"CAT scan" written by Paul on estrip.org

Category: health

12/17/07 03:05 - 26ºF - ID#42555

CAT scan

The abdominal CAT scan. So the doctors office called to say he wanted me to go get an abdominal CAT scan. Hm, I know I am probably just be a crazy but are they safe? I mean it seems like a lot of radiation. I know I had one before when I was about 17ish and I have had about 3 chest Xrays in my life. So should I worry about this? There are so many sites that make it seem really dangerous. On the other hand I am tired of my stomach hurting?

here is a quote from CBS news. Now I realize that I am not getting a full body CT just an abdominal one but --

It's not a huge risk, especially for someone with symptoms of a dangerous condition. But when used to screen healthy people for hidden evidence of disease, the risk may outweigh the benefit. And if a healthy person gets repeated full-body scans, cancer risks multiply, Brenner and colleague Carl D. Elliston report in the September issue of Radiology.

"The risks from a single full-body CT scan are not large: If 1,200 45-year-old people got one, you might expect one to die from radiation-induced cancer," Brenner tells WebMD. "But if you are thinking of doing this on a regular basis, as a routine screening modality, then the radiation doses start to add up and the risks then start to get quite high."

One abdominal CT, says the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), exposes a patient to 500 times more radiation than a conventional chest x-ray.

Permalink: CAT_scan.html
Words: 280
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: stuff

12/14/07 10:48 - 21ºF - ID#42520

Blogging About It

Let's see:

Yesterday
The estrip dinner party last night was fantastic. Thanks (e:jim) for organizing and to everyone who came and brought delicious dinner and desserts along with copious amounts of wine.

It was nice to see (e:jason)! Hope you come out again for another event and bring (e:joshua) with you.

I can't wait to see (e:metalpeter)'s pictures that he took with his new camera. Spent a lot of quality time with (e:imk2) and (e:tinypliny). Sorry if there was anyone I missed at the party, its hard to be a host sometimes because I always get stuck talking to a few people for a long time instead of everyone for 30 seconds each.

Today
Didn't get killed contrary to popular belief - a subject I cannot talk about but want to remember back to when I revisit this in the future.

Lots of working. I finally got the native oracle PDO extension working with PHP, yeah for prepared statements and boring things no one cares about but are exciting to me!

Had a meeting about Disney running your hospital.

Got a new style 2008 electronic rubics cube as a gift from work. It ame with battries included - that is rare. The unix guy at work took his apart to see how it ticks within the first few minutes.

The new bed
I hate it. It makes me fucking sick. I can't stand the taste that the outgassing chemicals make in my mouth. I don't ever want to go back in the bedroom. If they don't agree to get rid of it, I am going to replace them with new chemically sensitive boyfriends that want to sleep in an organic bed with me. The smell is so strong to me that I can identify items that touched the bed even if I didn't see them in there.

I spent the last several nights sleeping on the floor in the other room.

lilho writes at 11:18:07 12/16/07 - Comment #29314: who would kill you? surely not me! all i have to give you is love.

imk2 writes at 10:24:02 12/15/07 - Comment #29308: i had a great time, thanks for having us (e:pmt).

i still don't understand how matt can think that that bed is more comfortable than a pillow top mattress. that bed is neither soft, or pillowy, nor comfortable. and the fact that you cant have good sex on it makes it even worse. i say give it back, and just get a super soft mattress you can all agree on.

carolinian writes at 04:21:11 12/15/07 - Comment #29294: Oracle, eh? Are you moving on to greener pastures from MySQL?

jim writes at 03:08:03 12/15/07 - Comment #29292: Had a great time, thanks everyone :)

tinypliny writes at 02:13:55 12/15/07 - Comment #29289: Have you ever considered sleeping on quilts? I sleep on a quilt on the floor and really I never felt better! I have no backache, I wake up happy and it is very warm because the warm the quilts before sleeping. There is no foam or filling or chemicals

paul writes at 01:55:05 12/15/07 - Comment #29287: Or not - so we went back to the store where they have a scented candle to overpowert the disgusting new matress smell. I looked at the natural latex ones and they smelled worse to me. Matthew described them as smelling something like a nerf ball.

