Laurie Kelley

Know Thyself—and Thy Medical History

Laurie Kelley November 5, 2023

“Know thyself” is a philosophical maxim, inscribed upon the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. It’s also part of a quote from Socrates, “To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.” True wisdom is knowing… but also recognizing what you do not know, and what you need to learn.

November is National Family Health History Month, according to the US Surgeon General. This is an important national public health campaign to encourage all Americans to share their family medical concerns with family members, and to learn more about their own family health history.

I just turned 66, and am keenly aware that some of my family members, and many friends, are undergoing health challenges now. Kidney disease, cancer (a big one), heart problems… all of these can have a genetic component.

Hemophilia did not seem to run in our family—ours is the first known case in several generations. But diabetes is rampant. From an early age I’ve been careful about monitoring this, keeping my weight down, and staying active.

Knowing about your family health history of a disease can motivate you to take steps to lower your chances of getting the disease. Good places to start? Stop smoking—now. Exercise regularly (hike, bike, walk, swim) and change your eating habits. Get rid of poisonous soft drinks, limit alcochol. Family history is considered one of the most important risk factors for health problems such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer and even certain psychiatric disorders.

Knowing whether hemophilia “ran” in your family was important in family planning. For us, it was a surprise, but now we know the chances of hemophilia being passed on—an important thing for each child to know, for themselves and for their future partners. There are several ways to test for hemophilia pre-birth, and post birth.

Umbilical cord blood is now used to treat more than 80 diseases and disorders, including some that are transmitted to newborns. If you know your family’s health history, you can decide whether or not to store your newborn’s cord blood at birth. The stem cells from this cord blood could possibly be used to treat future diseases in your family.

There are free tools on-line to help start recording your family history. But start with your primary care physician, who will know the right questions to ask. Know thyself, thy body, thy health!

Blood Moon, You Knew Just What…

Laurie Kelley October 29, 2023

A partial lunar eclipse happened on October 28-29, visible on one side of the earth; this occurs during a full moon when the sun and the moon align on opposite sides of Earth. It’s sometimes called a “Blood Moon.” Why?

The term Blood Moon is used to refer to four total lunar eclipses that happen in the span of two years—called a “lunar tetrad.” The eclipses in a tetrad occur about six months apart. Lunar tetrads are rare, so it’s no surprise that sometimes special meanings are given to their occurrence.

Some religious scholars have called the eclipses Blood Moons after a verse in the Bible’s Book of Joel, which referred to the sun darkening and the moon turning red before the second coming of Jesus. The last lunar tetrad was in 2014 (check out our entry in HemaBlog!) and some people may have believed that this was a sign of end times.

But, we are still here!

Scientists believe that the moon may look red during a total lunar eclipse because of sunlight that is filtered and refracted by Earth’s atmosphere. From the website “earthsky.org”:

“The reason stems from the air we breathe. During a total lunar eclipse, the Earth lies directly between the sun and the moon, causing the Earth to cast its shadow on the moon. If Earth didn’t have an atmosphere, then, when the moon was entirely within Earth’s shadow, the moon would appear black and invisible.

“Thanks to Earth’s atmosphere, what actually happens is much more subtle and beautiful. Earth’s atmosphere extends about 50 miles above Earth’s surface. During a total lunar eclipse, when the moon is submerged in Earth’s shadow, there is circular ring around Earth – the ring of our atmosphere – through which the sun’s rays pass.

“Sunlight is composed of a range of frequencies. As sunlight passes through our atmosphere, the green to violet portion of the light spectrum is, essentially, filtered out. This same effect, by the way, is what makes our sky blue during the day. Meanwhile, the reddish portion of the spectrum is least affected.

“What’s more, when this reddish light first entered the atmosphere, it was bent (refracted) toward the Earth’s surface. It’s bent again when it exits on the other side of Earth. This double bending sends the reddish light onto the moon during a total lunar eclipse.”

We will have eight tetrads from 2001-2100. The first tetrad of the 21st century took place in 2003-2004, the second was in 2014–2015, and the next will be in 2032–2033, with the following eclipses: April 25, 2032, October 18, 2032, April 14, 2033 and October 8, 2033!

While you wait for it, Google music + Blood Moon and you will hear some interesting music, like this cool one from The Hives. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7heQB5ST3g

Google “Blue Moon” and you will hear something completely different!

If you missed the full moon, partial eclipse and Blood Moon, prepare for it in ten years… which hopefully will not be end times!

Hematophages from Around the World

Laurie Kelley October 22, 2023

It’s Halloween season again, and always a fun time to look at the lore of blood-drinking creatures, known as hematophages. In the past we’ve looked at the relationship between vampires and hemophilia—some studies even thinking the lore of vampires may be started with cases of hemophilia, unknown at the time. What are other blood-drinking creatures from different cultures? I found this summary on the internet:

The Chupacabra, from Latin America, which drinks goat blood. It’s a bear-like creature with spines on its back. This myth dates back only to 1995, when a farmer in Puerto Rico found dozens of his sheep drained of their blood with small circular incisions on their bodies.

The Baobhan Sith, a fairy in Scottish lore that drinks human blood, and usually appears as a beautiful young woman wearing a long green dress that conceals the deer hooves she has instead of feet.

Rokurokubi is a kind of Japanese apparition, whose name means “pulley neck.” By day these are regular women. By night, their bodies sleep, while their necks stretch to amazing lengths and roam around. There are two types; the others’ heads come off and fly about, and feast on blood.

