#getting antivirals later today

[firelord-frowny]

my mom has covid 🙃

[sy5starplaty]

Ugh. My mother's recent RAT says she's got COVID. She did one on Tuesday (3 days ago), as she usually does before she has to get chemo, and it was negative. Yesterday, though, she sounded really bad & cold-y, so she did a test this morning and...

I started getting an itchy throat (& tingly lips too?) yesterday AFTER Mum got in my car to drive her back home [she unfortunately mingled with people while feeling crook which I didn't know until I drove her back home]. She's the only person I'm in close contact with; most other gatherings I tend to keep my distance & in stores I always wear a mask [Mum doesn't].

I've done a RAT today, and it's negative. But as it took a while for Mum's positive to show up, I'll do it again in 2 days.

Mum's trying to organise a proper test, so she's calling her GP now for a referral... and then I'll drive her there - but she's going in the back seat... Them's the rules.

e (3hrs later): GP's sent a script to the local chemist for antiviral meds. So I'll do the pick up for that now.

[anxious-and-in-pain]

COVID Diaries: Days 0 and 1

hi all! for context, i have ME/CFS and fibromyalgia which gives me constant headaches, body aches, and fatigue. my doctor says i’m at high risk of developing long covid so i’m a little scared. i’ll try to update you all regularly (maybe every couple days)

i did a home test yesterday because of a recent exposure. it came back negative. you might be asking “why are you posting this then?” well, some people don’t know that it may take a few days for a home test to show up positive.

not even an hour later, i did a PCR test which came back positive. awful timing that it was just after 5pm on a friday so my doctors’ office is closed until monday morning. begin day 0. i had a slightly increased headache and slept in but no other symptoms

day 1: today. i actually had a hard time sleeping. i’m a tad achier than usual but nowhere near how i get with the flu. no fever

medications: i tried to get paxlovid but it interacts with one of my psychiatric medications. i was recommended remdesevir which would be three days of infusions starting on monday or tuesday. both of these are antivirals to reduce the likelihood of getting bad symptoms or long covid.

i’m also taking tylenol/acetaminophen/paracetamol for the body aches/headache. it might be helping a little?

[audiovisualrecall]

My dad's been sick for 2 days ish bit not much beyond sniffles till yesterday and got a PCR done and they said they'd email him in the morning. This morning came and went and we heard nothing, finally he called them to find out that oh yeah someone logged the result but did nothing else with it. He's positive for covid, too, of course. But they for some reason didn't even consider prescribing paxlovid even tho as an over-65 yr old they Should have?? Last time they both got it, both were given paxlovid. This one didn't even suggest he ask his gp or anything. So he tried to call his doctor bc also he has prostate cancer so like yeah maybe he should be on the antiviral??? And it took all day to get a response and idk. My mom had paxlovid prescribed and called in and then was told she needed to take a different antiviral bc paxlovid interacts with her heart meds, apparently, so anyway we have an extra brand new box of it lying around, so if his doctor said yes, take paxlovid, he could use that one instead of going to pick up another box and letting this one go to waste. But he used his Customer Service Voice when he spoke to them and also honestly downplayed his symptoms- both yesterday and today, as the day got later he got the chills and sat in his computer chair with his hood up and dozed/napped most of the afternoon away. He seemed to wake up more after dinner last night and was fine earlier today, same as yesterday during the daytime, but he went from 99°f during their phone call to 101 (I think, it mightve been 100.1, my ears are stuffed due to covid, ugh) an hour or 2 later. And was still slumped in his chair napping with the hood up and despite advil, totally out of it until ma needed him to move his car so she could go out to get something. He still looks like shit tho, pale af. Anyway so bc he downplayed it on the phone to the Dr they didn't recommend the paxlovid I guess which i don't get, at all. Like the only reason I didn't take it is bc I cannot manage those horse pills. No way. Also bc I didn't realize I was sick until 3 days in. And yes technically he is 3 days in to being sick, too, so the effectiveness of the antiviral would be lessened, compared to starting it right away, but personally I think it's worth it anyway for him, but obvs not my choice, so.

Now he's up watching woodshop videos or whatever when he clearly needs the sleep. But whatever

[dwarfysays]

2/25/23 Saturday

My mom has been in hospice care at home for almost 2 years. When the hospice care started, the doctor said she had weeks or months to live. She has stage 4 terminal lung cancer.

She had defied the predicted life expectancy. That may be a testament to the level of care she had received from my youngest sister “C”. C and her family had been living with our parents for several months after leaving a house they were renting. C had taken in the care of our elderly parents. My brother “P”, sister “N” and I have helped when we could. The bulk of the work landed on C’s shoulders though. C had too much stress from her job as well, she had to quit. It would have been impossible to work and care for both parents.

Mom had a sharp decline in her health during the COVID crisis, mere weeks after receiving the vaccine. The lung cancer was discovered during her last hospital stay. All treatments were not possible due to here failing kidneys and the type of lung cancer. So mom was switched to hospice care. Everything has been done to keep Mom alive and as comfortable as possible. For months she seemed stable with very slow rate of decline.

In December both parents were struck with RSV. My father recovered, but not entirely sure about my mom. She might have sustained some damage from that virus. Then 2 weeks ago, both parents contracted COVID. My mom and dad had started coughing. My sister got them both on antivirals as quickly as possible. My father has recovered to baseline, but Mom is failing.

Yesterday, we face-timed with the hospice nurse who said the end is near for my mom. We each including my kids A and G left work early to be by her side. Mom continues to hang on. we each left the house as she apparently may make it through the night.

I’m troubled by the fact that my sister will still take her son to his games “like normal” while the rest of us were “expected to drop everything” yesterday for our dying mother. Well, she’s still hanging on and may very well pass while in my and A’s care today. Why did C not cancel put on a bball game? Did she want to maintain normalcy for her kids as Gma lay dying in a rented hospital bed at home? If it were me, I would say “fuck the bball game” and stay with Mom. But that’s just me. Maybe C continues to need a break from the hospice parents no matter how dire things are for one of them. I understand C needing a break, some rest. I even took Tuesday off so C could get some desperately needed sleep. I wish I could give her more time to rest, but my job has important tasks.

I feel like it isn’t fair for our parents to put us through this. They told C that it is traditionally the youngest daughter’s responsibility to care for the elderly parents. I tried to research that claim and found nothing. I feel like that’s bullshit. But what if they were in a senior assisted living home? How long would they actually have lived? Would it have been shorter?

My mom could pass now, later on today, or maybe much later. Right now, I don’t know if she is still alive. How is my dad with her on the precipice of death? Would he be too scared, stressed, depressed? What about him? How is he going to be once she passes? I’m worried for him too.

A and I are going to be there at 9AM. A is scared about Gma dying in front of her. We are all scared of her dying, but it’s inevitable. We have to accept it. Mom has to accept it. But does she? She has death phobia. Don’t we all to some extent?

My mom passed away later on this day at 3PM. I was eating a late lunch in the living room starting at 2:45. Mom was in a hospital bed in her bedroom. Before I left her to have lunch, her eyes were open, still breathing but not responding to my voice. She had been ignoring my sister earlier that day. So I thought it was the same deal. At about 3:15 I went to check on her. She was very quiet, very still. I tried to nudge her, no response. No breath sounds, no movement. I could not find a pulse. Mom had passed away at about 3. My dad was distraught and crying out to mom.

I called my siblings. They all came and we all mourned and cried.

She’s gone. She’s really gone.

[bliss-skin-tag-remover]

Bliss Skin Tag Remover Serum Shark Tank Honest Reviews 2022

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Their social stigma is still embarrassing... isn't it? Confusion can lead to confusion. And there is no way to feel it! Especially if there is a better solution! You can remove warts and moles with Bliss Skin Tag Remover. Errors are corrected in up to 15 minutes. Bliss Skin Tag Remover is not only fast, but also natural and safe - even for moles and polyps all over the face and neck! 

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[mbdailynews]

Jill Biden Tests Positive Again for Covid-19

First lady Jill Biden tested positive for Covid-19 again on Wednesday, the White House said, describing her case as “rebound positivity.” Dr. Biden, who tested negative on Tuesday, isn’t experiencing a re-emergence in symptoms, her spokeswoman Kelsey Donohue said in a statement. The first lady, 71 years old, will isolate in Delaware, Ms. Donohue said. Dr. Biden first tested positive last week, the White House said Aug. 16. She isolated herself at the South Carolina home where she and President Biden had been vacationing at the time. She had cold-like symptoms and was prescribed a course of the antiviral drug Paxlovid, which has been approved by federal regulators as a Covid-19 treatment. Get The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Digital Subscription 5-years for $89 Some people who take Paxlovid to treat Covid-19 test positive again for the coronavirus in what public-health officials call rebound positivity. Mr. Biden also recently had a rebound case after taking Paxlovid. The president first tested positive for Covid-19 on July 21 and tested negative five days later. He tested positive again on July 30, in what his doctor described as a rebound case. Following the positive test, Mr. Biden returned to isolation at the White House residence. He began testing negative for the virus again earlier this month. Subscribe today and get 52 weeks of The WSJ Print Edition for $318 The president, who returned to the White House Wednesday from vacation in Delaware, tested negative on an antigen test, a White House official said. Mr. Biden was a close contact of the first lady and will mask for 10 days when indoors in accordance with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, the official said. The White House will also test Mr. Biden more frequently. Read the full article

[livingwithlosingyou]

Living with Losing You - 7/31/2022

I’m so sick. 

I do not think I have ever been so sick in my life. It sucks because all I want to do is talk to you, text you, FaceTime you, see you, ANYTHING. This has been the hardest couple weeks of my entire life. 11/10 do not recommend losing the love of your life and contracting a very aggressive variant of COVID-19. Not fun. On the bright side, I am glad that your parents, John & Julie, aunts, cousins, etc. did not contract it. As miserable as I am, I am happy to take one for the team.��

This antiviral medication that they put me on has the absolute worst after taste, and it has been making me feel so sick to my stomach. I can’t imagine being nauseous every single day like you were. Even just being sick this morning, I felt overwhelmed by it. I am so sorry that you dealt with not only the emotional depression, but the physical ailments as well. You were such a fighter, I hope you know that. 

