Category: Health & Wellness

A first-timer visits the cannabis dispensary

Although I have been using medical cannabis for about six months, until yesterday, I had never visited a dispensary in person. I order online, and the cannabis is delivered to my house. The dispensary visit went about as expected, if you expect that, somehow, I will mess things up.

I had my Medical Marijuana Recommendation, which is still required in many places throughout California. I got mine from HelloMD. Not all dispensaries (including the one I visited) are licensed to sell retail. They copied my documentation and driver’s license while I sat in the nicely appointed waiting room filling out a form with address, etc.

When all was ready, a click opened the door to an inner chamber, a small store with glass-covered display cases. A young man (the budtender) waited on me. I said I was looking for Kiva Terra Bites, chocolate-covered dried blueberries that are supposed to be good for insomnia. I’ve written about other sleep remedies here and here, but I wanted to compare and contrast.

Check, he says, they have the Terra Bites, and if I like them, I should come back on Mondays, when they’re on sale. Nice.

While I was there, I checked out the displays to see what else looked fetching. I saw a small jar of a topical cream called Dabba. A brochure on the counter said it provides natural pain relief for 34 different conditions, from arthritis and eczema to neuropathy, phantom limb syndrome, sunburn, gun shot wounds and menstrual cramps. Obviously, I need this product.

I paid for my purchase in cash as required (I saw an ATM machine in the lobby). The budtender put my goods in childproof packaging and gave me a quick tutorial on how to open it. I also got two free pre-rolls and a little loose bud. Free pre-rolls seem to be common. I don’t smoke the joints, but they mysteriously disappear from the cabinet where I put them, so I’m pretty sure Dale is up to no good.

It looked as though I would get out of there without incident, when I saw two doors that appeared to be exits. One door was clearly marked, “Not an Exit.” Two guys were standing there, talking in front of the other door. Door number two did NOT have a sign regarding its role in life, so I assumed it WAS an exit and said excuse me, as I went to turn the handle.

No alarms actually went off, but I can still hear the sirens in my head. One of the guys said, stop! Miss, you cannot go in there! I’m freaking out. I guess this is the door to the mother lode? I backed away slowly and said in the same voice I use with TSA agents, “Can you please tell me where the exit is?”

They point to a door at the opposite end of the room. The exit, by the way, did not say, “Exit.”

I will have a full report on the blueberries in due time. They are 5 MG of THC per blueberry. That’s considered low-dose, but I ate one last night before bed, and it was too much for me. I felt dizzy and slept weird. Cutting a blueberry in half sounds dumb, but that’s what I will try next. I do believe they make them in 2.5 MG, which is probably better for my dainty self.

As far as the topical goes, I put it on my knees, my back and my mastectomy scars. I felt almost immediate relief – very similar to Penetrex but better. As it happens, I was on HelloMD chatting with one of the doctors, and she said topicals are a must for treating my post-mastectomy pain. She said to put it on several times a day for a week, and it might even make the pain go away permanently.

This is my first experiment with topical cannabis, which may be the best thing yet for older adults suffering from a variety of ailments. Cannabis creams will show up in a drug test, but they do not get you high. If you are open to the idea of using cannabis to treat pain and inflammation but don’t want to consume it, topicals are a good option.

I’ll keep you posted on my progress. So far, the only downside is a pungent odor for a couple of hours after you apply it – not offensive to me but definitely cannabis – to the point where I didn’t think I should go to the supermarket with Dale. It’s perfectly legal, not like they are going to kick me out of Whole Foods, but I really don’t want cannabis to be my signature scent.

 

The man on the train

Like many adults from dysfunctional families, I was angry with my father for years over his failings as a parent. With counseling and a one-time encounter with him 35 years after he died, I found peace.

My father, Bill, drank and was emotionally and verbally abusive. Much of the time, it seemed he wanted nothing to do with his wife and kids. For as long as I can remember, he slept in a camper parked in the backyard.

As a teenager, Bill left an impoverished home in Cleveland during the Great Depression and road the rails. He bummed his way around the country and was on his own for years when he got drafted. While AWOL, he met my mother in a bar back home. Married her, and after the war, he went back to Cleveland to pick her up and take the train out to California.

