knowledge is power Archives - Owl Medicine: Shamanic Healing

Rays of Hope – Photo: L. Weikel

Monoclonal Antibodies

This isn’t a post title I ever expected to write. But I’m writing it because I’m convinced that treatment with monoclonal antibodies is a therapeutic intervention that needs to be discussed here, there, and everywhere. We need to be talking about it so that when or if you or a loved one becomes infected with Covid-19, you know enough to: request this treatment.

I knew I’d heard the term and recognized monoclonal antibodies were somehow related to or a part of the treatment received by DT when he was stricken with the virus last year. But I assumed (wrongly) that this was probably wildly expensive treatment that in all probability would only be available to the privileged among us.

(Yes, Virginia, sad to say we live in a profoundly segregated country, with many layers of ‘haves’ and ‘have nots.’ And money – or the lack of it – plays a huge part in the quality of healthcare any of us receive.)

Money’s No Object

And that’s the first amazing aspect of this treatment that needs to be shouted from the rooftops. In this instance, with respect to this particular treatment, money’s no object – at least with respect to the people who fit within a very broad range of parameters. Indeed, one qualification is simply being over age 65. But there are a wide variety of conditions that also qualify a person to receive the treatment for free, even if they’re under age 65.

Even greater is the efficacy rate. Holy cow! An article published within the past couple of days in the New York Times reports on new data that reveals an astounding improvement in patient response when given this treatment within the first ten days of symptoms onset. We’re talking a 70% reduction in the need for hospitalization.

More Information

I had no idea that this therapeutic infusion treatment is so readily available to people before watching Rachel Maddow’s program tonight. I can’t provide a link to the segment now because it’s not yet on the website, but you might want to check it out tomorrow.

If you’re content to read articles, though, check out the links in this post. One (this one) details a program in El Centro, CA, where their healthcare system was on the verge of collapse in December due to so many Covid-19 patients. According to the report this evening on Maddow’s show, administration of monoclonal antibody therapy resulted in only 3% of 1250 symptomatic Covid-19 patients requiring hospitalization after receiving this treatment. That was a game changer for this community.

The trick is knowledge. Knowing it’s available. Knowing enough to ask for it.

Know What’s Out There

The main focus in this country presently is to get everyone vaccinated. We know that not everyone will choose to go that route. We also know that even though great strides are being made in getting ‘shots in arms,’ something like 50,000 people a day are still becoming infected.

I personally know of someone who lives nearby who contracted the virus three days after receiving his second vaccination. He was, luckily for him, immediate treated with monoclonal antibody therapy upon diagnosis and has pulled through remarkably well and quickly.

Knowledge is power. If you or someone you love is unlucky enough to come down with Covid-19, get on top of it. Have the information about this remarkably effective treatment at the ready so you can ask for it. And take heart – it should be free, or close to it. Depending upon your insurance coverage, there may be some charge for actually administering the infusion. But no matter what, it’s better than hospitalization. And it’s a damn sight better than a ventilator – or death.

(T-246)

A Bit Surreal

There was something about today that just doesn’t seem quite…right. I’m finding it a little difficult to articulate just what it is, but it’s real. Watching it all unfold, in real time, like a slow motion train wreck, however, is a bit surreal.

Everything about today, in one way or another, felt like it was being experienced by me, but from afar – sort of from an observer’s perspective. The conversations I had, the people I encountered, the weather, the interviews on tv – the videotape of statements made by DT – the headlines. I feel like I’m watching it all play out before me in some grotesque nightmare. But surely, I tell myself, it has to be something from which I’ll awaken.

It doesn’t seem possible that I’m seeing what I’m seeing and hearing what I’m hearing.

It doesn’t seem possible that we are actively being lied to about something as serious as a pandemic. By our own president. By our own vice president. It feels like a surreal horror show to be watching officials from governmental agencies staffed by the highest caliber scientists in the world stand behind a man who makes it all about him, whose only concern is ‘the numbers’ associated with how many people in our country are infected with the coronavirus – as if it is a game show. As if real people are not losing their lives every day as a result of his egotistical need to massage ‘the numbers.’

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

A Crisis Worse Than the Virus

Far worse than any virus is the crisis of VERACITY we’re witnessing. We’ve been groomed for this for at least three years, fooling ourselves that truth didn’t matter. Allowing the blatant lies to stand. Laughing it off in that screwed up, ‘boys will be boys’ attitude that dismisses and permits an astonishing amount of bad behavior in our society in all sorts of situations.

Remember the lies about inauguration crowd size? Well, that didn’t actually matter, did it? I mean, it was – what? A lie that everybody could see was a lie but, since it was The Donald, and – ho ho ho – he’s such an exaggerator – we could let him have that little white lie. Meh; soothe that ego. What could it hurt?

What it hurt is coming home to roost now. And we can be sure it is directly resulting in scores and scores of people – our most vulnerable fellow Americans, our elderly, our already sick and compromised – suffering from unnecessary profound illness and even dying.

How? By inuring us to the lies about things that we can see unfolding before our very eyes. By telling us that we cannot trust facts and figures from scientists or independent journalists who’ve spoken directly to hospital personnel and know the truth of how many are being tested. No – we’re supposed to trust someone who doesn’t want to allow 3,500 people essentially trapped on a cruise ship off our shoreline because allowing them to disembark and receive treatment on land will ‘hurt his numbers.’

The Big Lie About Tests

Do we fully comprehend the insidious nature of the lies we’re being told about the lack of available testing kits? We had months to prepare for this crisis. We had months to have reliable tests at the ready for when the virus inevitably arrived on our shores.

But did we have our act together? No.

We were told to disbelieve the experts. The virus’s arrival wasn’t inevitable. Not according to the best hunch of you-know-who.

And are we being told the truth now about the impact of this lack of tests? No.

Why Does This Matter?

This matters because it fosters a head-in-the-sand approach to this entire mess. The lack of tests perpetuates an illusion that only a few people are infected. This denial of reality, coupled with the fact that many people who are infected actually do not suffer serious symptoms, is what is creating the crisis and making it exponentially worse.

How? The ‘leaders’ of our country are actually encouraging people to continue going to work and to go about their daily lives in a ‘nothing to see here’ attempt to stave off the trauma to our economy that consumers staying home will create. And if people who are carrying the virus but are not showing symptoms borrow your pen at work, touch the ATM machine, handle your produce, offer you change, touch door handles, faucet handles, coffee cups – you get the picture – then anyone who is vulnerable because of age, underlying conditions, breathing difficulties, exhaustion, or any other condition that weakens their immune system could become very, very sick or die.

Knowledge is Power

What no one in the Administration is apparently thinking about is how far and wide this can be spread by people who show mild or no symptoms. That is why we need access to hundreds of thousands of tests – if not millions. Because knowledge is power.

Knowing you have the virus requires taking responsibility to refrain from infecting others. And that is why the testing crisis is bigger and worse than anyone wants to admit.

Telling ourselves that there are only X number of infected people (because we’ve only tested a small number) is self-delusion. It will not result in fewer serious illnesses and deaths. It will only enable the virus to spread undetected far and wide, thereby sickening and killing exponentially more people.

The emperor has no clothes. The virus is running rampant through our country – just like it’s running rampant across the planet. Pretending it’s not – ‘thinking positive’ by telling ourselves there aren’t that many infections (because we’re not testing to discover those infections) is incredibly naïve, delusional, and when deliberately implemented as a governmental policy? Criminal.