kyburg | Entries tagged with gallows humor deluxe home version

The study, conducted using computer models,suggests the organs of obese individuals receive up to 62 percent more radiation energy during a CT scan, compared with those of normal weight individuals.

The increase in radiation exposure occurs because radiologists often increase the power settings when doing scans on obese people, said study researcher Aiping Ding, of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. When scanners are used on their normal settings, the image is blurry because the extra fat tissue shields the organs from the X-rays.

I know I've mentioned this in passing. The fact this isn't common knowledge should be criminal. If you are getting an exam and your tech doesn't mention they're having to use STUPIDLY high levels of radiation to get a decent picture? Please sue. No, really. Please.

LOTD. Holy merde, what's wrong with people.

Current Mood: annoyed
Crossposts: http://kyburg.livejournal.com/1350866.html

Today, thankfully, did not fall on a work day. Today, I could actually take the moment to breathe in, exhale and do it again.

Thirteen years ago, about 1:30 AM, my late husband passed away after a five year race downhill due to diabetic complications after an injury incurred on the job.

He'd dropped a computer on his foot, and the injury went bad. The infection went systemic, damaging heart valves, which failed three years later, throwing blocks to the brain and heart. He had both strokes and massive MIs. They'd called it 'popcorn strokes' - because the CT scans looked like a bowl of popcorn. Too many to count.

1993 - 1998. And every year was one more significant whack downwards.

He died after all that, one AKA amputation, one BKA - on dialysis, nearly blind. 36 years old.

He's buried in one of the niftiest cemetaries I've ever visited in Sierra Madre - spooky as heck in the dark, but awesome during the day, Hitchcock used to shoot movies there all the time, I'm told. His headstone is a common granite boulder, taken from a streambed nearby - whenever I'm in the neighborhood, I go by and check to make sure everything is still good, legible and free from weeds.

Today, let Xander pick the flowers and he chose three bunches of bright yellow sunflowers and button mums. I took the biggest bottle of Tabasco I could buy...and a small bottle of sake.

catsonmars went with us - and while I really couldn't get Xander completely wrapped around the concepts (tut, he's 6), he could pay our respects, look around a bit and then go have a nice lunch.

He's just not as there as he was right afterward, and I can imagine why. Some of his closest friends have already passed as well - one of them had literally drank himself to death after his passing, and nobody had told me until he had been years gone. He's got Ronnie James Dio to talk to these days, for crying out loud. He's busy.

We opened the sake, toasted and drank - and left the remainder for him. Along with some new rocks.

Came home to find a message on the phone - Mom had called, another long-time friend of the family is not doing well. Demented, requiring 24/7 in-home care. But, happy - and not suffering, so that's to the good, says I. Not the only one in that place that I know of.

Such is where I find myself these days. Give them what you can - this too, is life.

So glad he didn't live to see 9/11 or what has become of his chosen industry. So much has changed and all of it would have left him behind without looking back.

But oh, I miss him. And wonder what it would have looked like without that injury and steep decline so very young.

Hope you're keeping busy, Cliff. It's a very different world without you.

Current Mood: indescribable

Current Mood: indescribable

Current Mood: indescribable

Wil Wheaton is turning 38 today. If I'm to believe the Twitter feed, he is having a perfectly awesome day of things. But - earlier this week, he was also telling jokes and being an ass, and sincerely reminding me of Cliff in more ways than were absolutely comfortable.

My 38th birthday was two months after Cliff had died.

About the only thing that comes to mind to do about it? Isn't realistic in the nth degree. It's not like drafting a huge email saying 'I'm glad you aren't having my 38th birthday and this is why' makes any logical sense. Except I'm THRILLED for him.

Another blogger posted an update to a story

seanan_mcguire had alerted me to the other day, one in which, as the parent of a child with a significantly reduced quality/quantity of life, instead of doing her day job, she told everyone what it was like. REALLY like.

She thought, oh, only a few people would get it.

Her ISP was sending her panic mail before the day was over. 22,000 hits. One day.

And she says today that we should tell our stories too.

Nuh uh. Not this little red hen.

I've been writing since I could put pencil to lined notebook paper, and my first real memory of writing something (and then hiding it) was before I was nine. I was on every school newspaper from sixth grade through college (and was editor of the high school paper in my senior year), wrote as much fan fiction as much as I could put out and planned my college education with an eye to writing for a living when I finished it. Wanted to write for television, and there's not much about the market for the one-hour dramatic format in the mid-80's I can't talk about.

Then I met a type I diabetic my senior year of college, and all that went into a box that gets opened only once in a while these days.

You see, things went bad, and I mean BAD to the point I can't talk about it without making a whole room cry. No, I don't want to try it again to see if that's changed. No, you cry - not me. I learned to stop crying when it scared Cliff. You think I'm kidding, ask Jim.

I could talk. I could start writing about it - but.

That was another life, and it's over now.

Cliff and Steve Irwin were born two weeks apart from each other. Cliff was programming in FORTRAN when he was 14 for Voyager. He spent many happy hours with his coworkers writing programs to get around the laser holes software companies used as copy protection back in the day of 5 1/4" floppy disks (and IBM PCXT machines). Because yo, we liked playing games.

He's the one who introduced me to Thai food, and Japanese food that wasn't teriyaki chicken. He's also the one who took me outside my comfort zone on a regular basis and taught me how to like it. We didn't buy furniture. We took trips outside the United States, and that had priority over everything. See the world we live in - it's wonderful, exciting and you won't learn much any other way. (He was right.)

When I lost my second job the summer the Olympics were in Los Angeles because the employer did not want to pay the agency fee for my permanent placement - and there was now no money to see the Olympics, nor find another job until they were over - and came home furious...he threw me in the swimming pool. When I came up drenched and furious (and keep in mind, this is back in the day of 'dress for success' - I'd been wearing a dress, heels, stockings, makeup, glasses, everything), he threw me in again. Coming up for air, he stood there on the side of the pool, looked down at me and advised me that yes, he'd do it again and to get over it. I would get another job, don't worry about it. This was a perfectly good pool, it was going to be a nice break and make the most of it, okay?

No time for whining.

He made me watch Poltergeist, the little shit. I DON'T DO HORROR.

Days like this, I really miss him. I'd rather you knew why instead of why he isn't here anymore.