There’s No Immunity Like Good Immunity

I am sad today because I just heard that the son of a person I used to work with is in the hospital on oxygen. He is a bright and cheerful 6 year old who has just started kindegarten and I pray he will survive the pneumonia that has put him in the hospital. Of course, he becomes an H1N1 statistic because it allegedly started with the  H1N1 virus but really he is a victim of an uninformed, very proud mother.

Mother, as I will call her, boldly asserts when asked if she has breast fed her babies “breasts are for playing with not for feeding” and she has refused to breast feed her two children. They start from day one on soy formula, a known “poison” for babies that weakens their immune systems and has had that affect on both of her children. She always refers to both of them as healthy but she is living in a make believe world. Both children, one boy and one girl, are constantly ill with every bug that goes around. Her daughter is only two years old and has spent countless nights in ER with dehydration from a strange disorder that causes her to start throwing up and she cannot stop. She is now on acid reflux meds and somehow that just seems perfect to me as that will most assuredly set her up for a life of weakened immunity. Her son has had nightly erections since he was tiny and I can only assume the hormones in everything he eats and drinks from the day he was born have had this effect on his poor little body. (yes, I do know that little boys have erections but not with this regularity and severity)

Mother, in all her wisdom has had her children inoculated against influenza which, again, increased the likelihood of her little boy being struck down by H1N1, the flu. It is known that the flu vaccine often diminishes otherwise healthy immune systems. Will anyone mention the vaccines he has already had at his tender age? No, they will only repeat and repeat that this little boy is in the hospital with H1N1 and isn’t getting enough oxygen to his brain without help. Dammit! I am too sad.

Mother happily allows the children out in the sunshine but ignorantly only after they have been slathered with poisonous ingredients commonly referred to as “sunscreen”. She knows better than to let the sun shine on their unexposed skin because a “relative died of a skin cancer” (don’t even get me started), so they are covered from head to foot with clothing or lotion. I can only imagine what their Vitamin D levels are and though I have off offhandedly remarked several times to her that we are all severely lacking in Vitamin D I am sure her children have never seen a Vitamin D3 capsule and they certainly have never had a blood test to check their levels of D3.

Mother, is an educated person with a dental degree, so education is not the problem as I see it. Our world is the problem and our government insisting on the Food Pyramid that stresses anything but healthy whole food. Our world that puts raw milk dairy farmers out of business and thus removes healthy food from the tables of countless families. Our world where the President declares a national emergency for a strain of flu that is actually milder than most strains of flu and most experts agree we have already seen the worst of . However, this “emergency” allows for FEMA to put in to place the mandatory flu vaccine that we have so far escaped and many other rules and regulations should they so desire.  Our world where we have been very ill informed about the sun and its benefits; thus our children are severely low in Vitamin D and have little chance of fighting off anything much less the flu. How about instituting a national Vitamin D emergency and doing some real good.

As for Mother she needs to venture outside her very enclosed box of reality, her extremely small world of allopathic medicine and foolish government food pyramids. Firstly, her children need their mother on her days off to just play with them or read books and reduce their daily intake of stress. They need good wholesome home cooked meals not supper from a box or a drive-up where the hormone count mounts and their immune system is taxed just trying to fight all those nasty additives and preservatives. I pray to a higher power that this little boy gets to go home but more than that I pray that Mother will see the light and start all over again to raise her children in a healthier world than they have thus far experienced. It is never too late even if she can’t go back and breast feed them. Go ahead Mother turn over a new leaf and restore their immune systems making them fighting fit when the next so-called “pandemic” (check it out; WHO has redefined what the word means) strikes because I assure you it will, seasonal flu occurs every year.

Feeding Your Thyroid

My latest update on Facebook from Janie Bowthorpe was basically a continuation of her disagreement with Forest Pharmaceuticals and their changing the formulation of Armour Thyroid and Janie’s successfully getting many people to switch to Naturethroid and Westhroid. It is all getting old to me and I will apologize right now to any readers that offends and tell you that I am grateful to Janie Bowthorpe for her very informative book Stop The Thyroid Madness. I have a different take on the subject of the new formulation causing relapse in everyone and I will share it with my readers.

