|
What Would You Do?
posted by GJ on June 1, 2007 @ 1:48PM
I'm starting up a new blog feature...it's called, What Would You Do? You don't need to put that in the title, per se, but include WWYD? as a tag. This one I'm presenting has to do with the recent news stories about the attorney who had a nasty case of TB and then flew around the world, possibly putting people at risk of infection in many locations. So, a little more background, to set our story. A new theory (for real, I'm not making this up) proposes that the Black Death of Europe in the Middle Ages was not caused by bubonic plague, as originally thought. Some towns kept very good records of who died and when--in one particular town, most of the land owners died in the winter from the Black Death. Bubonic plague, due to its vectors of transmission, is rather dormant during winter months. Instead, the study's authors suggest that some form of hemmoragic fever, like Ebola, was the culprit. Ebola, as you may know, is incredibly virulent disease and kills 90% of its victims. There are fears that Ebola or some variant of it will be the future pandemic that we'll likely eventually face worldwide sometime in the future. OK, that's the stage. Here's the situation: You are travelling on business overseas. As part of a work social activity, you and your local coworkers visit a local zoo. You all have a great time. Three days later, you cancel your day's activities due to a nasty fever and general malaise. By the next day, your fever is still raging and you're now bleeding from the rectum. You look up your symptoms on the internet, and egads, you think you might have ebola. Of course, if you do, and you get diagnosed at the hospital, you won't be leaving that hospital and will likely die there. Scary thought. Of course, you might not have it, either. Let's face it--you're no doctor. But that night, you see on the local news that one of the monkeys in the zoo was diagnosed with Ebola, and people were reporting into local hospitals, fearing the worst with headache symptoms and other various ailments. No health alert has been issued yet...but it all but confirms your self-diagnosis. The information you found on the web indicates that it tends to sit in the body for 3-21 days, and you are not contagious during this initial window. You have family back home--and you are certain that medical care back home will be superior to what you might get in this particular country. You ache to at least say goodbye to your loved ones, and if you have to die, you want to do it on your own terms. What do you do? Fly home, and seek treatment there after checking in with your loved ones? Or check in to the nearest hospital, hoping that all hope is not lost and they can treat you successfully? Why do you do what you do?
| Tags: philosophy, WWYD?
|
