I'm sorry I haven't been able to blog in awhile… there's just been so much going on my life. I've got a lot of things I'd like to talk about, but any one of them would be a full blog article I don't have time to write. So here's the “Cliff Notes”…
My Health
I visited the doctor about 2 weeks ago. My TB test came back negative, as expected. I woke up with the area around the injection on my arm completely flat and showing no reaction other than a slight redness. I could tell it was a negative result, but still I had to get to the doctor and have a nurse stare at my arm for two seconds and say “yep, negative.” Did I mention it was snowing? A lot? The doc informed me that the plan at that point was to let the antibiotics run out, and then monitor myself very carefully, watching for fevers. I was to take it easy and not exert myself once off the antibiotics. I took my last pill the day my Dad had his aneurism. 
So I was getting almost no sleep, no regular intake of food, a high amount of exertion and stress, exactly at the time we were hoping my body would be able to cope with the remaining infection. By March 7th I was having fevers and my doctor extended the antibiotic. By March 8th the fevers had reached 102, and I was having painful chills in the night. On March 9th the fevers subsided and I haven't had any since. I had another visit with the doc today and she began to speak very frankly about having a surgeon go in and “break up” the scar tissue, or using a needle to drain out the infected area so it could heal. I spoke very frankly about how disturbing those prospects were to me, and if sixty days of antibiotics would solve the problem, I'd rather go that route. For now, we are on a middle ground. The doc has given me a script for 10 more days of the antibiotic, but I am to repeat the “wait and see” experiment when the current batch runs out (Sunday). If the fevers return I can start the next script. Next week I will have another CAT Scan, and then based on the results we will make a decision. The doctor said I could come in and speak with the pulmonologist at that time if I liked. At this point I'm beginning to feel resigned that a surgical solution is going to be necessary.
Mr. Deity
If you haven't seen the “Mr. Deity” videos yet, check them out, they are hilarious. A warning to my theist readers, these movies are created by humanists, and are therefore pretty irreverent. Don't check them out if that is going to bug you.
RSS & YouTube
Why doesn't YouTube support RSS in any obvious fashion that I can detect? Why do I have to go to my subscription page on YouTube to see what is new. If they are tracking what is new, then they have the information necessary to provide an RSS feed. Bloglines tries to “fake it” for you, building an RSS feed out of a YouTube search, but that doesn't work well. Partly because old videos keep popping up on it, and because jerks post movies on YouTube with the usernames of popular YouTubers in their keywords simply to bring in viewers. The only YouTubers I subscribe to are ImpyTheRap (i.e. Nobody's Watching) and SuttSteve. Yet my Bloglines is constantly telling me they have new videos when they don't, simply because the RSS feed is built from a keyword search, and some people are not capable of getting viewers on their own talent. Does anyone have a good way to get a YouTube subscription as an RSS feed? It's really bugging me. I had to discontinue my YouTube “feeds” in Bloglines because it was a waste of time.
Texas and the HPV Vaccine
The Republican Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, has mandated that all girls entering the sixth grade in Texas schools must receive the HPV vaccine Gardasil, produced by Merck. HPV, or Human papillomavirus, is a virus that can be carried by both men and women, but some strains of which are shown to cause cervical cancer in some women. It is primarily transmitted sexually, but can be contracted in other ways (skin on skin contact, or being born from an infected mother). Under Perry's plan, parents could choose to refuse the vaccine for their child, but it is not clear if the child would then be allowed to enter the public school system (any more than they would be allowed to refuse, say, Mumps and Rubella vaccines and still put their kids in school.) The Texas legislature voted 118-23 to basically overturn this order. The primary complaints were that (a) there are questionable connections between Perry and Merck, (b) parents should have the right to choose whether their daughters will be vaccinated, (c) the drug is new and needs to be further tested, and (d) Perry circumvented the legislative process. On (a) and (d) I can't really comment, on (c)… well the FDA has approved it, so it has to have undergone some testing at this point, and on (b) I'm just mystified. The mandate clearly has an opt-out clause… so what's the diff? The thing I can't shake is that the early complaints about the possibility of making this drug mandatory that came out of Fundie USA was that it would encourage young women to have sex. Which is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. But I can't help feeling that because those who said it are realizing how stupid that sounds, we are now getting other excuses like a through d above. I find myself wondering if HPV was transmitted in a nonsexual manner, would there be any outcry at all?
