A Blast from my Past Work in Bush Alaska

I get this regular newsletter from the American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP). I am usually interested in reading about molecular genetic advances or the latest on epidemiological problems. Today, one of the articles read as follows:

RSV sends an unusual number of Alaska children to hospital.

The Anchorage Daily News (2/20) reports that according to state epidemiologists, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is "hitting Western Alaska and sending an unusual number of kids to the hospital." So far this year, "47 children from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region have been hospitalized."

The Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region is where Bethel, Alaska is located. There is no other care facility in that area other than the one I used to work at in Bethel. Given the country's increased interest in epidemiology, and not necessarily that there is more of an epidemic in this area than in previous years of RSV, my general thought is that because of the latest in satellite technology, we are able to learn the number of hospitalized RSV pediatric patients in (or senr from) Bethel, AK more now than we would have in 1999.
Every winter in Bethel is full of fear for the off-spring of the Yu'pik Native Alaskans. The hospital there is so small, and yet, it provides care for roughly 56 Eskimo villages that surround the Bethel area on nothing but the perma-frost tundra. Bethel is 25 miles closer to Siberia than it is to Anchorage, AK. Temperatures out there in the "dead of winter" can reach a griping -50 degrees with the wind chill.
Because of the extreme conditions there, no "Gussik" (white man) worker ever leaves there the same as they came, and the days spent there out of a person's life seem to weary a body in a way that some days, I used to wonder what it was I was doing out there to begin with! The living conditions there are unbelievable, even to see in pictures. The lifestyle of those that are Native to the area bring awe to all those that give time to their cause, however much time each person can bear to give so this terribly under served population is provided for.
The child mortality ratio is 1 in 3 before the age of 7 years. RSV is common among the "toddler" children of this area in the winter, as well as some of the most unusual pathological bacteria ever isolated in a "clinical" lab. It was first in Bethel, where the United States had it's first outbreak of MRSA (methacillin-resistant Staph. aureas), where this hemolytic bacteria strain went from 9% positive to 95% positive over an 18 month period between the years 1999-2001. It was at that time the CDC set up a safe-distanced laboratory for the Arctic National Research Project in Anchorage; across from the hospital I eventually took a position written for me because I was "not allowed to return to the YKD-region due to the infectious nature of" their multiple and unpredictable viruses and bacteria. During those days, any of us that touched or treated potential MRSA patients had no idea that they would need to be cared for in "set" isolation rooms, regardless if you were lancing a carbuncle or simply collecting a specimen for culture. Little facts were given to us there at the time, like, wear disposable masks if you are even setting up the culture on an MRSA patient under the fume hood, for it's ability to "carry" in a healthy nasopharyngeal passage was not known at that time. By the time the MRSA rate had reached its peak, the entire hospital staff were most-likely carriers themselves. Even then, Bacitracin was not handed out to us to treat our nasal passages, even with news of the ever-increasing % positive rate.
I took ill to an MRSA positive carbuncle, that was continually lanced (due to lack of better instruction or experienced care over my health, or anyone with MRSA, at the time) until I had an abscess so large, I had the surgery that removed the majority of the tissue from under my right arm.
I spent 2 months having this wound packed daily. It was something I never thought could be so painful, yet I did donate larger than a golf-ball, but some-what less the size of a tennis ball, of my right axillary area to the surgical suite that day. What seemed like something I had hoped to put behind me after IV antibiotics, nasal passage treatment, packing my "hole" until the tissue healed together...only to find out that without that lymph node, I am doomed of a life with even less of an immune response.
Now, I spend my healthy days on inflammatory suppressants to suppress my auto-immunities. The rest of the time, I am off the medications I need to be on to make my life "better" in order to take antibiotics, anti-fungals, or just not on the anti-auto immunities in order to heal to get back on them.
I have between 6-10 really great days in a year. I've been this way for more than 7 years. In spite of that, I have been able to give my one true love a child, and someone he will always have long after I am gone. I have a God-send of a healthy, handsome, smart, and sweet-loving child. The relationship with my husband and my child isn't always perfect, naturally; but I spend every waking moment working on perfecting it.
Raising a child is not easy. Keeping a healthy household for my boys is not easy. Keeping myself healthy is not easy. Preventing viruses and bacterial infections from being brought home by a Kindergartener is not easy. Parenting while feeling like crap is not easy. Answering questions that are way too mature for a 5-year old to ask and hope I am not giving him too much of one reality and not enough of another is also, not easy.
But one thing I do not have to battle anymore: living life in Bethel, Alaska. Anchorage was easy. Oxford is a cake walk. Everything else that comes, I can take from there.

Who knows the next time I'll blog. Inspiration and time for this seems to come and go. So, for now, enjoy your life. If you can't be with the ones you love, then try to love the ones you're with until then!