Early this winter I finally talked my very open minded doctor, Rob Bruley, in to prescribing Armour Thyroid instead of my compounded pharmaceutical T3 and T4 because we were not resolving my hypothyroidism issue after more than a year of constantly increasing my dosage. Admittedly he reluctantly did it, but he did it and told me I had to take a 3 grain dose of Armour Thyroid which by the way had to be special ordered at Target pharmacy (I tell you because it is useful information). 3 grains was equal to the T3 and T4 I was taking that wasn’t working very well although we had corrected several aspects of my thyroid malfunction. At that time I also started a bio-identical testosterone cream and progesterone tablet because those hormones were low in a recent hormone test I had taken.

I don’t want to quote exact times here because it is all a blur of history but approximately 6 weeks later I was having heart palpitations and sudden jolts that would awaken me in the middle of the night. I started taking half a 3 grain tablet at that time and when I called Dr. Bruley he agreed that this was the right thing to do, so he prescribed a blood test  which showed my T3 was now too high, T4 was okay and the TSH was within range although on the low side. I continued on 1 1/2 grains and when I had the next blood test I didn’t take my Armour the morning of the test as it will affect the T3 reading according to Janie and I was not in the mood to take any higher dosage. I was now feeling rather hyper at times and for instance if I was writing something it would almost look scribbled because I was writing too fast (my own test) so I knew I was a little over medicated but the test would tell.

That test came back with both T3 and T4 within range but my total TSH was .3 which indicates suppressed thyroid. I have since cut my half tablet in to half which amounts to 3/4 grain of Armour Thyroid. I will need a blood test in a few weeks but I can tell you that I still feel a little hyperthyroid. On 3/4 grain my heart palpitations are almost non-existent but at times I feel agitated like I need to run a marathon but I don’t run anymore.

Now to my point, the newly formulated Armour has seemingly corrected my thyroid problem greatly reducing my need for thyroid stimulating hormone. I don’t take it sublingually anymore because most of my digestive issues are resolved by not eating grain of any kind and drinking kefir every day. Swallowing Armour allows for slow release of the thyroid stimulating hormone. If and when I did what Janie suggested and took the tablet sublingually I would get a jolt in the morning that was uncomfortable and if I took some early afternoon when it had worn off I was too hyper to relax by bedtime. Swallowing it with my morning tea works perfectly for me I have sustained energy during the day and I am ready for bed at night.

I am now taking Alpha Lipoic Acid (300 mg) twice a day (with breakfast and supper) as well as a B-Complex vitamin for energy and liver health. If you take ALA you must add a B Complex as the ALA lowers your levels of the B vitamins. I also take 200 mcg of a sodium selenate/selenomethionine supplement. When I feel an energy lag I have a great B12 supplement called ProBoneO by Life Enhancement (Dr. Wright). I eat a diet free of gluten, with lots of greens, fresh eggs, avocados, grass fed meat, etc. My conclusion is that by balancing my hormones and taking the right supplements (no excipients or fillers), following a gluten free diet and staying away from excititoxins I am healing my thyroid.

Instead of complaining about the reformulation of Armour Thyroid I would tell you to try it. If it doesn’t work or you start to experience hypo symptoms again follow this advice before you change to Naturethroid or Westhroid:

Balance all your hormones not just your thyroid hormone.

Eat a gluten free diet full of greens which can be from Barley grass and Alfalfa grass or greens from the garden that are raw or lightly steamed. Add homemade kefir with no sugar added for a health gut.

Throw away supplements that have excipients and fillers as they negatively affect your immune system and create a bio film that keeps you from absorbing the supplement.

Judiciously stay away from MSG which means making your own fresh food with no boxed convenience foods and reading The MSG Myth.

