Mothers Speak about War and Terror: October 2022

Saturday, October 29, 2022

Never a dull moment

On war…
Ukrainians use phone app to alert military about incoming drone and missile attacks.

Ukraine has been subject to months of deadly long-range missile strikes, but the attacks have stepped up in the past month as Russia has fired hundreds of cheap, Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones into cities and at Ukraine’s infrastructure.
…
A simple mobile phone app has been developed by Ukrainian volunteers to allow civilians to report sightings of incoming Russian drones and missiles – and, it is hoped, increase the proportion shot down before they hit the ground.
The app, ePPO, relies on a phone’s GPS and compass, and a user only has to point their device in the direction of the incoming object and press a single button for it to send a location report to the country’s military.

***

The Lincoln Project:
Answer the question, Ron (0:50 mins)
Large Marge (0:58 mins)
Funding Fascism (0:57 mins)
House of Horrors (0:56 mins)
Lip lickin’ liar (0:40 mins)
Last week in the Republican Party - October 25, 2022 (2:05 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Does the photo below not appear to show two exhausted swimmers taking a well-earned rest against an iceberg? Or perhaps a Jason deCaires Taylor sculpture?
Rather, it is nature doing its thing in the far away ocean. Imagine all the other amazing natural feats we landlocked humans miss each moment.

See more amazing photos >>

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Chemotherapy session three down the hatch. Well, almost. It’s all over but for the recovery from the session – including yet more drugs, this time to counter nausea. Mary returned from her post-chemo acupuncture session – to address nausea, too – and will lie low for the rest of the day. Best to not push too hard two days after poisons have been infused through one’s system.
The recent session followed the usual protocols although with the addition of infused Emend anti-nausea drug, instead of taking the pill form of Zyprexa. This change added extra time to the session. During the hours of 9am to 2pm, Mary took in more than 5 liters of liquid, from water to Emend to water and pemetrexed to water and cisplatin and yet more water to finish off. By the time she departed the oncology clinic water retention made her puffy from forehead to toes. Today, she’s still puffy though less than yesterday. Now she must contend with nausea.
Moreover, she must continue to imbibe at least two liters of water each day to ensure her kidneys continue to flush the poisonous meds.
Mesothelioma: never a dull moment.
The good news? Only one more session to go – at least that’s what we’re expecting. The post chemo sessions scan will confirm that (or not). Then, she’s free until the next scan in 6 months to track any resurgence.

Tuesday, October 25, 2022

Troublesome

News blues

Dr. Anthony Fauci warned about a pair of "pretty troublesome" Covid variants — omicron descendants BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 — as the U.S. braces for a winter surge.

And,

People who reported experiencing side effects to the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines such as fever, chills or muscle pain tended to have a greater antibody response following vaccination, according to new research.
Having such symptoms after vaccination is associated with greater antibody responses compared with having only pain or rash at the injection site or no symptoms at all….
“In conclusion, these findings support reframing postvaccination symptoms as signals of vaccine effectiveness and reinforce guidelines for vaccine boosters in older adults,”

A team of scientists affiliated with Duke University found that ivermectin does not meaningfully improve the recovery of people with mild to moderate Covid.
“These findings do not support the use of ivermectin in patients with mild to moderate COVID-19,” they concluded.
The FDA has warned people against taking the tablets for anything other than their approved use.
Read more >>

***

The Lincoln Project:
Tyranny (0:57 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

On plastics and the myth of recyclable plastics

Just 5% of plastic products are recycled in America and many common items just aren’t able to be recycled at all, according to a damning new study released by Greenpeace USA.
The study estimates the U.S. produced about 51 million tons of plastic waste in 2021, but just 2.4 million tons of that was reprocessed.
The data compiled by Greenpeace is even more bleak than that released by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2018. The government estimated at the time just 9% of all plastics had been recycled that year, with the remaining 91% winding up in landfills. (At the time much of the country’s plastic was shipped to China and considered recycled, even if it was dumped in a landfill anyways).
Shockingly, the research said no type of plastic packaging in America met the threshold needed to be considered “recyclable” promoted….

Recycling plastic waste fails for a variety of reasons that Greenpeace boils down to: the impossibility of collection and sorting, the environmental toxicity, synthetic compositions and contamination, and a lack of economic feasibility.
There are thousands of different types of plastics with different compositions that cannot be recycled together, let alone sorted. Plastic recycling facilities are likely to catch on fire because plastic is flammable, and living near one poses a huge health risk—take Turkey, which became a new plastic waste export destination after China banned imports and saw an influx of EU waste expose workers and communities to new health risks. Plastics can also absorb toxic chemicals, further complicating recycling efforts and increasing their toxicity. On top of all this, recycled plastic costs more than new plastic because of the aforementioned factors encouraging companies to simply make more instead of pursuing alternatives.

***

More than four months after devastating monsoon floods began in Pakistan, at least 1,500 people have died, and the waters that inundated nearly the entire country have yet to recede. This ongoing emergency is causing illness and communicable disease to spread, and these effects are likely to be much more deadly than the initial catastrophe. “The public health risks are worse, and the death toll could be much higher”....

