EXERCISE, THE ELIXIR OF LIFE

As mentioned in my previous post EIGHT DAYS IN THE FLATHEAD Koty and I just returned from eight glorious days in the Flathead. Our summer has been pretty much ruined by my stupid decision to use Home Depot for my kitchen remodel. It was a worse nightmare than I could have ever imagined. Every conceivable thing that could go wrong, went wrong. Things like: 12 of 17 cabinets had to be rejected and re-manufactured; I had no water in my kitchen for two months; a remodel that should have taken a few weeks took four months. I could go on and on and one day I will probably tell the whole bloody tale but that's not what this article is about.

 Because of the above I was in a state of complete flux. I am creature of habit and when my world is turned upside down I get off balance. Unfortunately, what happens to me happens to Koty. Because I was constantly waiting around for people to come about the kitchen I was tied to the house. When I wasn't tied to the house I didn't feel like doing what Koty and I love the most, hiking. Prior to our trip Lakota was really starting to slow down and it pained me greatly to watch. I was worried that he would not even be able to make it in and out of Clementine (our RV). And sure enough when we got set up down in the Flathead he struggled with the steps. It broke my heart.

 My mission for this trip was to get in as much hiking and walking as Koty could handle. So we hiked everyday and took a walk in the evening. Each day I watched as Lakota got seemingly stronger. Until, by the time we left for home, he had actually gotten a little of the spring back in his gait. The effects of getting a good, daily dose of exercise was nothing short of miraculous. I came to realize that I had been literally killing my dog by not keeping to our normal active lifestyle. I hadn't been doing my own health any favors either. I lost weight from the kitchen debacle but it wasn't a healthy loss.

 I continue to give Koty Supraglan and flaxseed hulls daily. I can't say that these remedies are any kind of cure. Koty is still losing his hair. I suspect if he lives long enough he may end up hairless. He still drinks copious amounts of water and piddles in kind. His belly is bloated, his liver enlarged and his appetite insatiable. But, what I think these remedies may be doing is slowing the effects of these symptoms and offering him an extended happy period of time.

The point I would like to make here is how important exercise is not only for your pet but for its owner. Nothing I have tried to help Koty with is Cushing's has had a greater effect on his health than exercise. Whether your dog is sick or not take him/her for a walk everyday. The benefits for your pet as well as for yourself will be immeasurable.  You will most certainly have a longer, happier life together.

Koty will be 13 on October first. The average lifespan of a husky is thought to be 12 to 15 years. Going forward I will consider each day of quality life together as a supreme gift. I will see to it that Koty gets the most effective medicine available every single day, exercise!

Koty exploring Lion Lake Sept. 2012

©Kinsey Barnard

SEO Blues - Bear Business

I recently hired and SEO company to try and get my website rankings up. Yesterday I went to my site and all my photographs were gone ( http://www.kinseybarnard.com/gallery/category/landscapes.html ) and I could no longer gain entry to the site to try and fix things. I literally wept. Neither the web host nor the SEO company is willing to take responsibility.

No I have not "lost" my original photographs. My original work is backed up six ways to Sunday. What was lost was four years of uploading, descriptions and linking, hundreds of hours of work.

It was too much to take so I rounded up Koty and headed for the forest.

We still haven't had much in the way of warm weather, although they say we could get near 80 next week. For now it's cool and rainy.  Everything is such a rich green it's like a dream but we are way behind in terms of blooming. My apple trees have yet to bloom and the only wildflowers, besides dandelions, that I have seen are clematis. Deer enjoy dandelions but I don't think anyone is interested in the clematis. They are a lovely vine.

Clematis

So up the mountain we went. The route I took was pretty much straight up hill and quite a good aerobic workout. There's nothing like a workout in the woods to fight off the effects of life's curve balls. I didn't see any bears but I sure saw where they had been. Due to the lack of much else to eat they are ripping up old stumps looking for ants, grubs and anything else they can find. I think coming out of hibernation hasn't been much fun for them so far this year.

