Festive funny

Looking back at this time last year, just before the Festivities, I was half way through my chemotherapy, bald as a coot, and feeling even less like stuffing turkeys and preparing vegetables than I do normally.

Now my fellow Canadian Sylvie Fortin is at the same stage and has written interestingly about it on her blog - click here to view.

I'd like to wish you all - and especially everyone currently undergoing chemo - a peaceful and restful Festive Season and a happy, healthy, positive 2007.

And to round off, a story to give the girls a smile...

According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, while both male and female reindeer grow antlers in the summer each year, male reindeer drop their antlers at the beginning of winter, usually late November to mid-December.

Female reindeer retain their antlers till after they give birth in the spring. Therefore, according to every historical rendition depicting Santa's reindeer, every single one of them, from Rudolph to Blitzen - had to be female.

We should've known. Only women, while pregnant, would be able to drag a fat man in a red velvet suit all around the world in one night and not get lost…

Have a good one!

SUZE

You're feeling very sleepy...very slee....

What a relief it is to know that the scientists really are on the button when it comes to anticipating how women feel when they're about to have a biopsy on a breast lump.

At a recent conference of the Radiological Society of North America, in Chicago, the wallahs announced that out of the 236 women about to undergo this test, "all ... were anxious before the biopsy."

Hey, really? Why on earth should a woman be anxious when half a dozen white-coated robots stand over you and stab a small cattle prod several times into the depths of your beleaguered bosom? Nah. Kid stuff. The article goes on...

"All three groups reported pain during the biopsy, but the patients given the empathetic and hypnosis care felt significantly less discomfort than those given the standard treatment."

Empathy and hypnosis? Frankly I would rather have been whacked hard over the head with a mallet. Give me lots of local anaesthesia and preferably total unconsciouness every time.

According to lead researcher Elvira Lang, associate professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School ...

"The findings show that non-pharmacologic means can be very powerful - without side-effects. The results extend prior assumptions about mind-body interventions in that self-hypnotic relaxation can be learned very quickly right on the procedure table without additional cost, challenging the notion that extensive office visits or preparation are necessary."

Yeah, right. Should there be a next time for me, I can't quite see myself singing a mantra and visualising myself on a warm sandy beach while having my one remaining boob disembowelled by a giant apple corer.

To see the full article, click here.

And for yet another hospital smile ... the following made me giggle:

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Hospital regulations require a wheelchair for patients being discharged.

However, while working as a student nurse, I found one elderly gentleman--already dressed and sitting on the bed with a suitcase at his feet--who insisted he didn't need my help to leave the hospital. After a chat about rules being rules, he reluctantly let me wheel him to the elevator. On the way down I asked him if his wife was meeting him.

"I don't know," he said. "She's still upstairs in the bathroom changing out of her hospital gown."

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Sorry to have been so long in posting ... am frantically trying to complete the next book which is deadlined for December 31st. Much tapping away at keyboard, and not much time for anything else. Click here for a quick preview.

Love to all

SUZE