Another Flu Casualty

My friend Sasha is dead at the age of 59 of flu untreated until too late. We got word at 3:00 pm that he had passed away at about 2:00. He had been in a coma for almost a week, on life support with little hope for recovery barring a miracle. We will try to reach his ex-wife this evening and send money from ourselves and other friends tomorrow to help with the funeral.

Sasha, Oksana, Al, Artur, June 2009

Remembering the Farm - Warm Day in November

Today was a beautiful warm sunny day of +15, so the hounds and I went for a long walk and this time my camera batteries were charged up. We went up to the mining pond again and this time Volk went with us. I guess Bobik told him he missed something last time.

Bobik and Volk at almost 2 years old

The pond, our destination, lovely in the low afternoon sun

Looking back at our house (2 storey) across the marsh/river

If this panorama view of Zhovty Vodi opens you can see the east edge of the city

This photo fits at the extreme right of the panorama and you can see the white line of another cemetery. Old communities have seen many people come and go over time.

Tanya and I went for groceries when we got back from our walk and bought meat for shashlik tomorrow, Roman and Lena and Andrei, Tanya and Masha will all come out for dinner about 2:00. I hope it is +15 again tomorrow when we are BBQing.

Long long ago on another November 7, when I was about 10 years old, Dad was breaking 15 ha (40 acres) of native prairie which he no longer needed for horse pasture. He had pushed some dead brush off the field into a sheltered area of poplars and willows around a slough which he wanted to burn. It was a warm day (like today) and he decided we should have a weiner roast. So he sent us boys home to get mom organized and out she came with all the fixin's for our impromptu picnic.

In Saskatchewan. On November 7. We had an outdoor picnic in light jackets. That was a record, at least for our family and we never forgot it.

Friday's Post

No change in Sasha's condition other than his temperature is high again. Means his body is still fighting back against the infection at least. His ex-wife is frantic, wanting an international specialist to come to Ukraine to help him. We could learn a lot about forgiveness from Ukrainian Ex-wives.

I found this picture on a site for funny t-shirts. There are some good ones and also links to science t-shirts (Chris).

Not much movement today. If I was any lazier I'd need a straw to suck my thumb. Got up at noon. Made a good lunch (it was my turn to cook), washed the dishes and went for a nap.

Last night I made apple crisp. One and a half times the apples and double the crisp. Spooned out a third of it into two dishes and took my dish upstairs (Tanya was on the phone). Came down in an hour to see if she liked the dessert. Another third was gone so I guess she did.

The Latest in the Flu Wars

Sasha is still in a coma, on life support. Three days now. His heart continues to work but the rest of his body has pretty much shut down. If I understood right, the ran his blood through a dialysis machine. His ex-wife shelled out 4500 UAH for his treatment yesterday in spite of Yulia Timoshenko's promise that all treatments would be free. Anyone who believed that...

According to MIGNews (again) there are two types of seasonal flu virus as well as A/H1N1 that they are dealing with. Death toll is up to 95 now, mostly the "usual suspects) and while Ukraine has an epidemic in terms of people becoming ill, mortality is well below epidemic levels.

Of course the politicians are loving every minute of it. Yulia Timoshenko had a huge rally in Independence Square a week or 10 days ago and since then the flu has swept Kyiv. Victor Yushchenko said " I told you guys in April to get your act together and you did nothing". Etc.

However there is more to this than we are being told officially. In an earlier blog I mentioned that they were referring to an unknown virus in Ivano-Frankivsk as "pneumonic plague".

PNEUMONIC PLAGUE has an acute course than other forms, over and is accompanied by a very high mortality rate. The incubation period of primary pneumonic plague rarely exceeds more than 1-4 days. It begins, as a rule, suddenly - with shivering, fever, headache, myalgia, weakness, nausea. The symptoms of pneumonia - cough with phlegm, chest pain, shortness of breath - usually appear on the second day of the disease. Blood spitting, growing respiratory disorders, heart failure, respiratory failure, shock are being observed. In primary pneumonic plague phlegm usually is watery or mucinous, foamy, with blood or visibly bloody.

A secondary pneumonic plague occurs as interstitial pneumonia. Phlegm is scanty and more dense and viscous than in primary pulmonary plague. It is believed that in this regard, patients are less contagious.

However if the government knows anything about it it is keeping a lid on it.

The Kyiv city state administration asked law enforcement authorities to prevent the spread of misinformation in the capital of Ukraine of leaflets about the situation with the epidemic of influenza. This is stated in the protocol instructions of city emergency anti-epidemic commission from the City Hall on November 4.

One reason for this treatment was the appearance in the city of leaflets allegedly on the letterheads of the General Directorate of Health and medical care of the Kyiv City State Administration that there are cases of pneumonic plague in the city. First Deputy Chairman of Kyiv City State Administration Irena Kilchytska informed. She stressed that the information on the identification of pneumonic plague in Kyiv does not correspond to reality.

