Maineman’s post on his heart attack led me to share what is to come. Some of you are aware that I’ve had a stressful time for a bit. My dad died at the end of August, that ended 8 years of having my parents living with me due to my mom’s poor health, (she died 3 years ago), I inherited my dad. Well the day after his funeral, we found out my nephew had a brain tumor, thankfully benign, but due to a cyst that had formed around it, requiring emergency surgery. Luckily the surgery caused minimal brain damage, but could not eliminate the total tumor, so we’ll see. He did get married at the end of September and after therapy has resumed work in January.

Well in October I had a problem with bronchitis and strep, at the time it was noted my blood pressure was elevated to 153/78. I’ve always had low blood pressure; I think the highest reading before that was 98/70. They suggested seeing a primary doctor to address this. I asked if it couldn’t wait for January, when the deductible would kick in, as that emergency visit was my first of the past 10 years? Yeah, I know. Even worse, the last time I was dealing with my primary doctor was in cardiology intensive care for a week. It ended up being a relatively benign problem, myocardial valve prolapse, but for some reason they had trouble fingering it.

I meant to address the problem in January, it was among my resolutions, but well…Then I started having lower back and abdomen pains, chucked it up to ‘women’s issues’ for about a week. Then they got worse. Suffered through and worked for 2 days at school, then looked forward to the three-day weekend, unfortunately that Sunday was supposed to be at school for the ‘kick off’ of Catholic Schools Week. Well that Thursday and Friday I’d come home and gone to bed. I spent all of Saturday in bed, getting up just to eat a bit. At 6 am I woke on Sunday, hobbled to the shower and nearly passed out. Went back to bed, called the principal and said I wasn’t making that kick off.

I went to the clinic, seems I had a kidney infection, pretty bad one. Had to argue my way out of hospitalization, even with the again apparent high blood pressure. This time I took a referral card. I wasn’t thrilled with the doctor I’d had, 10 years previously. Got my antibiotic, missed a week of school. Went to the doc. Surprise, the blood pressure wasn’t down, but miracle of miracles, he said it might have to do with such a serious infection. He wasn’t going to rush to meds. He put down the chart and asked what has been going on in my life for the past year or so?

He won me over with that. Problem was 2 weeks later; blood pressure was still in 150 range. He recommended meds. I said, “Ok, but what if I make life changes? Can I get off?” He said, “It’s possible, happens about 1 in 100 though.” I liked that too. I let them do a CBC then, cholesterol was high. Like the blood pressure, not exceedingly so, but ‘borderline.’ They called me last week with the results. My next appointment is 3/22, I’ve already lost 6 pounds and have been nutty with my diet.

Problem is like Jim; I love my cigs and coffee. I’m considering how to approach these; I’m not good at failing. I’ve returned to my health club, which sort of went by the wayside after my dad and nephew. Yesterday I worked out about 45 minutes; today I worked out a bit over 90 minutes. I did a lot of shopping in the morning, including buying a jump rope for home. While I’ll concentrate on cardio exercise, I also want to address strength training to help ward off osteoporosis, which my mother suffered from. I’ve been very good at including yogurt or cottage cheese at every meal, now low fat. Periodically I’ll update, as I’m hoping to avoid MM’ experience, as lucky as that was.

I was just reading a column by Susan Jacoby on the dumbing down of America, it made me wonder if we seriously don’t deserve the candidates we are getting. For all the news we consume, from the 24/7 news; internet; and yes, even messageboards, how much time do we actually take to make the connections between what we think and what the candidates say? Even between events in the world, whether they are US decisions such as Iraq or what radical Islam is and what we really think should be done regarding it and our security?

It seems for the most part that our attention spans are what she has noticed, as the comparison with the explanation of the toddlers and their glazed, fixated looks. Is that concentration or is that a disconnect? We have more information coming at us than ever before, yet for all of our ability to comprehend, do we really use it to expand our vision? I can only look at myself regarding this, but I know I’ve changed over the years. I’ve become more partisan, which is pretty weird, considering so many of my beliefs are not really ‘conservative’ at least as defined by many. What has moved me to the partisan role, I think the level of discourse whether from the newspapers, the visual media, and discussions with friends and on the boards.

We’ve become a country of the hurtful, over topics that warrant debate, not hyperbole and insults. The natural reaction to ‘neo-con’, ‘Bush Hitler’, etc., is ‘libtard’, ‘appeaser’, etc. and vice versa. What a waste of time. What a disservice we do as an electorate, citizen, and human being. Unfortunately it not just at the individual level, the newspapers, talk radio, television news pundits have added to the mix. We see it in movies, (interestingly enough it’s not been a box office success for the most part), on late night television, etc.

Well if that is where we are, what do we expect from the candidates? We love to build them up in order to tear them down. It’s the same with the media. Has anyone else noticed the questioning of specifics the media is suddenly asking about Obama? They’ve done the same with Clinton and McCain and Romney. I figure I won’t litter up this post with too many hyperlinks.

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Being an educator I have always been concerned about the lack of reading my students appear to do for pleasure. Today I came across this article in The Washington Post, which added some perspective to what may be going on. While kids today do not seem to immerse themselves in fiction the way my friends or I did at their age, they do spend a lot of time reading for pleasure, though it may be on sports, movie stars, clothes, and such. I suppose it corresponds to magazine reading for the most part, something else that we spent hours at.

They do not read the ‘classics’ as I did, yet many of the gamers have a very good sense of the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Medieval Times. How? Games. World of Warcraft, 300, and others seem to be teaching a bit of history. History isn’t the only skill being taught through video games, seems some lives were probably saved along the way to earning points!

While I read scads of books on pet care, these kids search by breed and skills they want to learn or rather teach their dogs. It really is quite efficient, we all know that. Is this all that different than the hours we spent in the library when we were in school? I know that I always met my friends there and more talk than work was often the whole point. Not to mention the hope that the boys we liked would show up with some of their friends. Is that all that different than im’ing while doing homework?

When we read Shakespeare we had to pull out encyclopedias to find out what information we could on Stratford on Avon, the Globe Theatre and Shakespearean times. Today, I can access a video via Streaming video on Shakespeare to give them background, then have the kids use laptops to virtually visit the Globe. They can compare and contrast that theater to those used in ancient Greece and write a theme to describe what was similar and different between the times. They come to realize that the themes of theater really didn’t change much, as they haven’t now.

I suppose the question becomes how to motivate them to do the same for topics not assigned? That is something I spend a great deal of time thinking about. They don’t seem to make the connections as easily as most older people do. Perhaps there is just too much information and it’s too easy to find?