Utah House Bill 69

The Utah legislature starts a new session on Monday, and one of the bills to be considered is H.B. 69: Insurance Coverage for Autism Spectrum Disorders. This bill would require insurance companies to provide coverage of up to $50,000 per year for proven, effective therapies for individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). At this writing, 29 states have such a law currently on the books, 14 (including Utah) are considering an autism coverage reform bill in 2012, and 8 have no such law and are not currently considering one.

Most insurance companies do not provide any coverage at all for therapies or medications used to treat ASDs when not mandated by law. In fact, most won't even cover diagnostics to test for autism, and if even one aspect of a doctor's visit is related to autism, many will refuse to cover the entire visit. (Parents quickly learn to segregate their autism- and non-autism related doctor visits.)

One might ask why insurance companies don't provide coverage for autism. Some point out that autism has no known cure and that few are able to overcome it and live fairly typical lives. This excuse ignores the fact that insurance often provides coverage for other incurable conditions such as schizophrenia, and even for potentially lethal conditions with lower rates of recovery such as cancer and heart disease. (Lethality actually increases the odds that a company will cover a condition, partly because if the patient dies they will no longer be incurring medical costs.) Another assertion is that diagnostic and therapy services are handled by schools. While the school-based programs do work for some kids, they don't work for others, and budget cuts have resulted in many such programs being woefully under-funded and inadequate.

A question we must ask is whether such a law would constitute a net positive influence on society. Insurance companies and some businesses oppose the law, saying that providing this coverage would require an increase in premiums. How much of an increase? The Council of Affordable Health Insurance estimates that an ASD coverage mandate would raise premiums by 1%. Long term, this may increase to about 3% as services expand and if autism rates continue to rise.

What those who oppose ASD coverage mandates often fail to consider is the cost society bears as a result of not treating autism. Those who are not able to overcome autism remain dependent on others for their entire lives. Many families go into massive debt in order to try to pay for autism treatments, leading to increasing defaults on loans, foreclosures, bankruptcies, and welfare costs. A number of autistic adults end up as wards of the state when their parents die or become unable to care for them. The Harvard School of Public Health estimates that the total cost of caring for the average autistic individual is $3.2 million, and that the total annual cost to society is $35 billion. Caring for people with autism is going to cost the American public one way or another, whether through insurance premiums or taxes. From a purely financial standpoint, it makes sense to invest in treatments that have been demonstrated to help individuals overcome autism and become productive members of society, who will then be paying into the system instead of drawing from it their whole lives.

Having a child with autism has more than just a financial cost. It changes a family forever. Parents of children with autism experience greater incidences of fatigue, sleep deprivation, stress, clinical depression, and marital problems. They struggle with grief for the future that their child may never get to have, nagging feelings that there must have been something they could have done to prevent it, hopelessness at the bleak prognosis for most children with autism, and guilt at having to shortchange the child's neurotypical siblings. They also experience massive amounts of judgmental behavior from others, ranging from well-meaning comments or parenting advice given in ignorance of the unique challenges of autism, to dirty looks when a child has a meltdown in public, to confrontational assertions that their child's problems stem from lazy parenting. (Trust me, raising a child with autism is not for laissez-faire parents!)

Please, take the time to contact your Utah legislator and ask them to support S.B. 69 to help Utah's autism community.

Response from Senator Hatch

I received a reply to the letter to Senator Hatch I sent in July. Actually, it came a while ago and I just hadn't gotten to posting it here. Note that the HELP Committee meeting was postponed twice, so the meeting date isn't the same. The footnotes give my commentary on his response.

August 11, 2011

Mr. Robert Walker
[ADDRESS REDACTED]

Dear Mr. Walker:

Thank you for writing to express your support for legislation related to autism spectrum disorder (ASD).¹ I appreciate hearing from you and value your input as a father of children with ASD.

As you know, recent scientific revelations that the prevalence of autism could be as low as one in 150 individuals², and that there may be a genetic link to autism, point out the need for continuing research.

Senator Robert Menendez introduced the Combating Autism Reauthorization Act (S. 1089) on May 26, 2011, and it has been referred to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee. The original Combating Autism Act (P.L. 109-416), which was signed into law in December 2006, was passed to provide better integration of the health, education, and disability programs already available.³ S. 1089 would reauthorize CAA for another five years.

