most mouse clicks of the 31 blogs I have written to date? By 640% more than my second highest clicked blog? By 27,543% more than my lowest clicked blog? Can you guess which blog has accounted for 40% of all time clicks on my website (including the home page and about page)? Read more…
Happy Birthday Dad
Today would have been my dad’s 86th birthday if he had survived his prostate cancer. As far as deaths go, his was a beautiful one.
I was hiking with my friend today, and we talked about those of us who continued to have strong feelings regarding missing our elderly parents even after they had passed on. She hypothesized that those of us who did so, were probably lucky enough to have had childhoods where the children were deeply cared for and loved unconditionally.
No childhood is a perfect one since all parents make mistakes, and parenting for the majority of people is a steep learning curve; at least during some point in the child rearing process.
Like everyone else, my childhood was not perfect, but I did feel deeply cared for and loved in a home that exuded these qualities.
And as I sit here looking at a photo of dad and I, taken so very long ago, I look past the completely zero fashion sense that the two of us shared. Read more…
Whistler. Spectacular!!
I have always maintained that I live in the most beautiful region of Canada, if not the entire world. In truth though, I really can’t make a global statement like that because after all, I’ve only been to 3 different continents and 8 different countries in my lifetime. I can however, make that statement about Canada, since I’ve traversed most of the provinces and territories within it.
Beauty of course, is found in the eye of the beholder. The expansive space of an unending sky blue horizon that meets the flat golden prairie fields in Saskatchewan, is the best that it gets for some. For others who live in the Maritimes or on the Pacific west coast, the smell of ocean air that accompanies the changing of the tides stir up a taste of heaven.
But for me, it’s the mountains. Strong, majestic, protective, awe-inspiring . . . . beautiful mountains. They contain peaks that tower over me and summits waiting to be challenged. They provide a stark rugged contrast to colourful sunsets that they silhouette, as well as to brilliant blue skies that they taper into. Read more…
Where is the Heart in Medicine?
Recently, I came across a blog written by Eric Valor, a man who has locked-in syndrome because of a disease called ALS. As I have written in numerous blogs here, here and here, ALS in my opinion, is the most horrific AND underfunded disease on the planet.
Oncologist Dr. David Gorski, an anti-alternative medicine, anti-anti-vaccine proponent, anti-woo doctor and author of many posts on a website called Science-Based Medicine, wrote an article criticizing patients who participate in Do-It-Yourself (DIY) trials. In his article, his criticism of ALS patients like Mr. Valor, who have embarked on their own patient-driven clinical research, is quite evident.
The patients Dr. Gorski is criticizing, are people who have been told they have between 1 – 5 years to live; patients who have been told there is no cure and that they will unquestionably deteriorate where they will not be able to move or speak; patients who have been told that if they want to continue living, they will require a ventilator to breathe, a stomach tube for feeding, and 24-hour round-the-clock nursing care; and the patients Dr. Gorski is criticizing may have also included a patient who was in the process of making a decision to travel to an area of the world where euthanasia is legal because the suffering was too much. Read more…
