Scary Crap

I know it has been a hot minute since I've blogged but I had a ton of stuff that piled up at the end of the semester (grant applications, finals, etc.) and then I jetted off to Africa for two weeks and just now am getting caught back up. I have some other blogs in the works so hopefully I'll start the year off strong and my adoring fans will be happy again :)

Unfortunately the first post of the year is not shiny & happy but since I'm obsessed with my dogs it is very necessary.

About a month and a half ago Ange woke up and notice that Caramel was acting strange kind of like she had had a stroke. She was stumbling around and her legs weren't working very well. She was worried but was waiting to see if she'd snap out of it. Caramel likes to sleep under the covers and really close to our bodies. Ange thought maybe she'd slept on Caramel and her legs were just asleep. She said she looked like she had a stroke but recovered a few minutes later so she wasn't too worried. We hadn't thought about it since then.

However, this morning around 4:15 am I woke up because I could feel some commotion going on by my feet. In the few brief seconds when I was trying to orient myself I felt one of the dogs crashing into my legs so I immediately sat up and turned on the light. Caramel was shaking pretty violently and trying to walk but her legs weren't working well. She had this glassy eyed look on her face and was clearly scared. I grabbed her and put her in between Ange and I and was trying to figure out what the heck was going on. There was clearly something wrong so I jumped up to go put my contacts in and get some sweats on so we could run her to the Emergency Vet near our house. Ange stayed in bed and held her while I was getting ready. She said this was very similar to what happened the previous month except not as severe. By the time I was ready to go she had stopped shaking and was looking normal again. We were sitting on the bed with her and she was her happy self. It was weird. We let the dogs outside and she was running around like normal. Ange thought maybe she got tangled under the blankets and maybe her oxygen got cut off and that's why she was acting like that, and then when she was out of the covers and breathing it went back to normal. So we decided to hold off on the vet visit.

Ange had to work at 6am so she just decided to go ahead and get ready ahead of schedule. I was going to go back to bed but since I was pretty wide awake I thought I'd turn on CNN for a bit and wait until Ange left to go back to sleep. Ange got out of the shower and we were chatting when all of a sudden Caramel's legs started twitching and contracting into her body and she started thrashing around again. I pulled her onto my lap and was loosely holding her while petting her and talking to her to try and keep her calm. At this point I started to think she was having seizures. After a few minutes she was back to normal again. So weird! I decided that since she'd had two seizures in 45 minutes I didn't want to wait until our vet opened at 8 and decided to take her to the Emergency Vet (even though I knew it may cost a fortune!). So I got dressed again and we headed out to the vet while Ange went to work.

I got to the vet and let them know what happened and they said it sounded like she may have epilepsy but they wanted to do some blood tests to rule out other things first. Apparently in dogs it's pretty hard to diagnose epilepsy. Basically they look for all other possible causes of seizures and if they don't find anything else that's the default diagnosis. So they took her back to get her blood and the doctor decided to give her a shot of valium to calm her down a bit as a preventative. As he was walking her back to the exam room she started having trouble walking again and I could hear her crashing into the wall. I opened the exam room door and dropped to the ground to comfort her. The doc wasn't sure if it was a seizure or a result of the valium. He said some dogs have weird reactions to valium although this looked like it was also a seizure. We thought is might be due to both because her leg weakness lasted longer than the other two even though her other behavior returned to normal. Carmie and I chilled on the floor of the exam room and snuggled while we waited on her blood tests. Everything came back completely normal so that basically ruled out all other causes (brain tumors, diabetes, etc.). Since she'd had 3 seizures in an hour and a half he thought it would be best to give her an injection of phenobarbital and a two week prescription of pill phenobarbital. We have to follow up with our regular vet in two weeks to check her phenobarbital levels and see what plan of care our vet recommends.

We got home and she was pretty drowsy, but overall doing better. The doctor said that the small seizures weren't too worrisome--they were scary but they wouldn't hurt her. But the bigger concern would be if she had a massive seizure that she didn't come naturally out of it could cause brain damage. Since Ange & Brian have work and school all week I didn't want to risk leaving her alone for long periods of time while we are in this transition and regulation phase. I got ready for Bloomington and at 8am called my mom and Dale to see if it would be ok to bring Caramel with me to Bloomington. Dale is off work right now and I thought that when I am at class this week he could keep an eye on her and that way we won't have to worry about her having a massive seizure and having no one around to help her. Luckily my mom and Dale are awesome and said no problem.

