Do we have a sense of impending danger? Yes. Even women who deny themselves when all signs point to potential health issues -AND IGNORE THEM- have a sense that something is wrong but can make the conscious decision not to act on it.

I had a feeling of numbness, stiffness through my shoulders that radiated down both my arms and made my hands hurt every time I walked quickly. Stairs were a breathing challenge.

"I'm out of shape. I'm not relaxing enough in my life. I'm tired" you tell yourself. 

"I'm fighting to keep you alive" your heart was screaming back.

"It's indigestion, it happens everyday at 5PM when I'm running to catch the train" you tell yourself.

"You're not IN oxygen, you're out of oxygen" screams Susan Powter in my head.

So I work harder, run faster, climb the stairs again. Everyday.

"The straps of my backpack are cutting off my circulation. My bra straps are cutting off my circulation" I reasoned.

"Your circulation is cutting off your circulation!" My arteries yelled.

The radiating numbness and pain in my cramping hands continued. I didn't stop shoving full hampers of food around the Food Bank or physically working until I was red in the face, sweat pouring own my head.

"Hot flash" I told myself. Damn that peri-menopause is a bitch.

I was losing some weight and walking hard and fast and the numbness just kept on coming back.

The paperwork for a stress test sat on my desk at home. I just didn't have time to take off and deal with that stuff. Truth is I didn't want to know. I could make whatever it was go away. I was healthy, after all.

I had a strong sense that we should do up our wills. Get our affairs in order. Deep down I knew it was time to be sensible. On the surface I was still in a reckless state. 

Then on January 28th last year I was at a neighbor's home enjoying many glasses of wine at her home party for cook ware. I hadn't eaten dinner and rushed over after work to enjoy the evening. I kept drinking, eating crackers and small bites of food. I was loosening up, starting to feel a little obnoxious and social. When the whipped cream came out I was done. Playfully one of the ladies took the can and pulled my jaw down, filling my mouth with sweet fluffy cream. The jolt of sugary cream on top of the wine did me in. I could barely stand after that. I remember wondering how I got so bad, I didn't think I had enough alcohol to make me so drunk. I left to go home (across the street), had a short slurred conversation with the husband and another friend, excused myself and went to bed. 

An hour later I woke up feeling horribly nauseous. I was going to faint. I know this because I am a fainter and the best place for me is on the bathroom floor

I almost made it.

When I came to the husband was frantically calling my name. There was blood all around my face and I knew I had to respond. 

"I'm ok". I said, weakly.

"No you're not! There's blood all over the floor! I heard a loud crash from downstairs and you were on the floor flailing and moaning!" He cried.

"I'll be ok. You need to leave me. Go away. I'm fine." I said starting to feel the pain set in.

I passed out before I made it safely to the bathroom floor. I did a face plant into a marble ledge that separates the toilet from the tub. Marble doesn't give. I then went to the floor face first. My bottom lip was cut open, one of my front teeth hurt,  my nose was swollen and my eyes were swelling, turning black. 

"Pretty" I said to myself in the mirror. I needed to sleep after I cleaned myself up. I was exhausted and in pain and all I wanted to do was sleep.

In the morning the husband couldn't even look at me. He was disgusted and scared. He blamed it on me and my lack of control with alcohol. I knew there was something more but I wasn't connecting the dots. I went to the hospital emergency where I'm sure they thought a pimp had messed me up after a bad night.

"Your blood pressure is high" the triage nurse announced in full judgement still not buying my story. He sent me to a room to wait for the doctor.

"Your blood pressure is high" the doctor announced, taking in my bruised and broken face. 

"Im a fainter. I have Vasal Vagalitis, apparently. This time I didn't make it to the floor before I passed out." I tried to sound nonchalant.

"I've been experiencing numbness in my shoulders, arms and hands when I walk fast do you think it's related to the fainting?" I asked.

"What happens when you stop walking fast?" he asked.

"It stops" I said.

"Then it's not your heart" he stated, bored with me already. 

"You may need plastic surgery on the lip but for now just keep it iced." He said as he was walking away.

That was the moment I knew I had to connect with a doctor. I made an appointment the next day and was able to meet my new doctor who heard my alcohol/fainting/numbness story and immediately prescribed nitro-glycerine, a stress test and put me on cholesterol pills without even seeing my levels.

