Cinco de Pancreas

Hey, all! I know I haven't posted in months, but I'm back! And this will be a kinda long post to make up for the time I've spent away. Happy Cinco de Mayo! I understand that doesn't really mean very much, but we have a fun Cinco de Mayo tree up at work, with chili pepper lights, and a margarita glass full of dark chocolate Hershey kisses. But Cinco de Mayo will always mean something to me. It's the day, back in 2002, when I nearly died.

Let me explain. On May 4, 2002, I had a class to go to for my job. It was an all-day class, and I had fun (pretty much). Several people from my base went to the class with me, and a good time was had by all. The class was about an hour and 15 minutes away from my home base, so we stopped for a few things on the way home. One of those things was food. Some of us ate, others didn't, and then we went on our way. We got back to base without incident, and went our separate ways.

I didn't feel all that well when I got to my house, but I figured it was because I was a bit wound up from the class. I'd been a little stressed over this particular class, and I imagined I hadn't really realized how stressed I'd been, and that was why my stomach wasn't feeling right. I had some antacid and felt a little better. Later I ate dinner, and it seems maybe I went to bed a little earlier than usual.

I woke at about 2:30 AM, needing to go to the bathroom. This was somewhat unusual for me, but you gotta do what you gotta do. I got back in bed and had just drifted off again when I realized I was quite nauseated. I ran back to the bathroom and threw up. That was the start of it. For the rest of the night, I was up about every 45 minutes, running back and forth to the bathroom with a variety of tummy troubles. Didn't get much sleep, as you might imagine. Finally, at about 6:30, I went downstairs and mentioned to my mom that I was sick. I thought perhaps it was some mild food poisoning, possibly from the meal I'd had the afternoon before. I realized that, because it was Sunday, my only options were to either wait it out, or to go to the hospital for some treatment. But I was so tired, I thought from lack of sleep, that I decided to have a bit of a lie-down on the floor and see how things went. It was so hard to move, to do anything at all that required even a little bit of effort. I didn't realize it at the time, but even though I thought I was just taking a little nap, I was really losing consciousness for varying periods of time. My mom and brother kept asking if I wanted to go to the hospital, but I kept putting them off, thinking I'd get to feeling better after a little nap. The nausea had subsided, but I just couldn't get out of my own way. I decided to take a shower.

The shower wasn't the best idea in the world. I stood in the stream of water, just stood there, for I don't know how long. At times I would sit down in the tub and pass out. I finally turned off the water, got out of the tub, and laid down on the bath mat. I passed out again. I was out for probably 45 minutes, and my brother finally banged on the bathroom door, which brought me around a bit. I struggled a bit more, then got dressed, went downstairs, and finally, at about 3 PM, my mom and brother talked me into going to the hospital. He drove, Mom sat in the front of his Jeep Wrangler, and I got put in the back seat. I couldn't stay awake. And my abdomen was starting to hurt a bit, but not like when I was nauseated.

The hospital is an hour away. Now, I think I've mentioned before, I work for an ambulance service, so obviously I didn't want to take the ambulance to the hospital. I didn't really think I was ill enough for an ambulance; they're for really sick people, or really hurt people, not somebody with a little tummy pain who needs a good night's sleep. I realized much later that I would have been much, much better off if I'd taken the ambulance. But medical people make the worst patients, so my brother and mother humored me and transported me by private vehicle. We finally got to the hospital, and somehow I managed to walk in. The triage nurse saw me walk in, recognized me, and took me immediately into triage. I guess I looked pretty ill. I know I was walking somewhat bent over, holding my tummy.  She told me I was very pale, did her triage routine, and sent me to the waiting room. It's a community hospital, very good for what it does, but it's not a huge emergency department, and it looked somewhat busy. I sat down next to my family and waited.

A few minutes later, another nurse called my name, but when I went to stand up to follow her, I almost fell to the floor. I screamed out in pain. They got a wheelchair, and there was a flurry of activity. I was put in a room immediately. As my mom and brother watched (they were allowed into the room, and stood in a corner, to keep out of the way), I got an IV, an EKG, a blood draw, an abdominal ultrasound, and I don't remember what else. One of the physician assistants came in to get my history. I was in and out of consciousness. Unconscious was best, because when I was awake I was screaming in pain. I'm pretty tolerant of pain, but this was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. We ask people to rate their pain on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being almost no pain, and 10 being the worst pain the patient can imagine. When they asked me, I rated the pain at 20, and I meant it wholeheartedly. This was pain beyond what I could even start to imagine. This was beyond Stephen King's or HP Lovecraft's wildest, most horrific dreams. It felt like a huge, red hot ice auger was drilling through my upper abdomen. Absolutely dreadful.

At some point, I apparently passed out for an extended period.. When I woke, my family wasn't there. I asked one of the nurses, and she told me that they'd gone home. I was to be admitted. They were waiting for a room to be readied for me on the appropriate floor. I asked her what was wrong with me, and she said they weren't positive, but it looked like pancreatitis. Oh, great. Pancreatitis has terrible press, and it's all completely deserved. And the thing about being a medical provider is, you know this stuff. And I'm one of those crazy people who reads medical textbooks for kicks, so I knew quite a bit about pancreatitis. None of it was good.

