Pittsburgh has walking areas, zoo, low iodine affects your health

    Last August we traveled to a nephew's wedding in New York, saw Niagara Falls at night -- pretty colors. Before that, we saw son Daniel in Pittsburgh.
   Pittsburgh has a neat public transportation system with its trolley. You can take it downtown, where the three rivers meet, the Monongahela, Ohio and Allegheny and go to "The Point," the park at the meeting of these three rivers. You can walk along the river and see the yellow painted bridges going across to their the Steelers' football stadium, and eat a juicy hamburgers downtown, or travel a bit farther to the zoo.
   Yes, Pittsburgh has a wonderful zoo, with a polar bear, elephants, Cape hunting dogs, giraffes, a huge aquarium and play area for kids, etc. Pittsburgh has some science and music museums you could walk to too.
    But the battle of the bulge continues for me -- back to now. I seem to have the symptoms of low thyroid/iodine, like hair loss, fuzzy memory, low temperature and other symptoms. Could these have caused my breast cancer? I NEED some iodine!

Learning about Edible Plants, Going off Diet is easy

    It's pretty easy to go off a diet. Even if you've had cancer and really "want" to change the way you do things, it's still quite easy to go off a diet. I went to an instructional day for myself, Ms. Master Naturalist member, to learn about edible AND medicinal plants you can find in a field or the woods. You can even find edible plants in your yard-- if you have a big enough yard, that is. And not a suburban  yard. Suburban yards are ridiculously manicured-- where do you find edible plants --- roses? Actually, you can get vitamin C from the  "fruit" of the rose, what is called rose hips. And you can boil the flowers or leaves to make tea. You can boil inner bark in the woods if you get hungry enough.
    Our instructor had foraged with Euell Gibbons, the fellow who stalked the wild asparagus and wrote about it. So we learned a lot. Jewelweed can be used on poison ivy and bug bites, yarrow, boneset and clover help your immune system, spicebush leaves are aromatic and many things can be made into teas. These things are not being passed down and our food is mass produced and not that healthy. We need to go forage in  the woods!

Dieting is so frustrating

    I think dieting is the most frustrating thing in the world. The idea that not being
able to eat what you want is a good idea is, really, not a good idea. You feel deprived,
then you go and overeat or eat too many snacks or just plain get neurotic about the
whole thing. I should have had a bag of celery and radishes handy to munch on or
something!
     Who else agrees with me that food restriction stinks? I know, I am just a spoiled
American eater. Many people go to bed hungry or only eat what is in season and 
don't have the variety (or exposure to pesticides) that I do. It's toss-up, isn't it?
Either there is too much food around of not enough. At least I exercised at "Curves"
today.

Are Hair Samples Accurate, Does Topsy Turvy Upside Down Planter Work

    As I mentioned earlier, I'd given a sample of my hair to a nutritionist/pharmacist to see what "elements" showed in my hair. Doctors at different websites have said different things about the accuracy of these results and maybe I should take them with a grain of salt,as they say (but maybe I shouldn't, as the test said that my sodium was way too high!).
    The test said my calcium, magnesium and sodium were off the chart. Is it possible one of these could be wrong? If I had too much blood calcium AND too much sodium wouldn't I be headed for a heart attack or stroke? The last few months, especially, I have been eating better and avoiding sugar. Though I had read somewhere (maybe it was Dr. Mercola) that table salt was okay and I was using it more. But then, maybe he meant that the "iodine" in it was good, though regular table salt could cause high blood pressure. And more than one site said that hair samples could be "askew" in their readings because of your shampoo or hair dye -- maybe that is what caused such a high sodium reading? Who can tell exactly? Are blood tests that much better, as they can degrade in the process of being handled too, I'm told. What is totally accurate, a salvia sample?
     Perhaps a blood test is good for certain things, like trigliseride (sp?) levels and cholesterol and insulin and thyroid readings. At least I hope they are. I need a thyroid/insulin test as well. The hair sample and information I gave Dottie H indicated I have a low functioning thyroid. And the diet (eat 70 grams of protein a day) is a bit much! I am aiming for half that as I don't eat much protein. But then I am eating a lot of nuts. Are they going to affect my cholesterol, I wonder?
    We'd bought one of those green topsy turvy upside down plant holders and planted tomatoes in it last summer. The plants never produced one fruit! Now, we have two cucumber plants in it and it looks like we "might" get two whole cucumbers. We didn't fertilize and the backyard gets too much shade from walnut trees, giving them only 5-6 hours of sunlight a day. So is it the lack of light or being in a glorified planter with side holes that is not working for us? 

Other website not cooperating, Advanced cancer not fun for friend

    My college friend Gale tried to talk to me the other night with my cell phone. I am neither cell phone savvy nor am I a fan of a device so stinking small it is difficult to hear out of. And it heats up as you use it, letting out all those wonderful electromagnetic waves. My friend Gale is getting her share of radiation treatments to the head for her advanced breast cancer. It may not hurt but the "Hannibal-like" mask they put on her head doesn't sound comfortable either. I feel for her and am going to send her some "alternate therapy" ideas from the book I have, Outsmart Your Cancer. The medical establishment in the U. S. is really not interested in anything other than what they want to do!
    I tried to post to another blog (wordpress) and it has too many bulbs and whistles. I put in a title, for instance, then copied and pasted my writing (maybe that was a no no) and it made the whole dang thing the title! Then it posted it again under it. I don't understand all this stuff and they don't have a contact email either. Yeah, nice.

Cremation is cheaper, Protein can help liver

    I'd actually read it elsewhere, in Dr. Sear's book about "The Zone" diet, that you should eat some protein with each meal as it somehow "activates" the liver to work, to help process other foods coming in. But my nutritionist/pharmacist told me my hair sample indicated I had a low functioning thyroid and low functioning adrenal system. The latter I could understand because for 4 and half years I was on the anti-estrogen pill Femara, as a post breast cancer treatment. But being in that seemed to give me intestinal problems and food allergies, along with thinning hair and wrinkled skin (nice). But the low thyroid thing I was hoping was not true. But it is hard for me to lose weight, or stop eating sometimes-- I blame sugar and avoiding it seems to help.
     So I am eating more nuts and meat. Just need to add beans not too. I worry, of course, about the dang hormones in meat. The nutritionist, Dottie, said to go for organic meat and vegetables, but that is very expensive to do. I am trying to remember to use my lemons to squeeze and drink -- in the body they are actually alkaline and cancer does not like an alkaline body -- do take that, cancer!
    Was thinking about what my mother said -- she said that cremation of my recently deceased dad was the cheapest. I looked online and I guess at www.veteransfuneralcare.com there are locations where you can take a vet and get a discount. I think my dad was in the Marines for four years and that was it. He may have completed college after that and then went on to become a teacher. After so many years, I am following in his footsteps as an adjunct at R. U., but the pay is lousy. Why can't I ever make a decent living?