Vacation

Dear Nurse Dave,
Where you been? Its been more than a week since your last post.
Cheryl, Las Vegas, NM

First, Cheryl I'm sure that you're tired of explaining that there is a Las Vegas, New Mexico and it isn't Las Vegas, Nevada. So I'll save you the trouble of explaining. Here's the city's site. Check it out everybody.

Second I was on vacation. Everybody needs a vacation or else sometimes stress can build to unhealthy levels. This particular vacation involved spending some time at the beach and going to see Fort Sumter. The first shots of the civil war were fired there and the fort also features this plaque explaining how the confederate army never surrendered the fort (they just gave up the fort when they saw a larger army coming, I'm not sure what the difference is). The vacation also featured my 2 year old niece that has the exact same hair style as Billy Murray (an excellent haircut decision).

So Cheryl I'd recommend you take a break sometime. You seem a little high strung. Get out of the hustle and bustle of Las Vegas and take some time to yourself. Just a few tips for you. Any successful vacation needs to consist of four things, 1) Some form of American History, 2) Lots of driving, 3) Wearing clothes you wouldn't normally feel comfortable wearing in public and 4) Overeating. Good Luck.

p.s. take pictures of you jumping off of stuff. always a good move on vacation.

Coke or Pepsi?

Dear Nurse Dave,
Coke or Pepsi?
Terrance, Las Cruces, NM

Over the years my answer to the question has changed mostly as my reaction to the brand advertising has changed. In my youth I considered myself a Pepsi drinker. In the eighties and early nineties Pepsi had positioned itself as the choice of a new generation with the help of various radical celebrities. I felt that this new generation included me somehow and I didn't want to be included with the elderly people that loved coke. But as time moved forward I began to feel less inclined to be the part of a new generation and wanted something more from my soda. Plus I blame Pepsi for Michael's death.

As I grew as a person my tastes changed and that I realized coke was for me. I no longer needed something flashy. I no longer needed a product that was trying just too hard to be cool. I needed something classic that would never let you down. Pepsi began to feel like that kid down the street that would give you his watch if you would be friends with him. While Coke felt more like that natural friendly kid that everybody liked. In Happy Days terms Pepsi is Ralph Malph and Coke is the Fonz. Ralph may be able to get you a few laughs but he's got nothing on the Fonz.

Coke has to be the choice of anyone with real class or a leather jacket. But my favorite soda is actually Dr. Pepper. In Happy Day's terms Pepsi is Ralph Malph, Coke is the Fonz and Dr. Pepper is a show i actually watch.

Fibromyalgia?

Dear Nurse Dave,
So my Aunt claims she has fibromyalgia and says that it just makes her hurt all the time. She doesn't work or do anything. Is she just crazy or is this a real problem?
Annie, Brooklyn, NY

Annie it is real but your Aunt could still be crazy. Fibromyalgia is a real problem that people have that means that person has chronic pain and really can't do much. The thing is just like every 14 year old boy that claims he has a girlfriend out of state may not actually have a girlfriend out of state, every person that claims they have fibromyalgia may not actually have fibromyalgia.

So your next question probably is, "Then how can I tell if she has it or not?" My answer is I don't know. If someone tells me they are in pain I just believe them. I don't really have another option and it really isn't going to hurt someone to give them pain medication even if they don't really need it (which I have no way of knowing). So Annie my advice would be read up on Fibromyalgia and see how you can help your aunt out. Ask her questions about the disease and be open to her answers. (You can do the same thing with a 14 year old claiming to have an out of state girlfriend. The truth will come out pretty quickly).

In addition here's a creepy pain scale you can use with your aunt (10 = really hurts).

More National Treasure

Dear Nurse Dave,
Two questions. 1) Sometimes I get what my doctor calls angina and my chest really hurts. What's causing that pain? and 2) What do you think they'll do for National Treasure 3?
Leroy, Burton, AL

1) Leroy angina is not a good thing. Angina commonly occurs when the heart isn't getting enough enough oxygen. The drug treatment for angina is nitroglycerin. It is a pill that dilates the arteries supplying blood to the heart so that it can get the oxygen carrying blood that it needs. If the pain isn't relieved by nitroglycerin you could actually be having a heart attack. That occurs when an artery supplying blood to a portion of your heart gets totally blocked up and that part of the heart can actually die. Leroy you should be under the care of a cardiologist.

