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

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

a time to kill

Walk to End Alzheimers
click here to donate or join 
the organicgreendoctor.com team

click here to find your local 
walk 

WEAR PURPLE ON FRIDAY 
 

A TIME TO KILL
its time to kill your winter weeds
by treating them before they start growing
once they pop up out of the ground 
its too late to doing anything about stopping them 
except to manually pull them the out of the ground

its recommended not to use the weed and feed products 
that you see advertised at the big box stores and on 
tv and on the radio
those weed and feed contain chemicals such as atrazine
that is not good for the environment
its actually banned in europe canada and other countries
where the chemical companies dont have so much 
political influence

there are 3.3 million tons of atrazine dumped on the state 
of texas each year mostly via agriculture
it is found in most city water systems
(note my water system has 0 ppm of atrazine in it since i 
have a rainwater system so my frogs in my pond only have
two eyes and four legs)

if you follow the instructions and apply this stuff when its 
recommended it doesnt work as the weeds have already seeded
and started growing

so what do you do 

you add a product called corn gluten which is a by product of 
corn production
you can get it from your local nursery or feed store
it inhibits seed production 
if you want to know if it works just put some on your garden or
your yard then plant seeds or grass seeds 
you wont get any seed germination 

now in central texas is the time to apply corn gluten to your yard
before the winter weeds begin to germinate
then repeat the application again in february to control the 
spring weeds
you apply it like you would a fertilizer and water it in so 
the yellow color is washed away
this gets it into the soil

the corn gluten also acts as a mild organic fertilizer
spill some on your yard and see how green it will get in that spot

so dont weed and feed just corn gluten your yard
for the sake of your kids and your frogs

SEEDING TIME

















if you live in central texas its time to put out wildflower seeds 
so they will have time to sprout before the spring

you can get them from your local nursery but i get mine 
from the native american seed company 
another source is the wildseed farms

to sow them its a good idea to rake up bare spots in your yard
sow the seeds then rake them in then walk all over them as 
this pushes them into the soil
then let mother nature do the rest

you can just sow them about your yard but youll get better 
seed germination by doing it this way and 
in the spring it will be worth it 

i have noticed that some of my bluebonnets have already popped
up out of the ground

the organicgreen doctor

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

dont give up

Walk to End Alzheimers
click here to donate or join 
the organicgreendoctor.com team

click here to find your local 
walk 

WEAR PURPLE ON FRIDAY 


DONT GIVE UP
we all have dreams 
some of us are lucky enough to reach those dreams
im one of them 

i had always wanted to be a physician since middle school
well we called it junior high back then
however i was derailed on my first attempt at college
gpa was o as i dropped out before the semester was up

i floundered around for a few years then restarted school
part time then eventually went full time got my degree 
and eventually made to medical school


the other day as i was checking out of home depot
(i was buying pvc connections for my rainwater system)
i looked up and there was mike z and his mom with 
a load of boxes

mike z was one of my patients for several years
he was a good high school pitcher who went to college 
on a baseball scholarship

he and his twin brother went to jr college first
mike z had a good jr college career 
both eventually got scholarships to a four year school
mike z had a mediocre jr yr pitching then a slightly 
better senior year
he always wanted to play professional baseball
but no one came knocking on his door at graduation

most people would have given up but not mike z

the texas rangers have a try out day once a year at their
triple a team in round rock 
anyone who thinks they are good enough to play professional
baseball come to try out

hundreds of players of all ages shapes and sizes showed up 
how in the world do they find that diamond in the rough in that
mass of players

mike z showed up and dazzled them with his speed and pitches

he was picked as the only one of all those people that would 
get their chance to play professional ball

they asked him where have you been that no one has made 
you an offer to play 

those boxes were for his stuff from college as he has to pack
up to move to arizona for the winter rookie league for
the texas rangers

dont give up on your dreams 
mike z and i never did

the organicgreen doctor 

Monday, September 17, 2012

wwyd fight like hell

Walk to End Alzheimers
click here to donate or join 
the organicgreendoctor.com team

click here to find your local 
walk 

PURPLE DAY
this friday is alzheimers awareness day 
many businesses are going purple 
the employees are wearing purple to increase
awareness for this disease
austins skyline and other cities will have their
skylines lit up purple for this day 
so 
wear purple on friday 

WWYD FIGHT LIKE HELL
we all know what wwjd means
but wwyd
means what would you do 
if you or your family or your wife or your daughter
or your friend was faced with this situation

wwyd



this is about lindsay jones who was an avid runner
and wife and librarian
she was a big runner and had ran some marathons
she was a wife and was excited that finally after trying
for awhile she was pregnant 
and she was a librarian
not any librarian
one of those special librarians that you remember and 
who finds ways to encourage kids to read

my wife had an occasion to interact with her once
she teaches in an alternative high school and was trying to 
find an elementary school to let her students skype and interact
with elementary kids 
none of the librarians at the more than 30 schools in the district
would agree to do this except for lindsay jones
both the high school kids and elementary kids enjoyed the 
experience

lindsay was not afraid to try things different
my wife was so impressed with lindsay jones and was saddened
as she followed her story over the next months
her online journals were hard to read sometime

i had trouble reading them knowing what was coming

lindsay jones was so excited that she was pregnant as she 
and her husband had wanted a child for awhile
she was doing everything right to stay healthy

then at about 20 weeks of her pregnancy she was told that she 
had melanoma
melanoma can be simple-remove the lesion and if caught early 
you are essentially cured
if caught later it can spread and can be more difficult to treat

hers was the latter
she needed aggressive cancer treatment 
the problem there was a good chance that the fetus would
be harmed

she had a choice 
a difficult choice to make

undergo cancer treatment with the effects of chemo on her and 
her fetus with the risk that the fetus would be permanently harmed
she would survive though or she might not

terminate the pregnancy at this time and undergo chemo to save
her life

continue the pregnancy and hold off chemo and treatment until 
the baby was born

you see sometimes pregnancy does funny things to the bodys 
immune system 
people with rheumatoid arthritis will have it go away until after
the baby is born 
people with latent tb will have it become activated and tb infection 
can harm the mom and the baby 
melanoma could it be more aggressive because of pregnancy 

wwyd

this is one of those tough choices that patients have to make 
sometimes and
as a physician you have to be non judgemental in whatever
decision that is made
despite your own political or religious or personal views

your job is to be supportive and when the decision is made on 
what to do you have to make sure that patient gets the best
care thats available 

because there is no good answer to this 

ive thought about this a lot as a father and as a physician and 
im not sure what i would do if this was my daughter or my 
daughterinlaw or my sister or my wife
but whatever decision was made i would be there for her

her best chance to live is to terminate the pregnancy and undergo
chemo as soon as possible
waiting 5 months with a pregnancy suppressed immune system 
could be fatal
she if she survived the chemo and the disease could try again later

doing chemo with the pregnancy could lead to her survival but there
is a good chance the baby would be born with problems or could die
in utero

lindsay jones made the choice
to complete the pregnancy then immediately undergo chemo and 
cancer treatment
she decided to fight like hell and that she could beat this melanoma

she delivered a healthy baby girl named reece
lindsay underwent treatment but after several months she died last
october

she fought like hell to beat this melanoma 
she did have a year with her daughter
her daughter will grow up without her mom 
but her mom gave her that gift
that gift of life

wwyd

here are links to her story

the organicgreen doctor