San Francisco Up High

I have spent a number of days in SF this past year.  I have gone for work and to visit my daughter who moved there in May 2008.  My next visit is May 21, 2009 which may also be my daughter's last day in SF for a while.  She has become tired of the dirty streets and street life.  Once when she and I were walking we saw someone go down an alley to shoot up. Last week we encountered a homeless man outside my hotel swinging a frying pan and yelling "I kill you." Luckily we were able to get by him without getting beaned.

My company limits me to 3 hotels in SF. The best of the three for my needs is the Westin Market St. which seems to be the darling of expedia.com.   This past visit we encountered what appeared to be high school women sports teams.   I have gotten used to the place. I now know to ask for a room on a higher floor.  I have had to change rooms a few times--once because of the large roof fan on a building right under my window and the other because of a handicapped shower/bath with no accommodation for those of us who like to stand when we shower.  Every room I have had in the Westin has had a broken phone by the bed so I came to know some of the technicians who made visits to my room to fix the phone.  I also had one bad experience with the internet connection which I had to have fixed remotely.  Minor annoyances all, particularly when you realize that there are homeless women right outside the hotel who are freezing in the cold SF nights. 

The hotel has some nice features--comfortable beds, Starbucks across the street, free NYT. But the wonderful thing about the hotel is the view.  Last week I was on the 34th floor and this week my room was one floor right below the room I had last week. So the views were virtually identical.  I could see Market St., the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge.  Scattered throughout are some pics I took from my window. 

D-Light

"Hello Paul's wife. This is your (and Paul's) doctor. I got some more test results and it looks like you are bit light on your vitamin D. Take supplements and let's retest in 3 months. By the way, how is Paul?"

This is the message (more or less) that I got on our answering machine when I returned home from SF yesterday. Apparently I am in the very low normal range for vitamin D in my blood and need to address. So, hypochondriac that I am, I go to the internet to see what I possibly could have in the way of disease that would cause this condition. First, the internet instructs, as I have also read in articles, that supplements are not the best way to get vitamin D. One scientific article even said that supplements were counterproductive if the cause of deficiency is disease rather than lack of exposure to sunshine or other sources of vitamin D. Getting more sunshine seemed to be the recommended course to boost low levels of D. So I thought to myself whether I have been out in the sun less than I had been in past years and concluded that possibly I am a bit more house and office bound these days than I have been. On the other hand, I walk at the beach about 5 days a week so I would have thought that would balance out my eating in my office most days and relaxing at home on the weekends. In any event, melanoma be damned. I am going to get out more and get some rays.

Next I started looking at some of the diseases that might cause the deficiencies and symptoms. Celiac disease seemed likely except for the weight loss part. Kidney disease was another interesting possibility except all my other blood levels are normal. Perhaps it is medication I am taking. Well, the list of meds that supposedly lowers vitamin D levels did not include the 2 meds I take so on to another possibility. How about age? Older people according to the internet sites I visited have lower levels of D. But when they say older they do not mean AARP eligible. The studies said 65 and older which of course excludes me.

So I am at a loss. Of a cause as well as vitamin D in my blood. I guess I will follow the doctor's advice and take a supplement and try to get a bit more sun. Not the worst course of treatment to have to follow.

ADDENDUM I did a bit more research on the internet and found a website by a group that claims 501(c) status and champions the increase of vitamin D for health. According to this website, I may have Vitamin D Deficiency Syndrome (!!!!) and need a combo of sunlight, supplements and food with vitamin D. It recommends 1000 IUs a day. My doctor said 800 IUs. At first I thought this website was a shill for vitamin manufacturers but upon closer inspection I am less sure.

I also found an article about the treatment of fatigue and pain with Vitamin D. Did you know vitamin D is more accurately called a prohormone and may affect the function of up to 1000 different genes.

Finally, according to another article I am in the prime age group to begin experiencing vitamin D deficiency and with dire consequences:

Lack of adequate vitamin D in older adults has been linked to osteoporosis, depression, some cancers (including those of the breast, colon, rectum, ovary, kidney, lung and uterus), multiple sclerosis, type I diabetes and, most recently, heart disease. Recent studies have shown that low levels of vitamin D double the chances of someone having a heart attack or stroke. An inadequate supply of vitamin D has also been shown to be responsible as a cause of generalized muscle pain and weakness.

There you have it. Much more vitamin D is in the cards for me.

Alicia in SonomaLand

We stayed at Macarthur Place Inn in Sonoma last weekend. I had fun walking the grounds with my daughter at dusk. We agreed it had an Alice in Wonderland feel to it. Mazes of hedges and vine covered lanes opened up on sculptures and fountains and white wood cabanas and even a life size chess set. I went out the next day and took pictures walking around the grounds.

After the first fountain and sculpture, I came upon stone ducks on the roof of one of the cabanas. Then I walked by the hedges past the rose garden and herb gardens. Eventually I came upon the Chess garden and then the library and the cupola where I imagine some lucky couples say their vows. Then back past the spa and a large lawn surrounded by cabanas to two different birdhouse fountains.

I will only post some of the pictures here.

I have a full set on FB for those who are my friends there.