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Another foray into battling mesothelioma. Today, Mary's trip to the blood lab begins her third chemo session – and, we hope, her second to last treatment of this round. Why “this round”? Well, the unpleasant truth is, to date, there is no cure for mesothelioma. The asbestos fibers that stimulate, aka cause, the disease never are dissuaded: they simply regenerate. This, because indiscernible microfibers are ready, willing, and able to regrow. It’s the job of the patient and her medical team to stay ahread of new growth. This means that after this round of four sessions of chemo, Mary will undergo a scan to judge the chemo sessions’ effectiveness. If all appears clear in the scan, Mary will be free of scans for the next six months. If anything appears suspicious in the scan, the medical team will suggest next steps.
So, today, blood tests ascertain that Mary’s system is up to the task of another round. If any element of her blood suggests she’s above or below desired “measurements” the chemo session will be delayed until her blood levels are more “workable.” To date, Mary “feels fine” and is preparing for another several days of feeling under par.

“At least my chemo sessions are every three weeks. This gives me enough time to recover between bouts. And I do recover. Yes, my lung/chest feels wooden but I have full movement of my left arm. Indeed, I can almost forget the dire disease and prognosis for … well, minutes… at a time.” At that she chuckles warily and wearily and adds, “Perhaps one of these days, it’ll be forgetfulness for half-hourly bouts of time.”
I can attest to Mary’s fortitude. Yesterday, together, we added a layer of bottom shelves to a set of wooden shelves on my patio. Mary was an active participant in adding this new layer that will house small pots of newly propagated succulents. We’ve added several more rarer-than-usual-for-us cacti and succulents. In general, our philosophy for such plants is “don’t pay money for what’s readily available.” Problem with that philosophy? Some cacti – for examples, Rebutia - native to Bolivia and Argentina, and Lithops, native to South Africa and Namibia. These beautiful plants are not, alas, not “readily available” except by purchase.

Sunday, October 23, 2022

Relax, it's Sunday

News blues

Interesting information, from discovering Omicron to how data is and is not used, from Harvard’s T. H. Chan School of Public Health >>

***

On war…
Six months of war in Ukraine: photos >>

***

The Lincoln Project:

We've been warning you (0:45 mins)
Daddy (0:57 mins)
Puppies (0:58 mins)
Doug Mastriano Threatens American Democracy (1:15 mins)
Val Demings owns Marco Rubio (1:58 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Just chuggin' along. Mary undergoes another session of chemo next Thursday. We feel and we hope that we are slightly better prepared with two sessions behind us. Moreover, Mary video conferenced with her oncologist last week and they agreed on another strategy to address potential nausea associated with her falling over post-chemo last time around.

Here’s hopin’ this new strategy will improve Mary's pace of healing.

Her oncologist also confirmed with Mary that, as of now we’re expecting two more chemo sessions. That is, she’s half way through this round of chemo. After the fourth and last session mid-November Mary will undergo another scan – likely a CT scan – to evaluate the chemo’s effects and create a baseline to evaluate future resurgences of growth of mesothelioma malignancies.

Want to know more about mesothelioma and surgeries that address it? Link to a recent webinar with the surgeon who performed the P/D on Mary’s left lung >>

***

SF Bay Area:
Sunrise: 7:26am
Sunset: 6:20pm

KZN, South Africa:
Sunrise: 5:12am
Sunset: 6:13pm

Thursday, October 20, 2022

Costs of denialism?

Worldwide (Map)
October 20, 2022 – 626,441,100 confirmed infections; 6,573,750 deaths
October 21, 2021 – 241,837,800 confirmed infections; 4,917,467 deaths
October 22, 2020 – 41,150,000 confirmed infections; 1,130.410 deaths

US (Map)
October 20, 2022 - 97,085,250 confirmed infections; 1,066,600 deaths
October 21, 2021 – 45,161,400 confirmed infections; 729,500 deaths
October 22, 2020 – 8,333,595 confirmed infections; 222,100 deaths

SA (Coronavirus portal)
October 20, 2022 - 4,024,555 confirmed infections; 102,246 deaths
October 21, 2021 – 2,917,300 confirmed infections; 88,674 deaths
October 22, 2020 – 708,360 confirmed infections; 18,750 deaths

Post from:
October 22, 2021 “Not much”
October 21, 2020 “October updates”

News blues

The imbalance in death rates among the nation’s racial and ethnic groups has been a defining part of the pandemic since the start. To see the pattern, The Washington Post analyzed every death during more than two years of the pandemic. Early in the crisis, the differing covid threat was evident in places such as Memphis and Fayette County. Deaths were concentrated in dense urban areas, where Black people died at several times the rate of White people.
….
Over time, the gap in deaths widened and narrowed but never disappeared — until mid-October 2021, when the nation’s pattern of covid mortality changed, with the rate of death among White Americans sometimes eclipsing other groups. .
A Post analysis of covid death data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from April 2020 through this summer found the racial disparity vanished at the end of last year, becoming roughly equal. And at times during that same period, the overall age-adjusted death rate for White people slightly surpassed that of Black and Latino people.

