For many years, I’ve been an advocate about disabled-accessible mass-transit here in the DC area.  It reached a stage where Pat and I kicked open a website dedicated to bringing to light issues with the system, DC Paratransit Info.

During that time, I’ve learned a great many things about mass-transit, and paratransit, that most people never get involved with – it’s kind of hard to suggest ways to help reduce issues if I couldn’t speak the same language.

In the process, I’ve met a lot of people, both within the disabled community and within WMATA itself, and have seen things change, usually for the better, because many of those I’ve met, on both sides of the equation, truly care passionately about giving people with disabilities parity in public transportation options to those enjoyed by everyone else.

Case in point: This past week, WMATA’s board met to discuss the General Manager’s proposed fare increases, which will affect the disabled community as well.  Both Pat and I attended, taking the time out of the day to make sure that our voices would be heard alongside those of the others who spoke up at the meeting.

It’s easy sometimes to forget whilst advocating on these things that we’re actually pretty fortunate in the US compared to how some countries handle disability related issues, but a different piece of news this week came up that reminds me both how far we’ve come, and how far behind us others are.

RT @METROmagTweet: London paratransit users launch bus blog: http://t.co/akhSMpYl: By: thetransitfan (TheTransitFan)... http://t.co/txtWI97o

January 25, 2012 9:05 pm via dlvr.itReplyRetweetFavorite

@ParatransAllies

paratransitallies

The link in the tweet eventually leads you to a story on the Romford Recorder‘s website.  It tells of how a group of people with disabilities in a suburb of London are kicking off a blog that aims to chronicle the experiences of both themselves, and others who experience similar issues, trying to do something as simple as ride mass-transit (in this instance, using Transport for London or TfL) so close to the nation’s Capitol.

As a little bit of background: The UK passed the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) in 1995, followed by the Equality Act in 2010.  In theory, these pieces of legislation were akin to the Americans with Disabilities (ADA) act here in the US, to promote the civil rights of people with disabilities to participate on an equal footing with everyone else in day to day living.

I say in theory because of a fundamental flaw in the entire concept when it came to public transportation – the transit operators (bus, rail cabs etc) lobbied sufficiently hard enough that they were able to carve out exceptions and exemptions from actually having to comply with the laws until some time after 2015 or so.  So essentially, the law simply said “wouldn’t it be nice if …?” but never made transit authorities have to do anything until they felt they were ready.

Therein lies a problem – if the transit authorities have the ability to ignore such an important civil rights issue, there’s no encouragement for the operators of transit vehicles themselves to abide by it either.

The people in the Romford Recorder’s article have reached the stage where they think going public is needed so that the public can see exactly how pernicious the situation is – and that night be the only way they can try to effect meaningful change.  It’s unfortunate, but a fact of life, that the people in power only react when they see the number of bodies protesting saying something is wrong.  We’ve seen that on occasion here in DC too.  That means the general population in the UK has to finally stop making like ostriches and realize that they do not live in an accessible utopia, that there are still problems, problems that’re been affecting a vulnerable section of society right under their noses.

The stories on the blog, “The Bus Diaries“, should make any decent civilized human being wince and maybe weep in shame and horror and, yes, anger, at how people with disabilities are treated even today in the 21st Century.  And don’t for a minute think the stories the blog will detail are unique – I’ve been hearing similar stories for years from all parts of the UK, it’s not isolated, it’s not uncommon.

So I have an idea, dear UK based readers.  Do you remember a woman on a tram last year who was caught on cellphone camera launching into one of the most bigoted and hate-filled racist tirades you’ve seen?  If you forget it, here’s the link (warning: foul language, absolutely not safe for work or small children):

After that video went viral, the cops paid her a visit, I understand – but it shows just how powerful a tool is available out there so everyone can try to push through changes that will help people with disabilities enjoy real accessibility of mass-transit.

Video.

Hatred and prejudice are both creatures of the shadows – they thrive on anonymity, and hate the light of day.  It’s very hard to counter the underhanded and perfectly plausible excuses people offer as to why they act as they do, but as they say – a picture speaks a thousand words.

So here’s my suggestion to my UK readers. To paraphrase the Metro Transit Police: If you see something, video something.

