Over 50? You Need to Get Your Shingles Shingrix Shot Today

April 22, 2018Food & Health, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

Today is Earth Day. How can you play your part?

Well, if you’re a senior, maybe by not dying prematurely from the stress and pain associated with the varicella zoster virus (shingles) or postherpetic neuralgia, so you can be around to witness, participate in and contribute to making ours a greener and more environmentally sound planet.

Are you over the age of 50, or do you have a parent, friend, spouse, relative, neighbour or colleague who is over the age of 50? If so, you or someone close to you will want to make arrangements this coming week to have the new Shingrix vaccine administered at your, or their (if it’s someone you’re advising) doctor’s office, or local pharmacy.

Those over the age of 50 are susceptible to contracting shingles, probably the single most painful and sustaining malady a senior might experience.

Many millions of North Americans, especially those older than 40, are susceptible to an attack of shingles, caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox. Once the varicella zoster virus infects a person, it lies dormant for decades in nerve roots, ready to pounce when the immune system is weakened, say, by stress, medication, trauma or disease. One-third of North Americans eventually contract shingles, but the risk rises with age; by age 85 half of adults will have had at least one outbreak of shingles.

Just have a look at the testimonials in the link in this sentence …

Comment from Francie, age 65 – 74

I had the worst pain from shingles, it was just off the charts! I was unable to sleep, eat, walk, or talk for three months.

Comment from: David, age 55 – 65

On March 26, 2015, I had my first annual anniversary with the horrible and constant pain of post herpetic neuralgia (shingles). The first 9 months was a nightmare; especially at night. It’s in my armpit, and all along my shoulders; so it’s too painful to have clothing or even a sheet touching my skin. Nothing helped even as new medications appeared. My doctor tried everything and couldn’t understand why my shingles just got worse. He told me he’s had patients who suffered with shingles for 7 years. So by the time this goes, I’ll be dead; or want to be.

Once you’ve contracted shingles, there’s nothing you can do about it, except live as best you can with the pain and the prejudiced lifestyle.

However, there is something you can do to prevent contracting shingles.

Merck’s Zostavax was first brought to the market in 2008, with an efficacy rate that reduced the risk of shingles by 51%, and a 67% preventive rate of contracting shingles a second time.

This year, however, a new medication from Glaxo-Kline, called Shingrix, came onto the market, that studies indicate reduces the risk of contracting shingles by 97% for people in their 50s and 60s, and 91% for those in their 70s and 80s, also reducing the risk of contracting shingles again by 86%, lasting much longer than its Zostavax predecessor, which starts to lose its protection after only 3 years.

Needless to say, we had the Zostavax vaccine administered some years ago, and have now had the first of two Shingrix shots administered.

Sharon Livingstone, a gerontologist, is ‘adamant’ people get the Shingrix vaccine. She herself got the Zostavax shot 10 years ago but, as can happen, she contracted shingles four years ago. She now encourages the seniors she sees to be vaccinated with the new and more effective Shingrix vaccine.

The headline in the January 1, 2018 Globe and Mail article, by health reporter André Picard, called Shingrix “a game changer” …

More than 130,000 Canadians are diagnosed with shingles each year — most of them seniors.

Anyone who has had chickenpox — which is about 90% of people born before 1995 — can develop shingles later in life, and about one-third do. The varicella zoster virus lies dormant for years, or decades, and erupts for reasons that are unclear, usually after age 50.

The pustules on the skin are bad enough, but one in eight of those afflicted with shingles suffer post-herpetic neuralgia, the medical term for lingering and sometimes debilitating nerve pain. The virus can also destroy nerves, causing blindness or deafness and, in rare cases, lead to grave infections such as meningitis and flesh-eating disease. Shingles also increases the risk of heart attack and stroke.

Yet, the misery that befalls so many is largely preventable.

Now there is a new vaccine, Shingrix, that dramatically improves protection — showing itself to be up to 97 per cent effective in large clinical studies.

“This is a game-changer,” says Dr. Iris Gorfinkel, a Toronto physician.

The blisters that arise from an incidence of shingles tend to heal in a week or two to form crusty scabs that eventually fall off. But for about 15% of people, shingles does not end there. Instead, it leaves them with deep, searing nerve pain — a condition called postherpetic neuralgia, or PHN — that can last for months or years and has no treatment or cure. More than half the cases of PHN affect people over 60.

VanRamblings first became aware of shingles when a neighbour contracted the infection 5 years ago. For a period of one year, he couldn’t move out of his co-op apartment, couldn’t sleep (except when he passed out from exhaustion), wearing any kind of clothing was near impossible, and having anything touch his skin brought him excruciating pain. Every male in VanRamblings’ housing co-op, and all of VanRamblings’ close friends, made arrangements to have the $180, one time, Zostavax vaccine administered.

