Nicole has....

Spina Bifida Occulta

By Stephen Kinsman, MD

Spina bifida occulta refers to a group of conditions involving the spinal column—a structure made of bones called vertebrae. The spinal column is responsible for supporting the skeleton and protects the spinal cord, which is the cable of nervous tissue that transmits information between the brain and the body. Spina bifida occulta is a common condition, occurring in 10% - 20% of otherwise healthy people; it is often found incidentally during a radiogram (X-Ray) of the lower back. By definition “spina bifida occulta” means “hidden split spine.” The term is misleading because it is used to describe several conditions. The most frequently seen form is considered harmless and is simply a variant of normal. In this condition, parts of the bones of the spine called the spinous process and neural arch appear slightly abnormal on a radiogram. Usually, the spinal cord, and spinal nerves are not involved. Isolated bony spina bifida occulta (without an underlying spinal cord abnormality) does not lead to problems with the nervous system. Some radiologists have resorted to calling this situation a vertebral fusion defect, thus taking away the reference to spina bifida.

Remembrance Day 2006

Honouring the men and women who have served in

Canada's armed forces, and those who continue this vital work today.

Lest we Forget

In Flanders Fields

By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)

Canadian Army

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow Between the crosses row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.

McCrae's "In Flanders Fields" remains to this day one of the most memorable war poems ever written. It is a lasting legacy of the terrible battle in the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915. Here is the story of the making of that poem:
Although he had been a doctor for years and had served in the South African War, it was impossible to get used to the suffering, the screams, and the blood here, and Major John McCrae had seen and heard enough in his dressing station to last him a lifetime.
As a surgeon attached to the 1st Field Artillery Brigade, Major McCrae, who had joined the McGill faculty in 1900 after graduating from the University of Toronto, had spent seventeen days treating injured men -- Canadians, British, Indians, French, and Germans -- in the Ypres salient.
It had been an ordeal that he had hardly thought possible. McCrae later wrote of it:
"I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days... Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done."
One death particularly affected McCrae. A young friend and former student, Lieut. Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, had been killed by a shell burst on 2 May 1915. Lieutenant Helmer was buried later that day in the little cemetery outside McCrae's dressing station, and McCrae had performed the funeral ceremony in the absence of the chaplain.
The next day, sitting on the back of an ambulance parked near the dressing station beside the Canal de l'Yser, just a few hundred yards north of Ypres, McCrae vented his anguish by composing a poem. The major was no stranger to writing, having authored several medical texts besides dabbling in poetry.
In the nearby cemetery, McCrae could see the wild poppies that sprang up in the ditches in that part of Europe, and he spent twenty minutes of precious rest time scribbling fifteen lines of verse in a notebook.
A young soldier watched him write it. Cyril Allinson, a twenty-two year old sergeant-major, was delivering mail that day when he spotted McCrae. The major looked up as Allinson approached, then went on writing while the sergeant-major stood there quietly. "His face was very tired but calm as we wrote," Allinson recalled. "He looked around from time to time, his eyes straying to Helmer's grave."
When McCrae finished five minutes later, he took his mail from Allinson and, without saying a word, handed his pad to the young NCO. Allinson was moved by what he read:
"The poem was exactly an exact description of the scene in front of us both. He used the word blow in that line because the poppies actually were being blown that morning by a gentle east wind. It never occurred to me at that time that it would ever be published. It seemed to me just an exact description of the scene."
In fact, it was very nearly not published. Dissatisfied with it, McCrae tossed the poem away, but a fellow officer retrieved it and sent it to newspapers in England. The Spectator, in London, rejected it, but Punch published it on 8 December 1915.

Study shows lots of hot air kills off head lice

A hairdryer-like device called the LouseBuster can help eradicate infestations of the six-legged pests, researchers say.

Lice do not cause disease, but because they are easily transferred from head to head they can create headaches for parents and children.
The pests are developing a resistance to an ingredient in many insecticide shampoos, making them more difficult eradicate.
Scientists in the U.S. invented the chemical-free device, which they say exterminates lice eggs or "nits" and kills enough of the parasites to prevent them from reproducing.
"Each year, millions of children are infested with head lice, a condition known as pediculosis, which is responsible for tens of millions of lost school days," the researchers wrote in the November issue of the journal Pediatrics. "Hot air is an effective, safe treatment and one to which lice are unlikely to evolve resistance."
The LouseBuster also kills louse eggs, which chemical treatments have never done well, said Dale Clayton, a co-inventor of the device and a biology professor at the University of Utah who led the study.
LouseBuster is used in one 30-minute treatment, compared with multiple chemical applications over one to two weeks.
Death by drying
Clayton was originally looking for a way to raise lice that infest birds as part of his research - Utah's air was too dry to keep lice alive. That led the researchers to think drying lice out might be way to kill them.
Clayton's own two children, Mimi and Roger, volunteered to be infested with lice for the experiment and were treated successfully, joking that they served as guinea pigs in his research.
To test the LouseBuster, the team experimented with six ways of applying hot air to the lice-infested scalps of 169 children between 2001 and 2005.
One side of each child's head was combed to remove all visible lice and nits. Then the entire scalp was treated using one of the methods, and finally the other side of the scalp was combed for the same amount of time.
To compare the effectiveness of different treatment methods, the researchers looked at the percentage of dead lice and non-hatching eggs collected from the treated side of the scalp compared with the non-treated side.
Hair lift
Children were excluded from the study if they had used other head lice treatments within the previous two weeks. Each participant was paid $10 after the trial and they received conventional treatments for lice.
Conventional hair dryers will not kill lice because they don't blow enough air to lift the hair, Clayton said.
Since it takes some skill to use the LouseBuster properly, the researchers want to place it in schools, daycare centres and community clinics.
The researchers hope the device will be on the market in the United States within two years. None of the children or parents reported side effects from the treatments.
"If this kind of a treatment were available and is relatively easy to do and effective, that would absolutely be something that would be a very exciting development," said Michelle Craig, head of school and preschool health services in Edmonton.
Despite the advantages of the LouseBuster, parents will still need to wash any clothing and pillowcases that may have been in contact with their infected children, said Phillip Butterfield of Toronto, whose 13-year-old son had lice last year.

sympatico.MSN.ca 06/11/2006 2:59:34 PM

Quote of the day

"I believe that friends are quiet angels

who lift us to our feet when our wings

have trouble remembering how to fly."

