Well, I don't have an ulcer or tumor or any blockage. The doctor thinks I might have gastroparesis (also called a lazy stomch) because there was still food in my tummy when he did the endoscopy. After 9-10 hours of not eating, there shouldn't have been anything there.

But you know, I don't think I have gastroparesis. As I read about it online, symptoms such as feeling full right away are definitely, definitely not me. For example there is also usually some weight loss which, for better or worse, is not me.

Why then was there still some food/mucus in my stomach? I don't know.

Bu we're going to find out because he ordered a "gastric emptying study". Basically I'll be fed some food containing a "label", something like radioactive eggs with mayonnaise. You may have already had that at Denny's. If you'd also had some some sensitive film handy with which to document your stomach wrestling with said food, you could have done your own gastric emptying study!

(Egg picture borrowed from here and nuclear power plant picture borrowed from here. Great photography on both sites.)

So in a few weeks my stomach will perform a slow motion, gurgly, slightly radioactive race. Then we'll know for sure. I think it's something else, but who knows what.

All I do know is that I think I've had enough health problems for one lifetime, and as soon as I can trade this body in for a new one, I'm there.



Ghost In The Shell Movie Intro Credits

--One can of no-chicken noodle soup, two slices of bread, and a glass of water, which I finished exactly at midnight. Now I get to descend for nine hours into a hypoglycemic, ulcerous burning wonderland of no food.

I should really go to bed now, but I'm not tired. :-/

I'm more worried about not having food until 11am than I am about the EGD, which should be a walk in the park.

I wonder if it's just me, but every Western Digital "My Book" external drive product has failed on me. As we speak, I'm copying my last remaining My Book onto a new drive, hoping to get all the data before it fails completely.

To be fair, it doesn't seem to be the actual drive that fails -- it's the USB connection. They get to a point where you have to wiggle the usb cable to just the right position for the drive to work. I'm not sure how or why this happens; I don't move these around or travel with them.

The last time this happened, I excavated the physical drive from it's failing plastic cage and popped it into an external drive enclosure. Saving the drive for an extra $40 was a deal, never mind the ability to use the enclosure for other drives if needed. (Right now, the drive I'm actually copying to is the rescued WD in the Thermaltake enclosure.)

So anyway I think this will be the last "My Book" product that I'll buy -- though with drives, it seems to vary over time which manufacturers are putting out the best product

I don't mean to complain all the time. I just had some hummus, and it was quite good. And traffic wasn't bad today while I was doing chores!

So, nowadays I automatically pay the full balance on my credit card because I've vowed never to let myself again get in debt. And I have my bill pay service set up to automatically pay it.

I was keeping an eye on my bill, because I wanted to take any extra money I had this month and buy some more stock. But though the bill was due, my account was reading that no money was due.

I had a funny feeling that maybe they were letting me keep a balance on the account for a month so they could charge me interest the following month -- and so I manually paid it. Well, that wasn't the case apparently, the bill came in, and I ended up paying the bill twice thus resulting in a credit balance on the account. Silly me, but here's where it gets fun.

I just called the credit card company to determine what the easiest way to retrieve my balance would be. The phone representative indicated that I could receive a check and it would take about 7 days. That's fine. I asked if it would be possible for me to get a cash advance on the money at a bank instead, since that would be faster. She responded, "Sure you could do that, but keep in mind that the higher rate would apply." Higher rate for what? She explained again, something nonsensical that I can't even remember. I was silent for several moments as I tried to re-phrase my question. And sensing my confusion she explained again, "The interested rate on a cash advance is 22 percent."

I just told her to send me the check and hung up. Now that I'm off the phone I can finally phrase the question in my head, "How exactly do I payoff the cash advance amount when there is no actual amount due?"

It's all I can do sometimes not to be overwhelmed with a general hatred of people. More and more I go into encounters with others just assuming the worst and feeling lucky if there is any acceptable outcome whatsoever. I mean, the conversation could easily have gone, "Bank of America retains all account credits as per page 459 of your terms of service. If you dispute this, you're welcome to hire a lawyer, which you probably can't afford, to combat our extensive team of well-paid lawyers. Well-paid in part that is with your generous account credit... Is there anything else I can help you with today?"

I don't always feel this way, and to be fair big business is worse that individuals. But geeze, sometimes I look around and think that as a society we should be a little better than this.

I've heard that there are two types of gun people: the ones that like the big slow bullets, and the ones that like little fast bullets.

(On a side note, Dawn says there are two types of people in general: those that divide people into two types, and those that don't.)

I'm a little and fast girl myself (that occasionally divides people into types). That being said, could this be my next gun purchase?