Topic 159: Watch your step!

Carol:

Le Diable Et Le Bon Dieu

I realized this morning that regular readers of our daily theme essays may by now have gotten a skewed impression of me because I use self-deprecating anecdotes to get a laugh (or at least a faint smile). I may give the impression that I am a simpering, idealistic, weepy, food-stained, wispy-haired reality and crime TV addict who is obsessed with genealogy and dogs. Please… that’s only 80% of who I really am. The other 20% is an eclectic intellect who used to be able to read French plays by Sartre in the original language, knows the route from Haworth town centre to the Bronte Parsonage (make sure you follow that little lane to the left) and has cultivated a lifelong interest in architecture. Let me illustrate.

I had a devil of a time finding my way around the Winchester Mansion “Mystery House” in San Jose, California. Not because I lack a sense of direction, but because the Winchester House itself lacks a plan... deliberately, so the story goes. Take a tour of the 160-room mansion with its 367 steps, stairways to nowhere (certainly not to heaven), and you will hear the story of distraught widow Sarah Winchester. Sarah sought the counsel of a Medium after the death of her only child. Her husband William Wirt Winchester had left her 50% of his holdings in the family business, i.e. the company that manufactured “the gun that won the West.” The Medium, so they say, warned her that the Winchester family was cursed by the spirits of the people killed by their guns, so in an effort to elude the ghosts Sarah kept adding on to her California mansion for 38 years, building trick doors and windows and a maze of rooms that even the servants couldn’t navigate without a map. Or, a less romantic story is that she designed the mansion herself instead of hiring a good architect and just didn’t have a strong aesthetic (source: Sarah Winchester).
 

Thank God, I was also able to travel to Spain to see an architectural marvel in mid-construction in 1969. A college friend and I arrived in Barcelona on Christmas Day and headed straight for the Basilica Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia, that wonder- in- progress of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi. Construction on this monument to religious faith began two years before construction on the Winchester Mansion began, and the current goal is to complete the Basilica by 2026, the centennial of its chief architect Gaudi’s death.  Although its spires rise straight up to the heavens and can be seen from all over the city, it only has 350 steps, 17 less than the Winchester mansion.  By the time I had reached the top of the building, my legs were shaking uncontrollably from the steep climb even though I was only 20 years old at the time (source: Sagrada Familia).
 

Both the Winchester Mansion and the Sagrada Familia have prompted controversy over excesses of decoration, expense of construction, and delays in completion. Sarah Winchester attempted to expiate family sins and elude Le Diable by constructing a wood and brick, hide-and-seek touristic curiosity. Gaudi took the plans of an earlier architect to build a tradition church and transformed them into a grand and completely unique structure to exalt Le Bon Dieu.
 

If all you want is a good set of stairs to challenge your lungs and leg muscles, I suggest  the Washington monument in our national’s capitol, dedicated on Washington’s birthday in 1885. The tallest stone structure in the world, in the six months after the dedication,   over 10,000 visitors climb its 897 stairs to the top. (source Washington Monument).
 

Whatever your architectural destination, a bit of advice:

   

Sources:
Image of the Sagrada Familia Basilica. Bernard Gagnon. 
20 Sep 2009.     
Sagrada Familia.
Sara Winchester.
Washington Monument.

Megan:

Watch your step!

The main floor of our house is mostly open plan, but between the foyer and the living room, there is a single step down.* After 28 years living in this house, we don’t even think about it, which is why we never remember to warn our visitors. Whoops, we say too late. There’s a step there.

If we’re used to that one it’s only because we’ve all had fallen on every other staircase in the house. I’ve already documented the time I tried somersaulting down the stairs . The parents have tripped many times carrying loads of laundry, and when my brother was a baby, he fell off the first tier of the basement stairs (which at that point had no railing) and bit through his lip. When I did gymnastics, I used to practice handstands as I made my way up the stairs. That sounds more dangerous than it was. Since I wasn’t very good, I mostly just kicked and flailed my legs behind me – one time kicking a parent in the face.

When my parents bought this house, it wasn’t finished. The wrap around deck didn’t fully wrap around, and for most of my childhood we had two doors we weren’t allowed to open – one off the kitchen, and one off my parents room. The fall probably wouldn’t have killed us, but broken limbs were certain. After the rotted front staircase gave way on my mother one morning, I remember crawling over her as she lay in the gap where the step used to be, and ordered me to go back into the house to give my father a message.  The new deck wrapped fully around and my parents had a balcony to themselves. That was at least 15 years ago, and we still rarely use those doors.

Off of the kitchen, we now have a staircase that is so steep it requires intense concentration to descend, even for the dogs. Milo’s okay but Bella won’t go down them after dark, instead doing her business at the top of the stairs much to everyone’s annoyance. I could probably train her by walking down with her, but the truth is, I don’t like those stairs in the dark either.

Stairs have been my nemesis for as long as I can remember. I wrote a short-story while I was in college about someone who lives alone, falls down the stairs and lays undiscovered for weeks, eaten alive by a cat. It was a lot funnier than it sounds. It was also meant to be a metaphor about relationships, but all the examples of falling down staircases were taken directly from my own experience: at the courthouse after paying a parking ticket, at the church when my shoes fell off and clattered down the steps beside me, and all the times in my house. I was grateful that when I finally did live by myself, in England, I lived in a ground floor flat with no stairs. I fell numerous times in the prison, but always on my own with only the cameras to witness.

