Tuesday, July 4, 2017

MEMORIES OF EMILY'S PASSING - IT'S BEEN 20 YEARS

 Emily at age 17 in 1996              Rebecca at age 23 in 1981

Friday, June 27, 1997 - I spent most of the day that day with my 18-year-old daughter, Emily. I had just bought a little rental house, and I showed it to her, and she was begging me to let her rent it from me and move away from home. We looked at other houses that day, too, and Emily was helping me pick out the next investment.

That evening, we rented and watched the movie Jerry Maguire and I made her cover her eyes while I fast forwarded through the sex scene at the beginning of the movie.



Sunday, June 29 - After church, Emily was up on the roof, cleaned out the gutters, which she volunteered to do. At one point, she was laying down on the roof with her head hanging over the edge, and I told her to stop fooling around before she fell off the roof and broke her neck.







Monday, June 30 - The four of us (Bill, me, 20-year-old son Barry and Emily) made plans to see My Best Friend's Wedding on Thursday. It was the last time that the four of us would sit in a room and talk. It was the last time we were a normal family. It was the last time I saw my daughter conscious.






Tuesday, July 1 - I left for work before Emily got out of bed that day. After working a while, I ran an errand, and when I got back to the office, I saw that Emily had left me a voice mail. "Hi, Mom - it's Emily. I just wanted to let you know that it's 2:00 and I'm leaving for work. I'll see you later. I love you. Bye!"

I listened to the message with my finger perched over the "delete" button on the phone. I started to push it, then I hesitated. I thought, "What if Emily gets killed in a car accident tonight, and this is the last time I will hear her voice? I'll be sorry later that I deleted it." I realized that it was just a morbid thought, and deleted the message.

I had been having thoughts like that for about 18 months. Every time she would leave the house, I would grab her and hug her and say, "I love you! I would die for you!" I always wanted it to be the last thing I said to her, just in case she died in a car accident. I did not treat my other family members this way - just Emily.

When she left to go to work that day, she never came home again.

Wednesday, July 2 - If we had not had the window air conditioner running, we would have been awakened by the sirens at 1:00 am. About a mile from our house, Emily, alone in her compact car and on her way home, swerved to miss a deer and lost control of the car. Her car went into a yaw, and spun into a telephone pole on the passenger's front door. The car wrapped around the pole and the pole struck her head.

We got the call at 2:15 am. We rushed to the hospital to find our daughter in a deep coma. She had brain surgery that day, but it was no use. She never woke up, and around 6:00 pm, the doctor told us that Emily had experienced brain death. We went to sleep at my father's house, because all the beds at my house, including mine, were occupied by family members from out of town who had rushed in to be with us.

Thursday, July 3 - Around 4:00 am, after not sleeping, I told my husband that we were going back to the hospital. We spent all day there, waiting for all the arrangements to be made for the four men who would receive Emily's vital organs. Between Wednesday and Thursday, there were at least 100 family members and friends in and out and just hanging around. At noon, the hospital told everyone to leave so that they could prepare Emily for surgery. Bill and Barry and I stayed.

Later that afternoon, we invited Emily's fiance to return and he came back for an hour or so.

In the evening, I held Emily in my arms one last time and told her about the surgery. I was so afraid that there was a chance that she was still "in there" but couldn't communicate with us and that she was terrified. All I could do was tell her not to be afraid and that she was going to go to heaven and be with God, and that it was going to be all right.

Finally, around 11:30 pm, we said goodbye and went home.



Friday, July 4 - I did not sleep. I stayed awake and called the hospital several times throughout those hours to see how the surgery was going. A wonderful nurse told me details and let me know when Emily's heart stopped beating. They removed her from life support just before dawn on the 4th of July, 1997.






Friday, July 15, 2016

THE 2016 CHALLENGE - WEEK 28 RESULTS

Rebecca on July 10, 2016


Today is the end of Week 28.


In the past week I have:
Lost 0.8 pounds
Lost 0" around my neck
Lost 1/4" around my waist
Lost 1/8" around my hips
Body fat from 31.7% to 31.2%
Lean mass from 68.3% to 68.8%
Feasted 4 days and fasted 3 days
Lifted weights 1 time
Did treadmill HIIT 1 time
Walked 1 mile 2 times

Since January 1, 2016, I have:

Lost 19 pounds
Lost 5/8" around my neck
Lost  3 3/4" around my waist
Lost 3 1/4" around my hips
Body fat from 39% to 31.2%
Lean mass from 61% to 68.8%
Feasted 125 days and fasted 71 days
Lifted weights 12 times
Did treadmill HIIT 16 times
Walked 3 miles 8 times
Walked 1 mile 4 times


THE RULES OF THIS CHALLENGE

Each day, I lower my goal weight by 0.2 pounds until I reach my goal of 130 pounds.

