OK, so it turns out that the fatty liver and the elevated alkaline phosphatase (ALP) are no big deal. The fat incursions are minor: the doctor said that if you pull 100 people off the street, as many as a third would have the same amount of fat as I have. The other stuff in that region-bile ducts, kidney, gall bladder-looked fine ( Read more... )

I have a Sith plant. Actually, it's a Begonia rex, similar to this kind (called "Escargot" because of its cute little whorl at the base of the leaf ( Read more... )

Fatty incursions in the liver, causing irritation. Probably non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), which is often associated with diabetes. Which, as far as I know, I don't have. But they siphoned off 7 vials of blood to check for cholesterol (which has been OK thus far) and insulin levels (my sugar levels have been OK) and to see what's going on ( Read more... )

Mostly rain today, beginning early in the morning and falling heavily and steadily for most of the day. But mixed in with it, snow. The temps have dropped only into the high 30s, so my impatiens are fine (in fact, they look great), but one hard frost and it's adios to the blooms ( Read more... )

Our first autumn rain began to fall this afternoon. It was a cool rain, but just now I had to shut the living-room window because the temperature dropped suddenly, as they said it would ( Read more... )

Seen: Canada geese flying south. I have been turning the swamp cooler off at night. And I was listening to my iPod while cutting back a Tanacetum yesterday and I cleverly managed to snip the earphone cord clean in two.

That is all.

This is just to catch up with my life ( Read more... )

Weekend before last, I set up the hammock and slept outside because the nighttime lows were in the 50s. This last weekend, I tried to put my seedlings outside so that they could harden out but brought them back inside after an hour because the daytime temps were in the low 40s ( Read more... )

It got up to 89 yesterday. My swamp cooler isn't up and running, so it was a bit unpleasant inside (77°). I set up the hammock on Saturday and attempted to spend the night there. I lasted until about 4:30am, at which time I decided that I would rather sleep in a bed that doesn't require me to be perfectly balanced every time I turn over. The temps ( Read more... )

So now I've stepped down off the Effexor from 300 mg daily to 75 mg daily. Without the advice of a physician, but it's not like I need one at this stage. I have experienced no physical symptoms of withdrawal as of yet, which is as it was last time I stepped down but not off. I'll contact the doc when I'm ready to go off it completely ( Read more... )