I am very ill. I've just been diagnosed with GERD - a gastroesophageal reflux disease.

What is GERD?

GERD, simply put, is a disease of the lower esophageal spinchter (LES). The LES is a flap that prevents food and hydrochloric acid from crawling up your windpipe whenever you lie down or perform a handstand.

Normally, the LES does its job well enough - it expands to let food into the stomach, then constricts. When it doesn't though, that's when the pain begins.

How does GRD feel?

You know you have GERD if you experience chronic heartburn.

GERD effects feel like an ulcer - too much acid in your stomach. Unlike an ulcer where bacteria produce acids and dump them into your stomach, the hyperacidic effects of GERD spring from reflex. Missing a meal then having a big snack to make up for it sends the stomach into overdrive, doubling its acid production. Also, this compensating binge tends to cause the esophagus to expand beyond the area of the LES.

This is where the pain comes in. Even while eating, your stomach will ache; after eating, the acid travels up. Normally, the LES will keep these gases down, but since the esophagus is now bigger than your LES, some of these will make it into your esophagus.

What do you do about GERD?

GERD is treated using proton pump inhibitors. These aren't Star Trek type weapons - these are drugs which reduce the acid content in the stomach juice, so if it ever does crawl up into the esophagus, it is less irritating.

You could also change your lifestyle and diet. Avoid smoking, sodas, acidic fruit drinks, chocolate, and spirits. Don't eat large meals before bedtime.

Lastly, don't ignore GERD! If left unchecked, the esophagus may start to bleed and narrow, resulting in difficulty in swallowing. Worse, it may give rise to Barett's esophagus, where the cells in the esophagus are replaced by those sinilar to the ones lining the stomach. This defensive mutation increases the chance of developing esophageal cancer.

Well, I've got myself a final term to graduate, and it still doesn't look good. My girlfriend is far ahead of me - she just finished her first draft this afternoon, all four bound volumes of it.

If I'm the one asked, I'll say I have a very small chance of succeeding in this part of my life. While some may attribute this statement to my ever-low self-esteem, I happen to know better. I better start constructing an attractive curriculum vitae sheet.

I didn't mean to make this into a weeping post, honest. I wanted to post about Ken Akamatsu's Love Hina manga. I just finished reading it, and it gave me bittersweet twinges of hope. Here I am wishing life was like art again.

I'd like to thank Akamatsu-san, for creating the world where such memorable characters moved in; and to Keitaro Urashima as well, for giving readers worldwide of ear-to-ear grins and hours of delicious fanservice from his tenants, relatives, and friends.

LAST WORD: There's no way you wouldn't love a guy who shows the whole world what his newly-wedded wife is wearing under her wedding dress.

I'm still alive, though I might be a out of a home and wandering the streets by March. Oh well.

I'm finding it hard to have time for myself, hard to believe, no? But this blog bears witness to the fact - check out how many days there are between this post and the last.

I wonder if Blogger has a better way of laying out pictures and text without messing with HTML - in my experience, anytime I insert a picture using Blogger, they always go to the top of the post, where the relevant text isn't. I might just resort to hot-linking to my online album to do so.

My enrollment is still in limbo, keeping my thesis (or rather my thesis proposal) company - and my fanfic writing has ground to a halt. The last time I checked, I was trying to finish the Love Hina manga at home - the nagging gets to me though.

Final words - Gaogaigar visuals definitely not for kids. Mikoto looks too delicious to be put in a kiddy show. Remember - if it has legs, it's for kids. If it has boobs, it isn't.

I'm still alive, though I might be a out of a home and wandering the streets by March. Oh well.

I'm finding it hard to have time for myself, hard to believe, no? But this blog bears witness to the fact - check out how many days there are between this post and the last.

I wonder if Blogger has a better way of laying out pictures and text without messing with HTML - in my experience, anytime I insert a picture using Blogger, they always go to the top of the post, where the relevant text isn't. I might just resort to hot-linking to my online album to do so.

My enrollment is still in limbo, keeping my thesis (or rather my thesis proposal) company - and my fanfic writing has ground to a halt. The last time I checked, I was trying to finish the Love Hina manga at home - the nagging gets to me though.

Final words - Gaogaigar visuals definitely not for kids. Mikoto looks too delicious to be put in a kiddy show. Remember - if it has legs, it's for kids. If it has boobs, it isn't.