Now that Shingrix is on the market — requiring two shots, two to six months apart, at $150 apiece — all of VanRamblings’ close associates have either had the Shingrix shot, or are making arrangements to do so. Note should be made that — thanks to our new New Democrat government over in Victoria — British Columbia is the only province in Canada that allows pharmacists to administer the Shingrix vaccine (which is where we got the first of our two shots on Wednesday this past week).

You will need a prescription from a doctor, though. And, yes, as the video below suggests, there is some (ouch!) pain involved — even five days later — and a lingering malaise. But, hey, VanRamblings is still posting everyday, so it can’t really be that bad, can it (it’s not, we’re just a big baby)?

And, oh yeah, make arrangements this week to get your first Shingrix shot.

Amazon.ca | Knife-Sharpening as A Life Changing Experience

April 21, 2018Food & Health, VanRamblingsRaymond Tomlin

To prepare meals simply and easily, home chefs (that’d be you and me) need three things: fresh ingredients (preferably organic), well-honed and simple preparation techniques, and a few, high quality tools.
We’d add the life-changing Instant Pot, but we’ll save writing about this best-selling, homegrown Canadian device for another day.
Having the right equipment available makes the job of preparing breakfast, lunch or dinner that much easier. Whether it’s a well-seasoned cast iron frying pan, or baking dishes that have been passed down through the generations, great kitchenware makes preparing meals a near & utter joy.
Much has been written over the years about a kitchen’s one essential tool, used in the creation of virtually every dish, and that would be: the knife.
Good, sharp knives represent the single most important set of kitchen tools used in the creation of virtually every and any dish that you might wish to prepare. A sharp knife means more control and less slippage when you cut, leading to safer, more consistent slices. Plus, cutting with a sharp knife is something of an unadulterated joy! From mincing garlic and fine herbs, or slicing thick wide wedges from a fresh-baked loaf of bread, to the often tough job of peeling the skin off a cantaloupe, a truly sharp chef’s knife will help you get the job done, quickly, efficiently & - most importantly - safely.
In Vancouver, if you need your knives sharpened, knife sharpening aficionados have long known that the Sharpening House, at 511 West 7th Avenue in Vancouver - just west of Cambie, in the neighbourhood of Best Buy, Canadian Tire and Home Depot - is the place to go. Read the Yelp testimonials available in the link on the second line of this paragraph. Knives sharpened well (and repaired, if necessary) for as little as $7.

Now, of course, as a chef, one is supposed to learn to employ a diamond-sharp honing tool to keep our knives truly and well-sharpened (you’ve got one, right?) - anyway, for VanRamblings this seems like a little bit of too much work. Don’tcha think? Who knows about the future, though?
VanRamblings has long believed that the “big things” in life have a way of working themselves out, but it is the “little things”, the nagging annoyances that come with everyday life that when resolved bring the most, if only momentary, joy. Today, we’re going to let you in on a life-changing secret: the $4.50 Edgeware 50009 2-Stage Edge Grip Knife Sharpener, available through Amazon.ca, with free shipping! Take a gander at the videos above.

The Edgeware 50009 2-Stage Edge Grip Knife Sharpener works as advertised, a simple, straightforward, reliable, ‘you get far more out of the use of this utterly essential knife sharpening tool than you paid for it’ joy. VanRamblings believes that you’ll find this kitchen staple one of the most rewarding kitchen tools in your kitchen repertoire of essential products, and one that you’ll find you use to great satisfaction multiple times a day.

VanRamblings’ friend, Norquay community organizer, General UBC Librarian Emeritus, and VIFF aficionado, Joseph Jones, has taken us to task for promoting the pecuniary interests of Jeff Bezos and his worker-exploiting online behemoth, Amazon, by deigning to suggest that even expending $4.50 for the Edgeware Knife Sharpener is as poorly thought out and demeaning of worker interests recommendation as we could possibly make.
Of course, Joseph is entirely correct, and the person of honour and integrity we know him to be. Joseph has come up with what he considers to be a far superior — if somewhat costlier, at $19.95 — alternative to the Edgeware product we recommended above: the Chestnut Tools ‘all-purpose carbide wonder’ (Joseph’s words) Universal Sharpening Tool, available at Lee Valley Tools, 1180 S.E. Marine Drive in Vancouver, just east of the Knight Street turnabout, the indispensable, local economy and non-exploiting worker supporting company offering a principled place to shop, for a product that is in all likelihood a superior product, and one that will last a lifetime.

