Reading & Writing

But mostly reading. I was reading the Proliteracy President's State of Adult Literacy 2006 report, published by Proliteracy Worldwide, which begins with the sentence:

"The United States is not a literacy superpower."


In this document they note a report from 2003 stating that in the United States, there are 11 million individuals over the age of sixteen who are non-literate in English - 11% of the U.S. population. 29% of this population has "basic" literacy shills, i.e., they can read simple everyday documents, but without any significant comprehension. Reading similar information in chart, graph, or tabular form renders is incomprehensible to this group.
Disturbingly, the report noted that only 13%, or 28 million individuals, of the entire population could be said to be proficient in English! What does it mean to be proficient? "Proficient — these adults can read long sections of complex and abstract text and then integrate that information and make inferences from it."

When comparing the U.S. to other countries, we don't do very well! When looking at the countries that have the highest number of adults scoring at the lowest level (Level One)of literacy, the U.S. came in fifth; not anything to brag about!
Level One:

"Individuals scoring in Level 1 can do little
more than read a short text to find one piece of information, locate a piece
of information based on a literal match, and complete one-step math tasks
such as counting or sorting dates."

Level Three (out of five levels) is seen as the minimum needed to get by in today's information based society, and one's economic security is dependent on skills attained for this level of literacy.

Level Three:

"People in this range can integrate multiple pieces of information from one or more documents and demonstrate understanding of mathematical information represented in numbers, symbols, maps, graphs, and drawings."

We seem to have a serious policy disconnect here.

Air Quality and Places to live

From Money magazine:

Here are the cities with the Best Air Quality Index in 2006:


Rank City Air quality index (% days AQI ranked good)


1 Lake Havasu City, AZ 100.0%
2 Santa Fe, NM 100.0%
3 Richmond, VA 100.0%
4 Casper, WY 100.0%
5 Cheyenne, WY 100.0%
6 Napa, CA 99.7%
7 Carson, NV 99.7%
8 Idaho Falls, ID 99.4%
9 Salinas, CA 99.2%
10 Santa Cruz, CA 98.9%
11 Great Falls, MT 98.9%
12 Pueblo, CO 98.4%
13 Honolulu, HI 98.4%
14 Billings, MT 98.4%
15 Ames, IA 98.1%
16 Petaluma, CA 97.3%
17 Santa Rosa, CA 97.3%
18 Bellingham, WA 97.0%
19 Schenectady, NY 96.7%
20 Bismarck, ND 96.7%
21 Amarillo, TX 96.4%
22 Charleston, SC 96.3%
23 Kissimmee, FL 95.4%
24 Daly City, CA 95.3%
25 Redwood City, CA 95.3%


Unless you want to move to Schenectady, it looks like the western cities have the advantage over the rest of the U.S. That is depressing and daunting.

Bad Air Week

I am glad this week is ending - it has not been an easy one for my lungs. Yesterday I got very winded and was exhausted all day. I went to bed early which I never do. Today I woke up with a tight feeling wrapped around my chest - like a metal band that was 2" too short.
The air quality here has been orange a lot and I try to stay indoors but that feels claustrophobic after a while. And it makes it difficult to garden which is one of the best parts of my day. Hot, high particles, humid, hot. Living in Baltimore/DC is a struggle!
One thing this has brought on for me is a creeping return of the sarcoid fears. I have been on prednisone for 6 weeks, decreasing doses, and I do not want to have a flare up so soon! Of course, it is all about what I want, right?! But it is a bit scary to not know if what I am physically experiencing is just air-related or the start of a flare up.
I think I need to do some research on places to live where the air is still good - a wishful thinking list.

9 More Days

Kate gets married in 9 more days. Suddenly it is approaching with the force of a locomotive hurling down the railroad tracks. Looming, large, loud. Weddings. Much ado, but about something other than "nothing," I would hope. I think back to my first wedding; 1969. I was 20; pregnant; naive and terrified.
Then I see my daughters and their weddings and feel so much relief that they had more time, more living, much more engagement before they wed. And they had actual weddings, not secrets, not shame, not short beige dresses that were supposed to be RED!!!

I am looking forward to next week and seeing old friends again. Seeing my Midwest Fletcher family again. Enjoying the events and not worrying about outcomes. And I am looking forward to after the wedding as well. Maybe a small time for not thinking about much of anything. No lists, no budgets, no last minute things to do. I guess both sides are fun right now.

