Immune Systems Gone Wild

The following has very little basis on scientific fact. It's just some things I've theorized after having type 1 diabetes for 33 years and the various other "side effects" that come along with it.

For a guy with type 1 diabetes, I'm actually quite healthy. When I was first diagnosed 33 years ago they didn't know exactly what caused type 1 diabetes. They still don't. The best educated guess going is that the immune system attacks the insulin producing cells in the pancreas. It's, yet another, autoimmune disease.

They say that even if they could cure the pancreas, the immune system would just attack it again. I've read reports on how they are trying to figure out how to "reboot" the immune system. I kind of believe that the reason they don't know what causes type 1 diabetes is because it can have several different causes.

About 5 years ago I was diagnosed with adhesive capsulitis (frozen shoulder) on my left arm. When I was diagnosed the doctor said, "They don't know what exactly causes it. It tends to set in after you reach the age of 40. About 2% of the population gets it. 10% of people with type 1 diabetes get it."

In my neurotic head, I'm thinking, "great, so what other gifts will type 1 diabetes bestow upon me as I age?"

A few years ago, I was diagnosed with Dupuytren's contracture. Here again, they don't know what causes it, but people with type 1 diabetes tend to get it more often than people without type 1 diabetes. Why is this?

Last year I had hip surgery on my right hip. I remember my first physical therapist telling me that my hip was behaving a lot like frozen shoulder. The doctors were not sure what was wrong with my hip. They did x-rays, MRI's etc. I had so many tests done, I probably glowed in the dark. They finally fixed it with some arthroscopic surgery, but I've read that frozen hip is very commonly misdiagnosed.

Last June my right shoulder started hurting. I went to the doctor today and once again have been diagnosed with frozen shoulder. It just switched arms so that no one felt left out.

Interestingly, the doctor today said if they took a sample from the damaged tissue in my shoulder (from adhesive capsulitis) and a sample from the damaged tissue in my hands (from the Dupuytren's) and sent them to a pathologist, the pathologist would say both samples were the same.

Today, on the car ride back from the doctor's office, I'm thinking, they don't need to cure type 1 diabetes. They need to cure the faulty immune system. Sometimes the immune system does more harm than good. And maybe all the diseases that are seen more often in people with type 1 diabetes are not really caused by diabetes at all, but are all caused by an over active immune system.

How many diseases are caused by the immune system? Some are caused by the immune system not properly killing off foreign cells.Others are caused by the immune system damaging healthy cells. I suppose it's probably quite difficult to fix a faulty immune system.

Submissive Women are Intimidating

It's all about expectations.

Today in my daily trudge through the quagmire of Facebook drivel, I ran upon a headline that made me go, "What?"

It makes me feel dirty posting a link to it because I know that people may actually click on the link and give this lunatic some kind of boner that he's getting extra attention, but I can't really give this post much justice unless I give you a link to the insanity. Here it is (*shudder*): "Here Are 7 Reasons Why Submissive Wives Are The Happiest People On The Planet".

Normally, I'd look at this stuff and think, "That's kind of funny." But, the more I read, the more I thought, "This guy is serious". Slowly my reading of the article made me nauseous. Even more nauseous that someone I assumed was intelligent propagated the BS on Facebook. Of course, I guess a lot of times, depending on your friend's list, Facebook is, at it's best, a great propagator of BS. I mean that's probably where you read the first part of this.

First things first: even if they are happy, what evidence is there that they are the happiest? I was not interviewed. It's possible a submissive Gar is the happiest person on earth. But, I'm not very submissive. Then, "7 Reasons Why Gar Is The Happiest Person On The Planet"? No one would read that, would they? Only I would read that and even then I'd just be reaffirming what I already know: that I use too many commas.

Probably the best thing about this particular "top 7 list" is that it was written by some dude (at least I assume Brian's a dude), with quotes from other men, who seem to have come to the conclusion that their submissive wives are the happiest people on the planet. You almost get whiplash from the egotistical fallout. I mean, my wife is the happiest person on the planet (besides me), but only when I tell her she can be.

If you are really a glutton for punishment (as I appear to be), you'll read all the way to the comments. Apparently, a bunch of backwoods, redneck jerks frequent the downtrend.com website. They aren't all bad, but the ones who are bad are really bad. Like little brainless lemmings in search of the truth behind Bumbling Brian. My favorite lemming quote, "I fully agree with this. Me and my girl get along great." The term "my girl" makes my skin crawl. Reminds me of that stupid ass song (which I also hate strongly dislike). Not to mention the blatant trouncing of the English language, "Me and my girl found the lord in that there church over there."

She's my girl. Cuz she's a non-bitter, pro-life Christian who does what I tell her to. Yeah. She better be happy or else.

Punks.

Michael Irvin No Longer Follows the Cowboys :(

American Football has started again and it's time for more Cowboys bashing!

The first game of the season I sat with a couple of diehard Cowboys fans who hated Tony Romo!

I sat with them completely by accident. Really.

Today, I read an article about how you can get people to read your barely readable articles by coming up with a good title. I'm working on it.

Last night started the 2nd official week of the NFL with the Patriots beating the Jets 13 to 10.

But, this article, led me to blog.

It's a story about how Michael Irvin got upset with Tom Brady (QB for the Patriots) for being frustrated with his receivers.

