MonkeyFight

Vitamin ReDux

The Boy just turned three months old.  He’s plumping up nicely, and yesterday he flipped from his stomach to his back. Unfortunately, The Wife and I missed it because we were getting frisky.  But this isn’t that kind of blog. (Note to self: research those kinds of blogs.)  An article in today's paper relates to a post I wrote on October 6th and more recently to The Boy's two month medical checkup which brought shame upon our household. I wish I had written about it then. 

We were in the doctor’s office, cartoon hypodermic needles on the wall, and things were going fairly well. The doctor looked in The Boy’s eyes and ears and asked how he was eating. The usual checklist. She inspected his head and told us we should give him more tummy time because, “There’s a little flattening going on back there. It’s just aesthetic, but you know, if you can avoid it.” Our horrified silence told her we agreed.

Then, her eyes on her chart, she asked, almost as an after thought or a confirmation, “You’re giving him a Vitamin D supplement?” I paused, thinking of my blog entry, feeling slightly insane, like a reluctant crusader for a cause I didn’t care that much about. I said, “Yeahhh, I don’t really buy all that Vitamin D stuff.” The doctor looked up at me and her eyes changed. Like she had assumed she was talking to a completely rational, responsible parent one moment and a potential flight risk the next. Her eyes darted to The Wife as she explained why we should give the Vitamin D supplement. “I’ve done a lot of reading about this…and if you do all the reading you’ll see…” The Wife and I stammered through our response, assuring her we were not negligent, “Of course, oh, ok, we weren’t sure, it just seemed…hem haw…”  The doc closed by saying, “I mean, nobody’s gonna come to your house to make sure you’re giving him the Vitamin D but you really should do it.”

Ultimately, we walked out of the 2 month check up thinking we’d better get our act together unless we wanted a flat-headed, rickets-ridden kid. I mean, aesthetics matter. Frankenstein had a flat head and we all know how he ended up -  a misunderstood, gentle, flatheaded giant.  Needless to say, The Wife and I bought the Vitamin D drops and have been giving them to The Boy for the last few weeks.

And now today I hear about this new report that's all over the news.  A commitee of experts has concluded:  The very high levels of vitamin D that are often recommended by doctors and testing laboratories — and can be achieved only by taking supplements — are unnecessary and could be harmful, an expert committee says.

 And so it goes. 

Do scientists really need to spend this much time and energy on vitamins? Don’t we already know, for the most part, how to eat well? When I was growing up, my father, The Boy's namesake, had great nutritional advice. He preached in simple phrases that could fit on bumper stickers: “Eat food not food products!” ; “Use meat as a condiment!” That kind of common sense stuff. Stuff The Boy will be hearing from me I’m sure.

I wouldn't even notice this news if I wasn't a new parent parsing medical advice for the first time. But this confirms my vague, mostly uninformed, but adamant theories regarding the Great Vitamin D Conspiracy: the Vitamin Industry went to a conference with the Medical Industry, they had a few drinks, got freaky in a hotel room, and gave birth to a study that cites a need for Vitamin D supplements in just about every life form on the planet. The trend was rooted in profit not people. And that's why I think this is an important topic even for people who don't give a damn about Vitamins D, E, or F (but sometimes give a damn about Y). On some level, this seems to be another case of manufactured demand, a perfectly accepted practice that involves twisting the truth in hopes of selling us things, even if it puts us at risk.

The same report discounts much of the recent advice to consume more Calcium as well, which leads me to wonder what will happen to all that orange juice that must have been invented based on this medical advice? I’m referring of course to the delightful Tropicana Pure Premium Lots of Pulp Calcium + Vitamin D Orange Juice. (actual name).  Maybe another study will come out to convince us The Boy shouldn’t have the breast milk from his mother’s breast but from a newly designed feeding apparatus: The Mother Udder® that has an ergonomic design better suited for the development of an infant’s teeth and gums. Whatever it is, I’m sure they’ll find another thing we need. After all, the holidays are coming.