Bear at work.

This piece of stump had rolled down the mountain and onto the trail. It doesn't look very big in the photos but I can say without a doubt that it would have cleaned your clock if one were walking by at the particular moment the bear sent it rolling.

Stump caught on a tree.

All over the mountain side above me I could see where the bears had been at work.

I didn't see any bears themselves this trip. They have been up at the house in the night leaving their calling cards all over the lawn. One night a plastic water bottle I had left out was tooth punctured and mangled. Another one had been up on the deck looking for who knows what.

I must say a walk in the woods was the right prescription. I felt much better even though nothing had changed. I try to tell myself it doesn't matter, all that hard work lost. But, I can't say I'm totally successful. I am well and truly depressed about it.

 Koty, always the happy camper, sniffed out a squirrel. He dug for it furiously for about 15 minutes and when he came up empty handed he didn't care a whit. He was just happy to have had the joy of the hunt. I guess there is a lesson in that for me. Would that I could be as enlightened as my dog.

Koty with his head in the hole he made looking for a squirrel.

©Kinsey Barnard

The Broken Healthcare System: Who's responsible?

I think we the people have to take some of the responsibility for the mess the healthcare system is in. These days we overload the system by going to the doctor for every little thing and prefer to hand off responsibility for our health to doctors and pharmaceutical companies instead using a little self-discipline and common sense.

When I was growing up, that would be in the fifties, a person didn’t go to the doctor all that much. In fact, if you were raised on a ranch like I was you hardly ever went unless something was too broke to fix yourself.  Epson salts, hydrogen peroxide, and baking soda seemed to take care of most things.

Another lucky break for me was that my grandmother introduced me to Gaylord Hauser when I was either nine or ten. I’m certain of the time frame because my grandmother died in 1960 when I was eleven from lung cancer at the age of 74. Hauser was a pioneer of the concept that there was a direct relationship between diet and health. For many years he was considered a charlatan and a kook. Today he would be considered a guru. I would be surprised if any of my readers have heard of him.

When I was a teenager I purchased his last book called “Gaylord Hauser’s Treasury of Secrets” published in 1963. I made Hauser’s thinking a big part of my own and I believe it has paid major dividends in my life. I checked and Hauser’s books are still in print and available at Amazon.com.

I sure wish my grandma had lived longer. I’m certain there was much more that I could have learned. But, I’m grateful for all that I got. Notice, back when I was a kid young people respected their elders and listened to what they had to say. Well, some of us did.  I’ve always been a square peg in a round hole world.

According to Web MD a whopping 63% of Americans are either overweight or obese. I hope you find that number as staggering as I do. This statistic is as a result of overindulging in fattening foods whilst lounging in the Lazy-Boy and under-indulging in healthy foods and exercise. It’s a vicious cycle. You eat junk because you feel unhappy or depressed. You feel unhappy and depressed because you eat junk and sit on your butt. And, round and round we go. My goodness, 63% of us are on that merry-go-round and it isn’t very merry.

I feel there is just too much emphasis on care and not enough on health. If people would spend more time finding ways to live a healthier lifestyle they wouldn’t be so worked up about the healthcare system and the healthcare system wouldn’t be so overburdened. But, everyone with something to sell panders to our baser instincts and the something for nothing mentality.

In general pharmaceutical companies don’t give a fig about your health. They are in it for the money. Why do you think they bombard you with advertisements urging you to have your doctor prescribe some drug? And, despite a litany of horrendous side effects that should dissuade any thinking person, people are lining up to get them. People they aren’t kidding. They divulge that stuff because it really happens and they want to cover their butts. It’s utter lunacy. I suppose some doctors may feel like they are in a box. If a patient asks for a drug and is denied, what happens if the person has a negative experience with whatever it was the drug was for, lawsuit no doubt. I wonder how many prescriptions are written in self-defense? Now, along with the drug ads we see attorney ads asking for people to join lawsuits over these same drugs because the things they were warned about have happened. Wow, what a surprise. Who would have thought? How much do you think all that adds to the healthcare bill?

