Max New Year;s Day last year.

Last December at this time, my dog, Max was in a doggie wheelchair and the vet told me he would never walk again.  The family holiday powwow was to schedule one sibling to be with Mom 24/7 because she had just completed her cancer surgery and needed round the clock assistance.  Mom and I were debating the value of life at 4 AM on a regular basis.

The surgery to remove the tumor from under her right cheekbone meant removing her right cheekbone, her right eye which had been invaded by cancer, and, well let me explain it this way. If you put your finger touching the middle of the roof of your mouth, everything to the right had to go.

Shortly after the surgery, they put in a very refined denture that mimicked the roof of mom’s mouth.  Without that, she couldn’t talk or eat.  She was trying to figure out the care of it, she was exhausted and beat up from the surgery.  The surgery impacted her hearing.  She was completely deaf without her hearing aide and the hearing aide was working inconsistently.  Her sight was much worse.  She had trouble breathing and frequent nightmares.

I spent nights with her at the hospital and she would wake from nightmares at 2 or 4 AM.  She would say how if she knew it was going to be this bad, she would rather die.  We would debate the merits of living and dying.  I would interject Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) to release some of the emotion, much of it, fear.

Surgery can result in a form of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  The patient’s subconscious feels it is being attacked and doesn’t recognize this is a life-saving measure.  Mom’s nightmares were part of that syndrome.  Fortunately, I was able to get in there quickly with EFT.

When we got home, Mom slept for a while sitting up in a chair in the living room.  It was hard for her to breathe lying down.  By then we took turns staying with her.  During my turns, we often had those 4 AM discussions and EFT.

I briefly mentioned that my dog was in a wheelchair.  Just as my mom’s surgery was scheduled, my dog, Max, became paralyzed.  It was just before Thanksgiving.  He’s a little Bichon and the vet said a lumbar disc had dislocated.  The vet also said, after a couple weeks went by & Max didn’t show improvement, that he would never walk again.

I have to thank my good buddy, Steve Kowalczyk, for nursing Max.  I was pretty full time taking care of Mom.  So Max went to Steve’s house and got excellent nursing.  It was a lot to ask of anyone.  Max couldn’t get up at all on his back legs, so he had to be cleaned up several times a day and carried outside to relieve himself and held.

So in the back of my mind were life and death questions about Max as well.  I didn’t entertain them much, though.  Somehow I knew Max would be well and Mom would, too.

Maybe I felt that way because I was able to help them.  Mom would never take my USANA vitamins before.  But in her helpless state, I drowned her in them the best I could!  I ground them up and put them in her food, her drinks, her deserts.  I did the same for Max.

And I was able to do EFT, CranioSacral Therapy, Lymph Drainage Therapy, and Liss Stimulation, every skill I knew from my work I employed for both of them.

Around this time last year, we took Max to get his wheelchair.  As soon as he stood in it, he was so happy.  Since there was no weight on his back legs, he began moving them.  The woman at the custom wheelchair shop said that indicated that he would probably recover.

Max recovered and he’s still recovering.  At Thanksgiving, my daughter and I took a long hike in the woods.  I debated with myself whether to take him, as he hadn’t done any really long walks.  It was one of our favorite places we used to walk.  So I took him and he kept up and enjoyed it.

Our walk with Max, Nov 2009

Mom is back to her energetic self that our family really hadn’t seen in over 10 years.  She had gotten really overweight and was on medications for high blood pressure and cholesterol.  For about the last 6 years, she had lost her ability to walk any distance at all.  She had gone from a person who wore all her children out shopping, to someone who couldn’t make it across a parking lot.

After the surgery, she got her energy back better than ever.  She lost about 70 lbs and she did it healthy, not losing muscle.  She ran around taking everyone shopping and running the show this Christmas.  She’s still taking her vitamins on her own, just in case they have something to do with her anti-aging energy boost.

Mom clowning around in the kitchen Christmas day.

Max as Santa 12/25/09

The only crazy thing was, well, actually there were 2 crazy things.  My ex-husband, the composer, Michael Galasso, died on September 9 and my brother, the cardiologist, Michael Pasquale, died September 17.

