Bad Coaches, PET Scans, and Toenail Fungus

“Entomologists found that sex between male flour beetles may allow the males, by dribbling semen onto their partners, to impregnate the females those males later have sex with.”
-- “Findings” Harpers Magazine (January 2009)

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "The Pinocchio Illusion”: Yes, my heating contraptions are in stock. Although I haven’t finished my website yet, next week they can be ordered online and I will drop ship them to any address. They will cut your gas bill in half. Yes this is a shameless plug, and yes everyone should have one. Additionally, I have water purifiers and air purifiers. They make good stocking stuffers.
As soon as I can speak I will give you a call.

Love, Magoo

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "The Pinocchio Illusion: Vandal, let me know about the results of your PET scan. I had my Direct Laryngoscopy w/ biospy today. The test was a piece of cake this time. I get the results on Monday.Lovie vs. McCarthy? Does coaching in Green Bay make him a hick? Does coaching in Chicago make Lovie corrupt? They have both made major coaching blunders.

Posted by Anonymous to You Are Here: Disease as Performance at December 12, 2008 7:14 PM

Bill De Broux has left a new comment on your post "The Pinocchio Illusion”:

I've been thinking of amputating my toenails because there is this gross fucking fungus growing under them and there is not a medication on the planet that will get rid of it. But I have not yet done the deed. Does that make me a wannabe? Later, Bill.

Posted by Bill De Broux to You Are Here: Disease as Performance at December 12, 2008 6:55 PM

Dear All:

Since two of my dear friends, Timmy McGee and Billy De Broux, left comments on the blog, I thought I might use their posts as writing prompts. Since inspiration is oftentimes scarce, I thank you for providing the impetus for today’s topics.

First off, as is my want, and being an English teacher, I took the liberty to edit your posts as a way of facilitating their accessibility to the general reading public (facilitating their accessibility? That’s what we call wordy in the business).

Regarding my irreverent comments on Little Vincie’s “Flustration”: make no mistake about it, were McCarthy the coach of the Bears they would have a far better record than they do. For the record, my estimation of the worst coaches in the NFL is this (in no particular order): K.C.s’ Herm Edwards, Chicago’s Lovie Smith, Cleveland’s Romeo Crenell, San Diego’s Norv Turner, Cincy’s Marv Lewis, Philly’s Andy Reid, and Jacksonville’s Jack Del Rio. You’ll notice most of these guys are black, which only goes to show that race has nothing to do with how bad you suck.

Since you’ve let the cat out of the bag, Magoo (what means that? Let the cat out of the bag, indeed!). What bag, and how did he get in there in the first place? Wait a minute (sounds like the corrupt cop in Scarface), I’ll google it!
Origin

There are two commonly heard suggested origins of this phrase. One relates to the fraud of substituting a cat for a piglet at markets. If you let the cat out of the bag you disclosed the trick - and avoided buying a pig in a poke (bag). This form of trickery is long alluded to in the language and 'pigs in a poke' are recorded as early as 1530.

The other theory is that the 'cat' referred to is the cat o' nine tails, which was used to flog ill-disciplined sailors. Again, this has sufficient historical record to be at least possible. The cat o' nine tails was widely used and was referred to in print many years prior to the first use of 'let the cat out of the bag'. The 'nine tails' part of the name derives from the three strands of cord that the rope lashes were made from. Each of the cords were in turn made from three strands of string. When unbraided a piece of rope separated into nine strings. The 'cat' part no doubt alluded to the scratches that the knotted ends of the lash made on the victim's back, like those from a cat's claws.

Of the two explanations, the 'pig in a poke' derivation is the more plausible, although I can find no direct documentary evidence to link 'letting the cat out of the bag' to the selling of livestock. Versions of the phrase exist in both Dutch - 'Een kat in de zak kopen' and in German - 'Die Katze im Sack kaufen'. These both translate loosely as 'to buy a cat in a bag', i.e. to buy false goods.
The cat o' nine tails story is dubious at best. It is reported that the lashes were sometimes stored in bags, but the suggested nautical punishment origin fails at the critical point, in that it doesn't match the 'disclose a secret' meaning of the phrase.
The first known use of the phrase in print that I have found is in a 1760 edition of The London Magazine:

"We could have wished that the author... had not let the cat out of the bag."
There are several other literary references to the phrase in the 1760s and 1770s, most of which place it in quotations marks - a sure sign of it being not commonly understood and consequently, newly coined.

Cats feature very often in English proverbs:

A cat may look at a king - 1546

All cats are grey in the dark - 1596

Curiosity killed the cat - 1921

There are more ways of killing a cat than choking it with cream - 1855

When the cat is away, the mice will play - 1607

This routine appearance of cats in the language is no doubt a consequence of them being widely kept as mousers and pets in domestic houses. As to 'who let the cats out?', we can't be certain; but it probably wasn't a sailor.

Now where was I? Oh yeah, you, dear reader, want to know just what cat Tim let out of the bag. It seems that on my last CT scan there was a spot, a smudge, an unknown something in the intestinal area that provided a question. While the general picture showed no disease, no lymphoma, there was this unexplainable blur. My doctor downplayed it, saying it was probably nothing (perhaps a scar, or, as my brother Paul suggested, a rogue turd), and that if I wanted we could look at it in six months. However, she continued, for hers, and my own, piece of mind, I could undergo a PET scan on December 9, just to see if there was anything to worry about (below I’ve included some information on CT and PET scans).

