DEC-B-2

 

THE LAST DAYS AT HOME OF 2003

 FOLLOWING THE BMC PITTSFIELD TRIP AND PRECEDING THE CHRISTMAS ROAD TRIP,

 WITH THE SCHEDULED MEETINGS AS PLANNED

 

December 14—17, 2003

 

            I am bouncing around in the air, being thrown around by the storm beneath us which I have just escaped—at least as far as it is in upstate New York and western Massachusetts—for now.  I am overflying Washington DC to take any form of flight that would get me out of Albany earlier as it appears that the heavy storm is predicted to continue until Monday night.   I am not sure that the US Air flight that is a smaller commuter plane coming up at the scheduled time of 4:45 PM can actually take off from DCA or land at Albany, so I am getting a flight to Charlotte, and then connecting with one going north to DCA.  We will see if this latter connection is flying, but at least this one I am on is flying—for now—through and over the storm.  We had a thorough shower of a greenish color fluid which is the de-icer being sprayed all over the plane, and then took off.  This is certainly an “All Weather” aircraft, since the conditions we flew out in are those of a total white out.  I will see later if I can make the further plans to get into DCA, but I hope to be started off well by flying up, through, and at some point I hope, over the storm.

 

            It was an eventful long weekend in Pittsfield, with one episode that I am recalling now that may have residua.  I am producing high volumes of thick secretions from my sinuses which has been helped no doubt by the lesser pressurization of the aircraft as we have climbed.  I have not had such a thick sinusitis in a long time.  But it may have come from my Saturday morning exercise, which I had tried despite the full knowledge of the temperature outside.  It dawned a clear and bright day, but never got above 18* so that the snow and ice on the ground remained hard frozen.  Still, I had run at previous visits in the Berkshires around Lake Anota, and I had brought both the warm-up suit as what I thought might be appropriate gear, and had light gloves and a stocking cap in my down coat.  So, I packed up and tried to get out to run on Saturday before I would see Parvis and Kay Sadighi who were going to take me around the TNC’s (The nature Conservancy, for which she works part-time) projects in preservation of an ecosystem here in the Berkshires, taking out a few dams and allowing animal crossings by unbarriering some access.    I went to the buffet breakfast in the Crowne Plaza and took off in the somewhat light gear I had with me as a way to run down the roads around central Pittsfield unimaginatively named North and West Streets.

 

            I had got started and had a searing pain in my lungs from the abrupt exposure to the cold, but kept going.  I actually did warm up except for every appendage I had facing forward in the windchill. I could not move my hands, and I could hardly feel anything in the anterior thighs.  I passed Gene Curletis’s house on North, and kept going with the idea of running around the Lake Anota, a route I had discovered on one occasion before one of my International Night talks in preparation for the Boston Marathon—a first run of the at-that-time Spring before the spring marathon season.  I could not make it this time since I had such exposure to such biting cold that I was losing sensation, and wanted to turn out of the oncoming wind.  I made it back to the Crowner Plaza, and stood in a warm shower for a long time before the reversal of this freezing runner’s injuries.  So, I got cooked up to the point that I could go out with Parvis and Kay an hour later and see the ruins of old mills and the places where they have stocked salmon fry in the Westfield Creek which goes to the Connecticut River.  It was dangerously cold   I believe the secondary sinusitis I have now may be due to the fact that I had this exposure on a recovering normal URI cold.  I had had a flu shot for the first time this year, with a later appreciation that everyone is now having a run on the short supplies of this vaccine. I do not have symptoms of the flu, and can actually talk as I have been all weekend as visiting professor, with only a touch of laryngitis.  But, it seems that repeated exposures after the original exposure in the cold treestands of Maryland’s hunting season had given a secondary perhaps bacterial overlay to the URI, so that I have now got for the first time since I was in Lingshed eighteen months ago, a purulent mucositis of the kind that gives thick discharges from the sinuses.  This is the kind of condition for which I would (and have) prescribed antibiotics to others, but will hold out myself on such an extra treatment to keep the resistance problem minimized.  Two people for whom I had prescribed Ztihromax or Biaxin have had an immediate response to it, so I will keep some of that with me as a backup if this should not resolve, or get worse as I make my return up to the northern tier of New York, Chicago, and Michigan in the road trip later this coming week,

 

THE NEXT BOUNCE:

CHARLOTTE TO DCA, FOR ARRIVAL IN SNOW AND FREEZING RAIN

 

            I am reminded of last Christmas-time’s movie I had seen entitled “Frida” the artist wife of Diego Rivera the Mexican muralist, since the Attaché magazine in the USAir’s flights has a feature on her this month.  I am watching the weather, which has replaced Saddam Hussein as the lead story all along the way, since the early departure of my flight jumping from Albany probably prevented my being stranded there several more days.  I am told on hits flight that it is just at freezing in the capital so that the snow alternates with freezing rain.  It is only a couple of days before I get back into northern New York state again, so that I remain interested in the travel conditions up there even though I just squeaked out this time, I will be back by Bronco in which the “driving is up to me.”

 

It will be the start of Christmas season of holidays when I pass through the midweek this week, since I have several meetings before then that include an all-afternoon interview session at the ELDP program in which they can decide whether I am in the doctoral candidate groups and I can decide if that long effort is good for me as a fit—it would entail at least another five years of doctoral level work and a thesis, again, and I have more degrees than anyone should ever need for any purpose—like getting a job.  I am also hosting a meeting with the Saudi Embassy and a good friend of mine there to introduce them to the new Security advisor to the Provost on the Bioterrorism issues and arrange some training and program support from READI, the GW program of training for preparedness in the office of Homeland Security, particularly on bioterrorism.

           

            But, I have no special urgency to get anything finished as I will have in February when both the house should be approaching re-settling, and the Book on Healing and Surgery in the Developing World arrives in galley proof.  At that time I am also alleged to be heading to Mindanao, which is probably not where I should be when these other deadlines that will require my presence.  There has also been an email sent to Edgar Rodas regarding the possibility of the Ecuador postponed mobile surgical clinics and I have not fielded any responses yet to that.  But, with my year-end letter in the mail last week, and the plans mostly made for the holiday time travels and rendezvous, much of the activity for the next week would relate to the start up on the next year’s already dense schedule and its integration with the more domestic plans that I should know more about in terms of house and householders..

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