bugs, bikes, and brains

BIG Water Bug

2011-06-15T16:50:00.000-07:00

Dartmouth, Nova Scotia is often referred to as the City of Lakes. It has lots of them. Little ones, big ones, you name it, turn a corner and there’s another lake. This means there’s lots of really cool wildlife to check out any time you go for a walk or a bike ride in Dartmouth.

Yesterday I decided to take my bike around Spectacle Lake which just happens to be in an industrial park. There had already been a bit of a trail laid down and some boardwalk over the wetter areas, but when I returned yesterday, I discovered that a little more has been developed.

I came across an excellent example of a constructed wetland. Natural wetlands are biofilters, helping to remove pollutants from water. A constructed wetland works in much the same way, as a natural filter of runoff water, storm drain discharge and a block to pollutants and garbage. On the top side of the trail is a rock hill,

on the bottom side of the trail is the constructed wetland with layers of rock, sand, and grasses and rushes. As well, bales of hay and a black “geotextile” (looks like a black tarp) are placed closer to the bottom of the wetland to catch bigger items and keep them from getting into the body of water the wetland is protecting. Very nice.

Also on the trails through the park I came across a vigilant mama or papa osprey, the province’s official bird.

At this time of year, I’m on the lookout for trilliums and lady slippers. The trilliums are almost done, but the lady slippers are in full bloom and as an added bonus I came across a thick patch of pitcher plants. These are carnivorous plants that trap insects in their pitchers in order to boost their nutrient intake. Creepy but cool. While I was taking pictures of these flowers, movement caught my attention. There appeared to be a leaf moving on the surface of the water. Closer inspection revealed it to actually be a giant water bug! What a find! And it was huge, at least 4 inches long. I got a few good pictures of it and desperately wanted to take it home to put under the microscope to get a closer look, but with what would I catch the thing? I hadn’t taken my bug kit on the bike with me (it has everything I need to catch and safely hold bugs) and I didn’t dare try to pick the thing up with my bare hands. These guys bite and they bite hard. So there I am, lying on my tummy on the boardwalk, with my hand alternately reaching out then withdrawing as I debated my chances of catching this thing and getting it into my jacket pocket without getting bitten. Oy, what a dilemma. Over my shoulder, about 100 yards away is a construction crew working on the new RCMP regional headquarters and I know there’s a guy in the crane watching me and probably wondering what the heck I’m doing. I’m also thinking to myself that this bug could bite through my jacket into my side and I don’t want that to happen while I bike back to the car. So I left it. Yeah, I have to admit, this thing scared me a little bit. But I took pictures.

Interestingly enough, some water bugs carry around the eggs on their backs until they hatch. They’re good dads. My dad used to carry me around on his back until I hatched, too…..Happy Father's Day!

S.

Back to the Bugs

2011-06-14T03:57:00.000-07:00

I may have gone a little overboard with my last post. Well, maybe not overboard so much as rambling. I get so excited about things that interest me, like the brain, and there's so much to know and learn, I get a little carried away.

Anyway, I have been trying to find some cool bugs to show you. Many of us have seen these little clumps of baby spiders in cracks and crevices. They are another source of amusement for me. If you disturb the clump, the spiders disperse. This is a defense mechanism; if a predator, like a bird comes along, it is likely to get fewer of the spiders if they run away in different directions. When the danger passes, they come together again. A few days after the babies have hatched, they release a thread of silk and are carried away by the wind.

I found a crane fly larva the other day and took it home to look at more closely under the microscope. Crane flies look like daddy long legs, only with wings. The larvae live in the soil and can cause damage to grass and flower roots. When it rains, they surface, like earthworms, to avoid suffocation. And the birds have a feast. Anyway, if you look at the video closely, you can see the back end of this one and as an added bonus, there's a tiny beetle crawling around its butt.

I came across some wild blue flag iris when the Wookie and I were on a Sunday drive and a few weeks ago we came across a small family of Canada geese. I rarely see these magnificent birds in this part of the world. The geese land an hour north of me as a rule, so when I do see them, they're on their way to and from their summer homes, too high in the air to get a decent picture.

On the biking front, I'm trying to get physically ready for the bike tour, which is coming up July 23 and 24. 10 k is my max so far, since the weather has been so crappy
it's really hard to get out. I can walk or hike in anything, but it's more dangerous cycling so prefer days that aren't raining. We've had an extraordinarily wet spring.
Of course, my fund raising is underway. Feel free to contribute by clicking on the link on the right. One of my instructors this past year is also doing the Bike Tour. I have to admit that my highest mark last semester was in his class. Blair rides for another team, but once he sees how much fun the Cycledelics have, I may be able to convince him to cross over to the dark side.

S.

Jedi Mind Tricks? Or Placebo Effect?

2011-05-25T19:08:00.000-07:00

Our brains are the most complex living machine on the planet. They receive coordinated feedback from all the senses in order to determine what is going on around the body. Sometimes they cope well, but other times, they’re pretty screwed up. Our brains are easily fooled, mostly when the feedback from all the senses is not coordinated.

You’ve probably heard of phantom limb syndrome, a really interesting phenomena that occurs after a limb is amputated. The affected person feels pain in the missing limb. Well, actually, it’s the brain telling the person that there’s pain in the affected limb. No amount of telling yourself there’s no limb, hence no pain, will change your feeling of pain. (In his book Phantoms of the Brain, Dr. Ramashandran describes a simple technique to relieve this common problem for amputees)
You’ve probably heard of false memory syndrome as well. Maybe someone has told you a story about when you were a kid that you don’t recall, but the more the story is told to you, the better you can remember it – even if it never happened. It explains the dearth of “I was abused by a Satanic ritual club” stories in the 80s.
People are biased. They see information and will interpret it based on their pre-existing views. “If we believe something about the world, we are more likely to passively accept as truth any information that confirms our beliefs, and actively dismiss information that doesn’t. This is known as “motivated reasoning.” Whether or not the consistent information is accurate, we might accept it as fact, as confirmation of our beliefs. This makes us more confident in said beliefs, and even less likely to entertain facts that contradict them.” (Joe Keohane, How Facts Backfire –Boston Globe, online edition, June, 2010) Why else would a mountain of scientific evidence and admissions of falsifying evidence still not cause people to change their minds about the vaccine/autism connection?

These are just a few of the many ways our minds can play tricks on us. Not all tricks are bad; some are pretty cool, actually (especially those visual illusion ones, you know, is it a vase or two people?). And we have an enormous capacity to learn. Those two things combine to allow us to deal with any number of difficult situations, physical or mental.

In the case of phantom limb syndrome, Dr. Ramashandran had patients sit with the intact limb facing a mirror so it appeared the patient had two intact limbs. Just seeing a “normal” appearing limb and feeling an unpainful limb where they knew there shouldn’t be one because of the amputation was enough to lessen or remove the pain from the phantom limb. The patients knew they still had a missing limb, and they knew that what they saw was a mirror image of their intact limb, yet their brain saw two intact, healthy limbs. Nifty, eh? So the patients had a relatively easy way to relieve a common and painful condition, just by fooling their brains.

There was an episode of MASH a number of years ago that left a big impression on me. In this episode, the medical unit was very low on painkillers for soldiers recovering after surgery. They were awaiting fresh supplies, but in the meantime, they had to ration what little they had and come up with a creative way of dealing with what was very real pain for the patients. The doctors had a meeting and came up with the idea of using a placebo. They would tell the recovering patients that they were trying a new painkiller medication, but it was so powerful that it could only be given in small doses. They were actually administering sugar pills, a placebo. It worked for most of the patients. I realize that this was a TV show but it demonstrated what has long been known about placebos. We can use them to fool our brains.

A placebo effect is an action unanticipated by theory or known scientific data. It is a well-documented and expected part of scientific research. They are many factors involved in the effectiveness of a placebo. The relationship between the patient and the caregiver and the patient’s expectancies of the effectiveness of the treatment are two of the more important ones. In university I recall a paper I wrote about the effects of LSD on human behaviour. People who had “bad” trips on LSD were anxious about their reaction to the drug before they took it or they didn’t know they were being given the drug. People who had “good” trips, had a different outlook before they took the drug. They were looking forward to the mind altering experience and expected it to be a pleasant one. This demonstrated to me (and others), that a person’s perception of what might happen was very important for the drug to be effective in a positive way. If perception was positive, so was the experience. If the perception was negative, so was the experience.

All of this to say that perception and attitude are two of the biggest determining factors in a placebo effect and in how someone will deal with what happens to them in life. You’ve heard the term “think positive”. You’ve met people whose mindset is one of positivity. They’re the ones who find the silver lining in every cloud, the ones who make lemonade when life hands them lemons. The ones who get on our nerves. (And yes, I am usually one of those people – but not always)
The positive ones trust the people they surround themselves with – because they surround themselves with only people they can trust. Like doctors or caregivers. Or spouses. You get the idea. They have a good relationship with their health care professional and they have a positive attitude. They are perhaps more likely to follow health care advice in general and do so with a smile on their face. They are compliant with medication and look at side effects as a minor inconvenience or perhaps a sign that the meds are working. They get better, or live longer, or seem happier than the patients with negative attitudes.

Remember all the hoopla around the book, The Secret? Positive thinking was all it was about. It was Norman Vincent Peale but without all the God stuff. Norman Vincent Peal was a little ahead of his time. He had described cognitive behavioural therapy (albeit on a religious level) long before the therapy was developed. CBT is highly effective for people motivated to change their way of thinking and their behaviour. By changing your thought processes, you can change your behaviour. Think positive! Sounds simple doesn’t it? It’s not. It’s a lot of hard work, but it can be done. One simple example: someone compliments you on what you are wearing. Do you smile and say Thank you? Or do you frown and say This old thing? The first response is the one that gives you a lift because someone noticed that new sweater and it gives the complimenter a lift when you acknowledge it. You have just exchanged gifts. The second response is a put down to the complimenter, suggesting their taste isn’t all that great and you have made them feel bad by implying it. See if that person ever compliments you again.

Let’s go back to the placebo effect. Surround someone with lots of people and outings for them to go to where they have been limited before because of their illness. They’re moving around, talking and engaging with people, they’re the centre of attention for a while, they’re the focus of a bunch of people fundraising for their “treatment” that the bad ole government won’t pay for. Have them watch videos on Youtube about others who’ve had the same treatment and see how well they are now. Now send them to a foreign country, give them a treatment and tell them it might “liberate” them, where nothing else has worked well before.

Many of these folks have been isolated because of their illness or their attitude about their illness. They are not active because of their illness or their attitude. A bunch of anecdotes showing them that this treatment will work increases their expectations that it will work. And so it appears to work. This is what the doctors mean by placebo effect. As you can see there are a number of things happening, from expectations, to simple want, to bias.

I spoke with a health care provider last year and she told me a neurologist she once spoke with told her he estimated 25% of his MS patients in wheelchairs, didn’t need to be in them. Their attitude is what kept them in the chairs. “I have MS. My life is over. Woe is me.” That’s what I mean by attitude.

I’m not sure if this post helps you understand the placebo effect and why some drugs or treatments can appear to work. I found an enormous amount of really interesting stuff on the brain and how it’s fooled, on the placebo effect in general, and why it is expected to occur as part of scientific studies. I could have written for a couple of more days about the topic, but instead, I’ll suggest you type How does your mind play tricks on you? into Google and do a search.

S.

A Mother's Love

2011-05-19T00:37:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, several of us from the SRA carefully placed 63 salmon in two spots on the Sackville River. These were about 2-3 pounds each so they were a couple of years old. We had to transport them in a truck and then have them fished out of their tanks and ferried one or two at a time in a rubber sleeve to the river itself. Kind of like a relay race.

Last week we put 80,000 salmon fry all over the watershed in about a dozen brooks and streams. They were only about an inch or two long, having just exhausted their nutrition from their yolk sacs. This time a truck with one tank came with us. In the tank were several square shaped buckets with the babies in them. The driver would scoop out a bunch and put them in another bucket for us to carry to the stream and we’d let them go. Lots of fun.

We’ve had almost a month of rain in Nova Scotia. If it wasn’t pouring it was drizzly. And damp. And cold. That didn’t keep me from walking or hiking, but it did make it near impossible for me to take the bike out. Normally the weather won’t prevent me from biking, but I just couldn’t do it this time. The rain stopped today, we saw the sun for the first time in weeks and tomorrow should be all right as well, so the tires are filled with air (I pumped it myself) and I’m ready for a 4 k ride to start.

With the wet weather, the bugs have held off, too. Except for those blasted red lily beetles that enjoy my ornamental lilies. The moths have begun to emerge and the bees are flitting around like they’re on speed. Not on speed was this critter. Snails are kind of gross, but still fascinating. Sooooooooooooo slow…………..and with two sets of thingies sticking out of their head they look pretty alien. The longer tentacles have eyes on them, the shorter ones are for sensory activites, like smelling and feeling.

For some reason I seem to come across animal poop in all forms and places. Today was no exception. The snail proceeded to poop before my eyes. Looking up more info on these things, I discovered that when a snail lays eggs in the ground it covers them with dirt, mucous, and then POOP. A mother’s love, eh?

S.

The Importance of Clinical Trials

2011-05-16T17:14:00.000-07:00

Bloodletting as a medical treatment has been around for over 2000 years. The ancients believed that the human body was controlled by and contained 4 “humors”. These were black and yellow bile, phlegm and blood. While we still do look at the colour and consistency of some of these “humors” to help diagnose conditions (think of your runny nose during a cold vs. during an allergy attack), we do not depend on Humorism as a method of medical practice.

For the 2000 years that bloodletting was common, sometimes it worked, most times it didn’t. The physicians of the day believed that relieving an ailing body of some or a lot of its sanguine humor(blood) would cure the patient of whatever ailed him. It wasn’t until the 1800s, when a French doctor conducted what is considered the first clinical trial, that the practice of bloodletting as a cure or treatment was disproved.

To be fair, for a few people who have an iron overload because of a genetic condition, bloodletting allows them to live normal lives. Leeches, used for years as a bloodletting tool, are used in some surgeries to prevent clotting of some tiny blood vessels. So there is a use for bloodletting, in controlled and very well defined situations.

Before there were clinical trials, belief and experience were the bases of medical treatment. Let’s look at this in the context of multiple sclerosis:

- We know that the natural history of MS is one of relapse and remission with and without treatment. That’s the way this disease works for the majority of us. (In my case, my first attack was treated with IV steroids, then pill form for two weeks – I eventually gained back about 97% of what the initial attack caused me to temporarily lose.)

- People seek help from their doctor when they’re at their worst. We don’t go to the doc for a tingly finger, but if the whole side of our body is numb, we go in pretty fast, even though both may be symptoms of a relapse. Sometimes we aren’t even aware we had a relapse(or attack) until months or years later when we recall “that time my finger was asleep for three days” - this is precisely what happened to me; two months before going to the doctor because of increasing weakness on my right side, I had a tingly finger for three days, but I didn’t recall it until two years later when wondering if I had earlier symptoms of MS than January 1998.

- People, both patients and doctors, have a strong sense of hope and look for positive results with treatment.

- Placebo response – this is such an important topic, I will be spending an entire blog post on it.

- The power of anecdotes is amazingly strong and it is the lowest level of evidence. Again, I’ll have to spend an entire blog post on this one.

One of the many early treatments for MS was strychnine (!) After all, in small doses, it was a stimulant; anyone with MS fatigue knows what a stimulant can help us accomplish. As well, application of severe and prolonged cold wraps then blasting with cold water (that’ll get me up and moving for sure, if only to get away from the treatment), inducing fevers to rid the body of toxins , other poisons like arsenic and mercury, and electrical stimulation were all treatments for MS at some point in time. After receiving any or all of these treatments, some people with MS got better and some didn’t. I would like to suggest that those who got better did so in spite of their treatment. That’s the natural history of MS. (Remember the adage for the common cold? A cold will last 7 days if you do nothing, a week if you treat it.)
Doctors, in general, want to help their patients. Both are invested in the patient’s improving condition. We all (docs and patients) hope that we’ll get over our cold if we go to bed with chicken soup and apple juice and acetaminophen for aches. We all hope a round of steroids will improve our current attack of MS or that by taking a long term disease modifying drug the attack won’t last as long or be as damaging. If there is some improvement we, both docs and patients attribute it to the course of treatment (and not the alignment of the planets that week).

The jury is still out on chicken soup as a cure or treatment for the common cold (is it the warm steam from the soup that helps clear your sinuses, is there some nutritional factor in the soup needed to fight a cold, would drinking any hot beverage do the same thing by keeping us hydrated), but some clinical trials have been undertaken to answer these questions. The jury is in on the current batch of disease modifying drugs for MS, though. Years of research and clinical trials have been undertaken that show these drugs are effective. Yes, some people don’t do well on these DMDs, others can’t or won’t tolerate the side effects or taking a needle every day or a couple of times a week or even once a week (MS patient compliance with treatment is a big topic for docs and researchers in this field). Some current research is looking at an individual’s genetic make-up and blood chemistry response to a DMD to find out who is most likely to benefit from a certain treatment (I should know, as they continue to receive samples of my blood for this reason). My point is that we wouldn’t be at this stage in the treatment of MS without clinical trials. 20 years ago, there was nothing to offer an MS patient except hope that something would be developed or discovered soon.

Hopefully you have a better understanding of the importance of clinical trials. Our limited and biased beliefs and experiences simply can't substitute for clinical trials. They are part of what we call evidence based medicine or evidence based practice. There are levels of evidence of which I mentioned anecdotal earlier. It is the lowest level of evidence. It has not been tested or studied enough. Ethics, cost, design of studies, and the number of participants are all factors that contribute to determining the level of evidence. And so, another topic in which to delve in greater detail in the near future.

S.
PS: Much of this blog post was inspired by the lecture by Dr. T.J. Murray earlier this week. So a tip of the hat to my good doctor.

Still Here

2011-05-15T03:58:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody! I’m still here. I finished up my first year of studies last month and have been trying to catch up on sleep and rest. I’m afraid that it took more out of me physically than I had anticipated. Looking back, I sometimes wonder how I kept going.

There’s not a lot new going on. I will spend the summer on a few projects both at the building and at the Sackville Rivers Association (SRA) office. I’m looking forward to starting up again in September to learn more stuff.
I did accept a (volunteer) position on the Board of Directors for the SRA. I hate meetings of more than two people, but hopefully these guys have agendas. If not, they WILL have them from now on. I went into the office recently only to discover that our dear leader, Walter, had been ordered by the fire department to do some “clean up” of all the papers on the walls and in storage. So I’ve begun the daunting task, along with my new best friend, Melissa (from school), of sorting through 20 plus years of paperwork. We need a database of all the info we’ve gathered over the years related to the river, the watershed, acid rain, etc….Apparently there is some sort of one somewhere already, but it’s probably buried underneath all the paperwork. Now that I have the basics to do database on the computer, I think we’ll have a better shot of building something everyone can use and have access to.

And of course, the CCSVI saga continues. I went to a most interesting lecture the other night, presented by neurologists and a neurology physician assistant. Are you interested in learning about why we need clinical trials? How long it takes for a drug or treatment to reach the general public? Why we shouldn’t be jumping on the CCSVI bandwagon? Then stay tuned dear readers as I have the answers.

Finally An Update

2010-12-13T03:03:00.000-08:00

So I have been amazingly busy since I last wrote. Schoolwork will do that to you. However, the semester is winding down and I have time actually sit and write (or type) something other than an Economics paper.

I also have a new reader who has been nagging me for something new for awhile now, so Erin, quit bugging me.

I have to admit that the past few months have been great for my mind, but not my waist. I am hungry all the time. I can only attribute that to the amount of knowledge my brain is trying to process. It uses up a lot of fuel, you know, and I am craving carbs like nobody’s business. I remember being like this in university. Anyway, the point is that the more I do mentally, the hungrier I get. That’s one of the more interesting side effects of school.

A less interesting side effect, is the fatigue. I have begun taking amantadine once or twice a week to battle the fatigue that hits me. I’m good for most of the day, except on a couple of really heavy days. Our classes range from an hour to two hours long, and sitting all that time, sometimes in the dark while watching a powerpoint lesson, can just drain me of the energy needed to sit up straight. I have to admit to having availed myself of the couches scattered around the building for a rest. But I’m not the only one.

Around October, I realized that I was not going to get through accounting without some back up. It just wasn’t sinking in, so I, and several others, actually, requested a tutor. Sadly, they were swamped with those requests and it was several weeks before one of my classmates and I managed to snag one. She’s great and we’re both back on track. I had begun to think that maybe I shouldn’t concentrate on accounting my second year, which was my plan from the beginning. The whole point of going back to school to begin with, anyway. But, as I mentioned, I’m back on track. And who knew bank reconciliations could be so much fun? They’re like big puzzles.

Economics was an absolute blast. The instructor we had was so good, that the subject I dreaded the most has turned out to be the one I learned the most from and enjoyed the most. I actually pay attention to the business news now and read that section of the paper.

Marketing has been interesting, usually. I did take marketing in university (when dinosaurs roamed the planet), and having worked in media, especially promotions and advertising, has been an advantage for me. I had actually thought about a career in marketing 25 years ago, but never pursued that line. If I did follow that path today, it would be in research.

I was also in a computer course. Those of you who know me, know that I am technologically inept. Yes, I can e-mail, and I write a blog online, and I can download my pictures, but I really didn’t understand all that I was doing. I still don’t understand it all, but I have a better idea of what this process is. And my confidence level in my computing abilities has gone up 100%. For one of my Economics projects, I had the Wookie video an interview I did with a farmer about the economics of farming. The Wookie downloaded the video and I edited the thing myself. I threw in titles and script and even had a few outtakes at the end. I impressed the crap outta myself with that one. I’m throwing stuff on thumb drives, using tabs properly, and all the usual stuff folks take for granted who do this on a regular basis. Next semester we get into spreadsheets and databases (woo hoo!).

The Communications course I am taking has to be the least interesting of the bunch. I am learning a few things as far as grammar goes (I can tell the difference between infinitive phrases and verb phrases for instance), but so far I am not really getting too much out of this one. Maybe things will heat up in January. I hope so.

That leaves math, one of my strongest subjects. But now, all that algebra I learned in high school has a real life application. It only took 30 years to discover what that application is. But at least I now know it. Our instructor is really good and is also a grad of my alma matter, albeit 10 years before me.

So that’s life on the academic front. On the home front, the Wookie has been really good. On my busier days, he gets dinner ready. And the poor man has had to listen to me go on ad nauseum about all subjects until I work out what I’m trying to understand. Which has led to the discovery that if I can talk it out, I can understand it better. Who knew? Apparently, the Wookie. He was the one who brought it to my attention.

I have also discovered that the dollar store reading glasses are great. Turns out, not only am I near sighted, but need stronger bifocals than what I have on my lenses now. Which leads me to the question, “If I’m near sighted, why can’t I read the numbers in my math book or the nutritional labels on cans?” One of life’s paradoxes I guess.

On the MS front, things are well, except for the fatigue, but I’ve already discussed that. I have had a few people ask me about the subject of CCSVI and I try to enlighten them about what the theory is and why the MS Society hasn’t jumped all over it the way a number of people want them to. Again, I will say, there is no SCIENTIFIC evidence yet to support the theory that narrowing of the neck veins has anything to do with MS. There are current studies under way to determine if there is a connection. If one is found, the MS Society of Canada and the National MS Society in the US will look closer at possible clinical trials. In the meantime, some people will continue to have good, bad, and indifferent results with the treatment. Remember, too, folks, I have been on Avonex for 11 years, with only one attack in all that time. Avonex is working for me, so if it ain’t broke, as they say, don’t fix it. I will not undergo an experimental treatment that in my mind, makes little sense to the mechanics of MS. Remember, too, that I am part of an ongoing study, where my blood is tested regularly to examine the role my personal biology plays in the effectiveness of Avonex. I have also been recently informed that a follow up study is soon to get under way of those of us in the initial CHAMPS study for Avonex to see how it’s working long term.

I was saddened, but not surprised, to learn of the death of a Canadian man who underwent the treatment for CCSVI, then received a stent to keep his veins open, which probably led to his passing. I abhor the fact that this disease can make some people so desperate for a treatment they risk their lives. This simply reinforces my feeling that we must continue to raise funds for research and treatment, we must continue to educate the public about this disease, and we must continue to take care of those less physically able than ourselves. I urge any and all MS patients and their loved ones to continue to spread the word about MS, to take any opportunity to educate others about MS, and to keep the faith - we will end MS.

S.

PS: Next time, I’ll post some pics.

Another Adventure

2010-10-02T04:18:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday morning, the Wookie and I joined 4 other volunteers from the Sackville Rivers Association to do a species survey of a brook in the Sackville watershed. It involved driving to a spot on the highway, about 10 k from Sackville, hiking about a kilometre into the woods, donning insulated chest waders, and insulated gloves, then elctro-fishing a section of the brook. Colin led the way with the electro-fishing zapper (I'm afraid I don't know the technical name for it), Will was right beside him to scoop anything that surfaced, and Gwen and I took up the rear with a net across the width of the brook to catch anything that got by Colin or Will. It took an hour to travel up stream a few hundred metres. Phew!

The zapper emits an electrical field that once a fish enters results in it getting a stun. Cool. The zapper is quite the device, really, and apparently quite expensive. The TD Bank gave us $10,000 to go towards its purchase - thanks TD Bank! Anyway, we were able to scoop up the stunned fish and put them in a bucket for identification and measurement after we got to the lake from which the brook emerges. We caught a couple of trout, several small mouth bass (which we don't like - they're an invasive species in this watershed), and many eels.

