Sampling Some Super Sunscreen

We don't leave for the beach until Saturday, but I've already started mentally packing. Books, towels, chairs, swimsuit, sun hat, umbrella, gin, tonic, limes. What else could we need?

Sunscreen, of course.

If you're a regular Convertible Lifer, you know that sunscreen is serious business around here. After losing chunks of my forehead, part of my back and countless little spots here and there, I don't mess around with keeping my skin protected -- but I also still really like being in the sun.

So when I got an email earlier this summer from a company offering to send me a sample of their new sunscreen in exchange for a blog review, I was intrigued. SmartShield claims to be "serious sun protection" -- sounded like a good fit, but wouldn't it have to be sticky, smelly and thick to really be serious?

For the past two months, I've been wearing SmartShield's Rehydrating Face Cream with SPF 45 almost every day. Billed as "a luxury face cream with a unique formula for sports enthusiasts and professionals," it is the best everyday sunscreen I've found for my face. It's rare to find an everyday sunscreen with an SPF as high as 45 -- and this one isn't sticky, smelly or thick. In fact, it made my skin feel really soft and lovely, which was a total surprise. Make-up goes on easily over top and doesn't slide off halfway through the day because the sunscreen is oil-free. But even more importantly, it works -- even when I found myself in a sunny seat at the baseball game with no hat on (shhh, don't tell my dermatologist!), I didn't get sunburned.

In short, it's great.

Now you'll have to take my word for it that this is an honest review and in no way tainted by the free sample. If I were just sucking up to SmartShield, I probably would have written this review two months ago when they first sent me the sample, so maybe that helps with my credibility (or maybe it just shows that I've missed nearly every deadline all summer). And I will add that there are a few items on the ingredient list that might not appeal to those who are cautious, close-readers of labels, but I have to balance that with finding a product that works well.

Actually, I'm hoping they'll send me some of their other sunscreens, lip balm, insect repellent and the self-tanner to try out -- but I'm probably just going to have to buy them like everyone else.

Badassery

Today is my 41st birthday.

I started the day with friends at our neighborhood boot camp at 5:45 a.m. in a cold misty rain. This seems crazy, I know. But it's actually a good thing.

Going to boot camp, especially when it's cold and/or raining, makes me feel like a badass. Like I'm tougher than I thought I was. Like if I can do burpees and diamond push-ups and kickboxing crunches outside in the dark when it's almost cold enough to snow, then I can probably handle whatever else is coming at me today.

This is what I learned in my year of being 40: Every life needs a little badassery* in it.

Ordinary life can be a big heap of mundane scheduled into a whole lot of routine. Some of that ordinary can be wonderful -- my daughter's small hand in mine on the way into school, my son's wiggly eye brow when he tells a joke, my husband's secret code text telling me he's on the way home. Some moments, the every day is  total chaos -- too many practices, games, meetings, lists, demands and errands colliding into a pile. There are so many things I simply cannot do or cannot do well that the stress of it all makes me buckle.

But I'm finding that if I can carve out some part of my life to feel like a badass -- even just here and there -- it all seems closer to possible.

I've never actually been much of a badass. I tend to be the person who follows the path, does what's expected, takes the easy option. But over the past 40 years, some of my best experiences were those that caused me to summon up some extra courage and at least pretend like I had a little badass alter ego.

These days, I'm not likely to get my belly button pierced or live overseas for a year, so I have to look to smaller spaces to find my badassery. More often than not, it's boot camp -- or whatever alternate workout opportunity my boot camp friends lure me into. Like aerial boot camp, for example.

It started, as most crazy ideas do these days, with a Living Social deal. Some of you may remember the last time I purchased an online deal for a class. It involved a pole. There was only one class. There are, mercifully, no photos.

This time, there are pictures -- and they make me (perhaps unreasonably) proud.

I should explain that the "aerial" portion of aerial boot camp for beginners involves trying to climb heavy streamer-like silks that are hanging from the very tall ceilings. You start by gripping both silks in our hands, then wrapping one leg around the silks and looping it over that foot. Pulling your body up with your arms, you lift your other foot and trap the silks against the bottom foot and inch your hands higher up the silks. After unwrapping your bottom foot, you pull your legs up, loop your foot back in, pinch again with the other foot, and continue on up the silks.

That description makes no sense when I write down, but trust me it's even harder to actually do it.

The first class, I didn't get much higher than this:

The second class, I barely made it off the ground.

But the third class? Well, this photo was taken when I was on my way back down. From the top. As in, touched-the-metal-ring-connecting-the-silks-to-the-ceiling top.

By the time I got back to the floor, my heart was pounding, arms and legs were shaking, and hands were burning. But damn, I felt like a badass.

And if I can do that? Well, then I can sure as hell handle 41. 

*For real, y'all, that sounds like a made-up word, but it is in the Oxford now so I'm using it.