A little over a week later I had a heart ultrasound and a tread mill stress test. The cardiologist told me I failed the test, my heart was showing signs of stress when it was slowing back to normal. He told me the next step would be to have an angiogram and possibly angioplasty. He explained that the angiogram would determine if there were any blockages in the arteries, it is a dye test. If a blockage is found you have angioplasty,stents are injected into the arteries, it's an easy procedure, you go home the next day. The angiogram was scheduled for February 28th. Our wills were completed a few days before.

Apparently (I say this because my ability to comprehend was impaired, not because I was drunk, just not quite alive) my heart "was sick".

Going in to the operation the doctors were very optimistic. They told the husband I would be fine, 90% chance of recovery, good odds. etc.

After the operation the prognosis was grim. My heart was sick. 

When it's literal and medical and scientific a sick, broken heart has a much different connotation from the love songs we normally associate with 'hurting hearts'. My heart just wanted to hang on with the assistance of a by pass machine and had no interest in beating on its own. They had to KA-CHUNG-AH it twice. TWO times they had to kick start my reluctant heart to get it to beat on it's own again. Not bazinga, that would be easy and funny, this was full alert ok-we-just-took-veins-out-of-this-woman's-leg-and-grafted-them-to-her-heart-dammit-her-fricken-heart-better-fricken-work!

Apparently.

My husband was informed that if I survived the next 12 hours there was a good chance I would fully recover.

(I'm writing this with a lovely glass of McLaren Vale Cawarra and I just ate a Kobe beef burger -medium- in a fresh kaiser with arugula. That said, please don't assume that the three revival attempts were any indication of my dying, because I lived to drink red wine from McLaren Vale in Australia AGAIN).

That night the husband went home and asked for prayers on facebook. He was still in shock, baffled at the seriousness of the 'simple' procedure. He accidentally dropped a glass, it exploded on impact, shattering shards of glass everywhere. He finally broke down and cried. 

Through the next twelve hours my health steadily climbed to levels deemed acceptable by the medical staff in ICU. I remember the pole being removed from my throat, I remember the ice chip, I remember the vitamin and I remember my mom being kicked out. The back rub, the long trip out of ICU into a real hospital room and the removal of all the franken-hoses all seem like a dream now, but in that dream-like memory state that keeps coming back.

I remember visitors, specifically the pastors from my church coming in all teary-eyed. I remember telling them that I was fine and to stop crying! Really. I was giddy and obnoxious, challenging the older men to a race with walkers down the hall, stealing treats from the pantry in the middle of the night for my room mate (she had a pace maker put in after a stroke that left her unable to walk), I remember crying when the husband showed me the pages and pages of prayers and responses from friends and acquaintances once they heard I was in the hospital in serious condition, I remember laughing after the doctors told me I could go home after one short week after dying. I remember my first bowel movement after surgery.

This is good, stay with me here...

Cardiac patients (me) could not go home unless they a) had a bowel movement and b) could go up and down a flight of stairs. Most heart patients are elderly but I was this anomaly -not even near 60- so they were astounded that I could out 'walker' any patient and seemed anxious to try the stairs. Determined to show them that this recent cardiac 'activity' was a freak of nature I worked hard to move around as much as possible. Remember I had my rib caged wrenched open and my chest bone sawed apart for the triple bypass surgery that required veins to be laparoscopically extracted from my leg and grafted to my heart after which my heart had all but given up so I knew if I wasn't determined to get out I could be stuck there for weeks. So after several days of stool softeners and hospital food I was praying for the bowels to start moving again. When I thought there was an inkling I'd carefully raise myself from the bed (a REAL challenge considering the state of my rib cage), shuffle behind the walker to the bathroom then pee all over the floor (not my fault have you ever tried to use a commode hovering over a toilet?). I always found hospitals repulsive, the rooms always smelled like pee, now I know why. So on the 6th day and after several days of stool softeners I experienced the full sensation of triumph. I bowel move-mented!

In the euphoric state of victory I shuffled back to my bed and pushed hard on the communicator (button to the Cardio desk).

"Yes?" the voice answered.

"I just had a bowel movement SO epic, it should have it's own theme music" I announced, proudly.

"oki'lltellyournurse" the voice answered quickly. The next day I did the stairs and they told me to go home. 

I don't ever remember feeling 'sick' or like I wouldn't recover but none of that mattered. The one thing everyone wants to know is whether there was a white light, or if I saw God or if I hovered over the operating table and saw myself in surgery. The answer is no. Maybe I didn't die, maybe I was just unconscious. 

