Barium, barium (TMI). Close eyes if squeamish!

Fasted (mostly clear fluids, except for a 1/2 c "smoothie" (fruit drink) in the morning and in the afternoon and evening 1 c beef broth with 1/2 VGo (veg juice). Drank 1.5 l water from 1o am to 4 pm. (Can't skip diabetes meds.) At 4 pm took liquid laxative as prescribed. Drank another 1.5 l water. At 7 pm took the 2 laxative pills as prescribed. Stopped all intake at 10 pm. Had gas and poops all night.

At 8 am took prescribed laxative suppository (burny burny). Arrived at clinic at 9:45 am for test. Was admitted one hour later. One tech stayed with me and helped a lot. Dr. said the laxatives (3 different ones!) hadn't worked too well. Submitted to very invasive and uncomfortable test. Left and had nice lunch in quiet restaurant.

Got to 'hood about 2 pm. Checked in to 'hood thrift shop and looked around for a bit, then felt a bit urgent need to go. Got home 2 minutes later (ran all the way; better to run home than make mess in retail store). Undressed in tub. Threw out jeans, socks, underwear, washcloth, due to urgency. Not the best day evar, as they say.

"old therapy" not

"TORONTO, ON -- August 23, 1999 -- GlucoNorm® (repaglinide), the first in a new class of oral anti-diabetic agents for Type 2 diabetes, has received regulatory clearance from the Therapeutic Products Programme of Health Canada."

Hmm. My then-GP told me it had been available for about 60 years. I have never googled it until today. OK, now I'm pissed. I'm starting my apple cider vinegar regimen tonight, it makes just as much sense.

Finally---medical evidence that diabetes intervention doesn't work!

Just kidding. "The major environmental factors that increase the risk of type 2 diabetes, presumably in the setting of genetic risk, are overnutrition and a sedentary lifestyle, with consequent overweight and obesity." This is part of a Medscape article that describes the difficulty in medical control of hyperglycemia (high blood sugar). It's pretty arcane in that it is written for medical professionals, but educated laypersons can get the gist. What your GP and endo usually recommend or prescribe doesn't work, long term. What does work is continuing education, which boosts motivation to follow the regimen. Dat's all, folks.

You need to register for this site but you get regular e-mail updates when new articles are published: http://www.medscape.com/ Lots of articles are pretty interesting, and most if not all of it is free. It's not as bland or uninformative as the Canadian Diabetes Association web site (ugh!). I'm not even gonna reference it. "See your doctor, see your doctor." Yeah, sure.

For people living with diabetes, Joslin (http://www.joslin.org/) is better. Lots more articles and research.

my current favourite authors

One of my qualifications for mystery/legal/police procedure fiction authors is their re-readability. I traded a whole bunch of Dennis Lehane and George Pelecanos novels because, while I enjoyed them the first time and admired the writing immensely, I found them too hard-boiled, hard-timed, hard-assed to keep on my shelves.

Here are some writers whose volumes I will keep:

• Lee Child -- the Jack Reacher series. Hot, violent, well-written, sexy; otherwise indescribable. Here's a durable quote, between Reacher and a femme fatale who has set him up for a beating: "I don't mind the sight of blood," she said. "I'm sure you don't," Reacher said. "One week in four, it makes you feel mighty relieved."
• Peter Abrahams -- all his stuff so far, even one I bought by mistake for "young adult" readers (heroine is 13--the Echo Falls stuff, praised by the prolific Stephen King himself).
• Michael Gruber -- he wrote most of the Butch Karp legal suspense novels, and you can tell by the change in authorship in the later versions when he left off (he and Tanenbaum are first cousins). I don't know who does Robert K. Tanenbaum's ghost writing these days but it's not in the same class at all. Gruber's 3 Jimmy Paz novels and his subsequent The Book of Air were compelling. And I have nearly preordered his latest. Will soon commit.
• Ed McBain -- I have avoided his oeuvre for many years, don't know why. He's erudite and intelligent. But I have read only one of his non-Matthew Hope novels and skipped about 3 pages of the denouement of one; the other was a non-Matthew Hope, non-87th Precinct called Doors, and I have yet to read any of the police/detective novels. Hey, I've just started, OK??
• Dorothy L. Sayers -- long dead. But she's the best and original, after the dry Wilkie Collins and insufferable Edgar Allan Poe. And I like that she taught herself medieval Italian to support a thesis.
• Nelson Demille -- John Corey should be a movie hero by now. You'll love this guy. And all his other guys.
• Thomas Perry -- another potential movie guy. Why can't Jane Whitefield, The Butcher's Boy, or Chinese Gordon be heroes?

