All posts by Jeffrey Poehlmann

Meant To Be

Cancer, Fear, Health and Wellness, Reason, , , , , , , , ,

On a recent morning commute, I was stuck behind a car that I coveted. It was only for a moment before traffic split off and I chugged ahead in my aging vehicle, but it was enough time for my brain to process this thought: “well, if I was meant to have a car like that…” If only it was meant to be. I caught myself, teetering on the precipice of that trap, and yanked myself back before slipping all the way over the edge.

If only it was meant to be.

The notion that anything in our lives was meant to be is a dangerous concept. People use it to soothe their despair, to give meaning to tragedy or otherwise cope in circumstances that they feel powerless over. But it is a notion that suggests that we should also give up, give in or otherwise simply accept that truly shitty things are meant for us, while other people are meant for luxury or power or even just a simple happiness of some sort that is uniquely theirs. It suggests that if we do not have that good stuff, we do not deserve it, but that whatever crap we are coated in is truly, divinely ours. Continue reading Meant To Be →

Happiness

Health and Wellness, Reason, , ,

It’s after Labor Day in the US, where virtually every child of age is back in school, starting a new grade and most working adults just enjoyed an extended weekend. No doubt there were hundreds of thousands of barbecues burning across the nation, millions of beers consumed, parades, parties and many people striving to eek out a few extra hours of morning sleep while luxuriating in the rare Monday off. But by Tuesday morning, Wednesday at the latest, almost every American family was back to the grind.

When we talk about the business of living, about engaging in life, the emphasis is on participation. The act of being. But what is the point of being present if we are not able to grapple with the simple element of happiness? After all, as dire as life might seem, happiness is the one thing that can truly give it purpose.

The Happiness Ride

Continue reading Happiness →

On Being a Jack-Ass and Accepting that You Are Loved

Cancer, Health and Wellness, , , , , ,

When we are going through difficult times, it is easy to get lost in the mess of it all. It’s easy to get depressed, to surround ourselves with thoughts of doom, to hide in the shadows. What is not so easy is getting our weary selves out into the light, to wear the smile that reminds us of the joy lurking around unexpected corners, and to keep focusing on the true business of living that we really ought to be engaged in at every available moment.

Every now and again, we need to be reminded about all of this, each of us. And it is great when we stumble across a voice that speaks to us in a way that cuts through the BS. I am going to share a piece of writing that, I think, speaks a bit of clear truth that is worth paying attention to.

The following was written by Eugene Belitsky, posting to his Facebook feed. I “met” Eugene through Facebook, I suppose, after I read some post of his (or maybe he read one of mine). It’s only been about a month, but I’m claiming chemo brain for not remembering; all I can say is that he inspired me with the way he was dealing with his recent cancer diagnosis, refusing to let that diagnosis deprive him of his humor and his joy. And I saw some similarities in our lives: we both have a young child, we both dislike snake oil salesmen and I think we have a similar sense of humor. So I have followed Eugene’s story and then about three weeks into our deepening relationship, he wrote this wizz-dinger. I immediately told him I wanted to post it here. Fortunately for you, he graciously replied that, indeed, I could. Eugene Gives Permission!

Eugene Belitsky

August 25, 2016 at 6:58pm ·

Continue reading On Being a Jack-Ass and Accepting that You Are Loved →

Death, Life and Tissue Paradise

Cancer, Fear, Health and Wellness, Reason, , , , , , , , , ,

Death, Life and Tissue Paradise

I reiterate the title intentionally.
Tissue lying on the floor
Shortly before reaching Paradise.

Death and dying have been on my mind lately. I recently interviewed a friend about the experience of losing her mother to cancer. I am planning an interview with a death doula, whose job it is to help people through the process of dying. And one recent morning, I spent a good deal of time mulling things over from a religious perspective, thanks to my daughter and her explanation as to how a particular used tissue ended up on the floor instead of in the wastebasket.