See a driver refuse to board someone with a disability with some lame excuse about the lift/ramp not working? Video it. Post it.

See someone taking up a wheelchair space with their armored personnel pushchair they couldn’t be bothered to fold up instead leaving it cockeyed in the bus aisle complete with  squalling brat? Video it. Post it.

See someone shove in front of the queue for the bus or train bypassing the blind person, grinning cos they think that because their victim can’t see them, no-one saw them? Video it. Post it.

Hell, send the videos to me and I’ll post them for you.

Now, some of you might be asking yourselves why you should bother, after all this is just something that affects cripples, right?

Maybe it’s because disability is one of the few truly equal opportunity events in the world.  Disability doesn’t discriminate, whoever you are you too might end up disabled without any warning and be facing just the same situation in the future as the Bus Diaries detail happening now.  Maybe it’s because you’re a decent human being and you’re offended at the idea of discrimination based on disability.

The founders of The Bus Diaries have said “enough is enough”.

Now it’s time for the rest of society to say the same.

Related articles

• Disabled block central London in protest (liberalconspiracy.org)
• VIDEO: Protest over disability cuts (bbc.co.uk)
• Stop calling disabled people scroungers (thehandiestone.typepad.com)

One of the important things to keep in mind about all of this is dosages, though.

Looking around the Interwebs before we started all of this, there are a lot of posts about people’s experiences with Solumedrol.  But looking back on it all, I think the majority of those are talking about longer term treatment, and/or a much higher dosage regime.

My dosage was 1 gram of Solumedrol in 100ml of fluid, given over one hour, once a day for three days.  My Neurologist called it “Housekeeping”, to try and reboot my immune system and flush my body of the older materials that might be hanging around from previous attacks.  This seems to be a much less drastic an approach than other people experience, so I’ve got the feeling they’re writing about situations where the corticosteroid is being used to hammer the immune system during a major attack.

If that’s the case, they’re on much stronger dosages of Solumedrol for longer because it’s being used to actively try to shut the immune system down and ameliorate an exacerbation.

This would go a long way to explain why the, being honest, downright scary experiences of others written about online never really reared their heads during my treatment, too.

Which isn’t to say it all went great, though.

During the days after the infusion from the “alien eggs”, there was an absolutely noticeable change in how much energy I had.  I woke up easier and more alert right from the start (mentally at least, my body wasn’t exactly in line with the program on that score and still demanded coffee, and plenty of it!).

Strangely, although this effect seemed to lessen over the two weeks since the infusion, it’s still there but only noticeable after breakfast.  I’m not sure how long this effect will continue, but it’s nice.

It certainly did seem to affect the “speed” of thinking.  My long-suffering hubby had to listen to rapid-fire conversations on pretty much every sort of topic under the sun for the first week (as did people in #scifichat and #steampunkchat on Twitter *grin*), but that calmed down after the first week.

There were aches and pains, for a week or so, but it’s hard to tell if those were from the Solumedrol or were normal run-of-the-mill symptoms everyone gets.

At the two week mark, the knocking out of the immune system is noticeable in one respect: infections that had been dealt with recently have returned, although not nearly as severe as they were the last time.  I’m going to have to monitor those until the next time I can see my doctor.  This was a risk, but we knew it was a possibility and decided that the potential benefits of the Solumedrol outweighed the risk on this one.

The blood sugar issue definitely came to the forefront – the spikes in numbers were positively scary at one point, but after some tweaks by our family doctor and the addition of Lantus to the Novolog he’d already prescribed to head off this side effect, they started stabilizing pretty fast.

At this stage the numbers are pretty much normalizing, and I’ve been able to stop using the Novolog and dial the Lantus dosage way down.  The way things are going, I should be able to discontinue the Lantus as well in another two weeks after our family doctor checks my log book and gives me the OK.

The blood sugar issue is one I think is important for people going to have this treatment to bear in mind, and to work with their doctor to head off at the pass before it becomes an issue during treatment.  Even with basic preparation, it still became a potential problem and needed to be tweaked to keep it in check, something my Neurologist hadn’t told me of, or done any preparation for.

I strongly suggest people talk to their family doctor and be prepared for this side-effect, even if they aren’t diabetics.  This is one of the few things, I think, that can be actively controlled and prevented from getting out of hand with a little application of 8 P’s ((Proper Prior Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance)).

