At three, you are talking and walking, much different than a baby.

3-year-old by Philcampbell

A six-year-old has progressed into school and is learning math, proper grammar and etiquette (or so we hope.)

6-year-old birthday party by El Caganer

A nine-year-old is opinionated and coming into their own.

9 year old boy by juliejordanscott

At 12, you are nearly a teenager. It is the last days of innocence.

12-year-old girl via Flickr by oxefx

By 15, you are close to driving. Most have had first loves, first kisses and think the world revolves around them.

15-year-old at her quinceañera.

At 18, legally, you are an adult. College, work, the military and other life changing decisions are in motion. You finally have a chance to vote.

18-year-old by rileyroxx

By 21, you have experienced so much.  Legally, you can drink. Many are thinking about life after college.

21-year-old by Mickipedia

At 24 you’re usually out of college. Some are married. Some aren’t. You’ve entered the workforce and may be on your second job.

24-year-old by Natalia Balcerska Photography's photostream

When you hit 27, you usually know what you want and what you don’t. Statistically those who marry in their late 20’s are less likely to get divorced. Why? Because you have finally come into your own.

27-year-old by lassmatazz's photostream

By age 30,  statistically speaking, three-quarters of women in the U.S. have been married and about half have cohabited outside of marriage, according to the CDC. Depending on your life path, many are in the midst of babies, marriages and careers.

30-year-old by benjamin barnett's photostream

It just reminds me how life evolves.

Three is a powerful number.

Sphinx and pyramid via Flickr by Butch Osborne

Everyone talks about seven or even eight, but through out history the number three has symbolized so many important things. Think of the trinity: God the father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.  Or the phrase, “body, mind and soul.” Three means equality, being balance and grounded. Many call it the divinity number. It symbolizes perfection and being complete. (See this wonderful discussion about the “Number 3″ on www.greatdreams.com.)  Think of the shape of the great Egyptian pyramids. The triangle is the strongest shape to build a structure.The Bible discusses how Jesus was raised from the dead on the third day.  There are “three jewels” in Buddhism, “three purities” in Taoism.

Photo by Hale Popoki.

Everyone from Plato to Aristotle have referenced the number 3. Freud talked about the id, ego and super-ego while American psychologist Robert Sternberg has taught the three components of love revolve around the trio: passion, intimacy and commitment. Plus there’s everything else in our culture:  the Three Musketeers, Three Stooges, the phrases A,B,C and 1, 2, 3, past, present and future and three primary colors (red, blue and yellow). Even in a photography or art class they teach the rule of thirds to make a picture or painting more appealing to the eye. In the “Harness the Psychological Power of “3″ to Improve Communication” post on Psychotactics.com, they discuss  how the eye sees things in graphics, color and fonts and it’s importance for businesses when they are planning their logos and promotional information. It’s also important in life.

Sometimes we have no idea where things are going but it feels like life is moving so rapidly that everything slows down in Matrix like fashion so you can see more clearly.

Right now I’m going through that. Life is in transition.

For the past decade, I’ve made big moves every three years: college to Dallas, Texas to Florida, Florida to Chicago. I’m now at the three-year mark in this great city, but I can’t help but wonder what is next?

Sometimes you can just feel change swirling around you. Even if no one else realizes you are going through it, every part of your body tells you so. Everything in my life is point in that direction, in a matter of a few crazy weeks. My uncle asked me for part of my liver. A man I care very deeply about just walked out of my life (and cut off contact with a few other people we both know.)  I’m also getting ready to move and I’m not really sure where I’m going to go.  (And no, the latter two aren’t related.) Last week, a family member died. A series of other unusual events have also recently happened.

In a few weeks, I’m going to hit my 33rd birthday, so in an odd way, it makes sense. I’ve got the three-year itch.  It’s nerve-wracking. But change can be good, even when it is forced change.

I only wish I knew what was coming next. I’ve got some big decisions to make.

Image via Wikipedia

It’s an amazing day at track. T-minus one day until the Indianapolis 500.

The likes of boxer Evander Holyfield and Ashley Judd (whose husband, Dario Franchitti will race) have been sited wandering around with a slew of other celebrities.

Brazilian Helio Castroneves, one of only nine Indy 500 drivers of all times to win this race three times (2001, 2002 and 2009), and is the clear favorite.

A few hours ago I had a chance to catch up with legendary Indianapolis 500 driver Johnny Rutherford, who has been training Good Morning America co-anchor, Robin Roberts, how to drive the pace car for tomorrow’s race.  Rutherford is one of the elite nine to win the Indianapolis 500 (1974, 1976, 1980) three times, and only three drivers are in a tie for the most races won ever with four Indianapolis 500 victories since it’s began in 1911 .

Sebastian Saavedra

I talked to dozens of people, other drivers, fans and pit crews about who would win it all, most were on the Helio Castroneves bandwagon. So I was surprised, that Rutherford told me something different.

Johnny Rutherford

“I have a feeling this is a dark horse year,” Rutherford says. “Somebody is going to come from the back of the pack to win. Helio, bless his heart has had a great race here so far, winning the pole and pit stop competition and if he can pull a win off they are going to be unbeatable for a while.”

Which of course that begged the question of who.

Danica Patrick at the track on Saturday.

“It’s going to be interesting to watch Tony Kanaan,” Rutherford told me. “He’s in the back and won’t see him until later in the race and if he’s there he may be a real factor. I think Alex Taglinani looks like he’s got a good chance, but there are some others in there. Danica could if her car responds for her she might be a factor when it’s late in the race. That’s when it all happens.”

Adding: “You only want to lead one lap and that’s the last one.”

Find “Fast Facts” about the Indianapolis 500 with this Washington Post write-up.)

When my brother-in-law mentioned a friend’s wife was having back pain that no one could seemingly resolve, I began thinking about my experiences and what I’ve learned. I feel lucky. Despite having lots of back pain (I have 10 herniated discs from my neck to lower back), I have done two triathlons and just ran five miles for the first time in 10 years.

Here’s my story and a few tips. Hopefully, this will help you.

MY PAIN IN THE B*@%

My back pain started while I was rowing in college.  I’m 6-feet tall, and as a sweep rower (an athlete who rows with one oar) in the Varsity 8, I overdeveloped one side of my back and got my first dose of TENS treatment (where you get hooked up to a nice machine that runs electrical current through your body.) It was a weekly treatment until I graduated, but things seemed relatively fine after I stopped rowing.

I spent a day in the booth with Dan Dierdorf and Dick Enberg while on the NFL Road Trip.

Then I went on an internship project where I drove some 25,000 miles with two other guys I didn’t know, to every NFL city in the country, for The Sporting News’ “Ultimate NFL Road Trip” in 2000. We covered games, wrote about life on the road, the fans and NFL cities we visited. While on the trip, I was sitting in the back seat that was rear ended by an oil tanker in Foxboro, Mass. on December 5, 2000.