The woman insisted her matress like ours stopped smelling in two days and we should open the window for two days to air it out. She was clearly a smoker so I doubt her ability to smell. Then another manager came in and said he had one, but honestly it took about a month and half to two months for the smell to go away.

So they said we should wait and see as we have 90 days to return it. I went and smelled the floor model of the same bed and it didn't smell very bad . So the other manager told us he is going to look and see if they have a king size floor model we could trade it in for that has already been aired out. I freakin' hope so.

Right now we unwrapped it, moved it into the blue room which is generally our chemical toxic waste dump. That is also where the server lives.

I really hate this. Even if the smell does go away after a month, is it safe? I am sure I just want a flammable bed made of natural substances that I am familiar with.

paul writes at 11:55:11 12/15/07 - Comment #29285: Believe it or not, we are going to go buy a new matress!

paul writes at 11:50:09 12/15/07 - Comment #29283: I will ask (e:matthew) about it. I am so sensitive to formaldehyde. I can smell it when most other people can't. I was telling (e:enknot) the other day I could be a formaldehyde seeking police "dog." Like at work there is this new life sciences building and the moment I went in their I could sense the fetal pig smell, as I call it. I asked and they said there was no formaldehyde being used but then I realized it was a new building and they probably used it somewhere in the construction.

As for the mattress I just don't want it. It is beyond sickening to me. I don't even like to go near the room. The type of mattress it is, is made of all these little cells of chemical whatnot. When you move around on it, they all outgas even more. I just don't see the need for a sleeping material made completely out of chemicals. It just sounds like the new asbestos to me. I think they just can't tell because they smoke so much and most of the time they are drunk by the time they are sleeping so they probably couldn't care.

Also, the real problem is that (e:matthew) finds the foam so comfortable and I couldn't even be a room where there was a twin size one that had that foam.

I think I am going to invest in a twin size cotton and wool organic stuffed mattress for myself and just resign the fact that I will never sleep with anyone again and live in my office downstairs - considering we 24/7 house guests, sleeping anywhere else becomes problematic and I am a little too freaked out by fire to sleep in one of the attic bedrooms.

dragonlady7 writes at 10:29:57 12/15/07 - Comment #29279: New mattresses are horrible outgassers of formaldehyde. The good news is that outgassing like that typically only lasts a week or two. You're so sensitive I'd give it more like a month.
That sucks.

VENTILATE the room-- that will help. When nobody's there, close the door and open the window and position a fan to blow across the bed out the window. It'll speed up the offgassing and keep the fumes out of the house.

I hear a lot about this stuff at work, as I was saying in earlier entries. Our machines do remove some formaldehyde from the air-- we've got one kind especially that's designed for it, and that's usually the chemical that's most at fault in chemical sensitivities. If you want to try one I could get you one cheap, or loan you mine (even though it's not the special chemical one). It really might help. I don't know if it will

I emailed Matthew about this, actually-- my company wants new product photos and he's a good photographer, but he never got back to me so I'm not sure I used the right email for him. But they'd of course prefer to pay him in product-- nobody ever wants to exchange real money. Let me know if he'd be interested in that.

metalpeter writes at 09:42:02 12/15/07 - Comment #29275: Some of the pictures are great and some are ok, I do have one big problem though. My camera won't read the memory card out of nowhare and walgreens wasn't able to get the pictures either. So I'm going to try to do something different at rite aid and maybe I'll be able to get the pictures. I think I may just try buying a new memory card, cause to take more pictures I have to format this one and I would lose all the pictures. The part I can't figure out is how the card get messed up all the pictures where fine. I wonder if something happened at the walgreens machine . Hopefully I'll find a way to get the pictures.

james writes at 11:35:41 12/14/07 - Comment #29272: I have bought a new futon twice in my life (both times the worst investment I have ever made) and it had such a powerful bed-stink I would cough for a week. Hopefully your bed-stink will pass as well.

or at least fumigate your intestinal parasites.

