Stanley

Mom and Brother, Stanley

I have purposely not mentioned my youngest brother much in this blog. He is a thorn in my side, a pebble in my shoe, most of the time, and so I leave him out of the discussion, perhaps in that way to make his looming presence fade a little. But he is a fact in my life and my mother's life and because of his proximity to my mother, very much a fact of life right now.

This blog is not worth anything to me if I can't be honest in it, as if it was my personal journal. It won't be as brutally honest as my hand-written journal, as I suspect there are people who are reading it and they don't really want to know ALL my warts, read all the curses. Since my brother is paramount in my mind at this moment, I am going to lay it out here.

Stanely was born when I was twelve. Because of family circumstances at the time, my Dad's new business, Mom away from home helping Dad with it, I became like a second mother to my little brother. When he was three years old and I was 15 my Mom would go help Dad out as soon as I got home from school, and I was Stanley's "Mom". He was an odd duck, even then. He became "little bird", "little airplane", "little car"--he had a vivid imagination which we all indulged because he was the baby. At 15 my maternal instincts were in full gear and I was even making dinners for the family, always the little helper. After a few years my Dad's business failed and I became a normal teenager with dates and highschool to think about, but Stanley still seemed like more of a son to me than a brother--my first experience with a child.

I got married early and started my own family and Stanley tried to succeed in grade school and didn't do well there, and then tried to succeed in junior high and didn't succeed there and dropped out at 16. He took up drugs, probably as a way to deal with being "different", which he certainly was. He was an artist and a musician and that personality that caused him to be little car and little airplaine made him take up numerous other personas along the way. It was difficult to tell who he really was. at one point in his life he affected being a black man with white skin. He adapted the black swagger, speech, mode of dress. Because he didn't know what else to do with himself and something was expected of him, he joined the Army. He was still in his AfroAmerican personality and the real black men in the Army didn't take kindly to that. He found out the hard way that if you are not black, you do not try to BE black. He was discharged for fighting. He came home, lived with my parents for awhile, tried to live on his own, took more drugs, came back home, tried to live on his own again, painted amazing pictures, came back home.

I guess Stanley came back home again for good when he was in his early 30s. He is now 52. He continued to paint until my Dad died in 2001, exhibiting at Metropolis and Amy Burnett's gallery a few times over the years, but he lacked the ambition and drive to go any further. He sank into mental illness of a type that is managed by taking anti-psychotics, anti-depressants, and anti-anxiety medications. He also smokes pot. He lives upstairs in my mother's house, makes motor-cycle models, doesn't paint anymore, lives mostly at night, sleeps during the day, watches television, goes out to a movie occasasionally with his one friend, Pat, who is also an artist but, unlike Stanley, a working man with a family. He gets a small income from Social Security Disability Insurance, which he spends mostly on pot and take-out pizza. Up until recently I have seen him about once a week, if he happens to be downstairs when I have been visiting my Mother. We talk about television shows and movies he likes. He is intelligent and an entertaining conversationalist for a short period of time, but the television obsession can be too much after awhile. Once a week visits are enough.

When Mom fell and broke her arm and her kneecap I knew I was going to have to ask my brother to step up to the plate and take on some responsibility. He had done it before, when Mom broke her ankle two years ago. I had asked him then to sleep on Mom's schedule rather than his own, to sleep downstairs, rather than in his rooms upstairs and to help Mom get from her room to the bathroom in a wheelchair. He also had to make her meals. He did a decent job of it. It was stressful for him, I knew that, but he did it.

So I expected him to be able to do it again this time. I might be wrong about that. I brought Mom home Tuesday evening, after an afternoon fraught with tension while my brother waited at home for the wheelchair to be delivered and I waited at the nursing home to get confirmation that the wheelchair was there, ready to transport her into the house. Stanley nearly folded under this small pressure, calling me three times to report that the chair had not yet arrived, in a fury because he thought he saw a van going back and forth on the street and maybe that van was the wheelchair van and why weren't they stopping?! When the chair arrived and I got Mom home finally, Stanley was in a frenzy, hair flying in all directions, trying to tell me about a program he'd seen on television while my husband and I tried to get Mom in her bed and take care of other details that had to be done right then. He would not shut up or calm down. I did my best to ignore him. Before I left, I made a list of chores I needed him to do--empty the dryer, take the dishes out of the dishwasher, give Mom her pain pill at 9:00. Then I went home hoping that he could take care of these small things and his Mom. I figured it was his duty, after all the years she had been taking care of him.

