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July 27, 2006
- Day 2 - Week 17 - Vital Signs
Information over-load has
occurred in our culture and from kindergarten to
graduate school there is an over-whelming amount of
facts and figures we are required to process.
Because of the availability of material we have all
had to learn to make choices. Do we subscribe to
magazines, newspapers, newsletters, or periodicals?
Do we watch the evening news; Meet the Press, CNN,
Fox, or a host of other outlets pouring out stories
about our world? Do we read fiction or
non-fiction? Do we go and see entertaining movies
or documentaries that educate? Are television and
its multitude of offerings worthy of our time? Do
we watch sitcoms or reality shows like Survivor or
American Idol? Any discriminating person must
choose and choose wisely because we are bombarded
daily with so much stuff it is no wonder we tune out
and turn off from reality.
In similar fashion, hundreds of
thousands of pages of information about disease is
available on-line. It would take 64 hour days,
and 52 day weeks just to get through the offerings
on cancer alone. Thus, anyone who attempts to
work with the doctor and become one’s own best ally
in getting well has a monumental task ahead of them.
I am feeling that I can not keep up with all that is
coming my way on a daily basis, so I am
compartmentalizing and using my power of discernment
to make headway through the information highway.
I love the word discernment, it sounds like you are
actually doing something important.
There is an organization called
World Watch that produces a book every year called
Vital Signs. In essence their researchers
take the pulse of the planet to see how we are
doing. This distills down all the different issues
to 10 or so key ones and then measures where we are
related to these. For example: food and
agriculture trends, energy and climate trends,
economic trends, transportation and communication
trends, health and social trends.
I am thinking of creating a
system whereby a measurement of certain vital signs
will tell me how I am doing. For example, at
the doctor’s office they check my blood,
heart, pulse, blood pressure, temperature, and
weight every time I show up. From this I am
judged to be alive, close to being alive, or being
barely alive.
At home I have another set of
criteria for judging how I am doing. The home
Vital Signs are a little different, but they can
indicate good or bad trends.
- energy level
- food consumption patterns
- sleep quotient
- exercise regimen
- attitude
- love opportunities
- nap schedule
How I measure up on each of
these indicates to me how I am doing. I just need to
listen better to what they tell me. I might add a
few other signs related specifically to having
cancer.
- hair loss - ok
- fat legs – still an issue
- bruising – becoming
noticeable
- dry mouth - fine
- rash area on body – tough
to get rid of
- nausea – so far so good
- public avoidance – only
rarely
I would imagine that if we all
did an assessment of the former and corrected each
to their optimum we might avoid having to address
the second set of seven. Creation of your individual
Vital Sign measurement program might be an
additional preventative program that would pay
lasting dividends.
Back to Week 17 |