All the info we gather on these types of outings help us determine what part of the watershed perhaps needs human intervention in the form of clean up, un-straightening of the flow of water (remember, we want it to meander, not flow in a straight line), and placement of digger logs and sills (to better oxygenate the water and provide shelter and cooler spots for the fish). It also can give us an idea of the fish species population. And all this information can help us to get funding for various projects.

Small mouth bass are aggressive fish and will destroy other populations. It's not a good sign when you find them. Finding a few trout today was a good sign, though, and the eel population is quite good, too. Colin's field of study concentrated on the American eel, an amazing animal few people understand. Eels hatch in the Sargasso Sea. They find their way all over North and Central America where they enter bodies of fresh water. Once they reach maturity (4-20 years), they swim down stream to the ocean, and back to the Sargasso Sea where they spawn and die.

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And we even found a couple of frogs (accidently zapped while we were electro-fishing). After a few seconds they were ok and they swam off to a safer place. On the hike back to the highway, the Wookie pointed out what he thought was a frog on the side of the very mucky and puddle covered road. Against my better judgement, I decided to go the route he was taking so I could see the frog. I was back in my sneakers by this point in time, carrying the chest waders and other gear we had used in the field. One wrong step and my left foot landed in a puddle of muck, leaves, and water. But I did get to see the creature identified as a frog, even though it turned out to be a toad. All in all it was a good adventure.

S.

The Learning Has Begun

2010-09-16T16:01:00.000-07:00

Almost two weeks into my return to school and I finally have a few moments to post an entry. I am so impressed with the whole process that the Nova Scotia Community College has arranged; they have made it so easy to get through the usual red tape that this sort of thing involves. Although, as I think about it now, the efficient use of information technology is probably what has made the process simpler to navigate, even for those of us who are technologically challenged.

The campus I am attending is about a half hour drive away from where I live. It is situated in Dartmouth, along the waterfront, with a phenomenal view of the harbour and Halifax on the other side. If you're outside at noon, you can hear the firing of the noon cannon from the Halifax Citadel. On foggy days, you can hear the harbour fog horns signaling to the sea going ships. I can also see Theodore Tugboat tied up at a dock directly across the harbour (for those of you with small children, you may be aware of this children's TV character). The grounds themselves are attractive, with walking paths and lots of greenery.

Parking is at a premium and as the college is trying to get "green" certification, they are not really doing too much about it. There are shuttle buses available from a couple of parking lots off site which definitely assists those of us with a finite amount of available energy for walking.

So far, the staff I've met have been warm, welcoming, and helpful. This applies to teaching staff and maintenance personnel alike. I already knew a couple of the instructors and I have run into a few other people I knew from other parts of my life, including a gal who works at the local coffee shop, a former MS Society employee, and a former co-worker. A funny thing happened on the second day when a young man, Shane, sat next to me in class. As we were talking I realized he is the son of a man with whom I attended junior high school and recently renewed my acquaintance. I also ran into a young woman I had mentored at the radio station a couple of years ago, Jessica. She is now in the paralegal program at the college.

I am not the oldest student in my class, but close to it. I wasn't feeling old until I met Shane on day two. And then yesterday, when our marketing instructor asked for an example of an aggressive salesman, I volunteered "Herb Tarlick". The silence was deafening. Not one student in the class was familiar with this character from WKRP in Cincinnati. At least the instructor knew who I was talking about.

The one class I was dreading was economics. However, the instructor is energetic, interesting, charismatic, and he just loves teaching. he also appears to be a fan (or at least has read) Malcolm Gladwell, whose books I have consumed in the past year. I am now looking forward to this class.

I was doing math homework last night and it was like I was back in grade 10. I loved doing it. A blank piece of paper, a pencil, and a calculator, and I was in my glory. Some of it was a little difficult as I couldn't recall a few basic things about fractions, but I managed to complete it. The Wookie assisted me in recalling those basics this evening and the light went on above my head. I love that feeling.

I will take my camera to school tomorrow so I can post some pictures on the weekend. This is going to be fun.

S.

Back to School As a 47 Year Old

2010-09-03T06:37:00.000-07:00

At a recent river restoration outing (we were clearing river rocks and silt from below a digger log to form a deeper pool for the fish), I was speaking with a fellow volunteer about going back to school. He was saying that it can be a difficult thing to be in a classroom again after so much time. Not for me, I don't think. My mother took courses all the time I was in school, and when I was 13 she began a degree program. (I used to go with her to classes and labs when I was off from school myself) She finished a 4 year program in 3 years by taking courses during the summer. A little over 20 years ago, my dad took a computer course at the local technical university (I got him a lunch box, crayons, an eraser, and other "supplies" as a joke). Over the years, I have taken the odd course (Russian being one of them) and while some of it was a little tedious, I enjoyed the majority of my time in class.

Several years ago, I became a volunteer tutor with a literacy group, tutoring adults (mostly at the GED level) in a one on one situation. The best part of that was watching the light bulb go on above their heads when they had that "aha!" moment - math was especially fun. I'm looking forward to my own "aha!" moments. And when speaking with my fellow river volunteer, I told him I was looking forward to feeding off the energy of my fellow classmates. Kids in their early 20s have so much energy and excitement, especially in a learning environment, that I suspect it will be a tremendous motivator and aid for me.

I was speaking with the mayor of Halifax a little while ago and telling him about going back to school. He also took some courses recently and said it's a different experience when you're a grown-up. I told him (and my folks) it'll be easier for me in one way, as I don't have two teenagers, and all that angst, as a distraction.

Yesterday, I went to get my school ID and parking pass, and then went to sign all the official papers with the government agency who are aiding my return to school. I have had the example of lifelong learning all of my 47 years. I have the support of the Wookie and my folks and friends. I even have some support from the government. I'm ready for school! Now to survive the arrival of hurricane Earl overnight tonight.

S.

School and Learnin' Stuff

2010-08-20T15:22:00.000-07:00

The summer is beginning to wind down and the kids are getting ready for back to school. Me, too. I start at the community college September 7th now that everything is settled. I finally got confirmation of funding this week and am doing the last few things required of me by the government. It has been a long drawn out process with a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth (mostly on my part, but I'm sure a little bit on theirs, too).

The gig at the radio station didn't work out as was becoming quite apparent in my last two weeks there. I gave them my notice after they hired someone else. Just as well, to be honest, as these folks were not to be trusted. There was such a culture of defeat in that office, with folks working for just above minimum wage, and the lack of communication between departments, I'm surprised they are still in business. They do have the worst reputation in the business and now I know why.

So this week, I have been "supervising" the installation of new windows on the first floor. The building is keeping me busy.

The Wookie and I went to his step sister's wedding two weeks ago. It was absolutely wonderful, in a spectacular location, and the bride and groom were just gorgeous and beaming. The two of them will make a great tag team, as both are med students with an interest in global health issues and a penchant for travel. I have said that I suspect the new Mrs. Doc will one day head the WHO (I don't know Mr. Doc as well, but imagine he'll be right up there with her). And the Wookie's half sister, who was the maid of honour, did her job perfectly, looking like a million bucks at the same time. I'm not sure what the maid of honour's plans are for the future, as she has had an interest in criminology in the recent past, but I haven't spoken with her about it for a while. (I will probably refer to her as Miss CSI until informed otherwise)

The bugs are alive and well in the neighbourhood. I have found a good number of creepy crawlies around, sometimes taking them inside for a photo shoot, then back to the wilds of the garden. A chartreuse crab spider has taken up residence in a tall white flower that smells like lily of the valley. I discovered it by accident as I leaned over to smell the newly opened blossoms and it insolently reared up on two sets of back legs with the two sets of front legs raised in an offensive position. OK, it was really defensive, but these spiders are so small, I laugh every time they do this, and imagine it's an act of bravado rather than instinct (like they could really fight off a predator as large as myself - confidence is everything I guess).

On the CCSVI front, my former boss is scheduled to go to Mexico for the treatment. The Nova Scotia government, taking a cue from other provinces has said it's interested in partly funding clinical trials if the federal government steps in. The Wookie and I are at a slight disagreement over this recent announcement, but it's more about semantics. The message I got was that the province is interested in clinical trials of the procedure, whereas he got the message that the government is interested in research in the broad sense. I do not want to see trials of the procedure until it's been demonstrated that a clear and defined link exists between CCSVI and MS.

That opinion will make me unpopular with all the folks who are demanding government action. Even Dr. Zamboni has been telling folks to wait for more research before going for the procedure. But as I have explained to people ad nauseum, if I thought there was anything to this treatment I would have had it already. I will not rely on anecdotal evidence to dictate medical treatment of any condition I may have and I cannot support others in seeking out this treatment. I do not wish anyone any harm and hope that they can gain some relief.

Here's a question to ponder: how many people are disabled by the thought of MS? There are some folks out there, who, when given the diagnosis of a chronic disabling condition, sit down and give up. Over time, depression leads to inactivity, which leads to fatigue, which leads to disability. They essentially give up on life in general and allow others to look after them. This topic has been on my mind for a while. I have met folks over the years who love to play the "poor me" card. I'd love to know how many of those folks are going for the "liberation" treatment instead of living a healthy lifestyle (that includes movement).

CCSVI may be a red herring. Or it may be the key to it all. Whatever it turns out to be, further research is on the agenda. I'm just sad that folks are so desperate they are jumping on this bandwagon like the "vaccines cause autism" lobby did. Even in the face of scientific evidence to the contrary, that group continued to believe what they believed. I'm afraid that this is what may happen to the believers in this group.

S.

Pictures (Finally!)

2010-08-06T17:29:00.000-07:00

As promised, some pics:

First a mosquito larva at 10 times magnification:

Now a little stag beetle (of which there are many species and sizes). The pinchers are actually used for wrestling other male stag beetles, if it comes to that. Generally, though, they're more for show than anything, as a stag beetle with smaller pinchers will cede to the one with the larger pinchers. This pic is also 10 times magnification and is lit from the bottom so you get a better idea of the shape of it.

From one of my CSI: Bug files is this wing of a small fly that had fallen prey to a spider. As I was moving it around under the microscope lens, light was being refracted most beautifully.

And finally, a couple of pictures of the team (without me, I'm afraid - I had already been riding for an hour when the rest of them got to the start). See why we took home the Best Dressed title?

I'm still working, though only for another week. I have paid my tuition, so officially, I'm a student again. In another week or so I'll get my class schedule, photo id, books etc. and then enter the land of the learning.

Oy vey.

S.

Here I Am!

2010-07-27T17:16:00.000-07:00

Where to start?

I am in the land of the living, I've just not had a lot of time on my hands of late.

First of all, I am now employed (temporarily) for another radio station (country and western!!) in town. This may or may not be permanent. I can't get into details at the moment, but suffice to say, it was like getting on the bike again. It all came back to me fairly quickly.

Secondly, I had two falls from my bike, 3 weeks apart, same body part injured both times. Of course it was when I was at a complete stop and couldn't get out of my clips fast enough, so the damage done was minimal (my pride suffered a greater bruising than my knee - though there was blood; the little kid watching me clean up the scrape asked me to show him my other boo boos). I took the bike in for servicing and had them loosen and grease the pedal clips and lo and behold a week later, I came to a sudden stop when my derailleur caught my spokes, and I was able to easily hop off the bike. So back to the shop it went for fixing and that meant I had a couple of days more where I wasn't training.

In between all this falling, scraping, and working, I was trying to do some last minute fund raising for the bike tour. I finally hit the $3000 mark (and change) and our team, the Cycledelics was third runner up for team total and individual average. I also was in charge of securing a sponsor for our shirts and I called on my philanthropist friend, Mickey MacDonald, of Micco Corp or Inc or Ltd (I'm not sure which it is). He's a former firefighter and our theme was firefighting, so......Anyway, his company made up our shirts and we took home the Best Dressed Award. We even had a real fireman on our team and he brought a hose to he tour that we dragged to the banquet for our grand entrance. We all had little fire helmets on, too. Pics are coming.

Day one of the bike tour was pretty good, though by 11:30, it was 30 degrees(Celsius, for my American friends) and with only 6 kilometres left to bike I had to pack it in. A shower and a short nap later and I was wandering around in my jammies until the banquet when we all changed into our firefighting gear again.

Day two was bad. I woke feeling like I'd been hit by a truck and my eyes were so puffy I looked like I had been crying all night. I got on the bike to ride it from the storage area to the cafeteria for breakfast and I knew after one bump I wouldn't get one kilometre on the thing, my inner thighs and but were sooooooooooooooooooooooo sore. I made the executive decision to skip riding on the second day, so loaded my bike into someone's van and got a ride to the halfway point to meet up with the team. There were support vehicles going up and down the road constantly so I had no fear of being left somewhere to fend for myself. I eventually got a ride back to the end where I cheered on folks arriving by bike as they crossed the finish line. The heavens had opened up and the wind had picked up so everyone was soaked and frozen. Just as well I wasn't riding. Between the wind and rain and the butt spasms, I might have just curled up on the side of the road waiting for the end to come. Everyone else on the team managed to do both days, but there were a few other folks like me who bowed out of riding on the second day. Over 400 riders, about 75 volunteers, and $330,000 raised. I'd say it was a success.

In the past 6 weeks there have been a couple of more news stories about CCSVI. I will not comment right now, but will in a future post.

The bug hunting has continued, though not as regularly as before, and I do have pics. I'm working on another CSI: Bugs episode, too. Those pics are coming, too.

And in between all this stuff is the building I'm managing....

That's all I have time for right now. I'll be back to regular posting real soon. I promise.

S.

3 Billion Rides

2010-06-22T07:14:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the most bizarre thoughts will pop into my head. Which is probably no surprise to anyone. I realize that most people have weird ideas from time to time; they can't be original thoughts, either. Very few of those left in the world, I suspect.

I once heard or read that the human heart has the capacity for only so many beats. In an average 80 year lifespan it will beat about 3 billion times. Does that mean if you exercise a lot and increase your rate of heartbeats, you'll die sooner? Exercise strengthens the heart, so your resting heartrate will be lower, so the number of heartbeats will even out in the end (I think that's how it would work).

When you live with a diagnosis of MS and one of your symptoms is fatigue, you learn to pace yourself in your day to day activities. Come to think of it, sometimes week to week or month to month. You don't do laundry on the same day that you shop for groceries, for example.

So after Sunday's 21 k bike ride, I was thinking, "What if I have a finite number of long bike rides in me?" Say, 100. Do I get more and more fatigued with each ride until I've reached the finite number and can't ride any more?

Like I said at the beginning, bizarre thought. However, after mulling it over, I think I've rationalized it to this: Each ride will build my physical strength. The exercise is good for both body and brain (increased oxygenation, better circulation of nutrients). My eating habits have improved, so my nutrition is better, and my overall health is improving. And I know that if my overall health is good, my brain is better able to deal with the MS. So if I hit a wall from fatigue, taking a day or 3 or 4 off is not going to set me back. I can get back on the bike and do a couple of shorter rides, then a big one again. After all, marathon runners don't run a marathon every day for training.

I suspect a day will come when a genetic test will determine what number of heartbeats a person is predetermined to have. A full screening at birth will tell us if we are destined to live to 100 or 25. 10 years ago the average lifespan for a person with cystic fibrosis was 18 years. Today it is 35 (last year I met a CF patient who was 40). We will be able to determine and treat conditions in order to extend lifespans; actually, we already do that to a degree. If we are diagnosed with a treatable disease, we take medicines or alter our lifestyle to enable us to not be as affected by our disease. But a day will come when we find out at birth (if not prenatally).

So how many long bike rides do I have in me? Ask me when I'm 80.

Porcupine Crossing

2010-06-20T15:26:00.000-07:00

Gas stations are great places to find bugs. They have these really big lights that are on at night attracting all sort of insect. Yesterday morning I raided the local station and retrieved a polyphemus and an azalea sphinx. Just beautiful specimens - which are now napping in my freezer until tomorrow when I will preserve them for posterity (actually, for my own amusement and study). Pics in the very near future, dear reader.

Today, the Wookie and I went on a 21 k ride, half on a trail, the other half back to the car on the highway. On the trail, I nearly ran over a porcupine that hadn't looked both ways before attempting to cross. It waddled off into the trees while I stopped to get my camera. I managed a few shots of it in the tree. These adorable animals have poor eyesight and not great hearing; they don't really need those senses too much anyway, what with all the sharp pointy things sticking out of their fur. Anyway, I had to get a pic for Lisa (I think), who last year was disappointed that I hadn't posted a pic of the one crossing a street that I had stopped for.

We left the trail just short of the end as I could see the ocean down a drive that crossed the trail and wanted to be next to the water. It was about 2k on that road to the main highway, then 9 more to the car. I took a couple of pics of the beach on one side, and pics of a fresh water marsh on the other side of the road. The marsh had several pitcher plants and a few clumps of blue flag irises. I had noticed both plants along the trail as well, though not as many pitcher plants (they are a protected species).

All in all it was a good ride, lots of sweat dripping everywhere and a few drops of rain from time to time to tease us. I was wishing the skies would just open up to cool us down. Then off to mom and dad's to wish a dad a Happy Pappy Day. He was happy with the gifts, of course. "Don't be spending your money on me" is a quote to be ignored.

S.

I'm Here!!

2010-06-17T16:55:00.000-07:00

I have been amazingly lax the past few weeks as far as the blog goes. You should go make yourself a cup of tea before you sit down to read the rest of this post.

I really have put the push on for getting donations for the Bike Tour since I don't have the support of a "work" network this time 'round. So that's been keeping me hopping. Though I did have one really good experience at the grocery store last week. A man in line in front of me commented on the bike tour jacket I wear and asked if I did the bike tour. Turns out he had been invited to participate with some friends but is unable to do so. I told him he could help out just the same by sponsoring me. So he found a bank machine to get some money to give me. I took down his name and address of course so he can get a tax receipt, but while waiting at the bank machine I told him I felt like I was shaking him down. He laughed, gave me 20 bucks and next year he may bike with my team instead of his friend's.

I have been in "serious" training for the tour as well. I have made a few short but heavy duty rides, lots of hills to work the legs. I am very pleased with my progress, getting up these hills with fewer stops, increasing my kilometres per hour average, and generally building strength in my legs. I have also fallen off the bike twice in the past 3 weeks, both times (as usual, actually) when I was coming to a stop. Last Sunday I'm afraid the spill I took drew a little more blood than usual, and two little boys watched intently as I administered my own first aid. The older of the two had questions for me about my "boo boo" and asked me to show him my other ones (after he showed me his). They were too cute for words and their mother pointed out the fact that I had a first aid kit with me which she informed them is always a good idea when going on a long bike ride. Come to think of it, it's a good idea for me to always have a first aid kit....I had to replenish my first aid supplies after the ride.

I took my bike in yesterday for its 1000k tune up. When the guy working at the shop saw me, I just showed him my bandaged knee and he said, "Again?". They put a new chain on the bike and tuned it up for me, as well, they have checked my pedal clips and hopefully loosened them (that's why I fall - can't get unclipped fast enough).

A couple of weeks ago, the majority of Canadian MS Walks were held. The Wookie, Margo, Marc, and I walked as a team, going 8 kilometres by foot. I had hoped to have a team picture to show you by now, but don't so you'll just have to wait. It was definitely fun and good to catch up with a number of people including the Sackville Kinsmen Club who are holding their car show again this year and asked me to set my bike up again. That's on the 27th.

About a week ago, one of the local tv stations ran a story about a local woman who is trying to raise money so she can go overseas and get the "liberation" treatment. Don't get me started. but what irked me was that she yanked her team from the MS Walk in protest of the fact that the MS Society is not lobbying the government to pay for this procedure. That angered me more than anything else I've heard recently. The MS Society of Canada along with the NMSS in the US has designated 2.4 millions dollars to study CCSVI and the link it appears to have with MS (this was announced just last week). It will not be funding surgical procedures at this point because we don't know if there is a link between the two. Depending on the outcome of these initial studies, then perhaps the "liberation" procedure itself will be studied.

The media still hasn't caught on to the fact that the theory behind CCSVI is that a build up of iron in the brain because of closed off veins is what causes MS. If there are iron deposits in the brain it would take more than half an hour to clear them from the brain, but half an hour seems to be the length of time between having the procedure performed and noticing a difference in MS symptoms.

So why do some people report miraculous results from this procedure? There are a number of factors at play including the Placebo Effect, not to mention improved circulation of blood in the brain. We all know that improving the circulation of blood in the brain is going to be good for you. My thoughts about miraculous improvements all involve improving oxygenation and toxin removal (by toxin, I mean cellular byproducts like waste). So until the folks who have had the procedure done can show measured reduction in MS symptoms over a period of time, I stand by my idea that this treatment is not an effectual one. Not for MS, anyway. It may be an effectual treatment for a vascular condition that many people without MS have. I would love to have this treatment proven to be an effective one for MS. But you must show me the scientific evidence first.

A couple of days ago, I was one of three people on a panel for a presentation to a group of health professionals about what it's like to be a research participant. It was part of a series of lunch hour sessions set up for health workers in the Capital District Health Association (which covers all of Halifax and surrounding areas). It was teleconferenced to other sites as well in 4 or 5 other hospitals. Most of the questions had to do with how we felt as "guinea pigs", why we agreed to be in a clinical study and our likes and dislikes about the experience. All three of us were quite positive about our feelings and how we were treated. Learning why we participated was important for these folks to hear as it helps them determine how to ask future participants to be in studies. It was a very cool experience for me as I had never really given any thought to other participants' reasons for being in a study, only mine; I'm curious, I need to know stuff (which they thought was funny). One panelist was given a drug in a different form that was being measured to see if it was more effective or just as effective as it's regular form. The other panelist was in a similar type study. In my case, in my first trial, this was one of the first disease modifying drugs (the other being Copaxone) for MS. Plus, I was in a Phase 3 trial which had the chance of me being on a placebo. The other studies have involved the course of my MS or looking for genetic markers, so have involved MRIs and blood work (both now a walk in the park for me).

And finally, on the bug front, it's almost SUMMERTIME!! Which means warmer evenings and lots of night time bugs. Like june bugs, face down on the pavement trying to drill their way to China. Or carrion beetles searching for meals. Or moths beating themselves against the building under the security lights - picture me below the lights after dark with my net in hand just waiting for them to get within reach. I retrieved a beautiful hawk moth last night which spent the day in my freezer. Taking a nap. In a couple of days I'll take him out, photograph him and preserve him. Pictures will be up before too long of my latest finds.

I promise not to be so lax from now on. Really.

S.

Hip Hop as Intellectual Stimulation and More CSI:Bugs

2010-05-28T15:54:00.000-07:00

Today on CSI:Bugs we have two cases. The first involves an apparent accidental overdose - of pollen. I first spotted this beetle in a tulip trying to escape up the sides of the flower. When I went back a few minutes later with the camera, it was gone. But a third inspection a day later revealed the creature(or one like it) had returned to the tulip and died there. The flower was now a crime scene.

I removed the body for closer inspection (of course) and found a very pretty substance covering most of the insect:

At 60 X magnification, the substance appears to be pollen:

As there was no evidence of use of force (no broken legs or antennae), it was concluded that the beetle died after covering itself in pollen (perhaps interfering with the animal's ability to fly) and then was trapped in the closing petals of the flower at night. Unable to find a warmer spot it froze to death (it has the same appearance of bugs I have deliberately frozen - for scientific seasons). Not really an overdose of pollen, but if it hadn't returned it might have lived.

The second case is still an ongoing investigation. In the front of the building we have a plastic container that holds a garden hose and nozzles for the hose. I open it up on a regular basis and have on more than one occasion removed some wasp, bee, or other bug from inside. Today, a mother paper wasp was in there tending to her nest. She had already made 12-14 hexagonal cells and placed a number of eggs in them and was preparing to make more. Not wanting to be stung this summer while retrieving gardening tools, I gently nudged the mother out (luckily she was woozy from the cold) and removed the under-construction nest:

At 60 X magnification:

I toyed with the idea of raising these babies on my own, but soon realized in a few weeks I will have about 10 hungry larvae demanding bits of caterpillar and other insects for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. What I will do instead is watch the eggs until they hatch into larvae, take some pics and then release them next to an ant hill. This will be a bit of an experiment to see if the ants will take them. The paper wasp secretes a substance on the stalk of the nest (the stalk is the bit that attaches the nest to a structure from which it hangs) and sometimes on the cells. It is apparently an ant deterrent and protects the larvae from being carried away when the mom's not around. If the ants aren't interested in them, then we'll know that the stuff works. If the ants carry them away, then it means that the substance must be regularly applied.

Since I have kidnapped the larvae, and none are dead yet, then the case is ongoing.

Cool, eh?