I weigh in each morning on the bathroom scale.  If my weight is at or below my goal for the day, I feast.  For me, that means a ketogenic diet - high fat, sufficient protein and very low carb.  If my weight is above my goal for the day, I fast.  For me, that means that all I will have that day is water, coffee, or tea, all without caloric sweeteners or fat.  

I'm posting every week to motivate myself not to give up, and if I think that anyone is looking at this, it will help to keep me accountable.


HOW IT WENT THIS PAST WEEK

It was a bouncy week.  I did well until my grandkids came for a visit and I needed to have a restaurant meal. Oh, well.

THE BIG DOCTOR VISIT

Bill and I leave tomorrow to see Dr. Jeffry Gerber near Denver Colorado.  Starting today, I have to take a week off my challenge to eat higher carb so that I can be assessed for diabetes.  This should be fun.  Not.


MY CHARTS

I made a few charts to track my progress.  On the first two charts, the grey line is my long term goal. The blue line is my actual weight.  I am showing two charts so I can see my progress since the beginning of the year, and also to get a close-up from the time I started again after my husband's heart attack in May 2016.

The third chart is a little heat map to show at a glance how often I have actually had to fast to achieve the results I am after. Click on any chart to enlarge it.



Below is my chart for the Body By Science "Big Five".  It shows the exercises I am doing, along with the weight, reps and TUL, which stands for Time Under Load.




This is my chart for treadmill HIIT, which shows that I am now up to 7.3 mph during the running portion.  I am going to keep pushing that up by 0.1 mph each time to see how fast I can go.  I will stop increasing the speed when I go flying off the treadmill!




This is my chart for walking:



There are three weeks remaining for this new challenge.  If I achieve my goal of 130 pounds with 25% body fat, I'm not sure where I will go from there.


This is a personal challenge just for me, but if anyone reading would like to join me, please talk to your doctor and make sure that it will not conflict with your current medical condition or medications.  If you are taking the challenge, please be sure to let me know how you are doing!  Thanks for reading, and don't forget to check out my closed Facebook group, where a growing group of individuals are using my Fasting Protocol to lose weight, lower blood glucose and raise insulin sensitivity.



Friday, July 8, 2016

THE 2016 CHALLENGE - WEEK 27 RESULTS


Today is the end of Week 27.

In the past week I have:
Gained 0.6 pounds
Lost 0" around my neck
Gained 5/8" around my waist
Gained 1/8" around my hips
Body fat from 30.8% to 31.7%
Lean mass from 69.2% to 68.3%
Feasted 5 days and fasted 2 days
Lifted weights 0 times
Did treadmill HIIT 0 times
Walked 1 mile 2 times




Since January 1, 2016, I have:

Lost 18.2 pounds
Lost 5/8" around my neck
Lost  3 1/2" around my waist
Lost 3 1/8" around my hips
Body fat from 39% to 31.7%
Lean mass from 61% to 68.3%
Feasted 121 days and fasted 68 days
Lifted weights 11 times
Did treadmill HIIT 15 times
Walked 3 miles 8 times
Walked 1 mile 2 times


THE RULES OF THIS CHALLENGE

Each day, I lower my goal weight by 0.2 pounds until I reach my goal of 130 pounds.

I weigh in each morning on the bathroom scale.  If my weight is at or below my goal for the day, I feast.  For me, that means a ketogenic diet - high fat, moderate protein and very low carb.  If my weight is above my goal for the day, I fast.  For me, that means that all I will have that day is water, coffee, or tea, all without caloric sweeteners or fat.  

I'm posting every week to motivate myself not to give up, and if I think that anyone is looking at this, it will help to keep me accountable.


HOW IT WENT THIS PAST WEEK

I had something really weird happen this past week.  First of all, I had company staying at my house for four days, making it difficult to fast.  So I didn't while they were here.  After the first day, I gained 2.2 pounds.  grrr.  The next day, I gained 1.4 pounds.  GRRR.  And the day after that, I gained a whopping 4.6 pounds!  This happened from eating what appeared to be a low carb meal at a restaurant, but it must have been filled with hidden sugars and LOTS of sodium.  Within one hour of leaving the restaurant, my ankles were swollen, and by the next morning, my face, hands and belly had joined the bloat party.  Obviously, this was all water, not fat, and certainly not muscle!