Exercise using the T-Tapp method as she concentrates on cleaning your lymph system and allowing your body to heal itself.

If you do all these things and still suffer from hypo symptoms then it is time to try something new. If you choose not to try these steps first don’t cry foul on Forest Pharmaceuticals point your finger at the real guilty party, you.

A Gutsy Move

Speaking of guts may not make you think of probiotics but they are all about a healthy gut and a healthy gut is all about a healthy body. If you have ever been treated with the ubiquitous antibiotics prescribed by your primary care physician you need probiotics. The good news is probiotics are simple to make and will be fresher than anything you can buy and certainly freer of additives, fillers and gelatin. How? You make kefir.

Kefir is a combination of bacteria and yeasts in a matrix of protein, sugar and lipids. This matrix forms a characteristic cauliflower like “mushroom” and this “mushroom” is placed in a quart canning jar of milk, hopefully “real” milk, capped with a non-metallic canning jar lid, set in a warm place out of the sunshine and allowed to ferment for 24-48 hours. You will know when it is done because the resultant mixture is thick like yogurt but eminently drinkable. If you let it sit 48 hours it will separate in to curds and whey and will have an altogether different composition and much more sour taste (for instance kefir that is fermented for 48 hours has a much higher folic acid content). When the fermentation is complete to your satisfaction you remove the grains of kefir and start a new jar of kefir.

Often when I make kefir I need to let the grains rest in between batches, so the last jar is placed in the refrigerator with the grains still in place. Cooling the grains, slows the fermentation but the grains are still being fed and will stay healthy and useable for a very long time. As soon as I use up one jar and need the next I just transfer the grains to a new jar of “real” milk. If you use whole “real” milk the grains may need the occasional rinse with non-chlorinated (chlorine will kill the grains) cool water as the fat may coat the grains and stop the fermentation from occurring. Also another secret to success with kefir grains is if you don’t need them for awhile you can rinse them, dry the grains off with a cotton towel, powder them with dry milk powder (organic if possible) and freeze them. When you need them again you dust them off, place them in milk and let them warm up and start causing their signature fermentation again. This may take a change of two of milk, so start with a small jar and wake them up gently.

The magical elixir you will have produced has antimutagenic (capable or reducing mutation which is important in cancer control) and antioxidant properties (something that inhibits oxidation and is vital to a healthy body). Many lactose intolerant people find they can digest kefir with no problems as it aids in lactose digestion as a catalyst. It has been found to lower serum cholesterol and blood pressure in rats according to Wikipedia. If you want more history of kefir Google it and you will find there is a plethora of information on various sites dedicated to kefir and kombucha (a fermentation done with tea, sugar, water and a kombucha mushroom).

Kefir has a decidedly tart taste but a delightful sparkle due to the fermentation and very slight alcoholic content (less than 1%). I love it plain but if the tartness doesn’t please you it is easily added to your morning smoothie or you can simply add agave nectar, honey, maple syrup, xylitol, stevia, fresh fruit, etc before you drink it. Years ago I did read that it is advised that you take one day off a week to allow your system to take care of itself but I don’t think the horseback riders in the Caucasus did that as it was a source of calories and liquid for them as they crossed the mountains that formed their region between Asia and Europe. They would carry a small bladder full of mare’s milk and the magic mushroom and let it shake around inside the bag as they rode and then enjoy the sparkling beverage and all of its healthful properties.