On a completely different topic, I received an e-mail from my high school friend, Welli. She's a married mom of two teenage boys and she recently started taking hip hop dance classes. She told me it's one of the most intellectually stimulating things she's done in a few years. On the surface that might seem a bit bizarre to hear. After all, Welli is one of the most intelligent people I've ever known and she has a career that required a great deal of education. As well, a lot of hip hop music is lost on our generation (actually, every generation has its own types of music lost on others). So why is this type of dancing so intellectually stimulating?
Welli says learning the steps and routines has been a workout for her mind. And that's the key. I have been extolling the virtues of stimulating your mind while you exercise. Simply going through the motions is not enough to maintain or improve brain fitness. Your brain thrives on novel experiences; that's why I tell you to change up your exercise routine, take different routes on your runs or rides or walks, listen to different music or books or radio stations while you do it (not while riding a bike though, that's not safe), even mixing up the exercises you do. Lately, I have been stepping up onto and over the boulders that line one of the paths I regularly walk. This takes concentration and making judgments about where to put my feet at the same time that it is using different muscle sets than just walking. I am also climbing and walking along benches and hanging from monkey bars on my walks. It is the new, different or novel things that our brain pays attention to and those are the things that increase the number of neurons. That is brain fitness. And that is why a hip hop class can be an intellectual stimulator.

Thanks, Welli.

S.

CSI:Bugs

2010-05-25T15:19:00.000-07:00

I have been negligent of late, not keeping everyone up to speed on what's going on. Thing is, I'm spending a lot of time just waiting for people. Waiting for the gov't to decide if they'll support me while I go to school. Waiting for people to show up for appointments to view an apartment. Waiting for service people to show up to service a broken appliance. Etc.

I could write about my experiences as the female Schneider (a reference to One Day at a Time), but I know that might get me into trouble. Let's just say that when this part of my life is done, I'll be able to write a couple of books about human behaviour. It's interesting and aggravating at the same time and I'll leave it at that.

A couple of weeks ago, I began riding my bike in earnest in preparation for the MS Bike Tour in July. As you know, I've been doing a lot of walking and hiking (and now, biking), yet when the Wookie came out with me on the weekend for a bike ride (after not truly exercising for months) he whizzed past me like there was no tomorrow, leaving me in his dust. On Sunday, I was in tears at the end of our short (7k) ride, frustrated because I was so tired and the Wookie was just fine. My legs were weak, had been the day before as well. Anyway, I pulled it together and we did a nice 10k ride the next day. Lucky for me, my meltdowns are few and far between.

I have been outside a lot, scouting for bugs of course, and being rewarded. Some of them I rush inside to go under the microscope, while others (like the ants) I leave outside and mess with their tiny minds. I find a line of ants, and try to rub out the scent trail, then watch them try to figure out how to get home again. They always do, after a moment's hesitation. Or I push a little sand into one of their entrances and watch them clean it out.

Then there are the dead bugs I find. That got me thinking about CSI:Bugs. This june bug met an interesting end:

It's missing it's head! Wait, there it is, 15 feet away and 3 feet off the ground. Seriously, it's on the top of the lamp pillar in front of the building.

Not having the capacity to do DNA analysis, I will never solve this particular murder. I do suspect it was at the hand of a human, though, as the bug was not eaten. Here's how I think it went down: the bug was flying around the entrance to the building, attracted by the light. A tenant comes along and walks into its flight path causing a reflexive swat by the tenant. The swat is so fast it results in the decapitation of the june bug. Now picture all that in slow motion with the appropriate "Ewwww" and "Gross" as the tenant hits the bug and the accompanying clicking sound as the hard shelled body hits the front walkway and the head hits the cement light pillar.

Oh! And I have begun my fundraising for the bike tour. The link to contribute is on the right.

Bug P*rn

2010-05-17T10:47:00.000-07:00

Sadly, the mystery has not been solved about those vein like things on the underside of my june bug. They may be fungal in origin according to the curator of zoology at the local museum, but he would need a look see at the animal itself. That isn't possible as I set the critter free the next morning.

I did take some pictures today, though of some lady bugs (ahem) doing it.

Nothing like having the word p*rn in your blog post title to drive up readership....

S.

What Is This?

2010-05-14T18:40:00.000-07:00

Click on the video to see the underside of a june bug as its muscles contract. I don't know what the vein-like structure is, but I do have an enquery in to the local museum.

Here it is the middle of May and we're seeing these bugs already. We've had an extraordinary spring for this part of the world and gardens are in full swing. Most folks I've talked to feel we're 2-3 weeks ahead of normal as far as plants and wildlife go.

It's been a rather hectic two weeks. Last weekend of course, in Canada, we have the MS Carnation Campaign plus it was Mother's Day (hi Mom!). I've been out biking to get ready for the bike tour in July and the MS Walk is at the end of this month. And I'm trying to get things straightened away with he government so I can return to school in the fall...whew.

Anyway, I hope to be back to regularly scheduled posts about bugs, bikes, and brains in the next few weeks. The Wookie and I did attend a lecture last night about Genetics and MS (just more reason for my mother to feel guilty). On Sunday, my Mom and I are guest speakers at a monthly meeting of the local CWL(Catholic Women's League). We'll be talking about MS and how it's affected us, our relationship, and how we've coped (or not).

See ya' soon!

S.

PS: Hey Steve - thanks for buying two bunches of carnations for your love goddess.

Ladder Clean Up

2010-04-24T12:19:00.000-07:00

Today was the annual clean out of the fish ladder at Heffler's Mill. I've blogged about this before, but will refresh your memory. The fish ladder was built to aid fish, like salmon and eels, get upstream. The ladder runs next to a falls on the Sackville River and every year at this time, the Sackville Rivers Association cleans out the debris that accumulates over the winter in the rungs of the ladder and in the holding cage at the top. The holding cage is kept open all winter and closed over the summer and fall to allow us to count the number and species of fish traveling through. (We also are able to catch a few female salmon, while they are in the holding cage, that we send to a fish hatchery about an hour away.)

I can help clean out dead leaves, branches, and rocks that get caught in the top and sides of the cage, but I leave the shoveling of the rocks at the bottom of the cage and rungs to younger folks. That's when I usually go on a coffee run for the group of us. So there's not a lot I can do, physically, except sometimes empty buckets of rocks into the main part of the river.

The best part of the exercise, for me, is discovering the creatures that live at the bottom of the cage, normally on the river bottom. First though, pictures of the fish ladder rungs at capacity, and then after we block the water from entering:

I discovered a tangled mass of roots from some long dead plant or shrub that had been washed into the cage. In this mass were the usual suspects, like wormy insect nymphs, rocks, and stones, but also something I was unaware of until today. Pea or fingernail clams!! Tiny little things, freshwater, and food for fish and leeches. Cool.

One of the other volunteers found an insect nymph that would scare the hardiest of Alien hunters, if they were any larger than they are. Take a look at it to see if you can figure out what this nymph will be in another month or two (hint: the eyes and legs are the only thing that remain the same in the adult and the nymph)

If you said "dragonfly" you'd be right. The eyes are really the giveaway.

And while sitting on the edge of the empty holding cage, I spied a worm like creature at the bottom in the muck....a closer look revealed a leech. I took it out for an even closer look and pictures, of course. It stretched out to about the length of my thumb:

Because we had a relatively mild winter, there wasn't as much debris in the holding cage as in previous years. Actually, last year we had to delay the cleaning because the water level was extremely high and the river flow was too fast.

We had several young women join us today, newcomers to the organization, and really hard workers. Hopefully they had as much fun as I did.

S.

Northern Lights

2010-04-21T11:47:00.000-07:00

My property manager, Adena, has a brother living in the northern reaches of Canada. He's a professional photographer and is possibly unaware I have two of his photos hanging on my wall that Adena gave me. I have been keeping track of his and his wife's adventures up north via Adena. The most recent included a picture of the Northern Lights. The reason I really like this one is that it isn't the typical curtain of lights you see in pictures, though those are lovely, too. This one is beautiful, yet haunting. I feel slightly uneasy at the loneliness it portrays.

Rye gave me permission to post his photo of the old gold mine head shaft. It was taken in the early part of April.

S.

Dear Miss Macaulay....

2010-04-16T17:12:00.000-07:00

Birmingham
Dec 27/18

Dear Miss Macaulay:
I will thank your nice Xmas stocking I received. I was very pleased to get the present. Everything came in so handy. I had a very happy Xmas time. I hope you had the same. I am in the 1st Southern General Hospital with the misfortune of having one leg off at the knee but expect to be in Canada in about a month or so. Many more thanks for the presents and a Happy New Year to you.
Yours truly.
Private L. J. G--------

So reads a letter from a Canadian soldier from his hospital stay during the first world war. I have a small collection of postcards and other paper ephemera and one of those items was an envelope with a postal stamp on it indicating it was from a wounded soldier (I had never looked inside the envelope before yesterday so just discovered the letter). The other envelope displays a postal mark with a great war slogan on it: Food will win the war. Don't waste it.

And I also have another letter from a soldier during the second world war who indicates that he'd pay 5 bucks for a hamburger.

The first letter from Private L. G. is so ordinary until he states matter-of-factly that he's lost a leg. The letter could have been written last Christmas by a wounded soldier in Afghanistan or Iraq. I imagine there are plenty of those letters that were written and sadly continue to be written.

I don't know the relationship between the private and the Miss Macaulay he wrote to. Was her Christmas stocking a generic gift to be delivered to a wounded soldier by the Red Cross(women knit socks for soldiers as part of the war efforts at home)? Was it a gift from a potential girlfriend or perhaps a family friend? It would take a lot of detective work on my part to figure out both parties involved, especially the private as his handwriting makes it difficult to decipher his last name. But I may take on the project over the summer.

Two pictures of Max and his twin brother. The first taken in 1928 or so. Aren't they the sweetest kids? The second picture is from May or June, 1942, when Max's brother returned home for the first time after having survived the U-boat torpedoing of the ship he was on. Max is the one in uniform.

And the last picture is Max acting as a gunner. We are coming up to the anniversary of the Battle of the Atlantic, May 3rd. I'll head to the Halifax waterfront to attend the ceremonies (actually, I think it's at Point Pleasant Park which is at the mouth of the harbour and where a large monument is installed to remember our war dead). Wherever it may be, I'll be there.

S.

Barn Door's Open

2010-04-15T09:29:00.000-07:00

In the late 50s a Greek doctor began treating patients who had peptic ulcers with antibiotics. But it wasn't until the early 80s that an Australian pair of researchers began their studies of Helicobacter pylori, a bacteria that appeared to cause ulcers. It took 15 years, but by 1997, the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta (and other academic and medical institutions) were spreading the word about the link between the bacteria and ulcers. The use of antibiotics soon became a standard treatment for ulcers.

So, here we have an idea in the 1950s, unproven to work, or, at the very least, do no harm. For a number of reasons, the Greek doctor did not or was unable to conduct accepted scientific studies. So the idea languished for 25 years until the Australians began their research. And without the research that backed up the idea, the medical community would not get on board.

Now, in the 21st century we have a new idea about multiple sclerosis, CCSVI. And the uproar this idea has caused is unnecessary if folks would stop to think about it for a minute. It is an idea, unproven to work, or, at the very least, do no harm. Yes, it's a very interesting idea. It may have merit. It may add to our collective knowledge of multiple sclerosis, but without scientifically based research, it is not a treatment.

One misconception about diagnosing CCSVI is that it's a simple thing to do. It's not. It requires an ultrasound technician trained specifically to detect 5 factors in determining whether or not someone has the condition. The process takes an hour and a half and at least 2 of those 5 factors must be present for diagnosis. It's not like getting an ultrasound of your baby when you're pregnant.

The early numbers from a survey of 500 people in the US, half of whom have MS, half that don't, show that at most, 63% of the MS folks have CCSVI, and 25% of the non-MS folks have it. We cannot say that CCSVI causes MS unless 100% of MS patients have CCSVI, that CCSVI preceded the onset of MS symptoms, and a host of other conditions are met, not to mention, that those without MS who have CCSVI do develop MS.

Some more interesting stuff is coming out of the American Academy of Neurology meetings going on in Toronto this week. Nearly 50% of those treated in Dr. Zamboni's initial group of 65 patients have had to have the "liberation procedure" repeated. Many of those initial patients were on disease modifying drugs prior to the procedure. The initial trial was not blinded, there was no control group, and the sample size was small.

I have objected to people jumping the gun on this possible treatment for all of those reasons (and more, if truth be told). And even Dr. Zamboni is urging caution to MS patients, telling them to wait until the treatment is thoroughly tested. Kinda late now, Doctor, with people spending thousands of dollars traveling to countries where they can be scanned and have the procedure done.

S.

Check out Science Based Medicine. Steve Gorski has an excellent article on the Greek doctor I mention above. And it's a cool site.

Fishing Trip

2010-04-12T15:31:00.000-07:00

In the summer of '84, after my 21st birthday, my friend (and sometimes commenter on this blog) Steve, came to visit me for a weekend. Steve's a macho kind of dude, who, in university, could have passed for Father Guido Sarducci from Saturday Night Live.

I put him on my sofa bed which he ended up sharing with my two kittens. He called them Garfield and Nermal, though they resembled neither fictional cat. He told me after the first night, he rolled one way, heard a meow, so rolled the other way, and heard another meow. He didn't move for the rest of the night for fear of squishing one. Macho dude....heh...big ol softie is what he was....and still is.

On the Saturday of the weekend, Steve and I joined my friend Glen for a day of fishing. Glen, the boy scout, had boots and gear for all three of us so we set out for a popular river in the area. It was hot, of course, and fishing in boots is not nearly so dry as fishing in chest waders, so pretty soon, both Steve and I had bootfuls of water, which actually kept us from really noticing the heat. As well, Steve, macho-big-city-guy from Toronto, had never been fishing (or even in rubber boots I think), lost his footing a couple of times and fell up to his waist in the water. So he finally just walked into the deepest part of the river and dunked himself. Fishing hat and all.

I don't know how long we were on the river. We came to a tree with a rope swing and Steve and Glen tried it a few times to throw themselves into the river. By the time we were ready to call it a day, we were exhausted, hungry, and soaked. Glen caught 11 fish (and threw them all back), I caught one, and poor Steve caught none. But we had a blast.

Driving home, I offered to make us some grilled cheese sandwiches for supper and the guys wanted to hit the liquor store for some beer as well. Glen drove us to the store and Steve and I walked in, soaking from head to toe, our feet sloshing water in the rubber boots with every step. Quite the sight. Glen dropped off Steve and I at my place, went home to get changed, then returned for supper. I made a load of sandwiches, we each popped a can of beer, the guys sat on the couch, and I sat on the floor. We ate and had a beer and the next thing I know it was 2 hours later, the guys asleep, each at one end of the couch and I had fallen asleep on the floor, and only 3 or 4 cans of beer actually consumed. My laughter woke the two guys. It was only about 9 o'clock on a Saturday evening and the three of us called it a night.

Fishing is hard work.

S.

The Joker

2010-04-08T16:23:00.000-07:00

Finally...the bugs are out and about, flying around. And two nights ago, I came across a moth I'd never seen before. The picture doesn't quite do it justice, as it was the prettiest green, lichen coloured, that makes the perfect camouflage on lichen covered trees. I believe it is a feralia jocosa - The Joker Sallow - but if it isn't, it is one of Feralias. There are at least 5 or 6 that have very similar colours and patterns.

I let it go today and rescued another brown moth that had become trapped in the lobby. And so my nightly forays around the building have begun!

S.

June 29th, 1984

2010-03-30T13:10:00.000-07:00

I don't frighten easily. At least, scary movies generally don't bother me (The Exorcist is my favourite movie), scary TV shows don't bother me (the Wookie won't watch Medium at home alone), and I once planned to spend a night at a supposed "haunted" location with a couple of other university students until they chickened out (Google Mary Ellen Spook for details on the paranormal experiences at our planned destination). But I got a bit of a fright on my 21st birthday.

On my 21st birthday I was living in a small town, working for a small radio station, at my first job after graduating from university the month before. By chance, my very first boyfriend, Glen, lived in this town and we had become friends a few years after we had dated. Actually, his whole family kind of adopted me when I moved there.

But on my 21st birthday, my parents were living overseas and my then-boyfriend and I had broken up the week before. I wasn't exactly feeling like celebrating, but Glen insisted we do something for my birthday. So he picked me up at 6 when I was off the air and we drove across the Canso Causeway to pick up some lobster, then on to a beach in Saint Francis Harbour, close to where Glen and his family owned some land and a cottage. It was about a half hour drive from the town.

Glen was a boy scout and a scout leader so had packed the car with everything we needed. We had pots to cook the lobster in, rolls and butter, knives, forks and nut crackers to open the crustaceans once cooked, tons of paper towels and he even had a birthday cake. We arrived at the beach and dragged everything to a spit of land about a half mile from the car. On this spit of land was a copse of trees with a clearing in the centre and a camp fire area. We filled a pot with sea water, built a fire and put the water on to boil. Even at the end of June, it still took about an hour for the pot to come to a boil (the water is still close to freezing in the Canso Strait at the end of June). Eventually, the water boiled, we dumped in the lobster and within half an hour were eating the meat and rolls until we were almost stuffed.

We were there for a couple of hours and after the meal the two of us lay down in the sand to digest the feast, both of us with our heads on logs and our legs stretched before us. We were about 6 feet apart, the fire lighting the clearing as the sunlight had by this time completely disappeared, our tummies full, and the two of us quite relaxed and getting sleepy; my eyes were closed. A sound came from the trees; Glen spoke," What was that?" "A squirrel," I said.

After a few minutes, another sound from the trees, and again Glen spoke,"What is it?" "It's you trying to scare me by throwing rocks in the woods and making me think it's a bear or something," I replied. Then the two of us laughed. I had caught him.

A few more minutes passed in almost silence, the fire crackling. Another, bigger sound from the trees. "OK, it's not funny anymore"' Glen said, slightly scared and annoyed. "Look at me, Glen"' I said. "Do I look like I've moved a muscle in the past half hour?" My hands were folded on my tummy, I was laying on the sand, my head resting on a log. "Are you serious?" he asked. "Glen, I didn't throw anything into the trees, so it was either you or some other creature." We looked at each other, jumped up simultaneously, and began to throw all our gear into a couple of garbage bags to take back to the car.

That took all of 15 seconds to do and then I asked Glen where the flashlight was. He stopped dead. "In the car."

The man was a boy scout and leader. He packed everything you could think of for a lobster dinner, even getting birthday cake, plus he had thought of a great place for the meal: half a mile from the car with those really awkward round beach stones to break your ankles on as you climb over them. But he didn't bring the flashlight.

We were hearing more noises from the trees so had to act quickly. "Grab me some branches that have lots of twigs still on 'em," I told him as I rummaged for the paper towels. "The fire will give us some light until we get a certain distance away, then we'll just light one of these babies and run for as long as it stays lit," I said, wrapping paper towel around some of the twiggy branches.

Fear is kind of like chicken pox, contagious, though thankfully, not itchy. Glen's obvious fear of the noises in the dark was starting to freak me out. We began to run from the camp fire and the clearing in the trees with a couple of garbage bags in tow, banging around since they contained pots and utensils. We got so far and then stopped because we couldn't see. We lit one of my torches and then ran like crazy until it flamed out and we had to drop it. We lit the next one and ran like crazy until that one flamed out. We had one left and I wasn't sure it was going to get us back to the car in time or if we were going to be eaten by a bear. The third torch was lit and we double timed it, slipping on those round beach rocks, cursing as we went, clanging our garbage bags. As the third torch flamed out the two of us turned around to see how far we had come and in unison we screamed. There behind us we could see the still-burning embers of the torches, spaced at intervals like the devil's footprints leading back to the camp fire. Then we faced in the direction of the car and tried to make it out. Just barely could we see where it was. We ran, tripping and clanging, not even thinking that if anything had been chasing us, it would have been long since scared away by the noise and the torches.

We made it to the car, threw everything into the back, jumped into the front, and locked the doors. Glen started the car and we drove out of there like we were being chased by the devil himself. A few miles down the road we relaxed a little bit and started to giggle. By the time we got back to my place it was full body laughter. We finally settled on raccoon or squirrel or skunk as the creature that had made the sound in the trees.

We had a piece of birthday cake. And the following spring, I was a reader at Glen's wedding. I never told his wife, Sylvie, about my 21st birthday and I don't know if Glen ever did, but it was one of the funniest I've ever experienced.

Glen and Sylvie went on to have 5 or 6 kids.....I honestly lost track. Really nice folks, really nice family. But I suspect they always leave on a night light. I do.

S.

What's New?

2010-03-25T08:42:00.000-07:00

3 weeks ago I began my new part time job: that of resident manager of the building I live in. I handle rental inquiries and any problems the residents may have. It's a perfect fit as I am planning to return to school this fall.

I wasn't having much luck in finding employment in the PR field so decided to go back to being a student. As a life long learner anyway, this isn't such a stretch. My mom went to university in her thirties so I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, except this apple is 10 years older than the tree was when she went back to school. I'm sure my mom won't like being referred to as a tree so I'll end the analogy.

I've been accepted by a local community college for the business administration program and I have to admit to being rather excited about it. This time around (attending a post secondary institution) I'll have none of that late teenage angst saddling my psyche and interfering with study. I'll not be trying to find myself, as I've done that and think I'm cool. I'll have no peer pressure to sucuumb to as there will be few peers, mostly young adults. In actuality, my peers will be the teachers.

In high school I tutored elementary age children whose first language was not English. They wanted to learn, to do better in school, but not for themselves. They were there because their parents deemed it necessary. That was sometimes hard for them because on those beautiful afternoons they wanted to be outside playing. It was hard on me as well because it was difficult to keep them focused. So I had to invent games that involved physical activity in combination with math and English. 15 years ago I was involved with a non profit literacy agency as a tutor and as a member of the board of directors. I enjoyed tutoring, mostly because my adult students really wanted to be there. They weren't learning because of their parents but because they wanted to improve their lives or their children's lives. I fed off that desire to learn.

There's something intrinsically exciting about learning a new concept or how to solve an algebraic equation (ok, for me it is exciting) or suddenly understanding something which has had you perplexed for a while. (The day I understand the concept of time travel the entire world will know as the biggest light bulb on the planet will be visible above my head.) So I am excited about attending a school where the students are young adults who want to learn something to better their lives or to enable them to become contributing members of society. I will feed off that desire.

My folks and the Wookie are excited for me, too. I'm just waiting for some final paper work to go through before everything is set. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Last week was Brain Awareness Week. Were you aware of that? On the Monday, I was at a local hospital as part of a "brain fair" with other organizations involved in brain health. Of course I was there as a representative of the MS Society, speaking with anyone interested in getting more information. Earlier in the day, the new MEG machine had been unveiled. That's magnetoencephalograph - a machine that can measure the magnetic fields around the brain produced by electrical activity in the brain. It's the only one in Canada and I got to take a peek at it (they were giving tours). It will be used for clinical and experimental applications and when combined with MRI pictures can give an even more accurate image of the brain. It's a very cool machine that doesn't require you to be immobile; you can read, watch videos, move your body (as long as you stay seated with your head hooked up and in the machine), and if you need to scratch your nose, no problem. Halifax is fast becoming what Montreal was in the 40s and 50s when the Montreal Neurological Institute was the brain centre of the world. We have some of the most amazing work going on here these days.

We had several days of spring like weather last week. I saw my first bugs of the season, including a very sleepy wasp that wasn't sure which way was up. An iris bloomed outside the front door which had me in a panic as they don't normally come out til May. I found out later, it's an "early" iris, so not one of the kind that we see around Mother's Day. but still, it was a pleasant addition to the scenery around the building. One of the residents has already begun to dig in her garden, which means that I won't be far behind. And the bike will come out of the bike barn a little more regularly. Sadly, I fell behind in the 52 WBC when I accepted the resident manager job as I had to move across the hall (into the model suite) and all that entailed. I also have had to deal with an aggravated sciatic nerve (I think). Since my diagnosis, about once a year or so I have some left hip pain. It arose when I was walking funny, trying to compensate for leaning when my right side was almost useless. Luckily I've only had a couple of sleepless nights. I was speaking with a friend last night who's currently on disability because of his sciatica.

Anyway, as you can tell, it's been a rather busy month. As I get into a new routine I'll be writing more regularly. There's lots to talk about.

S.

Max's Wife

2010-03-15T15:30:00.000-07:00

My friend Max was a sailor with he Merchant Navy until 1952. For 12 years he traveled the world delivering goods ranging from popcorn for India to sea salt for Japan. (I asked about the sea salt, since Japan is an island surrounded by a salty ocean. He said that the sea salt was cheaper to be collected and processed in the middle east than Japan.)

But then Max left the Merchant Navy and signed up with the regular army. He was eventually sent to Germany which was enjoying a boon in industry and agriculture, mainly due to the Marshall Plan. Of course NATO was a young organization with a large contingent of soldiers in Germany, including Canadians, and Max was among them. The German citizens were encouraged to befriend the soldiers living among them, and the soldiers were, in turn, encouraged to befriend the citizens. Many soldiers brought toys and candy for the German children. Max gave some candy to one child who invited him to her home for supper with her family. He had to decline the invitation for that evening but asked to come the next night. It was agreed, and the next night he was having supper with that family. The family included a very pretty 18 year old girl named Krystal...who eventually became Mrs. Max.

A Rant

2010-03-10T18:02:00.001-08:00

The most recent findings related to the whole Zamboni theory come from the USA. While I don't have the exact number of participants in this study at my fingertips (a quick search on Google will turn up the study I'm sure), up to 63% of MS patients tested were found to have the vein occlusion Dr. Zamboni described. Many supporters of the vascular theory are now proclaiming victory saying that this proves Zamboni's case. It doesn't. It adds weight to it, but falls far short of proof of anything.

This study also revealed that up to 25% of non MS participants had the same vein occlusions. That's the part that I found interesting. 25%! These people will now have to be followed (or at least should be) to see if they develop MS as a result of their occlusions.