As you know, the HELP Committee is now expected to consider this legislation in September.⁴ As a member of the HELP Committee, and an original cosponsor of the 2006 autism law, I will bear in mind your insightful comments when CAA reauthorization legislation is considered by the Committee.⁵

Again, thank you for writing.

Your Senator,
[SIGNATURE]
Orrin G. Hatch United States Senator

OHG:kll

¹ It really ought to say “autism spectrum disorders” (plural) here. He speaks about it as if it were a single disorder, despite the word “spectrum” in the name. Not a major point, but it is an indication that Sen. Hatch may not be very knowledgeable about autism spectrum disorders.

² The numbers vary depending on who you talk to. It's difficult to get good numbers on autism prevalence because a lot of people go undiagnosed for years, different countries have different diagnostic criteria, and the diagnostic criteria have changed over time. The CDC reports that autism prevalence in children is estimated to be somewhere between 1 in 80 and 1 in 240. (The average, 1 in 110, is typically the number cited.) Prevalence is lower (meaning a smaller percentage of people affected) when you include adults because some adults are undiagnosed and because therapy helps some people with autism to eventually overcome the symptoms and no longer manifest as having an ASD (though technically they still do). Prevalence appears to be increasing dramatically, but it is undetermined whether that is due solely to increased awareness and broader diagnostic criteria or there is an actual increase in incidence of ASDs.

³ I feel this is something of an understatement. The Congressional Budget Office estimated in 2006 that the original bill would result in a $300 million increase in autism spending, which included significant increases in amounts for biomedical research grants.

⁴ Specifically, after being delayed twice, they were slated to meet on it today.

⁵ The Senator avoids stating his intentions with regards to the bill. This is not surprising, as between the time he wrote it and today he might find new information that may change his position on the bill. Having sponsored the original bill, one might expect that he would support extending it, and the language indicates a positive inclination towards it. However, while he was a co-sponsor on the original bill, he is not co-sponsoring this one, which says to me that he is at least less favorable towards it than he was previously. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this bill.

Letter to Senator Hatch

The Honorable Orrin Grant Hatch
104 Hart Office Building
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

Re: SB 1094

Dear Senator:

On Wednesday, August 3 at 10:00 am in room 430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee will be meeting to discuss SB 1094, the Combating Autism Reauthorization Act of 2011 (CARA). This bill proposes to extend the original sunset date (September 30, 2011) of the Combating Autism Act of 2006 (CAA) for another three years. As you are a member of the HELP Committee, I am writing to ask you to attend this meeting and to vote in favor of SB 1094.

There is still a lot we don't know about autism, and continued research is desperately needed to better understand Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) and discover ways to help those who are afflicted with them. Our own University of Utah has made significant strides in autism research. This research would be severely curtailed without the funding that SB 1094 would authorize.

I understand that there is currently a major focus on federal spending, and that there are many who would be inclined to vote no on this bill, feeling that it cannot be afforded. I am of the opinion that while we do need to cut back on many programs, we cannot afford NOT to fund this research. Only a small percentage of autistic individuals eventually become able to hold jobs; most are financially dependent on family members or the state for their entire lives. Since many states (including Utah) do not require insurance companies to cover autism therapy, many families go into severe debt to pay for therapy for their child(ren). Frequently, these families end up in bankruptcy and living on welfare as a direct result of these expenses. Add to that the lost productivity from these individuals and their loved ones who must care for them, and the expense to our nation due to autism is immense.

Research can help us find more effective and less expensive therapies. Beyond the great personal good this research can do, from a purely financial standpoint every individual who is recovered and becomes self-sufficient will be an asset to the state instead of a burden. (Additionally, if Utah were to require insurance companies to cover autism therapies, families would be able to afford therapies for their children and fewer would end up on welfare.)

My 5-year-old daughter, [NAME REDACTED], has autism, and my 3-year-old son, [NAME REDACTED], has Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD-NOS), which is also considered an ASD. I would do anything I could to help them to live full, productive lives. This research would be valuable to them and to people with ASDs across our nation. I respectfully ask that you please attend next Wednesday's meeting and vote yes on SB 1094.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter.

Sincerely,

Robert J. Walker

The Five Stages of X-Raying a Child

For the benefit of any who may not have experienced it before, getting a child X-rayed (especially when you have no way to explain to her that it won't hurt and all she needs to do is hold still) goes something like this:

Phase 1: Crying

From the moment you enter the building, she knows it's something she isn't going to like, and the tears start falling.

