It sounds like her trip was a big success, I can’t wait to hear all of the stories later, once she wakes up again, after just a little while, she was out like a light.

Had two needle treatments from the acupunture dude, and unfortunately no signs of relief.  One more to go, so we will have to see.  Hoping that third time is the charm.

What was for sure, was had a great weekend with Michaela down in Santa Cruz, weather was nice, had a nice din with Dad&Kim at Charlie Parker’s restaurant with Michaela on Friday night.  Also, had a great time at Justin Parker’s memorial day celebration at the Bocce Ball place down in Los Gatos on Sunday.  Weather is getting mighty hot out here this week ain’t it, they are talking about 90 degrees, and I believe them

For those of you who have not heard, on about 9/27/08 I went into the urgent care related to problems I was having that turned out to be a diagnosis by Dr. Harvey Young at Stanford of ulcerative colitis.  As many know, this type of diagnosis usually comes with a fair share of prescription drugs over the following months/years.  For me it went a little bit like this:  asacol, prednisone, colazal, sulfasalazine, remicade, prednisone, humira, prednisone…  Let me add also that there have been probably 15 blood tests, a bout with C-Diff(a nasty gang that acts up when your immune system is down that requires something like flagyl or vancomyicin of which I took both…)  Anyways, looking at the situation, and now the one year anniversary is really getting close, it was time to get the needle going.  And no for those wondeirng, I am not talking about remicade infusions once again.  The remicade simply did not work.  What I am talking about is accupuncture.  And what better than getting this from a guy named Dr. Weiss who is at 900 Welch Road in Palo Alto.

About exactly one month ago today August 11th, I met with a girl named Kristine who is 23 years old.  She has been battling ulcerative colitis for 10 years now.  Let me start off by telling you she is kicking UC’s butt!!!  I invited her over because I learned that she was doing well with the disease.   When we started talking, I realized quickly that she not only knew about everything I was/had gone through, but she had done the same and probably had it even worse.  This was the first time I had met someone in person who had been right in my shoes and was about my age.   So what was the big question? Well simple, I wanted to know how she was able to run half marathons and look so great, full of energy etc… after having the disease and not having any symptoms of it…  So she told me her secret.  Diet, Diet, Diet she said.

So, here it is in its basic form:  meats, vegetables, fruit, nuts, eggs, honey.  That’s pretty much it.  No breads, sugar, candy, dairy, pretty much no more traditional desserts.  So, we walked in the kitchen and she told me what needed to go, and it was quite a bit.

BUT, that day I put the diet to work, and guess what?  It worked to the point where in one day I was seeing dramatic results.  It has been a month now, and I am totally convinced that the diet is helping my disease.  This is such a relief.

But, there is something else going on.  For about two months now, and maybe a bit before that, I have developed some nasty skin and arthritis problems.  The doctors are thinking its something called psoriatic arthritis… basically arthritis and psoriasis at the same time.  I/we think its from the nasty humira drug that I was taking.  Either way, it is pretty bad,  my hands, legs, feet, back, chest, skalp all seem like somehting out of a discovery channel show where the snake is shedding its skin.  So, after trying a bunch of creams, sunlight, and some other things, I decided to pay a visit to the accupuncture.  It has been an hour since I left there, but I am really excited to see if things work well.  The accupuncture itself was very relaxing.  I actually fell asleep for quite some time with the little needles in me.  The Dr. Weiss the guy there thinks there is definitely potential for this to work, although he said there are no gaurantees, so there is another appointment for next week.  Should be interesting, and I will let you all know the followup.

Enjoy, and soon enough there will be some more pictures from Las Vegas

We topped off the weekend with some much needed tropical drinks down at Margaritaville in Capitola, it was a nice.

We arrived Saturday morning about 9:30 am after a short 4 hour drive from Menlo Park, CA.  We met up with Lindsey and Carlo on the way at the Longs Drugs in Angels Camp, then headed the last bit up highway 4 to Dorrington’s Boards Crossing road.  That’s where we started heading down to the river, then over the river, then up a hill, then down a steep dirt one, then we started trying to figure out where everyone was camped at.  It had been 4 years for me, and I didn’t quite remember what the area looked like.  We were not camping at a campground, but actually in an area where you can pull off the dirt road and start camping.  Luckily enough, Brad Davis who came up on Thrusday night, found a really nice spot, and we spotted his site quickly on our drive.  Even better, Joe W was midway into cooking up the best breakfast burritos made on this planet of ours.(Joe W, also known as the Point of Sale King of Las Vegas, NV, USA, Planet Earth, is a professional at so many things, burritos just one of them)

yes, we chowed some burrito, yes, we visited the river, early and often, it was so hot that the river was a must, since it allowed you to cool off instantly. Also, Bobert was taking all kinds of guided tours down the river all weekend long.  This was a great way to get your river on, and see some new stuff while on tour.

As far as the site, we had about 12 people in tents, we did have some neighbors the first nite, some kids from Stockton actually, but second night there were none.  I highly recommend a air mattress for those of you sleeping in tents these days.  We got ours from Sears a few months ago, and have used it for three nights of camping so far.  It is well worth it, especially if you get the one with the electric pump.  This means you don’t have to huff and puff to fill it up, another great thing, and it saves time you could be spending sitting around the fire getting even stinkier from campfire smoke.