The back seat of the car I was sitting in when it was rear ended by an oil tanker

To this day, I don’t remember it. After being in a coma, having a punctured lung, internal bleeding, five broken ribs – including two that broke on the airplane ride home to Chicago because the air pressure was too strong – I recovered. But not before learning how worker’s compensation works (or doesn’t really work), seeking alternative treatment, being told I should have 30 injections in my back, and four years of physical therapy.

To celebrate my comeback, I did my first triathlon in Crystal River, Fla. a few months shy of  my five-year anniversary of the car accident.  Ironically, a year later I was hit on the driver’s side by a MACK truck while driving in Florida. Again, I resolved to recover. I came back from that, after two years of physical therapy, only to take a nasty fall down a flight of basement stairs at a now ex-boyfriend’s parents’ house in Cincinnati, Ohio. (His mother had individually covered each of the 15 steps into the basement with bath towels to protect the carpeting.)

Inflatable donut aka "ass ring."

Lying, unable to move at the bottom of the steps, I thought I broke my tailbone.  (Let me tell you, making a 6-hour drive back from Cincinnati with an inflatable “ass ring” (insert joke here), that keeps deflating so you have stop at a gas station to inflate it, is quite an experience; along with having your butt x-rayed,  which feels like you’re pulling an old-school prank where you are xeroxing a body part.) But a month or two later my left foot went numb and my left leg was constantly shooting pain. Although I tried to avoid surgery, I could barely walk to the bathroom on my own. Several MRIs revealed the fall had injured my already sensitive back. For a while I ended up writing from bed. After four months of yoga, therapy and huge dosages of 40 milligrams of Prednisone, nothing improved and I ended up having  surgery (an L4-5 microdiscectomy) on my lower back in August 2008.

I was terrified.

You hear all sorts of horror stories about people who end up needing 10 back surgeries and it only makes matters worse.  I interviewed six or seven neurosurgeons and orthopedic doctors and consulted with a lot of people. I eventually made a great choice. I would do it again in an instant. I trust (and did trust) my life with my neurosurgeon, Dr. Doug Johnson, and nurse practitioner Laura Guzman (who does a whole lot more than that) at Wheaton, Ill.-based DuPage Neurosurgery. Dr. Johnson has a great bedside manner, is completely anal-retentive in the operating room, operates in combat zones with highly unusual and complicated problems on veterans in Iraq and is one of the few surgeons I’ve ever met who doesn’t recommend surgery unless it is absolutely necessary.

When I came out of surgery at Central DuPage Hospital, I was able to finally walk without pain, although I could barely walk half a block.  Slowly, I began to build up stamina.  Like I said, I’m lucky. Ironically, the therapist, Nikki (Michelle) Thennes who worked on me after my first car accident, helped me again after back surgery. A year after back surgery, I competed in the 2009 Chicago Triathlon. I owe a lot of my success to many people, including my parents, who helped me through the recovery process, multiple times.

WHAT HAS HELPED ME

* Try a lot of alternatives from physical therapy to acupuncture  before even considering surgery.

Frankie Burget working with a patient.

* Consider myofascial release treatments. Myofascial is the tissue between the muscle and the skin that forms a thin membrane like spider web. When it’s messed up it’s like undoing a ball of yarn. I went to an amazing woman, Frankie Burget, while in Dallas.  A physical therapist from Baylor Hospital sent me to her when I started getting worse rather than better.  She told me it was where they sent everyone to Frankie when “they really weren’t sure what to do” with a patient. I started developing a hump in my back (from the scar tissue) and Frankie really changed my life. She is a unique individual who combines Western and Eastern medicine together with CranioSacral treatments. Frankie’s work at her practice, Windsong Therapy, earned her the 2006 Occupational Therapy International Health Professional of the Year Award from Cambridge’s International Biographical Centre.

* Try “flow”  Vinyasa yoga. Slow gentle movements can help strengthen your core and relieve tension. Child’s pose actually helps you self- traction your back so it opens up.

Me at Yoga Circle.

* Look for therapeutic yoga sessions. I went to an intensive 6-week yoga instructor training class (at Yoga Among Friends in Downers Grove, Ill.) where I was one of the “guinea pigs” for new in-training yoga instructors to work on. (They wanted unusual cases to study. It helped me and it helped them.) I also went to private lessons with yogi guru Gabriel Halpern at Chicago’s Yoga Circle. He had me doing assisted inversions from a chair, and from a door with straps, so I could traction my back at home on my own. Now I do yoga once a week at my gym or at the Chicago-based running store, Fleet Feet, which holds free weekly sessions.

* Use a Thera Cane to hit pressure points. I feel like a freak when I use it since it looks like a Little Bo Peep Shepherd’s Crook, but it totally works because you wrap it around your body and can trigger point hard to reach places, and you can do it to yourself.

* Lie on a small, cantaloupe-sized inflatable ball the size.  Some people use a tennis ball, but that is too much pressure for my back. Roll around on the floor with the ball under your back to hit pressure points.

* See a chiropractor. Just make sure you have someone who knows what they are doing. Like any profession, some are good, some aren’t. Every two months or so, I know my hip pops out and one leg becomes an inch to almost two inches longer and creates back pain. My chiro adjusts me and I’m fine.

* Take Epsom Salt baths. It’s so inexpensive at less than $5 a bag and can help so much. I was taking three baths a day before surgery just so I could walk. It helps relieve muscle tension, pain and dumps out the toxins in your body. Use two cup of salt in the tub, soak for 20 minutes or more. You’ll be amazed. (Here are some other home remedies.)

* Really listen to your body. You know what feels “normal” and what doesn’t better than anyone else. When it comes down to it, doctors, physical therapists and everyone else are just making educated guesses, and sometimes their suggestions are wrong. Keep searching until you find something that works for you.

* Ask lots of questions and do a ton of research. Talk to everyone you know and meet, you never know who will know something. Even if you think it is a basic and stupid question, ask.  Any pain, unchecked and un-managed can be debilitating. No matter how light people make surgery, it is still surgery and there is always a risk you can still die if there are complications. (They always ask for a living will when you check into the hospital for surgery for a reason.) If someone is being patronizing before surgery, think of how they will be after. I had a neurosurgeon who wanted to operate on me the week after I walked into his office. It was way to quick for my comfort zone. As it turned out, one of his patients, who shared a recovery room with me, had complications and didn’t see her neurosurgeon until 15 hours after her surgery. I had two follow-up visits, one immediately after surgery and one the next morning. It made a big difference.

* Know that your back is divided up into several major parts: the cervical (neck) which doctors call C1-C7, the thoracic (mid-back) T1-T12 , lumbar (lower back) L1-L6, Sacrum (S1) and Coccyx or tailbone (which doesn’t have a number.) Also realize that numbness or shooting pain in other parts of the body can directly relate to back pain. (That’s why there’s reflexology where you can trigger different parts of  your body in your foot.) See the diagram to the right.

