Who Else Has an Over-Developed Sense of Worry?

Julie’s recent blog about motherhood got me thinking about my mom. Lots of people who knew Homerun Clara will tell you she had a great sense of humor. If you knew her well, you also know she had an overdeveloped sense of worry—and maybe to prove her sense of humor, she generously passed her worry gene along.

Among my inherited worries are my obsession to repeatedly recheck the gas burner, iron, coffee pot, and toaster-oven so I don’t “burn down the house,” and my compulsion to call my neighbor or drive back around the block to confirm I really did close the garage door.

The full list of worries she passed along to me is too extensive to name, but if I had a buck for every time she worried out loud about me “cracking my head open,” it’s safe to say I’d have a healthier 401K.

And, speaking of cracking things open, my mom taught me never, ever, to crack an egg right into the cake or cookie batter, to always crack it into a separate bowl in case the egg was rotten. So, all these years later, I still dirty a separate bowl every time I bake, in spite of the fact that I’ve never once in all my egg-cracking years, cracked open a rotten egg.

They say worry lives mostly in our head, and the best way to shake it is to walk smack into it.

So here goes. Today I officially ditch my egg-cracking worry. From now on, if you eat a cookie I baked, be forewarned. Those eggs were cracked right into the cookie dough.

But, don’t panic. I’m not going completely off the worry grid.

I’ll still wear my bike helmet EVERY time I ride.

Cracking eggs is one thing, but I don’t need to worry about cracking my head open!

Mother's Day Isn't All Brunch and Flowers

Julie Owsik Ackerman

For a few years in my early thirties, Mother’s Day was painful day for me. Not yet a mother, I felt sad, excluded, the subject of scrutiny. Maybe no one asked the impolite question out loud, but as I gained five, six, seven years of marriage, I heard the question loud and clear: are you ever going to have a baby?

I didn’t know the answer. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a mom, or if I could handle it. I’m glad I waited as long as I did, because motherhood has proved just as challenging as I imagined, though more rewarding also. I need all of the wisdom and patience I gained in my first 35 years of life to parent my son, and sometimes it’s still insufficient.

Mother’s Day can be painful for other reasons too: maybe your mom has died, maybe you’re struggling with fertility issues, maybe your mom was absent or abusive. Then there are the ever-present holiday expectations, fed by the media, and corporations who stand to benefit. “What do you want to do for Mother’s Day?” my husband asked me several times this week, with panic in his eyes. Battling a sinus infection, I’d been too tired to think about it. But by Tuesday, I figured I should give the poor guy some guidance, so I told him I wanted to sleep in, go to breakfast and receive some kind of gift. I appreciate having a sweet husband who wants to do something nice for me. I also know that on Mother’s Day, as every day, it’s my job to make myself happy. Feeling I need x expensive gift to feel valued on Mother’s Day is a trap, and I refuse to be ensnared in it.

Over the past few months, I’ve been reading a lot of feminist literature: The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, The FeminineMystique, The Mommy Myth. I’m starting to realize not only how difficult motherhood is, but how little our government and society support mothers. So what I really want for Mother’s Day is a culture that values mothers, not by putting us on some pedestal like the Virgin Mary, but by providing what we need to raise happy healthy children: good daycare, maternity leave, flexible job situations, a living wage, health care.

That would be a good start. And okay, some eggs benedict too.

Not So Pretty in Pink: Just Say No to Annual Mammograms

For the past 10 years or so on Mother’s Day, I have joined the thousands of people who attend the Susan G. Komen Race for Life in Philadelphia.  I walk in solidarity with my sister-in-law Barb, who fought the disease that many years ago and thank God is cancer free. I enjoy the spectacle and the time we spend together walking through downtown Philly catching up with her my brother John and their kids.

It’s become an enjoyable Mother’s Day tradition for me but not for the cause. While I support cancer charities financially, I don’t register as a runner/walker or contribute to the Komen Foundation. As a PR professional, I admire Komen’s marketing machine. But the pink ribbon advertising campaigns have lost me. (Pink NFL player shoes were my tipping point.)

In the April 28 New York Times Magazine, reporter Peggy Orenstein, who is battling breast cancer (again after her first diagnosis 15 years ago) wrote about the pink PR movement.  (Worth reading, especially if you are a young woman who has never had a mammogram, Stop reading my words and go read this article. It may save you a lot of pain and suffering.)

I was surprised to learn in this article that less than a quarter of the funds Komen has raised over the years went to breast cancer research.  It's not that they aren't spending on the disease, it's more that Komen has decided to promote awareness and early detection of breast cancer through mammography.

Turns out that while this may have been the right idea when they started out so many years ago, it appears that all this screening may not be the answer to beating breast cancer.

For most of my life, doctors recommended women to get a baseline mammogram at age 40 and then return every year as a preventive screening. Now medical research suggests that most women can wait until 50 and every other year is adequate, unless you have a family history or have identified with the breast cancer gene. (This is the accepted protocol in Europe and in other developed countries.)

Over--screening is finding a cysts and other growths that will never become a deadly cancer.  Women are getting unnecessary biopsies, even worse, mastectomies, not to mention the harm from excessive radiation. The number of women who are “saved” by early detection is so small, that it doesn't outweigh the bad medicine.  (Men suffer from a similar finding about too much prostate cancer screening.)

Every year, my doctor writes a script for an annual mammogram. Makes me wonder why they aren't reading the same things I'm reading. My local hospital has been nagging me with reminders since my anniversary date passed in February.  I get it that the hospital has expensive machines to pay off and a staff they want to keep busy. But at what point should health care providers forget about the money they need to run their health care machines and listen to the evidence? 

Medicine is an art as much as a science, but we have a good body of research on this now.  I would love my doctor to give me both sides of the argument and give me the option for a one or two year repeat. I'll sign whatever form he needs to absolve him from a lawsuit.

Even though I am not aligned with the Komen Foundation on this topic, I hope to be on the Parkway this Mother's Day walking with Barb and all those other people who are remembering someone they love who has known breast cancer. You can really feel the love at that event.  

Do conflicting messages about health care make you crazy?  Do you ever dare to tell your doctor that you are not going to have that EKG, mammogram, prostate screening, blood test, etc.? Let us know what you think.

.