Permalink: Blogging_About_It.html
Words: 325
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: health

12/14/07 02:06 - 33ºF - ID#42517

My Stomach doesn't hurt right now

Yes, believe it or not for the last four hours I have had no stomach ache and that includes eating Pizza and wings, something I almost never eat because I am afraid it will make me sick. Maybe the intestinal bacteria pills I am taking help, or maybe it is just a freak moment.

Permalink: My_Stomach_doesn_t_hurt_right_now.html
Words: 54
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: health

12/12/07 10:25 - ID#42488

Stomach Drama Continues

I am so tired of feeling sick to my stomach. I keeps me up all night. It hurts all day. It kind of even makes me nauseous. I went to the doctor, he asked where it hurt. I misrepresented because I was bloated and my whole stomach kind of hurt at the moment. Now that I didn't eat last night and am really skinny I can tell it hurts higher up. See my diagram below. The green area has a much sharper pain when I touch it. The red area kind of hurts when I am really full but I think it has more to do with whatever is up in area green.

So I call the doctor yesterday and got his helper because he was busy. I said, I don't want to just wait for Jan 9th to get a colonoscopy and asked if they could do any other tests bfore. I asked if it would be possible to get a blood test or stool test to see if something else is up. At least a freaking blood test. The last one I took was in like 2000. Anyways, so they say they could fit me in at 6am for colonoscopy. I declined first of all because I would have had to be ready at like 5am at Millard Fillmore suburban and second of all because I wasn't calling for a rush colonoscopy. I just think maybe they should check some other stuff first.

I am really so sick of the whole process. What does it take to find a doctor with a few minutes who thinks of a the whole picture? I would pay lots of money at this point. I think I am going to just take (e:jenks)'s advice and just go to the emergency room. I think I am going to go today after I finish with some important stuff for work. If I go there I will blog the whole experience.

Permalink: Stomach_Drama_Continues.html
Words: 328
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: work

12/11/07 02:12 - 36ºF - ID#42474

harassment training

I can't believe I have to sit through another respect in the workplace training. I understand why they have to do this but I think I have sat through about 10 of these in my life.

The part that surprises me the most is that they have FAQ that says the first thing you should do when you receive an offensive email is "Delete the email and reply to the person that you don't enjoy getting this type of email."

That is so stupid. Promptly, delete all evidence :p

metalpeter writes at 07:46:57 12/11/07 - Comment #29163: First of all those trainings are often complete Bull shit. The reason being is that yes it is good to know what to do if someone says if you blow me I'll get you hired or to say if you don't have sex with me you won't get a raise. But after that it doesn't do much. There is a a difference between flirting and joking around and causing someone to be uncomfortable. The thing about it that most people talk more stuff then what the regulations say. The important thing to remember is it has to be unwanted. In other words the cute girl comes up and asks me so how is it hanging and spanks me than that is fine and I go "it isn't any more" then that is fine. But the girl I don't like goes "she touched you and said you are perfect but I wouldn't do you if you paid me" "So I say I wouldn't do you if you paid me either" and it is serious not joking around then that would be a problem. I understand that the people who give it don't want any grey area but the truth is there is a lot of grey area and that can be kinda fun, as long as that line doesn't get crossed but you also have to know where every ones line is. But they don't tell you that in that flawed training.

tinypliny writes at 06:06:51 12/11/07 - Comment #29149: Hmmm...I had an 8-hour long orientation session earlier this year, so I didn't have to re-take it this semester. But I did hear that they give out great lunches. Is that true? What did you get for lunch?

