Dear Doctors: After getting a pacemaker, my 90-year-old mother was diagnosed with A-fib. She resisted taking a blood thinner for stroke risk but finally agreed. Not 90 minutes after the first pill, she had a major stroke. Who can I notify that this is a possible side effect of the medication?
DEAR HARRIETTE: My friend has always made comments about my weight, saying that I’m too skinny and that I should eat more. At first, I tried to laugh it off or change the subject, but over time, it started to really bother me. I have felt self-conscious and frustrated, but I didn’t know how to tell her how hurtful her remarks were.
Dear Doctors: Any advice on controlling chiggers? When I work in the yard, they eat me alive unless I wear long pants. My wife does not garden and is rarely bitten. My son worked with me last weekend and said they don’t bother him.
If there was an award for courage and honor in politics, it should go to a stalwart band of Republicans in the Indiana state Senate who have resisted enormous pressure from President Trump and rejected his egregious efforts to rig next year’s elections.
DEAR HARRIETTE: My friend “Janice” is mad at me. We had plans to go to a food festival, and she canceled at the last minute. I had already bought both tickets, and since she said she couldn’t make it, I didn’t want the tickets to go to waste. I asked another friend if she wanted to go instead, and she happily agreed.
In our household, my husband, Peter, and I have acquired nicknames which we imagine our cat, Felix, calls us by. To Felix, I am Mama and Peter is Mouse.
Did something spook President Donald Trump? Recently, he announced that he would roll back tariffs on food, just days after he embraced a much more moderate tone on immigration. The question is whether this is a momentary shift or a real change of heart prompted by sour polling, scary economic indicators and private conversations with alarmed business leaders.
DEAR HARRIETTE: My friend always changes her story when it comes to small things, but I feel like the accumulation of all these small inconsistencies is starting to get to me. For example, she was just talking about how she plans to work at the company we both work at for five more years, but then not even two minutes later, she mentioned wanting to apply to grad school within the next year. It’s hard to keep up when her story changes so frequently, and sometimes I feel like I can’t tell what’s actually true.
Dear Doctors: Does taking calcium help keep your bones strong or not? I am going through perimenopause now, and osteoporosis is on my mind. A friend says that just a calcium supplement isn’t enough, you need to think about vitamin K.
• While some popular houseplants thrive indoors, they should never be transplanted outdoors, where they can become invasive.