"WASH YOUR HANDS!"

In the recent days with the listeriosis scares, I feel compelled to speak out. As a nurse, as a mother, as a consumer, I think that people need to take a deep breath, and do a little more research, and wash their hands!!! I repeat; Wash your Hands!! How many times does your mother, your teachers, your employers have to say it before it sinks in? Why do we need signs in our public bathrooms telling us to do something as basic as washing our hands after sneezing on our hands, or doing the bathroom ritual.... Haven't our mothers been yelling at us since a very young age to wash our hands, perhaps there is a very good reason for it?
Do you know that there are more than 250 foodborne diseases in existance? Are you aware that most of these, like listeriosis, are not new? Everyone knows Salmonella, and E.Coli, but the others are less known. Listeria, Camphylobacter, Calicivirus (Like Norwalk), Shigella, Hepatitis A, Giardia, Cryptociridia, and Clostridium Botulinum (Botulism). These are just a small number of foodborne diseases that we know of, and almost all of them can be prevented from making us ill simply by washing our hands, fully cooking our meat, and properly cleaning our kitchens and utensils including cutting boards. Now there is also documentation that states that you should not eat and drink unpasturized dairy products, like raw milk, and cheeses made from raw milk, but many people do, myself included. The only problem I myself have suffered due to drinking raw milk is Listeria infection which contributed to miscarriages. After I stopped drinking the raw milk, I was able to carry a healthy baby to term. So I fully support pregnant women NOT drinking raw milk.
Now they are talking about Irradiating our food to change the DNA of bacteri to inhibit them from reproducing and growing on our food. How can exposing our food to radiation improve our health risks? I fully oppose this!
Now here is a thought - how is it that people who smoke and take illicit drugs are hysterically concerned about listeria infections... do they not realize that what they are doing is killing them with 100% certainty. It may take years longer, but their habits are most definately killing them, this makes me shake my head.
And another thought - is it possible that our new hand cleaners have deceased our resistance to bacteria and viruses? Perhaps we need to return to good ole soap and water?
This brings me to a statement so many older people have quoted after hearing all this frantic, sensationalism about listeria and salmonella - "We all gotta die of sumthin" and of course, as my 98 year old patient says, "What ever happened to good ole hand washing!" She reminds me that in her day there were no refrigeraters, or food inspectors, or freezers. " We all survived, if you washed your hands and cooked your food properly, you didn't get sick". Do you think that we have too much technology, and too much science nowadays? Perhaps we should think simple logic. Handwashing worked in 1866, why wouldn't the technique work today? So the mother in me will remind you all to calm down, cook your food properly and WASH YOUR HANDS BEFORE YOU PUT ANYTHING IN YOUR MOUTH OR HANDLE ANYTHING YOU PUT INTO YOUR MOUTH!

Listeriosis Lessons

In a time when food is becoming a huge issue in the news, I am grateful that I grow my own. Since I was a teenager, I have memories of "food scares". The first I ever heard of and was old enough to understand was the razors in the halloween apples issue. It seems that 30 years ago I was just old enough to understand that some crazy person was putting razor blades in apples that were being handed out to children as halloween treats. I can remember my mother cutting my apples open to be sure they were safe. In the mid 80's the water was unsafe to drink, legionaires disease was the culprit then. Red food dye was suddenly cancer causing, and the color of candy changed. When my children were small in the early 1990's, the hospitals were x-raying the candy because pins were showing up in the food. With the dawn of 9-11 anthrax threats increased suspicions. With rising gas prices people are becoming more aware of where their food comes from. Suddenly everyone is concerned with the distance our food travels and it's freshness. Now, today, listeriosis is a major issue, and again I am hearing people say - "buy local".
Maybe this is sounding like a rant, well, I continue to rant. Our goverment had been doing absolutely nothing to encourage local farmers to continue farming, there is no assistance or compensation for farmers when things go wrong, when taxes rise, and cost of feed rises. In recent years the government is starting to regulate farmers, and has increased our taxes and have instituted all sorts of fees for farmers. They want us to belong to associations and registries all at a heafty price, not to mention, most farmers do not want the governments hands into the running of their farms. One older farmer told me that when the government has a hand in on your farm through incentive programs for instance, and if your farm fails, they will take your farm, they do not care that the property belonged to your family for the past 200 years and that you had planned on handing it down to your child. The government offers significant funding to foriegners to come from other countries to move here and farm on a large scale, they pay them to move here, pay to set them up with large farm properties and modern state of the art equipment, but refuse to help farmers whose families have farmed New Brunswick soil for over a hundred years. New Brunswick farmers are discouraged, angry, and feel helpless. In their hearts they know that local customers are going to be crying out for local produce and meats, but they will not be able to continue farming.
What will happen when we can no longer get our food from across the borders, when costs to ship food are so high that the only place you will be able to shop is from local producers, and there are none - thanks in part to the powers that be (Harper for one)?
I know were my food comes from, I know what the animals were fed, that they were humanely slaughtered, what conditions they were butchered under, and stored in. I know that my food is fresh, and safe. Hormone free, antibiotic and chemical free. My only concern now is how will I keep people from sneaking out from the city and stealing my food from under my nose? Yes, it happens. This winter a chicken-napper was loose. Stealing three of my birds in one day, and five from another farmer who lives nearby. They even took his crate that was stored beside his coop. I anticipate the day will come when people who can not afford the food in the stores (wait, this is already happening), and feel they have no other way to feed their children (the food banks are already running dry), will turn to thievery to feed their children. I know it is coming. I planned this years garden just for that purpose, with the cost of heating and fuel this winter, I expect the chicken theif to return. So when planting my garden this spring, I planted extra food, twice what I normally plant. If I catch someone stealing my food this year, perhaps I will invite them to have something from my garden. How could I turn my back on them when obviously they must be feeling pretty desperate, enough so to sneak into a chicken coop in daylight, and steal my hens. If they had asked I would have given them some beef, pork, lamb, and vegetables too. Honesty would have paid higher dividends.

