Does this hurt?

Yeah! You're killin' me! One of an orthopedic surgeon's tests is to bend your leg into strange contortions and ask if it hurts. Duh... One of the many things done to me last year. I had been diagnosed with moderate osteoarthritis in my right hip in the fall of 2009. My general practitioner indicated exercise and pain killers. I started walking 6 klm every morning, whether hot and sunny, or bitterly cold. By April of 2010 the arthritis in my hip had become severe. After a year of walking, diligently to stay strong, my journeys were put on hold.

Osteoarthritis is another way of saying that the cartilage in my hip, that which separates the major load bearing bones, was wearing thin. Once severe it was bone on bone and quite painful. Meanwhile my wife and I had moved from the Greater Toronto Area to Niagara Falls, Ontario. With many boxes still looking to be emptied my surgery was scheduled for September 1st, 2010.

Hip surgery is somewhat invasive, to say the least, and after five days in the hospital I was released on my own recognizance... not quite, I had lots of help. Weeks of physio-therapy later and I was able to re-start my early morning 6 klm walks. However, that only lasted so long. I eventually had to stop because my left knee was giving me problems. Something was causing pain, so back to my trusted specialist to see what was wrong. Sure enough, this time it was a torn, or as he put it, shredded, meniscus. That's the curved cartilage that separates the major bones meeting in the knee.

My next surgery, not so invasive this time, will be this Thursday, October 27th, 2011. It would appear that an imbalance caused by a disruption on one side of my body, confused the other side of my body, or as some would say, "these problems come in pairs". I have full confidence in my surgeon, he's great and the hospital staff is quite wary of him because he is so meticulous. I have no worries, but the anesthetic injected into my spine is no joy.

My complaint is that these issues have shaken up our lives, both financially and emotionally. I left my job in 2009 because I could no longer manage stairs coupled with the stress of the particular job, and after the move, my job prospects in Niagara Falls, a depressed area, were dismal. I am still not working, mostly because I am, stubbornly, intent on finding something in information management. I feel if I drastically change my direction, I'll be a different person and never work in software again.

The unborn may control global warming

A 10 year study out of the Queensland University of Technology has linked the proximity of air pollution to the shrinking size of the fetus, in particular, abdominal and head circumference and femur length. The ultra-sound scans of 15000 pregnancies were studied, though why someone got money for this I don't know.

So they are reporting that as air quality declines, so does the size of the fetus. This was done by measuring the distances the pregnant mothers lived from high levels of air pollution. Interesting discovery, but let's look at this another way, just to show how such studies can be flawed.

Let's say a young woman lives near a source of very poor air quality. What might we say about her? Perhaps she has little income or is not so bright because we would hope she would have moved away from there long ago. Perhaps she is unwed and quite poor or the daughter of a steel worker. Would she be of average or better intelligence, have a good health plan or the funds to afford a good doctor, eat well and exercise, have the support of other bright, affluent mothers-to-be... if she lived near such a place? I think not.

Australia spends less on health care than both the US and Canada, and the doctors apparently have no cap on billing, so, assuming this information coincides with the study, it stands to reason that the unfortunate mothers, living in less than favourable, polluted cities, might not be in the best health. Furthermore, the poor, unwed moms may have had more babies in the 10 years studied, skewing the figures even further.

That pollution itself causes the decrease in fetus size may be a convenient coincidence. Rather, I'd like to think that a) nature is finding a way to make more of us fit on this shrinking planet, or b) that a race of smaller infants is causing global warming.

Third one's a charm

For Katey Sagal that is. The news today is that the ex-co-star on Married.. with Children has had her third baby at the age of 52. I know that's no record but isn't anybody concerned over this.


We know the median age of North America's population is climibing by about one year per year, the last I heard being 39. And, like all other stats moving in a bad direction, this will likely accelerate. So what does this tell us?

Well, first, in about 10 years, half of our population will be over 50. Is that a senior citizen yet. No, then OK, let's say in another 6 years after that, half will be over 60! Happy?

That means that by the time Katey's new baby is able to enter the workforce (if celebrity kids ever do that) his or her tax dollar contributions will have to support an enormous population of seniors requiring health benefits.

We knew years ago that our (Canadian) pension plan was sorrily lacking in foresight. Well, I suspect there will soon be little or no hope for it. Our government's answer is to open the doors to immigrants from countries busting at the seams. Unfortunately that has held the minimum wage down, and raised expenses in our health care system due to fraud.

Bandaids everywhere and it will have to stop, before Katey #3 starts flippin' burgers.

A bug by any other name

There will be more of these unfortunately, but it's all part of life. The new super-bug, or bacterial infection, is called Community-Acquired Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus, or CA-MRSA for short.

It is a bacteria that has mutated over the years to now be even more resistant to anti-biotics than it once was. If you've read any of my earlier articles you may recall that I was once afflicted with the flesh-eating disease. And the CA-MRSA can develop into that if not treated soon enough.

