I hate Tom Brady so much it makes my nose bleed

Well, not quite that much, but almost.

The man is smug. And too pretty. And left his baby-mama for a supermodel (with the mama ‘just’ a gorgeous model/actress, but not famous enough).

I went to school in the Boston area and my father was a die-hard Patriots fan. In my teens, I was on the 50-yard-line at Foxborough watching grown men get piss-drunk and yell at least three times per season. Wrapped in my blanket, clutching my hot cocoa, and mainly watching my dad’s dreams get crushed year after year.

Initially, I was excited about the Sox and the Pats. Now, I’m thinking a few people sold their souls to the devil to get Boston out of the years-long losing slump. If the Bs (the Bruins) and the Cs (the Celtics) start winning cups and going to the finals, I’ll know for sure that something fishy is going on.

Boston fans are great losers. Unfortunately, they are not good winners. I suppose they haven’t yet learned how to be.

I’ve seen so many caps, shirts and just ridiculous, overzealous nonsense since the winning streak started that I’m beginning to hate Boston teams.

Tonight, I tuned in – like everyone else – to watch the undefeated Patriots play the Giants, who barely scraped themselves into the playoffs this year. Much to my delight and surprise, the Giants gave the supposedly “unbeatable” Patriots a good whipping in the first half. Then, much to my chagrin but not to my surprise, the team from New York blew it.

Still, it was a good game. It was, in my opinion, probably better than the Superbowl will be this year. You know, that hyped game that takes forever to play because of commercial breaks and usually ends in a disappointing blowout? Yeah, that one. I prefer games that still have a little heart, with players that worry less about money and sponsorship opportunities and more about playing a great game.

Tonight, the Giants didn’t really have anything to gain and yet they played their hearts out. I don’t even root for the Giants (I’m a Bears fan myself), but I found myself screaming and cheering at them via my television set. If I had one, I would have put on my Giants shirt and run through the streets.

Tom Brady reminds me of Roger Clemens, and will probably end up the same. As he ages, he will continue to play well, but not as well, and will not know enough to bow out gracefully. He’ll end up doing commercials, moving around to whatever team pays him enough money, and trying to stay in the spotlight as long as possible. All the while, he’ll remember his glory days (which no one will argue weren’t great), but greed and ego will keep him in the game too long.

My last Christmas wish is that someone will beat the Patriots, if only to teach New England fans and their team a lesson. No one is unbeatable. And no one should be. Unlimited success doesn’t make for a generous team or a good personality.

Why XDR-TB is a problem that’s not going away

Last night, I was watching the news and saw a brief (and, of course, over-sensationalized) story about a woman who flew from India back to the U.S. with a deadly strain of TB. Since the initial portion of her flight was so long, authorities are guesstimating that she potentially infected about 45 people sitting near her. This will require them to be monitored themselves and tested to see if they develop the disease. Imagine waiting from 6-10 weeks for the results of an HIV test. Yikes. That is a lot of time to panic.

TB is a problem because of several factors – poverty, HIV and incarceration not being the least of them. The trouble is that people with already weakened immune systems (poor nutrition and/or having HIV) can contract TB repeatedly, increasing the chances that a particular, normal strain of TB will evolve into a drug-resistant strain. Also, like in prisons, hospitals, or homeless shelters, when people are clumped together, the likelihood of a resistant strain developing increases.

TB, or tuberculosis, has been with us for centuries. It is probably as old as our written records. Just a century or so ago, it was referred to as ‘consumption’, since people who have it tend to ‘waste away’. More interestingly, it was kind of a sexy disease. Poets, impossibly beautiful women, writers, aristocrats and famous people got ‘consumption’. The wealthy patients got to spend their last days at a big resort for consumptives called a sanitarium. The poor people got to go to a sanatorium, or a fancy term for a hospital. Funny how a few letters can make all the difference. (Personally, I would have preferred the former, particularly the ones in Switzerland.)

(For the ‘readers’ out there, check out Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain, for a portrayal of TB and life in the sanitarium.)
Fast forward to the present.

XDR-TB is resistant to most drugs used to treat it. It got this way through a variety of ways, but at least one of which is that some people do not take the full course of antibiotics prescribed for them in the first round of having TB. Believe it or not, not finishing your course of antibiotics – or taking them without cause for something like a cold – is a huge part of the problem. Which is why, in large part, I am a medicine Nazi. I try to underline why people shouldn’t share their prescriptions with each other (this means you, Aunt Grace, unless you’ve gotten your MD since last summer), or stop taking their medication when they feel better (just because you feel better, doesn’t mean the infection is gone).

Sometimes, in the past, I would try to scare people into caring more about taking antibiotics sparingly and taking them correctly by telling them that their grandchildren would be faced with a world much like the old days before penicillin came along. Translation? A lot of child deaths. A lot more early and unnecessary deaths, period. I was sick a lot as a child, and I simply wouldn’t have made it to age 10 without effective antibiotics.

Now, however, it looks like I don’t have to make up boogey-men tales to scare people. We’ve got one ready-made in this new, scary strain of TB.

To scare yourself, go here: http://www.cdc.gov/tb/pubs/tbfactsheets/xdrtb.htm

And the next time you take a long flight, wear a mask. It looks a little Michael Jackson-ish, but it might save you from months of hellish treatment.