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[lake_wrangler]

I just found out more about my rash on the leg, which developed while I was at the hospital:

Turns out it's cellulitis. I just happened to show it to someone who just happened to recognize it. Now that I know, I do realize the doctor did mention it (to me? to the nurse?) but that left me confused, because the only thing I knew within that word's family was cellulite, which has nothing to do with this...

Not only that, but the person who told me says that it may even have been what caused the migraine headaches and the nausea, as my body may have been starting to try to fight what was coming on. I'll never know for sure.

All I know is that right now, my leg still feels warm to the touch, and part of the rash has erupted into sunburn-like blisters. With the skin being stretched by the swelling, the mere act of walking can make those blisters burst and leak... Yuck!

Hopefully, the antibiotics will help. I sure hope so, because it's still slowly spreading! (The nurse took the time to delineate the rash-covered area with a felt pen, while I was there.) Fortunately, it is only spreading a little, as opposed to the rate of growth between Thursday night and Friday morning. I am to go back if it does not retreat or worse, if it spreads. I'm giving it one more day to test, as I have started taking the antibiotics already.

We'll see.

This reddened skin or rash may signal a deeper, more serious infection of the inner layers of skin. Once below the skin, the bacteria can spread rapidly, entering the lymph nodes and the bloodstream and spreading throughout the body. This can result in influenza-like symptoms with a high temperature and sweating or feeling very cold with shaking, as the sufferer cannot get warm.

Except that in my case, the latter came before the former... what gives? Apparently, I can't even get sick right...
Or is it saying that the redness shows it has already infected the inner layers and progressed more rapidely than the redness will, hence the flu-like symptoms before the redness which would be sort of an after-effect of the deeper infection?
Either way, I don't get it.

[Alkarii]

Well, look at it this way:

If you lose the leg and have to get a robotic replacement, you'd be in good standing to win some ass-kicking contests.

[AnotherFairportfan]

I sometimes suffer painless migraines - that is, the same disruption in the visual cortex, but without the accompanying headache.

At some point i'll notice a sort of sparkling in my field of vision - with no idea how long it's been there - and it will gradually spread to cover almost the entire field.

The most irritating thing about it is that it's always a bit off-center, and my eyes unconsciously shift to try to track it, with sort of the same effect as a donkey trying to get the carrot dangling in front of it from a stick fastened to its harness...

[Dave]

Not only that, but the person who told me says that it may even have been what caused the migraine headaches and the nausea, as my body may have been starting to try to fight what was coming on. I'll never know for sure....

Or is it saying that the redness shows it has already infected the inner layers and progressed more rapidely than the redness will, hence the flu-like symptoms before the redness which would be sort of an after-effect of the deeper infection?
Either way, I don't get it.

It sounds as if there's no real consistency to how different parts of the body will react to an infection in the tissues... surface redness, pain, and general/systemic reactions might occur in different orders, depending on where the bacteria are, whether your body has antibodies against them due to a prior infection, etc. From what you describe, maybe the latter is true in your case... your body might have kicked off a general immune-system alert (leading to the fever and migrane) even before inflammation set in and showed at the skin surface.

Keep taking those antibiotics as prescribed, and do go back for follow-up if they don't seem to be helping! Sepsis is not something you want to have... the prognosis is often a bad one.

I know a lady who ended up with cellulitis some years ago when bacteria got through her surgical stitches. It took several weeks of several kinds of antibiotic to knock back the infection... the first one didn't work. The second did, fortunately, but it was very rough on her stomach.

[Catawampus]

One section I have been digging has yielded black sand. Magnetic black sand. I am building a rocker and acquiring other items to see if there's anything there besides iron...

Ah, so that's where the biomechanical alien spores landed!

Except that in my case, the latter came before the former... what gives? Apparently, I can't even get sick right...
Or is it saying that the redness shows it has already infected the inner layers and progressed more rapidely than the redness will, hence the flu-like symptoms before the redness which would be sort of an after-effect of the deeper infection?
Either way, I don't get it.