Bouncing Baby Boy

My grandson turned 4 this past Thursday and today he had his first official birthday party with classmates. His dad did a wonderful job of planning the party which took place in our back yard. I usually took kids out somewhere at this age like Chuck E Cheese's because I am lazy and hate to supervise a bunch of preschoolers at my house. But my son jumped in with a vengence. He ordered a bounce house which arrived and left very quietly. The bounce house had a sports theme with basketball hoops inside. My son also rigged up his speakers and programmed his computer to play music all afternoon. He set up battery operated bubble machines that blew bubbles all through the party. There was pizza, a pinata, a birthday cake, presents and party bags. All I did was attend, socialize with some of the parents and open a bottle of wine for some of the nondriving adults. My husband was the official photographer. The baby got walked around by one of my son's friends and even his two friends from forever who were defense linemen in high school (i.e. beefy boys) showed up to join in the reverie. I watched the kids in the bounce house for a while and think that bouncing must produce the same neurochemicals as meditation because they looked like they were in a zone.

All in all a good party and a good day.

Doctor Doctor Give the News

I finally went to the doctor a few weeks ago to discuss my overwhelming, sometimes bone crushing, fatigue. The internist I see is also my husband's primary doctor. As usual, my husband is much beloved by this doctor, notwithstanding the plethora of health problems my husband has not historically addressed. My son and I have had the experience of going to this doctor and feeling like we are not viewed as individual patients but extensions of my husband. That has lead to the joke of predicting that the doctor will say "Hello Paul's Wife [Son]. How is Paul doing" whenever my son or I go to see him.

I also have the experience of this doctor attributing all my ailments to "stress" (the kind word) aka "you are crazy". So I fully expected that I would get both statements in my recent visit. Sure enough, within a few questions to me about why I was there, I got the "how is Paul doing?" question. Then moments later I got the "Have you seen a psychiatrist" question. "This is most likely caused by stress". My response this time was that I had not seen a psychiatrist because what else would a psychiatrist tell me other than my physical problems are really psychological. You can see why this doctor may like Paul better than me.

Last night I got my blood work results. Everything is normal--sugar, thyroid, electrolytes. My cholesterol level is 155-- HDL 55, LDL 84 (for which I got a "very good") and triglycerides 77. These are basically the same numbers as last time I had blood work done 2 years ago even though I have gained weight. I would love to get my HDL above 60 so I read an article about how to raise HDL. Aerobic exercise (bah, I already do some), lose weight (bah, can't seem to anymore) and, what's this -- WINE? I do not really drink very much but this article assured me I would be healthier with a glass of wine a day. Hmmm. For the calories, I would rather have a cookie. Why can't cookies raise HDL?

I could hear it in my doctor's voice when he gave me the results. "Nothing physically wrong. It's all in your mind, you crazy person. How is Paul, by the way?"

Time for a Woman

According to Bill Clinton, our country has changed and has moved away from biases based on race, ethnicity, gender and religion. I think President Clinton is overstating it a bit but I was pleased to see two articles this morning in the male-centric NYT that focus on the accomplishments of women.

First, on the front page, the NYT talks about how President Obama has so many more choices of women for the Supreme Court than his predecessors when Justice O'Connor and Ginsburg were nominated. Some of the choices look great on paper too--Sonia Sotomayor is a Princeton and Yale graduate (although I have other qualms about her based on personal experience), Elena Kagan, Diane Wood, Janet Napolitano and even Kim Wardlaw on the 9th Circuit. A surfeit of talented accomplished women in public places!

Second, in the back of the front section there was a favorable article about Hillary Clinton adapting to her role as chief diplomat. Typically it is hard to find any news about Hillary but the NYT gave her props for stepping up on "key issues" : Pakistan, Iran and Cuba. She has put a positive spin on the super envoys calling them "force multipliers" that have "bought us time." Nice way of saying that she is up to speed and in charge now, boys!

All in all, a good day for women in the public eye. I just hope that Obama does not pick an intellectually and morally weak woman to appease the forces across the aisle. There are plenty of good women to put on the court.

Bill Clinton

I had the pleasure of attending a speech by Bill Clinton last night to a room of corporate lawyers honoring people who do pro bono work. The speech was very inspiring . Clinton spoke about communitarianism which I believe, although I am not sure, was a new phrase for diversity and globalism. [ADDENDUM: communitarianism is a philosophy/policy espoused by Amitai Etzioni, who I met once but whose work I never studied.] Clinton observed that Obama's election reflects a difference in a culture--that we are multi-ethnic and more gender balanced than we were 30 years ago. And we are all interconnected throughout the world as he observed the effect on certain Irish citizens due to the collapse of banks in Iceland. Therefore policy to affect problems must take into account this world community.

Clinton also spoke about his work in Africa to get low cost AIDs meds to sick people. He said that the most important question of our time is not what the problems are but how to solve them. He downplayed the financial crisis which he joked would be over "November 8 at 3:30 pm". Instead he said the important issues involve what to do to fix the worsening environment (e.g eliminate landfills such as the one in Mumbai shown in Slumdog Millionaire along a model adopted in Sweden to turn landfills into playgrounds) cure disease (e.g put collective together to sell low price generic drugs to low income people) , address people left homeless by natural disasters such as the tsunami and Katrina. He said that the legacy he wanted to leave and that we all should want to leave is to make a difference to people. After listening to him, I wanted to volunteer for something that is different from making money for the movie industry. I also reflected, having just finished Jimmy Carter's Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, that like Carter Clinton may make more major accomplishments in his post presidential years than in office (although Clinton did have a better run in office than Carter)

Here is a video clip from the beginning of Clinton's speech last night when he was warming up the crowd before he got serious: