Atkins was Right, or Beauty is More than Skin Deep

For nine years, conventional wisdom has told me that my predilection for cream and cheese is killing me, a view that people have constantly reminded me of. The issue, apparently, is arteriosclerosis, also known as "hardening of the arteries" or "plaque buildup."

This conversation occurred at the completion of a carotid artery ultrasound ordered in the aftermath of my recent "TIA" episode:

"I don't suppose you can comment on the results?" I asked the technician, hopefully.

"Well, the radiologist will come up with the numbers," she said, "but you're beautiful!"

"That's flattering," I said, "but I was asking about the ultrasound."

She giggled. "I look inside people's bodies every day, and that's where I find beauty. You're beautiful! There's no hint of plaque in your arteries, and, for a man your age, that's rare!"

The official radiology report later confirmed her assessment: "No significant fibrocalcific plaque...[and]...no evidence for hemodynamically significant stenosis." See a copy of the report on our family web site.

Significant is the fact that it is now nine years that I have been curbing carbs and welcoming fats -- with the encouragement of Atkins and with the biochemical explanation of "Syndrome X."

During that time, I have been criticized by people for being misled, reckless, and foolish. I most certainly had arteriosclerosis and was in danger of keeling over from a heart attack at any time. Particularly in light of Lawrence and Kitchener both having had heart trouble, I was placing myself at great risk.

Although Syndrome X's findings and explanation seemed compelling and my own blood tests showed improvement, still when conventional wisdom keeps getting hammered at you for a decade, you begin to wonder and doubt.

This doubt is now cleared up. Atkins was right. Syndrome X is right. Conventional wisdom is flat-out wrong. I'm not going to die of heart problems.

Instead, I'll die of cancer. I've had three different forms of it already. All of them originated before nine years ago, so I don't think low-carb/high-fat has had anything to do with them, but....

Six Year Old Ambiguity

Tom, with a bachelors degree in sports medicine, travels with the Ute girl's volleyball team to provide first-line treatment for injuries and other medical issues. As the girls have swept into and through the national play-offs, Tom has been out of state more often than at home, including the entire Thanksgiving weekend.

Six year old Claire follows the exploits of the girls team with interest and appreciation, but she does miss Daddy and has become aware that his extended absences will terminate only when the girls lose.

The girls swept the preliminaries and made it to the "Sweet 16" in Seattle -- where their long winning streak ended.

"Guess who's coming home," offered Michelle.

"Daddy!?"

"Yes."

"Did the girls lose last night?" Claire asked, disgruntled.

"Yes."

"Awesome!" she stated without the slightest disgruntle.

TIA: A new synonym for "Senior Moment"

I had a TIA! At least that's what they said in the emergency room when they couldn't find anything else to explain it. (TIA: Transient Ischemic Attack, also known as a short-term stroke, a precursor to a full, all-out stroke.)

I had a roaring sinus infection accompanying a painful ear ache and went to the doctor (OK, a nurse practioner, the doctor being unavailable), and I couldn't remember "Coumadin" when I was asked what medications I was taking. I finally came up with "Warfarin" which satisfied her and caused her to say "Coumadin" which didn't even sound familiar. I also tried to tell her the antibiotic that I had just been on for my ear infection, but had to mentally thrash around to come up with "Keflex" from a mental image of the prescription. That didn't sound familiar or in-context, either, but it satisfied her and I let it go.

On the way out to the car, I called Carolyn as I normally do, and couldn't remember how to place the call. I mentally thrashed around again and tried something which connected me to voice-mail. I then tried something else which succeeded.

An hour later, I went shopping with Carolyn. She sent me to put some packages in the trunk. I couldn't remember how to open the trunk! More thrashing. I focused on the mysterious button under the dash board. I didn't know what it was for and there was absolutely no mental association of it with the trunk, but I remembered that I had pushed it often and seemingly never when the car was in motion. I tried it and the trunk opened. My satisfaction at this result was short lived as I realized that it seemed like a brand new discovery -- learning about a relationship that I had never before known. This disturbed me because logic said that this should be a well-known and long-understood relationship.

At that point, I talked Carolyn into dropping me off at the ER to find out what was happening to me.

