I have been having loads of fun exploring ToxMap and EnviroMapper. These two government sites are quite informative. The map shown here is my old neighborhood in Chicago and the number of facilities polluting the air. All of those little blue clouds are VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) and more polluting the air. I [...]

SeattlePI has an interesting story about Capitol Hill resident Kami Bodily. Bodily lost her mother to lupus when she was 15. Today, Bodily struggles with lupus as well and she is without insurance. Bodily did have health insurance at one time but, due to a lapse in coverage, she can no longer get health [...]

Since disconnecting my iPhone from AT&T’s dead zone, I can now enjoy many of the apps available for the little device and let me tell you, it’s loaded. My Blackberry, on the other hand, is reserved for more serious applications. Though there are many apps available for it, I often find myself unwilling [...]

Literally, they make me nervous. I noticed this last year just before the 7.5 earthquake in Sumatra. Made me nervous for about a week prior to the day of the actual quake. What I noticed that day in September was I felt nervous that morning and then, by about noon, I was [...]

While reading The Autoimmune Epidemic, I came across a sentence that said: “Several studies have shown that women who use hair dye have three times the risk of developing lupus — that is, if they also carry specific genes that make them susceptible to autoimmune disease in the first place.”Hmmm, the key here is [...]

I have wanted to write something on health care reform for a while but there are so many variables. For me, the issue boils down to what individuals need, not partisan bickering, not selling your vote quid pro quo, and certainly not the high end, intellectual discussions over whether a woman should or should [...]

Who’da thunk it right? I got off the sodas months ago because I realized they were just no good for me. Lunch meats, well, they’re nothing more than sodium packs and as much as I love the sandwich shops around town, they too are no good even if I am buying a mercury [...]

Whew, now that’s a mouthful. Yes indeed I am going to combine three posts in one because I’ve got chemo brain and I can’t stay focused. Well no, actually, all of this came together in one day during chemo. Today was my day to sit in a chair and look stupid for a couple [...]

I finally did it and three times was the charm. Gulab Jamun is one of my favorite Indian deserts, particularly when served warm (or at room temperature) with cold ice cream. Gulab Jamun is also one of India’s most popular desserts. The name Gulab means rose and Jamun is a kind of [...]

Now that I have talked about preparing my meals at home, I want to take some time to talk about Ayurvedic cooking. Actually, I am going to take a quote from the website www.sanatansociety.org: The Ayurvedic cook derives his knowledge of herbs, spices, vegetables, legumes and so forth from the Ayurveda, which helps them maintain [...]

This is where I hang my head in shame to say for many years my stove sat as nothing more than installation art in my kitchen. What did I do all those years? I did what most do, I purchased sodium packs that I could easily pop into a microwave oven for another [...]

To kick-off National Autoimmune Disease Awareness Month, the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association (AARDA) released a report on the current state of autoimmune disease (AD) and its economic and social impact globally and in the U.S. The summit is taking place today, March 3, and unfortunately I was not able to get to the site in [...]