soda pop

So the tests are in: since cutting out pop (or 90 per cent of it) in April, my triglycerides have dropped from 3.20 to 1.6. It is supposed to be below 1.7, so now it is just a matter of finding out how it affects my liver.
It's Paul's birthday today. I gave him gummy bacon strips (do not fry), an old hard drive and a screwdriver and I baked him a Terry's Chocolate Orange cheesecake that turned out quite well.

Apples and pie but not apple pie.

Day began with the George's girls waking up and me jumping out of bed to feed them, but not myself. I zoomed off to get some blood work done to test my tri-glycerides again (remember my liver tests six months ago). I've kept with my near-pop-free diet for 4.5 months so we'll see how that worked. My new hard drive finished formatting at about 8 am, about 10 hours. At work I met with Janine (who couldn't make it Tuesday). Gave her a copy of Marian McMahon's article "Nursing History" which may be important to Janine's thesis project which involves studying her family history using photographs as her guide. Email was down all day at the university, making it a calmer environment. Met with Eric for a while and primarily talked about a superhero idea we initiated yesterday. It's based on an idea he pitched years ago to Incredible Story Studio and was accepted but then never made for reasons unknown. Of course our version will be a bit more twisted, but he's been doing the most work on it. Went home early, stopping at Safeway. Why do people try to back up into diagonal parking spots? They constrict the lane as they do it, then when they leave (supposedly easier) they are facing the wrong way down the row so are idiots twice with that one action. Is it that hard to back out of a spot? At home I moved all the dvds into my new shelf. Finally back in order (alphabetized by director except box sets and animation/superhero). I picked all the apples from our tree in time for my parents, Margaret's parents, George and the girls back from the farm, and Paul and Mike to arrive for desert. Margaret made pies. After everyone left, I processed all the apples and made apple sauce.

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This afternoon I went to a nutrition session which was supposed to tell me about tri-glycerides, a concern since my liver tests showed only that I have fat around my liver that could be a future problem. Instead, the session told me how to reduce my cholesterol (which is already low) and to eat more fiber (which I cannot do without dire physical consequences). There were about 20 people there and I really didn't feel like making a fuss then and there. On the way home I picked up some romance comics then made some worthwhile new Modern videos that Margaret was convinced were done with colour pencil and ink, even though every texture was digital. I was trying out some masks which are arranged to reveal out of phase versions of itself below itself. I made three that I'm happy with. Margaret was interviewed by reporters regarding the Cathedral Festival and showed off the Ghost Rider lantern than she made with William's help. It's cool.

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The sniffles and running nose that I had throughout Mexico (never mentioned it as it didn't bother me much) seems to be erupting into a cold. I'm totally shivery and achy. I'm trying to tell myself I'm on sugar withdrawal as I've tried to cut down since yesterday. In fact, out of the fortune in groceries I bought yesterday, zero dollars were spent on coke. I've only eaten a few slices of ultra-dark chocolate that contains virtually no sugar. Why am I doing this to myself? To see if I can I suppose. I am waiting for a callback from the dietitian to discuss how to bring the tri-glyceride level in my body down and prevent my liver from shutting down in 30 years, and I know what they are going to tell me ("You drink HOW MUCH pop???!!!???). I hate water, so sue me.
We met with William's teacher today, things are generally fine but for a few emotional outbursts that are nearly inexplicable except perhaps he is moody when there is no sunlight, like his mother. I got some good writing done on my next series of Youtube videos, I should be able to prepare the next 13 all in advance but there might be a delay in the first episode.

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First thing this morning I took a cab to the hospital for a twice rescheduled liver biopsy I needed to get done. It seems that my biliruben levels in my blood have been higher than average since at least 1990 (the first record my doctor had) and have been rising. He has been eliminating various problems one at a time and finally decided a physical test needed to be done. So what this meant was to first find the exact location of the liver using the CT scanner and capture a few images using that scanner (painless and easy) then with a local anesthetic applied (similar to the needle you'd get at the dentist) a one inch needle is inserted and a few more scans are done that give a bit more information (a bit painful, but mainly just from the initial anesthetic), and then the doctor takes two samples of the actual liver using a thick, four inch long needle tool that grabs a sample. The pieces are about a half inch long and a bit thinner than a standard pencil lead. This was not as painless. I then had to lie in the hospital for four hours to make sure they didn't hit something they shouldn't have (it's really close to the lung for example) and that the bleeding stops. Hurt for at least an hour. What hurt most was that the doctor wouldn't let me take pictures during the procedure, said he needed me to hold still. I imagine that is good, professional advice to prevent me from dying under his care, but who thinks about my professional mandate?



I'm supposed to take it easy for a couple of days. Sat down at the computer this afternoon when I got home to discover that my "Make Up Sex" video got 100 hits overnight. The other videos didn't see much action, so somehow this one got passed around. It is now my biggest seller, bringing my total hits for all my videos close to 1000.