Mike Galasso had been struggling with his health for years and died of a heart atack while my daughter, Catherine was visiting him at his home in Paris. She had 5 weeks with him and he died the day before she was to fly back to NY.  They were very close and it’s been very tough for her.

She’s a choreographer and she’s been able to channel her grief in very interesting ways through performances she’s given in both NY and San Francisco.  It’s been both tough and inspiring watching her.

Out of the blue, while Mom was in recovery mode in the spring, my brother, Mike got diagnosed with cancer and died in September.  My brother, Tony, and I were together at Mom and Dad’s when Mike died and we gave them the news.  It could be the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

Summer paint job in the snow. It's all done & ready to go!

So here I am.  The snow is on the ground and on the scaffolding that stands in front of my house.  I live and have an office in a 3 story brick & cast iron building that dates from 1876.  Painting the cast iron and pointing the bricks, sprucing up the rusting facade, was supposed to be a summer job.  The summer job turned into a winter job, the contractor just finished yesterday, after many delays.  The scaffolding is supposed to come down the first clear day we get in the new year.

I’m deep into interior renovations of my home & office.  It’s planned to be a winter job and be done by March, in time for Chinese New Year!  I’ll keep you posted.

Happy New Year!

Pasquale family at the dedication of the echolab at Christiana Hospital. I'm at the bottom right and Mom is over my right shoulder. Dad is standing behind Eileen's mom to my left.

It’s holiday time and many of us are thinking about the ones who are not here to share it with us.  As I was washing the dishes this morning, I was crying at the loss of my brother, Mike, who died in September, not of the cancer he had, but of the opportunistic infections he couldn’t beat.

At the same time that I was crying, I was marveling how my body could automatically be washing the dishes.

Then I thought, didn’t I dream of Mike last night?  Yes I did.  In the dream, I asked him, “Why did you leave us?” I couldn’t remember the answer. so  asked out loud, “What was your answer, in my dream?  What was it you said, Mike?  Why did you leave us?”

All I could remember was that the dream was comforting and I intended  to tell my sister-in-law, Mike’s wife, Eileen about it.   In the wee hours of the night, it seemed like a revelation.  Now I couldn’t remember.

At the sink, as I washed the dishes, I saw Mike clearly, laughing.  He said, “I told you that I haven’t left you.  I’m with you.  Just think of me as behind a curtain.” He had that bemused look on his face, smiling, as he so often did.

Behind a curtain.  Like the wizard of OZ?  In the light of day, with water splashing in the sink, it wasn’t nearly as satisfying an answer as it had been earlier.

The Center for Heart & Vascular Health at Christiana Hospital in Wilmington, Delaware dedicated its echocardiography laboratory to my brother on Monday, December 7, 2009 calling it the Michael J. Pasquale, M.D. Echocardiography Laboratory.

The dedication was to be at 3 PM, so at 10 AM, I picked up my parents in New Jersey and we met up with the family at Eileen and Mike’s  house outside of Wilmington.  My brother, John, had come with his wife, Patty, and their 2 boys, Sean and Andrew, twins about 12 years old, and their oldest daughter, Amanda, 25.

My brother, Mike’s, children were all there–Chris, 27, Kimberly, 25, and Nicole, 22.  Carolann, 25, my sister, Ann’s daughter, and her boyfriend, Kyle, were there, too.  Eileen’s 92 year old mother completed the group.

It’s hard to describe the feeling’s in Eileen’s kitchen that morning.  We were cheerful.  The underlying strain of grief was also present.

We were met at the hospital by an auditorium full of Mike’s colleagues, hospital administrators, cardiology fellows, nurses, friends and patients.  Dr. Timothy Gardner, the medical director, spoke first. Then Dr. William Weintraub, the cardiology chair and my brother’s partner.

My brother had been a cardiologist, hired 20 years earlier, and these 2 men spoke about how Mike had left his mark at Christiana Hospital.  Besides being an excellent doctor that was the “go to” guy in the department, he was adamant about introducing the new technologies of cardiac care into Christiana.  But where he really shown, was teaching the new cardiology fellows.