2) Like you Leroy I'm a huge fan of National Treasure 1 and 2. Who would have thought the founding fathers would have hidden two different massive treasures in two different extremely patriotic landmarks? So like you I'm looking forward to where the next treasure will be found. This one I see playing out in the national parks. I want to see Nic Cage in Yosemite, the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone. There will of course be awesome clues hidden in Old Faithful, on top of Half Dome and somewhere at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. During all the adventure Nic will be chased by a new villain (I'm hoping for Deniro) that is seeking to exploit history for personal gain. I'm thinking the adventure ends in San Francisco with a helicopter chase over the Golden Gate Bridge ending on Alcatraz (remember the Rock) where the 3rd awesome treasure is hidden. This treasure has a lot to do with the Roosevelts and a little to do with the mafia. The final scene that I want is Nic Cage standing in the wind with a American Flag wrapped around him tearing up as someone sings America the Beautiful. Also the treasure will be used to help create jobs.
(unfortunately from what I've read Nic wants to go international with this one, Lets hope this isn't true).

Shin Splints?

Dear Nurse Dave,
I love running but lately my shins have really been hurting after I go running. I think I've got shin splints. I'm training for a marathon but I can hardly handle it. What can I do?
Samantha, Cold Creek, MO

Well Samantha the traditional answer would be rest, new shoes, ice and blah blah blah. But none of that stuff is what a tough guy would do. He would just run through the pain. And personally I recommend the tough guy approach.

Take Willis Reed for example. He went out and played game 7 of the NBA finals with his calf muscle torn off his bone. What happened? Oh nothing much, his team just won the championship. Kevin McHale played the '87 playoffs with a broken foot. Brandon Roy returned last year to face the Phoenix Suns in the playoffs without even having a knee. Roy Hobbs got shot by a lady on a train and then hit a homerun that made all of the lights in the stadium explode. The examples of athletes playing through injury to achieve glory are almost countless. So the question you need to ask yourself is "Do I want glory?" I certainly hope the answer is yes.

(Disclaimer - Every athlete mentioned above had careers that were almost certainly shortened or prematurely ended because they played through injury. Who knows what they could have done if they hadn't taken the tough guy approach and given their bodies opportunities to heal?)

Breakfast

Nurse Dave,
My mom always said that, "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day." Is this true? And if so what should I be eating?
Tony, Portland, Maine

First Tony I've got a question for you. Are you in anyway associated with Tony's Donut Shop? If so I feel like you have a lot of nerve asking these questions. You already have the answers. Breakfast is clearly the most important meal of the day and that's why donuts are so important.

Donuts were originally spelled doughnuts and also were originally fried in hog's fat (a practice which has sadly fallen out of fashion). Benjamin Franklin is said to have invented the process for putting jelly or custard into the middle of a donut. An achievement that he ranked two slots above discovering electricity in his autobiography. Unshockingly the donut has conquered the entire Earth with variations being found in Germany,Japan, India, and countless other countries.

So why eat them for breakfast? Well the health upsides of donuts have been well documented. They provide more calories per serving than almost any other food and taste delicious. The fat and sugar packed into each bite should be enough power anyone through an entire day.

In conclusion Tony, I love donuts. My personal top 3 donuts would be 1) That donut I had in hawaii at the bottom of a Volcano (it was a simple glazed donut done to perfection) 2) That time I went to Krispy Kreme somewhere in Florida (it was my first taste of Krispy Kreme and at the tender age of 19 I knew that I'd found something to cherish). 3) The hundreds of times I've had a Boston creme donut from Dunkin Donuts. So Tony, if you are the donut Tony, next time I'm in Maine I'll check out your shop and maybe you could make the list.

Other good breakfast options include Apple Jacks, Froot Loops and of course Grape Nuts

Bedtime

Dear Nurse Dave,
You are killing me. Love the blog and the answers.
I just stayed up way past my promised bedtime to read your blog.. and now i will pay at work tomorrow. (and it's a very important day tomorrow) this leads me to my question....
Every night i plan to get to bed at a decent hour, but then I end up finding a distraction (usually a productive one) that keeps me up 1 to 2 hours past my self imposed bed time. I feel like i have to get something productive done before i can have a satisfying sleep and may get stressed as the night wains until i find fulfillment. I would rather get up early and exercise, but i can't shake the cycle. My mother let me stay up late as a kid to work on projects with her. We both have lots of anxiety about keeping busy as well. So, A. Is my problem genetic or habitual? and B. How can i break it?