Read more >>

Gov. Gavin Newsom will end California's COVID-19 state of emergency in February 2023 and surrender the emergency powers he has held for over two years, the governor's office announced this week. What does this really mean?
Read more >>

***

The Lincoln Project:
Political ads flood the airwaves as We the People get closer to a nailbiter election. (Each day as I read the news, I CANNOT believe that ANYONE would vote for ANY Republican “policies”. WTF?)
1849 (0:57 mins)
J. D. Vance is an Extremist (0:56 mins)
Even Fox News gets it (1:00 mins)
The Difference Between McMullin and Lee (1:14 mins)
Mike Lee begs, Part 2 (0:55 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

The SF Bay Area is experiencing wonderful Indian Summer weather. Additionally, it’s a pleasure to walk along the beach with Mary and more wonderful to hear her maturing perspective on the devastating form of cancer that afflicts her. In short, Mary finds the implications on her health – mesothelioma does not reverse, nor it is curable – a “kind of precious gift that allows me to truly understand and appreciate the gravitas that is life and living. Weird to say but I’m more fully enjoying each moment of my life. More weird to say, more people might face similar fates to allow their deeper apprecation of their lives - and the implications of wasting their time on over-emotional nonsense such as vaccine denialism, etcetera etcertera etcetera."
Thank you, Mary.

***

Mary suffers from toxic contamination of asbestos, and subsequent malignancies in her left lung with “some” implication of lymph nodes near her lower trachea.

What is asbestos? A mineral mined that, among other uses, is an effective foil against excessive heat buildup.

What’s its history and is it banned in the US?

In a word, no, it is not banned.

I’ll collect and share pertinent info on this mineral as it becomes available.
Asbestos history and background – and culpability
ProPublica: “Swimming in this stuff”: The U.S. never banned asbestos. These workers are paying the price.

As other countries outlawed asbestos, workers in a New York plant were “swimming” in it. Now, in a fight against the chemical industry, the United States may finally ban the potent carcinogen. But help may come too late.

Read more >>

NPR: They inhaled asbestos for decades on the job. Now, workers break their silence.

While the U.S. considers finally banning the carcinogen, a group of men have come forward, saying they were exposed repeatedly while working at a chemical plant in New York.

***

SF Bay Area:
Sunrise: 7:23am
Sunset: 6:24pm

KZN, South Africa:
Sunrise: 5:15am
Sunset: 6:11pm

Tuesday, October 18, 2022

Enjoying life

News blues

In a [recent interview, Dr Anthony] Fauci urged the US Congress not to be complacent and to resume funding efforts to combat the virus, including the scourge of long Covid, which remains scientifically elusive but understood to hit women and people of colour especially hard.
“It’s a very insidious beneath-the-radar-screen public health emergency,” the chief medical adviser to Joe Biden said, “because it isn’t that you have people who are hospitalized or dying but their function is being considerably impaired and, for reasons that are obvious, that doesn’t attract as much attention as a death rate.”

***

On war…

Russian drone and missile attacks this month have destroyed almost a full third of [Ukraine’s] power stations. The destruction has triggered blackouts across the country, but the grid has remained relatively stable, showing that even Ukraine in a literal war with a superpower can still have better power scheduling than South Africa.

***

The Lincoln Project:
Evidence (0:27 mins)
Two faces (1:08 mins)
Mike Lee begs (0:45 mins)
Ticket (0:59 mins)
Trumperton (0:39 mins)
Last week in the Republican Party - October 18, 2022 (1:55 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

A reminder – our planet is beautiful. Photos have the power to prove it >>

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Nine more days of Mary feeling healthy, enjoying her days of exercise, research, and, yes, joy, too. Indeed, so easily does she find putting from her mind that mesothelioma is invading her lung and that chemo is coming up, again, that, today, she forgot to take her maintenance supplementary meds. That’s the right kind of forgetfulness.
Mary is enjoying life, perhaps more than ever....

***

SF Bay Area:
Sunrise: 7:20am
Sunset: 6:25pm

KZN, South Africa:
Sunrise: 5:17am
Sunset: 6:11pm

Sunday, October 16, 2022

“Daar lê die ding”

News blues

The Donald and his corrupt shenanigans remain persistent on the news, even to the detriment of Covid (remember how persistent he was about Covid not worth his time and effort to thwart?). Nevertheless, Covid has not “just disappeared” – again, The Donald’s words. Covid is still around.

New offshoots of the Omicron Covid-19 variant that virus experts say appear to spread easily are on the rise in the U.S., … underscoring how the virus is mutating and presenting new risks as it proliferates.
Two of the Omicron subvariants, both related to the BA.5 version that drove the most recent U.S. surge, are called BQ.1 and BQ.1.1. They were estimated to represent a combined 11.4% of U.S. Covid-19 cases by mid-October, according to estimates the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Friday.

***

Covid is one thing. The scourge of cancers on the rise may be even more insidious.

A new review of cancer registry records from 44 countries found that the incidence of early-onset cancers is rising rapidly for colorectal and 13 other types of cancers, many of which affect the digestive system, and this increase is happening across many middle- and high-income nations.
The review’s authors say the upswing in younger adults in happening in part because of more sensitive testing for some cancer types, such as thyroid cancer. But testing doesn’t completely account for the trend, says co-author Shuji Ogino, a professor of pathology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Ogino says the spike is due to an unhealthy stew of risk factors that are probably working together, some which are known and others that need to be investigated.
He notes that many of these risks have established links to cancer like obesity, inactivity, diabetes, alcohol, smoking, environmental pollution and Western diets high in red meat and added sugars, not to mention shift work and lack of sleep.