I don’t mind falling on stairs. I have enough experience now to fall correctly and minimize injury. It’s always better to fall up. I just get so embarrassed when someone sees me, especially because they always act so concerned. I’d rather they just laugh at me the way my mother does.


*From the living room to the foyer, there is a step up.

Topic 114: The Psychology of Patent Medicines

Carol:

Patently Absurd

Last night the CBS program 60 Minutes had a special segment on the latest hoax in 21st century medicine,  internet-advertised stem-cell therapy “clinics.” Not that medical scams are a new idea, just the marketing through cyberspace. 
 
The term “patent medicine” may confuse someone into believing that the term refers to medical treatments that have gone through rigorous testing and FDA approval to gain a patent.  The term actually refers to over-the-counter medicines whose brand names are protected by patents, not the actually drug compounds themselves. More specifically, it refers to the kind of “medicines” we associate with movies about the Old West, the “snake oil salesmen” and medicine shows.   Pitchmen would pedal cure-all ointments, tonics and elixirs out of tents or wagons, and the medicine shows themselves were spectacles that drew in the crowds with Wild West themes, displays of muscle men.  Patent medicines were claimed to cure everything from scarlet fever to TB and cancer to veneral disease, and the primary “hook” was the testimonial of “satisfied users.” (source Wikipedia—Patent Medicine)
 
With the proliferation of women’s magazines in the latter half of the 19th century, print advertising became the primary marketing tool, women the target audience. It was an “anything goes” business with no government or medical oversight of the medicinal claims of patent medicines and no limitations on what could be advertised. By the early 1890’s patent medicine advertising in magazines and through direct-mail circulars brought in millions of dollars in revenue to both the advertisers and the magazines. Thus was born a new industry, the advertising business.
 
Ironically, the demise of the patent medicine industry came as the result of self-policing in the magazine industry itself. Journalists and publishers began to investigate patent medicine claims, started publishing their findings, and then called a halt to advertising from their most lucrative customers. One of the first  was The Ladies Home Journal in 1892 followed by 7 other newspapers and magazines over the next two years. The Journal’s Editor Edward Bok went to great lengths to investigate and expose the trickery behind their claims. One of the most popular products “Lydia Pinkham’s Herb Medicine” had such a following that it encouraged women to write to Miss Pinkham for all kinds of advice. Bok put the advertisement showing Miss Pinkham at work in her laboratory in The Ladies’ Home Journal next to a photograph of her tombstone showing she had been deadline for over twenty years. (Source:  Bok) Eventually, a 1905 expose in Collier’s Weekly led to the passage of the first “Pure Food and Drug Act” a year later, which called for strict labeling and eventually patent medicines were banned.
 
So, here we are almost a hundred years later, and the industry for pedaling both prescription and over-the-counter medicines is now a multi-million dollar business.  Drug companies, which sent salesmen to the doctor’s office, now advertise directly to the patient via print, image, and cyberspace. Who has NOT gotten an e-mail in the last month—whatever your age or gender—for the latest version of Viagra?
 
Advertising is all about psychology, and what more vulnerable target for the Big Business of health-care than people who are sick, afraid, or desperate for medical alternatives? Yesterday’s medicine show elixir is today’s nutritional supplement.   Want a “time-proven” simpler, cheaper remedy than stem-cell therapy? Numark Laboratories sells Lydia Pinkham Herbal Compound as part of its “innovative treatments for unique medical conditions. (source: Numark Laboratories)

Sources:
Edward William Bok (1863–1930). The Americanization of Edward Bok. 1921. XXX “Cleaning Up the Patent-  Medicine And Other Evils.”   http://www.bartleby.com/197/30.html
 

Numark Laboratories> Lydia Pinkham Herbal Compound.
            http://www.numarklabs.com/index.php?src=gendocs&link=LydiaPinkham&category=Nutritional%20Supplements
Wikipedia Patent Medicine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_medicine

Megan:

The Power of the Brand Name Cold Medicine

So, I wrote most of this essay in my head over the weekend before my mother casually mentioned that “Patent Medicine” was an actual thing, rather than a general term. I assumed it had something to do with branding – the power of brand recognition, but apparently it’s a term specific to 19th century elixirs and powders with potentially hazardous ingredients of dubious origin. And, I don’t care to write about that. Maybe mom did. Or you could look it up yourself. I’m just going with my original thought – about brand recognition, and the magical powers associated thereto.

As I mentioned last week, I hurt my back and was given painkillers and muscle relaxants – specifically Vicodin (or as I like to call it Vomit-em) and Valium. Those are the words that the nurse practitioner used when she told me what she was prescribing. I’d taken Vicodin about 10 years ago when I had an operation (see My Ailments), and had heard of Valium only in its application as an anti-anxiety medication. But when I collected the medication from the pharmacy, I noticed that the little orange bottles had different names on the label – hydrocodone and diazepam.

It wasn’t until I moved to England and I couldn’t find the familiar names like Advil,  or Tylenol that I realized that medications also have chemical names. In a country which refers to most things by its most popular brand name (Biro for ball-point pen, Hoover for vacuum, Philedelphia for cream cheese), over-the-counter medication is seemed almost exclusively referred to by the chemical names. In England, the go to drug for all aches, pains and feverish ailments is paracetamol –(in this country: the same drug is called acetaminophen (why aren’t the chemical names the same??)). 