I'm going by the stacks on my dresser, before I move them to their semi-permanent places in the "library."

mothers and computers

When Mom told me she wanted to get a computer, I laughed. Then I thought, that's really BRAVE of her -- she knows almost nothing about Interwebs and stuff. But she'd been to an Internet class at the local library, and people had been sending her their e-mail address, which she couldn't use -- and she ABSOLUTELY HATES not "being in the know" about stuff. For example, being without a computer or a local bookstore or even the local library, she needed (not just WANTED) to learn about human dreaming and possible interpretations, for her self-esteem. You see, she'd registered for a "dream weekend" sponsored by the local church (United) and several pastors and lay persons. She enjoyed it a lot, and I was surprised to learn that both sexes and ages from 20 to 70s attended. But what she learned from dream interpretation was nil. She also asked me if I knew what a "boog" was. Turns out to be "blog" for which I won't give her THIS location! Once, before a long drive, she wanted to hear Paul Simon's "Rhythm of the Saints" CD. So we listened to it on the road. When I asked if she liked it, she said, "Oh, if people ask me if I've heard it, now I can say I have."

She's pretty deaf (not DEF), for which I've scolded and pleaded with her to get her hearing aids updated (progressive hearing loss runs in the family, AUGH!) And, at age 75 (76 this May) she doesn't think of herself as elderly...

Making lists

I like to make lists; some are things I want to do within a certain time frame ("this weekend"). Others are ones I want to accomplish ("upholster dining room chairs; put together wood-and-iron bench"). My best thing is to list what I've already done along with items I want to do ("handwash, other items to drycleaner; coin wraps to bank; cats to vet"). It feels comforting.

I also use a multitude of blank books to make these lists (gardening, cleaning, projects, editors' association, diabetes issues/challenges, sundry expenses, decorating ideas and plans). I'm glad I have a house to hold them all...

Catch-up with items and more...

My two youngest fools (Fiasco T. Peabrain and Handsome Stranger) were packed into the carrier this morning and driven to the vet for their annual checkup. Since all my four cats are indoor items, my vet agreed to restrict their shots to rabies (3 years' duration) only. We had a nasty story about puppies at a "flea market," sold to unsuspecting owners, that died from rabies this year. Anyone who touched them had to get rabies shots. The mother of the pups died from rabies last year after a fight with a rabid skunk. Gee, and they couldn't guess?

I refused to sort out Peabo and/or Handsome poopies from the five litterboxes to bring in samples, but they (the poopies) don't deviate from the norm. But the kittens (so termed to distinguish them from the older girls, who USED to be the "kittens") both have gingivitis, which I could see from the reddish lines on their gums. It's only about 950 CAD to to treat them both in the next month... AUGH! Both the boys are just under 10 lbs, quadruple their weight from their initial visits. All the cats eat only Medi-Cal preventive formula.

Earth Hour (March 29, 2008, 8-9 pm) is gaining ground in this city (Toronto) and around the world. I can't do much more than I usually do (power bars off, compact fluorescent bulbs everywhere possible, cold-water washes and limited electric clothes drying).

The Toronto Star suggests not using the car for a week. Two years ago I didn't use my car for two months, so the parking brake froze. I had to call a cab to get me, a box of used books, and my laundry to where I wanted to go. The taxi driver told me how to fix it for free (take off the wheel covers and bang a two-by-four with a hammer against the rims). I already take public transit nearly every day (and get a good tax deduction for buying a TTC monthly pass).

Google's adsense is making some money for me, but maybe not this year ($1.17 so far).