Month: January 2021

January is Cervical Cancer Awareness Month

January is Cervical Cancer Awareness Month.  Do you know where your cervix is?

Approximately 13,000 women are diagnosed with invasive cervical cancer each year. This is a condition that we can screen for with improved testing. The term ‘cervical cancer screening’ is used now instead of just saying a ‘Pap smear’ due to the options that are available to you.By combining the use of widespread HPV vaccinations and implementing the new cervical screening guidelines, we should drastically decrease the number of new cervical cancer diagnosis each year.These are the  new guidelines that went into effect last spring.

    • Less than 21 years of age: No screenings
    • Ages 21-29: Cytology only (Pap smear test) every 3 years
    • Ages 30-65: You have three options:
      • Cytology only (Pap smear test) every 3 years
      • High-risk HPV test only every 5 years
      • Cytology plus High risk HPV test (co-testing) every 5 years

If you have time on your hands this week, look for your last test results. Do you understand what the words mean? If you do not have a copy of it, you may be able to find it through your patient portal.

When was your last screening performed? Did you skip your check-up last year? Many women forget to schedule their annual exam once they are done having children and before you know it, 10 years have passed without care. Do you fall into this group?

If you skipped your check-up last year due to losing your insurance or just plain dealing with life, there are many locations where you can receive free or low-cost screenings.  This link will allow you to search for sites based on your state or you can search for free or low-cost clinics in your area.

Don’t let the pandemic impact your ability to take of yourself and schedule your appointment if you are overdue.

Set Health Goals That Match Your Why

Monday Motivation

I worked with someone who sent me this list of goals:

  • Smoke less
  • Drink less
  • Have less fun

I love this!  In theory, these are great goals.  I wasn’t sure about the ‘have less fun’ goal but she explained that when she goes out to bars and ‘has fun’, she drinks too much which then gives her the urge to smoke.  She feels that she can go to other locations if she wants to be social without feeling like she has to drink.  

Why do you feel the need to set health goals? You must ask yourself why something is important to you. Set health goals that match your why so that they remain a priority to you.

So the first thing we did was to change the order of her goals.  She feels that she is a social drinker and smoker.  She knows that these are not good for her health and she was ready to make a plan for herself.  The first thing we did was to change the order of her goals since they are all related.

Have less fun > Drink less > Smoke less

When we are looking at health goals, you are more likely to succeed when you can answer ‘what is your why?’  Make them personal!  The 7 Levels Deep approach comes from Dean Graziosi’s Millionaire Success Habits and is used to keep fine tuning why you are setting out to make a goal and why it is important to you.  Here is an example of this using her goals:

    • What do you want to do?  I want to go out to bars less.
    • Why is that important to you?  So I can drink less.
    • Why is that important to you?  So I can smoke less.
    • Why is that important to you?  It isn’t healthy.
    • Why is that important to you?  I have asthma.
    • Why is that important to you?  It makes me cough too much.
    • Why is that important to you?  Coughing makes me pee on myself.

All kidding aside, this is just another approach to help you make goals that you can reach.  There are many tools available to help you write out your thoughts and to give you guidance on how to make them happen.  The most important thing is that you are thinking about what is important to you.  

Think about it, write it down and then make an action plan.   

 

Are Your Personal Affairs in Order?

Are your personal affairs in order?  January is a great time to review your ‘official paperwork’ to see if anything needs to be updated. If you find that you do have some time on your hands this weekend, let’s revisit our discussion on how important it is to have a Last Will and Testament in place alongside other important documents. Part of taking care of yourself is making sure you ease the mental burden that comes from losing a loved one.

The Caring Hub website is a great source of information and by signing up for their newsletter, you get a daily assignment that will assist you in getting things in order. There is even a chapter dealing with pets. At the end of 30 days, you and your family will have everything in place.

If you have already done this, use this time to update any information that is outdated. If you are newly married or divorced, make sure to see what changes need to be made.

By visiting the website, you will get a step-by-step plan to do this. Keep this information in a binder, folder or on an excel spreadsheet and make sure that someone else in your family knows where this information is.

Start with collecting this information for anyone that you are caring for. Make this a family event so that you all can share stories as you review birth certificates, marriage licenses, armed forces documents and any other historical document that you need to have on file.

If you are not ready to do this for yourself, do this for your kids.

For the record, there is a excel file on my laptop labelled ‘Look Here If I Die.’  This is a computer file that houses all of the digital links to all of my personal accounts for my husband and me. My kids know to look here and they know where to find the password to my computer and this spreadsheet if something happens to me.

Points to consider:

  • What does your file, binder, or folder look like?
  • Do your loved ones know where it is?
  • Do you need a key to get to it?
  • Does someone know where the key is?
  • Do they know where to find the password to access your computer if it is password protected?
  • Do they know where to find the password to access your file?
  • Do you have a copy of this information outside of your home? What if your only copy is in your home and you have a house fire that destroys it?

January is a great time to get your personal affairs in order.  Go ahead, take a deep breathe and get started. It may take a few weeks or months to get it all in order but get started.