I don't know but I'm still here and my attitude toward life has certainly changed.

A flurry of activity ensued in the Cath. lab but it wasn't me doing the moving. I was on lock down with a mask over my face, full metal oxygen tank at my side, a co-op student monitoring my breathing (ok they said she was 'training') and they let the husband come in. 

"I'm sooo sorry" I said to him. I told him it would be routine, that he only had to stick around if I needed a ride to the other hospital for a stent now look at the mess I stuck him with. He looked like he was in shock. 

"You're apologizing???" He was in shock, normally he would have said something sarcastic. 

The mask got in the way of much further conversation and there seemed to be a lot of people moving around the space.

"Thank you for your help everyone, now if you don't need to be in the room please leave!" my cardiologist's voice boomed. The husband held my hand, not leaving my side as the remaining medical staff continued to rush around -I'm not sure what they were doing. An ambulance was called, there was something stuck to my left leg that felt like metal, IV lines were attached and changed. I felt tired.

"My chest bone hurts" I said starting to realize that something besides fainting happened.

"That's because you had CPR" the high school student said.

"Oh". It was slowly sinking in. I remembered the sound of fluid filling my brain and the nausea, I remembered telling them I was going to faint, but I didn't remember the DYING part! 

"I had a heart attack?" I asked, shocked.

And here's where the first correction came.

"No. You had Cardiac Arrest". 

"Isn't that the same thing?" I asked.

"No. Your heart stopped. You fainted and the bottom dropped out -your blood pressure dropped so low your heart stopped. It does that, it shuts down when too many confusing signals hit your heart at once. A heart attack is a signal your heart is in danger of stopping." The doctor explained. 

I vaguely remember another doctor coming in and introducing himself and telling me he was going to do a procedure but the timeline of that is still fuzzy. I believe that was the temporary balloon injected into an artery that was keeping me alive until I had surgery but again, it's now unclear. 

When the dye was injected (in my foot) to travel through my arteries to detect any blockages, it acted like a kink on a hose. It cut off the flow of blood to my heart and confused my body went into fainting mode and my heart stopped. 

It seemed like forever until the ambulance came and when they arrived there was another flurry of activity. I was hooked up to multiple 'things', the attendant introduced himself and was very nice to the husband who got to ride up front. I don't remember hearing him ask to work the siren but I'm sure he was thinking it.

Side story: My good friend, Pat who was my partner at the food bank was aware I was going for the stress test. She is the regional intake nurse manager for the cardiology department in a nearby, much larger hospital than the one I was being tested at. I was joking with her at church the day before the test that I had better NOT see her the next day. We both knew if I showed up at her hospital it would be for an operation to open up the arteries, most likely stents, a one night stay at most. 

"I better not see you!" she joked.

She was the first face I saw when the ambulance arrived at her hospital. She looked worried.  

"I'm sorry" was all I could muster. She stayed close to my side as they got me into a room somewhere. Jay was not around, I was resting, snuggled up to a cold hard steel oxygen tank. Apparently he was busy on the phone.

"Lissa, your family is here" Pat my friend 'nurse-whispered' at me.

What? Why was my family brought here? How did they get here? Who drove? Who -

"Is it THAT bad?" I asked her calmly.

"The doctors thought it would be a good idea". She answered calmly.

That was a pivotal moment. I could die. That stupid fainting was now going to kill me. Instead of panicking I went into ultra calm mode. I remember telling God.

"OK. If you think you need me, I'm ready, your will, not mine". No anger, depression, bargaining, nothing just full on acceptance and complete calm. Not something I would predict considering my usual neurotic self. My family came in my daughter in tears, my mother in shock, Jay hovering around and the twelve year old looking at me calmly, shrugging. He was taking in the drama but not buying what everyone was selling. I think I apologized, told my daughter to stop crying, shrugged at my mom, in a 'such a bother, don't worry, sorry to drag you downtown' kind of way. Everyone seemed to be working at hiding their fear. But for some reason -maybe the sedative- I felt no fear just calm. A doctor came in said they were taking me to surgery and the family left. 

I woke up in Intensive care. I was in and out of consciousness. Sometimes my mother was standing there then a code blue would be called and she'd have to leave. Sometimes my daughter was there, I tried to talk but there was a ten foot pole shoved down my throat so I tried to explain I couldn't talk because I had a thing in my throat. She laughed because I was just repeating what the nurse was telling in the distance.

