So much hype. It would be better if people could look at several sources of info from many sides of an issue before letting things get to them...

So much is dangerous to us we need to live in a bubble...

Jan

I remember playing with mercury too. Someone would bring it to school, from a broken thermometer usually, and we would coat our nickles and dimes with it. A little bit goes a l-o-n-g way. If you painted anything in the house, it was probably with lead base paint. There was a shoe store in our city had a fluoroscope by it's entrance and mothers would stop by regularly to have the kids shoes checked to see if the toes still had plenty of room.

All this brings to mind the question that I usually ask. How would you like to die? The longer you live, the more likely it is that it will be after Alzheimers or similar dementia takes your mind. That's very hard on the ones that take care of you. Old Age is not the easiest way to go.

Sometimes you just have to use your brain and common sense about things. It seems almost daily, research is being quoted about some new finding. For instance hormone replacement therapy was just what you did,then it was lethal,and now they are changing their tune to some degree. It's the same with cholesterol,and everything else under the sun. I don't think the word moderation has much meaning anymore.

I never had my feet fluoroscoped, but I do sometimes wonder if it's really a good idea to keep the 1940s jar of souvenir rock chips from my grandmother's house. The star attraction of the jar? A little bit of uranium ore, carefully wrapped in a bit of paper so it can't hurt anyone. Maybe it's ok. The ore didn't kill my grandmother (that honor probably goes to a piece of bad chicken eaten at a restaurant--back in the '80s no one was talking about e coli infections much either).

On the other side of caution, there are people on our street who had every interior surface of their new old house stripped of paint by a lead-abatement team before they would move in. Their children can gnaw the windowsills to heart's content and will surely be the smarter for it.

I'm kind of amazed at how protected today's kids are in general. Maybe some of it's good. I have a little scar on my forehead from riding around with my dad on my third birthday (I remember!), back when cars didn't yet all have seatbelts (and no one was much interested in using them anyhow). And maybe it's okay that stores don't sell cigarettes to kids anymore. But since none of the kids around here are allowed to cross the street alone until they're prepubescents, I don't suppose there's any point in it, either.

dirtdiver, I have a little scar on my chin caused by hitting the solid steel dashboard of a Packard when we were in a multi-car pile-up one rainy Mother's Day 50 years ago!

My friend Joy told me this story today:

Her mother is 89 years old.
She's outlived 2 husbands & all her peers, & she has Alzheimers;
sometimes she can remember how to play the piano & sometimes she can't.

Joy can't care for her, being 68 herself & having to contend with her own health problems, so the mom is in an Alzheimer's care nursing home, where Joy visits often.

The other day they had a great visit;
the mom played all the old hymns on the piano, & residents came out of their rooms to listen & to sing, & she & Joy had a good, long visit.

When Joy said she had to leave, her mom said, "You be careful now, I know it's a long drive. We had a *good* visit....(pause) Didn't we?"

Joy's heart is breaking.

I think maybe pancreatic cancer wouldn't be too bad;
you find out you have it, you get your affairs in order, & you go straight to hospice or have hospice visit you at the home of the relative or friend who's taking care of you.

enough time, but not too much.

And it used to be the thing to wear a radium dial wrist watch. Mine glowed in the dark night after night for a couple of years....right there on my wrist next to my brain.

Aggie, you wore your watch to bed?

Well, this story accounts for your jokes:)

It's about control. We are frying our planet, drowning in our own waste, nuclear power plants are becoming Chernobyl or three mile island, we find melamine in our gluten and our pets die, the sea is full of heavy metals so we have to limit our tuna salad sandwiches, and we have smog alerts where rank inside air is healthier than opening a window. So, what can we focus on to keep our minds off of it and make us feel like we are in control of our bodies to live a healthy lifestyle?

I'll take the shoe fluoroscopes and playing with the mercury in a thermometer anyday to the stuff that we are forced to endure on a world wide scale.

I guess my mother was prescient because she never let us use those foot ex-ray machines when we were getting new shoes. Nor did she allow me to ride my bike behind the DDT truck going down the street spraying for mosquitoes like the other kids in the neighborhood did.

However, she didn't have any problem letting my roller skate or ride a bike without a helmet & there was that time I was racing down a hill in Lake Geneva, WI & had to slam on the brakes to avoid an on-coming car & went right over the handlebars onto the gravel road. And the time I fell off the neighbor's porch roof right onto my head.

I think out parents took it for granted that we'd have childhood injuries - hopefully non-lethal - and perhaps were better able to assess risk than people are today. These days it seems like everything is a major crisis. Quite frankly, I've quit listening to most of it.