Read “A global epidemic of cancer among people younger than 50 could be emerging” >>

***

The Lincoln Project:
Time for answers (1:40 mins)
Social Security (1:09 mins)
Protecting the Capitol (1:06 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

The post “Living”, earlier this week, promoted the efforts to give legal rights to animals, trees and rivers. This week, Rogelio Luque-Lora of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, writes, “Why I’m sceptical about giving legal rights to animals, trees and rivers.” Read more >>

***

“Making a plan…”
South Africans are a hardly lot and “making a plan” is as South African as is gorgeous scenery and hard work (and, these days, as South African as Eskom’s terrible load shedding). With unprecedented blackouts, South Africans are, despite Eskom's monopolistic grip on the nation, cutting the chord as much as we can and “making plans” by turning away from Eskom in growing numbers.

Reader responses complied by Daily Maverick Community Manager Sahra Heuwel.
Graphic: Rudi Louw

From Daily Maverick’s “How to cut the Eskom chord”, here’s what South Africans say:

“I had to buy an inverter as I am dependent on supplementary oxygen. But the present rate of load shedding doesn’t allow the inverter to recharge fully.”
“We have a back-up battery that currently kicks in to supply us with power for basic needs, which in our case includes a ventilator and medical machines for a severely physically challenged 18-year-old.”
“We have solar and an inverter but not enough to last the night. We have a back-up generator (too). But (we) still rely on Eskom between load shedding to power the house and recharge batteries. We are basically self-sufficient, but not totally. Provided we can get two sets of three hours of Eskom power, we’re okay.”
“I have resorted to using wood for cooking and candles for lighting the house.”
“It’s back to basics. Paraffin is back in use as an alternative. Just for cooking and lights. No electronics.”
“I grew up with lamps and candles in the (Bantustan) Ciskei, so we have reverted back 60 years. I have a small UPS (uninterrupted power supply) connected to a truck battery in order to teach uninterruptedly online. I even use an ancient push-push lawnmower to lessen grid pressure.”

(On topic, “We are a beautiful country but political thugs are dragging us into the Dark Ages” )

And, so, my dear South Africans, “daar lê die ding….” (2:10 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Yesterday’s walk along an island gifted Mary and me with a bonanza of watery wildlife. First, crossing a bridge over the flowing tide, we spotted this curious but unafraid night heron:

Next, glittering silver streaks, like lights on a disco ball, attracted our attention: a school of small sardine-like fishies … followed by four large, hungry stiped bass. I’d never seen such large bass.

Moments later, what looked like plastic bag debris turned out, on closer inspection, to be a blue tinted jellyfish! Never seen a jellyfish in these waters before.

Further along on our walk, we noticed freshly blossomed tree mushrooms.

Photos: © S. Galleymore. iPhone SE.

My cursory research did not suggest a name for this particular beauty. Maybe you’ll have better luck searching
This bonanza of peeks into nature should have stimulated us to buy a lottery ticket.

***

Mary and I have a theme song, Gloria Gaynor and “I will survive” (3:14 mins) Thank you, Gloria.

***

SF Bay Area:
Sunrise: 7:19am
Sunset: 6:30pm

KZN, South Africa:
Sunrise: 5:20am
Sunset: 6:09pm

Friday, October 14, 2022

Squeaking

Stephen Colbert’s Meet the Flynnstones (0:55 mins)

The Lincoln Project:
What They believe (0:59 mins)
J. D. Vance’s fake non-profit (0:35 mins)
Storm (0:57 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Learn more, get involved >>

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Yesterday, after showering, Meso Mary displayed the clump of hair that had come away in her hand while she shampooed.
Most of her hair remains on her head, but the clump in her hand was a sobering foreshadowing of what may await.
Indeed, Mary, ever proactive, intends to visit a stylist for a shorter, more manageable hair style that will allow her to focus on bouncing back from chemo rather than how she looks to herself and others.

***

Thom Hartmann’s Opinion piece, “Why does the GOP work so hard to let psychopaths in suits get away with murder?” addresses the reality of deaths – including that of Hartmann's father from mesothelioma - due to rampant toxic contamination in the United States.
For many years, I’ve engaged with the reality that “business” – big and little – is geared toward profit and, too often, endangers its workers with nothing to little demanded of the companies. Moreover, this is getting worse. (That is, worse from the point of view of the Little Guy; better from the point of view of big biz and big profit margins.) With Republican Party determination to neutralize (at best) democracy in the US, We the People can expect far more of the same.
A quote from Hartman’s piece:

In America today if you poison and kill your wife to make $150,000 in life insurance money, you’ll probably end up in prison.
But if you poison and kill hundreds of thousands of people so you can take home a multi-million-dollar paycheck, you get to buy a new yacht.
This has to end.

I don’t pretend my work will end this. I’m a very small cog in a very large system. But I am a cog. And cogs, just like squeaky wheels, require a modicum of attention.
Mary’s fatal ailment stimulates me to squeak.
Let the squeaking begin.

