Confessions of an (Aussie) Eco-shopper

I have just read a fabulous book by UK author Kate Lock, “Confessions of an Eco-shopper” and thoroughly recommend it. In 2007 Kate decided to set herself a series of eco-challenges and this is her account of success and failures along her journey.

I have lived and shopped as green as I can for many years – I assess purchases for how they rate in three areas – ethical, environmental, economical – so I was interested to see how I compare to Kate. Although a lot of the issues she addresses are UK specific and don’t cross-over to Australia (and we have challenges of our own – like not enough water – which the UK do not), however Kate and I seem of similar age and lifestyle, so share many issues.

Kate looked at this over a year. I am not! I am simply going to evaluate my lifestyle choices in response to the issues she raises in each chapter – or Aisle, as she called them.

Kate blogs too, so I am thrilled to continue following and learning from her.

MileStones

2010 is a time of MileStones for me – anniversaries of significance in my journey as a person with MS.

It is 15 years this year since I developed a “migraine” which didn’t go away and became concentrated around my left eye, in which the vision gradually faded and dimmed.

It was a week or two before I was seen by an eye specialist, who diagnosed Optic Neuritis (ON) – inflammation of the optic nerve. It was a chance meeting with an ABA Board member at an AGM that same day that changed my life. As she was a GP, I casually mentioned the diagnosis and she was not quick enough to hide that concerned look you never want to see on a doctor’s face. “Have they spoken to you about MS?” she asked.

Uh, oh.

This was 1995, pre-Google, so I searched on Yahoo and could only find reference to ON in articles about MS! Trawling the library gave the same results.

At my follow up visit with the specialist, he was not pleased that I broached the subject and was quite dismissive. But that seed of awareness was planted. I was sent for a CT scan (MRIs not yet commonplace) as they wanted to rule out a brain tumour! (As did I, as this had been flagged back in the mid 80s as a possible cause of secondary infertility due to high prolactin levels – associated sometimes with tumours in the pituitary. But I finally conceived so that wasn’t pursued)

Twelve months later, the condition flared up once more, and during my visit, I glanced (with the good eye!) at my unattended notes and saw he had mentioned my knowledge about the MS link. But he still didn’t want to discuss the elephant in the room.

Six months later, I had another flare up and never bothered to see the eye specialist. Instead I got a referral to a neurologist and had my first (extremely expensive) private MRI, which was inconclusive.

Despite this lack of diagnosis, everything I was reading indicated there were not many other causes of ON and they had been ruled out in my case (I had not contracted a rare tropical disease – nor syphilis!) so I began to treat my health with suspicion until proved otherwise. I decided to become the healthiest person who might have MS and turned to diet, supplements and other lifestyle changes.

During this same time period, I had also returned to paid work, gradually increasing to full-time, with managerial responsibilities, a long commute, a busy family and care of my aging father. The whole machine was working toward my next MileStone.

In June 2000, a changed MRI (my third) following some numbness in the sole of my right foot, led to an official diagnosis of mild relapsing/remitting Multiple Sclerosis. While those around me were shocked by this (especially those who had thought it “all in her mind!”), I was actually delighted! After five years with a question-mark hanging over me, I now knew for sure what I was dealing with.

The fatigue associated with MS is relentless, incomprehensible to those without it and is not compatible with the lifestyle I was leading. In the first week of September 2000, as the Olympics commenced in Sydney, my world crashed around me. I slept for much of the following six weeks and was still unfit for work six weeks after that. I even struggled to find the energy to read!

I resigned from my perfect job as retail manager at the Shop in the head office of NMAA (now ABA) and found myself making great changes to manage my health – including commencing Betaferon treatment – administered by self injection every second day. My doctor’s certificate for my employer stated I was unlikely to be fit for full time work again!

So here I am, ten years down the track. Off the medication I endured for four years (I am in the minority who suffer ongoing, flu-like side affects), still managing my health with a view to being a very healthy old woman who happens to have MS, and working part-time running the first Breastfeeding Centre for ABA!

I still battle with fatigue – I am in bed 12 hours out of every 24 – and have to be careful how I expend my energy, however I wish I had a crystal ball ten years ago to let me know where I would be today.

( I have never had ON again and my vision restored 100% after the first two attacks, but struggled after the third and left a slight deficit. I have lived with occasional numbness, sensory disturbances, temporary loss of the sense of taste [actual, not stylish!] and most recently, spasticity in my leg. My consistent symptoms remain heat intolerance and fatigue. I continue my journey with a positive outlook)

"Breastfeeding Burqas" - Women's choice - or more oppression?

Around the Western world there is debate about the Islamic garment known as the Burqa.



Within the breastfeeding world, there is debate about a similar garment, known by a variety of names but with similar intention.

Breastfeeding covers.

These creations of the new millennium (before someone decided to make money out of the idea, you might have used a bunny rug) are starting to take off in a big way and that makes me scared. Because there is a very real risk that parts of our society uncomfortable with women openly breastfeeding in public will start to demand the use of such covers. And even though some women say they use them because they want the privacy or their baby is distracted without one, I suspect most do so because they fear negative attention.

