On not measuring up

This is what 41 can look like.
Read the NYT Magazine profile about Dara Torres.

Torres is now 41 and the mother of a 2-year-old daughter, Tessa Grace. She broke her first of three world records in 1982, at 14, and she has retired from swimming and come back three times
...[snip]...
Torres’s retinue includes a head coach, a sprint coach, a strength coach, two stretchers, two masseuses, a chiropractor and a nanny, at the cost of at least $100,000 per year.

This really taps into my insecurities. I, too, am 41 and the mother of one. At 14, I was not breaking world records. I was just happy not to be cut from my high school volleyball team. I was disciplined about conditioning, diet, weight-training, stretching, practice--I spent 20-30 hours a week training.

Despite my devotion, I was never more than mediocre for a competitive athlete. Moreover, there were pesky recurring infections and sports injuries. (The reason became clear years later with the gene test that explained everything.)

I joined a gym a month ago. Gyms had always been places of refuge for me, but this time was different. I haven't exercised regularly for more than 8 years. The years have not been kind to my body. I felt downright flabby while changing in the locker room.

It's a gorgeous gym and the denizens are friendly enough. I have swam there a half dozen times and lifted weights twice. Amazingly, each time I go to this pool, I get a lane to myself. Hopefully, my flabbiness will decline and I will become one of the buff chicks at the gym. Mark also joined and we signed Iris up for unlimited time at the Kids' Club.

The day after the NYT ran the profile about Dara Torres, the LAT ran a piece by Linda Alcorace.

When you're lying in bed and can't keep food down, muscle metabolizes first.

Dr. Zhaoping Li, my UCLA clinical nutritionist, says the rate is two to three pounds of muscle wasted for every pound of fat. Bug-eyed and big-bellied with fluid after four months' hospitalization for liver failure, I had legs and arms like matchsticks. I could walk no farther than one block. Me, the lifelong athlete, former aerobics instructor and dancer -- now wait-listed for a transplant.

My diagnosis seemed unbelievable: An ultra-rare disease, Budd-Chiari Syndrome.

Two years later, not yet dead, not yet given a liver transplant, I'm told by Li that I must increase my muscle mass. If I am hospitalized again, I'll lose even more muscle and might not survive.

And so I find myself one foggy Tuesday morning at a low-impact aerobics class. The instructor is world-renowned, a fitness leader. A volley of words echoes around the studio: "Oh, isn't her body amazing?" and "Look at how toned she is." I squish down memories of days when I looked that toned.

That knocked me out of my self-pity.

Aside:
My rheumatologist wants me to lose weight to minimize wear and tear on my joints. My internist is opposed; the thinner I am, the higher the risk of osteoporosis. I may also not have enough reserves to survive the frequent infections. (I have had a few close calls already.)

I asked my immunologist as a tie-breaker. She looked warily and said, "Don't you have enough to worry about without developing an eating disorder?" She added, "You've given up so much, I don't want you go have to give up food, too."

I won't be going to the gym or San Diego this weekend. I caught the cold that Iris is getting over. I will send Mark and Iris to the gym as my proxy. Perhaps Mark will look like the guy in the pool photo.

Falling out of bed

Some people have noticed the lack of knitting and sewing content lately. It's partly due to an arthritis flare-up. I came down with an infection and my joints swelled up so badly, I gained 2 pounds overnight. Basic activities became so difficult, I cut down on my non-core activities. (But, perhaps, I should reclassify creative pursuits as core activities?) It got so bad that I restarted physical therapy again.

I used to go to a PT 7.5 miles away from work; my home is halfway between the hospital/my network of doctors and workplace. 7.5 miles doesn't sound like much, but it can take 45 minutes during commute hours--and I try to book my appointments before or after my workday which means the traffic is always bad. The old place was fine, but all that running around 2-3x per week was adding to my stress. This time, I decided to try a new place that opened up on my way to work. It is less than 5 minutes from either work or home.

My rheumatologist said that he had another patient who went there and had a very positive experience. I am so glad I made the switch. Today's session was very different from anything I have ever experienced in 20 years of (off and on) PT.

The PT I met today is trained in the Feldenkrais Method. He asked me what kind of things I have problems with. I replied, "Getting out of bed, in and out of chairs, and sitting for long periods of time." He asked me to show him how I get out of bed. I complied.

Did you know there is a right and wrong way to get out of bed? (He never said that I did anything wrong; he asked if I would like to learn an easier way.) I had never given rolling out of bed much thought before. But, after he explained the easier method and the bio-mechanical reasoning behind it, I got it immediately. So, if you asked me why I was late getting to work today, I could honestly say that I was practicing getting in and out of bed.