I have been reading books on grief and listening to podcasts for suicide survivors. It is so easy to feel alone in this process, but unfortunately it impacts many people. I was listening to one today where they were discussing that it’s not that you actually want to die, it is just that you want to get rid of the pain. It’s that pain and hopelessness that feels unescapable. When someone gets to this point, there is not much anyone can do to prevent it. And even if we had, it likely still would have happened at a later time. As you know, I have always struggled with control. I think everyone likes to be in control. The more I accept that this was your decision, and it was completely out of my control, the healthier the healing process will be. They talked about the natural guilt that everyone that loves you is feeling. It is hard to not think about the “could haves, would haves, or should haves”. Then the reality sets in that you had a disease of your mind that told you that this was what you needed to do to be able to feel peace. I absolutely hate that. 

On a lighter note, today I was able to set up the Ratchet and Clank game, and made decent progress on my level. I am determined to beat this game to prove a point, but also because I know that’s what you’d want for me. To continue to do the things we used to do together, and find joy in them again. 

I have had a lot of time on my hands #covidstruggle, so I started to look through old notes on my icloud. I’ll share the lyrics to one of the songs that I wrote semi-recently. I wrote and recorded this one night when you just needed a little love. You really liked this one. I also found a note where I had started creating hashtags for us if we ever got married, and thought I would share those on here because it’s cute. I even had the baby names list. We had talked about Jack for a boy. I always made the joke Jameson because it was punny, since it would be James’s son. You were firm on Jack though!

Here are some lyrics:

May 8th, 2022

When words don’t work I, will paraphrase  There’s so much to say, my, sweet baby James. 

Caught up in the moment, I look in your eyes I try to keep focus, but then you smile.

When life seems all lost, you’re like a compass, I follow my heart, Christopher Columbus.

Wherever you are, just call out my name. Just know I’m not far, my, 

Sweet baby, James.  

Hash tags (apparently I was planning for a 2022 wedding in 2020 lol):

#nocontonichols  #nocon2nichols  #jamesmadison2022

You know, while it is extremely painful that we did not get to these milestones that we always talked about, it still warms my heart that you loved me enough to have these conversations. How I will forever wish that I could have shared these with you. I am grateful for what we did share though. I always will be. 

I decided to test out the mini Fender amp that you purchased a little while ago with the electric guitar I bought you for Christmas (or as you and I called it, Chrimahhhh). Needless to say I had a little too much fun with it. I played so hard and long that I actually started to feel sick again. It was well worth it! I bet you were watching me jam out, I am sure that was entertaining. 

For dinner I ordered Burger Lounge, which was our go to when we first met and were surfing more. As the days pass, I am finding that I am missing the little things. (Que joke about little things that you would make).

We are so connected that everything reminds me of you. It’s beautifully tragic. 

I still hate the fact that you’re gone. I doubt I’ll ever like it, but I await the day I will find peace with it. 

I love you so incredibly much my “Sweet Baby, James”

Rest in Peace, James Burton Nichols

10/1/1993 - 7/16/2022

[jenniferheldinc]

I told a guy in my best Maleficent voice during a hot flash to leave the AC alone or else. I walked away and put my head in the office freezer. I had all the classic symptoms, heat that started at my feet, mood swings, anxiety, waking up in the middle of the night, and men were the enemy. Not a rocket scientist, my GYN, told me why I was miserable. A few years later COVID-19 hit and that only increased my anxiety and took my symptoms off the charts. A friend told me about an author who focused on herbs and plants for treatments; and when I looked him up, he had written a fascinating book called Herbal Antivirals. I bought tinctures and powders because they are easy to use, and I took them daily to boost my immunity. I did not notice that my menopause symptoms were practically gone after a few months. I was still having trouble sleeping because we had a bad fire season, the house had to stay locked up, and I had no central AC, but things were different. I started to seek more information on these plants because in fact when I did get COVID, it seemed less severe than what I saw other people experience. Well, it turned out not only were these known for immunity but were also used for menopause. I was stunned; it wasn't the placebo effect because I had no idea. Today, with adaptogens, many of my symptoms are gone, read more www.jenniferheldcarter.com/free-and-fabulous-at-fifty/

[anexperimentallife]

Well crap. The good news is that we might have an answer for my increasingly blurred vision and Bell's Palsey in addition to long covid. The bad news is that it's gonna suck hard.

Apparently two of my most useful meds--one for my nerve damage and one for my allergic rhinitis--can both cause (or exacerbate) both conditions. And the other main allergy med I was on could damage my heart.

Obviously I'm going to wean myself off all of the above, and look for substitutes where I can, but I won't lie--it's gonna be a rough ride.

My MRI is later today (thought it was gonna be yesterday), but the results won't be in until next week.

Don't know if I mentioned this before, but my doc already has me on prednisone and antivirals for the Bell's Palsey, but I'm putting off the eye doctor until we have the MRI back.

If I'm lucky, just weaning myself off those two meds will be enough to restore my pre-covid vision. Next week won't be soon enough to know for SURE, but if they're part of what's wrong I should at least see SOME improvement by then.

It's 8 am here, and I think I got two hours of sleep last night from worrying. Think I'm gonna see if I can grab a nap before the baby wakes up.

Which reminds me--all this testing and treatment is having to come out of out the fundraiser for the situation with out daughter, because it won't do her any good if I get even more messed up than I already am, so please see my pinned post.

[c-is-for-circinate]

Thinking today about viruses, allergies, oppression, and anti culture.

(under a cut because WHOOOPS this got long)

Racism is a virus. Homophobia, transphobia, sexism, antisemitism, ableism, etc etc etc, they are all viruses--a topic that many of us have learned a great deal about in the past year. They are ideas, yes, not literal physical diseases, but the analogy holds up. They are infectious, and often spread from person to person without anyone involved realizing they have it. They can sit latent for years, never showing up because the carrier never finds themselves in a situation where the issue comes up, only to flare up and take over when you least expect it. And they mutate, just like the flu, just like the common cold; they put on a new jacket every year and slide in undetected yet again, slip past our internal sensors and bury themselves in our brains until we go in and deal with them as best as we can.

One more thing we've learned about viruses this year is how we can fight them. The viruses of oppression are a little different because they tend to hurt the people around their carriers even more than the people they've infected (although let's talk about internalized anything-ism sometime), but in a lot of ways the attack is the same. You treat the symptoms even when you don't know how to cure the disease: we invest in respirators, antiviral treatments, hospitals; we create and sponsor programs to help those who've been hurt by various oppressions, we uplift our neighbors, we try to keep people safe from violences both big and small. You work to stop the spread: we wear our goddamn masks, we stay home when we can; we train ourselves not to say racist shit that might foster a culture of hate, we stop that guy in our office from making rape jokes, we make slurs unacceptable. You pay attention to your immune system: we seek medical attention when we experience symptoms, we get COVID tests, we talk to our doctors before the symptoms get deadly; we protest and we pay attention to the people who do, we take them seriously when they tell us that something is wrong.

You vaccinate. We train ourselves and our immune systems to recognize the thing that infects us, the thing that we fear. We try to teach our children about history, bit by little bit, on fragments of dead violence the same way we train our bodies on dead virus shells, so that someday they'll recognize the live disease when they see it. We learn about slavery and Jim Crow and the Holocaust. We tell kids bedtime stories about why hitting and bullying is bad, before we ever start teaching them the specific shapes that violence so often takes. As we get older, as we get stronger, we learn about the living stuff, all the new forms that same old virus has mutated into; we educate ourselves, we listen, we read. Just like vaccines, of course, there are anti-vaxxers and denialists shouting about how racism and sexism are already dead and they don't need any propoganda besides Fox News. Hell, just like anti-maskers, there are plenty of people screaming about how political correctness is ruining the world and they demand their right to spread their virus to anyone they can. Often these are the same people.

But we try. And make no mistake, we all of us are already infected, and just like a real virus, once you've caught it once it probably won't ever go away again--but we can prepare, and we can try to lessen the severity of our cases, and we can support our immune systems of activists and protesters and our own internal sense of this is wrong, and we can work, bit by bit, if not towards eradication (not yet, not in this world, but maybe someday in another), then at least towards control.

And then there's allergies.

An allergy is what happens when a human body's own immune system freaks out over an enemy that wasn't particularly harmful in the first place. All our immune defenses--those precious immune defenses, which work so hard to protect us against all those viral, deadly ideas--go screaming into high gear. All of that fear and fury and attack power gets brought to bear all at once, against a bit of pollen or bee venom or cat dander or peanuts, and your body is left itchy and runny-nosed and gasping--sometimes literally--as it tries to keep up. Allergies are miserable. Sometimes they're life-threatening. And the biggest danger isn't the foreign agent that triggers the allergic reaction; it's the immune system trying to fight it in the first place.

Which, yes, brings us to anti culture--but not JUST anti culture. It's a good example, a little internet-centric microcosm of the same force that drives progressives to tear bloody shreds out of moderate liberal politicians. Hell, it's the same force that enables both TERFs and the Capitol rioters. It's a combination of an immune system that points in the wrong direction, flagging the wrong thing as bad, terrifying, danger, NO, and a freaked-out response that can manifest as anything from mildly irritating to absolutely deadly.

To be clear, I am not by any means equating the scale or even the source of these things, any more than hayfever is the same as anaphylactic shock. Likewise, the sources are different. Sometimes, a disease can infect an immune system and point it in the wrong direction. (Terror of the other is the absolute cornerstone of white nationalism, and when that terror gets triggered by a harmless environmental condition like, god forbid, other people asking for rights, the allergy response can be deadly.) Other times, it's the other way around. Our internal immune systems, so well trained to protect ourselves and those around us from the insidious viral ravages of prejudice and oppression, start seeing traces of it everywhere.

And they freak out. And we suffer for it.

We talk a lot of well-deserved shit about TERFs, but it's useful to remember how much their nastiness feels to them like activism. Their immune system, trained and primed and sensitized over years of exposure to misogyny and sexism, catches the tiniest whiff of something that might seem at some point to have possibly been taken for male, and freaks out, because why is that trying to get into our system. Never mind that they're wrong. An immune system that flips out over penicillin is wrong, too. It's still trying to help, and it's still doing more harm than good trying it.

