Ken Kurtis
Contributor
Want to travel??? Upcoming 2019 vacation trips:
• Easter Island - January 5-13 (CONFIRMED - 6 PEOPLE SO FAR - GROUP LIMITED TO 10)
• Yap Immersion - March 11-24 (5 CONFIRMED ALREADY - who wants to see some mantas???)
• Bonaire - Mid-May (exact dates TBA)
• Indonesia - July 6-19 (Murex in Manado - TENTATIVE DATES)
• Whale Shark congregation at Isla Mujeres - August
• Maldives - October 12-25 (CONFIRMED - NOW TAKING DEPOSITS - ONLY 2 SPOTS LEFT)
• Sea of Cortez (Cabo Pulmo) - December 5-10 (SOLD OUT!!!)
GET MORE INFO ON ALL OF OUR VACATION TRIPS HERE: Foreign Trips
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Upcoming local dives & classes:
• Thu., Dec. 20 - CLASS - Fish ID (Reef Seekers Westwood - $25)
• Thu., Jan. 17 - Redondo - Squid Dive (FREE!!)
• Wed., Jan. 23 - CLASS - Photo Workshop ($25)
• Sat., Jan. 26 - Avalon Underwater Park ($150 - three dives) Catalina Express
To sign up for any of these dives, either call us at 310/652-4990 or e-mail us at kenkurtis@aol.com
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Well, I thought it was the flu . . .
THE BACK-STORY - I'm telling you this not to garner sympathy (although I'll take all the sympathy I can get) but because I think there are some diving lessons to be learned here, especially this time of the season when you should be more alert to the possibility of cold and flu. As I mentioned last week, I really thought what I initially had was simply a bad cold that was really lodged in my sinuses and had a cough to boot. My main concern was being healthy enough last Tuesday to shoot the commercial I had been booked for. (And that went off without a hitch.) Because the shoot was outside all day, I expected to be tired on Wednesday but I woke up even more tired than I had anticipated. Once I finally got up, I had breakfast and read my newspaper but I was still a bit tired so I laid down on the couch for a short nap. Two-and-a-half hours later, I woke up. That's when I said, "Maybe I should go to the doctor."
THE SYMPTOMS - I'll be the first to admit that it takes a lot for me to go to the doctor. And mainly, because we've got the Easter Island trip coming up in four weeks, I wanted to make sure this heavy cold wasn't something more serious. So I wrote down the chronology of my symptoms and headed off to see my doc. The cough was somewhat productive but I could never really seem to fully clear out my lungs. The nose-blowing was also productive but I could never seem to full clear my sinuses. The weird thing - and what prompted me to make sure it wasn't some worse - was that I had a fairly low fever (just over 100º) but also a slight loss of appetite and some slight nausea. The doc gave me the once-over (amazingly, she said my lungs were fairly clear, even though I was coughing up some phlegm), asked some other questions, pushed in on my sinuses to check for any sinus pain, said she thought I felt a little clammy, and then ordered a chest x-ray. After looking at that, she came to a diagnosis, which was . . .
WALKING PNEUMONIA - It's also known as "atypical pneumonia" and gets the "walking" designation because it's a mild form and you can seem healthy enough that you're still walking around doing your normal routines, thinking it's just a really bad cold. It's not to be taken lightly but it's also not as serious as the name implies. But it's a bacterial infection and can certainly morph into something worse. The chest x-rays (back and side views) were what cinched the diagnosis because she said she could see some haziness in the lower part of one of my lungs. So they gave me three shots (no lollipop though, and I was a really brave boy!!!) plus put me on Prednisone, Vibramycin, and Phenegran w/Coedine. And I'm now four days into this regimen and am pretty much back to certainly 95% if not 100%. By the same token, one doesn't want to push too quickly and relapse.
HOW THIS IS DIVE-RELATED - The biggest issue here, more than than just with a cold, would be congestion in the lungs. The simple version is you want to make sure that any air that goes into your lungs can get out. Otherwise, if air gets trapped in the alveoli during a dive, you could inadvertently suffer an embolism, since the congestion in the lungs might be preventing the air from escaping, and the air will simply grow in volume and might eventually burst through. Obviously, this is something that can happen ANY time you've got congestion in the lungs but, in my specific case here, since we know there's heavier lung congestion that just with a "normal" cold, I'm playing it safe. So in addition to recovering from the illness, I'll give it another week or so to make sure my lungs and everything else are fully back to normal before resuming diving. Better safe than sorry.
NO SQUID DIVE THIS WEEK - Because of my abundance of caution, I'm canceling the Squid Dive this week. And what that actually means is only that I personally won't be going. If any of you are interested in doing it (I've already had one call about it), I'm happy to set up whoever is interested and you can do it on your own. I simply won't be able to join you this week.
GEEK-RELATED, NOT DIVE-RELATED - Just thought I'd mention that there was to be a nighttime rocket launch from Vandenburg on Saturday but it got scrubbed and has been re-scheduled for Monday evening at 8:15PM. If there's not much cloud cover, the launch should be visible from most parts of Los Angeles.
WORST PART OF THIS ILLNESS - Because I've had the word "pneumonia" on my brain all week, I've now got a Johnny Rivers ear-worm. Fortunately, I like the song:
.
And that'll do it for now. Have a great week and let's go diving soon (once I'm fully recovered)!!!