There’s no way for me to tell if the treatment was an actual success.  This wasn’t intended to be a “cure” or expected to restore any of the lost functionality previous MS attacks have damaged, such as walking or memory loss, so nothing much has changed on that level.  I guess my Neurologist can figure something out at some point.

Other than the above issues, everything really seems to have gone smoothly as far as side-effects are concerned.  The effects are, to be honest, disappointing on some levels, because they seem to have been short lived, but as I mentioned there’s no way of telling what effects the evolution has had on the internals of my body, or how it will affect my MS in the near future, so it’d be wrong for me to write the whole thing off as a waste of time yet.

I do know I’ll be happy to be back on my Avonex injections once the Neurologist says I can resume them.

I can’t say that my experience, as mild as it might seem to you reading it, is typical or not.  Other accounts of experiences with Solumedrol seem to all relate to 1000ml infusions, for longer periods, so there’s no way of directly correlating what I experienced with what others have experienced, or what you might be facing in the future.

But for now, the idea of Solumedrol as a “Housecleaning” process seems to not be as dire an experience as I feared.  Hopefully it’ll have done some good, and hopefully my writing about it will give others more knowledge so they can make informed decisions if they face the same situation.

Related articles

• If I Don’t Treat MS Relapse (everydayhealth.com)
• Does MS Drug Leave Me Prey to Germs? (everydayhealth.com)
• How Is Multiple Sclerosis Treated? (everydayhealth.com)
• Glossary for Multiple Sclerosis (everydayhealth.com)
• Treating MS With Low-Dose Naltrexone (everydayhealth.com)
• Letter Re: Diabetic Preparedness – Storing Insulin in a Grid Down World (survivalblog.com)
• Never, ever, ever,ever, ever, do this in a birthing room. Just trust me. (scottrimer.wordpress.com)

This has gotten beyond a feeding frenzy.  That conspiracy theories would raise their heads wasn’t exactly unexpected, given Palin’s involvement, but it’s beyond ridiculous now.

So here’s the take of one Veteran and regular participant at Rolling Thunder since 2003.

So What?

Let’s look at this rationally (if the people who are likely to read this from either side can ever be considered “rational” on such topics).

A disclaimer before I start however: Anything here is my own personal viewpoint, and does not reflect the opinions, policies, viewpoints, or anything else of Rolling Thunder, National or Chapters, or any of the participants of Rolling Thunder, or Veterans, or … well, anyone really.  These are solely my thoughts, and any errors or omissions are mine.

Rolling Thunder describes two distinct things.

• There is Rolling Thunder, the non-profit 501(c) corporation organized along the lines of a National Executive and local chapters by states and regions
• There is the Rolling Thunder annual rally in DC

This latter is an event, which even though its history ties it to Rolling Thunder the organization is not exclusive to members of the Rolling Thunder organization (or even to Veterans for that matter) to participate in.

Sarah Palin was invited to participate in Rolling Thunder by an old member of the National Executive Board.  She wasn’t invited to speak, she wasn’t being endorsed by the organization, she was simply invited to participate.

This doesn’t mean anything because everyone who cares about the issues surrounding Veteran’s affairs, and Missing In Action/Prisoner of War (MIA/POW) issues is also invited to participate, in order to help highlight those things right in the heart of our Nation’s Capitol.

Now I’ll agree that the conjunction of her participation in the Run and her kicking off her east-coast bus tour isn’t exactly what you’d call subtle timing.  But the insinuation of being somehow “endorsed” by Rolling Thunder is just that – an insinuation.

What do you expect, she’s a politician, she sees everything in the grey world of that professional parasite elite class.  She took advantage of timing to give one impression, but that’s what politicians do, they can’t help themselves.  The story of the scorpion and the frog springs to mind

That however is her problem, not Rolling Thunder’s.

Sarah Palin is as welcome as anyone else who cares about the issues the Run highlights to participate, and she essentially accepted that open invitation as well as the specific one made by an ex-Board member.

She’s also the mother of a serving soldier, which gives her an added reason to participate.  You might not like her, you might not like her politics, but she deserves as that if nothing else ((I don’t know if Sarah Palin is actually a member of Blue Star Mothers of America)) (at least for this reason, it doesn’t mean you have to respect her in anything else).