A Super Ordinary Boy

Today Dylan looked more or less like all the other second grade boys on the school field trip, with his gap-toothed grin, energetic legs, sweaty head and dirty fingernails, digging through the dirt for fossils at the Museum of Life + Science. In fact, most days when we see him, he's just like all the other kids.

Except for last summer, when we had to go to Duke Hospital to see Dylan. Then, for the first time since 2007, he looked more like a patient than the kid down the street. For two weeks, while a team of nurses and doctors poked and tested and treated him for an infection, we were reminded that in spite of looking and acting and generally being like all the other kids, Dylan has cystic fibrosis.

As CF patients go, he's been pretty healthy, according to his mom -- but his parents work hard to keep him that way. Each day, he takes more than 20 pills, three nebulizer treatments and two airway clearances -- and that's when he's well. If he has a lung infection, he can spend up to two hours a day doing breathing treatments. After his two-week hospitalization last summer, he spent another eight weeks at home on IV meds -- that meant no swimming in the pool for all of July and August.

So stop for a minute and imagine your daily routine with your kids.

Think about how full each day is and how often you're running late for school or work in the morning because they can't find their shoes or didn't remember their homework or need you to make an extra snack or are just generally being pissy. And think about how hard it is to get your kids to bed on time because there are always a hundred things, both real and imaginary, that suddenly have to be completed before you can get them to go to sleep.

Then imagine that in the midst of all that everyday chaos, you've also got to work in five different breathing treatments and convince your child to swallow 20 pills. Every. Single. Day.

Now if you're Dylan's mom, you don't complain about any of that. In the 7+ years that I've known her, not once have I heard her complain. Instead, she says things like this:

"That is a lot for a little guy to have to handle and as a mom it is hard to watch him having to endure all he does everyday. Dylan has made me a stronger person. He never gets a day off. I will continue to do all I can to keep him healthy until a cure is found."

On Saturday, my family and I will join with the rest of the Super Dylan Nation in the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation's Great Strides Walk. We will wear our red shirts and wind our way through downtown Raleigh for 3.1 miles. We will marvel at how our little friend with cystic fibrosis can run the whole 5K. We will celebrate all that his family does to keep him healthy.

And I will also say a quiet prayer of thanks that we can do something -- however small -- to help make CF stand for "cure found."

Click here if you'd like to join us on the walk, share your support through a donation to the Super Dylan team (no gift is too small!), or learn more about the CF Foundation.

Need more convincing?

• Five reasons why you should donate to the Super Dylan campaign
• For Super Dylan's Mom
• "The Longest-Lived Survivor"

Dread

On Friday, I go back to my dermatologist.

Thanks to my (ahem) delicate skin, she keeps me on a pretty short leash – every six months, I’m in her office for a skin scan.

If you haven’t had a full body scan with the dermatologist, then you might not know that they check everywhere. Even places where the sun literally doesn’t shine.

My dermatologist is blessedly fast, with a light touch and a chatty demeanor, which makes it all go by more quickly. But I’m really dreading this trip. Dreading the idea that she might find another basal cell lurking beneath another ordinary looking pimple on my face.

I’m not ready to do this again:

But I’ll be there anyway. With my fingers and toes crossed. Until she looks between them for skin anomalies, that is.

Because you know what’s even worse than that surgery pictured above?

Letting a basal cell run its course like one of these.

* * *

If you actually clicked that last link, you'll understand when I tell you that I had intended to put a real shocker of a photo in this post -- but I couldn't do it. I wanted to show you what happens when you let a basal cell eat away at your skin for years and years untreated. But the pictures that I found -- just like the ones my skin surgeon showed me from her own cases -- made me gag so much that I couldn't look at them long enough to copy and paste into this post.

If you didn't click that last link, then let me just remind you to wear sunscreen, keep your hat on and schedule regular visits with your dermatologist. It's not sexy, but it's a helluva lot better than the alternative.

Photo notes: Bottom left is the spot circled before surgery; center and top left are during surgery; top right is last month after a much-needed makeover, showing where my hair is finally growing back; the rest are the in between stages of stitches and infection. Also, that long white scar in the middle of my forehead is the remains of my first basal cell, which was removed three years ago.
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Guest Post: Support Strollerthon, Support Moms

My name is Suzanne, and I author the blog pretty*swell. I’m so grateful for Cyndi sharing her space today for a cause close to my heart.

The StrollerThon, benefiting Postpartum Education and Support, is this Saturday in Apex, N.C. If you live nearby, it’s not too late to register! We’re also hosting an online raffle of a beautiful Bumbleride stroller. Tickets are only $5, and you don’t need to be present to win.

Proceeds from the raffle and event will allow our organization to keep helping moms beat perinatal mood disorders like postpartum depression and anxiety.

