The Ballad of Jose O'Flannigan

Until recently, I was afflicted by a fungus that was not ring worm. Beyond not being ring worm, this fungus was resistant to Lamisil. Also, it was named Jose O'Flannigan. I posted a picture of him above (yes, he's a sword and flag waving pirate fungus). We'd had an encounter last spring, but I was able to repel him with Lamisil. Then he came back this fall. My personal theory is that he hid in a sweater that didn't make it into the washer before I put it back in my closet. That was unfortunate. I let the fungus progress, because I thought I could beat it back with Lamisil again, and why would I go to the doctor unless I was really sick.

Fast forward to January. People at the climbing gym started noticing my fungus, and they started touching it. It was time to fix it. So I went to the student clinic with my fungus, where I was scraped and prodded, and given a vague "Well, that's not ringworm, go get this anti-fungal medicine" diagnosis. If I had gone in a few months ago, when I had health insurance, this wouldn't have been such a big deal. However, I am one of the uninsured masses, so I paid $53 for my generic Loprox cream and steroid. It would have been tragic if it hadn't worked. Here is the progression of my fungus over the past two weeks.

Day 1

By Day 5 if had progressed to this, much better.

And Two weeks later I have a fairly normal looking arm. (I was going to do a real progression analysis, but I lost my pictures) There's still some redness, but its smooth and un-itchy.

Now some fun facts about skin fungi from the National Institutes of Health:

• Fungi are primitive vegetables. (I find this a little suspect. Last time I took an evolutionary survey of plants, it seemed the relationship between plants and fungi was still unclear).
  • Fungi lack chlorophyll (thus the tenuous relationship), so they must absorb their nutrients through dead organic matter (go to the rain forest and see decomposer-fungi at work immediately!)
• Molds, yeasts and mushrooms are types of fungi. Mushrooms are a particularly delicious type of fungi. They can live in the air, soil, on plants and in water. THEY'RE EVERYWHERE!!!
• Fungi can be difficult to kill (I can verify this)
• There has been a significant increase in fungal infections in the last 30 years, due to both increased awareness and increased use of medications that suppress the immune system
• Fungi reproduce through spores (like aliens in some movies), which are tiny, and airborne.
• Skin fungi are usually of the Tinea genus, I have decided that's what I had. It can be contracted through skin to skin contact, contact with an infected animal or soil. It could have been an infected animal, as I did once work at a zoo.
• My dad and sister are allergic to the fungus that produces penicillin. It kind of sucks for them.

Now, go forth and disseminate the word about fungus!

My Tickled Fancy

So, fun fact, I'm not sure how to spell ticklish (that's how spellcheck said to spell it, I don't like it). Anyways, while looking through my phone for pics I found a couple of things that had made me giggle over the past few weeks, and I'm sharing them with you now. Enjoy.

I'm signed up for Google to alert me whenever something is posted on the Migratory Bird Refuge and other Bear River things. Today I was shocked to discover that BRMBR is a sign of prostate cancer (at least that what I would have thought if I had not clicked on this).

This just proves my point, fake mashed potatoes are bad for you. They're never "Best If Used By" they can only be "Better." Lame.

So, this is a double yoked egg! Imagine if it had gestated instead of been fried up for a sandwich. Can twins be born in one egg? Would they be able to fit?

So this stamp is probably supposed to be of a parade float. I thought it looked Gingerbread-Zilla!

Picture 1 of the Coolest Toilet ever. Pull up to flush urine, push down to flush a deuce. And its green because the handle has some anti-bacterial something on it.

Picture 2: the diagram. Fun fact, these pictures were from the Georgia Center in Athens, but I also found these toilets in the Smith's in Logan. Awesome.

Also from Athens, locked up condoms and pregnancy tests. I figure its probably because they don't want them to be stolen, but at first glance it seemed like a ridiculous way to dissuade people from having safe sex, and then from knowing exactly whether they're pregnant until it becomes obvious.

I really appreciate when things are labeled like this. I hate looking over the label for sneaky things like bullion and fish sauce (they really seem to hide in labels).

I thought about buying the dressing, I was having a bad day and buying comfort food at the grocery store. However, I couldn't tell exactly what type of dressing it was, and I didn't think it would go well with my Dollar Pizza and edemame.

This really tickled me the other day. Someone built this snowman up on campus. It's a little morbid, but mostly awesome.

This actually did not tickle me at all. I left my truck in the church parking lot overnight and they plowed me in! I had to go back and get my shovel and dig Gus out because his 4-wheel drive isn't working and I was surrounded by cars, so fish tailing would have been very bad. I was pretty seriously irritated. Look at how closely they plowed me in! It was deliberate! The plow man was trying to ruin my day!

Shortly after that I went down the old court house in Logan for a water users meeting and found this delightful sign in the ladies room.

One more to add to the list of silly books I walk by in the library. I don't much like catfish, I imagine their culture is lame (I, of course, am speaking of culture like the think people try to acquire or the thing about human civilizations you can study; this book is probably about farming catfish).

A nice follow up to the Jose O'Flannigan post. Out earth is moldy (or mouldy).

I want to feel bad, because I blogged instead of working on school stuff, but it's been a long week for me, I'm exhausted. I can't believe its only Wednesday.