Excuse me, I have to go practice see-saw breathing, alternating belly breathing with chest breathing. Apparently, most people have difficulty with the former but not the latter. I have no trouble with belly breathing, but have very little range of motion in my rib cage. We think it has something to do with the ribs I cracked in a mountain biking accident, trying to keep up with the Boulder chapter of WOMBATS (Women's Mountain Biking And Tea Society). That's a whole 'nother story.

It is hard to get out of The Most Beautiful Bed in the Whole World, but one must.

Bowling 1, Health Care 0

I deeply admire Elizabeth Edwards. She speaks the truth when others pussyfoot around it. Read her Op-Ed piece, Bowling 1, Heath Care 0.

The vigorous press that was deemed an essential part of democracy at our country’s inception is now consigned to smaller venues, to the Internet and, in the mainstream media, to occasional articles. I am not suggesting that every journalist for a mainstream media outlet is neglecting his or her duties to the public. And I know that serious newspapers and magazines run analytical articles, and public television broadcasts longer, more probing segments.

But I am saying that every analysis that is shortened, every corner that is cut, moves us further away from the truth until what is left is the Cliffs Notes of the news, or what I call strobe-light journalism, in which the outlines are accurate enough but we cannot really see the whole picture.

Why aren't we having substantive discussions about the state of our health care system and the way it distorts our markets and private lives? How many people die from lack of access to medical care versus acts of terrorism?

Why, in an election year, is Hillary going on about bitter-gate instead of speaking as thoughtfully and eloquently about health care as she did in 2004's Now Can We Talk About Health Care?

Think for a moment about recent advances in genetic testing. Knowing you are prone to cancer or heart disease or Lou Gehrig's disease may give you a fighting chance. But just try, with that information in hand, to get health insurance in a system without strong protections against discrimination for pre-existing or genetic conditions. Each vaunted scientific breakthrough brings with it new challenges to our health system. But it's not only medicine that is changing. So, too, are the economy, our personal behaviors and our environment. Unless Americans across the political spectrum come together to change our health care system, that system, already buckling under the pressures of today, will collapse with the problems of tomorrow.

Twenty-first-century problems, like genetic mapping, an aging population and globalization, are combining with old problems like skyrocketing costs and skyrocketing numbers of uninsured, to overwhelm the 20th-century system we have inherited.

The way we finance care is so seriously flawed that if we fail to fix it, we face a fiscal disaster that will not only deny quality health care to the uninsured and underinsured but also undermine the capacity of the system to care for even the well insured. For example, if a hospital's trauma center is closed or so crowded that it cannot take any more patients, your insurance card won't help much if you're the one in the freeway accident.

This is a very real worry in LA as one trauma center after another closes for lack of funding. Hospitals are closing their emergency rooms and even the ERs that are open have difficulties finding people willing to work in them. The number of uninsured people in LA is staggering. Each insured person supports another uninsured one. If our ERs are overwhelmed on an ordinary night, what chance do they have in the event of a catastrophic natural disaster like an earthquake? We are all at risk, insured or not.

Why is the media feeding us pap about the candidates' wardrobe and font choices instead of showing us the real differences between their health care plans? OK, anyone can have a plan, but it is another thing to get the nation behind them to carry it out. But maybe we can hear about their very different approaches and core philosophies instead of their haircuts and how much they paid for them. Is that too much to ask from the mainstream media (MSM)?

I will quit ranting now, but do read Elizabeth Edwards and Hillary Clinton in their own words.

You will notice this blog has been notably lacking in sewing and knitting content lately. I had a flare-up and have been resting and reading instead. Mark surprised me with a fantastic convalescent present--more on that later.

When I finished reading Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future by Bill McKibben, my first reaction was that I learned nothing new. On second thought, he makes a good point about the old-fashioned notion that the public airwaves are a shared public resource and the people who run radio and TV stations have a responsibility to the citizenry that grants them the airwaves. I have long shared his opinion, but rarely hear that point of view. (Perhaps because the MSM doesn't want us to notice?)

Overall, Deep Economy is a good read, though I do not share his sanguine view of the future of Bangladesh. OTOH, it is a relief to read good news from Bangladesh amid all the doom and gloom about global warming and sea level rise.

In The Black Swan, Taleb mentioned that he stopped watching TV and reading the day to day news. In the time he saves, he is able to read 2 books a week or 100 books a year. After 20 years, that really adds up.

I resolve to read more, even when my health is going along swimmingly.

Katy emailed me a reading suggestion (The Ten-Year Nap), which I am reading instead of packing. I must put it down. If you read a good book recently, please share in the comments.

(Katy completed a triathlon last weekend and will compete in an even longer one in 2 weeks. She sounds apologetic for not having more sewing projects to share. Go to her blog and congratulate her.)

Edison's mother

Iris' new haircut was quite the schoolyard sensation this morning. Kids, mothers and teachers alike were fascinated with her asymmetric wedge. They all professed astonishment that she did such a good job on her own. I heard from another mom how some girls in her class surrounded her as her teacher approached. When she arrived, the girls jumped aside and yelled, "Surprise!". Iris was so pleased with all the positive attention.