So bringing this back around to anti culture, which was absolutely where I started thinking about all of this this morning: anti culture, the terror of porn and the attempt by antis to protect themselves an other people from sexual content, is an immune response. It is a trained immune response, in people who have been taught and re-taught again and again that rape culture is a dangerous insidious virus that should be fought at all costs. And, right, there's more than a bit of 'the sexism virus infected this immune system and reprogrammed it to fight itself' involved here, but look, we are all of us infected with all of the viruses at least a little bit everywhere. If we tried to direct our immune systems to rip every last shred of -ism out of every last bit of us, we'd rip ourselves apart. Which is exactly the problem.

Porn, in and of itself, is natural. As natural as environmental pollen, and living near dogs and cats, and eating wheat or nuts or citrus fruit. It's even healthy, for a whole host of reasons that belong in another essay. And citric acid and nut-based proteins and whole grains are nutritious, and pets are physically and psychologically helpful, and being exposed to lots of different environmental substances as a child can actually help train your immune system in the first place. Porn can help us figure out what we like. It can help us figure out what we don't like. And while the processes that create it are sometimes unethical and awful, we don't condemn all dogs because puppy mills and dogfighting rings exist, even if we do have dog allergies.

What we see in anti culture is often a good-faith attempt on the part of antis to attack and subdue an environmental trigger that they read as dangerous. It's a panic attack over something that is by nature harmless or mildly harmful, blown out of proportion by the very instincts that are supposed to keep us safe. It's the response of an immune system that's been taught over years and years, by everyone from parents to school systems to the activists they look up to, that negative stimulus is to be feared, avoided, and fought. Of COURSE they're going to freak out.

And of course, early exposure to controlled amounts of allergens can help prevent later allergies from developing. Of course when kids are raised with abstinence-only education, sheltered from the very concept of sex, they're going to grow up allergic to it. (Of course they're going to try to protect other kids from the same, like worried mothers who refuse to let peanuts or wheat products or dirt near their precious babies, whose kids grow up with a whole suite of allergic triggers because their bodies never learned what was okay in the first place.) And no, that doesn't mean we hand pornography to ten-year-olds any more than we should give raw honey to an infant--but of course if our culture refuses to introduce kids to the fact that sex and desire and the inside of their own brain can be messy and silly and kinky and downright weird, we're going to have a higher rate of allergic reaction to the entire concept in adults.

I wish I had a better answer for what to do with understanding that this is what's going through so many people's brains. The best I have is a prescription for allergy-sufferers, who probably haven't read this far through this wordspew of an essay in the first place--but we all get a little hayfever once in a while, and we all sometimes run into content that makes us angry. So some thoughts on how to deal with metaphorical allergic reactions, inspired by the ways we deal with literal ones?

First: we recognize that what is happening is an allergy. The thing we're reacting to might be gross, or irritating, or even unpleasant, but the danger is not and never has been the thing itself. Whether it's triggering a response because of its similarity to an actively dangerous pathogen, or our immune system just doesn't like it, our aversion to one kind of story or another universally says more about us than about it. Luckily, we have a lot more control over our social responses than our biological ones!!! If vocal activism is our sociocultural immune system firing itself up to fight an infection that may or may not exist, then we get to tell our metaphorical white blood cells to stand down. We get to decide.

Second: we get some space. The funny thing about allergies is, while early exposure to allergens can help prevent them, re-exposing yourself to dangerous allergens after you've already developed a reaction to them can make them worse. Anaphylaxis is always more likely after someone's experienced it the first time. Repeated exposure to triggers, whether biological or psychological, can make the effects worse. So stop exposing yourself.

If something makes your throat itch every time you eat it, stop eating it. If something makes you mad every time you read it, stop reading it. Obviously this can be easier said than done in a world that's a lot worse about warning labels on stories than ingredients labels on foods, but that's why fic tags exist. And: sometimes, the croissant is delicious enough that we decide we're willing to suffer through the way the almonds make us feel, just this once. Sometimes the ship or the characterization or, hell, those other kinks that we really like are tasty enough that we'll put up with the trope we hate. We're allowed to do that. But we do it knowing there will be consequences, and we don't blame the baker when they hit.

We also don't have to blame ourselves. It sucks to be allergic to shellfish when all your friends are raving about the new seafood place. But that's not our fault any more than it's theirs.

Third: sometimes, if we need one, we go to the doctor. Or a therapist. Yes, really.

Not because there's anything really wrong with an aversion or even mild breakouts of hives, annoyance, and bitching in your friends' DMs--but it sure isn't pleasant, and sometimes your doctor might have a better solution than 'avoid it and take a Benadryl' that makes you feel a little better in the long run. And sometimes, it's not a mild breakout. Sometimes it's the kind of story that lingers with you for days, makes your skin crawl; sometimes your throat swells up and it gets hard to breathe. Sometimes we get angry enough about something we've read that we can't stand down our immune system, don't want to stop ourselves from writing that angry comment, that tumblr post, that abuse report to the mods for something that didn't actually break any rules. And that's dangerous, because when our immune response can flare out of control like that, we don't always know where and when it will happen next, and the risk of what we'll do if it happens gets way, way higher.

Sometimes it really is worth getting a second opinion. Sometimes you need somebody to tell you, "actually, it is not normal to get tingly and sweaty every time you eat potatoes." There are ways to train your brain and leash your white blood cells that I sure as heck am not expert enough to address. There are, it turns out, ways to feel better. There are ways to mitigate the damage your own well-meaning defense mechanisms might do to yourself or other people along the way.

And: we can take a deep breath when someone with an allergy to something we've baked, something we've written, something we like, is lashing out trying to protect themselves and everyone around them from something they've registered as a threat. Of course they're wrong. Yes, we told them there were tree nuts in the brownies ahead of time; yes, they chose to eat them anyway. But it can be worth reminding them and ourselves that there's a difference between "this thing is toxic" and "this harmless thing has driven my own system into a defensive response that sure makes it feel like I've been poisoned." And it can be worth reminding ourselves as well as them that sometimes, that difference can be really hard to spot.

[myonechicagoworld]

CHICAGO FIRE – VIRAL (S01E16)

                                            [keys clinking]

Matt Casey: Thanks, mom.

Nancy Casey: Matt…

Matt Casey: I’ll see you tomorrow morning. We can… talk then.

Nancy Casey: Oh, oh, oh, jeez.

Matt Casey: Mom, why are you hiding from your parole officer?

Nancy Casey: [sighs] I went out last night. If she tests me, I won’t

                        pass. Just please get rid of her

Matt Casey: [stammers]

                                    [sharp knocks at door]

Matt Casey: Ms. Kendrick.

Lady 1 (Kendrick): Hi, Matt. I’m here to check in on Nancy.

Matt Casey: Yeah, you just missed her. She’s out for a walk.

Lady 1 (Kendrick): I can wait.

Matt Casey: Um, my shift is about to start.

Lady 1 (Kendrick): Fine. Try later.

Matt Casey: Thank you.

                                            cutscene

Clarice: Leslie.

Leslie Shay: Ms. Larocque, so sorry. This is just how it is when I’m

                      on shift. My apologies.

Clarice: Um, look…

                                      [kissing sound]

Clarice: Daniel’s rejected her offer. He wants full custody.

Leslie Shay: I thought you said he’d take the deal.

Lady 2 (Ms. Larocque): It was a good deal, but the father has a

                                        strong case.

Leslie Shay: Does he?

Lady 2 (Ms. Larocque): Let’s look at it from his lawyer’s

                                        perspective. We’ve got a switch-hitter

                                        who married a man, conceived a child

                                        with him, then left him, and took the

                                        child to go live with her former lesbian

                                        lover, a woman with a time-

                                        consuming and very hazardous

                                        occupation.

Leslie Shay: Oh, come on.

Lady 2 (Ms. Larocque): I’m just looking for ways to normalise this

                                        scenario as much as possible.

Leslie Shay: Normalise?

Lady 2 (Ms. Larocque): For instance, you two shacking up with a

                                        skirt-chasing firefighter is not helping our

                                        cause.

Clarice: I-I was just trying to tell her how Kelly has been so helpful.

Lady 2 (Ms. Larocque): Ladies, you want me to convince a judge

                                        that you’re serious about being a family?

                                        Then you need to get Clarice and this

                                        baby into a warm, loving, nurturing, and

                                        yes, normal home.

Clarice: [sighs]

Leslie Shay: Okay. We’ll get our own place.

                                 [station alert buzzes & blares]

                                  [siren wails and horn honks]

Chief Boden: (over radio) All companies be aware, we have a

                        lightweight truss construction heavy structure fire

Victim 1: I can’t get down the stairs. It’s too hot.

Chief Boden: All companies, third-floor rescue. Casey, get me two

                       ladders.

Matt Casey: Got it.

                                         [indistinct chatter]

Matt Casey: Keep it flowing. Herrmann, Mills, Cruz, up the second 

                      ladder

                      [grunts]

                      Gotcha.

Peter Mills: Come on, I got you, man. All right?

                    You’re doing good, man.

Victim 2 (Girl/Child): [coughs]

Leslie Shay: That’s it sweetheart.

Peter Mills: Good job, man.

Victim 1 (Dad): [coughing]

Peter Mills: Okay?

Victim 1 (Dad): Yeah.

Victim 2 (Girl/Child): What about Hudson? You have to get him.

Victim 1 (Man): The dog.

Victim 2 (Girl/Child): Hudson! Hudson!

Matt Casey: Cruz!

Mouch: Stay put, Cruz.

Joe Cruz: Wait a minute! I can hear him.

                 Come here, boy!

Chief Boden: Cruz, get out of there!

Matt Casey: Cruz! Cruz!

Joe Cruz: [grunts]

                  Hudson!

                  Hudson!

                  Where are you, boy?

                                            [dog barking]

                                               [creaking]

                                            [dog barking]

Christopher Herrmann: Come here, come on.

Joe Cruz: Aah!

Matt Casey: (into radio) Man down! (over radio) Man down!

Mouch: I’m going.

                                    [Pass alarm beeping]                                                - title -

                                    [pass alarm beeping]

Matt Casey: Cruz, call out!

                     Cruz!

                                     [beeping continues]

Matt Casey: Hey, Cruz.