VanRamblings being the pauper that we are, we’ll have to save up a bit o’ the old do re mi to set aside for the purchase of the Chestnut Tools Universal Sharpener, perhaps as a birthday present for ourselves. And for our treasured VanRamblings readers, you now have a principled knife sharpening alternative to the worker exploiting Bezos-Amazon product.

Vancouver Municipal Election 2018 | A Dog’s Breakfast

April 20, 2018BC Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2018Raymond Tomlin

The critical 2018 Vancouver municipal election is only 6 short months away.
Today, as you’re probably aware is 4-20, the annual “stoner’s day” celebration. Voters in 2018’s Vancouver civic election may need to be as high as the participants at Sunset Beach today if they’re going to make any sense out of the miasma that is this year’s Vancouver municipal election.
Take a look at the graphic above. There are 12 — count ’em, 12 — candidates who are currently vying for a Vancouver Mayoral nomination, and at the end of this year’s sure-to-be-bumpy and decidedly and overtly partisan electoral contest, on October 20th the grand prize as Mayor of Vancouver will determine Vancouver’s future early in the 21st century.
Looming large on the Vancouver political landscape, the four candidates for the right-of-centre Non-Partisan Association (NPA), the largely male-dominated Vancouver civic party that held power from 1937 through 1972, 1976 through 2002, and from mid-autumn 2005 until the fall of 2008. Four men. Take a look at their faces. Clearly, for the antediluvian NPA, the #MeToo & #TimesUp movements have had little impact on the world view of the corporate-funded-and-backed civic party they’ve chosen to run with.
Is this 2018, or is this 1938? One wonders, when considering the ‘he-men‘ of the NPA. Sad, and more’s the pity, because 2018 is a year of change.
Left-to-right top row, we have John “I don’t suffer fools gladly” Coupar, a homegrown boy, a decent man, recent Chairperson of the Vancouver Park Board, and current Commissioner on our illustrious Park Board.
To John’s right (and we do mean “to his right”, in every sense of the word), current Vancouver City Councillor Hector Bremner, the Mr. Supply, Supply, Supply candidate in the current civic election, Tom “Terrifying” Campbell for the 21st century, the development candidate on methamphetamine famous for saying, “The people of Kitsilano have had it way too easy for way too long. At the end of my first four year term, I will have turned Kitsilano into the new West End. I’ll be coming for your neighbourhood next. I love towers.” In 2018, it would seem that what is old is new again. Alas.
And to Hector’s right, the indefatigable 2014 Cedar Party Mayoral aspirant, Glen Chernen, the “they’re corrupt, they’re all corrupt, there’s a new sheriff in town, and I’m gonna clean this town up, yesirree Bob & Mabel, you can count on it”, a 2018 Non-Partisan Association Mayoral aspirant, don’tcha know. If nothing else, Glen will keep the contest interesting (sort of like the old Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.”). Alas deux.
And, finally and to the far right (is he, or is he not?), 47-year-young entrepreneur “I’ve never even given a passing thought to running for elected office before, but I figure Mayor is as good a place as any to start” Ken Sim, the Vancouver Non-Partisan Association corporate candidate, who announced his intention to seek the NPA Mayoral nomination this past Monday. No website for his candidacy, though. No Ken Sim for Mayor Facebook page, either. Tch, tch. Maybe the affable Mr. Sim is not a nomination candidate for Vancouver Mayor. Could be. Enquiring minds want to know — or at least see a galldarn web page for his putative mayoral bid.