When I asked her how it got there, my daughter took the opportunity to concoct a whole creation story for her tissue. At the end of this story, sad as the tissues eventual demise was, it ended up going to a Tissue Paradise where it was reunited with all the other tissues with which it had once been packed. It was an interesting and inspirational twist, ultimately bringing much joy to the tissues (and to my daughter, who was convinced that her cleverness trumped my passive-aggressive attempt to get her to clean up after herself). Continue reading Death, Life and Tissue Paradise →

Parabens, Fear and Junk Science

Fear, Health and Wellness, Reason, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I was going to title this post “Why I Love Parabens.” I had been reading up on them lately for a number of reasons, mostly surrounding a largely unfounded controversy surrounding a type of lip balm my daughter had been using. In the case of the lip balm, the “paraben-free” product was being accused of harboring mold with the implication being that this was a manufacturing defect. Examination of the claims revealed, however, that the mold was most likely the result of misuse or poor storage of the product which, due to the lack of effective preservatives, would be expected to mold if it was exposed to moisture and kept in the dark. This does, however, beg the question as to why a lip balm, of all things, would be sold without effective preservatives to protect against mold.

The answer, of course, is the unwarranted vilification of parabens. The natural cosmetics industry, and perhaps more accurately the Environmental Working Group and other activist organizations have been disseminating information about parabens for over a decade now, describing how they are endocrine disruptors and probably cause cancer. And this is where we get to the point of where science is occluded by hype, to the detriment of the consumer, the patient, the regular person on the street… Continue reading Parabens, Fear and Junk Science →

Clearing the Roof

Cancer, Fear, Health and Wellness, Reason, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The past two weeks wore on me; at times, I felt like I could drown in the pool of stress I had been slowly sweating out of me, a thick quagmire created of my own internal angst that seemed to engulf me from all sides. I’ve drained that pool in the last couple of days after trying a little exercise I like to call Clearing the Roof. Because I realized that stress is a top-down issue, it was going to have to be dealt with right up there, on the roof, where all that clutter and debris had been sitting, decomposing into mucky, thick, unmanageable gunk. Some of it was fresh, identifiable, easily swept away. Some of it had been there for years and was entirely unrecognizable. A whole lot of it, it turned out, was just settled pollution, junk particles that had come to rest because nothing had ever washed them away. It had been a much longer time than I thought since I had done this kind of personal maintenance.

Good thing I had a tall ladder.

But first, some backstory: For years I have talked about the importance of letting go of stress. I have let it eat at me in the past while I absorbed it from other people like an emotional sponge and the effect is that it triggers very strange migraine effects that mess with the speech center in my brain, causes a blind spot that travels across my field of vision and has, on one particular occasion, caused a trans ischemic event that, for those unfamiliar with the term, is kind of like a small stroke during which I lost control of my body, hallucinated that the table full of Happy Hour beer and appetizers was bouncing around, tossing things at me, and then I could not make sentences that anyone (else) could understand for about twenty minutes while my left hand tried repeatedly to climb up my chest. Continue reading Clearing the Roof →

Wrist wrapped for chemotherapy infusion

Infusions With Friends

Cancer, Health and Wellness, , , , , , , , , , , ,

There is room for a great social media app here, so officially I’m announcing “Infusions With Friends” — everyone needs a game to play while they’re stuck in treatment and when you begin to realize how many people are not only going through chemotherapy at the same time as you, but often having their treatment on the same day, it just makes sense that we ought to be able to hook up and make a game out of it. And if for whatever reason, one or another of us cannot join in the treatment fun as scheduled, it still is nice to have a way to feel inclusive and play along from home.

Chemotherapy infusion tube taped to wrist
The free hand was holding a smartphone and could have been playing Infusions With Friends!

When I got up this morning, I anticipated that two of my friends were likely to be “joining” me in chemo today — one from a a state to the north, one well to the east. It felt good, like there was some camaraderie there, full of mutual encouragement and good times, opportunities to share the view on Facebook or comment on how the mornings were spent with family before going in. And I usually find room for a few jokes around a “cocktail” theme or to comment on the need for better spa services. Sure, my material is starting to wear a little thin, which is all the more reason to get an appropriate app to market quickly. And the play at home feature would have been especially useful for me today, as I discovered that neither of my friends would be joining in from their respective clinics. One was simply a scheduling difference — she goes in tomorrow. The other had some issues with his bloodwork; last week when the same issue prevented his treatment, I thought he had simply lucked out with a week-long vacation from treatment, and I was secretly excited to get him on my schedule because I’m selfish and bored sometimes. So here I was this morning, luxuriously relaxing in my heated, vibrating lounge chair, feeling vaguely lonely in spite of the cheerful nurses and their needles. Continue reading Infusions With Friends →

Guns or Cancer, Which is Better?