I wonder how things can warnings can be dismissed so easily. Why not use the halogen bulbs which are still green but don't have poison potential? It's a good thing people listened to others who said we shouldn't throw our garbage in streets any more. And that we could live longer (why shouldn't we live longer more comofortable lives?) if we ate better, or to take medications for allergies, and... While I am not trying to be contrary, I don't get why anyone would want to keep on doing what we figured out was harmful??? I'm very glad we've all done things that could've potentially been harmful, but lived. Great that we're lucky! But that doesn't make people dumb who avoid potential hazards. I don't make my son wear knee and elbow pads to ride a bike, but I sure as heck make him cover his head in armor. Meaning, one can't fix a broken brain, but they also shouldn't have to wear a bubble suit either.

,,,,"And that we could live longer (why shouldn't we live longer more comofortable lives?) if we ate better, or to take medications for allergies, and... "

Unfortunately, the "longer, more comfortable" life doesn't always happen. It's more apt to be longer, more painful, more feeble and more dependent on others. The longer life means more likely to spend those longer years in a Nursing Home.

So the question to me is, Should I give up doing or eating things I enjoy just for a couple of years more of being OLD, and perhaps demented and feeble? Just looking in the bathroom mirror, naked, every morning after my shower is enough to make me want to do unhealthy things.

Trying to prevent accidents is a lot different than changing a life style, just in hopes that, maybe, life can be extended.

The stress caused by worrying about things like mercury in light bulbs probably shortens the life span as much as the mercury.

"The stress caused by worrying about things like mercury in light bulbs probably shortens the life span as much as the mercury"

HA! :)

We didn't worry about mercury in regular fluorescent tubes, which we all used for years probably - they can be recycled. My town has an area specifically for collecting potentially risky items such as these, tvs, electronics etc, so that the heavy metals can be removed and RE-USED.
Halogen bulbs are nowhere near as 'green' as CFLs I'm afraid.

Whilst so much may seem like over-protectiveness, a friend who is a statistician pointed out to me that we are a self-selecting group. We may have survived without car seats in our childhoods. But those who didn't aren't here to make the point . . . .

I will add that I'm the proud inheritor of several pieces of radioactive Fiestaware (Neil's oaru.org site has a directory link to that, too).

Nothing is quite so straightforward as it appears. Halogens are not as 'green' as CFLs because the largest part of the mercury contamination today in our environment is caused by burning fossil fuels. Four times as much mercury is released by generating the electric to power an incandescent bulb than is contained in a CFL. And halogens are only slightly more energy efficient than an incandescent, and a greater fire hazard.

I think people seem blase' about warnings because everything has one, or is a candidate for one somewhere down the line. That includes some of the most innocuous items you can imagine, like plastic buckets and cups of coffee. We already know one holds enough water to drown in, if you stick your face in it, and we'd be itching with a captital B if the coffee wasn't hot.

I'm getting blase' about warnings because more likely than not six months after the original warning blssted all over the airwaves, we then hear to quote Emily Letilla "oh never mind." So butter was bad and margarine was good until margarine had nasty stuff that could kill you & you were better off using butter in moderation (and having your food taste lots better I'll add).

My first instinct now when I hear yet another dire warning is to research, research, research & then make my own assessment of risk.

So is this phenomenon unique to our generation? It seems as though we're disinterested in everything. Surely something is "worth" worrying about? Or is this a side effect of the age of information?

There's plenty to worry about. However here's the difference today vs. even 15 years ago. Now we're in the age of dubious Internet sites and blogs and multiple 24-hour cable news channels that grab onto sensation for something to fill their air time.If you're going to be an intelligent consumer of information, you need to develop your analytical skills. Otherwise you're going to be perpetually bouncing from crisis to crisis.

amen,Andie.

Andie are you saying you don't worry about anything any more because you hear it's horrible and then it's not? That's interesting. There's a lady I work with who is basically all that stands in-between death and her husband who has an immunity problem. She is neurotic beyond neurotic, worrying about hands touching him (she won't let people shake his hand when they meet him), etc. the list goes on. She knows she's neurotic, but she also knows it's her neuroses that keeps him here. Her level of crisis is much higher than I ever would have, but I see where she's coming from and respect her level. I, on the other hand, don't worry about my new car getting dinged up, eating butter, sitting at a table everyone and their brother has eaten at in a restaurant, etc. Very true that one should decipher what is important to themselves. I agree with that.

I told before about my oldest daughter - now 60 - and how I dealt with this 1.5 kg preemie without an incubator and very little medical care, but these were unusual circumstances.
I had two more children after that, born in the US with good pre- and post-natal care, it was easier.
That said, I lived in a housing tract, almost all the inhabitants were young, ex-GIs and most of the women were pregnant one time or another, we were creating the baby boom!
Most of us smoked, drank coffee had beer or a mixed drink when we could afford it, most smoked in the car and in front of the babies.
My FIL used to stick pitted olives on Joann's fingers and let her nibble them off (now even hot-dogs have warnings of choking danger!) the list goes on and on. Joann would share a bone with the dog, each chewed on one end - I stopped that.
They rode unsecured in the car.
All three of them are in good health.
Now child Protective Services would take those children and put them into a Foster home for their own safety.
Sure was different, and maybe we were lucky, but I do believe the pendulum has swung too far.
My teen-age great grand-daughter was really worried because I kept windows open at night when she was here for a visit, and she was appalled that we drank tap-water (from the well)
Scared of the dark and the quiet, that's sad,

I learned my lesson in 1966 when the hospital sent my newborn son and I home with a dark green plastic bottle of some type antibacterial liquid soap. My Mom immediately trashed it and we bathed son with Ivory, which is all I still use today. A few years later they banned the antibacterial goo as it was discovered it entered beneath skin and was dangerous.