Here is the story of Jodi, one of our warrior moms, in her own words:

I had my breakdown about a year ago. It was a Monday morning, still very clear in my mind, and I was eight weeks postpartum with my second child. My son was sick, again, and I was crying so hard I could barely text my mom to have her come over immediately. I waited anxiously at the door with a screaming, ill child and greeted her by handing over my son, saying, "I can’t do this anymore." She had me call my doctor that morning, and I can’t thank her enough for starting me on the road to accepting and recovering from PPD.

The anxiety and depression were both new to me, and I only experienced mild baby blues with my daughter. My son, N, was a huge Christmas morning surprise to my husband and me (two pink lines? What?), and nine months later my cute little boy was born, unaware of the challenges that awaited him.　

He had a very bumpy first three months and was sick often: N had everything from harlequin color change to dairy intolerance. All of this weighed me down, spending countless hours at doctor appointments, pharmacies and "researching" on the internet. I was overwhelmed. I felt guilty, exhausted, constantly sick to my stomach, and I cried many, many times a day.

I didn’t want to show any sign of weakness.　

My anxiety came in the form of the clock; it was my worst enemy. I would time N’s feedings with a stopwatch, starting the timer before getting him latched on just to add a few extra seconds. I couldn’t help myself, and I knew it was silly, but it’s just what I HAD to do. I had alarms on when to feed him, when to wake him, when I should wake, when I should sleep, and I was basically driving myself over the edge. I didn’t sleep much, and the insomnia was becoming dangerous: I vividly remember driving alone one night and seriously considering crashing my car just so I could get some rest in a hospital.　

My depression surfaced during those long, lonely hours at night. I dreaded the sun going down, because I felt so ALONE, and was I left with my fears and guilt. My husband was fantastic and caring, my parents were helpful, but I just couldn’t shake the darkness that enveloped my life. I felt like I was living in a deep black hole and struggling not to sink deeper. I was scared to be alone with both children, scared to leave the house, and scared to admit that I needed help and wasn’t as strong as I thought.　

Through an online moms forum, I read about Moms Supporting Moms and was willing to give it a chance. After sobbing my way through my introduction and hearing others talk, I felt so comforted knowing that I wasn’t crazy and that there were moms there that *got* my feelings of guilt, anxiety and depression. If it weren’t for the caring and understanding moms I met through Moms Supporting Moms, along with my wonderful family, I wouldn’t have been able to heal like I have.

It’s been a long road, but light and happiness now fill my life, and I say yes, I can beat PPD.　

So can you.

*To register for the StrollerThon or buy raffle tickets for the Bumbleride stroller, click here.*

Note from Cyndi: Thanks to Suzanne and Jodi for their work in support of moms in need! Please check out the links above and help in whatever way you can.

Head Shot, Part 2

For my friends who have vasovagal syncope -- or those of you who are just squeamish -- you should probably stop reading this post. Check back on J-Fest 2011 or some cute photo of Pippi until we're done here.

For the rest of you -- those who need a reminder to wear a hat or want to scare the hell out of motivate your kids to put on the sunscreen -- here's the latest on my head wound.

As you may recall, I had a basal cell removed from my forehead nine week ago. Nine.

After the surgery, it looked like this with the stitches in it:

Now, after some repair surgery for some granular something or other that was preventing it from healing properly followed by major face swelling and then a staph infection plus two weeks of antibiotics (plus the, ahem, usual infection that goes along with two weeks of antibiotics) and Duoderm, it looks like this:

And in case you're wondering, my skin surgeon put a bandage back on it right after she took that picture for me. The sad news is that this photo looks a lot better than the crater I was peering at last week.

So yes, that's another week of a bandage on my head that can't get wet. Another week of my sweet husband washing my hair in the sink for me. Another week of walking around with a big white circle on the corner of my forehead that makes everyone look at me like I just might be a lost amnesia victim.

Sigh. At least I have cute hats.
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Friday's 5: Selecting Hats

Because I can't seem to make my wound heal any faster (turns out I've got a staph infection, so I'm taking an antibiotic FOUR TIMES A DAY FOR TEN DAYS), I'm focusing now on how to prevent any more skin damage. I've decided it's finally time to embrace the hat.

So I ordered five hats from Zappos. Just as Zappos' return policy is genius for online shoe ordering, it is equally brilliant for selecting hats. Now I need some advice from you on which ones to keep. But first, a few caveats...

• I took these photos myself, which was a little tricky given how big the brims are on some of these hats. My arms are long, but they're not Inspector-Gadget-long or anything.
• With the lump of bandage on my forehead, I can't get the hats all the way down on my enormous head. And when I try to do it anyway, it hurts. We'll just have to pretend for now.
• Looking at pictures of myself is one of my least favorite activities. Let's just focus on the hats, shall we?

