utenzi

It's weird. My legs don't look all that bad. The poison ivy is very mild. The chigger bites I've gotten are bothering me more than the ivy. Helping in this fight is using better drugs. For the first time I actually went to a doctor right away. She prescribed a strong steroid based anti-itch cream and also advised me to pick up a over-the-counter foam type cleanser designed for poison ivy contact. It really helps. A factor for the future is a bug repellant I can leave in my car. I usually use sprays but due to the heat this summer I wasn't willing to risk leaving a pressurized can in my car. Having a DEET 40 pump spray just for the car solves the problem---and will hopefully keep chiggers away and insects too. Since I'm going to be going tubing down the Dan River this weekend with a local hiking group (apparently we should call it a hiking and floating group now) I'll be able to give the bug spray a try in just a couple of days. Before we do the Dan River we'...

This isn't the type of ring typically bandied about on St Valentine's Day. You're not going to catch anyone slipping one of these rings into a piece of cake for some unsuspecting young thing to chip teeth on. This is the kind of ring that we test angiogenesis drugs with. It's in the bottom right hand corner. (By decreasing angiogenesis---the formation of new blood vessels---you can control the growth of cancer tumors) One of the ways we test these drugs is using a CAM (Chorioallantoic Membrane assay) model. The drugs that are developed using this, as well as mouse models, might one day go into human clinical trials---and eventually be marketed as breast cancer oriented chemotherapy drugs. That's our goal, at least. In the meantime, it's a neat picture. If you're into pictures of blood vessels and chicken eggs. I hope it's not bad luck to show chicken parts on Friday the 13th!

Trial test of Zolpidem, a type of generic Ambien, 10 mg. Took one tablet at 1:50am, read uintil 2:27am, turned lights out and went to sleep soonafter. I woke up with a smooth transition at 8:22am. This was slightly odd for two reasons, I usually wake immediately, it's like I have an onn\off switch, and also 6 hours of sleep is out at the very edge of what I normally get. As a result, I'd say that the Zolpidem did work though not with the exterme action that I've often heard ascribed to Ambien. I'll give it another shot tonight and see how well I sleep Sunday morning. Up to this point, a placebo would probably give similar results. I'm going hiking in 4 hours so I'll probaly post a picture of two from that later on. Or maybe some cooking/baking experiment should one of those seem photo worthy.

I seem to be thinking about sweet things a lot lately. Must be the holidays, huh? Yesterday's post about the wintergreen patties was just the tip of the iceberg. What do you think about this recipe for Molasses cookies? I don't have any molasses on hand but since I need to make a run to Wal-mart to pick up a prescription for two drugs that my doctor prescribed for me yesterday, I can grab the molasses while I'm there. And look for some wintergreen flavoring too. And since I've already bought the fixings for no bake cookies , it's shaping up to be a very sweet weekend. In my defense, somehow I managed to lose 5.5 pounds during the 8 days I was wondering around the southeast last week. I can't explain the weight loss since I certainly managed to eat a fair amount of food. Hmmm. I weighed in at 207 yesterday morning whereas I was 212.5 before I left. Maybe driving burns a lot of calories? That must be why all those long-haul truck drivers are so svelte. LOL Get...

Don't smoke it, chew it!