She was not so happy yesterday, when she walked to school by herself. We were simply too mad at each other for our usual morning walk. The school says that kids in K-3 should be accompanied by adults to campus, but I think she was safer walking alone than with me at that point. (Don't forget that Ramona Quimby was allowed to walk alone to Kindergarten--how quickly parenting ideas of safety change.)

I won't bore you with the details of how I was pushed over the edge so I will tell you another story.

I carry exactly one ergonomic pen and pencil in my purse. Why? If you knew how many germs are carried on publicly shared pens, you'd carry your own pen, too. I also need to limit the weight of my handbag because of arthritis so I don't carry spares.

The other evening, I reached into my bag to for a pen so I could sign something and what did I pull out of my bag?

Pen and pencil parts.

But not enough parts of either to put together one usable Frankenstein writing implement.

The ink cartridge was rolling loose in the purse.

With bite marks on the ink case indicating that this was no accident.

I looked at Iris.

She looked back with her big brown eyes.

"What happened here?"

"How am I going to be an inventor if I don't take things apart?"

Sigh. Mark and I do give her broken things to take apart, like an old clock. We figure, if they are already broken, it doesn't matter if she can't put them back together again. I guess we should set clearer limits on what she can and cannot take apart.

It is a good thing I carry a leopard print purse. No one can see the ink stains.

Addendum:
I am one of the 20% of middle-aged Americans with a disability. Through trial and error and word of mouth, I found some products that make my life easier. I have no connection with these companies, etc.

• Active Forever offers a ton of stuff for those with limited mobility. I love my Smart-Clip Allview Mirror so much, I bought 2 more as gifts. Just like their website says, it gives a wide angle view for those with back and neck mobility impairments.
• A secretary recommended the Pentel Ergotwist pen and it is the only one I can comfortably use. It's the cheapest of the "arthritis pens" recommended by mySimon.com. It is also pretty heavy, which explains why I don't want to carry more than one. Now if only Mark and Iris would only carry their own pens and pencils and not keep borrowing mine (and not replacing it when they are done).

Obligatory Earth Day Post

The Beach Cities Health District installed vegetable gardens at area schools, complete with drip irrigation, organic soil and fertilizer. Each classroom takes care of a raised bed of vegetables. Today, Earth Day, the kids began to harvest the fruits of their labor.

Free-range tomatoes! (Look ma, no cage!)

Organic strawberries.

Look at the size of these radishes.

Thanks to Janel Bagby from Beach Cities Health District and parent volunteer, Kim Dunn. (Parent volunteer, Lisa, and another BCHD employee did not arrive in time for the picture.)

Iris came home talking about how spinach is the most nutritious vegetable and how she wanted to try it. I found some spinach in the freezer and made creamed spinach out of it. She took one bite and pushed it away. She did eat her soba and tofu though.

They've got our daughters

I discovered this in my room last year. Look at the beautiful adolescent girl on the left--she looks like Iris in another 7 years. Look how she has "improved" herself with the help of myscene.com (a division of Mattel, the folks who brought us Barbie).
I asked her why she did this. She replied because it makes her look prettier. I was at a total loss for words.

The blogosphere is not at a loss for words about this book. I agree with some who believe that Newsweek ran the story just to drive traffic to their site. Hey, it worked. A friend emailed me the link and I read it, and now I am linking to it. But consider reading these more thoughtful responses instead:

• New children's book takes on mommy's plastic surgery by Leanne Italie
• Mommy, is that you? New children's book for coping with Mom's plastic surgery by Monica Corcoran
• Newsweek, beautiful mommies & cosmetic surgeon & author, Michael Salzhauer by Writes Like She Talks
• On TV: Botox. Face-lifts. Reconstructive Surgery. by Mary McNamara
  

Do follow the link at the end of Italie's article to American Society of Plastic Surgeons: http://www.plasticsurgery.org/media/statistics. The statistics speak for themselves. 347,524 breast augmentations were performed in the US in 2007, 10,505 on girls 13-19. (786,911 people were injected with Botox, 11,023 of them children 13-19.) What are we teaching our children?

As I have written before, the spread of breast implants follows the pattern of a socially communicable disease. We pick up our notions of "normal" from those around us, sometimes with tragic consequences.

Those are not adults auditioning for a role in a porn movie. These are mainstream Florida teenagers. The one on the left, Stephanie Kuleba, died after undergoing corrective surgery for a prior breast augmentation. She was 18.

Our eyes adjust. As our hair darkens with age, we think nothing of lightning it. Everyone else does it. Blonding is now a verb and I read in Vogue (years ago) that blonding was responsible for 85% of the revenue of NYC salons. Why didn't she stop there?

I wonder how her parents feel? We all make mistakes, but few are fatal. I share their Universal Sorrow.

