A Good Patient
I've been sick the last few days, which is part of the reason I haven't posted all that often. It's pretty hard to do too much when you're zonked out and low on energy. I first thought I had a cold, but then again, my lovely co-Head of Household just finished having sinusitis, so then I changed my mind. I've got sinusitis. Now I think maybe it's just a cold. The symptoms are so similar it's hard to tell the two apart. Either way, I've been rapidly depleting what looks like a lifetime supply of Kleenex. I've got pretty good aim when I'm ready to throw each wad in the garbage. No three-pointers, but a very high percentage of baskets regardless.
What's really annoying is this persistent cough I've had over the last few days. I stayed home from work on Friday, because I was coughing every fifteen to twenty minutes, and I didn't want to drive the office nuts with listening to me. I decided to see if I could just turn in my work and pick up new material. My "supervisor" had no problem with that, so I've got a new screenplay to read, some earlier coverage to revise and re-submit, and a new book to read. Plenty of reading material for the week to come.
I've been pretty much following my mother's dictum: "Rest and drink plenty of fluids!" She always used to say this when I was sick as a child, and I've done this every time since. It's been a while since I've been sick though; maybe two or three years at least. I was sick frequently as a child, so I guess this is a "reward" as an adult: infrequent illness. It's annoying though. I have tons of other things to do, and I just haven't had the energy to tackle anything yet.
I will admit it's nice being sick when you're married or have someone living with you. There's someone there to fuss over you, make sure you've got plenty to drink, and generally put up with whatever inane requests you make. I know a lot of people think there are certain or definite milestones to finally becoming an adult, but for me, I think the moment I knew I was truly grown up was the first time I got sick, and I didn't have Mom there to take my temperature, bring the TV into the bedroom, bring meals/drinks/whatever in on a TV tray, pick up medicine for me, and generally make sure I was comfortable. My roommate couldn't care less, my bed was an army cot (maybe not literally, but it sure felt like it!), and it wasn't "home." There's nothing more dispiriting than having to be sick on your own.
Since then, I've gotten used to it, and can handle being alone and sick. But now, I don't have to. As it is, it's kind of a nice payback: my wife gets sick, I swear, on average every ten days. Usually it's something minor, but she is NOT a good patient. I do my best to be a kind and loving husband anyway, but I must admit it's nice to be the one in need of pampering for a change! I think overall I'm a good patient. *grin*
Today I finally felt a bit better, which was Good News, as I had bought tickets last month for a museum exhibit, and there's no way I could get our money back. It was to go to the L.A. Science Center to see "Body Worlds 2." This is a fascinating exhibit where real human bodies are on display, stripped of skin in most cases, and often dissected or "carved up" so that you can see the organs, the nerves, the arteries, and hell, just about everything, really. It's done through a process called plastination, and the exhibit comes from Germany. This was a sequel to the hugely popular "Body Worlds" exhibit, which we also saw. That first show is now in Chicago.
Both exhibits had hundreds of bodies/body parts, and showed all kinds of things. Some of the things I remember vividly and that made an impression on me include the nervous system. Somehow they extracted the entire nervous system and propped it up so you could see all the nerves, and ONLY the nerves. I never realized how extensive the nervous system was! They took all the organs out of one torso, and placed it on a rotating pole next to the body it came from, so you could see how everything fit together. It was really fascinating to see the actual placement of the organs. Sure, I took high school and college biology, along with everyone else. I've seen pictures of the body before. But there is a vast difference between seeing pictures, models, and the like and seeing an actual body. I also never realized how small the kidneys really are; I'd always pictured them as being larger than they really are.
The aspects of the exhibits that most fascinated me (and probably captivated others' attention too) were the organs/parts that were messed up/diseased. For example, there was a normal, healthy artery, and right next to it, a diseased one. It's sobering to see how allowing cholesterol and fat buildup results in a dysfunctional (and essential!) element of your system.
Although (with one exception) the designers of the show respect the privacy of the donors by not revealing age, cause of death, or other identifying factors, in "Body Worlds" I'd say a good third of the lungs were diseased. I got to see a healthy lung, and in the next instant, what a smoker's lung looks like, with all the tar deposits, and the greyish tone of the outside, all speckled with black. For the second show, they showed a similar healthy lung next to a smoker's lung. But the real shocker came in the third lung: the lung of a coal miner. It was completely black. I don't mean greyish black, but dark of the night, moonless, starless, absolutely-no-light-anywhere black. ALL of it. As a historian, I've long known that coal miners suffered respiratory ailments and had shortened lives due to the years in the mines, but looking at this totally black lung, it really hit me how much toll mine work extracted.
Other types of lungs were shown, including a lung ravaged by cancer, that was one-third the size of a normal lung, next to a normal-sized lung. I saw a liver riddled by cirrhosis, a heart damaged by a heart attack, knee cartilage swollen by arthritic tissues, and various implants, from a pacemaker to an artificial hip joint. It's definitely an amazing show, and if you're in L.A. or Chicago, you must go see it. Even if you're not big on science (and I've never been known to be crazy about science museums or exhibits), this will leave you both impressed by the complexity of the machine that is your body, and also re-thinking your daily habits. I'm really curious how many people actually stop or reduce their smoking based on seeing what a damaged lung looks like. For some information (and to see what I'm talking about), check out the Body Worlds site.
