MSI Press Blog

  Today, October 17, is a day that brings back memories. Every year.  On October 17, 1989, at 5:04 p.m., the earth beneath Northern California gave a violent shudder. The Loma Prieta earthquake , registering a magnitude of 6.9, struck the Santa Cruz Mountains and rippled outward with devastating force. It collapsed sections of the Bay Bridge, pancaked a freeway in Oakland, and silenced the World Series mid-game. Sixty-three lives were lost, thousands injured, and entire neighborhoods reshaped in seconds. For many, it was a day of tragedy. For my family, it was also our first real “hello” from California. We had just moved west from Arlington, Virginia, where I’d been working for the U.S. Department of State. Our family was scattered across the Monterey Peninsula that afternoon—each of us about to learn what it meant to live on fault lines. I was at the Presidio of Monterey, mid-conversation with a calm, collected Army officer. He would later retire and become a lawyer, but...

  a happy Shenan (CB) lounging with a happy Murjan  March 1 and business taxes loom big: due the Ides of March. (Not a very perspicacious day....) So, I thought I would give myself a little extra time, not prepare a new column of my own making, and simply share a delightful youtube video by one of our authors, Joanna Charnas. She says, " Happy Cat, Happy Life! " An oldie, but goodie! Enjoy! For more Caturday posts, click HERE .   For more posts about Joanna and her award-winning books, click  HERE .    For book reviews, interviews, videos, and more, check out Joanna's title pages at the MSI Press website:  100 Tips and Tools for Managing Chronic Illness,   A Movie Lover's Search for Romance ,  Living Well with Chronic Illness   and  Tips, Tools, and Anecdotes to Help during a Pandemic . To purchase copies of any MSI Press book at 25% discount, use code FF25 at  MSI Press webstore . Want to read an MSI Press book and not have to...

  Colon cancer continues to be better understood -- and findings show that we can do some things to prevent it. Not always, not with certitude, but definitely in some cases, colon cancer may be avoided or delayed.  I worry about our son CB. As Carl's son who is the spitting image of his father, likes the same things, including foods, and as a mentally challenged individual fights any changes to what he likes, he is, I worry, a candidate for colon cancer -- or some other kind of cancer. Carl ultimately had five kinds before he died though death came swiftly after diagnosis. As a Charge Syndrome adult, CB cannot be safely scoped. No colonoscopies mean no early detection. So, his gastroenterologist, dietician, and I are left to try to manage his diet wisely, which, of course, he fights -- but we keep at it.\ What are some of the things we have learned? Check the out here: I’m a cancer dietitian — here are 13 easy ways to lower your risk for colon cancer Nearly Half of Cancer Deat...

Happy Cat with his best pal, CB Leaver When you have a family of cats, you end up facing some of the same difficult decisions that human families face, the most difficult among these being end-of-life issues.  A couple of months ago, Happy Cat changed overnight from happy to sad. One day he was his affectionate self, nurturing the other cats; the next day, he was walking in circles, stumbling into his food bowl, and acting confused--and was clearly blind. After local vets ruled out physiological reasons for the behavior and the blindness, we took him to a neurology center for an MRI. He has a brain tumor, a melangioma. Options we were given included very expensive surgery ($15K), radiology (nearly as expensive and would require frequent out of town trips), or medicine (that would not cure or even put him into remission but would make him more comfortable).  Beyond the expense of the surgery, there was a bigger picture. Happy Cat is a geriatric cat, a street rescue between the ...