Is there a doctor in the house? (Hint: No.)

 Here's National Public Radio:

Shall we do a bit of "fact-checking" as the Kidz Today call it? First stop, Wikipedia:

"Means graduated from Stanford University School of Medicine in 2014 but dropped out of her surgical residency four years later and subsequently chose to practice functional medicine, a form of alternative medicine. Her medical license has been inactive since 2024."

Meaning "no, not an actual "medical doctor". Failed the OJT that is a critical piece of becoming a board-certified MD. 

I'm a "certified engineering geologist" because I 1) have a degree (two, actually, baccalaureate and masters) in geology, 2) passed my boards (two, actually, the state RG and CEG examinations), AND 3) worked under a licensed CEG for a period of five years to learn the important practical aspects of my profession.

Part 3 is not "optional"; it's considered an essential part of my licensure just as internship and residency is essential to medical board certification. "Doctor" Means couldn't hack it and fucked off into some sort of woo-woo bullshit at that point, which would be like me doing my CEG training as a sales clerk at Ed's House of Gems.

Wait. "Woo-woo bullshit"?

Here's Wiki on "functional medicine":

"Functional medicine (FM) is a form of alternative medicine that encompasses many unproven and disproven methods and treatments.^[1][2][3] At its essence, it is a rebranding of complementary and alternative medicine,^[4] and as such is pseudoscientific,^[5] and has been described as a form of quackery"

So, yeah; woo-woo bullshit and "not an actual medical doctor".

So what does this not-an-actual-doctor-woo-woo-bullshit-artist "believe"?

Hang on; shit gets deep here. From the first Wiki piece:

"Means and her brother, Calley, co-wrote Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health in 2024.

(T)he book's central claim is that a single mechanism, which the authors call "Bad Energy", described as a common form of mitochondrial dysfunction caused by improper lifestyles...cause(s) disorders as diverse as depression, anxiety, acne, infertility, insomnia, heart disease, erectile dysfunction, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, as well as "most other conditions"...

The book asserts that the underlying causes of this dysfunction are rooted in unhealthy modern lifestyles: "too much sugar, too much stress, too much sitting, too much pollution, too many pills, too many pesticides, too many screens, too little sleep, and too little micronutrients. These trends-with trillions of dollars behind them-are causing epidemic levels of mitochondrial dysfunction and underpowered, sick, inflamed bodies."

The authors also assert that diseases such schizophrenia and depression are caused by..."leaky gut syndrome", and...claim that "researchers can identify a person with depression or schizophrenia just by analyzing their gut bacteria composition".

Oh, horseshit.

Also; fuck off, NPR. "medical degree from Stanford"? That's some real fucking sanewashing right there, you nimrods. Don't think that's gonna save you from Big Ballz and the DOGE Pounders.

"Bad Energy"? "Leaky Gut Syndrome"?

Why not "Demon Sperm"? Remember that weird Trump shit? Ohhellyeah. He's totally like that, and when you look at it that way his tapping this gimp for Surgeon General makes total sense. She's in the "wellness" grift just like he's on the "wealth" grift. Game recognize game.

This whacko has no more business being Surgeon General than I do claiming to be the fucking Dragon King of Bhutan.

There's a lot of "unhealthy modern lifestyles", yes.

None of them cause cancer. Or Parkinson's. Or acne. Or cure them.

Anymore than this freak can.

 

But she's a skinny sorta-blonde white chick that Trump would totally rage-fuck, so she's right in his ten-ring.

What a completely fucked-up country we live in.

 

Ya got me, podnuh

 I got the 'rona.

If you've had it, I feel for your ass.

If you haven't?

Do NOT fucking get this shit.

And I'm fully vaxxed and triple-boosted AND I got on Paxlovid within a day of the symptoms showing up.

Which they did as we were cleaning up the living room walls last Sunday night.

We painted these walls, oh, maybe ten years ago. The paint was a specialty brand called "Devine" that we found at the local Miller Paint store. We loved the smooth shades and cool textures; pretty much the whole Little House is done in this Devine paint of one shade or another.

And we've been very happy with it, by and large. Except the brown color we painted the front room and the hallway.

Not that we don't like the color - we do! - but over the years the walls slowly developed this odd white discoloration. My guess, from the home improvement literature, is that this was "chalking", apparently something that happens the paint deteriorates and the pigment and binder separate.

It wasn't harmful to the paint, just ugly.

I found out purely by accident - cleaning up an area where the Little Cat had shaken her bloody ear (we still miss you, sweetie!) - that windex-type cleaner removed the white discoloration for some time - at least a year. It seemed worth a try to avoid repainting the entire room.

So we moved everything away from the walls and went to work.

It pretty much sucked as much as you'd imagine, and so I wasn't surprised that I was sore and tired when we finished. What was odd was that I was also stuffy and was developing a nasty cough from the drip in my throat.

And that was late evening.

By midnight I was perfectly miserable. Think "the worst flu I've ever had" miserable; congestion like  stone in my forehead, body aches like I'd been pounded with a hammer, sneezing, coughing...ugh. Like I said; miserable.