* Consider making changes in your diet. Certain foods can be inflammatory including: salt, sugar, processed meat, junk food, and caffeine.  Drink lots of water to flush out toxins that build up when you have chronic pain. This can also help you lose weight, something I’ve struggled with for a long time, especially after gaining some 30 pounds in a six weeks after taking the high dosage steroids. But I also know that some doctors will attribute ALL back pain to weight gain. While it certainly doesn’t help the situation, that may not be what is actually causing the pain.

* While doing my “back pain” research I came across University of Chicago alum Brian Hainline, MD’82, the U.S. Open chief medical officer from 1992 to 2007. I ended up interviewing him for the U of C’s alumni magazine about his book Back Pain Understood. It’s a great resource that I highly recommend.

Pomodoro means tomato in Italian.

* Set a timer while you’re working at your desk so you get up and walk around every 45-60 minutes. (This is a good practice anyways, see Pomodoro Technique.)

* Try using a Chiroflow “water pillow” or Tempur-Pedic therapy pillow for proper sleep position.

* If you can’t sleep because of the back pain. Lie on your back, in bed, put pillows under your calves to elevate your legs to take pressure off your lower back. Stack several pillows high to make a “shelf.” Even 20 minutes of this can help.

* Or lay on the ground, on your back, with your knees bent. (Your legs will look like triangles). One leg at a time,  splay your knee out, lowing each knee out to the side to the floor  and then raise it back to center. Repeat with other side. It loosens up your lower back when it is locked.

* Do the “cat and dog”  (cat/cow) pose where your hands and knees are on the floor in a “table top” like pose. Arch your back and put your head down like a cat then reverse and stick your head up and chest out like a dog.

* Do the “Superman” where you lie stomach on the floor arms “flying out in front” and legs straight behind you. Lift arms and legs at once off the floor and then drop them back down. Repeat. Or do opposite arms and legs (ie left arm, right leg) if doing everything is too difficult.

* Bounce on a large exercise gym ball. Just bouncing on it will make a big difference because it helps  improve circulation and release toxins which can increase inflammation and trigger back pain. See more reasons here. (65 inch size for people 5′6″ to 6′2,” 55 inch for people that are shorter than that, 75 inch for people that are taller.)  Of course there are plenty of exercises you can do and you can sit on one at your desk to build core strength too.

* If you have to have surgery, find a doctor you trust and then believe, truly believe, that you are going to be okay. Your mental state is so important. As an athlete, I would always visualize my race before I raced, and it always helped. The same thing is true with surgery. The body and mind is a wonderful thing and if you can visualize actually go through something and being successful with it, then your body and mind acts like it’s the second time around when you do something, even if it’s not. I finally made peace with my fear of back surgery, and put my full trust in Dr. Johnson that everything was going to be okay. It made a big difference in the outcome. At the recommendation of another woman who had previously had back surgery, I listened to Peggy Huddleston’s Prepare for Surgery cds before going to the hospital. It also helped with the mental preparation.

* Remember there are always going to be good days and bad days.  Changes in weather pressure and temperature can affect how you feel, (at least for me), along with a whole host of other things, including stress. But I appreciate and I’m grateful for all that I can do. It’s always better to get out and be active, even if it is only walking.

* Most importantly, please remember I’m not a doctor or trained medical professional this is just my personal experience.

It’s a cultural phenomenon. We make plans and we break them. It’s one of my pet peeves. If you tell someone you’re going to do something, you should do it. But most people just don’t think (or act) so.

Case in point. I was planning on doing Chicago’s famous sunrise “Bike the Drive,” where you bike, starting at 5:30 a.m., as many miles as you can handle up and down Lake Shore Drive until 10 a.m.  It’s the one time a year that the street is closed to traffic. You get fantastic views of the Chicago’s skyline and it is an amazing experience. Last year,  I biked 50 or so miles with two guys and I wanted to do it again this year.

I was in the middle of organizing a group of friends, when I was offered what may be the chance of a lifetime: a press pass and grand stand ticket to this year’s Indianapolis 500. Along with it, a chance to drive a Chevy Volt on the race track and ride in the pace car with Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts. But I had already committed to my friends. So I took a poll. I said I wouldn’t go unless they all agreed it was okay. (They all nicely said go to the Indy 500. A few said it was a no-brainer, but that wasn’t the point. The point was I had already committed to them, first.)

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

A high school friend of mine who moved back to South Korea told me during her recent visit to Chicago, that learning how un-committed Americans are to anything is one of the hardest lessons to learn as an immigrant. She cited a South Korean friend of hers who struggled to adjust when she first moved here.

“She’d make plans with someone or a group of people and Friday or Saturday night would come around and no one would actually show,” my friend told me.  “She spent the first few weeks crying because she’d think when people would promise her to do something with her, they’d actually meant it and would show up. In South Korea if someone tells you they are going to do something they do it, not like here.”

It’s not like I’m perfect. I’m certainly guilty of such offenses, and have even been called the “Runaway Bride” after turning down a marriage proposal from a former long-term boyfriend. But I knew in my heart that had I gotten married, it would have ended in divorce. So the alternative was much better, in the long run.

I think as a whole, most Americans are way too fickle. Call it politics, call it being two-faced. Most of us realized long ago, that honesty and commitment are hard qualities to find in many people, situations. (Hence the reason there are so many lawyers and contracts for everything.) Sometimes it’s just really difficult and uncomfortable to stand by a commitment or to be honest.

Oil Beach Your Dudeness photostream

When you don’t know what you stand for, you’ll stand (or fall) for anything. Which is why all the “drill baby, drill” people are the same ones who are now crying that our shrimp and crab prizes are skyrocketing and the beaches are going to be ruined with the  “spill baby, spill.” Or the people who ranted and raved about “Obama care” health insurance,  are the same ones who quickly ask for a Social Security or Medicare government handout as soon as they are eligible.

No one says commitment (or honesty) is easy, but in the long run it usually is better. Even if you don’t like what you hear at first. If you’re not committed to the things that are important, you and everyone else around you eventually pays the price — and no one likes to be left at the altar.

I really can’t remember a time, until now. In case you haven’t heard, ABC and Fox banned a Lane Bryant ad for Cacique, its new plus-size lingerie line.

The reason: too much cleavage.

Talk about getting your panties in a bunch.

Here’s Lane Bryant’s statement from their Inside Curve blog:

ABC restricted our airtime and refused to show the commercial during “Dancing with the Stars.” Fox demanded excessive re-edits and rebuffed it three times before relenting to air it during the final 10 minutes of “American Idol,” but only after we threatened to pull the ad buy.

Yes, these are the same networks that have scantily-clad housewives so desperate they seduce every man on the block, and don’t forget Bart Simpson, who has shown us the moon more often than NASA, all in what they call “family hour.”

For years network television stations have aired scantily-clad women grinding and busting out of their tops. The irony is that the Lane Bryant ad was supposed to air during Dancing With the Stars, which, ahem, has plenty of half-naked women running around on stage.