The point is this: She’s not an official event.  She’s not scheduled to give any speeches, it’s not an “appearance”, and Rolling Thunder doesn’t “endorse” her any more than they endorse me – or you.

So what’s the big deal?  Yes, she’ll make it a political event on her sidelines, and she’ll likely spin it to say all sorts of things that it doesn’t actually say or mean in the future, but really – that’s her problem, not ours.  At the end of the day she’s there as a private citizen, and the mother of a serving soldier.

I’ll be honest here, what pisses me off about all of this is the report she showed up at 11:30, 30 minutes before the roll out, and went to the front of the line like it was somehow her due – to me that’s totally thumbing her nose in a display of arrogant entitlement at those who had patiently waited there since 7am (and longer) and would wait until 3, 4 pm before they would be in motion.

If she’s riding like everyone else, then she can behave like everyone else.  She needed to make her mind up just what she was riding as.

Rolling Thunder is about one thing, and it’s not Sarah Palin.  It’s about people like SGT Ahmed Qusai al-Taayie, PFC Bowe R. Bergdahl, and the host of names still yet to come home from previous conflicts, Vietnam being the one most people think of; about ensuring no-one is left behind or forgotten in the future.

That’s the mission.  If someone wants to add their voice to the hundreds of thousands of others raised while the rest of you are off enjoying your Memorial Day BBQ, then I don’t care who they are.  I very much doubt anyone else who’s in attendance will care that much either if it’s for a shared cause.

Neither should you.  You should instead care about why those voices have to be raised to begin with.

The real question is: Why aren’t you here?  Why does it take another Sarah Palin news article before you even pay attention to the existence of Rolling Thunder, the Run for The Wall, the reasons behind them?

I mean, really – even Sarah Palin managed to make it one year …

Think it over while you enjoy your holiday weekend.

Related articles

• Sarah Palin rolls into the spotlight (thehill.com)
• Veterans’ Group Spokesperson: We Did Invite Sarah Palin To Rolling Thunder Event (mediaite.com)
• Rolling Thunder Riders Praise Sarah Palin’s Participation in Rally (sarahpalinblog.typepad.com)
• Pro-Veteran Spokesman Is Unhappy Sarah Palin Is Stealing His (Rolling) Thunder (mediaite.com)
• Rolling Thunder to Keep Focus on Troops Despite Palin’s Appearance (foxnews.com)
• Yes, Palin was invited to Rolling Thunder (hotair.com)
• Rolling Thunder spokesman slams Palin bus tour as a ‘big distraction’ (crooksandliars.com)
• Palin Announces Attendance At Rolling Thunder Event; Group Says She Wasn’t Invited, “A Distraction” (alan.com)
• “Sarah Palin – Venom, Paranoia and Opportunism” and related posts (palingates.blogspot.com)

If asked, the store will always try to explain it away as a temporary situation because of deliveries. Their definition of temporary seems to extend to several days – you know, up to the *next* delivery?

Some of the aisles in this clip are blocked by static end-cap displays that were placed half-way across also.

It makes the only practical wheelchair accessibility to their store, including at times reaching their pharmacy section, be via the good old fashioned bulldozer method – if you’re going to leave your crap blocking my passage, I’m gonna move it for you.

Harsh?  Not really.  Why should I have to go bother a staff member and essentially beg for their “help” when it’s something I could do myself if they’d quit trying to rebuild an assault course in their store?

The real irony is that CVS/Pharmacy is supposed to be working on their accessibility problems, as announced in press releases from CVS and the Equal Rights Center at the end of 2010.  If CVS/Pharmacy can’t even find a way to fix all the crud blocking their aisles in 6 months at this one store, then the problems with accessibility aren’t likely to get fixed after 18 months no matter what they agree to.

I mean, come on – what does it take to have someone pick up crates and put them in a back store-room once they’re done with them??

Disclosure: I’ve worked as a web consultant to, and have hosted the Washington Lawyer’s Committee website for several years in the past.

