welcome to the organic green doctor blog

i am a family physician who was diagnosed with
early mild cognitive impairment(mci) amnestic type on december 21, 2010
this is a precursor to alzheimers disease
because of this diagnosis i have opted to stop practicing medicine
this blog will be about my journey with this disease
please feel free to follow me along this path
i will continue blogging on organic gardening, green living,
solar power, rainwater collection, and healthy living
i will blog on these plus other things noted to be interesting

Friday, March 9, 2012

rip, rosemary, update, whew


RIP
rip leslie cochran
the iconic keep austin weird guy
there will never be another one
we have pictures of him in his thong and high heels
heck he even got 30% of the vote for mayor once
wouldnt that have been fun if he had won
talk about keeping austin weird
it would have been downhill after that

do rip leslie
you gave us all memories
helped us forget for a few minutes what else was
happening in the world
well all miss you
well try to keep austin weird in your memory

(for those who dont know who leslie was here is
an article from the austin american statesman)

ROSEMARY

this is about the plant and not some person
a researcher took people and put them in a room with the
scent of rosemary in the room
the chemical is called 1 8 cineole that makes that distinctive odor

those who were in the room with the rosemary did better on
math quizzes than those who did the quizzes in a room without
the rosemary chemical

in one test they did those subtract seven tests
100-7=93-7=85
oops didnt smell my rosemary this am

maybe using rosemary might help someone with
mild cognitive impairment or alzheimers disease

think i reach over and grab a rosemary branch as i walk out
my door each morning
and
maybe ill put a sprig in my pocket when i go back for my
annual followup for the adni study next month in dallas

UPDATE
was asked a lot recently how im doing so heres an update

i still notice some subtle changes on memory that are not
noticeable to others even my wife she

i function normally doing all the things i like to do and some i
dont like to do like dishes washing etc

i am still on aricept (donepezil) and have noticed fewer of the
side effects as i use to-no nausea, less leg cramps, less restlessness
but still have some problems with sleep which i compensate by
doing a short noon nap (just try to call me after lunch)

hopefully this is not the calm before the storm or
hopefully im not gettting a placebo pill that the manufacturer
is screwing up on

i keep up with alzheimers research and whats happening with
alzheimers and try to write about some of it here in this blog

my annual visit is next month where i will do a 1 year follow up on
the alzheimers disease nuclear imaging initiative
adni
it was started about 6 months after i was diagnosed
so i have a baseline that was done 18 months ago

i will have a neuropsychological exam, blood work by the gallons
a neurological evaluation and a mri scan

its another year before i get a spinal tap again
(know my wife she is looking forward to that one since
she fainted last time-how could she do that when she
was way down the hall and didnt ever see or hear
anything-guess she just cares a lot)

also in a year i will get the beta amyloid pet scan and the
glucose metabolism pet scan done
well something to look forward to there

what i realize is clichéc but
you have to seize the moment
each day i do what i like to do (except for the dishes) and try to enjoy the day

maybe thats what everyone should be doing huh

WHEW
well i know i told everyone dont get your plants yet and
stick them in the ground cause the cold weather will come
back and get your plants
dont succumb to the good weather fever

i went to my favorite organic nursery to get some good garden
soil for a project here and for the square foot garden im doing for
the habitat home owner

oh my goodness omg those tomato plants were so beautiful
just run your hands across those plants and then smell your hands
man i could do calculus in my head after doing that
didnt need no rosemary for this

those peppers egg plants herbs
sorry i just couldnt help myself
i bought all the plants i needed for my garden then went home
it was so nice and warm then
i said to myself
dont do it dont do it
remember your potatoes just got nipped by the frost this week
so
i didnt plant them in the ground but instead put them in my little
greenhouse with my heater and decided to wait

am glad i did or they would look like my taters do now
all black and shrivelled up (dont worry theyll come back out)

guess i learned my lesson after the last 10 years of planting my
maters too early
maybe ill plant them next weekend or the next

the organicgreen doctor

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