Let's teach our daughters well.

Serenity now. Let's knit some lace.

Lace Ribbon Scarf from Spring 2008 Knitty out of Blue Sky Alpaca Silk. Notice that the lace repeat is fewer than 20.

Maternal Care or Harm?

The LA Times story ran a disturbing article about the Udvardi family, Maternal care--or harm? Unfortunately, I am all too familiar with doctors who were unable to recognize rare genetic conditions and diagnosed mental illness instead. In this case, they accused Leslie Udvardi of "Munchausen syndrome by proxy, fabricating or inducing illnesses in her own children."

It is a harrowing story. Child protective services took her away from her children. Even though all four of her children were eventually diagnosed with an extremely rare genetic condition that caused all the seemingly random and unrelated symptoms for which she sought help, the whiff of guilt still hangs over her.

No one even told them when the criminal investigation was dropped. And no apology came from the doctors and social workers, Leslie said.

The only acknowledgment from the hospital came from its attorney, in response to a packet of documents Leslie sent as part of a written complaint. At the end of a three-page letter defending the hospital on every point in dense legal prose, E. Nathan Schilt wrote: "I am deeply sorry for the ordeal you and your family have undergone."

Why would a mother do the things she was accused of?

The childrens' school nurse told detectives that she suspected the mother of four and former high school math teacher of trying "to get attention and to be able to continue to stay home and not work."

Since when is taking care of 4 seriously ill children not work?

I have been home the past two days taking care of Iris while she recovers from a cold. Mark is on travel so I have to handle it alone. It is way harder than my market (paid) job. I am exhausted. In fact, I worry that I have caught it also.

Aside:
In some ways, she was easier to handle earlier in her illness. She read the entire A Series of Unfortunate Events, all 13 volumes. I actually got work done yesterday.

Now that she is on the mend, she is bouncing off the walls. She is so creatively destructive. See the kilt pin in her hand (that I use to close shawls and sweaters)? Note also the uncapped and nearly empty bottle of jojoba oil in the background. The significance dawned on me later.

She found the pin while rummaging through my jewelry tray. What a big pin! How sharp! Let's look for something big and plump to deflate.

Did she go for the cheap Costco knockoff? No. She had to go for the biggest and most expensive exercise ball.

The remains of the (physical therapist recommended) Swiss Ball.

The bottle of jojoba oil? She slathered it all over herself and then rubbed herself all over the furniture and rolled across the carpets.

Serenity now. Think about how nice the bathroom looked in The Bubble Bath post. Look at the ranunculus that popped up in the backyard.

Mark gets home tomorrow. Let's hope I don't pull a Medea before then.

In another motherhood gets no respect rant, read this profile of Mike Rowe, host of the TV show, "Dirty Jobs".

It's a dirty job, but Mike Rowe wants to do it.

Rowe, host of the Discovery Channel's "Dirty Jobs" show, tags along with workers in the grittiest of trades, from sewer inspector to lobsterman, trying them out on camera. In an age when for many, "labor" means staring at a computer in a cubicle, Rowe's job is to spotlight work that is grueling, often dangerous and always dirty.

The onetime wannabe actor has showcased more than 160 people who work with their hands and become one of Discovery's biggest stars. Rowe sees himself as an advocate for a kind of job and class of worker that usually elicit more disgust than respect.

I just want to know when he is going to shadow a mother.

Read my out of office message.

Misbehaving Immune Systems

experts estimate that many allergies and immune-system diseases have doubled, tripled or even quadrupled in the last few decades, depending on the ailment and country.

Immune Systems Increasingly on Attack trots out the "hygiene hypothesis" again. I never found the argument that overly zealous housekeeping and parenting is to blame for immunological disorders very convincing.

The theory has also gained support from a variety of animal studies. One, for example, found that rats bred in a sterile laboratory had far more sensitive immune systems than those reared in the wild, where they were exposed to infections, microorganisms and parasites.

"It's sort of a smoking gun of the hygiene hypothesis," said William Parker of Duke University.

Were the two groups of rats genetically identical? Perhaps lab rats come from genetically susceptible stock? After all, many lines of lab rats and mice were bred to be genetically susceptible to cancer; some forms of cancer are caused or exacerbated by immunological dysfunction.

Which lifestyle is more stressful for rats? The laboratory environment or the wild?

Why are inner-city kids, who experience higher exposures to rat and cockroach dander, more rather than less likely to suffer from asthma than suburban kids?

What about the Japanese studies that showed that asthma and cedar pollen allergies increased the most in children that were exposed to both higher cedar pollen AND ozone counts? Kids exposed to either/or did not experience the huge increases in allergies and asthma. (I wonder if anyone followed up with whether there is something uniquely irritating about ozone or if it is a proxy for general air pollution?)

