Friday August 27, 2004
I've been off the drugs that help with anxiety/depression symptoms for several months now, because of concern and coddling of the damaged liver. I was sliding back into the vicious cycle but only moderately according to the mini-assessment the social worker did a few weeks before the upheaval of the move.
I'd been assisted briefly during the worst of the move but then no more chemical assistance was available until after this past liver clinic and the okay from the specialist. The orginal 'plan' the psychiatrist had hatched was that I would call him the first week in September and he'd review the report from the specialist and (perhaps) Rx some more assistance for me.
So I'd been gritting my teeth and bearing it while it was deemed necessary. But with the recent developments and the continuing slide I was starting to get seriously non-functional. For instance, it took me most of the day to make the decision to go to the Emergency Room and see what they could do for me. It's not pretty, that's for sure.
0ff I went and a short-term supply has been provided along with a mechanism to gain further assessment and treatment here in Ottawa. It only took a few hours, but I was exhausted by the end of it all.
Off to Costco to get the Rx's filled and a couple of grocery items. Then back to the apartment at 8:30 or so.
While I was in the waiting area I had lots of time to read. The first section of the Ottawa Citizen had this article about a surprising turnabout regarding the anticipated negative effects of ecotourism on the Grizzly Bear populations. Their article isn't available on line unless you're a subscriber, but it appears to have been based on the same journal as this one from NewScientist.Com.
If you're not into reading links, basically the clever female bears have come to understand that the males are scared off by the noise of the human observers and the scaredy cats have changed their eating patterns slightly so as to avoid the tourists. The females bring their young to the feeding areas while the ecotourists are in attendance and manage to eat more themselves since they aren't having to watch for males who may inflict harm on the young.
The Citizen article quoted an expert of some sort who says this will lead to healthier mother bears and larger litters, both of which will be a positive thing for the grizzly bear population - a positive that comes out of a projected negative at that!
Maybe that last statement isn't quite true. I think the orginal concern was that ecotourism would change the bears' eating habits. So that has happened. But the rest of the orginal concern was that any change that occurred to the eating habits would necessarily have a negative impact. And that has not happened.
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