National Feral Cat Day; Thoughts on Ebola

Today is, as I wrote on Tuesday, National Feral Cat Day.  If you care about cats, and wish to help the feral ones, please visit the website for Alley Cat Allies at http://www.alleycat.org  or call and/or visit your local Humane Society for information regarding TNR programs.  You'll feel better for doing it.
    I was not impressed with the response of the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital's to the first visit of Mr Thomas Eric Duncan, sending the man home with antibiotics after he arrived at the Emergency Room for care, and, as this story keeps unraveling, with more victims of poor procedural directives being announced positive for the ebola virus, I find my trust in our medical system failing rapidly.  I worked in a hospital for over eight years - a tertiary care teaching hospital.  I learned early in my job (as a unit secretary) that handling any type of lab work required gloves.  I learned some lower-level infectious disease handling protocols, and how to avoid contamination and cross-contamination.  Luckily, I never had to deal with a patient who was in total isolation - but I remember the seriousness of following set protocols for safety.
   I was speechless when I learned of the second healthcare worker's plane trip to another state to visit her mother and fiance, and then of her return to Texas on another flight, when she was known to be running a fever.  I'm sorry, but speaking as a lay person, even I know that was sheer idiocy.   As these stories unwind, I continue to shake my head in dismay - where the heck is common sense?
   I think the last straw for me, today, was seeing the news headline that there might be a chocolate shortage because much of the world's supply of cocoa beans comes from Western Africa; specifically in the countries hardest hit by this round of the ebola outbreak.  Yes, we all like chocolate - but the lives of human beings are so much more important than the world supply of chocolate!
  I think that every developed country in the world should be rushing to the aid of those countries in West Africa that are being decimated (and more) by the ebola virus.  We, the world, humanity as a whole, need to quash this outbreak of disease.  We need to study it.  We need to learn how to fight it.  We need to find a vaccine against it, or a remedy for it.  We need to wipe this disease out - eradicate it.  The United States of America and other leading countries should be spear-heading a joint health task force to combat and defeat ebola.  I wish it would happen over night...
   When I think about our quest for treatments and remedies for Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, every type of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, ALS, MS, MD, and all the other illnesses that strike us down, I feel small - less than gnat-sized.  But, if all of humanity would work together to defeat all of the awful health threats in the world, I believe that we would be triumphant.  I'll do my part - will you?

Odds And Ends

I woke up with a terrible migraine this morning; ended up getting a compazine injection and am almost normal (for me) again.  I enjoyed my television shows for the past two evenings.  I was really delighted with the casting of Carol Kane as the mother of the Penguin in Gotham - that was a neat surprise!  And I loved The Blacklist, as usual.  It did seem a bit weird that NCIS: New Orleans broadcast a show about an outbreak of bubonic plague on the same day the Center for Disease Control verified a case of ebola in Dallas, Texas - but, I was not surprised.
   With flights available to all people everywhere in the world, I would have been surprised had there not been at least two or three cases that were spread by today's methods of travel.  From what I have read, the unfortunate man had traveled in Liberia before returning to the US.  The two things that I find questionable about his treatment were that (1) he was sent back home for two days after first presenting his symptoms at the hospital, and (2) the EMTs and ambulance that carried him to the hospital for this - treatment, or admission, or complaint - were sent back out for routine work for the next two days, before being quarantined.  The man told them he had been in Liberia, in West Africa - why were blood tests for ebola not run immediately, before he was sent back into the public for 48 hours before his symptoms worsened?  After hearing and reading about the failures of the Secret Service in their quest to protect our President and the First Family, I guess I'm really not surprised that a hospital in Dallas, Texas would fail to pass a test, either.  *** Correction:  I just heard that the infected patient is a native of Liberia, who is visiting his family in Texas.  Emergency Room workers were told on Friday, when he was seen in the Er that his had just arrived from Liberia a few days before...  Oversight? ***
   Let's see, what else is going on?  The black bear is still hanging around the Githens Acres neighborhood; it's pretty much still sleeping in the cottonwood trees during the days and eating apples, crab apples, pears and various ripe berries in the yards.  The adult mountain lion is seen frequently at dawn or dusk along the creek at the Riverside Lane cul-de-sac.  Moose usually stay pretty high up in the foothills and mountains around here, but a family group of five has been seen north of Longmont  for the past week.  A lady in Estes Park went into her back yard the other day and came face-to-face with a young bobcat.  The youngster didn't want to leave the yard, but finally fled when the lady came out banging a couple of cast iron frying pans together.
  I've been getting a kick out of the squirrels here...  As it's getting cooler, they are getting more insistent that I produce food for them.  I have two deer antlers that I found in the woods, on Grandma Anne's property, sitting in a chair (each) for the squirrels to chew on to shorten and sharpen their teeth.  It's amazing how they whittle away those antlers!  And now, Cashew, and a few of the older squirrels, climb up onto the window screens and chatter at me - telling me they're out of nuts or corn or grain...  And the one thing that really makes me happy about all of this, is that my cats ignore the squirrels - sometimes the squirrels will initiate a game of chase with Nedi, which he enjoys.  The only things the kits have caught and killed recently are bugs - and I can easily live with that.