Flu Shots: Check! #ForJudeForEveryone

Lollipop for my brave girl during her flu shot
Photo: Oliver Kuehn

Yesterday we all got our flu shots at the local community health clinic. We got there about three hours into the drop-in, so they were out of Flumist, which meant the kids would have to get a needle this year. I thought it would be helpful for Oli & I to go first so the kids could see how it all worked, but Brontë was having none of it.

She sat herself down on the chair & said, "I'll go first!" I suggested she sit on my lap while she got her shot & she vehemently refused. Okay, then!

True to form, she chatted through the whole thing, sat still (well, still enough), & hardly reacted when she got the jab. Said it didn't hurt (thanks no doubt to the expert technique of the public health nurse who does this all the time!) & was excited to have the lollipop I'd brought from their Halloween stashes.

Linny was really anxious, so Oli & I went next. I was hoping after seeing three of us get poked with no reaction, that Linny would calm down a bit & willingly sit for the vaccination. No such luck.

We could have waited, banking on the next drop-in flu clinic in early December to have a supply of the nose spray version but Linny is the most at-risk person in our household because of his asthma, so I really wanted to get his shot done with as soon as possible. He generally only gets asthma when he's sick & I really don't want to see what a virulent strain of influenza might do to him. So I sat in the chair & held him down on my lap against his protests. We managed to keep him still enough for the nurse to administer the shot & then he calmed down once it was over.

I talked with him later that day & he didn't seem upset with us--I think he understands how important getting vaccinated is. He remembers being in the hospital for four days just before Christmas a couple of years ago. That asthma episode was triggered by a cold--just a common cold. We also talked about the importance of keeping ourselves healthy to protect people we know, like his baby cousin, his elderly grandparents, his friend who has epilepsy, another friend with cancer, & all the other people we come into contact with who are at higher risk of serious harm from the flu.

If you haven't got your flu shot yet, it's really easy to do! It's free for anyone in a higher risk group, or who is a household contact, though at the public health clinics, they will probably vaccinate anyone regardless. Your doctor can do it, pharmacies administer flu shots & there are often drop-in clinics at workplaces, shopping malls & other public places.

For more information on where to get your shot in Vancouver, visit the VCH Flu info page. If you're outside the City of Vancouver, including all of Canada & the USA, see the Flu Shot Locator on For Jude For Everyone. 

By the way, For Jude For Everyone is a great resource for information on the flu & a reminder of the potential tragedy that can come of influenza. Jude was a two-year-old who died of Influenza B in 2016 after contracting it from his older sister. The site is part of a campaign that his family launched to prevent more deaths from influenza.

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Welfare Food Challenge: Meal Plan

Adapted from: Rusty Clark - On the Air M-F 8am-noon

The Welfare Food Challenge starts today. If you haven't heard of it before, the Challenge exists to highlight the inadequacy of welfare rates in BC. A single person receives only $610 a month, a rate that's been frozen for over 9 years. After you pay for the bare minimums to survive, you've got about $18 per week for food left over. (more info on the math here) Raise the Rates, with others, is working to increase awareness of the extreme poverty of people on welfare; & how this poverty costs the people of BC in human suffering & billions of wasted dollars every year.

The campaign inspired me to see what eating on $18 per person per week actually means. I sat down with an actual pen & paper, pulling up the calculator & Save On Foods app on my phone. I planned out the cheapest set of 21 meals I could think of. Here's what I came up with:

• breakfast: on sale cereal with milk or oatmeal
• lunch: peanut butter sandwiches with half an apple for lunch every day
• dinner #1: boxed macaroni & cheese with wieners & frozen peas
• dinner #2: beans, rice, & salsa with cheddar
• dinner #3: green beans, potatoes, chicken thighs
• dinner #4: tofu stir fry on rice
• dinner #5: hot dogs with baby carrots
• dinner #6: vegetarian chili with cheese
• dinner #7: tuna rice casserole with peas & cheddar

This limited menu comes to $72, assuming I could get many of the things on sale or at dollar stores. It includes two to three servings of fruit & vegetables per day--much less than is healthy. It also assumes that we already have condiments & pantry basics like cooking oil, salt, spices, sauces. There are no snacks & no desserts. There's only enough milk for 285ml per person per day--cereal & a bit for cooking or maybe a small drink for the kids. It's also counting on a bit of savings from buying a few things in bulk for the four of us--a single person likely couldn't have even this variety of food.

