HEART ATTACK SEASON

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From The Associated Press

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'Tis the season for heart attacks

Rich meals, stress may be culprits

By Lauran Neergaard

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Washington - Those lords-a-leaping and

ladies dancing may want to consider the downside

of the holidays: Heart attack season has arrived.

December and January are the deadliest months

for heart disease, and many of the things that

make the season merry are culprits:

Rich meals, more alcohol - and all

that extra stress.

But what may make the Christmas coronary

more deadly than the same-size heart attack in,

say, August, is a double dose of denial.

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It's not uncommon for people to initially shrug off

chest pains as indigestion. Research suggests

they're even more reluctant for a run

to the emergency room when it means

disrupting a holiday gathering, or

if they've traveled to a strange city -

meaning they arrive sicker.

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Minutes matter.

"You have one a short window of opportunity

to save heart muscle," warns Dr. William Suddath

of Washington Hospital Center in the nation's capital -

where a cardiac team on duty 24 hours a day

aims to start clearing victims' clogged arteries

within 15 minutes of their arrival

in the emergency room.

How bad each year is varies widely,

but some hospitals say they saw an upswing

in heart attacks start on Thanksgiving weekend.

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At Suddath's hospital, it started with

a surprise spike the weekend before Thanksgiving -

with so many critically ill patients that

doctors ran out of a key heart-pumping machine

and had to rent two extras.

Doctors have long braced for the seasonal upswing.

A 2004 study confirmed it was a nationwide phenomenon,

with peaks in death coinciding around

the Christmas and New Year's holidays.
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Here's some comic relief from Rail Europe -
click your back button to return here:

http://downloads.raileurope.com/holidayCard/06_christmas_card.html

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and below, more humor from National Lampoon!

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What Beast Is This ?

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The Trouble With Christmas Dinner

by Liesl Schillinger

SLATE Magazine
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Six years ago,

when my brother Justin brought his fiancee, Victoria,

to Virginia for her first Christmas chez Schillinger,

my mother marked the occasion by making a roast suckling pig.

(Never mind that the entire family had gathered round

 the VCR the night before to watch Babe,

 the tear-jerking family drama about

an adorable piglet who evades the knife.)

On the morning of the feast,

my mother made mince pies while my father drove to

the country butcher to fetch the swine. When he arrived home

with the beast, there was a panic. It being December,

the suckling pig had matured into a suckling hog—

as big as a golden retriever—with curving sharp teeth and

 holes where its eyes had been. It looked like the victim

 in a porcine snuff film.

As my mother despaired,

my father had the presence of mind to grab a handsaw

and divide the monster into two halves,

each of which just squeaked into an oven.

After it was roasted, which shrank it some, Mama laid it out

on an enormous platter, covered its severed waist
 with a cummerbund of holly bunches, stuffed
 each hollow eye socket with a grape

(she put White-out irises on them,

 studded with cloves for pupils),

and pried its baked, fanged jaws wide enough apart

to pop in a Clementine orange.

When she appeared with the beast in the dining room,

we all screamed. Luckily, Victoria had brought a ham—

a gift from her mother, whose Southern dictum is,

"Never go anywhere without a ham."

In the wake of the suckling hog debacle,

my mother introduced ducks for Christmas.

An entire flock of waterfowl (six) were sacrificed to feed 12

celebrating mouths. Thirteen, actually; one of the bassets,

 Ruby, dug the carcasses out of the trash,

 out in the snow by the carport,

and gulped down so much duck fat that her liver shut down.

She had to be rushed to the vet, where the doctors

 said her blood was like a duck-grease milkshake.

After $3,000 of emergency medical treatment

(including a canine blood transfusion),

duck has fluttered off the menu, never to return.

This Christmas Eve, Mama is making chicken Kiev,

stuffed with apricots. We're not Russian, so this

 may not sound all that traditional,

 but it will be our tradition—at least this year.

With any luck, nobody will scream at the unveiling,

and no dog will end up in intensive care.

(This is an edited version of a longer piece that goes into

historical tidbits about what meats (beasts) have graced Xmas

dinner tables here and in England over the years.)

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