My two-cents worth and then some. An online journal by LP Brown.

Browsing Category Health

Black Like Who? Some Folks are Dying to be White

by on ·Health, Lifestyle and Culture, Opinion, Race Matters

Under the new norm, anything goes, and few things are taboo. It seems like nothing is a given anymore. Before sex reassignment surgery if you were born male or female most likely, you lived and died that way. A medical or cosmetic procedure can now alter nearly every natural human feature. Laser surgery can permanently change eye color. Hair — that’s a no-brainer, think color, weaves or extensions. There are makeovers available for one’s BBF – breasts, butt, and fingernails. And Black people who so desire can change their skin color. That’s right. If you are a person of color and you dislike your appearance, you don’t have to stay that way.

“Say it Loud, I’m Black, and I’m Proud” was a 1968 hit song with a strong meaning by “the Godfather of Soul” James Brown. Sometimes, it seems as though Brown’s message of Black pride did not filter down to some Blacks in post-boomer generations.

Numerous high profile Black people are believed to have whitened their skin. Most notable is pop star, Michael Jackson. Some of the Braxton’s, fashion model Iman, rappers Lil Kim and Nicki Minaj are only a few among a growing list of celebrities who have chosen to shed their darkness and lighten up.

There are various ways to lighten dark skin. Glutathione treatments are popular. Depending on where you get the treatment, how many shots you take, and the maintenance doses required to keep you looking light and bright, the cost of regular injections can range from several hundred dollars to as much as $4000 per treatment. Skin-lightening can also have dire consequences.

In spite of the risk and cost, skin-lightening is not done exclusively by the rich and famous.

Glutathione treatments, bleaching creams, and other skin-lightening treatments are popular, not only in the U.S. but in other countries, as well, including India, Asia, and Jamaica where lighter skin tones are perceived as more beautiful than darker skin.

Although some skin-lightening crèmes are deemed to be dangerous because they contain mercury and cancer-causing chemicals, that doesn’t prevent the industry that sells the products from enjoying a booming business.

Many Blacks see skin-lightening as a rejection of black identity. What is it that causes some Black people to abhor their dark skin? Is it self-esteem? Vanity?  Mental illness? Anti-dark skin color bias and the notion that life and living are much easier when you are light or darn near white is an assumption that stems from slavery and racists propaganda.

How about you? Are you are a dark-skinned Black person reading this, if so, are you comfortable with who you are or are you shameless about changing skin color? Do you believe that dark skin color is the black man’s burden?

If you are conflicted, perhaps you will find some understanding about the subject in this stunning and sometimes graphic video. It includes a wealth of information concerning everything from the reasoning behind skin-lightening to the famous doll test. Teachers will certainly be familiar with the doll test. Set aside 20 minutes because once you start watching this video, you won’t want to turn it off.

 

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Sleepless — When the Sandman Does Not Cometh

by on ·General, Health

Who hasn’t had one of those nights when you either could not get to sleep or could not stay asleep? This occasional insomniac recently had one of those evenings, and I recorded my troubles in my diary.

Dear Diary,

It is now 4:12 am Thursday. I went to bed at 11:30 last night. Before I closed my eyes, I glanced at the clock. It showed 12:15 am. I must have dozed because when I next looked at the clock, I was surprised and perturbed to see that it was 1 am. After that, I was sleepless – only not in Seattle. No matter how I tried, with thoughts racing through my mind like a runaway train, I could not turn off my brain, relax and slide back to slumberland. When the futility of tossing and turning for the next few hours produced no palpable results, I decided to get up.

Although this sleep disruption occurs infrequently, I am getting too old to be pulling all-nighters. When I was younger, I could stay up until the crack of dawn and then go to work the next day, no problem. As long as I had a cup of coffee on my desk, I was good. But, alas, being caffeinated doesn’t do it for me anymore as far as staying awake. I can drink a cup – or two – of the strongest brew and still crawl into bed and sleep through the night. I didn’t even drink coffee on Wednesday.

