Actually, I guess it is bad. I got back my sleep study results today. 41 apneas in 90 snoring incidents. That’s pretty bad, appearently. My blood Oxygen got as low as 80% — normal is around 90%. Guess I need to get that CPAP pronto!

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Now that the meth-addled masses have forced the adoption of the new Sudafed PE and it’s generic alternatives, I find it interesting that the new pill is not being more carefully marketed by the drug companies.

I see that they would want to minimize the noticeable impact of the change. They want people who took Sudafed to consider the “PE” version to be completely interchangeable. So they made it look exactly the same. The same small red pill. Only, you are only suppose to take 1 of the new pills, while the dose for standard Sudafed was always 2 pills.

The brand-name Sudafed does have decent labeling indicating this dosage (see above link), but the store-brands do not. I must admit, I double dosed on the stuff several times before noticing the change. I imagine many others are doing the same, many of whom probably don’t even realize they are taking something different from the Sudafed they’ve taken for years.

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Seth is again raising fund as part of his participation in the Pan-Mass Challenge. This event raises a tremendous amount for cancer research, and Seth is dedicated to doing his part — not just for the ride, but because he’s sick of cancer. As a cancer survivor, I encourage anyone who can to support his efforts. I’ve added a link to Seth’s fundraising page on the right column of the website, which I’ll leave up until after the event.

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NPR had an interesting piece this morning on Chimera twins (Audio)…a phenomenon that I had not heard of. Apparently, sometimes two fertilized eggs, that would normally be destined to become fraternal twins, can merge very early in the process and produce a single child — with two people’s DNA.

In the piece, they spoke with a 60 year old woman who is a chimera. This was discovered after she was in need of a kidney transplant, and testing of her three children indicated they were not her children. Ultimately, after a lot of testing, doctors realized that she had two distinct sets of genes, ie, the DNA in her blood was different than that in her thyroid, bladder and many other organs. It so happens she passed along the genes that were not in her blood to her children.

They were saying that more and more chimera’s are being discovered worldwide since the advent of widespread DNA testing — but that it’s not clear how many are really out there…and it potentially raises a lot of questions about the validity of DNA testing in some situations. Very interesting stuff.

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I’ve been reading over some of Bryan Buck’s Weblog this morning. Bryan’s going to cancer treatment, and keeping a public journal of his journey. It’s an interesting read.

I’m a cancer survivor, having had stage IIB Hodgkin’s Disease back in 1990 ( actually got the diagnosis the week of my 21st B-day, joy! ). Had I had this journal then I’m sure I’d have posted some on it about the treatment. Of course, if I had this journal and wireless Internet access while I was sitting around waiting on doctors at NIH while I went through treatment, I’d probably be having trouble with database bloat on my webserver.

I don’t spend a lot of time reflecting on my treatment, and the fact that I am a cancer survivor. That speaks volumes about how far medicine has come in the last 20-30 years…it’s not quite such a unique thing to be a cancer survivor anymore. I hope Bryan joins our ranks soon.

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Well, I’m not entirely sure I believed the scale this morning — but it read 253 just the same. That would mean I lost 10 lbs. in my first week. I don’t think that’s quite right, but I think I am headed in the right direction at least.

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While 2001 was great for me in many ways, it was not so great for my health. While I was already headed up the scales, I put on a lot of sympathy weight during Kt’s pregnancy…and it’s really out of control. I’ve gained over 30 lbs in the last year. Got to get the weight back down.

So, starting today, I’m on a diet. I’m actually going to try Slim Fast for a month or two to get a jump start, and I’ll be exercising before work in the morning…not a lot, but you got to start somewhere.

My starting weight today is 263 lbs. Wish me luck.

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