How many people watch CBS’s annual December Victoria Secret’s Fashion Show? It  is always a big hit and topped the ratings (along with the Christmas special,  Rudolph) back in 2008. Ironically, what topped Victoria Secret’s Fashion Show last year? The hit television show about losing weight: The Biggest Loser. (The Biggest Loser scored a hefty 10.3 million viewers, while Heidi & Co. brought in about 8.3 million at CBS, according to a Film.com post.)

Maybe television executives should take a cue.  Change your attitude and get real.

The average American woman is 5-foot-4, weighs, 140-pounds and wears a size 14 dress. At six-feet tall and more weight than I care to share, I’m certainly not the standard size. Never have been and never will be. For goodness sake, I was taller than my 5-foot-2 Italian-heritage mother in third grade.  Third grade! (I remember standing in Catholic church, while in grade school, and having someone from the pew behind us, think that I was my father’s wife because I was adult size at such an early age. Talk about mind-boggling and embarrassing.)

Victoria's Secret Fashion Show that aired December 2009 on CBS

As Jezebel so duly noted, it is far healthier to be fat and active, than thin and not. I certainly agree. As I noted in earlier posts, I like to keep active. I was a Division I rower in college, did the Chicago Triathlon last year after coming back from two bad car accidents and a nasty fall down a flight of basement stairs that resulted in back surgery. But less than a year later, I was back at it, working out and competing in the triathlon, despite taking four months of high dosage steroids because my left leg went numb, which certainly hasn’t helped my case.  I think all of us would love to be just a little bit thinner, but let’s be realistic. There certainly is a double standard for men and women. Just look at how many fat, obese men are seen naked or half naked on television.

So here are some of the photos from the ad, screen captures I took of the video. I challenge you to look at them, really look at them and decide if they are worse than anything any of you have seen on network television.

New York’s WPIX interviewed the model Ashely Graham who starred in the commercial, airing it today.

“When it comes to a little bit extra, they can’t handle it,” Graham told WPIX about the network stations not wanting to see a curvy woman in an ad.

Click here to see the video interview.

As mentioned earlier, Fox eventually decided, after changing some of the original ad, to air the commercial in the last 10 minutes of American Idol.

Here’s the ad that has caused so much controversy. See for yourself. There really isn’t much to talk about, except the networks’ decision not to air it. Maybe they should think about their decisions the next time, before they air a Victoria’s Secret ad for it’s new Naked line. It’s completely hypocritical and everyone knows it.  The networks are naked in the boardroom, and it isn’t pretty.

Food For the Soul

Photo By Monika Thorpe

There is something about communing with nature that is good for the soul.  I love living in the city. For years I traveled around the country and the world, knowing that some day I would call the city of Chicago my home. I love the skyscrapers here, the metal, brick and mortar and every ounce of human sweat and effort it took to build and rebuild this place we call home. I love the fact that we are the third largest city in the United States – not too big, not too small, a hometown feel with a big city attitude that comes with our great culture, sports and ability to do just about anything here.

I always laugh at first time visitors who are amazed by how clean and green this big city is.  Some how they picture a few buildings and cornfields.

I cherish our lakefront paths, reminded once again by it’s beauty this week when out for late night run with a friend during a cold Monday night. The air unseasonably crisp, the lights glowed from nighttime soccer games; the homeless and others huddled around trashcan fires.  Mark and I started our run at Foster Avenue and just kept going south for several miles.  The stonewall embankment and its serpentine twists revealed a new skyline landscape with each step.  Cold air seeped in and out. The sounds of my labored inhalations cut the inky night while Mark talked or sprinted ahead, quickly circling back to jog with my more deliberate pace.  Even though I hate running with a passion, I love being outside.  I run a few miles as often as I can. I’m a water baby at heart and can probably swim miles further than I’ve ever run.  Still, there is something about moving in escalator fashion past the world propelled by your own force.

Being in touch with nature keeps you grounded. Once you know it, you respect it and appreciate it more.  That started in my childhood, thanks to my parents and frequent Girl Scout camping trips, which included an Europe adventure where I hiked the Swiss Alps and stayed in an international world center called Our Chalet.

“What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?”

~  Henry David Thoreau

This particular Earth Day hits home. It’s uncanny how many people I now know with cancer. I can’t help but think about how much we have poisoned the bed that we sleep in.  A call from a dear friend last night revealed his slow-growing cancer, that chemo doesn’t affect, might be back. If testing doesn’t get better in six weeks when he is tested again, he will once again have to have his stomach ripped open and injected with a toxin so the cancer that is eating his internal organs might once again be stymied. Another cousin, my age, 32, has been dealing with his cancer in his lungs and liver with various rounds of chemo and several others in my family and friend network.  We all die of something, but it certainly feels like it is happening at a more rapid rate.

I certainly don’t have all the answers and don’t claim, ever, to be perfect. But I think respect towards nature, caring for our environment, plays a big part in stopping this growing problem.  I try to pick up trash, use energy efficient lights that I don’t leave on all night, take short showers and don’t leave the water running while brushing my teeth (an absolute pet peeve of mine), use a reusable bags unless I want paper ones for trash. Still, there is more I could do. I try to walk more now and take mass transit, but I’m still guilty of using my car when I’m in a rush or it seems more convenient.

Just being outside and taking a simple jaunt this morning, I’m noticed the blossoming trees. Memorized by life’s beauty, I am constantly reminded how important it is to protect what we value the most.

Here’s a Few Quotes About Nature that Resonate with Me

“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.”

~ Native American Proverb

“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.”

~Albert Einstein

“I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.”

~ John Muir

“Man must feel the earth to know himself and recognize his values…. God made life simple. It is man who complicates it.”

~ Charles A. Lindbergh

“The old Lakota was wise. He knew that man’s heart away from nature becomes hard. He knew that lack of respect for growing living things soon led to a lack of respect for humans, too.”

~ Standing Bear

“How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!”

~ John Muir

“Adopt the pace of nature:  her secret is patience.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in.”

~ George Washington Carver

“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.”

~ John Muir

“God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars.”

~ Martin Luther

“The materials of wealth are in the earth, in the seas, and in their natural and unaided productions.”

~ Daniel Webster

“I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright.”

~ Henry David Thoreau

“Nature often holds up a mirror so we can see more clearly the ongoing processes of growth, renewal and transformation in our lives.”

~ Mary Ann Brussat

“Look at the trees, look at the birds, look at the clouds, look at the stars… and if you have eyes you will be able to see that the whole existence is joyful.

~ Sir Francis Bacon

Everything is simply happy.  Trees are happy for no reason; they are not going to become prime ministers or presidents and they are not going to become rich and they will never have any bank balance.  Look at the flowers – for no reason.  It is simply unbelievable how happy flowers are.”

~ Osho

“Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.”

~ Kahlil Gibran

“… do something. Pay your rent for the privilege of living on this beautiful, blue-green, living Earth.”

