Took JD to the Vet’s

Ever wondered how JD’s doing, 9 years after Rockstar was born and ~14 years after we got her? Over the years she’s dropped out of Obedience School <snort>, then skipped Obedience and gone on to complete Advanced Agility (don’t ask me why this dog cannot get through Basic Obedience or even place in Basic Agility but made it to the top 3 in almost every Advanced Agility she competed in, including winning the Advanced Agility relay team event at the HK International Agility competition)…

That was ~10 years ago. She then survived a particularly virulent strain of tick fever (too commonly fatal in HK) shortly after Rockstar was born, did Show & Tell with him in his earlier schooling years, and well here she is today:     

Freaked Out Face of Old Dog

We brought the kids with, for the checkup. It’s quite a learning experience, from the expertly kind way staff hold her (I am actually requested not to hold her when she gets her shots, some with a very large needle), to the bloodwork and um…. math?

If I’m not wrong, this test is for heart worm (she had two tests, can’t remember which this was, what with Queen E doing things like, “Don’t worry, shissa nice dog!” “JD, its ok, be brave!” while staff are holding our Border Collie. (Heart worm is a severe and potentially fatal disease spread by mosquitos here – another time we lapsed on vaccinations they calculated the number of months and had us do a re-test then, because of the months when she was wide open… It’s not uncommon, dog lovers in HK can be seriously anal – we’ve been approached  by dog lovers when we are with the kids who say things like, “do you remember you have a dog?” (Uh, yeah) and when it’s raining, “How come the dog isn’t also sheltered with an umbrella?”(for the record, because JD is a huge water dog))

This Zurich Insurance ad comes to mind (pic from pinterest)

So anyway, one bar for the control, two for positive:

Looks like a pregnancy test, right? 😀

We have a discussion about why “positive” in this case really means the “opposite” – you want a negative result, i.e. no heart worm.

This also reminds me of the 15 year old boy who figured during a Biology class and brought to fruition a similar test for pancreatic cancer (I’ve written about this before) Jake Andraka for a World Without Cancer.

Dis is he.

The basis is, testing cost a lot. As a result, people tested much less frequently. Obviously, with so many cancers early detection is a key to survival. But if it’s prohibitively expensive, lots of people aren’t going to go “I Think I’ll Get A Pancreatic Cancer Test Today.”

What this then-15 year old did was to methodically identify the enzyme or hormone (for pregnancy tests it’s a hormone, right?) that identifies the cancer….. by patiently going through about 1000 different enzymes or hormones until he identified one that would work. Such a simple idea – it’s not controversial expensive stem cell research – he made a cancer test as simple and cost-effective as the proverbial peeing on a stick… and out of a Biology class.

Thought that was simple but weird?

These are Cancer Detectors in Training

For real, Cancer Detecting Sniffer Dogs have been around for awhile… though in this article these two were ready just 6 months ago. (The additional selling point besides the Case For Dogs with this one is, testing is unpleasant. Now you have a choice between a cold, hard clinical machine and a snuffly little dog.)

Because Real is often weirder than not. Keep it real and have a good post-holiday week dears…