jason writes at 04:33:37 12/11/07 - Comment #29145: Oh man, Paul. I would hate that shit too.

drew writes at 03:48:00 12/11/07 - Comment #29141: I (the evil middle-class-educated-white-straight-Christian-male) gave a diversity training session for a camp I used to work for. I think they picked me because everyone else was afraid to do it. Amazingly, it went well.

scott writes at 02:43:23 12/11/07 - Comment #29140: I've never been trained to harass someone sexually. I always thought that was something a-holes did naturally.

janelle writes at 02:28:38 12/11/07 - Comment #29138: I had an in-house male sexual harrassment trainer for my training here. It was very even handed. Although, your comment reminds that in some city, I think Denver, a council man protested a diversity training video where the individual doing all the racist/sexist/sexually harrassing remarks was a white blue-collar man. I watched a clip on CNN. It was really bad and failed to acknowledge that people of all sorts of races, ethnicities, nationalities, genders, sexual orientation etc... can engage in racist/sexist/sexually harrassing behavior.

paul writes at 02:20:44 12/11/07 - Comment #29136: Sidenote: Has anyone ever had a male sexual harssment trainer? I have never had a non-african-american-woman sexual harassment trainer. Coincidence?

Permalink: harassment_training.html
Words: 88
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: friends

12/10/07 09:17 - 30ºF - ID#42464

Baby Fern

Everyone keeps asking (e:enknot) for pics of baby Fern but he keeps forgetting to post new ones - so today I got some at lunch. She is so cute!!

Here she is with (e:enknot)

And here she is with Jon who also is an (e:peep) but hasn't written in his journal yet.

(e:enknot) got the corned beef focaccia at Spot that I was talking about the other day.

Permalink: Baby_Fern.html
Words: 80
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: celebrities

12/10/07 10:06 - 31ºF - ID#42455

This one is for e:brit - Anderson Cooper

I know you love him.

Permalink: This_one_is_for_e_brit_Anderson_Cooper.html
Words: 7
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: sleep

12/09/07 04:32 - 28ºF - ID#42448

The Visco 9"

Times have changed. The saleswoman didn't even bat an eyelash that three adult males were shopping for a king size mattress together. The other couple in the store were clearly lesbians and the same thing. I was thinking that maybe the mattress industry has always had the secret in side scoop into people lives and so nothing is new. It is kind of hard to pretend you aren't sleeping together when you are testing out a bed together.

We ended up going with some king size, visco memory form get up for ~$2000 with everything including tax, damn tax is expensive. It is called the Sealy Posturepedic TrueForm Visco 9"

I wish I had something to do with the Visco 9" in the title, but I don't - lol.

It seems like it has the potential to make sleeping nicer or worse. I really can't tell. Luckily, t gives us a 90 day return policy for trade in if we hate it. I think we will like it. They deliver it tomorrow and it better change my life considering it costs as much as a car I would have bought 5 years ago.

Permalink: The_Visco_9_quot_.html
Words: 196
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: food

12/09/07 10:04 - 28ºF - ID#42445

Free Rice for Poor People

I don't understand how this can possibly be real but I saw it on omg blog and then decied it was worth posting here. freerice.com

gives free rice to the United Nations feed the hungry campaign or something liek that if you win the word games on the site. I guess the advertisers donate grains of rice based on the number of correct vocabulry questions you answer.

I also foudn this video on

omg blog - I guess it isn't just limited to that one beauty queen, it hit Kelly Pickler too

Permalink: Free_Rice_for_Poor_People.html
Words: 105
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: buffalo

12/08/07 11:19 - 26ºF - ID#42443

The Trip To The Botanical Gardens

I love the Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens

They are warm. I have decided to become a member so that I have a reason to keep returning to the warmth.

I took a bunch of pictures of the plants. I really love my Nokia s7c camera. It is so compact and takes such nice pictures.

Tis little pink flower was so hello kitty.