Reanimation

My grandmother has tuberculosis. Not unheard of in the very elderly, although more common in immigrants. Generally it's a reactivation of a previous primary infection. Since, in cases like this, it was acquired, say, 50 years ago, it's not usually drug-resistant.

I asked my grandmother 3 years ago, when Miss T. was small, if she had nursed her three children. Yes for my mother, her first. No for the other two. The doctors had told her not to, since she tested positive for TB. That would have been in 1947 and 1952.

My uncle told me tonight that my grandmother had had a friend at high school (a tiny Catholic girls' school in the midwest) who died of TB. "She was just fifteen. She sat next to her in class every day! There were just twelve girls in the class, and the rest were pallbearers." That would have been in about 1930.
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My ultrasound yesterday went well. No heartbeat, but that's unsurprising at 5w6d. One gestational sac with fetal pole and yolk sac, placed high up in the uterus just like it should be. Perhaps the ghost of another, a quarter the size. "You might get a little spotting with that."
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I promised myself that I wouldn't even look at maternity clothing until after we see a heartbeat (it's sort worth worrying about: I have a midwestern winter of teaching coming up, versus the California sabbatical of last time). But then Garnet Hill sends me a catalog full of stuff like this and this. What are they thinking?

Comments

[Jody]

They're thinking you should celebrate early.

Yeeeeeeeeeee.

(Um, about the fetal pole and yolk sack. Not your grandmother's TB. That sucks.)

[J]

Oh, yay for the gestational age-appropriate good scan!

And uh, damn you for showing me those shirts! (Actually, I'm pretty kitted out with Gap stuff. Mostly I'm getting irritated at certain chains which seem to have magically chosen a color palette that works for me this year, when I cannot buy any non-maternity clothes.)

[ivfcycler]

here's hoping for a speedy TB recovery (much more effective those drugs than the ones for lung cancer, so in this case perhaps even a TB diagnosis is good news) and a nice strong heartbeat at your next scan!