Stargazing Fun

Dennis Mammana & Steve Benton show guests the moon

In 2012 the first IVDM Stargazing party was the event that showed our community’s interest in the museum and launched the museum we’ve been working so hard to produce.  This Saturday was going to be another major Stargazing party.  Having heard about last year’s party since I got here, I was really glad I was going to have the chance to be at this one.  We were going to have Dennis Mammana, a professional night sky photographer, come and do a talk on the moon (Saturday was the first night of the full Cold Moon or Wolf Moon for those of you keeping score), people were bringing their telescopes out, and the event was advertized far and wide.  The museum is in a great place for stargazing as there is very little light pollution around us.  The windmills glowing red night lights make things a little weird, but now that the Texaco behind us has closed down we don’t have to deal with its’ bright sign and we get a really great view of the stars in three directions. 

Starting Tuesday Jessica, Jacob, and I began cleaning the museum from top to bottom and watching the sky.  Ocotillo’s weather is usually very predictable: sunny and warm, alternating sunny and windy.  In winter there are a few weeks of sunny but cold.  Since we were having an outdoor event Murphy’s Law kicked in this week and we had heavy clouds the entire week.  Normally not a problem, and at times even a nice change of pace.   But the closer we got to Saturday, the more worried we became.  Thursday made things worse by being the first time since I’ve moved here that it rained. All.  Day.  Long.  People called and asked if we were still planning on holding the event and we said yes.  After all, the lecture was indoors, and people could at least come out to hear a talk, eat some cookies, and check out the museum.  We cleaned like crazy and tried to keep thinking positively: it WOULD clear up for Saturday!  All day Saturday was cloudy but by the time people started arriving at 6pm things were looking up.  By 6:30 we had the first beautifully clear night sky we’d seen in a week!

The event was great.  Over 80 people attended, lots of them kids.  Many people were seeing the museum for the first time, others hadn’t been back since the party last year and were amazed at how different the building looked!  The talk was great, and accompanied by some gorgeous pictures of the moon that Dennis has taken over the years- the sorts of pictures I try for with my little Nikon point and shoot and will never, ever match.  Three large telescopes came out and everyone got the chance to see the moon up close, as well as a few of our favorite constellations.  I got to see Jupiter and 4 of his moons through our treasurer Steve Benton’s impressive set up.

Steve Benton sets up his telescope as the sky clears and the moon rises

To give the kids other options we had arts and crafts in the library and Neal Hitch and I did our coiled clay set up in the future archives lab.  I lost count of the number of kids that came to play with clay but it felt like at least 20 of all ages.  Several of them got into the spirit of making pots and competing with Neal to see whose pot would be best.  Others just wanted to play and made clay dragons, dice, little hearts with “joy” or “love” carved into them, and generally just had a blast.  I have no idea if they learned anything about coiled clay pots from the evening, but they did learn one thing that we say here every day: we are the most fun museum ever.

Clay dragon fun

A Little Something Different

I was trying to come up with something profound, or at least, thoughtful, to describe coming back out to Ocotillo, CA after having been home with my family for almost a month.  The sadness of leaving my family, the excitement of coming back to work and an environment I have come to love (even if it is far too cold at the moment).  But then something major hit the news and I decided instead to follow my friend Kyle Eichenberger's example and bring up current events in my blog. Don't worry, it probably won't happen often.

What current topic could I possibly have to weigh in on, you ask?  Perhaps you will remember last week when the results of tests and an autopsy were released in regards to the brain of former football player Junior Seau, who committed suicide in May.  Scientists were shocked to discover that Seau had a condition they call CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy "likely brought on by two decades of blows to the head as a football player, the report said."  Roughly translated for the non-scienctists: swelling of the brain from multiple concussions.

Who would have thought that repeated blows to the head would be a problem?  Apparently not NFL players, many of whom are now who are suing the NFL for keeping the risks of playing football to themselves.  The study suggests soldiers, who often receive concussions from blasts, may also have this problem.  Since the NHL isn't mentioned I'm assuming another study will be paid for to discover that NHL players are also at high risk of this "brain disease".  

CTE is not something that can be diagnosed until after doing an autopsy on a person's brain.  However TBI, or Traumatic Brain Injury, is both real and something that can be diagnosed while a person is still alive.  The symptoms are largely the same: mood swings, memory loss, depression, etc. are all symptoms of this injury.  However, I can speak from personal experience that the majority of 'mainstream' doctors like neurologists do not recognize this injury as something real.  If they can't see it with their own eyes, measure it exactly, then they believe it can't be real.  In my case, my neurologist is happy to prescribe medicine while actually believing I am nothing more than an hysterical female making things up.  After all, my concussion was years ago and I never lost consciousness.  I couldn't have a problem.

I have TBI.  It is not something I would wish on my worst enemy. And at this stage in my life, I probably only have a moderate case of TBI.  I am able to go to and graduate from grad school,  hold down a job, have a full conversation with people and even though I can remember very few things from  my life before the accident, I can now remember things from after the accident.  Why?  Because I have a doctor who thinks outside the box.  "Real" doctors like my neurologist were unable or unwilling to recognize a problem that my family, friends, and myself all saw. My chiropractor however, looks at the whole picture, reads everything he can get his hands on, and can quote in detail the heartbreaking number of our soldiers coming back with TBI who are not getting the help they need.  He has joined the small rank of doctors who have discovered a way to help sufferers of TBI.  HyperBaric Oxygen Therapy.  It helps.  Probably nothing can completely repair the damage done to a concussed brain, especially one who receives as many concussions as a professional athlete or soldier. The brain is a delicate and mysterious organ we will probably never really fully understand. But if 'mainstream' doctors will get their heads out of their tiny boxes and look at a larger picture, the whole body, and now the common sense studies backing up the idea that brain injuries cause severe physical and psychological problems in individuals, maybe something more can be done.  CTE may be an "invisible disease" only found after death, but that doesn't mean that a sufferer can't be helped while they are alive.  Maybe never completely, but any quality of life improvement is something to be thankful for.  Whether it will help enough to reduce the number of suicides in the injury sufferers (can you tell I don't like the term 'disease' applied to this?) is of course, impossible to tell.  But any help at all is better than they had before, and in some cases it might be enough.

If you get nothing else out of this semi-rant, remember this: your doctor doesn't necessarily have all the answers.  Even though he wants you to believe he does.  Listen to your body and what it tells you over what a test says.  You are more likely to know yourself.