The newlyweds landed in Los Angeles with a little money saved up and bought a corner store that sold candy and cigarettes. Bill ran the store, and Mom worked in a bank.

Bill was notorious for closing the store and going to the movies or hanging out in bars. My mom went to check on him during a lunch break and found a stranger behind the counter. The man said Bill gave him the store, and it turned out to be true. That is when they headed for the suburbs, where he started sleeping in the backyard.

I happened to mention the camper to my counselor.

Why do you think he slept out there?

He was a ramblin’ man.

Dad rode the rails and struggled to accept the responsibilities of family life. Sleeping in the camper made him feel unbridled.

Counseling helped me forgive my father, who died when I was in my early 20s. I saw him for the first time not as a broken child but as an adult, and I saw he had many wonderful qualities. Not that his behavior was justified, but at some point, you realize people can only do so much with what they have. Still, I wondered how my life might be different if I had felt a father’s love.

I left California shortly after high school and only came back about five years ago when I thought it was safe. I used to ride the bus to work. Most mornings, I walked to the Caltrain station to catch the early bus, which left at 5:30 a.m. A handful of us would gather in the dark at our stop near the train tracks and wait for the bus to pull up.

One morning, a freight train zoomed by headed south, toward Los Angeles. I looked up to watch it pass. As the last car pulled into view, I saw a young man in clothes that looked to be from the 1940s, sitting on the back smiling and waving at me.

It was my father, and I suddenly felt engulfed in his love.

 

A message of faith and hope

On April 1, 2015, I was in the hospital having my breasts amputated. Mastectomy is such a nice word, but the only thing nice about this procedure is its potential to cure or prevent cancer. I’m happy to be celebrating my three-year anniversary. For those of you who are celebrating Easter today, perhaps my message of faith and hope will resonate.

My first cancer came out of nowhere. I was 43 years old and having vague abdominal pain. I already had a hysterectomy due to painful periods and wanted to be done with all that. My ovaries were removed during that operation. No ovaries but weird stuff going on. I had an exploratory surgery where they go in with a scope through the naval, and that’s when they found cancer.

The doctor said it was ovarian, which kind of blew me away, but it turns out a small percentage of women will get a kind of cancer almost identical to ovarian even without ovaries. That would be me. It’s officially called Primary Peritoneal Cancer (PPC). Most days I just say ovarian, although they are distinct.

It was advanced. Stage 3, Grade 3. The five-year survival rate is about 25-30 percent. The treatment was surgery to remove the tumors and other miscellaneous parts and then six months of chemotherapy. Following the chemo, I had another surgery to see if microscopic cancer remained. I was clear, and here I am, 18 years later with no recurrences.

I never thought about breast cancer, assuming my earlier cancer was a fluke. But I did go every year for a mammogram, and in 2015, it came back with a suspicious mass. After additional tests, I was diagnosed with Ductal Carcinoma In Situ (DCIS), which means the cells that line the milk ducts of the breast have become cancer, but they have not spread into surrounding breast tissue. DCIS is considered non-invasive or pre-invasive breast cancer.

If you’re going to get breast cancer, this is the one you want. Standard treatment is lumpectomy and radiation. However, I had that nasty history, so after all these years, it occurred to the doctors I should be genetically tested. It came back positive for the BRCA1 gene mutation. As the genetic counselor explained it to me, this mutation caused both my cancers and puts me at higher risk of cancer maybe forever.

The doctor advised me to have a bilateral mastectomy, and I agreed. It’s about reducing risk. I also decided not to get reconstruction or wear a prosthesis. I choose to be flat. You can read about that decision here.

In the early years after my first cancer, I had boatloads of check-ups because of the high recurrence rate. Now I go for check-ups twice a year, where they poke around and draw some blood to test for a cancer antigen that could indicate a recurrence.

That’s my cancer story in a nutshell. There are stories within the story, and I will probably write about them at some point. I was unlucky to get cancer but very lucky to survive it. As for the BRCA mutation, no one else in the family had ovarian or breast cancer. My relatives were tested after my diagnosis, and no one came back positive. The best we can figure is that I inherited it from my father, who had prostate cancer in his 50s but died many years ago from something else.