The only brand name cold remedy I ever became familiar with, or that had the ubiquitous referral was Lemsip – a specific brand, but referred to any flavored (usually lemon, but also cherry) powder which was dissolved in hot water and drunk like a nasty fruity tea. I suppose the fact that it was consumed as a hot drink was meant to be soothing, like having a nice cuppa, but I only tried it a couple of times before I managed to track down some orange liquid capsules that at least resembled the day-time version of my favorite cold medicine.

I’ve always known there were generic versions of big brand items. Safeway and Fry’s have their own brands of over-the-counter cold and flu remedies. Every time someone in the house is sick and we send my father out for DayQuil, he invariably comes back with the store brand because it’s cheaper. Even though he has sat me down and compared the ingredients side by side, I can always tell that there was a difference in quality, that the cheaper brands don’t work as well and that my father doesn’t really love me.

That’s the power of advertising.

Topic 112: The Life Urge in Nature

Carol:

I Came, I Saw, I Condored

The Science Channel’s website has “top 10” links that are curiosity-catching if not deep science. "Top 10 Mating Rituals" fits today’s topic, but I prefer “Top 10 Species We Miss.” The list includes such favorites as the Dodo Bird (#1) and the Dinosaur (#2). Less colorful is a bird whose extinction is the result of a conflict with the life urges of another species, the human being.
 

Passenger Pigeon 1889

Number 3 is the Passenger Pigeon, which at one time represented 25-40% of the bird population of the United States. Between the arrival of the first pilgrims in the early 1600’s  and 1914, the passenger pigeon population  dropped from over 3 billion to zero with the death on Sept 1914 of the Cincinnati Zoological Garden’s captive pigeon Martha.  During the late 19th century, human intervention failed to re-establish the species, which needed large, healthy flocks to survive. What happened to the passenger pigeon? Some of their demise came from habitat loss as the European settlers moved westward.  More devastating was the appetite for pigeon meat, which became a commercial product in the mid-1800’s. Human beings literally ate the passenger pigeon to death. (Source: Encyclopedia Smithsonian.)
 

A bird not on the Smithsonian’s top 10 is the California Condor, North America’s largest land bird, with a wing span of 10 feet and a life span of up to 60 years  Again, human beings can take dubious credit for the decline in the condor population, not because anyone would consider these vultures edible. The growing people population overtook  their territory, and pollution weakened the eggs and killed the parents.  By 1987, the population of wild condors had dropped below 10. Scientists had been already been collecting eggs for breeding programs, so they captured the remaining wild condors and stepped up captive breeding efforts. (Source: National Geographic website).
 

Almost 100 years after the extinction of the final passenger pigeon, the California Condor population is rare, endangered, but growing.  Human intervention was controversial and extreme, pinning all hopes for reviving the species on ambitious and expensive captive breeding/re-introduction programs through the collaboration of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Los Angeles Zoo, the San Diego Wild Animal Park and later groups such as the Peregrine Fund. 
 

The current estimated population of California condors is over 320, with half in the wild. In 1996, the Peregrine Fund began releasing captive-bred condors into the Grand Canyon, with the National Parks Service in 2009 recording 8 wild-bred condors in Arizona and Utah along with 5 nesting areas. If you want to see a California Condor up close, your best bet is probably a zoo (San Diego Safari Park, Santa Barbara Zoo). If you want to see a Condor in the wild, California’s Big Sur and Pinnacles National Monument  near Hollister.
 

The Grand Canyon?  Ask my husband about his field trip to the Canyon with the bird-watching class from Yavapai College several years back. The trip started at the North Rim, where a dinner-time sighting caused a stampede of birders to the windows of the Grand Canyon Lodge to glimpse a Condor. Their best viewing came later at the South Rim, right outside Kolb Studio where the condors soared close enough for Marc to see their numbered ID tags. Marc was so excited, he bought a t-shirt announcing to the world, “I Came…I Saw… I Condored.”
 

Two bird stories with very different endings. Ironically, the extinction of the passenger pigeon led to the enactment of many of the conservation laws that would later rescue the Condor from becoming one of the “Top 10 Species We Miss.” 

California Condor in flight, 2007

Sources:
Discovery Channel.” Mutant Planet. Top 10 Extinct Species—Passenger Pigeon
  http://science.discovery.com/top-ten/2009/extinct-species/extinct-species-03.html
Encyclopedia Smithsonian on line.”Passenger Pigeons” 
  http://www.si.edu/encyclopedia_Si/nmnh/passpig.htm
National Geographic online.”California Condor.”
 http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/california-condor/
National Parks Service: Grand Canyon Condor Re-introduction Program. http://www.nps.gov/grca/naturescience/condor-re-introduction.htm

Passenger Pigeons. Encyclopedia Smithsonian on line.
http://www.si.edu/encyclopedia_Si/nmnh/passpig.htm

Megan:

No essay from me, sorry. Turns out I don't get along with the pain medication at all. So, I'm hanging out in bed today.

