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the burning minotaurs of immunoresponse
What we find is that my pattern for "healthy adult immune system" requires some discretion regarding what one picks up and chews upon. The Megatherium's idea of how to explore the universe continues to involve eating acorn caps and chewing on rocks and sticks and (eep!) last year's pokeweed stalks. (The pokeweed is *I hope* now removed from her sphere of interest.) So now she's begun picking up nice pathogens and incubating them for me-- toddler sneezes make a fantastic delivery method-- and I have been sick more in the past six weeks since she stopped nursing than I have in the previous several years. Ugh. Spent all but about three hours of yesterday in bed with a fever, creating new metaphors for immunoresponse.
There was some study years ago-- it must have been when I was in high school, because I remember knowing about this in college-- where they determined that if you visualize your immune system working that actually helps it work. And as it's one of those weird willpower/placebo effect sorts of things, you don't actually have to know how your immune system works to manage-- you can have your five-year old picture little fish swimming about in his/her blood eating the disease, and it'll work just as well as contemplating your white blood cells. And when you're in that state where you're a little too sick to read because it involves keeping your eyes open, it makes a nicer diversion than worrying about all the things you wanted to do with your Saturday (which happened, in this case, also to be our 5th wedding anniversary. Bah.)
So I pictured little clay warriors with exciting helmets tromping about in my bloodstream fighting back waist-high amoeboid alien plant things with torches and fire arrows. I briefly considered making them like that burning minotaur guy in Thor 2, because that was pretty cool (though that was what grauwulf was watching on Friday night and I didn't stick around long enough to find out what killed him b/c when you get to the point where you're wishing you could get another full-body shot of what whats-her-name is wearing instead of all the CGI strafing runs, it's pretty clear you and the movie have diverged in field of interest & the sick would be better off sleeping. Also, I didn't care much about either of the main characters. Unless you count Loki, who I mostly want to pat on the head & find a good therapist, maybe a lover, and then a fulfilling job in some kind of super-twisty spy universe. Because that really sounds far more like his thing than being king anyway.) But imposing metaphors involving irreversible burn-out on my white blood cells seemed like not so much the thing, so I ended up tweaking my clay warriors to include little furnace doors in their abdomens, and supply lines to the nearest fat storage centers...
It is possible this got a little excessively convoluted.
However, at this point I'm feeling almost human again, and tomorrow theoretically someone is coming to fix the roof so that it stops raining on my bed. (Um, turns out insurance claims for wind damage take about fifteen steps to process, and then because it's April, it keeps raining. Which presently leaks down above our lovely cathedral ceiling and drips right where my feet go when I sleep.)
Also the last few times I've put the Megatherium to bed, it's gone about like this:
Me: It's bedtime. Do you want me to read you a story?
Her: Yes!
Me: Ok. If you lie down, I'll read you a story.
Her: [immediately stands up] Ma-Ma!
Me: [putting her down again] If you stand up, I'm going to go away and turn out the light.
Her: [immediately stands up again] Ma-Ma!
And after a round or two of this, I put her down again, turn off the light, and tell her goodnight, sleep well, & I'll see her in the morning. The last couple times, she's lain down and gone to sleep pretty much immediately. (Wednesday night she wanted to scream about it, but I was so tired I went to bed pretty much immediately after her anyway.) She doesn't do this to her father, but he was also out of town for much of the week.
So that's where I've been instead of talking to people.
There was some study years ago-- it must have been when I was in high school, because I remember knowing about this in college-- where they determined that if you visualize your immune system working that actually helps it work. And as it's one of those weird willpower/placebo effect sorts of things, you don't actually have to know how your immune system works to manage-- you can have your five-year old picture little fish swimming about in his/her blood eating the disease, and it'll work just as well as contemplating your white blood cells. And when you're in that state where you're a little too sick to read because it involves keeping your eyes open, it makes a nicer diversion than worrying about all the things you wanted to do with your Saturday (which happened, in this case, also to be our 5th wedding anniversary. Bah.)
So I pictured little clay warriors with exciting helmets tromping about in my bloodstream fighting back waist-high amoeboid alien plant things with torches and fire arrows. I briefly considered making them like that burning minotaur guy in Thor 2, because that was pretty cool (though that was what grauwulf was watching on Friday night and I didn't stick around long enough to find out what killed him b/c when you get to the point where you're wishing you could get another full-body shot of what whats-her-name is wearing instead of all the CGI strafing runs, it's pretty clear you and the movie have diverged in field of interest & the sick would be better off sleeping. Also, I didn't care much about either of the main characters. Unless you count Loki, who I mostly want to pat on the head & find a good therapist, maybe a lover, and then a fulfilling job in some kind of super-twisty spy universe. Because that really sounds far more like his thing than being king anyway.) But imposing metaphors involving irreversible burn-out on my white blood cells seemed like not so much the thing, so I ended up tweaking my clay warriors to include little furnace doors in their abdomens, and supply lines to the nearest fat storage centers...
It is possible this got a little excessively convoluted.
However, at this point I'm feeling almost human again, and tomorrow theoretically someone is coming to fix the roof so that it stops raining on my bed. (Um, turns out insurance claims for wind damage take about fifteen steps to process, and then because it's April, it keeps raining. Which presently leaks down above our lovely cathedral ceiling and drips right where my feet go when I sleep.)
Also the last few times I've put the Megatherium to bed, it's gone about like this:
Me: It's bedtime. Do you want me to read you a story?
Her: Yes!
Me: Ok. If you lie down, I'll read you a story.
Her: [immediately stands up] Ma-Ma!
Me: [putting her down again] If you stand up, I'm going to go away and turn out the light.
Her: [immediately stands up again] Ma-Ma!
And after a round or two of this, I put her down again, turn off the light, and tell her goodnight, sleep well, & I'll see her in the morning. The last couple times, she's lain down and gone to sleep pretty much immediately. (Wednesday night she wanted to scream about it, but I was so tired I went to bed pretty much immediately after her anyway.) She doesn't do this to her father, but he was also out of town for much of the week.
So that's where I've been instead of talking to people.