No cancer is good. And there are plenty of other terrible ailments that plague people and have nothing to do with cancer. If you are suffering, I know it’s a struggle to stay positive, but I always had faith as long as I was still alive, I would grow and learn and love and find happiness no matter what. You just keep going.

As for hope, I believe somebody, somewhere beats the odds and from day one, I said, “Why can’t it be me?”

 

Eat your beans

I’m here to sing the praises of eating more beans and legumes. I can’t think of a single food that has had more impact on my life – and not always in a good way.

As a child, I hated beans. I remember going to my friend Becky’s house for a sleepover, and for dinner, her mother made some sort of dish with macaroni and kidney beans. I vividly recall puking it up in Becky’s bedroom a couple of hours later. I was not invited back.

My taste buds evolved as I got older, but I still didn’t eat beans or other legumes because I had what we used to call a sensitive stomach. I had trouble digesting beans and vegetables such as cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage, which I nicknamed, “Death Vegetable.” I would have horrible gas pain and bloating, and to me, it wasn’t worth it.

In the category of strange but true, my digestive issues resolved after my cancer surgery in 1999. The operation included removing my omentum, which is a curtain of fatty tissue that hangs down from the stomach and liver and wraps around the intestines. The omentum is thought to aid in digestion, but maybe because mine was diseased it had the opposite effect? Or maybe whilst tooling around in my gut, the surgeon unkinked something that now allowed me to enjoy beans and cruciferous vegetables?

I don’t know what happened, but after the surgery at age 43, I began to slowly introduce these foods into my diet. And then later in my 50s, I read about people in the Blue Zones of the world who live long, healthy lives. Most of them eat a lot of beans. Additionally, eating a daily serving of cooked beans is linked with lower levels of “bad” low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol. I upped my game.

My husband always loved beans and legumes, so it made dinner easier. We discovered a mutual tolerance for unpleasant odors, since it did take time for my body to adjust as I increased fiber in my diet. No horrible bloating gas like I had when I was young – just painless flatulence, which Dale says is the sign of a healthy metabolism. But this comes from a guy who would sign his farts if he could.

We all know something will get us eventually, but since improving my diet by reducing sugar, eating more fruits and vegetables, eating oatmeal for breakfast several days a week and consuming beans or legumes daily, all the numbers in my lipid profile markedly improved, and my bad cholesterol dropped by 17 percent. After a lifetime fooling around with irritable bowel syndrome, I have no issues with either constipation or diarrhea.

Black beans, pinto beans, kidney beans, chickpeas, black-eyed peas and all kinds of lentils are now pantry staples. Hearty bean soups make an especially good lunch – I cook big batches to freeze in individual servings. If you’re working, you can defrost at home and put it in a wide-mouth mason jar to reheat in the microwave at the office. I kept a little squirt bottle of good olive oil in my credenza as a topper!

Cookbooks and websites are loaded with recipes that use legumes, but here are three new favorites:

In my opinion, all beans and legumes taste better if you make them from scratch. Once you get used to cooking dry beans, you will never want to use canned again. The Instant Pot®, which is an electric pressure cooker, makes it fast and easy – we would starve without ours.

I pretty much love all food, but if I had to, I would give up meat before I’d give up beans. Just don’t make me think about giving up cheese.

Experiments with cannabis gummies

I continue to use homemade CBD-dominant cannabis tincture to ease anxiety and reduce inflammation associated with post-mastectomy pain. All is well, but I wanted to share a couple of updates from the field!

First, always be cautious with your dosage. Cannabis is medicine not candy, and our goal here is to feel better without feeling stoned. Second, back away from the gummi bears.

My preferred delivery system is a little juice shooter in the morning with a bit of cannabis tincture. I’ve been adding a dropperful to my shooter. When I finally finished my first bottle of homemade cannabis tincture, I opened a new bottle and squeezed out a dropperful.

Whoa! There’s a reason I’m not a professional cannabis chef. My quality control apparently sucks. A dropperful of the new bottle from the same batch of tincture gave me what is lovingly called, “Couch Lock.” Except I was at my desk, so it was more “Chair Lock.”