And here, in order of brim size (more or less), are the hats:

1. Lightweight bucket hat: I love the super lightweight fabric on this hat -- some kind of magical Columbia sportswear fabric. The brim is smaller in the back, so it doesn't bump against my neck. And if I could actually pull it down on my forehead, I think it will give more shade in the front. Is the color too bright? Or cute and summery? Maybe hard to tell online.

2. Big brim bucket hat: I'm just going to go ahead and tell you, this hat is going back. It looks so terrible on my that I couldn't even get a decent picture. It's too shallow and won't sit down far enough on my big ol' head, even without the bandage. A shame, really, because it seems very pack-able.

3. Taupe ribbon hat: I had high hopes for this hat, but it just doesn't seem right. Not sure why, but I couldn't get it to bend evenly  so that it would sit straight. But the little ribbon lines are very cute, so maybe it's worth trying?

4. Tan ribbon hat: Much easier to bend than #3, this hat is very light and has a bendable wire edge to help it hold its shape. But is the color too light for my pale skin?

5. XL brim brown hat: This hat is so big that I honestly wasn't sure I could capture it all in the picture -- it shades not only my face, but also my entire shoulders. When I put it on the first time, Pippi stopped in her tracks and said breathlessly, "Mommy! That hat is FANCY!" I want to believe it's very Audrey Hepburn, but someone else in my house (who will remain nameless) made sombrero references when I pulled it out of the box. Too much? Or just the sort of glamour my poor head needs?

Okay, readers -- help me out here. What do I keep and what do I return? Or if you've got better hat options I should consider, leave me some links in the comments.
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Head Shot

Not even a right-side hair part and the magic of Instagram can camouflage the latest addition to my head wound. This frickin basal cell is not going away without a fight.

And in case you're wondering, it's been seven weeks since my surgery. Seven. Also, have to keep this bandage dry for a week. While it's 100 degrees outside. While I'm taking my kids to the pool. While I'm supposed to be wearing a hat that will no longer fit over my head.

Yea.

"The Longest-Lived Survivor"

I generally don't read the obituaries.

I'm afraid of death. Or more specifically, I'm afraid of losing people I love. So I avoid the obits as a reminder of the inevitable.

Except when I was pregnant, when I would quickly scan the obit pages looking for interesting names to use for my soon-to-arrive babies. Even then, I still didn't read the actual obituary. And I never found quite the right name, either.

But today, as I was flipping through the paper, one of the obits caught my eye. Maybe it was the pretty photograph of the deceased, possibly it was the length of her hyphenated name. For some reason, I started reading it.

"Elizabeth Kathryn Herring-Shapiro, called Betty Kaye by most of her family and BK by her husband and countless dear friends, passed away Friday morning, June 3, shortly after sunrise. At the time of her passing at the age of 66, she was thought to be the longest-lived survivor of cystic fibrosis in the nation and perhaps the world."

And then I started to cry.

That she lived to age 66, the obit says, is a testament to both medicine and her "unwavering faith in God, miracles and the power of prayer." I found some hope in the very full life she lived in those 66 years, with a career that ranged from New York model to Governor's special assistant to international tour director. She must have been a great friend to many and was clearly loved by her family.

When we walk in the Great Strides walk each year to raise funds to cure cystic fibrosis, it's not for some broad, altruistic reason. It's for this very specific goal:

I'm counting on never seeing the obit for Jack's buddy. But when it's printed (assuming there's still such a thing as "print"), I want it to say that at the ripe old age of 101, after a rich and successful life, he was the longest-lived survivor of cystic fibrosis.

Photo from the N&O obituaries.
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Pledge Drive for Super Dylan

You may remember that I'm not a fan of NPR's pledge drive, but apparently it works because they keep on doing it over and over and over and over again. And again.

So it's pledge drive time again here at My Convertible Life -- we're raising funds for the Super Dylan Team and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation's Great Strides walk. I'll be walking this Saturday in Raleigh with the fam and we need your support.

If you already know about Dylan and want to make a gift, you can stop reading now, click here to give online and feel confident that your money is going to a great cause.

If you don't know about Dylan or about cystic fibrosis, here are some posts you can read to learn to more about one of Junius' best buddies and his battle against this chronic illness:

• Donate for Super Dylan (background post)
• For Super Dylan's Mom (because to know her is to love her)
• Friday's 5: Why You Should Donate for Super Dylan (in case you need a list)

Now click on over and help us ensure that Dylan has lots more afternoons of slip-n-sliding with Junius and Pippi. And thanks in advance for your gift!

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What Happened to Your Head?! Or, Why I Wear Sunscreen

Yes, that's my forehead.

I got these stitches over the weekend in Pakistan.

Would tell you more, but without appropriate security clearance I'd have to kill you.

Okay, okay. It was actually pint glass to the head during a pub brawl after Wills & Kate got married. You should see the other guy.