An hour later as I lay in the ER, I realized that all had become clear again and that I remembered, knew, and understood all those things that had been a mystery a short time before. They took a CT scan of my skull and failed to find any evidence of a blood clot but they did note that all my sinuses and my left ear were infected. They took an x-ray of my chest looking for something mysterious and didn't find it but did note my broken ribs. The nurse also placed in my record her observation that I was wobbly when she led me to the room. I don't remember that but do remember that she appologized for not placing me in a wheelchair for the trip. Not having anything else to go on, they said it was a TIA and instructed me to see my primary care physician for follow up. I did, and she decided that it didn't look like a TIA and concluded that it was simply a lack of blood sugar. She was the first of several over the next couple of weeks to express dismay at the fact that we don't really have regular meals in our house. I didn't realize it was that big a deal.

But now we refer to any "senior moments" as TIA's. We've both been having them regularly ever since then.

Remedial Course on Mt. Aire

A month ago (September 29th), I tripped over my own feet and fell on my face on Mt. Aire. I broke three ribs, collapsed a lung, and spent the next eleven days in the hospital.

During that same time, Michelle gave birth to our 8th grandchild in the same hospital (St. Marks). That was convenient for Carolyn who could walk back and forth between 4-West and The Women's Pavilion and visit us both. Sometimes I accompanied her to visit Michelle. Sometimes I even went by myself.

That's where I ran into a few problems.

Homely old men in off-colored hospital gowns dragging oxygen canisters behind them are not common sights in the Women's Pavilion and I was frequently challenged. "Sir, may I help you? Are you lost?" "Isn't this 4-West?" "No, sir. It is not!" I learned not to make such flippant responses. It didn't help. For the most part I could convince them that I had a reasonable excuse to be there -- to visit my daughter and hold my hours-old grandson. Only once was my nurse called on me and even her I was able to convince that I did know where I was and how to get back to my 4-West home.

These experiences reminded me of when that same daughter had her learner's permit some 2 decades earlier. I was sitting in the obligatory passenger seat admiring the competence of my pretty little chauffeur. I knew that she would pass the drivers test with flying colors -- which proved to be prescient. She got 100%, something I have never achieved either before or since.

Anyway, on that particular occasion, the task was simple. She was to navigate the car from one corner of the large California mall parking lot to the opposite corner where we could get out on the road and go home. The trouble was that it was mid-December, the Christmas shopping season was in full sway, and the parking lot was oozing with vehicles, all trolling for parking places. It was a new situation for little Michelle.

I was a little startled when I had to yell, "Stop!" at the first intersection to keep her from colliding with a car. I was even more surprised when I had to yell "Stop!" for one reason or another at every other intersection across the parking lot. That shook my confidence a little. Hers, too.

I realized that she was navigating the entire parking lot simultaneously. She was attempting to gain and keep intellectual control of every turn and every route and every alternate turn and route, and every alternate-alternate turn and route between her and her destination -- the complete parking lot, all at the same time. In the process of filling her brain with all that data, she was missing vital info, such as the fact that within 30 feet of her were multiple moving vehicles, all on a collision course with her. "No, Sweetheart," I could say. "The human brain doesn't work that way -- not even super flexible, active, 16 year old, female brains. You know exactly where you're going and generally how you want to get there. That's enough. You then have to focus on the here and now -- exactly where you are at this very second -- and make those decisions which will facilitate your eventual arrival at your known destination." I was proud of myself for my great understanding of this life-metaphor and of my ability to explain it to my daughter.

Little did I realize, as I lay face down in the dust of the Mt. Aire trail, trying to relearn how to breathe, that I was beginning a remedial course on this same lesson.

After I mastered some of the more basic techniques of breathing, I got to my feet. There were only a few things I clearly understood about my situation. First was that I hurt something awful. The second was that, at that location just below the sharp bend in the Mt. Aire trail at the saddle, I was almost exactly 1 mile from the trail-head where the car was parked and about 1200 feet above it. That meant that the average slope was 25%. And that was the average. Often it was far worse than that.

It's strange what one thinks of under those conditions. What I thought of was the allegorical story of the man who looked back over his life and noticed that every where he went there were two sets of foot prints, one beside the other, and he knew, for reasons that I don't remember, that this was because the Savior had walked with him, hand-in-hand, his entire life. But sometimes he noted that there was only one set of prints. And he also observed that this always occurred when his life had been the most difficult -- when adversity had been most intense.

"My Lord," he asked, "why did you abandon me at such times to walk the path alone? How could you have done it?"

"My son," he replied, "those were the times when I carried you."

And I thought, "Ok, my Lord, feel free to carry me now. You won't find me complaining of only one set of foot prints here. I'm ready and willing for you to carry me."