What's really annoying is this persistent cough I've had over the last few days. I stayed home from work on Friday, because I was coughing every fifteen to twenty minutes, and I didn't want to drive the office nuts with listening to me. I decided to see if I could just turn in my work and pick up new material. My "supervisor" had no problem with that, so I've got a new screenplay to read, some earlier coverage to revise and re-submit, and a new book to read. Plenty of reading material for the week to come.
I've been pretty much following my mother's dictum: "Rest and drink plenty of fluids!" She always used to say this when I was sick as a child, and I've done this every time since. It's been a while since I've been sick though; maybe two or three years at least. I was sick frequently as a child, so I guess this is a "reward" as an adult: infrequent illness. It's annoying though. I have tons of other things to do, and I just haven't had the energy to tackle anything yet.
I will admit it's nice being sick when you're married or have someone living with you. There's someone there to fuss over you, make sure you've got plenty to drink, and generally put up with whatever inane requests you make. I know a lot of people think there are certain or definite milestones to finally becoming an adult, but for me, I think the moment I knew I was truly grown up was the first time I got sick, and I didn't have Mom there to take my temperature, bring the TV into the bedroom, bring meals/drinks/whatever in on a TV tray, pick up medicine for me, and generally make sure I was comfortable. My roommate couldn't care less, my bed was an army cot (maybe not literally, but it sure felt like it!), and it wasn't "home." There's nothing more dispiriting than having to be sick on your own.
Since then, I've gotten used to it, and can handle being alone and sick. But now, I don't have to. As it is, it's kind of a nice payback: my wife gets sick, I swear, on average every ten days. Usually it's something minor, but she is NOT a good patient. I do my best to be a kind and loving husband anyway, but I must admit it's nice to be the one in need of pampering for a change! I think overall I'm a good patient. *grin*
Today I finally felt a bit better, which was Good News, as I had bought tickets last month for a museum exhibit, and there's no way I could get our money back. It was to go to the L.A. Science Center to see "Body Worlds 2." This is a fascinating exhibit where real human bodies are on display, stripped of skin in most cases, and often dissected or "carved up" so that you can see the organs, the nerves, the arteries, and hell, just about everything, really. It's done through a process called plastination, and the exhibit comes from Germany. This was a sequel to the hugely popular "Body Worlds" exhibit, which we also saw. That first show is now in Chicago.
Both exhibits had hundreds of bodies/body parts, and showed all kinds of things. Some of the things I remember vividly and that made an impression on me include the nervous system. Somehow they extracted the entire nervous system and propped it up so you could see all the nerves, and ONLY the nerves. I never realized how extensive the nervous system was! They took all the organs out of one torso, and placed it on a rotating pole next to the body it came from, so you could see how everything fit together. It was really fascinating to see the actual placement of the organs. Sure, I took high school and college biology, along with everyone else. I've seen pictures of the body before. But there is a vast difference between seeing pictures, models, and the like and seeing an actual body. I also never realized how small the kidneys really are; I'd always pictured them as being larger than they really are.
The aspects of the exhibits that most fascinated me (and probably captivated others' attention too) were the organs/parts that were messed up/diseased. For example, there was a normal, healthy artery, and right next to it, a diseased one. It's sobering to see how allowing cholesterol and fat buildup results in a dysfunctional (and essential!) element of your system.
Although (with one exception) the designers of the show respect the privacy of the donors by not revealing age, cause of death, or other identifying factors, in "Body Worlds" I'd say a good third of the lungs were diseased. I got to see a healthy lung, and in the next instant, what a smoker's lung looks like, with all the tar deposits, and the greyish tone of the outside, all speckled with black. For the second show, they showed a similar healthy lung next to a smoker's lung. But the real shocker came in the third lung: the lung of a coal miner. It was completely black. I don't mean greyish black, but dark of the night, moonless, starless, absolutely-no-light-anywhere black. ALL of it. As a historian, I've long known that coal miners suffered respiratory ailments and had shortened lives due to the years in the mines, but looking at this totally black lung, it really hit me how much toll mine work extracted.
Other types of lungs were shown, including a lung ravaged by cancer, that was one-third the size of a normal lung, next to a normal-sized lung. I saw a liver riddled by cirrhosis, a heart damaged by a heart attack, knee cartilage swollen by arthritic tissues, and various implants, from a pacemaker to an artificial hip joint. It's definitely an amazing show, and if you're in L.A. or Chicago, you must go see it. Even if you're not big on science (and I've never been known to be crazy about science museums or exhibits), this will leave you both impressed by the complexity of the machine that is your body, and also re-thinking your daily habits. I'm really curious how many people actually stop or reduce their smoking based on seeing what a damaged lung looks like. For some information (and to see what I'm talking about), check out the Body Worlds site.
posted by Mr. Sandman | 9:57 PM
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