I'm fairly sure it's impossible to get enough fibre, protein, or fresh fruit & vegetables on this little money. & even if you are extremely resourceful with free community meals, picking up the occasional day olds that some restaurants toss out & go to the food bank, you would still be hard pressed to eat healthily.

I can't imagine eating this way, day in & day out. There's no room for going out for treats, there's no room for birthday cake or having a friend over for dinner. There's no room for variety. The stress of shopping for food & making ends meet with this tiny budget would be soul crushing over the long term. 

While I spent an hour or so puzzling this out, I don't plan to actually eat this way this week. Most of us are recovering from bad colds & I honestly don't want to subject my small children to such poor nutrition for the week. It breaks my heart that so many children & adults in this province have to live on so little. 

Please help me send a message to our government that this needs to change. Go sign the petition to raise welfare rates & write a letter to your MLA to ask for action on the issues that impact poverty: get rid of the arduous barriers to receiving income assistance, increase the minimum wage, provide more publicly funded childcare, increase low-income housing stock, & raise the welfare rates. A sample letter is provided at this link. 

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Review: Bellabeat Leaf Health Tracker

I recently got the opportunity to try out the Bellabeat Leaf health tracker. I'd heard of it when the product was at the crowdfunding stage, so I was eager to see how it worked. The Leaf is essentially two things: a small wood & metal electronic device that is worn on the body, then a smart phone app to keep track of the information gathered by the device, as well as a few other things.

First off, the Leaf is great looking, the wood is lovely & very different from all the very sporty fitness trackers out there. Bellabeat calls it "smart jewellery" which is a cool concept, especially for those of us who are health conscious but don't want to look like we just walked out of an MEC catalogue. I like the weight & size of the Leaf as a pin or a necklace. I wore it as a necklace a lot initially, then started using it mainly as a pin on my shirt, which was more secure while hoisting children, etc.

The Leaf 'talks' to the app on the phone via Bluetooth. I had issues syncing nearly every time I did it--it took two tries or more--despite doing everything suggested in the troubleshooting page on their website.

The Leaf app is simple to use, & fairly intuitive, I found. The app tracks your activity, menstrual cycle, sleep, & also has a meditation feature which I didn't try much. There are various guided meditation sequences you can download & listen to within the app. I added in my cycling & other activities manually, as it doesn't track other activities than walking accurately.

I found that the Leaf worked best as necklace or clipped to my top for step counting or sleep tracking. It didn't count many steps inside the house, only the longer stride, more regular steps when walking somewhere outside or more purposely walking all the way across the house. Because I felt it wasn't giving me an accurate sense of how many steps I take in a day, I switched the 'goals' in the app to hours of activity, rather than steps taken per day. This worked better for me.

Another feature I liked is the alarms--you can set the Leaf to remind you to get up & move if you've been sitting for more than a certain length of time. You can also set an alarm to wake up from a nap or take medication. The device just vibrates for a few seconds, which will wake you up or remind you discreetly.

The Leaf's sleep detection feature was interesting--I've been wanting to work on getting more sleep, & tracking it in this way is helpful for me. It records how much you move during sleep, translating that into an estimate of how much of your rest was deep sleep. If you are just lying in bed reading a book or surfing Facebook on your phone, it may record that as sleeping, but you can edit the entry if you like.

The menstrual cycle tracking is fairly basic--if you're using a fertility awareness method for birth control or getting pregnant, you might want to try something with more details like OvuView. It is handy to have it all in one place so you don't forget Aunt Flo's imminent arrival, like I tend to.

Overall, I like the Leaf & I will probably keep using it. If you're interested in one too, you can order a Leaf online here. There are two different version, one with light wood & silver coloured metal like mine ($119), the other with dark wood & rose coloured metal ($149). The Leaf comes with a necklace & battery as well as the tool you need to open it up & replace the battery eventually. There is also a strap you can buy to wear it on your wrist ($25) & I've also seen Etsy sellers making their own beaded versions too.

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Not taking walking for granted

This is probably a pretty boring video for you. Let me explain why I posted it.