"Yes, my son," he said. "I will carry you by placing your feet exactly where they need to be all the way down the mountain," and I was filled with peace, love, joy, and security.

Then I looked down the trail and all those good feelings went away. They were replaced by uncertainty, doubt, and a fear that bordered on panic.

"You're doing it wrong," He said.

"OK, my Lord. How am I supposed to do it?"

"Don't look so far down the trail. Focus on the few feet right in front of you and I will show you and help you place your left foot. Then I will show you and help you place your right foot. Then move your focus a few feet further on and I will show you and help you place your left foot. Then I will show you and help you place your right foot, and you will be carried, inexorably, to safety."

"Yes, my Lord. I can do that." And I was filled with peace, love, joy, and security.

Trouble is, I kept screwing it up. I knew the trail and so I often looked around to see where I was, how far I'd come, and how far I still had to go, and, when I looked down the trail I was filled with fear.

"You're doing it wrong, again."

"Yes, my Lord. Focus. Left foot. Right foot...."

And, even though I kept screwing it up, eventually, with surprising abruptness, I found myself standing by the car door. I was filled with tremendous relief and gratitude for having been carried to safety.

I was then shocked at the agony induced as I folded my body into a configuration that fit inside the car and I drew all my body parts in after me. Then I gingerly drove down the canyon and was happy when there was cell service so I could reach out and touch Carolyn, and whine.

But I later could paraphrase Elizabeth Smart's statement to Oprah a few weeks earlier: "I'm not sure I'd ever choose to go through that again, nor would I ever want to wish it on anyone else, but good things resulted." In fact, I think she was saying some of the same things that the Willey and Martin handcart company survivors said. And although my tiny hour in no way compares to their multi-month ordeals, yet I can say that (1) I've never felt closer to the Lord in my entire life, nor (2) understood more fully the importance of continuously, day by day, minute by minute, making those decisions with the help of the Lord which will most optimally facilitate our journey toward the goal we all clearly have in mind. And (3) it doesn't matter how often we screw up. He has infinite patience and continues to give us help and guidance as soon as we are amenable to such. And (4) the peace of the Spirit is powerful and can coexist with physical misery, which is good because, having already had three different forms of cancer, I can expect my last days to be physically unpleasant, and (5) the Spirit is also quite different from the chemical effects of medication such as the well-expired Vicodins Carolyn gave me which induced a feeling of comfortable floating within an hour of my getting home. I've never had a clearer opportunity to compare these two effects, full-strength, in real time.

I can't think of anything I would be willing to trade for those experiences.

Grandkids are growing

Melinda's post re Dillon's talk reminded me that our grandkids are growing up so fast that it startles us. That's the case even for Claire whom we see multiple times each week. How much more is it the case for the ones we see only a couple of times a year.

In August, it was a novelty to carry on a conversation with Dillon. That's never been possible before. In this case it was about Melinda's instructions concerning his breakfast. I had questions: "Did she say..?" and he told me exactly what she must have said because that's the way she does it. And when I got it wrong anyway, he would correct me. "Grandpa, Mommy doesn't cut up my waffle." He ate it anyway.

And Claire comes up with surprises, too.

Grandma informed me in their presence, "When Claire allows you to put on her eye patch, give her and Dillon a see-oh-oh-kay-eye-ee." "No!" exclaimed Claire. "Only I should get the see-oh-kay-eye-ee."

Logical. But we're going to have to learn Spanish.

And at Wheeler Farm, Claire, Dillon, and I came out of the restroom and saw Melinda rapidly pushing Jeremy in his stroller up the sidewalk away from us. She probably didn't know where we were and she was hurrying to search for us. We cut across this huge lawn to intercept her.

Claire, at a dead run with Dillon in tow, headed for a foot bridge across a ditch made to look like a little brook that separated us from the sidewalk. I noticed that there was a tiny rope strung across the foot bridge with a triangular flag hanging from it to prevent someone from accidentally tripping over the rope. I looked around and noted that the entire huge lawn was roped off, apparently for a private reservation for a group I noted occupying a distant corner. We had entered it at the only place where it was not roped off -- near the restroom, of course.

Claire saw the rope just in time to avoid running into it and she stopped so fast that Dillon almost ran into her. Then she turned away. That surprised me because I expected the rope to be about as much hindrance to their progress as a sunbeam across their path.

Claire headed upstream to another little bridge which, by that time, was even closer to Melinda and found the rope strung across that one, too. At this point, she also looked around and saw that the entire lawn was roped off.