There are more rumours going around which I will try to confirm in the next day or two. Tanya just read a news item that stated China had an outbreak of Pneumonic Plague in Qinhai in August 2009. This will get worse before it gets better.

Getting too close to home

BBC finally noticed we have a flu epidemic here in Ukraine. Their website reports:
255,000 cases of flu and acute respiratory problems have been registered among the 46m population. 15,000 have been hospitalised. The World Health Organisation says there is no evidence to suggest that Ukraine had a bad outbreak of swine flu, but it has agreed to send a team there to help the country cope.

Since not every person is tested and many cases are reported as "Acute respiratory disease" it is hard to say how many are A/H1N1, regular seasonal flu gotten out of hand or pneumonia. People are home treating until it is too late in many cases. As in the situation below reported by MIGNews:

Swine flu was confirmed in Pereyaslav-Khmelnytsky (Kyiv Oblast). In particular, the chief sanitary doctor of the Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky district Ivan Bryl said that the virology laboratory of the regional sanitary and epidemiological station gave a positive result for the virus H1N1.

"The sick man - a man at the age of 59 in very grave condition. He has been in hospital with medical ventilation apparatus from this Sunday. The man fell ill on October 19. He had fever up to 38 degrees but did not go to hospital. On 24 October, his temperature rose to 40 degrees. The patient asked medical care only on October 27, and on October 30 he was transferred to intensive care department ".

The doctor also said that relatives and friends of ill person are healthy. "We tested those who contacted the patient. His family, wife and mother are healthy. His friends and acquaintances are also healthy" - he said.

The doctor has no information, where a man could become infected with swine influenza. According to him, the patient is a native of Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky district, and has no recent contacts with the residents of Western Ukraine.

The report did not include that he was a heavy smoker and thus at extreme risk for exactly what happened.

This is our good friend Sasha, whom I have known for over 14 years. He is one of the best interpreters I ever worked with, who spoke fluent "cow" and was familiar with Canadian livestock production, having been several times to Canada, including Agribition back in the late 1990's. We got a phone call from another friend notifying us just before I found it on the web. He is "stabilized" according to latest reports from our friends in P-K.

All we can do now is pray and hope for the best.

Snow use complaining

It has snowed all day today. Tiny flakes drifting down. The white contrasts with the green leaves still on the apple trees and covers the remaining fall flowers. It is only for a few days and then temperatures will return to the mid-teens if the forecast is right. When that happens, Tanya says she will put her roses to bed for the winter by cutting the stems short and covering them with dirt. The climbing roses, she will wrap with plastic filled with leaves.

We jacked the heat to 4, in spite of news that gas prices will double in 2020 for homes using more than 2500 cu meters in 2009. We will have used about 3500 so we are now looking at about 1500 UAH ($200 CAD)/1000 cu meters instead of 750 UAH ($100 CAD). Still pretty cheap in my books as Europe is paying much more, I think.

According to MIGNews the there is no pandemic of A/H1N1 in Ukraine, though it has been identified in some cases including three deaths. It is just "seasonal flu and acute respiratory disease" which is very serious in Western Ukraine and has already resulted in the deaths of over 70 people.

Of course, I am not sure about MIGNews as it reads more like the National Enquirer and the journalisitic style may be one reason there are an increasing number of laws restricting "freedom" of the press. A good school of journalism would be in order for people who write such as this article or this one.

Tanya was talking to Masha today. Masha said she had a new game to teach her. One person is the cat and one is the dog and they have to chase each other around the house. Tanya asked "Your parents don't want to do this?" "No". "Tell them they are lazy". "Oh, Babushka, that would not be good at all to say they are lazy. Papa is sick (back) and Mama is sick (flu)".

Tanya pretended she was going to punch me today. I said "What have I done?" "If I knew, I would probably kill you".

And an uncontrollable urge to sleep in the mud

CLINICAL SIGNS OF A/H1N1 INFLUENZA (SWINE FLU) ARE: headache, muscle aches, sore throat, fever, cough, runny nose, nasal stuffiness, in some cases - vomit and diarrhea.

TV news said death toll is now 58 people. They are flying in a plane load of Tamiflu from Switzerland into Kyiv tonight.

Yesterday Lena and Roman stopped in for a visit. Lena looked and felt like death warmed over. I asked if she had the flu and Roman and I simultaneously went "oink oink". If looks could kill...

Always at the beginning of winter, I am cold until I get aclimatized. These past few days have been no exception. Along with a headache and generally bleah feeling. Blood pressure up and down like a toilet seat at a party. I slept all afternoon. Tanya brewed some strong black tea and that helped the blood pressure and headache. Never quit coffee cold turkey.