Cancer, Fear, Politics, Reason, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I don’t normally write about guns, but soon it will be gun violence awareness day, so it seems appropriate to throw my two cents in. After all, I like shooting guns, and I like talking about the law. Plus, you know, I have a terminal cancer diagnosis, so it just kind of makes sense.

I recently read two similar news stories about a pair of women who were killed mere days apart: one was deliberately shot by a stranger after leaving a rural vacation spot, and another was shot in the back when her toddler found a gun in the car while they were driving. Pure coincidence that both of those happened close together in Wisconsin, a state I used to live just over the border from, and happened within a week of each other with two mothers being shot and killed while driving with their children in the car. Otherwise, one was a presumably intentional (if random) murder by a horrible person, the other a very random (and presumably inadvertent) act by an innocent.

I’d love to say that the random shooting of mothers by their small children was a complete outlier, but it isn’t. Sadly, this sort of thing happens far too frequently, even among responsible gun-owners and pro-gun advocates — even while they are driving. Of course, not all toddlers who come across guns shoot their mothers. Sometimes, and I find this part deeply, deeply sad, they simply shoot themselves because a loaded gun was within reach. (For those of you who did not or could not click that last link, it details four cases where toddlers shot and killed themselves during the same week last month, in addition to five non-fatal accidental shootings by minors.)

And that is a clear example of what is wrong with current gun regulation. Continue reading Guns or Cancer, Which is Better? →

Myth of the Wellness Warrior, Part 2: Supplements, Denial and the Birthday Problem

Cancer, Health and Wellness, Reason, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I’ve heard a lot lately about fears that a conspiracy is being perpetrated by the pharmaceutical industry and the government to keep natural cancer cures (and natural or holistic care in general) away from patients. It makes for a dramatic story with lots of Hollywood appeal, but examining the accusations leads down a more insidious path. To get there and understand the full extent of the problem, we need to step back and look at a range of sub-industries within the healthcare umbrella, what they provide and how they intertwine. We also need to understand some basics about statistics and probability that will clarify what some of the facts surrounding this conspiracy really mean. [And when you are done reading this, please continue on with the next chapter in this ongoing series.]

Supplementing the Truth

To begin with, let’s examine the hugely profitable supplements industry (mentioned in Forbes’ SportsMoney column as one of the fastest growing industries in the world). “Natural health” advocates and self-proclaimed gurus often have their own supplement brands which they sell as part of  treatment plans pushed on their web sites, or they have affiliate arrangements with a brand that they offer as being somehow superior to other brands. The supplement industry has grown from the notion that manufactured (or synthetic) vitamins could be used to supplement areas in the diet where a person was not able to consume adequate quantities to be healthy. In an indirect way, it can be traced back hundreds of years to the discovery that citrus fruit — particularly lemons — could prevent sailors from getting scurvy. It turned out that scurvy was a disease caused by a Vitamin C deficiency. By “supplementing” this vitamin, the disease could be avoided. Continue reading Myth of the Wellness Warrior, Part 2: Supplements, Denial and the Birthday Problem →

Girls Literature and the Culture of What’s Wrong With Me?

Reason, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I have a daughter and I care what she reads. From her earliest days, books have been an important part of her life. She’s ten now and I still read to her regularly, though she reads voraciously on her own (and far more than I ever was able as a child, since she reads like lightning when left to her own device-free devices). That kid can devour stories, though lately has taken to being very choosy with her time. If a book doesn’t hook her, it goes back to the library unfinished. She wants to be sucked in; once she is engaged she absolutely must finish. Because it matters, I am always concerned with the messages in the stories she finds most enticing.

When she chooses her books, her mother and I try to be aware of the content and whether there is an underlying theme of “what’s wrong with me?” running through the pages. More and more, it seems easy to identify this theme almost as its own genre in children’s and specifically girls’ literature. The seeds of necessary therapy are sown implicitly between the lines as books for these young readers guide them to feeling less than adequate, training them for a life of unnecessarily pursuing products to fix themselves. This is a predictable byproduct of corporate America, where publishing is largely controlled by conglomerates that feed revenue streams in any way possible. Branding and downstream profits are the backbone of our consumer culture. But feeding this beast is optional. Continue reading Girls Literature and the Culture of What’s Wrong With Me? →