Under the effects of too much cannabis, I sat there for a couple of hours mindlessly staring at my computer. So, yes, you might think of it as just another day in the office. But I’m retired, and I have more important things to do.

Such as making cannabis gummi bears! My tincture was a success, so I got to thinking how much fun it would be to try some other sort of cannabis recipe. I was immediately attracted to the idea of making cannabis gummies. I found a recipe using tincture, I ordered the molds, bought gelatin and sour cherry juice, because I thought that sounded like a good flavor.

Gummi bears were easy to make, but at the end of the day, you are stuck with boatloads of cannabis gummi bears. Oh, and I ran out of space in the bear molds, so I used silicone cupcake molds instead. That resulted it big globs of gelatin with cannabis in them. They look sort of like peanut butter cups.

They taste OK, but again, dosage is a problem. Those bears are so tiny! And the faux peanut butter cups are huge! And for some of us, who shall remain nameless, it’s difficult to remember they aren’t candy. For me, it’s safer to rely on the precision of a medical dropper. It even looks like medicine.

In hindsight, I would say, what’s the point? I don’t eat regular gummi bears, so the medicated variety don’t fit into my routine. And it occurred to me later I don’t actually like gummi bears. The only way I would want a product like this is if I were very sick and this was the only way I could take my medication.

Even then, I would advise all to proceed with caution. Overdoing it can lead to wasted hours in front of the computer, and that sounds too much like work.

Adventures with cannabis concentrate for insomnia

I was always a sleeper – used to say when the going gets tough, the tough go to sleep. Stress? Sadness? Pain? Checking out now, thank you. See you in the morning. But like everything else, all that changed with menopause, age, etc. Some nights my brain lights up with activity just as my head hits the pillow.

By design, I never tried prescription sleep medications. Too fraught with peril for me, typically a belt and suspenders kind of gal. That’s why I tried cannabis tea, which is legal where I live. As a novice user of medical cannabis, I wanted something easy and predictable. Kikoko Tranquili-Tea is exactly that. But it’s close to $5 a pop, so I began to research alternatives.

There are many indica-dominant strains to treat insomnia, but one that stood out for me was Granddaddy Purple. Up until this time, I had only used cannabis as tea or dried herb in my PAX vaporizer, and I didn’t see Granddaddy anywhere in the lineup on the dispensary website where I shop. Then one day I saw it.

Granddaddy Purple was listed under “concentrates.” The specific product was a cartridge. I was excited to see it, so I just ordered and didn’t think about the delivery system, other than it sure was cool to have it delivered to my house.

When it arrived, I opened the package and realized I had no idea what to do with it. I showed it to my husband, and he said I think you need a vape pen. I’m like, snap, I don’t want to be the cannabis paraphernalia queen, but there I was with Granddaddy Purple in a cartridge and no way to tap it.

If you are an inexperienced cannabis user, you might ask, um, tap what? What’s in the cartridge? In this case, it was cannabis oil, a concentrate made with a botanical extractor that uses pressure and carbon dioxide to separate the plant material. It produces an amber oil that is vaporized in a portable vape pen.

Which I did not have.

Here it is, the slippery slope, I thought, as I drove to the smoke shop. The hopelessly young clerk asked if he could help me. I had taken a picture of the cartridge with my phone and decided to lay my cards on the table.

I’m kind of new at this. I bought a cartridge, and I think I need a vape pen to use it. Are they universal – will my cartridge work in any vape pen, or do I need something special for this cartridge?

He was super nice. He looked at the picture probably just out of curiosity, wondering what an old lady smokes. But then said, yes, they’re universal. He showed me a selection of vape pens, and I picked a gpen slim for about $25.

Took it home and then had a hell of a time figuring out how to put it on the pen. Incredibly easy, but you know, beginner’s mind. The pen comes with a mouthpiece to use when you put your own oil in there, so think of the cartridge as a replacement mouthpiece. You screw it on, you push a button and you inhale.

On the first night I was still, uh, testing the tool and took several hearty puffs. Whomp. I slept, oh baby, I slept and had a hard time getting out of bed the next morning. No hangover or anything, which is the gift of cannabis. Just a bit groggy.

