Arriving In The Virgin Islands

Above: Beautiful sunrise on my flight out of Bradley Hartford Airport.
Below: First view of islands as we descended into St. Thomas. IntrepidRetiredSocialWorker reports took a puddle jumper from San Juan, Puerto Rico to St. Thomas and reports she saw many beautiful tiny islands on her flight over.


First Stop: Red Hook Ferry Landing en route to St. John's. There were interesting signs about water taxis and also a very mellow Dachshund just hanging out with his owner who was volunteering at the information booth at the ferry landing.


Above: Three muskateers on the ferry ride to St. John's.
Below: First view of St. John's, ferry landing Cruz Bay.


Above: Our campground site. Yes, we were camping with no running water in our hut and no hot water whatsoever (I think I'm the only one who actually enjoyed the cold showers).
Below: My first view of the beach.

A Taste Of The Caribbean: St John's and St. Thomas

Above: Iguana at the hotel restaurant on St. Thomas. Below: Downtown Cruz Bay on St. John's-- note the tourist couple juxtaposed with the locals.


Above: Vodka on left, rum on the right (note several varieties and three different shades of Cruzan rum).
Below: IntrepidRetiredSocialWorker, me and my mom.



Above: Sign in a taxi. The islanders are very laid back, in marked contrast to the tourists. Below: Views of trunk bay and Coral bay on St. John's (at least as best I remember).

Round Two: I Advance!!!

My grades are up for Block 2: Cell Biology & Genetics and 7B: Veterinary Practice Ethics & Animal Care. I'm fairly pleased. My grades are well above passing for both classes-- which is all that really matters-- but their being fairly good also will help keep doors open for me down the road, which is important to me since I'm pretty sure I want to do a residency at some point.

Above is me with a squishably sweet, marshmellow mellow tiny little Pittie mix in the Caribbean. I got back on Saturday and will post photos soon!

Bizarre Sexually Transmitted Dog Cancer (And There Really Is A Disease Called Devils' Facial Tumor Disease)

My ears always perk up when my professors start saying really strange stuff. So when I heard Dr. Levine say, "Now if you are interested in X-files type fringe stuff..." I listened! He was referring to Canine Venereal Tumor (aka Transmissible Venereal Tumor, Sticker Tumor or Infectious Sarcoma). This strange cancer is spread by contact-- cells of the cancer are directly transferred from one dog to the next by touch! It is considered an STD-- I bet you didn't know that animals can get STDs as well as people-- although it can also be passed by one dog sniffing another's genitalia, in which case it infects the nasal cavity.
Another really weird thing about this cancer is that it can be traced back to a single animal, probably an Asian wolf, living about 200 years ago! There are several pieces of evidence for this-- all CVT tumors have very similar genetic make-up, but contain less chromosomes than a dog and have chromosomes of a different shape than dog chromosomes (their centromeres are positioned differently). Also, there is no viral component to this cancer. The analysis used to determine where this cancer originated involved a group of 16 dogs in three different countries-- Italy, India and Kenya-- as well as another 400 dogs from 85 different breeds, and was the published by Claudio Murgia in Cell in 2006.
The age of this cancer means it is one of the oldest cancers in the world. Interestingly, it was first identified over 100 years ago, in 1876, by a Russian veterinarian who showed that tumor cells from one dog could be used to infect another dog.
The cancer is found in many parts of the world, mainly in warm climates. It can be passed to other canids, including coyotes and foxes.
CVT is a histiocytic cancer, meaning its lineage is derived from the same lineage as macrophages. It forms cauliflower shaped tumors. Signs of genital infection include discharge and difficulty urinating due to blockage by the tumor; signs of nasal infection are also discharge, as well as nosebleed, oronasal fistulae and facial swelling.
Interestingly, CVT appears to have become less aggressive with time. It often regresses on its own after a period of several months, and rarely metastasizes. If it doesn't regress, the standard treatment is systemic chemotherapy (at Cornell: vincristine, 2 treatments past gross resolution of the disease) or radiation therapy.
The only other known transmissible cancer is a sad story. Devil's Facial Tumor Disease infects Tasmanian devils (an Australian marsupial) and is the main factor contributing to their being endangered as a species. You can read more about it in this New York Times article from Dec 31, summarizing the recent findings of a Science paper on the subject.

Bucolic Ithaca: The View Just Down The Road From Where I Live

Sometimes grey can be prettier than sunshine... I think the second photo down in this bunch is my favorite. I might make a print of it called, "Learning To Love The Grey."

These barns, bales and fields are just down the street from me (technically uphill). I've been having lots of fun taking photos of this beautiful scenery in lots of different weather and lighting. It makes for a nice study break and makes me feel grateful for the rustic beauty of Ithaca.

