Dear Readers,
I have received a number of e-mails asking me for information on heart attacks.
My research indicates as follows:
First: Indications of a heart attack. Some heart attacks are sudden and intense – the “movie heart attack” where no one doubts what’s happening. But most heart attacks involve discomfort in the centre of the chest that lasts more than a few minutes, or that goes away and comes back.
It can feel like uncomfortable pressure, squeezing, fullness or pain. Symptoms can include pain or discomfort in one or both arms, the back, neck, jaw or stomach, and shortness of breath that may occur with or without chest discomfort. Other signs may include breaking out in a cold sweat, nausea or light-headedness.
If you or someone you’re with has chest discomfort, especially with one or more of the other signs, don’t wait longer than a few minutes (no more than five) before calling for help. If you can’t access the emergency medical services (EMS), drive the person to the hospital right away.
If you’re the one having symptoms and you’re all alone, don’t drive yourself. Call for help, take an aspirin and sit quietly until help arrives. If you’re driving, pull over! You could cause a serious accident if you continue driving and pass out.
This is where “cough CPR” comes into it. It is an experimental procedure that can help in certain types of heart attacks if done properly, but could actually be dangerous in others. I would say it should only be tried without professional help if you are alone and you feel yourself passing out. If it doesn’t help, don’t keep it up. You probably won’t be able to anyway, as you will have passed out.
It is important to note that this is an experimental procedure that is not endorsed or taught by the American Heart Association, my source of most of the information for this particular column. For more information on the subject of heart attacks and coronary health, visit the AHA Website:
Dear Queenie,
I have been married for 5 years and we have a darling little boy 2 years old. My husband is everything I ever wanted and I know he loves me. He has a good job and he helps me whenever I ask him to and he comes straight home from work and almost never goes out without me, but I still suspect him of cheating on me.
I imagine all sorts of ways he could be doing it, like taking time off from work or sneaking out when I am asleep or when I am busy taking care of our son. I have no good reason for thinking these things, but I make them up in my head and then when I am all upset I accuse him.
He swears he would never do such a thing and says I must be crazy to think that way.
Queenie, why do I do this? Do you think I am crazy?—Jealous wife
Dear Jealous wife,
In this part of the world, where male promiscuity is taken for granted, a wife can be forgiven for occasional fits of suspicion about her husband.
However, you say you have no reason to think your husband is cheating on you, and from your description of your life he has very little opportunity.
I think you may have very low self-esteem coupled with a very vivid imagination. And perhaps you come from a home where such cheating as you imagine was commonplace, so you expect all men to behave the way your father did.
I suggest you go for counselling to learn why you have these feelings and how to control them. It would probably help if your husband would go with you, to learn to understand your jealousy and help you cope with it.
Please try to get yourself under control soon, before your husband decides that if he is going to have to take the blame, he might as well also have the game.
Dear Queenie,
My sons are growing up and it is time someone told them the facts of life, but their father is no use. He told them they shouldn’t “do it” until they were married because they would burn in hell if they did, and left it at that.
Queenie, I know this isn’t enough, but what should I do?—Worried mother
Dear Worried mother,
Tell your husband that what he has told them is far from being enough, and that if he doesn’t give them all the information a teenager needs in this day and age, you will. Then, if he still doesn’t have that talk with them, you should do it.
It is possible that your husband is too uninformed or too embarrassed to do the job properly, so sit down with him and talk over exactly what he should be telling the boys.
They need to know how a girl does and doesn’t get pregnant, what safe sex is and why it is so important, what their responsibilities are in such matters, how to use a condom correctly (it is amazing how many grown men and women don’t know this), and the truth about such myths as “you can’t get pregnant the first time, or if you do it standing up, or right before or after the girl’s period, or if the girl takes a pill the next day, etc., etc.”
If you are not sure you have the correct information, or if you also are too embarrassed, arrange for your family doctor or some other trusted adult to have this talk with each of them before he becomes sexually active, which means (to be safe) before he reaches puberty.
Dear Queenie,
My husband is a wonderful husband and father, except for his personal hygiene. He is exhausted when he comes home from work and just lies down and goes to sleep without taking a shower or a bath. Sometimes he wants sex then or later, but he smells so bad it just turns me off.
I’ve asked him to clean up before we go to bed, but he won’t do it every night.
Queenie, what more can I do?—His wife
Dear Wife,
If he is not too tired to want sex, he should not be too tired to get clean first. When you ask him to clean up, offer to take a shower or bath with him “for fun”
Dear Queenie,
My wife has a set of encyclopedias that someone gave her when she was in school. That was so many – many! – years ago that they are now very much out of date, but she still refers to them and won’t give them up.
She intends to pass them on to our grandchildren when she dies and she just doesn’t understand that they won’t use them because nowadays they just look things up online and they probably won’t even have any space for them.
Queenie, what do you suggest?—Her husband
Dear Husband,
Even if they don’t use the encyclopedias, your grandchildren probably will treasure them in memory of their grandmother, and they may actually even refer to them now and then, if only to see how things “used to be”.
Box them up and store them away until the time comes to pass them on, and try not to be offended if the recipients do not react the way their grandmother would have expected.
