The Ostrich Effect

dahlias Still have many that haven't bloomed Time is running out

shade loving toad lilies. 

How often do we want to hide from reality and avoid bad news? I hate opening up Facebook now because it is full of Trump crap..I'm tired of it. A company provides free mammograms on site. Women of a certain age (always changing) should get one. Are they more likely to take advantage of this after a colleague is diagnosed with breast cancer? Yes and no. They will get one if the colleague has it caught early and is fine. If the colleague is found to have advanced breast cancer, they will avoid the mammogram like the plague. An irrational part of me felt if only I didn't go and get that bad mammogram, I would have been fine. I was happy before it and now I was miserable. Of course, with the tumor so aggressive, I would be dead by now. Ironically, I had delayed the mammogram for 6 months because I didn't want anything derailing my summer in Italy. Would they have seen the tumor then? Probably not as it was growing so fast, it must have popped up while I was in Italy.  I guess I was 'lucky' that this all worked out but it is scary that these tumors can pop up between mammograms. And no, I didn't feel the tumor despite knowing where it was and that it was close to skin. Where my tumor was feels like it was filled in with plaster, a hard lump. I warned my new doctor of this yesterday. Yep you sure have a lot of scar tissue there.

She said 'they' were recommending screening for hepatitis C now for people in my age group. I see ads for this all the time from the drug company that makes the cure for it. When was I possibly exposed? I got a blood transfusion while giving birth to Shanna. They didn't screen for hepatitis or AIDS then and I worried more about the latter as it was then, a death sentence. But 38 years later, I appear healthy and haven't seemed to have transmitted those dreaded diseases to Steve or my kids so I doubt I have either. I think I was asked to take an AIDS test when I was pregnant with Naomi but I thought the possibility of a false positive was higher than a real positive. Nothing could be gained and plus I would have to pay for it. So no, no tests. She asked if I exercised? I wanted to say, Isn't it obvious? Where do you find muscles like this on a woman my age? But I just told her I ran. She said I shouldn't do that. Why? Bad for my joints. I said I have been running for years with no joint problems so I will continue until a problem arises. But I did like her besides that.

One thing I won't be doing in the near future is use our elliptical trainer. A bolt sheared in the middle of my workout yesterday. We didn't have it 9 months.

So does an ostrich bury its head in the sand to avoid bad news and thus getting depressed? It does bury its head in the sand but to check on its eggs also buried in the sand. I do blame the ostrich effect for my obesity. I didn't want to see those numbers on the scale as they would depress me. I still fight that and force myself to face the music and make adjustments if need be.

After my lunch with my ex-colleague, I had a bit of time before the doctor so I stopped by the better for clothes resale. Two women were pawing  through the designer rack with me. One happened upon a cute jacket and then saw the size 6 tag. Argh! Who wears

a size 6? Then she saw me. You do, don't you! Yes I do.   I didn't tell her that less than a year ago, I was oozing out of size 14s. I did pick out a chartreuse must be dry cleaned only designer jacket that said it was size 0, which turned out to be meaningless as it fits and looks good.

By the calendar, it is now fall but the forecast calls for high 80s for the next few days. Argh. As soon as the traffic clears, I will be biking as I can tolerate higher temps with that. At nights, I've been watching the Viet Nam War on TV. OMG, how depressing! One of the ladies I lunched with yesterday had just returned from there and talked how gracious and friendly the people were to her. If I were them, I would hate Americans.