"Grandpa," she exclaimed in dismay, "we can't get out!"

I was startled and impressed with her respect for law, order, and barrier, and I considered turning around and exiting the area by the restroom where we had entered. I considered it for a good 2 milliseconds, then I lifted up the rope and invited her and Dillon to walk under it, which they did. Claire was wearing a little grin as she did so.

And I felt terrible. I hope I didn't permanently damage their respect for law and order.

Time for your swimming lesson, Claire.

I think I made a mistake when I pointed out to Claire that the only place she was allowed to run was on the diving board. I was shocked to suddenly see my 5-year old granddaughter sprinting the length of the diving board and gleefully leaping wide out over the rippling chasm. And here I am, sprinting through the water to grab her within 2 seconds after she hit the 9 foot bottom -- more for my peace of mind than hers, apparently.

She had found an exciting new activity we could do together and she repeated it over and over leaving grandpa exhausted and the lifeguard, observing all from atop her pedestal, giggling.

Claire is now registered for swimming lessons beginning November 1st.

If you're 50 and not a conservative....

I have a favorite quote which I often pull on my kids. They respond with eye rolls and other signs of irritation. The quote is attributed to Churchill:

"If you're 20 years old and not a liberal, you have no heart. If you're 50 years old and not a conservative, you have no brain."

This speaks truth to me, but the best expression of this truth was recently given by national columnist, Thomas Sowell, in his 9/11 column. From his picture, Sowell appears to be a good looking black man. This is his column:

Liberals' lofty vision often runs counter to real world threats, experience

Conservatives, as well as liberals, would undoubtedly be happier living in the kind of world envisioned by the left.

Very few people have either a vested interest or an ideological preference for a world in which there are many inequalities.

Even fewer would prefer a world in which vast sums of money have to be devoted to military defense, when so much benefit could be produced if those resources were directed into medical research instead.

It is hardly surprising that young people prefer the political left. The only reason for rejecting the left's vision is that the real world in which we live is very different from the world that the left perceives today or envisions for tomorrow.

Most of us learn that from experience — but experience is precisely what the young are lacking.

"Experience" is often just a fancy word for the mistakes that we belatedly realized we were making, only after the realities of the world made us pay a painful price for being wrong.

Those who are insulated from that pain — whether by being born into affluence or wealth, or shielded by the welfare state, or insulated by tenure in academia or in the federal judiciary — can remain in a state of perpetual immaturity.

Individuals can refuse to grow up, especially when surrounded in their work and in their social life by similarly situated and like-minded people.

Even people born into normal lives, but who have been able through talent or luck to escape into a world of celebrity and wealth, can likewise find themselves in the enviable position of being able to choose whether to grow up or not.

Those of us who can recall what it was like to be an adolescent must know that growing up can be a painful transition from the sheltered world of childhood.

No matter how much we may have wanted adult freedom, there was seldom the same enthusiasm for taking on the burdens of adult responsibilities and having to weigh painful trade-offs in a world that hemmed us in on all sides, long after we were liberated from parental restrictions.

Should we be surprised that the strongest supporters of the political left are found among the young, academics, limousine liberals with trust funds, media celebrities and federal judges?

These are hardly Karl Marx's proletarians, who were supposed to bring on the revolution. The working class are in fact today among those most skeptical about the visions of the left.

Ordinary working class people did not lead the stampede to Barack Obama, even before his disdain for them slipped out in unguarded moments.

The agenda of the left is fine for the world that they envision as existing today and the world they want to create tomorrow.

That is a world not hemmed in on all sides by inherent constraints and the painful trade-offs that these constraints imply. Theirs is a world where there are attractive, win-win "solutions" in place of those ugly trade-offs in the world that the rest of us live in.

Theirs is a world where we can just talk to opposing nations and work things out, instead of having to pour tons of money into military equipment to keep them at bay. The left calls this "change" but in fact it is a set of notions that were tried out by the Western democracies in the 1930s — and which led to the most catastrophic war in history.

For those who bother to study history, it was precisely the opposite policies in the 1980s — pouring tons of money into military equipment — which brought the Cold War and its threat of nuclear annihilation to an end.

The left fought bitterly against that "arms race" which in fact lifted the burden of the Soviet threat, instead of leading to war as the elites claimed.

Personally, I wish Ronald Reagan could have talked the Soviets into being nicer, instead of having to spend all that money. Only experience makes me skeptical about that "kinder and gentler" approach and the vision behind it.