Unlike William Parker, I don't see a "smoking gun" cause and effect there. I have an alternate explanation which I hope people will set out to disprove with well-designed scientific studies. What if, in the past, fewer people with genes that cause immune dysfunction survived to reproduce?

Anyway, I am not a physician and this is not my area of research. I am merely a scientist who suffers from serious immunological dysfunctions. Blame my mother's housekeeping standards, and you will get me riled up. Criticize my housekeeping standards and I am not responsible for what happens to you.

BTW, I did have an infestation of worms as a child. In Taiwan, where I spent some of my youth, "night soil" was used to fertilize the vegetables. Worms were common. Cockroaches were common, and humongous. So don't blame the lack of worms or cockroaches for the state of my immune system.

KGOY Kids Getting Old Younger

cosmetic companies and retailers increasingly aim their sophisticated products and service packages squarely at 6- to 9-year-olds, who are being transformed into savvy beauty consumers before they’re out of elementary school.

Read more in Never Too Young for That First Pedicure.

Why would you bring your child into a smelly salon? Why would you deliberately expose your children to toxic chemicals? Why is our society so obsessed with nails that nail salons would pop up in every strip mall? Why do we subject poor women who work in nail salons to the chemicals without a gas mask?

(I know the women know that their job makes them sick. They wear the gauze masks thinking that it offers them protection, but it doesn't do anything against the fumes.)

Look at this winning high school science project.

Michael Ding, 16, a junior at Glen Cove High School in Glen Cove, N.Y., decided on his study topic "after my mother complained about feeling dizzy after using nail polish." Ding found that 59 percent of nail products in three drugstores he canvassed contained ingredients known to be harmful to health. Moreover, one in eight nail products had no list of ingredients, in violation of Food and Drug Administration regulations.

Ding interviewed 239 girls at his high school and found that a third had experienced dizziness, nausea, allergies or headaches after applying nail polish. He also found that a third began painting their nails before they were 6 years old.

Aside:
It snowed tonight. At sea level in Virginia Beach! What a time to lose my gloves. Brrr.

Tonight, I sought out a non-smoking restaurant. Last night, I ate in a restaurant that was so smoky, I had to take a shower and wash my hair right away. Because I couldn't stand the offgassing from my clothes, I washed everything I wore except for my coat in the bathroom sink. I put my coat on the balcony to air out. I miss California.

It has been a very productive meeting, though.

Full Hearts

Sometimes, when I catch a cold, or am stressed out, or the pollen/pollution levels are high, my treacherous white blood cells attack me. When they attack my eyes, I lose vision temporarily. When they attack my throat, I lose my voice temporarily. 2 days ago, I noticed the telltale signs in my left eye and in my throat. I left work early on Valentine's day to visit the eye doctor.

I will likely have to cancel my trip to the meeting on the east coast next week. Feeling rather sorry for myself, I drove home. (Don't worry, I can still see, though bright lights are very uncomfortable.) I took the route that takes me past Iris' school. What did I see? I thought my heart would burst from the sight.

A living, breathing Valentine. Can you see the shadow hearts?

I blogged about the sweater here (on my sister's blog). It's the shadow hearts sweater from Vivian Hoxbro's Shadow Knitting book.

2.5 years later, the sweater is still too big. See the heart buttons purchased from Britex fabrics? At the time I bought them, I didn't know what I would use them for, but knew they would be perfect for something.


If you read the original sweater post, you may also wish to read Size Matters II and III. But you have to promise that you are over 18 before you click on that link.

Hormones and Antibiotics

In the Animal, Vegetable, Miracle post, I didn't mention my little food experiment in New Zealand. Remember the What we eat post in which I learned that some of my nighttime skin rashes might be caused by tetracycline in livestock feed? I spoke to my immunologist about that and she recalled reading journal articles about people who are deathly allergic to penicillin coming down with hives after eating meat laced with penicillin. I am only moderately allergic to tetracycline and sulfa and okay with penicillin. Perhaps that is why my symptoms, while still unpleasant, are milder.

Penicillin, tetracycline and sulfa are common antibiotics fed to livestock, including farmed fish. If you are allergic to any common antibiotics, you should stay away from "conventionally-raised" livestock. (I wonder why anyone would want to eat antibiotics unnecessarily?)

Barbara Kingsolver wrote that the American food production system is unsustainable. If we were to stop force-feeding the livestock in the factory farms antibiotics, they would all die of disease in a matter of weeks. That fits the definition of unsustainable all right.

Back to the story. On the drive to Akaroa, we marveled at all the livestock we saw. One of our hosts, the one who studied agriculture and land management at university), told us that NZ raises all their farm animals on pasture. They do none of the factory farming you see in the states or in Europe. I asked if antibiotics are used. He replied rarely.