                     Cruz!

Mouch: You okay, buddy?

Joe Cruz: Uh, yeah, yeah, I think so.

Matt Casey: All right. We got to move.

Joe Cruz: [groans]

                                            [creaking]

                                   [indistinct shouting]

Matt Casey: Mouch!

Joe Cruz: Mouch! Mouch! Mouch!

Mouch: I’m okay.

Joe Cruz: Mouch!

Matt Casey: This way! Watch your feet!

Joe Cruz: Watch your feet! Gotcha!

                 Let’s go!

Mouch: [panting]

                                [indistinct background chatter]

Gabby Dawson: Mouch, you okay?

Mouch: Yeah.

Joe Cruz: Are you sure, man? Let ‘em check you out.

Mouch: I’m fine.

Gabby Dawson: Hey, Casey, how about you? You all right?

Matt Casey: Yeah.

Leslie Shay: You got a second-degree burn here.

Chief Boden: Take him to the hospital.

Joe Cruz: It’s nothing, Chief.

Chief Boden: Take him to the hospital.

Victim 2 (Girl/Child): You okay? Good boy.

Christopher Herrmann: Cruz is out of control.

                                                cutscene

                                           [dog growling]

                                        [back up beeping]

Kelly Severide: Hey, Whaley, any new updates on Renee?

Eric Whaley: She’s okay physically. They’re going to keep her on a

                       72-hour hold.

                       Psychiatric observation.

Kelly Severide: Did you talk to her?

Eric Whaley: She wouldn’t see me.

                      I, uh, I don’t know what to do.

                                              cutscene

Matt Casey: Thank you.

Gabby Dawson: Hey.

Matt Casey: Hey.

Gabby Dawson: How long are you going to freeze me out?

Matt Casey: I’m not freezing you out.

                     I gotta talk to Boden.

Gabby Dawson: Yeah, sure.

Matt Casey: Cruz is still in the ER. He’s telling doctors he wants to

                      come back and finish his shift.

Chief Boden: Did you happen to notice if Cruz’s bunker gear had a

                       cape sewn into it?

Matt Casey: No, Chief. It definitely does not.

Chief Boden: Then please dissuade your man of the notion that he

                        is invincible.

Matt Casey: Sure.

Otis Zvonecek: (recording) And that’s how our fellow firefighter was

                           saved today.

                           56 hits in less than an hour. Just tell me this thing’s

                           not going to go viral.

Gabby Dawson: Glad to see Mouch’s near-death experience can

                            help drive traffic to your podcast.

Otis Zvonecek: The whole point of the podcast is to show people

                           what we really do.

Christopher Herrmann: You’re supposed to be looking up how-to

                                         videos on taping drywall.

Otis Zvonecek: All right.

Christopher Herrmann: We got to get back to fixing up the

                                         Bombadier, all right. We’re behind

                                         schedule.

Gabby Dawson: Oh, stop calling it the Bombadier. That name has

                            poisoned the well with the locals. We gotta…

                            re-christen it something else.

Otis Zvonecek: May I propose… Moustache Pete’s?

Gabby Dawson: No, you may not. We need something simple. 

                            A single,  evocative word like, uh, Solstice or

                            Perception or uh…

Otis Zvonecek: Pretentious? Or we could call it something fun like

                           Moustache Pete’s.

Christopher Herrmann: You can name it ‘out of business’ if we

                                         don’t get back on schedule.

Otis Zvonecek: Okay, okay, here we go. How to tape drywall, part 1

                           of… 15.

                           Gee, you know who I bet’s really good at drywall?

                           Casey. Too bad somebody got on his bad side by

                           fraternising with one Detective Voight.

Leslie Shay: Hey, uh, listen, I need…

Kelly Severide: Hey, have I thanked you lately for opening your trap

                           about Renee? Because she’s currently in a psych

                           ward.

Leslie Shay: Kelly, she needs help. How fun do you think this is for

                      her?

Kelly Severide: Yeah. What did you want to talk about?

                                 [station alert buzzes & blares]

(Over PA): Ambulance 61…

Leslie Shay: Tell you later.

(Over PA): Person down, Michigan and Upper Wacker.

Kelly Severide: [sighs]

                                                   cutscene

Matt Casey: Hey, Christie.

                                               [door closes]

Matt Casey: I have a new proposal regarding mom. Give me a call

                     when you can. Bye.

                     Hey, Mouch. You okay?

Mouch: I came to you a while back, about Cruz… how there’s

              something off about him, and you told me to shut up.

Matt Casey: In so many words, I guess.

Mouch: So are you still in charge of our truck, or do I have to go

              around you and talk to Boden?

                                                cutscene

                                       [ambo door closes]

Gabby Dawson: Watching you and Kelly move back in and out of

                            that place is like watching a ping-pong match.

Leslie Shay: [chuckles] I know, I get it. I just hope he understands.

Lady 3 (Good Samaritan): I tried to get him to come inside a store,

                                            but he won’t move.

Gabby Dawson: Hey, it’s too cold for you to be out here, hun.

                            What’s your name?

Man 1: Mick.

Gabby Dawson: Mick, can you stand up?

                            You think you can walk over to that ambulance?

Leslie Shay: Come on, Mick.

Gabby Dawson: Oh, yeah. We got you.

                            Whoa, 70 over 50. What are you on?

Man 1 (Mick): [grunts]

Gabby Dawson: [chuckles] Okay, fine. It looks like you might be

                            suffering from exposure, so we’re going to get

                            you to the hospital, all right?

Man 1 (Mick): No.

Gabby Dawson: Yeah.

Leslie Shay: It’s nice and warm at the hospital, Mick. You’ll like it.

                      Lots of pretty nurses.

Man 1 (Mick): Prettier than you two?

Leslie Shay: Come on, be realistic.

Gabby Dawson: Hey. Don’t worry about Severide. He’ll totally

                            understand why you need to move out.

Leslie Shay: I know, it’s just… after all the drama, it just sucks

                      having a lawyer make decisions about your living

                      situation.

                      Okay, Mick, just a little pinch.

Man 1 (Mick): [grunts]

Leslie Shay: Ahh! [pants]

                                          [curtains drawing]

ER Doctor: We’ll keep trying to convince him to consent to a blood

                    draw, but we can’t force him to. And unless he does,

                    we can only guess at what transmittable diseases he’s

                    carrying.

Gabby Dawson: And judging from this cocktail of antivirals, you

                            must think this guy’s a walking petri dish.

ER Doctor: Hep-B’s always a big risk. Also Hep-C. The interferon

                    therapy should protect you against those, but given the

                    tracks on his arms and symptoms, I think we need to 

                    treat you as though you’ve been exposed to HIV.

Leslie Shay: How soon can we test for HIV?

ER Doctor: Not for three months after exposure.

                    Here’s the first one.

Leslie Shay: [exhales]

Gabby Dawson: Hey, you’re going to be fine. The statistics are way

                            in your favour.

Leslie Shay: I mean, it’s like Russian roulette. Large bore needle

                     filled with this guy’s blood. If he has the hiccups, I’m

                     going to catch ‘em.

                                                  cutscene

                                           [tv in background]

Peter Mills: Hey, uh, Lieutenant, I was hoping to ask you a question.

                    Um, I was looking at the list of up and coming classes

                    at the academy, and I’m… I’m trying to figure out which

                    ones to take to, if possible, make a move to Squad?

Kelly Severide: Let me eat my cornflakes first.

Peter Mills: Yeah. Yeah, sure.

Chief Boden: We can finish the exposure paperwork later.

                        Don’t worry, Shay, you’re getting the best care

                        available.

Leslie Shay: Thanks, Chief.

Kelly Severide: What’s wrong with her?

Gabby Dawson: Needle stick.

Mouch: Ugh. Was he sick?

Gabby Dawson: Yellow, track marks, and he didn’t agree to a blood

                            panel.

Peter Mills: You okay?

Gabby Dawson: I just want this shift to end. Casey hates me, now

                            my partner gets stuck.

Peter Mills: Casey?

Gabby Dawson: Yeah, forget it. It’s fine.

Peter Mills: Screw him. He doesn’t understand you, it’s his problem.

Gabby Dawson: Yeah. Yeah, thanks, Mills.

                                           cutscene

Leslie Shay: Even if it’s just Hep-C, it’s, you know, 80% of infections

                      are chronic, and um, I’d be on disability for months,

                      and if Daniel’s lawyer finds out… [lightly sobs]

Kelly Severide: You’re getting ahead of yourself.

Leslie Shay: [sighs]

Kelly Severide: Wait for the test to come back.

Leslie Shay: Yeah.

                      [sighs] Um… the lawyer said that living with you isn’t

                      normal  enough [voice breaking] So I have to move

                      out. I’m sorry.

Kelly Severide: You do whatever it takes to keep you, Clarice and

                           that baby together.

Leslie Shay: Yeah. Thanks.

                                              cutscene

                                      [tv in background]

Joe Cruz: Hey, Mouch.

Mouch: How’s the arm?

Joe Cruz: Burned but fine.

                 Hey, man, I wanted to thank you again.

Mouch: It’s in the job description, right?

Joe Cruz: Yeah.

                  Hey, also, I think I owe you an apology.

                  [sighs]

                                             cutscene

                                       [knocks on door]

                                           [door shuts]

Gabby Dawson: [sighs] I realise you may not understand why I went

                            to Voight. 

                            I didn’t have another choice, and it made all the

                            difference in Antonio’s case.

Matt Casey: He threatened me and my fiancé.

Gabby Dawson: He saved my brother, Casey.

                                           [knock on door]

Mouch: Cruz is back, in case you’re interested.

                                              [door closes]

Joe Cruz: I screwed up, Lieutenant. It won’t happen again, believe

                 me.

Matt Casey: I tried that once already. When you told me you could

                      live with your sins, that turned out to be a lie.

Joe Cruz: Lieutenant, you got to believe…

Matt Casey: This is not a conversation! If you’ve come to hate

                      yourself, if you’ve decided that you don’t deserve to

                      live, well, that’s your problem. Do you wanna stand

                      at the ceremony where we pin Mouch’s badge next

                      to Darden’s because he burned to death trying to

                      save someone who’s already dead inside? If your

                      badge isn’t on Boden’s desk by next shift, I’ll go to

                      the police about Flaco. It’ll mean the end of my

                      career too. But hey, I’ll pound nails for a living.