Topic 105: Mental Vagrancy

Carol:

A Walk on the Wild Side

Watusi cattle

A vagrant is someone without a permanent home, a wanderer, so a mental vagrant must be someone who wanders from idea to idea or interest to interest without self-discipline.  But, living too much in the mind can also be detrimental. Sometimes a little play is called for, a reminder that being “in the moment” is a valuable restorative.  Valentine’s Day  provided one of those “in the moment” opportunities for us.  Instead of celebrating Heart Day with a romantic dinner or flowers and candy, we abandoned  routine and took off in the car, a much delayed visit to the Out of Africa Wildlife Park north of us in Camp Verde.
 

I have loved animals all my life and have never lost the excitement of seeing wildlife up close, whether the deer and coyotes that frequent our neighborhood,  the baby primates in the nursery at the Phoenix Zoo, the walk-in aviary at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson, or the Mexican Gray Wolves at Prescott’s Heritage Park Zoological Sanctuary. 
Turning west from I-17, the only freeway that runs north-south in the state, we had a vista to our right of the cliffs that foreshadow the red rock country  of Sedona, and the scrubby rolling terrain of the Verde Valley itself might resemble the African plains.  However, the road leading to the park is also the main entrance to the Verde Valley Superior Court complex that includes the Detention Center. I couldn’t help but wonder if the prisoners can see the animals out of their windows or if they talk about the animal park when their kids come to visit.
 

The park itself is only 104 acres, small-scale compared to the 1800- acre San Diego Wild Animal Park. On a Monday in February, we could park our car 20 yards from the entrance, buy our tickets, and board the Safari tour bus all within 10 minutes.   Safari host Bill Pearson handed each of us a carrot as we settled into our seats, giving us a quick preview of the zebras, herd animals and giraffes and warning that small, glittery cameras are particularly attractive to ostriches.  Our fellow passengers in the open-windowed bus consisted mostly of white-haired retirees and young parents with pre-school children. When the giraffe put out its giant tongue for a piece of carrot, the squeals of excitement came from both toddlers and grandparents.

 After the bus took us around “Serengeti” and “Masai Mara” exhibits, it was a short ride by tram to the upper area of the park that loops through the lions, tigers, bears (oh, my) to the Tiger Splash Arena.  Whether on the bus, tram or at the arena, park staff continually reinforce that Out of Africa animals are not trained even though some are tame (like Humphrey the giraffe). So, the Tiger splash Show is not orchestrated, the tigers do not perform, and the activity is directed less by the staff than  the mood and natural instincts of the Cat. Yesterday, Ezekial was in the mood to demolish numerous plastic blow-up toys although it took a while to lure him into the splash pool.
 

What struck me most that the animals were well tended, the staff loved their jobs, and more emphasis was placed on education than entertainment. One of the most interesting things I saw was the “squirrel ladders” on the water tanks. Imagine miniature swimming pool ladders out of re-bar, their only purpose to give tiny water-seeking animals a way to climb out of the metal tanks, tangible evidence that park owners Dean and Prayeri Harrison and their staff practice the philosophy  displayed on their website: “The animals are treated with the Golden Rule - to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Love and respect for all life is the Park's objective.”
 

So, dear readers, if from time to time a cartoon replaces our daily theme, know that we are not being mental vagrants but rather enjoying an opportunity to…Carpe Diem.
Source: Out of Africa Wildlife Park website:
                  http://www.outofafricapark.com/index.html

Megan:

Mental Vagrancy

I suppose once I finally find a job, I’ll look back on this time with nostalgia. Don’t think I don’t know how lucky I am.

And actually, I’ve been staring that those two sentences for 20 minutes now and I’d start writing  something about how I’m feeling directionless and frustrated, and then erase it because it doesn’t feel true. I definitely have moments, but this isn’t one of them so I don’t want to put myself in a mood. Especially since I felt so poorly last night, I am elated today by comparison.

So, let us consider the topic—it doesn’t mean mental homelessness. Vagrancy (according to Merriam-Webster, means the state of being a vagrant, which means:)

1 a : one who has no established residence and wanders idly from place to place without lawful or visible means of support  
 b : one (as a prostitute or drunkard) whose conduct constitutes statutory vagrancy
2: wanderer, rover

The topic is not far off our essay on daydreaming, except that one can guide a daydream whereas mental vagrancy is free!  I imagine mental vagrancy to be more like meditation (says a person who has failed at every attempt she has ever made to meditate) where thoughts are allowed to wander in and out without consequence or encouragement.  A nifty way to explore the idle wanderings of the mind is with a free writing exercise. This has popped up in every writing workshop I’ve ever taken, and to be honest is pretty much how I write most of these essays.

I’m not going to do it now though, because while I was trying to decide what to write for those 20 minutes after the first two sentences, when I wasn’t thinking how not unhappy and frustrated I am,  I was thinking about the migraine I had when we left the animal park yesterday (lifelong ambition achieved! Visiting the park, I mean. Not the migraine). And then how the Mexican food and the Strongest Margarita In The World added to my discomfort, which culminated in me kneeling over the toilet for half the evening. Milo was so concerned (or curious about the noises and smells), he came in to investigate and then lay right outside the door. That might have been sweet of him except I tripped over him when I came out. He deserved it though because earlier in the evening, before the headache got that bad, he was lying on the couch next to me and sneezed. The force of the sneeze caused his head to recoil and smash into mine and for a couple of minutes I thought he might have cracked my skull. In fact, perhaps it was that – a concussion – that caused me to be so ill and not the Margarita. That cheers me up because I really like margaritas.

