Category Archives: The Ins and Outs of Us

I knew there was a reason I do not like sushi!

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Wow! So, I am listening to the news this morning and they start talking about worms. Not your average worms, though. We’re talking about 9 foot long tape worms that live in your belly! Ick! Apparently there have been more cases than in past history of people getting worms. This particular case was some guy who passed the 9 foot long worm in his poo and I suppose got “a little” concerned and therefore took his worm with him and went to the emergency room in Chicago. These worms do not go to just your gut…they can go to your brain too.

What are they attributing this to, one might ask? Sushi. Yep, you got it. Raw fish is known to carry more parasites so there you have it. I guess salmon is also kind of high up on the list of culprits also.

Now, I am one that will try pretty much anything. I HAVE had sushi. My mother, brother and I had it in this cute little place in NYC a few years back and it wasn’t too bad but I think I’m ruined now.

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This reminds me of a patient we had in our clinic 18 months ago or so. He was an immigrant from Mexico and I cannot remember all of the details but I think he maybe had a seizure. The jist of it was that we found on his MRI of his brain that he had a worm growing in his brain…most probably from contaminated food. Now, what is going on with this fine young wormy man now? I have no idea. As an immigrant, he had no health insurance. We sent him to a neurologist and he never followed up. Scary….

The poor pigs in Egypt

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SWINE FLU

Unless you live under a rock somewhere you are probably just as tired of hearing about swine flu (or H1N1 to be politically correct). Being in medicine whenever I hear of things like this starting up anywhere in the world I think…oh boy, here it comes. It is inevitable that patients are going to come a’running thinking they have it.

Don’t get me wrong here…I know it is a serious illness. But I am frustrated because people seem to forget that EVERY winter tens of thousands of persons in the US get the usual influenza and thousands die of it in the US EVERY winter.

But, here we are in full panic mode. I mean, geesh…the WHO upped their level to a five yesterday with six being the highest! I got four emails yesterday from Medical Reserve Corps (of which I belong)-all talking about things that we (the MRC) may need to do if we are to be deployed. Where would they deploy me to? My gosh-would I just go somewhere to teach people to cover their mouth when they cough and wash their hands?!

And, then last night I read about the poor pigs in Egypt…they killed them all! Can you believe that?! And…..NOOOOOO, there is absolutely positively NO relation to eating pork. I wrote an article for our local paper yesterday about the swine flu and that is how I ended it…poor piggies.

We welcome Abdiel!

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My Easter gift to Adam this year was Abdiel (pronounced Ab-del). We “adopted” Abdiel Enoc through World Vision. He is a 11 year old boy from El Salvador and we can’t wait to get pictures of him! Abdiel has four brothers AND four sisters. Adam cried when he learned about Abdiel.

World Vision warns of being careful of how much you speak of God in your letters to your child as it may create trouble depending on how his village views Christianity, etc. But….I did some looking up and Abdiel is a very rare name and means “Servant of God” so we are hopeful that maybe our Abdiel is in a Christian home.

When I was at the Christian Book Store searching through children needing to be adopted I found myself “gravitating” to all of the cute little girls or boys (toddlers). But I decided that the older kids probably need the most help so I adopted the oldest child they had…we’ll post pictures and more information as we get it!

Much needed relief…but a little sadness, too

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17As we are passing the four month mark of my mother being gone Adam and I have been praying about what to do with our store. While we know she will be back when she can the fact remains that without her, we are lost at the store. Her input and guidance has been missing. Adam does his best. Because of my practice, I cannot be there.

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Six weeks ago we began kicking around the idea of maybe selling it. My mom was (is) understanding-telling us to do what we need to.

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We contacted the local chamber and surprisingly had a couple that was VERY interested 48 hours later! Adam and I hadn’t even talked numbers…we were just kicking the idea around!

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Yesterday the sale became final. This chapter in our life is closing. A much needed wave of relief flooded me when I found out their loan went through. As we spent last evening sifting through things at the store plucking out paperwork, etc that we need to remove for our taxes, etc I decided to walk through the store to see if there was anything I wanted. Surprisingly I have never taken anything home for us. I have always wanted this wooden “C” though and we still had it so I left with my “C” riding in the front seat with me!

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The store was fun…with my mom but has not been since January so we are happy to say farewell to Heartland Gifts & Decor.

The calorie content of paper

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Monthly update on Philly’s diet

This past month was impressive. The vet told us that his weight loss would be slow initially and then pick up…man, was she right!!! He started at 24lbs when he came to stay with us and in my last post about his diet he had lost only one pound. We decided that today would be a good “weigh-day”.

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He is struggling still with the whole paper issue…ie: the pictures and has figured out how to get the lid off of our cat’s food storage container. We’ve used this same container for the past decade and have NEVER had any cat get the lid off but I guess if one is hungry enough…one will succeed. We now need to store the entire container away in a cupboard.

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Notice him licking his lips...

Notice him licking his lips...

I feel like we need to help him celebrate or something because he is now at 19lbs. Yep..he has lost 5lbs!!! I mean, geesh..that is 20% of his body weight…

I am just glad that the expensive food the vet is having us buy ($50 a bag) is finally paying off. Only 10 more pounds to go, big guy…