Sunday, January 10, 2016

Keeping your bodies healthy--and more importantly, your minds

Happy Birthday this coming Tuesday to Caitlyn!

Wednesday night found me at a Relief Society meeting I wasn't quite sure I wanted to attend.  It was a "medical night" where the doctors and nurses in our ward were going to have a question and answer session.  I really went more to "support" the relief society than any interest in the subject matter, but it turned out to be very enjoyable and informative.  First, Dr. Jensen gave a little presentation on how to stay healthy.  Nothing new, but worth repeating. This is an overview of his handout:
1) Exercise 30 minutes or more daily
2) Diet should be highter in protein, lower in carbohydrates and fat
Eat: chicken, fish, lean beef, lower fat milk, fruits, veggies, olive oil.
(I think he's right on this, but sometimes it seems contradictory to the Word of Wisdom)
Reduce: breads, pastas, potatoes, white rice, sweets.

____________ are good in moderation because they make us ____________.
The worst snack food for your health is ____________.  The most healthy snack food is __________.

I had no problem filling in the first 2 blanks--sweets, and happy.  I did it for the group and for some reason they all laughed.  Probably because I said it so quickly and was so right!! The other 2 blanks are chips and yogurt.  He said if you weren't diabetic then the sugar in yogurt was fine and the higher fat yogurts were okay, too.  Of course I'm trying to watch my weight, so I eat plain yogurt and I actually love it (with fruit etc.)

3) Minimize prolonged stress.  It damages your body and worsens your memory.  The ways to deal with stress--exercise and service.
4) Improve your memory 
Word and number puzzles (I showed this to Dad !)
New learning. 
Use visual images to remember names and places.  

5) You must have good control of a) blood pressure.  b) cholesterol and c) blood sugar.
He said to remember HDL is good --H for healthy and LDL is bad --L for Lousy.  

His last suggestion was to write your history as that was your legacy and it made me think of dad and the wonderful book he has written.  I hope you are all reading it.  My suggestion for the easiest reading is to skip the first chapter and read it later.  Not that it's not interesting, but the rest of the book focuses on my dad's life and that's when it gets more fun.  

Dr. Doug got up and said he didn't have anything formal like Dr. Jensen, but he did give out some interesting information on immunizations, diaper rash, fevers (they are not the enemy and a fever has to be above 107 to cause brain damage.  I asked him about cold medicine for children since I have been dealing with Dan's girls this week and they've had colds.  He said that about 5 years ago there were some deaths involving cold preparations.  Rather than let things go on until they figured out the cause of the deaths, they just outlawed the medicines completely while they did studies on the effectiveness and the safety of them.  I guess the studies are almost completed, but in the meantime...I asked him about Benedryl, as that's what Toby said Sara could give Ori.  He said that it wouldn't do any harm but that it was not a decongestant and probably wouldn't help very much.  I gave it to Yuna last week and I'm pretty sure all it did was make her cranky and tired.
For diaper rash:  clean the bottom, blow dry it from about a foot away, when completely dry coat it with the diaper cream.  The thing to remember is that bag balm or other diaper rash treatments seal up the bottom as is, so if you leave the acids on the bottom, it's not going to do any good to seal it up.  For eczema, he likes Aquaphor followed by Cerave Cream (similar to Cedaphil which he also likes but it's his 2nd favorite).  And this was weird--Antacids such as Maalox work for diaper rash.  Just blot it on the babies bottom. 
Another fact that was interesting--Kids get a virus and they are contagious for 5 to 10 days.  Adults are only contagious for a couple of days.  Also, whooping cough is very dangerous for babies, but not for adults, but they immunize the adults because we are the ones who give it to the babies.  Kids usually give adults flu and other viruses, but they still immunize the adults because it's so much easier that immunizing the kids.  

So--Roy is now forbidden to use my sewing scissors.  He got them out Monday night to cut up some old garments that needed discarding.  He found out they are VERY sharp.  He cut a chunk out of his forefinger and had to go to the emergency room at 10:30 pm.   They couldn't stitch it because it was a chunk, not something they could pull together, but they did give him a shot right in his finger to stop the bleeding.  Let this be a warning to any who are thinking of borrowing MY scissors!


