THIS IS SPARTA or Thou Shalt Not Graze

So what is it about evening and grazing?

Most days, I faithfully clock time at the gym pounding out miles or lifting kilos in repetition to maintain an enviable fitness level. During busy daylight there is no sign of straying from my Spartan discipline.

A lovely, healthful dinner is prepared and enjoyed. It is always a convivial meal, rich in colourful veggies exalted by nutrition gurus. But soon after, with the sun long since set, I transform. Out come the ghostly grazers. I search for carbs, fats and sugar so successfully and self righteously avoided all day long. It is a near steady state of consumption that envelopes the rhythm of my household. For in the spirit of true partnership that is our blissful marriage, DH (dear husband) is usually by my side. He is my wing man on nocturnal recognisance missions for almonds, pistachios, dates, grapes, dark chocolate and light homemade cookies loaves and cakes.

Then, in my carbohydrate coma I pad my way to bed, and hope for a better day to follow.
To have hopes, have those hopes dashed, day after day, is as deflating as having no hope at all. But as Scarlet so poetically put it: Oh great balls of fire! I can't think about that now. I'll think about that tomorrow.

The Winter Of My Arabesque

Once upon a time on a sunny icy prairie, a shy, plodding 8 year old dreamed of taking ballet classes. She was invited to the recital of a much pudgier, pampered little classmate, and from that day on she pestered and pestered until her mother agreed and dollars were gathered and classes were booked. She loved watching the beautiful, graceful teacher demonstrate, and could see the magic emerge as the teacher extended her fingers on a raised arm or turned her head to the note of a piano chord.
She had a secret crush on the cool, gay piano player whose burning cigarette dangled from his lusty lips.
As the years passed something else emerged. The realization she was not particularly adept at doing this thing, though as a spectator it took her breath away. So in her head she began to star in her own full length ballets, where of course, she was perfect.
More years went by, and the little girl became a middle aged lady. Lo and behold, a young and beautiful ballet teacher came to the gym where she exercised. She was so excited to try the classes. But when she did, her body refused to cooperate with her mind. In her mind that starring ballerina was still conquering stages. But in the mirror of the gym studio....the plodding 8 year old was back!
How are those hurts so deeply branded that decades later nothing short of perfect will do? Why isn't it enough to move to the music and enjoy? Why do the mirrors enslave, pronounce judgement, and sentence to forever inadequate? Clearly the key is to turn away from the mirror, and channel the prima swannerina within.

Oh Shut Up and Pass the Chemo.

Tommy Douglas's bones must be doing wheelies. Yesterday in Toronto a young woman with breast cancer went public about being denied coverage under our universal health care system. She would have to pay for an adjuvent chemotherapy drug found to decrease recurrence of her type of cancer because her tumour hadn't grown big enough yet. Hold the presses. Tumour you say? Check. Malignant cancer? Check. Needs chemo? Check. Resident of Ontario? Ooooooh. Sorry. You're just going to have to wait for your malignant cancer to double in size. Then it will be big enough to merit OHIP coverage. Not big enough yet? Not big enough to be more statistically likely to recur? Not big enough to complicate her recovery? Not big enough to result in a less optimal outcome? As the Flying Circus would say: "Not bloody likely!" Forget that this flies in the face of all public campaigns urging us to seek treatment early and not ignore the signs. Forget that the Hippocratic Oath we swore to as first year medical students went something like: "first do no harm". Forget the optics (if you can because they are really bad) of telling a 35 year old woman with undeniable breast cancer, to take her chances at recurrence, because her lesion must double in size to be considered eligible for OHIP coverage. Consider just this: in three other Canadian provinces (Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia) her chemotherapy would be fully covered. So she is going to pony up 50G's to walk the road each of us prays we can dodge in our lifetime. Who said we don't have two tiered medicine? I don't know what additional hardship this price tag will cause her and her family. I don't know anything about this lady. I do know that sometimes life is a crap shoot. This young mother came up on the short end of the stick just now. Our health care system ought to be improving her odds for survival, not gambling on them.

Zena, Warrior Princess at the end of a needle.

One year ago today I started putting a needle into my thigh every day. As a doctor by training,injections were absolutely no big deal. As a 50 year old woman, the reality of where I had arrived made my heart sink like a stone. I have been breaking bones since I was twenty, usually stress fractures from pounding exercise. I had been taking ballet classes since grade three, which were replaced by pounding aerobics classes with really funny looking Lycra; Then I discovered the zen of running. Finally, there was the dieting, the endless dieting. In order to stay thin enough, lithe enough, svelte enough, yaddayaddayadda.... I was pretty much perpetually dieting. This, and a heaping helping of bad luck, left me with the bones of a 90 year old. But in my mind , I was still Zena, Warrior Princess. I refused to slow my pace. One year ago I snapped my left ankle whilst walking around my house. So after I stopped crying into my diet Sprite, I started daily injections of a drug to help make my bones stronger. I stopped running, but kept walking. And one step at a time, I emerged from my deep, dark place. I haven't broken a bone in the year since I started shooting this drug into my body. And what's the best part of this journey? Zena's back!

Ready. Set. Write. Let the blogging begin.

Here's a riddle: who can bring you to your knees with joy and gratitude, fill your heart to bursting with pure and selfless love, and also inspire in you an overwhelming urge to throttle... all at the same time? Answer :Your children, of course!
The extremes of emotion do not subside as the years accrue. From the time each of my two kids were born, and they are now both in university, I have carried a latent dread; It's that fear deep, deep in the bottom of my metaphorical purse, that something terrible will take them away, will rob them, and me. That death, terrible death, will take them first. I know this dread comes like a one stop shopping purchase when you put your heart inside another, and become a parent. Last weekend at my son's university this remote and nebulous dread became two families' reality. These tragedies were accidental, alcohol related, and never, ever should have happened. I hold my breath when my children travel the roads and highways, travel through parties, and bars, the subway at night- through life as they live it. I think of all the proverbial bullets I dodged growing up on the Canadian prairies in the 70's, and pray my kids will be just as lucky, and a whole lot savvier.