 I remember the pole coming out of my throat and feeling happy, I remember an ice chip being dropped into my mouth and saying, "THAT'S THE BEST ICE CHIP I'VE EVER HAD!", I remember this tiny nurse flipping me over to give me a vigorous back massage. I remember feeling positively euphoric when they dropped an orange flavoured chewable vitamin in my mouth. "That's the BEST TASTING VITAMIN EVER!" 

I think it was that moment they decided I could get out of ICU and into a room. For me, it was affirmation that I had one very bad heart day and now I was going to be ok. Not so for the daughter, the 23 year old. Her dad, my ex died mere days after surgery the year before and my family knew what I didn't about the surgery I had just come through.

Cardiac arrest. 

It ain't no heart attack, heart attacks are a warning, a pain, but a cardiac arrest is a finite experience that shows no favourtism between life and death. 

You die or you live. 

You don't even get to experience dying; dying is a whole other thing. It's a process with hills and valleys and emotion and a chance to comment on the experience.

Cardiac arrest is literally do or die. Luckily they did.

During a not-so-routine Angiogram my blood pressure dropped to the point where it crashed. Moments earlier I was lying on an examining table in a Catheter Lab. '70's music was pumped in to the room, with several medical staff  performing various duties in their scrubs. They set up an IV or something on the top of my foot where earlier they marked a spot with pen. When they began the injection I heard the fluid flowing into my cranium, an eerie sound and an equally shocking feeling. It sent me spiralling into unconsciousness. I fainted. 

The last thing I heard was the cardiologist yelling that he only got one picture off. He sounded pissed. 

The rest of the story was provided by the husband.

"Code Blue. Cath. Lab. Code Blue." The detached voice announced throughout the hospital.

The husband was in the Cath. lab waiting room, waiting when her heard the code.

Immediately he googled 'Code Blue' on his iphone. 

"Hey, Lissa's in the Cath Lab. Cool.

"Mr. Fraser?" a scrubbed medic asked looking at the panicked faces in the Cath. LAb waiting room.

"I'm Mr. Kerr." The husband responded. "My wife is Mrs. Fraser Kerr", he answered.

"Please come with me". 

The husband jumped up and followed, completely panicked. 

He came along with me that cold morning because I wasn't sure if I would need angioplasty, a relatively routine  procedure that involves injecting a stent into an artery to open the flow of blood previously blocked by a build up of gunk. The hospital I was in didn't perform this procedure and if a blockage was detected during the angiogram I would need to go to another hospital -an overnight stay was the worst-case scenario. 

"What's going on, is she ok?" He asked.

The hospital Chaplain appeared at his side. 

"Are you here because she's going to die?" he asked her.

The Chaplain said  "No, that's not why I'm here. You're alone and I'm here so you have someone to talk to". They waited outside the room I was in for what seemed like an eternity. Suddenly a burst of applause and cheering exploded from the room.

"I guess she's going to be ok", the husband said. 

Eventually they let him come into the room where my first words to him were, "I'm sorry". 

Apparently after a rousing round of CPR and an emergency stent my heart started again. It was weak and worn but it came back. As I came to I remember feeling the pain from the resuscitation in my chest and I remember thinking they had completely over-reacted to my fainting spell. 

As the husband held my hand and scrubbed medics ran around the room I realized as they put an oxygen mask on my face that it may be more serious than me having a fainting spell. 

That was just the beginning. It was February 28, 2011.

 

The husband spent the last few days trying to crack the code that is stuffandjunk so I can get back to the fun of selecting words and turning them into sentences. We got this far, but he wasn't able to hand cut and paste my eleventeen hundred entries into this new and hopefully improved site. He picked ten. I've written about this before probably in 2004, but he hasn't changed.That's how he does dishes. He chooses ten and cleans them. It's kind of his version of natural selection. He washes his ten favourites and then just walks away. The rest of the dishes sit, encrusted, neglected and discouraged. "I thought he would choose me this time", they cry.

I'm listening to the plaintive cry of a Beagle in the next yard. He sounds like he's howling in pain but since he does this every quarter hour I think he just suffers from separation anxiety. His owners do a very good job of ignoring him, the rest of the neighbors? Not so much.