Most mornings I make a smoothie with my kefir by putting in a blender 1/2 cup of my freshly made kefir, 1 cup of filtered water, any supplements I want that day that are in powdered form but lately it has been T-Tapps Premium alfalfa blend, Dr. Ron’s multi-vitamin powder, powdered CoQ10, 1/4 teaspoon Taurine powder, a scoop of Cardio-C, a scoop of Coco Mojo, a dropperful of Viragon, and a dropperful of my own blood cleansing tincture,  three emptied capsules of turmeric, a scoop of chia seed, 3/4 teaspoon of salmon oil , and maybe some xylitol. I mix that all up and as the machine is running I can add fresh spinach leaves, parsley, kale anything green from the garden. Sometimes I then add frozen berries or half a frozen banana, a fresh raw egg, and half an avocado. This mixture can be varied by adding coconut milk powder or simply substituting some coconut milk for water. I like my smoothies thick like a shake but this too can be adjusted for personal taste. My spousal unit is happy that I let him leave most mornings before I make my concoction but I enjoy it and it is a powerful combination. You can make your own creations but it is important to know that the base is kefir.

I have introduced many people to kefir, some have turned their noses up in disgust but many have benefitted from their daily dose of kefir and often share the “mushroom” with friends and family and have found it helped them become healthier (from ending lifelong constipation to healing IBS). The “mushroom” will multiply and is easy to separate out of the kefir to give to friends and family, so you will never lack for kefir grains. Go ahead, make a gutsy move, make some kefir and enjoy a new healthier you.

P.S. When first starting on any probiotics you need to start out carefully. Unhealthy gut environs are strongly affected by probiotics and diarrhea may initially result from drinking kefir. Often this is a result of your body getting rid of something bad it was harboring like Candida overgrowth, so the diarrhea isn’t always a bad occurence but it may be uncomfortable. It is recommended that you start with a tablespoon and try more as you can tolerate it.

My Dear Miss Piggy

As the so-called swine flu continues to hit the newspapers and television every other day or so I am sure pork producers suffer the wrath of the media. I haven’t heard specifically but I can only imagine that people won’t buy pork for fear of getting this much dreaded H1N1 virus. Why is that? Because people listen and/or read for a nanosecond and let’s face it you can only get so many facts in a nanosecond and it is usually all garbled and incorrect. I would like to say a few things to clarify and defend the much maligned porcine community.

First of all, you may or may not have heard or read this small, insignificant detail but YOU CANNOT GET THE H1N1 VIRUS FROM EATING PORK. Secondly, I do not support large hog operations (the H1N1 virus may have started on a 950,00+ hog confinement farm in Mexico) where the hogs are raised in filth, never see the light of day, are filled with hormones and antibiotics and never have a life.I do support and consume healthy pasture raised pork.

Conventionally raised pork that you buy in your local supermarket is not raised under humane conditions. They are literally crammed in to buildings where they cannot move, they never see the light of day much less feel the sun on their backs. They are filled with antibiotics to keep them healthy. Their manure which is collected in gigantic cesspools pollutes the surrounding areas often even contaminating the ground water and the reek of  toxic fumes can be inhaled for miles (I used to live a mile or two from a pig operation run appropriately enough by a family called Sewer). Those fumes have been found to cause high rates of disease on factory farms especially respiratory diseases like bronchitis. If a person should have the misfortune of falling in one of these cesspools they will most likely die of asphyxiation from the toxic fumes.

Pasture raised pork is a nutritious, humanely raised “other white meat”. Pastured pork is high in vitamin E and healthy Omega-3 fats. Pastured pigs get to enjoy the freedom to behave in natural ways even being able to create nests for their piglets and live in family groups. They spend their day rooting and grazing in the sun and fresh air and even in winter they are raised on deep beds of straw in hoop houses that enable them to be exposed to fresh air and sunshine but protected from the extremes of winter.

If  you would like to enjoy pork again, barbecue some succulent pork ribs, roast a nitrate free ham or make Cuban Spiced pork shoulder roast I can highly recommend Pasture’s A Plenty in Kerhoven, MN. It is a farm run by the VanDerPol family and they make monthly trips in to the Twin Cities and sell their wonderful pork to local co-ops and restaurants but also have drop offs for individual orders. They make about 5 stops in different parts of the Twin Cities and I am lucky enough to live close to one drop off point. If you do not live in Minnesota but have an interest in buying humanely raised pork check out CawCaw Creek and U.S. Wellness Meats. I have personally dealt with US Wellness Meats and found their products to be wonderful. I know nothing of Caw Caw Creek meat but their site is too cute.