VanRamblings’ money is on one of the four women Mayoral aspirants pictured above. As we will do for all candidates, next week and the week after we’ll write at some greater length about all 12 of the Vancouver Mayoral aspirants — taking a glancing blow at each individual’s candidacy, which none of them will like, but we can guarantee that we’ll be kinder than what all 12 have in store for them over the next six months.
First up, there’s Shauna Sylvester — to the far left (which she is, compared to any of the NPA mayoral aspirants) — a thoroughly decent person, someone VanRamblings likes and very much admires — and someone who doesn’t have a hope in hell of becoming Vancouver’s next Mayor. Not that VanRamblings won’t give you myriad reasons to support Ms. Sylvester’s “independent” bid for Mayor — we will, and will sing Ms. Sylvester’s glory to the rafters (but as we warned her, we’re gonna be “mean” first, but not a tenth as mean as she’ll find herself subject to in the coming months). In 2018, Ms. Sylvester is the “woo woo” candidate. Alas and alack.
To Ms. Sylvester’s right, above, we have the gregarious, principled and top vote-getter in the 2014 Vancouver municipal election, two-term Green Party of Vancouver probable Mayoral candidate Adriane Carr — or, as we like to say, the “Harry Rankin Mayoral candidate” in this year’s Vancouver civic election. Why the “Harry Rankin Mayoral candidate”? The exceedingly cantankerous, but ever-so-bright and on your side, Harry topped the polls each election during his 20 year tenure as an alderman (as they called City Councillors then) on Vancouver City Council, but when Harry ran for Mayor in 1986, against a young upstart by the name of Gordon Campbell, the NPA entered a new electoral Valhalla when Campbell didn’t just top the polls, he slammed a disconsolate Rankin by a greater than 20,000 vote margin.
To Ms. Carr’s right (but not politically), 2017 Vancouver-False Creek NDP candidate and current Vice-President on the Executive Council of the beloved and activist British Columbia New Democratic Party, a political party that is actually on your side, the one, the only Morgane Oger, who VanRamblings believes is the unity candidate in the 2018 civic election, the only Mayoral candidate that all five political parties could & would support.
In 2018, the Vancouver & District Labour Council (VDLC) is in the throes of an attempt to broker a deal that would “unite” the “progressive” parties — Vision Vancouver, One City, the Greens, COPE and Team Jean — against the dark forces of the dastardly Vancouver Non-Partisan Association. If none of this makes any sense to you, VanRamblings will take a glancing blow at each of the civic parties offering candidates for office in the coming civic election, although truth to tell we’re pretty smitten with OneCity Vancouver. And, please, don’t get us started on the Council candidacy of Christine Boyle — we’re so over-the-moon about Ms. Boyle’s candidacy, we may change the name of our VanRamblings website to VoteForChristineBoyle.
And, finally, on the far right above (but not politically), the incredibly wonderful Meena Wong, who was the principled COPE candidate for Mayor in the 2014 Vancouver municipal election, and may — we did say may — make another bid for the Mayor’s chair if the VDLC is unable to broker a deal for a “unity candidate” for the five progressive parties to get behind.

And last, and most probably least, the final four candidates for Mayor, Colleen “my taxes are just too damn high” Hardwick — who will give VanRamblings hell if we don’t point out that she has not, finally and once-and-for-all, made up her mind as to whether she’ll enter the race with, probably, A Better City (a party she and others formed years ago); Dr. Patrick “working with the citizens, together we could build a livable Vancouver for all of us, and in 2018 I am the Naheed Nenshi candidate (and let us hope for all our sakes that turns out to be the case)” Condon; current Vancouver City Councillor, Finance Chair and recent President of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, Raymond Louie; and last and least, Wai “whack-a-doodle” Young, whose putative candidacy for Mayor is dead on arrival, as she sets about on her bid for Mayor with the so-called Coalition Party, which appellation is accurate if you consider the meaning of her party’s name to mean, The Coalition of the Damned.
VanRamblings imagines that Ms. Young’s campaign manager, Peter Labrie (who last November ran for the NPA Board, and lost miserably) and Dunbar Theatre owner, Ken Charko, a federal Conservative Party member (and seeming Trump supporter) will be far from pleased with our construction of Ms. Young’s Mayoral candidacy. Alas.
Just chalk it up to VanRamblings being a miserable old cuss. It is to weep.

Today’s VanRamblings column represents the first in what will probably emerge as more than 100 columns, over the course of the next six months, on the upcoming civic election, for Council, School Board and Park Board. As you have no doubt detected, VanRamblings remains a devotee of hyperbole, and where some might say we’re being “mean”, we see it simply as truth-telling. We will attempt to be fair, though, and will afford each candidate an opportunity to have their unadulterated thoughts on their bid for electoral office recorded on VanRamblings, without benefit of snarky or untoward comment from VanRamblings.
Over the course of the next six months, we will attempt to make some sense of all that is about to unfold on Vancouver’s civic scene. At this point, we have a pretty good idea of who we like and who we’ll be supporting — but the list of those persons VanRamblings will be supporting come early October, when the advance polls open, and on Vancouver Election Day, Saturday, October 20th, is by no means complete.

