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

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.

Bee Ware

(Picture from Wikipedia)

I have written before about things being connected. I am always looking for and/or finding connections between seemingly unrelated things. I did it again.

As you're probably aware, I like bugs. The social insects I find particularly interesting. Bees are one such creature. They do what's best for the hive, defending it from intruders, and if they're sick, they leave the hive so as not to spread disease. Bees have been in the news recently because of "Colony Collapse Disorder", whereby complete colonies of bees simply cease to exist. According to a recent PBS documentary, if something isn't done to alleviate the problem, by the year 2035 we may have to pollinate our own plants. There's a city in China, dependent on the pear crop, already doing that; it's a painstaking, long process to collect the pollen, dry it out, then individually pollinate every pear blossom to produce fruit.

Of course there are a number of agencies world wide looking into this CCD because results could mean a disaster on the world wide level. So what is making the bees disappear? Undoubtedly there are environmental factors, like global warming or wetter weather making life difficult for the bee. (A drenched bee is one of life's most pathetic creatures-it cannot fly until it dries off and is therefore vulnerable to any predator. That's the best time to pet one though, as they sit and wait.)

There are parasites that can cause problems for the bees, though on their own, the parasites don't seem to cause the wide scale bee loss that is being observed. There is also a fungus that bees get that seems to be contributing to the loss.

Some speculate that the mobile bee keepers who move their hives from field to field may be contributing to CCD, the bees gaining increased exposure to bees from other hives and with other parasites or diseases. Or that the movement is exposing more and more colonies to different pesticides and poisons.

But the most interesting (to me) possible cause of CCD is Israel Acute Paralysis Virus. It has been found in a great number of tested CCD colonies and while causation has not been proven, there appears to be a link.

In IAPV, the bee becomes sick, then paralyzed. Nature doesn't cope well when its creatures can't move, therefore they die. En mass. The virus can be transmitted by mites, those pesky little parasites. It would be akin to us getting Lyme disease from a tick.

One of the terms used in the PBS show I watched was "perfect storm". Heard that before. A perfect storm of events transpire to kill off the bees. Immune supression because of parasite infestation, exposure to less than ideal circumstances in the environment, and onset of a virus. On their own, each circumstance is survivable and uneventful, but put all three together and you get the perfect storm resulting in CCD.

MS is much like CCD. We have a certain genetic makeup that makes our immune system go a little haywire, add to that less than ideal environment (perhaps not enough vitamin D), and exposure to a childhood illness, and bingo! MS. Each of those circumstances on their own probably don't cause MS, but put 'em together and you've got it.

I couldn't help but think of the connection between both these illnesses while watching the documentary. As we discover more and more about how our systems work with, and sometimes against, each other, we understand biology a little better. I just wish the discoveries came a little faster.

S.