Health, Wealth and Happiness

I know the game was almost 3 weeks ago.  I know.

We were at Aloha Stadium at 6 AM for the game which started at 11:30 AM.  There was  LOT of standing around, and preparing.  It was going to be hot, we all knew, and I had three things to combat the elements.

I had food in my pocket which was against the rules, but I thought necessary.  I had the wonderful samples bottles of Zrii which I took nips on repeatedly throughout the day.  I also had sunscreen which I put on early and often.

Our supervisors were great at dropping off bottles of cold water and I really took advantage  of that.

Oh yes, the game.

The NFC and AFC were introduced and there were the usual Pre Game rituals.  The lady that sang the National Anthem was great and gorgeous too.  The game was pretty good, as much as I could see.  I was standing at the ten yard line. 

In came the cheerleaders, and the mascots followed.  The interesting thing, for the second year in a row, was the appearance of the Japanese cheerleaders.  My only question was,    Why?

It was hot, with no clouds until about the third quarter.  By that time, I was really just attempting to maintain until the end of the day.

We knew that when the game ended we had to stay until all of the players had showered and then left.

The game itself was pretty good and the stands were filled for the most part.  It was  a sell-out. 

We know that there are rumblings about whether to move the Pro Bowl after next year.  All I can say is:  Don’t.  The players love to come to Hawaii and bring their families.

Any option that involves the week before the Super Bowl is flawed because it will result in two teams NOT having any players in the game.  Suggesting that players will turn out in similar numbers to San Diego, or New Orleans for example is wrong Because they already perhaps live there, or go there during the season.  Hawaii is unique and exotic.

Besides, Hawaii needs the Pro Bowl.  The kids that get to watch the practices are encouraged.  Kapolei HS, which benefitted from the installation of the pracice playing field there benefitted immensely.  

Many parks and organizations were blessed to receive financial rewards because of this game, as they do every year.  Many establishments each year do a great business because of the numbers of fans that tag along.   It’s such a perfect fit, that it almost seems like someone along the way will mess with it…

At the end of the game, I said great game to TO.  He said  “I appreciate it.”  (He probably would have appreciated the MVP trophy and vehicle that the winner got, but there could only be one winner, and he lost out.)  We appreciate all of the players that made the trip.

Here is a fantastic post that appeared today in the Aloha Parent.Com newsletter.  Dr. Cynthia is a friend and associate.  Enjoy, parents…

Baby Walkers Delay Infants’ Motor Development

by Dr. Cynthia Chareunsouk – Chiropratic Kinesiologist 

Many parents believe that baby walkers are a convenient form of baby “exercise” and entertainment.  However, statistics show that they actually cause heartache and grief each year; along with impairment of natural childhood development.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended a ban on the manufacturing and distributing of baby walkers as they have deemed it unsafe for babies.  In 1997, manufacturers created a new generation of baby walkers which were designed to be “safer” and more effective, but over 14,000 babies each year are still sent to the hospital due to baby walker accidents and injuries. Over 34 babies have passed away from 1973-1998 due to baby walker related accidents and injuries.

Each year, the statistics for baby walkers increase. Approximately 40% of infants in walkers suffer from skull fractures, neck injuries, lacerations, knocked out teeth, and/or burns. These injuries usually occur from the walkers tumbling down stairs or from tipping over with adult supervision. The walkers can move up to three feet in one second, disabling parents to react in time to prevent injury or death. Infants in baby walkers can tip over while rolling over rugs or even while attempting to pick up toys on the ground. Often times, a baby’s finger can get stuck between a walker and piece of furniture; or worse yet – stuck in a collapsible walker.

Baby walkers also interfere with postural, biomechanical, and neurological development of babies. Research has shown that babies who utilize walkers establish faulty walking patterns due to neurological development deficiencies. With overuse of walkers, babies sometimes also experience sore leg muscles. A study in 1991 correlated early walkers to have lower grades in school – due to a lack of crawling in their developmental stages.

Crawling is a natural instinctive reflex provided to babies to prevent suffocation when lying on their stomach. Once their bones, joints, and ligaments are properly developed; infants immediately begin to crawl instinctively by 5-14 months of age.

