Vaccines

There has been a lot of discussion lately on some of the internet sites I frequent concerning whether or not people should get the seasonal flu vaccine and the H1N1 vaccine. Apparently there are a lot of women out there who think its unsafe, or at least that not having it is safer than having it.

This boggles my mind. I just can't wrap my head around the reasoning going into this. Here are some arguments I have heard, sometimes directly, sometimes implied:

"The mercury in vaccines is dangerous." OK. I know mercury is not good for you, but kids used to PLAY with mercury on table tops. The amount is so tiny, and it has been tested every which way with no replicable evidence showing any harm done by the amount of mercury in vaccines. (It's all in the science! Read the studies... I think there is one floating around saying it causes all sorts of issues and a million saying there is no effect).

"The swine flu vaccine hurt a lot of people 40 years ago". First - the definition of "a lot" needs to be considered, the vast majority of shots still had no negative effect. Second, do you know how much medicine has improved since then? 40 years ago birth control caused all sorts of potential complications including instant death from blood clots... so do these same women not use birth control because at one time it was unsafe?

"All vaccines carry a risk of serious side effect." True. But the risk is tiny. I would like to see someone showing with widely accepted data that the rate of death from the vaccine is higher than that from flu, particularly in high risk groups. I seriously doubt the evidence is there.

"Vaccines do not actually work, you still can get sick". True, but again, incredibly unlikely. In general, vaccines are offered to the public because they reduce the chance of infection significantly for each individual who has one and work at preventing the spread of the disease as a whole through society.

What bothers me the most about all of these reasons is that they all seem to rely on an underlying assumption that naturalists have some secret information or knowledge that the scientific and medical communities lack as a whole, or that the medical community does not have peoples best interest at heart (which frankly implies some conspiracy). I have said this before and I will say it again. The reason that doctors and the medical community recommend people have the flu vaccine is because on average statistically speaking it is better for a person to have it than not have it, and the more people get it, the better off society as a whole will be. To those people who disagree, especially those scientists and doctors who disagree, I want to say prove it! The medical community is a scientific community. Do the study that shows you are right, and publish it in a peer reviewed journal. It WILL get attention, if its scientific. I feel like the fear mongering by those against the vaccine is as bad (if not worse) than fear mongering done by the media.

Glad to have that out of my system.

Written Aug. 16th 2003

Life is perception.
I want to see flowers where others see weeds.
I want to see unique, adorable, sturdy, and stubby where others see ugly.
I want to see creative where others see clashing and colorful where others see mismatching.
I don't want to let society define my perspective.
I don't want to let society define my life.

Yes, it is 6:45am on Saturday morning and I am blogging. That is what happens when you get your body used to a set schedule, bed at 11pm, up at 6:30am. Ta da!

Fall is in full swing here! I thought it was in full swing a while ago, but as usual I forget things. I forget just how pretty it gets, how good it smells, and how good I feel when it is just starting out. Its like if you found out you one a $100 on Oct 1st and thought it was great, and then found out the $100 is just the start and you would get a thousand more the next week, and ten thousand more the week after that.

Last night we went to Raising Canes for dinner (I love that place) then to the Halloween shop. I still have one or two bits to work out for my costume but I mostly have it covered. It is a really easy costume to arrange. People who knew me in HS would be able to guess it easily, people at Truman might have a chance, and people now probably wouldn't know I would be inclined to have this costume. After dinner I walked the dog. We walked over to the high school and saw the homecoming parade, then meandered back through the lovely leaves. Back in the house it was time to watch my favorite Halloween movie - The Frighteners. I do not know why I like it, but its fun.

I had book club this week - it was a very small group (four of us). We were discussing One Year of Living Biblically which I actually read back in August. I thought it would comedy, but it was more self help - still not a bad book.

We also finished watching being human with our friends. It is a BBC series that had its first season over the summer. It is about a vampire, werewolf, and ghost that are trying to live normally. It is quite well written and I look forward to the next season.

There were more pictures I wanted to post to catch up but my picture host is being unhelpful, so none of that today.

Major Picture Catchup

I have pictures going as far back as early August that I meant to post and did not get around to it. I have SO many that they won't let me put them all in one post... so here we go!!