Think of the actions of the flight attendant who tried to make breastfeeding mum Kathryn Ward cover up:

''I didn't say anything because at the same time she asked me she saw a padded insert underneath him and put it on top of him without asking my permission,'' Mrs Ward said. ''She said, 'I know it's natural, but some people may not like to see it.' ''

It seems pretty clear she believed something - anything - should be hiding the action.

If I lived in a world where I could be confident that every woman who used a breastfeeding cover was doing so because that was how she preferred things, then I probably wouldn't be living in a world where some believe a Burqa to be a woman's right and others believe it to be her duty.

World Breastfeeding Week - my gift to the Breastfeeding Centre

Today is my birthday :) I love how it falls just before the beginning of World Breastfeeding Week (August 1-8).

Today I was giving the presents! I recently bought these bags, not to use as shopping bags, but to convert to cushion covers to brighten the space and emotions at the Breastfeeding Centre.










I love enviro bags, but really, really have enough. So I am thrilled to find another way to use the message and support the small business who created them!

Goidellick Designs

Now, what I would REALLY like is some nice, adult sized shirts with these designs! And generous sizes made for real women, please!

Social Media - for good or evil?

Social media - Facebook, Twitter and all their friends - come in for a regular beating in the general media. I don't think I have yet seen any positive stories about the new face of the Internet, which I think is a real shame.

I came to Internet use fairly early on, back in the mid to late 90s. I am defined as an "early adopter" when it comes to technology, which means I usually dive in and see how the water feels, before there are many others in the pool to tell me! From the beginning, the Internet offered new ways to interact with the people I knew (primarily email and email lists back then) and also meet new ones around the globe, via bulletin boards (usually called Forums these days (Fora?). The early 2000s saw me primarily house-bound due to the fatigue of my MS, so this interaction became vital for me and prevented me becoming socially isolated. I flourished in the environment of international friendships and interactions - that most harrowing day, September 11 2001 saw me glued to my computer as friends in the States watched the horror unfold - and posted photos of the twin towers taken from their own NYC homes. Global suddenly condensed.

I took to blogging early on, starting with Live Journal before moving to Blogger (where I am quite happy!)and when my daughter spent two years backpacking in NZ in 2005/6, we read each other's blogs to keep in touch - and also explored the world of MSN Messenger, web cams and photo sharing with Photo Bucket.

I know exactly when I succumbed to the draw of Facebook: I was staying in Wagga with Linda and her husband and as we sat in the lounge room, checking our emails on lap tops, she passed comment on someones status update and I was hooked! While I had heard about Facebook previously, it hadn't properly reached my brain what it was - I had toyed with My Space, but it seemed mainly the domain of people my kid's ages. But Facebook was a world of wonder - lots of people I knew hung out there! That was June 2008 and this is what I posted on this very blog:

Monday, June 9, 2008
Facebook
I have avoided the temptation, but I weakened this week.

I know myself too well and - yes - Facebook is just my kind of addiction! The collector in me just wants to gather everyone I know in one place! The extrovert wants to say "Look at me!". The social butterfly asks "What are we doing? Can I play too?" The nostalgic me asks "Are you here, I so want you to be here?". The curious me wants to know "what are you up to right now?"

I so don't need another place on the web to distract me (bright, shiny things!), however what is done, is done!

Terribly prescient of me, as I reflect two years later, on my 1033 Friends and my daily interactions with them!

Beyond Facebook, Twitter intrigued me and - once I worked out what it actually was - I signed up with enthusiasm! Different to Facebook, although I have some crossover, what I love about Twitter is the interaction with people whose thoughts I already admire: my news feed brings the wit of comedians and writers straight from their mind to my computer! From Stephen Fry to Wil Anderson to Cal Wilson and Dave Hughes, my day is brightened by their streams of consciousness, intermingled with news from various ABC outlets, P!nk on tour and Samuel Peyps diary entries! This time last year, I was following the moon landing transmissions 40 years later in real time! What not to love!

Blogs are now part of my everyday, with Google Reader doing all the fetching and carrying, all I need do is hit the Next bookmarklet on my tool bar and up comes the latest posts of those I follow! It is like a never ending, personalised magazine :)

Social media has infiltrated every aspect of my online life: I share the books I read on Good Reads, my friends can access the websites I bookmark in Del.i.cious, my photos are easily shared with Google Picasa - the list is so long and so integrated I cannot even think of all the services I use! I have them installed on my Blackberry, so am never bored in waiting rooms. I have a Google Desktop sidebar, so my friends are always there, even when I am alone at work or home.

So,as a tragic Web 2.0 dependent middle-aged woman, what about the risks? What about my privacy? What about weird people stalking me? What about - viruses?????