***

Inexorable trend toward darkness in:
SF Bay Area:
Sunrise: 7:17am
Sunset: 6:32pm

And the trend toward light in:
KZN, South Africa:
Sunrise: 5:21am
Sunset: 6:07pm

Thursday, October 13, 2022

Living

Worldwide (Map)
October 13, 2022 – 623,005,700 confirmed infections; 6,562,000 deaths
October 14, 2021 – 239,341,600 confirmed infections; 4,877,540 deaths
October 15, 2020 – 38,426,375 confirmed infections; 1,091,250 deaths

US (Map)
October 13, 2022 – 96,831,600 confirmed infections; 1,0634,000 deaths
October 14, 2021 – 44,694,200 confirmed infections; 719,760 deaths
October 15, 2020 – 7,911,500 confirmed infections; 216,860 deaths

SA (Coronavirus portal)
October 13, 2022 - 4,021,750 confirmed infections; 102,200 deaths
October 14, 2021 – 2,914,000 confirmed infections; 88,500 deaths
October 15 – 696,420 confirmed infections; 18,155 deaths

Post from:

October 14, 2021, “Leadership”
October 15, 2020, “Scamdemic”

News blues

Considering another trip to South Africa in the next months, I’ve begun looking into country-by-country Covid travel advisories.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced it will assess the level of Covid-19 infection in each country and post notices only when there are new variants or other situations that would change its travel recommendations.
Here’s hopin’
Read more >>

***

On war… and crowdfunding a war
Ah, the genius of people under enormous life-and-death pressure!
Certainly, the power of crowdfunding put to great use!

A crowdfunding appeal that was launched after Russian attacks on cities across the country on Monday has raised $9.6m (£8.7m) in 24 hours for the purchase of kamikaze drones for the Ukrainian armed forces.
An initial 50 Ram II drones, unmanned aerial vehicles with a 3kg explosive payload, designed and built by Ukrainian companies, will be bought with the money, along with three control stations.

***

The Lincoln Project:
Pucker up, J. D. (1:09 mins)
Republican Socialists (0:26 mins)
Last week in the Republican Party - October 11, 2022 (2:10 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Dr Wendy Schultz, futurist and co-author of the report titled Law in the Emerging Bio Age says. “There is a growing understanding that something very different has to be done if our children are going to have a planet to live on that is in any way pleasant, much less survivable.”
Schultz and co-author Dr Trish O’Flynn call to enshrine rights for the natural world.
I’m for that.
Are you?
Here’s more: O’Flynn, an interdisciplinary researcher who was previously the national lead for civil contingencies at the Local Government Association, says legal frameworks should be “fit for a more than human future” and developments such as genetic modification or engineering. This means covering everything from labradors to lab-grown brain tissue, rivers to robots.

Ecuador and Bolivia have already enshrined rights for the natural world, while there is a campaign to make ecocide a prosecutable offence at the international criminal court. The report for the Law Society, the professional body for solicitors in England and Wales, explores how the relationship between humans and mother earth might be recalibrated in the future.

Personally, I think this is a grand plan…that might take decades to implement. For one thing, the United States does not recognize the jurisdiction of the legal body that is the international criminal court. As long as the US, currently the most influential country on the planet, is not onboard, few other countries will pay much attention. People, however, should continue to push for such a legal framework. Perhaps then politicians would change their stripes and blend with the trend? (Hmmm, just a guess but … nah!)

***

Staying on topic…

Earth’s wildlife populations have plunged by an average of 69% in just under 50 years, according to a leading scientific assessment, as humans continue to clear forests, consume beyond the limits of the planet and pollute on an industrial scale.
From the open ocean to tropical rainforests, the abundance of birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles is in freefall, declining on average by more than two-thirds between 1970 and 2018, according to the WWF and Zoological Society of London’s (ZSL) biennial Living Planet Report. Two years ago, the figure stood at 68%, four years ago, it was at 60%.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

These last 7 post chemo days have been the worst for Meso Mary. (Let’s hope they remain the worst and nothing in the future competes.) Nausea was an issue but the main issues were weakness, dizziness, general malaise, and passing out briefly before falling to the floor.

Mary fell three times, the first time heavily on her left hip – bruising it – and subsequently falling on the same hip but not as heavily.
After the second fall, she decided to lower her center of gravity and crawl instead of walk.
It’s terrifying to see someone one loves reduced to crawling along the floor to ensure she doesn’t fall and hurt herself.
Yes, Mary could have simply stayed in bed. Indeed, she stayed in bed for much of three days, but that's impractical, well nigh impossible, when one has been directed to drink more than 2 liters of liquid per day. What goes in, must come out....
Mary is stubborn (one of her best features when on a project; not such a great feature after chemo treatment). She refused the oncology nurse’s advice to go to the hospital emergency room reasoning, “at least not now. I’ll go if needed. For now, it’s not worth the stress of getting there, waiting in a room potentially with Covid sufferers, and accepting advice that will include ‘hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.’ Why don’t I simply stay home and hydrate?”

Good points.
She took her own advice and took it easy, working slowly on personal projects, and eating nutritioius meals.
I fully support her. I have full confidence that she’s making the right decisions based on her situation and needs.
At the same time, I’m becoming more enraged at Mary’s reality.

Imagine. Being fatally attacked by asbestos “hidden” in materials that Mary used and uses to share her creative gifts, asbestos not only known but purposefully embedded by manufacturers into materials because it’s cheaper than removing it and therefore means making more profit for manufacturing companpies.
Outrageous... and I intend to publicize the outrage.

***

Sometimes the good balances out the not-so-good.
Good: we took a short walk in the park where I photographed this red tailed hawk with its dinner, a ground squirrel.

Not-so-good: being dinner.

I’ve never been allowed this close to a bird of prey before. This one clearly wasn’t ready to abandon its gustatory pleasure to avoid the close observation of two intrigued and puny humans.