We are so lucky here in the Twin Cities to have farmers like the VanDerPols bring our food to us. How wonderful is it to be able to buy your food directly from the farmer? Wouldn’t you like to know how your food is raised and know the people who raise it? The VanDerPols offer an open house every autumn and you can attend and check out the environs that your meat is raised in. I think this is as close to perfection as you can get and even Miss Piggy would give Pastures A Plenty and the other farmers who are dedicated to humanely raising pigs a big thumbs up for making a pigs life happy.

Unbelievable Naivete

I am in wonder about something I learned this weekend and now I ask readers to let me know if this could possibly be true. Is it really possible that people don’t believe in preventive medicine?
I actually saw eyes roll this weekend when I mentioned being able to “prevent”disease and in that simple movement of the ocular nature I realized that some people really don’t believe they have any control over their own health. I suddenly realized the difficulty Joe Mercola and others of his ilk have in convincing people that they can make a difference by eating right, living right and making some if not all of the correct choices to prevent disease.
Do you dear reader believe you can make a difference by watching the type of food that goes in your mouth? Do you think that there are herbs found in nature that can help you grow stronger or must it always be a chemical created in a lab somewhere in Podunk MN? Or how about Vitamin C, Vitamin D and E, are they just someone’s idea of the alphabet or do you think they can make a difference?
The naivete is mine alone as I simply didn’t realize that people would roll their eyes at the mention of taking supplements to prevent fatty liver disease or just ignore the possibility altogether. I forget that not everyone reads the readily available and reliable information regarding your healthy body but relies solely on Big Pharma ads because they speak the “truth” and the other published information is bunko.
Joe Mercola I am an avid follower of your newsletter and I applaud your stubborn resolve to inform and protect the people who are willing to read the wonderful information you provide. I had no idea how you had changed my perception of the control I have over my body and its resultant good health until I saw the roll of the eye. Naive I may have been but I learned a valuable lesson this weekend and I just wonder how many readers of Kris Insight have had this epiphany.

P.S. There is a very informative article on the future direction of our health care in the USA that you may want to read, find it at The New Yorker.

Keep up with the T-Tapp PACE

Yes, you read that right PACE, I am commenting on PACE again but some may not like what I have to say.

I was T-Tapping (the coined phrase for exercising with Teresa Tapp) to Total Workout Slow the other day and I finally heard Teresa say what I had been thinking. The idea behind the Progressively Accelerating Cardiopulmonary Exertion (PACE) is not a new idea at all it has just been well promoted by Al Sears and I will give him credit for that as not all of us are clever enough to advertise well. I have felt for sometime that several people actually do the PACE program including, as many have noticed on this blog, Kathy Smith and now Teresa Tapp. This adds a lot of variety to your exercise program and variety is after all the spice of life.

Teresa at one point in her morning long seminar (that she recorded for people like me to exercise to) said that she designed T-Tapp exercise 10 years ago (with the help of Dr. Ken Cooper) with the idea that you elevate the heart rate for a minute or two and then let it come down (she called it sprinting), elevate, let it come down. What does that sound like to you? To me that is PACE in a nutshell and in addition to the cardio workout you will work muscles you didn’t know existed and sweat like you have never perspired when working out. Your posture improves, bone density increases and you just feel perkier. Doing lunges the T-Tapp way I have been able to lunge with none of the knee pain that I always experienced in years past. The Total Workout even includes a T-Tapp chiropractic adjustment called T-Tapp Twist. When you do it with the precision she requires (rather like the discipline involved with traditional Qi Gong) you can actually feel your vertebrae fall in to position, you sleep better at night and you don’t have stiffness.