My family sat in the reserved first row of seats, filling both sides of the aisles.  We listened as each speaker spoke with enthusiasm about Mike’s contribution to the hospital.  Of course, we were grateful and happy.  At the same time, the tears were streaming down my cheeks and when I turned to look at my brother, John, beside me, his eyes were drowning , too.  My parents and Eileen and the kids were on the other side of the aisle.  I could only imagine the tug of war going on in their hearts.

The speech that moved me most was the one from my nephew, Chris.  I was so grateful for his words, his acceptance of this honor on the part of my family.  He said

“I’d like to start by thanking Dr. Gardner, Dr. Weintraub, and everyone else who helped to make today happen on behalf of my family. It means so much to us to have my dad honored in this way.

You all knew my father as a colleague and it’s that professional aspect of his life that we’re here today to celebrate. Many of you also knew him as a friend. My relationship with him was obviously from a different perspective.

However, if there is one thing I’ve come to realize about my dad over the past few months, it’s that he approached every aspect of his life in a similar way. And so I think that there is likely some common ground in what we each took from the relationship.

Many of my memories of my father growing up were also from working with him. Although, for me, it was working in the garden or around the house on Saturday mornings.

My dad was a do-it yourself kind of guy. No task was too daunting and I think he made my mom nervous on more than one occasion with the projects we attempted.

He was also a do-it the right way kind of guy. “Good enough” never was. And although I didn’t always share his zeal for perfection at the time, especially as Saturday morning turned into Saturday afternoon, he taught me what it meant to take pride in your work, to strive for excellence, and to make going above and beyond normal operating procedure.

He applied this philosophy to everything he did, whether it was running guys half his age ragged on the tennis court, growing baseball bat sized zucchinis in his vegetable garden, or even something as simple as putting up the Christmas lights, which always had to go in the back yard as well as the front even if only our neighbors would see them.

As we’ve heard today, he brought this drive to his profession as well. He was passionate about helping patients, passionate about honing the skills of his craft, and passionate about passing on his knowledge to others.

And although he didn’t talk much about his work when he came home, the outpouring of sympathy and respect from his colleagues, fellows, and patients over the past few months has been truly humbling and a testament to how successfully he achieved these objectives.

I can think of no better way to commemorate my father’s life than to continue to pursue these ideals. Having met many of you here at Christiana and the Echo Lab in particular, I’m confident that you share his passion and I couldn’t be more proud to have his name associated with the outstanding work you do here.

Thank you again.”

There was a beautiful luncheon served and we as a family were taken right away on a tour of the echocardiology lab.  As we walked down the hall, Dr. Gardner told me that after Mike died, there had been a ground swell of support to name the new lab after Mike.  It came on behalf of Mike’s colleagues who worked there.  He had left his hand in it so prominently, his striving for excellence for everyone who worked there, his insistence on the latest technology and finest care for the patients.

Michelle Marstom, RDCS, Supervisor of Echocardiography Lab, in the break room. Notice Mike's picture top left above the family photos.

When we toured the lab, I poked my head around the corner where the nurses were hiding in the break room.  On the back of the door were pictures of their kids, and at the top was a picture of Mike, whom they called “Dr. P”.  Michelle Marston, RDCS, the supervisor of the lab, said they keep his picture there to remind them of his presence in the lab.

Below his smiling face in script it said, “Quality is job one!”  Michelle said each week they change the picture and put it up with a  different “Dr. P’ism”.

“He always used to say these things and he was always right,”  Michelle said.

I was touched to see 3 months after his death, they had incorporated a ritual to remember him.

Dr. Vinay Hosmane was one the first graduating cardiology fellows trained by Mike.  He told me the following “Dr. P’ism”.

Dr. Hosmane said when they were learning to read the echocardiograms, in the beginning, the echos all looked like indecipherable clouds of black and gray.  Mike would say to them, “Be a man. Take a stand.  Make a call.”

It seems many cardiologists will hem and haw.  Mike demanded those under his tutelage, as well as colleagues, call the echo, normal or abnormal, without beating around the bush to protect themselves for fear of being wrong.