I'll have to stop there for now. I have a lot of things to do before bed, and I have to be in a town two hours away by 9 AM tomorrow for a training session. Part II will be posted soon... I hope.

Holidays

It has not been the best year. I lost my mother in June. I've lost 4 of my bunnies, most recently this past Wednesday, when one of my oldest died while at the vet's. We lost Christopher Hitchens. Eighteen years ago, my father was in the hospital through Christmas, and died on December 30, so this season is kinda hard on me. So I'll just post some videos for all none of you to watch.

First, this is Teddy Bear. He is a porcupine. He is unbelievably adorable. Don't try to take his cookie. (Thanks to my brother for finding this!)

Next, here is Tim Minchin. He's not quite as adorable as Teddy Bear, but he's still kinda cute. And I love this song, although I have a hard time listening to it. Always makes me cry.

If you haven't seen much of Tim, you really should look him up. He's fantastic.

Finally, for the ultimate in cute, here are some of my fur kids with hats. They were not impressed with me at all for asking them to pose:

This is Smoochy the guinea pig.

This is Zoe. She was very cooperative, but not at all impressed. I'm sure she won't be impressed that I cut off her butt.

Chester McGrumpypants was so unimpressed that he didn't want to be seen wearing this stupid hat. He refused to pick up his head.

Hoppy Holidays, all! Let's hope next year is somewhat better.

Hitch

Christopher Hitchens is dead, at age 62, of complications from esophageal cancer. I never met him, but wish I had. I may write more later, but I'm not sure. I'm pretty unhappy right now.

Science denialism

This is a subject that really irks me. Some of my otherwise rational, intelligent friends and coworkers deny science in a variety of ways. One won't vaccinate his four kids (he and his wife are planning on having more, too), because he's "not in the mood for autism and mercury poisoning". His wife, a lovely woman, relies mainly on "herbal cures" to take care of herself and her family. You feel a cold coming on? Here, drink this repulsive, smelly tea. Two are on diets that, long-term, may harm them. At least one tells me he's not going to be on it for long; the other thinks that, after eating fried foods, sweets and McDonald's all his life, he's going to be happy and be able to sustain a diet that cuts out almost all carbohydrates, does not include bread or grains, and only includes, basically, water to drink. Sorry, my friend, but I don't think so. But good luck to you. That particular friend is a fellow skeptic, but is apparently sometimes easily swayed by "authority" (unless it's religious authority, but that's a different story). It really makes me angry.

But Bunny, you may say, they have a right to do or think or believe or feel any way they want. Yeah, you're right. But I don't want to see my friend's kids getting measles or whooping cough, simply because their parents took them to another home school event, where none of the other kids are vaccinated, and one picked up measles somewhere and spread it to their friends, or the parent has a "bad cough that won't go away", and it ends up really being pertussis, and now all the kids have it, and some are hospitalized, and one dies. No, it really is that bad. Have you ever seen a kid with pertussis (whooping cough)? I have. It's horrible. My father was a general practice physician, and he saw whooping cough all the time. And, occasionally, smallpox. He was happy when it was eradicated in the wild in 1979, due to the efforts of the World Health Organization and their vaccination campaign. My mother's sister suffered from polio, which she contracted as a very small girl during an epidemic. Her legs were paralyzed by it, and later in life my mother suffered from post-polio syndrome, because it's likely she had a low-level infection during the epidemic. Polio still exists in the world, and people are paralyzed or killed by it all the time. Even chickenpox can be fatal to some, and hospitalizes many more. The cost of these diseases in dollars is immense; the cost in human lives is much, much worse.

That was a child with whooping cough. Imagine hearing that for hours, days, weeks on end. Imagine a child dying because he was too young to be immunized, or had a medical reason why he couldn't be immunized (like HIV/AIDS, or cancer treatments, because yes, kids get cancer, too). Just horrible. There has been no identifiable link between ANY vaccine and autism. So protect your kids and get them immunized, already! And update your own immunizations. If you're an adult, you should get an update on your diphtheria/tetanus shot, and make sure you ask for the pertussis vaccine (the combined vaccine is called Tdap) with that. It's just one little shot, for crying out loud! I did it, after I finally realized I could. And because I'm around my friend's kids.

People spend millions of dollars every year denying science. They use remedies that won't cure them, then go to the hospital when they're much sicker and aren't getting better. That ends up costing much, much more than  the doctor's office visit would have. They buy homeopathic "remedies", which are basically just water dropped onto a sugar pill. No, really. Oscillococcinum, the "flu remedy" sold at drugstores and Walmart and other such places, at least, is essentially just a piece of duck liver and/or duck heart waved over a glass of water, then the water is placed onto sugar pills and sold for considerably more than it's worth. Ok, maybe that's oversimplified, but the result is the same. It's insane. Here's James Randi explaining how homeopathy works (watch it, it's terrific):

I love James Randi.

