Canada Moms Blog

There is no Maternal health without Reproductive health.

It's times like these when I am truly, cringingly, embarrassed by our government.

It's no secret that I'm a pinko commie liberal. I believe in safety nets and socialized health care and helping those who are down on their luck. I believe in women's shelters and drug rehabs and needle exchange programs. I even listen religiously to the CBC. So it's not hard to find something for me to be angry about in most of our Conservative government's policies. However, this one goes beyond the pale, and not just for me. In their recently announced G8 initiative to promote maternal health in the developing world, the Tories have decided that birth control is not part of maternal health.

Clenchaholic

At my dentist appointment the other day I learned that I am most likely clenching and/or grinding my teeth at night. I was dubious at first, wondering whether my dentist was just trying to squeeze more money out of me by recommending a custom mouth guard that will end up costing me more than $300. Yet both my dentist and hygienist pointed to clear evidence of nightly shenanigans in my mouth: receding gums and teeth wearing down more rapidly than the resolve of a mother attempting to grocery shop at 5:00 p.m. with three kids in tow.

Still, I walked away from the dentist office without making the follow up appointment. I don't really grind my teeth, I reassured myself. If I were doing it, I would be experiencing frequent headaches. My jaw would be aching. Surely my husband would have said something!

Unprepared

My five-year old - my bouncy, smiling, intense, smart five year old girl is troubling me.

She's had a bout with odd stomach pain lately - never a fever, never any problems with either end, happy to eat, happy to run about, nothing odd. Just these ever-present stomachaches and a quiet "Mama, my tummy hurts.'

I called the doctor's office after four days of her staying home from school and asked if there was any sort of virus going around. Assured there was, and that keeping her home wasn't going to be any different than sending her to school, I didn't feel bad sending her back, fortified with a few Tylenol and the knowledge that I would be home if she suddenly worsened.

The tummy trouble lingered. One week, two, three....never worsening, never getting any better. I was still convinced that this was nothing, that it would just go away....

But I thought I might talk to her doctor, just in case. I ran into him at the hospital and just casually asked about Rosey's tum.  He asked a few questions, (Where is the pain? Right in front of her bellybutton. Does it get worse? Sometimes, but not enough that I think we need to come in to see you. Is it constant? It seems so.) then stunned me by quietly saying ' It could be anxiety.'

Anxiety? In a five-year-old?

Pelvic Examination Under Anaesthesia: Immoral Teaching Tool or Avoiding Discomfort in the Name of Education?

Like Shannon, I read and was horrified by the Globe and Mail article "Time to End Pelvic Exams Done Without Consent."  My first reaction was that this article was written quite inflammatory and I began to search for a semblance of truth behind the article, or something to prove otherwise.

There's Such a Thing as TMI - Too Much Information

There's such a thing as too much information (TMI). Don't get me wrong, I'm NOT talking about sex or bodily functions -- things people usually associate with TMI -- because I've certainly been known to talk about my kid's poop and my bra size with random moms in the drugstore aisle. I mean, isn't that one of the beauties of being a mom? Within five minutes of meeting another mom, you could be talking about things like how necessary it is, since having a baby, to pee before you workout. TMI? NO PROBLEM. Loves it.

The problem is INFORMATION. The kind you get when you open your laptop, you wait restlessly for your wireless to load and, finally, wildly hit that search button. Enter: H1N1. Enter: Formula Feeding. Enter: Breastfeeding. Enter: (I don't know) Stomach Cramps; Global Warming; Economy; Pesticides; Poodles; Chocolate. No matter what, as my doctor likes to tell me, "You google it? You're going to find 'cancer,' 'death,' all doom and gloom." Information on the internet is endless, often unreliably sourced, often motivated by one side of an issue or another, by money. Even if you do manage to find a reliable source of information, you'll find at least one link in the sidebar, or in the footnotes, to MORE information -- information that will keep you up at night.

Taking Chances - Early Cancer Diagnosis

If I play the lottery, there’s a very good chance I won’t win it. Still, sometimes I play it anyway.

If I take the subway during flu season, there’s a very good chance I might pick up a bug. But I take the subway anyway.

Going anywhere in a car is risky, very risky, but I will chance it, spending a few hours of every week sitting behind the wheel.

There is a decent chance that I carry a gene that puts me at an up to 70 per cent chance of developing a life-threatening cancer.

And unlike winning the lottery, getting the flu, or having a fender-bender, I have the unique opportunity of being able tolook into a crystal ball to find out if I have this gene.

Ok, it’s not a crystal ball. More like a petri-dish. Or a cotton swab. And the person telling my fortune will not be a mysterious Roma dripping in fake gems. It will be someone in a lab coat, and my fortune-telling surroundings will not be a veil-draped caravan, it will be a stark, decidedly unromantic clinic. But the question is not, can I have my future told, can I find out what my chances are? The question is, should I?

Should I find out if I, like 1 in 10 Jewish women in Ontario, carry the BRCA 1/ BRCA 2 genetic mutation?
I have already signed up for the study. I did that much, and I did it immediately. You may think this means that I want to find out if I carry the gene. But I’m not sure.