We came down to Bloomington and I went to my office for a while. Luckily my office is chill so no one minded having Carmie around. I did a few hours of work and then came to my mom's to hang out with her, Dale and my sister who came down for a visit. Carmie's been doing well all day. A little tired and loopy but no more seizures (knock on wood). She is mostly sleepy and a little loopy but all in all much better than she was this morning. She has an appointment at our regular vet in two weeks so we'll see what happens then. I'm just worried about my little angel and tentatively glad that she is doing better!

Dumbest/Funnest Car Game Ever

I think by now you know that my sisters and I are completely insane and weird. But funny! Always funny. Well on our way to Thanksgiving with the extended family I was reminded of a game that we play in the car and I thought it would make a good blog post.

Now I know some people play car bingo, or the license plate game, or the alphabet game in the car, and don't get me wrong, those games definitely are fun...but they require some higher intellectual thinking and paying attention skills that you just don't want to have some drives. Enter "There's Your House."

I think Leslie and Hilary originally made this game up on a long drive to who knows where, but we've all joined in on the fun since then.

Here are the rules of the game:

1. Look out the window.
2. Find the ugliest/grossest/dumbest house/shack/chicken coop/barn you can find.
3. Say "[Name] there's your house."
4. Optional: add details about the house lest they confuse which hell hole you are talking about. E.g. "Hey Leslie, there's your house...the ugly green chicken coop that looks like it's about to collapse."
5. Giggle hysterically.
6. Repeat.

Bonus hint: If there are two hideous shacks near each other, you can automatically return the favor and say "Hmm....looks like you live in the same neighborhood because there's YOUR house...the smelly looking mini-barn with what looks like poop caked on the side!"

Best Places to Play:

Middle of nowhere Indiana. Trust me, there are a lot of crap houses/shacks/chicken coops along 65.
I haven't really played it anywhere else, but I'm sure any crappy areas with long stretches of road will do.

Now I understand if this game isn't for everyone. Some people might get bored after a while. Or you might not think it's as funny as we do. But give it a try. You just might be surprised at how entertaining it is. It's really funny if you don't see any houses for a while and start talking about other random things and then someone explodes in with a "There's your house..."

Enjoy!


P.S. Leslie, there's your house on the left...the crappy little blue chicken coop. Hilary, yours is on the right...the crapster with the giant dog chained to it! ZING!

Things that make you pause...

Ange and I are going to Senegal & The Gambia over the holidays. I was invited back to the trip that I assisted on this summer with Emil and as part of my signing back on I was able to negotiate Ange coming with us. Sweet huh?

Now Ange has never been to Africa, or anywhere outside of the US besides the Bahamas, so she needed to get a long list of vaccines that are required for travel in most developing countries. That whole process is not as easy as it may sound. First there is finding out what vaccines you need. Then there is figuring out which ones may be covered by insurance (if you have it), then figuring out what doctor's offices or clinics have the vaccines you need, then you have to figure out how far in advance you need to get the vaccines (and if they are multi-series vaccines how many times you have to visit and how that factors into the timeline), then there is the budgeting for the tremendous amount of money you have to spend, and finally you make all of your appointments to the (likely) many places you need go to get said vaccines. So Ange did all that (with some assistance from her well traveled partner :)) and started making her rounds. She went to her primary care physician to get her first dose of HepA and meningitis. She had an appointment to see the travel doc and get her typhoid and yellow fever, but in the midst of that the H1N1 vaccine came out and Ange's employer was only giving out the nasal mist to its employees, which if you didn't know, is a live vaccine. Sometimes live vaccines can't be given in conjunction with other vaccines so I suggested she call the travel doc and check. I was correct and she had to reschedule the travel appointment for one month after the H1N1 mist.

That month finally rolls around last Wednesday (day before Thanksgiving--this is important) and because it is Thanksgiving week I am home from Bloomington so I decide to go with Ange to her appointment. One for moral support (I've been through it all and know the doc she was going to see--he's done all my travel stuff), and two, I actually love going to doctor's appointments because I'm attentive (and probably annoying) and I always learn something new and useful. When people ask me why I know so many random health things this is why.