It convinced me that either Michael doesn't watch the Cowboys anymore or maybe he watches them too much and then takes his anger against Romo out on quarterbacks (who have actually won playoff games) like Tom Brady.

Tony Romo is a big whiny baby. Every time he throws an interception it's someone else's fault. And "I get sick and tired of seeing him (being visibly frustrated) when someone runs the wrong route and, for reasons unknown, he throws it to the opposing team."

I'm convinced that when a Cowboys receiver runs the "wrong route" Tony purposefully throws it to the defense. Then, when the defense catches it, Tony walks off the field pissed off at all his receivers.

Tony is stupid. Tony has no business playing in the NFL.

Some folks will also blame it on the offensive line. I ask those people if they've every played a sporting event with someone who made them play better? I, for example, have bowled on several different bowling teams. There are certain people who make me play better. They are leaders. They lift people up with their positive attitude and knowledge of the sport.

If Tony was one of these people, his offensive line would be better. Hell, his receivers would probably run the routes he expects them to run. Tony is not one of these people. There is a very good reason that no GM, in their right minds, drafted him originally. GM's want to win playoff games. Jerry is not a good GM. He's a good businessman. He realized that those cute little dimples would get millions of women to watch the Cowboys every week regardless of their chances of winning a playoff game. Millions of viewers equals millions of dollars.

This year Romo is making about 18 million dollars. Jerry is hoping Tony will be healthy enough to watch the playoffs.

My Accounting Wife and Pi

Yesterday, my wife of less than a month surprised me with an email regarding my earnings. In a bold font with lots of exclamation points she demanded:

• My most recent pay check stub
• The amount of interest I had paid on my most recent house
• The amount of property taxes I had paid on my most recent house
• The number of exemptions I am claiming
• Whether or not I can claim a loss on the sale of my most recent house
• Any medical expenses not paid by FSA
• And finally any other deductions I can make

I was horrified, but I sent the information like a good little boy. She is an accountant after all and maybe she finds this kind of thing fun. I mean, I work on computers and sometimes, for reasons which are mysterious to me, I enjoy trying to bring broken PC's back to life.

Then, when she got home from work, it was right to business. Open up the laptop and start cranking out numbers. We're going to owe this much. We're paying more now that we're married than we did when we are single. What happens if we claim this person? What happens if we buy a house? Do we need to change our exemptions? You are over paying. I am underpaying. It went on for hours.

Thirty minutes into it, I decided to watch Pi.

This was not a very good idea.When getting quizzed at random intervals about percentages and monetary amounts, you should not watch a move about a slightly deranged genius mathematician who tries to beat the stock market. Really.

It gave me nightmares. Well, let's call them disturbing dreams.

The first one involved a friend of mine from high school. He picked me up to take me on a road trip to some place I'd never heard of in Mexico. Several hours into the trip, he decided he didn't know where he was going and we had to stop at some little town in the middle of Mexico. They gave us a little room in the back of a hotel and invited us to the bar for tequila. Next morning I woke up and some muchacha is telling me that I won!

Seems that during our over indulgence of tequila, my buddy had bought some kind of lottery type ticket just before we passed out, but gave it to me because it was my birthday. Somehow I won $20,000. I gave him $10,000 of it since he bought the ticket so we decided to stay at the same place for another night, but invite another one of our high school friends to join us because we decided we were lost anyway.

The other friend showed up with his family in tow and that's when I woke up the first time.

Upon going back to sleep I dreamed that Texas had seceded from the Union because they didn't want to pay some ludicrous taxes implemented by the Obama administration. I was very irritated with the seceding. I was not a fan. I felt like I would be stuck in Texas forever. Then, we went to a Queensryche concert and it was funny because Geoff Tate (original singer for Queensryche) was irritated because he was going on a cruise out of Galveston and was having to get special permission from Texas President Perry to get back into the country.

Back to reality: apparently it's going to cost me about $2000 in additional taxes every year to stay married. I tried to tell her for $200 we could get divorced and just live together, but she wouldn't listen. No wonder my dreams are warped. It's the government's fault. Kind of makes you wonder why anyone (gay or otherwise) would want the government to recognize their union.

The British Jamaicans

While on my honeymoon in Jamaica we ran across a couple of British couples: two sisters and their husbands.

When we first met them, it was just the two sisters. Every time we saw them they were getting pissed (English for drunk). But, they were always having a good time and very talkative.

At some point they started trying to determine who I looked like. Well, not really at some point, because I seem to remember one of the sisters telling me I looked like James Bond (the Pierce Brosnan one) right after I said hello.

I don't see it, but it made her happy. Then again, she may have been pissed already. The first day we met them, their husbands were golfing and they were awfully flirty.

The next day, they were getting pissed with their husbands and they all had a go at who I looked like.

This time, the consensus was Paul Young. Except with their English accents to my Texas ears, it sounded like Pull Young. From that day forward every time they'd see me they'd say, "Hey Pull" and I'd be thinking they wanted me to go yank something for them. I'd be like, "Pull what?" Then they'd laugh and say, "No. Pull! Pull Young". And it would finally sink in that they were saying Paul, but without the Texas drawl.

One of the blokes finally did mention that I looked more like David Cassidy. Back when I had the long hair, I'd get the David Cassidy/Keith Partridge thing all the time. I think David Cassidy became uglier as he got older while I became better looking ;).