~  Dave Foreman

“I am not bound for any public place, but for ground of my own where I have planted vines and orchard trees, and in the heat of the day climbed up into the healing shadow of the woods.  Better than any argument is to rise at dawn and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup.”

~ Wendell Berry

“And how should a beautiful, ignorant stream of water know it heads for an early release – out across the desert, running toward the Gulf, below sea level, to murmur its lullaby, and see the Imperial Valley rise out of burning sand with cotton blossoms, wheat, watermelons, roses, how should it know?”

~ Carl Sandburg, Good Morning America, 1928

“I really wonder what gives us the right to wreck this poor planet of ours.”

~  Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

”I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes. “ ~ e.e. cummings

“The poetry of the earth is never dead.”

~ John Keats

“I remember a hundred lovely lakes, and recall the fragrant breath of pine and fir and cedar and poplar trees.  The trail has strung upon it, as upon a thread of silk, opalescent dawns and saffron sunsets.  It has given me blessed release from care and worry and the troubled thinking of our modern day.  It has been a return to the primitive and the peaceful.  Whenever the pressure of our complex city life thins my blood and benumbs my brain, I seek relief in the trail; and when I hear the coyote wailing to the yellow dawn, my cares fall from me – I am happy.”

~Hamlin Garland, McClure’s, February 1899

“In wilderness I sense the miracle of life, and behind it our scientific accomplishments fade to trivia.”

~ Charles A. Lindbergh, Life, 22 December 1967

After all, I don’t see why I am always asking for private, individual, selfish miracles when every year there are miracles like white dogwood.”

~Anne Morrow Lindbergh

“Man being the servant and interpreter of nature, can do and understand so much and so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature: beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything.”

~ Sir Francis Bacon

“The human spirit needs places where nature has not been rearranged by the hand of man.”

~Author Unknown

“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.  Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.  The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.”

~ John Muir
”Never does nature say one thing and wisdom another.”

~ Juvenal, Satires

“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more.”

~George Gordon, Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage

“You can’t be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or a squirrel of subversion or challenge the ideology of a violet.”

~Hal Borland, Sundial of the Seasons, 1964

“The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.”

~ Galileo

“I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.”

~Walt Whitman

“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.”

~ John Muir

“Some keep the Sabbath going to Church,
I keep it staying at Home -
With a bobolink for a Chorister,
And an Orchard, for a Dome.”

~ Emily Dickinson

“To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.”

~ Jane Austen

“The sun is the epitome of benevolence – it is lifegiving and warmthgiving and happinessgiving, and to it we owe our thanksgiving.”

~ Jessi Lane Adams

“Good heavens, of what uncostly material is our earthly happiness composed… if we only knew it.  What incomes have we not had from a flower, and how unfailing are the dividends of the seasons.”

~ James Russell Lowell

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”

~ Lao Tzu

“The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding.”

~ Sir Francis Bacon.

“As you sit on the hillside, or lie prone under the trees of the forest, or sprawl wet-legged by a mountain stream, the great door, that does not look like a door, opens.”

~ Stephen Graham, The Gentle Art of Tramping
“Great things are done when men and mountains meet.  This is not done by jostling in the street.”

~ William Blake

“Nature does nothing uselessly.”

~ Aristotle

“To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug.”

~ Helen Keller

Some of these quotes were taken from www.quotegarden.com

I got lucky a few days ago and thanks to the McCormick Foundation grant, IRE offered a $10 class April 10-11 at Chicago’s Columbia College.

After attending this past weekend, I now understand why everyone loves these training sessions so much. It will change your life as a journalist.

Most journalists don’t go into journalism because they like math. In fact, most avoid it. Which leads  to problems, because as much as I fall into that category, math especially money, makes the world go around. (I.E. the tried and true mantra of journalism: When you want to find out the real reason, follow the money trail.)

There’s no way to include everything I learned.  IRE offered a great mix of experts including: The New York Times’ Ron Nixon, The Detroit Free Press’ Chastity Pratt Dawsey, University of Illinois’ Brant Houston, Mc Nelly Torres of EdMoney.org, Community Media Workshop’s Steve Franklin and IRE Executive Director, Mark Horvit.

Here are a few tips that I took away from the training. Hopefully they will help you too.

What You Need to Know About the  Web

For starters when you Google search, you’re really not using the “live” Internet. Nope. You  are actually getting information that Google “spiders” crawled out, copied and pasted back on their servers. Which means anything that has a pop-up box, where a human has to type a name, password in,  doesn’t usually show up on a search engine. Here are some free resources that IRE recommends.

To get to the “deep web” for research, check out  www.pipl.com a much more comprehensive search for people.  Also good, zabasearch.com and infospace.com

Find out how senators are getting paid off legistorm.com.

Or check out the non-partisan opensecrets.org and maplight.org. Another good site: followthemoney.org. Find government statistics at fedstats.gov and find government information by topic at usa.gov. View a Recovery Act data base at fedspending.org or check out Edmoney.org to see where and how the stimulus money is being spent on education projects.

Find public records at www.brbpub.com.

Analyze non-profits after registering for free at www2.guidestar.org.

Check out the “Wayback Machine” which will pull up old webpages from years ago or University of North Texas’ CyberCementary.

For blogs, check out icerocket.com and samepoint.com and Who’s Talking for social media.

Check out the census information, you may be surprised  by how much is actually included.

For immigration information, go to www.justice.gov.

Everyblock.com is a good resource for fires and other crimes as well as Chicago’s clearpath.com.

Google Docs, Not as Safe as You Think

Another good tip: “Google docs” are supposed to be secure, but that information is still on the web. If you’re interviewing a confidential source or have top secret information, don’t store it on Google docs.

Think of Excel Spread Sheets as “Supped up Calculators”

I can’t say I’ve ever gotten excited about using calculators before. In fact, I pretty much hate math. But there are some very cool things that you can do once you know how to use Microsoft Excel. In a matter of seconds, you can pull out hundreds of professional athlete salaries as a sports reporter, find out the murder rate per capita and find the percent change in city budgets. By using a pivot table you can easily extract the data to slice and dice information to follow the money trail. It’s the type of training ALL reporters from sports to news should receive so they can quickly and accurately dissect information.

Make sure You Receive all Information Electronically

Unless someone is using a typewriter,  everything is in electronic form. Why? Because then you can manipulate the data for how you see fit to answer various questions.

For example, a Teacher’s Union might complain that their teachers median salary is$58,000 but the School Board might tell you the average salary is $120,000. They might both be accurate, it’s just how you look at the numbers since the average is smack in the middle of potentially two extremes. It’s like having a $120,00 house on a block with a $5.2 million dollar home and saying most homes cost something like $3 million. Or it might be like the salaries of NBA players which vary a lot if you compare a line-up with Kobe Bryant to Bulls forward Joe Alexander  or even say Bulls coach Vinny Del Negro to the LA Lakers’ Phil Jackson. The median (think median of a highway) is usually a more accurate number because it is the mean of the two middle averages.