And oops, I wound up writing about it anyway. My point is, it’s good to let the mind wander… sometimes it gives you a chance to piece together a puzzle and then you’ll realize it was actually the dog’s fault.

Topic 89: My Ailments

Carol:

Wouldn’t You Rather Hear About…

 Even though it’s against the little rules Megan and I established for ourselves with the daily theme essays—stick to the assigned topic--I have been having such a lovely time visiting with my high school girlfriend and her husband, I just refuse to write about Topic 89, “my ailments.” Wouldn’t you rather hear about our trip to the Grand Canyon?

It was a lovely, crisp morning as we set off on the two and a half hour trip up to the Canyon. Marc had the day off because of the Martin Luther King Holiday, so he drove our hybrid electiric vehicle, a smooth, beautiful, quiet ride. Thank God because I have a couple of little problems on car trips, pesky little physical things, you know. One is that my ears have become very sensitive, so changes in air pressure or road noise really drive me crazy. Just rolling down the window to get a little fresh air is enough to make my ears start throbbing. The other is that I have a sensitive stomach that doesn’t take well to twists and turns. I don’t talk about it much—who wants to hear someone complain about an upset stomach—but it’s always a relief when Marc drives so I can sit and nurse the discomfort in silence.

The ride to the Canyon itself was lovely if a bit uneventful. We saw a small herd of antelope just before turning onto Highway 89 at Chino Valley. I almost missed them. They blend in with the vegetation as they hunch over to graze; and, well, I have been having eye problems. Chronic allergies leave my eyes red and irritated even at this time of year. Cottonwood or Juniper season? I am really  a mess then. 

Isn't the Canyon beautiful today?

The Canyon trip. We were quite surprised, and delighted, when we pulled up to the Ranger Station and found out that it was a free day due to the MLK holiday. And, even though most people had a three-day weekend, the outer parking lots weren’t crowded, so we decided to drive straight to the Village on the chance we could find a parking space near the beautiful, historic  El Tovar Hotel where we would have lunch.

We found a great spot right in front of Bright Angel Lodge, an easy walk for the hotel along the Rim Trail. I was so excited to see our Canadian friends take their first view of the Canyon for the first time that it distracted me from the minor but persistent pain in my left leg, the residue of a deep vein thrombosis I got traveling back from England about 8 years ago. I was able to avoid a hospital stay by staying in bed for a month, and I was on medication for six months. I am really careful now when we travel even on short trips to move around and drink lots of liquids, but sometimes the leg swells up below the knee and starts to ache. 

 I know Megan insists on the importance of adhering to the posted topics for our daily theme essays as part of the writing challenge. I hope she doesn’t get grouchy with me for not writing about my ailments. But, after all, wouldn’t anybody rather hear about the Canyon?

Aren't our Canadian friends cute?

Megan:

My Second Belly Button

In addition to periodic bouts with strep throat, and a broken arm as a child, my other ailments have all been connected by virtue of being both disgusting and embarrassing. In reverse chronology, here is a list of my weirdest and humiliating ailments.

I got conjunctivitis from the prison library books, and for weeks I had to smear thick goo all over my eyes 4 times a day. The goo was administered as thick eye drops and for some reason turned my taste metallic. The first time I worked with my friend Sean the Northern Irish Guy, I had just put in the drops when he walked into the library. “What the hell’s the matter with you?“  At the same time as the eye infection, the skin on my scalp and forehead began to peel away. I thought they were connected and that my ancient flat might be filled with dust mites, but the skin condition lasted much longer than the infection. Using Google, I self diagnosed myself with Seborrhoeic dermatitis. I did research, tried all sorts of shampoos and finally gave up wearing dark clothing. It persisted for two years and then as soon as I left the job in the prison, it went away. 

 

Moving back a few years, one week before I was to move to England for the first time, I developed a Pilondial cyst. After suffering for several days, I finally told my mother and went to the doctor once I could no longer sit down. I’ve been going to the same doctor since I was 3, but it was still pretty uncomfortable to lie sideways on a table with my knees tucked up to my chest, while the doctor effectively lanced the cyst and then packed the wound with cotton. The relief was immediate but the doctor told me several things: 

1. Surgery would be required. 
2. The area was infected. 
3. I needed antibiotics to get rid of the infection before I could have the surgery. 
4. The packing and dressings on the wound needed to be changed twice daily. 

All of that was manageable except that I was about to move to England for a year. My father made frantic calls to the study abroad program coordinators to make sure I would be able to see a doctor once I landed. Everyone was very helpful and accommodating but the worst part was that I spent my 21st birthday on an international flight, sitting on a donut shaped pillow. 

And finally (or initially), due to complications from being a Meconium aspiration baby, doctors put a central line through my navel. That left a deep, indented scar on my lower abdomen that I’ve always referred to as my second bellybutton. I wandered through life showing and telling everyone about it until my second year of college when it changed. After 20 years of just sitting there, one day the scar reddened, hardened and then opened. I’m not going to lie here and say I wasn’t completely panicked. I asked my friend’s parents what they thought, but they brushed it off as a skin infection. I said, "But it’s open. My second bellybutton has opened and now there is a hole in my stomach." I made an appointment with the university healthcare and they referred me for an ultrasound to make sure the infection hadn’t spread to my heart. I was told to drink 64 oz of water before I came in, and I did and then had to wait and hold it for a long time before a nurse collected me. She asked how far along I was. I said, "I’m not pregnant. There’s something wrong with my second belly button."  

