A Grim Anniversary
Becca Gilman • April 12th, 2009The Blog at the End of the World has been live for a year now. I thought it worth revisiting my first post. On March 20th, 2008, in Mansfield, MA; a fourteen-year-old boy died suddenly during his school’s junior varsity’s baseball practice (Boston Globe), and two days later, a fifteen-year-old-girl from the same town died at her tennis practice (Boston Globe). The two Mansfield residents both had sudden, catastrophic brain aneurysms.
So why am I bringing up those two kids again? Why am I dragging out the old news when you could open up any newspaper in the country, click on any blog or news gathering site, and read the same kind of stories only with different names and faces and places?
Despite the aid of hindsight, I’m not prepared to unequivocally state that the teens mentioned above are our patient zeroes. However, I do think those reported stories were mainstream media’s story zero concerning the cerebral aneurysm pandemic and the first of their type to go national, and shortly thereafter, global.
And, finally, a one-link Link roundup:
New York Times reports widespread shortages on a host of anti-clotting and anti-seizure drugs used to treat aneurysms. Included in the shortage, are medications that increase blood pressure, with the idea that increased blood flow through potentially narrowed vessels would prevent clots and aneurysms. Newer, more exotic drugs are also now being reported as in shortage: nimodipine (a calcium channel blocker that prevents blood vessel spasms) and glucocorticioids (anti-inflammatory steroids, not FDA approved, controversial treatment that supposedly controls swelling in the brain). The gist of the story is about the misuse of the medications (many of which are only meant for survivors of aneurysm and aren’t preventative), of course, leads to a whole slew of other medical problems, including heart attack and stroke.
April 24, 2009 at 10:23 am
Your a fear monger. You spread fear and the lies of the Godless, liberal media. GOD will punish you!!!!
April 24, 2009 at 1:29 pm
I have no doubt the Times story is true, but only because of the panic. This story does not prove there really is a pandemic of aneurysms, only that a segment of the public believes there is one.
The reality is that on average, since 2000, 50,000 Americans die from brain aneurysms (spontaneous cerebral hemorrhaging) per year, with 3-6% of all adults having aneurysms inside their brains (fortunately, most are so small they’re never noticed). There is no recorded evidence of that 50,000 number swelling to unprecedented levels. Please show me my error!
There is no conspiracy. It’s the 21st Century Red Scare. Our zeitgeist is so pre-occupied with apocalypse we’re making one up because the real one isn’t getting here soon enough. Yes, 50K is a small percentage of the population, but it’s a large enough number that if a preponderance of aneurysm cases were to get press coverage, as they clearly are, it gives a multi-media appearance of a pandemic and a conspiracy to cover it up. Unless you can provide some hard data/evidence--like our government and the W.H.O. can provide--please stop. There’re plenty more real threats (economic, environmental, geopolitical) that sorely need to be addressed.
April 24, 2009 at 10:10 am
Has it been only a year? Fuck a flyin’ fuckin’ duck.
I was at the CVS pharmacy on Central Park Ave. today--just picking up “supplies” ;) --and there was a huge fucking line in the pharmacy section with two armed policeman wandering around the store. Muscles and guns and sunglasses. Some good, hot, homoeroticism there, Becks.
My fuck-headed fellow shoppers were shuffling all around the CVS, wearing hospital masks and emptying the already empty shelves of vitamins and who the fuck knows what else. Most of them were buying shit they’d never need, just buying stuff because it was there. It was surreal, and I gotta tell ya, they got to me! I ended up buying some leftover Easter candy. Fucking Peeps. Don’t even like them, but you know, when society collapses, I just might need me some yellow fucking Peeps!
Stop by the PJ tonight, Becks. I’m working a double-shift. I’ll bring the Peeps.
April 24th, 2009 at 11:36 am
I’m one of those fuckheads who wears a hospital mask when I go out now. I know it doesn’t protect or save me from anything, but it makes me feel better. I know it scares other people when they see me in it, so I tried to cover it up by drawing a smile on the mask with a pink sharpie. I’d hoped it would make people smile back. I’m not a good drawer, though, and it doesn’t look like a smile. It’s a snarl, bared teeth, the nanosecond before a scream. It’s my only mask.
April 24, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Drawing mouths on the hospital masks is fuckin’ brilliant!
Becks, bring some masks (I know you have some!) to the PJ tonight. I’ll help you decorate them. I’ve got some killer ideas. I’m serious, now, bring some masks. I want to wear one when I go out tomorrow.
September 23, 2009 at 2:34 am
I saw someone die today. We were part of a small crowd waiting for our subway train. She was standing next to me, listening to an iPod. It was loud enough to hear the drums and baseline. Didn’t recognize the song, but I tried. When our train arrived she collapsed. I felt her body part the air and despite all the noise in the station, I heard her head hit the concrete. It was a hard and soft sound. Then, her iPod tune got louder, probably because the earphones weren’t in her ears anymore.
I don’t know if anyone helped her or not. I’m ashamed to admit that I didn’t help her. She fell and I raced onto the train, and waited to hear the doors shut behind me before I turned around to look. The windows in the doors were dirty, black with grime, and I didn’t see anything.