I’m not really promoting any one of the T-Tapp exercise programs in this article but I did want to address PACE because I think there are many different ways to do PACE and some are better than others. T-Tapping is a common sense approach to PACE that I can vouch for its effectiveness and recommend it. Al Sear’s program is useful and promotes good health it is just not a new idea and also not the only progressively accelerating cardiopulmonary exertion program out there.

Swine Flu;Benign Flu

Yes, the media is taking the Swine Flu by the tail and beating it to death but you can hardly blame them. If your entire livelihood depended on all the news you could generate in a 24 hour period, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year you, too, would ride this little piggy to market with the same gusto.

There is now quite a bit of speculation that this flu bug was born in a laboratory somewhere and that seems about right. The suspicious part of me thinks that someone in the media or government isn’t above unleashing something like this to create news and deflect concern on to things other than the economy and the war in Afghanistan (oh and now Pakistan). Suspicion aside apparently H1N1 is showing many different characteristics that relate it not to just swine, but bird and human so man MAY have created it and now man MAY have spread it.

What to do, what to do? First panic, no just kidding. First wash your hands thoroughly whenever you have been out and about. I use Tropical Traditions liquid soap in a foamer bottle and then grab my scrub brush to clean under nails and in the cuticle. If you are a songbird like me singing the ABC song is sufficient time to completely clean your hands and make yourself smile while you are at it. Washing hands at least 10 times a day is recommended and then keep your fingers and hands away from your face.

Secondly, get your sleep. 7-9 hours a night is the recommended amount and you should wake feeling fully rested and ready to take on whatever your day presents to you. I think if your night is interrupted a power nap during the day never hurt anyone after all Churchill took a 2 hour nap every day and look at the greatness of that man.

I personally ordered Baseline Nutritionals Viragon just now. It is a tincture full of antiviral compounds including garlic, ginger, onion, horseradish, olive leaf extract, liquid ionic zinc, oil of wild mountain oregano, grapefruit seed and habanero. It doesn’t taste “purty” but that compound should wipe out any virus that even tries to enter my immune system. At my house we are drinking raw milk kefir mixed with wild raw honey to keep our gut healthy and spending 15-20 minutes in the late morning sunshine to keep our Vitamin D3 levels optimum.

It goes without saying, that if either of us starts feeling “under the weather”, if we develop a streaming nasal issue, if our muscles ache or we develop some unusual gastro-intestinal problems we will stay home and keep our problems limited to the walls of our domain. Personally if I had just returned from Mexico I might see it as prudent to isolate my family for 24 hours until I know we all just feel great from those sun soaked hours on holiday.

What we will not do is take Tamiflu in any way shape or form. We will not panic and get a flu shot.. There are reports (none substantiated) that many of the people who died in Mexico had been given a flu vaccine in a vain attempt by their government to stem the spread of the virus. The only thing that vaccine did was weaken their already compromised immune systems and those poor slobs were unable to fight anything much less “swine flu”. I think I can also say we will not be travelling outside the USA until this apparent pandemic is squelched. I do not relish the possibility of being held in a quaratine room with other vaccinated or “Tamiflued” victims. I want to fight H1N1 my way and be assured that I will win.

Vital Choice Salmon Rocks

I wanted to shout out to everyone who checks this blog about my latest find. I have been looking for a good fish oil with no flavor and not in a gelatin capsule (gelatin always contains MSG) and I found one at last at Vital Choice. Or perhaps I should say I found it some time ago but it was out-of-stock.

This fish oil is almost red in color it is so rich in astaxanthan from the krill they eat on a daily basis and it contains natural Vitamin D, A and the necessary Omega 3’s. Wild Alaska Salmon are among the purest of all ocean fish, so the oil is free from hazardous levels of contaminants.

I actually don’t know why I want anyone else to know because they will sell out again and I won’t have a source of this perfect fish oil but I just can’t contain my excitement and had to share it.