"Oh," she said, "then you didn’t need to drink all that water." The ultrasound revealed no problems in my heart or belly, and once again I got antibiotics for the infection, which went away.

I don’t show off my second belly button anymore. In the course of whatever that was, the scar changed. It migrated off center. It no longer looks like a bellybutton. It looks like a badly stitched knife wound. No, you can’t see it.

Topic 37: Epidemic Education

Carol:

Typhoid Carol

The Malone name runs through my father’s family: his uncle Malone DeWitt,  grandmother Anna Malone, her mother Indiana Malone and at least one Mary Malone in every generation. They grew up in Tennessee, Alabama and Texas, a far spell from the New York of a more infamous, Mary whose last name was pronounced Malone but spelled “Mallon.” This Mary AKA “Typhoid Mary” immigrated to New York from—anyone, anyone?—Ireland in the early 1900’s and soon gained a reputation for her culinary skills in the kitchens of the New York upper-crust. Unfortunately, her cuisine came spiced with a “healthy dose” of typhoid fever bacteria that sickened and even killed members of her employers’ families. Finally, medical investigation pointed to a link between her and the spread of typhoid, and she became the first identified healthy carrier of the disease. She probably would have been a footnote in history except that after agreeing not to work in the food industry again, she was released from quarantine only to resurface 5 years later as “Mary Brown, “ infecting 25 people served her cooking at Sloan Hospital for Women in NY (source: “This Day in Tech": wired.com).

He's actually our 10th cousin

Well, grab your ear plugs and face mask because you have just been exposed to the germs of another plague carrier, who takes every opportunity to sneeze and cough family genealogy in your face.  The virus isn’t deadly, but you know you have been exposed when your eyes glaze over and your mouth opens in a huge yawn every time Typhoid Carol grabs you and says “Guess who’s my 16th cousin 42 times removed?” *     --------------->

Or, you may have an uncontrollable urge to turn the TV commercials up louder when she yells out “Omigosh, look at this incredible castle ruin in Aberdeenshire, Scotland that was the home of Gilbert Keith, my 15th great-grandfather!”  At her worst, this spreader of the deadly dull will bore you to death. She not only exposes her family to the infection but anyone she meets: neighbors on the morning walk, casual friends in the grocery line at Fry’s, readers of the “Daily Theme.” She knows she is making her family and friends sick—and tired—but SHE CAN”T HELP IT! The more she learns, the more she is compelled to share.

The current epidemic of minutia peculiar to the Family History bug is just one permutation of a life-long disease, manifesting itself whenever Typhoid Carol takes an interesting class, reads a fascinating book, or watches an unusual documentary. Words spill out uncontrolled at the dinner table or on a long car ride; the pitch of her voice getting higher and the volume louder. “This Malcolm Gladwell book is soooo fantastic. Can I just tell you about one study in Outliers? Just one?”  Well, the Carrier can never stop at Just One of anything.

You may think this disease is NOT one of epidemic proportions, that it’s not really infectious, but the evidence is there. Her husband has caught the bug, which has mutated into Motorcycle Mania and Bird-Brain Disorder. WE CAN’T HELP IT! We are passionate carriers. We think everyone should catch the disease until it becomes an epidemic. Education: help spread the word.
 

*He's actually a lot closer relation than that.

Source: Typhoid Mary

Megan:

Educating on Epidemics

Last year, the back of my head started going numb. It would last about 5 minutes, and occurred several times a day.  I was concerned so I consulted everyone’s favorite tool for self-diagnosis – the Internet.  When I listed the symptom in the search engine, a number of possibilities came up. I eliminated epilepsy and stroke, but went for the other worst-case scenario. Within five minutes I had made an appointment with my real doctor because I knew I had MS.

Assuming the worst seems to be a symptom of the human condition. Mainstream news sources have capitalized on this by using sensational headlines to sell their product, and when they aren’t describing soaring crime rates and terror plots, then Health scares work just as well. Bird Flu, SARS, Swine Flu, Pandemics…

Out of curiosity, I looked at the Health pages of the two news sites I scan every day – BBC and CNN.  Today, the main headline for both is the cholera outbreak in Haiti. But below the main headline, the two sites seem to take a different approach reporting health stories. BBC’s headlines have an informative tone, quoting the doctors directly in the headlines:

           “Blood group ‘affects fertility’”
           “Aspirin ‘cuts bowel cancer cases’” 
           “Depression gene ‘fixed’  in mice” (How did they know the mice were depressed? asks my mother)
           and “Hard to read fonts ‘aid learning.’” 

(That one is interesting -- if you make something hard to read, a person is more likely to remember it, once he's deciphered it.) 

There are a couple of warnings about malaria in India, and an ‘unsafe’ drug in herbal tea, but for the most part, these headlines don’t have the same sensationalism as the American CNN.

