#wyrm lectures

[wyrmpus]

my doggie treat is Wet Food. it will cure your sadness. it's legitimately a very satisfying low effort treat.

mix mashed banana + nutella and/or peanut butter + chocolate chips and/or nuts. that's it. it's good.

[wyrmpus]

wyrm soup

base soup for your troubles

i have one (1) recipe that i keep telling souls in need about. it will cure what ails ya be it pneumonia or ennui. i also dont want to keep typing it out from scratch every time so here it be!

Base Ingredients:

broth/stock (i use chicken, can mix/replace w veggie. quality does make a big difference here - the better your broth the better your soup.)

leftover chicken and/or white beans

carrot celery onion

+1-2 misc vegetables, i suggest something green (whatever's on hand, for me it's often kale)

pasta (macaroni-ish) OR rice (leftover rice works great)

Flavour Ingredients:

shitload of minced garlic

equal shitload of minced ginger

SALT AND BLACK PEPPER (i promise fresh ground pepper makes a huge difference)

2-5 herbs (i use a shitload of oregano and thyme; basil/parsley/rosemary/sage are good additions but maybe not all at once

lemon juice (at least a few tablespoons, do to taste - i like it sour)

Directions:

prep yer veg: you want approx equal proportions of carrot celery onion, in soup-appropriate sized pieces. add however much other veggie you wish. start sauteing these while you do everything else.

start heating up your broth in a big pot

set pasta to boil if using

prep your seasonings: mince garlic/ginger + herbs if using fresh

once veg is cooked, put them + any protein in the broth pot to heat through. add rice, or keep noodles separate if using (i store separately sometimes to prevent Soggy)

add seasonings. season the everliving fuck outta this bad boy. I FORGOT THE LEMON YOU NEED TO ADD LEMON JUICE. add ur minced stuff + herbs + salt/pepper. crucially, you should add enough ginger/black pepper that it's notably bracing, and enough lemon juice that it's notably sour. keep adjusting seasoning to taste until it's powerful enough to cure pneumonia

if using pasta, put it in yer bowl then ladle the soup on top; store noodles and soup separately to prevent Soggy

for when you're sick, for when you're sad, for when you want good soup. it's good for the soul trust me. i love you!! go forth and feast!!

[wyrmpus]

IT'S LECTURE TIME BABEY!!!

apparently at least two of you people enjoy these, so here you go! i absolutely should have spent this time writing papers. im also out of town and can't take pics. instead have approximately 800 words (sorry i got excited) about one of my very favourite diseases!

today's lecture: what is diphtheria and how does it kill you?

This is almost entirely summarized from the first 20 minutes of an episode from one of my favourite podcasts (This Podcast Will Kill You, Ep 16: Scratch and Sniff Diphtheria Membrane. Website, Spotify). It talks about way more than just the pathogenesis (disease progression) and I promise it is so cool. Give it a listen!!!

What is diphtheria?

Diphtheria is an acute (short onset) bacterial disease caused by toxin-producing strains of Corynebacterium diphtheriae bacteria. The disease we call diphtheria isn’t actually caused by the bacterium itself – it’s caused by a toxin, which is produced by a bacteriophage virus that infects the bacterium!

Diphtheria is transmitted through aerosols: coughing, spitting, sneezing, etc. It infects your nasopharynx (nose and upper throat). Its incubation period – the time between when you’re infected and when you start having symptoms – is 2-5 days.

Pathogenesis – how and why you get sick

The progression of this disease has been described as “insidious,” apparently. Spooky!

The story of disease:

You start with a low fever, generally feel sick, and your throat really hurts. You may not feel like eating because you feel so gross. It feels like something mild, strep throat or the flu, so maybe you wait for it to pass.

But within two or three days, you aren’t getting better. You see something white at the back of your throat. It’s attached to the roof of your mouth, near your tonsils, and it keeps getting bigger and will cover your entire soft palate and might turn green, grey, or black. It’s not pus – you can’t cough it up or scrape it off. At this point, it’s so thick that you’re struggling to breathe and making a high-pitched wheeze.

At this point, you have a 50/50 chance of recovery or death.

That thing at the back of your throat is called a “pseudomembrane.” What usually kills you is that this thing gets so big and your lymph nodes get so swollen that it blocks your airway and you suffocate.

What is happening in your body to cause these symptoms?

The diphtheria toxin, released from the bacterium, is causing disease in your body. The toxin gets inside your cells in the lining of your throat. It stops them from making protein – one of the main things your cells have to do to function and survive. The toxin causes cell death.

That pseudomembrane at the back of the throat is made of these dead cells infected by the toxin. In response to all the bacteria and dead cells, your body sends in white blood cells to eat the bacteria and clean up all the dead cells.

What these white blood cells do to clean up the dead tissue is lay down fibrin – scar tissue – and glue everything together. That’s why the pseudomembrane is stuck to your throat – it’s not mucus, it’s dead cells and bacteria bound up in scar tissue attached to your healthy living tissue. There is no coughing it up. It suffocates you.

How else can diphtheria kill you?

There are other ways to die than by suffocation! The back of your nose and throat have excellent blood supply – the diphtheria toxin can enter your bloodstream and go anywhere in your body.

In the heart:

Diphtheria does the same thing to your heart as it does to the back of your throat. The toxin infects your cells, kills them, and scar tissue forms. But when the muscles of your heart become scarred, the electrical activity controlling your heart (conductance) is disrupted. Your heart can’t send impulses anymore. It can’t beat in sync with itself (arrythmias). It might beat irregularly, too fast, or flutter in place. If your heart doesn’t beat properly, you will die.

In the nerves:

You could also become paralyzed! If the toxin infects your nervous system and kills your nerve cells, then your body won’t be able to send signals and communicate with itself.

On your skin:

This usually happens with strains of diphtheria that don’t produce toxin. The bacteria infects your skin and forms a really gnarly giant ulcer. It’s pretty gross.

Treatment and Mortality

Untreated, the mortality rate (percentage of people who die) is up to 50%. Half of people infected who do not get treatment will die. With treatment, the mortality rate is 5-10%, and up to 20% in young children. We haven’t improved this in the past 50 years.

How to treat diphtheria?

First, we give antitoxin to treat the symptoms. This antitoxin only works on toxin that hasn’t yet bound into your cells. For this to work, then, people have to be treated very early on. Any cells already infected are as good as dead.

Additionally, we give antibiotics to kill the bacteria and to prevent the spread of disease.

There’s a vaccine!! It’s cool!! I’ve spent too much time on this so I won’t talk about it but I promise it’s really cool!! Listen to the podcast episode I mentioned!!