With all our best intentions, all our best resources, all our finest minds at the patients side, our infected system, may or may not pull though. Temporary life support may keep it just above death, But the Spirit that once dwelled in it, is sadly (or not), fast slipping to its' final state

I offer this Y2K paradigm.

A young boy came home sporting a nasty bite on his arm Amidst the fits of sobbing and crying the poor lad explained to his mom the events of the ordeal just passed. Seems as though he had encountered a large dog coming through the wood and been attacked without provocation. He feared for his very life, except that the dog suddenly turned and ran back into the wood, hollering and whining, till completely out of sight.

No one else would ever have understood a word he said in such a broken discourse, but mom's just can. Mom, as moms do , took a cold wash rag and gently washed the boys tears away, matted down his scruffled hair, and soothed his spirit with that God given salve contained in a mom's voice. The boy somewhat gathered, and feeling safer now, turned his attention to the bite on his arm. Wanting to return to his fright, he gasped, held his breathe for a moment, then once again started crying. But this time with much less virility.

Mom too, turned her attention to the arm and decided it was a prudent thing to proceed to the doctors office. The young man, now anxious to recap the entire trauma, recalled how he had never seen this particular dog before, and it sure was ugly. It looked like it had been lying in the bushes for a long time, and sure did stink too.

Upon arriving at the doctors office, the youngster magically seemed to be feeling a whole lot better, but mom would not hear of returning without first having Mr. Pool have a look see. The waiting room was not too crowded, so even over the admonitions of her son, mom was soon explaining the details, as best she could from a third party point of view.

Dr. Pool ministered to the wounds while the boy reconfirmed the story about the queer acting dog. Dr. Pool issued the standard *sucker* to the boy and sent them on their way. Mom, still unconvinced, and naturally worried about the welfare of the boy, decided to get a second opinion. Again the physician discarded their fears because of the low probability of anything more serious than a slight infection, for which he had already been treated.

All was well until, a couple of weeks later, mom got a call from the hospital. She was ordered to bring the boy immediately to the hospital where she would met by the doctor. He would explain in detail, there. Never surprise and then corner a mother. An eternal adage. The nurse tried to explain; Seems two other people had suffered bites in the last week from a mad dog, The animal had been destroyed and testing on brain tissue had confirmed the presense of Hydrophobia-- Rabies.

Mom would, truly, have run over anything between her and that doctor. The next few minutes could not be, other than to say heated and confused, easily described.

Mom, having admitted the boy, was now sitting quietly at his bedside. How? What had she done wrong? How had she failed her son? If only....! Her swollen eyes never leaving her child. The redness permeating the (white). Her soul looking back from them. The weight of her sadness made it hard for her to breathe.

At first light, the team of specialists arrived from the capital. Their demeanor, their language, their clothes, hell, even their smell was so nauseatingly sterile. They seemed to look right past her, right through her, as if she did not exist. This made her angry, but she had little room for selfish feeling.

At the doctors persistence and assurances, she conceded her space to these strangers, in body anyway. The waiting, the absense, were insufferable. Just as she thought she could stand it no more, they emerged. As she hurried past, she strained to pick out some recognizable utterance from their banter. She searched their faces, their inflections, intonations, their body language, but discerned nothing. She received only, in that brief moment of confluence, the deafening noise of silence. Even the sound of her own voice scrapped across raw nerve.

Passed from infected host to a victim primarily through the saliva, the virus rides the intravenial passages and begins to propogate. Since there is no cure for rabies, the hospital sent the family home without hope.

The Boy developed Hydrophobia in a few days. The entire family gathered members from all corners of the realm, to prepare for the impending doom.

One member of the family recalled a hypothesis she had overheard about treating the disease systemically. Since there is no way of treating the entire system holistically, it may be possible to attack the disease on a organ by organ basis. Different organs - different treatments, administered concurrently. But it had never been tried before. The Boys parents, after much soul searching, agreed to attempt this radical approach. The options were nil and the certainty of doing nothing, unacceptable.

The project attracted the attention of many highly respected specialists, in all fields of medicine. So treatment began. The details of the treatment are to extensive to recount, but the synopsis goes like this; The encephalitic condition of the brain was reduced to an acceptable level; the liver was in a damaged state, but continuing to function; the kidney function was at high risk of total failure, but potential family donors were cross typed, on record and present; the pancreas may not survive, but with a proper regime of insulin, it would not be the cause of death, and so on throughout his entire system.

All of this was quite overwhelming to the Boy, and he slipped into a comma. The life assist mechanisms were tied into his system and he continued to breath, and showed some signs of brain function. The family wept and agreed to hold vigil with the Boy on a rotating basis, and went to their homes. Time passed.