So I gained 8.2 pounds of water weight in three days.  The last day of my company's visit, I fasted for the first half of the day, ate a sensible dinner (and was able to turn down the ice cream that everyone was having!), and then I fasted two days in a row.  In those three days, I lost exactly 8.2 pounds.  Phew!

This morning, I am 0.6 pounds above my goal, so I'm fasting again, but I feel totally back on track.


MY CHARTS

I made a few charts to track my progress.  On the first two charts, the grey line is my long term goal. The blue line is my actual weight.  The red line is my 7-day average.   I am showing two charts so I can see my progress since the beginning of the year, and also to get a close-up from the time I started again after my husband's heart attack in May 2016.

The third chart is a little heat map to show at a glance how often I have actually had to fast to achieve the results I am after. Click on any chart to enlarge it.



Below is my chart for the Body By Science "Big Five".  It shows the exercises I am doing, along with the weight, reps and TUL, which stands for Time Under Load.


This is my chart for treadmill HIIT, which shows that I am now up to 7.2 mph during the running portion.  I am going to keep pushing that up by 0.1 mph each time to see how fast I can go.  I will stop increasing the speed when I go flying off the treadmill!


This is my chart for walking:



There are four weeks remaining for this new challenge.  If I achieve my goal of 130 pounds with 25% body fat, I'm not sure where I will go from there.


This is a personal challenge just for me, but if anyone reading would like to join me, please talk to your doctor and make sure that it will not conflict with your current medical condition or medications.  If you are taking the challenge, please be sure to let me know how you are doing!  Thanks for reading, and don't forget to check out my closed Facebook group, where a growing group of individuals are using my Fasting Protocol to lose weight, lower blood glucose and raise insulin sensitivity.


Thursday, July 7, 2016

MY LOW CARB ROAD IS NOW ON FACEBOOK

A few days ago, I started a closed Facebook group to give support to individuals who want to try the fasting protocol that I designed back in January 2016.

This blog will continue as always, but you can also find me on a daily basis on Facebook.


Friday, July 1, 2016

THE 2016 CHALLENGE - WEEK 26 RESULTS


Today is the end of Week 26.

In the past week I have:
Lost 4.4 pounds
Lost 0" around my neck
Lost 3/4" around my waist
Lost 3/8" around my hips
Body fat from 32.2% to 30.8%
Lean mass from 67.8% to 69.2%
Feasted 4 days and fasted 3 days
Lifted weights 1 time
Did treadmill HIIT 1 time
Walked 3 miles 2 times




Since January 1, 2016, I have:

Lost 18.8 pounds
Lost 5/8" around my neck
Lost  4 1/8" around my waist
Lost 3 3/4" around my hips
Body fat from 39% to 30.8%
Lean mass from 61% to 69.2%
Feasted 117 days and fasted 66 days
Lifted weights 11 times
Did treadmill HIIT 15 times
Walked 3 miles 8 times


THE RULES OF THIS CHALLENGE

Each day, I lower my goal weight by 0.2 pounds until I reach my goal of 130 pounds.

I weigh in each morning on the bathroom scale.  If my weight is at or below my goal for the day, I feast.  For me, that means a ketogenic diet - high fat, moderate protein and very low carb.  If my weight is above my goal for the day, I fast.  For me, that means that all I will have that day is water, coffee, or tea, all without caloric sweeteners or fat.  

I'm posting every week to motivate myself not to give up, and if I think that anyone is looking at this, it will help to keep me accountable.


HOW IT WENT THIS PAST WEEK

In the past three days, my weight has stayed stable even though I have been feasting.  Today is three feasts in a row!  I keep waiting for the customary bounce up, but it hasn't happened yet.  It would be great if this trend continued!


MY CHARTS

I made a few charts to track my progress.  On the first two charts, the grey line is my long term goal. The blue line is my actual weight.  The red line is my 7-day average.   I am showing two charts so I can see my progress since the beginning of the year, and also to get a close-up from the time I started again after my husband's heart attack in May 2016.

The third chart is a little heat map to show at a glance how often I have actually had to fast to achieve the results I am after. Click on any chart to enlarge it.