I thought how profound this was for life outside cardiology.

Another fellow said on his first days as Mike’s student, he was given what seemed to him a huge amount of work to do for day one, Monday.  There were these plastic partitions dividing the office where they met.  The fellow was frantically checking the books, reading, and making last minute changes.

He heard Mike calling his name, his voice booming, “Reading is on your own time!”  Even though Mike couldn’t see what he was doing, he knew, and he was calling him on it.  He was a tough taskmaster and they appreciated it and it made them chuckle.  They all remarked how Mike did it with a big heart and was always fair.

Through all this, I have come to know that there were so many things I didn’t know about my brother.  I look at the others in my family and I think, “What don’t I know about each one of them?  How do I find out, while they are still alive, and I can tell them how much I appreciate them?”

Do you want to know something really odd?  After we had returned to Mike and Eileen’s house, I was sitting with her mom.  And she told me about how her husband had died at age 54 of cancer, the same age as Mike.  She said that he began to go to the doctor for treatments in the spring of that year.  He never told her what the treatments were for.  Then she took him to the doctor after Thanksgiving because he was having trouble walking.  The doctor told her he was being admitted to the hospital and would be dead in a couple of weeks.

That was the first she heard about cancer.  Her husband was dead before Christmas.

“So,” she said, “I know how hard it is to have this happen.  I know how hard the holidays are.”

I don’t believe in coincidence.  I believe in synchronicity.  I can explain it as energy patterns that spin around us, directing us to certain people, we become actors in this play of life, as hokey as it sounds.  At the end of it all, we get to read the entire script as well as our part in it, and it will make sense.

Mom and I September 08

Its Thanksgiving time again and it’s a little over a year since Mom got her diagnosis.  She’s went through cancer treatment and now recovery and the whole family has gone with her on this wild ride.

Her birthday is November 11 and last November 11 we had just gotten her diagnosis, aggressive melanoma tumor located in her right nasal sinus.  That meant a nasty tumor under her eye which had already invaded the eye.  We talked with 4 doctors and the last one, Dr. Urken of Beth Israel Hospital, said he could operate and remove the tumor.  We were waiting to hear when the surgery would be.

It was a pretty tense 84th birthday party.  There was my mom & dad, Gloria and Carl, Mom’s sisters, Irene and Connie, Uncle George, my cousin, Rose and my brother, Tony.  I made this toast.

I said, “Let’s all imagine its Mom’s 85th birthday, not her 84th.  And we are jubilant because the whole thing is over.  Mom is healthy and happy and well and the cancer is gone and we are celebrating!”

We all toasted to that and the atmosphere was lighter.

That day happened.  On November 11 this year, we actually had that party.  All the same people were there and we had a few more.  We were jubilant.  We gave many speeches about Mom, how much we appreciated her and how happy we were to have her with us so healthy and happy.

She lost her eye and wears a dark lense on that side.  The skin has healed over it.  She’s not looking into additional surgeries to make it look like she has an eye.

She’s got a fancy prosthesis replacing part of her mouth that was removed to get at the tumor.  We went back to the doctor last week because he is making her a new one.  Apparently there is one that can stand up to the radiation treatment and then another one she gets after she’s survived radiation and healed.

Her last radiation treatment was back in May.  Dr. Okay looked at her mouth and was very pleased.  He explained that her mouth and gums looked great.  The skin was very pink and healthy.

After radiation, the mouth had gotten very friable, brittle and scorched.  It was difficult for Mom to eat or drink and we almost lost her at that time.  It’s almost miraculous how everything has repaired so beautifully.

It’s also a bit miraculous how healthy she is, because Mom is a lot healthier now than when she went into surgery.  She was on lots of medication for high blood pressure and cholesterol.  She was about 80 lbs overweight.

As part of her care, I got her on very high quality vitamins and minerals from USANA Health Sciences.  I market these products because they turned my health around and now I make them available to other people like me.

Mom would never take them before the cancer and she’d gotten to a place where she could hardly walk very far.  She used to be a marathon shopper, and wore us all out.  Now she had to sit while we shopped.