It just means that in a little while you'll manage to get yourself infected by antichronon-based bacteria. On the plus side, you already know that you've recovered.

[Hansontoons]

Now here's something that is curious. During my recent trip to Massachusetts I was able to follow up on a lead about a great-great-etc. grandfather, Joseph Wells, born in 1743.

Here's what was in the book of births/marriages/deaths from that time period:

IMG_1216.jpg (121.08 KiB) Viewed 8522 times

So, in 1743 speak, I wonder if "reputed" carries the same meaning as it does today. I asked the lady helping me with the search and she remarked that she had never seen that notation before!

Hmmmmm.....

From other source, my great-grandfather is the natty gent in the upper right of the photo. I have his cleft chin.

Wells Family.png (198.98 KiB) Viewed 8522 times

[Hansontoons]

This seems as good a place as any to put this... I live on a hillside. A hillside of high desert sand. If I want flat land, I have to make it. I've been terracing here lately, using reclaimed RR ties for low retaining walls.

One section I have been digging has yielded black sand. Magnetic black sand. I am building a rocker and acquiring other items to see if there's anything there besides iron...

PS- I have FULL mineral rights...

Hmm, interesting!

"Paint Your Wagon" music just started playing in my head, may have to throw a shovel and pan in the rent car when I'm in the area in September!

[Dave]

I've got a few pounds of this sand in a box in my yard... really should scan it with my NaI scintillometer and see if it shows the presence of any uranium in addition to the thorium.

As far as I can tell, it's just thorium. My scans don't show any of the gamma lines which would indicate the presence of the uranium decay chain.

A ten-pound bag of this black beach sand is definitely radioactive enough to notice. With my sodium-iodide scintillation probe, the background level here is 6-7 counts per second. With the probe sitting about 4" from the side of a cardboard box full of black sand, it's about 78 counts per second. The gamma spectrum shows some thorium-228, a nice peak right where two of the thorium daughter products (lead-212 and radium-226) emit gammas, and there are lesser peaks visible for titanium-208 and actinium-228. The broad area between 100 and 200 keV is "degraded" gamma radiation, emitted within the sand and then partially absorbed on its way out to the detector.

combined.png (10.05 KiB) Viewed 8520 times

A scan at using a bismuth germanate probe (better at higher energies) shows the higher-energy actinium-228 peaks.

There wasn't a significant amount of potassium-40 (even higher energy gammas).

monazite-bgo.png (31.85 KiB) Viewed 8520 times

[Dave]

So, in 1743 speak, I wonder if "reputed" carries the same meaning as it does today. I asked the lady helping me with the search and she remarked that she had never seen that notation before!

Seems not unlikely

I recall that in some periods, there were generally considered to be three classes of children:

• Born in wedlock, and thus fully recognized by law.
• Born out of wedlock (often "on the side" of a marriage), and formally acknowledged as son/daughter by the father. In some places, an "acknowledged bastard" (technical term) did have some right of inheritance from the father's estate, although this was generally subordinate to the rights of the "legitimate" children. I think I recall that such a son or daughter might inherit property, but not any of the father's formal titles.
• Born out of wedlock, and never formally acknowledged by the father. Such children could usually not successfully claim any inheritance from the father's estate.

A "reputed" son might be one of the third category, where the mother claims publicly that it's a particular man's child, but the reputed father never formally acknowledges that this is the case.

[Hansontoons]

So, in 1743 speak, I wonder if "reputed" carries the same meaning as it does today. I asked the lady helping me with the search and she remarked that she had never seen that notation before!

Seems not unlikely

I recall that in some periods, there were generally considered to be three classes of children:

• Born in wedlock, and thus fully recognized by law.
• Born out of wedlock (often "on the side" of a marriage), and formally acknowledged as son/daughter by the father. In some places, an "acknowledged bastard" (technical term) did have some right of inheritance from the father's estate, although this was generally subordinate to the rights of the "legitimate" children. I think I recall that such a son or daughter might inherit property, but not any of the father's formal titles.
• Born out of wedlock, and never formally acknowledged by the father. Such children could usually not successfully claim any inheritance from the father's estate.