Oh come on now, if you’ve seen my art you already know some of my visions

As I wrote when I live-blogged the whole medication experience, I noted that the medication was spiking my blood sugar. It occurred to me, keeping with the alien egg and impregnation concept, that this would be considered a form of gestational diabetes.

Which leads on to the rest of this topic. If you’re going to write about such interspecies encounters, what other effects might be a factor?

Even if you never write about the effects of such things in specific in your story, those factors may still be an influence on the behaviors of your characters, and lead the story down paths that are logical and flesh out the entire story without you even realizing it.

Bear in mind that these ideas are all based around the idea of a human female and an alien … well, maybe not male, since there’s no guarantee the alien involved is male as we understand it, but for arguments’ sakes, let’s assume the alien has the male role in this little tryst.

We’re also going to assume that such an impregnation itself is possible to begin with, either through some quirk of fate, or technology, or just because it sounds workable

I’ve already got one effect, gestational diabetes.  In any interspecies mating, given the differences between them there’s almost certainly going to be health issues – after all, even human mating isn’t always a perfect scenario.  There’s going to be biochemical, hormonal, and other physical effects like gestational diabetes in all probability.  A human embryo is, in effect, a parasitic organism, an alien embryo is quite likely to be the same (the aliens of Alien fame being the ultimate example of parasitic alien babies).

Other health issues might arise.  Is there room in a human to carry an alien embryo?  How is the offspring going to be delivered?  There’s always an alien version of a C-Section, but there’s also the Alien chestburster.  How will the characters discuss and face these sorts of physical challenges as they progress towards that fateful day?  If the birth of the alien is really going to place the life of the host mother in jeopardy, that’s a drama point right there and a way to explore the depths of the relationship between alien and human.

Then you have the behavior – Do aliens have cravings when they’re pregnant?  Will the human mommy?  Maybe she’ll want the alien equivalent of pistaccio ice cream on peanut butter crackers – which might also be toxic to her!

Again, the technical details of these changes in the mother might never be explained in detail in the writing, but they’re still going to affect how she acts and thinks.

Mentally there’s other factors that might crop up – does the alien embryo get the ability to communicate with the mother, one way or two ways, empathically or telepathically.  Will the mother start to develop traits more akin to the species she’s carrying, or vice versa?

There’s more to an alien romance than just the kissing and cuddling (assuming they actually do that and not something like tear each others livers out as part of foreplay – anything’s possible with aliens).  If there’s any chance of offspring in there, there’s going to be effects on the participants during the whole period, and those things can tweak the story in all sorts of ways, both practical as I’ve thought of with the gestational diabetes, but also emotional with things like cravings.

For the writer, it’s a great way to inject drama or levity into a situation, and have fun at the same time by giving the reader a chance for analogues they can relate to from a human perspective to bring them closer to (or further from) the characters concerned.

I wonder what other travails or triumphs of impregnation all the way up to birth, physical or mental, practical or impractical, could apply to your next interspecies bedroom romp?

If you’re interested in more thoughts on the idea of alien entanglements, I strongly recommend also going and digesting the writings on Alien Romances too.  There’s some really neat thought provoking stuff there (that probably makes more sense than what I wrote above – but in my own defense, I plead suffering from alien gestational diabetes right now )

Related articles

• More Alien Prequels / Sequels on the Way? (dreadcentral.com)
• Alien (simontrail.wordpress.com)

I mentioned to my friend that, for me, the vest I wear to Patriot Guard Rider missions, and to Rolling Thunder, is also a form of regalia, and also tells part of the story of “me” and those I remember and honor.  My friend asked to see my vest, so here it is.

The title says “Current Version” for the simple reason that my story still goes on, and something new is added every year.

Well here we are at last, third day, third egg.

Last night was weird – the energy boost from day one was absent for day two.  In fact, I was crashing before I managed to catch up on all my Law and Order: SVU episodes taped on the DVR, an unheard of event!

It’s likely that any extra energy I would have gotten from day two went to waste with all the stresses we were having to deal with – a blown IV, mis-written prescriptions, the power outage and wondering if I was going to get the air conditioner needed for my cold room, trying to keep things on an even keel so I could keep working on the render commissions I have for Ken St Andre‘s (@trollgodfather) Tunnels & Trolls adventure I’m responsible for the cover art and illustrations for, figuring out a proof-of-concept for cover art for Jamie Heppner (@Scorpedo), as well as cleaning up a short story to submit to an audioblog and starting a short novella for submission to an anthology.