                      What I can’t do is stand by and watch you

                      endanger one more of my men.

                                               [somber music]

                                                   cutscene

Lady 4 (Real Estate Agent): The kitchen’s just being redone. New

                                               cabinets, new appliances, laundry 

                                               hook-ups are right over there.

Leslie Shay: Okay.

                      Um… school wise, uh, I know Wesley’s young, but…

Lady 4 (Real Estate Agent): Oh, it’s never too early to think about

                                               that. We’re in the very desirable Bell

                                                elementary school district. But I

                                                have to be honest with you. I’ve

                                                got a lot of people interested in

                                                this unit.

Leslie Shay: Okay, can you just give us, like, a second?

Lady 4 (Real Estate Agent): Sure.

Leslie Shay: Thank you.

Clarice: Uh, okay. Thank you.

              So the uh, the lawyer says that Daniel’s attorneys could find

              out about the needle stick during discovery.

Leslie Shay: Look, Daniel’s lawyer can say whatever he wants.

                      What that judge is going to see is a family ready to

                      provide Wesley with a warm and loving home… in

                      a very desirable school district.

Clarice: You’re right [chuckles lightly]

               I’m sorry.

               We’ll take it.

                                             cutscene

                                             [buzzer]

Kelly Severide: [sniffs]

Renee Whaley: [clears throat]

                          [scoffs]

                                         [door closes]

Renee Whaley: What, you expected a straitjacket?

                          Why are you here exactly?

Kelly Severide: Because your brother asked me to come.

Renee Whaley: Poor Eric. He thinks he’s finally cracked the puzzle 

                           that is Renee.

                           All this nonsense about me sleeping with Dean.

Kelly Severide: I’m not here to argue about that.

Renee Whaley: Oh, right, because as my life turned to ashes, you

                          just coasted on and forgot all about me.

Kelly Severide: You don’t know anything about my life.

Renee Whaley: [scoffs] I know that Kelly Severide is doing just fine.

                          We’re done. Take me back.

                          Open the door.

Kelly Severide: Renee.

                                         [keypad beeping]

                                               [buzzer]

                                            [door closes]

                                               cutscene

Otis Zvonecek: Dawson, you have absolutely no idea what you’re

                           doing, huh?

Gabby Dawson: What are you talking about?

Otis Zvonecek: Call Casey.

                           [sighs]

                                         [metal clanging]

                                    [wall plaster dropping]

Christopher Herrmann: What the hell?

                       [metal clangs & wall plaster dropping]

Otis Zvonecek: Whoa.

Christopher Herrmann: Stephanidies didn’t say anything about a

                                         safe.

Gabby Dawson: What do you think’s inside?

Christopher Herrmann: Nothing good. My luck don’t run that way.

                                              [metal clangs]

Otis Zvonecek: Well, let’s open it and find out. Worst-case scenario,

                           it’s empty.

Christopher Herrmann: What if it contains a decomposed head of

                                         some gangster that went missing in the

                                         ‘20s? Next thing you know, this bar gets

                                         wrapped in crime scene tape, and we

                                         can’t get back in here.

Otis Zvonecek: If there’s a mobster’s head in there, Moustache

                           Pete’s gonna be famous.

Gabby Dawson: We’re not calling it Moustache Pete’s.

Otis Zvonecek: Yes we are.

Christopher Herrmann: Forget it. That safe is bad news.

                                         Look out.

Gabby Dawson: Hey Herrmann!

                                                   cutscene

Matt Casey: Each week my shift moves up a day. Tuesday and

                      Friday this week, Monday and Thursday next

                      week. I’ve drawn up a list of house rules that

                      mom would have to agree to. Uh, curfews, when

                      she can have visitors. You can add whatever you

                      want to the list.

Christie: Matt, no.

Matt Casey: Christie, I need you. Please, at least on the days I’m on

                      shift.

Christie: Will I have to learn how to lie to her parole officer too?

                                         [chair slides back]

Christie: Mom.

Nancy Casey: Christie.

                        You look wonderful.

                        Wow, you realise this is the first time we’ve all been

                        together as a family in, like, 15 years?

Matt Casey: Yeah.

Nancy Casey: I guess the real purpose of this meeting is to [sniffs]

                        discuss the mom problem.

Christie: Okay, fine. I’ll talk to Jim.

Matt Casey: Okay. Now let’s eat.

                      The chicken sandwich is great, by the way.

Christie: I’m a vegan [clears throat]

Matt Casey: Since when?

Christie: [scoffs] Going on ten years, Matt.

Matt Casey: I did not know that. I… wow.

                     Is that like a vegetarian, or is it the eggs thing? You

                     can’t eat anything?

Christie: Oh my gosh.

Matt Casey: What?

Christie: Do I seriously have to explain this to you?

Matt Casey: What? No, that’s fine.

                                          cutscene

                                     [knock on door]

Kelly Severide: Hey, did you get my message?

Eric Whaley: Yeah. What did she say?

Kelly Severide: Nothing that matters. She’s angry.

Eric Whaley: At me?

Kelly Severide: At me. At… at… at everything.

                          Look, I-I’m sorry, but all this was against my better

                          judgement, and now she’s spinning out, so…

Eric Whaley: No, I get it. I get it. Thanks, Kelly.

                      This is, uh, it’s my last shift at 51. I’m glad we got the

                       chance to work together.

                                          [door shuts]

                                            cutscene

Mouch: Is Cruz gonna grace us with his presence today?

Matt Casey: I don’t know.

Mouch: You talk to him?

Matt Casey: I did.

Mouch: How’d that talk go?

Matt Casey: Don’t worry about it, Mouch. I talked to him. That’s all

                      you need to know.

                                      [locker door shuts]

                                              cutscene

Priest: “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the

              coming wrath? Produce good fruit as evidence of your

              repentance. Even now, the axe lies at the root of the

              trees. Therefore, every tree, which does not bear good

              fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. I am

              baptising you with water for repentance, but the one

              who is coming after me is mightier than I. I am not

              worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptise you with

              the Holy Spirit and fire. And do not presume to say

              to yourselves, ‘we have Abraham as our father.’”

Child 1: Look, mom, a fireman.

Priest: “And raise up children to Abraham with these stones. Then

             Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be

             baptised by him. John tried to prevent him, saying, ‘I need

             to be baptised by you, and yet you come to me?’ Jesus

             said to him… [continues speaking in background]

                                            cutscene

Otis Zvonecek: I read the whole thing, front to back. There’s no

                           codicil in this deed about any safe.

Gabby Dawson: We bought the bar, lockstock, and barrel. That

                            means the safe rightly belongs to you, me and

                            Otis.

Otis Zvonecek: Along with whatever’s inside. Whether it’s an old

                          stamp  collection or bearer bonds or, gold

                          doubloons.

Gabby Dawson: You’re outvoted Herrmann, two to one.

Christopher Herrmann: We didn’t buy that bar hoping to find

                                        buried treasure. We bought it as an

                                        honest investment. And for the first

                                        time in my life, I feel like I’m onto

                                        something good and real. Now

                                        whatever is in that safe, somebody

                                        put it in there and locked it away for

                                        a reason. Why don’t we leave it alone

                                        and get on with our plan?

Gabby Dawson: Yeah, we’re gonna open the safe.

Otis Zvonecek: Seconded.

                                   [station alert buzzes & blares]

(Over PA): Truck 81, Ambulance 61, Battalion 25. Bomb squad

                  assist, Wrightwood and Jesse.

Dispatcher: (over radio) CPD be advised, divert all traffic. Bomb

                     disposal unit on site in Lincoln Square.

Peter Mills: So what exactly is our role in a bomb squad assist?

Christopher Herrmann: Nothing. Not unless the bomb tech snips

                                         the wrong wire.

Matt Casey: What’s the story, Chief?

Chief Boden: A tenant committed suicide in his car around back,

                       shot himself in the head. But the police are suspect

                       because the deceased was turned down four times

                       by the CPD, and there is a gasoline smell coming

                       from the inside.

Man 2 (Bomb Tech Squad Lt): Zoom in.

                                                   Our mast camera confirmed the

                                                   place is wired.

Man 3 (Bomb Tech): We should cut our way in.

Kelly Severide: We have access to the apartment above?

                                         [whirring]

Man 3 (Bomb Tech): That’ll do it.

Kelly Severide: Great, we’ll get out of your way.

                             [indistinct radio chatter]

Man 3 (Bomb Tech): Whoa. There’s a woman down there.

                                [suspenseful music]

Leslie Shay: The neighbour say it’s his ex-wife.

Man 2 (Bomb Tech Squad Lt): My guy will go in and see if it’s

                                                   secure and your guys can bring

                                                   her out.

Chief Boden: (into radio) Severide, you sure you want (over radio) to

                        do this?

Kelly Severide: (into radio) We’re here, right? (over radio) Gonna

                           need a jump bag, though.

Chief Boden: (into radio) Copy that.

Kelly Severide: All right. Okay.

Man 3 (Bomb Tech): Carpet’s wet. Gasoline.

                                   She’s been stabbed. Come on down.

Kelly Severide: (into radio) Dawson, Shay, she’s got a steak knife

                          stuck in her abdomen.

Gabby Dawson: (into radio) Pulse?

Kelly Severide: (over radio) Weak.

                          Hey, can you get us out that door?

Man 3 (Bomb Tech): There’s quick, and there’s safe. Which do you

                                   want?

Kelly Severide: I wanna save this woman’s life.

Man 3 (Bomb Tech): Huh.

Kelly Severide: Huh?”W-What huh?

Man 3 (Bomb Tech): A small incendiary device set to spark the

                                   gasoline. This’ll take a few minutes to

                                   disarm.

Kelly Severide: She doesn’t have a few minutes.

Man 3 (Bomb Tech): I got two more wires splitting here. It’s wired

                                   here too. Headed… Here we go.

                                   I got at least 5 pounds of mixed ammonium

                                   nitrate. Well that plus the gasoline is a

                                   fertiliser bomb.

Kelly Severide: (into radio) Hey, Chief, (over radio) is everyone

                           back?