Why is crawling so important?

Crawling enables infants to develop a cross-crawl pattern, which is simultaneous use of opposite extremities. For example, when the baby moves his/her right arm with his/her left leg, the following occurs on the opposite side. Motor nerve impulses to the extremities originate in each side of the brain cortex and cross in the brainstem to supply required motor activity to the opposite extremity; which basically means that the right brain controls the left arm and left leg, and vice versa. With crawling, the cross-crawl pattern repeats itself, and therefore uses both right and left brain for neurological coordination.

Crawling will enable an infant to learn about proper balance and coordination – such as how to use one side of their body to balance the other; which becomes very useful when learning to sit and stand.

In addition, crawling builds mental strength, where a child begins to learn problem solving skills and starts understanding the cause/effect relationship. You can also help your child build mental strength by positively reinforcing them with toys. Try placing a toy within eyesight, to help the infant develop motivation as they are rewarded with their toy when they crawl toward it.

Please don’t rush your child’s development. Each child reaches their own milestones at their own pace. If your child does not begin walking when the other children their age do, don’t panic. A study conducted in 1991 by McEwan correlated that children who began walking earlier, showed lower performance scores on pre-school assessment tests – due to the lack or motor skill development.¹

If your child has been using a baby walker, this article is not meant to alarm you. There are many studies that have been performed, but we could always use more research with larger amounts of subjects. This article is merely meant to educate and bring about awareness regarding baby walkers to help you make a more informed and educated decision regarding the use of them. Below, I will include some of my references and reading recommendations of which you may want to utilize to keep your child happy and safe.

1. McEwan MH, Dihoff RE, Brosvic GM: Early infant crawling experience is reflected in later motor skill development. Percept Motor Skills, 72(1):75-9, 1991.
2. Garrett M, et al. Locomotor milestones and babywalkers: cross sectional study. BMJ 2002;324:1494 (22 June).
3. Sears, Martha and William. The Baby Book: Everything You Need to Know About Your Baby from Birth to Age Two.
4. www.aap.org
5. www.alohaparent.com
6. http://www.cpsc.gov (Great resources for checking out recalled toys!)

For More Information, or questions regarding this article, please contact:  

Dr. Cynthia Chareunsouk – Chiropractic Kinesiologist

438 Hobron Lane Suite 315   Honolulu, HI 96815

(808) 692-2470

I was to guard the door.  To watch the stuff, to keep it safe.  Who would bother these guys,   or their stuff?  Would anyone take the socks that a sweaty guy in a furry Raccon suit had discarded?  We’ll maybe his iPod…..

But that’s where I was,  NEXT DOOR to the NFL cheerleaders.

There they were, all sparkly with perfectly curled hair and the great outfits.  Every guys dream, right?  Ahhh guess again.  They were all too little for my tastes.  Cute, but almost bird-like.  Not in a bad way.  I guess many, if not most men like them thin and barbie-like.

I was glad to help myself to the fully-stocked buffet in their room when I had gotten permission.  Heck, they didn’t eat anything.  Just a few melon pieces, and bottled water.

This is the big time.  The cheerleaders not only accompany the players that appear at the Por Bowl activities, they even…get this,    sign autographs.  Hmmmm.

I know, they are all people, not objects.  With thoughts and feelings.  It’s a job.  And like the players, the life expectancy for a cheerleader probably doesn’t extend into the thirties that much.

In addition to my duty guarding the room next to the cherrleaders dressing room, I got to stand on the field at the Pro Bowl itself, watching so that no one jumps the fence to come on the field. 

That put me smack dab in the middle of the cheerleaders while they entertained.  I even was pressed into duty watching the ‘boundary’ at the end of the line of performers so that some foreign photographer didn’t invade their space,   again.

Memo to all the pretend photographers in their 40s and 50s that got pics with the cheerleaders (instead of really douing your pretend job)  Get a Life!

Anyway, it is all part of the spectacle that is the NFL and the Pro Bowl.  All the creepy guys in the stands that had the cheerleader calendars and repeatedly called out their names to get pics are fans too.

As for me, I love the NFL.  My team the Bears just did not seem to send much in the way of participants; no mascot, no cheerleaders, and only a couple of players.  C’mon guys, work it out next year, OK? 