All right, fine. I got attacked by the dermatologist. Skin surgeon, to be exact. My second time having Mohs (rhymes with "nose") surgery on my forehead. Don't really recommend it, but it's better than letting a basal cell carcinoma turn into some other more frightening form of cancer.

I blame Garden City Beach, SC, summer of 1987. Me in my first teen-age bikini -- floral, with ruffles (it was the 80s, after all, and I needed the help). He was tall and thin with a great smile. We spent a couple hours talking and flirting in the ocean, no sunscreen to protect my face from the bright sunshine and the even brighter reflection off the water.

When I woke up the next day with a headache, I looked in the mirror to find my purple, blistered forehead had swollen to twice its normal size. The bad news: my parents wouldn't let me out of the beach house during peak sun hours. The good news: the boy still thought I was cute enough to send me a mix tape (Guns N' Roses, Metallica and U2, 'cause he was that cool) when he got back home.

Now, more than two decades later, I'm paying the price.

So in case you needed a reminder to wear sunscreen and hats this summer, take another look at those stitches. I can promise you the boys do not think they're a turn-on. Thankfully, my husband loves me, even when I'm wounded.
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Putting My Teeth Back Where They Belong

In fourth grade, my classmates and I used to pretend we had braces by unfolding a paper clip and bending it across our top teeth. We'd click it around and try to talk and act like we were older and cooler than we really were.

Why did this seem cool? I have absolutely no idea.

(As an aside, this was the same year we were smuggling someone's dog-eared copy of Judy Blume's Forever into our desks and flipping to the racy parts. We were young and sheltered. It was a small school. Who knows what made us do these things.)

Then in fifth grade, I got actual braces on my top teeth. With spacers. And neck gear. It was quite a look. Especially as I was learning to play the flute that year.

But all that metal did its work, making enough room in my too-small mouth for all those adult teeth. In one year, I had a beautiful smile and felt good about my straight teeth.

Now, almost 27 years later, I'm back at the orthodontist's office. Turns out, your teeth continue to move your ENTIRE life. So if you don't wear your retainer FOREVER, then all that time as an awkward metal-mouth pre-teen will be for naught.

So here I am, teeth wedged into plastic, hoping that invisalign can magically (and somewhat painfully) bring back that straight, beautiful smile. It's actually not as bad as I thought it might be (after wearing them for a week), but it does make me talk like I have a slight cold. And my kids think it's crazy to watch me "put my teeth back in," like some 90-year-old grandma.

I don't feel nearly as cool as I thought I was with that paper clip retainer jingling in my mouth -- but at least this process should be more effective.

Friday's 5: Things to Know After a C-Section

When I was pregnant with Junius, everything went pretty much by the book -- got pregnant almost instantly, had minimal sickness in first trimester and happily ballooned up to an extra 50 pounds along the way (including my nearly C-cup breasts, which were fantastic). I had every reason to believe that delivering the baby would be just as straightforward as gestating him had been.

Then my due date came and went. And went. And went.

Ten days later, after two days of back labor, my water breaking, an epidural and whoknowshowmuch pitocin, my OB was whisking me into the OR for an unexpected c-section.

It wasn't until several weeks after I came home and struggled through the recovery that I learned some of my friends had had similar experiences. But they never told me about their c-sections because they didn't want me to worry. I was stunned to realize that they had answers and advice that could have been a huge help during those first couple of weeks -- but I didn't know to ask them.

Today I'm thinking about my friend who is scheduled for an induction with her first baby. I wonder what she knows already or if she's even thought about a c-section -- other than wanting to avoid having one. And I wonder why I didn't already tell her any of these things.

Well, because I didn't want her to worry.

So as I'm sending prayers to my friend for an easy, healthy delivery, I'll share with the rest of you five things you ought to know if you have a c-section (all of which I learned the hard way with Junius and managed much better with Pippi):