Lamashtu is a Mesopotamian goddess/demoness that drank the blood of children. She is depicted as a mythological hybrid, with a hairy body, a lion’s head with donkey’s teeth and ears, long fingers and fingernails, and the feet of a bird with sharp talons.

Jubokko, another Japanese apparition, was once a normal tree that eventually absorbed the blood from battlefields, and became alive as a spirit. Afterward, the tree only craved human blood. When someone passed by, the tree grabbed them with its long branches, pierced their skin, and sucked out their blood.

Yara-ma-yha-who, a creature from Australian Aborginal mythology. The creature looks like a red amphibian- man with a very big head, large mouth with no teeth and octopus-like suckers on the ends of its hands and feet. It lives in fig trees and, like the Jubokko, waits for an unsuspecting traveler to rest in its shade. The creature ambushes the traveler, using its suckers to drain his blood. Then, it swallows the traveler, and goes to sleep. Upon waking, it regurgitates the victim, who is alive, but shorter, and who in time becomes a Yara-ma-yha-who.

And finally, we return to vampires, the kind we are more familiar with, but from China. A jiangshi is known as a hopping vampire, created from a corpse when a cat jumps over it! It moves about by hopping with its arms outstretched, kind of like Frankenstein’s monster. It kills living creatures to absorb their qi, or life force. Like the vampire folk tales we are familiar with in the west, they prowl about at night, and sleep in coffins or dark places such as caves in the daytime.

All cultures seem to love a good scary story, don’t they? And blood seems to always be a component of scary tales—I had a few of my own when raising a child with hemophilia!

Insurance Expertise for Free

Laurie Kelley October 15, 2023

It’s that time of the year again… Open Enrollment, when you can change your health insurance policy or plan. But you can’t change unless you know what your needs are, and can calculate what your budget is and what expenses will be. Insurance is frustrating, it’s daunting, and with a bleeding disorder, it’s expensive.

But I just saw this on Facebook, which made me happy for two reasons: 1) a licensed insurance broker can help you get started for free, and 2) he’s a wonderful person I’ve known for a long time.

Meet Alexander Ell!

For over 10 years, Alex has helped over one thousand clients with their insurance across multiple states and numerous insurance companies. Alex’s goal is to walk you through the process, providing non-biased advice about the best plan for your needs and goals. His website helps you learn the basics of insurance, defines the many acronyms that insurance loves to use, and has a Frequently Asked Questions section.

On Facebook, he wrote: “Hey everyone! If you hear of any friends or family that need help with their Medicare or Health Insurance, please send them my way. I’ve been a licensed insurance broker for over 10 years. My services are free and I provide non-biased advice about the best plan for their needs and goals. I’m licensed in ID, NV, OR, WA, TX, GA, and FL. If you have any questions, please reach out to me. https://capitalrealm.com”

Alex has navigated the complex healthcare system for himself as he has hemophilia. Now he’s here to do the same for you! Contact him to get started with a free consultation today.

Doug Did It!

Laurie Kelley October 8, 2023

My boyfriend Doug is such a go-getter, such a team player, that I would always tell people, You want something done? Doug’ll do it. And I volunteered him for various tasks at Save One Life, which he cheerfully accepted and did. One year I even made magnets and lapel buttons for the Save One Life team that read “Doug’ll Do It!” as a joke.

It’s no joke now. Doug did it! He cycled 3,784 miles coast to coast—from Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine, arriving Thursday, October 5 on a grey and windy day in Maine, to dip his wheel in the Atlantic Ocean. It was an incredible feat, for someone who is 66, and only took up riding nine years ago, when he first met me. Combined, his efforts and those of our community around the country who participated in the Wheels for the World campaign, raised over $230,000 to support the mission of Save One Life, the nonprofit I founded 21 years ago. It was our biggest fundraiser ever.

Doug is inspired by Save One Life’s mission, to give direct financial support and medicine to those with bleeding disorders in developing countries. Save One Life assists over 1,200 people who live in poverty, in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Kenya and ten other countries. It offers direct sponsorship, college scholarships, microenterprise grants, camp support and millions of dollars worth of blood-clotting medicine.

But Doug was also inspired by an incredible individual: the late Barry Haarde.

Barry was an avid cyclist with hemophilia who completed six—six!—long distance tours over six years to raise money for Save One Life. From coast to coast, with his final one dubbed “Call of the Wild” from Dawson Creek, British Columbia to Anchorage, Alaska. His tours totaled over 20,000 miles and raised over $230,000 for Save One Life!

What was remarkable about his achievement was that Barry had hemophilia, HIV and a contracted knee joint… health issues that would stop most people from considering this audacious ride. But Barry was not most people…he was driven by memories of the brother and brother-in-law he lost to hemophilia and HIV, and all the friends in the community lost to HIV. In addition, he knew firsthand the pain suffered by those in developing countries who often lack access to blood-clotting medicine.

Doug met Barry twice, and both learned that they loved cycling, both worked at Hewlett Packard, and both admired the work of Save One Life. Doug was in awe of Barry. Barry passed away in 2018, and no one since has dared to fill his cycling shoes. But Doug’ll do it! And he did. I’m so proud of Doug: the time he invested in training all year, the time spent away from me and home, his dedication and discipline, and his accomplishment.

Thanks to all who donated to this cause, thanks to our major sponsors, Sanofi and CVS, and for all the prayers. Through the Rockies, the cornfields, the highways and hills, he was safe and is now home. And Save One Life continues on, to help the needy.

Yesterday was a celebration of his accomplishment and a surprise announcement! We have a new volunteer for next year! James’ll do it! James is from Texas and was a friend of Barry’s. So the torch has been passed and we wish James much success in 2024!