Non-Review: Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon

 The next random book on the list was Swan Song, available on Hoopla.  I cannot make myself continue to read this one, not right now anyway.  Post-apocalyptic, it seems that one main character struggles with mental illness and addiction.  Full of violence and people being horrible.  I don't want to sit in that world right now.

Review: Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls

 I randomly selected this book from the list I posted yesterday.  I knew very little about it, just that it was most often on reading lists for older children.

Coming to this book in 2021 was very different than if I had read this when I was a kid.  The main subject is hunting and a rather grisly form of hunting at that!  The author was born in 1918 and clearly has a great fondness for coon dogs and racoon hunting.  He also seems to be a Christian and proud American as well.  All of these things are handled gracefully and I can see why it was seen as a children's book.  The killings are mostly off-screen and there is no romance.  Even most of the challenges the main character takes on are described as almost easy.

It is a pleasant story, couched as the reminiscence of an older man back to a time he remembered fondly from his childhood.  But, it is also the story of a very young boy who trains two dogs to kill hundreds of animals for their pelts.  Sad ending, too.  I have very mixed feelings about it.  It has some of the same feel as To Kill a Mockingbird although there are no racial overtones here, and no moral lessons beyond "dogs love people".  And a little bit of "God answers prayers mostly".

I was able to check this out of my local library electronically and it is a short book.  I don't feel the time spent reading it was wasted.

My Reading List 2021-2022

 I have no idea if I can read these in 1-1/2 years, but I'm going to give it a try.  I find the bottom of the list a little more interesting than the top, so I'm going to try alternating between, working towards the middle.  I also may read the first book of a series for those I haven't already read.  Link to source of the list at the bottom.

Books

• To Kill a Mockingbird - Lee
• Pride & Prejudice - Austen
• The Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
• Gone With the Wind - Mitchell
• Charlottes’ Web - White
• Little Women - Alcott
• Jane Eyre - C Bronte
• Anne of Green Gables - Montgomery
• The Grapes of Wrath - Steinbeck
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Smith
• The Book Thief - Zusak
• The Great Gatsby - Fitzgerald
• The Help - Stockett
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Twain
• 1984 - Orwell
• And Then There Were None - Christie
• Atlas Shrugged - Rand
• Wuthering Heights - E Bronte
• Lonesome Dove - McMurtry
• The Pillars of the Earth - Follett
• The Stand - King
• Rebecca - du Maurier
• A Prayer for Owen Meany - Irving
• The Color Purple - Walker
• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland - Carroll
• Great Expectations - Dickens
• The Catcher in the Rye- Salinger
• Where the Red Fern Grows - Rawls
• The Outsiders - Hinton
• The Da Vinci Code - Brown
• The Handmaid’s Tale - Atwood
• Dune - Herbert
• The Little Prince - Saint-Exupery
• The Call of the Wild - London
• The Clan of the Cave Bear - Auel
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Adams
• The Count of Monte Cristo - Dumas
• The Joy Luck Club - Tan
• Frankenstein - Shelley
• The Giver - Lowry
• Memoirs of a Geisha - Golden
• Moby Dick - Melville
• Catch 22 - Heller
• War and Peace - Tolstoy
• Their Eyes Were Watching God - Hurston
• Jurassic Park - Crichton
• The Godfather - Puzo
• One Hundred Years of Solitude - Marquez
• The Picture of Dorian Gray - Wilde
• The Notebook - Sparks
• The Shack - Young
• A Confederacy of Dunces - Toole
• The Hunt for Red October - Clancy
• Beloved - Morrison
• The Martian - Weir
• Siddhartha - Hesse
• Crime and Punishment - Dostoyevsky
• The Sun Also Rises - Hemingway
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Haddon
• A Separate Peace - Knowles
• Don Quixote - de Cervantes
• The Lovely Bones- Sebold
• The Alchemist - Coelho
• Invisible Man - Ellison
• Gulliver’s Travels - Swift
• Ready Player One - Cline
• Gone Girl - Flynn
• Watchers - Koontz
• The Pilgrim’s Progress - Bunyan
• Things Fall Apart - Achebe
• Heart of Darkness - Conrad
• Gilead - Robinson
• Flowers in the Attic - Andrews
• The Sirens of Titan - Vonnegut
• This Present Darkness - Peretti
• Americanah - Adichie
• Another Country - Baldwin
• Bless Me, Ultima - Anaya
• Looking for Alaska - Green
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Diaz
• Swan Song - McCammon
• Mind Invaders - Hunt
• White Teeth - Smith
• Ghost - Reynolds
• The Coldest Winter Ever - Souljah
• The Intuitionist - Whitehead
• Doña Bárbara - Gallegos