Wednesday, after getting groceries for Mom, I arrived at noon to learn that she hadn't had any pain medication the night before, that Stanley had given her Tylenol PM instead, which is what she has taken at night for several years in order to sleep. He had not fed her yet, she was still in bed. Okay, I thought, this is the first morning, he's tired and tense, he hasn't gotten his act together. I spoke to him firmly but gently about the importance of food and the pain pills and about getting Mom in an upright position. I went back into the second-mother mode and he seemed to respond. He helped me cut back the wisteria that was hanging over the sidewalk, though keeping up a constant monolog about his television shows. That night I called him to make sure food and medications were being administered when they should be.

Thursday was better. I arrived in the morning to get Mom ready for her doctor's appointment. She had eaten her toast, had her pill and her daily medications and was ready to get up and have me help dress her. Stanley was calm and seemed on top of things. He helped get Mom down the steps and into the car. It was a pretty good day, all in all. Good news from the doctor, Stanley got a break, Mom got to get out into the fresh air. I left that day feeling pretty good about things.

Friday I started slowly, watching my recording of the Democratic Convention, cleaning the bathroom, answering email. I got to Mom's at 12:30, with a new pain medication prescription, a new bag of licorice and hope in my heart because today was the first day of Abiding Care. We were to meet the aid that would be helping Mom twice a week. As I came in the front door, Stanley rose up from the couch in a start--he had been asleep. When I remarked that he'd better get going as he had his own doctor's appointment in a couple of hours he started to whimper about what a "bad night" he'd had, his stomach upset, in the bathroom many times. I ignored him but tensed up because I didn't want to hear complaining from him when we had an 86 year old mother with two broken bones, who was bedridden. I checked on Mom--she was in pain, she hadn't had lunch, she hadn't had her daily meds, she was in disarray and looked so helpless and in need that I nearly broke down crying. I got Mom's lunch ready and got her out of bed, put a shirt on her (she was STILL wearing the slacks she'd had on the day before when I'd left her) and made some coffee. I wheeled her out into the livingroom to eat.

Again, I began to tell my brother how important it was to feed Mom and get her pain medication to her on a regular basis, not to mention getting her out of bed and in an upright position. This time the lecture was met with hostility--"I'm going to tell you one more time and I'm not going to tell you again, I had a bad night!" Well, second-mother, big sister, whatever I am to him, sane person to crazy person, I don't know what relationship I have to him anymore, whatever it is I came back swinging. He got the angry speech I've been wanting to give him for years: "You had a bad night. Poor you! How would you like to have a broken arm and a broken leg and be helpless in your bed and in fierce pain? Your mother has taken care of you for 52 years. It's time for you to take care of her now! She can't walk, she can hardly feed herself, she can't go outside without help, she can't drive a car, she can't get out of bed, she can't even get to the bathroom and you are complaining because you had a bad night?!" He came back with, "Well maybe I should just leave!" I said, "Go ahead. Go out into the big world and see how far you get". He knows he could never leave, that he couldn't make it in the world.

In a sense this is very sad. I would love to have a brother who has a wife, a family, a job, a life. But I don't and that's a fact of life and has been for decades. There is nothing I can do about the way he is. I told Bookworm that I can't be angry with him all the time, I just have to work with what I have. Trouble is, I'm not sure it's workable.

The Abiding Care aid started yesterday and she is like that white tornado in the commercials from long ago. She helped Mom and when Mom napped she tackled the kitchen and cleaned it until it shined. She put laundry in the washer and I'd bet she remembered to put it in the dryer and emptied the dryer before she left. She was making dinner when I left at 4:00. She is 22, she is tall and strong, she's smart and interesting, she will be wonderful for Mom and when she is there 4 hours a day, two days a week I will have confidence that Mom is well cared for. But what about the other 5 days a week? I know Mom wants to be in her own home, but would she be better off with me? I know she would get better care from me, more consistant, more constant. Part of me wants to bring her to my home and part of me wants Stanley to take his turn, to be a man for once, to take responsibility. I may be asking more than he is capable of. I am going to give it a little more time. If he can get into a routine, like he did two years ago during the broken ankle time, then it might be okay. Maybe he will want to impress Alyssa, the aid. Mostly I want to have some relief myself and live my life for at least part of every day.