Below is my chart for the Body By Science "Big Five".  It shows the exercises I am doing, along with the weight, reps and TUL, which stands for Time Under Load.


This is my chart for treadmill HIIT, which shows that I am now up to 7.2 mph during the running portion.  I am going to keep pushing that up by 0.1 mph each time to see how fast I can go.  I will stop increasing the speed when I go flying off the treadmill!


This is my chart for walking:



There are five weeks remaining for this new challenge.  If I achieve my goal of 130 pounds with 25% body fat, I'm not sure where I will go from there.


This is a personal challenge just for me, but if anyone reading would like to join me, please talk to your doctor and make sure that it will not conflict with your current medical condition or medications.  If you are taking the challenge, please be sure to let me know how you are doing!  Thanks for reading!

Friday, June 24, 2016

THE 2016 CHALLENGE - WEEK 25 RESULTS


 Today is the end of Week 25.

In the past week I have:
Gained 3 pounds
Gained 0" around my neck
Gained 3/8" around my waist
Gained 1/2" around my hips
Body fat from 31.4% to 32.2%
Lean mass from 68.6% to 67.8%
Feasted 6 days and fasted 1 day
Lifted weights 1 time
Did treadmill HIIT 1 time
Walked 3 miles 0 times


Since January 1, 2016, I have:

Lost 14.4 pounds

Lost 5/8" around my neck
Lost  3 3/8" around my waist
Lost 2 7/8" around my hips
Body fat from 39% to 32.2%
Lean mass from 61% to 67.8%
Feasted 112 days and fasted 63 days
Lifted weights 10 times
Did treadmill HIIT 14 times
Walked 3 miles 6 times

TRYING TO GET BACK TO NORMAL AND BACK ON TRACK

As you know by my last post, things have been really weird, what with my husband having a heart attack and all.  I have not been blogging, but I have been trying to get back on track by doing some longer fasts.  The fasting was pretty easy and the weight loss was great, but as soon as I started eating again, I would just gain it all back.  Here is what happened when I tried the longer fasting:

Fasted 4 days - Lost 7 pounds
Feasted 4 days - Gained back 6.8 pounds
Fasted 3 days - Lost 7.4 pounds
Feasted 5 days - Gained back 6 pounds
Fasted 1 day - Lost 2.2 pounds
Feasted 2 days - Gained back 3.4 pounds

That's a lot of big bouncing around, and I'm not happy with the results.  I started out the above at 138 pounds, and ended up, after a lot of deprivation, at 139.6 pounds.  I'm thinking my body does not respond to the longer fasts, and so I have decided to reset my goals once again and do what worked for me before, which is trying to lose an average of 0.2 pounds per day, and feasting on the days I meet my goal and fasting on the days I don't.  I estimate that it will take me till around August 4, 2016, to reach my new goal of 130 pounds with 25% body fat.

I made a few charts to track my progress.  On the first two charts, the grey line is my long term goal. The blue line is my actual weight.  The red line is my 7-day average.   I am showing two charts so I can see my progress since the beginning of the year, and also to get a close-up from the time I started again after Bill's heart attack.

The third chart is a little heat map to show at a glance how often I have actually had to fast to achieve the results I am after. Click on any chart to enlarge it.



Below is my chart for the Body By Science "Big Five".  It shows the exercises I am doing, along with the weight, reps and TUL, which stands for Time Under Load.


This is my chart for treadmill HIIT, which shows that I am now up to 7.1 mph during the running time.  I am going to keep pushing that up by 0.1 mph each time to see how fast I can go.  I will stop increasing the speed when I go flying off the treadmill!


This is my chart for walking:



There are six weeks remaining for this new challenge.  If I achieve my goal of 130 pounds with 25% body fat, I'm not sure where I will go from there.


This is a personal challenge just for me, but if anyone reading would like to join me, please talk to your doctor and make sure that it will not conflict with your current medical condition or medications.  If you are taking the challenge, please be sure to let me know how you are doing!  Thanks for reading!

To find out more about this challenge - the rules and how it started - click here.

Monday, June 6, 2016

AS SERIOUS AS A HEART ATTACK!

I wanted to put up this post in case anyone was wondering how things are going with my "kinder, gentler" challenge.

I am taking a break right now from weighing, measuring and tracking because on May 15, 2016, my dear husband, Bill, had a heart attack.  We had no warning, and did not even know that he was at risk.  Plus, he has been eating a healthy low carb, optimal protein, healthy fat diet for over seven years.  What the heck?

