Drinking cranberry juice might be helpful in controlling UTIs. Taking cranberry supplement pills probably won't be. âÂÂThere is an active ingredient in cranberries that can prevent adherence of bacteria to the bladder wall, particularly E. coli,â says urologist Courtenay Moore, MD. âÂÂBut most of the studies have shown that juice and supplements donâÂÂt have enough of this active ingredient, A-type proanthocyanidins (PACs), to prevent bacteria from sticking to the urinary tract.â Overall, clinical studies on the efficacy of cranberry juices and extracts for the prevention of UTIs are conflicting. In 2012, the Cochrane Data Base identified 24 studies comparing cranberry products (juice or extracts) to control or alternative treatments. The review found that compared with placebo, cranberry products did not significantly reduce the occurrence of UTIs. The effectiveness of cranberry was not significantly different to antibiotics for women. Also, because supplements are not regulated by the FDA, it is not known how much of the active ingredient each product contains. Therefore, many of the products may not have enough of the active ingredient to be effective in preventing bacterial adherence to the bladder wall." I drink a concentrated cranberry juice (much stronger than the usual bottled cranberry cocktail), although not for UTI prevention. I don't know what its PAC content is, though it's likely significantly higher than in cranberry juice cocktail mixes. Here is a link that might be useful: cranberry juice and UTIs

Salt is always a "hot topic" in aquaria. I personaly don't use salt all the time (of course unless it is a brackish aquarium). IMO it is good for the slime coat or healing wounds. Introducing new fish I will sometimes add some salt. It will block nitrite poisoning or detoxify nitrites (this is more usefull for cycling a tank with fish, which I don't o anymore). ICH treatment or getting rid of ICH. Some people believe that over using salt can make some parasites like ICH mutate into a tougher strain. I happen to believe this. As far as treatment, I would use a hospitol or QT tank for a sick fish. If the fish doesn't respond to treatment and weakens or needs a more drastic medication and ends up being QT'ed, the stress from the move would have a worse impact. I agree that it is a double edged sword, creating more stress. But, in the end its a safer practice.

Oh, I have that plant. It came as a stowaway with a swap plant. Thought it was most likely a weed but I think it is pretty so have kept it in a small area, deadheading before it can go to seed.

"Am I overacting that these books should be coming to our house? Or that BM had no right to just give some of the books to the school?" Absolutely not. I'm pissed on your behalf. My SS is the same age as yours, and it's also a struggle to get him to willingly read. I just ordered him some books from Amazon and would be absolutely LIVID if BM ended up with them, especially if she gave them away to anybody. SS will not, does not, and can not read when he's there because the TV is on all the time and there is no quiet place for him to go. If he actually could and would read while there I'd be the first to buy all the books he wanted and send them up - but I am not inclined to spend MY money for something that will just end up collecting dust or being thrown away. If you cannot get to the school to pick them up yourself, try a different approach. Read the listing of suggested books and then buy them from Amazon and have them sent directly to your house. We find tons of kids' books at the thrift store. Half-Price books has kids' books too. I've come to the conclusion that part of the problem is that the kids' reading abilities now fall far short of allowing them to read the books that would hold their interest. SS loves when WE read more advanced books to him, but he could not do it. Another problem is that with this ridiculous All Children Left Behind standardized testing, the school is receiving money for student reading "fluency" - which means how many words per minute they can read aloud. So SS was being taught that if he got to a word he didn't know, to stop reading, raise his hand and wait until someone told him what that word was, rather than to try to figure it out from the context. ARRRGGGH! At any rate, I found him a Classic Start version of Tom Sawyer. It's a kid's version; supposed to be for grades 4-7 but SS could read it without much problem. I had him reading it to himself, and explained that if he doesn't know one or two words, just skip them and he'd figure out the general point of the story. It worked fabulously. It's still a great story; it's just abridged with easier words and shorter chapters so he can read it, and it held his interest a lot more than Biscuit the Boring Dog type of banality. So I just ordered him a bunch more of the Classic Start books; now he's on Huck Finn. What are the custody arrangements? Is it practical that SS can do the book reports while with you or would that mean he spent every waking moment reading? Either way, I'd be disinclined to send the books back - it doesn't sound like BM is attempting to foster any interest in reading so why should they sit there unread?