That’s all turned around now.  She lost about 70 lbs and she did it healthy, not by wasting away as so often happens with cancer.  She never lost muscle.

She’s off all her medications and her blood pressure is great.

I believe the USANA nutritionals played a big part in making Mom’s outcome so miraculous.  So many things happened along the way that had her doctors shaking their heads in amazement.  Her recoveries were so quick and complication free.  I guess Mom feels USANA is helping because she is continuing to take her supplements even though I’m not there to serve them up to her.

During that year of Mom’s trials, my brother, Michael, also got cancer.  He was diagnosed in May with aggressive lymphoma and he died September 19, 2009.  My Mom had to go through that trauma, too. He wouldn’t listen to me about taking any USANA vitamins ever, either years ago or through his treatment.  He actually died cancer free, but couldn’t survive the opportunistic infections.

I don’t know whether USANA would have made a difference or not.  To say we are saddened by his death is an understatement.  I can say we are full of gratitude and joy that our family experienced only one funeral this year and not two.

We are counting our blessings and they are too numerous to count!

Just got back from a great training in Tampa with Steve Schwartz, Jason Wells, and Chris Lopez. They organized it and drilled us without mercy (only kidding) for more than 3 days. Very intense, practical and helpful information & drills, like I’ve found nowhere else.
Don’t miss the next one!
Thanks for sharing all your great know how. I’m on fire and managed yesterday to
get 20 calls in,10 connects and set 4 appointments, despite travel and family time! Whoppee!

World Class Spa and Holistic Healing Center

Vision Statement:

To offer, in a toxin free environment, spa services inclusive of the following:

• holistic treatments such as spa services, massage, CranioSacral Therapy (CST), meditation, yoga, nutrition, and various body therapies to children and families in a spa setting
• psychology services: psycho-emotional intervention services (stress & trauma relief) such as Emotional Freedom Technique, hypnosis, timeline therapy, family constellation, etc.
• Dentisty, chiropractic, acupuncture
• fitness
• nutrition including the highest quality supplementation, fresh green juices, raw foods and seafood
• To provide a library of information and a staff of experts, resources for the world to access state of the art information about treatments for various health concerns.

We will attract the following people:

1. Healthy people wanting to de-stress, enjoy themselves in beautiful surroundings while learning how to feel even better, with more energy.
2. People who are not showing signs of illness, but know they are not completely healthy.  They want an evaluation and a course of treatments to remove toxins from their bodies, improve their health and avoid disease.
3. People who have degenerative conditions and want to improve their health.

Situated in Granite Springs, NY, the Zion Well On The Way world class spa will be:

• a 65 acre facility consisting of 7 buildings that can now sleep 50 guests
• Adjacent to the NYC watershed in a serene setting
• The grounds include a pool, a greenhouse, a main house with 4 bedrooms and dining facilities for 50 people, a large converted barn with a large atrium open space upstairs and an equally large downstairs plus 2 apartments and 6 garages, a care takers house and 2 other buildings.
• Dining facility/kitchen for 50 seats and two kitchens
• Zion Well On The Way World Class Spa will provide a low electrical emission field environment (see Radiation Rescue: 4 steps to safeguard your family from the other inconvenient truth – the health hazards of wireless technology by K Crofton PhD)
  • Building materials used will be non-toxic
  • Non-toxic paint, wallpaper and organic cloth on the chairs. (afmsafecoat.com)
  • Electric wiring will be double insulated
  • 12 volt lighting will be used to shield electro magnetic fields.
  • It will be one of the only low radiation facilities on the east coast with no wifi or cordless phones.  These devices have been implicated as causative to alzheimers, autism and Parkinson’s disease.
    • Spa to Model:  Sanoviv Medical Institute, Baja, California, Sanoviv.com

Staff:

Services:

Massage                                                Yoga Classes

CST                                                            Meditation Sessions

Body wraps                                                Nutrition Consultation/Supplementation

Reiki                                                            Vitamin Therapies

Lymph Drainage                                    Homeopathy

Chiropractics                                                Detoxification Protocols