Declining the mass H1N1 vaccination

Last week my daughter came home from school and announced that the following week they were all being bussed to the nearest vaccination center so everyone could get the H1N1 shot.  My reaction, if I recall correctly, was "Oh HELL no."

I immediately pulled out the form, read it through, then flipped over to the permission section and checked off the "I decline" box.  I've also decided that I'm not going to send her to school the day that they do the vaccination.  I'm sure that part is a big overreaction on my part, because it's unlikely they'd accidentally send her without our permission and even if she got on the bus, she wouldn't have her Medicare card on her when she arrived at the center so she wouldn't be able to even if she wanted it.  Still, my husband and I just feel better about keeping her at home that day and we'll do something educational with her to make up for it.

I want to be clear about something:  I am not anti-vaccination.  In fact, when my kids were babies, they had all their shots on schedule except for chicken pox, which we decided to skip.  I'm also not even anti-H1N1-vaccination.  I firmly believe that if the vaccine worries you, you shouldn't get it and if you feel like it would calm your concerns to get it, then you should.  I do not judge those who get it and I do not judge those who don't.

The reason I reacted so negatively to this campaign was not necessarily because of the shot itself.  The reason I think it's a bad idea is because of the fact that a small number of adults are going to be responsible for a high number of (potentially nervous or even terrified) elementary school students in a busy center full of other large groups.

How I Made it Through Swine Flu

It started on a Thursday, with incredible body aches. The next day was more of the same, but with pregnancy-level exhaustion. Saturday night saw me huddled under a blanket on the couch with a low-grade fever and a mean case of the chills; by Sunday morning I was retching.

My husband, Dave, bundled me up and took me to the clinic that afternoon. I donned a mask at the reception desk, crumpled in to a chair in the corner of the waiting room and avoid eye contact with the other patients. I knew what I looked like – death smeared on toast – and I couldn’t blame the nervous, unsettled glances I was getting. It wasn’t that long before I was called in – twenty minutes, maybe – but it felt like an eternity. I was so sick, so uncomfortable, that it was all I could do to not lie down on the floor of that waiting room and weep.

After checking my ears, nose, throat and chest, the doctor declared everything clear and announced that I was presenting as though I had H1N1. Confident that’s what I had, he prescribed Tamiflu. We left the clinic and the rest is a blur; one minute I was shouting at Dave to pull over, I’m going to barf! and the next I was in bed, having a very vivid dream that CNN was covering the breaking news of Bill Cosby’s death.

(Author’s note: Bill Cosby is alive and well; it was just the high fever screwing with my head.)

The Big Binge Begins

Yes, it's here! It's the time of year when I ditch the portion-controlling and carb-watching, and once again, with great joy and abandon, allow myself to eat. And eat.  And eat and eat and eat. 

For a whole 3 months.

This Big Binge usually starts on Thanksgiving weekend in early October.  I make a stuffed bird and a brown-sugar/pineapple/7Up-glazed ham.  The menu also usually includes corn, steamed vegetables, and baked potato with a huge dollop of sour cream.  Of course, it's not Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie... with whipped cream on top!

To Vaccinate, Or Not To Vaccinate

My husband and I don't have a problem with vaccinations in general. We took all three of our kids to get their "shots" (FOUR needles each time, here in B.C.) without any qualms. The crying and occasional fussiness was a pain (pun intended) at times, but we felt that it was a better alternative to them catching serious illnesses that could cost them their lives.

When it comes to the flu shot, however, we have never had our children vaccinated. Nor have we had ourselves vaccinated. We just haven't had any reason to, really. We know far too many people who have gotten the flu vaccine, only to end up catching a strain of the flu that apparently wasn't part of the vaccine. We also can't see the need to inject ourselves our children with the flu if we might not even catch it. Most years, we haven't gotten anything worse than a bad cold.

I am not saying that this choice is for everybody. There are people with weakened immune systems or people that work in environments that they are required to get the flu vaccine. Or, they just feel they need to get it. I am not crusading against the flu vaccine; it is just the decision that we have made for our family at this time.

This year, the topic has come up in our house because of the H1N1 virus (or "Swine flu"). We know a few people who have had it and they can attest to how horrible it really is. One elderly person in our community died from it last week.

The Vancouver Sun has an article that outlines when the vaccines for the regular flu and the H1N1 virus will be available. Health officials have found that people who receive the regular flu vaccine first are more susceptible to the H1N1 virus. So, you can get the H1N1 in November and the regular flu shot in 2010.

My husband talked to our family doctor (who is also a family friend) about it all. He stated that they expect that 30% of the population will come down with the H1N1 virus. Which, well, are pretty high odds. He also told us that the instant anyone has flu symptoms, they will be given Tamaflu to fight the infection.

We're pretty sure that we'll still opt out of the vaccine. Probably. We'll see what actually happens come November.

Original post to Canada Moms Blog.