So we get to the doctor's office and fill out some paperwork and whatnot and then go back to his office. Now this doctor is really and truly the best travel doc in Indy. He is the only specialist in his practice (but shares office space with another practice that has a different specialty) so it's very personal and one-on-one. He has a really cool office with a big comfy couch and a giant map of the world on one side. He schedules new patients for an hour long session to go over A to Z info with you, prepares a little info packet with a ton of info on the country/countries you are visiting and generally reminds me of an "old school" doctor that is now very rare. He answers any question you ask in a thoughtful and very explanatory way and generally makes you feel very prepared for your trip (from a health perspective anyway).

So we sit down and the doc starts doing a little health assessment questionnaire with Ange that covers basic health and limited health history. After all the standard questions about current health status comes the biggie question that I've learned to anticipate and take in stride, "Are there any other medical conditions that I haven't listed that are important?" I think I've mentioned before but Ange had leukemia as a child, and not just any leukemia, an extremely rare form of leukemia, rare as in there were only 3 people in the US that had the same kind when she was diagnosed. It was also a very aggressive cancer that had to be treated very aggressively. This question always makes the doctors pause for a minute, they sometimes ask a few more questions about it, but generally it is noted and not mentioned again.

This time was different.

Apparently cancer and vaccines aren't the best of friends. The doc was very hesitant about treating Ange with any live vaccine without the consent of her oncologist. For the adult polio booster she was also going to get, no biggie. It's a dead vaccine. For typhoid, we could get around that. Typhoid comes in a live vaccine (lasts longer) and a dead vaccine. So she could get the dead one. But for yellow fever there is only a live vaccine. And it's a pretty potent one apparently. The doc relays this info to us and tells us that even in people who have not had cancer in a very long time, there is some evidence that shows that their immune systems are not 100%. Under normal conditions you don't even know this. Your body just operates like normal and no one is the wiser. However, because the yellow fever vaccine is so potent he was afraid that if he immune system was not 100% it would not be able to fight off the live virus and she could either have some very gnarly side effects (like Encephalitis) or even get a full blown case of yellow fever. Another random health fact: there is no cure or treatment for yellow fever, and there is a 50% chance of dying if you get it. Yikes.

So the doc asks her how tied to this trip she is and would she consider not going. Um, no way. So we talk some more about the risks involved and related issues and decide that the best plan of action would be for her to call her oncologist and check out the situation. If they say no prob then great, if they say no way then she is going to go into a yellow fever endemic area basically unprotected. Yikes again. Now, yellow fever is spread through the mosquito. Luckily she can protect herself by using lots of bug spray. Secondly, there are not that many mosquitos in the areas we go. Finally, the doc pulled up some fancy data system and looked at the rates of yellow fever in Senegal and The Gambia and determined that the last outbreak of yellow fever in Senegal was 2005 and in the 1970's for The Gambia. We are spending nearly all of the time in The Gambia so that was good news. But the other thing that was concerning for us was that you have to show proof of yellow fever vaccination to enter most yellow fever endemic countries and to return to the US (technically). I have never had anyone ask me for my yellow fever card in my entire history of traveling, but knowing our luck, it will happen this time. You can get a waiver certificate and the doc would also provide a letter of support to say she couldn't get the vaccine but there is no guarantee that the countries we are entering would accept it. Sometimes, they don't. Just depends who is asking at the moment. SO, not the best case scenario.

The doc tells Ange to contact her oncologist and then follow up with him. Here's the major issue. Ange was diagnosed when she was 4, was treated for 18 months, went in to remission, received periodic appointments to make sure she was ok and hasn't seen an oncologist since she was 12. She's 28 now. So who the hell is she supposed to call? A random oncologist? Her oncologist, who we don't even know if he is still in practice? The doc suggested we start with a call to Riley (where she was treated) and see if they could make some recommendations. So we finished up there and went to lunch with a lot on our minds.

I swear when we got in the car I thought Ange was going to cry. The whole news was so overwhelming and unexpected I think we were both in shock. I mean, traveling to Senegal and The Gambia are no big deal. Really, there were so few mosquitos in comparison to Nigeria it was incredible. But Nigeria? Forget about it! There is no way that I would even allow Ange to come and visit me in Nigeria if she were unvaccinated. I mean, we talked about it and it came down to this: if it were something that were treatable and she just might get really sick then that's one thing. But the fact that it isn't treatable and there is a 50% chance she could DIE? That's nothing to mess around with. So of course that is problematic since I intend to work in Africa and most of Africa is yellow fever endemic. So that means either I will have to travel alone for a majority of my career or I'd have to change research locations. Both huge things.