Acupuncture                                                Colonics

Emotional Freedom Techniques            Time Line Therapy

Hypnosis

Dentistry                                                 Family Constellations

Food to be served:

Low Glycemic                                                Raw Food

Organic Meals                                                Fresh green juices

Fresh organic fruits                                    Individualized diet/menu plans

Fresh fish

Project Start Date:

Start Up Costs:

NY State Requirements/Permits Needed:

Building, Health, Environmental

PROPOSED MASTERMIND TELEPHONE CONFERENCE

SCHEDULED FOR TUESDAY OCTOBER 20, 2009

8PM EASTERN  218-339-4600 Code: 554717#

PARTICIPANTS:

Abraham Zion

Industrialist

New York, NY

Elizabeth Pasquale LMT, CST

Director

Well On The Way Holistic Therapy Center

Ossining & White Plains, NY

www.wellontheway.org

Susan Varsames M.A.Ed.

Founder & Director

Holistic Learning Center

Eastchester, NY

www.hlcinfo.com

Fred Cooper PhD.

President

USANA Health Sciences

Salt Lake City, UTAH

www.Usana.com

John Matthew Upledger

CEO

Barral Institute

CEO

Upledger Institute

West Palm Beach, Florida

www.Upledger.com

Viktoria Ter-Nikoghosyan PhD, CHt

Scarsdale, NY

www.live-in-harmony.com

Dr. Miguel Lanzagorta

Director of Energy Medicine

Sanoviv Medical Institute

Baja California, Mexico

www.Sanoviv.com

Questions to guide conference of Oct 20:

Which spa services are essential as we launch the spa?

Should spa services be aligned with an area of specialization?

• Whole body (nutrition, psychology, exercise)
• Or areas of specialization

Facility questions:

Do the buildings lend themselves readily to a spa?

What kind of redesigning do they need?

Who are the designers & builders of spas?

What is our next step?

Just go there and see what we’ve all been waiting for! I won’t have to say anymore, “No, sorry, USANA doesn’t make that.”

So she asked me exactly what differences did I experience.

Time to take the tipi down!.

So I’ve been thinking about it.  10 years ago, I was heavier, my hair was pretty gray (and not so pretty, actually).  It was advanced gray.  My dad, who doesn’t have to be as polite as other people, would say to me, “Don’t you want to color your hair?”

Besides how my hair looked,   I used to have these dark circles under my eyes.  I was getting sick frequently with mono, bronchitus, colds and that had been going on for about 20 years prior.  I’d spent about 10 years with chronic fatigue.  So my energy felt like I was 90.  I was achy all over, and had problems with pain in my finger joints, even a trigger thumb.

And here’s the differences.  Since USANA,

1. my energy is great,

2. my hair is the color it was when I was 20 (gray went away on its own over a 2 year period),

3. 10 lbs slimmer ( I have a waist like I’ve never had before!

4. dark circles under my eyes, gone!

5. my skin & hair have a healthy glow

6. joints & back no longer ache

Is this anti-aging?  Call it whatever you like, this is my experience.

Right now, it’s Columbus Day and that means time to take the tipi down!  Most summers I spend almost every weekend in my tipi on the beautiful land of Padmasambhava Buddhist Center http://www.padmasambhava.org/

I drove up yesterday, admiring the intense fall colors and had the fun of antique shopping along the way.  Walton, NY is sprouting antique shops left & right!

I got most of the tipi packed up and put away in my car and drove home.  This is when I really appreciate my healthy joints and energy.  This kind of thing used to kill me in my “old” days.  Now, it’s just fun!  It was a refreshing break from the stress and intense emotions of recent weeks.

Happy fall!

1. Last week I went to an osteopath with knowledge in CranioSacral therapy – He told me that he probably couldn’t help me.3:24 AM Oct 5th from web
2. And pain in my neck from a nine year old whip lash injury on my right side. What am I supposed to do ~ have tried everything. What am I supposed to do?

Forget that osteopath, Carina!  Just because he didn’t know how to help you, doesn’t mean ALL cranio-sacral therapists can’t help you!

