It Might Get Messy

Back in the good old days of experimental ecology, we had a brute-force technique that we liked a lot. We would seal known weights of plants in neatly constructed little screen-mesh envelopes and put them out in the woods. Using different mesh sizes, we could determine the importance of different size classes of forest-floor invertebrates (selectively screened out by the mesh) in the recycling of carbon and nutrients from tree leaves back into organic soil. But you know, we couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that those mesh bags themselves were affecting results. 


To get past that, we tried using uniform size large mesh bags, and keeping the invertebrates away by spritzing the whole setup with moth repellent—dichlorobenzene. Before dichlorobenzene, mothballs were made of naphthalene. Either way, the strong chemical smell—a lot like the northern end of the New Jersey Turnpike used to smell, if you ever drove that way—was obvious and kept the invertebrates away. But the energy-rich organic chemicals added a new variable to the mix. Microbes loved it. Thrived on it. Chowed down on it. And not just bacteria. Lots of fungus, also. So even though we usually got a differential response between the treated and untreated bags, we were never completely certain what the delta was due to. Got to see some colorful fungal slimes and hyphae, though.


And now I am my own little ecosystem perturbation experiment. Since my left jawbone is exposed from the radiation burns, and the skeletal material itself is in the throes of “osteoradionecrosis” [1], I’m doing some sequential chemical alterations of my microbial flora. I’m on 300 milligrams of Clindamycin Hydrochloride every 6 hours, and Chlorhexidine Gluconate oral rinse 5 times a day. These are antibacterials. Of course, as soon as the bacterial community of my mouth shut down, yeasts moved in and now I’m back in the painful grasp of thrush. I’ve been taking the systemic antifungal Fluconazole for a couple days on the assumption that if the yeasts have triumphed in my mouth, they’ve probably taken over the lebensraum in my gastrointestinal tract as well. When I’ve done a few days of Fluconazole and my liver needs a break (apparently this stuff is HELL on the liver. Which, come to think of it, would make a good song title), I’ve got Clotrimazole in “troche” form, which means dissolve-in-the-mouth lozenge sort of things. That’s to strip the thrush off my tongue, cheeks, and gums.


The theory, apparently, is that my mouth tissues (both soft and hard) might not be completely dead. Although according to sources it can take over a year for the jaw bone to even begin to die from the radiation. Now how is THAT possible? Anyway. If it’s not dead, killing the infectious microbes might let enough blood and lymph flow back to heal things up. And if not, then we go to the hyberbaric oxygen therapy. You know, like they do for people who decompress from deep dives too quickly and end up with nitrogen bubbling around their circulatory system. 


You know, the sequential cascade of physiological issues appearing, resolving, and appearing (primary tumor’s gone, secondary’s toast, salivary glands once were lost but now they’re found, beard truncated now regrown, fungus at the tumor spot on my tongue was healed, now my jawbone’s mostly dead, etc.) is getting to where it’s just smeggin’ humorous. I mean, what’s next? Teeth falling out? Ears falling off? Liver degrading into some kind of wurst? Kidneys shutting down and going on vacation?


Don’t answer that. I’ll handle it as it comes. Meantime, I’m fine. Really. Drinking enormous quantities of thick, nutritious instant breakfast shakes. Keeping my weight up. Not really doing much solid food, but maybe when the antifungals finally clear things out. Thanks for stoppin’ by! Have a good week, everyone. I’ll check with you next week!


PS—I’m not quite up to getting all 4 blogs in this empire back into circulation. But I’m close. Meanwhile, check out the “professional” weblog over at http://aehsfoundation.org/. Click on the “PeopleSystems” box on the right, you’ll be whisked right there!


Notes


[1] many sources available, nice compact one is from the UCLA med school program, at 
http://www.uclahealth.org/workfiles/documents/clinicalupdates/HyperRadiation.pdf