The two populations must be examined to determine the differences between them and why one group has MS and the other doesn't.

The reality is that both Zamboni's study and the follow up American study add to the whole puzzle that is MS. But they neither prove nor disprove anything.

Did you know that the medical MS field has known about Zamboni and his theory for a couple of years? If it was such a great idea why didn't they jump on board earlier? The simple reason is that Zamboni's research isn't enough. Other people have to replicate his findings.

Trevis Gleason is a blogger for whom I have a great deal of respect. He is much more eloquent than I and much more diplomatic. On a post a couple of weeks ago, I responded with my opinion about Zamboni. Another poster didn't like what I had to say about Zamboni's theory and research and rather than fight on someone else's blog, I'm going to state my case on MY blog.

I said that Zamboni's research was sloppy. To be fair, it was more the presentation of his research that I found sloppy. I had more questions after the airing of the W5 episode he was featured on than I could find answers for. How many participants did he screen for the venal occlusion before he settled on 65? Did he have any control subjects? How many required a second operation to treat the occlusions? Did he do animal studies first? Those are just a few of the questions I had.

I said that Zamboni was unethical in treating his wife. My critic said Zamboni didn't treat his wife, that a colleague did. If Zamboni included his wife in the study, whoever physically treated the woman is irrelevant. She was under Zamboni's treatment and therefore was treated by him. That is unethical. At least, in Canada and the United States it is unethical to treat a family member.

As you can probably tell, I'm still hot under the collar about all this. Why? False hope. I have encountered more people in the past couple of months who are talking about the "cure" for MS. They don't realize this is not a cure. It is an experimental treatment at best, and a waste of money and time (for those willing to spend their savings on travel to a foreign country and an operation) at worst.

Yes, I believe research into Zamboni's theory should continue. But as I've told a number of folks, don't put all your eggs in this one basket. It will be years before we know if this is the cure.

Years ago, it was theorized that MS was caused by Epstein Barr virus, the virus that causes mononucleosis, the kissing disease. Up to 95% of the entire world's population has had exposure to this virus and would test positive for it if given the blood test. Measles affects 30-40 million people a year and many more milliion have been vaccinated or have had the disease and would test positive for it. Measles has also been a suspect in the pathogenesis of MS. My point is that there are more likely suspects than the vascular theory.

And please stop believing that neurologists and Big Pharma are conspiring to keep us from finding a cure. That's just not happening.

S.

One Day at a Time

2010-02-24T16:46:00.000-08:00

I've been missing in action for a little while, but for good reason. I managed to shake my cold and get moving again, unlike a number of people I've encountered recently. This was a doozy of a bug that resulted in pneumonia for one acquaintance and several friends missing several days of work. Anyway, I'm back to my old self (I think), ranting and raving at some stupid politicians' behaviour and the conspiracy theorists out there who think that neurologists and big pharma have it in for Dr. Zamboni and his new theory of MS.

There is some interesting information on the Zamboni front and the latest study figures. 62.9% is far from proof but that's all I'll say at this point. I'm working on another post to address that in the next day or two.

This post is about what I'll be doing over the next couple of years.

Last fall, my friend, and resident manager of the building I live in, asked me if I was interested in becoming the superintendent. I wasn't at that point, thinking full time employment was just around the corner. Since a job hasn't materialized I started to look at various government programs I could take advantage of, and am in the process of applying for one and navigating the various agencies that exist for people like me. It's looking good right now, and I should be attending community college in the fall to study business administration (concentrating on accounting). At the same time, my friend offered me the super position again but as a job share with another woman. Perfect fit. In exchange for handling the tenants and showing the building to prospective tenants (and a few other duties) I get a break on my rent. The other woman I'd job share with will handle all the cleaning around the building. So I'm quite happy about this. Going to school and a part time gig is a pretty good deal.

So I've been fairly occupied for the last two weeks trying to get everything all set up (there is a move required, but just across the hall). One friend asked me if I'd wear a tool belt ala Schneider from One Day at a Time. I don't think so. But I do know how to use a plunger....

S.
PS: Keep this info under your hat until Friday when we tell the rest of the building.

Cold and Flu Season and Max

2010-02-11T04:21:00.000-08:00

Like a lot of folks this time of year, I have had a cold. Just your normal run of the mill head cold that started with a sore throat, then progressed to a cough and finally into my sinuses. I still have it a week and a half later, though there have been definite improvements. The first two days I spent in bed (mostly), taking it easy. In fact I even missed a home game of the Halifax Rainmen, for which we have season tickets. I didn't go for any walks for a couple of days, but even when I began my exercise regime again, it was like I had been down for a year. I only did short walks at first (and just as well as it was minus 20 degrees with a wind chill some mornings) but by last Friday I was back to my normal walking distance. And it pooped me out like I had just run a marathon.

I did a couple of more walks over the weekend but I'm still kind of weak. This morning, I did a short walk, came home, and then biked around the neighbourhood for 30 minutes. I have another bike ride to do this week to make up for last week (remember I'm doing the 52 Week Biking Challenge) and happily my legs weren't as shaky as last month. But, man, this cold has knocked me for a loop.

During the first 7 years of my life with MS, I didn't get so much as the sniffles. But for the past 5 years I have had to put up with one ear infection the likes of which I haven't experienced since I was 10 with tonsillitis, a bout of laryngitis, a couple of colds, and I think one bout with a flu (even though I've been getting flu shots for several years). I haven't felt so weak in.....actually, I don't think I've ever felt this weak before.

Is this MS? Or is it.......gulp......age? Sadly, I have to admit it's probably the aging process. And maybe it was a harder hitting cold than others I've had. Other people I've talked to have remarked how their cold seemed to drag on forever. Whatever. It's working its way through me.

There's a local coffee shop in my neighbourhood that I frequent and since the fall I have gotten to know one of the regulars, Max. Max is almost 85, retired, and a world war 2 vet. He was in the merchant marines during the war and joined the regular army in the 50s. I have been getting some great stories out of him. He grew up in foster homes but had a bad case of wanderlust as he ran away a couple of times before he was able to sign up with the merchant navy. I don't believe he had a hard time in the homes, just that he wanted to go places. He had a twin brother who died 5 years after the war because of injuries sustained during the war. He had two other sets of twin siblings (out of 15 children in that family, 6 were twins). Max told me that his father was only ever home long enough to get his mother pregnant, then took off again. Max and his twin ended up being raised together in foster homes and both joined the merchant navy. Max's brother was on a ship that was sunk by a German U-boat in the Caribbean in 1942. Accounts aren't quite clear as to the number of men on the boat, 36 or 37, but only one was a casualty of that sinking. That sailor's name is on the monument in Point Pleasant Park in Halifax. Here's what Max told me about the sinking as relayed by his brother when he got back to Halifax:

"All the men (except one) made it into the lifeboats. As they were sitting there contemplating what they were to do next, a German U-boot surfaced right next to them. The hatch opened and the captain came out to speak to their captain. He asked if they had water. They did. He asked if they had food. They did. He then gave them their bearings, latitude and longitude, pointed them in a direction and said they'd get to land if they rowed that way. Then he was gone into the sub and the machine itself disappeared into the sea.

The men rowed and three days later they saw land. They had arrived at the Turks and Caicos islands and a few days later, they were picked up by a passing American ship enroute from Curacao to Halifax."

Cool story. And Max showed me a picture of (most of) the men taken at a gathering in Nova Scotia when they arrived. His brother was only 17.

Max's brother later went on to take part in the Murmansk convoys. And Max himself sailed on Norweigan ships aiding those convoys.

My next Max story is about how he met his wife. That's cool, too....

S.

Ode to a Code

2010-02-02T03:44:00.000-08:00

Of all the ills to plague mankind
This is one that eats your mind.

You hack, you sneeze, your eyes they water
You blow your nose (at least you oughter).

Hot, then cold sweats drench your torso
Like men-o-pause but only more so.

Your head it pounds, your body aches;
Upon your bed you lie awake.

You cough up stuff with amazing trajectory,
Your sinuses drain like a major snot factory.

Hot tea, cold juice, warm socks, kleenex
From this grippe, oh Lord, release us.

S.

The Truth is Out There

2010-01-27T09:27:00.000-08:00

Finally. The truth is getting out there. And it will continue to be revealed. Too bad my fellow members of the media failed to do their jobs in the first place and present all the evidence.

I direct your attention to two articles recently published that discuss all of my previous concerns about Dr. Zamboni's Liberation treatment for MS.

Article one.

Article two.

I spoke with a woman last weekend who held out hope for this treatment. When I explained to her that the evidence to support Dr. Zamboni was not there and that there still remained too many unanswered questions for people to be jumping on his bandwagon, she was greatly disappointed. I explained to her, as well, that even if this treatment actually worked, she would not get any better as far as her MS went. It just would not progress. (She is already greatly dependent on a wheelchair)

I asked her if she was a member of the MS Society, had she signed up for any e-mail lists to get up to date and reliable information about MS? No, she told me. Why not? She didn't really give me a good answer. A person with MS for 20 years not asking for information from the MS Society? Where did she get information? From the internet and from people who "cared" about her who heard about different things she should look into.

I am so frustrated, I am almost at a loss for words. Can you say "denial"? What does it take for people to open their eyes and use their minds for themselves? When will they realize that they alone are responsible for their health and they have to research for themselves what they are ingesting or submitting to?

Arrgh. OK, here's an example. A well meaning person years ago told me that I should try Noni Noni juice. So I checked it out. It's an interesting fruit found in the Pacific with a good bit of Vitamin C, though not as much as oranges. That's about all it's got, besides an apparently nasty smell. Claims of its medicinal uses ranged from treating ADHD to menstrual cramps and immune deficiency. Immune deficiency! MSers don't have immune deficiencies, we have overactive immune systems. Do I want to take something that might stimulate my immune system? Nope. My point is that I looked at this juice from both sides. There was no medical literature to support any claims of it being of benefit to me and if I want Vitamin C I'll have an orange. It's cheaper. So I made an informed decision about whether or not to use it.

We do this all the time when we get prescriptions from our docs. We are told why we should take a drug and what might happen if we don't and then we ask about side effects. We then have both sides to determine whether or not we should use the drug.

The other thing that is getting to me about this whole Zamboni affair, are the conspiracy theories that are popping up everywhere. "The docs and researchers are in the pockets of Big Pharma" is the mantra of these folk. "The docs and researchers don't want to look at anything that might put them out of business" is another line I hear. Bull feathers!! Any doc or researcher worth his salt will look at any idea that has merit and ask questions about how it works, and why it could or couldn't be of use.

I was wondering why CTV had not interviewed neuros who had opposing views to Zamboni, as that would have been the ethical journalistic approach. Apparently they did! But they didn't air those bits, which is just as unethical as not asking for opposing views. From this point on I'm afraid that I cannot trust the reporting of CTV on this or any other matter. (My personal boycott of CTV's program W5 will have little impact on them, I'm sure.) To be honest, if I hear a story that makes me think there's more to it than is being broadcast, I will research it. There is little I take at face value and I'm critical of the bigger news machines, especially when they omit information or distort facts. What else have they not told us? What else have they distorted?

As a member of the media for 25 years I had always joking said, "Don't trust the media". In other words, look it up for yourself. Get all sides of a story. Then decide.

Eagle Watch

2010-01-25T14:49:00.000-08:00

We had a pretty busy weekend. The Halifax Rainmen started the PBL season earlier this month and we went to the second home game Friday night. Saturday morning we were up at 5 and on the road to go the Annapolis Valley for the Eagle Watch. I blogged about this event last year and since the Wookie has even more complex camera gear since then he wanted to take more pictures. Sadly, it was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay below freezing so neither of us lasted long after the pancake breakfast so he went back on Sunday. In the meantime we stopped in at a trout ice-fishing tournament to see what was going on. Pretty cool actually. I went into one fishing hut (really a tent) and chatted with the two guys in there. Very friendly. And the inside of the tent was extremely warm as they had a portable heater with them (sitting on a block of styrofoam, of course, so the propane tank wouldn't freeze sitting right on the ice, like it did last year - heh).

So without further ado, some pics of the weekend:

The ice fishing tournament:

Me in the ice fishing tent:

Hole in the ice with a sonar or radar type device called a fish finder:

A bunch of eagles in flight:

One in particular:

While the Wookie went back to the Valley on Sunday I went for a good long hike between Jack, Sandy, and March lakes. I saw plenty of rabbit and deer tracks and the temperature was much more pleasant than Saturday.

time to batten down the hatches as we've got quite the rain storm on the way for tonight.

S.

Apple Crisp

2010-01-22T12:25:00.000-08:00

No News is Good News

2010-01-18T16:38:00.000-08:00

Things have been relatively quiet for the past little while, thankfully. Most of the world is focused on Haiti right now, as it should be, so any complaints I may have are quite minimal. I thought I would share with you a couple of things:

One of my Christmas presents from one of my several friends named Kim. It's a Christmas Tree in a Box. Last year, Kim gave me a lovely ornament and I said I'd hang it on my bike (in the living room), as I didn't have room for a tree. So Kim found me a tree small enough to put on a coffee table and I assembled it on Christmas Eve.

I adore this tree. It's the perfect size and is easily assembled and disassembled. When the holidays are over, you just put it back in the box. And even though we now have a bike barn for our bikes and mine is out of the living room, I still don't have storage room for a big tree, so the Tree in a Box is just the thing!

On my daily walks or hikes, I have been taking an MP3 player with me. It was a Christmas gift from the Wookie. Now I can listen to all those audio-books I've been wanting to absorb. Since my first MS episode, I have had difficulty holding a hardcover book (or anything larger than a regular paperback) with my right hand. There are a whole slew of books, mostly non-fiction, that I've wanted to read but couldn't, when the audio-book idea came to mind. So I've been downloading and absorbing. And it's great! Plus, I've been listening to a few tunes and sometimes get a little dancing in on my walks. Sadly, no pictures of me dancing.

One morning was particularly calm as I trekked to the Bedford Waterfront. It was 7:30 in the morning but all the street lights and walkway lamps were still on and I stopped to sit at the end of the pier. The temperature was rather comfortable and had I planned for it, I could have had a picnic breakfast there.

I have also been observing several ducks on the waterfront. There are about 8 or 9 of these birds and they're rather shy. They dive under water if I get too close and come up 30 seconds later about 100 feet away. I can't seem to get close enough to determine what kind of bird they are, but I'm leaning towards golden eye. With any luck, one of these days I'll find out. My mission for this week I guess.

I had a job interview a week and a half ago, and although I didn't get the job, I can definitely say it was a good experience. It made me realize how much I depend on the written word to keep me on track. Note taking will be my secret weapon from now on. I certainly can't depend on my memory.

On the same day as my interview I brought some lemon loaf to the MS Clinic to mark my anniversary. 12 years now. If my MS was a human, it would just be entering that teenage angst, hormone pumping, pimple popping stage. I just hope it's better behaved than teenagers.

S.

Observation + Imagination = Eureka!

2010-01-13T17:49:00.000-08:00

Picture credit.

I recently re-discovered a cool website: Improbable Research. The authors are responsible for the Ig Nobel Awards, given to people in various fields for research that first makes you laugh and then think. One fella, J. Trinkaus has made hundreds of observations and written them up for various journals. Two of his "studies" stood out for me.

The first:
' “Compliance with Parking for Handicapped: An Informal Look,” J. Trinkaus, Perceptual and Motor Skills, vol. 58, no. 1, February 1984, p. 114.

Observed the compliance with handicapped parking regulations at a suburban neighborhood shopping center.... 30 citings of convenience were taken... Findings show that in the absence of police enforcement, general observance of parking restrictions... was normally practiced only when convenient.'

That didn't surprise me, really. I don't think things have changed much in 25 years. But it reminds me of the card someone once showed me that they leave on cars parked in those spots without the proper permit displayed:

Your handicap must be stupidity.

The second study:
' “An Informal Look at Use of Bakery Department Tongs and Tissues,” J. Trinkaus, Perceptual and Motor Skills, vol. 87, no. 3, part 1, December 1998, pp. 801-2.

Of 108 people observed extracting for purchase rolls or pastries from displayed bulk stock in food supermarket bakery departments, about 90% used their hands for item selection and withdrawal rather than the store provided tongs. In stores where tissues were provided instead of tongs, approximately 60% of the 133 people who were observed used their hands.'

That one doesn't really surprise me, either. I don't dare tell that bit of info to any of the germaphobes I know, though I suspect germaphobes generally stay away from those types of food bins because of that. Even though that study was done 12 years ago, I suspect it still holds true.

My personal observations indicate that common courtesy and common sense are not so common, especially when no one is looking.

Somewhere on that website (and my apologies to the author or authors, I couldn't find exactly where) was the equation "imagination = discovery". I would amend that to "observation + imagination = discovery".

We have all come across reports of studies that we deem ridiculous. "The Marshmallow Effect" was one of them. From Wikipedia: "In the 1960s, a group of four-year-olds were given a marshmallow and promised another, only if they could wait 20 minutes before eating the first one. Some children could wait and others could not."

At first glance, and if you have no knowledge of psychology, this study may seem a little silly, but it demonstrated that even at age 4 the kids could be divided into two distinct groups: those who could delay gratification, and those who couldn't. And then, "The researchers then followed the progress of each child into adolescence and demonstrated that those with the ability to wait were better adjusted and more dependable (determined via surveys of their parents and teachers), and scored an average of 210 points higher on the Scholastic Aptitude Test years later." Now we can all understand the benefits of this study for child psychology (including perhaps teaching your child coping skills to deal with frustration). This experiment is also used to help explain some people's inability to save money for a rainy day. It may also help identify those children with behavioural disorders arising from biological causes (like fetal alcohol syndrome) and enable treatment. So it's not as silly as it first seemed.

Another study a while ago (forgive my inability to find it) that seemed to tick off a bunch of MSers concerned the effect of stress on a person's MS. The study showed that stress can cause a flare up of symptoms. Everyone with MS collectively shouted "duh". But even though MSers already "knew" this, there had been no quantifying information about it. By studying stress quantitatively, we now can do something about it. By observing and measuring the effect of stress on the human body, we better understand the body and its coping mechanisms: the hormones and other chemicals released, how they interact, what systems are stimulated, which ones are suppressed. In other words, the researchers can definitively show a physical reaction to a mental process. And that means we may be able to control (or affect) the physical reactions to a degree. I'm not saying we can control our MS. I'm suggesting that by knowing what may happen in a stressful situation may aid us in dealing with it, perhaps reducing the physical reaction.

To sum it all up, by making observations and using our imagination we will make discoveries and understand.

S.

52 WBC - Week One

2010-01-08T17:36:00.001-08:00

This past year saw my landlord construct a baby barn that sits on the front part of the property. It was built specifically for the few of us in the building who have bicycles and were getting tired of lugging them in and out, up and down stairs, nicking walls and doorways. It is a wonderful addition and greatly appreciated. Although now I haven't got a structure to hang my Christmas ornaments on (but that's another story).

Anyway, about a month ago, I put my bike rack in the barn as well. The day I did that, it was rather chilly, and I had a hard time getting the door open. Couldn't do it actually, without the help of our superintendent, Bruce. I supplied the screwdriver and he did the heavy work. The wood in the door had expanded with humidity, but it never contracted with the cold for some reason.

So today, being the end of the first week of 2010, and my last chance to begin my 52 WBC, I went to get the bike out of the barn. Couldn't do it. Went in to get the hammer to assist with the lock. Went back in to get the screw driver to assist with the door. Fetched the shovel to clear away some snow that prevented the door from swinging all the way open. By the time all that was done, I was pooped. But I was determined to get out on the bike today, as the weather's supposed to get colder tomorrow and for several days after.

I left the barn door unlocked when I went for my ride so I could have a little easier time of it to put the bike away. I was out for 30 minutes cruising around my neighbourhood, stopping to have a handful of mini shredded wheat. The temperature was hovering at -1 degree so my body wasn't cold, but my eyes watered like the dickens, and my cheeks were rather chilled if I pedaled faster than 5 kilometres an hour. Lucky for me, my legs are so not used to pedaling, I couldn't go faster than 5k an hour if my life depended on it. Four months away from the bike and my thighs are slacking off. I guess I have to get some serious hiking in to keep them in shape, as the walking isn't really an effective exercise for those muscles.

Back home, I struggled with the doors again, finally getting Bruce to come out and assist me. By the time I got back I was useless, the legs like jelly, fierce hunger (it was lunch time) making me weak, and a nap beckoning me. We figured out how to get the doors open and closed without the use of tools, though, so hopefully it won't be a half hour exercise to just get the bike out from now on.

And tonight? My legs are still like jelly. I'm afraid what tomorrow will bring. Very afraid.....

S.

Cognitive Reserve Hypothesis

2010-01-05T17:42:00.000-08:00

We all know that neurological disease can lead to cognitive impairment along with possible physical impairment. For many of us with MS, we may have noticed lapses in memory, ability to find the right word (tip of the tongue syndrome), unusual moodiness. Some of these things are part of the aging process, sometimes related to stress and/or hormones, and sometimes they are related to the disease.

How do we hold off these impairments? By the time we realize they exist, it may be too late as damage may have already been done. That's the scary part. However, we also know that the human brain is amazingly plastic and that we continue to learn things as we age, so continued brain stimulation by way of physical and mental exercise may help.

There is a hypothesis called the cognitive reserve hypothesis. It suggests that "enrichment protects against neurocognitive decline secondarily to disease" (from Wikipedia). "Lifetime intellectual enrichment (estimated with education or vocabulary knowledge) lessens the negative impact of brain disease on cognition, such that people with greater enrichment are able to withstand more severe neuropathology before suffering cognitive impairment or dementia." This is from the latest study of this hypothesis.

You can think of it this way. Two people contract a cold. One person is a health nut, eats right, exercises every day, gets the appropriate amount of sleep. The other person is a junk food junkie potato couch. The health nut has a good body reserve to fight off the cold within two days. The junkie, though, has no reserve and suffers for a week. The health nut has an "enrichment" of his health, the junkie doesn't.

The cognitive reserve hypothesis doesn't state that enrichment protects you from cognitive impairment; it simply lessens the negative impact. The two people I mentioned above both caught a cold, but one was impacted less than the other.
Cool, eh? I thought so. And it's related to the current study I'm in, the one about cognitive impairment and brain connectivity. You can bet your boots I'll be watching for more studies on this topic.

Let's face it. We have MS. We know it's neurological and degenerative, affecting physical and cognitive abilities. Some of the damage we have little control over. But there are also some aspects over which we do have control. We can get on a disease modifying treatment as soon as possible. We can eat right, reduce stress, get the proper amount of sleep and rest, stimulate our minds and exercise smart.

I have talked about exercising smart before but will sum it up for new readers or to prod those of you who may have forgotten. Stimulate your mind: do puzzles, but do different ones every day. Mix 'em up. The brain is stimulated by new things. You can do a Sudoku one day, a crossword the next, maybe some logic puzzles the day after, but mix it up. By doing the same ones every day, you become good at those kinds of puzzles, but the brain isn't doing anything new, so doesn't get the same stimulation.

Exercising smart is a pretty easy one. If you go for walks or hikes or whatever and don't have an Ipod or MP3 player, try doing multiplication tables as you exercise, compose a letter in your mind, try to recall a favourite recipe from your childhood. If you have a portable media player, listen to an audiobook, or Spanish lessons, or music that you normally wouldn't listen to. You can download free stuff from the library. Take different routes when you walk or hike. Remember, the point is to give your brain something new to work on. In other words, exercise your mind and body at the same time.

Another way to think of it is like this: your brain looks for patterns, whether it's music or words or what you see. These patterns are ingrained in our brain after years, kind of like the beaten down paths from base to base on a ball field. your brain will take the path of least resistance. If you expose yourself to something new and different, your brain first goes "What?" and then starts to search for familiar patterns. Not finding any, it gets down to the business of processing the information, beginning to lay down a new path. That is stimulation. And it's a good thing.

S.

Seal of Approval

2010-01-01T07:16:00.000-08:00

Just a day or two before Christmas, I was on my morning walk around the Bedford waterfront and a seal popped up in a little sheltered marina. I had never seen one in the Bedford Basin before though I know they're common in the Halifax Harbour. Turns out, they're common in the basin as well. The seal stayed for several days and even crawled up a boat ramp and onto the pier at the south end of the cove where he stayed for at least two days before being removed by authorities or leaving on his own (I'm not sure which it was). Because many people are stupid, police tape and a sign were posted warning folks to stay back from the animal. I got a "far away" picture of him at the very end of the pier. He's just sleeping by the bench.

We've had a mix of weather conditions over the past week or so that is so variable and unpredictable you can be wearing 14 layers of clothing in the morning and only two in the afternoon. As I am typing this we are expecting anything from a major snowstorm to rain this afternoon. Whatever. I'll be out in it, dressed appropriately, walking as usual these days. I have managed to take a few interesting shots of the ice on the river coming from Papermill Lake. The first shot is at the dam.

The second shot is a skirt of ice on one of the pylons that used to support the water pipe that fed the mill for Moirs Plant almost 100 years ago.

New Year's resolutions: none really, though I have now officially signed up for the 52 WBC. I'll be taking the bike out for at least 30 minutes every week for the next year. I have to work on my abs (they are under there somewhere). Oh, and get a job.

S.

Still Here

2009-12-29T16:31:00.000-08:00

Greetings one and all. I hope Christmas was a good one for you and the food was plentiful and the annoying relatives minimal. I have been on a self imposed blogging holiday to concentrate on other things, like shopping, baking, parties, and the like.

