we all have something that haunts us, and frankly, scares the hell out of us. i have two: breast cancer and ebola.
i first heard of ebola in 1995 and spent several nights in the college library reading every periodical and scientific journal i could get my hands on that so much as mentioned it. i wanted to learn as much as i could about this far away killer that has no antidote and is a death sentence for a majority of those who contract it.
it is a horrible way to die and i can only imagine how alone a soul suffering their final days must feel. it just hurts my heart so much to think about and it utterly terrifies me.
since those nights in the library, i have been keenly aware of every outbreak and kept a close ear for mutations in the virus. those first stories i heard on NPR in 1995 made such an impression, the last movie about a highly contagious disease i watched was "Outbreak". it took me two attempts to get through it and it made me physically ill.
before you tell me not get freaked out, i'm aware how difficult it is to actually contract ebola and i'm pretty fluent in pathogens and have an above average understanding of biology. however, the one thought i have always had, the one that woke me from nightmares, was that there was not a case here on US soil and the odds of that happening were incredibly high. i hoped that an antidote would be found and the pharma companies would invest in it before that ever happened.
well, here we are. of course, it happened in texas. oddly enough, i'm sort of glad it has finally happened. it's oddly a relief. terrifying as hell, but maybe the big money of the drug companies will now go into a cure. it should have been there a long, long time ago. now that the monster is in the light, maybe now, we can solve the mystery and inoculate the world. i can hope anyway.
in the meantime, keep calm and wash your hands.