Some of the family thought it was unfathomable that the Boy should be held in limbo by the life support system, while others had come to terms with a decision to hold out hope, no matter what. The hospital, bound by legal issues had no choice, but to continue life support. During family get togethers for mutual consoling, arguments broke out more and more frequently and viloently. Otherwise gentle and reasonable people began regressing into archaic ancestral behaviors. Name calling was frequent, threats issued, and ties seemingly irrevocably damaged.

In the twinkling of a eye, our young lad was standing before Peter, in a gown of pure white. There were objects that looked like a huge white balloons on either side of the street which led away from him.

"Hello, my son" said Peter to the tike "Welcome home"

The Boy looked over his shoulder for a moment and sported a slight frown.

"What is the matter, my child?"

"I'm really worried about them" he said, "there still fighting about whether or not I'm really still alive"

Peter held his hands out above the child .... an incredibly intense, but loving light came down upon his head

The young child immediately was embraced and donned an angelic smile. He looked down the street and hollered

"Hey Jesus, wanna play?"

With all our best intentions, all our best resources, all our finest minds at the patients side, our infected system, may or may not pull though. Temporary life support may feign life, But the Spirit that once dwelled in it, is sadly (or not), fast slipping to its' final state.

I offer this Y2K paradigm. by mikeymac--

-- spun@lright (mikeymac@uswest.net), May 08, 1999

Answers

Thanks, Spun. I needed that.

-- Jim the Window Washer (Rational@man.com), May 08, 1999.

I'm still so mad at the doctors who misdiagnosed the problem... all I see is red. I'll digest the moral, later. (g)

-- Stan Faryna (info@giglobal.com), May 08, 1999.

For whatever its worth, a survey I read a couple of years ago stated the time a coventional western doctor listened to a patient during a consultation before speaking.............18 seconds!! fits the analogy a bit does it not?

-- (sibola@hotmail.com), May 08, 1999.

A good journey into analogy, MM.

Question is Did the system ever have a Spirit? I just finished Griffin's book on the Federal Reserve, and a general history of banking in U.S.A. We are being taken now, have been, and our "forefathers" were regularly taken by the financiers, even while they were out killing Indians, Filipinos, Germans, you name it.

It just sounds like a giant scam all the way through. Let it go. Go play.

I just wonder why we're all so afraid to see what's on the other side? How bad can it be, compared to the nightmare we endure now.

-- jor-el (jor-el@krypton.com), May 09, 1999.

Originally the analogy was a "challenge" the perception that; focusing on certain known malady's, in individual parts, the system is guaranteed survival It is true that each organ ,while unique in design and function , can be forced to function independent of the system it supports, But this is not a measure of safety to the sick and dying system. Especially in an environment of increasing attacks that add additional pressure to an already weakened patient

What makes the system so special in the first place? It is not the individual pieces, parts or subsystems. It is the value it adds, by purpose and function, to the environment in which it interacts Which it supports. Each piece has evolved to perform a specific function, with individual and often unique combinations of common and often shared elements. The primary developmental process' are the same for all components: A need, a concept, a design, an answer. The POINT-OF-NO return is often invisible during the maturation of the system. As it becomes so complex and so integral to the environment in which it resides. Components must be removed and replaced, wholesale, upon failure. This due to their complexity, availability of spare parts, loss of documentation, logic charts etc. It has become standard practice to discard rather than repair,if needed, because of non-compliance with new standards, updated designs etc.

To hope that things are or will be, or even can be addressed and fixed, after the appearance of symptoms, ill regard of the ramifications, goes against my perception of good sense or logic. Like rabies, once the maturation arrives at the symptomatic, it is too late. Time to remediate, to make contingencies, has run out for the victim.

The specter of being impotent to do anything but watch, while the system that supports your very existence falls in on itself, is abominable. This leaves one feeling a bit exposed, and overly dependent on an unreliable host.

To survive, we must be prepared to operate independently of the support system for an unknown period of time. It may not be able to provide the basic essential needs for survival during the adjustment period.

Fixing the worlds power grid, if possible, is a good thing, but will it feed me? Fixing the water systems, is a very good thing, but will it clothe me? Fixing the worlds banks is a good thing, but will I have a job? Fixing the oil, pharmacies, grocers, ad infinitum .....ok, but will the world, as I see it today, be the the same, or even close to it, next year? Even if we get all the knowns fixed, will the shock of having done so, be so great that the patient will die?

I urge you, do what it takes, without harm to another, to calmly prepare mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually to be non dependent for a while.

- IMHO The challenge to see a bigger picture for anyone new to Y2K and the danger of being led to complacency by those who will not or can not Get It ...is real. This is dangerous Even if you believe the computer bugs will be fixed here, take a broader look around our tiny planet. If you don't, then you will be part of those who scramble for the remaining vestiages of supplies this fall. Like it or not, this is also part of Y2K There is nothing you, or I, or governments can do about it. People are people.

Thankyou for your Email

Respectfully: mikeymac

-- spun@lright (mikeymac@uswest.net), May 09, 1999.