I also needed to get a little distance from the whole CCSVI thing. Many people have been asking me about that "vein" thing and while doing follow up internet look ups on it (and speaking with MS professionals), I have even more questions of my own. I have spent much time explaining how it is supposed to work and why, and then I spend the same amount of time posing questions that remain to be answered. Most folks I speak with understand once I explain and they also understand why we can't leap into this without further research. More than once though, I have found myself wishing that CTV had spent some time talking to Dr. Freedman (of the Ottawa clinic) before airing that W5 documentary in order to get a more balanced look at what Dr. Zamboni has and has not done in his research. I suppose it's up to people like me to spread the word of cautious optimism.

I have continued to follow comments from people about this discovery and I am amazed at the amount of paranoia and conspiracy theory that abounds. I supposed it's o different than the conspiracy theory that surrounds cancer research. In case you aren't up on these theories, some folks speculate that there will never be a cure for cancer (or MS or whatever) in order to keep all those researchers and doctors and drug companies rolling in the dough received from drug treatment sales.....um, yeah.....

Anyway, I have managed to keep on walking 4-6 kilometres most days so am enjoying the exercise. I am also seriously considering joining the 52 WBC. That's the 52 Weeks of Biking Challenge, where you bike at least 30 minutes every week of the year. Kind of cold this time of year, and slippery at times, but I think for the weeks with nastier weather, I can pull out the mountain bike and stick to off road trails. Of course by April/May, I'm on the bike for a minimum of 30 minutes a day, so that's not a problem. There are hardier souls than I who ride to and from work every day no matter the weather, so I think I can do at least 30 minutes a week.

In the coming days I plan to tell you about the seal that has taken up residence not far from my home, the audio books I can now listen to thanks to a fantastic Christmas gift, courtesy of the Wookie, a job interview in the new year, and some fun stuff like the great lemon loaf I made at Christmas. A tradition I have just begun.

S.

I'm Still Here

2009-12-13T07:18:00.000-08:00

Greetings! Been a little busy with Christmas just around the corner, sending out resumes, etc. and helping to stock the Sackville and Little Sackville Rivers with trout given to the Sackville Rivers Association by the Department of Fisheries. Last week we were given 7 2 year old hand reared trout for our aquarium at the Community centre and I arrived just in time to fish one out of the garbage can and put it in. Then we headed out to make 4 stops and release 2000 fingerlings into the rivers. Way cool.

On the MS front I've spent more time explaining, to those curious enough to ask, the pros and cons of Dr. Zamboni's findings and theory. I stopped in at the clinic last week, too, and the nurses there figure that every clinic in the country lost a week because they were on the phone explaining this vascular theory to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who called. While they understand the media has a job to do, they wish they were a little less quick out of the blocks to report "cures". Or at least explain the pros and cons rather than just the pros. From what I've read, some people were angry that Canadian doctors and researchers aren't jumping on the Zamboni band wagon right away. I'm not sure why CTV did not get opposing viewpoints to this theory before they broadcast the W5 episode. They have interviewed Dr. Freedman of the Ottawa MS Clinic before about his stem cell research and experiments so why not talk to him again. Especially since Dr. Freedman was aware of Zamboni's findings before the program aired. Actually, I had read something very briefly a few months before the broadcast and thought it looked interesting, but there was little buzz about it then so put it at the back of my mind. *Sigh*. As is so often the case with research, more questions than answers arise.

S.

Milfoil and Wintergreen

2009-12-01T17:03:00.000-08:00

Photo by Alison Fox, University of Florida, Bugwood.org

The water milfoil (from French, milles foille, meaning 1000 leaves) is an invasive aquatic plant found world wide. It can get quite long and tangled and is sometimes found in masses on the surface of ponds or lakes, blocking sunlight from reaching under water plants and choking them out. It can live in pretty extreme water conditions, too, so pollution has little effect on it. Which is, in our case (the Sackville Rivers Association), a good thing. It's a great collector of crappy stuff in waterways.

Sebastien, our resident plant expert, and I went out today to harvest some of this water plant, what little is still alive at this late stage of the fall. At this point I must set the stage. As you know, I've been doing a lot of walking in all temperatures and conditions this fall. Cold, wind, rain, whatever is going on I'm dressed for it, but today, Sebastien asked me, when I picked him up, if I still wanted to go. It was freezing and windy and there were snow flurries. I was dressed for it so said of course. He got his son's chest waders for me to wear and we were off. We didn't have to travel far, only a kilometre or so, and we were on the land of a local lumber company that has set aside a piece of land as a green space. Included in this property is Feely Lake, our destination. We put on the waders (mine were a touch too small in the legs) and we were off. Because the waders didn't allow me to bend my knees farther than, say 20 degrees, I ended up walking like a penguin. For 50 feet along the fence, across a stream that came over my knees, and around the end of the fence I waddled. I also needed help going up inclines.

Anyway, we made it to the lake and started wading along the edge to retrieve the plants. I think we walked 2-300 metres along the shore with the wind and snow flurries around us. There were some obvious beaver signs and the bottom of the lake is rather sandy so there'll be a bunch of leeches for me to check out next summer. Sebastien also said there's a lot of eels there as well. After gathering a bag full of the milfoil, we climbed out of the lake and walked through Acadian forest back to the fence. Along the way, Sebastien pointed out wintergreen (Eastern teaberry) and picked a couple of berries for me to try. They taste like....wintergreen! Of course. Why was I so surprised? Anyway, I also tried the leaf of the plant which is also strongly flavoured - but even more so, and rather bitter. I'm afraid I had to spit the leaf out.

All in all, and despite my waddling, it was a great little trek into an area I'd not visited before. Sebastien will hang onto the plants we collected until (maybe tomorrow) he and other members of the group can get them to areas along the Little Sackville River for river remediation since the oil spill last month. I'm hoping to join them as well at some point...and will remember my camera this time, too.

S.

Cautious Optimism

2009-11-27T17:28:00.000-08:00

It's been a week since the announcement of CCSVI -chronic cerebro-spinal venous insufficiency - and sadly, I'm detecting dissension in the ranks. Like many announcements, or press releases for that matter, that declare a "new" treatment/cure/theory about any disease or condition, there are people who jump on the bandwagon and those who disagree vehemently, while most of us sit back and watch the fireworks.

MS Society offices world wide have been inundated with calls from people about this latest development. People want an operation to open their clogged veins. They want x-rays or sonograms of their neck to determine if they have clogged veins. Clinics are probably swamped with calls from folks wondering why this "treatment" isn't being offered yet. And people are angry that some researchers aren't completely on board with Dr. Zamboni's ideas.

If you are one of these angry people, take a breath. Now take another.

OK. Still with me? Dr. Zamboni's "treatment" is experimental. And from what I've been able to glean from a few sources, his research is not quite up to snuff as far as scientific methods go. However, both the MS Society of Canada and the NMSS in the US are taking a serious look at his ideas. His ideas have merit even if his methodology does not. The next step is to have MS researchers propose, design, and execute large, well-designed studies. If Dr. Zamboni's research and results can be replicated, then we can get all excited about a possible treatment or even cure for MS.

One critic of researchers who aren't jumping on the bandwagon used the example of ulcers and how they are now treated versus how they were treated 20 years ago. 20 years ago, it was generally believed that ulcers were the result of stress until helicobacter pylori was discovered to play an enormous role; a role eliminated by antibiotic treatment. But that discovery and its proof was 20 years in the making. The critic was making the point that the established medical community pooh poohed the idea of bacterial infection causing ulcers.

20 years! The researchers who re-discovered (it had actually been identified almost 25 years earlier) the bacteria responsible for up to 80% of ulcers, had to study, investigate, and experiment for 20 years before their treatment was deemed a good one (and effective) by the medical community.

Dr. Zamboni has stressed how he believes that MS is a vascular disease. But it has been proven that MS is a disease of the immune system. There's nothing that says the immune response in MS patients can't be caused by a vascular malformation that causes iron to stay in the brain which in turn prompts an immune response resulting in MS. In fact, we don't know what causes the immune response to begin with. Remember all the hype about Epstein Barr virus? That's why it is so important to conduct research about this theory. Because it is a theory.

A number of people are thinking that they should just give up on their current treatments in the hope that Dr. Zamboni is correct. Think again. It'll be years before we know if his theories are correct. And by staying on your current treatment (if it's working for you), you will be that much further ahead when and if a cure is declared.

Which leads me to my final point about this whole thing. Let's say this experimental treatment does work and stops MS in its tracks. Does that mean that if MS has left you unable to walk that you'll suddenly be walking again? We don't know. MS causes permanent damage to our brains. Damage that we probably cannot undo. So even if we stop MS, we may still be left with deficits and disability. And those deficits may possibly be recovered only through remyelination and/or extensive physiotherapy, if at all. It makes sense for us to stay on the treatments we have right now, to stave off future attacks and severity of those attacks so that when a cure is declared we'll have lost as little ground as possible.

Cautious optimism. That's what I'm feeling about this whole "discovery". It's very exciting to suddenly find a new piece of the puzzle. But remember, it's a piece.

S.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

2009-11-26T15:01:00.000-08:00

What is "MS" tired? It is not the usual sleepiness you feel after lunch. It's not the dragging feeling the morning after the night before. It's the "get me to a bed before I drop to the floor in the grocery store" kind of feeling. It's giving your shopping cart full of groceries to a stock person to put away because you just can't make it through the checkout. It's going to a baby shower and leaving after an hour because you can't hold a plate with cake on it for one minute more. It's not going to movies because you're afraid the low lights will allow you to drift off during the trailers and not wake up until the movie's over. It's getting home from work and going straight to bed without eating supper because you just don't have the strength to put food in your mouth (and then waking up famished and grumpy because of low blood sugar).

MS fatigue can hit at any time. Middle of the morning or afternoon....after a full night's sleep, it can hit two hours after you get up. What you have to do is manage it.

For the past couple of years, I have napped on weekends. Saturday and Sunday afternoons would find me curled up in bed instead of outside playing. I would fight the fatigue all week long, drinking cup of coffee after cup of coffee. I don't think the caffeine kept me awake so much as my bladder. Most days after work, I'd go home and put my feet up for a rest, sometimes having a short nap. But since I was laid off I've been napping like Rip Van Winkle.

At first, I thought I was just catching up on sleep, as I hadn't had any length of time off since last year. I decided to take the rest of the summer off and hiked, biked, and napped. By September I was ready for a more regular routine but come lunch time every day I was zonked. I could have slept in til 10 but by noon I had to go back to bed. Very strange. A month of that and I was getting a little concerned. I wondered if I was depressed, as constant sleeping is a symptom of that; I realized that once I had a nap I was fine, so, nope, it wasn't depression. I concluded it was that dreaded MS fatigue.

I've had short bouts with that fatigue over the years; a day or two of rest and I seemed to be recharged. Even sometimes at work, simply laying (lie-ing?) on the floor for 10 minutes would be enough to get me through my day. This time, though, rest didn't seem to be helping in the long term. I initially felt that if I were going to have any physical manifestations of stress from the lay off, I'd see them about 6 weeks after the fact. And that appears to be what has happened. For all of September and October I can count on one hand the days I didn't have a nap.

There are a number of things you can do to maximize your energy levels if you are subject to MS fatigue. I won't get into them here, as people more learned than I have detailed them on their blogs or web sites. I'm trying to do all the things they talk about, eating right, regular exercise, blah blah blah. But I was still exhausted at one o'clock in the afternoon. And once I start working again, I doubt they'll let me go home for a 2-2.5 hour nap.

I stopped in at the MS clinic a couple of weeks ago to talk to Mike, one of the clinic nurses, about meds for fatigue. Long story short, I've got a prescription for amantadine. That doesn't mean that I can't still have the occasional nap, but now I have the choice.

S.

Another Iron in the Fire

2009-11-20T16:43:00.000-08:00

Here's the CTV report that aired tonight (November 21).

CCSVI - chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency - where to start.....iron is an important building block for our bodies; it's necessary to maintain health, it's vital as a matter of fact. but like anything, too much of a good thing can be bad. There's a condition known as hemochromatosis which results in an accumulation of iron in various organs of the body, leading to pain and eventual death unless treated. A friend of mine has this illness and simply goes once a month to have a pint of blood removed from his arm. We all know about anemia, too little iron in the blood, also fairly easily treated.

But what happens if iron is trapped in a person's brain? It is considered a foreign invader and is attacked. And when our immune systems go on the defensive, their activity is conducive to an inflammatory response. Inflammation results in damage not only to the bad cells, but sometimes the good ones, too, like myelin, which is what MS is. Does the presence of iron assist in breaking down the blood/brain barrier?

Why would we have iron trapped in our brain (actually, iron deposits around cerebral veins)? Perhaps because the veins carrying blood from our brains is blocked from draining properly, and/or perhaps it refluxes (think acid reflux) - goes back a little where it just came from before finally draining.

Now why would the veins be blocked? It may be that some of us are just born that way.

So the next questions concern the chicken and the egg. Did a congenital malformation contribute to or even cause my MS or did my MS possibly cause a malformation? Or is there a gene that expresses both MS and the malformation? Does the presence of different types of malformations determine the type of MS a person has? Is it possible that the malformations are side effects of, or made worse by, MS drugs?

This venous malformation results in a few different things, one of which I find of particular interest: hypoxia. This is basically oxygen deprivation. Besides unconsciousness, another result of hypoxia is fatigue. Oh, boy, can I relate to that.

Dr. Zamboni has discovered CCSVI and made the link with MS. I'm impressed with this guy. His wife has MS and he wants to make her better. He and other researchers are now looking at this new connection of vasculature with MS, so that means more questions, but maybe more answers for those of us with MS.

And Dr. Zamboni has a really cool last name.

S.

Is There a Doctor in House?

2009-11-19T03:55:00.001-08:00

Anyone watch "House" the other night? For the first time since the show began, I actually figured out the illness before too long. It had to do with the Hygeine Hypothesis - eating dirt as a kid offers some protection against things like asthma and Crohn's and Colitis...and, I might add, MS.

I've explained this theory before - see Diet of Worms. There are studies under way using helminths(worms) to see if and how they improve certain conditions. And the patient in House was finally given a glass of water to drink with the worms in it. Cool.

Speaking of protection, I went to a clinic this week for my seasonal and H1N1 flu shots. We've had different groups selected each week to go to these public clinics and my group finally came up. But be forewarned. My arm is a still a little sore. The H1N1 vaccine is a little more intense than the regular flu shot. Actually, the shot itself is relatively painless, but the after effect is a little harsher.

Aside from the usual controversy about vaccines in general, there are people who don't think they need a flu shot or shouldn't have one because of MS. Wrong. If you have MS, you are still susceptible to the flu, swine or other type. And we all know what a fever can do to those of us with MS, so why wouldn't you get a flu shot? Unless you're allergic to the components of the vaccine, get your shots. Apparently it takes 10 days or so for the immunity to kick in....so here's hoping I don't run into any sick people for the next week.

S.

Busy Week

2009-11-15T16:00:00.000-08:00

The past several days have gone by like a blur. A friend of my family passed away over a week ago and my mom has been dealing with our friend's home and contents, leaving my dad without transportation to and from skating (Dad skates at least 3-4 times a week) so I was helping out with that. Of course there was the funeral to attend as well. I used to house and cat sit for Norma and her husband John when they took trips. Norma was a really neat lady, kind and gentle, and will be greatly missed.

Of course, the clean-up has continued on the Little Sackville River after the oil spill. I went out Saturday morning with one of the other members, Sebastien, to collect certain plants that are useful in this sort of thing. Sadly, it's so late in the year, that most aquatic plants he wanted were long since gone. We ended up gathering two garbage bags full of cattails, though, so the search wasn't wasted. The rest of the morning was spent meeting up with other members, running errands for supplies, and ferrying said members to the spill site. I couldn't stay for the actual "work" (I timed that well, didn't I?), but they spent a couple of hours setting up stakes and burlap as filter material. I hope to get to the site again tomorrow to see how well our rainfall and mild temps today dispersed the clumping oil. It was clumping because of the cold.

Here's a picture from 3 weeks ago on the morning of our last River Ranger group. My location was in the shade and after spending 20 minutes in the shade, in and out of the river to get rocks to find bugs, I was frozen and stood in the sunshine to try and thaw out. My face was frozen to the point where I was beginning to lisp. And I had two more groups to work with at that point! You can just make out my breath coming out as a cloud:

The Wookie and I also attended the AGM of the MS Society Atlantic Division on Saturday afternoon. One of the Board members' term is finished and we wanted to say thanks; he's also a founding member of our Bike Tour Team , The Cycle Delics. And there was a presentation by Dr. John Fisk, who is leading the end MS Regional Research and Training Centre for Atlantic Canada. 5 of these centres were set up in May of this year as part of the endMS campaign in Canada. I had wanted to meet Dr. Fisk as he's conducting one of the studies I'm currently enrolled in. He spoke about a number of activities that have occurred since the centre began including the exciting work by some of the med students. One of the foci of this campaign is to attract new people to the field of MS research. There are scholarships and grants being set up to retain some of these talented people and as they have a chance to do first hand work with current top notch researchers, it should help. The picture below is the first group of endMS summer students in Halifax this year:

After the AGM, we headed back to Lower Sackville to a pool hall where a fund raiser was being held for the Sackville Rivers Association. I wanted to just make an appearance, bid on some silent auction items and go home. Which is exactly what we did. I'll find out tomorrow if we won any of the items we bid on.

And I have managed to get in 4-6 kilometre walks almost every morning. Now, it may seem like I'm kind of pushing myself a little too hard, and you're probably right....but get off my back. The past week was an exception to my usually more laid back schedule. I'll behave better this week. I promise.

S.

Vandals are Idiots

2009-11-10T12:39:00.000-08:00

Sunday morning an oil leak of 600-700 litres was discovered in Lower Sackville. Sadly, it was an act of vandalism; the vandals cut a line from an oil tank and the oil spilled out, into the ground, and into storm drains which led to the Little Sackville River. So the Sackville Rivers Association along with government agencies have been trying to clean up the mess. Today I went to the spill site and the site where the oil was flushed into the river to check on the health of the bugs. Just below the storm drain outflow into the river, most of the bugs and invertebrates I rounded up were dead. Just above the outflow, I checked the bug life and it was good: varied and moving quickly.

A little further downstream, I checked for bug life again and all I found alive were two snails(!). As I walked along the side of the river, the rocks below my feet would sink into the mud and oil would come to the surface. the booms and other absorbing materials that were put out are doing their job, but not enough.

The smell of the oil in the water is enough to keep fish from swimming upstream to spawn. The oil kills life in the river from fish to invertebrates. It also kills any fish eggs already laid.

The owner of the oil tank may have been the target of the vandals, but the victims include the entire community who use the Sackville Rivers system for recreation, and at least two hundred volunteers who have put in countless hours to improve, protect, and teach about this watershed.

I hope the idiots who did this are caught and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

S.

Waving at Trains

2009-11-05T14:52:00.000-08:00

Remember as a kid, if you were walking by railroad tracks and a train came by, you'd wave at the engineer and make a motion of pulling on a cord? Then he'd wave back and blow the train's horn? Yeah. Good times, eh? I still do it. And it's been happening more frequently of late as my walks have taken me close to railroad tracks. I still get a bit of a rush when I hear a train and look eagerly to the engine and try to catch the engineer's eye. Then I wave like a bloody fool. Depending on the hour, I'll make the pulling motion, too. I don't do it if it's before 9 in the morning as I don't want to unnecessarily wake up the people sleeping in. My reward? Getting a wave and a honk back. I love that! Who doesn't though?

I've been getting job alerts via e-mail about anything having to do with public relations. This morning's included an opening for a train engineer. One of the requirements for this job involved some measure of public relations, which at first had me puzzled. Until I read the full ad. The public relations part of the job was "waving to people". I actually laughed out loud. How great is that?

S.

Winter's Coming

2009-11-03T04:39:00.000-08:00

This is part of Papermill Lake, about half a mile from where I live. It's the source of loon calls in the late evening and early morning. You can tell by the slight fog above the lake surface that the water is warmer than the air - one of the first signs of the impending winter.

Another sign is the frost everywhere first thing in the morning:

Yesterday afternoon Walter and I went bug hunting to supply one of the classrooms that hadn't made it out on a field trip. I giggled every time I saw a pile of pebbles moving up the side of the tub. Those are caddisfly larvae, the ones who build themselves mobile homes. Different species build different styles of home, using different materials. This one uses pebbles to construct a half-football shaped home:

Flip it over and you see the larva inside:

A couple of weeks ago I encountered a wasp that was quite dopey from the cold. That's the only way I'd handle this animal:

Pretty soon it'll be too cold for any insects at all, unless I want to go wading into a river and hunt for the aquatic bugs. Which I may have to resort to doing. So if you see some idiot in the depths of winter wading knee deep into a stream with a tub and paintbrush in hand, it's me.

S.

Passing the Torch

2009-11-01T02:29:00.000-08:00

For the past several weeks, I've been a facilitator for the River Rangers program offered by the Sackville Rivers Association. The guy who runs the program, Walter Scott, is a retired teacher who goes into classrooms (usually grade 4) and with the teacher gets the kids excited about ecology, biology, and conservation. All the classrooms are given an aquarium which we stock with a few species of fish and the kids and teacher are given instructions on how to care for the fish. Then the kids get to go on a field trip to either the Sackville or Little Sackville River where they have a hands on experience. There are three stations set up. One is a general type "What kind of fish live in the river?" station, where the kids learn about the different species of fish. The second station involves water chemistry where they get to test the pH of the water, and the third station is all about invertebrates; bugs, leeches, and other creatures that inhabit the rivers.

Guess which station I'm facilitating? The kids are given tubs, brushes, and strainers and then we hit the water, collecting the slimiest rocks we can find, putting them in tubs of water, and brushing them clean to get the "bugs". Then we strain the water in the tubs, they're given fresh water for their bugs and they set about identifying them. At the end of the session, we collect all the "bugs" into one communal jar and they can take them back to their classroom to put in the aquarium with their fish.

The kids learn about the importance of bugs in our rivers as fish food, cleaners of detritus, and as markers for pollution. There are mostly larvae and nymphs of stone flies, mayflies, caddis flies and dragonflies, but we quite often get snails and freshwater shrimp and the occasional leech.

Usually all the field trips are done by mid October, but we kept getting tons of rain that resulted in higher than safe levels in the rivers which meant postponing and rescheduling trips. Last Friday we had to cut short the trip already underway because of the cold and windy conditions (plus there's always one kid who slips and falls in the river and is completely soaked through) . Yesterday's trip was a go despite the freezing temperatures, but my face, fingers and toes were numb by the end of it.

The kids are quite funny when it comes to bugs. Most say that they think bugs are cool. Those who don't think that way become converts by the end of it. There are parents who come along as well, as chaperones, of course. Some of them are a little grossed out by the bugs, but usually become converts, too.

At the end of the trip the kids are all taken on a short walk to hear about how they can help keep their environment, and thus the rivers, clean. And hopefully, as they get older, they'll get, or stay, involved with the Sackville Rivers Association.

S.

Heart in throat

2009-10-27T17:10:00.000-07:00

I have managed to do quite a bit of hiking and walking of late despite the fluctuation in weather and temperatures. Last Saturday for example, I was out traipsing around as it hailed and the temp hovered around the freezing mark. Sunday morning, in the pouring rain and gusting winds, it was almost tropical, warm enough for shorts and t-shirts. This morning, the temp was back to freezing as I hiked the woods around Jack's Lake. It was soggy and mucky as we've had more than our share of rain for the month, but it was a great hike anyway.

On Sunday, with the temperatures so moderate, I thought I might find some insects that were fooled into thinking that it was still summer. Not only did I find bugs buzzing around, but even a tiny salamander. I put it under the microscope only because their little toes are so cute, but then I discovered something I didn't know about the little guys. Their hearts are in their throats! I've had a few close calls over the years that left me feeling like my heart was actually in my throat, but never thought there was a creature who lived like that. I took video of course and as you watch it, look at the little red thing pulsing in its throat. How cool is that?

S.

Did It Leave a Mark?

2009-10-17T04:20:00.000-07:00

When I was 16, I was in a drama class. We wrote a play and were in rehearsals one afternoon after school, when I was kicked in the head. It was completely accidental, during a fight scene, but it was a pretty hard foot to my noggin. I brushed myself off while the kicker kept apologizing and we carried on with the rehearsal. 20 minutes later, I was feeling not so good, seeing those black spots before my eyes getting larger and larger until I was momentarily blind. I thought I was on the verge of passing out so sat down and my vision quickly returned.

I really didn't give it a second thought as there was no headache and my vision stayed fine for the rest of the day. The next morning, after getting up I went in to see my mother. I started to faint and the next thing I knew, she and Dad were helping me into my bed. My stomach was beginning to display unpleasant behaviour at that point and my folks determined I was to stay home from school for the day. I hadn't told them about the kick to the head; either it didn't occur to me to tell them or I forgot. And I didn't put the kick together with the fainting, vision loss, or sick stomach. We chalked it up to the fact that I was burning the candle at both ends.

In fact, until this week, I simply remembered the events as they occurred. Then I was watching a report on TV about football players, concussions, and the higher incidence of certain neurologic conditions in players with many concussions. The light went on over my head and I suddenly realized I had probably suffered a concussion myself, albeit 30 years ago.