Phase 2: Screaming Bloody Murder

Usually starts when you enter the examination room. She somehow knows that this is the place where it's all going to go down and that it's time to put on her game face.

Phase 3: The Full Limp Noodle

Upon picking up the child to place her on the examination table, all of her muscles will relax and she will endeavor to turn into a puddle of toddler on the floor.

Phase 4: The Rabid Wolverine

The noodle having proven ineffective, the child will then “hulk up” and proceed to fight the X-ray process with tooth and nail. Actually, a single rabid wolverine doesn't really describe it; it's more like two rival hyena packs fighting over a dead gazelle. Expect to need at least two people to hold her down, perhaps more. Expect elbows to faces and scratches on arms. Expect multiple attempts at getting a clear image.

Phase 5: The Blubbering Mess

Once the torture is over, the child will now willingly sit on the examination table that you fought so hard to keep her on, but will snivel incoherently and look at you like you just killed her puppy.

We Can Rebuild Him — We Have the Technology

In a previous post, I griped about how my doctor was debating whether it was more profitable to continue treating me or to kill me, harvest my organs and sell them on the black market. Okay, maybe not, but it was pretty clear to me that I was not his main concern when it came treating me. He seemed to prefer giving me samples of medications I can't afford, making blanket judgments about side effects without asking me how I might feel about it, and ordering unnecessary tests. (Did I mention that he ordered an oximetry test to check for sleep apnea, despite the fact that I manifested no symptoms of the condition? Unsurprisingly, the test came back negative.)

I've fired that guy and found a new doctor. Not only is this one much closer to my house, but he seems to be a lot more concerned about my condition and how it affects my life. After listening to me give the history of my search for better control of my ADD, he reviewed the records sent over from the other clinic and said that the phenytoin levels noted by the previous blood work weren't just okay, they were low. He told me that unless I was experiencing side effects already (I'm not), he saw no reason why the amount couldn't be bumped up. He seemed to be rather puzzled at the way the other doctor was handling my case.

So with updated prescription in hand, here's hoping that I'll be a brand new man. Oh, and my blood pressure was 104/82! I can't remember a time when it was actually a bit low!

Why Our Health Care System Has Gone Completely Insane

How American Health Care Killed My Father is an article in The Atlantic magazine that constitutes the most clear-thinking analysis of what's wrong with the American health care system that I have ever read. Read it. Read it right now.

(Thanks to Jim for sending me the link.)

Why All Things Medical are Currently on my Bad Side

Sorry for the long silence. Not only have I been quite busy, but I haven't felt like I had anything to say on my blog for some time. Today, however... oh, do I have something to say...

For quite some time, I have taken a rather unconventional medication for attention deficit disorder, phenytoin. Typically prescribed for epilepsy, it has been helpful in the past to help me deal with ADD symptoms, but recently it has become gradually less effective. While upping the dosage might work, I wanted to find out if there was something out there that might work better.

My doctor had me try a couple of different medications, one of which did nothing for me and the other of which was no better than the phenytoin, and both were significantly more expensive. Then he wanted to do a blood test to ensure that bumping up the dosage wouldn't result in toxic levels of phenytoin in my blood. While waiting for the results, he wanted me to try one more medication. This one, called modafinil, is typically used for narcolepsy and other similar conditions, but it is used off-label as a treatment for ADD.

Usually, from my perspective, ADD medication has little noticeable effect to me, because I'm on the “inside.” My perceptions come from my brain, which is the thing being regulated, so even if there is a significant change, I may not notice much of a difference. I generally have to rely on my wife to tell me whether a medication is effective or not. Not so with the modafinil. The sample I received did remarkable things for me: I felt more alert, more aware, and more “present” than I can ever remember feeling before. If it was that much of a difference for me, you can imagine what an improvement my wife saw.

As you might imagine, I was all over this modafinil stuff, but there was a stumbling block. First of all, it's still under patent by Cephalon, Inc., marketed under the name Provigil. Provigil is quite expensive, and my insurance company refuses to cover it. Generic modafinil will not be available until at least April 2012.

