When I finally got to the kitchen and opened the front door all three cats were waiting for me to come out with food. I had to go out through the garage. The cat food there on the paper towels was drying but I took out fresh food this time. They were all three very hungry and determined to fight over the food until they saw that all three of them had their own bowl. By the time I had my own breakfast they had eaten and left. I left the food out there for awhile because there are at least two or three more of them that have not eaten.
It looks like it will be a sunny day today. I hope the yard is dry by Thursday or Friday so I can have it mowed. It needs it today but is way too wet after yesterday's storm. I hope my flowerbed survived. I took the hanging plant in the garage during a lull yesterday. Too much wind and way too much rain. It looks fine this morning so I hung it back out.. I will check out the flowerbed in the back and see how it made it. The above ground box flowerbed was full of water the only time I checked yesterday afternoon during the rain. I hope the flowers survived.
Hey! They look pretty good...all perked up and not badly damaged at all! I saw a hummingbird out there looking for food so I mixed up some food and hung the feeder out there. I hope the hummingbird finds it and eats it. I had hummingbirds over on Morgan at Coffeyville but didn't see any here last year. Hopefully they will find that feeder.
I want to get hold of my mower's mother today and see if one of her girls can mow for me on Friday. Surely by then the yard will be dry. I have texted her. I have been watching the weather channel and it looks like the rest of the week will be fine. Now I am going to watch the CBS news.
More later....
The mower's mother texted me back, One of her daughters will plan to mow for me on Friday. That's good! It will really need it by then since it needs it right now but is soaked out there.
More even later....
Not looking too bad considering what they went through yesterday.
Suzanne came mid afternoon and collected the rent and my Coffeyville Journals. Then we went out to Sonic and had a cherry limeade slush. We had no t been together for any time at all in weeks. It was good to visit with her.
I have been reading the book, "The Great Influenza" by John Barry. In many ways this pandemic is very much like the one we are going through in the world right now. It begins by explaining just how inadequate medicine was before 1900. Most diseases and medical emergencies were treated by bleeding the victim. It was not until a genius doctor, William Welch, noticed that the Germans were approaching disease more with science and education then America. America did not even require a doctor to have a college education and certainly no medical school education at that point.
Then American doctors who also wanted to use education and science and laboratory science to diagnose and cure disease, started to go to Germany for their education and training. This was noticed by other gifted doctors who were interested in setting up their own education and science departments. Many of those doctors also went to Germany to be trained.
This changed the way doctors were trained and led eventually to actual treatments for the worst diseases. For instance a Cholera treatment was discovered by using science and lab work and that was just the beginning of the transition to a modern medicine. Eventually Johns Hopkins led the way to a doctor's education finally changed into a science.
The thing that really struck me in reading this book was the similarity of the way the influenza virus and the coronavirus seem to work. The virus's both change over time and go from one bad pandemic to an even worse one in a second round. until most of the world in that day suffered horrible losses.
The 1918 influenza pandemic was the most severe pandemic in recent history. It was caused by an H1N1 virus with genes of avian (bird) origin. Although there is not universal consensus regarding where the virus originated, it was believed to have originated in the army base at Ft. Riley in Kansas and spread worldwide during 1918-1919 during the First World War. In the United States, it was first identified in military personnel in spring 1918.
It is estimated that about 500 million people or one-third of the world’s population became infected with this virus. The number of deaths was estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide with about 675,000 occurring in the United States. Mortality was high in people younger than 5 years old, 20-40 years old, and 65 years and older. The high mortality in healthy people, including those in the 20-40 year age group, was a unique feature of this pandemic.
While the 1919 HINI virus has been synthesized and evaluated the properties that made it so devastating are not well understood. With no vaccine to protect against influenza infection and no antibiotics to treat secondary bacterial infections that can be associated with influenza infections, control efforts worldwide were limited to non -pharmaceutical interventions such as isolation, quarantine, good personal hygiene, use of disinfectants, and limitations of public gatherings, which were applied unevenly.
The scariest thing I have noticed is that after a fairly "mild" first round, a second round that was absolutely devastating and not expected was what caused it to cause the death of millions worldwide. This all occurred during our participation in the First World War when men were packed into small barracks and crowded together.
I really recommend that everyone read this book since the similarities are amazing and scary. It will cause us to isolate ourselves even more and protect ourselves even more in public.
I read until 7:00PM when I stopped long enough to take my bath . Then I went back to the book until shortly after 9:00PM when I went on to bed.
3 comments:
I enjoyed your post today about your reading.
That sounds like a very interesting book. We have a lot of cases here in the St Louis County area. My husband and I started isolating early on when it started here in our area. I stay home completely, because I have health issues that put me in the bad group, but my husband goes once a week, or sometimes a little longer in between trips, to get groceries. He and most other people in the store are wearing masks, my husband wears gloves, too. Otherwise we are both at home. Inside or outside. We haven't had any take out food for a long time and I have been doing all of the cooking, except for when we eat frozen dinners. I must say, I am getting tired of my own cooking.
My husband has been off from his part time job for quite a while now, but now they have sent him a tablet to use so he can work part time from home. Hooray! Tomorrow he and his work people will be having a meeting on Zoom. This should be interesting. My Fuzzy Pom and I are going to have to keep quiet around the house during his meeting.
The worst thing for me with isolating is that I miss visiting and hugging my grandson, daughter and son in law. I miss hugging my son, too, but I am more accustomed to that, since he has been in the Air Force for about 17 years now and we only get to see him in person once in a while. It has been about a year since he was last in the United States. He was scheduled to be stationed back here in the US in May, but that isn't going to be happening now.
It has been difficult for me because I enjoy visiting so much! Reading has been a lifesaver.
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