There's a piece of my medical history I had completely ignored (of course, I han't realized it was part of my medical history) but one that I will talk to the clinic about next week. Any injury to our brain forever alters it to a degree. That's not to say that any brain injury cannot be overcome. Everything we eat, breathe, or do to and with our bodies affects the brain and can alter it. So can even simple concussions.

There is some evidence to suggest that a traumatic brain injury may partly contribute to the development of MS, but the current information isn't sufficient to say one causes the other. And most recently, dysfunctional brain blood flow and/or drainage may also contribute to MS. Maybe my apparent concussion 30 years ago did permanent damage to my brain, opening the door to those dreaded viruses we hear about that may be linked to MS. It was almost a year after the kick to the head that I came down with mono - caused by the Epstein Barr Virus. Sadly, I got the kissing disease, but not from kissing someone.

I called my mom last night to tell her about the kick to the head; it was news to her, of course. I also wonder, from time to time, about my classmate and fellow actor, JT. Does he remember kicking me in the head?

S.

Is My Brain Connected?

2009-10-10T06:35:00.000-07:00

Picture is from Wikipedia.

This is the latest study I am involved in:

"Brain Connectivity and Executive Functioning in MS (MRI Scanning Assessment)

This study may help us identify differences in the brain structure of persons with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) who have problems on tests that require speeded thinking and processing of information.

In this study we will be using Magnetic Resonance Imaging to give us a picture of a person’s brain and a way of analyzing these pictures, called diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) that shows us the connections between different brain regions. We are using DTI to see if we can identify whether people with MS who have problems on tests that require speeded thinking and processing of information have disruption of specific connections. Another imaging method, called functional MRI (fMRI) will also be used to see if brain regions with these connections are working together. This will help us to understand whether the tests of speeded thinking, DTI and fMRI are good ways to investigate these problems for people with MS who have concerns about their thinking. To do this we will complete MRI scans on about 6 persons with MS who have problems on these test and 6 who do not. DTI and fMRI scans are experimental MRI methods that are not used in regular clinical care of people with MS.

Because MS is a disease that can affect the brain at any time, and because people can get better on some tests with practice, we also want to look at whether there are changes on MRI scan and changes in test performance over time. To do this we will ask the people who are selected for the MRI part of the study to repeat some of the tests and the MRI six times, at one month intervals."

So basically, they give me a bunch of speed and processing tests (including the dreaded PASAT or Piss test -as I call it) then put me in an MRI machine and take pictures to check out the brain connections I have or don't have, as the case may be. Two weeks ago, I went in for the tests and last Saturday I had the first of six scheduled MRIs. 5 more to go.

In the past two months I have given 4 brief talks about the importance of the MS Society to me. I was asked to speak to employees of different government departments who are involved in the current United Way campaign. As the MS Society of Canada is a member agency of the United Way, it's important to talk to folks about what the MS Society does so people can know more about where their donated dollars go. Response has been really good so far, and the folks I've talked to will go back to their co-workers armed with more information about MS, encouraging them to donate to the United Way, or to the MS Society directly. I really enjoy these short talks because I can demonstrate to these people what I'm doing for the cause. Then I ask them to do their part. When they hear that I volunteer for these MRIs or neuro-psychological tests, they are impressed. I only hope they're impressed enough to give some of their hard earned dollars.

As an unexpected bonus, I have been able to do some networking, which I hope leads to a paying gig one of these days.

S.

Feelings....Whoa Whoa Whoa, Feelings.....

2009-10-06T03:50:00.000-07:00

I've always been a touchy feely kind of person. When talking with friends, it's not out of the ordinary for me to touch their hand or arm, and hugs are always in abundance with greetings and farewells. And of course, like many people, I am drawn to touch things that appear soft. Actually, touch continues to be a way for me to learn about what I see.

When I was 10, we went to midnight mass on Christmas Eve. Being 10, I was up way past my bedtime. We got there a little late; there was only standing room in the church. I was standing right behind a woman wearing a fur coat of some sort, and of course, couldn't resist touching it. And fell asleep leaning against her with my face buried in the coat. Mmmmm....so soft.

The most horrifying thing for me in the months after I was first diagnosed was discovering that I couldn't feel anything on the right side of my body. Pain, softness, temperature; all those things didn't register. Which was convenient when my heel got caught in a heavy sound proof door and when I sliced open my thumb on a can, both cuts drawing blood. I was reminded of people with Hansen's Disease, leprosy, who have to maintain a vigilance about their bodies in order to avoid injury. Leprosy destroys peripheral nerves and leaves the sufferer open to infection because injuries aren't felt.

So for a couple of months, my ability to feel was impaired. The feeling began to come back and it was painful. Clothing was painful. I would do anything to avoid people touching the right side of my body, so I used a cane with my right arm to keep people away from that side. As bad as the pain was, it meant that feeling was returning so I didn't really mind it. Not having any feeling was worse than any pain I could feel.

Bees are one of the things I want to touch. They look so fuzzy, they must be soft to touch. But have you ever tried to touch a bee? They're not really into that. But I've done it a few times. Once when a bee was soaked from rain and other times when the temperatures were cold enough to make them sleepy and inactive.

At this time of year, many plants have gone to seed and some of those seeds are amazingly soft to touch.

Woolly bear caterpillars are in abundance now too, and they're soft.

And then there's the woolly aphid. Like other aphids, they live in colonies, tended to by ants for their honeydew, and camofluaged to look like mold. But if you look closely enough, you can see the bits of "wool", which is really wax-like filaments, moving as the insect moves. Sadly, my movie of it won't load so a still pic will have to suffice.

I discovered that even fruit flies have hair....but they're too small to touch and feel without squishing them.

S.

10%

2009-10-02T16:53:00.000-07:00

One of my neighbours, Christian, is a young man who serves aboard the HMCS Ville de Quebec, a Halifax class patrol frigate that has been involved most recently in anti-terrorism in the Mediterranean, protecting aid ships off the coast of Somalia, and fisheries patrols in the North Atlantic. I last spoke to Christian a month ago and asked him to e-mail some pictures from sea, if possible, for the blog. Last night he sent me a few (approved by the Canadian Navy).

One of the pictures was from this past April off the coast of Newfoundland, in the George's Bank. The eastern side of Labrador and Newfoundland is known as Iceberg Alley, and for good reason. It is here that the Titanic went down in April, 1912.

Icebergs are composed of fresh water and whatever is floating around in the air at the time. Thousands of years ago, during the last ice age, volcanoes were erupting around the world, volcanic ash was carried by wind, and particles would settle, sometimes on the developing icebergs. There's a whole discipline devoted to studying icebergs and what they can tell us about the earth's ecology.

Because icebergs are composed of fresh water, they are lighter than the salt water in which they are found; that means they float. It's true that only 10% of an iceberg is visible and that's part of what makes them so dangerous.

MS is very much like those icebergs. We only see 10% of what is going on when we suffer a symptom. There's so much more activity that's gone on, sometimes for many years, before we even have an inkling that's something is wrong. Once symptoms appear we can take a closer look at the central nervous system with an MRI. Like an MRI we use satellite imagery to track icebergs. Once we have that information, whether it's an iceberg or lesions in our brains, we can take appropriate action.

S.

Really Cool Little Things

2009-09-30T12:11:00.000-07:00

Some of the littlest things can demonstrate the biggest ideas.

I really enjoy those little things I find on my hikes and rides. One flower I've been coming across for a few years now, surprised me a couple of weeks ago. It's called jewelweed, monkeyface flower, and snapdragon, depending on who you talk to. I love how they hang around, their lips open like a choir singing:

The plants have seed pods, which when the seeds grow big enough, pop out of the shell and are flung up to 8 feet away. This was pointed out to me just recently, and since then I've been going around popping the little pods at every chance and giggling at every mini-explosion I create. I even took a pod home and popped it under the microscope to watch it up close and controlled. Take a gander at the film at the bottom of the post and ignore the first attempt at popping with a pen (it wouldn't quite fit into the dish).

Next up, a close up of a caterpillar's hair with little specks of dirt. The little hairs would fall out when touched, perhaps acting like splinters, thus encouraging whatever creature was trying to eat it, to spit it out.

Last weekend, the Wookie and I went for a drive to check out a couple of spots and ended up at his dad's place. I will refer to his dad as Mr. Magoo, because that's who he reminds me of. Mr. Magoo and his wife live on the ocean; it's in their backyard, so of course I couldn't resist going to the little patch of beach they have, looking for rocks and interesting things. I laughed as I disturbed a great number of sand fleas, digging into the sand for a stone or pebble. I gathered several pieces of beach glass, a couple of quartz samples, plus one piece of calcium carbonate and several tiny snail shells of varying colours. Once I got the shells under the microscope I was pretty amazed. Snails are a pretty cool example of the Golden Ratio. But I really hooted at the outward appearance of this orange shell. A small piece of dirt (or lint from my pocket) makes it look like a nipple piercing. Really....it's a shell....under a microscope.

Here's the film of the seed popping:

The mechanism of action for the seed popping involves the properties of tensile strength and elasticity.

A bunch of little things. Really cool little things with huge ideas. The laws of physics, art and architecture, self-defense...and you thought this blog was about bugs, bikes, and brains....

Treatment for PPMS

2009-09-29T03:11:00.000-07:00

Our brains continuously repair themselves, no differently than other organ systems. We have a number of defense mechanisms built in to protect those systems. For example, our skin is the first barrier to pathogens. We have an immune system to fight off intruders if they get by the skin. Mucosal layers inside our bodies are also defenders, as are the hair in our noses or our eyelashes. The skin cells, hair, and mucous die off, are shed, and grow back. We have different levels of defense built in to our body; redundant systems, you might say. If one system doesn't work, the next line of defense kicks in, and so on.

Myelin is one of the defense mechanisms built in to protect the central nervous system (and you thought it was just a way to transmit signals more efficiently). When myelin is destroyed, it can and usually does, grow back. The process of demyelination and remyelination is the basis of relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis. But you already knew that. Repeated demyelination leads to fewer successful remyelinations.

The blood brain barrier is another one of the body's defence mechanism. It normally prevents pathogens and T cells(immune cells) from entering the CNS. But an infection or virus can compromise its ability. When the body recovers from the infection, the blood brain barrier can regain its integrity and the pathogens or T cells are trapped on the wrong side where they can wreak their havoc. The T cells detect myelin as foreign matter and set out to destroy it. That triggers the inflammatory process which stimulates other immune cells which causes more inflammation which stimulates other immune cells...and so on.

Demyelination is what causes the signals to be transmitted improperly or not at all. It leaves the neuron exposed to pathogens or danger and leaves it vulnerable to destruction. This is what causes permanent disability. In the relapsing remitting form of MS, demyelination results in an inflammatory reaction. In the primary progressive form of MS there is no remyelination and very little inflammation, so the neurons are left unprotected. The current drugs on the market and those in the pipeline focus on the inflammatory process by attempting to reduce it. And that's the basic reason we have little in the way of a treatment for PPMS.

From the National Multiple Sclerosis Society website:
" * The immune-modulating drugs currently used to treat relapsing forms of MS do not seem to be as effective in PPMS.
* In PPMS, there is a lack of easily-identifiable outcomes to measure in clinical trials. In the trials for the approved disease-modifying therapies (the interferon beta medications, glatiramer acetate, natalizumab, and mitoxantrone) investigators looked at outcomes such as number of relapses and number of new lesions (also called plaques) seen on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to determine if people who received the treatment had lower numbers than those who received a placebo (non-active substance). In other words, the investigators looked at things they could easily count over the course of a two-three year trial. Because people with PPMS don’t experience relapses or the same kind of inflammation in the central nervous system, there are fewer events that can be counted.
* The disease progression that occurs in PPMS can be quite slow — which means that a trial would have to last many years to determine if a treatment slowed or halted that progression."

There are a few drug trials going on for treatment of PPMS, but the main focus surrounds repair and protection. By the time a person is diagnosed with PPMS, the damage has already been done. So how do we stop MS at this stage and how do we repair the damage? The best treatment for PPMS at this point would appear to be autologous stem cell transplant.

I've written about Autologous Stem Cell Transplant before, but here's a recap:
First, bone marrow is removed from the MS patient. The patient then undergoes chemotherapy to completely anhilate their own immune system. Then transplant the bone marrow back into the patient. In essence, the patient's immune system is shut off, then turned back on again, much like rebooting a computer. There is a current study under way in Ottawa, lead by Dr. Mark Freedman. His purpose in beginning that study was to observe the genesis of MS. So far the study is a failure as no one has shown any signs or symptoms of MS since being transplanted. By rebooting the immune system, MS was destroyed. Cool. But this is still a study that is going on and will for some time. And the cost is quite high.

After we've stopped the disease in its track, then repair of the damage has to begin. There are a number of researchers looking at improving the repair process, but these are still in the animal studies stage. Researchers are also investigating methods of repairing the blood brain barrier to promote myelin repair.

What can we do now to promote the repair process? Eat fat. Well, that's a little simplistic, but myelin really is fatty tissue so eat foods with the healthy fats in them. From Wikipedia:
"The Canadian Government has recognized the importance of DHA omega-3 and permits the following biological role claim for DHA: 'DHA, an omega-3 fatty acid, supports the normal development of the brain, eyes and nerves'....As the importance of omega-3 fatty acids to health has received increasing awareness, the number of food products enriched in omega-3 fatty acids has increased. Many companies add fish oil or flax oil into their final product to enrich it in omega-3 fatty acids. Some animal products, such as milk and eggs, can be naturally enriched for omega-3 fatty acids by feeding the animals a diet that is rich in omega-3 fatty acids."

There are few studies of chemotherapy and rituximab on PPMS patients but for the reasons noted above, it will be a while before results, if any, are seen. In the meantime, keep shouting from the rooftops for people to donate money for the MS cause. In my most recent presentations to community groups about why donating to MS is a good idea, I stress the need for support of people with disabling MS. I stress that if I have to, I can take a needle once a week for the rest of my life if necessary, but I don't want to watch my friends and colleagues becoming bedridden.

S.

CAMs

2009-09-27T12:48:00.000-07:00

Complementary medicines are those supplements or treatments that are used in addition to traditional medicines. Alternative medicines are used in place of traditional medicines.

Vitamin D is one of the few supplements that has some science to back it up. Early studies indicate its benefit, but the main question about it has to do with dosing amounts. There are some studies currently underway checking out the safety of mega doses. Right now, 2000 IUs is the recommended dose.

Special diet is another complementary treatment, but there are few studies and little if no long term follow up to determine their effectiveness. What is currently recommended is the standard low fat, high fibre type diet that also promotes heart health.

Steroid treatment is something most of us are familiar with and many of us continue to undergo with any flare-ups. Current studies are underway to determine differences, if any, between IV and oral steroid treatments. So even a current treatment used for years is still being investigated.

LDN is being touted as a wonder drug for a number of diseases, including MS. It may reduce cell death in oligodendrocytes, which are responsible for maintaining myelin. It appears to reduce spasticity, fatigue and depression. Side effects include liver toxicity, sleep disturbance, and GI problems. I've only come across two specific studies for LDN in relapsing remitting MS with mixed results. They were short term studies and involved only 100 people in total. According to Wikipedia, LDN is prescribed for off label use for MS to about 50,000 people in the US. It's hard to say at this point whether it will be a good drug for MS or not.

Marijuana is a drug that may be eaten, smoked, taken in pill from or a spray form. Putting aside the legality of it for a moment, side effects include decreased cognitive skills, dependency, and psychiatric symptoms. The benefits point to reduction in pain and spasticity. It is also only available legally after much paperwork with doctors and governments. Illegally, the cost may outweigh any benefit.

Before taking anything that is complimentary or alternative, discuss it first with your doctor. Some "natural" supplements can interact with medications. Ask yourself some questions, too: What claims are made by the product? Who recommended it? What are their qualifications? Who's tried it? How does it work? What kind of testing has been done on it? What are the medical risks? Side effects?

Remember, claims that a substance is natural mean nothing. Arsenic is a natural product, too, but we all know what ingestion of it will do. With few exceptions, everything we need nutritionally we can get from our food. The problem is that most of us don't eat what we should and too much of what we shouldn't. For example, you can increase your intake of omega 3s by eating more fish than beef. Choose in-season fruit and vegetables when possible, using canned or frozen when out of season. Increase your fibre intake by adding bran to your cereal or baked goods.

We all have well meaning friends who tell us about the latest health claim of a particular product. I thank them for the information with a promise to research it. Once I have I can go back to them and say "I checked out Product X and I'm afraid that not enough study has been done on it for me to take at this time" and that opens the door for me to tell them why.

I'm not saying that there isn't a place for CAMs in the treatment of MS, there must be a way for these compounds to be tested for safety and usefulness before we take them.

Next up, treatment outlook for PPMS.

S.

More Drugs

2009-09-26T05:33:00.000-07:00

Cladribine is a drug used to treat hairy cell leukemia. For treatment of cancer it is given by IV, but for MS, it is given orally. It is currently awaiting approval for use in MS. It is long lasting, but side effects include a reduction in white blood cells and infections like shingles. There are also some questions about cancer developing as a result of using the drug.

Fingolimod is currently in phase 3 of clinical trials and is also showing promising results. It, too, is an oral medication, but its side effects include risk of infections, heart rate and blood pressure increases, and lung and skin cancers.

Dimethyl fumarate, which I'm sure will get a sexier name at some point, has been used to treat psoriasis. It has also been used as a mold inhibitor in consumer products, though now is being banned for that use. It is showing promise as a treatment for MS because of its neuro-protective properties and its ability to inhibit pro-inflammatory cytokines (cytokines are a type of chemical messenger - reduce the inflammatory cytokines and you potentially have a treatment for MS). This drug is an oral medication currently in Phase 3 trials. Side effects included abdominal pain, flushing. and headache.

Laquinimod is currently in Phase 3 trials and has immunomodulatory effects and may offer some neuroprotection. Like the interferons, liver enzymes must be watched closely, and the drug also shows promise for treating other autoimmune diseases. And it's an oral med.

Daclizumab is a drug commonly used as an anti rejection drug for transplant patients. It increases natural killer cells and is well tolerated. There is the possible increase in infections as a side effect and it is given in injection form once a month. It is currently in Phase 3 trials.

Rituximab has been used for treatment of leukemia as an antibody against B cells. It is given by IV every six months. Side effects include viral infections and reactivation of viral infections (in particular, the JC virus which leads to PML) and cardiac arrest. Needless to say, if you take this stuff, the docs will watch you like a hawk. In Phase 2 studies, completed last year this drug has shown promise.

Alemtuzumab is another cancer therapy with a profound effect on MS. The Phase 2 trials have been completed. Side effects include low platelets and thyroid problems, so again, the docs would keep a close eye on you if you're on this drug.

There are a great many more drugs and treatments in the pipeline, but the ones I've mentioned are the ones closest to consumer use.

All of the above drugs are currently being studied and are 1-5 years away from coming on the market for treatment of relapsing remitting MS. However, these drugs have pretty serious side effects. They all show promise and studies of these drugs and the DMDs all show that earlier treatment of MS is going to lengthen the time to disability. Ideally, someone will come up with a cure. Do it now, would ya'?

S.

PS: Next up, I'll be telling you about some other treatments including the alternative ones.

Drugs in My Pocket

2009-09-24T13:29:00.000-07:00

Even though we have a great number of drugs currently in different phases of clinical trials, our best offense against MS is still the 4 current DMDs (disease modifying drugs). Over the past decade, researchers and the drug companies have continued with Phase 4 observational studies and from the information gathered they have made the drugs easier to take.

For many of us on Avonex, the side effects are well tolerated with the addition of acetominaphen or ibuprofen. When 8 hour arthritis Tylenol came on the market, we finally got a full night's sleep on the evening of our shot. Biogen Idec has also come up with pre-filled syringes and smaller needles to make shot taking a little less daunting. There have also been some changes in Rebif to make things easier.

The DMDs are creating a "new" natural history of MS; time to progression to disability is increased by 4 years. For example, someone with MS might take 15 years to progress to disabled without DMDs, but someone with MS taking one of the drugs would take 19 years.

The medical community have recently (in the past 8 years) modified diagnostic criteria for MS so we are now seeing earlier diagnosis of MS. Before these changes, it could take 6-8 years for a positive diagnosis. Now it's 6-8 months. That means that people with MS can be treated earlier with one of the DMDs, as early as the first clinically isolated syndrome (CIS). We now have the ability to modify the course of MS by treatment of CIS.

What we have come to discover is that these DMDs don't work for all MS patients. So now the researchers are focusing on what is different between patients and trying to come up with ways to identify those that will do well on the DMDs and those who won't. I'm one of the patients participating in one of these studies.

For those who don't tolerate the DMDs, there are a great number of drugs in the pipeline. One was mentioned by a commenter on my last post, teriflunomide. This drug is showing promise so far and if added to a regime of an interferon (Avonex, Betaseron, or Rebif), shows even greater results. It should be noted that the drug has been used to treat rheumatoid arthritis since 1998 and does have some serious side effects. There are a number of Phase 3 trials going on right now.

Tysabri is already on the market as a treatment for MS. This, like teriflunomide, is an immunosuppresant. The very feature that makes it good for MS, can also leave you succeptable to PML, an infection caused by the JC virus, a common virus that usually lays dormant in our system. If our immune system becomes compromised or suppressed, the JC virus may become active and can result in death. It's extremely rare and now that it has come to the attention of the medical community, patients are screened even more carefully before being given the drug and must be registered for monitoring.

In my next post, I'll give you some more drugs currently being studied.

S.

Clinical Trials

2009-09-23T10:12:00.000-07:00

I attended an information session last night about new and emerging trends in MS research. Wow. Lots of information and I took two pages of notes. I'll get to the medications being developed in the next couple of days, but I felt a review of the process of drug development is warranted. It's a good reminder of why it takes so long to get drugs into people.

From the time a compound is discovered it takes 10-12 years for that drug to get on the market. After a compound is deemed to be of interest, it is tested on animals. Then it enters the Phase 1 trial. The first stage is to test the drug on 20-80 healthy subjects to determine if it is safe. Once it has been determined that it is safe and the side effects are manageable, then it goes to a Phase 2 trial where it is tested on 100-300 "sick" subjects, those who are affected by the disease the drug is supposed to treat. These studies are often two years duration. It is at this stage where, if a drug fails to work, the trial will be halted. If the drug shows some benefit, then it proceeds to the Phase 3 stage.

The Phase 3 stage involves 500-1000 subjects and it is at this stage that there are randomized multi-centre trials. Again, this stage may take a couple of years, as not all subjects are enrolled at the same time (not all subjects are diagnosed with a specific disease at the same time). In my case, I was enrolled in the CHAMPS Avonex study one year after the enrollment began. The CHAMPS study was supposed to be 3 years duration but was halted after two because of outstanding positive results; subjects were automatically given the drug at that point as it would have been unethical to continue giving some patients the placebo.

During the Phase 3 stage, drug makers will apply to the appropriate health authority (FDA, Health Canada) for approval to market the drug. Data analysis continues through all stages of course and at this point the drug enters Phase 4, post market surveillance or observational study. It involves safety surveillance and ongoing support of the drug. It is at this point that long term adverse effects may be detected or drug interactions reported.

According to Wikipedia, about 1000 drugs are developed before one makes it to the clinical trial stage. And finding people to take part in the trials is equally as daunting. Strict criteria must be met for most trials. Again, in the CHAMPS study I took part in, it was required that subjects have had only one symptomatic demyelinating event and an MRI that showed at least 3 lesions.

So there's your lesson on clinical trials. Next post I'll get into what is actually being developed these days.

S.

Matters Gray and White

2009-09-15T17:55:00.000-07:00

Generally speaking we consider the gray matter of our brain to be the "thinking" part and the white matter the stuff that connects the gray matter. So one would think that since MS is mostly a disease of white matter, our cognitive functioning would remain untouched except for speed of processing information. But it doesn't.

We now know that the white matter of the brain functions more than as a connector. The simple fact that people with MS exhibit cognitive impairment supports this hypothesis. How MS affects our cognition depends on a number of factors; severity of MS, general health (nutrition and physical fitness), and attitude all affect our cognition. Even without MS, general health and attitude will affect our cognition. If we are eating poorly and not exercising, the brain can't operate at its optimal standard. Throw in something like MS and deterioration is bound to occur.

How do we improve our cognitive functioning in light of assured decline because of MS? Interestingly enough, the brain is already trying to compensate for any deficits by making other connections. This is evidenced by studies showing activation of different brain areas in MS patients compared to healthy control subjects when given certain tasks. This shows neuronal plasticity - the ability of the brain to make new connections in order to do previously known tasks. So our brains are already giving us a head start, so to speak, on the road to recovery.

In order to assist that recovery, or at least to help maintain or develop cognitive skills, we have to eat right, exercise, and get a proper amount of sleep. No kidding, right? I've been shouting that from the rooftops for years.

It also means developing a positive attitude despite the crap that is going on around you. I know poop happens. Take the time needed to deal with it, have a meltdown if that helps, but then move on.

In light of all this, I will remind you of a study I participated in a few years ago, the results of which I posted on this blog in late 2007. It showed evidence of brain atrophy and slower response time for MSers versus a control group. I am now going to participate in another study looking at brain connectivity in executive functioning in MS patients. Executive functioning is what is considered to be involved in handling new situations outside the purview of "automatic" responses; planning and decision making are executive functions for example. I'm waiting for more info from the study coordinator about the hypothesis, but next week I'll go in for a round of tests and an MRI, to be repeated every month for 6 months. I'll keep you updated of course. An hopefully gain a little more insight into what MS is doing to us and our gray and white matter.

