A Liquid Lunch

Blender: Easily the BEST housewarming gift ever!

I'll admit, when my friend gave me this blender, the first drink that popped into my mind was not a smoothie. I was thinking more along the lines of entertaining, but my love for Jamba Juice has made this one of the most used appliances in my kitchen. Emma and I just can not get enough fruit blends into this thing. We love mixing different berries and fruits with different juices and liquids. We have yet to create a combination that we didn't like.


I never have to worry about whether she's getting enough fruits because I can easily get various into one glass. And she enjoys being apart of the process. Smoothies come in handy for myself as well, specially on those days when I'm so busy that I nearly forget to eat. I'm always fulfilled after a glass or two and there is no guilt because its all healthy ingredients.

Do you have any favorite go-to drinks or snacks that you and/or your kids love?

Up Close and Personal

I went and did it. And now my brain is literally laid across my backseat, wrapped in a neat package, waiting to be viewed by my doctor. It was an interesting experience, being stuffed into that narrow tube, with the song of machinery ringing through my earplugs. A necessary experience. One that will bring me some kind of peace within the next 9 days. I'm sure there isn't anything in there that shouldn't be, nothing out of the ordinary churning in my matter. I just need to be sure. Sometimes, it just isn't enough for a doctor to tell you that you're fine without a proper assessment. Sometimes, you just have to take the extra steps to make sure. I feel a little less stressed now that I've done that.

On to the fun stuff.

Self Preservation: Preventative Measures

So, is preventing a patient from voicing all of her health concerns a part of preventive medical care? I've sat in the office with my grandmother while her doctor frequently interrupted her, hurrying her to state her case so that she could quickly treat and move on down the assembly line. I've heard others talk about how they've not been listened to, but rather handed the first explanation/diagnosis/line of treatment that "sounded" like it fit the symptoms. I sat in my own doctor's office last week and received the same treatment from a stand-in doc (my doctor took a spontaneous leave of absence). One would think that if you're sitting before a patient, at a follow up visit, and the only background knowledge you have is in the chart on your lap, you'd shut the hell up and let the patient tell you why the both of you are there. Its more than a little frustrating when you have real medical concerns, and you are being rushed along by your caregiver because of overbooking.

My regular doctor doesn't really think that my splitting headaches are migraines, and kind of thinks that I shouldn't really be that concerned about the fact that they always occur on the left side of my head, and my eye exam yielded some weird findings in my left eye that couldn't determine the cause of my headaches. My chart revealed the beginnings of an order for an MRI. The regular didn't even submit the request before she left! Luckily I didn't have to present a thesis to the stand-in to get her to push it through. If these really aren't migraines (which the stand-in said they most likely are) I'd kinda like to know if I'm at risk for a frickin' aneurysm or something. You never know. My grandmother wasn't expecting to learn that she had a tumor behind her left eye, let's hope there isn't anything hiding behind mine.