If All Else Fails, Get the Information as a Text (.txt) Document

If a government agency or some other group tells you that their information is too high tech and your computer programs can’t handle it, then ask for the information in text format. (That is something that all computer programs can convert to no matter how high or low tech they are.) Yep, it totally works. It looks like a big mess but it’s a actually quite easy to convert a text file into an excel document.

To do so you:

1. Get the information.

2.  Open excel. Go to Data head at the top.

3. Click Get External Data.

4. Click on Import Text File.

5. A box will pop up and you can check Delimited or Fixed Width. If data doesn’t look like it’s organized in columns keep the box check on Delimited and hit next.

6. Then you’ll see a box that will ask you to check mark tab, semicolon, comma, space or other.This is asking you how the data is separated. In our class, the example was a city budget. It showed the text file had information separated by commas. So unchecked tab and check comma to change how the information was sorted.

7. Then look at the text qualifier. Originally the quote  (” ) is checked. But if you look and see it’s actually a single apostrophe ( ‘) that is used to separate the information. So change the text qualifier tab to the appropriate one.

8. Hit Next. Then look at the table. Most information is headed at the top as General, which means numbers can then be used for math equations. You don’t use zip codes or street address for math equations so change those to Text-only to indicate to excel you don’t want any of the numbers to be added up. Also, if there are birth dates, make sure they correspond with the proper Month-Date-Year or Year-Month-Date, etc.. with how they are organized.

9. Click Finish. You’ll get a weird looking box but just click OK. The data should import to a regular Excel spread sheet format.

A few other important points about Excel.

It is always better to create an equation at the top of the box. Why? Because then you can copy and paste the equation instead of typing it in over and over, saving hundreds of hours of work.

Also, all equations start with an = sign. (It’s like waving a bone in front of dog, to say hey silly Excel, look over here, we are going to be creating a formula now.)

To do a simply City Budget. Look at the budget in the previous year to this year.  (Most people suggest three years worth of budgets to find a trend.) Do simple math. Current year minus previous year.  Use the formula New minus Old. (Which shows B2-C2). You always indicate the cell number at the top, not the actual number in the equation.

Then, divide the new number minus old number (C2-B2) divide by the old number so it looks like (C2-B2)/B2 to get the percent change.  Very simple but works very quickly.

To Figure Out Accurate Murder Rates.

Based on this data, which is from a few years ago, Chicago actually had the highest number of murders in the country, but we also have more people than most cities.  Really what you want to know is if you live in a city, what is your chance of being killed (as in 1 in 4 people) not how many actually happen.  So divide the number of murders by the population.

You probably will have to move the decimal place out by five .00004 since most cities have a very small percentage of people being killed. To do so, right click on the cell. Hit Format cell.

A box will pop up that will allow you to  change the decimal places or category to percentage, fraction, currency, etc…

Then multiply that number by however many people, say 1 in 100,000 which is what we did here. (C2*100000) Again multiple the cell number times 100000).

You end up with a tangible number that people can relate to. (These are pre-Katrina numbers that show 44 people in 100,000 were murdered in New Orleans during this particular year.) Chicago ranked eighth on this list with 23 people in 100,000.

The Pivot Table

The most high tech part of learning how to use excel, was doing a pivot table. It’s a wonderful tool where you can itemize all sorts of information, like Major League Baseball players salaries, by position, by team and by league.

1. First do Control, Shift and the No. 8 to highlight the data in the excel document.

2. Click on Data heading. Go to Pivot table.

3. A “Wizard” pops up and asks if you want to create a PivotTable. Yes, so hit next.

4. Then a box will appear asking where you  want to use the data. Hit next.

4. Then a screen will ask you if you want to include the new information in the current spread sheet or not. Hit No to create a new separate tab.

5. Then a box will appear. Click Layout Tab to decide how you want to divide the information.

6. Choose how you want to divide everything up.

For example, say you want to use the table to list all the MLB teams and overall (sum of salaries.)

The hit Ok. Then click Finish.

7. An excel document with every team listed by salary will appear. You can then sort the data by salary ranges, from highest to lowest, etc.

To get the grand total  you then type in the equation line  =SUM(Letter and number of first cell you want to add, like column c, row 2 : with Letter and number of last cell you want to add, like column c, row 28) so it looks like:

=SUM(C2:C28)

To get the average, just type in =AVERAGE(C2:C28)

To get the median, just type in =median (C2:C28)

After taking the IRE class this weekend, I only wish I had a chance to take it earlier, especially during my years as a sports reporter.

That’s right, www.Cheap-Chic-Weddings.com is hosting it’s Sixth Annual Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest.  All you need is glue, toilet paper, tape and a little creativity. Enter between now and May 15. The grand prize winner, which will be announced June 4, receives $1,000. (This year’s contestants also gets the benefit of being able to sew the toilet paper, unlike previous competitions.)

The idea  is the brainchild of three women Susan Bain, 48, her mother, Roxie Radford, and sister, Laura Gawne. They loved helping plan weddings, but also wanted to work from home. So they launched their website in 2004, says Bain, a stay-at-home mother of three in Boca Raton, Fla. and quickly realized they needed a contest to help drive traffic to their site. The first year approximately 100 people entered. Last year it was  close to 1,000 with a Gone With the Wind, Vivien Leigh’s style dress winning the grand prize.

“It’s really hard to do,” laughs Bain. “The three of us tried to create our own toilet paper wedding dress just to see for ourselves and couldn’t duplicate what they are doing.”

THE CHICAGO CONNECTION

Chicago’s Rebekah Shuman, a Collections Assistant in the Insects Department of  Zoology at Chicago’s Field Museum was the inaugural winner in 2005.

She entered on a whim.

“I’m a pretty creative person,” she says. “I was looking for a way to relieve stress.”

Shuman’s now-husband, John Shuman had just proposed, among a trail of roses and pedals traced across her apartment floor.

“He proposed with an empty box,” says Rebekah Shuman, 27, who will celebrate her fifth wedding anniversary this October. “He made me cry, of course and then pulled out the real ring in one  of the flowers.”

They were looking at wedding websites when they came across Bain’s site.

So the recent North Park University graduate entered, hoping to win the $500 cash of that year’s prize to offset the $700 wedding dress she wanted to purchase.

“John was great,” Shuman says.”He was excited to shop for everything and then played photographer.”

Using 10 assorted rolls of single ply Scott toilet paper coupled with heavier Cottonelle, Shuman line the bodice and crafted a strapless, sweetheart neck-lined wedding dress made entirely of toilet paper.  Even the button, designed in paper mache fashion, were made of toilet paper. Peach toilet paper flowers trimmed with blue vines completed the effect.

“We searched all over Chicago to find colored toilet paper,” she says. “We barely found two rolls at a random Butera.”

THE JOKE

After winning the toilet paper wedding dress contest. Shuman called her mother and asked to show her “the wedding dress.”

