Government Shutdown: Furlough day 4 (amazing plane ride)

Wow.  I posted in my lyme blog from Seattle, hoping to catch a flight To Portland, en route to San Francisco for the Lyme rally protesting IDSA's protocols. I made that flight.  On the flight, Across the aisle from me was an amazing woman with flowers on her hat.  She reminded me of a heroine from a novel.  Mid way through the flight, i returned From the bathroom, and as i took my seat, she said she had two things to...

Continue

Government Shutdown: Furlough Day 1

For Montanans near me, the closure of Glacier National Park is a really big deal.  Even their Facebook page is on hold until the end of the furlough.  Montanans and tourists in national parks had up to 48 hours to vacate, but only if they were lodging inside the park, according to one social media account from a photographer on their way out of Yellowstone. Federal agency employees drove up Badrock Canyon this morning, required to report to work to be given furlough instruction, as for other federal employees across the nation. It...

Continue

Rocky Mountain Wood Ticks and Lyme, or something like it

The Rocky Mountain Wood tick is present in Montana.  I read in March that that the RM wood tick is one of the vectors of lyme disease. If this is true or could be true, it is even stronger support that the CDC should drop the diagnostic criteria that patients must have traveled to endemic states so we can start getting real statistics for lyme contracted in Montana.  This may not sound different than earlier posts, but I've seen since then that the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks website had been updated and I had never seen this...

Continue

My 13 year old beat some of my SAT scores in Montana's SAT Challenge

Check out this article!  Montana junior high students were selected to take the SAT as part of the SAT Challenge.  They took the regular SAT, with regular juniors and seniors.  I felt a little bad for the older students, as I think I'd be a little bit psyched out taking the test with kids....Katie looks even younger than junior high! The top scorers were recognized at a reception in Missoula and our four award winners were in the...

Continue

Montana Bats ~ Brief quote/intro to Whitenose syndrome (Geomyces destructans)

The danger of WHITE-NOSE SYNDROME:  Called “the most precipitous wildlife decline in the past century in North America,” White-nose Syndrome has killed more than 5.7 million bats since its discovery in 2006. Seven bat species in 22 U.S. states and 5 Canadian provinces have now been documented with WNS.The cold-loving white Geomyces destructans fungus (pictured below) that causes White-nose Syndrome is typically found on the faces and wings...

Continue

PLEASE HELP Montanans with lyme disease: Senate Bill 296

MONTANANS especially, please SHARE these links and please contact your representative.  Montana Senate Bill 296 proposes to protect doctors who treat lyme with long term antibiotics.  Protocols currently call for 28 days of antibiotics early into onset.  But 28 days is not always enough even in the acute stage.  Chronic lyme is very difficult to get diagnosed in this state, as I've posted about before, so the odds of getting...

Continue

Lyme Disease in Montana: Another montana mom with lyme, Great Falls article

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/interactive/article/20130309/NEWS01/303090026/Lyme-disease-divides-experts-Great-Falls-family-s-journey-disease-highlights-struggle-controversial-illness As with many lyme disease stories I hear or read, there are elements in the story that I could have said myself. The stories in the video as well (more on those aspects my lyme experience in my health blog). When I started to comment on the article on their website, it just got too long.  So I'm posting it here instead. Biologists and agencies can't reliably...

Continue

It's raining spiders in Brazil (random science)

I saw an article posted on facebook with footage of spiders falling from the sky.  They quoted a biologist who said that the species is a social species that lives in massive colonies, and that the behavior is not unexpected/unusual.  The author contends that it is, and promises to follow up 'as answers are found'. I started looking up some crazy things I remember reading about spiders jumping to their deaths (more on that later), but when I went back and watched the footage, they certainly were not making rapid descents, as the descriptor...

Continue

At least 26 cases of lyme in Montana through 2011 (per CDC)

Help educate your fellow Montanans about lyme....I hear often and have repeated myself (until a few nights ago when two nurses set me straight) that there is only one confirmed case in Montana. That was outdated by at least 2007----even the CDC acknowledges AT LEAST 26 CASES FROM 2006 TO 2011. Your chances of getting diagnosed if you live in Montana won't improve until doctors admit that its here (and that residing here does not somehow make you immune to it here or anywhere you travel). http://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/chartstables/reportedcase...

Continue