These are the Same People Who Said…
Tell me you haven't heard this one before: confronted with the latest news from climate scientists about global warming, a politically motivated skeptic will claim “These are the same people who said the world was headed for another ice age back in the 1970's… why should we believe them now?” Like so much politically motivated rhetoric, there's little merit in it. Between the 40's and the 70's a cooling trend was noted in the data available at that time. Scientific journals noted that although such a trend could be the precursor of the cyclic ice ages that our planet goes through, there was not enough data or understanding of the climate to accurately predict when the next ice age would come. The popular press on the other hand (i.e. those journals which are not peer reviewed) took the story and made a sensation out of it. The scientific community never said another ice age was imminent, period. Needless to say I hate hearing this stupid argument, especially when it is delivered by people who unfortunately are accorded undue credibility… like Michael Crichton for instance. But if you want details refuting this particular bit of rhetoric, check “The Global Cooling Myth” on Real Climate.
Guess that's all I have for now. Hope everyone else is well and happy…
For those who are interested, here's a bit of explanation on fluid buildup in the lungs due to pneumonia (from the Mayo Clinic):
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/pneumonia/DS00135/DSECTION=7
“Fluid accumulation and infection around the lungs. Sometimes fluid accumulates between the thin, transparent membrane (pleura) covering your lungs and the membrane that lines the inner surface of your chest wall — a condition known as pleural effusion. Normally, the pleurae are silky smooth, allowing your lungs to slide easily along your chest wall when you breathe in and out. But when the pleurae around your lungs become inflamed (pleurisy) — often as a result of pneumonia — fluid can accumulate and may become infected (empyema). In that case, you may have a tube placed between your ribs to drain the fluid or, occasionally, a surgical procedure to clear out some of the infected material.”
If they need to do this, maybe they can give you the same drug they give to people when they have an endoscopy and colonoscopy–the stuff that makes you mostly unaware that something unpleasant is being done to you.
I sure hope you get better soon. I also hope they intend to give you a flu shot and also a pneumococcal vaccine once you're healthy again.
The HPV vaccine is very expensive compared to the other mandatory vaccines. It does seem to me that they moved awfully quickly to make this vaccine mandatory.
In other vaccine news, I have recently read that immunity to chickenpox from the varicella vaccine doesn't last very long, as they had suspected, and now they're recommending booster shots. A varicella infection is much worse when you're older. I'm frankly unhappy that my daughters had this vaccine, especially since M coud in the future again be immune-compromised. She would have been better off being infected with chicken pox at a young age, before she was immune-compromised, than be in the position of having to take immunosuppressant drugs and be faced with a deadly case of chicken pox as an older child, teen, or adult. One of her rheumatologists was good enough to share with me that he had “pronounced” an immune-compromised child who contracted chicken pox. As he said this, his nurse visibly flinched.
Anyway, that's a bit of an aside, but it's an argument for longer-term testing.
OTOH, I would be inclined to give my daughters this vaccine, even if I had to pay for it out of pocket, because I see no reason not to. And I'm concerned that the girls who are most likely to engage in sexual behavior are the ones whose parents wouldn't give them the vaccine because they're teaching them abstinence.
And why not the males? Why aren't they given the mandatory vaccine? If men couldn't transmit the virus, then eventually nobody would have it. Why aren't all children required to have the vaccine, or none? It's true girls have the most to lose, as this virus can lead to cancer, but the reason everybody is vaccinated against something is not so everybody is immune, as vaccines can't give that kind of guarantee. It's so there's less chance of transmitting the virus because there are fewer cases and more people are immune. It should be offered to people of both genders, and if it's required, then it should be required of both males and females.
Gardasil isn't mandatory for males because it hasn't been studied in males, therefore, it is unknowh whether it would work in males:
From the PI:
“The effect of GARDASIL on male fertility has not been studied.”
Read the full prescribing info here: http://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/g/gardasil/gardasil_pi.pdf
See this BBC story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6342105.stm?ls
Trials in men
Merck is currently testing the vaccine's efficacy in 4,000 men, including 500 men who have sex with men.
And the US National Institute of Health is also carrying out trials to see what benefits it could have for people with HIV.
Merck said its priority was to tackle cervical cancer, but has not ruled out giving the vaccine to other groups – including men who have sex with men.
Thanks for the info, Patti.
My point is that if they're targeting cervical cancer, they should have studied the drug in men as well. Giving it to women isn't going to wipe it out, because with any vaccine there is always a percentage of the population that still contracts the disease. So it's better if they are also not coming in contact with people who have the disease.
If they're only beginning to study it in men, all the more reason to hold off on making it mandatory. They're obviously not “done.”
I understand the drug companies spend huge amounts of money on R&D. I do not agree with the aggressive marketing of their drugs to doctors and lawmakers, however — especially lawmakers, whose intelligence and especially knowledge on these issues I question to begin with, and whose decisions have too much power.