S.

The title of this post is also the title of a book by a neurologist in the states about different cases he's had. I enjoyed it, even if he spelled gray with an E.

Wow

2009-09-15T10:06:00.000-07:00

Northern Lights. What more is there to say?
Oh, credits perhaps....Ryerson Clark, brother to Adena, with whom I cleaned out the green bin this summer. Rye and his wife are almost halfway through their posting to the north.

I've only once seen the Northern Lights. About 6 years ago I was driving along the south side mountain ridge of the Annapolis Valley and stopped the car to observe a curtain of green shimmering across the sky. We so rarely get to see them this far south I was speechless.

S.

H2O H2O, Everywhere

2009-09-10T17:45:00.000-07:00

Our bodies are composed of a number of elements and combinations of elements, like water. For some reason, humans are fascinated by water from an early age. Considering that we spend the first nine months of our life floating in water may have something to do with it. We are also born with an instinct to hold our breath if under water. Comes in handy. But as kids, we play in it, on it, and around it with absolute dedication to discovering what it does when we hit it, mix dirt in it, or jump in it. Even as adults, we still love to play in and on water, but as adults, we have a healthy fear of it.

Have you ever dreamed about water? I have recurring dreams where I'm swimming with the ease of a dolphin, surfacing every few minutes, then diving deeper into the ocean. I'm swimming as quickly as a dolphin would and don't seem to be concerned with breathing. These are the most wonderful, satisfying dreams I have. I wake up rested and energized from these dreams, though sadly, I don't have them often enough.

I learned to swim when I was about 5 or 6, taking a Red Cross class at the local pool. I recall the pool's location somewhere on the Vancouver waterfront, or at least on a beach near the waterfront. And I still recall the smell of the air on those chilly mornings before the fog had cleared or the rain had let up. Every once in a while, the air in Halifax has the same smell, bringing me back 40 years.

I'm not a strong swimmer, having not kept up the lessons or the practice. But I can keep myself afloat for a while, treading water or bobbing, sometimes just floating on my back. There's something soothing about quietly paddling in the water or even just being submerged to my neck in the shallow end of the pool.

For the majority of my life I have lived next to an ocean or a large body of water, or a major river system. I have lived on the east and west coasts of this country, in the middle with the Great Lakes, or aside the St. Lawrence Seaway, St. John or Miramichi rivers. Even when I lived in South Korea, I was right next to the Han River, dividing the capital city of Seoul. Both of my parents were born on an island, surrounded by the cold Atlantic ocean, waters warmed only by the month of August by the jet stream.

The year I was 18 we spent 2 weeks in Hawaii on the way back from living in Korea. I was recovering from a bout of mono and was pretty useless during the hot days, only going to the beach after supper to play in the waves for a couple of hours. My dad would come to the beach with me while I swam. One evening, I was rinsing off the salt water at the communal showers with a couple of surfers, discussing the water conditions. They were complaining about how cold the water was! I laughed and said I though it was like taking a bath. They took in the paleness of my skin and asked me where I was from. When I told them Nova Scotia, they said Ahh....the Atlantic Ocean, right?

Like all children, I was interested with water. I've already written about jumping into the deep end of a pool when I was three and my mother's eye was off me for a nanosecond - no mean feat on my part - and what sweet release that was! When I was little, my Dad got me watching the Jacques Cousteau documentaries with him. So many creatures that lived in the seas that we knew (and still know) so little of! In fact, when I began university, it was with the intention of becoming a marine biologist. I still absorb wildlife documentaries at every opportunity, but I especially enjoy marine topics. Who knew there were undersea volcanoes and mountains? Creatures so weird, they could only come from the imagination of Tim Burton?

I can't imagine not living near a major body of water, not smelling the ocean or the stinky seaweed in summer washed ashore after a storm, examining the pebbles worn smooth by millions of years of tumbling in the sisyphean surf, being amused by the sight of gull footprints on the beach and patterns left by raindrops on dry sand.

Two atoms of hydrogen, one of oxygen, and you have water. Pretty simple equation, isn't it? Apply a magnetic field to a human body and the hydrogen protons align with the direction of the field and we can take pictures of the insides of our bodies. And detect abnormalities. Like MS. Cool....

S.

More Odds and Sods

2009-09-04T05:33:00.000-07:00

I've been out exploring a little more this week. Sunday found the Wookie and I going to check out the surf again just after Tropical Storm or Depression or whatever it was, Danny. It dumped almost 4 inches of rain on halifax and the winds and rainfall wreaked more havoc than the hurricane the weekend before. The waves were great the day after, and it gave us a chance to see Cow Bay and the giant moose that was made 50 years ago. It is only slightly larger than life size:

The waves at cow Bay last Sunday:

I have noticed a distinct lack of woolly bear caterpillars right now. In years past, I've noticed them in droves by the middle of August, but so far, I've only spotted a few, and they're quite small. Not sure if I'm just in the wrong places looking for them or if they were a little late this year because of all the rainy weather we had this summer.

Last April I posted some pictures of some land clearing that's going on for construction of access to one of the main highways in the area. I hiked up to the area again last weekend to observe the progress. All I can say is wow. I went into the offices of the Department of Transportation yesterday to take a look at the plans for the construction and was absolutely delighted with the reception I received from the chief engineer on the project and someone from the communications department. At first I thought they were there to escort me from the building, but they took me into a little boardroom and showed me the plans. Specifically I was interested in the infilling of the many little ponds and I was given details on which ones will be infilled and which ones will be left alone. And I discovered a new compensation policy put in place to help maintain green spaces and watersheds. Basically, for every acre of land disturbed by construction of roads by the DOT, they have to protect 3 acres. So for this particular project they will be giving assistance to the Sackville Rivers Association in a conservation area deemed by the SRA to be in need of protection or restoration. I paid a call to the SRA to find out what's going to be selected. They've been given up to 50 grand to develop a proposal for a project that may be worth up to 3 quarters of a million dollars. And they've selected a stretch of the Sackville river that runs behind a Department of National Defense rifle range in Bedford. Because it's on DND property it is seldom accessed and is probably in pretty rough shape. We'll be examining the area up close very soon to see what needs to be done.

In the meantime I joined a couple of the guys at the fish ladder where we removed two salmon from the trap and loaded them onto a Department of fisheries truck that was taking them to a hatchery:

I am seldom lucky enough to observe bats as by the time you realize what just went flying by, it's long gone. But the other evening while making my rounds, I came across a moth flitting around the back door of the building. I was waiting for it to land so I could get a closer look when something came from behind me and chased it off. The bat whizzed over me and attempted to catch the moth, but the moth zigged, the bat zagged, and the two of them flew by me a foot away from my head. I ended up standing there like a fool with a big grin on my face. The bat was close enough for me to get a good look and I found that exhilarating (I know, I need a life).

Which reminds me, one of my neighbours, Kathy, told me last night she's really enjoying reading the blog, laughing out loud at work, and living vicariously through me (?!?). Kathy, any time you want, you're welcome to join me on my hunting expeditions; I'll supply the net and the baggies for our specimens, you just have to show up and not go "Ewww".

S.

Bugs and Burgers

2009-08-29T03:38:00.000-07:00

The Wookie and I were on vacation this past week and went for a couple of minor hikes/walks with Dad. Dad normally skates during the week for exercise and does some walking but the "little darlings" as he likes to call them, had hockey camps all week making the ice unavailable. Since I had taken Dad on two hikes the previous Saturdays, he wanted to continue during the week.

My two favourite men:

I also spent a little time this week checking out bugs under the microscope including the unnoticed emergence of Bea Ware, my Warehouse Beetle larva, as an adult. It took 19 months for something to transform from the larval stage, which is not typical, but not unusual. It had shed it's outer skin several times (like 9 or 10) before finally growing up and into a mature beetle.

I took a closer look at moth and butterfly wings and was quite surprised at the amount of "hair" on these things. I was able to see some of the scales as well. The scales are powdery colours that easily come off on your fingers if you touch the wings of butterflies.

I've had this tiny moth-like creature for several weeks now, not sure exactly what it is. It's antenna was more like a butterfly, but I've been unable to corretly identify it so far. I'll have to send off a picture to the curator of zoology at the Museum of Natural History in Halifax and he might be able to help me.

On our hike Thursday I took home a thistle to take a closer look. They have the same "hook" structure as burrs which allows them to stick to everything they come into contact with. It is this hook structure that inspired NASA scientists to come up with Velcro.

Earlier this week, A and W had a Cruise In for a Cause fundraiser for the MS Society of Canada. Locally, we had a number of volunteers at different locations and I put in an appearance at one of their stores. As well, Mom and I were interviewed by one of the TV stations for a story about MS and family support. That story ran the night before the fundraiser and was tied in to the A and W, as they are branded as a "family" restaurant.

I've been trying to catch up on blogs this week and get some sorely needed organizing done (closets, cupboards). With time available to me now and the heatwave finally broken (as of last Tuesday), I have started to get into it. But first, I'm off to inspect a construction site to make sure they're not disturbing a pond I discovered last April. They've covered over a bit of the outflow area and I'm not impressed. I need to see if they're diverted the outflow from that pond. And if I find a few creatures of the six legged variety, that'll be a bonus.

S.

Hurricane Bill

2009-08-24T16:10:00.000-07:00

So hurricane Bill was pretty much a bust. There was some damage, but luckily not nearly as much as was feared; Bill kind of stayed offshore for the most part and so we got a ton of rain yesterday and a lot of high wind for a few hours. As I am one of those folks who pays attention to weather warnings, I didn't venture anywhere near the coast line until this morning. The Wookie and I went to Lawrencetown beach to check out the waves, though I prefer beachcombing. The tide was coming in again and the waves pretty spectacular still, so we didn't get too close to anything.

If you look carefully you can see the birds (sand pipers of some sort) at the edge of the water. Lawrencetown beach is usually quite sandy but the wave action threw a lot of stones up on the beach or dragged them from higher up.

There was also a lot of fog. This is one of the most popular beaches in the area, but the water is always cold. It is one of the more popular destinations for surfers on the East Coast as well. The wookie and I were in summer attire and should have had long pants on:

We continued in the car along the Eastern Shore to Lower East Chezzetcook or some such named area (I can't keep 'em straight) and discovered a few surfers in the waves:

There were a few mishaps at Peggy's cove yesterday. There are always people who under estimate the power of Mother Nature and over estimate their ability to deal with it and so get pulled into the water, usually by what they call a "rogue" wave, one that snuck up on them. At the beaches, several people over the years have been pulled out by strong undertows when they were swimming. Some folks don't make it. Luckily, no fatalities from Bill, at least in Canadian waters. Sadly, some people in Acadia Park in Maine weren't so lucky.

The power of Mother Nature is incredible and deadly.

S.

Heatwave

2009-08-21T11:23:00.000-07:00

We've had a heatwave for the past 9 days. It has been unbearably warm and humid and I have done very little in the way of physical activity because of the monumental effort required. This is the worst I've felt from the heat since diagnosis, spending a lot of time flaked out on the bed with the fan on me. Most evenings find me outside enjoying the relatively cool evenings. My neighbour, Kim, and I do a little tour around the outside of the building before calling it a night, looking for bugs. Well, I look, Kim accompanies me and calls me crazy.

Last night I found a big beetle like bug on the wall behind the building:

I ran inside to get a container to put it in and then took it inside for closer examination. It offered no resistance and very little movement. I also noticed it didn't appear to have wings.

Under the microscope, this creature took on a terrifying appearance. The claws on its front legs were enough to make me jump back. And then it moved. Or something on its back moved and I realized it was molting and shedding its outer covering.

Was this animal simply shedding a layer or was it actually in the process of becoming an adult? It took about half an hour for this little thing to come out:

While it was pulling and squirming out of its shell I was googling like mad to find out what it was. The little bit of green that emerged clinched it for me. Wings! It's a cicada!

What a transformation I was privy to. I let it go outside once its wings were pumped up, leaving it on a bush in the back. It was there this morning when I checked, but gone by this afternoon. The ferocious looking claws are for digging its way through the dirt where it spends the majority of its life. As adults, they are the noisy insects you hear on the hottest summer days, sounding like buzzing overhead power lines.

I had never seen a cicada youngster before so it was all very exciting. I felt like handing out cigars last night...

S.

The Wildlife of Nova Scotia....Well, a Few Bugs

2009-08-16T16:54:00.000-07:00

I have been scouting the garden and flowers around the building for all manner of 6 and 8 legged creatures the past several days. I have uncovered a number of these animals, two of which I feature tonight. The first is a crab spider. The first evening I spotted him on one of my echinacea flowers and accidentally knocked him off, 4 feet to the ground where he disappeared. I'm happy to say it climbed back up by the next night where I was able to get some good shots of it:

One day last week, this fella spent the entire day in front of the building. I suspect it was on its last legs as these long horn beetles are more frequently spotted at night, their flying silhouettes a gothic image of legs, wings and long long long antennae:

The past few days have been exceedingly warm. The dog days of August are upon us and it's slowing me down somewhat, as is the norm when I heat up. I had talked to my dad a few months ago about my hikes to Jack's Lake and while he expressed interest in joining me sometime he wanted to do it when it was dry. I called home Friday night and left him a message to say I'd pick him up Saturday morning at 9. My preference for physical activity is very early, like 7 AM, but I knew he wouldn't go for that.

I picked him up at 9 and we set out for the trail. It was already a scorching day by the time we started the walk so I knew the two of us would be zonked when it was done. We made it all the way to Jack's Lake, coming across a number of creatures. Dad admitted he wasn't as keen on the hike Friday night but was glad we had gone. We spotted frogs and toads, a snake, and several leeches in Jack's Lake, by the water's edge. First, one of the littler leeches, and luckily one that wasn't hungry:

A gorgeous garder snake about 14-16 inches long:

Today, with temps expected to be warmer than even yesterday, the Wookie and I drove to Peggy's Cove. It was slightly cooler than in town, but not by much. The lighthouse looks great after its recent paint job and if you ever come to Nova Scotia as a tourist, it is an obligatory spot. Only a few miles off shore is where Swiss Air Flight 111 crashed into the ocean on a cross Atlantic flight. Actually, the 11th anniversary of the crash is only a couple of weeks away.

The heatwave will continue for most of the week. If anyone is looking for me I'll be in the freezer at the local supermarket.

S.

Take Two Proteins and Call Me in the Morning

2009-08-12T18:50:00.000-07:00

People who know me, or those of you who have followed this blog long enough (and I thank you), know that I am easily amused and excited. I have maintained for almost 30 years that it is the little things in life that mean the most and that is why I can't recall the last time I was bored. I find something amazing every day in the world around me.

That being said, I am hard to impress when it comes to MS. I rarely get excited about news releases from drug companies or vitamin manufacturers about their latest "possible" treatments for MS. I don't write a lot about the stuff I read daily about "new" advances in treatments or cures. If I had a dollar for every time someone said to me, "I thought there was a cure for that" or "I thought that the drugs you take keep it at bay", I'd be a very rich woman. I call myself a skeptical optimist.

We are inundated with news releases or hyperbolic headlines screaming that we're "this close" to a cure for MS...or cancer...or social anxiety for that matter. I have a tendency to ignore most of what comes at me and do my own research about what is currently being studied, preferring to check out the websites of the researchers and/or their academic institutions.

I like to describe MS as a simple disease masquerading as a complex one. On the larger scale, MS appears to involve the central nervous and immune systems; it appears to involve the endocrine system (as evidenced by hormonal and metabolic fluctuations affecting MS symptoms); it appears to be affected by genes and environment. All these systems interact with and are affected by each other. So at first glance, MS appears to be rather complex.

But break it down and you get the simple explanation. Myelin gets destroyed and the body reacts to that. Simple. I like simple.

I have said before that I believe the answer to MS will be a simple one. Some silly dime store vitamin supplement. Or hookworms (read previous posts about parasites for more info on that). Or a food additive that creates protection for myelin without destroying other parts of our bodies.

So when I read about a study with a relatively "simple" hypothesis and results with a relatively "simple" solution, I get excited. Here's the story.

Take two normal run of the mill proteins, stick em together, sprinkle them on the immune cells, then give those cells to sick animals, and they get better. Kind of like, take two aspirin and call me in the morning.

OK, so I realize that things aren't as simple as I like to make them out to be. It can't be a simple process to fuse the two proteins together. But I think you know what I mean when I say "simple".

The point of all this rambling? This study is one I can get excited about.

S.

Little Bit of Everything

2009-08-07T17:25:00.000-07:00

I've kind of taken it easy the past several days, now that the initial shock has worn off about the lay off. So it's time to get back into a routine of some sort, including the blog.

Someone wanted to know the final outcome with the Battle of the Maggots. Basically, we won. A few days after the initial attempts on their lives, Adena and her son in law, Ray, cleaned out the green bin in its entirety, disinfecting it. In the process of rinsing the pavement around the garbage bins, Ray noticed maggots coming out of a crack in the ground. They were rising with the water....Aha!! Darn things were leaving the green bin, crawling to the ground and hiding in cracks, only to come out at night looking for food. Lots of bleach and water later, they were pretty much gone. So far we've only seen a couple and that's normal. People are now wrapping their "flesh" type garbage in newspaper to cut down on the maggots, too.

In the months of June and July we had a grand total of about 20 days without rain. So it rained two thirds of the past two months. To say Nova Scotians are a grumpy lot is an understatement. So last Friday, the sunshine and humidity began in earnest. The Wookie says he won't complain because at least it's not raining.

From Adena:

A curious fellow died one day and found himself waiting in the long line of judgment.
As he stood there he noticed that some souls were allowed to march right through the pearly gates into Heaven.

Others though, were led over to Satan who threw them into the burning pit.

But every so often, instead of hurling a poor soul into the fire, Satan would toss a soul off to one side into a small pile.

Watching Satan do this several times, the fellow's curiosity got the best of him.

So he strolled over and asked Satan what he was doing.

"Excuse me, Mr. Prince of Darkness," he said. "I'm waiting in line for judgment, but I couldn't help wondering, why are you tossing those
people aside instead of flinging them into the Fires of Hell with the others?"

"Ah, those," Satan said with a groan. "They're all from Nova Scotia - they're still too wet to burn."

Last weekend the Wookie and I house sat and cat sat for some friends just outside of the city. We stayed at their house, BBQed, swam in the ppol, enjoyed the local wildlife in the pond behind the house, and had a few friends over Sunday afternoon. I also got too much Vitamin D and as a result am now the incredible peeling woman. We also played with the cats and were very amused by them, too, as they're still kittens. We spoted a bat on the front step Sunday morning, a little brown bat, half the size of my fist. It was trembling, possibly after having fallen from the eave of the house. After a few minutes he took wing. Of course I didn't have my camera.

The "Career Path" adventure continues. I have begun the process as outlined by the HR company I was hooked up with to help with the "transition" period. I'm not quite excited about the whole thing, but I am starting to feel better about it. When I was first diagnosed, I looked at it as a new adventure in my life. I'm hoping I will soon feel the same way about job hunting.

So far, I haven't noticed any difference in my fatigue level or MS symptoms as a result of the stress of the past two weeks. I'm trying to keep a level head, so to speak, which is difficult when you're a little lop-sided to begin with.

And to reward those of you who have stuck it out this far a few photos from the past month:

A moth disguised as a dead, rolled up leaf, stuck to the back door about a month ago. Probably a more effective defense in the fall or on the forest floor.

A muskrat in the pond behind our friends' house. The Wookie insists it's a beaver. I say muskrat.

An unidentified bug I found next to Sandy Lake on a hike a month ago. It's very similar to the antlion family.

Driving home after a hike one evening I came across this bunny sitting quietly in a front yard, totally unconcerned about the dog that lives there.

Cape Split Hike

2009-07-30T18:20:00.000-07:00

Cape Split is a jut of land that extends northwesterly into the Bay of Fundy, home to the highest tides in the world. Twice a day the bay empties and fills with rushing seawater, eroding anything in its path. At the base of the start of the hiking trail that leads to the actual split, is a village known as Scot's Bay. It has a wonderful rock beach with all sorts of stones and minerals to be found; a rockhound's delight. In fact, I have a couple of specimens of amethyst from that site.

The land on which you'll find Cape Split was owned privately until 2002 when the province of Nova Scotia purchased it. The previous owners allowed access to the land by the public for many years and, as a result, a very definitive network of trails has been formed. Probably thousands of hikers use this trail every year and you'll find it listed in every hiking or walking guide of Eastern Canada.
It starts out at a few metres above sea level, taking you through prehistoric sites and old forest that feel almost rain-forest-like as a result of humidity trapped by the dense forest canopy. There are a number of rare or threatened plant species that call this forest home as it rises to 300 feet above sea level. It's not an easy hike for those of us with heat or mobility issues, but it can be done with the proper preparation. And the reward at the end of the trail is a view like none other in the world, if there's no fog.

If.

This is Cape Split from the north at low tide. This aerial pic was taken by Bob Grantham, a geologist affiliated with the Nova Scotia Museum. (Bob also showed me purple sand from an unnamed beach in this province. It's purple because of the high garnet content.)

The Wookie has been talking about doing this trail ever since we met. So we decided that yesterday was the day to do it. We didn't get there until noon, my first mistake. Should have arrived at 8 AM. It is an uphill climb to the end. An 8 kilometre climb to the top of Cape Split. On a shaded and very sheltered (by trees) trail. The humidex was 33, despite the temperature at the start of the trail only being 18. About an hour into our walk I was thinking we should just stop and turn around or they'll only be able to just push me over the cliff at the top to get me home. But the Wookie so rarely asks anything of me, I really wanted to do this. So we carried on.

We were passed by everyone else on the trail that day. Kids with more energy than a 10 megawatt power station, their yuppie parents and even the grandparents passed us going up. About an hour and half into the trek we started to hear navigational buoys in the Minas Basin, on the eastern side of the Cape. On the western side we were getting brief blasts of wind and fog sneaking through a few breaks in the trees. The actual temperature was cooler than at the base, because of the fog, but because the trees were still fairly thick and we were climbing, we were quite warm.

We finally arrived at the top, in a small meadow after 2 hours and 15 minutes. I took in the air, the field, the screaming gulls, and straight ahead the first "split cliff" of the cape. And the fog. I couldn't see the Bay at all. Looking to the east I could see blue sky and some water, but some of the fog on the western side was creeping around the tip of the cape and making a good view impossile.

Here's what I should have been able to see:

I have to interject at this point to describe what may actually have been the highlight of this little walk. In the meadow was a family of 6-8 people sitting in a semi-cicle facing us. One of the young girls in the family was standing in front of the group doing a little dance and singing a song with her back to us. We stood about 20 feet from the group and watched the girl for a few seconds and the entertainer in me just broke out. I was watching her movements, very similar to a chicken dance, so started mimicking her moves, elbows up and out at my side, head bobs, and foot stomps. The observing family members who were already chuckling at the girl burst into full out laughter as I danced with her and slowly crept closer behind her. She finished her performance and turned around as she realized there was someone behind her. We all had a great laugh over that.

Anyway, I plopped myself down in the meadow, the Wookie went off to the other side of the meadow to take pictures and we recovered a little bit. I inspected the local insect life as well. At least the bugs that landed on me or in my arm's reach. I looked down at my leg at one point to see a Daddy Long Legs trying to bite me. I could actually feel his (or her) little palps trying to bite my skin. After 3 or 4 unsuccessful attempts at tasting my leg, he (or she) literally jumped off into the grass and disappeared. All I could do at that was laugh.

I did manage to get close enough to an edge (actually about 5 feet from the edge) to take this pic. Look closely between the crevice and you just make out the beach below, as the tide was coming in. Oh, yeah, the beach is about 300 feet below where I was standing.

The return trek was 2 hours. And despite the good hiking boots I was wearing could feel a couple of blisters forming. Once we got to the bottom and the car, the family we had seen at the top were leaving in their van and we all waved good bye to each other, big grins on the kids' faces as they passed me. The Wookie and I headed back to Wolfville for a bit of supper and then home.

We'll do the hike again, probably in autumn when there's much less fog. Probably about 10 years from this October.

Bike Tour

2009-07-27T16:35:00.000-07:00

The bike tour is over for another year. We raised over $389,000 with more money coming in. We had newbie and veteran participants, younger and older, and it was truly a pile of fun. And, as always, very inspiring to everyone who participated.

One of the things our President (of the MS Society Atlantic Division) mentioned was how many of us achieved or surpassed personal goals, whether they were fund raising or biking related. I managed to bike 73 kilometres, averaging 14.3 k/hr. I made it up Mount Denson with only one stop. Last year, I made 3 or 4 stops. And I managed to make it up all but one kilometre of Gaspereau Mountain, which is an ascent of 140 metres in 4 kilometres. To those who are hard core bikers or participants in the Tour de France, it may not sound like much, but I'm impressed with my numbers. The one kilometre that I just couldn't bike was about 5 k from the end. I had come around the corner, thinking I was at the top, and there was more hill in front of me. I was literally devastated. I was out of steam at that point in time and gladly accepted a lift from one of the drivers. He dropped me off to finish the last few kilometres and I cruised into the university to end my Day One.