I want to write out the sequence of events, and I am hoping that this blog post might prevent someone else from going through what we went through.  So let me start at the beginning:

In September 2015, Bill had sudden onset vomiting and chest and abdomen pain.  We rushed to the ER, where he had an EKG and was told that his heart was fine.  The doc in the ER said it was probably just a stomach bug or food poisoning.  We understood that the normal EKG meant that his heart was healthy.  It was not, but no one at the ER told us that a normal EKG does not equate to a normal heart.

Four weeks later, in October 2015, it happened again.  Another ER visit, another EKG, and another clean bill of heart health.  This time, the ER doc suggested that Bill see a gastroenterologist.  Bill decided not to.  The ER doc did not mention seeing a cardiologist, even though Bill presented with chest pain and vomiting.

It happened again four weeks later in November, then four weeks later in December, then four weeks later in January.  Three more ER visits, three more normal EKGs, three more docs telling us to see a doc for the stomach, but no mention of seeing a doc for the heart.  In January, Bill finally decided to see a specialist, and after a few tests, was told he had GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease).  He was given a pill to take and he started taking them.

Bill had slowly been gaining a little weight, even though his diet had not changed, and when he gained even more after starting the GERD medicine, he decided to stop taking it.  He had not had a stomach issue for several weeks.  He stopped taking the pills, and had another vomiting episode on May 10.  We called his GI doc, and he said to just start taking the pills again and everything would be fine.

On May 14, he fell ill and told me that he was tired and felt like he had been hit by a truck.  No chest pains, but just all over muscle aches.  In the evening, he had a headache and all his bottom teeth hurt.  I decided that if he was still not feeling well after the weekend, I would take him to the doctor.

On May 15, I went to lift weights at the gym, but Bill decided to stay home.  He said he felt better, but was very tired.  At 3 pm, he started having chest pains and difficulty breathing.  HE DID NOT FEEL THE NEED TO TELL ME THIS!  He thought he was having some sort of muscle spasm.  He spent the night sitting up in a chair, unable to lie down.

On May 16, as I was headed out the door at 4:30 am, Bill stopped me and told me he was having chest and back pain and trouble breathing.  We immediately got in the car to take the 10 minute drive to the hospital.  Neither of us thought it was a heart attack, or I would have called 911.  We told them in the ER that he was having chest pains, and after an EKG, things got pretty dramatic.

Within a few minutes, we were told that Bill was having a heart attack and needed immediate surgery.  He never clutched his chest and passed out.  It did not seem like a heart attack.  But standing in an ER room and listening to "Code Blue, Room 9!" over the PA system is something I never want to live through again.  Watching several medical persons run into my husband's room and start working on him was so frightening!  For the second time in my life, I felt like I was part of a TV show, the first time being when my daughter was in the ER after her fatal car accident in 1997. After an angioplasty and two stents, he was taken to the ICU, where he spent three days.  We found out that he had three blocked arteries in his heart.  One was completely blocked and that's where the two stents were placed.  Another one was 85% blocked, but the doctor said we would wait seven to ten days to put in a stent there, because putting in a stent can sometimes cause a heart attack, and the doctor did not want him to have two heart attacks so close together.  The other artery was only around 30% blocked, so no need for treatment on that one.

The cardiologist told me that if I had gone to work that morning and left Bill at home, he would have been dead in an hour or so.  He said that Bill did not have a "close call".  He had "THE call".

On May 17, Bill had an echocardiogram done to see what damage was done to his heart during the 18 hours that he was having a heart attack but did not seek treatment.  We were surprised to learn that there was no damage to the heart.

On May 18 we left the hospital and went home.  Bill was told to do a lot of nothing, to lift nothing, and to take a three to four month leave from work at the golf course.

On May 20, we were back in the ER because Bill was still having trouble breathing.  When we came into the ER, the same doctor was there.  He told us that Bill no doubt had congestive heart failure, and that his heart enzymes during the attack were the highest he had seen.  But the cardiologist said he did not have congestive heart failure, because there was no damage to the heart.  He did decide, however, to go ahead and do the surgery to insert the other stent, as long as we were there.  The surgery went well, and Bill was released from the hospital again the next day.

