Category: Mind/Body

  • The Fung Fasting Report #1: One Month of WOW!

    The Fung Fasting Report #1: One Month of WOW!

    A month ago, I told you about the books I was reading, mentioned my previous morbid obesity, type 2 diabetes, and tongue cancer. What I didn’t mention is that while the majority of my family on my father’s side died in their 50s of complications of raging alcoholism (which I neatly sidestepped by deciding when…

  • Me, Obesity, Type 2 Diabetes, Tongue Cancer, and Jason Fung, MD

    Me, Obesity, Type 2 Diabetes, Tongue Cancer, and Jason Fung, MD

    Something you might not know about me. Back in the early 2000’s, I was fat. Not chubby. Not “just need to lose a few pounds.” Morbidly obese. The point at which I stopped weighing myself and just gave up was when the scale hit 220, but I didn’t quit eating, and didn’t quit needing roomier…

  • Fixing Vertigo: A new solution for BPPV

    Fixing Vertigo: A new solution for BPPV

    I was diagnosed some years ago with BPPV — Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo. With me, it generally starts with slight dizziness that gets worse over a day or two, becoming so bad that I have to have my husband hold me up to get from one end of the house to the other. There are…

  • Stillness in the Heart of Chaos

    Stillness in the Heart of Chaos

    After a gruelling two years in which I’ve written very little fiction but have: Built a stellar team of folks to help me run my writing site:   Dan Allen – Developer Kirsten Bolda – Site Designer Cat Gerlach & Amy Padgett, Forum Head Moderators Carol Englehaupt – moderator Karen Lynn – moderator Chris Makowski…

  • This Morning I Caught My Brain Doing Something WEIRD!

    This Morning I Caught My Brain Doing Something WEIRD!

    I woke up this morning from one of those dreams that seem to go on forever, where there were international spies and murders and I was a writer working on getting a lesson done on deadline, and for some reason, my lesson was interfering with the international spies, who’d sent someone to make me stop…

  • Me, faith, God… and the good and kind folks who like me…

    Me, faith, God… and the good and kind folks who like me…

    I received today a truly wonderful email from a very kind woman with whom I had previously corresponded. In it she talked about this being the year of Christian/Jewish Restoration, and about how we were both due, and about how “I know you don’t like God all that much…” And she included a video to…

  • I’ve started writing fiction again

    This is such a delicate thing I’m almost afraid to mention it. But stories started sneaking back into my consciousness after the parathyroid surgery, and lately I’ve been starting each weekday morning writing a few hundred words. It’s what I can make time for before I start into the still-enormous daily workload of getting the…

  • Waking up like a kid: parathyroidectomy for the win

    Last night I put my head on my pillow, closed my eyes, and fell asleep. When I opened them again, it was morning. That may not sound like much. So let me put it in context for you. I remember waking up one perfect summer morning in 1966 in the tiny Ohio village where I…

  • A Sky Full of Stars: Hyperparathyroidism versus the Writer

    On Saturday, something happened as a result of the parathyroidectomy that was totally unexpected. My spontaneous story ideas came back. I hadn’t even noticed they were gone. I’ve been working hard for the past couple of years trying to get the site fixed, I’ve been under a lot of strain both physically and financially, and…

  • The Teenage Tumor and Me: My Mini-Parathyroid Surgery and the Norman Parathyroid Center

    I’m back following a parathyroidectomy and a couple days recovery. I’m tired, my neck is a bit swollen still and kind of sore, I’m bruised (I’m an easy bruiser, though). And I am happily rid of one thumb-above-the-distal-joint-sized parathyroid tumor that was between twelve and fifteen years old when Drs. Norman, Boone, and Parrack removed…