We had drizzle and fog for the first couple of hours of Day One and glaring sunshine and heat on Day Two. So I ended my second day a little early, with 15 kilometres left. The heat was sapping my energy more quickly than I anticipated so decided at the first rest stop that I would go until I got to the next rest stop and re-evaluate. After pulling into the small town where the 2nd rest stop was, I joined a few other team mates for a coffee at the local Tim Horton's (a national coffee shop chain). They carried on to the end and I called it a day about 2 minutes further down the road when I arrived at the rest stop.

Now that I've rested up today I can evaluate my body's reaction to the physical stress. I experienced a few spasms in my right calf while biking but they quickly subsided with stretches. My right forearm is a little sore today, but I suspect that was from coming down Gaspereau Mountain with a death grip on my handle bars to keep from becoming air bound. That should subside by tomorrow. Aside from that, my butt is fine, as are my legs.

Mentally, I was exhausted last night. I always go through so many emotions at this event as I see the struggle some people go through to bike the distance, the struggle many have had to raise funds during a time of economic difficulty, or to see the struggle some volunteers (with MS) have to go through to attend the event and participate as volunteers or participants. And of course, since last Thursday I've been trying to deal with my emotions about my employment situation. Many people were just finding out about it on the weekend and their reactions were universally ones of shock and encouragement. Their words truly lifted my spirits and even on Facebook today, I had a message from a participant thanking me for inspiring him to participate in the Bike Tour. It was wonderful to get that message. I often wonder if my words and deeds have any impact on people.

So now that it's all over for another year, I can concentrate with what I'm going to do with the rest of my life. Tomorrow I meet with a woman from a Human Resources company hired to help those of us laid off deal with the fallout from that. We'll figure out the financial and insurance aspects, and then sort out what to do about future employment.

Now for the pics:
I left before everyone arrived for the team photo so am not in it, but we all wore our super hero T-shirts with little capes on the back. We were known this year as the Super Cycle Delics.

We were all dressed in different super hero costumes for the banquet Saturday night. The Wookie was Superman, we had two Cat Womans, a couple of Incredibles, and a Spiderman. I was Myelin Girl and I was going around putting duct tape on people all night telling them they had been remyelinated. We were the 2 Runner up Top fund Raising team.

My hero: Wookie as Superman.

At the bottom of Gaspereau Mountain at the Gaspereau Winery. Many stopped for a sample of the wine there. I just wanted a picture with the vinyards in the background (it is called the Vinyards to Valleys Tour after all).

Change Will Do You Good

2009-07-24T14:20:00.001-07:00

It wasn't the happiest day of my life yesterday, or for my co-workers, as I and two colleagues were laid off. There are obviously some major league changes going on at the radio station that we will not be a part of, and we don't expect it to end any time soon.

That being said, I have had harder things to deal with than losing a job, so in the bigger picture, this is just another blip. I am lucky in that I was given a severance package and access to a human resources company to assist in the transition. It may have been a business decision on the part of the company, but it's not one that I, or a great number of people agree with.

I'm also lucky because of the outpouring of support from co-workers, colleagues in the business, and family and friends. I don't think my phone stopped all day yesterday and the e-mails were fast and furious as well. I know who to call when I need a shoulder- or a reference!

After the initial shock wears off I'll get down to sorting out future plans. But my first priority right now is the Bike Tour this weekend. 12 hours from now, I'll be getting my bike gear on and heading out the door to Windsor, Nova Scotia to bike to Wolfville (and back the next day). I will have pictures next week of our team and will regale you with stories of the Cycle-Delics' triumphant return to the road. I have raised $3600 for the MS Society...not bad, though far short of what I had hoped to raise.

I expect to be on the road biking for a grand total of 8 hours. That will give me plenty of time to ponder my options for the future and figure out how to start my own radio station....

We had Chinese food for supper last night and my fortune cookie spit out this: You do not have to worry about your future.
S.

Hypothesis: I'm Full Of It

2009-07-21T15:12:00.000-07:00

We don't really understand how the interferons work. We have some pretty good ideas, but they don't work for everyone. One hypothesis is that they work by increasing production of a protein that facilitates the death of melin-reactive immune cells (the cells that destroy myelin) and prevents inflammation. If those cells aren't destroyed, you get MS. Simple, eh?

How do you test the hypothesis? You check the blood of people on the interferons for that protein. Presence of that protein is a good thing. Lack of it means the interferons probably aren't working for you.

Whose blood you might ask? Mine for one. Starting next month, I'll be enrolled in another study through the MS clinic in Halifax and have my blood tested at regular intervals to see if the protein is present. My hypothesis, based on the researcher's, is that I'm full of it.

The whole point of this particular study is to be able to predict, based on blood studies, who will benefit from receiving interferons (Betaseron, Avonex). As it stands now, docs are encouraging everyone to get on a treatment as soon as possible. The sooner you are on treatment, the better your long term outcome: fewer attacks means less permanent damage and less disability. For some people, that means trying one drug after another, which takes precious time and may possibly result in more attacks and greater disability. So if we know right off the bat that the interferons won't work for you because you lack a certain protein or ability to make that protein, the docs can move onto another non-interferon treatment sooner.

Scientific progress is slow, I know. But it is plodding along.

S.

Maggots

2009-07-19T06:25:00.000-07:00

Maggots are not the most pleasant things in this world, but they are part of the food chain and are a vital part of our ecosystems. That being said, when they have infested your green bin, they must be annihilated.

Friday night, we (the super, Kim, and I) noticed that there seemed to be a few maggots in the lobby of our apartment building; Kim and I figured people brought them in on their shoes after having dumped their waste in the green bin, located about 50 feet from the building. Around 9:30 Friday night, I was being all domestic, cleaning and taking out the garbage, including compostables. I noticed a large number of maggots on and in the green bin, but it has been very humid of late so didn't think too much of it. Around 11:30 I went outside to look for moths attracted to the lights around our building and when I got outside on the front walkway, I realized I was surrounded by maggots.

I just stood there, dumbfounded. They were "swarming" and marching up the walkway. At first I was grossed out, but I was also a little intrigued. What he heck were they doing traveling from 50 feet away? I scanned my immediate area and noticed the majority were headed to the building, with quite a few in the parking area, almost like reinforcements. As I stood there, looking down on this grotesque scene, I was struck by how similar this picture was to an aerial photo I have seen taken during World War 2 of ships leaving Halifax Harbour en masse for Europe. It was a flotilla of maggots. They were headed for the front door.

I felt like I was in the middle of some horror movie: Invasion of the Maggots. My only consolation was that the birds would have a feast first thing in the morning. I went inside, scraping my shoes all the way and fired off an e-mail to the building manager, Adena (who also happens to be a friend). I explained that the infestation was a little worse than first thought. The next morning Adena called and she said if I was grossed out then it must be bad. So she arrived loaded with bleach and salt after my suggestion for eliminating them.

Turns out we have indestructable maggots in Nova Scotia. They are the Arnold Schwartzenegger Terminators of maggots. The Hulk Hogans of maggots. You get the picture.

Because there was compost matter in the bin we couldn't dump it out or put it in the garbage. So, we boiled water, added bleach and poured it on them. We poured salt on them. We tried vinegar (and baking soda for a nice fizzly effect). That just made them mad. And still they kept moving. We really didn't want to use anything heavier so as not to upset the tummies of birds and other creatures that might eat the bodies. They kept coming. Truthfully, we did kill a good number of them. I think we probably drowned more of them than anything. We mixed soap and water and threw that at them. After a couple of hours of boiling water in my apartment and taking it outside and hosing down the parking lot to get rid of the evidence we stopped for a break and to rethink what we could do.

And the heavens opened up. It poured and poured, washing all the maggots away. The ones outside the green bin anyway. We still have maggots in the green bin, but not as many. The temperature is a little cooler today as well, so that's helping the cause.

The main problem though is that because we're an apartment building, the bin gets dumped by a waste company and tenants dump more stuff in it before it can be rinsed out. So we're thinking about a solution to this. And trying to get rid of the heebie jeebies....

S.

Wildlife

2009-07-07T02:13:00.000-07:00

Last night my neighbour, Kim, helped me to round up a moth stuck to the outside of the third floor window screen. She managed to knock it off and I gathered it up when it landed on the ground. A little googling and I discovered it's probably a type of hawk moth. Kim said it looked like a bat from a distance. It's a spectacular add to my collection:

Yesterday morning I found three wings of a polyphemus moth, one of the huge giant silk worm moths we have around here. A bat or bird had a great meal. Some birds actually pick the wings off the moth before eating it:

I also discovered those lily beetles still at it. Rather acrobatic aren't they?

Less than three weeks to the MS Bike Tour. Time to get moving some more...

S.

More Pics

2009-07-06T12:43:00.000-07:00

As promised, more pics from the end of last week:

This one will give you a sense of the fog. Nice and quiet on the pond, but on the other side of the pond is the beach and roaring waves.

There were a number of snails on the beach, of course, but the fun thing was looking at their tracks:

A piece of coral washed onto the beach with a few tiny clam shells stuck inside it. I'm not sure if the clams fixed themselves to the coral and it grew around them or is they just got washed inside it. Probably the former. I used the coral to draw a two inch line on the rock it's sitting on to give a sense of size. Coral is composed of calcium carbonate, found in a number of living organisms and rock:

The sea:

Vacation (Kind of)

2009-07-03T17:52:00.000-07:00

I have been going non stop for the past two weeks. Work, personal appearances, remote broadcasts, and fund raising for the upcoming bike tour have occupied my time almost completely. Until this week. The Wookie and I left very early yesterday morning for a drive to Kejimkujik (called Keji for short) National Park. There is an old growth forest that the Wookie really wanted to see so we spent a couple of hours in the car in order to get there early enough for a hike. We traipsed through mixed wood forest and finally got to the hemlocks, some of which are 400 years old.

The Wookie taking a pic:

The beauty of this park is such that I am almost tempted to take up camping. Almost. As much as I love nature and the outdoors, I prefer to sleep in a bed with a pillow and use indoor plumbing with hot and cold running water.

Anyway, we only spent a short time in this park (for now - we will return) as we also wanted to go to the Sea Adjunct of Keji, 40 minutes drive away. The main part of Keji is in the middle of the province; the adjunct is a pacel of protected land right on the ocean. We hiked most of the trail through the park, after having checked in at the entrance and learning that a black bear had been spotted on the beach. And there were seals on the rocks off shore. Cool. So off we went.

We never did see a bear, though two kilometres from the end of the looped trail (and technically two kilometres from the start) we did find bear scat. Having already published pics of bear poop from one of last summer's treks, I declined taking a pic. We saw seals swimming and trying to sneak up on several ducks, including two eiders, and we startled a porcupine, the probable source of animal poop that was quite abundant on the trail and poop I did photograph for Linda:

We came across deer tracks on the beach and wild strawberries, ripe for the picking (and I did eat two). We also came across a small frog pond with at least 12 frogs in and around it. And the flowers! I had never actually seen a pitcher plant in bloom; actually, I don't think I'd ever seen a pitcher plant period. The barrens were covered in them. And the orchids were in bloom as well. I have known that we have orchids in Nova Scotia, but have never seen them. They were the most spectacular candy pink. And the blue flag iris were everywhere. Fields of iris, iris on the beach, iris next to the trail, clinging tenaciously and in various states of bloom. These wonderful flowers reminded me of Herrad, hanging on in the most discouraging of weather, living so close to the violence of the North Atlantic seas just waiting to pop open. Herrad, these flowers just made me think of you, biding your time as your sore heals and you can get out in your chair again:

The weather here has been atrocious; wind, rain, drizzle, fog, and mist and about 5 minutes of sunshine towards the end of the day just to tease us. We left the park and continued on to a resort for the night, where we ran into family friends. Of course, the two of us were absolutely exhausted and eventually collapsed into puddles (after I insisted we go to the marshmallow roast on the beach so I could have a few of those ooey gooey treats).

Today we headed specifically for two other beaches. One is Risser's Beach, a provincial park with a gorgeous sandy beach bookended by jagged rocks. There we found tons of snails, shrimp like creatures, and actual shrimp in the tide pools, and even a couple of live hermit crabs. What a hoot.

I will publish as many pics as I can over the next day or two. The Wookie and I are going to get some biking in this weekend. I'm off Monday as well so the first part of my summer vacation will be complete and the sunshine will return to this part of the world on Tuesday. When I get back to work.

More bug Love

2009-06-21T17:40:00.000-07:00

Knowledge is one of those untouchable things like love or hate. Yet, it is vital to our growth as individuals. Some of us struggle through school learning only what we need to pass to the next level, learning what we need for a job, learning how to work the remote, learning perhaps the bare essentials to keep us alive. Some of us learn every day and make a point of doing that, looking things up in the dictionary or on the internet, asking questions, taking continuing education courses.

Since I was diagnosed with MS, I have been able to take everything I have learned and continue to learn and apply it to the issues of MS: my knowledge of epidemiology, chemistry, biology, socio-economics, mathematics even, have all been enhanced since my diagnosis. I had always been curious and a life long learner, but for the past 11 years even more so.

As many of you know from reading this blog, or from knowing me personally, I have a fondness for bugs. I love the onset of spring because it means the bugs will come out to do buggy things. The sounds of cicadas on the hottest days of the year are sweeter than the sounds of Mozart, the colours of beetles and butterflies more intense and pleasing than any Van Gogh, and the design and mechanics of how these creatures are and live, more ingenious than anything da Vinci could invent. And I continue to be amazed and amused by what I see and learn.

Some people question why other people study seemingly innocuous subjects. The people who ask those questions haven't learned the basic idea behind science: to learn more about our world and thus, understand it. They also haven't learned how to apply what they have learned to the wider world around us.

About 2 months ago, I attended a lecture about the source of funding for neuro science research. To begin the lecture, the speaker talked of why we do research in the first place. On the most basic level, it's because we want to know things, we are a curious species of animal. But the general public doesn't want to fund research just because one guy or gal is curious about something. The general public wants to fund research for a specific outcome, perhaps to eliminate a disease.

I want that as well. But I really enjoy reading about everything that leads up to that. Like this article I came across yesterday: Insects' Sex Scents Can Save Lives.

Just two days previous I caught two dragonflies in the throes of bug love, in the middle of the biking path I was on. I could have run them over!

S.

Bug Love

2009-06-13T16:46:00.000-07:00

I was out the door at 6:30 this morning for a walk....first stop was the garden where I found two beetles having sex on one of my plants. At 6:30 in the morning. So I took 'em inside and took pictures of them under the microscope.

I returned the lovers to the outdoors and went for my walk. On way home I came across a couple of huge worms and a couple of very small salamanders. We had torrential rains last night and all sorts of these creatures climb out of the earth to avoid drowning. Some were a little late to go back. The smaller of the salamanders I took home with me for pictures under the microscope. This is his tiny foot. you can see the rounded shape of it and it's very similar to tree frogs, with the sticky pads on their tiny toes.

The little guy was only an inch long, just a baby so I released him to the grass outside.

Back in the garden again to find more creepy crawlies. This centipede like creature was under a rhubarb leaf.

And I couldn't resist taking a picture of my neighbour's onion. It looks like it's wearing a turban.

Things are still really busy with work and fund raising for the bike tour. We hardly have time to get out for bike rides and training. Tomorrow...

S.

The (New) Democratic Process

2009-06-10T17:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, we had a provincial election. Having had a minority government for almost 10 years, this election being called was no surprise. However, it was the 5th election in 11 years instead of the usual one every 4 years or so....it's all a part of our democracy, but still frustrating when the governing body has so many obstacles it rarely gets anything done. Hopefully, this new government will improve things in this province.

The New Democratic Party (NDP) rather than the Progressive Conservatives or Liberals is now the ruling party. Nova Scotia has always been a PC or Liberal province until now. The NDP is more socialistic than the other parties and now have to prove that they are worthy of running the province. We'll see.

I was at the headquarters for a PC candidate last night as the returns were coming in. It's a very interesting process and to watch from behind the scenes is rather cool. My mom has been a political junkie and activist, behind the scenes, since before I was born, and she was not pleased with the outcome.

I said to the Wookie tonight after hearing the voter stats, that less than 30 % of the voting population voted for the winning party. Turns out it was 26%. Voter turnout was about 58%. I am disgusted with that number. At the political Q and A I moderated last week, I reminded he audience that the disabled community of Nova Scotia comprises 20% of the population. And 20% can make a big difference. I can't believe the number of people NOT voting. I am not the political junkie my mother is, but during almost every break when on air yesterday, I told folks to go vote. And I have always done so. I guess I have to drive them to the polls and check their ballots for them now, too.....sheesh.

Anyway, as I reminded people at the meeting, we have to, as individuals, pick up the phone, write letters, ask questions, demand answers. Politicians are interested in individuals' stories, they want to solve problems, fix things. It makes them look good and feel good. After all, they are working for US, not the other way around. It may take more than one letter or one phone call, but once you explain yourself to an aid, he or she gets the ear of the politician.

I realize that not everyone has as much chutzpah as I. To give you an example, there was an automated message left on my answering machine, but the ex just heard the automated voice and thought Stephen Hawking was calling for me. It didn't surprise him that Stephen Hawking might be calling me as we had just gotten hooked up to the internet and I was telling him about all the contacts I was making with folks around the world. (It was actually the local library calling to tell me a book was in) I will talk to anyone and reach out to anyone as well. Last year, I read a great article about ship salvagers and wrote the author, as I felt the story deserved a wider audience, perhaps as a movie. He wrote back (!) to tell me he had been hired to write a movie treatment of the article. Very cool.

The point is, I will make contact if I want to know something. Why don't other people? I write letters to the editor of our provincial paper to offer praise when due and am lucky I have a microphone and radio show to broadcast my opinions about things ranging from lousy drivers to dog owners who don't pick up after their pets. And every time I offer an opinion, I get e-mails from people agreeing with me.

People have to stop complaining about things and start taking action. Until then, people will have to listen to me and my big mouth.

S.

Here I Am

2009-06-08T17:30:00.000-07:00

I've been so busy again this past week I haven't been able to download a week and a half's worth of pictures until tonight.

On the weekend I saw Lefty in the parking lot as I was leaving so snapped a quick shot:

Lady slipper on a hike a week ago:

A rabbit on the multi use trail yesterday:

And a bee fly or wasp in the dandelions:

I facilitated a meeting of three candidates running in the provincial election. Several disabled organizations agreed to 6 questions pertaining disabled issues and the meeting was held in front of an audience to give folks a better idea of the partys' platforms. Aside from one little glitch towards the end I think it went well. I also hosted a gala fundraiser Friday night, even wearing heels and a skirt. Luckily there were no wardrobe malfunctions and things went fairly well there as well.

Our provincial election is tomorrow. I'm hoping to get to a lecture Wednesday night, get some more biking in when the weather clears after the weekend, and continue actively fundraising for the bike tour. Somewhere in there I'm trying to do laundry and other domestic chores. Oh! And spend some quality time with the Wookie. so forgive me if I appear to be MIA over the next couple of weeks. I'm here. Just not....here...if you know what I mean.

S.

Charlie the Tuna Won't Be Happy....

2009-06-06T02:12:00.000-07:00

From Science Daily:

"For the past century, changes in the Western diet have altered the consumption of omega-6 fatty acids (w6, found in meat and vegetable oils) compared with omega-3 fatty acids (w3, found in flax and fish oil). Many studies seem to indicate this shift has brought about an increased risk of inflammation (associated with autoimmunity and allergy), and now using a controlled diet study with human volunteers, researchers may have teased out a biological basis for these reported changes.

Anthropological evidence suggests that human ancestors maintained a 2:1 w6/w3 ratio for much of history, but in Western countries today the ratio has spiked to as high as 10:1. Since these omega fatty acids can be converted into inflammatory molecules, this dietary change is believed to also disrupt the proper balance of pro- and anti- inflammatory agents, resulting in increased systemic inflammation and a higher incidence of problems including asthma, allergies, diabetes, and arthritis.

Floyd Chilton and colleagues wanted to examine whether theses fatty acids might have other effects, and developed a dietary intervention strategy in which 27 healthy humans were fed a controlled diet mimicking the w6/w3 ratios of early humans over 5 weeks. They then looked at the gene levels of immune signals and cytokines (protein immune messengers), that impact autoimmunity and allergy in blood cells and found that many key signaling genes that promote inflammation were markedly reduced compared to a normal diet, including a signaling gene for a protein called PI3K, a critical early step in autoimmune and allergic inflammation responses.

This study demonstrates, for the first time in humans, that large changes in gene expression are likely an important mechanism by which these omega fatty acids exert their potent clinical effects."

Steroid treatment of MS relapses is common and successful because it reduces the inflammation that occurs during attacks. Perhaps we can assist steroids by reducing our intake of omega 6 fats and upping our intake of omega 3 fats.

Eat more fish. It really is good brain food.

Scat

2009-06-02T15:03:00.000-07:00

OK...so this may be gross to many. I have posted it strictly for Linda at Braincheese and for anyone who has an interest in the diet of predatory mammals. Either a coyote or bobcat/lynx left this bit of poop behind on the trail I was on a couple of weeks ago. It was quite old poop, perhaps even from the winter, but you can make out two long white things in the poop that I tapped with a stick to determine the hardness. I think it's teeth from a shrew or mole type rodent, which is common prey for the above mentioned predators, especially in winter.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled blog...

S.

Seal of Approval

2009-06-02T02:03:00.000-07:00

Prevalence of MS among aboriginal populations has been rarely studied. The few studies conducted indicate MS prevalence is low, but not rare. In the Northern part of Norway, Troms and Finnmark, the prevalence of MS is relatively low; in fact, in the Sami population, an indigenous population of Norway, no MS is found among those of pure Sami heritage. I haven’t been able to find any info on MS in the Innuit populations of Northern Canada and Alaska.

You might think that these populations would have a higher incidence of MS because of their geography. That appears not to be the case. These populations have limited access to neurologists, so that may account for some going undiagnosed. But there has been an increase in the incidence of MS over the years, possibly due to the fact that there is greater intermingling of the aboriginal population with those of Northern European descent and improved diagnostic tools. Still, over all, there is a lesser prevalence of MS in these populations.

Why?

Because of where they live, these populations have a definite lack of natural sunlight year round, thus less Vitamin D via sunshine. So where do they get Vitamin D (thought to protect people from MS)? It must be in the food. So what do these populations eat?

Seal and whale. They are staples of the Northern Canadian aboriginal diet. And seals and whale eat fish. The northern species of fish are high in omega 3s and vitamin D, passing along those nutrients to the higher organisms when consumed.

Last week, the Governor General of Canada, Michaelle Jean, who is the Queen’s representative in this country, was touring the northern communities of Canada. During one stop, she participated in a ceremony involving cutting open a freshly killed seal, and eating part of its heart. Aside from the queasiness factor, this was a symbolic gesture to show solidarity with the northern communities and their way of life. I thought it was very brave on her part. She's not the first non-native or even the first Governor -General to eat raw seal meat. She's just the first to do so in such a public manner and at a time when the European Union is miffed about the Canadian seal hunt.

But it is more than just a brave gesture. It may be a way of returning to lower incidences of MS in the Canadian population.

To Dis or Not to Dis

2009-05-29T01:47:00.000-07:00

An interesting thing happened to me this week that has really given me a lot to think about. It’s not something I considered before, but am now wondering why it never occurred to me.

If you have a visible disability, ie you use a wheelchair for mobility or have a seeing eye dog, the general population will see you as disabled or differently abled. As MSers we all are aware that some disabilities are invisible. I have no obvious sign of a disability and even a doc would be hard pressed to find me disabled. I work full time, participate in family and community activities, exercise on a regular basis and do this without any assistance mechanical or otherwise. OK, so the Wookie helps me clean up the apartment from time to time, but he’s also at my place so much, it’s only right. But if you didn’t know me and the fact that I have MS, you wouldn’t consider me disabled.

This week, I was meeting with a couple of the gals at the MS office about an upcoming political meeting I will be facilitating about disability issues. I was asked how I wanted my bio to read: member of the disabled community or someone with MS or whatever? I was taken aback because I don’t identify myself as a disabled person. I am a person living with MS, possibly with the threat of disability, but at this point in time, I am not disabled. Yet, these gals consider me a part of that community.

Very interesting, I thought. The gang I work with don’t consider me part of the disabled community (I've asked them), but a couple of the gals at the MS office do. This event, though a small one, has left me wondering about a number of things. Who thinks of me a member of a disabled community? Who doesn't? Because I have MS, does that automatically define me as disabled? When I was using a cane and couldn't drive because of right sided weakness and numbness, I didn't consider myself disabled, though by definition alone, I truly was. It never crossed my mind.

I asked the Wookie for his opinion about my abilities. He said it all depends on the context. He's seen me on those days when I can't go another two feet and have to lie down. He's seen me drop my utensils at dinner and had to rub my feet to ease spasms. Those times he knows I have MS and though not medically disabled, definitely affected by symptoms. Most of the time it's not apparent.

I did a quick search on the net about "self reporting of disability". I came across the WHO website and read a few things about the subject. I now realize that there is much more to disability than physical disability. Socio-economic factors, personality, and education all play a part in how we define ourselves and how others perceive us. And that is an important reason why governments, charitable organizations, and health care workers have to consider treating a person's life and not just their disability. It's fine for a government to provide an accessible bus or taxi, but the cost may be prohibitive for its use. An organization may provide a wheelchair but if the home the person is living in has a bathroom that's too small for a wheelchair, there's not much point.

Disability is so much more than a physical state. It's a state of mind, too.

S.