DH relaxes on the couch with our "lap dog"

On my drive up to Grandma's in September I noticed an entire field of yellow and had to stop and take pictures.

Then when I got out of the car I realized just how pretty the sky was, so I took pictures of it as well.

When we visited LEKT - pictures of her Amish neighbors (from a long distance, thank you digital zoom)

LEKT's clinic has two kittens they are raising to kill mice. They are adorable! If we are lucky LEKT will post their names, since one of their names was adorable but I can't remember it.

The main focus at LEKT's practice (where she is an intern) is Alpacas. Here is an alpaca with a broken neck. She's stylin'

I also took a lot of artsy pictures of things up there in Burton, so enjoy!

LEKT and DH dance their way back down the driveway towards the house.

The hitching post outside some shopping centers. This is serious Amish country.

We went mini golfing, here is me avoiding a water hazard...

LEKT was not very good, but she had "heart" ROFL

DH impersonating a Samurai or something... I don't really get it.

It may look like I am just stretching but really I am celebrating being all time champion.

Flower at the st Louis Zoo

On the drive from St Louis to Champaign IL the fall colors and sun and clouds were so pretty, so I took some pictures.

Weekend Report, a Week Late!

I had such a wonderful weekend last weekend (10/9-10/12) and I simply have not had the time to post about it because things are so busy! (but really in a good way for the most part).

Friday night DH and I headed off to St Louis. It was not a very fun drive because it was raining. DH drove until it got dark, and then I took over because his vision in the dark rain is not so good. In this particular incedent I could not do much better than him. It really did not help that a large portion of the section between Dayton and Indianapolis lacked side lines on the road, meaning the pavement sort of faded into the ditch with no distinct separation. Luckily we got out of the rain about the time we hit Indianapolis. I finished my audio book - Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, which was quite good, a book that I would have been obsessed with had I read it at the right moment in my life, but as it actually happened just found good. After I ran out of audiobook I started to get sleepy, so DH took over and made the rest of the drive. We arrived at the ILs house about 1am.

On Saturday morning we surprisingly did not sleep in that much. We got up, milled around, socialized, watched TV, and then FIL made a wonderful breakfast of french toast and bacon. I never make french toast at home, I really should learn! We decided to go to the zoo. I love the St. Louis zoo. First, its free. Second, its huge. Since it is free you never feel obligated to see every thing on one day, which would be way too much. We went to the insectarium. I freaked myself out in the spider section, DH freaked himself out with the cockroaches. We wandered through the butterfly house. We meandered through Africa - by far my favorite section. I love the capabaras, basically giant hamsters. The rhinos were actually out, which does not happen often, but the highlight of course was the hippos. They were SO active!! They had three or four (its hard to tell because the water is very cloudy), and they were swimming all over the place. This one kept doing laps that brought it right up close to the glass. It was really cool! We also went to see the sea lions and the gorillas, and meandered by the grizzly bears on the way out.

For lunch we went to Fitz's, which I have decided is my favorite restaurant in St. Louis. It is a soda company - they brew root beer and many other flavors, and bottle it on site in their restaurant. They also serve tasty food, drinks, and desserts. It was a lot of ufn. If we had planned things better perhaps we could have met some undergraduate friends there.

Stomach's full we headed home feeling very sleepy. MIL and I then went out shoe shopping - when we were in Burton last weekend, Grim decided my work shoes would make a tasty snack. I ended up with two pair of shoes. Back at the house we watched the Cardinals lose miserably and ordered pizza. After two nights of not enough sleep I crashed early.

