ALLY Then and Now
Plastic wrapped and ready for a bath. FIRST DAY OF HIGH SCHOOL!
EVERY time she had a bath, she had
to be wrapped up, so her broviac
catheter would not get wet and
cause an infection.
Ready to go home from a month, stuck in one Coping an attitude or two at the art museum
tiny hospital room, after chemo that killed
everything in her body, including the ability for
her bone marrow to work. She saved her own life,
with her own stem cells.
Double click on photos to enlarge.
Amazing. I remember when she was so tiny and ill and we worried so about her. What a wonderful thing to see her so grown and healthy. The shirt is appropriate..."Unstoppable" indeed.
ReplyDeleteWhat grade is she in now?
ReplyDelete🌟 9th! 🌟
ReplyDeleteThe photo is from this month, first day of high school.
Ninth grade? Tenth grade?
Delete🌟 9th! 🌟 = Ninth
DeleteFirst day of High School EVER for Ally Mae.
Re Alan's question: Where I grew up, high school started with 10th grade. Seventh through ninth grades were junior high. But apparently where Ally lives follows the same pattern as Oak Park: Sixth through eighth grades are middle school and high school starts with ninth grade.
DeleteWhere I grew up we had junior high school too, but we still received grammar school diplomas after 8th grade. Stirring middle school into the mix confuses things still further, it seems to me. Not that it really makes much of a difference.
DeleteIn New England, high school is 9th - 12th grades.
DeleteY'know what's really AMAZING? Awesome Ally never lost any school time. She is right on par with her age mates and always was. Helps that her worst years were pre-school and that her Mom is an elementary school teacher!
That is just tremendous.
DeleteUS public health workers leaving ‘in droves’ amid pandemic burnout [Click] Perhaps it has become different in recent times, but it used to be that if health care workers didn’t want to deal with the pressures of physicians and others demanding that they do their work right away [statim], they should move to public health, where people didn’t know the meaning of “Stat.” If that is what people signed up for, it would make things even worse.
ReplyDeleteHooray for Ally!
ReplyDelete💛💜❤️💜💛
DeleteThe CDC is meeting right now to vote on boosters.
ReplyDeleteUpdates here: https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-acip-meeting-09-23-21/index.html
UPDATE: THE CDC IS SCHEDULED TO VOTE AT 3:00PM EDT
DeleteHmmm... that was two hours ago. Will have to consult the gnus. Naomi and I just returned from a sketching/painting excursion to the municipal Japanese garden.
DeleteThank you for updating us on Ally.
ReplyDelete✨💛✨
DeleteWhat Hannah said. I had figured that no news was good news, but it is very nice to have that confirmed.
DeleteNYT headline:
ReplyDeleteC.D.C. Panel Recommends Pfizer Boosters for Some, Including Older People
The panel of advisers also recommended Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine boosters for those with certain medical conditions, a day after the F.D.A.’s authorization.
The C.D.C. director is expected to endorse the recommendations, and those who qualify could start getting the shots immediately afterward. Here’s the latest.
So, we can get our boosters six months after we are fully vaccinated. I have heard:
Delete*6 months after second dose
*6 months after two weeks after second dose
*The exact timing isn't vital, it just has to be at least six months
Does anyone know for sure??
It's important to me because I got my second dose on March 26th, so Sunday marks 6 months. Or do I have to wait two weeks beyond that to October 9th?
I'd LOVE it to be the 26th because I have room in my schedule to get it next week, but the weeks following will be much tighter. I need to allow at least 36 hours after the shot for likely feeling terribly as before. So, we'll see. But if you hear anything definitive, please post it!!
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DeleteI am pretty sure it is option number three--at least six months after second dose. And as for the six months, that is actually arbitrary, albeit reasonable. I think they settled on five months in Israel. You want to give the initial antibody levels time to decline significantly so you don't over-stimulate the immune system, then give it a wake-up call, to which it will respond with higer-yet antibody levels. And antibody levels, although relatively easy to measure, are only part of the story--the B lymphocytes and killer T cells also respond to the wake-up call, and they are the ones that give longer-lasting immunity.
DeleteAncient human footprints found in New Mexico are believed to be 21,000 to 23,000 years old [Click] That ought to drive a stake through the heart of the “Clovis first” theory.
ReplyDeleteHere is the story in Nature [Click]
DeleteIndonesian rock art dated to 44,000 years old seems to show mythological figures in a hunting scene. [Click]
DeleteIt was only three years ago that a group of thirteen-thousand year old footprints were discovered in British Columbia [Click]
DeleteI was just reading about this! VERY cool!
DeleteMy first thought was that Native Americans DEFINITELY deserve reparations.
The main loss of life--estimated at as much as 90-95 percent of the indigenous population--was due to disease that was inadvertently spread from the Europeans. Both the indigenous and the foreigners thought it was gods' punishment for something or other. That the epidemics were so much more lethal than, say, the Black Plague, is down to the very limited genetic diversity among indigenous Americans. The range of bacteria and viruses to which they have a good antibody response is, on a population level, significantly more limited, although individual responses to a particular antigen can be perfectly fine. The european diseases spread farther and faster than the europeans; one example would be that the Inca empire suffered a smallpox epidemic a couple of years (as memory serves me) *before* Pizarro showed up, which greatly weakened their armies as well as the general population. The same sort of extreme fatalities occurred among the peoples of far northeastern Siberia, the closest relatives of the North Americans. And consider the Polynesians--many of them died from what seems to have been the European common cold viruses.
DeleteThe question of what constitutes justice is an old and probably insoluble one; but my opinion is that at a minimum the US should honor its treaties.
The Fermi Paradox Interdiction Scenario:
ReplyDeleteYouTube video [Click]
University of Oregon lecture [transcribed] [Click] This is for the most part readily comprehensible, but toward the end it gets into some VERY heavy theoretical physics.
That's really two distinct lectures, one on the Fermi paradox and one on fundamental theories of particulate matter. My solution to the Fermi paradox, based on my knowledge of the molecular basis of life: The appearance of cellular life is extremely rare. It has in fact happened only once in our galaxy.
DeleteI am reminded of the old story of the general-purpose form letter:
Delete"Dear Sir or Madam, as the case may be: You may be right."
I find the interdiction hypothesis rather far fetched. And I note with interest that the more recent unidentified aerial phenomena reported by military pilots definitely resemble the "foo fighters" of WWII. I figure that the reported behaviors of the UAP's in the vicinity of the USN task force on maneuvers off San Diego seem to be consistent with autonomous vehicles. But I remain dubious about them nevertheless. Put me in the "swamp gas" camp.
Genetics reveal how humans island-hopped to settle remote Pacific [Click]
ReplyDeleteSemiconductor shortage that has hobbled manufacturing worldwide is getting worse [Click]
ReplyDeleteSo, the CDC recommends that 65+ get a booster, and folks 18+ with underlying conditions get a booster, but they did not extend the recommendation to folks whose jobs put them in danger, like first responders and other healthcare workers. Really!? Even though it has been EIGHT or NINE months since they had their vaccines?!
ReplyDeleteI hope that Director Walkensky does not accept their recommendation and lets them be protected.