Category Archives: Science

If You Want Explosions

When we lived in Austin, we were outside the city limits, so every July 4 we didn’t have to go anywhere to see fireworks. Our neighbors on either side, along with dozens of others in the subdivision, put on quite a show. They used serious fireworks. The first year it upset us; we worried about our house burning down. We couldn’t fight it though, so we relaxed and enjoyed it. Boys (even man-boys) like the drama of pyrotechnics, so in our last year we actually purchased a few and set them off ourselves. I was very tense about this, and we were very cautious. That was the only time we ever played with fire, so to speak.

With July 4th, there will be a lot of celebrating. If you plan to set off fireworks, I encourage you to explore Bruce’s Bombs, Explosives, and Ordnance Pages. He explains the risks of playing with explosives, especially homemade M-80s and cherry bombs. He provides federal and California legal information which explains how one can go to prison for playing with explosives. If you need visual evidence to convince you, he also provides links to gory photos of victims of explosions (especially hand injuries). (Don’t worry if you click the link, because you won’t immediately see the photos. You can choose to view the ones you think you can tolerate.) I did view them all, and they provide great incentive to be cautious. Bruce’s website is offered as a public service to educate people, especially children, about the risks. He writes:

Most of the people who are injured by explosives are injured because of what they do not know, not by what they do know. Simple fireworks injure more people than high explosives. Each year, more than 10,000 injuries are caused by the use of fireworks in the United States. Seventy percent of those injuries are in children and young adults between the ages of 5 and 24 years. Half of all injuries are incurred in the week of the Fourth of July.

If you want to play with explosions, there are actually summer camps that you can attend where experts guide you. From the New York Times:

A group of high school students stood at the edge of a limestone quarry last month as three air horn blasts warned that something big was about to go boom. Across the quarry, with a roar and a cloud of dust and smoke, a 50-foot-high wall of rock sloughed away with a shudder and a long crashing fall, and 20,000 tons of rock was suddenly on the ground.

—A Summer Camp Where Fireworks Are the Point

The upshot: if you value your health and life, leave the fireworks to experts.

The Produce Basket of the U.S.

I was talking with my sister yesterday about the climate here, and the fact it does not rain (at all) from about April through September/October here. It is bone dry. She mused that there must not be much agriculture grown in the summer, but I assured her otherwise. I got curious about how much produce California supplies to the U.S. and spent a couple hours surfing for information. Below is a smidgen of what I found.

As a result, agriculture accounts for 83 percent of all water used in California.

Countdown

The baby’s crib, changing table, rocker and ottoman are being delivered some time between 2:30 and 5:30 today. Husband and a friend will assemble the crib tonight. We’ll get a mattress this weekend. Soon nesting, real nesting, can begin.

Also, there are only 60 days until my due date. How did that happen?! It’s gone so fast!

I’ve been meaning to post some links to positive information about becoming pregnant at 40 and over. There are plenty of concerns to consider and lots of scary statistics, which I’ve written about before. I figure a fair hearing requires positive information too.

This Weeble Wobbles On

Yesterday I had another visit with my OB. All continues to be well; the baby’s heartbeat is in the 150s, my fundal measurement is normal. I gained two pounds in three weeks, which is on target. (I’d wondered if I gained any weight at all, because my appetite seems to have decreased in the heat. Is it possible to gain weight by converting fat stores? Just as muscle weighs more than fat, does a baby weigh more than fat?) I return to the doctor in two weeks, and soon after will visit weekly. It all seems very soon. For the past three days I’ve experienced occasional aching in my abdomen which feel like cramps; these are probably Braxton-Hicks contractions, nothing to worry about. Yet I’m inclined to stay close to home.

I was given paperwork to complete for pre-admission to the hospital birthing center. Once it’s processed, there will be no need to hassle with this in labor. We can simply show up and enter the birthing center.

The only hitch these days are two irritants. One is that my left knee continues to hurt and is worsening. I’m walking gingerly and with a limp. We have three flights of stairs in our home and getting up and down them is becoming a challenge. All that Relaxin in my system, plus the increased weight make it inevitable. The best I can do it move carefully to avoid aggravating it and hope it heals after birth.

The other irritant is that for a couple weeks my back, arms and legs have itched fiercely. My stomach does not! I wake up scratching intensely and have given myself small scars and scabs. I douse myself in lotion, and it helps a bit. The doctor gave me a slip to have a blood test for bile acids done. There’s a very rare liver disorder, Intrahepatic Cholestasis of Pregnancy (ICP), that can develop in the third trimester and may result in a stillbirth. She’s dubious that’s the cause, but she’ll cover all bases. Most likely the reason for the itching is that this climate is bone dry, and I don’t have the supple skin I had 20 years ago.

Wednesday we attended an information session at Husband’s job that explained maternity and paid family leave benefits. Understanding what needs to be done when is complex, but the benefits are excellent. They gave us a bag of goodies, including lotions from the massage therapist group that works on-site. Also included was a hat, onesie, and a bib with the company logo on it. So tiny and charming. The bib says, “I’m feeling hungry!” Yeah, we’re branded. Hey, at least Little One won’t be nekkid.