CA-MRSA is not an epidemic but outbreaks have occurred in more and more communities where people might share towels, locker rooms and the like. Originally, found mostly in hospitals, the infection often appears as a growing boil on the extremeties. Basic personal hygiene is your best defense. It it transmitted by touch.

In the big picture, this is not to alarm anyone. It is to keep reminding you that the smallest of enemies may be the most powerful. And they are getting stronger day by day.

Lights out

And so it begins. Out of Nairobi Kenya, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist has come up an idea to counter the effects of greenhouse gases said to cause global warming. The notion is that by adding certain pullutants high into the atmosphere, typically sulfates, the earth will reflect more of the sun's heat, allowing the climate to cool.

Now, that in itself sounds a little ironic, since pollutants have been blamed thus far, but I draw your attention to a sentence hidden deep in the article Scientists say pollution may be helpful. Tom Wigley, a senior U.S. government climatologist said "a temporary shield would give political leaders more time to reduce human dependence on fossil fuels". Remember, the U.S. rejected the Kyoto deal.

What happens when you allow more time for something? You use it up! And the U.S. is the biggest user. The other problem, a complex one, is the long term effect this remedy may have intermixed with the gases already present, and the inevitable build up in concentration.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it; but if you broke it, screw it up some more!

Only to live another day

A story today out of the University of Utah, tells of a new potential pain killer.

It comes from the venom of the Conus regious cone snail and compounds from it are said to have been effective in treating pain in terminal cancer patients. Unfortunately, we likely wouldn't see drugs derived from this for up to 10 years.

'Unfortunatley'? Not to sound mean, but really. How long should we keep terminal cancer patients (alive and) pain free. To what end? I don't know anyone in this terrible predicament, and perhaps I would be offended if I did. However, this is yet another example where technology is seemingly driven to prolong life regardless of any possible downside.

If pain didn't serve a useful purpose in nature, it wouldn't exist in the first place.

You Can Run...

I wrote this in May of 2002. Enjoy.

The great apes gave rise to mankind
I can easily make this thought mine.
As Darwin would say, the strong surely stay
As the weak will be left far behind.

Note the raptor's physique, the bird and its beak.
See how well they intertwine.
If the comet had not, the birds would have bought
Freedom from man as we dine.

We find ourselves at the top of the chain
Mocking a world of gambles and gain.
Take heed lest yee think, man not be on the brink
Of near death by a lesser brain

We toyed with our planet,
Wasting much of it's granite,
But never feeling the pain
Of a creature so small
That within us all
Its effects will drive us insane.

In the Same Vein

Further to What a gas, you might figure, so why tell the story. OK it's predicated on the notion that perhaps I shoudn't have been so lucky.

Had it not been for three varieties of anti-biotics being pumped into me 24/7, I would surely have died a horrible death. These wonder drugs kept me alive to live another day, but is this right?

Our world is over-populated as it is. We put helmets on kids so they can ride bikes. We drink bottled water and have air-bags in our cars. And AIDS... another time. We prolong life only to crowd our living space and mis-treat the elderly.

Anti-bacterial soap and similar products. Don't buy them. They kill bacteria that's good for us and force mutations on the bad bacteria, enabling them to become even stronger. Now a youngster's immune system can't even handle a peanut! Let them swim in the lake and play in the dirt (like we did), if it doesn't kill them immediately, it might make them stronger.

From what I've been told, already our collective ability to make new anti-bacterial agents to fight ever more resistant bacteria, is dwindling.

Technology may help us live longer but eventually may spawn a super-bug that could wipe us all out in days or weeks.

What a gas

Everyone has some bacteria swimming around in the back of their mouths. And sometimes a sore throat can turn into a not so minor strep throat. That can be treated easily.

That is if the bacteria are well behaved. If the little gremlins get loose, look out! Such was my turning point in July of 1994. The day after working several hours in the backyard I forced myself to go to a local clinic, feeling quite dizzy. After a blood test and Tylenol, the doctor dismissed me suggesting I might have Mononucleosis. That evening, my son roused me from a nap only to discover that my mords were wixed, and I was white and clammy. We then discovered I could no longer walk.

Once in emergency and after being seen by two doctors, I blacked out. Apparently, a visiting doctor then took an interest and, after seeing an ominous rash on my back, called the CDC in Atlanta. The diagnosis... Necrotizing Fasciitis, sometimes called Group A Strep Toxic Shock Syndrome, or the Flesh Eating Disease!

In 1994, at least, I learned that only 1 in 7 physicians are able to diagnose the disease. Moreover, it's very often fatal, not so much because the bacteria kills you outright, but because of the treatment. Many will succumb to the effects of massive doses of anti-biotics, long before any surgery can ever take place.

I was lucky in that my heart was strong, so they say. Also I came out of the hospital two weeks later intact... no amputations. Not everyone is so lucky.

We cannot control the behaviour of bacteria that runs rampant, but we can do things to prevent our immune systems from being compromised, which makes us susceptible to such rare infections.

In the grand scheme of things, did this technology contribute to me having a better life? or just a longer one?