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.

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.

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.

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.

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