My day started out a little rough with a doctor’s visit — today they took a lot of blood, way more than usual with a broad suite of tests being done. As I mentioned, for some reason my muscle tissue is breaking down, and now some of my organs seem to be affected as well, so right now I’m stuck in a medical mystery of sorts. Woo House. I’ve lost 25-30 pounds in the last month, which on one hand is great because I’m remarkably chubby, but on the other hand, it’s not particularly healthy.
But then I took Nefarious and a friend of hers to High Park, and today was definitely a great day to go. As well as plenty of playing (this was her friend’s first time at High Park that she could recall), it was a good moment for animals, with the normal cadre of squirrels, chipmunks, ducks, geese, swans, and so on, as well as the many frogs that Nefarious caught when we walked in the forest, cackling with glee as they peed in terror. We also saw a ton of tadpoles, most of them the little tiny sort about 3/4″ long, but a few of them were three or four inch long monsters with heads about the size of ping-pong balls! Ack, what sort of frog will these beasts become? There was also a mother duck with eight little ducklings. A massive improvement in my day to be sure!
Boy is it hot though… Toronto is literally the hottest place I’ve ever lived — way hotter than desert climates like when we lived in Mexico. Nefarious’s friend that moved here from Zimbabwe also agreed, saying that the Southern Ontario summer is miserable in comparison to the much gentler heat in Africa. I think Caitlin and I will definitely have to splurge and spend the $200 or so it’ll take to recharge the freon in the industrial A/C unit that cools this space. Luckily electricity is included in our rent, so we can run it all we want — it just has to be charged up first.
11 Comments
those look like horse shoe crabs to me. or some kind of future mutant freakish frogs.
Hey Shannon, the health front sounds pretty miserable. Have you been checked for hormonal imbalances?
Gorgeous photos as always. I love the tadpolies!
Shannon-
Odds are those big tadpoles sound a lot like bullfrog tadpoles. They get pretty big, and can take three years to mature, though I’m not certain they have them as far north as you are.
The big tadpoles are bull frogs.
I’m currently living in Mali, west africa, and the heat all depends on the season. When it is dry, +45 is no problem at all, but now that the rains have started and the humidity is back it is as bad as southern ontario.
My favorite frogs are tree frogs and coming across one in Tuscaloosa was a rare treat. Closer to the Gulf they are more common than toads and I surely love them as much as ever. They are SO CUTE.
What a fortunate child Nefarious is!
my best wishes to you, stey strong.
I`ve found something on German google. Perhaps it helps:
Rhabdomyolyse (Muskelvernichtung):
Unter Rhabdomyolyse versteht man in der Medizin die Aufloesung quergestreifter Muskelfasern. Dazu gehoeren die Skelettmuskulatur sowie Herzmuskulatur und Zwerchfell.Bei schweren Muskelzerstoerungen faerbt sich der Urin braun infolge Ausscheidung von Myoglobin, einem Muskeleiweiss, und im Serum ist die Kreatin-Kinase, ein Enzym, dass für die Muskeltaetigkeit unentbehrlich ist, erhoeht. Massive Ausscheidung von Myoglobin (Myoglobinurie) kann zu Nierenversagen führen. Leichtere Muskelschaedigungen oder Befall kleiner Muskelbezirke sind weniger schmerzhaft und koennen am Anstieg der Kreatin-Kinase erkannt werden.
Ursachen:
-akute Ueberbeanspruchung von vorher untrainiert gewesenen Muskeln
-intensives Muskeltraining kann eine lokalisierte Rhabdomyolyse auslösen
besonders unter Hitzeeinwirkung!
-kann als Nebenwirkung bei der Einnahme von Kreatin auftreten
-Anabolika
-Verletzungen, wobei durch den Unfall verletzte Muskelfasern eleminiert werden (z.B. Crush-Syndrom)
-Autoimmun-Erkrankungen
-Alkoholexzessen
-Kokain, Aphetamine (Speed)
-Schlafmittelvergiftungen
-Schlangengifte
-weiterhin wurde der Muskelzerfall beim Verspeisen des Pilzes Grünling (Tricholoma equestre) beobachtet
-Einahme von Cerivastatin (Lipobay®)
-relativ seltene Nebenwirkung von cholesterinsenkenden Medikamenten wie Statine und Fibrate
Here comes the English version (wikipedia):
Rhabdomyolysis is the rapid breakdown (lysis) of skeletal muscle tissue (rhabdomyo) due to injury to muscle tissue. The muscle damage may be caused by physical (e.g., crush injury), chemical, or biological factors.
Physical causes.
Recognized physical causes for rhabdomyolysis are:[1]
Traumatic compression of muscles: crush syndrome (e.g., in earthquakes), car accident, confinement in a fixed position (e.g. after a stroke, due to drunkenness or in prolonged surgery), physical torture or abuse
Obstruction of blood supply to muscles: arterial thrombosis (blood clots forming locally) or embolism (clots or other debris from elsewhere in the body), clamping of an artery during surgery, generally reduced blood supply in shock or sepsis (due to any cause)
Excessive muscle strain or activity: extreme physical exercise (particularly when poorly hydrated), delirium tremens (alcohol withdrawal), tetanus, prolonged seizures or status epilepticus
Electrical: lightning, high-voltage electric shock, including electroshock weapon injuries[4]
[edit] Non-physical causes
Non-physical causes reported to cause rhabdomyolysis include:[1]
Disorders of muscle energy supply (usually hereditary enzyme problems): carnitine deficiency, CPT type I or type II deficiency, McArdle’s disease, various defects in the mitochondrial respiratory chain, phosphofructokinase deficiency, VLCAD deficiency[5]
Poisons such as heavy metals and venom from insects or snakes
Foodborne toxins, e.g. coniine from quail that have consumed hemlock (coturnism),[6] Tricholoma equestre mushrooms in France and Poland,[7] and an unidentified toxin in fish (Haff disease)[8]
Drugs of abuse,[9] including: ethanol,[10] methamphetamines,[11] cocaine,[12] heroin,[13] phencyclidine (PCP),[14] ketamine,[15] and MDMA (ecstasy)[16][17]
Medications:
statins, especially when prescribed in combinations with fibrates. Cerivastatin (Baycol) was withdrawn in 2001 after numerous reports of rhabdomyolysis. Other statins have a small risk of 0.44 cases per 10,000 patients annually, which increases to 5.98 if a fibrate is added.[18] However, other studies detected no increased risk from statins.[19]
anti-psychotic medications may cause neuroleptic malignant syndrome, which can cause severe muscle rigidity, with rhabdomyolysis and hyperpyrexia
neuromuscular blocking agents, used in anasthesia may cause malignant hyperthermia, also associated with rhabdomyolysis
medications that interfere with potassium levels (e.g. diuretics)
Infections: Coxsackie virus, Plasmodium falciparum (malaria), herpes viruses, Legionella pneumophila, Salmonella and Francisella tularensis (tularemia)
Electrolyte and metabolic disturbances: increased plasma osmolality, hyper- and hyponatremia (elevated or reduced blood sodium levels), hypokalemia (low potassium levels), hypocalcemia (low calcium levels), hypophosphatemia (low phosphate levels), ketoacidosis (e.g. in diabetes) or hypothyroidism (abnormally low thyroid function)
Autoimmune muscle damage: polymyositis, dermatomyositis
We love the bullfrog tadpoles! Bob just had a 2 year old one in a bucket (lived for a week in his bucket, then went back to the pond) and you can really see their little legs nicely.
Hope your health business gets sorted out man.
Check it out, the glass frog.
https://buzz.yahoo.com/buzzlog/92687?fp=1
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