Taking a Battering
The winds have been howling all night, palm trees are thrashing and threatening to take off, and my cat Fynn is frustrated because he can't go out - he hates the wind even more than I do. When he gets really desperate to be in the garden he crouches low, ears back, and dashes from the door to the outside stairs. But at the moment we have gale force 8 winds (approx. 35 knots/40 mph) battering and shaking the windows and that's too much for him. Too much for me, too!
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
"A Case of Chronic Denial"
An excellent and interesting article about 'chronic fatigue syndrome' and the failure of the Center for Disease Control (CDC) to take it seriously by Hillary Johnson in the New York Times a couple of days ago. Now that we know almost for certain that this serious illness is contagious the shortcomings of the CDC become even more apparent. Someone should pay for this!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/opinion/21johnson.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
An excellent and interesting article about 'chronic fatigue syndrome' and the failure of the Center for Disease Control (CDC) to take it seriously by Hillary Johnson in the New York Times a couple of days ago. Now that we know almost for certain that this serious illness is contagious the shortcomings of the CDC become even more apparent. Someone should pay for this!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/opinion/21johnson.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Old Friends (and new ways of connecting)
I enjoyed a special treat this afternoon: 90 minutes chatting with two old friends via Skype. The three of us met as green graduate students at Cornell University around this time of year in 1983. Wow - that was twenty six years ago! Hard to imagine. That was the first year I used a computer; at that time we were required to write all our course papers on the mainframe terminals available in computer labs around campus. I'm sure we never imagined that one day we'd be talking to each other across continents via laptops. For most of the intervening years we've been separated by thousands of miles, only meeting up occasionally. Today Sue and Jacki were together in Boston and took advantage of that rare event to talk to me. I love the way that Skype allows us all to chat together at the same time. Hope we'll get together in person one day!
I enjoyed a special treat this afternoon: 90 minutes chatting with two old friends via Skype. The three of us met as green graduate students at Cornell University around this time of year in 1983. Wow - that was twenty six years ago! Hard to imagine. That was the first year I used a computer; at that time we were required to write all our course papers on the mainframe terminals available in computer labs around campus. I'm sure we never imagined that one day we'd be talking to each other across continents via laptops. For most of the intervening years we've been separated by thousands of miles, only meeting up occasionally. Today Sue and Jacki were together in Boston and took advantage of that rare event to talk to me. I love the way that Skype allows us all to chat together at the same time. Hope we'll get together in person one day!
Friday, October 09, 2009
Breaking News!
This is an exciting day for people with ME. It looks like the folks at Whittemore Peterson Institute (see link at right) have come up with the goods. They've found a clear link to a retrovirus, and it looks like a blood test is on the way.
More details can be found here:
http://www.wpinstitute.org/xmrv/docs/wpi_pressrel_100809.pdf
and
http://www.cancer.gov/newscenter/pressreleases/CFSxmrv
This is an exciting day for people with ME. It looks like the folks at Whittemore Peterson Institute (see link at right) have come up with the goods. They've found a clear link to a retrovirus, and it looks like a blood test is on the way.
More details can be found here:
http://www.wpinstitute.org/xmrv/docs/wpi_pressrel_100809.pdf
and
http://www.cancer.gov/newscenter/pressreleases/CFSxmrv
Thursday, October 08, 2009
Addicted to Reading
One reason for not writing more blog posts is that I get caught up in reading other people's blogs, or Face Book posts, or the news, or whatever else is in front of me. "I'll just read this" is what I'm thinking, and before I know it a few more hours have slid by. I'm the sort of person who'll sit and read the back of the cornflakes packet rather than eat without reading.
This week I began an on-line writing course based in NYC. This will now force me to write every week, although I know I'm going to spend hours reading the other participants' work too. Our first chat session was Monday evening NY time - which was 2 am Malta time. I managed to get myself up, but then my cats woke up too. Fynn was convinced that if I was up then it must be morning and therefore I should let him out. He proceeded to yowl and push pens and papers off the desk, so I ended up playing with him while trying to participate in the chat (which, fortunately, was written). Actually I'd imagined that 'chat session' meant we'd all be talking to each other and there'd be a row of video faces on my screen... but it seems technology hasn't quite come that far. Given the cat problems, not to mention problems arising from getting up at 2 am, I think I'll skive future chat sessions. After all, I can still read them later.
One reason for not writing more blog posts is that I get caught up in reading other people's blogs, or Face Book posts, or the news, or whatever else is in front of me. "I'll just read this" is what I'm thinking, and before I know it a few more hours have slid by. I'm the sort of person who'll sit and read the back of the cornflakes packet rather than eat without reading.
This week I began an on-line writing course based in NYC. This will now force me to write every week, although I know I'm going to spend hours reading the other participants' work too. Our first chat session was Monday evening NY time - which was 2 am Malta time. I managed to get myself up, but then my cats woke up too. Fynn was convinced that if I was up then it must be morning and therefore I should let him out. He proceeded to yowl and push pens and papers off the desk, so I ended up playing with him while trying to participate in the chat (which, fortunately, was written). Actually I'd imagined that 'chat session' meant we'd all be talking to each other and there'd be a row of video faces on my screen... but it seems technology hasn't quite come that far. Given the cat problems, not to mention problems arising from getting up at 2 am, I think I'll skive future chat sessions. After all, I can still read them later.
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