7/23/08
Health Interlude
Government health authorities seem to have had a pool going over what was going to do me in. One sign warned of Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome (HPS) an often-deadly respiratory disease found in the rural United States, where campers and hikers are the most likely to pick it up. Carried by rodents and passed to humans through rodent urine, saliva, or droppings. Symptoms usually appear within two weeks, though they could take three days to six weeks. The primary symptom is difficulty in breathing, caused by fluid buildup in the lung, quickly progressing to inability to breathe. High fever, pain, sometimes vomiting. There is no cure. It is in the mist or dust. We breathe it in and we die.
Another sign warned of Plague, which I didn’t know still existed but is apparently endemic in many parts of California, particularly the rural and undeveloped mountains. Plague is a highly infectious bacterial disease that primarily affects rodents. Hungry fleas will leave a sick or dead rodent to bite another animal, including humans. Avoid all contact with rodents and their fleas. Do not camp, sleep or rest near animals burrows.
The initial symptoms of plague include fever, chills, muscle aches, weakness, and swollen, tender lymph nodes, called 'buboes', which most commonly occur in the knee, armpit, or groin. This form is called bubonic plague. Contact a physician immediately if you become ill within 7 days of being in a plague area. If it is not diagnosed early, bubonic plague can progress to septicemic plague, which is more difficult to treat.You can help with the diagnosis by telling your doctor where you have been and what you have done that may have exposed you to plague.
Even my forest service map got into the game. "Ticks are known to transmit Lyme Disease and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. If you develop rashes, flu-like symptoms, headaches or fever within a few days of your wilderness trip, or if you know you have been bitten by a tick, see your doctor immediately. If treated early, most tick related diseases can be easily cured." Do rural doctors have to suspect every flu is a potentially fatal illness?
Plague, Hantavirus, Lyme Disease, river otters and boiling volcanic water. Soon there would be rattlesnakes and scorpions, cougars and grizzlies, lightning bolts from the blue. But so far all I'd gotten was a nasty splinter from a killer picnic table, a gash from helping push an SUV out of a snowbank, and a bloody pinprick from volcanic rock on a cinder cone, the latter the only injury incurred from nature. No signs warned me of any of that.
Technology Update
My cell phone thus far was mostly an inert object, like a pet rock. I needed to find out if I was paying to turn it on to see if I had any messages. I called customer assistance a few times but the call failed each time.
I was beginning to hate my digital camera less than I hated it a couple of days earlier. Still, the viewfinder did not accurately reflect what the picture would be. I either had to compensate in my aim, making composition unnecessarily difficult, or adopt that hold-it-out-in-front-of-your-face method, which I felt looked ridiculous but started using when no one was around. Of course I had no idea yet how any of the pictures would look, but I had figured out a few things in its basket of tricks. The whole thing seemed to imply a lot of work on a computer.
My car, a bare few weeks old, already looked grizzled. I could win bets claiming this car was only six weeks old. Even overloaded it got 40MPG on the last tank. The speakers sounded good but I'd yet to figure out the radio (What the hell is FM2?) and my one stab at reading the car manual depressed me to no end.
My GPS had not yet come out of the box, and I’d hardly gotten lost at all.
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