    Series

• Outlander (Series) - Gabaldon
• Harry Potter (series) - Rowling
• The Chronicles of Narnia (series) - Lewis
• The Hunger Games (Series) - Collins
• Game of Thrones (series) - Martin
• Foundation (series) - Asimov
• The Wheel of Time (series) - Jordan/Sanderson
• Hatchet (series) - Paulsen
• The Twilight Saga (series) - Meyer
• Tales of the City (series) - Maupin
• Alex Cross (series) - Patterson

Not Gonna

• Left Behind (series) - LaHaye/Jenkins
• Fifty Shades of Grey (series) - James

source

Review: Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy

 I had a hard time with this book.  It was written from the point of view of someone struggling with mental illness and it tended to make me feel a bit mentally ill as well.  Also, the plot lines are contrived to keep the ending a mystery and I didn't really appreciate that.  It was a bit like "I see dead people" and since I had an inkling about the "twist" at the end, it wasn't really worth all the back-and-forth.  I read it for a book club otherwise I might not have finished reading it.  I also got it through Kindle Unlimited so I didn't have to pay for it, another good thing.

I didn't know a single thing about the book ahead of time, which was good.  I jumped right in without any warning and I think that helped.  On the other hand, I could tell that there must be a reason the author kept manipulating the timeline and that brought me out of the story a lot.  It is also a pretty bleak sort of place where this takes place, a sort of parallel world and it was HEAVY on my heart to dwell there.  There was an impossible happy ending, but it felt a bit too tacked on for me to feel as if the ending redeemed the dark journey it took to get there.

2021-05-27 Poem

2021-05-29 Poem

The room looks as cold as ice

The owner must think it looks nice

It's white and it's plain

No mess and no stain

No fun can occur in those whites!

Hydration Meditation

I have been meditating more lately and I have to say that the effects on my life are good and surprising.  I'll say more about that in another post.  What I want to tell you about now is my new practice.  This does not replace my morning and evening complete concentration meditation, but is something I've started to incorporate at various times in the day.

Some days I am better at drinking water than other days.  When I find myself lagging behind on consumption, I set aside about 10 minutes to stop and focus on hydrating myself.  I have messages in my head from my childhood that make that difficult and since I am usually constipated, when I was in a stress cycle and not eating well, drinking water could sometimes cause cramps and pain.  I need to actively work to replace those messages.

I have found a lovely Tibetan Bowl track on Spotify that has water sounds in the background and runs just over 10 minutes.  I queue that up with a 10-second bell track at the beginning and end, so that I don't wonder when I'm done.  Then, armed with a nice container of water, I sit comfortably, rest my hands around the container, close my eyes and think about my breathing.  I start the playlist and slowly think "Water is good, water is healing" while really thinking about how true that is.  I repeat that message over and over and over to myself.  Every so often, without opening my eyes, I sip some water, all while thinking about how good and healing the water is and focusing on being here and now.

Eventually the playlist ends and I get back to whatever I was doing.  I am more peaceful and certainly more hydrated!  Win-win!

Research: Swollen, Bruised Finger Joint

 Published August 30, 2019

An Acute Blue Finger: A Case of Achenbach's Syndrome

While I was driving to work today, I had another painful finger.  Since I've been having a lot of "some sort" of arthritis pain, I didn't think too much about it.  When I got to work and was in the plant with really good lighting, however, I noticed that the joint was also bruised.  I have not had any injury to that hand recently and haven't been carrying anything heavy.  I've had episodes of Raynaud's in the past, but this seemed different.  Painful.  Hot, slightly swollen.  I did some research.

According to the interweb, this is a rare and self-limiting condition that needs no treatment. Gee, thanks. Since it is mostly reported by middle-aged women, there's nothing to get all excited about.  And it goes away without treatment.  Never mind that it is painful and keeps coming back.  Just pat the women on the head and send them home.

Published May 16, 2019

Analysis of 24 patients with Achenbach's syndrome

The only thing this analysis seemed to show is that this happens to women more than men.  And further research is needed.  "According to current knowledge, Achenbach's syndrome is not among the know causes of mortality of morbidity." Really???

Research: The Gut-Brain Highway

 Published on October 4, 2018

The Gut-Brain Axis and the Microbiome: Mechanisms and Clinical Implications

"Based largely on results from preclinical studies, the concept of a brain gut microbiome axis has been established, mediating bidirectional communication between the gut, its microbiome, and the nervous system."

Wow.  I have to admit that I have been pretty skeptical about the idea that "the gut" plays such a major role in day-to-day life, but this peer reviewed article in a respected medical journal starts by stating that the highway between the brain and the gut has been established.  That is big!