“My mother thought I was crazy for spending so much money on that dress,” Shuman says with a laugh. “She held her tongue, but said ‘Are  you sure that is what you want to wear.’ “Then I showed her my real wedding dress and explained how the $500 from the contest helped pay for it.”

After a few months, Ripley’s Believe it or Not called and asked if they could buy the dress.  The original, deteroritate down by large amounts of glue, so Shuman re-created the original for the museum.

“I first saw these toilet paper wedding dresses on the Martha Stewart show and I liked them right away,” says Edward Meyer, Ripley Entertainment Inc., Vice President of Exhibits and Archives.

Meyer is in charge of  acquiring new material for the 31 Ripley’s Believe it Or Not museums around the world. Adds Meyer, who was a celebrity judge for the contest for two years,  “I think everyone loves a wedding and this is the ultimate in unbelievable, that someone could create a dress out of toilet paper as beautiful  you’d see anywhere.”

Meyer said Ripley Entertainment paid $750 for Shuman’s dress  that is showcased in the London-based Ripley’s Believe it Or Not, with two other toilet paper dresses. There are 16 toilet paper wedding  dresses in Ripley Believe it Or Not museums.

CONTEST DETAILS

Anyone 18-and-older can enter.  There’s no entry fee. The second place winner receives $500; third place $250.  Photos must be taken of front, back and  side of the dress, which can be modeled  in person or on a mannequin. Click here for additional details.

Bain’s main request for the contest: “No drunken photos of bridal parties. We get a lot of those, so there’s a lot of weeding out. Usually there are 20-30 actual good gowns.”

THE PEEPDOM

by chris-williams

This year I’ve instigated a Peep Diorama competition among the 20 who will attend this year’s Easter celebration at my aunt’s house in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha, Wisconsin. One of my uncles, the one who is part of the Harley-riding Warriors Watch that welcomes home war veterans, is probably going to do bunnies on bikes. My Wisconsin-based cousin, Sharie, is talking about Packers vs. Bears.  (I’m sure I know which side will be pummeled in that diorama.)  I have a few ideas, but I’m not ready to reveal what I plan on doing until the actual event.  As my aunt joked, putting me in charge of the Peep contest, is like “having the fox in charge of the hen house” since there’s a part of me that will probably never grow up and always have just as much fun as the assortment of sugared-up kids.

Ever since high school, I’ve brought an assortment of friends and even strangers, including a few stranded sailors from the Great Lakes Naval base I randomly met at Ogilvie train station, to these holiday gatherings. Many are in complete shock and slightly overwhelmed by my fun, but slightly crazy family.   (It’s always a good boyfriend test to see if he can hang with the family, but usually I wait until we’ve been dating a while.)  Plus it’s just a lot of  fun to have family and friends mix together on these special occasions. Like many other holidays before,  I’m bringing a new friend this Easter. I’m sure he’s in for more than he bargained. He just doesn’t know it yet.

EGGS GONE WILD

In light of our upcoming competition, my cousin Sandy passed along these photos of  eggs.  Enjoy and get your Easter on.

For ideas on how to host your own Peep Diorama competition, check out the entries in this year’s  Chicago Tribune contest and the winners of last year. (This year’s winners will be announced on Friday.)

– Horace Mann, 19th century educator

Dear Americans:

Please stop the fear mongering.  I’ve had enough.

You can say what you want about today’s historic signing of the heath care reform bill.  Please agree to disagree, if  you so choose.

What I don’t understand, is the need to throw bricks, as blogger Michael B. Vanderboegh said, asking people to break windows of Democratic offices. Vanderboegh’s response, as so reported by CNN “My answer is violence, by getting their attention,” he said, adding, “If we can get across to the other side, that they are within inches of provoking a civil war in this country, then that’s a good thing.”

Violence doesn’t change anything. It just breeds contempt.

It is our right, as Americans, to free speech. But no one said we’d always agree or it would be easy.  There is something about respect and common courtesy, the ability to agree to disagree.

As Voltaire so aptly stated: ” I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

I will be the first to say that the healthcare bill HR 3590 “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act isn’t perfect, but it is a good start.

We all have to pay for car insurance. Most of us insure our homes. Why would we not do so for our bodies, our lives?  Maybe you’re also against mandatory car insurance, but if you’ve ever been hit by someone who is uninsured, as I was in Texas, you know how painful and expensive  it is.  If you’ve ever watched someone almost die because their insurance coverage wasn’t good enough, you’d know why this healthcare  legislation is important.

Marian’s Story

Consider Marian Coddington’s story.  She’s legally died so many times, but some how has survived. If you have any ounce of human compassion, it will change your perspective.

Marian is the wife of a St. Petersburg Times photographer. She’s a mother of two young children. At the age of 38,  she had a brain aneurysm. At first all she could do is blink, then she learned how to communicate in Siskel & Ebert fashion, thumb up and thumb down.

I worked with her husband as a reporter in a Citrus  County bureau. Then I moved back to Chicago to work as a journalist.

I flew back to Florida the summer of 2008 for a mutual friend’s wedding and went to visit Marian in the hospital. She couldn’t speak. The doctors tried to classify her as brain dead, even asked  her husband to pull the plug.  Luckily he refused. She could blink her eyes to communicate, her brain locked in her body. If you ever seen the movie the Diving Bell & The Butterfly, it is very similar to her life.

When I saw Marian for first time after her aneurysm, she started sobbing, shaking uncontrollably. You wouldn’t treat a dog this way, much less a human. Her hair hadn’t been brushed in three months. Her toenails left unclipped.  She smelled and her unshaven legs were scaly from the lack of bathing.

From my point of view, she was left in a nursing home  to rot and die.

Over the next few days I  tried every beauty product from Aveda to Johnson & Johnson’s No More Tangles. Nothing worked. Instead her head had to be shaved.  I shaved her legs,  hoping it would help give her comfort and some cleanliness. I brought in music for her to listen to and outdoor lights, not knowing, as the doctor’s discovered months later that she was also blind from the brain aneurysm. (The reason she didn’t respond when they held up fingers  in front of her face and thought she was brain dead.)

Coming to Chicago

I flew back to Chicago, but the image of her suffering burned in my mind. I had trouble sleeping at night thinking about her. I promised Marian before I left I would do everything I could to help her. A month later I had to have back surgery. My left leg had gone numb, the product of a nasty fall down a flight of basement stairs after two prior car accidents, one where I was sitting in the back seat of a car that was rear ended  by an oil tanker that left me in a brief coma, followed by five years of physical therapy.