1. Ask for access. If you can talk with your OB ahead of time, ask how much access you can have to the baby in the OR. See if they'll let you hold the baby quickly while you're still in surgery or at least have a free hand to touch that tiny new face (like Pippi in the photo above). See if they can do the initial stuff (weight, cleaning, etc) in a spot where you can see what's happening while you're flat on your back. If you're someone who likes to know what's going on, see if the nurse anesthetist will talk you through the whole process while it's happening. [Also, I'm intrigued by this "natural" c-section, but not sure anyone is doing it in the U.S.]
2. Take the drugs. Whatever the nurses are offering in the way of pain meds, take them. All of them. Every time they're available. You get no extra credit or superhero cape for toughing it out. Your baby will not be harmed if you're breastfeeding. And you'll be able to enjoy your baby more (and maybe even take a nap) if you're not suffering from incision pain. Did I mention you should take the drugs? Seriously.
3. It's surgery. This may seem obvious, but it didn't really register for me or my husband after Junius was born. Don't expect to be able to do the things your friends did after a vaginal delivery, like drive a car (two weeks) or walk easily (several days). If you'd had abdominal surgery without a baby, no one would expect you to be up and around in two days entertaining visitors. With a c-section, it should be the same thing -- except that you have this new little person placing a lot of demands on you all of a sudden. Which brings me to #4...
4. Be nice to yourself. Ask for help and accept all offers. Let someone else make dinner, do laundry, clean house -- this should be true for all new parents, but especially for a c-section mama. You'll need someone else to drive you to doctor's appointments for the first two weeks, so go ahead and let that person take care of grocery shopping and errand running, too (like going to the pharmacy to pick up your pain medicine, ahem).
5. Keep everything close. Going up and down stairs is particularly difficult at first. Be sure you can camp out on one floor for most of the day -- set up a changing station, a place for the baby to nap (or rock or whatever) and access to snacks for you so you're not having to chase after things. Get lots of pillows for making yourself comfortable. Also, keep your feet up while you're sitting -- something about the surgery tends to make your legs swell for a few days.

Okay, mamas -- what did I miss?

Waiting Rooms

In the past month, I've spent more time in more medical office waiting rooms than I've ever visited in a four-week period.

Dentist. Optometrist. Allergist. Orthodontist. Dentist again. Pediatrician. Gynecologist. Urologist. Radiologist. Dermatologist. Urologist some more.

As a result, I've learned that: no one in the family has a cavity, my contact lens prescription is the same, Junius is still allergic to peanuts, I qualify for invisalign, both kids qualify for the flu mist, my UTI wasn't actually an infection, I need to stop drinking cranberry juice because it's a bladder irritant, I don't have kidney cancer and my skin is clear.

Oh, and I was born with three functioning kidneys.

That, my friends, is known as burying the lead.

Okay, so it's not exactly three full kidneys -- more like one full one on the left and two half-kidneys working together on the right. But it's funnier to say that I have three kidneys.

According to the urologist it's an "anatomical variant." Turns out that my left kidney is all normal with one ureter, but my right kidney has two parts with two ureters connecting to my bladder. Yeah, I know, really not the same as three kidneys -- but again, SO much funnier to say.

KidsHealth.org says it's something that happens in about 1 in 125 births. In my case, it's not really a big deal, except that it means I'm more susceptible to infections. So I'm drinking lots of water, eliminating tea and soda (sniff, sniff) and hoping for a healthier month ahead.

There you have it. That's what I've learned this week -- what's your news?

Image from The Internet Encyclopedia of Science.

Pole Dancing for Dummies

You should not be surprised to know that the woman hanging upside down on the pole in this photo is not me.

But you might surprised to know that yesterday, after going to church, the farmer's market and Biscuitville with my family, I went to a pole dancing class. Yes, I went to church first.

Technically, it was a "teaser class" -- basically an introduction to pole dancing as exercise at Aradia Fitness. I was there with two friends, courtesy of a Groupon -- seemed like a good way to get some exercise, have a laugh with the ladies and maybe pick up a couple of pointers for impressing my husband.

Turns out that pole dancing is serious fitness -- a lot like pilates, with the focus on core strength, plus some serious upper body work from holding your own weight as you slide down and around the pole. Oh, except that in pilates, there's no rubbing your hand through your hair or spanking yourself lightly on the ass. At least, not in the pilates class that I've been taking.

The good news is that no one in the class is looking at each other. It requires way too much attention to your own self -- hold your abs in, your chest out, point your toes, don't get dizzy, hips this way, booty that way -- to look at anyone other than the instructor. Meanwhile, the instructor did a great job of keeping us all focused on the steps without making anyone self-conscious.

Yes, we giggled a lot during the class. But we got one hell of a workout in a very empowering kind of way. And I did manage to recreate a move or two to show off at home -- even without a pole installed in my living room.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, you have to work your way through from Pole 1.0 to Pole 9.0 before they start letting you hang upside down on the pole.

Image from Aradia Fitness
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Take That, Flabby Arms

Some unsolicited advice...

If you're going to do a kick-boxing / circuit-training class where the muscly, tattooed instructor makes you do push-ups, tricep dips, bicep curls, boxing and other things you haven't done in ages and ages (or like, ever), be sure that the following tasks are not on your list for the next couple of days:

• using a hair-dryer
• lifting your children into a shopping cart
• loading flats of drinks into your Costco cart
• carrying groceries into your house
• bringing your luggage downstairs

I'm just sayin'.

By the way, that image isn't me. But a girl can dream, right?

Now I'm taking my tired arms (and a lot of ibuprofen) to the beach for a few days to recover. Hope to be back on a better blogging schedule when I return.