- Ken
• Easter Island - January 5-13 (CONFIRMED - 6 PEOPLE SO FAR - GROUP LIMITED TO 10)
• Yap Immersion - March 11-24 (5 CONFIRMED ALREADY - who wants to see some mantas???)
• Bonaire - Mid-May (exact dates TBA)
• Indonesia - July 6-19 (Murex in Manado - TENTATIVE DATES)
• Whale Shark congregation at Isla Mujeres - August
• Maldives - October 12-25 (CONFIRMED - NOW TAKING DEPOSITS - ONLY 2 SPOTS LEFT)
• Sea of Cortez (Cabo Pulmo) - December 5-10 (SOLD OUT!!!)
GET MORE INFO ON ALL OF OUR VACATION TRIPS HERE: Foreign Trips
————————————————————————
Upcoming local dives & classes:
• Thu., Dec. 20 - CLASS - Fish ID (Reef Seekers Westwood - $25)
• Thu., Jan. 17 - Redondo - Squid Dive (FREE!!)
• Wed., Jan. 23 - CLASS - Photo Workshop ($25)
• Sat., Jan. 26 - Avalon Underwater Park ($150 - three dives) Catalina Express
To sign up for any of these dives, either call us at 310/652-4990 or e-mail us at kenkurtis@aol.com
———————————————————————
Well, I thought it was the flu . . .
THE BACK-STORY - I'm telling you this not to garner sympathy (although I'll take all the sympathy I can get) but because I think there are some diving lessons to be learned here, especially this time of the season when you should be more alert to the possibility of cold and flu. As I mentioned last week, I really thought what I initially had was simply a bad cold that was really lodged in my sinuses and had a cough to boot. My main concern was being healthy enough last Tuesday to shoot the commercial I had been booked for. (And that went off without a hitch.) Because the shoot was outside all day, I expected to be tired on Wednesday but I woke up even more tired than I had anticipated. Once I finally got up, I had breakfast and read my newspaper but I was still a bit tired so I laid down on the couch for a short nap. Two-and-a-half hours later, I woke up. That's when I said, "Maybe I should go to the doctor."
THE SYMPTOMS - I'll be the first to admit that it takes a lot for me to go to the doctor. And mainly, because we've got the Easter Island trip coming up in four weeks, I wanted to make sure this heavy cold wasn't something more serious. So I wrote down the chronology of my symptoms and headed off to see my doc. The cough was somewhat productive but I could never really seem to fully clear out my lungs. The nose-blowing was also productive but I could never seem to full clear my sinuses. The weird thing - and what prompted me to make sure it wasn't some worse - was that I had a fairly low fever (just over 100º) but also a slight loss of appetite and some slight nausea. The doc gave me the once-over (amazingly, she said my lungs were fairly clear, even though I was coughing up some phlegm), asked some other questions, pushed in on my sinuses to check for any sinus pain, said she thought I felt a little clammy, and then ordered a chest x-ray. After looking at that, she came to a diagnosis, which was . . .
WALKING PNEUMONIA - It's also known as "atypical pneumonia" and gets the "walking" designation because it's a mild form and you can seem healthy enough that you're still walking around doing your normal routines, thinking it's just a really bad cold. It's not to be taken lightly but it's also not as serious as the name implies. But it's a bacterial infection and can certainly morph into something worse. The chest x-rays (back and side views) were what cinched the diagnosis because she said she could see some haziness in the lower part of one of my lungs. So they gave me three shots (no lollipop though, and I was a really brave boy!!!) plus put me on Prednisone, Vibramycin, and Phenegran w/Coedine. And I'm now four days into this regimen and am pretty much back to certainly 95% if not 100%. By the same token, one doesn't want to push too quickly and relapse.
HOW THIS IS DIVE-RELATED - The biggest issue here, more than than just with a cold, would be congestion in the lungs. The simple version is you want to make sure that any air that goes into your lungs can get out. Otherwise, if air gets trapped in the alveoli during a dive, you could inadvertently suffer an embolism, since the congestion in the lungs might be preventing the air from escaping, and the air will simply grow in volume and might eventually burst through. Obviously, this is something that can happen ANY time you've got congestion in the lungs but, in my specific case here, since we know there's heavier lung congestion that just with a "normal" cold, I'm playing it safe. So in addition to recovering from the illness, I'll give it another week or so to make sure my lungs and everything else are fully back to normal before resuming diving. Better safe than sorry.
NO SQUID DIVE THIS WEEK - Because of my abundance of caution, I'm canceling the Squid Dive this week. And what that actually means is only that I personally won't be going. If any of you are interested in doing it (I've already had one call about it), I'm happy to set up whoever is interested and you can do it on your own. I simply won't be able to join you this week.
GEEK-RELATED, NOT DIVE-RELATED - Just thought I'd mention that there was to be a nighttime rocket launch from Vandenburg on Saturday but it got scrubbed and has been re-scheduled for Monday evening at 8:15PM. If there's not much cloud cover, the launch should be visible from most parts of Los Angeles.
WORST PART OF THIS ILLNESS - Because I've had the word "pneumonia" on my brain all week, I've now got a Johnny Rivers ear-worm. Fortunately, I like the song:
.
And that'll do it for now. Have a great week and let's go diving soon (once I'm fully recovered)!!!
- Ken