Cephalon, faced with the prospect of the bottom dropping out of the market for Provigil when the patent expires, is resorting to a business tactic that could be considered pretty clever, although I'd prefer to use the term “scummy.” They raised the price of Provigil by 74% over four years, then came out with a newer, longer-acting version of the drug called Nuvigil. Nuvigil is still expensive (enough that my insurance company doesn't want to cover it, either), but it is more reasonably priced than Provigil, despite the fact that it is supposedly a superior drug. This will motivate patients to move to Nuvigil, which is covered by a patent that lasts until 2023 instead of only 2012. (Incidentally, the same company was obliged to pay a $425 million federal settlement for marketing their products in an illegal fashion.) EDIT: FallenAttorney mentions an even scummier tactic by Cephalon to wring more money out of Provigil; see his comment below. I had read about it before but had forgotten to mention it here.

Anyway, so I go back to my doctor and tell him that modafinil is unfortunately off the table. Since the phenytoin blood levels came back fine, I presumed that he would simply up my phenytoin dosage. However, he told me that the didn't want to do that because he felt that the risk of side effects was too great. My beef with this is not that he was unwilling to increase the dosage. If a doctor says it's unsafe, then I don't want to do it. What annoys me is that he charged me and my insurance for a test to see if it was safe to increase the dosage for a medication, when he had no intention of increasing it. If he felt that it was unsafe, he should have told me that up front and skipped the blood test. In the end, I'm back where I started, taking the same medication I was before, except that I'm several co-pays poorer.

So I know that there is a medication that can make a big difference in my life, but I can't afford to get it out of pocket and my insurance won't cover it. (I could probably afford it if I fired my insurance company, but that brings up a whole separate set of problems.) I have a doctor who I feel does not have my best interests at heart. All things medical are really grating my cheese these days.

While my hands are tied with regards to the insurance industry or Cephalon, there is one thing I can do: Doctor, you're fired.

Long Day, Good News

I took Monday off work to take the kids places they'd rather not be. I got up at early o'clock in the morning to take my ten-month-old son to an MRI appointment at 6:30 a.m. All things considered, he behaved remarkably well. He even smiled and cooed at the nurse while she was prodding him during the pre-scan evaluation. He only started crying when it was time to hold him down to get the IV put in, and that didn't last long. The hardest part was the administration of the sedative and his insertion into the machine. I held him as they gave the sedative. It acted surprisingly quickly, and it was only about 30 seconds before I had to support his head to keep it from flopping back like a newborn's. He fought to stay awake, but within a couple of minutes he'd gone limp.

Then I had to stand on a mat in the control room, just outside the scan room, and watch through the doorway while the nurses took him from me and placed him on the scanning bed. The noise of the machine was enough to make him wake up and cry a bit, so they had to give him an additional short-duration sedative to keep him asleep. They attached monitors that would ensure that he was not having an adverse reaction to the sedatives (pulse, blood pressure and oxygenation), and an oxygen line, since the sedatives cause his breathing to be more shallow. When they returned, I had to leave and wait in the sedation recovery room while they curtained off the control room and performed the scan.

As irrational as it is, a parent can't help but imagine the worst while waiting during a procedure or test, no matter how minor. The scan itself really only took about half an hour tops, but the minutes seemed interminable as I sat in a chair next to an empty hospital cradle. I soon gave in to temptation and began pacing the room. Finally, the nurses pulled back the curtain and brought him out. With them came the radiologist, who told me that he still needed to do a thorough reading of the scans, but from what he had seen they looked normal. The nurse laid him in the cradle and again attached monitors to him, along with a saline drip to keep him hydrated, since he was required to be fasting for the scan and had not had anything to eat or drink since he went to sleep the previous night.

Thus began the 90-minute wait for the sedative to wear off enough to wake him. This was almost as nerve-wracking as the scan, thanks to the list of things we'd have to watch for over the next 24 hours that the nurse gave me. If we can't wake him, call 911. Make sure you don't allow his head to droop during the ride home, since it can impede his airway. Don't let him curl into a ball while sleeping or otherwise position himself in any way that could constrict his chest or airway. Watch him carefully while awake, since he may have trouble holding up his head or maintaining balance while crawling or sitting. Keep him on clear liquids for several hours, since the sedative can make him sick to his stomach. If he throws up, try to prevent him from aspirating any vomit, as that can cause pneumonia.

I kept checking his breathing over the 90 minutes, even though I knew perfectly well that a monitor would start screaming bloody murder if he stopped breathing. It seemed unnatural that he was so still. He somehow looked smaller, sleeping with a pre-warmed blanket over him, almost as if he were a newborn again. Perhaps I was unconsciously recalling the last time he was in a hospital cradle, just ten short months ago.