Six weeks more in the leg brace, 4 weeks more in the arm brace. It sounds like such a small space of time. It's only been one week and two days since Mom fell. It seems like so long ago. As some comedian said in some movie years ago, "There's been so much stuff under the thing".

Challenges!

In the previous post I seem to have left out a few important things.  Perhaps I was trying to be nice, as seems to be my instinct most of the time.  I think I get that from my plucky Mom--she wouldn't dream of complaining about her treatment at Bremerton Health and Rehab.  But yesterday as she watched me fly off a wheelchair that I  tried to sit on next to her bed, I think she might have changed her mind.  There was not, and has never been, a chair next to my Mom's bed.  There is a chair next to the other bed in the room, but it's Frances's chair, so I've never pulled it over to the other side of the room to use.  Yesterday, the wheelchair was there, there was a pillow on the seat, and I sat on it.  The brakes were not on and there were my Mom's books underneath the pillow, so it shot out from under me and I went down hard on the floor.  I am as happy as I can be that there was a nursing aid in the room to see me hit the deck, because she can testify to it when an investigation is done based on the complaint paperwork that I completed, with tears streaming down my face. 

 I had a few other complaints, too.  Mom had one pair of underwear on her body when she came into the nursing home and I brought another pair the next day.  Now, both are missing.  I had filled out another form that stated I would take her laundry home with me, having heard stories from friends about clothing and other belongings going missing during nursing home stays.  And then there was the issue of my Mom's broken arm immobilizer, which was not attached as it should have been, leaving her poor, broken arm hanging down at her side.  When I asked to have it put on properly, the nurse (who I've liked very much) was unable to do it and felt a part of the brace was missing.  She ran off to look for the missing piece.  A half hour later a PT fellow came in, looked at her brace and put it on correctly.  There was no missing piece.  The nurse did not know how to attach this type of brace.  All of these things went into my complaint.

I feel as though I have been angry for 5 days now and it's not fun to feel that way.  Just below the anger is sorrow and just below that is fear.  I'm not sure those emotions go in that order, but all are there.  The sorrow is for seeing my Mom in this predicament, where she is absolutely helpless, except for her voice, and as I said before, she would not dare to complain.  The anger is because I don't know how to make myself heard except by yelling--it seems the only way to get anyone's attention.  The medical system rules are unknown to me--I am having to learn as I go and the learning curve is very steep.  I feel helpless, too, but at least I can walk and find the person that needs to be talked to, I can drive my car to get the prescription or to "get in the face" of the nurse who isn't responding.  But it makes me angry that I have to do these things and glad that I have the balls to do them.  A more passive person would have a very hard time.  

The fear is of the future.  In the years since my father died in 2001 I have learned that my habit of projecting my fears into the future, in other words, trying to figure out what is going to happen so that maybe I can control things, does not work.  After my Dad died I was extremely concerned and fearful of what my brothers would do to each other (they hated each other), what would happen when Mom would die someday, what kind of horrible battles would occur over Mom's healthcare and ultimate death?  I was so tied up in knots over these potential hazards and crises that I ended up in therapy and on anti-depressants.  The therapy helped and the Paxil helped and during the 7 years on the Paxil I was able to see my behavior and learn in a calmer way.  And my other brother dies in 2002, something I could never have predicted, even in my wilder attempts at prognostication.  So I'm trying not to play this out too far into the future, but the fact is my Mom has fallen twice in two years and both times she has broken bones.  Two years ago she fell on her porch and broke her ankle in 4 places.  And this time it's her arm and her kneecap.  I can't help but wonder what will happen next.

I have cried in my husband's arms many times in the past 5 days, I have cried on the phone with my best friend, I have cried at the nursing home, and I have sent SOS emails to my friends.  I think that's a better way than trying to stay adult and mature.  Adult and mature works well when you are in offices, but I, at least, have to let down that facade when I am at home, and give in to all the fears and sorrows of this new challenge.

