Viruses

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and I have been reading about and dealing a lot with viruses lately.  Don’t worry, I am not contagious.

Virus is a Latin word that means to poison.

A virus is a small infectious agent that replicates inside the living cells of other organisms. These disease-bearing organisms are transmitted in different ways.

Unless you have been living way off the grid, or under a rock, or in Camden, NJ, (which could be a combination of the first two), you have probably heard of the Ebola virus.

They say the Ebola virus comes from Fruit bats in Africa, who carry it without being harmed. Little flying ‘typhoid Marys’. So unless you run into a Megabat, or someone who has been infected by the disease, you should be okay. And even if you do run into someone infected with Ebola, there has to be direct contact with the blood or body fluids of an infected person after symptoms have developed in order to catch it.

If you are a reader of this blog and have yet to catch the Ebola virus you may have noticed that I like to add a graphic or two to the weekly posts. Last week when I downloaded the “Perspective” graphics, one of them came with a new computer virus called Rasom-Ware that corrupted every file in my computer. Needless to say, this “inconvenience” has disrupted my ability to work efficiently, causing me to have to ‘re-invent the wheel,” not to mention many large documents, on numerous occasions.

That is why there are no graphics with this week’s post. Once bitten, twice shy. (not bitten by the fruit bat, that would be once bitten, twice as bad as dead)

I was told by our Office of Information Technologies personnel that as of now there is no cure for the Rasom-Ware.  You have no idea how much I hate hearing that line. I’ve been hearing that line way too often over the last year. “Sorry Bud, there is no cure for your wife’s Alzheimer’s.”

There is another virus I heard of somewhere along the line called a root virus.  Personally, I felt my home was recently infected by that one. A cluster of roots was recently discovered underneath my house, after they entered the drain below my bathroom and corrupted our ability to flush.

Now, I could understand how Andy Dufresne could go into such a drain to escape Shawshank and get his redemption (although I could never do that. I mean what if he got to the end of that 500 yard drain and it had a locked gate on it. What was he going to do, crawl backwards for 500 yards?)

But I can’t understand why a system of roots would ever want to go near the bottom of my toilet. I am sure if they knew what they were getting themselves into they would just as soon curl up and die. When I got the bill from the plumbers I felt like curling up into a fetal position as well. But, at least now I can flush in my own home again.

I later found out that a root virus is really closer to the one that infected my computer than to the one that infected my plumbing.

I have also read that some researchers in the United Kingdom believe the herpes simplex virus can cause Alzheimer’s Disease, since they have found localization of herpes DNA within the amyloid plagues in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. They feel the virus behind cold sores is a major cause of those damn plaques.  The good news is that they feel a vaccination against that virus could prevent the development of Alzheimer’s.  Unfortunately, it does nothing for the patients who already have Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease, like my wife Terry.

There is also another virus, so to speak, involving Alzheimer’s Disease. Neil deGrasse Tyson, a famous astrophysicist and the director of the Hayden Planetarium, once said that “Ignorance is a virus, and once it starts spreading it can only be cured by reason. For the sake of humanity, we must be that cure.”

Tyson used to host the NOVA science television show on PBS, as well as the sequel to the Carl Sagan show Cosmos. Although I do not agree with his agnostic beliefs, I do agree with his stance on ignorance.

This month everyone is wearing pink to support the fight against breast cancer. And I support that. I’m confident enough in my masculinity that I’m not afraid to wear my pink tie. It is for a good cause. Susan B. Komen and her Races for the Cure are great. The NFL has gotten away from that a bit, concentrating on more of a ‘manly’ disease, namely prostate cancer. College basketball coaches have Coaches vs. Cancer tournaments and wear sneakers instead of dress shows at selected games to “Stand Up 2 Cancer.”

These causes are all very worthy, but what these people don’t realize is that more people die each year of Alzheimer’s Disease than breast cancer and prostate cancer COMBINED.

It is like what I mentioned in a previous blog post about the ice water bucket challenge. It raised a great deal of money and awareness for ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or Lou Gehrig’s Disease). But I bet more of those drenched people know someone with Alzheimer’s Disease than ALS. I bet more people know someone with Alzheimer’s than breast cancer, or prostate cancer.

So for the sake of humanity, we must be the cure. We need to raise awareness about Alzheimer’s.

NAPA is the National Alzheimer’s Project Act that was signed into law in 2011. This law requires the development of a national plan to accelerate research toward the treatment and prevention of Alzheimer’s, and to improve care, services and support to people with Alzheimer’s, families and even caregivers like me.

I was thinking more of a grass roots type of plan. (and not the type of roots that were corrupting my toilet). A plan driven by the community, on the local level. If people make a big enough stink about it, (again, not talking about my toilet), things will get done.

So that is why I continue to write this blog. The last time I checked there were over 11,000 views of this blog. Hopefully more and more people will realize how many people are affected by this disease, and decide to do something about it. Before it affects someone they know. Before it affects them.

McAfee, Bitdefender and BullGuard are all popular virus removers for your computer. Except at this point there is no cure for the Rasom-Ware that is on my computer.

And there is no cure for the Alzheimer’s Disease that has infected my wife.

For the sake of humanity, we must be that cure.

Until next time, I hope at least my bathroom is cured.

Bud