A "reputed" son might be one of the third category, where the mother claims publicly that it's a particular man's child, but the reputed father never formally acknowledges that this is the case.

Interesting! A cousin of my mother has researched the family, his information is what I was working with. However, his info is a couple decades old and I do not know if he has this information, it is not noted. I'd have to think he has it since the publication I viewed was not new.

The entry in the book includes a second son, William, born twenty years after son Joseph. William is also reputed, but born from a different mother.

There was nothing about father Joseph, only that he was from the Boston area.

[Warrl]

Now here's something that is curious. During my recent trip to Massachusetts I was able to follow up on a lead about a great-great-etc. grandfather, Joseph Wells, born in 1743.

Here's what was in the book of births/marriages/deaths from that time period:
(snip)

In that time period (mid to late 1700s), I don't think a child would be listed under the father's last name unless either (1) the mother was married to the father, (2) the father (or a suitably prominent male relative of the father, particularly if the father is absent and not expected to return soon) acknowledged the child, or (3) it was somehow pretty well proven who the father was - which usually would have been difficult without either of the first two applying.

Also, a father outside of wedlock might not even be informed of that fact (let alone acknowledge it) until sometime after the child was born, which would mean sometime after the birth was recorded. So a child might be unacknowledged at the time the record is made, but acknowledged - maybe even the parents married to each other - a month later.

However, in the mid to late 1700s they did not have typewriters, let alone typewriters with proportional spacing, and the birth/death records would not have been typeset at a printer at the time of the event. This is NOT an original record - it's a transcription.

So what are those numbers on the left? My guess is that this document is not merely a transcription, it's a combination and a reorganization. Its source is not one original record, but several. The numbers to the left are the key. The first number would likely refer to a specific volume in the collection of original records (each volume likely covering a single church, or a small number of churches one after the other, over a specific time period), and the second would be a page number within that volume.

Based on that, in the original record the child of Hannah Walker (1743) was recorded on page 213, probably a page dedicated to the Walker family, of a church's record of births and deaths, with a notation that she claimed Joseph Wells was the father; and twenty years later in the same church the child of Deliverance Jones was similarly recorded in the Jones family record on page 126 of the same book with a similar notation.

Most likely, in both instances the child was later acknowledged by the father, based on the fact that they used the alleged fathers' surnames socially.

This volume was prepared many years later, when social standards were different, and the children were relisted under the names of their claimed fathers.

[Hansontoons]

Now here's something that is curious. During my recent trip to Massachusetts I was able to follow up on a lead about a great-great-etc. grandfather, Joseph Wells, born in 1743.

Here's what was in the book of births/marriages/deaths from that time period:
(snip)

In that time period (mid to late 1700s), I don't think a child would be listed under the father's last name unless either (1) the mother was married to the father, (2) the father (or a suitably prominent male relative of the father, particularly if the father is absent and not expected to return soon) acknowledged the child, or (3) it was somehow pretty well proven who the father was - which usually would have been difficult without either of the first two applying.

Also, a father outside of wedlock might not even be informed of that fact (let alone acknowledge it) until sometime after the child was born, which would mean sometime after the birth was recorded. So a child might be unacknowledged at the time the record is made, but acknowledged - maybe even the parents married to each other - a month later.

However, in the mid to late 1700s they did not have typewriters, let alone typewriters with proportional spacing, and the birth/death records would not have been typeset at a printer at the time of the event. This is NOT an original record - it's a transcription.

So what are those numbers on the left? My guess is that this document is not merely a transcription, it's a combination and a reorganization. Its source is not one original record, but several. The numbers to the left are the key. The first number would likely refer to a specific volume in the collection of original records (each volume likely covering a single church, or a small number of churches one after the other, over a specific time period), and the second would be a page number within that volume.

Based on that, in the original record the child of Hannah Walker (1743) was recorded on page 213, probably a page dedicated to the Walker family, of a church's record of births and deaths, with a notation that she claimed Joseph Wells was the father; and twenty years later in the same church the child of Deliverance Jones was similarly recorded in the Jones family record on page 126 of the same book with a similar notation.