Let me say one final thing about the word "challenge".  I have noticed in the past few years that the word has been lovingly adopted by the "caring" professions, including the education system and the managerial professions.  No, it's not a problem, dear, it's a challenge.  We don't have a crisis, we have a challenge.  Well let me tell you, I can think of a bunch of other words that start with C that more appropriately describe problems:  crap, crisis, corruption, catastrophe, calamity, cheerless, cheesy,chilling, choleric,circuitous, clamor, crash, cloddish, clumsy, coercion, combat, curse, cry --I have no time to keep listing C words, but I imagine you have some of your own.  It's time for me to go pick up a pain killer prescription and go participate in my Mom's doctor's appointment.  Wish me hope.

In An Instant

It's incredible how the course of life can be changed in a blink of the eye, a flutter of the eyelash. My best friend has described life as a river. I think that's very apt, because, since Wednesday night I have been trying to navigate the white water of the medical system.

My 86-year-old Mom fell in her driveway on Wednesday evening, on her way to get in the car with her 89-year-old sister-in-law. They were going to choir practice. Now Mom is in a nursing home. She broke her left arm and cracked her right kneecap and lacerated her forehead above her left eye. She was in the emergency room at the hospital for seven hours while they SLOWLY decided that she would not be admitted to the hospital and therefore we had to get her out of there. Our options were ugly: take her home and try to maneuver her into her bed without the use of a wheelchair or several strong men OR admit her to a nursing home. The ER doctor and social worker were pushing heavily for the nursing home. I was trying to convince them, and myself, that taking her home would be the better idea. I was in a state of confusion and anger already because, as part of the decision process, I was told by the social worker that Medicare would not cover Mom's nursing home costs if she had not been in the hospital for at least 3 days. I was not only trying to make the decision about what to do based on my mother's welfare but on her financial health, as well. She is like many 86-year-old widows who have always been housewives: she has a pension from her husband's civil service retirement and a tiny amount of social security each month, a savings account that I have built up in the years since I took over her finances and a small account at a brokerage.

This post makes it sound as if I was rational and only trying to pick the best of two rotten alternatives. The reality is that the minute I was put in the position of having to make this awful decision my innards turned to water and I reverted to the little girl in me and all I wanted to do was go home and hide under the covers of my own bed, in my own warm house, next to my husband and cry. But I was in the garishly lit emergency room, in cubicle #6, with my Mom on an unforgiving sheeted platform euphamistically called a bed, with 6 stitches in her head, a 2 foot brace on her leg and an "immobilizer" on her broken arm. (I could have used a superhero called The Immobilizer at that point. He could have swooped in, immobilized everyone in sight with his immobilizing super-stare and swooped us both away to a safe place with all the wheelchairs and bedside commodes we needed.) Alas The Immobilizer did not appear, so Me/Little Daughter was left to make the big decision.

I hemmed and stalled and finally asked the social worker if I could speak to the "person" at Bremerton Health and Rehab on the phone. Bremerton H and R was the ONLY nursing home that would admit a person, no matter how in need, at 2:00 a.m. They had two empty beds and they were ready to take our money. The horrifying equation was 2 weeks at $4500, paid in advance, out of either Mom's pocket or mine. In my 30 minutes on the phone with Kristy from BHR, I told her I couldn't get my hands on that money until the next day and she finally understood that I wanted Mom to be home within a few days to a week and agreed to a lesser amount up front. I think she was willing to have me pay for only 3 days, but I ultimately decided to pay for a week. It is nearly a week later and Mom is still at the facility, so it was a decent decision, though it kills me to take that much money out of her savings. One of the truly stupid and unforgettable things the social worker at the hospital said when trying to convince me that the best route would be a nursing home, was, "You'll be using up that money soon anyway". That may be, but Mom should be able to use that money on a nice trip to see her granddaughter in San Diego, instead.

The nursing home has turned out to be okay for Mom. She is getting a degree of care, not fabulous care, but on-call care, three meals a day, people around to talk with her. My Mother happens to be an extremely upbeat person who takes each day as it comes and "tries to make the best of things", as she says. She likes it when the young aids and others come in to see how she is. She reports that they are all very nice and helpful. She has a couple of books, a big NY Times crossword puzzle book, some magazines and the newspaper every day. She likes the food, but then she also likes Denny's and Shari's and Dominoes Pizza and most middle of the road food--she's a housewife of the fifties, so a dish of frozen strawberries, or lime jello or a sloppy joe on a Langendorf bun is alright with her. I've felt so much anxiety over having to put her in there, but she has been cheerful most of the time and thinks it's for the best on a short-term basis. I can rest at night because of her good attitude.