All my life I heard about the “joys” of menopause and it was just a given that when you reached a certain age you would go to the doctor and get your Premarin. I assumed I would too. But, I got lucky. In 1985 a friend recommended a book called “What You Doctor May Not Tell You About Menopause” by Dr. John R. Lee. I bought the book and read it. It made a whole lot of sense to me. I went the natural route and sailed through menopause as though it never happened. I can’t say those who took the pharmaceutical route had the same experience. In fact I believe many had a lot of trouble with estrogen therapy.

My point for telling you all this is that you need to consider taking responsibility for your own health. Doctors don’t want to see you cut down on office visits. Drug companies don’t want you to discover natural, low cost remedies. They both need lots of sick people in order to make their businesses turn a handsome profit. Do you really want to be a tool? Is it really all that much fun spending your life in the doctor’s office, or worse, the hospital?

I’m no fan of the medical establishment, drug companies or health insurance companies. But, I really think we need to take some responsibility for the state of the healthcare system. I know we all want to believe that we can lead lives of sedentary gluttony and just take a pill to make it all better but that just isn’t going to happen. You have to make sensible lifestyle choices. You have to use a little self-discipline and your noggin. My father forever used to say to me “For heaven’s sake. Try using your head for something besides a hat rack”. I’ve been working on maximizing my health most of my adult life and, at sixty-two, I can honestly say I am in the best shape of my life.

I didn’t even know the healthcare system was broken until it was in the headlines so much you couldn’t avoid it. I didn’t know because I seldom use it. I’ve never been in a hospital except to visit someone else. I take no prescription drugs. I have no arthritis or other diseases associated with my age group. I truly believe that avoidance of the medical establishment has added greatly to my lifetime of good health.

For me it’s all about quality not quantity of life. I have already lived such an extraordinary life each additional day is just icing on the cake. But, for as long as I am on this mortal plane I want to be enjoying it to the max. The only way I know how to do that is to eat healthy and get plenty of exercise. I love cheeseburgers, French fries, ice cream and too many other not “healthy” foods to mention. I eat them all but in moderation. The trick isn’t what you do but how much of it. My mantra is all things in moderation. I’m not skinny. I’ve been a size twelve all my life, except for a period when I was a depressed, suicidal teenager. At that time I was a size fourteen headed for sixteen. I never sought help for my depression. Never took drugs for it. I did once take out a revolver, load it and consider very seriously using it. But, the very act shocked me so badly I put the gun away and never thought about doing it again.

I can hear it now “Yeah, easy for you to say you probably have great genes”. Actually, I don’t. My family is riddled with cancer on both sides and on my father’s side there has been quite a lot of mental disease in the form of manic depression and more than one suicide. But, I don’t dwell on it and do my best to live a sensible lifestyle, so far so good.  I could be crazier than a loon but living out here in the middle of nowhere, who would know? I’m certainly not depressed.


The bottom line is, not only are we smothering the healthcare system we’re dying to do it! Wouldn’t it be better to not be so dependent upon the system, leave it for the unfortunate people who really need it? With 63% of the population overweight or obese you can’t tell me people aren’t using the system as a crutch for an unwillingness to take responsibility for their own health.  Doesn’t it make more sense to focus on your health as opposed to needing care?

So, next time you let yourself get all worked up over the headlines about a broken healthcare system ask yourself if you are part of the solution or part of the problem. If you’re part of the problem get crackin’. When you’re healthy you’re happy.

Mark Twain said it best, “Nothing needs reforming so much as other people’s habits”.

Next week I'm going to weigh on on the deflation vs. inflation debate. Listen to the "experts" at your peril.


©Kinsey Barnard

PS: I added two new galleries to my photoshelter website this week SEA OTTERS and BIG HORN SHEEP