At last it was time to wake him. Fortunately, he woke up readily and immediately started protesting that his tummy was empty! He greedily chugged down 14 ounces of juice and gave a vigorous burp, to the amusement of the nurses. After that he seemed pretty happy and fairly normal, except for his head being a bit wobbly. He was discharged and I drove us home while he napped.

That afternoon, I took my daughter to the school district headquarters to be evaluated, in order to determine whether she is eligible for special education services. For most of the two-and-a-half hours that we were there, she was inconsolable. Something about the place just set her off and she screamed like someone was killing her. My time there was mostly spent answering long questionnaires about her behavior with my right hand while holding her in my left arm and rapidly going deaf in my left ear.

Eventually it was determined, to nobody's surprise, that yes, she does indeed have autism and yes, she is qualified to receive special education services. A good thing, since I was not really wanting to get into a big battle with the school district should they have taken it into their heads that she didn't need the services. As soon as I took her hand and told her that we were “going bye-bye” she immediately cheered up, smiled and waved at the people she'd been screaming at the whole time, and literally skipped out of the building.

Final note: Yesterday, we received word that the final reading of my son's MRI scans showed no abnormalities. This leads the pediatrician to believe that the most likely cause of his strange manner of crawling is simply preference for the right over the left, and that with time it should straighten out. Good news, but it does mean that we now have to wait and see if that pathetic-looking crawl of his really does work itself out.

It Just Keeps Raining...

My son has finally started crawling. Sort of. While he does have use of his left side, he doesn't use it much when crawling; he sort of drags it. We've already had a therapist coming to see him because of gross motor skill delay. She was concerned about it and suggested that this should be evaluated by his pediatrician. So yesterday the doctor looked him over and said that muscle tone on his left side is less than his right. There could be many different reasons for this, anything from simple preference all the way to a prenatal stroke. He's got an MRI scheduled for December 1, so we'll see.

Gorgeous Wife also had a doctor visit yesterday and was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. As there is no cure, she will have to control it with exercise and medication for the rest of her life.

Cross your fingers for our boy. He's the only hope this family has left for having at least one member that doesn't have an incurable medical condition.

Progress

T-minus nine days until the move. The blog has been rather quiet (as my time has been taken up with work and moving preparations), but I thought I should give people an update on my daughter. She's been progressing rapidly, to the surprise and delight of her parents and therapist.

Her favorite subject right now is letters. She knows them all; show her the alphabet and name any letter and she'll point to it. She has a set of cards which show letters of the alphabet on one side and an object beginning with said letter on the other. You can lay them out in front of her, letter-side up, say the name of one of the objects on the opposite side, and she will pick up the corresponding card and turn it over to reveal the object. She can do it in reverse, too; put them object-side up and say a letter, and she'll give you the right one.

Even more exciting is that she's beginning to say the names of some of the letters verbally. Some are clear as a bell, such as A, F, M or T; while with others she tends to say the sound rather than the letter (like B). She's also enchanted with Wheel of Fortune. Recently, she watched as a contestant called out the letter M, then she turned around, looked me straight in the eye, and said “Emmm.” Then she turned back around and pointed to the letter when Vanna revealed it and said “Emmm” again. (She also applauds along with the audience, spins in place whenever she sees the wheel spinning, and quite sensibly refrains from laughing when Pat Sajak makes a lame joke.)

A really interesting incident happened yesterday: Gorgeous Wife saw her pointing in the general direction of the top of the refrigerator. Since she likes to point at things to get you to say their names, Gorgeous Wife thought that perhaps she was pointing at the kitchen timer and said, “Clock.” She looked confused for a bit, then signed “Red.” As it turned out, she was trying to say that she wanted some Doritos, which were in a bright red bag sitting on top of the refrigerator. She pointed, but when that didn't get the desired results, and she didn't know the word for the thing she was pointing at, she circumlocuted. Maybe not a big deal for a typical kid, but from what I understand, it's huge for kids with autism.

Anyway, so things are looking really positive for her. The therapist has been astounded by how well she's been doing. (She resorted to using full-sheet note forms instead of the half-sheets; there was just too much progress to document!) Now that she can communicate somewhat better than she used to, she is a lot happier and seems to have a voracious appetite for learning new things.