My bigger problems have centered more around getting a response from her doctor. Both my Mom and brother have used this doctor for several years now. My Dad saw her for years before he died. She was my doctor before I had to change to Group Health after retirement. You would think there would be some level of caring or concern shown because she has been so involved with the family, but that has not been the case. It is as if Mom is a stranger to her. I have been promised that phone calls will be returned and they haven't--I've tried to speak with her nurse and haven't been able to get to her. I wanted Mom to be seen at the nursing home but was told the doctor "doesn't go there". On advice from friends I went to the clinic where she has an office and demanded to speak with her nurse. Her nurse came out, tersely told me the doctor had written the prescription for the wheelchair and other medical appliances we'd need at home and that if we wanted an appointment I should make it with the appointment desk and then she swished out, all dispatch and dispassion. Should I expect more or is this the way it is in the medical profession now? When we see the doctor tomorrow I am going to throw away any caution I have about ruffling anyone's feathers and let the doctor know just how many of MY feathers have been ruffled. It seems to be the only way to get results and I have been told this same thing by many friends recently who have had sick relatives in the past few years.

My son remarked that if we lived in Canada or Cuba or England none of this would have happened, that Mom's care would have been paid for. If you've seen the documentary, Sicko, you would agree. My experience in the past 5 days has taught me that ER doctors, nursing homes and family doctors are not in the business of taking care of people in need--they are in the business of paperwork that protects their asses. I have signed so many forms that claim to be protecting my Mom's "rights", but which actually protect the hospital and the nursing home. The medical system in this country is terribly, terribly broken and I don't see either one of our presidential candidates promising anything other than "insurance for everyone". Well, Mom has insurance and it's not doing her any good at all. The insurance doesn't mean her doctor will answer the phone or provide a prescription, it doesn't mean that her nursing home care will be covered or that she will even get GOOD care while there, it doesn't insure her safety or sanity or my sanity, either.

Tomorrow, one way or the other, Mom will go home. I am hoping that her doctor will write the order for her to "release her to home" immediately. If she hesitates to do it, I will bust Mom out of there without the blessing of anything but my good instincts. And you can bet that I will have to complete a form that covers the asses of everyone involved, except for my Mom.

Bikini After Baby

My daughter-in-law, Irene, taking care of her babies

I was at my Mom's house on Wednesday and while waiting for her to get something I picked up her July 28th People magazine. On page 108 I found BodyWatch--Bikini After Baby.

I know you and I don't know HOW THEY DO IT, but People magazine does:

Jennifer Lopez
Gave birth 5 months ago
Gained 50 pounds
Accompanied with picture of Lopez in bikini


How she lost it: Prepping for a Fall triathlon since late June, Lopez, 39, has been alternating 35 minute runs with swimming and 50 minute bike rides up to six times a week. "This is not vanity inspired," says trainer, Gunnar Peterson.

HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!!!!!

This is not vanity inspired, or money inspired, or next role inspired, or tabloid inspired. No, not at all. Please read this with the heaviest of sarcastic tones.

This is NOT NORMAL! My daughter-in-law is lucky if she can grab 15 minutes in 24 hours to do anything for herself, let alone at least 85 minute workouts 6 times a week. And the bike rides must take Lopez away from where the baby is, so who takes care of her precious child?



On the same page:

Jaime Pressly
Gave birth 14 months ago
Gained 40 pounds
Accompanied by picture of Pressly in tiny bikini

How she lost it: Jaime, 30, relied on daily hour-long runs and 90 minute weight-training sessions. Since taking it off she trains 2 hours a day with her personal trainer.

Is there really anything left to say? Except, who is taking care of the babies????!!!!!

My daughter-in-law thinks money is behind all this training, and sweating and dieting and extreme effort and she is right, but I still have to wonder how this affects all the new young mothers out there who are watching and taking notes.