When it was all done, as the Blues song says,  “I’m going home, where women got meat on their blones.”

Names like T.D., Staley, Blitz, and K.Rack may NOT strike fear into your heart like ‘The Monsters of the Midway’ or the ‘Purple People-Eaters’.  Of course they’re not supposed to.  These are the NFL Mascots.

Who’s your mascot?

Mine would be Staley, who didn’t make the trip as most of the Chicago Bears did not either.  How ’bout next year guys?

So, who are these mascots anyway?  Well, with a slight apology to my employer over the weekend, I’ll elaborate.

With my part time position working at the Pro-Bowl, one of us was chosen to watch the green room, or staging area for the cheerleaders, and the other, for the mascots.  Many young men would have fought for the right to do the former, but not being a young man, and being happily married (and intending to keep it that way) I chose the latter.

As they bounced along the corridor, and into the room, they were ‘Big Red’ (Arizona Cardinals) and ‘K.R. Wolf’ (Kansas City Chiefs) until the split second the door shut behind them.  Then, as they removed the massive headpieces, and revealed sweaty, but mostly normal looking people underneath, they transformed.  No fans were getting in here.

I watched them tape sore feet, try to re-hydrate, find the right gloves for their next performance, and tell stories.  They relaxed, and checked emails.  They MAY have prefered that I had been outside, but I stayed for the entertainment, and to stay awake.  (I had been on duty outside the NFL Autograph tent for hours in Kapiolani Park…Did I tell you we were in Honolulu?)

Now, I was in the back end of the Marriott Waikiki in a ballroom, with 3 of the guys.  I wonder if they have any female mascots.  That would be a bit dicey in both the present situation and then perhaps on the field.  I’m guessing not.

The high-maintenance (by design) cheerleaders next door had their curling irons, and fancy matching sparkly jackets.  And a full buffet as only the Marriott could prepare (and the NFL could pay for). 

These normal-looking men had gym bags, Seahawk and Cardinal Heads laying around, and an ice-water cooler in the back.  Something was wrong.

“Let’s go get some food, they won’t need it.” 

True, NFL Cheerleader scales only go up to 110 lbs, I believe.  I think they survive on one piece of melon and two sips of purified water every two hours.

Anyway, the next two hours watching the belongings and area was not exciting.  What was though, was to discover another little sub-culture, if you will of people, who work in  the entertainment business.  Yes, the job IS year-round. 

Yes, it’s tough if your team went 1 and 15.  But not THAT tough.  You’re still a cute fuzzy aqatic-mammal that everybody wants a picture with.  And, of course you know who the team needs to draft in April, and probably how many wins the new coach needs to keep his job.

I still think that wolf looks like a rat….

As a heart attack survivor, I feel the need to pass this on…I was aware that female heart attacks are different, but this is the best description I’ve ever read.
    Women and heart attacks (Myocardial infarction)
  
Did you know that women rarely have the same dramatic symptoms that men have when experiencing heart attack…you know, the sudden stabbing pain in the chest, the cold sweat,
grabbing the chest and dropping to the floor that we see in the movies. Here is the story of one woman’s experience with a heart attack.
I had a completely unexpected heart attack at about 10:30 pm with NO prior exertion, NO prior emotional trauma that one would suspect might’ve brought it on. I was sitting all snugly and warm on a cold evening, with my purring cat in my lap, reading an interesting story my friend had sent me, and actually thinking, A-A-h, this is the life, all cozy and warm in my soft, cushy Lazy Boy with my feet propped up.

 A moment later, I felt that awful sensation of indigestion, when you’ve been in a hurry and grabbed a bite of sandwich and washed it down with a dash of water, and that hurried bite seems to feel like you’ve swallowed a golf ball going down the esophagus in slow motion and it is most uncomfortable. You realize you shouldn’t have gulped it down so fast and needed to chew it more thoroughly and this time drink, a glass of water to hasten its progress down to the stomach. This was my initial sensation—the only trouble was that I hadn’t taken a bite of anything since about 5:00 p.m.
  