I try and stay with foods I ate as a child like butter and eggs in moderation and avoid all miracle over the counter stuff and rarely visit doctors...last time was about 20 years ago when I had viral pneumonia. The only meds here are aspirin and senecot and they are usually discarded unopened as the use-by date comes up. I realize I'm extremely lucky that my aches and pains at age 73 can usually be fixed with a nap or comfort foods...and a good book for bad moods. The possible side effects of most meds advertised are scarier than the original complaint, it seems to me.

I believe in the old maxim "Be not the first by whom the new is tried", stronger than "Nor the last to lay the old aside". It's served me well. josh

I'm up late tonight...cooking and reading and thinking about things. Including my last post which sounds smug and self-satisfied and I didn't mean it that way. My DH for the past few years has had one illness after another, and I know I could never have withstood any of the misdiagnoses, innumerable tests and procedures, surgery, drug side effects, etc. myself...I am a thoroughgoing coward. He has recently moved into an assisted living facility and I know I want to go quickly before such happens to me. That colored my post...I guess I was reassuring myself "I'm okay so far" like the man falling from a building (or aging).

Sorry for the detour...josh

Lilod ~ your great-grand-D needs to learn more about water. And more about bottled water which is quite often bottled straight from the local municipal water plant. It's probable that your well water is safer and better for you than any of the common bottled waters. You can always have it tested by the health department, just for the written assurance.

I remember a friend of DH who with irritating frequency touted how much safer/better her bottle of Aquafina was than the county water than came from the tap -- although the county's well water consistently earned high marks for non-contamination. I also remember the glee DH felt when he presented her with an article about local water sources, which mentioned that the local Aquafina was simply water bottled from DC's tap. To really appreciate this, you should know that at that particular time, DC was under fire for having an excessive amount of lead in the city water.

A bottle is a container, and the container does not imbue the contents with any characteristics other than whatever the contents had upon being bottled. Advertising, however, is still sufficient to gull the gullible.

Attached link is a clear and comprehendable summary of an official study.

Here is a link that might be useful: NRDC re bottled water

Josh, I don't think you could sound smug even if you took smug lessons. You've never sounded self satisfied,you've never trampled on feelings,you've never even politely tried to call someone to task because you didn't agree with them. It must be very difficult sometimes for you with your husband in assisted living and I'm sure there are times you'd like to throw a chair through a window. What was it that Betty Davis said? Getting older is not for sissies. Sounds like you are rolling with the punches with a whole lot of dignity.

Ditto to what Marda said Josh!

I think that everyone who has read her posts, knows that Josh is not a sissy (nor any other deprecating noun). Instead, she has set an example of tolerance, interest, humor, kindness, and patience that is admirable for anyone of any age. Even though I don't do well at following her example, I most sincerely hope to be reading her posts for many more years.

Meanwhile, (((hugs to Josh))) because even when it hurts the soul to do so, sometimes assisted living care is the best possible choice.

Josh, here are a few more hugs -- ((((Josh)))) -- with lots of respect and admiration for dealing with difficulties we'd all avoid, if it were possible.

I think that Josh's situation points out a change that has been happening in our society. It used to be that you did everything possible to live as long as possible. That was before some very fancy and effective medicines and medical procedures were developed. The Road to The End has changed. There are many bypasses and detours, but the End will come eventually.

Now we see only too well, what living as long as possible is like. I, for one, don't like it. I come from a family that has some sort of longevity gene. Living until the late 90s in age sounds great until you stop to think that a lot of that last decade could be in bed with little or no mind function.

or worse, no body functioning, but your mind fully functioning. That terrifies me.

What is a fluoroscope?

It's sort of like an Xray except that you can view immediatly through a screen or viewer instead of looking at the same picture on film. The thing at airport security is a type of fluoroscope.

Oh, I see. Thanks. I had never heard of that before.

Thanks for the quite undeserved kind words...I do try to leave my worst personality flaws out of my posts...LOL But I in no way measure up to the good qualities of most of you. Now you have me feeling like a complete and utter fraud. But feeling better even so. You are good guys! josh

I remember those shoe fluoroscopes. One store in town had one, and it fascinated me. Fortunately, my mother wouldn't let me use it more than a couple of times. She did, however, let me have a glow-in-the-dark picture of some cartoon ducks in the rain hang above the head of my bed, and I have often wondered if their effect was achieved using something radioactive, like the watch dials.