The next night I tried two very gentle puffs and got a wonderful night’s sleep. I woke up feeling refreshed, and there are none of those odd nocturnal behaviors associated with prescription meds. In terms of cost, a .05 ML cartridge is $40. I’m on night 11, and there seems to be plenty left. Already, it’s cheaper than tea.

The verdict? It’s a personal preference. I like both, but then here I am, a professional cannabis advocate. The tea is a delicious sensory experience, but concentrate is more to the point. I felt like an elegant lady drinking the tea – mother’s little helper – and I feel like more of a druggie vaping the concentrate. But the vape is easy, just keep it by the side of the bed, take two gentle puffs and pretty soon I’m falling asleep. And it’s cheaper, so for me, value wins.

What’s more important, though, is the value of getting a good night’s sleep, especially if you are in pain. Your body needs rest. I feel great! You can follow all the advice and turn off your cell phones, fluff your pillow, darken the room or whatever, but none of that did the job for me. Cannabis is a game changer.

Breaking up with sugar

Eating well in retirement is a joy because I have time to browse recipes, shop for quality food and cook meals from scratch. Friends know I have a passion for real food that isn’t packaged or processed, but many are not aware of my dirty little secret.

Here’s to blowing up dirty little secrets.

It starts with my childhood, which refuses to go away. I continue to process my dysfunctional roots and was reading about family dynamics. I took comfort in learning Chinese parents love their children fiercely, but they don’t say, “I love you.” They show love through generosity, loyalty and food. We didn’t talk about love in my family either, unless it was something like, “I love hot fudge sundaes” or “I love Rum and Coke.”

No problem, because I loved sugar. As one of the original latchkey kids, my favorite after-school snack was eating powdered sugar out of the box with an iced-tea spoon. Sometimes a scoop of plain white granulated sugar from the bin poured straight down my scratchy little throat.

My mother used to send us off to the movies on Saturdays. She gave my sister and me a quarter each, and we could buy whatever candy we wanted at the corner store to take with us into the theater. Back then, everything was a nickel, so that was five treats. FIVE!

I liked my sugar unadulterated by chocolate. My candy of choice was compressed dextrose, sometimes known as chalk candy. Necco® Wafers, Smarties®, Conversation Hearts, Bottlecaps®, SweeTARTS®, candy necklaces …

Even as an adult, I thought sugar was OK as long was you watched the fat. I became a fan of fat-free candy such as jelly beans, candy corn, those strange orange circus peanuts – plus all the compressed dextrose yummies from my youth.

Up until a few years ago, I had a special candy drawer in the kitchen. I figured if I kept my weight under control, I could eat whatever I wanted. I used to say, “Sugar is your friend.”

Then age and genetics caught up with me. My blood sugar inched up toward the pre-diabetes zone, and the doctor advised me to change my diet. Candy, that ruthless bastard, was not my friend. I’m getting older, trying to live a long and healthy life, so I gave it up. I just did. I told myself, “I don’t eat candy anymore.”

That’s not to say I don’t occasionally eat dessert or foods with sugar – and I enjoy wine and beer, so I’m by no means a purist. But I consumed a lot of sugar, and eliminating packaged candy seemed like a clean break. I didn’t have a weight problem to begin with, but over the course of three years, 10 pounds disappeared, and so far my blood sugar is under control.

Easter is my favorite candy season. So easily tempted by the siren call of marshmallow peeps. Last year I fell off the wagon (just a box or two). I saw the Easter candy displays out earlier this week, and I had to walk away. I texted my lifeline.

how about a challenge? neither one of us eat peeps this year?

lol too late.

We agreed to the challenge anyway. In the spirit of continuous improvement. Game on, but I think we’re both a little sad. Breaking up with sugar is like breaking up with love.

A sense of community for older cannabis users

Yesterday my husband and I went wine tasting at a local vineyard. Such a hard life.

We ended up chatting with the winemaker, who looked to be a Boomer like us. He was talking about his bumper crop of Meyer lemons, so I mentioned my homemade Meyer Lemon-Ginger Drink. I was going to leave it at that, but then I thought, hey, cannabis is legal. I told him I added cannabis tincture to it and drank a shot every morning like vitamin juice.

