Tuesday, July 10

Slept late, until around 8 a.m. Did stair stepping, resistance bands, and weights exercises after breakfast.

Once I was ready for the day, I did this and that around the house until 11:30 a.m., at which time Hubbie and I went to the hospital conference room for a community education program, "Decreasing Your Cancer Risks."

Lunch was included. Today, it was chicken and rice (wouldn't you know that we had chicken and rice for supper Sunday and Monday), along with green beans (ditto Sunday and Monday), and a green salad (sliced tomatoes Sunday and Monday).

It was an interesting talk, though much of the information was already familiar to us. The doctor who spoke began his talk by saying the best way to avoid cancer is to not get it in the first place. To that end, we should not smoke, or drink alcohol to excess, and we should use sunscreen, watch our diets, exercise, get screening exams, and be conscious of what our bodies are telling us.

Even if we practice all those precautions, though, lightning can strike. He himself admits he does not practice all he preaches, since he is considerably overweight. His weight had nothing to do with it, but he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer a couple of years ago.

Like the rest of us, instead of seeing a doctor right away when he noticed symptoms...hoarseness, for instance...he explained them away. When he finally did see a doctor, he had stage four cancer (and as he quoted from some actor: "There ain't no stage 5"). His cancer required lots of surgeries and aggressive radioactive iodine treatment, but he is fine now.

He added that many, many people are on medication for thyroid disease (I'm one), but the incidence of thyroid cancer in those being treated is only one in 10,000.

I was a little puzzled when he said women should be aware of family history regarding breast cancer, and then promptly stated that the majority of women who develop breast cancer have no family history for the disease.

Following the program, we ran several errands...to the newspaper office to drop off the weekly word search puzzle contest; to a grocery store to buy on-sale fresh cherries; to a health store to pick up buy-one-get-one-half price fish oil gels; to a pet store to see if we could find a bird waterer (we couldn't); and to a dollar store to buy birthday cards for kids.

At the pet store parking lot, as a young woman exited the passenger side of a truck, we saw more of her than we wanted to, when half of her ample butt was exposed before she could jerk her low-rider jeans up over it.

Back home, we were disappointed to see that we'd gotten none of the rain from the clouds that produced a shower at the hospital. Phooey. Mother (who opted to stay home today) said there'd been a frightening crash of thunder, though, that startled her and terrified her cat into madly scrambling for a hiding place.

Later, for supper, I fixed a pot of chicken noodle soup, using the broth from Sunday's boiled chicken dinner. I took a helping of it to Mother, along with a small bag of cherries, and then sat with her while she ate.

The cloudy day lowered the temperature into the 70s, so the soup, with crackers and pimento cheese, hit the spot.

Afterward, we watched a 2010 Encore suspense channel movie, "Dear Mr. Gacy." This true story is based on the relationship between an 18-year-old college student, Jason Moss, and the serial killer, John Wayne Gacy. Moss is determined to interview death-row inmate Gacy for a term paper. He gets more than he bargained for. Disturbing movie.