For Super Dylan's Mom

Three years ago this summer, I spent a couple of days with Junius at Duke Children's Hospital. Fortunately for both of us, Junius wasn't sick -- we were there visiting our buddy, Super Dylan.

If you'd seen Junius and Super D during those visits, you wouldn't have guessed that either one of them was sick. They looked like any other pair of almost two-year-olds as they took turns pulling each other through the lobby in a wagon and chased each other around the fountain and the hospital playground -- this picture shows them playing on the floor in D's hospital room. But the truth is that Super D's powerful, feisty exterior hides the cystic fibrosis that threatens his life and keeps his lungs and digestive system from working properly.

At the time, we didn't even know Dylan and his family very well -- we were neighbors who were just becoming friends. But I'll never forget those visits and what I learned from watching Dylan's mom. During that 2-week stay at Duke three years ago, she never left the hospital. Two weeks. Never left, not even when friends or family were there with Dylan. Although I don't know what I would do if I were in her shoes, I do know that that much time in a hospital would make me crazy.

Yet she never complained (at least not out loud), never looked flustered, never seemed to resent being stuck. She just advocated for her son, loved him, helped him in every way that she could -- just as she does every day of the year.

So on this Mother's Day, I invite you to make a gift to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and our Super Dylan team. We're walking on Saturday to raise money to help Dylan -- but I'm sure that finding a cure would be the best Mother's Day gift for his mom and thousands of other moms around the world.

P.S. Dylan's mom is probably going to be annoyed with me for writing this post. She doesn't like attention and doesn't seem to think that she's anything extraordinary (which she is). So please make a gift, however small, so that she'll be a little less irritated with me. To learn more about CF and the Foundation, visit cff.org.

Maybe I Will Be a Runner After All

"Look, Mommy, look! Like you, Mommy, like you! I runnin' jus like you!"

Wow. Never expected I'd hear my daughter say those words. But that's just what Pippi said on Sunday as she trotted down our street, beaming: "I runnin' jus like you!" She was so proud of herself. But not nearly as proud as I was of myself.

I'm not a runner. Never have been. Never really wanted to be. But my husband tricked me into it. I'd been complaining about not getting any exercise and not having any time to get exercise, so he (being a runner himself) decided that I just hadn't given running a fair try. My response was that if I was going to become a runner, I'd need some cool gear -- that Sony Walkman collecting dust in the closet just wasn't proper motivation. Then, bam. he called my bluff -- iPod for my birthday -- and suddenly I had to follow through.

After consulting one of my BFFs from high school (who I would have voted least-likely-to-become-a-runner right along with me but who now runs races with her husband and three boys), I decided to try out the Couch-to-5K running plan. The gist of the plan is that you start out running in short increments (60 seconds at first) and walking in between, then build up to longer running stretches over nine weeks until you can run for 30 minutes (or 3 miles).

As of yesterday, I'm on Day 2 of Week 3. Ahem. My birthday was in December. [Short pause while you count the number of weeks between December and April.] So yeah, I started, then it got too cold, so I started over, then got sick, started over, got busy, blah blah blah. But I keep trying, starting over at Week 2. And as of yesterday, I'm father along on the plan than I've ever been -- and I've probably run more cumulative minutes in the past five months than I did in the past five years added together. So it's small, but it's still progress.

I'm running to be healthy. And I'm running to be thin. And, let's be honest, I'm running to show my husband that I can meet his challenge (thanks for knowing me so well, my love). But I realized on Sunday that I'm also doing it so that my daughter (and my son) will see running and exercise and (dare I say) athleticism as a regular part of being a girl.

I'm still not sure I'll ever be a capital-R Runner -- I'm not training for an actual race or dreaming of a marathon or anything. But seeing Junius and Pippi hopping up and down in the driveway to cheer me on as I make my loop past the house is all the motivation I need to keep on running.

Hooray for Birthdays!

December is my birth month. And yes, I like to stretch out the celebrating as long as possible. I'm a huge fan of birthdays in general, but mine in particular. When people complain about birthdays as a marker of getting older, my response is always, "It's better than the alternative."

The American Cancer Society has started a campaign for more birthdays, proclaiming that "there's no such thing as too many candles!" And even if I do get a little nervous about growing older, I completely agree with that slogan. I know that my friends who are cancer survivors are celebrating every candle, and I'm cheering right along with them.

In honor of my birthday, I hope you'll take a moment to read the guest post below from a great blogger, mom, scientist and cancer survivor. You might also want to read her more recent post in defense of mammograms, following the new guidelines released by the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force -- as a scientist and a survivor, she knows what she's talking about.

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From WhyMommy at Toddler Planet:

Inflammatory breast cancer

There’s more than one kind of breast cancer. Did you know that? During October, we’re so often flooded with “buy pink” campaigns, and reminders to check ourselves for lumps, that it’s become almost commonplace. We all know that we should do regular self exams, and we’ve heard it so often that the urgency often fades into the background of children, spouses, laundry, and work. But did you know that there’s a kind of breast cancer that forms without a tell-tale lump?

