Jude

Three months since my gastric bypass surgery. It seems so long ago.

That’s just plain rude. A simple response is all you’re asking for.

Protestor in a frog suit and an anti-Ice sign with what I believe to be a Pokémon character on a street corner in Rogers Park.

The frogs have landed in Chicago!

aaand we are officially in the hide-your-neighbors stage

Three persons in inflatable frog costumes. One of them is holding a nicely painted sign with two little cartoon frogs holding hands, below the text "FROGS TOGETHER STRONG"

Blessed are the frogs, for they keep making authoritarians look incredibly stupid

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched this TikTok since yesterday. Sherman was stressing those ladies out.

Today has been VERY Monday.

A grey sign with white writing stands in front of an old tree. The sign reads: I am very old and need to rest. Please don't sit on me

Just another relatable National Trust sign

a woman wearing a knitted hat and a blue shirt ALT: a woman wearing a knitted hat and a blue shirt

Boys on the Side and Sister Act. But I do love her as Guinan.

all of the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence about executive power - all of it - can be replaced with a simple flow chart. is the president a Republican? if so it’s ok. if not, it’s presumptively not ok.

The House passed a bill that would gut global health funding and the Senate is next.

Programs like PEPFAR, TB care, and UNICEF are all on the line.

🗣️ Call your Senator today and tell them: Vote NO on the $9.4B rescissions package.

Take action: act.pih.org/global-healt...

I highly recommend Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green. You can take it just a chapter or even a segment at a time.

It has science in it but it’s not dry at all. It’s almost, but not quite, casual. The book focuses on a specific patient but also talks about the history and current stuff, too.

I’m still somewhat bowled over by the book. It’s horrible that so many people suffer from TB. Here, it’s relatively rare. But in poor countries, it can run rampant.

It is truly a torturous way to die.

You’re less likely to get AIDS than TB from being in the same room as someone with the disease.

Neither disease is shameful. They’re just diseases.

That’s all.

In the early 90s, most people saw AIDS as something shameful. They lied and covered it up.

Some people still think it’s shameful.

Did they ever really have TB? That question can’t be answered for sure now. My mom says she thinks not.

I would think that if they really had TB, we wouldn’t have been allowed around them. But I don’t know for sure.

That was 30 years ago now.

I remember being furious that they were hooked up to tubes and were being given life-extending measures. They’d been on hospice but one of their relatives (someone who who would know the truth) kept talking about them “getting better.” But I kept thinking “there is no getting better.”

Nobody was honest with us about this. To be fair, they weren’t honest with each other about it either, I don’t think.

I eventually found out the truth. I was still young when I found out. I think they were still alive when I found out but maybe not.

I don’t think we kids (I would have been pre-7th grade) were told they’d die, especially not at first. It was just “very sick.” Then it became clear they would not get better.

Eventually, they got pneumonia and passed away at home.

But really? They died from AIDS.

It was the early 90s.

What I was told was that they’d gotten TB from working in the dirt (gardening/maybe landscaping) which now sounds really stupid.

They were “very sick” but we spent a fair bit of time around them. They would eventually die from their illness.

You see, when I was a kid, there was someone I knew and was around a fair bit (an adult) who “had TB.”

No they didn’t. Or maybe, possibly, they did?

The only people who know for sure are dead or have Alzheimer’s.

I wanted to know because something I found out from Everything is Tuberculosis is that TB can live in your body for decades before you “have TB.”

A few days ago, I finished reading @johngreensbluesky.bsky.social ‘s Everything is Tuberculosis, which was excellent.

It sent me on a bit of an investigative path with a question to which I have no real answer to: Was I possibly exposed to TB as a kid?

Likely not but it’s slightly possible.

I click the ❤️ on people’s posts.
A lot!
It’s my way of saying:
- I see you;
- I feel you;
- I celebrate you;
- I empathise with you;
- I mourn for your loss;
- I have no words, but I paused for you;
- I care;
- I’m angry against the injustice you face;
- You are not alone;
<b> Hugs <\b>

Seeing one always makes me miss home.

And don’t leave it up there long - you can damage stuff from the cold.

Yum!

I mean, it does make sense.

It seems like she was just a baby and now this. Congrats to both of you!