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'Pseudomonas' is a fancy name for forty-eleven different breeds of bacterium that are slightly more common than social engineer wanna-bes in an election year.
They are in the soil, plants (including cut flowers), animals, basically almost anything organic is infested with them. ... the bacteria, not the do-gooders. ... While very common and no threat at all to a half crippled drunken old ex-sportswriter, to a chemotherapy patient, they can be deadly... the bacteria and the do-gooders.
They can cause lung infections that resemble pneumonia, kidney and urinary tract infections, and get into your blood and do nastiness there. (No further jokes about the political activists.)
A member of the Opportunistic Infectious Agent Union this rod-shaped bacteria.
Over the course of the last couple of days, the Desk has become very familiar with this particular bug. Even to the point of examining its genetic blueprint on a website which just happens to have it laid out, and even color-coded, for our amusement. Pseudomonas.com/. How many bacteria have their own website?
Nevermind.
The best the doctors can explain it is that this one celled organism rides around on you and in you most of the time. It comes and goes to suit itself and we are no worse for the wear.
However, the last two chemotherapy doses in a row knocked Mrs. Desk's white cell counts down low enough for long enough for our new friend Pseudomonas to move in to stay.
Meanwhile her bone marrow couldn't keep up with red cells, platelets and other blood factors so the total drain on her system fighting the infection was simply too much. Her body was basically shutting down.
And so she ended up in a hospital isolation room for Christmas Week.
Pseudomonas.
It's like the cancer that is slowly taking over her vital systems isn't enough, now we have to worry about The Bug That Comes With Dinner as well.
All those things you hear about Immune-Compromised people now apply to her.
In Spades.
We had been watching it anyway. Making people with runny noses wear masks when they stop by, wiping off doorknobs with bleach soaked paper towels. We hosed down the furniture with spray stuff, and made sure to wash off apples and oranges before we cut them up for her. The Desk even made sure the girls were rinsing off soft drink cans before they opened them.
But now we have to deal with the germs that reside in her own body as well.
How do you defend her against that?
In any case. Now, after three days in the hospital, two units of whole blood, every IV antibiotic in their pharmacy and endless bowls of beef broth and lemon gelatin, we have progress.
Progress.
She can go to the bathroom by herself without nearly fainting.
OK. Enough about Pseudomonas.
Let's talk about the Bowl Championship Series and why Miami will probably win, but they won't enjoy it....
-selah-
..."Skin for skin!" Satan replied. "A man will give all he has for his own life. But stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face."
The LORD said to Satan, "Very well, then, he is in your hands; but you must spare his life."
So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes.
His wife said to him, "Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!"
He replied, "You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.
Job 2 : 4 - 10 (NIV)
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