... Poo-Dough, which is like Play-Doh except its creators should go to jail. But Poo-Dough doesn’t make the list because it’s disgusting. It makes the list because it contains wheat and thus could cause allergic reactions. So next year I suppose we should expect gluten-free Poo-Dough ...
Life Balance, Social Connection, Stress, Wellness, Laughter, Relaxation, Travel Stress
… laughter is the best medicine … for its social benefits and its ability to help people relax and unwind from life’s stressors.
I applaud TakeCare’s inclusion of social interaction as a component of a healthy, balanced lifestyle. Indeed, social interaction has been shown to be healthy (as long as people aren’t passing around the flu virus during their interactions!) People who are socially isolated tend to get sick more often and have worse mental health problems than people with good social networks. They take longer to recover from illness, too, and they die younger at a rate far greater than those who have strong social support.
And what is more social than laughter?!? …
Music, Deafness, Hearing Loss, Hearing Health, Cochlear Implants
… She was deaf.
And so began the panicked weeks of seeing every pediatric hearing specialist in town and learning our options. We wanted her to be Part of our Hearing World, so we got her cochlear implants (CIs). I can joke about it now, but back than it was all pretty scary. Over the ensuing months, we learned about these astonishing devices and began Molly’s journey to hearing with the help of terrific audiologists and auditory verbal therapists. And while Molly advanced through her Ling sounds and her annunciation, we knew music would likely remain a challenge. Cochlear implants are made for speech. Music—despite my assertion that it’s quite healthy for most people—is often noisy and bothersome for CI recipients.
Still, when she was about seven, Molly took an interest in pop music (especially Taylor Swift). It didn’t seem too noisy for her, but she often had trouble with the lyrics. Now, let’s face it, pop and rock lyrics are often tough to decipher even for people with excellent hearing. (Did the Beatles really sing, “The girl with colitis goes by …”? Was John Fogerty alluding to a prostate problem when he seemed to croon, “There’s a bathroom on the right”?) But the task was especially tough for …
