A typology of shitness

All things considered, radioactive iodine treatment is “getting off easy.” It lacks the existential fatigue and sunburn from within that sets in with external beam radiation. It lacks the utterly disjunctive  transformation and bizarro pain from unexpected places that comes with surgery, and it lacks the body-falling-apart poison experience of chemo (I’ve only heard about …

Vegetarian Low Iodine Diet: Weeks 2 and 3

So much for food blogging.  I was spending too much time cooking.  And for the last week I have felt pretty crappy. Today was my first “good day” in just about a week. Tomorrow I expect to be released from the low iodine diet after my 8:30am scan.  It hasn’t been that bad this time. …

New Text (a lot of it): Temperature and Media Studies

I’m happy to announce a new special section of the International Journal of Communication, co-edited by Dylan Mulvin and me.  The section was Dylan’s idea — part pun, part taking a metaphor seriously. Read it here. The International Journal of Communication Publishes a new Special Section on Temperature and Media Studies The 21st century will …

Day 2: Fun and Games With Microsieverts

So we’re getting close to 48 hours of radioactivity here at chez Berri.Yesterday I was up and down and today feels more of the same. I’m pretty tired (though I may in fact, just be tired) and so have slept a fair amount. I get headaches from time to time. My mouth and eyes are dry. …

“With over a hundred millicuries, there’s no fun and games”

The tech had just invited a resident to watch me taking my dose of radioactive iodine. I remarked that I was eager to photograph the pill. That wasn’t allowed–once the pill was out, it was going into me. No fun and games. We walked into a small room with a list of regulations on the …

I’m sorry, but this is another post that connects our cats and my research interests

So it turns out that Tako is blind. We knew something wasn’t right, as sometimes she wouldn’t respond to toys waved in front of her nose, and she would come tearing around the corner in the bedroom and run right into the legs of one of the dressers with the cutest little [thump] sound. Since …