Today’s headlines on CNN:

              “Raisinets recalled on peanut fears”
              “Health reforms side effect- Scams” (as if no one ever scammed a doctor before    
                                                                          President Obama passed the reforms…)
              “Teens may not reveal drug use”  (duh). 

                                                                        
More interesting though, are the titles of some of the regular columns on the site. “The Empowered Patient”, “Toxic America”  and “Egg Safety.” I understand that salmonella is a very dangerous microbe, but it’s not limited to eggs… who would have thought there would be enough concern about the safety of eggs to warrant an entire column?

Anyway, when I went to see the doctor, I didn’t tell him I had MS. I only described the numbness. I was surprised though when he used a light to look at the back of my eyes and gave me a number of tests to check for muscle weakness. I was in the office for an hour, by far the longest I had ever spent with an NHS doctor.  Then he sat down and asked me what it was I thought I had. When I told him he nodded and said, “That’s what I thought too.” I almost died on the spot. He also told me that the Internet brings people into his office every day convinced they have life-threatening illnesses. Then he told me what I actually had.

The Internet is the most convenient way for people to “educate” themselves about health issues – convenient, but hardly reliable.  Without a real education, people don’t realize that epidemics are incredibly rare and that some conditions (pinched nerve) are more common than others (MS). 

Topic 22: Mental Indigestion

Carol:

Eating Bacon

Back in the 1970’s when I was teaching expository writing to high schoolers, I began with the derivation of the word “essay,” which is the French verb essayer, to try or to attempt. Even the word “expository” says something about this type of writing, i.e. to make visible or reveal something. I also like the term “exploratory” in conjunction with writing because all of these terms are less intimidating than the word “rhetoric” which is half of the “composition and rhetoric” degree for graduate-level writing specialists.

Somewhere along the way from writing out the alphabet in crayon to writing the required senior research paper, most students lose the notion of “writing as discovery,” as an attempt to take an idea, pull it apart, examine it, play with it, and try to put it back together, not for fame or a grade but purely for the love of ideas and language. In “Age of the Essay,” (2004), Paul Graham puts much of the blame on the shift of the teaching of writing to English professors and the subject of writing to literature. Indeed, the traditional high school curriculum included the study of—and writing about—Huckleberry Finn, A Separate Peace, MacBeth, and Hamlet and most of the academic writing took place in English classes.

The notion of the modern essay, as opposed to the classical rhetoric of the Greeks and Romans, began with such thinkers as Michel de Montaigne (Essaies, 1575) and Sir Francis Bacon (Essays, 1597). Montaigne’s choice of topics epitomizes the notion of writing as attempts to explore a range of issues: “Of Cannibals,” “Of Thumbs,”That to Study Philosophy is to Learn to Die.” Bacon too examines an incredible range of topics: “Of Followers and Friends,” “Of Fame,” “Of Marriage and Single Life,” and of course “Of Studies.” Notice I said “thinkers” rather than “writers” because Bacon especially was a philosopher and scientist who used writing to explore those disciplines.

So, the little 1927 writing textbook by William Tanner taps into a long tradition of explorations through writing of the trivial and the tragic, the mundane and the monumental. Although the models Tanner uses are from issues of The Atlantic Monthly, I imagine most of those anonymous submissions came from people who had studied Francis Bacon. They would have read his essays in their entirety, perhaps lingering over coffee with something like this:

Abeunt studia in mores. Nay, there is no stone or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies; like as diseases of the body, may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like ( from “Of Studies”).

That’s a lot for 21st century readers of tweets, blogs and e-mails to swallow. We prefer our Bacon in smaller, quotable bites:

“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested” (from “Of Studies”).

Tired of intellectual mini-bites? Grab the Tums and enjoy some Bacon.



Sources:

Paul Graham, “The Age of the Essay"

Sir Francis Bacon: “Of Studies”

Montaigne: Essaies


Megan:

I’ve been taking antibiotics for the strep throat I got for my birthday and am experiencing some side effects, mostly related to digestion issues. It’s minimal really, and definitely not the worst that could happen according to the online list of possibilities. I mean, my skin isn’t peeling off and I don’t have any mouth sores, so I’m probably fine.

The main problem I have with this medication is that it smells really bad. “Why would you smell the pills?” asked my mother (a reasonable question, I suppose). I’ll tell you why: Although I quit smoking a few months ago, with a minor blip while on vacation, my sense of smell only came back last week. I don’t remember ever being able to smell this well (and yes, I checked to see if it was a side effect – but no). I got roses for my birthday and I can smell them from across the house. Milo, for reasons I haven’t figured out yet, has been secretly peeing on one of my blankets. The smell woke me up in the middle of the night.

And these pills smell bad. So bad, in fact, that I’ve been feeling like they were making me smell bad. I checked online if this was common, and also because the name on the pills didn’t match the name on the bottle and I thought maybe the pharmacist might have screwed up … I’ve been taking these pills for a week, but I only checked just now. I’ve been secretly worried all week that I’ve been taking the wrong medication, and that no one should have to take such bad-smelling medication, but apparently it’s completely normal. So that’s a relief. And also I can tell from the Google results I’m not the only person who smelled their pills.