When I am trying not to think about anything except sleep my thoughts are all over the place. I ponder the chaotic state of the country and how race relations seem to have reverted to the way it was before the civil rights movement. I worry about how Godless and mean-spirited people are and the lack of civility in society. I think about events from my past and wonder about things that might occur in the future. I think about people whom I’ve known and loved who are no longer alive. An idle mind may be the devil’s workshop, but a sleepy head is a garage full of disorderly thoughts.

Dragging myself out of bed, I walk to the dining room, open my laptop on the table near the window, and here I am. It’s you and me, Diary. Back in the day journaling with paper and pen was the way to go. Now keeping an electronic diary is much more convenient and easily secured with a password. So while the rest of the world is sleeping, I am typing away.

My inanimate companion, here are some of the things that I’ve done or thought about doing during my sleepless state this evening.

I ate a banana. I read somewhere that bananas help promote sleep. We shall see.

I considered cleaning the bathroom. Changed my mind. Moving the scrubbing pail around and splashing water might wake the sleeping dead. Not a good idea in the middle of the night.

Turned on the TV. Low volume. A slasher movie is on. For about 15 seconds, I stare wide-eyed at a blood and guts scene. That’s more conducive to a nightmare than restful sleep. After channel surfing through a few infomercials, I turn off the set.

Listening to an audiobook usually lulls me to sleep, so I try it. After a few chapters, I start to feel drowsy and return to bed. Immediately, upon hitting the sheets, I began fighting with my pillow. Finally, I land a punch that puts the cushion into a comfortable position. I rest my head on it, close my eyes and began to drift off. Just as I am crossing the threshold to dreamland, my mate starts snoring like an ATV bike on a dirt road. Are you kidding me!

I grow tired of shaking him, only to have him obligingly roll over before the snoring resumes. I’m out of there.

So here I sit. As usual, the air conditioner in the unit of my upstairs neighbor is running and dripping water that sounds like huge raindrops splashing onto my AC directly beneath it. I love this place to have lived here for 42 years, but expecting complete contentment in a tenement is a pipe dream, even when you are part owner of the property.

The microwave clock shows 5:45. How did 90 minutes pass so fast? Leaving my elbows on the table, I raise my hands to my face, interlock my fingers and rest my chin on my hands. With my eyes closed, the only thing I am aware of is the drip, drip, drip of the water splashing on my AC.

And then, a thought hits me. Log in to Facebook. Surely, I will see the little green light indicating that some of my friends are also online and I’ll inbox someone so we can chat. Wouldn’t you know it, only one green light on and that person is someone I don’t know well enough to begin chatting in the middle of the night.

It’s almost 6 am. In another hour or so I would have been getting up anyway; that is if I had slept. What’s the use in hitting the sack now? I’ll be a mess tomorrow, I mean today. Whatever. My yesterday came straight into today with no rest in between. I’m sure that around noon I’ll feel the repercussions of a sleepless night. Or I will still be sitting here, typing. My eyes will grow heavy as sleep creeps up on me. My head will slowly bow causing my upper body to continue leaning forward until suddenly my face falls flat on the keyboard and I will … zzzzzzzzzzz.

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The Wisdom of Shedding Wisdom Teeth Early in Life

by on ·General, Health

As I see it, if there is any wisdom related to wisdom teeth is to be wise enough to have them pulled while you are young. From what I’ve read most people have impacted or decaying wisdom teeth removed in their teenage years and early twenties. If you have passed those marks, let’s hope that you don’t wait until you reach middle-age or beyond to get those 3rd molars extracted.

Take it from someone who knows. I thought I had all of my wisdom teeth removed decades ago. When low and behold my dentist tells me that I have one remaining and it needs to come out.

“After each exam, you tell me that I have a mouthful of beautiful, perfectly good teeth,” I said to him. “You do,” he replied, “except for that remaining wisdom tooth. It now has a cavity.” “Can’t you just fill it?” I asked anxiously. He responded, “The cavity extends below the gum level. Better to have that tooth pulled now, then for me to fill it and you have more trouble with it later on.” For two months I resisted until I finally relented and said okay, “Let’s do this.”