Something smells corny

Thanks to a friend’s question last night I started researching Xylitol and to my surprise my favorite brand is made from corn and worse yet comes from a manufacturing plant in China. As I type my mouth is agape and I am appalled. It seems to me that anything made from cooked down corn be it from a corn cob or the kernels is potentially full of unbound glutamate and that means it is rich in excitotoxins and not good for anyone but can be downright dangerous to people who are sensitive to MSG.

Perhaps you didn’t know that Xylitol was traditionally from birch trees and is a naturally occurring sugar with 40% less calories than typical cane sugar and a much lower glycemic index (7) thus making it safe for diabetics. Because it has only 5 carbon atoms versus the normal 6 it inhibits bacterial growth and thus has been found valuable in dentistry to help stop rampant decay much like fluoride but much safer in my opinion. It has been used in Europe for decades but really only found some popularity in the USA in the last decade when it was promoted by companies like XClear at dental conventions and online as a nasal spray for chronic sinus infections. I think it is a great sweetener because it is useful in dentistry and it tastes great and looks just like sugar but lacks the calories of sugar. BUT, I have a problem with corn derived products.

Let me count the problems I have with it. Corn is one of the most genetically modified crops that American farmers grow. If you boil corn down you hydrolyze it and create free glutamate. Corn is a common allergen and corn crops if not rotated totally deplete the earth they are grown on and massive erosion occurs (I have experienced it with my own eyes). High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is in almost any packaged food you buy and is known to be a link in our food chain that may cause obesity and a host of other problems for the consumer. Even Ethanol production presents numerous problems not first of which is pollution of our air. Corn fed to animals creates meat that is unhealthy for human consumption and sickens animals who are ruminates and not meant to eat grains or corn. Did I say something smells corny? Well there is no way Xylitol needs to.

Xylitol is originally from birch trees and my sweetener will from now on be from birch trees. It will contain no excipients and it will not come from China. I highly recommend Xylitol as a sweetener.  I even use it in my morning tooth powder (baking soda, Xylitol and Celtic Sea Salt) because of its antibacterial qualities. However, do not buy the brands that are coming to us in giant poison filled containers from China. Look for “Made in the USA” and check its source to be sure it comes from organic birch trees and not the ubiquitous kernel or cob of corn.

Yes Dorothy there is life after mastectomy

I am in awe this morning and I was in awe last night but too filled with a bit of anxiety to realize. My sister-in-law had a double mastectomy on Thursday morning and last night when I entered her “hotel” room (not) she was radiant and smiling. She is a little concave (she says) but women should know there is a full life after mastectomy and I have no doubt she will make the most of being cancer free and tit less.

I have never been attached to my mammary glands and have had the feeling forever that the smaller the better. Large breasts are simply too much fat and I see nothing attractive about fat. Not being male I do not understand and have never understood the intense attraction to females who look like a potential Leaning Tower of Pisa to me. Does anyone with large breasts ever tell you how bad their backs hurt or how burdened a woman’s shoulders are by humongous bras and great pendulums of fat that hang off their chests. We are all lead to believe that to be feminine we must have large breasts and nothing could be further from the truth.

The truth is far from the vast udder myth that is perpetuated by Hollywood and Dollywood. When I walked in to the hospital room last night no one could have looked more feminine or in control of the situation than my sister-in-law. She looked lovely in a lime green french terry capri outfit, sitting regally on her bed eating supper and smiling the smile of a woman who has unburdened her body of some cancerous cells and eliminated future prospects of ductal cancer returning because there are no ducts and I say “HURRAH’ you go girl!

Yes, I have my boobs and yes they are larger than I would like due to excess weight that I carry around as I am cursed by hypothyroidism and menopause and more honestly an appetite for good food. I may not be the right person to applaud my now boob less sister-in-law but I hope she wears her new chest with a certain amount of aplomb and does not succumb to the wild rantings of her friends who say they feel less feminine without their mammillary accesories. Who needs to be a right cow? Not me, not you, no woman need concern herself with her chest  if she can only see that she has a bigger purpose on this earth than soothing some male ego and his manic obsession with said cows.