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Posts Tagged ‘HIV’

Pandemic

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on September 3, 2014| 5 Comments »

This is my 500th post as MountainMornings. I did start out in 2010 under a different pseudonym, trying to make sense of the wedding industry and how it would apply to my family. I wanted to stay in touch with friends I’d left behind when we moved South. There was a snarky edge to my writing.

And then I took a different course, and here we are. More than weddings, and more than 500 subscribers later, I’m not famous for food or mommy blogging; I lost my camera and take pictures with my phone; in fact I’m not famous period. I haven’t monetized myself or even considered branding, in fact, I’m pretty sure any babyboomer/emptynester/grandmother brand would fall far short of anyone’s ideal business plan.

Bob tells me whenever people ask what I write about, he says, “Anything that’s on her mind.”  And like most writers, it just feels good to sit down and type away. I can’t wait for inspiration, I learned that lesson writing for a newspaper (remember those?) with a deadline. But lucky me a little perspiration always pays off. Very rarely will I sit and look at a blank screen, and that never lasts long. The world is always throwing zingers my way, and my mind is always trying to connect the dots…connect my family and friends… and now you, my “followers.”

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

This is what’s bothering me today – the news out of the CDC and Doctor’s Without Borders that the Ebola virus is not being contained – did anybody else hear this news or are we all worried about nudie pictures in the Cloud? Here is the headline that is one day old already:

“Global Bio-Disaster Response Urgently Needed in Ebola Fight” http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news-stories/press-release/global-bio-disaster-response-urgently-needed-ebola-fight

Yesterday I watched a PBS short of a man with Ebola dressed in a red shirt escaping his clinic, running around a town while men in Ebola protected spacesuits were trying to capture him. It seems the clinic had no food or water for its patients so he made a run for it.

Six months into the worst Ebola epidemic in history, the world is losing the battle to contain it,” said Dr. Liu. “Leaders are failing to come to grips with this transnational threat. The WHO announcement on August 8 that epidemic constituted a ‘public health emergency of international concern’ has not led to decisive action, and states have essentially joined a global coalition of inaction http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news-stories/press-release/global-bio-disaster-response-urgently-needed-ebola-fight

We are a part of the coalition of inaction. We are leaving this crisis to the NGOs with church affiliations to trust in the Lord and pray that everything will turn out for the best. Well maybe praying will help, but it was that special serum and a ride back to Atlanta that saved Dr Kent Brantly and his colleague. And now another missionary doctor has the disease in Liberia. Are we going to wait for another “miracle?”

Both Bob and the Bride have received instructions on identifying the Ebola virus, containing it and reporting it should the virus show up in the US, in their hospital, and yes the new ER has 4 of those infectious disease rooms that can be sealed off with the air only going one way.

I used to worry about the threat of HIV/AIDS from needle sticks when Bob and I were first married. Often he would be called in to draw blood or start a line on these emaciated patients in the 80s because techs were either afraid or couldn’t stick a vein. It seems so naive now.

Here is another wedding picture of the Bride and Groom, with Grandpa Hudson, their officiant. He was once a medical missionary in Ghana.  J&M 0622

 

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Surprise

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on November 16, 2013| Leave a Comment »

I have a question I like to ask first time parents: “What’s the most surprising thing you’ve discovered about being a (father or mother)?” When I asked one young dad at a wedding recently, he was stumped for awhile, and admitted no one had ever asked him that question. So he literally asked me to wait while he thought about it; he took his time. His young son was just turning two and he was finishing an MD/PhD program. It was loud and crowded at this reception but eventually he turned to me and said, “His sense of humor!” He never thought he’d be having so much fun laughing at the world with his toddler!

I loved that answer. So we raised our champagne glasses to the new bride and groom, and to laughter!

Well yesterday, after all the amazing speakers and musicians and short films we saw at TEDx, one woman stood out, one woman surprised me. Don’t get me wrong, I had no idea a young man named Kluge, from a formidable Albemarle family, had decided to make dirty water sexy – like the many clean water initiatives throughout the developing world. He started a campaign called “Toilet Hackers” and is determined to make sanitation available to 2.5 billion people. Quite a worthy mission that would impact disease, economic growth and even education world-wide.

But the statistic that surprised me yesterday was 50,000. A beautiful young woman, Dawn Averitt Bridge, walked out on the stage and told us point blank that she had been diagnosed with HIV at the age of 19 in 1988. Normally, this would have been a death sentence, and her doctor told her parents NOT to talk about it or they would risk being ostracized. She managed to qualify for a very early retroviral study, and has devoted her life to fighting the stigma and the spread of this disease. Bridge only teared up when she recounted giving birth to her 2 HIV-free baby girls, and said that tears come every time she talks about that experience. This is her project: http://www.thewellproject.org

With dignity and grace, she urged us all to get tested for HIV, to include testing as a normal part of health screening. Because when we take the stigma out of the disease, when we treat it like any other chronic, blood-born virus, like Hepatitis for example, it loses its power. And the earlier the diagnosis, the better our chance for survival. This made so much sense to me – every year in America 50,000 new cases of HIV infections are reported. Bridge says this is unacceptable. People are taking more risks today, because they are young and think they are invincible, because they think HIV can be controlled now, like any other STD.

And in my opinion, because many states have banned clean needle exchanges for arcane religious reasons – and you know my opinion on mixing ideology with policy…on treating substance abuse as a crime and not a public health epidemic.   http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/29/science/la-sci-hiv-screening-20130430

We can distribute nets to halt the spread of malaria in Africa, we can introduce plumbing to the poor in India to stop the spread of dysentery, and in this country we can do one simple thing. We can urge our friends and family to get tested for HIV; and if you don’t want to visit a doctor, you can buy an over-the-counter test at a local pharmacy. Sometimes the most simple intervention, can be the most surprising of all.

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