Sunday, February 04, 2007

Influenza

From the Italian influenza or "influences"--originally thought to be the result of bad astrological influences, and later called influenza di freddo or "influence of the cold" It's at least 2400 years old, and it's most infamous iteration was "The Spanish Lady", which killed 50 to 100 million people world wide in 1918-1919, and was recently reconstructed by (completely off their rockers) scientists right here in Seattle in a Biosafety Level 3 Lab. Doesn't that make you feel safe, that they were reconstructing it in a biosafety level 3 lab? I feel totally okay about, considering the amazing record of the scientific community at large to keep us all safe.
Anyway, I digress. The virus is 80 to 120 nanometers in diamter (a nanometer is 10^-9 meters-very very tiny). That's still bigger than the (correct me if I'm wrong here you technological ones) the size of transistors currently being (printed, etched, ....put) on integrated circuits (microprocessors), which will be moving downward in size to a mere 45 nanometers later this year. I'm pretty sure this size is actually impossible to get one's head around. I mean you can't *see* it, so how do you visualize? It's all happening *way* down there on the size scale.
So anyway, I'm pretty sure Megan and Eowyn and Coco all have influenza. Wiki says "common symptoms of influenza infection are fever, nausea, vomiting, sore throat, muscle pains, severe headache, coughing, and weakness and fatigue" My poor three girls have had and continue to have, between the three of them, every single one of these symptoms. I, on the other hand, have only felt mildly yucky. I think I might have gotten some milder iteration earlier in the winter and so my immune response this time was quicker.
If you pray, please pray for Megan and girl number one and girl number two (who just turned 3, bless her!). It's been 10 whole days now with these nastly little horrors replicating in their cells, and it hasn't been fun for them. Thankyou.

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