 
   
 

 

 

 

In Memory, Out Memory

We named The Boy Enrico in memory of my father—Camillo Enrico.  That was his fancy, exotic Italian name. Family lore has it that his sisters changed Enrico to Henry when he was young in an effort to reduce the teasing that the name Camillo had inspired.  I’m not sure how that worked; if I were a jackass little kid who teased a kid named Camillo, and one day Camillo comes in and says, ‘Oh yeah? Well, my name’s Henry now’, I sure as hell wouldn’t stop teasing him.   Maybe kids were stupider then.  In any case, I grew up knowing my father as Henry, but I didn’t want to give The Boy that name.  To be honest, the idea creeped me out a bit. It conjured in my mind a reincarnated version of my father, which would make everything from snuggling, to discipline, to diaper changes, to circumcision more complicated.  Naming The Boy Enrico was the perfect compromise — a way to remember my father that provided me with just enough psycho-emotional distance. Besides, I wasn’t gonna name him Camillo just in case those jackass kids had kids who had kids who would be on the playground smacking their gum and waiting for a kid with a funny name to show up.

It hasn’t been that long since my father passed away: February of 2009 — a year and a half that feels like something other than a year and a half.  Saying goodbye to him has been a gradual process with hot and cold moments along the way.  He had Alzheimer’s so I’d been learning to say goodbye to him in little ways for years. There were plenty of rough times in the final stages, but as often happens in families, our mother saw and dealt with the worst of it.  My family was spared one cruel detail of the disease though—my father never forgot who we were.  Right up until the end. I’m thankful I never had to look into his eyes to find no recognition in them, as if a lifetime of shared memories had been erased.  As if I had been erased.

While I was fortunate he didn't forget who I was, he certainly forgot a lot, and I could see it was a frustrating, painful experience for him. Unfortunately, Alzheimer’s is hereditary so I can’t help but occasionally imagine sharing my father’s fate.  As a preventative measure I’ve decided to back up my brain.  Over the course of the next year or nine, I’ll record every single one of my memories in the form of a video blog. This is a massive downloading project. Or is it uploading? I’ve never quite understood the difference. When I’m done recording the memories, though, I’ll hire an intern (purely platonic) to catalogue and cross-reference the material and create a massive database. That way in case I get Alzheimer’s (or amnesia for that matter but it seems less likely), I can search my archived memories with ease. Entries will be divided into Firsts, Turning Points, Family, Friends, Epiphanies, Role Models and Inspiring Figures, Patterns of Self Destructive Behavior (and Ways Out), Travel, Injuries and Accidents, Entertainment, Slights and Insults, Ones to Grow On, Adults Only, and finally Pets.  I suppose I’ll include a Miscellaneous category since there’s a lot of magic in the little memories like learning what backwash means while eating Doritos in the woods. 

The more I think about it, the more I think everyone should back up their brains.  You just never know what's going to happen especially now that some scientists believe that Alzheimer's could have a contagious element to it. The mad scientists have already proven that mice can catch the disease from each other, a fact documented in the heartwrenching memoir, "Who Moved My Cheese? What's Cheese?" If this project is going to grow exponentially, it’s time I bring Old Man Zuckerberg into the fold. I think backing up the brains of every man, woman, and child would be a nice follow up to Facebook. 

People say Face*!#k is about connectedness and that's true. But it's also about memory.   Most of us have accepted friend requests from people we haven't spoken to since roller skating parties were deservedly en vogue. It's easy to make fun of, but it can be fun, I admit it.  Frankenbook is one way to connect, however fleetingly, with our pasts, and I think its wild popularity (175 million members according to the irrepressible Oprah Winfrey) is evidence that people want to stay connected to their memories.  But while #uckerberg stumbled into a way to monetize memory, I think the real value of memory exists elsewhere. For me, the value of memory exists in the moment the memory was formed, in the moment of bliss or agony that slowed the world down long enough for me to learn something, long enough for me to feel truly plugged in.

For now, I’ll just record this one, in honor of my father, just like The Boy’s name:  The call came early in the morning, a day or two after I got back from visiting my father in the hospital in Lexington.  I had left Kentucky anticipating a hurried return trip in the next week or two, but I also knew he might not make it that long.  I knew this could be the last time so I had identified my parting memory, the image I would keep in my heart if it came to that — it was a smile he gave me from his bed when it was just the two of us waiting in the busy fluorescent hallway.  Anyway, I was still asleep when the phone rang. It was my brother, the person who, after my mother, shouldered the most responsibilities surrounding my father’s aging and decline. After my brother gave me the news, I hung up the phone and put my face in my pillow.  I have a sensory memory of the jagged breaths that came before my sobs that morning.  It felt like my DNA was being altered, like something was being not so much amputated but extracted. I can still feel those breaths catching in my throat and chest if I choose to stay with the memory long enough. Like I’m doing now.

 More later.