Kris Sundberg, CA (Kris's photoblog and his prints)


Interesting thoughts Kris. First I want to speak to genetics by pointing you to this story. It's about girls that were switched at birth and always wondered why they didn't fit in with their families. One family was the shy awkward type and the other family the outgoing type. The switched girls still ended up with personalities the opposite of the family they were raised in. Obviously genetics plays some role in personality development.

But Kris we don't have to let genetics determine who we are and the choices we make. Pitching great Randy Johnson is 6'10 but didn't let genetics tell him to play basketball, instead he played and excelled at baseball. Genetics cursed Jeff Tweedy with his physical appearance but he became the lead singer of a successful rock band. Genetics of course plays part in the choices we make but we have free will. Just look at me, I'm a male nurse.

To overcome your limitations you've got to look inward. Really you're dealing with some of the same self control issues that Nicholas Cage dealt with in Con Air. He wasn't able to control his anger in a barroom fight and it led to incarceration. In a way he let his genetics make that choice. He learned to control himself through a three step process. First he grew his hair excessively long and started wearing tank tops. You don't have to make the same changes as him but you do need to change your look. Second he pondered about his mistakes for 8 years and did tons of pull-ups. You may not have this kind of time but you can buy a pull-up bar and do tons of pull-ups. Third, after pondering he decided what was right and stood up for his principles. The massive amounts of pull-ups he did made it possible for him to stand up for what was right. These steps allowed Nic to save a diabetic guy, write a note on a dead guy's body and drop it from a plane, survive a crash landing on the Vegas strip, kill some prison dudes, then finally defeat John Malkovich. So try the steps but don't feel bad if you can't accomplish as much as Nicholas Cage. He's had a lot longer time to work on this stuff.

some other suggestions
1) try dancing 30 minutes before bedtime (may I suggest this song)
2) Wake up with smooth jazz
3) try chewing more gum
4) write letters to yourself

Can it get faster?

Nurse Dave,
I just saw Fast Five with Paul Walker and Vin Diesel. At one point in the movie they ride a car off a two hundred foot cliff and at some point in the fall they both jump out of the car to dive into water. Could someone actually survive a fall like that?
Karl, Oslo, Norway

Interesting thought Karl. I recently learned that it was popular for men to try to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge when it was first constructed. Survival from this jump was pretty dicey. Some guys made it and some didn't. The first guy to try it died when he hit the water 135 feet below. Others were knocked unconscious and had to be saved by boats in the water. One guy claimed to do it without anyone seeing him and then opened up a successful restaurant based on the fact that he jumped. So really with falls of that height it is going to be pretty much up to the individual.

Now with a 200 foot fall the likelihood of survival becomes even less but that's when you have to factor in who is falling. You're talking about Paul Walker and Vin Diesel. Obviously they can handle it. Vin Diesel is a guy that can jump a motorcycle 40 feet into the air without even trying. Paul Walker is a determined man that won't let countless obstacles stop him from finding his dogs, you think a two hundred foot fall is going to stop him? Come on get serious.

The thing is Karl you've got to watch the rest of Fast Five and then you can begin to understand that surviving a 200 hundred foot fall is pretty pedestrian for these guys. These guys steal police cars and then drag race them for fun. These guys not only hook a massive safe to the back of two sports cars but are able to use that safe to destroy any police cars trying to stop them. These guys rob the worse drug dealer in Brazil because of some kind of grudge I didn't really understand. These guys can escape being chained to a ceiling by making sure that any bullet shot at them won't hit them but will instead break the chains they are bound with. These guys live life a 1/4 mile at a time. Survival isn't going to be an issue for Paul and Vin. The issue is going to be where can they find a higher cliff.

In conclusion Fast Five is an amazing film. You'd think that you'd get bored with the movie after it gets past the 2 hour mark but they just keep reeling you in. You've got the action scenes (using a dune buggy to rob cars from a speeding train). You've got the emotional scenes (Vin and Paul discussing their fathers on a balcony). You've got the surprises (SPOILER ALERT - Paul's girlfriend throws up within the first ten minutes of the movie and in hollywood that can only mean one thing, she's pregnant). All that plus you throw in the Rock who happens to have some of the funniest lines in movie (although I don't think the humor was intentional). Plus they bring the whole gang back together (I will spend money on anything with Ludacris in it). I'm glad you saw the movie Karl and I would encourage everyone else to see it as well. Oh and a hint to everybody, if you stay for all the credits you might get a secret scene indicating what the plot of Fast Six will be about (its going to involve fast cars, hot women and a drug kingpin).