Sparkling OneCity Vancouver Council candidate Christine Boyle (centre), with friends

If you’re wondering what values we support, you need look no further than Christine Boyle’s essay, It Matters How We Do Politics, a more expansive recording of what the principled Ms. Boyle stands for than was published recently on The Georgia Straight website — which is to say, she stands for us — the single most hopeful, skilled, humane and utterly transformative candidate for office VanRamblings has ever witnessed emerging on the political scene, anywhere, anytime (and we know some darn fine folks, political people we just love, and so admire that sometimes it is difficult for us to contain ourselves — and, yes, Patti Bacchus, David Eby, Carrie Bercic, Spencer Chandra Herbert, Allan Wong & Adi Pick, we’re talking about you).
VanRamblings will publish every day going forward.
On the weekend, we’ll take a break from writing about politics (but we will write a column each day this weekend), and will return to writing about the upcoming civic election on Monday. Steel yourself, Ms. Sylvester, and mayoral compatriots. One final thing: VanRamblings will soon publish an apology to Vision Vancouver, for our horrid past coverage of a civic party that has done much good (not that they get a lot of credit for it — we’ll attempt to change that egregious circumstance by recording all that is good that has been accomplished by Vision Vancouver this past 10 years).

Black Friday Almost Over, Cyber Monday On Its Way

November 26, 2017fixin to die rag, Jude and Megan, VanRamblings, Web & TechRaymond Tomlin

In 1957, my mother gave me a transistor radio for my 7th birthday!
We lived at 2165 East 2nd Avenue in Vancouver, just off Garden Park, on Vancouver’s eastside. I knew my neighbours, a polyglot amalgam of “displaced persons” (displaced from WWII), refugees from a Europe of destruction who had arrived in Canada to pursue a life for their families.
Although the television had been around for almost a decade in common use by the more well-to-do among the population, no one on our block had a TV — there were doctors, plumbers, nannies, seniors, construction workers, and no one thought to purchase a television, particularly given that TVs were going for around $400, or about 10% of a man’s average annual wage (the average hourly wage for women: 35¢). When times were tight, and families were large, and folks were just simply trying to find a way to scrape by, purchasing a $400 TV (with an outlay of another $50 for a rooftop aerial) was simply beyond the means of the common folks.

If we wanted to watch television, we’d head up to Commercial Drive, and watch the TV in the Magnet Hardware window.
Of course, all the kids on our block clamoured for a new TV (not that any of their friends owned one, mind you) — but, alas, that was not to be. Fortunately, the price of a black-and-white TV dropped dramatically in 1958 with the introduction of the colour TV (introduction of a new technology always results in a price cut for “older” technology), and most families, including mine, bought their first television that year, parents finally capitulating to the incessant, heart-rending pleas of their gentle children.

1957. I was about to go into Grade 2 at Lord Nelson Elementary School. My birthday fell on the 223rd day of that year, on August 11th, an otherwise inauspicious Sunday, except for the fact that at midday, thanks to my mother, I found myself in the possession of a brand new $49.95 (plus tax) leather-cased transistor radio! That’s right, my mother worked more than 150 hours to get me my much-prized 7th birthday present — making me the only boy on the block with a portable transistor radio. I was thrilled!
On another day, I’ll tell you what the impact of being the first to own a new tech toy had on me, what it meant for a career that I would pursue less than a decade later, and how it came to be that over the past 40 years, I have continually found myself on the cutting edge of new technology, as an early adopter. As I say, though, I’ll leave that story for another day.

All of which brings me to Black Friday, a day I cannot resist even if it is Buy Nothing Day. On Friday, I purchased a new Acer Aspire Intel Core i5 desktop computer (even though I can’t afford it, cuz I’m a pauper) — as a consequence of my 8-year-old, once state-of-the-art custom-built computer having been on its lasts legs for some months now. A friend assured me today that my new computer is a piece of junk. Oh goodie.

A fairly mundane picture of my new, much-needed computer may be found at the top of today’s column — alongside my brand spanking new Google Home Mini which, truth to tell, I don’t really need but it was half price at only $39.95, and I’ve been falling behind on my cutting edge tech persona. At about $40, I think I can indulge my techy side this holiday season.
As you may know, I love radio (even to this day). Just by saying, “Hey Google, play BBC Radio One“, within seconds BBC Radio One will begin playing through the Google Home Mini speaker. The same is true of hundreds of other radio stations. I’ve used my Google Home Mini to set alarms and reminders, check sports scores, stream music from Spotify, or from my iTunes library (of more than 5000 songs) employing Bluetooth.
If I purchase a Logitech Harmony Hub I could control my home theatre by voice command. Or, if I purchase the Phillips Hue Starter Kit, I could also control all of the lights in my house, and set the lights to turn on at a specific time, so when I enter my Co-op apartment, I won’t be entering into darkness. I could even set each individual light to a specific colour.

Yep — an indulgence. I won’t be purchasing the Phillips Hue system or the Harmony Hub anytime soon, but it’s nice to know that they’re available.