28
February

A Concept of Genetics

A guy at the thing at Anthony’s last night was talking about how homosexuality isn’t genetic because it would be impossible to pass it down from person to person. I am a living example of how genes can be carried through generations and have to wait for the proper meshing with other genes of likeness to bring forth a certain trait…or many traits. To assume that a person is exactly like their parents assumes cloning is real. To assume that we are parts of our parents is to assume more correctly. In my case, neither of my parents have red hair. They have brown hair. That does not mean that they are not my parents. So two heterosexual people could in fact pass along a gene for homosexuality.

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28
February

Join the Cause

Being that it is 5:22 AM and I am awake and alert, I decided to create a Facebook cause (yeah, I know that’s not really boycotting them, but so what) called “Support Autoimmune Research”. It can be found here. It supports AARDA, which supports research for autoimmune disorders, which include:

Alopecia Areata
Anklosing Spondylitis
Antiphospholipid Syndrome
Autoimmune Addison’s Disease
Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia
Autoimmune Hepatitis
Autoimmune Inner Ear Disease
Autoimmune Lymphoproliferative Syndrome (ALPS)
Autoimmune Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ATP)
Behcet’s Disease
Bullous Pemphigoid
Cardiomyopathy
Celiac Sprue-Dermatitis
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Immune Deficiency Syndrome (CFIDS)
Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy
Cicatricial Pemphigoid
Cold Agglutinin Disease
CREST Syndrome
Crohn’s Disease
Dego’s Disease
Dermatomyositis
Dermatomyositis – Juvenile
Discoid Lupus
Essential Mixed Cryoglobulinemia
Fibromyalgia – Fibromyositis
Grave’s Disease
Guillain-Barre
Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis
Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis
Idiopathic Thrombocytopenia Purpura (ITP)
IgA Nephropathy
Insulin Dependent Diabetes (Type I)
Juvenile Arthritis
Lupus
Meniere’s Disease
Mixed connective Tissue Disease
Multiple Sclerosis
Myasthenia Gravis
Pemphigus Vulgaris
Pernicious Anemia
Polyarteritis Nodosa
Polychondritis
Polyglancular Syndromes
Polymyalgia Rheumatica
Polymyositis and Dermatomyositis
Primary Agammaglobulinemia
Primary Biliary Cirrhosis
Psoriasis
Raynaud’s Phenomenon
Reiter’s Syndrome
Rheumatic Fever
Rheumatoid Arthritis
Sarcoidosis
Scleroderma
Sjogren’s Syndrome
Stiff-Man Syndrome
Takayasu Arteritis
Temporal Arteritis/Giant Cell Arteritis
Ulcerative Colitis
Uveitis
Vasculitis
Vitiligo
Wegener’s Granulomatosis

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27
February

Why I’m Worried

Though Sjogren’s now does not typically kill patients who have it, I still have this increasing fear that it will kill me like it did my grandmother. She was the first person in the state of Alabama diagnosed with it, and she died about 10 years after being diagnosed. It may not have been the disease that killed her outright, but she was killed by the treatment of the problem. She had probably had Sjogren’s since she was about my age, but didn’t know until she was 61. And since it was uncommon to be diagnosed with it at the time, the doctors didn’t know how to treat it. They experimented with different things on her to find the best way to treat it. I know that medicine has gotten better over the past 20-30 years, but I still know that it can be deadly…and that’s what has been worrying me.

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24
February

Keeps Gettin’ Better

My weekend was pretty good. My mom bought me new shoes–actual Birkenstocks. Then, Kate Winslet and Heath Ledger won for their categories at the Oscars. Then, it all went to crap on Monday morning.

As I was walking Xander, I took a step and my ankle turned. I sprained it pretty bad, and now have trouble walking on it. I had to miss my classes yesterday morning because I was in so much pain and couldn’t walk.

As if that wasn’t enough, I went in for my recheck on the rheumatologist visit about my fibromyalgia. He was happy to hear that I was doing so much better, but was sad to report that I have tested “mildly positive” for Lupus and Sjogren’s Syndrome, which means my body hates itself. Actually, it means that (with Lupus) my cells are being attacked by my body. For Sjogren’s, it means I won’t produce enough tears and saliva and will eventually, possibly, go blind. It can kill me, too. (I know a little more about it because my paternal grandmother had it.)

So, I’m a bit sad right now. I mean, there’s no definite yes on having either, but I don’t doubt that it’s possible for me to get them. And if I get them, then unless a cure comes along, I’m not in good shape…Lupus can go into remission, but Sjogren’s cannot.

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19
February

It Came

My laptop that was purchased with my financial aid refund money (for the person who was so delicate in their sweet and adoring comment, I get a financial aid refund, not a tax refund; said refund covers the things that I need during the school year) came on my birthday. It’s cool. The only issue I’ve got is that I can’t hook up the network at home for it yet. Apparently, it needs a flash drive and that hasn’t arrived yet.

I had a pretty good birthday. Lots of sweet people said happy birthday to me, online and off…so it wasn’t a repeat of the 16th birthday where EVERYONE forgot. That was nice.

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17
February

My birthday

The birthday of the Janet; when she enters a new quarter of a century time-period.

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16
February

Facebook’s New Thing

I have been reading several of the different sites that have talked about Facebook’s new doctrine that basically says that they own any content you upload to their site. That is absolutely ridiculous. I can understand that they might want to own anything that you create for their site (like the coding for Applications), but owning things like your pictures and notes? That’s crazy. And the way their new thing is worded, once it’s in their archives, it’s theirs.

Now, I’m not a scholar at legal issues, though I was pretty good at arguing for laws to be changed when I was in Social Work, but it seems like they shouldn’t be able to claim ownership of things that they have not done themselves. Is that why they have the whole “we don’t want anything that infringes upon copyright”, so that they can rip people off? Well, last time I checked, copyright belongs to the person who made a given thing. Since they changed their TOS, without having people agree to a new one, then they did not make a binding contract with the person who is using their service. You can’t just change a contract midstream without warning people and having them say, “Oh, I agree to that” or “Oh, I don’t agree to that”. I know I would not have agreed to it. I may upload like one picture of myself a month for their service, but I don’t think I’ll be using it for my YSA pictures anymore.

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