So Ange is still upset and is feeling very overwhelmed. So she asks me to start with the calling. Now here is where the whole Thanksgiving this is important. Ange has to have the vaccine by December 20th at the very latest for it to be effective. Additionally, if there is a chance that it's going to make her really sick we want to make sure we are still near good medical care and not on a plane or halfway around the world. So with Thanksgiving falling late this year, we knew that if we had to wait until after the break things were going to get tight, especially if she needed to get tests and whatever else might come along with making sure your immune system is normal. So as we are driving to lunch I find the number for Riley's Pediatric Oncology Clinic and go through this long spiel of why I am calling. Luckily the lady in the clinic was SOOOO NICE! Which I should have expected from Riley, but you know, these days customer service generally blows so I'm just used to talking to idiots on the phone. She gets all the info and tells me that she'll call me back before the end of the day with an update. She knows she may not get a lot of info being that it's the day before Thanksgiving, but she wanted to get the ball rolling.

We go in and have a very morose lunch, drive home feeling more depressed, and try to do some internet research. The internet research was actually helpful to me, although not to Ange who really looked like she wanted to throw herself off a bridge for the rest of the day. I found out a lot of more reassuring info via the net, but unfortunately for every piece of good news, there still seemed to linger some bad news. For instance, since the 1970's only 9 unvaccinated travelers have gotten yellow fever in all of West Africa. That's pretty good, right? BUT, 8 out of those 9 DIED. Scary.

The lady from Riley did call us back a few hours later to let us know that she had tried to find Ange's file but since it was so long ago it had probably been archived and it would take a request to get it out of the archives which make take a few days. She had also emailed the Infectious Disease specialist at Riley as well as one of the pediatric oncologists. She told us she'd update us after the break. Swear, such a nice lady.

The rest of the break we tried not to dwell on the issue and did a good job of keeping out of the focus of our minds. Luckily Ange bounces back quickly so I didn't have to worry about her sanity. We decided to just keep the what ifs until later after we had a definitive decision.

Well wouldn't you know, our wonderful friend of Riley tracked down the right people and on Monday Ange got a call from a doc at Riley giving her the go-ahead for the vaccine! He actually said there was NO REASON to hesitate about it. We had already discussed the fact that we thought our travel doc was just being extra cautious and that since he wasn't an oncologist he could just be way off on the real danger. Turns out, we were right about that! This is not to say we are angry or upset by the whole fiasco. We think it's excellent that the doc was able to be informed (even if overly cautious) and really and truly had Ange's health as the focus. Luckily it was patched up very quickly, it just sucked that we had to worry over the holiday.

Anyway, Ange gets the vaccine tomorrow. Yay! So happy that my little love bug gets to travel the world with me and we don't have to worry about her dying from yellow fever! Just one more thing to be thankful for this holiday.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Turkey Day everyone! This year I thought it would be nice to reflect on all of the good things in my life.

I am thankful for:

1. Finding a caring wonderful partner to share my life with.
2. Our five silly and loving dogs.
3. My wonderful family and friends.
4. My overall generally good health.
5. A wonderful PhD program filled with fun and intelligent people.
6. Living a financially stable life.
7. Having the opportunity to travel often and to very cool places.
8. All of the good people who do selfless acts to help those in need, whether anyone recognizes them or not.
9. All of the little things I overlook on a daily basis that make my life as awesome as it is.

Don't forget to give your thanks today!

Something to chew on...

I've got some posts abrewin' about fat/weight/social commentary coming up, but until then and to start some thinking see this short message I got via the PostSecret community email this morning:

Hi Frank~

I attended your event in Kalamazoo, MI and I wanted to share a humbling story about that night. I was sitting fairly close and there was this overweight couple sitting in front of me that were hanging all over each other for most of the event. I was so distracted by all of their displays of affection I actually started to get annoyed. I think it was partly the displays themselves, and partly the fact that they were both on the heavy side and I was being judgmental.

When you asked for people to come up to the microphones, the woman stood up and was first in line. She said, "I have always had problems with confidence, but I have never felt more beautiful and confident than when I am with my husband." She then went back to her seat and sat beside him. He put his arm around here, whispered something in her ear and kissed her cheek.

Her secret resounded in my head, and at that moment, I wished I was her. I would trade my current 125 pound body with hers if it meant I could be as happy as she. I don`t know who she was and I will never see her again, but I want to thank her for teaching me a lesson that day.

Ponder that, and I'll get back to you soon.

Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

So I realize it's been a hot minute since I have done any real posting. Things have been crazy-crazbo lately and I literally have not had a moment to think, much less sit and write. I think that things will continue being crazy at least until the first of December. I was on such a roll, I had posted almost everyday for a month! Sad.

So to bring you up-to-date on the happenings of my life it will be best to do a bulleted update!

• I've been working like MAD on dissertation funding applications. I recently turned in a Kinsey Institute research grant worth $750, and am plowing through my golden goose grant, Fulbright-Hays, which is due December 1st (see above for why I will not be posting much). The average award for the Fulbright-Hays is $43,000 so you can see why that is running my life at the moment. IU has a pretty good track record so I'm hoping that is good news.
• We just got back from the APHA Annual Conference. It was crazy as usual and poor Ange got sick and stayed sick the entire time we were there. But it was still a fairly decent time.
  
• This coming weekend is offical Ange is moving in day. She's been living here for about 2-3 months but still has stuff at her house on the eastside. Next weekend, it's all coming here.
  
• School is blah. Lots of busy work to do and soooo little interest in doing it. It will be over soon.
  
• Just found out that I get to teach Human Sexuality in the spring. Very, very good news. If I had to teach Personal Hell, I mean Personal Health, again I may have dropped dead.
• My friend Phil-Phil and I signed up for a weekly yoga class. I find it very enjoyable and it gets me off my butt and away from grants and work for at least an hour a week.

Um, I guess that's not a TON, but believe me, it feels like it. Maybe it's because the first bullet point is CONSUMING MY ENTIRE BEING. I have to get some major funding. Have to, have to. If I don't, then my dissertation will either not happen the way I want it to, or majorly suck. So let's just keep our fingers crossed.

More on healthcare...

From my personal archives: an Op-Ed that never got published in our crappy paper. They'd rather publish insane amounts of coverage on the Colts and other asinine issues.

Here in the US the major arguments against drastic healthcare reform are that people refuse to wait for healthcare services and lose the complete freedom to choose a healthcare professional of their liking. This is laughable to someone who has witnessed the extreme poverty present in the majority of the rest of the world.

When we discuss our rationale against universal healthcare in the U.S, we often leave a major point unspoken. By refusing to compromise on the care we currently receive, we, who have health insurance, are saying that our own access to healthcare is more important than our neighbors’.

I have just returned from my fourth medical mission to Nigeria and I am amazed at the dialogue surrounding the topic of healthcare reform in the United States. In Nigeria the disparity between the wealthy elite and the majority of the population that is poor is most pronounced in the realm of healthcare.

There is no Nigerian national health insurance and this leads to morbidity and mortality among the poor that could easily be prevented if only affordable care were available. The poor Nigerians assume that the US, the richest country in the world, does not have to worry about such primitive medical disparities. There are some legitimate economic excuses for the many injustices that the average African faces, but how long can we American pretend that our healthcare system is a model of justice?

In the Nigerian clinic where we work people will wait an entire year for our arrival, and then wait in line in the sweltering sun and monsoon rains for five days just to be seen by our team of American doctors. If they are not able to see us during that five-day window they have to wait another year for their only chance at professional healthcare. In the U.S., we feel that our rights have been violated if we are asked to make an appointment that is more than a week out.

I have spent much time in countries where the value of a person’s life is determined by the amount of money he or she has. This is not a value I wish to affirm in my own country. When we accept that some lives are worth more than others and that certain people deserve healthcare more than others I am ashamed to see that we Americans have made the same choice as the privileged elite of Nigeria: if you can afford healthcare, life is good; if you cannot, do not bother me with your problems.

In the US we are quick to celebrate and laud the sacrifices of our men and women in the military. We talk about the selfless giving of their comforts and even their lives so that we as a country may live better lives. And yet, when asked to sacrifice some of our “rights” so that our fellow Americans can have access to healthcare, we are quick to say no. Apparently sacrifice is only required by Americans fighting terrorists.

Am I willing to sacrifice my on-demand healthcare and curtail my choice of providers? If it means that everyone in this country can have access to care without the worry of bankruptcy, ruined credit, loss of home or other negative consequences that many uninsured Americans face I know I am willing to make that sacrifice.

I consider it my patriotic duty to my fellow Americans. I want to believe that my country has a stronger sense of patriotism and justice than the impoverished countries I have visited. We are good at lecturing other countries about these principles, but it is time to live up to the standard of justice we claim to represent.