Topic 15: Humorous Blunders

Carol:

Shoes, --and Ships and--Blunderbusses

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."
From Lewis Caroll’s 1872 “The Walrus and the Carpenter” (http://www.jabberwocky.com/carroll/walrus.html)

Whenever I send an e-mail to family or friends that is just a bunch of rambling, disconnected thoughts, I put in the subject line: “re: Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax.” I have never actually called their attention to it, but I figure it is almost a caveat emptor that I have much to say about nothing, and nothing much to say.

At first, I thought the topic of “Humorous Blunders” would be easy. I have a book’s worth of anecdotes that illustrate my keen ability to fall on my face or put my foot in my mouth or step on somebody’s toes. But, most of them are better spoken than written so that I can at least use my facial expressions and arm gestures to punctuate the story of “My Most Embarrassing Moment.” But the topic “Humorous Blunders” is another one of those oxymorons we are getting used to with these topics from 1927. SHOES.

Blunders are serious in their consequences. When I fell on the rope tow in Banff as a novice skier and knocked down the next 20 people on the rope, it was an embarrassing moment but it didn’t constitute a blunder. When I was giving an orientation to a group of new faculty and suddenly realized that my shirt was not only on backwards but inside out, that was a humiliating moment but it wasn’t a blunder. When I walked into the Men’s Room at the British Library, well that might have been a blunder if the urinals were in use and someone had gotten injured trying to cover his privates, but luckily the room was empty. Most dictionaries would say that a blunder is a “stupid and grave mistake” (Concise Heritage Dictionary). By definition, then, a blunder can’t be humorous. SHIPS.

The word “blunder” brings to mind another word having the same derivation, “blunderbuss.” A blunderbuss is a gun with a large mouth almost like a trumpet, and most people have probably seen it associated with the pilgrims chasing down turkeys on Saturday cartoons. In fact, in Cartoonland, when the hunter shoots a blunderbuss, it is more likely to take down the pilgrim not the turkey. Over time, the term “blunderbuss” has come to mean, not just a weapon, but the one who uses the weapon, i.e. a stupid, bungler. It shouldn’t be a surprise that I enjoy learning about words and hearing unusual words. Blunderbuss is one of those strong, emphatic words that “shoots” right out of your mouth, like poopsnagle or clodpate or balderdash or jabberwocky. SEALING WAX.

Megan:

A Humerus Blunder
(this is my attempt to be like my mom and not only title my essay, but also use a pun)

March 31, 1994 was a Thursday (thanks Internet!) and also spring break. I was alone in the house talking to my best-friend Noel on the phone. My brother was walking the dogs. My parents were in China. My uncle Doug, who was supposed to be supervising us, had taken my grandmother to get her car re-upholstered because the ceiling fabric was falling down. It’s funny the way details stick with you, how they burn into your mind after a traumatic event.

I was 12, so the first thing I would do when I got home from school was call Noel. Noel and I went to school together, we sat next to each other in class and we passed notes to each other all day long. Some how we still found it necessary to speak to each other on the phone for 3 or 4 hours every day after school. On the weekends and holidays, if we weren’t having a sleepover, the phone calls would extend to 12 -36 hours a day.

We didn’t have cell phones back then. Or cordless phones (or even push-button phones). So, I had to sit at the kitchen counter, twisting the cord with my fingers and tipping back on the stool, while kicking the wall with my tennis shoe. That was the only comfortable way to spend hundreds of hours on the phone.

I had been warned against tipping back on the stool. My mother always told me I would break something (myself, or even worse, the stool), but on that day, my mother wasn’t around to protect me from myself because she was in China trying to ignore my father as he urinated off the Great Wall. And Uncle Doug (who has a history of neglecting me) was off with my grandmother doing non-essential, purely cosmetic, and utterly pointless car maintenance.

The first time I fell off the stool, I dropped the phone too. I picked myself up off the ground, and laughing, told Noel I’d fallen. The second time, I took the phone with me and Noel got my scream right in the ear. "Did it again," I said. "Isn’t it funny how I don’t learn from my mistakes?"

The third time something broke. The pain was instantaneous, but I had the presence of mind to hang up with Noel (“Gotta go”) before I threw up.

I went out on the deck, my arm hanging uselessly and painfully at my side and scoured the neighborhood for my brother. I screamed and yelled and got his attention and he came running home with the dogs. He was only 10, so I don’t know what I thought he was going to do for me, but he suggested calling 911. Instead, I called Noel back, because her mom used to be a nurse. Noel’s mom arrived about the same time as my uncle. Since he was supposed to be the one in charge, he took me to the hospital in grandma’s nicely re-upholstered car. I leaned back in the seat and stared at the ceiling and thought, “Huh. They did a good job, that looks really nice.”

We had to wait forever at the hospital because some lady got hit by a car and shattered her pelvis. We could hear her screaming. I remember thinking, “Why didn’t she look where she was going? That accident was totally preventable.”

Finally, I got x-rays and the doctor gave me a splint instead of a cast, because I was a girl and girls don’t fall down as much as boys. That is actually what he said.

The next day my parents came home and thought that my broken arm was an April Fool’s Joke and we had to show my dad the hospital bill before he believed it. I was looking forward to getting back to school the next week to show off the injury, but was dismayed to discover that my arch-enemy Taylor, who had the same birthday as me and was always stealing my thunder had once again upstaged me by breaking his own arm! And he had a cast! God, I hated him.