Basically, I’d hoped this much vaunted energy boost from the Solumedrol was going to help me get some work done that’s been slowed down by my illness at the end of last year, but it just ain’t happened – yet.

On my plate for today before I can even get the third egg started is heading to the doctor’s office to try and get the prescriptions sorted out.  My blood sugar is still spiking, although the modified sliding scale the doctor was kind enough to recommend as a back-up when I spoke to him last night seemed to bring it down a little faster than previously.

Still not sure how much of this is going to continue and for how long once the infusions are completed today, estimates I’ve heard from both online community discussions, my nurse, and my doctor range from a few days to a few weeks – so there may be more skirmish posts before I write up my overall experience at the end in the near(ish) future.

It’ll be interesting going on the bus to the doctor’s office with an IV line stuck in the back of my hand

[Updated 8:04]

Well, I’m finally back from the doctor’s office.  Egg number three is attached and happily draining in, and I can’t wait for it to be finished so I can get this line out of my hand and finally get to take a shower!

I think there’s definitely a slow cumulative effect for the side effects at work here.  The metallic taste is a little more noticeable, but conversely the energy boost from day one seems absent again.

Right now I’m going to go rest up, let the egg drain down, grab something to eat and shower before any new updates though.  The trip out and back from the doctor’s was both physically tiring and mentally draining, trying to avoid knocking the line or getting close to people with colds and sniffles.

Which made the whole idea of having to go to a doctor’s office kinda of dumb, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do, right?

[Updated 9:22]

Third egg is now drained, and the IV line is out!

It’s really weird – the experience with this last egg was much closer to how I’d expected the experience to be with the first one.

There was an annoying burning sensation during the entire infusion, my skin flushed red, the metallic taste hit.

It looks more likely that it’s a cumulative effect given that it’s 1/10th the dose used when treating major MS attacks (1gm Solumedrol in 100ml infused over one hour as opposed to 1000ml infused between 30 minutes to 3 hours, going by other people’s experiences reported online).

I’m going to shower, see if the metallic taste remains, and hopefully get to eat something now.  Still going to have to keep a very close watch on the blood sugar spikes – the effects in that regard are going to be with me for a little while yet.

At the time, it looked like things were going to turn into a huge mess as a result of the work.  We’d been put on notice that power would be killed to several blocks during the evolution (which makes sense, they wouldn’t want to be playing with squiggly amps on that scale).  Their original time frame was going to be 10am to 2pm, weather permitting.

We had a delivery from Lowes scheduled for 4pm that afternoon as a result (the air conditioning unit in my cold room has died a death and really needed replacement, as well as gardening supplies that are just impossible to transport even with my Tank).

But, Mr Murphy’s in town, and so nothing was going according to plan.  Because of rain, the contractors couldn’t start work until 1pm.

So we took a chance and went over to talk to them to explain to them about the delivery, and boy were we happily stunned at their response.

They promised that when the Lowes delivery truck showed up, they’d move the truck blocking the road so it could get past.

But then they went and did one better – they did some electrical company magic and switched the transformer serving our block from the one they were bringing down to do their work to minimize the electrical downtime to the affected houses.

They made good on those kind offers to help reduce the impact on the area (since these things also helped our neighbors bring their kids home from school, keep the power on, etc) when the time came!

I really need to go past them again later today to find out the name of the contracting company, because their people deserve credit for acting like human beings and trying to keep the effect of their work on the neighborhood to a minimum.

They’re certainly better people than the ones we have to deal with at PEPCO itself.  When the storms passed through here a few months ago, PEPCO put our area at the bottom of their list of repair priorities, leaving us with 4 days without power whilst only a few blocks away businesses were brought back up in quick time.  The tree that was blown over to lean on the power lines that caused the outage in our area still leans on those power lines today, PEPCO hasn’t even bothered to try to get that fixed even this long after the storms.

So, contractors++ – PEPCO–

And our sincere thanks to the guys working on the lines right now.  It’s nice to know there is still some human decency on an operational level at PEPCO, even if it appears to be seriously lacking at the corporate level.