Next Wednesday the crib, rocker, and dresser arrive. Then we buy a mattress and I can decorate. Her closet is full of stuff, and I’m a bit agog at it all.

I Am Not a Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bomb*

I took the three-hour glucose test and…

I passed!! My fasting baseline was 90, which I was told is very good. I didn’t bother getting the rest of the scores; I’m pleased enough to know I passed. I can assume my scores at each hour fell below the maximums listed (from BabyCenter.com):

Abnormal Scores
Fasting: 95 mg/dl or higher
One hour: 180 mg/dl or higher
Two hours: 155 mg/dl or higher
Three hours: 140 mg/dl or higher

The nurse said if even one score had been abnormal they would have diagnosed me with gestational diabetes. The doctor still requires I watch my intake of sugar and carbohydrates (makes sense), which I’ve done all along. This means, however, I will give up the one thing I crave and have permitted myself up until now: Concord grape juice (100% no sugar added). I was drinking one 8 ounce glass a day; the combination of sweet and tart, and that particular taste of Concord grape, is like the Nectar of Life to me. As cravings go, it’s not a particularly bad one. Even so, I’ll be curtailing consumption.

The woman I chatted with yesterday was four months pregnant. She’d had gestational diabetes with her first child, so they were testing her early. Talking with her brought the point home that it’s not a woman’s “fault” if she has it (although poor diet surely has an effect): she’s very slim, professes to hate sugar and sweet foods (which I believe, as she’s Indian; over the years, a lot of folks I’ve met from Asia have been puzzled by the American obsession with desserts and sweets), and is a vegetarian. And yet she still had it once and might again.

I’m glad I decided to tough it out and take the test.

*One of my favorite comic strips, Calvin and Hobbes, featured a fictional cereal called Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs. From the website:

Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes fame has been known to eat Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs which Calvin says are “tasty, lip-smacking, crunchy-on-the-outside, chewy-on-the-inside, and they don’t have a single natural ingredient or essential vitamin to get in the way of that rich, fudgy taste.” Hobbes says the cereal makes his heart skip and likens this cereal to “eating a bowl of milk duds”.

Pincushion

I decided to act like the grown up I am and get the glucose testing done alone. Husband has to earn money, after all. I got to the lab at 8:15 this morning after having fasted for 10 hours. I was starving. They drew blood to establish my fasting baseline, and then I drained an eight ounce bottle containing 100 grams of glucose. Then once an hour for the next three hours they took more blood. They said I could drink water, and I sure did; it was one way to subdue the hunger pangs.

The last hour went very quickly, as I struck up a conversation with another pregnant woman who’d come in for the same test a few minutes after me. We smiled at each other a few times, and then, bored and restless, I initiated contact. After the last blood draw (14 hours without eating), I hied myself home to eat some real food. And now, I’m drooping. I want to stay awake, but I think my body’s had it with the extreme blood sugar changes and wants to recuperate. I guess I earned a nap. 🙂

Odd tidbit: Husband watched a short video the other day and is struck me as something weird and fun to do. If you’re feeling creative in a mad scientist sort of way, and if you’re a big kid (or have a child), you can learn how to make your own flubber at home.

Wow, I’m Normal (Mostly)

Husband and I attended the standard appointment with the OB yesterday. In the past five weeks I’ve gained three pounds, which brings my total weight gain for this pregnancy to only nine pounds. My blood pressure is just right. The baby’s heartbeat was in the 150s, which is perfect.

I poured my concerns out to the nurse and doctor, and I received validation that all I’m experiencing is completely normal and not a sign that I’m a falling-apart-fat-middle-aged woman.

They affirmed I’m doing the right thing by wearing wrist braces (mostly when I sleep). I was advised not to walk even a mile at one time, but to walk shorter distances more often to help avoid stress on joints. I was given a brochure for the Prenatal Cradle; this will help with back pain, leg and ankle swelling, hip separation and pubic symphysis, and vulvar varicosities. (Whew! This childbearing stuff is tough on the body.) Water exercise was suggested, and our complex has a nice pool I haven’t tried out yet.

I confided that I felt upset over failing the first glucose test. My doctor asked why, and I said I’d been trying so hard to eat right. She immediately clarified that gestational diabetes is induced by the placenta, something that’s hard to control, and that it’s not my fault. She agreed that I could just go directly to the nutritionist. However, after she described what’s involved — writing down everything I eat daily and pricking my finger four times a day to test blood sugar for a month — I decided maybe I could slog through the second glucose test. Who knows, maybe I’ll pass. Husband said he’ll come along and try to keep other people safe from me as I turn into a hungry raving monster.