We think Matt had a good birthday this week.  He sent us a picture showing the enjoyment he was having of his new tools and safety goggles.


Caitlyn and I are super excited for Tuesday.  At some point that day, she and I will head to the DMV and get her licence.  She is discovering how much freedom a driver's license can give a person.  I am pretty happy for the freedom her driver's license will give me, as well.

I had a good time with some of my granddaughters this week--even though I finally could not fight off Yuna's cold any more and am home from Church today resting. Ori came over Friday to play with the girls and let Sara have a little rest.  She doesn't usually give us too much attention, so it was nice having her without her parents for a few hours.  When it was time to go home, she said, "No, Grandma's house."  We finally had to have Nick come and get her because we were in a hurry to get to dinner as we had symphony tickets for 7:30.  While I was getting ready for the symphony, she was in my closet with me--cleaning up.  She opened my drawer and put my socks away (wrong drawer, but no problem), she picked up another item of clothing and tried to put it in the drawer (I helped her hang it) then she picked out shoes for me to wear--my bright pink running shoes!  I told her I wanted the black ones, so she chose my pretty Sunday shoes.  I told her no, and pointed to the black ones I wanted and she retrieved them for me--probably with some disappointment at their functionality. We had played puzzles together earlier in the afternoon, before Hyeji, Doyeon, and Yuna joined us, then we played puzzles with everyone for a while longer.  There is still some competition between Yuna and Ori.  I think Ori is learning to stand up for herself and is sometimes even the perpetrator of the crime, so to speak.

Adrienne had me for lunch on Thursday.  I got to play with the boys for a little bit until it was time to pick up Caitlyn.  When I tried to retrieve my key, I could not find it.  I looked all over their house, flummoxed because I knew it had to be by my phone and my coat.  Finally, Adrienne involved the kids in the search.  Without moving from his seat, Gunnar looked at me and said, "It might be in that little cup that you put away."  I had been trying to help Adrienne get their attention to settle them down for a rest, and I'd put away a cup of chalk that had a lid on it.  Guess what, that's exactly where it was!  I made it to the school to pick Caitlyn up and get her to her skating lesson, just in the nick of time!!!

We had the girls again on Saturday.  Caitlyn tended in the morning while dad took me to look for my birthday present, then dad took them to lunch at McDonalds which gave me a further rest.  He said he'd wanted to take a selfie with the three girls, but they kept him too busy.  I don't think they ate much, but they had a good time.

Spiritual thought for the week:  There is a short article in January's Ensign entitled "Our Best defense against Pornography."  The writer, a young mother, was in the store with her 9 year-old son and he asked her "Why do they have to put 'that stuff'' in all the store windows?  That 'stuff' he was referring to was immodest pictures displayed in the windows of just about every shop we passed."  The mother said that she hadn't noticed it much before, but after that she began seeing it everywhere.  She then started to worry more and more about how to protect her children when it was so prevalent.  She was studying her scriptures and came across Lehi's dream.  The scripture that stood out to her was in chapter 15.  She says, "Nephi is explaining Lehi's vision of the tree of life to Laman and Lemuel when they ask the meaning of the river of water.  Nephi answers in verse 27, "And I said unto them that the water which my father saw was filthiness and so much was his mind swallowed up in other things that he beheld not the filthiness of the water.  Lehi's mind was so focused on the tree of life and getting his family to it to partake of its fruit!  He didn't even see the filthiness because of this focus."  This was the answer for the young mother.  She decided to redouble her efforts in teaching her children the gospel and to help keep their eyes on the love of God instead of the filthiness in the world.  Roy and I still have Caitlyn at home and honestly, it's harder than ever to sit and read scriptures together.  We didn't always do that well with the rest of you either--but you are all just beginning with your families and the world isn't getting more righteous, so you can keep your children's mind filled with the fruits of the Gospel and the Love of God right now, at the very beginning of their lives.
My other counsel is to use all that is available to you.  Read the Ensign, Search the scriptures, study the conference talks, and use LDS.org, it is full of wonderful stories and resources.

All my love to everyone this week! --Mom

1 comment:

  1. Sara said the Benadryl she gave to Ori did have a little decongestant in it.

    ReplyDelete