~Unknown

Canadian Veteran from WW1

...I encourage you to sign an online petition calling on the Prime Minister to offer a State Funeral to the family of the last veteran of the First World War resident in Canada. Only three Canadian veterans of the First World War remain. They are 106 and 105 years of age.To sign the online petition visit www.dominion.ca/statefuneralFor more information on the campaign for a State Funeral for the last Great War veteran visit www.dominion.ca/petition/background.php Please forward this message on to friends and family!

A New do....

Well it seems Miss Jenna has a new hairdo....
Sunday morning Nicole decided Jenna didnt need to have long hair anymore and cut it off!! It reminds me of how Julia Roberts looked in the movie Peter Pan...I have been crying for 2 whole days now......And yes, I realize it WILL grow back, and in time it WILL seem funny. But right now it isnt and I am devestated by it!!

It's happening....Just as it was predicted at the end of September!!!

What kind of person (cause calling her a woman is giving her FAR too much credit) would begin to move her things into someone elses house, (knowing that HIS daughters dont like her to begin with) and then proceeds to rearrange things and throw things out that belonged to the girls dead mother?? One who has no morals, respect or decency thats all!!

Can I throw up now?

Cause of SIDS?

Research links SIDS to brain defect
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PM - Wednesday, 1 November , 2006 18:38:00
Reporter: Kathryn Roberts
MARK COLVIN: Researchers in the United States believe they've uncovered the mystery of cot death - the mysterious syndrome which takes the lives of almost 60 Australian babies every year.They believe they've found strong evidence that Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or SIDS, is a biological problem, which can be explained by a brain abnormality. Australian medical researchers have cautiously welcomed the findings.Kathryn Roberts reports.KATHRYN ROBERTS: Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or SIDS, is every new parent's fear.And those who lose a child to SIDS suffer not only the grief of loss, but the pain of not knowing why it happened.Awareness campaigns like Red Nose Day have helped reduce the rate of cot death, but doctors would like to be able to prevent it altogether.Now a team of US neuroscientists at the Children's Hospital in Boston believe their research provides the strongest evidence yet that SIDS is not a mystery disease but has a biological basis.Roger Byard is Professor of Pathology at the University of Adelaide. He believes the research is significant.ROGER BYARD: They've confirmed previous findings about an abnormal transmitter in the brain in SIDS, they've also shown that the abnormalities are probably more extensive than we originally thought, and they've also found that the boys who died of SIDS actually had greater abnormalities than the girls, which may in part explain why we get more boys who die of SIDS than girls. KATHRYN ROBERTS: The research in the latest Journal of the American Medical Association identified abnormalities in the brainstems of babies who'd died suddenly.The team, led by neuroscientist, Dr David Paterson, compared autopsy samples from the brainstems of 31 babies who'd died from SIDS to another 10 babies who'd died from other causes.They found defects in nerve cells that make and use serotonin - a chemical in the brain that transmits messages.Professor Byard again:ROGER BYARD: This is the control box for heart and for breathing. So if we're looking at these children as having problems controlling their breathing, and then we're finding abnormalities in some of the chemicals that are involved in this process, then this may be one of the direct causes. KATHRYN ROBERTS: What that means is that babies with the condition are not able to detect when they're not getting enough oxygen, so they don't wake up or turn their head.Dr Arthur Teng heads up the Department of Sleep Medicine at Sydney Children's Hospital.He says the research supports the current risk reduction guidelines, which advise parents to put infants to sleep on their back on a firm surface and avoid pre-and post-natal cigarette smoke.ARTHUR TENG: If you look at this new research from Harvard, they postulated that the reason babies die on their side or when they're lying on their tummy is because there is some problem with arousal to get out of what is potentially a noxious situation. And perhaps it's serotonin, which sends the messages to the rest of the brain to wake the child up.KATHRYN ROBERTS: But Dr Teng has some doubts that the research could be used to develop a test for babies.ARTHUR TENG: From what I can understand, the test's a very invasive test, and obviously it would be very hard to screen all babies. I guess the way to look at this is to tap their spinal fluid and measure the levels here. And the gold standard would be a brain biopsy, but I think that would be an extremely difficult to carry out in otherwise normal babies.KATHRYN ROBERTS: Professor Byard however is more optimistic. He says the next challenge is to work out how to detect these abnormalities and the symptoms, which may be evident in infants at risk of SIDS.ROGER BYARD: What they're doing is they're looking at tissue sections from the brain, so you can't do that in live babies. I mean, what people are going to have to do is try and work out whether there's some sort of physiological marker in these babies that indicates a problem with serotonin.And people do that. They've studied heart rate and respiratory rate in babies, but I think what this research does particularly is it focuses on that area and that abnormality, and maybe this can direct clinicians who are looking at live babies to think well maybe this is the way we should approach these cases.KATHRYN ROBERTS: The number of cot deaths in Australia has gone down dramatically - from 500 in 1989, to 59 in 2004.The research gives at least some hope that in the future that number can be reduced even further.MARK COLVIN: Kathryn Roberts.