His eyes lit up, and he started to whisper. Then he stopped. Oh, he said, we don’t have to whisper anymore! We spent the next 30 minutes talking about tincture recipes and edibles you can make at home. Somehow it makes sense a winemaker would be into cannabis concoctions.

This was the first time I’ve had a public conversation with anyone about using cannabis, and it felt great to have that sense of community, the sense we are all in this together, just doing our best to figure out how to deal with life, health and the crap that happens to your body as you get older.

Pain, insomnia and anxiety are among the many ailments that can impact our ability to feel wonderful, especially as we age. I started using cannabis after I retired to treat post-mastectomy pain. Small doses fixed me right up and left me feeling happier than I knew was possible. Like, wow, is this how I was supposed to feel all along?

Although I like cannabis tea and have written about it here and here, I also bought a PAX 2 vaporizer, which is quite small and ideal for microdosing. The PAX 2 vaporizes dried herb, which is the good old-fashioned pot most of us are familiar with.

My PAX is perfect and beautiful – I bought silver to match my hair. I had to buy a little tool to grind the flowers, but that’s it. You put the ground up herb in the chamber, press a button and the PAX heats up. When the lights are green, it’s ready. I just take two or three small puffs and then turn it off again. I purchased the PAX and the grinder at a local smoke shop, but you can easily get everything you need online.

The hardest part is figuring out which strain of cannabis to buy. I found one strain that eases pain and anxiety and another one that gives me energy and focus. This weekend I’ll be trying one that purportedly helps with sleep. I do have my beloved sleep tea, but I’d like options.

It’s different everywhere you live, but California makes it easy. I still have not set foot in an actual dispensary. I order from a website, and they deliver it to my house. You even get a free sample called the Early Bird Special if you order before noon! Who knew I’d retire and start loving the Early Bird Special?

Yes, I am now a cannabis advocate. It’s crazy to say it in my outside voice, because there’s still this perception cannabis users are part of a seedy drug culture. That is changing. Surveys now show most Americans favor legalizing marijuana. And more of us are using it in a mindful way that defies the image of stoners with bongs as big as Atlanta.

If you haven’t checked out my Retirement Confidential FaceBook page, I urge you to go there and maybe even Follow or Like it. I post additional content on FB that doesn’t make it onto the blog – articles about baby boomers using cannabis and other stories about aging, eating well and otherwise loving life.

Wouldn’t it be great to find our tribe and be part of a community where we can go and feel connected with other open-minded people who want to age with health, happiness and possibly cannabis?

 

Mastectomy without reconstruction is a choice

If you know me, it came as no surprise I would have a mastectomy without reconstruction. Oh, there’s Donna, that independent cuss. You would also know my favorite TV show is Chopped, hence the swag. The hat was a gift when I was on medical leave, and at the time, I didn’t think anything about it. In hindsight, it’s pretty funny, and wearing the hat today was just another twisted coincidence.

Getting chopped on the Food Network show or in real life is no fun. For those who face breast cancer treatment or may someday wrestle with this decision, I wanted to share my reasons for taking this path and how I have fared without breasts. It’s called going flat. It’s not for everyone, but it’s a viable option for many, including BRCA-positives who are considering prophylactic mastectomy to reduce risk.

First of all, I had some history. In 1999, I was diagnosed with advanced stage ovarian cancer. Two surgeries took a toll, and I had hoped to spend the rest of my life anywhere but in the operating room. Then in 2015, I was diagnosed with non-invasive breast cancer. Typical treatment for my diagnosis is lumpectomy and radiation, however, I tested positive for the BRCA1 mutation.

The doctor said with my history of ovarian cancer and now knowing I was BRCA-positive, we would have to be aggressive, since the cancer was more likely to come back and not play nice next time around. My treatment would be bilateral mastectomy.

I can’t remember how it occurred to me I might not need breasts, but here’s the executive summary:

  • My overriding thought was to spend as little time as possible being down for the count.
  • No reconstruction translated to less time in the hospital.
  • I saw implants as something alien that wouldn’t feel like real breasts anyway.
  • Would implants interfere with my golf swing?
  • Implants don’t last forever, so that’s another hospital visit down the road.
  • I didn’t like the image of my future 70-something body with 30-something breasts.