Chief Boden: (into radio) You just get yourself down here, Kelly.

Gabby Dawson: (into radio) How’s she doing, Severide?

Kelly Severide: (into radio) Weaker.

Gabby Dawson: (over radio) How much blood’s on the floor?

Kelly Severide: (into radio) Uh, it’s not that much.

Gabby Dawson: (into radio) Then she’s bleeding internally. You

                            gotta move.

                            (over radio) Pack that knife, so it doesn’t shift when

                            you move her.

Kelly Severide: (over radio) Where the hell’s that jump bag?

                           (into radio) Whaley’s here.

Gabby Dawson: (over radio) Use all the gauze and tape he’s got to 

                            keep it secure.

Eric Whaley: Someone’s always got it worse.

Kelly Severide: Ain’t that right.

                          (over radio) Packing around the knife. Hey, we need

                          that door open now.

Man 3 (Bomb Tech): (over radio) Attempting to disarm the door.

Chief Boden: (into radio) Kelly. Kelly.

Man 3 (Bomb Tech): (over radio) We’re good. Door’s open.

Kelly Severide: (over radio) Woman’s coming out.

Eric Whaley: Who says engine only knows how to put out a fire?

                                                 cutscene

Matt Casey: Okay. I’ll talk to Boden.

                                                [door shuts]

Mouch: [sighs] What happened, Joe?

                                             [knocks on door]

Joe Cruz: I kicked in that door, convinced Leon was in there.

                 I even knew I was too late.

                 But it wasn’t Leon, it was Flaco.

Mouch: Dead. It was Flaco, and you were too late.

Joe Cruz: All I could think was, if I pulled him out of those flames, I

                  might as well throw Leon back in.

Mouch: Ah, you don’t know that.

Joe Cruz: I thought that God was just handing me the answer to my

                 problems.

                 But now I know it was the devil. I thought I could run from

                 him, non-stop. First one in, last one out [shaky breath]

                 And then I almost killed you. I could have killed Otis or

                 Herrmann or Casey, all because I’m weak [sobs]

                 But now I know… I’m the one that has to suffer, not you.

Mouch: Joe, I forgive you.

Joe Cruz: [sobbing] It’s not right for me to bring my sins into this

                 house and have my brothers sacrifice for what I did.

Mouch: Joe, listen to me. I forgive you.

Joe Cruz: [sobs]

                                      cutscene

Chief Boden: What can I do for you, Casey?

Mouch: Lieutenant! Can I have a minute?

Matt Casey: Now’s not a good time, Mouch.

Mouch: Yes, it is.

                                   [door closes]

Mouch: You don’t have to do this to him.

Matt Casey: There’s more to it that you know, Mouch.

Mouch: He told me everything. Now I don’t know if he was waiting

              for God or Flaco’s ghost or just somebody to say it, but

              he needed to know what he did was okay. He screwed

              up. He knows it. But he was taking care of his family.

              How far would you go for the ones you love? How far

              have you gone?

                                          [door closes]

                                             cutscene

Peter Mills: [chuckles]

                                         [phone rings]

Leslie Shay: Hello?

                      Yes, this is Leslie Shay.

                       He consented to a blood draw.

Gabby Dawson: That’s good isn’t it?

Leslie Shay: Mmhmm, mmhmm.

                      Okay, thank you.

                      He’s clean, he tested negative for everything [sigh of

                      relief]

                      Oh…

                                          [giggling]

                                          cutscene

                                           [buzzer]

                                        [door shuts]

Man 4 (Orderly): Good luck, Renee.

Renee Whaley: Yeah, thanks.

                           For real?

Kelly Severide: Come get in the car. There’s something we need to

                           see.

Renee Whaley: Go to hell.

Kelly Severide: You’ll full of it, you know that?

Renee Whaley: Oh I am, huh? Is that gonna get me into your car?

Kelly Severide: Ignore everything that’s real, go ahead.

Renee Whaley: Whatever.

Kelly Severide: Your brother was a hero today.

Renee Whaley: That is so low.

Kelly Severide: You stopped, didn’t you?

                           30 minutes. Then I take you anywhere you want to

                           go.

                                               cutscene

                                          [saw whirring]

                                        [metal clanging]

Gabby Dawson: [sighs] It’s just a box.

                            We never should have opened this.

                                        cutscene

                                   [car door shuts]

Matt Casey: Mom’s just getting her things.

Christie: Okay.

Matt Casey: Thanks for agreeing to this, Christie. I really think it’ll

                      work.

Christie: Yeah, well, tomorrow morning at 8:01, she’s all yours

                again.

Matt Casey: Understood.

Christie: Friend of yours?

Matt Casey: Nope

Nancy Casey: That’s Cheyenne.

Matt Casey: Your old cellmate?

Nancy Casey: Yeah.

                         You two gave me back my freedom, but I don’t want

                          to be your problem anymore. So I’m gonna go stay

                          with Cheyenne until I figure out what’s next.

Matt Casey: Mom, I don’t think your PO is going…

Nancy Casey: Aww, don’t worry I’ll sort things out with Kendrick.

                        But I’m not gonna be the wedge that drives you two

                        apart anymore.

                        Oh, be a brother and sister again, okay? You know,

                        be there for each other.

                        Hey, how’s it going?

Lady 5 (Cheyenne): Hi.

                                        [car door shuts]

                                            cutscene

Lady 4 (Real Estate Agent): Are we gonna sign the lease or not?

Leslie Shay: Yes, we are. We definitely are, I’m sorry. I can’t get a

                       hold of her. Um…

                       Oh, hey.

Clarice: Hey.

Leslie Shay: Did you get my message?

Clarice: Yeah, that’s, uh… great news.

Leslie Shay: We should sign the lease.

Clarice: Uh, actually, would you mind giving us a second?

              So, um… Daniel offered to settle. You know, split custody, I

              mean, if I move to New York with the baby.

Leslie Shay: Good, that’s great. He blinked.

Clarice: I took the deal

Leslie Shay: What?

Clarice: I just, I can’t keep fighting him anymore, Les. So I’m gonna

              go to, uh, I’m gonna go to New York.

Leslie Shay: No, Clarice. Just stand up to him. We can win this.

Clarice: I’m leaving tonight.

              Shay…

                                           cutscene

                                    [engine rumbling]

Renee Whaley: Okay, I get it.

Kelly Severide: Come on.

                                  [car door shuts]

Renee Whaley: [scoffs]

                          [huffs]

Kelly Severide: It’s quieter than I remember.

Renee Whaley: Please don’t.

Kelly Severide: You’re the one who said life never looked simpler

                           than it did from right here.

Renee Whaley: Well, that was crap. Sometimes a view is just a

                           view. [exhales]

Kelly Severide: You know, I never had anything close to a real

                           relationship since you.

Renee Whaley: Really?

Kelly Severide: One girl I liked… really liked… but she left. Or I let

                          her leave. I should have made it work, but

                          sometimes, it’s easier just to let things fall apart.

Renee Whaley: I slept with Dean.

                          And now I see you, and I see my family. And all I can

                          see is what I lost.

Kelly Severide: Sometimes a view is just a view.

Renee Whaley: [chuckles]

                          [sniffles]

Kelly Severide: I’ve missed you.

Renee Whaley: I figured you hated me.

Kelly Severide: Oh I did.

                          But not anymore.

                                        [engine revving]

                                          [door closes]

                                        [car door closes]

                                          [engine starts]

                                                - end -

Definitions:

Skirt-chasing = A man with amorous intentions who habitually seeks our female companionship

Lightweight truss construction = Consists of top and bottom members that run parallel. These are referred to as chords and are made of wood. These chords are cross – connected for support by wood that forms a web like pattern. The wood members are connected together with a fastener made of stamped sheet metal containing spikes

Hep-B = Hepatitis B is an infection of the liver caused by a virus that’s spread through blood and body fluids. It often does not cause any obvious symptoms in adults, and typically passes in a few months without treatment. But in children, it often persists for years and may eventually cause serious liver damage

Hep-C = Hepatitis C is an infectious disease caused by the hepatitis C virus (HCV) that primarily affects the liver; it is a type of viral hepatitis. During the initial infection, people often have mild or no symptoms. Occasionally, a fever, dark urine, abdominal pain and yellow tinged skin occurs. Hepatitis C can usually be treated with antiviral medicines. These need to be taken for several weeks. You can catch Hepatitis C from contact with blood of an infected person, such as sharing needles. It’s very rare to catch it from having sex.

Interferon therapy = It is a possible treatment for a number of different types of cancer. It is also used to treat conditions other than cancer including Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C

HIV = Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is a virus that damages the cells in your immune system and weakens your ability to fight everyday infections and disease. HIV can be transmitted from 1 person to another. There’s currently no cure for HIV, but there are very effective drug treatments that enable most people with the virus to live a long and healthy life.

Codicil = An addition or supplement that explains, modifies, or revokes a will or part of one.

Ammonium nitrate = Is a chemical compound with the chemical formula NH4NO3. It is a white crystalline solid consisting of ammonium and nitrate. It is highly soluble in water and hygroscopic as a solid, although it does not form hydrates. It is predominantly used in agriculture as a high-nitrogen fertiliser. Ammonium nitrate, which is used in fertilisers and bomb making, is a salt made from ammonium and nitric acid, and is highly explosive. The more ammonium nitrate, the bigger its explosive capacity. Once a reaction is sparked, ammonium nitrate explodes violently.

PO = Probation officer

[lunar-magnolia]

World Health Organization (WHO) declares Pandemic.

Only a couple of hours ago the World Health Organization declared the state of pandemic regarding the COVID-19 outbreak.

In this article I aim to spread as much information I can. It’s not being talked about enough and so, so little people have access to real information about how to contain it, what it is and how it’s spreading.

I am from Italy. All territory has been declared “protected zone” yesterday and today (11th March 2020) the president of ministry reinforced the safety measures taken.

Disclaimer: this article was written from an Italian point of view. All I write here is all I know about the emergency the world is in and what the official sources said to us through official medias.

_____________________________________________________________

First and foremost, let’s answer: What is a Coronavirus?

Coronaviruses are a large family of virus known to cause illnesses ranging from the common flu to other serious diseases like SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome).