I decided to make the trip a culinary experiment. I ate lamb, beef, chicken and fish without fear. There was no night-time rash. If my skin itched, it was because of sandfly or mosquito bites. I ate a great deal more protein than I normally do at home. I did no exercise other than daily stretching and walking in the service of sightseeing. When I returned home to my scale, it showed that I gained less than a pound, but my body fat decreased by more than a percentage point. I think I will be visiting the hormone-free and antibiotic-free meat counter at Whole Foods more regularly.

What we eat

Yesterday, I serendipitously walked by poster H41C-0661 at American Geophysical Union (AGU): Tetracycline Resistance in the Subsurface of a Poultry Farm: Influence of Poultry Wastes

* You, Y (you.yaqi@jhu.edu), Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering, Johns Hopkins University and a whole bunch of other people, including her PhD advisor.

Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are considered to be important man-made reservoir of antibiotic resistant bacteria. Using the electromagnetic induction (EMI) method of geophysical characterization, we measured the apparent subsurface electrical conductivity (ECa) at a CAFO site in order to assess the movement of pollutants associated with animal waste. The map of ECa and other available data suggest that (1) soil surrounding a poultry litter storage shed is contaminated by poultry waste, (2) a contamination plume in the subsurface emanates from that shed, and (3) the development of that plume is due to groundwater flow. We focused on understanding the spread of tetracycline resistance (TcR), because tetracycline is one of the most frequently used antibiotics in food animal production and therefore probably used at our field site. Microbiological experiments show the presence of TcR bacteria in the subsurface and indicate higher concentrations in the top soil than in the aquifer. Environmental DNA was extracted to identify CAFO- associated TcR genes and to explore a link between the presence of TcR and CAFO practices. A "shot-gun" cloning approach is under development to target the most prevalent TcR gene. This gene will be monitored in future experiments, in which we will study the transmission of TcR to naive E. coli under selective pressure of TcR. Experimental results will be used to develop a mathematical/numerical model in order to describe the transmission process and to subsequently make estimates regarding the large-scale spread of antibiotic resistance.

Why did this poster catch my eye? The words tetracycline and poultry, together. Then it hit me.

My doctors and I have been trying to figure out if I am sensitive to chicken in some way. I tested not allergic to chicken proteins. There is a theory that chicken is high in arachadonic acid, a chemical in the inflammation pathway. Perhaps the arachadonic acid found in chicken and beef are exacerbating inflammation of my joints and skin?

If so, then why don't fruits like bananas, also high in arachadonic acid, cause inflammation? Why is it sporadic? Why don't I have the inflammation every time I eat meat?

I am allergic to tetracycline. They feed it to animals. When I eat the dead animals, I am taking tetracycline. Only it is not labeled anywhere. That is apparently legal.

Ya Qi helpfully told me that tetracycline is fed to chickens to help shorten the time to market (40 days from hatchling to roast chicken!). It is fed to pretty much all 'conventionally raised' animals. tetracyline is so prevalent in our food system that the TcR gene has been found in organic beef (and even flies). The presence of the TcR gene in an animal doesn't mean it has been fed tetracycline. It only means that tetracycline resistance is now a common characteristic in our environment, due to heavy and indiscriminate use in the past and present.

How did dumping drugs and other chemicals into our food chain become 'conventional' farming and not doing so become 'alternative' farming?

Her poster showed the apparatus that she used to get a core of the soil floor of a poultry shed. It is like the ones used to get ice cores from glaciers. So cool. The stuff she told me about factory farming in the US and China, not so cool. It kind of turns the stomach, actually. We eat organic dairy and eggs. But we don't always buy organic meats. Now I know better.

See the full abstracts for that poster session. It is hair-rising. Don't read it right after eating.

Halloween Time Crunch

Sandy Banks wants to know if there is an equivalent "bah, humbug" expression for Halloween. So would I. I hate sugar holidays, especially ones that fall a mere days before Iris' birthday.

Try preparing to throw a kid's birthday party in the week leading up to Halloween. Line up with the crowds of people, trying to enter the party supply stores. Don't say that we should have prepared in advance. You try bugging people to get their the RSVPs in by an early deadline.

Iris pestered me about decorating for Halloween. I told her that maybe we can arrange for her to be adopted by our next door neighbors who decorate for all the holidays. She didn't find it funny.

Store bought costumes are so cheaply made and tacky, despite their inflated prices. Plus, I worry about exploitation. (This is no idle worry as the recent Gap fiasco proved.) This year, I dispensed with all guilt. I bought Iris a flimsy witch costume from a dance supply store in Westwood. I also bought her a long-sleeved black t-shirt to wear underneath it for warmth.

This year, I will live vicariously by reading the blog of a woman who is sewing a fairy costume inspired by Madeleine Vionnet and the book, “In the Realm of the Never Fairies, The Secret World of Pixie Hollow”. She does breathtakingly lovely work. She is hand painting silk petals for the dress! Click next at the bottom of each post. So far, she has written 4 posts in the thread.

