With the Ebola situation that’s grabbed the attention of the country (not to mention those of us in Texas) for the past few weeks, some of you may be wondering why I didn’t throw some plagues into Paksworld. I did consider it, at one point, and as you recall there were illnesses, but a full-blown plague would have diverted the story to something else.
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In the past few weeks, I’ve been writing some posts about the Ebola situation in Texas, in particular, because I have both some medical background and some knowledge of the many different kinds of Texas hospitals. If any of you are interested in those, they’re presently on my LiveJournal, and I’ve referenced some of them in Twitter. (If you want a list of links, I can provide it.) It was clear to us from the first report of Mr. Duncan’s experience at that Dallas hospital that a) it wasn’t a first-rate hospital (for more reasons than missing an Ebola diagnosis on his first visit) and b) that given its quality, additional cases were almost certainly going to show up. <\/p>\n
We are from a generation when many of the modern immunizations weren’t available and the ones that were were absolutely required by the school systems. We had tetanus, diptheria, whooping cough, typhoid, and smallpox immunizations, all at a more frequent interval than they’re given now. Even so, there was sporadic smallpox across the river in Mexico, and there was a diptheria outbreak about 10 miles from where I lived. Children I knew died of polio and some survived with permanent disabilities. Nurses in my childhood had trained in the pre-antibiotic era; cross-contamination was a constant battle in hospitals; nurses and doctors both contracted TB and other diseases from their work. So sterile technique was paramount–the only defense against these and the other diseases. <\/p>\n
We were quarantined when we had measles or mumps (not so much with chickenpox though we couldn’t attend school) and no school expected perfect attendance until at least junior high (by which time most of us had had measles, rubella, mumps, chickenpox and a host of less important diseases. Movie theaters and swimming pools were closed part of every summer, as polio outbreaks moved through the region. We had block quarantines (children not allowed to leave the block they lived on) for polio, and if someone you knew came down with it, the similar routine of daily checks of temperature and (different) neck suppleness. “Touch your chin to your chest!” because stiff necks were associated with polio attacking the spinal cord. A summer sniffle or cold was always a worry for parents, and for us by the time we were in school. When I was in first grade, one of the two second grade teachers came down with polio and I, like all the others who had been around her (she was a sweet young woman and we all liked her) had to get gamma globulin shots. Boy, did that hurt! But I didn’t get polio–which was lucky, because the year before (I think it was–I was still in Mrs. Jordan’s preschool) I had had encephalitis that nearly killed me. In a coma for 3-4 days with temperature (I was told later) over 106F. Packed in ice trying to get it down. <\/p>\n
Anyway. The six years I spent as a rural ambulance volunteer took me to a variety of hospitals, from the excellent to the…very much not. I’ve put more medical things into other stories (SF more than fantasy) and may write more medical stuff in future…but these recent posts have been more analytical nonfiction than story. Will there be plagues in Paksworld stories in the future? Only if a character shows up in my head demanding that his\/her story of a plague be told.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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