Post-Baby Bodies?!#&*

Katie Holmes Cruise--Post-Baby Body

From the title of this post you may be able to guess what I think of that phrase, so much in the pop culture news these days, "post-baby bodies". For those who manage to avoid pop-culture, which is probably better for your health, what is being referred to here is the taut, hard, flat stomach, no hips, lean bodies that young actresses who have just had babies display to their friends/enemies, the Paparazzi, the fans, the public. Proudly they walk to their cars, babies in the most expensive strollers and or front packs and or nannies arms, bellies bare, their new, larger breasts are showing mondo cleavage, and they look just the way they were 9 months ago or possibly even better. People, Us Weekly, Entertainment Tonight, E! cameras are clicking away and the reporters from all of the above are shrieking at viewers about the incredible, mind-boggling, magical, fantastical fact that the actresses "post-baby bodies" are better than could ever be imagined!!!!!!!! "How do they do it?", they rapturously implore.

I am tired of hearing about PBBs because my experience was drastically different. My post-baby body was at least 20 pounds heavier with the first child and it went up exponentially with each successive birth. After the first baby, 45 years ago, I lost about 15 of those pounds. After the second baby, 2 1/2 years later, I lost 10 of those pounds. (Can you see the pattern emerging?) After the last baby, 32 years ago, I lost maybe 10 pounds. If you can do elementary math you can see that I never returned to my pre-baby weight. No fans, magazines, TV entertainment shows or paparazzi would have been agitated in their desire to extoll the virtues of my ability to return to my fabulous, taut, hard shape!

The thing is--I was a regular person, who had regular child-raising chores to do in a regular suburban household with a regular husband who required regular meals and regularly washed clothes and a regularly vacuumed and scrubbed house. And the other thing is--in my time of child rearing, the 60s, 70s, 80s, the figures in the public eye who had children did so behind closed doors. They did not emerge until many, many months after their children were born and they did not wear midriff baring fashions in those days, therefore we didn't see whether they had achieved pre-baby tautness or not, nor I think, did we care. The magazines showed pictures of them IN BED with their newborns, swathed in lacy bed jackets, cradling their adorable infants, looking down at them lovingly. In those days I think we would have been okay with Elizabeth Taylor or Debbie Reynolds or Sophia Loren being a little heavier than they were before. After all, we were. In fact, we were ALL heavier, rounder and softer than the crop of actresses now in the public eye.

I wonder if young mothers today, watching Nicole, Angelina, Gwyneth, Madonna, Katie, et.al., think that they must achieve this same level of firmness within days of having their babies. I wonder if they understand how these star mothers do it. I am not in on all the details of the diets, purges and other intra-intestinal fat burning iradications these girls go through, but I am sure there are hundreds of them, not to mention the hours sweating at the gym.

What is it in our rabid pop culture today that wants the young new star mothers, to look exactly the same as they did before gestation and birth? What is it that craves a much less than mother-like physique? Why is it that the only curves allowed these girls are breasts and that those breasts be augmented and not be used to suckle the infant that has just emerged from that same woman, who just months before was flaunting her "baby bump". Is it a matter of "Look at me! Look how incredible I am that I can have a huge pregnancy and then bounce back into shape with a snap of my fingers! Am I not Superwoman?" Not only is it not true that it happened with a snap of the fingers, it is also not true that it is normal. I speculate that if these young stars did NOT bounce back that they would become fodder for the media in an entirely different way.

Witness what the media jackals did to Britney Spears when she didn't come out of pregnancy with her abs intact. How did they treat her when she said she wanted another child right away? Did any of you miss the pictures that were taken of her belly hanging over the tops of her low-riding jeans and the nasty commentary that went along with it? How could you have missed it in the line at the grocery store with the tabloids, and pseudo-reputable magazines right next to them, all showing Britney looking like a regular person who has just given birth. Can you imagine what it must be like for these girl/mothers?

So here we have the media demanding that our new crop of star mothers come out of childbirth looking as though someone else carried their babies and we have our young women in this country watching all this on their iPhones, computers, magazines, online. What kind of body image problems are we going to see? When women cultural icons became extremely thin we saw teenagers falling into anorexia and bulemia. Those were teenagers, not yet having babies. What is going to happen, what kind of pressure is occurring right now, that will impact new mothers that aren't stars? How much depression, added onto the normal post-partum depression, will follow if young women believe that they must achieve their pre-baby bodies?

I don't envy either the star mothers or the non-star mothers. There is so much pressure in this world to look young. There are so many body image problems that all people grow up with. Media is becoming so all-pervading in all our lives. It is only in my 60s that I finally can say "screw it" to cultural ecstasy about thinness and youth. But can these young women stop listening, stop watching, stop emulating? It's doubtful and it's dangerous.