Well, I am not stupid and online life needs the same security considerations as real life. I lock my home, my car - and I run security software on my computer. I never utter anything online I would not say openly on a busy train. And although it might seem like I tell everyone everything about me - including what I eat for breakfast (steel cut oats cooked in a rice cooker)- I am actually quite careful about what I do and don't post. At the same time, I am more concerned at the risks of identity fraud from someone stealing my mail than I am from someone reading my Facebook Wall! More protective of my handbag than my email address. And - touch wood - I have no more than the normal offers of viagra and Nigerians seeking financial assistance than the average person!

What I have gained has far exceeded any minor negatives. And far from being socially isolated, I have many more opportunities to spend face to face time IRL with people! My friendship circle has grown (with real, actual friends, not just faceless numbers) and I relish hearing their news. I have reconnected with the lost, found shared passions, laughed, cried and shared recipes and book suggestions.

I love it and I want more!

Formula feeding is creepy!

No, I do not believe that! Yet imagine the uproar if I not only thought that, but used my position to publicly declare it! The accusations would fly and there would be immediate outpourings about creating guilt in bottle feeding women and I would probably be labelled that most offensive title of Nipple Nazi.

Yet, the reverse is apparently quite acceptable and we breastfeeding types have no right to be up in arms about it. Curiously, if we become so, we are also demonstrating the above trait!

This week, the media and blogosphere have been full of outrage regarding UK writer Kathryn Blundall's article in a parenting magazine.

Her personal opinion is that breastfeeding is "creepy". Her words. Confirmed in a radio interview on the BBC. She finds it impossible to allow twin roles for human breasts as sexual objects - "funbags" - and the source of food for her baby.

"They're part of my sexuality, too - not just breasts, but fun bags. And when you have that attitude (and I admit I made no attempt to change it), seeing your teeny, tiny, innocent baby latching on where only a lover has been before feels, well, a little creepy."

I wonder if Kathryn Blundell also chose to have a surgical birth, rather than see the non-sexual role of her vagina in action? And she must find the whole toileting scenario pretty creepy too!

She is fully entitled, as am I, to have a personal opinion. What is not acceptable though, is her using the publication she writes for to mis-inform readers who are or may be considering breastfeeding.

Anyway, the fall-out has been, once again, the "debate" of breastfeeding versus formula feeding and the old faithfuls have been dragged out once again - choice, guilt, embarrassment - and Lactavists have had to defend their position.

Why? The writer of the article is not asked to defend her opinion, in fact, everyone is at great pains NOT to deny her. But those who have made different choices are suddenly required to defend them. But not just their decision to breastfeed at all, but also the length of their breastfeeding experiences, the issue of breastfeeding in public and the "pressure" put upon new mothers to breastfeed (this "pressure" is replaced almost immediately after the baby arrives with "pressure" to introduce formula or wean completely).

Enough is enough! If you truly do not want to breastfeed, then that is up to you. I believe your baby should have some rights in the process, however formula is good enough to sustain your child. If you wanted to breastfeed but were faced with insurmountable problems, then I acknowledge your sadness and regret. If you continued to breastfed your baby despite problems or if you did so without ANY problems (rare in this modern society) then you have my joy and support to continue as you wish.

But please don't tell me that I cannot promote the default mammalian way to feed infants. Please do not complain if I point out the risks of formula feeding so others may make an informed decision, just as I hope you were able to.

I am one of those SAD people I pitied!

I clearly remember my teenage me - indeed, I am sure she was here but a moment ago. That 15yo was a sharp, young thing and knew what was what. Her opinions were given at every opportunity (and mostly without request!) and there was nothing of which she did not have an opinion!

One thing she knew all about was music. Specifically, the very distinct line between what was COOL music and what was SAD music. This mostly came down to a fuzzy time period around the mid 1970s, at which point music could become COOL. Anything prior to that time was most likely SAD, unless it happened to have been produced by a band or singer who had maintained their COOL status.

There was a really easy way to spot SAD music. It was so pathetic, they rounded it up onto special records that were labelled "Best of ..." and were either the sum total of a musicians life or a time in the SAD past. And these records were marketed at those poor, old people who lived before music became COOL and looked back to their SAD music as a memory of their youth.

You know, people like my Mum. Who use to bang on about seeing Bill Haley and his Comets in concert. SAD.

I hope that 15yo me is not listening, as I have a terrible confession to make.

My recent spare time has been spent sorting out my iTunes music collection. And it is SAD, very, very SAD!

Now the time frame has expanded to incorporate everything up until those mid 70s and continues on through the 1980s, with a slight nod at the classics on the 90s and the ... (sigh) noughties [I hate using that name]

Somehow, I have become one of those SAD people, excitedly pulling just the right "Best Of" out of the reduced rack at JB Hi-fi. Waving my prize in the air and getting understanding nods from others my age - and pitying looks from those who haven't bought an actual CD in, like, you know - EVER!

But I don't care! I love my SAD music collection and it is good to know that I have all my old friends close by - in my laptop and in my Blackberry!

Because I maybe SAD when it comes to music, but I am very COOL when it comes to gadgets ;) Which is good, because I can buy stuff on iTunes that JB wouldn't be caught dead stocking - like my new Donna Summer Dance Collection - with all the 12" disco versions!!!!! (Go ask your mum)