I see her failing health and hear news from the doctor that just keeps getting more and more discouraging. The problem is that a lot of these things are directly attributed to a lifetime of bad eating and lack of exercise.
Grandma has never been one to drink water. She usually drinks Dr. Pepper and even then only at meals. I remember as a kid asking for a drink only to hear, "dinner will be ready soon wait till then". Her generation thought drinking was only for meal times not an every day part of life and water wasn't the drink of choice as soda waters became more popular. Even when not drinking Dr. Pepper she drank very sweet tea. Now, her kidneys are failing. Would they have failed despite these things? Possibly. But drinking water would have given her kidneys a better shot. Her doctor feels that her kidney (stage 4 kidney failure) is tied to her being weak and possibly her being severely anemic. Weakness contributed to her fall.
Grandma also didn't eat a lot of dairy products other than ice cream. I don't recall her having a glass of milk. She did go through a time where she did eat cereal in the evenings more often but other than that she wasn't getting a lot of milk in her diet. She had a bad experience with yogurt nearly 50 years ago and to this day she isn't going to touch it. Now, her bones are frail. One doctor thinks her pelvis broke before she fell. They say her vitamin D is pathetically low. This made her bones break easier.
Grandmas also didn't eat a lot of healthy vegetables. This lack of vitamins contributed to a lack of strength as well.
Would these illnesses be with her now had she eaten right all her life? Who knows? I do know that a lifetime of not eating right has compounded these issues and has left her in a position where getting better is difficult and my prove to me impossible. Yes, I know she is nearly 80. She would most likely have some of these problems regardless but would they have been more manageable? These are things that have me reflecting on my choices.
Please, do not misunderstand me, I am not blaming my grandmother for her condition. A lot of these things people didn't know back then and this is more a chance for me to look at what I am doing to my health and to my body. If I was to become seriously ill or incapacitated by illness or accident, could I recover? Have I given my body the tools it needs to work properly? Am I doing what I can to ensure that I am healthy? There is a growing trend towards smoking being an unhealthy habit but what about bad food choices? I would in no way condone an outlaw of Twinkies any more than I would cigarettes and alchohol but I do think that I need to think about the foods I am eating and the reasons I am eating.
These are all things I hope to learn as I continue on the Journey to Finding ME!