It’s called inflammatory breast cancer, and it spreads FAST. The cancer forms in thin sheets, or in nests, like a bird’s nest of cancer growing inside your breast. There are few external signals or symptoms, and they’re sneaky too, since most of them are similar to mastitis, which many of us have experienced while breastfeeding a baby, or bug bites, or sunburn. But taken together, one or more of these symptoms can signal a dangerous cancer lurking in your breast.

What are the symptoms? Here’s a list, from the IBC Research Foundation:

* Swelling, usually sudden, sometimes a cup size in a few days

* Itching

* Pink, red, or dark colored area (called erythema) sometimes with texture similar to the skin of an orange (called peau d’orange)

* Ridges and thickened areas of the skin

* Nipple retraction

* Nipple discharge, may or may not be bloody

* Breast is warm to the touch

* Breast pain (from a constant ache to stabbing pains)

* Change in color and texture of the areola

There’s a great illustration of these symptoms over at Worldwide Breast Cancer that is guaranteed to be not like anything you’ve seen before….

In my mind, it boils down to this. If you notice ANYTHING DIFFERENT on one breast that’s not on the other breast, please CALL YOUR DOCTOR. Today. Because this cancer moves fast, faster than almost any other cancer, and is deadly. Only 40% of patients survive 5 years after diagnosis.

In the 2.5 years since my diagnosis, I’ve already lost a dozen friends to cancer. Many of them were moms and bloggers, readers just like you. They fought hard. They fought with everything they had. But cancer treatment is largely still in the experimental stages, and it’s a tough road. Just to be here today, I had to not only survive cancer, but also survive 6 months of chemotherapy, 7 weeks of daily radiation, 2 surgeries to remove my breasts and ovaries, and a lot of physical therapy to deal with lymphedema, which makes my arm swell in the heat when I step outside (as a lovely side effect of the mastectomy that took all my lymph nodes on that side). It’s been a hard, hard road, but I’m grateful for the chance to be here today, to hug my children, to play their games, to laugh at their knock-knock jokes.

There is joy after cancer. But first we have to get there. So please, take a moment, call/email/blog/tweet/update your friends, and SHARE the SIGNS of inflammatory breast cancer with the people you care about. You never know. You might just save a life.

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Just in case that's not enough to motivate you, check out this fantastic video courtesy of Ilina. She reports that "Emily Somers created, directed and choreographed this video in Portland for her Medline glove division as a fundraiser for breast cancer awareness. This was all her idea to help promote their new pink gloves. I don't know how she got so many employees, doctors and patients to participate, but it started to really catch on and they all had a lot of fun doing it. When the video gets 1 million hits, Medline will be making a huge contribution to the hospital, as well as offering free mammograms for the community."

A Good Substitute is Hard to Find

He just wanted to be helpful. I was making my lunch, and Junius asked if he could join in. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

But when I watched, stunned, as his eyes began to swell shut and welts broke out across his face, I suddenly realized he was allergic to my sandwich. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich, the kind I'd eaten a hundred times since he was born, the kind he'd never wanted to eat himself but had just helped me make.

Somehow we made it three-and-a-half years without discovering that Junius has a peanut allergy -- but last December, it was painfully obvious why he never liked peanut butter. He hadn't even eaten any of it that day -- just got a little on his hands closing my sandwich, then rubbed his eyes. After a quick dose of benedryl, a frantic trip to the pediatrician (thankfully it was a weekday and his breathing remained normal), an epi shot and a long nap, he recovered from the reaction unscathed. A few weeks later we visited the allergist to officially confirm what we already knew.

Since then, we've stopped buying peanut butter altogether, even though my husband and I both love it. Just seems too risky to have it in the house. But I miss the ease and the tastiness of a good PB&J for lunch. So when my neighbor offered me a sample of SunButter that she'd gotten in the mail, I figured it was worth a try.

Turns out I can't get Juni even to taste it -- he is understandably afraid of anything that looks remotely like peanut butter. But Pippi and I have really enjoyed it. Although you wouldn't mistake it for real peanut butter, it has enough of the consitency, texture and flavor to make a good sandwich. And in addition to being Juni-safe, it's also "nutritionally superior" to peanut butter (according to its website).

All that to say, if you're not allergic to peanuts, you're probably happier with the real deal. But if you're looking for a substitute, this is a good one.

Note: I have received no compensation from SunButter to write this post. There's a lot of hullabaloo these days about blogging with integrity. I'm assuming the six of you who read this blog aren't worried about that, but please let me know if you have concerns. Trust me when I tell you that none of the marketers seem to have discovered my little blog, despite my hopes for lots of free "blogola."