While recovering from back surgery, in August 2008, I talked to Marian’s husband, Steve on the phone. He’d done some research and quickly realized, what many consider the best brain rehabilitation place in the country, is in Chicago at Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC). I called my neurosurgeon, Dr.  Doug  Johnson and he, along with his wonderful assistant, Laura Guzman, helped open some doors. I made a few phone calls based on their recommendations and pleaded with doctors to get her in. After weeks of trying, we finally got the okay that Marian might have a bed at RIC, if she could be flown up here. So Steve secured the flights. He payed for it out his own pocket, bringing another photojournalist, Will Vragovic with him. The reason?  Cigna wouldn’t pay for Marian’s flight to the hospital or for help to transport her,  so  Steve and Will needed to lift her in and out of her wheelchair and keep her upright on the plane. While Marian was in the hospital, Steve lived with my parents who graciously took him in as one of their own.

Marian started to make progress. She began to say her first words again. For six, eight hours a day she struggled to accomplish the most basic of functions.  She began to use her fingers more readily, thumbs ups and down at first, then one finger for No, two for yes. But unfortunately a lot of damage had already been done.

The Painful Details

The day Marian had her aneurysm, she’d complained of the worst headache of her life. She was at home.  After the first aneurysm, she was rushed to Tampa General Hospital. After several hours she was woozy, but still alert. She was released from the hospital. Then proceeded to have several more hemorrhages, that could have been prevented.  At one point, she was left in the hallway of a healthcare facility in Florida for 16 hours and a bed sore developed.

Photo of a bed sore.

That bed sore developed like an animal eating away her flesh in a jungle of tissue.  All the while, the doctors kept telling Marian and Steve, you’ve got two weeks to show progress or we will have to ask you to leave. Every few days there a reprieve and another warning that she might be released because the insurance company wanted proof of progress in days, instead of weeks or even months, to justify how much they were spending.

There are  so many painful details. She’d vomit daily from the feeding tube, which upset her stomach. She wanted to speak so badly, and to me, being trapped in your body, aware of your surroundings but unable to communicate is one of the worst things imaginable. It is called locked-in syndrome. The hospital soon informed us that basic personal hygiene wasn’t something the insurance covered. So things like clipping toenails and shaving legs or even washing Marian’s hair were mostly done by my mom and I while Steve read to his wife.  And there was the bed sore. It created a hole in Marian’s body so large and so deep that her tailbone was exposed. If you recall, it was a bed sore, also called a pressure wound,  that eventually killed Christopher Reeve, after being paralyzed from the horse riding accident.

Eventually, Marian was removed without warning in the middle of the night from RIC and sent to Northwestern Memorial Hospital. They told Steve it was to get her bed sore under control, but really the insurance didn’t want to pay for the more expensive treatment at RIC and it was a convenient excuse.

At that point, Marian’s physical, occupational and speech therapy stopped. She regressed instead of improving. Her husband fought Cigna for months. On Christmas Eve 2008, the jerks called to say they weren’t going to pay for her treatment and she would be kicked out of the hospital.  I remember Steve sobbing while trying to wrap presents, how horrible it was for his kids, 4 and 6 years old and for Marian in the hospital. Steve had spent so many months sleeping on the floor or in  a hospital chair to try and be near his wife and now this.

We tried to make light of what we could. Steve read her Bill Byron’s humorous “A Walk in the Woods” to help pass the time.  He’d peck Marian with kisses constantly to try and teach her how to pucker again in the hopes she’d regain some muscle movement. I’d joke about their “makeout sessions,” much to Steve’s embarrassment. Steve even asked Marian if she would remarry him, just so she’d understand he was still with her. On a particularly abysmal day, I joked with Marian about finding her inner “Bootyliciousness” while we blasted a few Beyonce songs in her hospital room as a few of us danced around her bed.

After several months, Steve’s family leave act was up, so he went back to Florida after having to choose to continue to work so he could keep his health insurance over staying with his wife he so loves.  Their children went to live with relatives in Oklahoma for a few months so he could fly back and forth from Florida and Chicago to see Marian as often as  he could.

Sometimes Marian would be moved rooms in the middle of the night and no one from the hospital would tell Steve or anyone else. To guard against the  hospital trying to make any decisions for Marian without discussing them first, Steve petitioned the courts to become her legal guardian. It cost hundreds of dollars, but all of us felt it was important since the hospital and the insurance company was trying to say Steve was “abandoning his wife” since he was flying back to Florida to keep his job. My friend Meg Tebo, another freelance journalist and a real estate attorney,  stepped in as a favor to deal with the hospital insurance lawyers since Steve couldn’t afford to hire his own. When we  showed up in court, Northwestern sent several high-power attorneys and hospital officials. Compared to our novice group it was David and Goliath, except this time Goliath was threatening David’s wife and had billions of dollars.

Marian’s medical records , which my mom eventually collected,  despite the hospitals denial of our FOIA (Freedom of  Information Requests), later indicated that various doctors and therapists all thought Marian was improving and would continue to improve, if she was given the proper treatment that Cigna so clearly kept denying because of the cost. Because Northwestern is a teaching hospital, doctors and therapists rotate every six weeks. Some were helpful, some weren’t. But it always felt like a new beginning and a re-telling and re-teaching of what the  previous doctors learned because there wasn’t any consistency. Steve smartly created a poster filled with pictures of Marian, the kids and him, so the therapists would try and think of the person, a shell of her former self, as a human being and not a number.

Almost Dying Again

One night, a Northwestern doctor called. You’d better come to the hospital he told me.  Marian might not make it through the night. The clip holding her aneurysm had been leaking and burst. They had minutes to do what the doctor described as “door-busting down” emergency surgery to get inside her brain before she died from the hemorrhaging.

Distraught, I showed up.

The operating doctor came in and told me when he opened up her skull the spinal fluid started spurting in his face. She was still in a medically induced coma and they weren’t sure if she would awake or not. I called Steve and told him he’d better come. My mother came to hospital as did my friend Noel Spain with his guitar.

The only thing Marian really responded to was her husband and to music. Since Steve wasn’t there, I asked Noel to bring his guitar, hopefully that it would bring her some peace if she could hear. Noel rushed over to the hospital, played song after song and eventually she awoke.  She was bald, with staples and sutures like an L-shaped railroad track on her head but she was taping her hand to the music, like nothing happened, just happy to be alive. A few hours later sometime around 2 a.m., Steve arrived on a red eye from Florida.

A week later Northwestern hospital said Marian had “miraculously” improved so much that she needed to be moved from the hospital. Eventually the tug-o-war between  Cigna became too great. Steve moved Marian back to Florida, to their home to try and balance taking care of his wife, his kids and work. The insurance company didn’t send the motorized bed, like they promised. So every several hours for the first few weeks Steve would get up, even in the middle of the night, to rotate Marian, to make sure her bed sore wouldn’t get worse. He began feeding his wife with a baby bottle to try and teach her to re-learn how to swallow. He’s still trying to get her the help she needs.

You can learn more about their story here: At Save Steve’s Family.

Although I don’t plan on throwing any bricks in windows, even though I’d like to hit a few choice insurance executives who are heartless and cruel (and an idiot blogger or two), I hope you understand my point of view.  Please don’t tell me we don’t need this health care reform. I understand, first hand, how important it is. Hopefully you will too.