Red tailed hawk
© S. Galleymore

***

Continuing with cool in and around San Francisco Bay Area ...
SF Bay Area:
Sunrise: 7:16am
Sunset: 6:34pm

KZN, South Africa:
Sunrise: 5:22am
Sunset: 6:07pm

Monday, October 10, 2022

Post chemo – session 2

News blues

Our third pandemic winter rapidly approaches with cooler weather, and people spending more time inside, where the virus spreads more easily. The risks of a resurgence is increasing with the first hints that another possible surge of COVID-19 infections could be on its way.

Infections have been rising in many European countries, including the U.K., France, and Italy.
"In the past, what's happened in Europe often has been a harbinger for what's about to happen in the United States," says Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. "So I think the bottom line message for us in this country is: We have to be prepared for what they are beginning to see in Europe."

***

On war…
Ukraine Under Attack: Documenting the Russian Invasion Photographers in and around Ukraine have captured the horrors of war >>

***

The Lincoln Project:
Liz Cheney: flip or skip (0:42 mins)
Priorities (0:26 mins)
Ukraine (0:59 mins)
Lead blockers (1:05 mins)
Last week in the Republican Party - October 7, 2022 (2:15 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Fat bears >>

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

A pattern emerges in Meso Mary’s post chemo treatments. Now that she understands which anti-nausea drug to take – Zyprexa – she states that she is “queasy” but not nauseous. Some tinnitus distracts her sense of hearing, too. But overall, while she rested most of yesterday – no walks outside – she reports “feeling better.

You go, girl!

***

Cool in and around San Francisco Bay Area today
SF Bay Area:
Sunrise: 7:13am
Sunset: 6:38pm

KZN, South Africa:
Sunrise: 5:27am
Sunset: 6:06pm

Thursday, October 6, 2022

Chemo - session 2

Worldwide (Map)
October 6, 2022 – 619,794,750 confirmed infections; 6,552,300 deaths
October 7, 2021 – 236,735,200 confirmed infections; 4,832,640 deaths
October 8, 2020 – 36,069,000 confirmed infections; 1,055,000 deaths

US (Map)
October 6, 2022 - 96,552,300 confirmed infections; 1,061,500 deaths
October 7, 2021 – 44,086,000 confirmed infections; 708,200 deaths
October 8 , 2020 – 7,550,000 confirmed infections; 212,000 deaths

SA (Coronavirus portal)
October 6, 2022 - 4,019,800 confirmed infections; 102,185 deaths
October 7, 2021 – 2,909,000 confirmed infections; 88,000 deaths
October 8, 2020 – 685,155 confirmed infections; 17,250 deaths

Post from:
Oct 7, 2021, “Confusion and complication”
Oct 8, 2020, “Debatable”

News blues

As Meso Mary heads into chemotherapy session - 2 of 4, we hope, and no more needed, at least for now – we’re heartened by ongoing research into this environmental disease brought exposure to asbestos.

Vaccine therapy is a new mesothelioma treatment option that involves immunotherapy. A cancer vaccine instructs your immune system to make antibodies against cancer cells, similar to how the flu vaccine prepares your body to identify and attack the influenza virus. Mesothelioma vaccines are still in clinical trials where scientists are testing them for safety and effectiveness.
In a phase II mesothelioma clinical trial, patients who received the WT1 vaccine had a median overall survival of 21.4 months compared to 16.6 months for those who received a placebo. Doctors are also testing the benefits of combining mesothelioma vaccines with immunotherapy drugs such as Opdivo.

***

On war…
Photos of war in Ukraine (warning, don’t view if you are squeamish) >>

***

The Lincoln Project:
President Biden Speaks in Florida Following Hurricane Ian (1:17 mins)
Mitch found out (0:49 mins)
Ron DeSantis on Hurricane Ian Looters (0:43 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

A “luxury game reserve” is planned for on at least 580 sq miles (1,500 sq km) of land in Loliondo, bordering the Serengeti national park of Tanzania, and evicting more than 70,000 Maasai from ancestral land.

Lawyers for Maasai herders who say the Tanzanian government is trying to violently evict them from their ancestral land to make way for a luxury game reserve have lodged an appeal against a court ruling that dismissed their case. …
The government says the land is within the park and should, therefore, be given over solely to conservation purposes rather than being disrupted by human activity. But the herders say the land has been rightfully theirs for generations and accuse the authorities of wanting to use it to create a luxury game reserve run by a UAE-owned company.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Another session of chemo pending becomes real when Mary takes one of two Decadron – generic for Dexamethasone – the day prior to chemo. She takes another two today, the day of chemo, and plans to take the final two of this session tomorrow.
Decadron is a steroid that reduces inflammation, “helps the symptoms of inflammatory conditions… also helps calm your immune system... and when taken for nausea and vomiting … is thought to work on chemical messengers in the brain to reduce feelings of sickness.”
Roll on, Decadron – help Mary "treat conditions."
Last go round, Mary did not suffer vomiting but did suffer nausea and who knows what "other conditions."
This time around, she’s taking seriously advice received about the four different types of anti-nausea meds she’d been prescribed … and she's settled on Zyprexa (although she's not taken any yet. Results pending). She avoided this drug during her first session – trooper that she is, she simply put up with nausea – as Dr Google described Zyprexa as “an antipsychotic medication that affects chemicals in the brain [and is] used to treat psychotic conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (manic depression) in adults….”
Chemo, indeed, has side effects, but what to make of treating nausea with drugs designed to treat “schizophrenia and bipolar disorder”? To mangle a quote: Ours not to wonder why, ours but to swallow and not die.
Dr Google's warnings about Zyprexa that impacted Mary's decision