Overall, my doctor said I’m doing very very well; she has patients younger than me on complete bedrest for pre-eclampsia for the remainder of their pregnancies. I asked her when I’ll really start to show, and she said about 34 weeks. She said in my situation I look proportional because my breast development has kept pace with the uterus, but soon I should “pop.” (One day a woman in the grocery store recognized I’m pregnant and let me go ahead of her; I beamed. Then I got a haircut and mentioned I’m 27 weeks along, and the hairdresser said, “You don’t look pregnant.” I assume she meant well, but my hormonal perspective heard, “You don’t look pregnant, you just look like an obese woman.”) The doctor’s assurance made me feel much better.

Then I went home and did a half hour of gentle prenatal yoga. I’m still cumbersome and slow, but I feel a bit better about this. And Little One, well, she’s wriggling and dancing to her heart’s content.

Avoidance

I’m not in the mood to write. The last couple weeks have been a little challenging. First I could have no contact with Husband until he proved immune to chicken pox, since I am not. And of course the blood test took time, so we avoided each other for a week.

My wrists are sore, my fingers often numb from pregnancy-induced carpal tunnel. When I knit, hold a book, hold a phone, or do anything repetitive for very long my hands tingle and go numb. I even have trouble spreading peanut butter on toast. I don’t have much strength in my hands and have trouble picking up grocery bags and such.

I took a one mile, slow-paced walk on Saturday and my knee has hurt since. It hurts to put weight on it, to bend it, or to turn it. I haven’t walked again since I don’t want to worsen the injury. I experience a sharp pain in another area when I get up from the dining room chair; it’s either (or both) the Pubofemoral Ligament or the Iliofemoral Ligament in my right hip. It feels as though my leg will collapse under me or I’ll tear something. I’m huge and fat and cumbersome and slow.

I lose my breath easily just going up a couple flights of stairs. My heart beats heavily.

And on top of all this, I failed the glucose blood test for gestational diabetes by four points. To check and see if this isn’t a fluke, they want me to fast for 12 hours and then take another dose of glucose and then poke me three four times over three hours. This means fasting for a total of 15 hours (at least). I cannot physically tolerate this. The other option is to skip the test, just assume I have diabetes, and see the nutritionist. I know how to eat well. I’ve been careful to do so. I’ve gained little weight. Diet and exercise are the treatment, and I’m vexed because the exercise is compromised by the risk of injury.

My hormones are doing their pregnancy waltz, so I’m an emotional wreck on and off. I cry over the slightest provocation sometimes. I feel un-lovely and worn.

And there’s three more months of this. Yay.

Imagine My Surprise

Husband may have been exposed to a coworker with chicken pox. Although he had it as a child and has immunity, if he was exposed he may be shedding the virus. I had chicken pox — barely — at five months of age. I’ve always assumed I had immunity. I had a two-part blood test last week; the first result is in and shows that I do not have immunity. Whatever immunity I had probably kept me from getting a stronger case of it as a child but wore off. I must wait to see what the second test results are and keep myself away from places of exposure. It’s pretty unnerving to learn this!

Here is information on chicken pox during pregnancy.

I kind of want to go live in a bubble now. Remember The Boy in the Bubble? There was a 1970s movie starring John Travolta too.

Scars on St. Helens

This photo captures part of the north face of the mountain that blew off laterally in the 1980 eruption. It was a hazy day (pollution?); the late afternoon sun lit the mountain, and the profile looked beautifully desolate.

mount st. helens, wa

The volcano is still active, simmering but potent. The report from May 19, 2007 (27 years plus one day after the last eruption):

Growth of the new lava dome inside the crater of Mount St. Helens continues, accompanied by low rates of seismicity, low emissions of steam and volcanic gases, and minor production of ash. During such eruptions, changes in the level of activity can occur over days to months. The eruption could intensify suddenly or with little warning and produce explosions that cause hazardous conditions within several miles of the crater and farther downwind. Small lahars could suddenly descend the Toutle River if triggered by heavy rain or by interaction of hot rocks with snow and ice. These lahars pose a negligible hazard below the Sediment Retention Structure (SRS) but could pose a hazard along the river channel upstream.

—Mount St. Helens Current Update

Fake Food

In a land known for producing counterfeit DVDs and brand name apparel, food for humans and other animals is not exempt from tampering. Melamine is a coal derivative often used to make dishware; it is safe to eat off, but it cannot be heated in a microwave. It certainly is not nutritious.

For years, producers of animal feed all over China have secretly supplemented their feed with the substance, called melamine, a cheap additive that looks like protein in tests, even though it does not provide any nutritional benefits, according to melamine scrap traders and agricultural workers here. …

The pet food case is also putting China’s agricultural exports under greater scrutiny because the country has had a terrible food safety record.

In recent years, for instance, China’s food safety scandals have involved everything from fake baby milk formulas and soy sauce made from human hair to instances where cuttlefish were soaked in calligraphy ink to improve their color and eels were fed contraceptive pills to make them grow long and slim.

–David Barboza and Alexei Barrionuevo, Filler in Animal Feed is Open Secret in China