Today Is ...

February 29, 2024, at home

Rare Disease Day is the last day in February, so today being a leap day, it's today, and not yesterday, as I had thought.

(This includes a funny memory from West Islip High School in the 1970s.)

Yes, I did have a rare, potentially fatal disease in May 1977, when I was 16 years old: Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. I most probably caught it in the backyard of my house in West Islip, Long Island, New York, from either a tick bite or ingesting the feces of an infected tick or even by rubbing my eyes or in my nose. That year, there were 400 cases and 30 deaths just on Long Island.

I was in the isolation ward in nearby Southside Hospital in Bay Shore for 10 days because the doctors didn't know what I had. Fortunately, my pediatrician, who was still my doctor at that time, knew what it was and saved my life. I remained in the hospital for several weeks after that. Now that I think about it, with hundreds of cases just on Long Island, how could a hospital full of doctors not know what it was.

My symptoms were high blood pressure; weakness; nausea; dizziness; a fever fluctuating around 104.3 degrees for 10 days; and thick purple scales completely covering both of my legs, plus many of them on my abdomen and chest, and a few on my face. It took more than a year for the scales to flake off. To this day, I still have small scales on my right leg.

I found it strange that my paternal grandmother, who was in Good Samaritan Hospital in West Islip, passed away at the same time my fever broke and then returned to normal. I often wonder if there was a spiritual connection. Maybe she gave her strength to me.

The day that I went into the hospital, I went to school that morning. I was feeling quite nauseated and dizzy, but my father thought I was faking. In our driveway, he was talking to a neighbor. I told him that I was ill, and he said, "Get your ass to school," so I walked to school.

As I was walking into my biology classroom, I remembered my biology teacher Mr. Wallace jokingly saying that if you are ever feeling nauseated from the smell of the formaldehyde, just take a big sniff. So, I took a big sniff as I entered the classroom and immediately threw up on my books and on the floor with possible collateral damage to a girl who was in front of me during the explosion. I went to the bathroom to get cleaned up. When I got back to the classroom, Mr. Wallace told me that he moved my desk and books to the back of the room.

(I thought that was funny at the time, and I still think it's funny.)

February 29, 2024, at home

National Toast Day is the last Thursday in February.

What do you put in a toaster? Did you say toast? Wrong. You put bread in a toaster. I'm not all that fond of toast, even when making sandwiches.