The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by melospiza:

This is a wonderful post, but it's making me feel very old.

Smallpox scar from mid-fifties. Second smallpox vaccination in 1970, required to travel to Europe.

Measles as a child. The dim room, the fever, the hypersensitive hearing and vision, the rash. I was one sick five-year-old. A cowbell by my side to call my mother.

Chickenpox at 42. All praise to acyclovir, but I itched for weeks, infected lesions, fever. Aloe vera baths.

My smart parents vaccinated me against everything they could. I too had friends with polio.

I'm up to date now, you bet. Considering shingles vaccine, offered now at the hospital where I work.

I too feel like a cranky old woman when I hear ordinarily reasonable people spewing anti-vac gibberish, and tell them in clear terms how they are wrong. Even friends who won't get their flu shots. Have they ever had the flu? I have. Hope I am never that sick again.

Grumpy grump grump. Fools.

In Portland, Oregon, every felony indictment must be brought by a Grand Jury, so we were busy, with around ten cases a day. My Grand Jury duty lasted for a month, and there are three Grand Juries operating at a time. One does mostly "person" crimes, like robbery, assault, rape, and murder. Mine did mostly property crimes--lots of ID theft, egregious car theft and graffiti, and drugs. There's one jury that works a short day doing only drug cases.

We were mostly a rubber stamp for the Assistant District Attorneys (ADAs), but there were times we refused to indict (bring a true bill) until they pulled up more evidence. And so they were forced to give us convincing evidence and witnesses. Not the worst system; not the best. I was mostly impressed by the integrity and hard work of the individual ADAs and cops.

But meth drives most of the property crime; crack drives almost all the rest. Compulsive gamblers pick up the remainder. Meth is a horribly destructive drug, and the drug war is horribly destructive to the justice system, causing a never-ending merry-go-round of losers, addicts, and desperate thieves.

Todd @ #346: In Gregory MacDonald's 'Skylar,' the word 'stob' shows up as an issue of contention between the southern hero Skylar and his Bostonian cousin, who doesn't believe it's really a word.

Going all the way back to #9, the external occipital protuberance (the long way to say the bump at the back of the skull) is the inion.

The tip of the angle of the jaw in the gonion.
The spot at the top of the nose, between the eyes, is the nasion, and the bump of the brow just above it is the glabella.
The point at the bottom of the nose is the acanthion.

Most medical terms are long Latin and/or Greek conglomerations, but a few are sweet.

Chris # 15:

Mr. Macdonald should describe what it's like in the field. By the time I see a patient, he's on a backboard, in an immobilization collar. I don't know yet if there's a fracture or not--that's what I'm trying to find out, by x-ray or CT scan. I yell for help, turn the board while supporting the head, and hold a basin. It's messy. The patient is often fighting the restraints. A few of these in a night is the reason I refused long ago to work any more night shifts on New Year's Eve.

I love these posts. As an x-ray tech (Radiologic Technologist, to be official), I have been amazed at how hard it can be to convince seriously injured people, especially drunks, to lie down and hold still. Folks really do walk on dislocated hips and broken knees.

Then there's the joy of trying to keep someone's neck straight, in C-spine precautions, when they're puking. Airway first, right?

Both scary and gratifying are the fractured cervical spines, discovered three days later, when the patient finally decides to walk into the ER, stiff and sore. No, don't try to stretch out that neck, sir, please hold still. The neurosurgeon is coming to see you RIGHT NOW.

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