Instead of throwing a big party, Iris will go to Disneyland with 3 of her best friends on Sunday. Iris will bring cupcakes to her soccer game on Saturday, her birthday; it was our turn to bring snacks anyway. There will be no goodie bags!

Instead of cupcakes in her classroom, I asked her teacher if she would prefer a visit from Kathy's Critters (aka the Bug Lady). Kathy will bring her insect and reptile zoo to her classroom, point out which ones are native and which are exotic, and discuss characteristics that make natives particularly well-adapted for our locale. There will be no sugar in the classroom and Kathy will wrap up just in time for lunch. I need only write a check for the tax-deductible cost.

(The district has no money for this kind of enrichment activity. In fact, they have no time for science because they spend 3 hours each day drilling for the reading and writing tests and 45 minutes for math. That leaves little time (30-45 minutes per day) and no money for art, music, history, geography, social science, or plain old science. One short weekly music lesson was saved because of the correlation between music and higher math test scores. Art is now a once a month and rushed activity, led by a volunteer docent mom.)

Well, the weekend is a little more hectic than I let on. We are hosting 4 family members in town for Iris' birthday. We will hold some sort of family dinner on Saturday night. Iris has informed us what kind of cake she expects.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I caught the cold going around. That puts me off my drug regimen once again. In addition, I lost my voice. About twice a year, I catch an infection bad enough to set off a cascade of auto-immune symptoms in my throat. It would be laryngitis and a sore throat in a normal person, but I am not normal. It usually takes 3 weeks, 21 days (I keep track), before I can talk again. Once, my throat swelled up so badly that I had to go in for IV fluids, antibiotics and powerful painkillers. The doctor said I was this close from asphyxiation.

That time, they had been watching the situation for a week. They couldn't give me steroids to bring down the inflammation because that would have dragged out the infection. Yet, they couldn't keep me in the hospital because that is a dangerous place for people with compromised immune systems. Medicine is an art, not a science. It was horrible, but I am not sure anyone could have done anything different that would have been better. Well, maybe they could have given me the good painkillers earlier. ;-P

Of course I am on the schedule to speak at an upcoming satellite health meeting in 3 weeks. Gotta rest. On the bright side, silence actually makes me more productive at work.

Today, I kick back in bed with tea with honey and a good book.

More Genetic Illnesses

David Lazarus over at the LAT wrote a moving and personal column about his own struggle with inheritable Type 1 diabetes. Read Nation's healthcare crisis gets personal.

I was diagnosed this past week with diabetes. As of Friday, I was injecting myself with insulin, something I'll be doing four or five times a day, every day, for the rest of my life. Without the injections, I'll likely die.

Scared? You're damn right I'm scared. What's going to happen to me? What's going to happen to my family?

He advocates for single-payer health insurance. It is something I am beginning to favor. The gene defect I have is not rare only in countries that do have single-payer health insurance (because of their gene pool and not because of their health care delivery system). The horror stories about people not getting proper care and treatment for my particular problems occur here, and not in the countries with socialized medical care systems. As a scientist, I defer to evidence-based medicine. ;-)

Also read Now Can We Talk About Health Care? by Hilary Clinton. She talks about genetic diseases and discrimination as well.

Truth Telling

Anita Roddick died yesterday after a period of illness, much of it attributable to Hepatitis C. Even though she likely contracted it in 1971, she wasn't diagnosed until 2004. When asked about it, she said, "I live with a sharp sense of my own mortality, which makes life more vivid and immediate."

That's the silver lining of bad medical news. The blinders fall off and what really matters stands out in sharp relief.

My mind wandered to another woman known for truth telling. Patricia Limerick functions as the University of Colorado's self-styled 'campus fool'. The university did not properly appreciate her until she won the MacArthur prize in 1995. ;-)

Patty is known primarily for her insightful essays which eschew academic jargon for accessibility to the general public. She covers history, multiculturalism, geography, energy and water policy and everything in the universe as it pertains to the American West. There are links to many of her articles at the website for the highly interdisciplinary Center for the American West. There is no blog, but the news page is set up with wordpress.

In one of my superhero counterlifes, I would like to do a postdoc with her to ponder energy and environmental policy. To get a taste of her clarity, read how Patty Limerick solves America's problems of energy dependence, the obesity epidemic, workaholism and sense of grief and loss in one breathtaking swoop.

Also read Witnesses to Persecution for her insights into discrimination and violence against Chinese Americans. Here is a short sample:

"We must acknowledge that nothing has immunized us against the unhappy effect that economic disappointment works on the soul, or against the temptation to find scapegoats to hold responsible for deeper problems."

And that's all I am going to say about today's anniversary.

Miracle Weight Loss!

The hotel slid a USA Today under our door yesterday. Mysteries of autoimmune diseases unravel caught our eye. There is not much new information in the article (USA Today is one of the least information-dense papers), but I found a couple of interesting points.