After that had seemed to subside, the next sensation was like little squeezing motions that seemed to be racing up my SPINE (hind-sight, it was probably my aorta spasming), gaining speed as they continued racing up and under my sternum (breast bone), where one presses rhythmically when administering CPR. This fascinating process continued on into my throat and branched out into both jaws.  
    AHA!! NOW I stopped puzzling about what was happening–we all have read and/or heard about pain in the jaws being one of the signals of an MI happening, haven’t we? I said aloud to myself and the cat,
   “Dear God, I think I’m having a heart attack!”

I lowered the footrest, dumping the cat from my lap, started to take a step and fell on the floor instead. I thought to myself  If this is a heart attack, I shouldn’t be walking into the next room where the phone is or anywhere else……. but, on the other hand, if I don’t, nobody will know that I need help, and if I wait any longer I may not be able to get up in a moment.
  
I pulled myself up with t he arms of the chair, walked slowly into the next room and dialed the Paramedics… I told her I thought I was having a heart attack due to the pressure building under the sternum and radiating into my jaws. I didn’t feel hysterical or afraid, just stating the facts.
She said she was sending the Paramedics over immediately, asked if the front door was near to me, and if so, to unbolt the door and then lie down on the floor where they could see me when they came in.   

I then laid down on the floor as instructed and lost consciousness, as I don’t remember the medics
coming in, their examination, lifting me onto a gurney or getting me into their ambulance, or hearing the call they made to St. Jude ER on the way, but I did briefly awaken when we arrived and saw that
the Cardiologist was already there in his surgical blues and cap helping the medics pull my stretcher out of the ambulance. He was bending over me asking questions (probably something like “Have you taken any medications?”) but I couldn’t make my mind interpret what he was saying, or form an answer, and nodded off again, not waking up until the Cardiologist and partner had already threaded the teeny angiogram balloon up my femoral artery into the aorta and into my heart where they installed 2 side by side stents to hold open my right coronary artery.
 
I know it sounds like all my thinking and actions at home must have taken at least 20-30 minutes before calling the Paramedics, but actually it took perhaps 4-5 minutes before the call, and both the fire station and St. Jude are only minutes away from my home, and my Cardiologist was already to go to the OR in his scrubs and get going on restarting my heart (which had stopped somewhere between my arrival and
the procedure) and installing the stents.  
  

Why have I written all of this to you with so much detail?

Because I want all of you who are so important in my life to know what I learned first hand.
  
   1. Be aware that something very different is happening in your body not the usual men’s symptoms, but inexplicable things happening (until my sternum and jaws got into the act ). It is said that many more
women than men die of their first (and last) MI because they didn’t know they were having one, and commonly mistake it as indigestion, take some Maalox or other anti-heartburn preparation, and go
to bed, hoping they’ll feel better in the morning when they wake up….which doesn’t happen. My female friends, your symptoms might not be exactly like mine, so I advise you to call the Paramedics if ANYTHING is unpleasantly happening that you’ve not felt before. It is better to have a “false alarm” visitationn than to risk your life guessing what it might be!  
   2. Note that I said “Call the Paramedics”. Ladies, TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE! Do NOT try to drive yourself to the ER–you’re a hazard to others on the road, and so is your panicked husband who will be speeding and looking anxiously at what’s happening with you instead of the road. 
 
   Do NOT call your doctor–he doesn’t know where you live and if it’s at night you won’t reach him anyway, and if it’s daytime, his assistants (or answering service) will tell you to call the Paramedics.
He doesn’t carry the equipment in his car that you need to be saved! The Paramedics do, principally OXYGEN that you need ASAP. Your Dr. will be notified later. 
 
   3. Don’t assume it couldn’t be a heart attack because you have a normal cholesterol count. Research has discovered that a cholesterol elevated reading is rarely the cause of an MI (unless it’s unbelievably high, and/or accompanied by high blood pressure.)

MI’s are usually caused by long-term stress and inflammation in the body, which dumps all sorts of deadly hormones into your system to sludge things up in there.
Pain in the jaw can wake you from a sound sleep.  Let’s be careful and be aware. The more we know, the better chance we could survive…

A cardiologist says if everyone who reads this shares it others, you can be sure that we’ll save some lives.