It's been over a year since our dog departed and I still look for signs of healing from the husband. The dogs' toys still lay at his feet under his desk where he spends most of his days as a sort of memorial to the past. One day he'll move them to a box and put them 'away' and we'll be able to say the official mourning period is over. In the meantime the rallying cry for a new dog carries on -sounding much like the baying of the Beagles' over the fence. Only louder.

The one picture I have of that little bastard (technically, correct) he looks like he's giving the camera a dirty look.

"F*** arf."

I mentioned the $10,000 in furniture, accessories and medication, yes?

Instead of the toys he barely chewed on (he was too busy working his way through the living room couch) I choose to keep the pile of receipts from his life under my desk. Just in case I start to soften. Monetarily, we don't want a dog. Emotionally? Well, we still miss that little guy.

So why is it that everyone we know who would NEVER own a dog suddenly has one? They whip out the 'baby' pictures and tell endearing tales of dog-training. Their stories charm me, make my heart skip a beat and I think "Maybe I'm ready!"

That is, until I get home and see the little pile of toys still sitting at his master's feet... and hear the howls of the damn dog next door.

Nope. Not ready.

and not in the 'good' way. I'm being attacked by the loud, clanging internal clock that pokes it's sweaty head out every so often to announce, 'TIME'S UP!'

It starts like a weakness in the knees and a shaky, spine-tingling shiver. As soon as the brain registers it, it's on the move like a shot of adrenalin, a bolt of heat that pulses through your body until it erupts at your head. Suddenly you're covered in a film of cold sweat and your body temperature flashes into super-hot mode. It lasts mere minutes. By the time you're loosening your collar, sweater, blanket, whatever -you're back to what I've come to know as normal.

I find it fascinating however my family doesn't share the same feeling. They have been known to hold strategy meetings when I'm out -kind of like Al Anon for peri-menopause. I think they should call it, Survival of the Flashes and there should be courses and support groups for loved ones on how to cope with that evil-personified-witch-of a-monster-who-is-subjecting-everyone-to-her-polarizing-mood-swings. If someone comes up with it I would like it to be named after me, The Queen of the Hot Flashes because heck if you're going to go through it you might as well own it (and have awards).

Remember. I invented it.

The tile is gone. Sent back, banished to the tile warehouse from whence it came. Au revoir, mosaic tile stupide. You proved nothing, you gave no pleasure, you you you... disappointed me. You sat so perfectly in your box, perfect, grout-free, sparkly. I loved you passionately licked you furtively every time I walked past your temporary home on the bench while I waited for you to become my walls of splendor. But the days turned into weeks and still you sat collecting dust on the bench. Nobody wanted to take you on. Reports and updates of my designer/coworker's fiasco using the same tile spread like fire.

'There must be a manufacturing error.'

Words like a knife in my heart. This couldn't be. So beautiful but dysfunctional, so impossible to install without error. The reports got worse. We see every seam. Grout-free means it must be error free except they won't interlock. Correcting it makes it worse. The tiles sink in too deep and can't be popped out.

'The entire back splash will have to come out', she reported.

Tile! Why did you have to be so poorly designed? WHY? Why couldn't you play well with other tiles? Prima Donna tile. My designer/coworker sent pictures of her client's kitchen to the tile store. It wasn't the first time they heard about the tile being too difficult to install. They were sorry about her client's back-splash and they would honour the return of my untouched, uninstalled, dust-covered boxes of the most beautiful, but diva-like tile on the planet.

We took it back today -made it ride in the hatch like an inanimate object rather than the work-of-art marble tile I was sold on. We hoisted you with great effort onto the counter and sadly turned you in. My eye began to wander at all the sparkly tile around and before I knew it I was smitten anew. The grey marble bullet strips spoke to me. Their tone was less diva, more alto or fifth business, It was a humble beckoning rather than an earnest 'lookatme!' The husband took to it straight away and since it was an even trade the deal went down rather painlessly.

We'll be picking up our new tile next week and getting it installed soon... hopefully without incident.

Watch hockey or curling?

I'm not sure what's happened, if earth has ripped us a new axis or what but lots of people are coming out of the wood work and proudly declaring their love of curling.

What?

Hockey I can understand. You can be loud, proud and well, loud. Curling just seems so subdued. Like golf but with more innuendo. If you listen to the game without watching you'll hear what I'm talking about. Try adding, 'that's what she said!' to the commentary. Trust me, it's way more enjoyable than actually paying attention to the game. It's almost as much fun as the Lost drinking game which requires taking a shot of something something when certain moments occur like when Flocke (fake Locke) says, "I can tell you what you want to know" or Jack looking up skyward in angst (Jack's depressed, CHEERS!)