The article goes on to explain more technical aspects of how the body does that.  They state that the first 3 years of life are critical for the programming of that communication channel.  Throughout the rest of our lives, we also can effect it through "diet, medication, and stress".  There is also a statistical correlation or some sort of relationship between that sort of alteration and "food intake, obesity and irritable bowel syndrome".  The authors do not have an explanation as to how that is accomplished, just that there is a correlation. 

Being doctors, the conclusion they got from all this is that there is a potential for DRUGS to fix everything.  Call in the pharmaceutical companies!

Research: Exclusion Diets

  Published May 19, 2021

Effect of Exclusion Diets on Symptom Severity and the Gut Microbiota in Patients with Irritable Bowel Syndrome

In this study, 346 IBS and 170 healthy folks completed a diet checklist.  171 IBS and 98 healthy folks gave stool samples that were analyzed.  Well, I assume they gave the samples.  Perhaps they were taken?

"IBS participants on an exclusion or restrictive diet reported more severe IBS symptoms".  This doesn't explain if the symptoms cause folks to eat a more restrictive diet or if the restrictive diet was causing more severe symptoms.  The only thing the authors were able to conclude was that what people eat has an impact on fecal microbiota.

This seems to be an awfully obvious conclusion to me.  Although I suppose it is important to recognize that IN FACT what we eat does truly impact our gut flora.  In case there was any doubt that the cheeseburger and beer are not doing anybody's body any good, including the helpful little guys living in our digestive systems.

A little history of my digestive system

  My earliest memories were of stomach aches.  I regularly got spanked for throwing away my meat even at a very young age. If I didn't drink my glass of milk, it stayed there waiting for me, until I drank it, or in many cases, ate the chunky mess it had become.  I can remember trying to choke down "onion pie" late in the night, trying to make the horrible stuff disappear so I would finally be allowed to go to bed. The rare occasions when we were allowed to go with the Grown Ups to a restaurant, I would get a terrible stomach ache and not eat much anyway.  My father was rather proud of the fact that he rarely drank water (or anything else for that matter).  I was in my 40's before I realized that most people pooped every day, usually a little while after eating.

I was diagnosed with IBS-C in my mid-late 30's.  My slow digestive system coupled with the stress of being a single mother was too much.  But there wasn't much I could do to help myself. No diet seemed to make a lasting difference.  I also had un-diagnosed gall bladder problem, that was finally corrected when they took my gall bladder out around the time I was 40.  No more gall stones, but the digestion issues continued.

I also have Graves Disease and had my thyroid radiated (twice) in my mid 30's.  I have taken thyroid replacement hormones daily since then and have my levels checked every six months or so.  I am developing some sort of arthritis in my hands, feet, hips, neck, back, knees, etc...  I have developed Vitiligo and Lichen Sclerosis, indicating that my immune system is out to get me.

I have tried an elimination diet and determined that I don't have any problem with gluten or nightshades.  I am becoming more sensitive to dairy and have switched to a largely vegan diet.  All of this brings us to the present.  I am finally coming to terms with my digestive system and have figured a few things out.  I hope explaining all of my stuff will help someone else who might be struggling with a similar story.

A little over a year ago I started seeing a different doctor and two important things came out of that.  Well, make that three; A Really Truly Good Doctor is SO hard to find these days, but is worth their weight in gold.  Mine didn't perform any miracles, but having a knowledgeable professional who really listens to us is so important.  I feel he hears me, asks good questions and so I'm more likely to trust his suggestions because they are based on both his expertise AND what I am going through!

Second, he made an offhand comment that made me realize that I don't have a bunch of autoimmune disorders, I have one autoimmune system that is disordered and attacking my body in a variety of ways.

Third, he gave me some simple solutions to help with my digestion and helped me see that a few of my problems were actually me misinterpreting things that happen.  "Fruit helps people poop." I had no idea.  I've cut refined sugar almost completely out of my diet and had rather assumed that sugar-laden fruit was no good for me either.  One day I had eaten a lot of watermelon about a year ago and had my digestive system clear completely out in less than 12 hours.  At least it had all gone the right direction (no vomiting).  But I had seen this as a cautionary tale that meant I should Avoid Fructose.  He suggested it was just too much fructose at once.  Amazing what good communication and some expertise can do!

The good news is that I have been tweaking my diet and haven't had a real problem in several weeks. I haven't wished I never existed because of my stomach in quite a while!  I can clearly tell when I have eaten refined sugar since it makes my stomach clench up and twist, but the rest of the time it is smooth sailing.  My gut has been mostly quiet and what little bloating I've had was tolerable.  I have been drinking nearly the amount of water that is recommended every day, too.

The bad news is that my poops are still rocks, but they appear at more regular intervals now and don't cause the cramping and pain I used to endure every few days.  I am still learning how much fruit I can handle and how much food overall I can eat on a given day and still maintain my appropriate weight.  It's a work in progress, and I'll keep you updated.