Because I was too wiped out to remember to put them in yesterday’s entry.

First and foremost, Team Eccentrica is officially registered for the 2007 Seattle 3-Day. I’ll be walking, one of the other diners in our group at The Herbfarm on Saturday is going to be joining me, and a veterinarian that I know through VIN who works in Seattle is interested. Anyone else in? It’s bad craziness, but it’s good fun. The walk is September 7-9.

Also, for those to whom I have not had the chance to speak personally, the diagnosis is relatively benign. The MRI that was done about 10 days ago confirmed that the “lesion” in my liver is a fat deposit (oh great, I really do have a chubby liver), and pending results of further biopsies and more specific pancreatic function tests that will be done this week, the working diagnosis is irritable bowel syndrome.
You want some fun? Go to WebMD and search “Irritable Bowel Syndrome”. Better, go to Google and Google “Irritable Bowel Syndrome”. As a not very well defined syndrome that affects a great number of people around the world you can pick up some truly fascinating information and treatment options for IBS on the web. This isn’t something like an abscess where cause and treatment are fairly cut and dried. This is more like organized religion where certain believers worship one way, other believers worship another and both parties are convinced that the other side is going to go directly to Hell.

Pretty much the only constants that I’ve found are:
1. You are probably gluten intolerant and have Celiac Sprue even though your biopsies didn’t recognize it.
2. Dairy is bad.
3. You need to eat more fiber, and
4. All your problems can be solved if you only remember to drink a teaspoonful of apple cider vinegar before each meal.

Great, so I’ll be eating no wheat products, drinking no dairy, eating piles of raw vegetable matter that I can’t digest but it’s okay because it’s fiber and fiber is good for IBS, and it doesn’t matter anyway so long as I remember to drink my vinegar. 🙁
Have you ever actually tried to drink straight vinegar? It’s really difficult and allow me a word of advice: DON’T CHOKE ON IT.

Actually I’m fairly upbeat about the whole situation. Having a name to put to the tummy weasels and a (or several) potential courses to follow to solve or at least control the problem, has really helped.
I’d still love a salad though. Oh, and I’m not giving up dairy regardless of what all the web sites say. In my case the tummy weasels seem to like milk and I truly LOATHE soy and rice milk.