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Paul's Journal

paul
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12/17/2007 23:11 #42562

Hot Water Bottle
Category: shopping
As (e:tinypliny) suggested I ordered a hot water bottle for my stomach aches. Sounds like a great idea as warm really makes it feel better. I searched around this time to find one that supposedly does not smell. You all know how I feel about things that smell like rubber or plastic.

If anyone else is looking for one, I order it from fashionhot.com
They were in good housekeeping and accept paypal.

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12/17/2007 22:28 #42561

Media from other stuff, like snow
Category: photos
So besides my debilitating intestinal issues I managed to take some pics.

Yesterday, I thought eating lamb and potatoes with banana would make my stomach feel better. It was delicious but I was sick as ever. The way I made it. Soak lamb legs in wine, rosemary and garlic with oil, salt and pepper for about 3 hours. I am obsessed with bone marrow. I know you veggies are thinking that is the most disgusting thing ever.

Then bake in the oven at 350 for a couple hours.

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Not so sure what is up with the amount of garbage the church produces. This is seriously a typical weeks garbage for them.
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There was so much snow this morning. You can see just how much on this table in the backyard.
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Luckily, the church plows our driveway but we still had to shovel the car ou
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This citrus fruit looks so damn yummy. I wish that I could eat it.
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The windshield was so icy. It took forever to chip it all off the car.
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Here is (e:terry) trying to chip it. I ended up finishing it once the car heated up.

::Download Flash Video::


jbeatty - 12/18/07 08:50
Marrow is good stuff. I like to spread it on a piece of baguette.
lilho - 12/18/07 00:28
ok, hot damn. the ice, the snow! i have totally forgotten what that is like, sorta. and i must say, i still hate snow and cold. thanx for posting! i thin my life is that much better now that you are posting more!
paul - 12/17/07 22:48
Whoa, that is weird. No seriously I have loved marrow my whole life but I have started craving it this month and never really thought about it. Wouldn't I notice if my intestines were bleeding though?
imk2 - 12/17/07 22:38
how long have you been obsessed with marrow? you probably have intestinal bleeding and therefore are anemic and therefore are craving iron rich foods. i have a nasty habit of over-diagnosing everyone around me.

12/17/2007 18:32 #42558

The void of my life before 2003
Category: life
It is killing me that there is this massive void in my life before 2003. So much interesting stuff happened and I wrote nothing down, took almost no pictures and can barely remember most of it. Like for example I know that I got a CAT scan but I can't even remember when or why. That seems insane.

An who has that data? Not when it was, but the actual data. I have no freakin' idea even who the doctor was? If I get this one I should ask to get a copy. Do you think that is possible?
paul - 12/17/07 21:03
Oh I am not worried about feeling anything (e:paul,42555) I was worried about the radiation.
museumchick - 12/17/07 20:35
Don't worry too much about the ct scan. I know it's really scary-sounding, but it's not painful or dangerous at all. I've gotten a couple abdominal ct scans done. You probably won't even feel a thing.

I hope you're feeling better soon, Paul.

12/17/2007 16:55 #42557

Appendicitis?
Category: health
Holy crap. So I was having all this pain in my lower right side today and it was really sharp. So I decided to look up those symptoms and realized I have like almost every symptom of appendicitis.

Maybe that is what the CT scan (e:paul,42555) is to check for, but really I would almost rather just have it out.

What Are the Symptoms of Appendicitis?

The classic symptoms of appendicitis include:

* Dull pain near the navel or the upper abdomen that becomes sharp as it moves to the lower right abdomen. This is usually the first sign.
* Loss of appetite
* Nausea and/or vomiting soon after abdominal pain begins <-- I have been really nauseas although I haven't thrown up - I seriously never throw up though, even when drunk or with the flu
* Abdominal swelling
* Fever of 99° F to 102° F <-- this is the only one I don't have, I should check when I get home
* Inability to pass gas
* Painful urination
* Severe cramps
* Constipation or diarrhea with gas
* Dull or sharp pain anywhere in the upper or lower abdomen, back or rectum

I ate beef burgundy at work tonight and baked lamb legs with potatoes for dinner last night.
paul - 10/05/11 00:44
omfg, why would no one believe me at the time. Looking back on it is it so obvious, just a few months down the road they would be removing a gangrenous appendix out of me just as it was bursting. After that appendix came out my soon to be diagnosed "crohns" instead of appendicitis went away.
jenks - 12/18/07 23:23
ok paul there are newer journals than this so you've probably figured it out by now and i just need to catch up, or you've had your appendix out, BUT-
well first off, I sent mike a huge post about appendicitis a while ago- he might still have it.

But bottom line-
although fever is very non-specific - I would go as far as to say that if you don't have a fever, you don't have a appendicitis.

And as my chairman likes to say, appendicitis is a 72hr disease. You would know.
paul - 12/17/07 21:07
Then again, maybe it is lactose intolerance. I guess there is a test for that. Maybe I should start there first.
paul - 12/17/07 19:48
God, right now it feels a little better - what the fuck.
paul - 12/17/07 17:49
I am so torn between going and getting random Dr. or waiting and letting a doctor I trust take a look with the CT scan. This is seriously such a huge decision for me as I hate getting xrayed and this is getting super xrayed. Like I don't even get the dental xrays. I am so torn.

Like, I figure the chances of me dying are about zero and I am never more than one or two blocks from the hospital considering work and home are both a block away so I am just going to brave it I think? But it appears that braving it means the CT scan which would see more if it is something else.
jim - 12/17/07 17:17
Sounds like you should go to the hospital and camp out in the ER.

12/17/2007 15:05 #42555

CAT scan
Category: health
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?

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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.



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jenks - 12/18/07 23:19
it's not THAT much radiation.... I'd say the benefit outweighs the risk.
jim - 12/17/07 17:11
When are you supposed to go?
jim - 12/17/07 15:25
I don't know what you should do, but here is a link to some people who had similar questions/experiences: :::link:::