On May 23, I took Bill in to see the cardiologist in his office because he still could not breathe.  He was examined by the nurse practitioner, who told him that because his heart had suffered no damage, it must be lung disease brought on by fifty years of smoking (he quit ten years ago), and Bill was referred to a pulmonary specialist.  We made the appointment, but could not be seen for a couple of weeks.

On May 25, we were back at the ER because Bill could not breathe and was having head, neck and shoulder pain and was going back and forth between chills and hot flashes with extreme sweating.  The ER doctor told us that Bill had congestive heart failure.  Tests showed fluid around his heart and fluid around and in his lungs.  After he was admitted, the cardiologist ordered another echocardiogram, and this time it showed that there was damage to the heart.  So now the cardiologist concurs with the ER doc and Bill has been formally diagnosed with congestive heart failure.

Bill was put on a pretty high dose of a diuretic, and started losing water weight right away.  He was checked out by the stomach doc and the lung doc and got a clean bill of health from both, so it's all about the heart at this point.

On May 27, Bill was released from the hospital and sent home again.  He has a followup appointment today with the cardiologist, and next week he starts cardiac rehab.  In the ten days following his release from the hospital, he lost over 13 pounds of fluid.  His breathing is normal.  He sleep apnea is gone.  His energy level is good, but he does get tired a little bit after walking around.  He is not working, but we do take short walks around the block and such.  His mood is much improved and he is back to his normal, cheerful self.

But, enough about Bill!  I'm sure you are wondering how I am doing.

During the twelve days that we were going in and out of the hospital, I was stress eating and not sleeping.  I stayed with Bill at the hospital, sleeping on a futon next to his bed, and ate three meals per day in the hospital cafeteria.  The food was surprisingly good, with lots of low carb options.  I did eat a few high carb things, like I had a cookie twice during that time, and I had fruit and yogurt.  I was no nervous that I felt the emotional need to eat every couple of hours, and I gained several pounds during that time.

Needless to say, my plan for getting down to 130 pounds flew out the window when Bill's heart attacked him.  It has been three weeks since then, and I am now ready, emotionally and physically, to start taking care of myself again.  I fasted two days ago, and I am fasting again today, and may fast tomorrow as well.  This morning, I weighed 140 pounds.  I'm going to try to get on the fast track to getting rid of the weight I gained since May 15 and go on from there to my goal.  I took a break from the gym to take care of Bill, but I have started back again and have been lifting weights and making progress.


THE BIG QUESTION:  WHY DID THIS HAPPEN?

According to everything I know to be true, Bill should not have heart disease.  He has been eating low carb for over seven years.  He quit smoking over ten years ago.  He is active.  What has happened does not seem right, and I need to get to the bottom of it, and also find out if I am at equal risk.

From what I have learned, the cause of heart disease is not high cholesterol, but systemic inflammation, as these articles explain.  All of Bill's inflammation markers are high.  Maybe mine are, too.  I don't know.  And if he, and possibly me, too, have serious inflammation, what is causing it?  Is it the feedlot beef that is high in Omega-6?  Has a sensitivity to eggs been developing?  Is too much dairy causing inflammation?  I have no idea, but I intend to find out and stop this thing in its tracks so that Bill can recover, live long, and prosper.

In the third week of July, Bill and I are traveling to see Dr. Jeffry Gerber in Denver.  I have been following him for a while, and his understanding of heart disease is on the cutting edge of current research.  Bill will be tested and evaluated, and so will I.  If you would like to get an idea of Dr. Gerber's views on the subject, check out this great youtube video.

When we left the hospital, we were given a set of instructions that included the recommendation to eat 7-10 servings of grains per day, along with starchy vegetables, very low fat, virtually no animal products contained saturated fat, and low salt.  Basically, they want Bill to become a vegan.  This will happen over my dead body.  I know too much to ever let that happen.

And, all the doctors we saw told Bill that he needs to go on a statin drug.  Statins cause so many side effect, including damage to the heart muscle, damage to other muscles and memory loss.  Statins are bad, and Bill refuses to take one.  I have heard Dr. Gerber say that he does prescribe statins, but not very often, so we are hoping that Bill will not have to take them.  I trust Dr. Gerber, and if even he says that Bill should be on a statin, we will have to seriously consider it.

We will be depending heavily on Dr. Gerber to bring us through this mystery and out the other side.

I'm not sure when I will post again.  I will give an update when I can, and I will definitely let my readers know the results of our testing with Dr. Gerber.

Thanks for reading!