Zyprexa may impair your thinking or reactions. Be careful if you drive or do anything that requires you to be alert.
Avoid drinking alcohol while taking Zyprexa.
Zyprexa is not approved for use in older adults with dementia-related psychosis.
You may gain weight or have high cholesterol and triglycerides (types of fat) while taking this medicine…. Your blood may need to be tested often.
Olanzapine can cause high blood sugar (hyperglycemia). If you are diabetic, check your blood sugar levels on a regular basis while you are taking this medicine.
Avoid getting up too fast from a sitting or lying position… Dizziness or severe drowsiness can cause falls, fractures, or other injuries. Get up slowly and steady yourself to prevent a fall.
Avoid becoming overheated or dehydrated….It is easier to become dangerously overheated and dehydrated while you are taking Zyprexa.

Hmmmm.
National Cancer Institute reports that:

Scientists think they may have found a promising treatment for people with advanced cancer who have nausea and vomiting not caused by chemotherapy. In a small NCI-funded study, treatment with olanzapine (Zyprexa) greatly reduced cancer patients’ nausea and vomiting compared with a placebo.
Many people with advanced cancer experience chronic nausea and vomiting that can make it difficult to eat and can lessen their overall well-being.

The scary part of this report?
“… a promising treatment for people with advanced cancer who have nausea and vomiting not caused by chemotherapy.”
So many treatments for mesothelioma are “promising” rather than confirmed. Mesotelioma is described as "rare" - therefore, IMHO, not worthy of funding as it's unlikely to produce profits over time. Additionally, Mary’s oncology team presents Zyprexa as an effective anti-nausea drug, not a drug for “people with advanced cancer who have nausea and vomiting not caused by chemotherapy.” This disconnect will be further explored with the oncology team.

***

Tuesday, I posted about a less than stellar visit with a phlebotomist likely fresh out of phlebotomy school who poked Mary twice with a sharp needle before “finding a vein” and extracting blood.
Wednesday, Mary’s inner elbow – the site of the poking – is bruised although no longer swollen. I’d fretted that the bungled extraction might lead to infection, right at the time Mary is most vulnerable to infection. Judging by the lack of swelling, we have one less side effect to worry about.
However, Mary received a phone call from the oncology clinic to return to the clinic to extract more blood. Not only had the green phlebotomist made a hash of the blood letting, she'd not taken sufficient blood to complete all pre-treatment tests. Grrrr, the day before chemo, the patient is advised to "rest". Running around to pick up the pieces of a boteched blood extraction during late afternoon traffic on the roads (no time for bus riding) is hardly restful.

***

Darker earlier and later in the San Francisco Bay Area

SF Bay Area:
Sunrise: 7:10am
Sunset: 6:44pm

KZN, South Africa:
Sunrise: 5:30am
Sunset: 6:03pm

Tuesday, October 4, 2022

Resiliency

News blues

The first generation of Covid vaccines all work by boosting circulating antibodies. But they do little to stimulate antibodies in the tissues that line the nose and airways, and this so-called mucosal immunity is the body’s first line of defence against respiratory infection. This is considered a major weakness of current Covid vaccines and could explain why current vaccines protect against illness and death but not against infection. Scientists hope nasal vaccines, similar to those used for seasonal flu, could overcome this shortcoming and help weaken the chain of transmission and reduce the continued impact of Covid. There are at least 12 nasal vaccines in clinical development, with four in phase 3 trials, and many view an effective nasal vaccine as the next major prize for vaccine research.

***

“We’re playing with fire if we don’t pass this [bill, the PASTEUR Act] fairly soon,” said Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), one of the bill’s lead sponsors. “Every day that passes, we see more deaths on account of antimicrobial resistance, and this situation grows more challenging and more costly.” …
Young and the bill’s other lead sponsors in the House and Senate are eyeing ways to attach the bill to a year-end legislative package — likely one to fund the government for the rest of fiscal 2023. But even they are unsure it will happen this year, citing the bill’s price tag of $11 billion over 10 years as a major stumbling block for lawmakers who have gone months without allocating new funding to Covid-19. A Senate aide familiar with discussions on the legislation said policymakers are working to whittle down the bill’s cost.
[The bill would] create a “subscription” model for antimicrobial drugs that delinks payments to drug companies from how much medicine they sell, helping them survive financially and preserving the powerful new drugs for infections that don’t respond to any other drug.
Under the proposal, once the FDA approves a drug, the company would apply to the Department of Health and Human Services for a contract that would spread millions — or even billions — of dollars in payments to the firm over time. In exchange, federally insured patients would receive the drug free of cost.

***

On war… and the culture war
Ukraine's military effort is going spectacularly well in ousting Russians from its territory. Alas, there’s a huge cost to this, as we see in these photos from Ukraine war zone >>

***

The Lincoln Project:
Ron DeSantis' Hurricane Ian Photo Op (0:50 mins)
Comrade Carlson (0:55 mins)
Thank a MAGA Republican: January 6th (0:16 mins)
MTG Trump rally (0:30 mins)
Big problems (0:25 mins)
Herschel Walker on abortion (0:22 mins)
Kemp on contraception (0:46 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

A 100% solar community near Fort Myers, Florida endured Hurricane Ian with no loss of power and minimal damage.
Who, how, and why, you wonder?