But sit down and follow the commentary for curling. Voices are not raised, the commentator does not get breathless and make rushed pronouncements just subtle remarks that set up the line beautifully. But don't take my word for it, you have to play along. Today when you hear things like "he's digging in the corner!" or "oh, so close!" just add the line "that's what she said" and tell me you didn't giggle like a ten year old boy.

Then try it during a curling match. Same thing but longer, slower, with more dulcet tones...

(that's what she said heeeeeeeeheeeeeeheeeeee!)

Talk about an exercise in aversion.

Even typing fifty just feels wrong. But it's there, it's square ... root is... math ... and right or wrong I've hit it and it was unresponsive, frigid, even. Except, that's a lie! Fifty IS responsive! It responds to touch in a flaccid, saggy way. It folds into itself creating a wave of ugly wrinkles when poked. Gravity pushes down on it and everything kind of congeals in a mess in the middle. But, heck, it's still a response!

The consultant looked at me, frowning. Well, you couldn't really call it a frown, the skin around her eyes barely moved.

"Yes, I have Botox in my forehead. I started at 37 and kept getting the shots so I wouldn't develop the deep worry lines like yours my grandmother's."

She did a quick tour of my lines with her calculator. My face would cost approximately $1200.00 to plum up and freeze into a youthful glow. That's $350 for the worry lines between my eyebrows, $400 for the lines beside my nose and $450 for the lines that go from the sides of my nose to my lips. I don't need Botox at the corners of my mouth, yet, she informed me (take away $350). But that's not all! Botox only lasts around 4 months, the other plumping stuff may last up to six months. That equals a whole lot of math per year that I could be spending on a vacation! A really GOOD vacation with meals and everything!

"Is the price ever going to be affordable to average women?" I asked, naively.

"Why would it? Women will pay whatever it takes".

Suddenly I was disgusted with myself, my vanity, my insecurity about aging. I know better, I do and yet I'm falling for the biggest, cruelest marketing trap geared to women.

"You're STILL not good enough"!

Every ad geared to my age category reminds me of my flawed appearance. A WRINKLE? A GREY HAIR? Your death awaits you, welcome to the end! But if you rub it, dye it, lift it, fill it with poison, or just cut it off, you will achieve eternal youth.

Valerie Bertinell didn't just lose weight she had a TON of surgery done to her body and face to tighten up the leftovers but the message to us is 'SEE? You too can look like Barbie.' That toy model we grew up with never aged, sagged, drooped or wrinkled. She is still impossibly proportioned and as perky as ever. I know this to be impossible, I'm a free-thinking female yet I was seduced by the message that I could STILL improve and that I should improve because everyone else is doing it!

So I lost weight. Again. Losing 40 pounds to free myself of hypertension and high blood sugar wasn't good enough. Losing weight didn't turn me into a swim suit model (I didn't expect it to but dammit, all the messages bombarding my brain gave me the illusion of a swim suit body). On the practical side I did it with a doctor, covered by our provincial medical system (yay, Doctor Daniels!) There were no meetings, nobody telling me I had to make losing weight about going to meetings, creating a secondary lifestyle - yuck! No supplements, no weird drinks, no special, expensive food plan, just common sense and the accountability of seeing a gruff, unsmiling man looking at the number on the cattle-sized weigh scale asking me if I exercised during the week. Hey, whatever works -my blood pressure is down and THAT should be good enough.

I can't afford to tighten up the leftovers or pay to temporarily reduce the effects of aging on my skin. Clearly there has to be an alternative to all the noise, the negative messages, the stereotyping and it's all up here (points to head). I looked at the old lady looking back at me in the mirror and made a decision, a vow as it were. I promised NOT to buy into the false advertising that I need to rid myself of any signs of aging at tremendous expense in order to feel good about me. I will look after my health. 

It's amazing how a virtual trip around the world (virtual is the key word, I'm in Waikiki today), a bit of concealer for the dark circles and a little blush can make a difference. I'm also going to treat myself on a regular basis to the easiest, cheapest facelift in the freaking world. Smile. Seriously go look in a mirror and do it! The change is amazing! And if anybody asks, yes, I invented the cure for aging and I'm giving the secret away to you for FREE! Do it. Go on, really. You'll thank me.