Visiting Mom/Your Health: None of my Business

I flew to Long Island on Monday past to visit my Mom who is recuperating from hip replacement replacement surgery.   Her original new hip lasted 16 years.   The surgeon found a big mess and three hours turned into six and a half.  After a few days in the hospital and two months in a rehab nursing home, she is back home and doing great.   Photography locally has been pretty poor both at Jones Beach and at the East Pond at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. 

This juvenile pectoral was one of a very few birds at the north end of the East Pond on Tuesday afternoon.  A visit to the south end on Thursday morning was also challenging. 

Bulletin #300

BIRDS AS ART Bulletin #300 is now on-line here:  http://www.birdsasart.com/bn300.htm

The first featured item (which had pretty much nothing at all to do with photography), generated more interest than anything I have ever posted.  I feel that it is so important that I am posting it here as well.  

YOUR HEALTH: NONE OF MY BUSINESS

Over the past decade or so, the nature photography community has lost several stellar contributors to easily preventable diseases and conditions.   All of these deaths have been needless. If you are grossly overweight or enjoy a pack or two of smokes a day and are totally happy with your life, please skip down to item 2 below.  After all, your health is none of my business and I can respect that.  But heck, there is a good chance that your doctor is telling you that you are in great shape anyway…. Sad but true.  If you have been thinking for years that you need to make some serious changes in your lifestyle, keep reading.     

First, I would like to make a preliminary comment on change.   Everyone says, “Change is so hard.”  That is true only if you believe your own story (Byron Katie: www.thework.com).  I used to drink a 32 ounce soda with lunch and dinner.   Every day.  I used to eat a box of Oreos a day, that for more than 35 years. Every day.  One whole box.  Three rows of 12 cookies.   Now I have had a total of about 7 cans of soda and zero Oreo cookies in the past 14 years.   Very recently I have tightened up my diet significantly, consuming only protein and about a dozen grams of carbohydrates from some veggies and a salad each at each meal.  No cookies, ice cream, cake, candy, pasta, bread, wheat, rye, rice, potatoes, potato chips, or cashew nuts.  And no processed foods.  Oil and vinegar on the salads.  In spite of what you might think, these changes were actually very easy to make once I made up my mind.

At age 18, I weighed 264 pounds.  At 40, I weighed 240. I had had high blood pressure since I was 13.   Twenty years ago I was told that I had advanced coronary artery disease.   I had 3-9 bouts annually of a severely irregular heart rhythm called atrial fibrillation. I was on a ton of heart meds.  14 years ago I was diagnosed with non-insulin dependent, adult-onset diabetes and had a bleeding ulcer.  Today I take no heart meds, my ulcer is a thing of the past, I am off all of heart medications, my blood pressure is 120 over 70, and I have not had an a-fib in several years.  My last blood work was perfect report but for the blood sugar which continues to be difficult to control as eating 666,666 Oreo cookies and about 547 Entenmanns’s French-filled Chocolate Crumb cakes over the course of 35 years took its toll on my pancreas but I am working on that too.   

What gives?  I met a wonderful doctor/chiropractor/nutritionist named Cliff Oliver and followed his advice.  I underwent Nutri-Spec testing which enabled Cliff to prescribe supplements designed to balance three of my body’s systems.  I gave up soda and milk and began to eat protein at every meal.  I began exercising as much as possible.  Some of the changes were rapid, some were slow in coming, but all were dramatic.

Though many of you might scoff at all chiropractors (I did at one time in my life), I would trust Cliff Oliver with my life over any ten traditional Western doctors that I know–sorry Doc…  He is concerned with how your entire body functions and understands how the various organs and systems inter-react, while modern Western medicine is most often only concerned with one organ or system–drug em and cut em is the usual cure, the former usually with suppressive medicines that are harmful to us.  (Suppressive medicines prevent our organs and systems from doing what they are supposed to do, supplements help them do what they are supposed to do…)

Here is the latest on my battle with diabetes.   After going off the wagon for several months about two years ago (with Brach’s chocolate-covered peanut clusters), I have been attempting to normalize my blood sugars to no avail.   About six weeks ago I came home from the doctor’s office with a supply of injectable insulin.   I made one last call to Cliff to discuss this new course of treatment when he stated that he had spoken to a Doctor Richard K. Bernstein about my case.  Dr. Bernstein suggested that I try eating only protein for three days.  I did, and my blood sugars dropped about 50 points.  I immediately ordered Dr. B’s book here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316167169/ref=ox_ya_oh_product and have been following his program totally and completely.  The changes have been amazing.  The insulin is still in the refrigerator, unopened.  I have scheduled 13 hours of appointments with Dr. B in mid-December.   You can learn more about Dr. Bernstein here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_K._Bernstein or visit his home page here:  http://www.diabetes-book.com/

If you think that learning more about the changes that I have made in my life might inspire you to do the same, please e-mail me at birdsasart@att.net with the words Health Basics File in the subject line.  This file includes contact information for Dr. Cliff Oliver. Either way, I wish you the best.