problem with setTimeout

[exile]

i have a problem (i'm new to ajax).... my script is for simple paging, and it have to setTimeout every 5 seconds only if you're on first page... because of that, i have argument "page" in function and in function body if (page == 1) request_page(1);, but it's calling request_page(1) even if i'm not on the first page... alert is returning righ page value, but immediately it return value 1... i have onload="request_page(1)" in body and in menu i have onclick="request_page(x)".. i'm really desperate, can someone please help me?

function page_request(page)
{
ajax.open("POST","<? echo $this->server; ?>page/" + page + "/",true);
ajax.onreadystatechange = function () {status_agent(page)}
ajax.send(null);
}

function status_agent(page)
{
   if (ajax.readyState == 4)
   {
      if (ajax.status == 200)
      {
      try
      {
      var xmlresponse = ajax.responseXML;
      if (!xmlresponse || !xmlresponse.documentElement) throw("wrong xml structure:\n " + ajax.responseText);
      xmlroot = xmlresponse.documentElement;
      users = xmlroot.getElementsByTagName("user");
      contents = xmlroot.getElementsByTagName("content");
      if (xmlroot.getElementsByTagName("email")) emails = xmlroot.getElementsByTagName("email");
      if (xmlroot.getElementsByTagName("url")) urls = xmlroot.getElementsByTagName("url");
      dates = xmlroot.getElementsByTagName("date");

      var output = "";
      for (var i = 0; i<users.length; i++)
      {
      output += "<p><strong> " + users.item(i).firstChild.data + "</strong> / " + dates.item(i).firstChild.data;
      if (emails.item(i).firstChild.data != 'none') output += " / <a href='mailto: " + emails.item(i).firstChild.data + "'>email</a>";
      if (urls.item(i).firstChild.data != 'none') output += " / <a href='" + urls.item(i).firstChild.data + "'>web</a>";
      output += "<br />" + contents.item(i).firstChild.data + "<br /><br /></p>";
      }
      div = document.getElementById("main");
      div.innerHTML = output;
      div = document.getElementById("menu");
      div.innerHTML = "<? main::menu(); ?>";
      if (page == 1) setTimeout('page_request(1)',2500);
      }
      catch(e) { alert("error while reading xml: " +e.toString()); }
      }
      else alert("wrong http request");
   }
}