Don't fuck around with SEPSIS...

 

So, Cookie's Friday didn't go the way that he had planned. 

Thursday night I came down with a 100+ fever out of nowhere.   I took some Tylenol.  At 3am, it was even higher.  Friday morning it was still higher.  And this wasn't just any old fever, this was a full-on Mrs. Lovett's radiating heat fever. Like the Husband could feel how hot I was from two feet away.

Friday morning I got in to see the doctor, who looked at me fading in and out of a stupor (like an idiot, I drove myself to the doctor's office), and said, "Yeah, I am admitting you, right this minute."  I was put in a wheelchair and literally pushed to the ER. 

Long story short, I had two things wrong.  1st, a medical condition that we thought we taken care of in 2014 with abdominal surgery was back, and 2nd, they diagnosed sepsis and had I waited another day, could have landed me in ICU.

Here's the good news, they got me in, drained enough blood out of me for tests that I might as well have been being bled by George Washington's doctor, sent me through a machine or six, and then hooked me up to a battery if IV's.  Test results came back fast.  In some instances, I had the results before the doctors did.  Of course, I had no idea what was going on, but I have never had labs in an ER come back that fast, ever.

The miracle is that in 24 hours I got to come back home.  How?  The executive summary is powerful drugs and I responded almost as quickly as the whole event started.   I am still feeling wonky, I am on multiple anti-biotics, one of which is Flagyl - which makes your mouth taste horrible - but I am without pain. 

Why tell you this? 

Well, you hear about people going into sepsis (your body going into an extreme state to fight an infection), you don't know what it is or why getting to the ER fast is vital to prevent damage or even death.  I am providing THIS LINK to the CDC.  Look at it, read it, take it seriously.

What I experienced was a swift onset of fever, my blood pressure dropped, my heart rate became irregular, I felt woozy to the point of passing out.  

How they treat it depends on what triggered it.  Because mine was in the gut, it was IV antibiotics by mouth and by IV. 

In my case, it was the high fever, sudden and unlike any other, that was the red flag for ME.  I knew something was very wrong and I should have been at the ER that night, but I kept thinking it would pass and it didn't.  

I feel lucky and I know I got very lucky.   And I also know what could have happened had I tried to tough it out. 

The things that are done

 What has gotten done in the Cookie house today?

Bitch, this isn't chaos for anyone but the guy in the wig.

1) The conversion to Windows11 is DONE.  And my recommendation to you is to do everything you can do to avoid it.  It is VILE and has left Cookie feeling defeated.  Jesus fucking christ, I hate what Satya Nadella and his wrecking crew have done to Windows.  And personally, he won't be getting any cosmic love from me. 

2) The TAXES are done.  And we get refunds from the Feds and our home state. 

3) The accountant's bills are paid for the taxes.  FUCK YES!

4) I told that bitch off in the genealogy group today who was whining about something that happened on a major genealogical website like 20 years. 
Bitch, "chaos" isn't what happened to that website just because it no longer finds it useful.  Chaos happens in an enemy bombing civilians trying to get away from a military attack.  Chaos happens when some criminal whips out a semi-automatic on a subway car.  Chaos is watching a highly sugared child running rampant in a meltdown while his parents do nothing to soothe that child and question their own abilities as parents.   What your problem is DRAMA, and nothing more.   And I am not buying a ticket to that show, is neither is anyone else.

So excuse Cookie while I go and take a valium, a couple of pieces of chocolate, and eat a nice juicy steak for dinner in my victory lap.

Before you clean up that tombstone...

 

...ask yourself, does it have to be cleaned?  Do I have a right to clean it? Do I want to be the person who destroys the tombstone?

Cookie is going down this rabbit hole because what used to be the history buff and genealogy nut thing to do is evidently becoming a "Pinterest" hobby for many people. 

And that scares Cookie. 

I have been a genealogy buff (aka nut) for 45 years, and in those 45 years I have seen too many examples of the "best of intentions gone horribly wrong."  Over time, preservation and conservation techniques change, evolve, and too often than naught, get discarded. 

And with the explosion of internet access, messages boards, Instagram, Facebook, Bloggr (yes, I know), and social media, there are way too many people watching videos and crowning themselves experts.   And many, many, many of these self-educated experts are doing real damage in our graveyards and cemeteries. 

It wasn't even forty years ago that people advocated tombstone rubbings as a way to preserve the writing on tombstones.  "Look!" they said, pointing at papers that they had dropped over stones.  "I'm persevering history!" 

But they weren't.  They were adding to the abrasion damage caused by chalking and crayons being scraped across the face of gravestones, which accelerated the decay.   Don't do it!

About three weeks ago, an attendee at RootsTech, the world's largest genealogy conference - which was free again and virtual this year - was pointing to all sorts of horribly abrasive and damaging technics that they claimed to learn about cleaning tombstones and then advocated making rubbings!

No. No. No, NO!

So if you find yourself with a bad case of the Tombstone Twitch, my best advice is as follows: 

1) Stop.  Seriously, don't act.  Don't do anything.  Really.  

2) Ask yourself "do I really need to do this?"  Are you the best person to do this? Are you professionally trained or self-trained?  Or are you just someone who watched a video and thinks that this is too simple to screw up?   Trust me, you'll screw this up.

3) Does the stone need to be just read, or is it imperative that it must be cleaned?  Many stones need to be recorded, but not all stones must be cleaned.

4) Should I be cleaning this stone?  Is that your family member?  Do you have the input of all of the people descended from that person and they have all given you all of the permissions needed?

5)  Can I afford this?  Can you afford the right tools? Can I afford a professional restoration should this stone break or be damaged?

6) What are the laws regarding this?  Did you even think that cleaning a stone could be classified as vandalism?  Will the cemetery association allow you to clean a stone?  If the stone is in a rural cemetery, is it owned by a local government?  Are you trespassing to get to the stone if its a private cemetery?

7) You've decided that the family has abandoned tending to the grave, or have they? Are you assuming, or do you know for certain?

8) Can you afford the correct tools?  Do you have the money for the soft brushes, the D2, the distilled water to rinse the stone?  (Never rinse a stone in chlorinated water!)

So...

Cookie's bottom line: do NOT clean a stone unless you have received proper training, do not assume anything, and understand that even the slightest mistake could be destroying history for future generations.  

And one other thing to think of - do you remember that woman in Europe who destroyed a fragile fresco of Jesus with her handiwork?  You don't want to be her.  Seriously.  No.  And it is not funny, it is not that no one cares.  She ruined a piece of work with the best of intentions and it went horribly wrong because she didn't know what she was doing.  

Don't be that person, OK?

In other words, don't clean that stone unless it's got your name on it.