Growing Up

Growing up is hard to do. The crooner missed out when he named his song breaking up is hard to do, but personally I think growing up is even harder. With a break up, you just shrug it off and move on. With growing up, sometimes you can not shrug it off and move on. Sometimes the things you have learned along the way cling like a burdock in wool. You just can't shake the memory. Everyone has had an experience in their childhood that would qualify as traumatic, or unforgettable, some people make it to adulthood without bad experiences, but most don't. I think I got every one's bad experiences for them. I will not sit here and recall them all, but I will say that out of just about every bad experience I have had, a good one resulted. Huh? Yes, I did say that. Haven't you ever had something bad happen to you, and you thought it was the worst thing ever, then many years down the road you were able to help someone through the same exact problem? That has happened to me time and again. So I was able to turn the bad experience into a salvageable good experience in a manner of speaking. We learn from our mistakes, we learn to live from the bad experiences, and we learn to be survivors after the really horrible traumas. I am a survivor. Ever wonder how your friend can repeatedly pick herself up after every horrible experience in her life and think that if it were you, you could not possibly survive it? Ever have a counselor say to you, "Any other woman would have killed herself already". I am a survivor. Now my teen daughter is growing up, moving out on her own into the world, and all I can think is that I do not want her to learn to be a survivor - I don't want her to go through the traumas I went through at that age. I want to protect her. I trust her, I just don't trust the mean, cruel, sick world we live in. I pray that she has a chance to become street smart without the traumas that thrust us into becoming street smart the hard way. Growing up for some is easy, uncomplicated, fun and trauma free, but for most of us, it is not. Don't let that fool you though, even the easy road is hard. It is just that the hard road is treacherous. My advise to my daughter is simply this, be alert to trouble, don't be so trusting, and don't do obviously stupid things that can potentially result in a traumatic experience. You are a very naive and trusting girl, but it is time to become a smart and strong woman now. Remember the lessons I taught you, and heed all the warnings you have heard in your lifetime. I lived the traumas, I want to spare you everyone of them. Learn from my experiences and mistakes. I love you. Mom

Insomnia then and now

Consider Insomnia as it relates to the time period in your life in which you experience it. When we have children, everything is experienced in a different way, even Insomnia. When I was single, and had a day off from work coming up, Insomnia was not such a big deal. Back then, before children, I could read a novel or watch late night tv all night long, and sleep the entire next day. After children, I can still read the novel, watch late night tv, or sit at my computer all night long, but the next day, I will pay for it. Dearly. When I was younger, I could eat ice cream in bed, or even potatoe chips and chocolate bars, and not worry about the consequences - sleeplessness due to the caffeine hit. After children, I don't dare eat chocolate after 6 pm for fear that I will have Insomnia and pay for it the next day. So I sit here at 3 am, watching the olympics, hanging out on face book, searching the net out of boredom, doing sudoku puzzles, and writing emails to everyone I know and don't know - waiting for my eyes to get tired and heavy, waiting.... and waiting.... I never should have eaten those chocolate chips. I know I craved them all day, but I should have controlled myself. The temptation was too great. So now, I anticipate, and plan for tomorrow, or should I say, later today... for the penalty of Insomnia, for eating chocolate in the evening. I am sure the baby will be very irritable, and wide awake very early, and the sheep will break out of their pens, and the goats will get their horns stuck in the fence. Lucy, the goat, who is elderly and ailing may even be found deceased and I may need to dig a hole to bury her. The cow might get out and run down the highway. The phone will ring just as the baby and I lay down for a late morning nap, and today will be the day that everyone I know will decide to stop by and visit, all because I at chocolate, and suffered from Insomnia. Back then, I could have slept all day long, but this is now,surely I will suffer the consequences - of Insomnia.