They are RNA viruses that resemble a crown when under a microscope.

Coronaviruses were identified in the 60s and are known to infect humans and some animals. They aim to epithelial cells, as well as respiratory tract cells and gastrointestinal cells.

The source of the new coronavirus (COVID-19) is still unknown. The Superior Health Institute thinks it could have been a result of a spill over, meaning it came from animals and evolved to infect humans. It is still not certain.

(source: http://www.salute.gov.it/portale/nuovocoronavirus/dettaglioFaqNuovoCoronavirus.jsp?lingua=italiano&id=228 It’s in Italian, I’m sorry. I can translate it for you, should you need a whole translation)

With the what settled, let’s focus on why the WHO declared the pandemic state.

The WHO defines “pandemic” a situation that affects all continents. At first COVID-19 wasn’t considered a threat because of its lethality and the number of cases outside China.

Now it has been spread to all continents and the WHO declared the pandemic emergency.

To better understand what it entails, it’s worth mentioning that the word “pandemic” comes from the ancient Greek “pan” “demos”, meaning “all” “population”.

Ilaria Capua, director of the department of the Emergency Pathogen Institute in the University of Florida, states that the virus started spreading around mid-December/January, well before it was even disclosed that this virus existed outside Wuhan. This means it was in Europe (and every other nation) since then.

Since Italy declared its first case, the European nations have been kicking out Italians and blocking import of Italian goods. This was useless, as they got infected nonetheless and not by an Italian or a Chinese person.

Make an example of this and do not discriminate. It’s damaging and ultimately useless. It does not prevent contagion.

An important data is Italy having the highest number of cases in Europe, and possibly in the world after China. That is because almost everyone has been tested, starting from people who showed signs (and were confirmed infected) and then testing everyone they came in contact with in the last two weeks.

Be careful: the virus can be asymptomatic, so there are people who don’t experience symptoms but are vessels and can infect others. Although it’s rare without symptoms first.

Cases can be counted only if people get tested. So, if you’re from a country like the USA where the test isn’t free and costs a lot of money, please do not underestimate the number of infected people. It might be way more than you think.

After a mass movement of people coming from the red zones in the north of Italy (zones with a high risk of infection) to the south, and the carelessness of people who went against the decrees by gathering to party and protest, all of Italy has been put under quarantine till 3rd April 2020.

The government, working alongside medics and scientists, issued several emergency laws and sanctions to ensure public safety, plus a couple of hashtags trying to make people understand the severity of the situation.

President of the ministry Giuseppe Conte summarized all the new decrees with the trending hashtag “#iorestoacasa”, meaning “I stay at home”. That is, in fact, the first and foremost rule to apply when under quarantine and fighting a highly infective virus like this: stay at home and don’t interact with people.

As bad as it sounds, it is the necessary precaution. The virus can take up to two weeks to show symptoms, and even then, it’s not always detected immediately. Two weeks is a long time. One single person can infect dozens. And each in a dozen can infect other dozens and so on.

The decrees forced all unnecessary shops and stores, cinemas, theaters, bars and every other place where people gather to close. Only grocery stores, pharmacies and clinics are open to the public, but they must ensure safety distance between each client and regulate how many people at a time can enter.

Other commercial businesses, like restaurants, can only home delivery their products if they choose to operate.

Businesses with employees that usually work in offices are required to provide the necessary means to ensure everyone can work from home.

Ceremonies, events and shows are all cancelled.

Any movement inside and outside your city must be motivated by either work or health. People need to fill out a form stating why they are outside.

Lying and going around without taking the due precautions can result in fines and even jail time.

Medics launched their own hashtags too: #iorestoincorsia #turestiacasa. “I stay in the hospital ward” “You stay at home”.

This was a necessary step to take, to make sure people truly understand how paramount is to avoid needless contacts with others and contagion. Medics are working hard and to the bone, people are getting infected with such speed that the wards can’t keep up with demands, especially intensive care wards.

The decrees also include a set of rules taken from the WHO and adapted to the current situation that everyone should follow to ensure safety.

1.     Wash your hands often

2.    Avoid close contacts and maintain a safety distance of at least one meter with everyone

3.    Avoid crowded places

4.    Preferably stay at home, especially if immunocompromised

5.    Avoid touching your mouth, nose and eyes with your hands

6.    Use a one-time napkin for your mouth and nose if you sneeze or cough. Alternatively use your inner elbow

7.    Open the windows as much as you can if you are with other people

8.    Avoid handshakes and hugs, and sharing glasses and bottles

9.    Clean surfaces with alcohol (75%) or chlorine (1%) based disinfectants

10. Do not take antiviral drugs or antibiotics, unless your physician told you to

11.  In doubt do NOT go to the ER: call your physician and, if you think you got infected, call the emergency service (112)

12. Stay informed and follow advice given by your healthcare provider

(Source: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public )

Most importantly every authority recommends to use your own common sense, your sense of responsibility, and self-quarantine.

It’s not only about you as a person, it’s about public health and safety.

The word “responsibility” comes from Latin verb “respondio”, to answer. We have to respond to ourselves first, to our conscience. Then the government.

In Italy’s case the government is helping us, pointing us in the right direction and uniting the people to fight a common enemy. It’s not about the single person, nor about political factions, it’s about all of us. Helping each other by staying healthy and avoiding endangering others needlessly.

This is above the law. This should go without saying.

This pandemic is a level. There is no discrimination. The virus doesn’t care if you’re rich or poor, healthy or not, a baby or an elder, a teacher or a business person. We are all the same.

This is the right time to understand this. This is the time to understand what it means to care for others and ourselves as a community. Love thy neighbor as thyself.

And this is why self-quarantine is important.

I understand this is difficult. We are social animals and we need that social contact. These times are challenging for sure, impacting our habits and forcing us to change them, but it’s not forever.

Give up physical contact now, to feel its warmth later. It will be enhanced and most rewarding.

If your government still hasn’t given the orders, made exceptional laws, you must do what it’s necessary to ensure your own safety and the safety of others.

Keep a calm fear. Stay at home, but don’t panic. There is no need if you take the right precautions.

Respect the prevention rules. Respect the elders. Respect yourselves.

We can do it. All together.

I’ll leave some useful links in case you want to learn more. All of these are official sources. I highly recommend spending some time on the World Health Organization website.

https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus

https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public

http://www.salute.gov.it/portale/nuovocoronavirus/dettaglioNotizieNuovoCoronavirus.jsp?lingua=italiano&menu=notizie&p=dalministero&id=4191 (This one is in Italian, let me know if you want a translation)

[johannstutt413]

(requested by anonymous)

“Achoo!” The Doctor’s sneeze echoed in his bedroom, making his nurse at the stove chuckle to herself. “What’s so funny about my being sick, Shining?”

The Sarkaz woman who’d volunteered to care for the bedridden patient simply smiled to herself and shook her head. “I have never met a person who becomes more energetic when sick, and yet you seem to be even livelier than usual. Your soup is nearly ready.”

“Thanks...and sorry for snapping at you. I just don’t like that Amiya’s stuck doing my job while I’m quarantined like this.” He sighed, relaxing back into the perfectly-firm cushion Shining had located for him.

“All is forgiven, Doctor.” Her voice fell to a wistful whisper. “A rare thing for a Sarkaz to have a chance to say.”

When the soup had finished cooling to a safe temperature, Shining ladled a bowl for the Doctor and for herself, set them with a pair of spoons on a tray with an open sleeve of crackers, and brought their lunch to the nightstand beside her patient’s bed. His eyes lit up when she walked back within his line of sight. “You bought me crackers. I know for sure I didn’t have any in my cabinet, so thank you very much.”

“If another Liberi heard you, they might think you were being sarcastic.” As usual when with the Doctor, all her concerns were far away from her; something about his zeal for life was infectious, not unlike the virus he’d caught. She handed him the crackers and let him chomp gleefully on a few before taking the package back. “Would you rather be in charge of your own bowl or have me spoon it for you?”

“I’ll be fine handling myself, but thank you for your concern.” Shining placed the tray in front of him, and he began immediately dipping crackers in the soup and eating it that way.

She chuckled again. “If I had heard it from another Operator, I wouldn’t be able to believe them...”

“Sometimes stereotypes are true,” the Doctor replied between soup-flavored crackers, “even the offensive ones.”

“I suppose you’re right.” As she said it, a particular one flashed into her head, but she shoved it aside; this was her precious time with the Doctor. She could stew over her past later, but right now, she had a bowl of soup to attend to.

Once he’d run out of crackers, they took their time, making small talk over their bowls and basking in one another’s inner light. Eventually after they finished, Shining took the dishes back to the kitchen before returning to her post by his bed. He turned in his bed to fully face her. “Hey, Shining?”

“Yes?” Her Doctor-only smile was firmly in place. “I’m afraid you won’t get any more crackers out of me.”

“I know that,” he replied, rolling his eyes with a smile.

She chuckled, once again making that delightfully soft sound he loved hearing. “What do you need?”

“Could I brush your hair?” The Doctor nearly cheered when he saw the change in her eyes. “There’s no way I can take another nap for a while, and you know how soft your hair is...”

“I’ll fetch you a brush at once,” she merrily replied, but she’d barely gotten out of her seat when his hand slipped into his nightstand revealed he had a suitable one in there. Somewhat confused, she moved her chair and leaned back so he could drape the silver-blonde silk atop her head across his lap.

As soon as his fingers touched her hair, all was right with the world. For a few minutes, they simply enjoyed the moment - the soft sound of the brush’s gentle strokes and the ticking of a clock on the other side of the Doctor’s apartment were the only things to hear in that time. Eventually, though, he broke the silence with a sigh. “May I say something rather strange?”

“You may,” Shining agreed, “if I may as well...I haven’t been this calm in some time, Doctor. For a moment there, I could even hear your heartbeat over my own.”

“I was about to say something similar...do you think it means anything, that we can be so at peace with one another?”

She wanted to nod her head, but that would mean disturbing his brushing, and that would be cruel to both of them. Still, it was a good thing her face was away from his, as it meant she was free to blush to herself. “I would say so. Even with the other Redeemers, it’s rare for me to be so at peace. If you feel the same when I’m with you, then...perhaps we should be in each other’s presence more often.”