My husband and I discussed it. He was shocked but then got used to the idea and said he would support whatever I decided. He has always been a leg man, anyway. I found inspiring pictures of “Flat & Fabulous” women on the Internet. I saw beautiful chest tattoos and that little rebel in me said, hell, yeah, so I put that idea on the back burner for future consideration.

I’ve heard some doctors argue with a patient who doesn’t want reconstruction. They assume you will regret it, but my doctor had no concerns. He knew I already survived ovarian cancer against all odds, and he knew I wasn’t there to fool around. I said make me look like a 10-year-old boy – I don’t want a bunch of skin leftover in case I change my mind. He said OK.

Some women have parties to say farewell to their breasts, complete with boobie party favors and whatnot. But I was never one to celebrate breast-focused culture and loathed references to ta-tas or girls. Maybe that’s why it wasn’t such a big deal for me. I got the sleek look I was going for, and I’ve never looked back. I didn’t bother to get fitted for a prosthesis.

Aside from the lingering issues of post-mastectomy pain, I’m comfortable where I ended up. It’s fabulous not to wear bras or worry about buying bras, which is right up there with root canals. Clothes and swimsuits can be challenging but not a deal breaker. I favor close-fitting tops that don’t attempt to hide my flatness.

I’ve had a few looks, but honestly, people are self-absorbed and don’t notice. A woman on the golf course asked me if I was a breast cancer survivor because she noticed I was flat. That’s it. No one has said anything awful to me – though I’ve heard some people are horrified by breastlessness and angry with those of us who dare to appear in public. I hang with a different crowd.

The tattoo idea is still out there, but I’m not sure I need it. When I look in the mirror, I’m a scarred up mess, but I’m alive and already highly decorated.

Penetrex to help an aging body stay active

Choosing to retire was a lifestyle decision. I had a great job, but it sucked up all my time, and I didn’t want to live that way anymore. Is it me, or is work overrated?

I don’t have a full-time job anymore, but I’m like just about everyone else working or retired. Getting older and doing what I can to stack the deck for a long, healthy and happy life.

My guiding principles are move more, eat well, look good, stay healthy, keep learning, use cannabis wisely and enjoy simple pleasures.

That last one … pain. Pain is a thief that will rob you of joy and diminish your mobility, which can have disastrous effects on your overall health. I’ve been writing about my use of cannabis to deal with post-mastectomy pain and other afflictions, and I also wanted to share my experience with a product anyone can use.

Penetrex is a topical cream you can buy on Amazon or at Walmart that treats anything resulting from inflammation of muscles, nerves, ligaments and tendons. The active ingredient is an herb called Arnica.

While I do use cannabis products to ease inflammation in my body, so far I haven’t tried cannabis topicals to target specific areas. However, I use Penetrex in multiple ways.

  • Knees. I injured mine in a sports accident almost eight years ago. They hurt and swell for no good reason. Using Penetrex regularly keeps me walking about five miles a day pretty much pain-free.
  • Sciatica. The MRI says I have bulging discs and spinal stenosis. My principal symptom is sciatica. I put Penetrex on the spot where it hurts, as well as up and down my spine, because I figure that’s where the pain originates. I have not had a full-blown sciatica episode since I started using Penetrex nine months ago.
  • Breast cancer scars. The area around my armpits where they removed lymph nodes looks like the Grand Canyon – sometimes those scars just burn and sting. Penetrex makes it go away almost instantly.

My sister and I are famous for having weird medical issues. That’s why neither one of us has children – the gene pool stops here. She has a thing called Chilblains, which makes her toes itch, hurt and turn blue. She uses Penetrex as soon as an episode begins, and it’s gone before it starts. My husband uses it with great success on his shoulder, which he injured years ago playing racquetball.

Obviously, I’m a big fan of Penetrex. Just get me a bucket and a paint roller. The literature says the product treats inflammation, which encompasses a lot of ailments but certainly not all. Do you think it’s worth a try?