Suz

The Gift That Keeps on (and on and on...) Giving! ;)

I had to laugh at the title of this one, only because I am horrible about jumping around subject matter within the contents of an actual subject! And yet, I have, since making a quick buy of "A Father's Legacy: Your Life's Story in Your Own Words" (except they give you the topics to cover, - it's a start) after seeing it on shelves at the beginning of the year; that it would be a great gift for Gene for either Valentine's or Father's Day. When I saw the same version for Mother's a few weeks ago; I pointed out to Joey where to "take Daddy to get Mommy's Valentine's gift" (because usually we just do something cute for Joey and buy each other cards).
So what was originally just a whim, has become this year's Mom and Dad Valentine's gift to one another; with the understanding that Joey would be the recipient of our books one day.
The exciting part? It wound up being a gift that actually surprised Gene, he had no idea about it, what it was, had not asked for it, or even had a single clue as to what I was up to! This is a new record for me! (I managed to pull a Christmas present on him this last Christmas that he also liked and had no clue about, either!) I am finally starting to beat "the Master" at his own game! This is to the same individual that wrapped a small gift in a large box that had a 2 X 4 cut and screwed tightly into it so that, by weight, volume, or lack or rattle factor; kept me guessing for weeks as to what my main Christmas present was that year!
Having not seen the other book before, once he opened his gift knowing I had the Mom version of his; he was pleasantly surprised (and both of us contented with having exchanged Valentine's gifts considering it is such an over-commercialized holiday)!
Amazing, but very true. Gene can be really hard to buy for, usually because his wish list includes things like electric guitars, electronic equipment I couldn't possibly pick out and wrap without some major committee being formed, etc. (you know - the usual guy stuff). Being Gene's chick comes with it's share of fun, however, gifts can be a source of anxiety: I want to get him something that he wants - while trying to meet his expectations.
So after 17 years together, the time spent before any holiday I spend trying to pick his brain here and there hoping he doesn't figure out what I'm doing and knowing the whole time, he's onto me anyway! I guess that's what happens when you've spent half your life with someone!
Oy! Let me skip past the "half your life" comment! It hasn't quite been half my life. I guess that day will come rather soon as it is!
How it sucks to age! The things that now amuse me pale in comparison to the things I used to find so much fun or funny. My current idea of fun is getting a good night sleep and hoping I have enough energy in the day to take care of what must be done without anyone missing out on too much of Mom while I muddle trying to get them done in hope's for either A) some free time to sit and do nothing in fron tof the TV with my boys before I fall asleep or B) get them done in time to get into bed at the same time as the boys or C) get them done before the next "problem" attacks my immune system and none of the above occur!
The current "problem": lymphadema with lymphangitis originating from what used to be a node under my right axillary. Ouch. It also has accompanied a cold I seem to (A) keep catching every time I get over the previous, that doesn't seem to be contagious to anyone else, or (B) I keep getting the same cold over and over, never quite getting rid of it long enough for it to mutate to a new one? From a molecular stand-point: A is the most plausable. hmmm, I wonder if those boys are washing their hands as much as they say they are!
Well, I suppose I'd better get to story time before bed before Joey falls asleep waiting!

Suz

Words for Inspiration: John Donne. Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions.

This meditation is one I laminated from a printed version off the web when I was a graduate student at MSU in 1998! It is ironic to read each time I pick it up, given I have carried a laminated copy of the following words across the country with me as we have moved from one end of the continent to another. In some ways, they are words to live by. On some days, they have been words that I have lived by.
There is just something about these words that I cannot translate in our everyday language quite the way these words were said in 1623, when Rev. Donne was ill from consumption.
The tragety of reading this Meditation; those who have suffered or grieved, in ways no one man or woman dreams for themself at the cusp of 40 years of age should have, can fully understand the wisdom of these words unless they have loved, lost, suffered and grieved. I hope that, above anything, you find these words beautiful and moving. Love, Suzanne

XVII. MEDITATION.

PERCHANCE he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that. The church is Catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that body which is my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God’s hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another. As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness. There was a contention as far as a suit (in which both piety and dignity, religion and estimation, were mingled), which of the religious orders should ring to prayers first in the morning; and it was determined, that they should ring first that rose earliest. If we understand aright the dignity of this bell that tolls for our evening prayer, we would be glad to make it ours by rising early, in that application, that it might be ours as well as his, whose indeed it is. The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute that that occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God. Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? but who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? but who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world?

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did, for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by and made fit for God by that affliction. If a man carry treasure in bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current money, his treasure will not defray him as he travels. Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it. Another man may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels, as gold in a mine, and be of no use to him; but this bell, that tells me of his affliction, digs out and applies that gold to me: if by this consideration of another’s danger I take mine own into contemplation, and so secure myself, by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security.