… Syd Kitson, a former professional football player for the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys, is the mastermind behind Babcock Ranch. Kitson envisioned it to be an eco-conscious and innovative neighborhood that is safe and resilient from storms like Ian.
The ranch broke ground in 2015 with the construction of the solar array — which was built and is run by Florida Power and Light — and its first residents moved into the town in 2018. Since then, the array has doubled in size and thousands of people have made Babcock their home.
…
Perhaps the highest endorsement for the city is that it is now a refuge for some of Ian’s hardest-hit victims. The state opened Babcock Neighborhood School as an official shelter, even though it didn’t have the mandated generator. The solar array kept the lights on.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Meso Mary and I prep for her upcoming second session of chemo. She’s feeling optimistic about successfully avoiding nausea using both meds and acupuncture.
Mary talked to the Bay Area’s most experienced mesothelioma oncologist and that doc agreed to track the trajectory of Mary’s case. This means Mary can contact the oncologist as needed for info on trials and new treatment procedures as well as suggest her local oncologist feel free to contact the more meso-experienced doc, too.
Today, pre-chemo, Mary and I traveled by bus to the hospital for blood tests. We prefer bussing to driving as busses provide views into the life and times and to people that we seldom meet. Today’s ride provided an “off key” passenger yelling at no one in particular about Amerigo Vespucci and America’s “discovery” …then segued to “white privilege”…then the bus broke down – not due to this passenger – and all passengers - including the yeller - debarked for the next bus. After that, the phlebotomist at the hospital lab took two shots at finding the veins in Mary’s arm. No harm done – other than bruising of arms and egos.

***

These days, it is darker earlier and later in the ...

SF Bay Area:
Sunrise: 7:08am
Sunset: 6:47pm

KZN, South Africa:
Sunrise: 5:34am
Sunset: 6:02pm

Saturday, October 1, 2022

Good news, bad news

News blues

After the U.S. Food and Drug Administration late last month authorized Pfizer /BioNTech’s and Moderna Inc’s updated vaccine to target the more recently circulating Omicron subvariants of the coronavirus, only a third of American adults polled said they either already received the updated shots or plan to get it.
That is, around two-thirds of adults in the United States do not plan to get the updated COVID-19 booster shots anytime soon. This, according to a survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), a health policy nonprofit organization.

Read more >>

On the plus side, the worldwide chaos of Covid, the “2020-2021 flu season was all but canceled.”

That meant not just an unprecedented global decrease in the number of people sick with the flu but also a dramatic collapse in the genetic diversity of circulating flu strains. Many subtypes of the virus all but vanished. But most notably, one entire lineage—one of only four flu groups targeted by seasonal influenza vaccines—went completely dark, seemingly extinct.
But now, the flu has come roaring back and threatens to cause a particularly nasty season in the Northern Hemisphere. Still, the influenza B/Yamagata lineage remains missing, according to a study published this week in the journal Eurosurveillance. It has not been definitively detected since April 2020. And the question of whether it's truly gone extinct lingers.

***

The Lincoln Project:
The Right Stuff (1:06 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Everything is bigger in Texas. Well, everything except for penalties for polluting rivers, groundwater, ground, air, plants, people…. Then, “penalties are low enough that companies can often still save money by flouting pollution laws and paying fines instead” (aka, business as usual ….)

In a new report by Environment America, a Denver-based nonprofit, Texas ranks first among U.S. states for toxic discharges into streams, rivers and lakes, a title held by Indiana since the organization began analyzing nationwide water pollution in 2009, when Texas ranked fourth.
The report drew from data that was self-reported by industrial facilities and logged with the EPA. It tallied 16.7 million pounds of toxic substances released into Texas water in 2020, up from 13.2 million in 2007.
… Nitrate compounds—a common component of fertilizer runoff and industrial waste—account for up to 90 percent of total toxic releases reported by industry nationwide. The rest is made up of heavy metals such as lead; solvents such as tetrachloroethylene, and manganese compounds, methanol and ammonia. It also includes small amounts of potent substances known as “persistent bioaccumulative toxics,” which build up in people and animals, including mercury and dioxin.

Read more >>
Business as usual, continued….

EPA proposes to designate two “forever chemicals” as hazardous, aiming to bolster cleanup.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to designate two types of “forever chemicals” as hazardous substances, aiming to expand both cleanup and accountability for this pollution.

Hmmm. We’ll see…

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Six days until Mary undergoes another grueling chemotherapy session.

The good news is she rebounded after Day 5 of her last session. We’re hoping for as good as or better rebound next time.

One reason to hope is that Mary and I both have a better understanding of which anti-nausea drugs present the least side effects. That wasn’t true of session one. Mary, generally not a pill popper, elected to forgo all four anti-nausea drugs due to lack of sufficient information on side effects. Turns out she was right. The predominant side effect of the drug “friends” advised was a side effect she most wished to avoid. (No disclosure of the drug nor the side effect, sorry.)
She – we – are better prepared this time. I hope. Best laid plans, etc., etc.
Alas, last night I dreamed that, as I brushed my teeth, my hair fell out and into the bathroom sink. It began as tufts falling as if cut with scissors then progressed into skeins, as if plucked by the handful.
Hmmm, not a dream but a nightmare?

***

SF Bay Area:
Sunrise: 7:05am
Sunset: 6:51pm

KZN, South Africa:
Sunrise: 5:38am
Sunset: 6:00pm