Funny thing about situations like this, unless you’ve recorded the conversation with the doc, your imagination begins to run wild about what you actually heard. Was the doctor trying to downplay the worst? Did she not schedule a future CT because she knew the cancer was back? Worry casts a long shadow on speculative concerns. I had a dream where I was in the tropics and small alligators and venomous reptiles were crawling under my clothes. I screamed at those around me to pull them off. Every ache and pain became a sign that the malignancies were everywhere. Slight headache? Oh no! It’s in my brains! Thinking myself riddled with tumors, a grim anticipation set in.

So last Tuesday I had the scan. Then the impatience set in. Should I immediately call and try to expedite the results, or should I wait to hear from the doc? Wednesday passes, no word. Then, late Thursday afternoon my cell phone rings. The number is 232-0000. Now I don’t know about where you live, but in my universe when a number ends in 4 zeros it’s always from a hospital. “Hello Randall, this is Thecla, Dr. Ahmed’s (yeah, I’ve got a terrorist doctor) assistant. I’ve got some good news…” That was all I had to hear. Yahoo! Praise God! Let’s party, and all that jazz. How does one explain this kind of news? One doesn’t.

As a service to my fellow cancer survivors/sufferers/victims, whatever, I thought I might try to explain in layman’s terms exactly how a PET scan differs from a CT scan. So, using my case as an example, here goes.

The CT scan involves the ANATOMY, the PET the PHYSIOLOGY, of a given organism. The CT took a picture of the anatomical structure of my abdomen. What it picked up was an anomaly, a “something” in the overall image that was out of place. What it can’t determine is whether or not this, this…thing has a metabolism, a life. The picture is static rather than dynamic. The contrast drink, the Barium Shake, highlights the organs and whatever else shows up, but beyond that offers little information.

The PET scan, because it involves a radioactive chemical injected into the bloodstream, and therefore infuses every cell in the body, picks up any metabolic activity at the cellular level. It is a physiological diagnostic, physiology literally meaning the functions of a living organism, which in my case could have been a malignant tumor growing in my bowel. What would have happened had the spot been a malignant growth is that the picture would show the tumor pulsing and lighting up. The metabolic nature, that is to say life activity, of the tumor would show up on the scan. As it turned out, the blip, scar, turd, or whatever it was, was benign, or lifeless.

A CT scan — also called computerized tomography or just CT — is an X-ray technique that produces images of your body that visualize internal structures in cross section rather than the overlapping images typically produced by conventional X-ray exams.

Conventional X-ray exams use a stationary X-ray machine to focus beams of radiation on a particular area of your body to produce two-dimensional images on film or a digital detector, much like a photograph. But CT scans use an X-ray unit that rotates around your body and a powerful computer. The result with CT scans is a set of cross-sectional images, like slices, of the inside of your body.

Doctors recommend a CT scan for a wide variety of reasons.
A conventional X-ray of your abdomen, for example, shows your bones as well as subtle overlapping outlines of your liver, stomach, intestines, kidney and spleen. A CT scan, however, clearly reveals these bones and organs as well as their inner structure and detailed anatomy of your pancreas, adrenal glands, kidneys and blood vessels.

A positron emission tomography (PET) scan is a special kind of imaging test which allows doctors to see how certain tissues and organs within the body are functioning. The most significant difference between a PET scan and other imaging tests such as MRI or CT is the ability to detect changes in the body at the cellular level rather than after a disease has progressed enough to actually effect the surrounding tissue or organs. A PET scan may be useful for helping to detect certain types of cancer, brain disorders, heart problems, and other conditions of the central nervous system.

A PET scan is performed by injecting a small amount of radioactive chemical into a vein. As the chemical travels through the body, it is absorbed by the organs and tissues. During the test, a scanner records the energy produced by the cells. A computer converts the recording into three-dimensional pictures of an area of the body and any cells that are changing show up at a brighter contrast to any surrounding, normal cells.

There is very little preparation involved prior to a PET scan and they are most often done on an outpatient basis. In general, most patients are simply given restrictions on food or drink for 6 to 12 hours prior to the test. Heart patients, diabetics, and other specific patients may be given a specific set of directions depending on the purpose of the PET scan. The test takes approximately 2 hours to complete.

PET scan technology is widely used in oncology as it helps to stage and detect certain types of cancer including breast cancer, lymphoma, and certain types of lung cancer. PET scan technology is also widely used in medical research.

Due largely to the technology and equipment involved, a PET scan is considerably more expensive than conventional imaging tests. Most insurance plans will cover a PET scan if certain conditions apply. Before undergoing a PET scan, patients should check with their insurance company about coverage benefits and requirements

As for you, dear Bill, technically, I suppose eliminating one’s toenail is analogous to amputating one’s hair (I get by with a little hair from my friends)! Billy, I wish you could be here for the annual Peace Concert at the Ark tomorrow night. I know you would appreciate the local musicians whooping it up for global harmony. Meanwhile, the gangsters in Washington continue to spread the wealth at the top hoping a tuppence or two might trickle down to the masses. It’s like the rainstorms in Arizona summers that never reach the ground. How about this: give us regular citizens a stipend so that we may buy stuff. No matter how much is given the banking fat cats, assuming on the outside chance that they might even use the money to lend us poor people, no one can buy anything anyway when they don’t have a job and nothing in savings.
The Marxist model still works best: progressive change must always be instituted from the bottom up, not the top down.

Although I’m still not exactly sure where my future BIID research will lead, I find it a fascinating subject. I get a steady stream of hits from all over the world that look at the 4 BIID postings on the blog. So much so that I almost feel obligated to find out more and share this knowledge with the BIID folk.

Happy Birthday to Genea “Obamalamadingdong” Tessier.