On Sunday ILs headed off to the airport early in the morning - they were going to CA, one for work, the other for fun. We took our time waking up and eventually headed towards downtown St Louis. We were parked so close to Kiener Plaza, where we got married, that we decided to hop over there. We got quite the shock when we saw the fountain - it was dyed koolaid red because of the Cardinals being in the playoffs!! We took some pictures, then headed to the Edward Jones Dome. It was interesting just how much purple their was (i.e. how many Vikings fans were there), coming in there seemed to be more purple than blue!! It was great! We had good seats in about the 19th row (hey, if you are only going to do something once or infrequently, mine as well do it well!!). The game was SO much fun. Brett Favre is starting to win me over as a quarterback. His pwnage of the Packers helped a lot, and seeing him in person helped a lot.
After the game we headed to Champaign, IL to spend a night with our friends B&R who got married in May (I am sure there are pictures of it back in this blog somewhere). Anyways, it was really great seeing them. They also had B's dad and friend as visitors. R cooked us a great dinner on Sunday and then we chatted and watched Sunday night football. On Monday R has school. We all went out for breakfast, and then we went to the student rec center to play pool and bowling, it was a lot of fun. R rejoined us and we went for lunch at a yummy mexican place, and then played Blockus, which was fun. I am all time champion!!

That was the weekend! Grim was happy to see us get home. It was a bit hard to go back to work on Tuesday after such a fun relaxing weekend - getting to do all of my favorite St Louis things, seeing my first NFL game, and hanging out with good friends.

Impulsiveness

Gandalf is currently in the bathroom making gurgling noises. It sounds like he is drowning, but really he is trying to meow. I should go encourage his attempts by turning on the water for him, but I am pinned down by another purring wonder.

I know I said I would not be blogging again until next weekend, but things change. My training got out earlier than I expected tonight so I thought I would sign on.

We are rapidly discovering that one of the best things about me having a real job is our ability to be impulsive. Last week we decided during the week we were going to LEKY's for the weekend. We did not even arrange a dog sitter until Friday afternoon. Well, its Monday night and we are at the scheming again. I have long wanted to go to an NFL game (that is professional football by the way), but it always got put off due to money or time. This year we are making it a priority. We almost wento the Brown's game last weekend but our hearts were just not into it. But, we decided that this weekend we are going to go to St Louis to see the Minnesota Vikings play the St Louis Rams. So, we will be headed out Friday night, hanging out with the ILs on Saturday, going to the game Sunday, then spending Sunday night in Champaign with our friends from college (B&R). Thank you state of Ohio for giving me Columbus day off!!

Back when I was in school this would have taken major planning on two fronts- money, and managing to get my school work done around or during the trip. Now, its "why not! Lets go!" I love it!!

Burton

I spend the bulk of this weekend up in Burton, Ohio with my older sister. She is there doing an internship in large-animal medicine.

It was good times! We got up their around 9:45pm on Friday night, in time to watch the end of Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest with her. We stayed up pretty late goofing off and talking. On Saturday morning we got up at our leisure. For breakfast we walked over to a Amish vegetable stand that had fresh baked goods and got a little over zealous (decisions were just too hard!!). We ended up with banana bread, mini fried pies, pumpkin pie, and two kinds of cookies. We went to the clinic for a little bit so LEKY could water and feed the patients (alpacas), and DH and I could play with the kittens, and then we all headed off in the car.

The countryside was so beautiful! The leaves are changing, and there was so much to look at. LEKY took us around the best thing, the biggest and weirdest houses, the pretty views. It was very nice. Eventually we made our way to Chagrin Falls where we ate Mexican food for lunch, followed by mini golfing. I am all time champion! I laid some serious smack down! Which is weird because normally I suck. We also went to a movie - Love Happens. It was quite good in my opinion - NOT a romantic comedy, a tear jerker. We then went for Pizza at Zeppo's, which was excellent, then headed back to the house where we ate junk food (both the Amish baked goods and some more commercial snacks), and laughed our way through Journey to the Center of the Earth (with Brendan Frasier) on HBO. We fell asleep to Horton Hears a Who.

This morning we woke up pretty early, laid around and talked, ate leftover pizza for breakfast, visited the Kittens and Alpacas once more, and then DH and I hit the road (not too hard though). Back at home we spent the afternoon sleeping and watching football. I am feeling a little sick - a raspy throat. Hopefully it does not turn into anything more.

This week is going to be VERY busy if everything pans out. The next three days I am supposed to have training all evening to tutor for the Columbus Literacy Council. This might fall through since I have yet to receive confirmation, but as of right now I am planning on it. Thursday night I am supposed to hang out with some friends - this all means virtually no free time between now and Friday night, so I guess I will talk to you all next weekend!!