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
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