December 2022

Dear Readers, Weather permitting, for the next ten days I’ll be crisscrossing Kansas repeatedly for both business and pleasure. Occasionally I’ve eyed all the scrawled notes on my December calendar and muttered, “ I am nuts.” But more often I’m filled with giddy excitement. Sure, we’re all stressed professionally and personally as we attempt to complete way too many projects and celebrate the holidays with family and friends. The flip side is that despite the building pressure and increasingly frenetic pace our lives take on this time of year, good humor and benevolence abound. Laughter and music surround us. And of course, there are special treats to sample. Last but never least, there’s the way our homes and streets light up our nights—twinkling, blinking and winking at us as we bustle on our merry ways.

In America, every four years the word “football” is surprisingly unclear. Americans know the word “football” to mean a sport played with an oblong ball and very little foot. In the rest of the world, the word “football” refers to a sport that is played almost exclusively with a foot. Hence the name of the sport. Why do Americans refer to this sport as soccer? Because the word football was already taken by a sport largely independent of the foot. Go figure.

DEAR DR. ROACH: I recently caught a quick news headline on breast cancer stating that there are now findings of cancer in women who have had breast implants. What can you tell us about these new findings and studies?