The world could prevent people from starving if so many well-meaning people weren't afraid of "genetically modified organisms (GMOs)". People, we've been modifying crops for centuries! Take the banana, for instance, one of the world's most popular fruits. It used to look like this:

http://bwindiresearchers.wildlifedirect.org/files/2009/07/pict0268.jpg

Would you really want to eat that? You know what they look like now:

http://www.fatburningfurnace.com/images/Banana%20nutrition%20facts.jpg

That's because humans crossed different types of bananas and finally got something good. It happens with everything. We cross different types of fruits to get new fruits (nectarine and tangelo, anyone?), we breed animals to come up with cattle that are better at either meat or milk production (sorry, vegans, I know, but let me finish), we even cross animals that we live with to get the best traits of each of the parents (think Labradoodle or Maltipoo). With GMOs, we're manipulating genes. We can put vitamin A in rice, and save the sight of millions for whom rice is a staple food. Sure, there are drawbacks. Nothing we do in life is totally without risk. But because we've done science on all this, and we are allowed to experiment, we know pretty much what we're doing. Well, scientists do. The rest of the population, not so much. Because the United States, as a whole, is a pretty science-illiterate population, I'm sad to say. And that needs to change.

One more video for you. It's a TED talk by science writer Michael Specter. It pretty much sums it up.

I have to go start cooking stuff for tomorrow. Have a great turkey day!

Treat time!

Every once in a while I like to make treat bags for the buns. Considering the number of buns that live with me, it can be quite a production. So I create an assembly line, and have at it.

I start off by assembling all the materials. This time I'm using dried cranberries, Nutriberries (yes, ok, I know they're parrot treats, but the buns love them once in a while), timothy hay, and little candy-shaped mineral treats. They all go together in a simple paper bag, which is tied up with twine.

My ingredients

I open all the bags, and put a few dried cranberries into them, followed by a couple of Nutriberries. Then I fill the bags about halfway with the timothy hay, scrunch the bags closed, then tie with twine. I finish off by stringing a mineral chew onto the twine and tying a bow.

Lots of bags, filled!

You can use whatever treats you want. I've used different dried fruits. My buns like papaya, mango, dried apples, dried cherries, pineapple, and banana chips. I've also used treats other than mineral chews. You can find all kinds of things either online or in pet supply shops. I like to use things that you ordinarily put on treat hangers, because they have holes pre-drilled into them. This makes it easy to tie onto the bag. In place of regular hay, you can get hay that has all kinds of special stuff in it, like marigold flowers, mint or dried carrots.

Tied with the mineral chews; cute for the bunz!

Annie inspects her treat bag

Peter is trying to figure it all out. He's a new guy.

Bob and Zoe know what to do

Seventeen bags for my happy bunniez

It wasn't a very good week. I lost one of my buns over the weekend. It looked like she had a stroke. She was one of the girls that was born in my bed while I was at work six years ago. This was before I could find a vet who would spay or neuter rabbits. One of my boys escaped and managed to open the girls' cage.  I had to take her to the vet on Monday for cremation. I'll keep her ashes with the rest of my lost friends. While I was there, I stopped at the shelter, and adopted their last bunny. I had adopted one on Friday, and they'd been trying to get me to take this one home, but I didn't have the room then. My shelter, thankfully, doesn't take in many bunnies. The companions of the one that died are now refusing to sleep in the condo in which she died, and have opted for a smaller one. I'm trying to convince them to go into the larger one, because they're stacking themselves in the small condo. I'm sure they'll figure it out. I'm hoping the treat bags will make them happy. From the sounds emanating from my bedroom, it seems to have worked.

Freddie

I have always been a Queen fan. That's Queen, as in "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Another One Bites The Dust", not as in Elizabeth II of England, or whoever. Yesterday would have been Freddie Mercury's 65th birthday. For those of you who just crawled out of the cabbage patch, Freddie Mercury was the lead singer of Queen, who died of HIV/AIDS in November of 1991. A more magnificent frontman you couldn't ever find. Just look at the official Queen channel on YouTube, at the concert clips, and you'll see what I mean. FU, Justin Bieber. Oh, and Vanilla Ice, for that stupid "Ice, Ice Baby" bullshit. If there's a hell (and there isn't), you deserve to burn in it for ripping off Queen. And denying it. Asshole.

In any case, Google's doodle for yesterday (the rest of the world) and today (US), is dedicated to Freddie. They also have a blog post written by the guitarist for Queen, Brian May, who is also an astrophysicist. Yeah! It's here: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/happy-birthday-freddie-mercury.html, and it's wonderful.

Happy birthday, Freddie. You are sorely missed.

Interesting...

My brother sent me some links. Some infuriate me. Some make me happy. Guess which is which!


A big yellow rabbit


Awesome DIY surgery!


Really? You have that much cash, New Hampshire?

I do love my brother, but he sometimes pushes my buttons.

(And in case you were wondering, who wouldn't love a huge, wooden rabbit? Every town should have one!)