“I agree.” The Doctor clicked his tongue. “If only I wasn’t sick, then maybe- nevermind.”

“Please, finish your thought.”

He exhaled softly through his mouth, as his nose was less than fully functional at the moment. “If I wasn’t sick, I would’ve asked if you had any plans for the evening, but...I’d rather not risk you being sick as well.”

“I took several antiviral medications before coming here today, Doctor.” Shining had a guess where he was headed with this train of thought. “If you’re asking for a more personal touch, I would be more than happy to oblige.”

“I mean, I would enjoy that, but...see, it’s rather hard for me to take care of you in all the ways I’d like to in this condition.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “‘Take care of’ me, Doctor?”

“I know you emphasize protection over healing in your work, but in my field, it’s better to do the reverse...and if I can bring you peace like this, maybe together we could heal some of the scars you still have from your life before coming here.” The Doctor frowned to himself. “Not that I’m implying you need to change, but if I can help you feel less pain when you look back on your past, then-”

“Doctor, when I’m with you, I don’t see my past. Only the future.”

His smile returned. “That’s good...but you’re not always with me, are you?”

“Perhaps that’s what needs to change.” She stood up and walked around his bed to the other side before standing by it, hands folded in front of her. “May I join you, Doctor?”

“...Join me, Shining?”

Shining blushed. “Is this side of your bed taken?”

“No, it isn’t,” he almost whispered, setting the brush on his nightstand as she moved to lie beside him. Once she was in bed with him, he turned to face her, her breath drifting underneath his collar and making him wonder if he was hot because he was feverish or because she was so close. “So, um, what happens now?”

“Nothing needs to happen, Doctor; I just wanted to be closer to you.” While he heard what she was saying, her eyes told him something rather different.

The Doctor attempted to bring himself to a state of equilibrium, but finding that impossible, he simply moved closer and rested a hand on her side. “How close do you want to be?”

“If I could choose any distance?” Shining’s eyes shone with an unmistakable light, one he swore he’d seen in her on the battlefield. “As close to you as a bulletproof vest.”

“I think I can do you one better than that...a vest can only go over my heart, not into it.” He admitted, it was rather cheesy, but she seemed to take it as he’d intended it.

From her perspective, it was the most romantic response he could have possibly given. “Doctor...” She set a hand on his cheek before settling herself against him, her head resting against his chest and her chest light pressing against his abs.

“I know I said I wasn’t going to take a nap,” he whispered, “but I’m not really able to do much more than hold you right now.”

“I understand, Doctor; we can rest together.”

The Doctor took a quiet breath, feeling her move with him as his chest rose and fell. “Before we do...” He kissed her forehead tenderly, and he fully embraced her, his weakened muscles manifesting enough strength to assure her of their presence without applying pressure. Shining yawned - providing the Doctor yet another delightful sound for his ‘list of cute noises Shining makes’ - and as they drifted off to sleep, she began to emit a soft glow.

She’d said that she hadn’t been so calm for some time, but in his arms, she found a new depth of peace. She never wanted to leave his side again. In sickness or in health, until death did them part - and perhaps, if the Confessor had been right, even after...so long as he was with her, the future shone brighter than ever before.

[blackroseraven]

It was not a great day today, as Quattro is sick.

So first of all, we got there in time to help put horses out, and that went pretty well. I handled my usual ones. Played with Buff some. It didn’t start off a terrible day, you know?

I was even really happy to see that Jarro was finally out in a real paddock, with Cavalli. It’s great to see him getting some real social interaction and that he’s healed enough to be with other horses, or at least submissive Volleyball, as I call him.

We mucked, and it went really well, to be honest, even though the aisles became jammed with kids there for amateur lessons. We worked around them and finished up just as they were done, so I was able to get Quattro, who seemed better today, and clean him up and then go up with him.

But he wouldn’t take treats and he just seemed a little... off to me. I ended up taking him back down to the aisle even though he was running and behaving fine, and I got Other Teacherlady to help me check his mouth, and we went over his throat and his stomach and everything. He seemed okay, but when I took him out to see if he’d graze, he’d take the grass from my hand but then just held it in his mouth. Even grain he just held a mouthful of.

So Other Teacherlady asked me to get his temperature and I was immediately like “oh no.” It was. It was not great. I had to get partner’s help to hold Quattro in place and even then he eventually managed to give me both barrels and send me into a wall, then nearly got me in the head, for which I kicked him back. He actually got so upset he started peeing; the second time he squatted - because the first time he actually tried to kick me while peeing and thus covered everything in urine - I finally got him safely and temped him, and like. Once it was in, because if you haven’t gotten by now that it was in his butt, it was in his butt, he was fine. 

He has a fever. Which sucks.

I ended up taking Q and Zara’s temperatures too. They were both fine: Q barely registered the thermometer, and uh. Zara had a very, very delayed reaction. Like it wasn’t until the thermometer beeped that she went “wait what’s in my butt” and freaked out and clamped her tail and bucked and thrashed, which resulted in me getting a handful of sweaty mare vagoo which guess what is not great.

Other Teacherlady called the vet just to check in, and the vet recommended ulcerguard, banamine, and... ugh, can’t remember the name of the last one. Two things that are super easy, just down the throat, but the banamine is an injectable, in a massive needle, and it’s like sludge.

Other Teacherlady did not want to give the needle to Quattro because she was very worried he’d panic. So uh. I did it. I gave my horse a needle, a very large needle. I mean, it’s a great, important new skill to have, if nothing else, and Quattro was a champ for it. He barely flinched and stood for the like, thirty seconds of injection and adjustment it took to get the stuff into him.

Apparently there’s been a lot of... flu, basically, going around to the horses; banamine is actually an antibacterial, not antiviral, but it’s to prevent the flu from worsening into pneumonia, which has occurred in several cases she’s seen. 

Ugh. My poor horse.

It sucks. Quattro is my... everything. And it just reminds me so terribly of Pally, you know? Pally was fine, then a little sick, and then he died.

If I had my way, Quattro would outlive me by perhaps a day. Or maybe we die together, failing some idiotic stunt. I just... don’t want to think about losing him, especially not on top of everything else that’s happened in the last year and change. My father, Ian, dying out of nowhere, then Alice, my grandmother... ugh.

Ultimately, though, what will happen, will happen, and I just... have to make peace with that, I guess.

Still, hopefully it’s nothing more than the flu, and it’ll pass quickly, and we’ll be back to causing trouble for everyone sooner rather than later.

[picardonhealth]

A Nobel Prize is great. Better still is acting on it

Thanks to the discovery of hepatitis C, we can now eliminate the deadly viral threat

André Picard, The Globe and Mail 

Tuesday, October 13, 2020

For the first time in almost a century, a scientist working in Canada has won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

That achievement by Michael Houghton, director of the Li Ka Shing Institute of Applied Virology at the University of Alberta, is remarkable in itself, and it didn’t get nearly enough media attention because of the never-ending Trump coronavirus madness. (Dr. Houghton, who is British, shared the prize with two Americans, Harvey Alter and Charles Rice, for their discovery of the hepatitis C virus.)

History buffs will know that Frederick Banting won the world’s most prestigious prize in medicine in 1923 for his discovery of insulin, along with James Macleod, both of whom were working at the University of Toronto.

David Hubel was also co-winner of 1981 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for mapping the brain’s visual cortex. While he was born and educated in Canada, he spent his entire career in the U.S.

What deserves to be spotlighted even more than the rarity of Dr. Houghton’s win, though, are the scientific findings and the process that led to the discovery, which has had a far-reaching global impact.

As the Nobel Prize committee noted in its citation, the discovery of the hepatitis C virus will ultimately save millions of lives. HCV is a common cause of liver cancer and one of the principal reasons people need liver transplants.

Now, we are able to screen for hepatitis C to keep it from being transmitted by blood transfusion. Prior to discovery, a transfusion was like Russian roulette. (In Canada alone, an estimated 30,000 people were infected with HCV tainted blood between the time the virus was discovered and testing was instituted, and 250,000 people are living with the infection today.)

Hepatitis C can also be cured using antiviral drugs. “For the first time in history, the disease can now be cured, raising hopes of eradicating hepatitis C virus from the world,” the prize committee wrote.

That is astonishing, considering that an estimated 70 million people worldwide are living with the virus, which still kills about 400,000 people a year.

At a time when there is intense political pressure for scientists to find a coronavirus vaccine in double-quick time, we should humbly remember that there is no hepatitis C vaccine, and not for lack of trying. (There are vaccines to protect against hepatitis A and hepatitis B.)

In fact, hepatitis, whose most visible symptom is jaundice, has been around for millennia – first described by Hippocrates more than 2,500 years ago.

And, over time, there have been many theories about its origins, some more colourful than others. In 1759, for example, Hieronymus Gaubius postulated that jaundice was an “ailment caused by love,” a polite way of saying sexually transmitted. (A tidbit from medical historian and Queen’s University professor emerita Dr. Jacalyn Duffin’s book, Lovers and Livers.)

In the 1940s, when transfusions became commonplace in wartime, it became clear that jaundice could be transmitted by another bodily fluid, blood.

But the viruses that cause hepatitis A and hepatitis B weren’t discovered until the 1960s. What puzzled physicians and scientists was that transfusion patients kept getting sick even when those pathogens were screened out.

Dr. Rice, in 1972, showed there was another source of infection, which he named non-A non-B hepatitis. In lab tests, he was able to infect chimpanzees, demonstrating that it was blood-borne.

Dr. Houghton’s role was to try and identify the elusive virus, using new molecular-biology tools. That process took seven years. Dr. Houghton and his team – he was working at Chiron Corp. in California at the time – failed 40 times before they succeeded in 1989. It would take a couple of more years to develop a blood test that could be used to screen out HCV-tainted blood.

Dr. Rice later identified a key part of the viral genome that proved definitively that HCV caused illness, which in turn, led to the development of antiviral drugs.

This is how science works – not with a single “Eureka!” moment, but with years of tough slogging.

And the way public policy should work to give life to these monumental discoveries is by acting on them.

Yet, Canada doesn’t have a plan to treat hepatitis C on a large scale or to eliminate it. It should.

What better way to honour Dr. Houghton’s once-in-a-century Nobel Prize?