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elfsSo, I went to Yamaarashi-chan's doctor yesterday. I was supposed to meet her and her mother there. She was late arriving, but there wasn't much of a problem as we still had to wait for her physician. Yamaarashi-chan went through the usual routine-- height and weight down around the 10th percentile, but staying on the curve. One eye showed 20/50 vision, so I'm happy that her mother finally got around to booking an optometry appointment later this week.
While we were going through the interview with the physician, her mother again expressed her reluctance to give Yamaarashi-chan milk, but stated no religious or ideological reason for doing so. Given the twofold increase in bone fragility in minors over the past twenty years directly correlated to a drop in milk consumption and the calcium that goes with it, and given that there's no medical reason for Yamaarashi-chan not to have it, I still don't understand what that woman is thinking.
The doc also offered a hepatitis A vaccine. She said it wasn't mandated, but it would be a good idea since King County had high rates of HepA and it was available free anyway. I asked if that wasn't a problem primarily among gay men and drug users, and she agreed but pointed out that the outbreak recently from green onions was HepA. Not seeing any serious complications, I decided it was a good idea and readily gave my consent.
I was curious, so I did a little looking around. Apparently, there were two outbreaks of HepA in King County in the past few years-- one from a Subway up in Bothell, and the famous Jack In The Box case down on Broadway. "The Health of King County" report available from The United Way shows that 87% of all hepatatis A cases in King County were attributable to either homosexual contact or injection drug use, but that leaves 13% of the cases to other means. More frightening, King County is sixth in the nation for minors with hepatitis A-- and much of that, sadly, is due to a rate of infection almost twice the national average among our large Native American population.
(Hmm... looking at that twice, the rate among gay/bi/IVdu indicates a more serious problem than I originally thought. If they make up 87% of cases, but represent less than 10% of the population, that means the remaining 13% is diffused among a much larger and more diverse population. The UWKC doesn't say what "other" could be, though.)
Ick. Not that I wouldn't have agreed Yamaarashi-chan get the immunization before, but at least now I feel confident that it's not in response to an almost impossible threat, but a very real and local one.
Otherwise, she's a perfectly normal and healthy kid. I took her home and Omaha fed her a decent meal of shrimp on couscous with raisins, pineapple, and dates. We spent some time drawing together and when I showed her how one of her stuffed animals was just a couple of egg-shapes stuck together, she did a hilarious but quite good rendition of the sucker. I'll scan it in later.
While we were going through the interview with the physician, her mother again expressed her reluctance to give Yamaarashi-chan milk, but stated no religious or ideological reason for doing so. Given the twofold increase in bone fragility in minors over the past twenty years directly correlated to a drop in milk consumption and the calcium that goes with it, and given that there's no medical reason for Yamaarashi-chan not to have it, I still don't understand what that woman is thinking.
The doc also offered a hepatitis A vaccine. She said it wasn't mandated, but it would be a good idea since King County had high rates of HepA and it was available free anyway. I asked if that wasn't a problem primarily among gay men and drug users, and she agreed but pointed out that the outbreak recently from green onions was HepA. Not seeing any serious complications, I decided it was a good idea and readily gave my consent.
I was curious, so I did a little looking around. Apparently, there were two outbreaks of HepA in King County in the past few years-- one from a Subway up in Bothell, and the famous Jack In The Box case down on Broadway. "The Health of King County" report available from The United Way shows that 87% of all hepatatis A cases in King County were attributable to either homosexual contact or injection drug use, but that leaves 13% of the cases to other means. More frightening, King County is sixth in the nation for minors with hepatitis A-- and much of that, sadly, is due to a rate of infection almost twice the national average among our large Native American population.
(Hmm... looking at that twice, the rate among gay/bi/IVdu indicates a more serious problem than I originally thought. If they make up 87% of cases, but represent less than 10% of the population, that means the remaining 13% is diffused among a much larger and more diverse population. The UWKC doesn't say what "other" could be, though.)
Ick. Not that I wouldn't have agreed Yamaarashi-chan get the immunization before, but at least now I feel confident that it's not in response to an almost impossible threat, but a very real and local one.
Otherwise, she's a perfectly normal and healthy kid. I took her home and Omaha fed her a decent meal of shrimp on couscous with raisins, pineapple, and dates. We spent some time drawing together and when I showed her how one of her stuffed animals was just a couple of egg-shapes stuck together, she did a hilarious but quite good rendition of the sucker. I'll scan it in later.