In the current issue of the Journal of Clinical Immunology, researchers estimate, based on a random telephone survey, that another group of immune disorders called primary immune deficiency diseases may afflict as many as one in 1,200. In these diseases, caused by an inborn genetic defect, the body can't mount an effective immune response to infection.

"We know from surveys there's a really unacceptable time from onset of symptoms to diagnosis of primary immune deficiency, as high as nine years," says pediatric immunologist Jordan Orange of the University of Pennsylvania and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

My immunologist says that her typical primary immune deficiency patient is a mother in her early thirties. She says that immune function decreases with age in everyone and people don't notice anything is wrong until their immune response drops below a critical threshold. People are born with high or low immune function and most people with the gene defect hit the critical point in their early thirties.

When the first child goes to school or daycare the mother becomes continuously ill. In our society, we accept that mothers will be ill for the first year that their child enters school or daycare. Fathers are also more ill during this period, but less so because they get more sleep than mothers. Also, mothers tend to be primary caretakers of sick children and thus, more susceptible to picking up diseases from their children. Because of human variability, medical practitioners are not alarmed until after the mother has been ill for two years continuously.

The problem is further compounded by the fact that the sufferers don't look ill. Most signs of illness are actually signs of immune response. Take away the immune response and the world sees a whiny malingerer. (I fired one internist after she told me to go home, she had actual sick people she needs to attend to in her waiting room.)

Immune system disorders often cluster in families and within an individual, says Virginia Ladd, president of the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association. "Once you have one, you have others. Some patients say if you live long enough, you can collect them."

We live in a crazy society when, at my sickest, people kept telling me how great I looked. I was so thin! What kind of diet was I on?

Genetic Discrimination

This story about how the US military practices genetic discrimination hits really close to home. Almost exactly a year ago, when I was about to go back to work after a period of disability, my health suddenly turned south in a really bad way. I went to a series of doctors, treating the symptoms, but we had no idea why someone as young as me should have these ailments. One doctor suggested a genetic test; it was a long shot because this gene is extremely rare in Asians. It was a new test; even my immunologist was not aware that this gene test had become available.

It came back positive. Suddenly, all the seemingly unrelated ailments made sense. I received appropriate care, made lifestyle modifications and my health started to improve. I told my employer my diagnosis and what kind of modifications I needed in order to continue working. My family was briefed on what they needed to do to protect me. I spend an order of magnitude less on medical care than before this genetic test.

It is a double edged sword. Once I am aware of the gene I carry, it becomes a preexisting condition. I won't be able to get life or disability insurance in the future. (It was probably not possible anyway due to my symptoms in the past half dozen years.) I won't be able to get health insurance on my own or with all but the largest employers. Yet many large employers check medical databases before hiring employees so I am unlikely to be hired by anyone. I am grateful that I have a job I like and that they are happy with my job performance.

But imagine losing your job because you have a gene that causes illness or disability. Imagine not just losing your job, but losing access to retiree health benefits that are promised to every soldier. Ill, without a job and health insurance, where do you turn? It is an incredibly shoddy way to treat a fellow human being.

Also read Now Can We Talk About Health Care? by Hilary Clinton. She talks about genetic diseases and discrimination as well.

Successful Mothering

Biologically speaking, a mother is successful when she has taught her young how to hunt for themselves. (No, that does not mean getting them into Harvard.)

One of the reasons that I am not worried that Iris is in the right activities is that I have larger concerns. Read Peacekeepers of the Immune System in the October 2006 issue of Scientific American to learn about all the functions of regulatory T cells and what can happen when they stop functioning. I shared the article with my immunologist who remarked, after reading it, that it basically describes all the things that I am living through.

I explained much of this in my essay published in Cheaper Than Therapy: joy, healing and life lessons in fiber. I have been too sick to engage in the type of competitive mothering that Judith Warner described in Perfect Madness. My largest concern is Iris' emotional development and that I can be there for her through her perilous adolescent years. I pace myself and try not to let the little stuff get at me. I can't allow that to get to me. The stakes are high.

(Besides, people who know us in real life, and regular readers of this blog, already know that Iris literally kicks butt.)

Remember that coworker I mentioned who returned from four weeks at McMurdo Station in Antarctica to find that her husband had not done a single load of laundry in her absence? She's dead now. She felt a lump in her throat when her son was 4 months old. It turned out to be lymphoma, a type that is believed to be an autoimmune reaction to stress. By the time he was 10 months old, she had died of complications from chemotherapy.

She had worked nearly full-time while tending to a newborn and through chemotherapy. She wanted to work part-time, but she was the main income in her family; assistant professors earn very little. Apparently, they also do very little housework. She became a casualty of this crazy, upside-down society. She was 34 years old and her son will not have any memories of her.