When I got my osteoarthritis diagnosis in July, I was in a lot of pain every day. I was trying to come to terms with a degenerative condition. I was trying to wrap my head having the word disabled applied to me. I was wondering how long it'd be before I needed hip replacement surgery. I was fitted for a cane & learned how to use it. I struggled with managing a toddler, a five-year-old, my cane & carrying anything like a bag of groceries. I bought a big bottle of Tylenol for Arthritis at Costco & tried to get used to taking it preventatively, before I was going to be walking or standing a lot.

While I haven't been good about doing the physiotherapy exercises I was given, I did do one thing. I followed my doctor's advice to try to lose weight. Besides the fact that my diet wasn't as healthy as it could have been, it's basic physics: losing weight means less force exerted on my hip joint & thus, less pain. 

Hiking (!!) at Lighthouse Park, for the first time in YEARS

Five months later, I'm down 30 pounds. I rarely take Tylenol. I haven't used my cane more than once in the past two months. I often walk a few blocks to run errands & I have started going on long walks & even hikes again (with my Nordic poles).

I know there's a limit to how much better my hip will get--the damage to the cartilage can't be reversed--but I have a little more hope that I'll be able to chase my kids around while they're still little & maybe I won't be facing disability & then major surgery before they even get through elementary school. 

I also know that I won't really take walking for granted again. So don't be terribly surprised if you see more videos or photos of me just walking or hiking in my Instagram feed.

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Lighthouse Park Walk

Yesterday we went for a walk in Lighthouse Park with a friend & her dog. Of course, I brought along my Urban Poling Activator poles, & we were able to walk around the trails for an hour.

That might not seem like a big deal to you, but it's been years since I'd been to Lighthouse Park. I'm still finding it so much fun to do things like seawall walks or light hiking like this because I'd been avoiding it for so long with all the pain I had in my hip.

The combination of the nordic poles & the weight I've lost means I'm a lot more mobile now, with much less pain, after a few years of hobbling around & avoiding walks. I actually didn't even feel sore the day after our walk!

So glad I finally got a diagnosis last summer & started making changes to manage my osteoarthritis better.

Here are a few more pics we snapped in the park. I tried to capture all three of the juvenile bald eagles that were soaring around over our heads & chittering the huge trees, but I only managed to get one.

Disclaimer: I just wanted to mention that I was not compensated to write about or link to Urban Poling--I just really like the poles I bought from them!

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2016 Resolutions

It seems like forever that I've been making New Year's Resolutions. Some years I do better than others, but I keep on. Here are my ambitions for this coming year:

1. Keep eating healthier & probably lose a little more weight. I think the amount I've lost so far has made a big difference to the amount of pain I have from my osteoarthritis, but I don't want to go lower than a healthy weight. Once I'm at that point in a few months, I'll work on maintaining good eating habits & drop the food diary that I'm keeping at the moment. 
2. Meal planning follows logically from #1. I want to get back on the wagon with this one so that we can grocery shop more effectively, waste less food & eat better with less work.
3. Find a workable routine with my physio exercises for both my hip & my shoulder. I want to strengthen both to heal up the tendinopathy in my shoulder & further reduce pain in my hip. Hopefully I'll be able to shift from boring exercises by myself at home to more aquafit & try pilates classes.
4. Less screen time for me. I spend way too much time online when I could be doing things like #5, #6, & #7 on this list. I think I'll go back to using RescueTime to try to log & reduce wasted time on my various devices.
5. Work on more creative projects like sewing & visual art. Having the chance to follow my inspiration & drift from a simple cutting exercise for Linny into a collage, then a big multimedia decoupaged canvas recently was fabulous. I need to do more of that.
6. Read more. I'll aim for at least a book a month. That should be off to a great start when my copy of the Velocipede Races arrives in the next month.
7. Take more time for myself on a regular basis. I find I'm a much better parent/spouse/human after I get time off. I just can't function properly if I'm with my husband & children 24/7 with no time alone. 

Once I look at the whole list, it seems rather typical--lose weight, exercise, me time. But I guess that's why these things are so common as to be cliched resolutions--we all need to do them. 

Are you into resolutions? If so, what are some of yours for 2016? If not, do you have any tradition of setting intentions or a motto or a word to go by for the year?

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