Although it might not sound very festive, when you’re home for the holidays, between finding a perfect tree, buying last minute gifts and drinking too much eggnog, it’s a good time to take a look around. How do things look? How’s the house, your parents? What’s changed since the last time you were there?

The holidays have enough stress built in, so this is not the time for confrontation. Do keep a little notebook, and write down what you see that doesn’t look right to you. Things to look for include irritability, confusion, short term memory loss, unopened mail, unusual spending and or hoarding, changes in the home, and changes in appetite. Julie Hall in her book The Boomer Burden has a much more comprehensive list, along with suggestions on what steps to take.

After the holidays, talk to siblings or family friends, and compare notes. See if what’s happening is just part of the stress of the holidays or an ongoing issue that needs addressing. If you’re like me and have both parents, try to time it right so you can get one alone on the phone, and check in. Other times, people like, my cousin, who lives nearby, are good go-to people. What you don’t want to do is ignore the situation and hope it will go away. Even thought it may be painful, don’t you think planning ahead of time is always better than crisis intervention?
 

Here's one for the good guys. Dr. Jeff, my primary care physician and I, after a two-week written debate including authoritative articles, took another look at my bone density chart and agreed that I do not need to take Fosamax or any other drug.  He also punched my numbers in to the WHO chart (world health org.) on the net which said my risk factor was 13%. They recommend treatment at 20%.   He said I should take calcium and D, which I do. We will monitor my progress next year. Dr. Jeff appreciated the newsletter articles that suggested eating a healthy diet laden with fresh fruits and vegetables.
 
We agreed that the medical profession over-medicates and he said that one reason is that we are an overweight nation that wants to be treated.  He has also been on the other end of that scenario when a family says why didn't you do more?  Why didn’t you....  "That’s an awful feeling", he said.
 He thinks the drug companies take more time than the government to do research and that they deserve a profit.  I agree that drug companies deserve a profit.  Consumers have to do their own research to determine what drugs they are willing to ingest and pay for.  Most people do not want to do that in our "fix this" society.
 
Anyway we agreed that we hope we don't see each other for a long time.
 
Got to love this guy, but it did take a squeaky wheel to have the medical world come up for air and take a personal, objective view of my case. that's the fight we all face.
 

If you're a certain age, you can be pretty sure that your father was in the service at some point in his life. Mine was in the Army in Japan after WWII. He always wanted to be a paratrooper but was denied in training camp because he didn't have 20/20 vision. Somehow when they shipped him off to Japan, they let him start jumping out of planes.

One New Year's Eve  in the south of France, I asked him what he remembered about being in Japan. My favorite story is about them going to the movies at a distant base. The base they were at was small and had limited facilities, so there really wasn't much to do in the evenings. The better base was a four hour drive over terrible roads, so when there was a good movie going on, they would fuel up a plane, fly over to the base, and parachute down in time for the movie.

Now, he swears this is true, but he's never said how they ever got back to their home base. Isn't that part of a good story? You can just sit back and accept it, for the tale it is.

By telling stories and passing them on, we honor our families, and all the people who have and continue to serve this country.