I’ve been going to the same dental office for nearly 25 years, and Dr. P has been my dentist during all of that time. He and his entire staff are wonderful people, and they all have an excellent bedside manner. If it were up to me, I’d vote theirs the best dental practice in the city. And judging from reviews I’ve read on Google their other patients feel the same way.

Last Friday was D day. The wisdom tooth is coming out. I am as anxious as a woman about to give birth to triplets on a crowded Metro train.

Dr. P doesn’t do extractions. He leaves that to Dr. M. While she and her assistant prepare me for the inevitable, the dentist and I engage in an active conversation about the various types of yoga, an exercise that we both enjoy. After the “prep-talk” (which I know is a distraction to calm my nerves), the actual process begins and lasts less than 10 minutes.

The procedure wasn’t bad because before injecting the general anesthesia Dr. M used a local anesthetic to numb the area of the soon to be removed tooth. I relaxed a bit feeling confident that like Dr. P, Dr. M knew her stuff. When she went to work, I didn’t feel the needle nor the pressure of the extraction. After yanking that baby out, Dr. M stitched the hole.

Since the wisdom teeth are in the rear of the mouth, unless you tell someone, no one but the patient and the dentist would know that you have missing teeth back there. Warning people:  when anyone tells you that the aftermath is worse than the oral surgery, believe them.

Although I have a low threshold for pain, typically, I am not a pill popper, so I mindlessly refused a prescription for a painkiller. “You may need something after the numbness wears off and for the pain in the coming days,” Dr. M warned.  No. Nada. I refused. The pain cannot be worse than recouping the $325 bill for the procedure. Or so I thought.

Let me tell you – when the numbness began to wear off I wanted to scream “Impeachment!” But Dr. M was not the person I had in mind.

The sheet detailing instructions for extraction post-operative care is pretty specific. During the first 24 hours, I faithfully follow the long list of dos and don’ts. Do drink plenty of water. Do not spit or drink through a straw.  And although caffeine was listed along with no alcohol or smoking (I could live without those first two items, because I am not a drinker or a smoker.) but no coffee – now that is a problem. I confess, I brewed a cup of java but made sure to let it cool down to lukewarm before drinking it. No hot foods or liquids also meant that I had to let my chicken soup cool down almost to the temperature it was in the can before consuming it. About 3 hours after the extraction the pain begins to creep in.

Seeking relief, I swallow Ibuprofen. When that doesn’t work, I switch to Extra Strength Tylenol. A double dose soothes the beast for a little while, and when the pain demon rears its ugly head again. I do it again.

My appetite has waned for the past couple of days, but fortunately, for me, some of the foods that I enjoy are on the list of recommended things to eat following a tooth extraction. Applesauce. Ice cream (nothing chunky like Butter Pecan or Rocky Road). Broth-based soups. Jell-O. Smoothies. Mashed potatoes. Yogurt. Instant oatmeal.

It is now day three post-surgery. I awoke this morning feeling like tiny people wearing spiked shoes were tap dancing on my sensitive gum. My head ached. The lower left side of my face throbbed. I rolled over and grabbed my new best friend, Tylenol Extra Strength, from the nightstand. I crawled out of bed like a battle-wounded soldier, ate a banana, drank a protein drink and then popped two Tylenol ES capsules into my mouth. After a short while, whallah! I felt like I could conquer the world. Or if not that, I could achieve something less dramatic like writing a blog post which is long overdue. It’s been nearly seven hours since this morning’s dose of pain-killer, and it feels like the teeth-munchkins are putting on their spiked shoes and getting ready to dance again. But I’m prepared. My best friend is right here with me, besides the keyboard.

While searching for another solution to after-extraction pain, I discovered the following amusing and possibly prognostic quote about wisdom teeth. “It seems like everybody at one point in their life had wisdom teeth but got them pulled out. And later you find out that the teeth weren’t the only wisdom that’s been removed.” Author unknown.

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