There are about one million things I can do, even if CranioSacral Therapy (CST) were not to work.  First, I’d want to go to a CS therapist who believed he COULD help me and give that a chance.  For a severe injury, that means minimum of 10 sessions, each session being at least 1 hour long.

There are lots of different osteopaths out there and some are excellent with manual therapy and some are not.  I don’t know which category that guy you went to is in.

Let’s say CST didn’t work for me.  Why doesn’t it work for me?  It works for lots of people with similar isssues.  So I would want to work on 2 fronts.

The body heals itself perfectly well if it has the proper nutritional support.  That is key.  That’s why my clients get better results if they go on an aggressive nutritional program along with the manual therapy.  I trust USANA because it worked for me and it has lots of 3rd party endorsements of its scientific basis and potency/purity guarantee.  I’ve seen my clients On it, do much better than my clients NOT on it.

Next, I want to explore the psycho-emotional reasons I might not be getting better.  So I seek out someone who does hypnosis, time line therapy, emotional freedom technique (EFT), Somato Emotional Release (SER–often done with EFT), Family Constellations or some mind-body therapy.  I do these with my clients and they find it helpful.

There is lots more.

Carina, have you tried all these yet?

Don’t give up hope!  There is an answer to all my challenges as long as I don’t give up!  Let me know what happens, Carina!

At brief interludes during the performance, my friend made almost furtive appearances upstage. He posed, appeared to be casually observing, and then would launch into private dances behind the choreography going on between him and the audience. It was a riveting juxtaposition of youth and authority. He moved with power and grace and a reserve absent from the younger, full-out explosive energy.  It was very beautiful.

After the concert, we hung around to chat with friends and congratulate the dancers. I observed my choreographer friend across the room. I was just a little surprised at his appearance in the light of, well, not day, because we were in the theater, but normal light rather than theatrical half-light.

He’s a good-looking man, trim and athletic, no doubt about that.  But, saying that, there was still a slight bulge to his waist and a puffiness to his face.  And he was a man who was working out every day, vigorously with young dancers to keep up with and train!

You might say, what can you expect from someone around 60? I expect better.

That puffiness is not age, because I had it when I was younger and now I don’t, and I only work out maybe 10 minutes a day, not hours like he surely does.

That puffiness is inflammation and, when it’s present, it’s aging us faster than necessary. It’s a sign of the body becoming less able to process energy, which comes in the form of sugars from our foods, whether you eat healthy or junk. If you eat healthy, you get healthier sugar; eat junk and you get unhealthy sugar, and the inflammation is worse. But it’s still sugar the body metabolizes and we do it less efficiently as we age.   Inflammation picks up and we get these bloated bellies and skin.

Unless we do something about it. Vitamins are an answer, but not the poor quality stuff found so easily in all our stores.  The anti-oxidants in vitamins neutralize this inflammation and the bloatiness disappears.

Unfortunately, most of the stuff in the stores is good nutrition in advertising and labels only. It’s all great stuff, according to the labels. But in the body, these vitamins usually do diddly squat.

Profit is usually the main motivation of the companies producing most of our vitamins.  So ingredients used must ensure profit, not health for the person taking them. The vitamin companies are not required to adhere to standards for quality, potency or absorbability of ingredients.

The best products are usually no in the stores, and if they are, it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. My story is, I found USANA and I got myself a waist like I never had before.

I also got myself almost unlimited energy, and I push it to the limits.  I went from being someone who was always tired, to someone who is always on the go, with joy.

When I finally was able to greet my friend, after most everyone else had gone, he said to me, “Wow, you look great. What are you doing?”

I said, “I’m happy to share it with you. Anytime.”

“What is it? A secret elixir?” he laughed.

I gave him a card and said, “Let’s talk. We want to keep you dancing for a long, long time!”

“OK,” he said. “That’s what I want, too!”

It’s not that we are being vain about having a tight tummy or beautiful skin. It’s just that  a tire around your belly and even slightly puffy skin is a sign that the body is breaking down at some level, it’s not optimum.

So take a look at yourself in the mirror and ask, “Is this the best I could be doing right now?”  What if USANA worked for you like it did for me, wouldn’t you want to try it then?