One of the crazy things about this particular room in Dartmouth, is that it used to be used for radiation therapy, and all the walls have 3/8" of lead under the sheetrock. This is true of the doors as well, you can see the thick lead panels in the middle of the doors. Not surprisingly the doors weigh a ton. Ok, not literally a ton, but the lead in the 4 foot door weighs 532 lbs, and in the 3 foot door it is 399 lbs. The doors have these massive hinges and are nicely balanced, but there is definitely some time that goes by between when you start pushing on the door and it begins to move. The addition of having access to pumped air and oxygen, a private bathroom, and a first rate, research hospital, with its own generators and water supply makes this an unusually good room to be in if there is suddenly a zombie apocalypse. I just need a $2 wedge to jamb the door with, and I will have plenty of time to work out the details of the next steps. If you are reading this in Waldo county, and you think that the Waldo County General Hospital would work, let me just say, that I have evaluated those rooms and they will not hold up, for a number of reasons. Your best bet is to get to one of the remaining box cars with your emergency overnight bag (make sure to grab your winter weather kit), food, chains, padlocks and lock yourself in. That gives you 1/4" of steel for the zombies to get through and should give you enough time to come up with more detailed plans.
My feeling is that if the zombies shrug and go grab welding equipment then clearly they have not lost very much of their ability to think or fine motor skills. Which seem to be the downsides of being a zombie. The upside, of course is the whole (apparent) immortality thing that they seem to have going on for them. If they were really dead, they would rot and stink and fall apart in a couple days. They also apparently don't need to eat, although they enjoy feasting on brains. Just about any zombie movie that I can think of, the zombies have been around, or last for months or years. Oh, and in you zombie survival kit put in a bunch of decent hospital-style masks and anti-bacterial soap. it may just be an infectious disease. On the same note, don't kill the suckers in a way that sprays their potentially infected blood all over the place. That just seems like asking for trouble.
Got my hard chemo started today, which is good since we need to smack down these infected white blood cells before they get even more uppity. I am on etoposide and cytarabine as my chemo drugs.
Etoposide works by causing errors in DNA synthesis and promotes apoptosis in fast growing cells, especially including agressive cancer cells. Cytarabine is an antimetabolic agent which inhibits one of te phases of DNA replication. These hit all my cells, but the faster dividing the cell, the harder it hits it. My normal cells basically lose the ones that were going through division right then, but the bulk of them are unaffected.
Leif
My feeling is that if the zombies shrug and go grab welding equipment then clearly they have not lost very much of their ability to think or fine motor skills. Which seem to be the downsides of being a zombie. The upside, of course is the whole (apparent) immortality thing that they seem to have going on for them. If they were really dead, they would rot and stink and fall apart in a couple days. They also apparently don't need to eat, although they enjoy feasting on brains. Just about any zombie movie that I can think of, the zombies have been around, or last for months or years. Oh, and in you zombie survival kit put in a bunch of decent hospital-style masks and anti-bacterial soap. it may just be an infectious disease. On the same note, don't kill the suckers in a way that sprays their potentially infected blood all over the place. That just seems like asking for trouble.
Got my hard chemo started today, which is good since we need to smack down these infected white blood cells before they get even more uppity. I am on etoposide and cytarabine as my chemo drugs.
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Cytarabine |
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Etoposide |
Leif
It is reassuring in some sense to find I am not the only one of my friends that assesses the zombie apocalypse viability of each new environment we find ourselves in. -Amelia
ReplyDeleteYou know how you feel about needles? That's how I feel about zombies but your impressions were hilarious! On a related subject Isaac told me this morning that monsters, such as pumpkin monsters, don't like people. They are scared of them and stay away. Also monsters eat straw off scarecrows. -- Wendy
ReplyDeleteWe've done the picc line thing twice this summer - and it IS nightmareish. Glad they got it the first time for you! Toot, especially, laughed, which was lovely.
ReplyDeleteThinking of you every day as we all march toward the zombie apocalypse. Toot's garlic breath (a part of our program) will be keeping us safe for sure. Glad you have a plan as well.
xox - Liza
Yeah, the picc line is no fun, and I just learned yesterday that they have to take it out when I go get checked out of here, and replace it when I get checked back in, because it is such an infection risk. On the other hand it is nice to not be stabbed with IV needles all the time.
DeleteI hope that Toot is on the mend and feeling better. It seemed as though it was quite a summer for you guys as well.
I stopped thinking about zombie preparedness some time ago when I realized that the zombies are already among us...and I'm one of them! That whole thing about eating human brains is just another movie myth, though. Mainly we just putter around building things our employers think will make them a lot of money.
ReplyDeleteWell, really, Doug....if you haven't started watching "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo" on TLC, trust me, the zombies have already infiltrated the media and are clearly, via cyberspace and TV waves, already chowing down on some nice chunk of brains. If hiding in Leif's Superman Ward room will help, maybe we should try it. I find myself trying to watch that show and allowing brain cells to die by the thousands....
DeleteOh, and I don't think you're a zombie. Not quite yet.
DeleteGood point about zombies and eating brains. I never understood what that whole connection would be about - it means that every zombie would be missing their brain, as well has having a serious infection risk. It makes for a good gory movie though.
DeleteLeif, I love this post and that your sense of humor is so present! made me laugh and smile and then wince -- the strong drugs going after all of your dividing cells, but then I smiled again thinking about those same drugs really going after any and all cancer cells! Go get 'em. The complexity of our bodies simply astounds me... and then makes me wonder about how zombies do function since they are decaying. I guess none of their cells are dividing? but then how do they live so long. hmmm.
ReplyDeleteThis message feels lame to me, only because I wrote a long and witty response yesterday but lost it when I chose to use my google account. When that happens I can rarely bring myself to try writing it right away again. Funny thing, I guess I either can't find the energy to do the thinking/writing or more likely I liked how it came out and know I won't be able to live up to my own expectations. Somehow, writing again later eases the burden of perfectionism.
Ah, to be human. Thank you Leif for being so human and such a great human, and for writing so wonderfully about your experience and life in the moment. Healing energy (to your "good" cells) and Go Away and stop dividing energy (to the cells that are out of control). much love, larkspur
Thanks, Larkspur. You say that your message feels lame, but it is just nice to hear from you, and your thoughts. I get a lot out of reading when people post comments, because it is the only real feedback that I get that I have people interested and listening to what I have to say. And having real people giving responses (as opposed to the "statistics" page) is very motivating, and makes me feel the connection with my friends.
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