!!! not about running at all!

Really shouldn't've sipped that beer.  Blammo!

Eh, I didn't get enough sleep anyway for a decent run, once again.  Distractions.  The final stage of my final assignment for a immunology course includes an essay about a pathogen, and naturally I didn't start thinking about this until going to bed at about eleven because I'm most productive at night.  Pick a Pathogen, Any Pathogen!  Usually Pathogen picks YOU.  Nice to have the choice for once!  So I lay back and thought of the possibilities.

C. tentani can't be beat for individual drama, I think.  There are other bugs with shocking symptoms and larger swaths of destruction, but risus sardonicus leading to full-on tetany is particularly spectacular.

And then, I turned to more noble considerations.  The essay prompts include describing vaccination.  What if I somehow found the missing key to crushing malarial merozoites?  Millions of children would then survive and prosper, wiring their villages for electricity and internet = blogging.

But laziness and self-loathing prevailed.  A virus is a simpler target, and influenza is just as epic.  Antigenic variation pretty much screws the pooch (NOTE FROM THE DOG: STOP SAYING THIS ITS NOT FUNNY (the dog doesn't understand punctuation)), but it might be fun to describe the limitations of vaccines that are shots in the dark. Oh, let's pour millions of dollars into R&D for flu season next year, and meanwhile that devilish little bug is like, nah, I'm going to change this instead, 5'-GUAUUAAUAAXetc is the new black, smell ya later!

My hubris quickly led to despair, which led to fungi.  Unfortunately,  the only agent I could think of at that hour was C. albicans.  Yeast infections.  Yep.   This led my ungenerous mind towards chlamydia, gonorrhea, hepatitis and a certain Canadian large-breasted starlet and Josephine Bonaparte (who was possibly rendered sterile from a gonorrhea or chlamydia infection).

And then, in pursuit of lost innocence, I thought of childhood vaccinations.  How about those diseases kids don't get to experience these days? Odd story about the MMR combined vaccine...when I was going through the U.S. greencard process, I had to pay an approved USCIS Civil Surgeon to sign my form I-693, and so my chest was x-rayed, blood was drawn, and my immunization records were looked at.  I actually didn't meet the doctor in person and I don't know if he did much except notice that I hadn't been vaccinated for chickenpox = $$.   I had had chickenpox but wasn't taken to the doctor because it was just chickenpox--I had no proof.  I didn't think chickenpox was on the USCIS go list or whatever, but the doctor had latitude and it would've cost more to pay another Civil Surgeon to start over.

So, I got the shot for chickenpox (and possibly an invitation for mutant shingles later in life), and then Surgeon Greed took another look at my records and, oh, it was unclear that I'd had an MMR re-up= $$.  Guess there wasn't enough of my blood sample left to check antibodies.  The prospect of I-693's cost proliferating to four figures was dismaying; I was already out several hundred bucks.  An army doctor (unfortunately not an approved Civil Surgeon) took a look at my records, re-transcribed my shot record, and put my dual MMR vaccinations in clearer context.  Surgeon Greed signed my I-693, but he was evidently stripped of his Civil Surgeon designation by the time I had my USCIS interview.  Yep, massive sketchiness, and potential complications: more $$, another random doctor off a list (no customer reviews available), another virtual rectal exam added to the routine.  However, after a few anxious minutes clicking on the computer, my USCIS interviewer decided to just let it go.  RELIEF!  However, later on when I was working at a hospital and my blood antibodies were screened, it was discovered that I needed an MMR booster.  So maybe Surgeon Greed was right after all.  I could've caught mumps!

Meanwhile, I still haven't picked a pathogen.  Present conditions remind me C. diff  but feelings are still too raw.  Not a nice way to wake up.  No soup for you.

I have until Thursday.  Back to the books!