I have more energy and enthusiasm today than I have had for a long while. I can notice the difference myself. And it feels just plain good!

DIFFUSION

I had a pulmonary breath test yesterday and, yippee, I now have an oxygen diffusion rate of 57%. Up from 50% at the height of the inflammation. Such a small difference, but I feel so much better! I can breathe in what feels like a "normal" manner and I can actually do things which require physical exertion! 57%.

I can't remember what it was like to be at 100% and I guess I won't get to experience that anyway. This is about as good as it gets this time around. What a strange disease this is - no clue as to how I got it, no cure for it, no effective and safe treatment for it, and no telling when it will strike again. Or where it might migrate. Sarcoidosis is not just a lung disease - that happens to be where I contracted it. But sarcoidosis also shows up in the heart, the eyes, on the skin, lymph nodes, liver, brain, nerves, among others.

I plan to have my eyes tested because I have already developed cataracts in both eyes and my vision is dreadfully bad. I just don't know if they can replace the cataracts now though, since I do have sarcoidosis.

One of the interesting responses I have had to the space I have created around this illness is that I have withdrawn from all Internet activity regarding sarcoid. During the first weeks, I was compulsive about reading everything I could find, looking for online support groups, clinical trials, treatment programs, anything and everything. Then rather abruptly, about a month or more ago, I just stopped.

I removed my name from email lists, discussion groups, everything. I found that there are many sources of painfully and potentially dangerous misinformation on the Internet about sarcoidosis. There are also medicine hawkers lurking on the sites who flood you with emails about their miracle cures. Then there are the people posing as physicians with their own "certified" treatments costing many dollars. The only thing they have that qualifies for being certified is themselves! And scare tactics and stories abound. A lot of the "groups" feed into each others' fears about treatments and tests. They make claims about some new diet or vitamin they use that cured them, and for me, that is too small of a sample size. Or they rant about a reaction they had to a treatment drug, tarring all pharmaceuticals with this unverified brush. ENOUGH.

Breathing

It has been actually a few weeks since I have focused on the sarcoid. What is it again? Well - here is the Penn State Clinic definition:


Sarcoidosis is a disease of unknown cause in which inflammation occurs in the lymph nodes, lungs, liver, eyes, skin, or other tissues.

Causes, incidence, and risk factors:

The cause of the disease is unknown. Sarcoidosis is marked by abnormal inflammatory masses (granulomas) in certain organs of the body. Granulomas are clusters of immune cells (macrophages, lymphocytes, and multinucleated giant cells). The disease can affect almost any organ of the body, although it most commonly affects the lungs. Sarcoidosis can be acute, subacute, or chronic.

Possible causes of sarcoidosis include:

Hypersensitivity to environmental factors
Genetics
Extreme immune response to infection
The incidence varies widely according to race and sex.

It is more common in African Americans than Caucasians. Females are usually affected more frequently than males. Onset of the disease typically occurs between the ages of 20 and 40. Sarcoidosis is very rare in young children.
Treatment:
Sarcoidosis symptoms often gradually resolve on their own without treatment.

Severely affected patients may require treatment with corticosteroids. Therapy may continue for one or two years, although some of the most severely affected may require life-long therapy.

Immunosuppressive agents, such as methotrexate, azathioprine, and cyclophosphamide, are sometimes used in addition to corticosteroids. Rarely, some individuals with irreversible organ failure require organ transplantation.

Expectations (prognosis):
Many people are not seriously ill, and the disease may resolve without treatment. Thirty to fifty percent of cases resolve without treatment in 3 years. About 20% of those with lung involvement will develop residual lung damage.

Complications:

Diffuse interstitial pulmonary fibrosis
Pulmonary hypertension
Anterior uveitis
Glaucoma and blindness (rare)
Cardiac arrhythmias
Cranial or peripheral nerve palsies
Kidney stones
Organ failure, leading to the need for a transplant.

AIR QUALITY is moderate to good for today which means I can get outside and not worry. Actually, I haven't been worried because it is just a part of me now and why obsess about it! I "unlisted" myself from all of the sarc feeds, web sites, and chat groups as I really do not feel a need to have it in my face. I think they feed into creating more fear, misinformation, and promises of miracle cures that don't exist.