Most likely, in both instances the child was later acknowledged by the father, based on the fact that they used the alleged fathers' surnames socially.

This volume was prepared many years later, when social standards were different, and the children were relisted under the names of their claimed fathers.

You raise some valid points. Finding copies of original transcripts might reveal information.

I appreciate your insight!

[lake_wrangler]

Going back to the hospital, this morning. The antibiotics they gave me are not strong enough, the infection is spreading on the leg.

Crossing fingers...


I now realize I forgot to keep you guys in the loop: turns out that I have cellulitis, which started showing up just before they dismissed me from the hospital. They gave me some antibiotics for it, and told me to return in a few days if it didn't work. It is most likely what caused all the symptoms I had on Wednesday, as my body was probably trying to fight off the incoming infection.

My leg is not pretty...

[Dave]

Going back to the hospital, this morning. The antibiotics they gave me are not strong enough, the infection is spreading on the leg.

Crossing fingers...

Our thoughts are with you, guy. Tell them to bring out the big guns, biochemistry-wise!

[TazManiac]

This seems as good a place as any to put this... I live on a hillside. A hillside of high desert sand. If I want flat land, I have to make it. I've been terracing here lately, using reclaimed RR ties for low retaining walls.

One section I have been digging has yielded black sand. Magnetic black sand. I am building a rocker and acquiring other items to see if there's anything there besides iron...

PS- I have FULL mineral rights...

Hmm, interesting!

"Paint Your Wagon" music just started playing in my head, may have to throw a shovel and pan in the rent car when I'm in the area in September!

You do realize that 'Paint Your Wagon' would also account for your other post as well, right? (btw- I real like the name 'Deliverance Jones'. They just don't name people with much flair anymore... )

Lake Wrangler- Get better buddy, oh and don't forget; fixing yourself begins from the Inside Out first, in other words, start cranking up the garlic, broccoli, whole grains and nuts as you can tolerate them, you know- over-stuff on Health(y) Food. And Hydrate yer'self.

[TazManiac]

Just thinking on stuff; DinkyInky's recent news, the family of the heart-transplant toddler, LW going through something like an Internal Civil War, no- more like; a Biological Castle Siege-

and as I ponder, the radio is playing 'Living for the City', but curiously

as performed by Ray Charles...

[chicgeek]

Lake Wrangler, I hope they get that under control pronto! Hospitals are no fun. You know, there's easier ways to get jello...

[Alkarii]

Does anyone else here use IRC? I have been unable to connect to ANY IRC server last night and today. This issue can't have been a result of the storms on Sunday, because I was using it during and after the storm that night.

[Hansontoons]

Going back to the hospital, this morning. The antibiotics they gave me are not strong enough, the infection is spreading on the leg.

Crossing fingers...


I now realize I forgot to keep you guys in the loop: turns out that I have cellulitis, which started showing up just before they dismissed me from the hospital. They gave me some antibiotics for it, and told me to return in a few days if it didn't work. It is most likely what caused all the symptoms I had on Wednesday, as my body was probably trying to fight off the incoming infection.

My leg is not pretty...

Damn. Never happy to hear about that sort of mess. Positive waves sent for quick recovery.

[lake_wrangler]

They kicked me out, last night! They must not have liked my attitude... what with the yelling, the moaning, the constant bugging of the nurses, the murder accusations, and they even had to restrain some people... I guess I just didn't fit in...

But seriously (although I was serious, they did have to restrain some people, and one guy kept shouting that they - the nurses and hospital staff - were trying to kill him...) the doctor said that after two days of getting antibiotics fed to me intravenously, she was starting to see some improvement (really? I don't see it...) and sent me home with a new antibiotics prescription, to take 4 times a day. Along with a new medical leave of absence until the end of next week, and an follow-up appointment for next Wednesday.

We'll see what happens. Meanwhile, I try to keep my leg elevated, which is not easy (or comfortable) when I'm at the computer... So I only stay on for so long, before moving to the futon...