Talk to the Hand

My daughter has learned a fair bit of sign language to help her overcome the communication barrier due to her autism. By itself, spoken words give only one sensory “bridge” between the word and the concept; signing gives her three: auditory, visual and kinetic. It seems to be (slowly) working, as the few words she does say vocally are the ones that she's been signing the longest.

Just like spoken languages, you encounter local variations in ASL. It's been kind of frustrating to look up signs on the Internet and discover different sites teaching different signs for the same concept in ASL. Anyway, after some searching I ran into Lifeprint.com, which at least tries to document the variations and give you an idea of what's the most common.

Anyway, below are some signs my daughter knows. She doesn't always spontaneously make the signs when she wants something, but she will usually make them if you say the word or show her the corresponding object. Try them out on her the next time you see her!

• Mom and Dad (She tends to just point at the top of her head for “Dad.”)
• Baby (She rocks her whole body back and forth instead of just her arms.)
• All done
• Milk (Easy: Think of squeezing a cow's udder.)
• Eat
• Drink
• Cup
• Cereal
• Water (She loves this sign. If she makes it, it's not because she's thirsty. It means she wants you to turn on the faucet so she can play with the water!)
• Potty (Not potty trained yet, but she understands the sign.)
• Sleep
• Please
• Thank you (Still working on this one!)
• Help
• Stop (She doesn't really understand this as a command yet. Signing “stop” and “go” is mostly a game at this point.)
• Go
• More (We're teaching her to use this one in conjunction with “Please.”)
• Cat
• Dog (Multiple variations on this one; the one she knows is slapping the thigh then snapping, although she doesn't actually snap.)
• Bird
• Duck (She just uses the first two fingers and the thumb.)
• Cow

Huuh.

My 2½-year-old daughter stands in front of me, arms stretched out from her sides. “Huuh,” she says.

“Huuh” is special. A “huuh” is a hug, and it's one of the few things she actually asks for. In fact, it's one of the few things she can express verbally, because my little girl, standing there with her arms stretched out for a hug, is autistic.

We've suspected something like this for a while. We'd become increasingly concerned about her reluctance to talk, as well as other behavior, such as not responding well to her own name, some compulsive/ritualistic behavior and selectivity about food. Our pediatrician and a speech therapist have evaluated her, and have come to the consensus that she is mildly autistic. I know that the term mildly ought to be comforting, but it's hard to feel that way right now.

To some extent, I understand what she will have to deal with as she grows, having myself grown up with attention-deficit disorder. The frustration of struggling with things that come so easily to others is something to which I can definitely relate. To this day, I must take extraordinary measures to remember things like appointments or tasks, or to make sure that I don't lose things. If I am given a task, I am strongly inclined to just do it right then and there, because I know that the odds are high that I will otherwise forget it. For about a year when we moved into our new home, I had to maintain a ritual of tethering my keys and wallet to my belt until it became a habit to always put them back in my pockets instead of just leaving them in some random place. It's upsetting to see other people able to do these things with far less effort.

Fortunately, the prognosis for our daughter seems fairly good. She doesn't talk much, but she does say a few words, and she's slowly learning more. She also understands some sign language, and there are a number of common autism difficulties that are mild or absent in her. Nothing is certain at this point, but it seems that, despite some struggles, she will likely be able to live a relatively normal life, much like myself.

I look at my little girl, and I can tell there are thoughts and feelings trapped in that little head that she wants to tell me. I want to come home and have her tell me about what she ate that day, or the funny thing that Elmo did on Sesame Street, or the game that she played with Mommy. It may be some time before that happens.

But what she can tell me is, “I love you.” She stands in front of me, stretches out her arms, and says “Huuh.”

Hi! I Lowered my Cholesterol!

Remember that guy in the Cheerios commercials? He'd walk up to people he didn't know and say, “Hi! I lowered my cholesterol!” Well, I feel like him.

I visited the doctor today to check my progress on reducing my cholesterol, which six months ago was at 202. (Yikes!) The doctor entered with a puzzled look on his face and asked, “Have you been taking any medications for cholesterol?” “Well, you didn't prescribe any for me, so no.” He then informed by that my cholesterol had dropped 67 points!

So, much to my delight, I am now off this diet. Not that I'm planning to fall off the wagon or anything, but it'll be nice to have a little real bacon once in a while.