Color Creeps Back In: Images Of An Icy Winter Stream

These are images of a stream that I cross over every morning on my way to school. I noticed that the photos I was taking were no longer black, white and shades of grey, and this series, taken two days apart, was part of the impetus for the poem "Color Creeps Back In" that I wrote:

color creeps back in

gradually

shades of grey

begin to have hints of pastel pinks

and purples
the heart tingles
waking up from being asleep

The effect moods have on one's perception of the world is powerful. Medications can also have a marked effect. When writing the poem, I also had in mind this passage from Kay Redfield Jamison's 1995 memoir on living with bipolar illness, _An Unquiet Mind_:

After discussing it with my psychiatrist in Los Angeles and my doctor in London, I did, very slowly cut back on the amount of lithium I was taking. The effect was dramatic. It was as though I had taken bandages off my eyes after many years of partial blindness. A few days after lowering my dose, I was walking in Hyde Park, along the side of the Serpentine, when I realized that my steps were literally bouncier than they had been and that I was taking in sights and sounds that previously had been filtered through thick layers of gauze. The quacking of the ducks was more insistent, clearer and more intense; the bumps on the sidewalk were far more noticeable; I felt more energetic and alive.

I had been thinking of Jamison's analogy of 'sights and sounds that previously had been filtered through thick layers of gauze' when I wrote my line 'your body swathed in cast padding.' I wanted to evoke the same image of everything traveling through layers of cotton, and cast padding has an association with immobility for me, of being frozen, paralyzed. I also think cast padding is slightly more specific medical terminology than gauze, and I like that my immersion in the language of veterinary medicine seeps through into my poetry-- technical medical language is a part of me, my vocabulary-- I am steeped in it.

I was also thinking of a piece I had read by Ariel Gore in Ms. magazine in the '90s. She writes, in "Intimacy":

I'll wear white like the bright bone of my promise. I'll speak in whisper, wear blue and blend into the dawn. I'll walk tall, wear red so the blood won't show.

Something about the way she used color to emphasize her intent struck me, the way different colors are linked to and can signify different emotions. Writing poetry isn't always like that for me, but there are times when other, better, writers' words echo through my head when I am writing and I co-opt, revise and incorporate them into my own writing.

Cancer And Your Pets: How To Protect Them , Catch It Early If It Occurs And Making Sense Of Often Sensational News About Cancer

These are the recommendations we were given for preventing cancer in pets:

• Maintain ideal body weight and an exercise program (just like for humans!)
• Good dental hygiene-- it is possible to brush cats' or dogs' teeth (dental inflammation-- as well as FIV infection-- is a risk factor under investigation for oral tumors in cats)
  
• The single biggest way to prevent breast cancer in dogs is spaying before the first heat
• Keep pets with white fur out of the sun
• Eliminate exposure to second hand smoke
• Eliminate exposure to old-fashioned flea dips and herbicides
• Don't over-vaccinate cats for FeLV or rabies, follow current guidelines and use vaccines without adjuvants if possible

Guidelines we received for helping owners catch cancer early:

• Owner education and involvement: teach owners cancer warning signs (lumps/bumps, blood in urine, wounds that don't heal, persistent cough); teach owners how to do dermal mass mapping and have them map masses on their pets onto anatomical diagrams every month or on some kind of periodic schedule; show owners how to examine areas in their pet where cancer is prone to develop or might manifest itself early on and then have them do these exams frequently: mammary glands, oral cavity, interdigital spaces, lymph nodes, ear canal, anus and prepuce/vulva; lastly have owners closely observe bowel and urinary habits for any changes
• Screen geriatric dogs and cats (>8 years by most standards) by doing blood work and urinalysis as part of the office visit; also more frequent office visits for geriatric animals (twice a year instead of once a year)
• Frequent oral exams and dental cleaning (as mentioned above, oral tumors are relatively common in cats)
• Screening for cancer specific genetic abnormalities such as hyperparathyroidism in Keeshonds-- these kinds of tests will become more available soon

Although not widely practiced we also got the following screening guidelines:

• Small, older, female dogs: increased risk of getting bladder cancer. Abdominal ultrasound every 3-6 months; possibly feeding cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli since they contain the active ingredient isothiocyanate-- this is still under study.
• German Shepherds and Golden Retrievers: increased risk of hemangiosarcoma. Abdominal ultrasound every 3-6 months. Possible splenectomy (? more research needed)

And here's some things to keep in mind when reading about studies on cancer in the news and trying to assess risk factors:

• In most cases, risk factors do not cause the disease directly.
• Risk factors are best used to place individuals in high risk groups for monitoring.
• Recommendations for reduction of exposure to known risk factors can reduce the average cancer risk in populations of animals and is useful from a population health perspective.
• Risk factors do not predict an individual animal's level of risk (or person for that matter). Nor is decreasing risk factors highly protective for a single individual. Risk factors are really a tool for determining cause of disease, increasing whole population/herd health and screening high risk individuals to try to achieve early intervention.
  

Evaluating risk factors:

• Look for multiple, independent studies with the same result (don't jump to conclusions based on one study reported in the media!)
• There is a plausible biological explanation for how the risk factors affect disease (lately there have been a lot of studies on humans reporting that drinking coffee reduces prostate and other types of cancer but I have yet to hear a good biological explanation for this so it could be no one knows the mechanism or it could be a coincidental correlation that is meaningless)
  

Thanks Dr. Rod Page and Dr. Barbour Warren for your lecture on cancer risk factors!