One of the few good things about getting old is that your immune system has pretty much seen it all. You tend to miss the colds and flus that the younger people around you contract simply because you've had it, or something enough like it, to keep you immune.

So I'd forgotten how utterly shitty it is.

So, yeah. Sunday night (and Monday morning) was a total shitshow. By the time I got out of bed (I won't say "got up" because I didn't get more than an hour or so of badly broken sleep) I was convinced that I had the Plague and, sure enough, the faint line faded in below the "T" that confirmed that, yes, finally, more than three years after it had exploded out of southeastern China the fucking coronavirus had nailed me.

Monday was a misery punctuated by trying to figure out how to avoid dosing three other people in a tiny, 1,100-square-foot house. I did a video call with my GP, who got me a course of Paxlovid that, as sucky as the drive was, I ran up to Janzen Beach to pick up.

Lemme tellya. Paxlovid? That stuff is just better than sliced white bread.

I took the first dose Monday night and had another shitty night, but by Tuesday morning I was feeling more human. By the time I' writing this - Tuesday night- I have a "head cold", no worse.

Mind you...had I not been vaccinated, not been boosted, not had the Paxlovid?

You might well not be reading this.

I've got another four days of Pax before I'm out of the woods, and apparently there's a "rebound" that this fucking Plague slaps you with once you've finished the meds. The damn thing is a genuine threat, and a wag of the middle finger towards the idiot antivaxxers and Republicans who try and pretend otherwise.

K. Well, I gotta go put some pictures back up. Catch ya later.

Update 1/25: So this Paxlovid stuff is the bomb.

Seriously. It's kicking the 'rona's ass (along with the vaccines, I'm guessing). By this morning I was up and running around - mostly getting meds for pets (the cat's flea treatment) and people (more Paxlovid for my Bride, who probably has this damn Plague, too). Still achy down my back and still with headcold gunk in my skull. But otherwise? Good to go.

I'll be around here in a bit, I've got some thought but need to get them organized.

Just as I was about to step off into the minefield...

 ...looks like I might be getting a mine-plow;

Here's the sad part.

This was a mistake on the part of the Oregon Health Authority.

Despite my age, and my position as the Designated Geezer in a house with two kids in public school, I was not "eligible" per the Oregon vaccination schedule to get my Anti-COVID Armor until late-mid-April. Despite a fair sized chunk of the Oregon public, like the rest of the country, being unwilling to even GET this goddamn shot. Despite the simple epidemiological reality that the single best way to beat this bug is to get as many needles in as many arms as fast as possible...I should have been shit out of luck.

But.

The OHA has, at least, been willing to honor it's fuckup and not shot-block those of us who jumped on the chance to schedule this thing.

So...

A Year in Solitary

I noted in the update that Mango Mussolini had suddenly been converted from a COVID Truther to a babbling imitation of a "war president" and I wondered what the hell? This joker notoriously never changes the brain cell he calls his mind; he's stuck where he was in the Eighties.

Well, apparently, here's what happened; he read (or, let's not kid ourselves, was probably read-to and given a colorful comic-strip summary of) a study done in London modeling epidemiological responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and the likely outcomes. The "no-action" response - i.e. treat this as a seasonal flu and let it run it's course, essentially the Trumpkins' "plan"?

2.2 million dead just from the disease. And that's without the deaths that will happen because the ICUs are jammed with people in respiratory failure from the disease.

But.

"Suppression" - completely banning all public gatherings, closing shops, workplaces, restaurants, basically making people inmates in their homes...apparently works.

Here's the nut grafs if you don't want to read the whole thing:

"Suppression works! The death rate in the US peaks 3 weeks from now at a few thousand deaths, then goes down. We hit but don't exceed the number of available ventilators. The nightmarish death tolls from the rest of the study disappear. But here's the catch: if we EVER relax suppression before a vaccine is administered to the entire population, COVID-19 comes right back and kills millions of Americans in a few months, the same as before. After the 1st suppression period ends in July, we could probably lift restrictions for a month, followed by 2 more months of suppression, in a repeating pattern without triggering an outbreak or overwhelming the ventilator supply. Staggering breaks by city could do a bit better. But we simply cannot EVER allow the virus to spread throughout the entire population in the way other viruses do, because it is just too deadly. If lots of people we know end up getting COVID-19, it means millions of Americans are dying. It simply can't be allowed to happen."

When do the authors believe a vaccine is likely?

Eighteen months.

So for the next year and a half we will be unable to work, many of us. Theaters, restaurants, bookstores...won't be able to open. How will we live? We will still have landlords demanding rent and banks demanding mortgage payments. We will still have to buy food, pay bills.

As I was saying earlier; the ONLY way I see we will get through this without breaking our society in too many ways to anticipate is for government to, in effect, pay for society to go on for a year and a half while we're all in solitary. Pay wages, pay rent and mortgages, pay shop owners and businesses that can't open.

The alternative?

We emerge from this with a huge mass of impoverished "citizens" ruled by a tiny minority of the obscenely rich who were able to ride this out in luxury.

The problem?

For the GOP that's a feature, not a bug.

Well...shit.

WASF.